False Start (Straight No Chaser, #1)

by Casey Hagen

He knew how important this was to me. He knew, dammit. He saw me with my kids. He skated with my kids. The guy who ran from me three nights ago—the guy who said no over and over—the guy who relented…he didn’t do it to lay some sort of trap so he could be cruel.

I wanted a lot of things. Yeah, I wanted him. But right now, in this moment, I wanted some damn respect—and I didn’t want to lose Eve. I had to risk losing her by putting my foot down to have any hope of keeping her. Because I couldn’t unsee the dynamic and its power to destroy everything if I didn’t grow up and speak out.

“What you’re doing right now is no different than what he just did. Actually, it’s worse. Instead of just being indignant about what he did—which sucked by the way—you bulldozed in here, not trusting me to take care of me.” At least Priest had given me that. In a way, by not telling me first, he showed me he trusted me to handle it. To be an adult. He did it with the information at hand. Oh, he was still wrong. So fucking wrong. And he’d pay for it. But from a coach’s standpoint, I could see the appeal. Tilly was a strong, agile force on the track when she wasn’t targeting me over childhood slights. Take those out of the equation and our chances only grew.

“I don’t know how to not protect you.” “I know. And that’s my fault. You came into my life at a really scary time, and it felt good to have someone take over a little bit. To have a best friend I could count on to have my back. But at some point, it felt a little too good—too easy. It’s bled into our team, Eve. I didn’t see it until tonight. And we can’t afford that.”

And I felt nothing. No spark. No want. No need. Just regret. So much regret that I might have ruined my single most important friendship by crossing the line into more.

“What makes you think I did something?” She gestured with another piece of chocolate. “You’re a man.” She’d gotten so sassy. It was a wonder Jordan got her to close her mouth long enough to knock her up. “They’re pissed about Tilly being on the team.”

“Doesn’t matter now.” But her mouth trembled when she said it—just one of a dozen different ways she showed me it mattered.

Mayhem started past me without even a glance, and I couldn’t let her go. My sister was right… I was already well on my way to falling in love with her, and if I let her walk away from me now, she might walk away from me for good.

“I won’t let her hurt you,” I promised her, squeezing her hand gently, afraid to push her any farther. Damp, bright-blue eyes heavy with unshed tears ripped into me with a glimpse of what I’d done to her. “You can’t protect me,” she murmured as she let my fingers go and walked out the door. I couldn’t protect anyone. But for the first time since Abel had died, my instinct wasn’t to run from trying.

The unease made me itchy. And bitchy. They thought I needed to get fucked. But really, I needed to unclench. I was wound so fucking tight I might snap, a completely new sensation for me. Okay, they also thought the prescription for that was a good seven inches or so of girthy goodness, and they were probably right.

Apparently, they didn’t appreciate my new prison guard energy. But I didn’t know how to let go of it, and I had to guard my heart.

I didn’t know when our showdown was coming, but it had to be coming. Right? Or maybe she was trying and I was the asshole here. I couldn’t tell anymore. All I knew was we were getting better, but nothing was right. Not one damn thing.

“You’re a real asshole, Priest,” Dom said, shooting him a dark look. “Never tried to sell myself as anything else. Now get your helmet on, or I’m going to have my girlfriend kick your ass.” “Not man enough to do it yourself,” Dom tossed back. “Sure, but why when she’s so much sexier doing it?”

Yeah, I was definitely in love. So damn in love with her the air sucked straight out of my lungs when she winked at me. The truth of that, of the consequences—the decisions that came with the realization—would all have to wait. And still, she’d never said my name. My real name. Hell, I’d never said hers.

I’d always wanted to be Patti when I grew up. Halfway there. Now to work on more of those laughs.

I knew those stares and whispers well, but for me, they were pitying glances. First for having a mother who didn’t give me what they considered stability, and then because I had no mother at all.

Trite.

“You act like that’s a hardship,” he said, his eyes on hers when he pulled back. “But I don’t want that for you.” Her words pushed at him even as her fingers twisted into his shirt and held him there with her. Oh, Lana…he’s giving you everything. Take it.

“Where was I?” she asked. “Seeing what you could get away with,” he tossed out, looking her parents in the eye. The way he looked at them, his shoulders straight and confident, his gaze unwavering, spoke volumes as to the lengths he would go to for Lana. The girl better take that damn ring.

The farm. He’d been carving it away, chunk by chunk, whatever he needed to do to make sure Lana had everything she needed. Anything in his power to give. All because of the one thing he couldn’t give her, her legs.

Tears slid down Lana’s cheeks, the last of her childhood dying as she fully came clean and took back the power she’d given to years worth of lies. There was a kind of grieving in that. In letting go, even of the things that hurt you, because it also meant letting go of the familiar and jumping into the unknown. Forging a new path. But Zach had her.

The cop in him must have loved that shit.

The man wanted to rewrite history. Didn’t we all? But if he did—if I did—would we ever have gotten to this place? Would we ever have found each other? I didn’t want to go back and rewrite one damn ache from my past if I missed this. Missed him.

“Tell me,” I said quietly. “What?” he said, his eyes unfocused as the past held him in its merciless grip. “The part you don’t want to say.” He made a sound in the back of his throat. The echo of tightly restrained pain…and maybe the beginning of his surrender to it. “I don’t want it to touch you.”

“You don’t understand—” “I don’t understand? My mother had no ties. She moved me from town to town on a whim while I hid the tears from the heartache of leaving one more town, one more friend, a school I loved. My mother was kind, loving, and she adored me—but she was a fuckup.” “Mayhem—” “It’s okay. It’s true. Every day watching you put up with the judgment here to do what’s best for the people you love tore away the romanticism of what she did. She didn’t end up in jail; she didn’t put me in harm’s way with drug dealers and criminals, but the wounds cut deep just the same.” I pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and breathed him in as my heart ached for both of us. “When it got hard, she ran. You’re weird,” I said, brushing my thumb over his warm bottom lip. “You run when you think they’ve made it easier on you, but maybe you run because when it’s easy, you have no choice but to stare down the demons you’ve been ignoring for so long.”

“You’ve spent so much time protecting people all because of the one person you can’t protect. What happens when the day comes that everyone is okay at the same time and there’s no one else who needs you to protect them? Will you finally let yourself live life then?”

She took to every situation and stepped in, doing what needed to be done with grace and dedication. No whining. No bitching. No hysterics. Present, calming, and solid. Ready to dig in and work. Just like my grandma. My grandmother would have adored her.

These people made him…the man I love, and I’d swear they wanted him home just as much as I wanted him to stay. Just as much as he wanted to, but didn’t think he deserved to.

Mama, give me patience for this one. He’s worth it.

“You stayed here and took care of everything while I was gone so I didn’t have to come home and do it?” “Yes. It’s not that big of a deal.” “To you,” he said quietly.

“Can you guess which one I am?” he asked, his voice thick. “I don’t need to guess,” I murmured, pressing my cheek to his and wrapping my arms around his neck to keep him as close as we both looked at the image. “I’d know that boy on the right anywhere.” He went still and turned to me. “No one could ever tell us apart.”

“I see you, Cain,” I whispered the words over his lips as I dotted his chin, the corner of his mouth, and that dimple in his cheek with soothing kisses. “And when you finally see yourself…I’ll be here. Waiting for you to let me love you.”

I offered him every last bit of security he and I both longed for—the security we never dared ask for from the people we trusted to take care of us—from the parents who betrayed us. My mother in hundreds of little ways. His father in a devastating blow when Cain was at his most defenseless. Those were our false starts. But there’d be no penalty for the wounds inflicted by the people we trusted. And I would be strong enough for the both of us until he caught up. I’d honor everything he did for me, for the chances he took by laying everything I had on that track in two days. And then—well, we’d see.

Jackson passed out water—yeah, he ended up coming with us because there was no way he was going to let Priest uninvite him; something about all that powerful, feminine energy being his kryptonite or something like that.

pilfering

When he came home, I wanted there to be no flicker of doubt as to what he came home for.

Nothing was keeping him here anymore. We’d just lost but managed to come in second place when we shouldn’t have placed at all, and all I could think was that he would spiral now. He could check us off his list of people who needed him, and I knew just what would happen when he did. He’d run.

“I’m proud of you,” he murmured. I squeezed, afraid to let him go. “We didn’t win.” “Second place is something to celebrate,” he said, his lips next to my ear as I burrowed into him even more, grasping on to his every word. “You never forgot what you were fighting for out there.” “I’ll never forget anyone I fight for,” I whispered.

I needed a hug. And not by them. By him. I wondered if he knew he was a good hugger. The best hugger. And he probably needed one too. That was the worst part. Remembering that look in his eye. Knowing his penchant for punishing himself with no one there to remind him just how worthy he was of love and having someone who cared for him the way he cared for others.

curmudgeon

“You know what you need? You need to go get a sniff of Lilith and Jordan’s new baby. He’ll cheer you up,” Milton said. I raised my head and stared down at him. “You’ve seen him?” “Sure have,” he said, gesturing with his cup. “Lilith was bragging on you and how you helped her through having him. I’m kind of surprised you haven’t seen him yet since you were there when he came into this crazy world.” I did do that. So, I had rights, right? At least some sort of honorary thing. What did you call someone who did that anyway? Honorary aunt? I could bring him a baby present, but none of that practical stuff. I could bring him something frivolous—a puppy! Actually, a puppy probably wasn’t what they needed right now, but it was a farm, and it was sorely lacking a dog.

ornery

“Okay.” There was that word he hated, but fuck him. If he wanted to take issue with it, he could just get his ass up here and do so.

“Do you want to hold a freshly bathed squishy bundle of baby?”

She wanted to take care of me, and I didn’t want to be the person in her life who constantly needed to be taken care of. Who stole the joy from her wins because he still stewed in an emotional wasteland because he used people needing him as a way to avoid his emotional shit.

Home. I want to go home.

“Are you only here because you think I need somebody?” He buried his face in my neck, his lips brushing over my skin as he breathed me in, his hand flexing where it rested on my belly. “I’m here because I need us.”

“You don’t have to fight to hold on anymore, Mayhem,” he said, his voice soothing every ragged edge from my past and present with resolute words. “Because I’m holding on to you.”

“Now listen up. I’ve had a few hours to think, and that never happens. Anyway, the doctor’s suggesting a few changes, and that got me to thinking. How would you girls feel about becoming the next generation of Banked Track?” I glanced around at my team and back down at Patti. “What exactly do you mean?” “Take over the bar. Ownership and all. I’ll stick around and show you the ropes, but you girls are the future of the sport here in Galloway Bay. Flat track or banked track. WRDF or on your own, I can’t see handing a piece of history as important as Banked Track to anyone else. Can you?”

“Then there was the exhibition,” Micah said quietly. “Imagine my surprise when my own sister who doesn’t answer her cell phone ends up in my arena and on my bank.” “Whoa,” Eve said in a whoosh of breath next to me. “Yeah,” Marty said quietly. “The exhibition in Philly was you?”