At Peace (The 'Burg #2)(73)

“Yeah, right. Fine,” she said and looked at me. “Fine, tell him I won’t bother him anymore or you. Okay?”

When it appeared she actually wanted an answer from me, I said, “Okay.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t call Marco,” she said to me, this seemed important to her so I nodded.

She started away but turned back and looked at me and when she did, she’d changed. Everything about her changed. She didn’t look scared anymore, she looked lost and afraid, a different kind of afraid, a worse kind.

“He made me feel safe,” she said quietly, I blinked at her honest, open admission and she kept talking. “I don’t feel safe very much, ever, really. Cal made me feel safe.”

When she seemed again to be waiting for an answer, I answered, “He has that way about him.”

“He belonged to me, I’d always feel safe.”

At that moment, I realized I knew exactly what she meant.

I walked to the railing, looked down at her and said, “I’m not sure Joe’s the kind of guy who could belong to anyone, Kenzie.”

She stared at me a second and the way she did it I actually felt sorry for her.

“You call him Joe, he belongs to you,” she whispered and before I could say anything or have a reaction to her words other than that feeling of being punched in the stomach, she turned and gracefully ran on the toes of her fancy, shiny, platform pumps across my lawn and around the house.

I watched the space where she used to be for a few seconds before I felt Colt’s arm come around my shoulders and I turned my head to look up at him.

“That was kinda sad,” I told him.

He looked to the side of the house then down at me. “Woman who has everything but really has nothin’.”

I sighed then I nodded. Colt dropped his arm, jogged down the steps and walked out into my yard to pick up the cigarette butt.

He looked at me. “Shame this mars your yard, babe. You do good flowers.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“I’ll toss this out,” he said, lifting the butt. “You good now?”

“I’m good, Colt, thanks for comin’ over.”

“Anytime, Vi,” he said and turned to leave. “Later.”

“Bye, Colt, tell Feb I said hi and tickle Jack for me.”

“Will do,” he called as he turned the corner of the house.

I stared after him for awhile too. Then I went into the house and all the kids watched me walk to the kitchen.

“She gone?” Kate asked.

“Yep,” I answered, pulling a bottle of cheap white wine out of the fridge feeling this was the time that cheap white wine was created for.

“What’d she want?” Keira asked.

“Joe,” I answered.

“And?” Keira prompted.

I found the corkscrew and looked at Keira through the bar opening. “Joe doesn’t want her.”

“Killer!” Keira hissed, pumping her fisted hand in the kind of gesture you’d use on a trucker to get him to honk his horn.

I looked at Kate. “You think it’s something in the water or is she just touched?”

“She’s just touched,” Kate said, Dane laughed and they hit the play button to restart the movie.

I poured myself a glass of wine and went back out to my deck with my phone in my hand.

I barely had my ass to the seat when it rang, I looked at the display and it was Joe.

I slid it open and put it to my ear. “Hi.”

“She gone?”

“Yeah, drama over.” He didn’t reply so I asked, “Who’s Marco?”

“Her manager,” Joe answered.

“She seems pretty scared of him,” I remarked.

“Reason to be.”

“What reason?”

“She’s where she is ‘cause of him. Her problem is, she made a deal with the devil.”

“A deal with the devil?”

“Marco’s bad news,” Joe told me.

“Bad news how?” I asked.

“Bad news, she steps outta line, he yanks her back and he isn’t nice about it.”

That didn’t sound good, that sounded face pale, lips parted, eyes wide not good.

“What?” I whispered.

“He can get physical, buddy.”

“Physical, as in, he beats her?”

“Yeah,” Joe answered. “She’s his cash cow. He skims off the top of everything she does, lives a good life. She does shit that might rock that boat, he doesn’t like it and makes that known however he has to.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t your problem and it isn’t mine. It’s the deal she made.”

A thought occurred to me so I asked, “Why didn’t you call Marco before when you were having problems with her?”

“It was just me, I could deal with it and I didn’t want to be responsible for him gettin’ in her face. Fuckin’ with you and the girls, she wasn’t makin’ it about me, she was draggin’ you into it. I thought I could make my point, f**k, I thought I did. But I didn’t. She f**ks with you and the girls, she needs to know I’m serious. Now she knows.”