Remember Me (Defiant MC) (17 page)

“Mr. Dolan’s own brother.” 

James Dolan only had one living brother.  He had left her in a state of anguish the night before.  Then he had apparently proceeded into a night of violence and pleasure. 

“Miss Larson,” Mrs. Swilling’s voice was suddenly concerned.  “Are you ill?”

Yes,
Annika wanted to say. 
I am ill.  Sick with the passion of ruin and useless love.

“I believe I am, Mrs. Swilling.  Please, I beg your pardon.” 

Annika ignored the woman’s calls and stumbled blindly into the street.  The high pitched complaint of a horse froze her and she realized she had staggered directly into the path of Carlos de Campo’s wagon.  He settled his horses and looked at her curiously, speaking with the faintest of accents. 

“Miss Larson.  My apologies.  I did not see you.” 

“No,” she shook her head, leaning against the flank of the nearest horse. “It’s quite all right.  I wasn’t watching where I was going.”  Annika marveled over her ability to form words in light of the crushing ache in her chest.  She feared she would be unable to move away from the man’s horse and stand on her own. 

“Annika,” said a voice in her ear, a voice which was familiar and yet somehow wrong. 

It wasn’t Mercer’s voice.  It was his brother, James.  Her friend.  He held her firmly, disregarding whoever might be watching. 

“Carlos,” he called up to the m
an in the wagon.  “Miss Larson is unwell.  Would it be too much trouble to drive us to the school house?”

“No trouble, James,” Desi’s father answered in a kind voice.

James helped her onto the seat next to Mr. de Campo and then jumped into the back.  Annika heard the bell warning church service would begin in fifteen minutes.  She could not think about sitting quietly in a pew and listening to the desultory tones of Reverend Marcus. 

Annika said nothing as they made their way back to the schoolhouse.  Her mind was warring with itself.  Her worst assumptions about Mercer Dolan were true.  He was a violent outlaw and debaucher.  He could not be redeemed.   

“Miss Larson,” Mr. de Campo said gently as Annika climbed down.  She looked into his sympathetic face.  His wide-brimmed hat cast a shadow over his features but his smile was genuine.  “Thank you, for all the time you spend with Desi.  You are a fine teacher.” 

It was the best compliment she could hope for, but at the moment she could only nod weakly and stumble into the schoolhouse.  Annika could not bear to go inside the teacherage.  She would see Mercer everywhere.  It was difficult enough being in the schoolhouse.  She knew James followed her.  She waited until he had shut the door to the building.  Her back faced him as she stood at the simple desk which had been procured by James only the week prior.

“Tell me all of it,” she said in an even voice. 

James spoke haltingly.  As the marshal of Contention City, he had been roused from his sleep close to sunrise and summoned to The Rose Room.  The miner’s injuries were not serious but it was assault nonetheless.  Mercer had been arrested.  He was unlikely to remain in Contention’s tiny jail for long.  The space would be needed to deal with worse crimes. 

“What else?” Annika asked tersely. 

“There is nothing else,” James told her softly, still standing right behind her. 

She turned.  “I think there is.” 

James grimaced.  It was an effort for him to say the words to her but he told it plain anyway.   “They fought over a woman, Annika.  At least that was the word of witnesses.  Mercer won’t talk. The miner, name of Crismon, had taken a shine to one of the girls Mercer was known to carouse with.  When he tried to haul her upstairs, Mercer objected.  Stabbed the man in the thigh and did as he pleased with the girl.” 

Annika remained silent when James finished speaking.  All of a sudden she felt nothing.  No anger, no despair.  There was only a void where once there had been love.

“I think I hate him,” she said as if it were the most astonishing feeling in the world.  “Not because of what he did last night, but because I believed…”  She could not finish her sentence.  She was unsure what she meant to say anyway. 

“Annika.”  His voice was so tender.  James reached for her in friendship.  She embraced him with need. 

“James,” she said, pressing her body against his.  Yes, she kissed him first.  He seemed surprised, but he quickly responded, crushing her against him so ardently she knew he must have
thought about it many times.  She wasn’t simply allowing him to touch her.  She wanted it.  James Dolan lifted her skirt and she sat back on the desk, wrapping her legs around him. 

“Yes,” she said over and over again.  “Yes.”  She welcomed his hands, his mouth.  The void was gone.  James had pushed it away. 

“Annika,” he pulled back, panting.  “It can’t be like this.” 

“No
,” she said, beseeching him.  “Mercer and I, we never-“

His expression turned pained at his brother’s name.  He grabbed Annika’s wrists.  “Goddamn it, I wasn’t asking about that.  Annika, I won’t use you in that manner.  You deserve to be treated with honor.”

“James,” she clutched at him.  “You’re a good man.  I know that. I always knew that.” 

He kissed her hand and knelt before her.  “Then allow me to be a good man, Annika.” 

“All right,” she said, nodding tiredly but understanding.  “I will.” 

Later, much of the day would distorted in Annika’s memory, as if it were nothing more than a dream sequence.  She had married James Dolan.  That she remembered.  Reverend Marcus had been surprised but pleased to perform the ceremony in the afternoon.  The Swillings witnessed the exchange and when James kissed her on the cheek his eyes had searched hers out with uncertainty.  She had smiled to let him know it was all right.  The Territory was alight with impulsive unions.  It was nothing new.   She had not arrived in Contention City seeking marriage, but here it was.  This was the man she wanted, the one she needed. 

James apologized for the simplicity of his house.   The two room cabin was south of town, far from the Scorpion.  Annika looked around and could not quite believe this was her home now.  What of her children?  Another teacher would need to be found.  Married women could not stand before a classroom.  

Annika’s new husband, ever the gentleman, told her with frankness he did not expect to share her bed right away. 

“Unless you wish it,” he said, taking her small hand in his large one.  When she did not answer he pushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead.  “Love will come in time, Annika.”

“It will,” she agreed and pulled him close.  His breath quickened as she reached for the place which would pleasure him most.  She felt him turn hard against her hand.  “And James, I do wish it.”

There was indeed pain, as she’d been warned.  And yes, she did mind it, as every thrust of her husband’s body tried to banish Mercer’s face.  Yet when she closed her eyes it was still all she saw. 

Afterwards, Annika listened to James’s even breathing and knew he slept peacefully.   His strong arm surrounded her waist and she ran her fingertips along his skin.  She did feel affection for him.  She had acted rashly, rushing into marriage without a thought, but it was done now.  Mercer would hear of it, of course.  She doubted it would matter much to him.  

The crack of the door breaking from its hinges caused her to bolt upright in alarm.  James was quicker, already grabbing for the Winchester he kept at the bedside. 

The intruder gave a howl of pain and uttered a string of galling obscenities.

“Mercer,” James whispered, training the rifle on his brother. 

Mercer Dolan was an apparition.  He still wore the clothes which had been bloodied the night before
.  His dark hair, always a bit too long, stood out wildly as he wore no hat. 

“Annika,” he moaned, a word which seemed to cause him unutterable hurt. 

She cried out and began to go to him, then remembered who she was now.  And why.  She erupted in rage.  Annika stood on the bed she now shared with her husband and heard the cruelty in her voice.  “I know what you are, Mercer Dolan.  A callous scoundrel, nothing more. The memory of your touch makes me sick.  Sick!”

James lowered the rifle and reached a hand toward his brother.  Mercer glared at him with murder in his eyes.  “Withdraw your hand before I hack it off.  Brother.” 

Mercer rose to his full impressive height and turned his agonized glare to Annika. “You never knew me after all, girl.” 

“I know enough,” she choked out.  “You are a violent man who keeps with whores.” 

Mercer chuckled meanly.  “Anni, you are not a better woman than the ones you claim to loathe.”  Mercer grimaced and put his hands against his head, squeezing his eyes shut, as if he were trying to forever erase the sight before him.  He kicked out with sudden violence, his boot catching a small table which crashed into the opposite wall and broke to pieces.  James circled warily between Annika and Mercer.  His hand was on the rifle trigger.  Annika knew he would shoot if he had to. 

But it was Mercer she stared at.  The look of torture on his face could not have been invented.  It was more than a possessive reaction.  He was in pain.  With his next words Annika realized exactly how much pain. 

“I loved you,” he told her.   His voice held hurt wonder.  As if he had only just realized the truth of the words he’d uttered.  And then he was gone. 

Annika couldn’t breathe.  She sank
into the edge of her marriage bed and pulled James’s old quilt over her breasts.  Her husband sat beside her, his head low, his face unreadable.  She allowed him to take her hand.  Once, and only once, did Annika silently curse her reckless foolishness.  The she held her head up, vowing never to do so again. 

It was done.  Lord help her, she hand forsaken Mercer and married his brother.  Reasons mattered little when what was done couldn’t be undone.

And regret, that tool of futility, was pointless.

Contention City, Arizona

Present Day

There was rain in the forecast.  Maddox opened up the thin linen curtains in Priest’s room when he heard it begin to fall.  He looked at the sky which was a deep shade of gray.  This was not the brief fury of a summer desert monsoon.  This rain was colder, more persistent.  It was the remnant of a late Gulf of Mexico hurricane which still possessed teeth even this far inland. 

Maddox stretched.  His back ached from sitting all morning.  He should really dig up a more comfortable chair than the metal piece of crap beside Priest’s bed.  Mad placed a book facedown on the chair and wandered into the kitchen.  He’d been reading aloud from Hunter S Thompson’s
Fear and Loathing Letters.
   The old man had always loved Thompson.  Mad had to believe that somewhere in that failing body lived the mind which still did. 

He almost grabbed a beer, then thought better of it, opting for a glass of water instead.  The knock at the door had to be either Gabriela or Hospice.   Maddox opened it.

“Why don’t you just use your key?”

Her hair was wet.  Mad could smell the rain on her as she shook the dark waves free from her ponytail.  He tossed her a dishtowel. 

“Thanks,” she grinned wryly, combing through the wet tangles with her fingers.  “It’s your house, Mad.  I figured you might not want me wandering in unannounced.” 

Maddox shrugged, feeling suddenly irritable.  She was too damn beautiful.  The kiss they’d shared two days earlier weighed on his mind heavily.  Maddox hadn’t been bent out of shape by a kiss since he was a kid.  He needed to go look at something which didn’t get his gears going.  “Shit, I don’t care, Gaby.  It’s not really my house.”  He set the glass down on the counter and returned to his father’s bedside. 

Maddox picked up the book and put it down again.  The steady beat of the rain was hypnotic.  He heard it growing heavier. 

Gabriela entered the room.  She leaned against the far wall and said nothing. 

After listening to the rain for a few more minutes, Mad turned to her.  “Miguel in school?”

“Yes,” she nodded.  She leaned over and looked out the window.  “It’s supposed to pour all today and into tomorrow.”

“Hmm,” said Maddox, losing interest, “that’s a lot of rain.” 

“Might be bad enough for the river to flood.”

He was dismissive.  “Hell, they say that every time there’s more than a quarter inch predicted.” 

“They do,” she agreed. 

Maddox saw her fidget and look at the floor. 

“Jensen will be around later,” he said.  They’d come to an uneasy truce, Mad and his brother. They barely spoke,
cautiously circling one another with the silent agreement that they needed to see their father to a restful end. 

“I know,” Gaby nodded. 

Mad shook his head.  Of course she and Jensen would talk often.  They were raising a son together.  He wondered if she had told Jensen about their passionate kiss in the cemetery.  He figured she hadn’t. 

Gaby sighed.  She hadn’t moved from her spot against the wall.  Maddox stared at the plain beige t-shirt she wore.  The cotton stretched over her breasts, which had grown more generous with the passage of
time.  He wondered if they would feel as good in his mouth as they had ten years ago.