Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(73)

My love.

Was I still? Had I ever been? Or had I merely been ripe and convenient? I didn’t know, God help me, I couldn’t decide, but that didn’t make me stop Ransom when he kissed me again or explain why I responded to his kiss, his touch, how I let him pick me up, hold me by the waist to get closer to my mouth, kiss me deeper.

“Aly, please. Tell me you don’t want Ethan. Tell me you’ll be my family again.”

“Ransom…I…I need…”

The sound of that cracking, busted engine made us both stop, had our attention on the back of the house and the loud music booming from Cass’s busted Ford pickup. Ransom set me on my feet without a word, pulling me away from the pit with a firm grip on my hand and just before we made it to the patio, he stopped, turning on me as he brushed the back of his hand across his damp face.

“Don’t think that this * is going to get me to forget you owe me an answer.”

My laugh was brief, but it still pulled a grin from Ransom. “Fine. We’ll table it.” And before I could follow him up the steps, Ransom grabbed my face, kissing me quick, but deep once more.

“I’ll get it from you, makamae.” He pushed me close, resting his large hand against my ass. “Trust that.”





Your tongue is heavy

Thick

Clustered with words,

Break

Burn.

Your heart is empty,

Weak

Vacuous.

Your mind is twisted,

Sick

Like your soul

Like my pity.





Eighteen





I’d take a million mediocre days to get me from the moment I was in just then: Aly leaning next to me against the wall just outside of my mother’s studio, smelling like something out of my best damn wet dream, the feel of her tears still drying on my face and the recall of her taste teasing my mouth. She wouldn’t let me charge into the studio and for a moment, I didn’t mind. My fingers itched to throttle that idiot cowboy, but a more driving urge compelled me to listen. I guessed that had more to do with Aly leaning against me as we eavesdropped.

“Keira, you take on too much,” I heard Cass tell my mother. “You don’t deserve this, especially not from him.”

That slick f*cker was using his inside voice—smooth, sweet, as though he wanted my mother to believe he was only worried about her and not his contract, not the record Mom had assured him would make him a household name. She really was a little gullible when it came to men, but damn, no one was that blind.

“Cass, please don’t say that.” I could hear the sluggishness of her words. She wasn’t drunk, would likely sober up the second we went through the door, but Aly wanted to wait. She kept her hand on my arm, holding me back and I was torn between the feel of her soft touch and the desire to get that * away from my mother.

“Not yet,” Aly whispered, tugging on my sleeve until my shoulders were against the wall. When I glanced down at her, she only shook her head, lifting her index finger to her lips to keep me quiet.

“I just think you deserve better than some dumb jock who can’t control himself.” If Cass meant to convince my mother that Kona was worthless, he was barking up the wrong tree. She might be mad at her husband. She might not even be bothering to answer his texts, but that was her. She could say and do whatever she wanted about him because he was hers. Cass insulting her husband? No. That wouldn’t go over well, a point that got proven in the handful of seconds that Cass finished speaking and my mother’s low, lethal voice whispered back at him.

“The hell did you say?”

I heard that familiar slip of temper. How many times had the echoes of cold fury bit into her tone over the years? How many times had Keira Riley donned the vestige of a mama bear when someone threatened me? How many prejudiced *s did she kick out of the diner when they caught sight of Mark and Johnny sitting too close together or heard me, clearly not a white boy, calling my very white mother “Mama” and Bobbie, my adopted black grandmother “Granny B”? Mom was a tiger blinded by loyalty when anyone she loved got threatened or insulted. Smack talk wasn’t allowed. Neither were assumptions made that she knew were dead wrong. That’s why she now hurt so badly—that life long, burning loyalty she felt for Kona. Because she felt so deeply, so surely that he’d never hurt her and then it seemed like he had—that betrayal stung worse than she’d ever admit. But that was her business. Not some damn cowboy she’d found playing his guitar for ones in the French Quarter.

Cass really had no idea what he’d stepped in with that insult. He was about to find out.

“Answer me,” Mom said, any remaining hints of her depression or mild drunk gone. “You think my husband is guilty of the shit being thrown at him?”

“Keira, that’s not…” The cowboy’s tone was faint, a little frustrated and I leaned closer trying to hear him clearly. “Well, shit,” he amended, releasing a frustrated breath, “yes, I do. Someone like…that…with all that money, all those years surrounded by women throwing themselves at him, it’s a wonder this is just coming to light now. You know, the other kids.”

“Nothing is coming to light, Cass, except for how full of shit you are.” Mom’s voice lost some of its edge but I still picked up the caution. “Those women are lying. I’m not stupid. I know my husband.”