Colorado 03 Lady Luck (31 page)

He walked up the stairs, rounded the railing
and stopped dead.

“In the middle of something, baby,” she
muttered, “kiss you in a minute.”

She was sitting at a stool at the island,
legs crossed, one heel to the bar on the stool, both legs shoved to
the side, torso hunched over, head bent, even though he had her
back he knew she was concentrating on what she was doing and he
understood this not just because of her distracted words but also
her posture.

She was wearing a pair of white slacks, wide
leg, riding low, a wide slash of skin exposed below her top and
above the waistband of her pants. A wide slash that was an
invitation that, knowing Lexie, she had no idea she was giving. A
wide slash that invited her man to shove his hand down her pants
and cup her sweet ass, an invitation he decided he was going to
find time that night to accept.

Her top was a light gray, satin camisole,
loose-fitting and gathered at her waist, tied at the side in a big,
droopy, satin bow. Her hair was in a sleek fall down her back. A
pair of black, high, spike-heeled sandals had been tossed on the
floor by the side of the island; a small, black purse was resting
on the counter on top of it.

Also on the counter were a bunch of gray and
black pitchers that, even as a man, he had to admit were the shit.
They looked good on the black granite countertop. His eyes moved
from them and around taking things in. Shit in the window sill over
the sink that wasn’t there when he left that morning, her snow
globe, a photo. His eyes scanned. A wide bowl that matched the
pitchers filled with fruit by the fridge. His eyes kept moving and
he saw their wedding photo in a silver frame on the mantel.

Seeing that photo, he felt that sharp thing
pierce through the left side of his chest again and, at the
exquisite pain, that area tensed and stayed that way.

His mother didn’t frame photos. She didn’t
set out souvenirs to remind them of good times had during family
vacations or outings. Their family didn’t take vacations. They
didn’t have outings. And they didn’t have happy memories to
display.

But it was more than that. His mother spent
her energy bitching and pissed at the world. She did not spend it
making a home, definitely not for a husband she hated but stayed
with for the sole purpose, Ty figured, of torturing him. But also
not even for her children who she frequently forgot she had.

Therefore, Ty Walker never had a home. Even
the house he bought and started to fill with shit he liked he
didn’t try to make a home firstly because he was a man and secondly
because, never having one, it didn’t cross his mind.

Pitchers, a bowl, a snow globe and some
frames and Lexie did it. She needed nothing else. No flowers for
the deck. No other touches. He’d be good with what she’d already
done. But he also knew, what they started kept going, she’d fill
his house with shit that made it a home.

He moved toward her, got close to her back,
pulled her soft hair off her shoulder and bent low to kiss the
point of her shoulder then moved his mouth to her ear.

“My mama’s been busy,” he muttered there
then his eyes moved to the counter where he was going to toss his
keys and he froze solid.

“Yeah,” she mumbled distractedly but he
barely heard her.

That was because on the counter was a
scattering of dissected roses and he knew by their color they were
from her wedding bouquet. She had a square piece of glass in one
hand, in the other she had a weird gun that she was using to edge
the glass with some melted metal the color of silver. He noticed
that it wasn’t one piece of glass but two and between them she’d
pressed petals from the roses in the shape of a heart. They were
overlapping thickly, both colors used, the pattern random, pieces
of petal arranged in other places in the glass that looked
arbitrary but somehow pointed to and highlighted the heart. He
wasn’t a hearts and flowers guy but he’d seen shit like that sold
in stores and the way she made what she’d made was far from
amateur.

“There,” she declared, setting the gun aside
on a ragged dishtowel. She held the glass up cautiously between
thumb and forefinger, her torso straightening and she asked, “What
do you think?”

Walker had no response, he just stared at
it.

“Is it too cutesy?” she asked and he noted
out of the corner of his eyes her head had turned and he felt her
gaze on him but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the heart. “I mean a
heart… that isn’t me. It also isn’t you. But I was thinking I could
etch some squiggles and shit in the glass at the corners and on the
inside of the heart I could write, ‘Ty and Lexie, Las Vegas,’ and
maybe the date of our wedding. I’ll solder a hanger on top. I got a
blush colored ribbon and a sucker thing for the window and I’ll
hang it in the window over the kitchen sink.” She stopped talking
and when he still made no reply, she muttered, “Maybe that’s too
much. Not sure a heart made of rose petals goes with the black
counters and cream cabinets of your kitchen…”

She was talking but he wasn’t hearing
her.

He was thinking,
Ty and Lexie.

That sharp thing again pierced the left side
of his chest.

“Your kitchen,” he found his mouth
saying.

“What?” she asked quietly and his eyes moved
from her hand to hers.

“Your kitchen, babe. It’s your kitchen; you
made that so it works.”

He watched surprise flare in her eyes then
he watched her beautiful face grow soft and he liked both but he
liked the second better.

“Those are from your bouquet,” he noted
quietly and she nodded.

Then she admitted, “I was pissed at you but
not pissed enough not to keep a few of the roses.” She paused then,
“As in, eight.”

He felt the tightness in the left side of
chest ease.

Then he wrapped his fingers around the side
of her neck and slid them up and back so they were in her hair,
hair he’d felt gliding over his skin, hair he felt all around while
she’d worked his cock. Hair that felt better during those times
then he imagined it would and he imagined it would feel really
fucking good.

Fuck, but he loved her hair.

He didn’t tell her that. He also didn’t tell
her that the thing she made was beautiful and not just because of
what it was, what it said and that she’d made it with flowers from
her bouquet.

Instead, he bent and gave her a light
kiss.

Then he muttered, “Gotta get a shower and
change and then we’ll go.”

Then he let her go and walked to the
stairs, thinking,
As in, eight
.

She’d given up on him when he was an asshole
but she’d never let him go.

She’d never let him go.

He made it to the top floor feeling that
squeeze return in the left side of his chest.

But taking a shower knowing Lexie was in her
kitchen downstairs, ready to go out with him for dinner, he let it
go.

* * * * *

Walker was on his back, head to the pillows,
his wife’s naked body using his as her mattress.

Her finger was gliding along the thick
swirls and slashes of the design of the tat that inked his left arm
from the top of his forearm up his upper arm around his shoulder
partially up his neck and across his left upper chest and pectoral.
The position of her body did not allow her fingers to roam down
along the part that inked across the left side of his abs and
middle, curving around his side to his move across his back,
meeting the ink that coiled over his shoulder, the design
continuing down nearly to his groin at the front, on the top of his
hip at the side and along the small of his back.

“This is a lot of ink,” she whispered, her
eyes on her finger.

“Yeah,” he agreed because it was. It took
five visits to get that work done and cost a fuckload of cash.

She looked to his face. “What is it?”

“Maori,” he told her and she blinked.

“What?”

“Maori,” he repeated. “Indigenous people of
New Zealand,” he explained.

“I know who they are but why do you have
Maori ink? Do you have Maori in you?”

He shook his head. “Not by blood.”

When he said no more, Lexie asked, “What
does that mean?”

He had an arm wrapped low at her waist, his
fingers trailing aimlessly on the soft skin of her hip.

When he spoke, he stopped trailing and
curled them around.

“When I was growin’ up, there was a Maori
mountain man, lived a fifteen minute bike ride away in a cabin in
the middle of nowhere. He was an old fucker, bad attitude but
mostly he had a bad attitude ‘cause the kids in town knew he lived
up there, alone, didn’t come into town often, wasn’t social and
those kids thought it was a kick to fuck with him. I was one of
those kids. Was up there doin’ shit to fuck with him when he caught
me, dragged me to his cabin and laid me out. I was eight. He looked
about eight hundred. He still laid me out, no hesitation, smacked
me down.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her finger
stopping its trailing too so all of them could curl into his
shoulder.

“No, Lex, once he got done layin’ me out, he
talked to me. Never had that. Did have a Dad who didn’t hesitate
smackin’ me down but didn’t take the time to talk to me after about
the shit I was doin’ wrong and how to pull it together. Had the
time to take his hand to me but not the time to teach me lessons.
Tuku was not like that.”

“Tuku?”

“Yeah, Tuku. That was his name. After that,
found myself peddling my bike up there not to fuck with him but
because he demonstrated he gave a shit and I didn’t have that. I
wasn’t wrong. He gave a shit. Didn’t make a big deal about it but
the next time I came he gave me his time, he gave me his company
and when I kept coming he gave me his wisdom. So I peddled up there
a lot. He was in this country because he married a white woman, an
American, came here to be with her so she could be with her people.
Got here, she lived long enough to get pregnant and die havin’
their baby. Baby died too. He loved her, that fucked with his head,
he checked out, stayed in his cabin, lived and breathed and ate and
worked but other than that, life yanked away the only good thing he
had in it at the same time takin’ the beauty they created together.
He couldn’t deal so he didn’t.”

“That’s awful,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Walker agreed because it was and
knowing Tuku for fourteen years it was worse because he was a man
who didn’t deserve that. Not even close.

“So he took you under his wing?”

Walker nodded. “I went up there a lot, any
time I could. I did my homework up there because, when he knew I
was gonna keep coming, he made me bring it with me. He taught me
how to hold a hammer. He taught me how to use a drill. He taught me
how to change oil, fix brakes and switch out a clutch. He taught me
that any man worth anything works hard and he does it usin’ his
hands. He creates shit. He fixes it. Although the folks who could
afford his stuff were lawyers, stock brokers, he had no respect for
them. That was just his way, his opinion and he taught me a man
should form opinions, do it for a reason, stick by them but keep an
open mind. He was an artist both in New Zealand and here. That’s
how he made his living. He gave me a pen and ink. This,” he lifted
his left arm then dropped it back to the bed. “After he died, I had
it inked on me. Took what he gave me to a tattoo parlor right after
the funeral and got it started.”

Her voice held a tone of light dawning as
she whispered, “So he was your Ella.”

Her light dawned clear for her
and
for Walker because she was
right.

“Yeah, he was my Ella.”

“So it was Tuku who brought out my Ty.”

My Ty.

My Ty.

Christ. Fuck.

Christ.

Two words. Just two words. Walker had no
clue until that moment that two words could mean so fucking much.
He’d never belonged to anyone. He’d never belonged anywhere. Never
thought he wanted to.

Until he heard those two words.

He couldn’t keep the thick out of his voice
when he confirmed, “Yeah, it was him.”

Her hand slid from his shoulder to curl
around his neck when she said gently, “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet
him.”

“I’m sorry too. He’d like you.”

She tipped her head to the side. “He
would?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know? If he wasn’t social –”

His arm gave her a squeeze and he cut her
off, “Because you are who you are, Lex, no bullshit. Tuku was not a
fan of bullshit. And he was old as fuck but he was still a man and,
the way you look, not a lotta men wouldn’t like that.”

She grinned at him.

Then she asked, “Where’s the pen and
ink?”

“In a scroll in a closet in one of the rooms
downstairs. Had it framed but when the movers moved me in here,
they dropped it, glass shattered, frame cracked. Wanted it reframed
but wanted it done right, didn’t get to it before I went down.”

She studied him then suddenly she lifted her
torso and moved her legs so she was straddling his lower gut. He
felt that gut tighten when she unexpectedly exposed the lush beauty
of her body to his eyes and he was concentrating on that so he
didn’t resist when she wrapped her fingers around his right wrist
and pulled his arm up between them. Then she ran her fingers down
the black marks that wound a line up his forearm starting on the
inside of his wrist and ending just under the outside of his
elbow.

“What does this say?” she whispered.

“Got that inside. Artist in there, tools
primitive, work first-rate.”

“Yeah, it’s cool,” she agreed, still
whispering, “but what does it say?”

His eyes held hers.

Then he answered, “Vengeance is mine.”