Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (5 page)

Having her down against me like that. Pure. Epic. Bliss.

Mandy…

I came back to myself slowly, the daylight coming through
the living room windows muted by deep gray clouds. It looked to be a chilly and
damp Sunday but it was so very warm and safe lying here with Zander. I smiled,
the TV was still going. The Netflix hooked up to it having auto played through
who knew how many episodes while we’d cuddled and apparently, slept. I let my
eyes close and listened to the cadence of Zander's heart, the rhythmic deep
breathing of his sleep, and I smiled. His intensity frightened me sometimes, he
could be so bossy, bossy like my…

“Oh no!” I bolted upright and looked at the clock. “No! No,
no no no no!” Zander’s hand grasped my arm above the elbow and I jerked.

“Red what’s wrong!? What’s wrong Sugar?” I searched his
alarmed face and valiantly put a lid on my burgeoning fear.

“I over slept! I’m late!” I cried and stood. He let me go
and I bolted around the corner into my room. I swung the door shut and heard
him go into the bathroom which I needed to do myself but clothes! I had to find
clothes! Something appropriate for service! I ripped open my closet door and
pulled down a conservative cotton dress. It was a deep earthy forest green
turtleneck with long sleeves and I threw it on the bed so I could rip off my
robe and night gown.

“Hey Red, you okay?” Zander called through the door.

“I’m fine!” I called out, which was a lie. Which was a total
lie, I needed to
go
! I slapped a hand on my alarm the music shutting
off. I hadn’t heard it from the living room. I pulled on bra and panties and
the dress was just falling to cover my legs when my door swung wide. Zander
leaned a muscular shoulder against the inside door frame and crossed his arms.
He crossed an ankle over the other, the white rubber toe of one red high top
burying itself in the carpet and he raised his dark eyebrows. I pulled on some
socks and zipped up my brown leather riding boots to the knee.

“Where’s the fire Sugar?” he asked kindly.

“The church if I don’t move it!” I cried. I snatched a wide
leather belt, a brown to match the boots off the inside of my closet door and
fitted it around my waist.

“I’m sure God will forgive you for being a few minutes late Darlin’,
you’re human.” He smiled and his chocolate caramel eyes danced with a sparkle
of amusement. My mouth went dry and I nodded but didn’t slow one bit. I pulled
my hair from its pins and sloppy bun and gathered it, pulling it into a tight
twist.

“It’s not God’s forgiveness I’ll need,” I said dubiously and
twisted my hair up in the back. I snatched a copper hair basket in a random
Celtic knot work design that Evy had bought me for Christmas one year and held
it to the back of my hair, jamming the matching metal stick through to hold it
in place. My eyes watered as the stick caught and pulled in my hair, yanking
some at the roots. I sniffed and the smarting soon went away as I snatched up
my purse.

“I apologize, Zander! I will make it up to you, I promise
I…” he stepped into my room, my space, and took so much of it up with both his
sheer size and force of personality.

“Shh, easy Sugar. No need to apologize to me, just slow down
a little. Not sure I like the idea of you driving all worked up like this.”

I blinked twice as his words registered. He was worried
about me? I was speechless. I nodded, eyes a little wide and Zander put his
hands gently to either side of my face, cradling it softly between his rough
and calloused hands. I forced down a shiver even as I felt the room grow
hotter, or was that just me?

He brought his lips to mine and kissed me gently. I covered
his hands with mine and kissed him back, but my need to get out of the house
and to my father’s church overrode just about everything right now. I pulled
back, heat dusting my cheeks and Zander smiled at me with the devil’s own grin.
I smiled back and swallowed hard.

“Kay that’s better. I’ll lock up, I still got a key,” he
murmured.

I nodded mutely and he walked me out to the living room. He
kissed me one more time at the door and breathed deep, just beneath my ear, the
warm current of his breath radiating through my body sending goose flesh in a
ripple down my back.

“God I love that smell!” he exclaimed in a harsh but soft
voice. I smiled and left out the front door.

“I’ll see you later?” I asked gently, dashing down the front
steps.

“I promise Red. Not going anywhere this time,” he called after
me and I stole one last glance as I shut the car door behind me and started it.
I pulled away from the curb, Zander’s shiny red and white muscle car across the
street, and drove quickly, but safely in the direction of the highway and
ultimately my father’s church.

I pulled into the first available space once I got there and
sped walked to the building. I was over twenty minutes late. My father was up
at the front in his pastor’s robes, my mother in the front row as always. I
slipped inside quietly and walked up the side of the sanctuary attempting to be
as unobtrusive as possible. I slid into the pew beside my mother who took one
of my hands in both of hers and patted the back, her face impassive, her brown
eyes so very worried. My father didn’t miss a beat and preached on, but I
didn’t miss the dispassionate look, the icy glare he reserved for me at my late
arrival.

If I were lucky he simply wouldn’t speak to me, middle of
the road I would receive a lecture. I really hoped it would be either of those
things. To be sure, Sunday dinner would be an uncomfortable one. Not that it
was ever filled with the warmth I found at Dray’s table with Everett. I bowed
my head in prayer with the rest of my father’s congregation, going through all
of the motions as a dutiful pastor’s daughter. Meanwhile, the inside of my
head, the inside of my heart, was a raging tempest of emotions and ‘what if’s’.

What if he asked me why I was late? What would I say?
Gee,
I apologize Dad, I spent the night on the couch with a tattooed heathen biker
who I’m pretty sure has never set foot in a traditional church. What? Oh, no.
We haven’t had sex, I’m still a virgin. No Daddy, I’m not a whore!
I
grimaced. I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t already, that would be the point I
would get a taste of the back of his hand. Whether it would be for what I had
done with Zander or for disagreeing with him would be up in the air. I squeezed
my mother’s hand and she squeezed mine back twice with both of hers.

She smiled pleasantly at me and I smiled serenely back even
if I were sick with wondering, with fear at what my daddy’s reaction would be.
There was really nothing I could do but wait and see how he would handle
things. He was such an exacting man, everything had to be
just so
and
appearances, well appearances meant
everything.
I had long since given
up hope of ever pleasing him. Of ever having my father be proud of me for
anything. No. The only reason I came back here, the only reason I continued to
silently endure, was gripping my hand with both of hers until her knuckles
became mottled and they shook, trembling in my grasp.

We rose together and sang the selected hymn. Voices strong
and unwavering and I felt so incredibly tired despite what a warm, safe and
good night’s sleep I had had the night before. I flashed back to the hospital
waiting room, the morning Everett had been shot while my father preached about
doing good works, about selfless acts of kindness. I’d gotten to the hospital as
soon as I could. I’d left my parent’s home, my old room, in the wee hours of
the morning. My father had been upset about being woken, but I’d like to
believe that at his very heart, he was still a decent man in some ways, just
not exactly where his family was concerned.

I’d told him and my mother it was Everett, that the hospital
had called and that she was in the emergency department. Everett had signed
papers when she’d made me her emergency contact after her father had died
telling the hospital that it was alright to tell me what she had been admitted
for so when I’d told them it was a gunshot wound, my mother had cried out in
dismay, and hugged me and my father, well he had held my coat for me to shrug
in to. It was the nicest thing I think I can probably ever remember him doing.

I’d arrived and spilled through the emergency room doors and
straight into a hulking pile of biker muscle in the form of most of the Sacred
Hearts local charter. Zander had stepped out of the crowd in his black denim
vest, and the look of raw sympathy flashing in the chocolate caramel depths of
his eyes, drove me dodging around the lot of them and towards the back where I
called for my best friend. I’d found her tearstained and bloody in a hospital
bed, Dray hovering at her side like an angry dark shadow. An avenging angel if
I’d ever seen one and I felt the fear constricting my heart ease. She was out
of it but she was alive and seeing her let me know she would be okay.

Zander’s hands had descended on my shoulders and I’d
startled, but their weight was a comforting thing as he’d gently pulled me back,
steering me towards the waiting room. He’d taken care of me. Been a comforting
presence at my side and someone solid that I could lean on while the
implications of what could have happened sunk in. I’d almost lost the only
person I could ever count on. My rock in an otherwise storm swept sea. Everett
had been
shot
. She could have
died
and I would have been left cast
adrift without anything or anyone to anchor me like she had since we were kids.

A paper cup of hot coffee had been thrust into my hands,
murmuring voices had filled my head but Zander hadn’t wavered. Hadn’t moved
from my side. He’d sat beside me, a hand on my knee, the other rubbing up and
down my back for as long as I had needed him to stay. That had been the second
to last time I had felt anything like that until last night.

The congregation rose and I followed suit, just a touch
behind the rest, so lost was I to the memory. I stole a glance at my father who
hadn’t noticed my day dreaming, thank goodness, and looked over my mother’s
shoulder at her hymnal to find the right page in my own. Mrs. Patterson began
to play the old electric organ and our voices rose in an old favorite of my
mother’s which made me smile. We sang, voices lilting, retaking our seats after
my father asked us to be seated. He gave his closing thoughts and the final
prayer and we rose. A short time later, we took our places at the front door to
shake hands and well wish as his flock left the sanctuary and eventually the
church to enjoy the rest of their day.

Only a bit longer and my mother and I would find out what
kind of mood my father would be in. We waved goodbye to the last of the
congregation as they pulled out of the lot and my father turned, I flinched but
all he did was affix me with a steely gaze, mouth compressed into a thin line
of displeasure, before he marched back into the church. I let out a breath I
hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My mother fixed me with a worried gaze.

“What happened, Baby?” she asked me.

“I slept through my alarm,” I said miserably. Which was the
truth, she didn’t need to know the why of it. Neither of them did. I was too
afraid of disappointing them both. My mother took my hand and tucked it into
the crook of her arm while we waited for my dad to come back out and lock up. She
and I murmured back and forth about dinner plans and some baking she wanted to
accomplish before Thanksgiving. We both fell silent as my dad locked the front
door. He turned, gave me death’s own glare and stalked to the car without a
word. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and my mother did too. It was to be
the silent treatment then. No cutting remarks, no verbal flogging,
no slaps
or cuffs or hits.

“I’ll see you at the house baby girl.” My mother hugged me
and dashed towards my father’s car getting into the passenger side. He looked
at her and barked something and my mother shrank in on herself. I huddled
miserably in on myself and made for my car. He pulled out of the lot and I got
into my little Focus and followed. I pulled up to the curb in front of my
parent’s little two story bungalow style house and joined my mother on the
front walk. My father stalked inside without a single backwards glance and I
figured it was fifty-fifty on if the silent treatment would endure or on if I
would receive a dinner time lecture on what it means to be on time or about
appearances.

Well, there was a third option too, now that I was
contemplating it as I moved about my old familiar kitchen with my mother, he
might go the passive aggressive route and just make some sort of cutting remark
during the meal time prayer.
Those
were always fun. Usually, it was
something snarky that if I looked at him or made a defensive remark would just
get me back handed, which was sometimes preferable to the seething anger or
crushing hurt those remarks left behind, making me feeling three inches tall.

It was a wonder I hadn’t gone completely homicidal or
suicidal by now where my father was concerned. I think
that
was mostly
due to Everett. She was the glue that held me fast when my father was hell bent
on tearing me down or apart depending on his mood for the day.

“So!” my mother smiled and murmured briskly when we heard
the television turn on to whatever football game happened to be going on that
day. My father was a die-hard Patriot’s fan. I looked at her and she smiled
guiltily and captured her bottom lip between her teeth, shrugging her
shoulders. I smiled conspiratorially and went for my purse.

“So I tried making Nanna’s white chocolate, pumpkin spice
filled maple leaves this time.” I murmured and brought out the tiny box my
mother peeked into the living room and I handed her one and took one myself. We
both popped them in our mouth at the same time. Her eyes rolled up in bliss and
she nodded rapidly.