Salvation Page 3

  No matter how much I told him and myself that this thing between us couldn’t go anywhere, that it was dangerous, I kept falling deeper and deeper into the pit and giving in a little more every time I saw him.

  I was totally fucked, and if I wasn’t careful, it was going to get him killed.

  Chapter 4

  Lexa

  The house was loud when I got home. Walking into the kitchen, I found Mom sitting at the table with Aunt Flick and Aunt Willa, the sound of Aunt Willa’s kids screaming and laughing from the living room with Nova and Garret filling the entire house.

  The three women at the table couldn’t have been more different in looks. Mom was tall and willowy with blond hair. In the Angel’s Halo MC, she was the queen, and everyone respected her. From the other ol’ ladies to the sheep who practically lived at the clubhouse, the females associated with the MC knew that Raven Hannigan Reid ruled and her husband, the president, jumped to do her bidding.

  Aunt Flick was the curviest of the three, her hair no longer holding the bright red dye she’d once worn when I was a kid, now its natural, pretty shade of brown instead. She was also the calmest one of the three, the nurturer when needed. Years before when she’d gone into preterm labor with Nova, we’d all been scared we were going to lose her. That was the second time I’d seen my mother cry, the first being when I’d gotten my scar. Thankfully for us all, both Aunt Flick and Nova had been too stubborn to leave us.

  But it was my aunt Willa, the only one at the table I actually shared DNA with, who was an enigma to me. For the first few years of my life, after my biological mother died, she and my dad raised me in Washington. She potty trained me, helped Dad through that first scary realization that I had a life-threatening food allergy. But when Dad and Mom got back together and I became Mom’s shadow, Willa had stepped back to let us build our bond. Since then, I’d lost some of our connection, but we were both okay with that. She knew that I needed Mom and her triplets needed her.

  She was married to the second scariest member of the MC, and everyone was amused by how tiny little Willa could so easily get the badass known as Spider Masterson to do her bidding with just a pout of her lips. But what really got me was how his daughters could manipulate him so easily. Especially Mila. Monroe was the quiet, sweet twin, but Mila was sly as a fox.

  Like it had that morning when I’d come downstairs, the conversation stopped as soon as I walked into the kitchen, putting me on edge all over again.

  I dropped my bag on the table in front of them and glared down at all three women. “Okay, I’m tired of this already. Something is going on, and I want to know what it is right now.”

  They all shared a look, contemplating whether or not to tell me, and a ball of dread filled my stomach. No way was I going to be able to eat now.

  “Maybe you should just tell her, Rave,” Aunt Flick urged softly. “You’re going to have to sooner or later.”

  When Mom’s chin started to tremble, my knees went weak. Holding on to the back of the chair for support, I kept my gaze glued on her as she closed her eyes and finally nodded. “Sit down, baby.”

  “Just say it,” I whispered, unable to move for fear of my legs finally giving out.

  “Today…your dad took me for some tests.” Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them contained.

  “What kinds of tests?” I was able to choke out, my voice shaking as badly as my knees.

  “I-I had my pap smear last week, and the results came back. It wasn’t good. The doctor suspects…”

  I was going to be sick. Before she even said the words I realized were coming from just the look on her face, I knew I was going to throw up.

  “She thinks I have cervical cancer.”

  I made it to the sink before the bile left my mouth. Aunt Flick was there, rubbing my back as I sobbed while still retching. Then I felt Mom’s touch, and the tears started pouring out of my eyes uncontrollably.

  Stroking my hair back from my face, she pressed her forehead to my shoulder. “Shh, shh. It’s okay.”

  How could she say that to me? She was the one who was sick, the one who could fucking die. But she was trying to soothe me. The one person I loved more than life itself might be stolen from me, and I didn’t know if I could take it.

  “We don’t even know if that’s what this is or not.” She tried to reassure me, but her voice was raspy, and I suspected she didn’t believe what she was saying. “Th-that’s why I went in for more tests today. It could just be…”

  “Mom.” Wiping my mouth with the wet paper towel Aunt Willa offered, I turned so I was facing Mom, and I was startled to realize she’d changed in the months since I’d been away at college.

  Why hadn’t I noticed before now? I’d only been home for a few days, but I still should have noticed that she’d lost weight. And Mom was so thin to begin with, she didn’t have anything to lose. There were dark circles under her green eyes. She looked small and fragile, and that was one word I never thought I would associate with my mom.

  “Do you think this is cancer?”

  She wasn’t quick enough to mask the truth that flashed across her eyes, and I was glad I’d just thrown up everything in my stomach or I would have been vomiting all over again. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “I avoided going for my yearly exam for years, and only went when I started having issues. I knew before I even went that something was wrong.”

  “How bad…is it?”

  She sighed so heavily, her shoulders shook. “I won’t know until the tests from today come back. But the doctor is rushing everything because she thinks it’s already pretty advanced from all the symptoms I’d told her about.”

  Oh God. “Mom,” I whispered. “I don’t… I can’t…”

  Two tears spilled over her lashes as she lost the battle to hold them back. “I know. Lexa, I know.” She pulled me into her arms for a tight hug, rocking me like she used to when I was a little girl. “The good news is that it’s treatable. Dad and I have already talked about the options, and we’ll do whatever the doctor suggests. A hysterectomy, chemotherapy. Whatever is needed.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better about any of this. Chemotherapy would make her sick. One of my teachers in high school had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and the chemo treatments had made her so sick, she’d eventually quit her job because she could barely stand. Even with the treatment and having a double mastectomy, she’d died a year later.

  I couldn’t lose Mom. She was everything to me and to so many other people. She kept us all glued together. Without her, our family would completely fall apart.

  Mom cleared her throat. “Listen, Lexa. I don’t want you to tell your brother or your uncles about this. Jet knows, and so does Spider. But the others don’t. I want to wait until we have all the results back before we tell everyone else. Okay?”

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I pulled away from her enough to nod. “Yeah. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  --

  My eyes felt swollen but oddly dry as I climbed into bed an hour later. It was still fairly early, but I couldn’t be around the others tonight and not cry.

  I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing, though. I needed to make plans. Mom was sick, and there was no damn way I was just going to leave again at the end of the summer. Anonymity at Oregon had been nice, but I was needed at home.

  Getting my laptop out of my backpack, I enrolled online at the local university to start the ball rolling. Mom had been dropping hints she wanted me to move back home for months, but I knew she wouldn’t let me quit college. She hadn’t gone herself, but she wanted me to.

  After taking care of that, I started searching for all the information I could on cervical cancer and its treatment.

  I was neck-deep in WebMD hell when my phone rang. Still reading, despite my vision going blurry from my latest fight with tears from what I was taking in, I lifted my phone without looking away from t
he computer screen. “Hello?” I rasped out, sniffling before wiping my nose on one of the many tissues already crumpled around me.

  “Lexa?” Ben’s voice was all growly, and oddly, the sound of it eased some of the pressure around my heart I’d been feeling since Mom dropped her bombshell on me.

  “H-hey,” I hiccupped. “Hold on a sec, okay?” Without waiting for him to reply, I dropped the phone on the bed beside me and grabbed a fresh tissue to blow my nose.

  When I picked it up again, he was already talking. “Did you make it home okay?”

  “I’m home.” Closing my laptop, I pushed it to the foot of the bed, then fell back against my pillows. Grabbing the extra one, I pulled it to my chest and hugged it as tight as I could.

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  Closing my eyes, I wanted to tell him everything, but I’d promised Mom I wouldn’t tell anyone. Ben was an outsider, so I couldn’t tell him even if she hadn’t asked me not to. “Just family drama,” I told him instead, and the ache around my heart intensified.

  “Lexa,” he groaned. “I wish you would tell me. I can hear how upset you are in your voice, beautiful.”

  “I…can’t,” I told him honestly. “My mom asked me not to tell anyone, and I’d never break a promise to her.”

  “Yeah, okay. I get it.” He blew out a tired sigh. “Whatever it is, though, I’m here if you need me.”

  Tears fell from my eyes again, and I scrubbed at them. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I wish I was there so I could hold you.”

  Me too.

  Clearing my throat, I changed the subject. “What are you doing right now?”

  “Sitting in my living room, missing you.”

  “You just saw me two hours ago,” I reminded him, a smile teasing at my lips despite all the pressure trying to cave in my chest.

  “I started missing you as soon as your car backed away from the deli earlier.” I heard him shifting and then swallowing, and I imagined him with his feet up on a coffee table, a beer in his hand…

  His shirt off and in nothing more than a pair of boxers with his hair wet from a shower.

  Need burned through me at the mental picture I was creating, and I had to squeeze my thighs together to alleviate some of the tension building there.

  When I opened my eyes again, I glanced down at the ragged old T-shirt and sweats I’d changed into after my own shower earlier. There was nothing exciting or the least bit sexy about my typical pajamas, and I wanted to be both those things for him.

  “Beautiful? You still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” I kicked off my sweats, but I still didn’t feel any better. If anything, the ache between my legs only intensified. “Just trying to get comfortable.”

  “Oh yeah?” His voice dropped, getting deeper and husky, making me shiver. “How?”

  “I just kicked off my sweat pants.” I heard him groan, which made me laugh softly. “Don’t get too excited. I still have on my ratty old T-shirt I’ve had since I was, like, thirteen.”

  “I need to give you a new one, then. One of mine. Yeah, I like that idea. I’ll bring you one tomorrow,” he promised.

  A knock on my door had me jerking upright. From the heaviness of it, I knew it was most likely my dad. I glanced down at my phone, guilt pouring over me like a bucket of ice water. “Lexa?” Dad called through the door. “You got a minute?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Just a sec.” Lifting the phone to my ear, I grabbed my sweats and pulled them back on one-handed. “I have to go,” I whispered. “Don’t call back.”

  “Lex—”

  I hung up before he could even finish my name and cleared his number from my phone in a moment of paranoia. Dad wouldn’t look at my phone, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I’d loved talking to Ben, but even that much contact with him was risky.

  Hiding my phone under my pillow, I jumped out of bed and ran to the door. Opening it, I faced Dad. There was a hint of tequila on his breath, telling me he’d been at Hannigans’ all evening. After what Mom confessed to me earlier, I didn’t blame him for needing a drink. I kind of needed one too.

  His eyes, so like my own, scanned over me as if he expected to find something wrong with me. And maybe they were a little suspicious, but that particular emotion was gone so quickly, I was sure I had imagined it.

  I could only imagine how I looked. My cheeks felt hot with the shame that was trying to consume me. I felt like a fucking traitor.

  “Everything okay, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice soft and concerned.

  “Y-yeah,” I lied, nodding. “It’s just…everything.”

  Ice-blue eyes darkened with pain. “Can I come in for a minute?”

  I stepped back, letting him enter my bedroom. When he walked over to my window, I shut the door and turned to face him, waiting.

  “Mom said she told you. How are you taking it?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself, mentally telling myself not to cry. “I don’t want to believe it. Is there a scarier word than ‘cancer’? Because I’ll be honest with you, Dad, I’m terrified right now.”

  He clenched his jaw, and I saw his throat work a few times before he finally nodded. “I know, Lexa. I’m pretty scared myself. Your mom is…everything to me. But we’re going to fight this. You don’t have to worry. We’re not going to lose her.”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” I whispered. “You’re not God.”

  “No, but I know Raven, and I know that she is nothing if not a fighter. No matter what happens, she’s going to fight this until her last breath. She won’t give up. That’s how I know we won’t lose her.”

  The strength and conviction in his voice gave me hope. Maybe we wouldn’t lose Mom to this damned disease. I started to relax a little, some of the strain over Mom’s illness leaving my muscles.

  “Spider mentioned something to me this evening.”

  Oh fuck. Here it comes.

  “About?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual, while inside, I was a quaking mess. I could feel a change in the air of the room. It felt charged and dangerous, and I didn’t know how to react to that. I knew Dad would never hurt me, but that wasn’t what I was worried about.

  “Is the new sheriff giving you a problem, Lexa?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his massive chest, the softness leaving his voice.

  “No, of course not,” I half exclaimed. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because Spider said he walked up on the two of you in Aggie’s parking lot, and you were upset about something. He told me fucking Davis had his hands on you.” He was seething now, and my heart started pounding. “Now, tell me honestly. Was he giving you a hard time?”

  “No! He carried the food to my car. That’s all.”

  “Lexa, don’t lie to me,” he bellowed, and I couldn’t help but flinch. He didn’t yell at me like that. My brother, sure. Max was always getting into trouble. But never me. “If he didn’t have an issue with you, then something is going on between you two. Gracie called Hawk at the bar and said she heard he bought you dinner tonight at Patty’s. So, I’m going to give you one more chance here, little girl. What is going on with you and the sheriff?”

  Panic tried to choke me, but I fought it down. “Nothing!” I cried. “He wants there to be something, but I told him no. Repeatedly. I’m not an idiot! He’s a cop. The damn sheriff, for fuck’s sake. I know nothing can happen between him and me.”

  “You’re damn right. He’s just trying to use you to find out shit on us. What if he’s looking into your mother? She told you about Fontana against my wishes because she thought it would help you after what happened. She didn’t want you to be scared anymore, Lexa. Now, suddenly, the sheriff is sniffing around you, when I know for a fact that motherfucker has plenty of pussy all lined up for him.”

  I couldn’t help flinching at that mental picture he was painting for me. Was he right? Could Ben just be after an in to find something on
my family? Was he using me?

  I wanted to say no, he would never do something like that to me. But my head couldn’t help but wonder if it was true. It made sense. Why else would someone who looked like him want someone who looked like me?

  “Everyone in this town knows how tight you and your mom are. All it would take is one whisper of a hint that she took out Fontana to save you, and they could link it to the MC and invoke RICO like the damn district attorney has wanted to do for decades. I don’t care about me, but do you really want to put her at risk? Especially right now?” He raked his hands through his hair, a sign of angry frustration I couldn’t remember him using while dealing with me, and I understood his reaction to this a little better.

  He was more worried about Mom than he was letting on, and he was taking it out on me. His stress levels must have been off the charts with fear for her, and I was getting the brunt of it.

  But it still stung.

  “She has enough shit going on right now not to have to deal with you fucking around with the goddamn law, Lexa. This will only stress her out more.”

  “I-I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I promised, blinking back tears.

  His face only tightened even more, his eyes seeming to flash with lightning at me. “Keep him away, Lexa. Or I’ll take care of him myself. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Dad,” I told him quietly. “I hear you.”

  Chapter 5

  Ben

  Paperwork was the bane of my existence, it seemed. I had a mountain of it on my desk every morning when I walked into my office, and this morning was no different.

  What was different was the district attorney sitting in front of said desk, strumming his fingers on the chair’s arms impatiently as I entered. Of all the things I disliked about being sheriff—and there really weren’t many—having to deal with this slimy sonofabitch was the one I hated the most.

  Mayor Jenkins and I agreed on the DA wholeheartedly, but for some damn reason, the citizens continued to reelect Royce Campbell. He took half a term off to run for mayor from what I’d heard, but when Jenkins won the special election, Campbell had licked his wounds and run for DA once again, sweeping the rug out from under his appointed replacement at the time.