Running Free (10 page)

He’d run for the fucking hills.

I’m a dog. A goddamned dog.

And Gun’s a human.

Those two don’t mix.

I slink into a chair as he moves effortlessly through the kitchen. His navy thermal is plastered to his body and I crave to peel it off him. As he flits about the kitchen pouring wine and pulling food from the oven, I simply stare at him.

He’d make a fine husband.

And as he pours a glass of milk for Suzie and pats her head when he sets it down in front of her, I simply want to cry for him.

He’d make a fine father.

When he turns and flashes me a panty-melting grin that promises naked decadence later, I simply gape at him.

He’d make a fine lover.

I swallow down my grief over the unfairness of life. It’s doubtful I’ll be able to resist him physically and can pretty much believe we’ll be fucking soon — I’ll discover whether or not he’ll be a fine lover.

However, I’ll never know about the other two.

And for the first time in my entire existence, my heart that has barely shown signs of life, is crushed.

Gunnar

When I was a child, my mother would buy me puzzles. She’d said I liked solving the impossible. I saw the big picture whereas everyone else only saw pieces. My mom told me I was special.

She casually told me once that I’d make a great detective one day. Her subtle suggestion resonated within me and fueled a fire I didn’t know existed. I wanted to make her proud. I wanted to solve the unsolvable.

A few months before my seventeenth birthday, my mother explained to me that she had pancreatic cancer.

We can fix this,
I’d said.

We’ll find a cure
, I’d assured her.

Only we couldn’t fix it. We couldn’t cure it.

Her disease was a complicated puzzle — one that nobody on God’s green earth seemed to be able to figure out. The cancer ravaged her body with the force of an unexpected tornado at the beginning of spring. My mother was in its path and the destruction, while quick, was fatal.

As Frankie hums beside me while we clean the dishes together, I decide she’s ever as enigmatic as the puzzle of my mother’s disease.

Everything in my head makes sense or has an answer.

But with Mom, there was no reason.

With Frankie, I grasp for straws of understanding only to come up emptyhanded.

Otis is sitting in the living room with Suzie while we clean. Our silence is comfortable and I sense that she is doing her best to figure me out as well.

I’m a simple puzzle.

One piece.

Round, only a few hard edges, but my picture is plain and obvious.

In this life, I want love and family. Mutual respect and companionship. A career that means something. I’m simple.

Frankie, however, is complicated.

Her outward appearance screams uncaring rebel, but the woman behind the dark eyes watches with wise, kind eyes. She hides secrets that she feels as if she must protect. Secrets that she plainly sees as awful and embarrassing.

But I want that missing piece of her.

Even if it is ugly and jagged. Ruined and colorless.

I want to understand it and place it on the puzzle where it belongs. On the outside so that it may paint the beautiful picture that is her.

“Maybe I should go.”

Her voice is soft as she hands me a clean dish. I towel dry it and shake my head before turning to regard her.

“Maybe you should stay.”

She sighs and I bring my fingers to her chin, turning her so I can see her pretty face. Emotions war just beyond her schooled features. Her eyes tell stories her face and mouth refuse to. But I see. Just like all those complicated puzzles that were well beyond my age, I see. It may take me awhile to figure out, but I won’t stop until I do.

“Frankie, stay. I want to spend more time with you.”

She nods and my heart nearly bursts from my chest. One thing I can determine is that she somehow feels as if she doesn’t deserve what’s happening between us, but she wants it anyway. I’ll side with that part of her. Together we’ll convince the other half.

“Little Suzie has passed out. Why don’t I take her home and Gun can run you back later?” Otis says softly from behind us.

We both meet his gaze and I’m shocked to find approval in his eyes. The man behaves as if he is her father and at first I assumed he’d be a tough nut to crack. He’d drilled me about my family, past, job, and goals. I had answered each question honestly. Once he’d seemed satisfied with my answers, he’d backed off.

“I’ll carry her to the truck,” I tell him, tossing the towel onto the counter.

He nods and gives Frankie a hug. I leave them be while they whisper in the kitchen and make my way over to Suzie. Cutie Pie is snuggled up beside her and I chuckle to myself at how they became fast friends. She fawned all over him and chased him around the house after dinner. Of course the little shit ate up her affections. I say little shit because he made a snack of two pairs of my shoes while I was at work.

Work was a nightmare. My lead with Jared Thurston turned out to be a dead end. And the homes we went to and interrogated, didn’t amount to anything. There were still a few where the owners weren’t there when we’d visited that we still have to hit up later.

As I approach Suzie, she whimpers in her sleep, a nightmare plaguing her. I squat in front of her and with a stroke of my hand, I sweep a lock of hair off her forehead. The girl is another mysterious puzzle piece in Frankie’s life. Something in me dings and buzzes, alerting me to the fact that there’s more to the story with little Suzie.

Her curls.

Those expressive eyes.

The affectionate way about her.

She reminds me of Curly Sue. The dog that was conveniently “at home” tonight.

My mind spins as I hold the puzzle piece that is Suzie. With each pound of my heart, I know where the piece belongs… what its part is on the overall picture. But it doesn’t make sense. It fits but would destroy the fabric of life as I know it. So, instead of pressing that piece into the spot I know it belongs, I hold it for another time. A time when I have more clues. More facts. More explanation.

But the piece most definitely fits.

Scooping her into my arms, I tote the young girl out to the truck. Otis has followed in step behind me whereas Frankie stayed behind to finish up in the kitchen. Once I have her loaded in the car and the door shuts, I turn to look at the old man.

“I’m not sure if you realize how lucky you are,” he says softly.

I scrunch my brows together and smile. “She’s special, I know that much.”

He lifts his chin and stares up at the sky, inhaling the crisp air. “You have no idea how special. And it will take a real man to love every unusual part of her. I need to know you’re not going to run at the first sign of something you don’t like.”

His words confound me. “I’m not running,” I assure him.

“Yet. But once she opens herself fully to you, I want you to remember this conversation. Remember this night. Understand that she’s deserving of love and a good life, no matter how different you are from one another.”

“Otis, I promise you I’m not going anywhere. I know Frankie’s different and that’s what draws me to her. I don’t have any plans of letting her slip through my fingers.”

He nods and without another word climbs into the truck. Once I can’t see the taillights to the truck anymore, I head back inside.

I find her staring at a picture on the wall. Once I close and lock the door behind me, I stalk over to her and stand with my chest up against her back.

“Who is she?”

My eyes skim over the picture and I smile. Wide, brown eyes and a glowing smile. Wavy locks of auburn hair hanging down in front of her shoulders. The picture was taken for the yearbook at the school she taught at, the year before we found out she had cancer.

“My mom. She passed away when I was seventeen.”

She turns in my arms and locks her arms around my waist, her eyes devouring my face. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrug it off and clear my throat. “I loved her so much. It was hard on me but no matter how difficult life got, my mom’s words and advice would always get me through it.”

Tears well in her eyes and she furrows her brows. “What happened? Did you live with your dad?”

Just thinking about the asshole who left us when I was only four without so much as a trace to his whereabouts has my blood boiling. He wasn’t there when I needed him most. He was never there. “Nope, and since we didn’t have any other willing or able family, I went into a foster home.”

She blanches and her face grows hard. “Were they nice to you?”

I think about the old lady who chain smoked and watched reruns of Jeopardy. Juanita Johnson. Her walls were yellow and dingy. She was practically a hoarder. And she most certainly wasn’t friendly. But she wasn’t abusive either.

She used to send me on her cigarette runs since I looked older than my seventeen years of age. Not the best foster parent but I know there are worse out there.

“Juanita was fine.”

And she was…in comparison.

“I remember a boy a few years younger than I was. He’d come to stay with us after his previous foster father was accused of sexual molestation. The boy kept to himself but I could see the pain bubbling just below the surface. That man had hurt him.”

Tears roll down her cheeks as I continue.

“Many times I’d tried to talk to him — to invite him to play baseball with some kids I’d met down the street. But he wasn’t interested. For eight months I attempted to get inside his head. I wanted to help him.”

“Did you?”

I shake my head. “Sadly, no. Before I knew it, I turned eighteen. I was released to my own devices. Lucky for me, I had some sense about me and enrolled in college. Pell grants made it possible for my education and I delivered pizzas to pay for a shitty apartment to survive while I went to school.”

She looks down at her feet.

“I never forgot about him though. And when I got word that Juanita died of a massive heart attack not long after I’d left, I contacted my old caseworker and asked if I could foster the boy. Unfortunately, an eighteen-year-old college kid isn’t foster parent material. But they assured me they’d placed him in a loving home. Somehow I doubted that.”

“Did you ever hear from him again?” she asks, sadness eating her words.

“Once I joined Chicago PD, I looked him up in our system. But, his records indicated he had a rap sheet a mile long by then and had run away a couple of years before. I figure wherever he is, he’s happier than he was during the brief period I knew him.”

She nods. “I bet he is. I was happier once I ran away.”

Dipping down, I place a kiss on her nose. “They weren’t nice to you?”

Shaking her head, she presses her lips into a firm line and shakes her head. “No, Gun, they were not. That’s why I help these teens when I can. Sometimes, they’re better off with someone like me — someone who’s been there and done that — to help them understand there is more to life than being an unwanted houseguest. Otis and I always make them feel wanted. Then, we prepare them on how to succeed at life.”

The sadness in her eyes is hidden by a thin veil of ferocity. I want to lift it and kiss it all away. This woman although incredibly gorgeous on the outside, also harbors one of the most beautiful souls. Nobody ever gets to see it but I intend on seeing every glowing inch.

Slipping my hands into her hair, I kiss her softly at first. To tell her wordlessly all of the things that run ramped through my mind. Her sweet moan into my mouth is a thank you. But when her hands fist my shirt and she pulls me closer, deepening our kiss, the air around us crackles with the electricity we create. Each moan becomes a plea.

My hand drops from her hair and I palm her breast with it. The nipple is hard and unyielding under my fingertips. I want it between my teeth. To see just how firm it is.

Her body squirms with need under my touch and my cock presses into her.

“Come on,” I growl as I yank my lips from hers.

The naughty glint in her eyes fuels my desire to get her naked in my bed. Rather roughly, I grab her hand and drag her down the hallway. She chuckles, one of the throaty, sexy variety, and I flash her a wicked grin over my shoulder. Once in my room, I shut the door so Cutie Pie doesn’t try and join in on the festivities.

“I want to see you,” I say, my voice thick with desire.

She nods and begins stripping her sweater off. Her tits are stunning as hell in all their glorious bare beauty. No bra. No fucking bra.

“Shit, Frankie. Did you come prepared or what?”

Her smile is an evil one and my cock begs to be released. I follow suit and peel my own shirt from my body. Her neck reddens with heat at seeing my chest and I smirk at her.

“There’s plenty more where that came from, hádanka.”

When her eyebrows furrow together in confusion over the word, I wink at her and begin unbuttoning my jeans. Her eyes fall to where my dick bulges beneath the fabric. With eyes on her, I push them down off my hips and step out of them. She licks her lips and it’s nearly my undoing.