Snake Charmer (Rawkfist MC Book 2) (14 page)

Journey

D
onovan and I said the magical words,
but their power fixed nothing. He continues to run hot and cold with his
emotions, while I still crave more reassurance than is healthy. We’re rarely
together. When we do hookup, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that we’re
living on borrowed time.

I’m desperate for advice, a shoulder to
cry on, and a man’s perspective.
Basically, I need my dad.

Jared co-owns a small auto shop on the
outskirts of Tumbling Rock. I hear he’s a good mechanic, but the place looks
dead when I stop by on my way home from work.

Jared sits in the front office,
watching the news on a small TV hanging from the corner.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, gaining his
attention. “Do you have time to talk?”

Jared smiles big at me, making my day
automatically better. He glances at the other guy sitting in the back of the
shop.

“I’ll be back in a while, Craig.”

Jared and I walk outside to a quiet day
with only a lone dog barking far away. I’m sometimes bothered by how small and
isolated Tumbling Rock can feel. If we live in the middle of nowhere, does that
make us no one? Only when I’m at the clinic or hospital, do I feel like West
Virginia isn’t at the end of the earth.

“You okay?” Jared asks when I only
stare at the falling autumn leaves in a yard across the road.

“This might seem weird, but I need
relationship advice.”

“What’s wrong?” Jared asks, immediately
pissed. “Is Donovan fucking with you? I can talk to him.”

“Aren’t I a little old for you to
threaten my boyfriends?”

“Maybe, but I’ll never be too old to
hurt a man for making my girls sad.”

Smiling grudgingly, I shake my head. “I
don’t need that kind of help. I need advice or maybe someone to tell me that
love is worth the struggle. I want to know the mess is worth it when everything
you care about blows up. How it’s okay to love someone who’s all kinds of
messed up inside, and you can’t fix him, and he can’t fix himself, and nothing
makes sense except you want to be closer to him even if it’ll kill you in the end.”

Jared looks at where my hands imitate
tearing something apart.

“Is Donovan hitting you?”

“Are you fricking kidding? Do you think
I’d let any man slap me around? Any fricking man any fricking where? I’d crush
his fricking spine if he put his hands on me like that. Hell, if you hit me,
I’d tear off your mustache and make you choke on it,” I say then add softer,
“And you know how much I love your stache.”

Jared grins while caressing the hairy
beast on his upper lip. “It loves you right back, kid.”

“My problem with Donovan is because I’m
not an emotionally sensitive kind of person, and he’s closed off. We’re like
the blind leading the blind with this relationship thing.”

“Maybe you ought to walk away.”

“But I want him. Every time I start
thinking we’d be better off on our own or how we’re not suited for a
relationship, I remember how much I prefer giving myself what I want.”

“Sounds more like obsession than love.”

Frowning at his flippant answers, I
expected a bit more wisdom from my father. “Do I seem like the kind of woman to
get obsessed with a man? I was living a perfectly happy life before him. I
ought to be running away from Donovan. I should make smarter decisions. I’m me,
not a dummy like Mom who fell in love with an older biker.”

“You’re mean when upset,” he mutters.

“Sorry, but that really shouldn’t come
as a huge surprise. Heck, I just threatened to rip off your beloved stache and
kill you with it.”

“I know you’re trying to make you and
Donovan’s situation like what your mom and I had, but I don’t see the
similarities. Christine and I made sense until one day we didn’t.”

Crossing my arms, I size up my father.
“Is that really how you see what happened between you two?”

“Always made sense to me.”

“She ditched you while you were in
prison. That’s not the behavior of a content woman. I mean, if she were a hussy
then I’d imagine her running around on you once your back was turned. She
didn’t run to another man, though. She ran to a new life with school and a
future job she wanted.”

Jared narrows his eyes and steps back.
“I thought we were analyzing what’s wrong with you and Donovan.”

“We are, but I can’t believe you think
what you had with Mom was easy. Why do you think she left?”

“I knew she wanted to go to school and
be a vet. I figured she thought she couldn’t do that here. I don’t know why
she’d think that, but that’s what I assumed.”

“You’re weird.”

“How do you figure?”

“Didn’t you ever fricking ask why she
left?”

“Yes, and she said she needed to get
away. She asked me not to come after her.”

“And you just let your wife and kids
walk away,” I balk, having assumed they had fought to a truce before I was old
enough to understand.

“I was in prison.”

“Mom wasn’t married when you got out.
Why didn’t you push her for an explanation? Was a part of you happy she left?”

“You know, Journey, I don’t want to
talk about this.”

“All right, but you and Mom will never
become friends if you can’t have a single honest conversation. I’ve seen you
argue, and I know you’ve boinked, but you never got to the heart of why your marriage
ended.”

“Leave it alone.”

“Sure, sure, but you should ask
yourself why Mom married a dork like Paul, and you ended up in a
friends-with-benefits relationship with Jane? Maybe you aren’t so different
from your convenient vagina. You said Jane lost her husband, and she couldn’t
move on. You and Mom haven’t either. I think you ought to consider seeing if
that’s something you’d like to do in the next few decades.”

“Why can’t you be this wise with your
crap?”

“I can. I just want someone to tell me
that it’s worth the bad stuff. I need to know I can survive an ugly ending to a
good thing. That’s why I look to you and Mom. You might not have moved on, but
your relationship didn’t destroy either of you.”

Jared runs a hand through his thick
black hair. I want him to tell me something supportive even if I’m the jerk who
didn’t say anything all that supportive of him.

“Journey, you’re strong enough to
handle whatever life throws at you. Good or bad, you’ve always looked it in the
eye without flinching. Even if whatever happens between you and Donovan falls
apart, you have Christine and your sisters to pick you up. You have me too. You
shouldn’t be afraid to try.”

“If I fall, will you be there to catch
me?” I ask, reciting the line from a Cyndi Lauper song.

“Time After Time.”

“Really?” I ask, shocked for my redneck
father to know a 1980’s pop song.

“I listen to music, Journey.”

“Yeah, honky-tonk music like AC/DC and
other stuff I choose not to acknowledge. Who knew you were also into 80’s
techno crap.”

“I’m not, but when the song comes on,
I’m not immune.”

“You’re a big softie,” I tease, poking
him. “This is a new side to you, Jared Sheerer. Very impressive.”

“You and your sister sure keep me on my
toes. I never know what’ll impress you.”

Hugging him, I inhale his familiar
scent. My father is as steady as a rock. He’s the male version of me. Years
ago, he went nuts over a woman he probably shouldn’t have even noticed. After
they had crashed and burned, Jared survived. If Donovan and I end up with the
same fiery outcome, I know I’ll survive too.

As much as I love and admire my dad,
the chat with him did nothing to help me figure things out with Donovan.

Arriving home, I hear crazy sounding
music playing loudly from Poppy’s phone. She sits at the kitchen counter, writing
something in her notebook. Christine’s curled up in the living room, reading a
magazine while Hal rests in her lap.

“What the heck is this music?” I ask.

“The band’s called Katzenjammer,” Poppy
says as if this means something to me. “I’m using the song for my PowerPoint
presentation next week.”

“Your teacher must love you.”

“I think he worships me. All of my male
teachers are pervy.”

Christine looks up from her magazine
and frowns at Poppy who only shrugs.

“What can I do when I look this good in
a school full of goons and ghouls?”

“You remember that confidence if your
father’s glandular problem ever kicks in with you,” Christine says, smiling
behind her magazine.

“Not cool, Mom.”

“Saying it like I see it.”

“This town has been a bad influence on
you. Back in Indy, you were a much better sap.”

No longer hiding her smile, Christine
shrugs. I see my chance to pry her away from Poppy, so I ask to speak alone.
Christine tries to get up from her chair, but Hal fights her by going limp on
her lap. She finally breaks free by shoving his fat butt off her.

Once we get to her room, Christine
shuts the door and sits on the bed. I don’t sit, unable to shake my
restlessness.

“Do you ever regret marrying Paul?” I
ask while pacing around the room.

“Of course not. Without him, we
wouldn’t have Poppy.”

“Or we’d have a different Poppy. A
peppier one with fewer glandular problems.”

Christine gives me a disapproving look,
but I only smile. Poppy’s great, but she looks and acts like our family. No
doubt she’d be very similar even with a different father.

“Seriously, though, why did you marry
Paul? You couldn’t have been that desperate.”

Christine flops back on her bed and
sighs. “I know you two had your issues, and he’s no saint, but you ignore his
good points.”

“Such as?”

“He has a good sense of humor.”

Gawking at my mother, I don’t remember
one single funny thing Paul did or said in the entire time I knew him. Even
when he fell at the store, I didn’t laugh. The man couldn’t even make a
pratfall funny.

“Like how?”

“He told funny jokes and said things in
a funny way.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for that.”

“I like people with a sense of humor.
Why else would I endure you girls?”

“I always assumed it was because of the
love.”

Christine rolls her eyes. “I love your
grandparents too, but they’re not funny.”

“Wait, so if we stop being snarky
turds, you’ll stop enduring us?”

“Yep,” she says, grinning big. “You’d
be smart to keep that in mind.”

“Do you have any regrets?”

Christine loses her smile. “Of course,
but I can’t change the past. I can only avoid making the same mistakes in the
future.”

“That’s all very uplifting. It really
is. What I’m asking is if you ever knew you were making a mistake while you
made it but still did it anyway?”

A suddenly nostalgic Christine stares
out the window. “I guess in a way marrying your father was a mistake I
knowingly made. I don’t regret it, of course. I knew it wouldn’t last. We were
in different places in life. I had just finished high school while he was
settled in life. We should never have worked, but I needed him so much. I
didn’t worry about how things would turn out. Being young has its advantages.”

“I’m not young enough to willingly make
dumb mistakes, am I?”

“You’re a fighter,” Christine says,
sitting up and taking my hands. “If you want something, fight for it. I’d
rather have a pile of mistakes than a handful of what ifs.”

Pulling my mother to her feet, I wrap
my arms around her and hold on for a long time. Christine doesn’t hurry me to
let go. She caresses my hair, soothing my edginess.

Once I finally release her, I smile
awkwardly.

“I hate weakness.”

“I know, but there are worse ways to
feel.”

Nodding, I get one more hug before we
return to the living room. Felix has joined Poppy on the couch. They’re working
on his math assignment. My sister is so focused on playing teacher that she
doesn’t notice me turn off her music for an entire five minutes.

“Hey!” she cries, once aware.

“Where’s Justice?”

“Out back with Matilda,” Felix says.

“Don’t help her.”

Felix frowns at Poppy who tosses her
long hair in his face. He yanks on it, startling her. Seeing a fight about to
break out, Otto stops watching TV. I know he’s ignoring me because I was bad
and need to be punished. He wants me to come crawling back and apologize for my
poor decision-making.

I refuse to back down to an eight-year-old.
Otto and I will likely need to butt heads until he learns his place in the
pecking order. Until that happens, I walk outside to the back deck where
Justice sits in a chair with Matilda.