Yield (7 page)

Shaelynn yelled for Mrs. Dawson, the housekeeper, to “clean up this shit.” Take away her pretty clothes and all of Jace’s money and Kate knew exactly who she was.

She was just like Mom.

Giving her that identity made Kate not so scared of her. After all, the odds of her going hungry in this house were pretty slim, she rolled over to double-check on the cans of food and decided maybe one more, just in case.

She woke up to the door opening and she turned her head to watch the feet move. The shoes weren’t those clean white ones Mrs. Dawson wore or the heels Shaelynn wore. These were heavy looking boots with chains going from the ankle and under the sole. Jace!

Jace was in the room. Unsure of what to do, Kate pressed her face into her pillow. She didn’t want to get caught under the bed but she really wanted to see him. There was a soft thump before he turned and walked out. Curious to the sound, she crawled out and looked around. On the bed was a thick envelope.

She opened it and stared at the collection of red and brown bills. Her eyes went wide as she sat on the floor and began to count out the money. Fifties and hundreds. Bills she had never seen beyond math books in school. When she was done, she stared. There was two thousand dollars.

She had two thousand dollars.

Two.

Thousand.

Dollars.

It was more money than she’d ever held in her life and she had no idea what to do with it. If she was with Mom some would go for rent, but most would go up Mom’s nose. But Mom wasn’t here. This was
her
money. Putting all the bills carefully in place, she returned to her spot under the bed, and Kate tucked the envelope under the box spring. Jace was home.

That thought dragged her from her sanctuary and she ran down the stairs, almost slipping on the glossy white tiles. She had no idea where to go now that she was on the main level. A lot of the house was still strange to her.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to go looking too hard.

Unfortunately, he was fighting. With Shaelynn.

And it was all about Kate.

Chapter 6

The first person Doyle saw upon waking was his ex-wife. That was one way of killing his morning wood. With a sigh, he flung the sheets aside and climbed out of bed naked. Ignoring her, he went to take a shower. His shower. God, he missed his shower.

“Fuck me,” he muttered as Claire followed him in and leaned against the sink, her arms folded over her chest. “In case you missed it, we’ve been divorced for eight years. I don’t have to deal with evil eyes in my shower. Fuck off. Go make coffee.”

“In case you missed it,” she snapped back, “we’ve been divorced for eight years. Make your own fucking coffee.”
 

He grunted as he tilted his face into the spray.

“Kate Jennings, Doyle.”

“Coffee, Claire.”

“You’re not the boss of me anymore, Kolemann.” She flipped her middle finger but left him to his shower. Probably a good thing since Kate’s name made him think of Kate naked in his bed and hello erection. No, Kate on the balcony. That moment her fingers dipped between her legs as she obeyed. Without hesitation. Instantly lost in the moment. Fuck, that moment. It was a beautiful thing.

He hadn’t lied to her. He wouldn’t. One of his favorite masturbations was to a sub surrendering. If for the past year she had green eyes, well, so be it, but now he knew how she looked, how she felt. How she moaned
“Yes, Sir.
”

“Fuck.” His stomach muscles contracted as his hand fisted around his dick, cum streaming forth. Exhaling, he let the warm water hit the back of his neck, working muscles that had been tense ever since it had gone tits up. A woman didn’t freak out during sex because her parents were negligent asshole addicts. That came from sexual abuse or rape. “Fuck.”

The thought of someone hurting her like that…

How much? How much did she have to take?

Her
“I’m so tired of being me”
had chased him into his dreams, mind-fucking him and making him jerk awake at odd times throughout the night.
 

If Jace knew or was responsible, Doyle was going to fucking kill him.

Knuckles rapped on the shower door and he looked at his ex-wife and ex-sub. “Coffee. You look like you need it.”

He needed it with a shot of Irish. Pushing open the door, he turned off the water, stepped out and took the peace offering. He drank first then dried off, wandering into his closet for a pair of jeans and a shirt from one of the events at the girls’ school. Despite the seclusion of his home, he wasn’t much of a rock star here. He had the small music studio tucked behind the house but that was about it. Hell, even his toy bag didn’t come here. Who would he use it on? Claire? That bridge had been burned a long time ago. Plus the girls were always coming and going. That’s all he needed.

Here he got to be Doyle Kolemann, just like it said on his property bill and birth certificate.
 

Pushing open the double doors to his bedroom, he stepped out onto the wood deck that gave him an amazing view of the Strait of Georgia. Bracing his arms on the railing, he looked down to the rocky beach where he could see the girls. Home.

Claire settled beside him, also watching those two beautiful lives they created. “You look tired, Doyle.”

“Ten months of hotels, buses, planes and Jace-fucking-Jennings are enough to exhaust me. Fuck being tired, doll.”

“You hate it so much. Why not leave?”

“And what, Claire?” Dani’s laugh drifted up to them. It came from the belly and always made him grin. How the hell had he made up half of those two girly-girls? “Find a new band? How many are here? So I what? Relocate? See the girls sporadically because we both know you wouldn’t follow. This is home. I’m too old to start over again. I love what I do. I just hate that fucker so bad.”

She was quiet, well aware of his feelings toward his band mate. “You miss so much on tour, Doyle. They miss you so much. Willow’s talking about dating.”

“Fuck that. She’s twelve. No boys for ten years. Minimum.” Dating? Jesus. He was not ready for that. Funny how that hadn’t come up in all their chats. Retirement. He was forty-two. Yeah, he had enough money he never needed to work again even while giving Claire enough alimony and child support that she didn’t need to work. Even cracked out of his head, he had been meticulous about his earnings. Investments and business deals to fatten the account. He had been poor. He wasn’t going to do it again. His daughters weren’t going to go through that either. But what would he do? His last hobby had put him in the hospital with a stomach pump and a defibrillator and his wife threatening to walk away with his kid.

“Kate Jennings,” Claire said quietly. “Seriously, Doyle? She’s what? Twenty?”

His eyebrows rose as he looked at her. “Seriously? We’re playing the age card? She’s twenty-four. You know that. Over the halfway mark, which puts her out of mid-life crisis zone.”

She snorted into her mug. “You’re such an asshole.”

He grinned and looked away. “I hit a trigger with her and it was bad. It was really fucking bad, Claire.”

She rubbed his back and rested her head against his shoulder. “You’re good with those. Be careful with this though.”

“Do you really think Jace will give a fuck? Now? Caring isn’t one of his strengths.”

“You’re being an asshole, Kolemann.”

He was. Jace didn’t factor into this. “I’m going to hurt that girl, Claire. She’s…fragile.”

“That’s part of the process sometimes. She’s survived Belinda and Jace. She’s tougher than you’re giving her credit for.”

He looked at his ex. Her strawberry blonde hair was in a new pixie cut and her blue eyes filled with a joy and contentment that he had never been able to put there. He had tried. She had tried. His pretty girl. That joy and contentment came from the ring on her finger, from a man who didn’t have to try. “You subs are like that.”

She grinned and her dimples appeared. “You know it.”

“Brat.” Her eyebrows rose as she sipped her coffee, looking all innocent. “Have you talked to Daisy lately?”

“No. Why?”

“Daaaaaaad!”

Doyle finished his coffee. “Call Daisy, Claire. It’s seven in the morning, keep it down,” he shouted at Dani. Even from his vantage point he could see her smile. She waved and returned to checking out the tide pools. Claire rubbed his back, then left him. He looked over his shoulder, staring at his cell and with a muttered curse, he opened up a text window.
You good?

Seven
, came the response.
Seven.

I warned you about the bratting.

Zzz.

Are you good, Kate?

Yes, Sir.

Fuck. Even in text it got to him. He shoved his phone into his back pocket. He ditched his mug for a pair of worn sneakers, then went out to join his daughters. Willy grinned at him, flashing new metal over her teeth. “So, are you able to go through airport security with all that?”

“Daaad.” She rolled her eyes even as she giggled. She grabbed his hand and swung their arms and he admitted that he liked that even at the wise age of twelve she still did that. “Are we still going to work on my song?”

“Yep. Mind the dead jellyfish,” he said, deadpan. She shrieked, jumped and hit him as she saw there was nothing there. “Just testing.” She had been Dani’s age when she hadn’t minded his warning and stepped on a dead jellyfish. There was no coming back from that. It was, they had decided a year later, better than when she had slipped in the mud and landed on a rotting trout corpse that some bear had passed on. “I thought about what you asked, Will, and I’m going to pass.”

“But—”

“If I judge the contest, honey, you can’t enter. I’d rather you enter.” Last night she had pitched him to be a judge in a songwriting contest that had just opened up an under eighteen category. He watched her consider that, then she nodded.
 

“I’d rather I entered too.”

Hooking an arm around her neck, he kissed the top of her head. The German shepherd mix who had decided that both his and Claire’s homes were also his came out of the trees and raced toward them. He gave a happy bark as he discovered a beached log and decided that was his new stick.
 

When his marriage had finally gasped its last breath before dying, and after the hot flash of anger had faded, they had sat down to decide what was best not just for the girls but for all four of them. He loved his three girls. They had, in that magic way love did, changed his life. It wasn’t just him being sober but that empty core inside him had been filled. First by Claire, then Willow and finally Danielle. Not being a part of their life had terrified him. Nightmares of pills and overdoses had haunted him.

After the dust had settled, this was the solution. Claire had gotten the house and he had built on the land next door. There was a well-worn path marching from her place to his where the kids traveled whenever they wanted when he was home. No paperwork saying only weekends. If they wanted to be at his place, they were at his place. Sometimes one, sometimes both. His divorce was better than his marriage. Hell, he had walked Claire down the aisle when she had remarried. Claire would always be his family because of Willy and Dani. Somewhere along the way, his ex-wife had transformed into his best friend. Go fucking figure.

Only one marriage out of the band had lasted and that was saying something. There were messed up kids everywhere who became secondary. The moment he had held a weird looking alien baby in his hands the job had become secondary. Ironic since he had been so hungry for fame and money, the music a catalyst for a lot of the shit in his life. Despite what he had said to Claire, if he had to pick, he’d ditch Cyanide faster than hell.

“You’ll come over tonight?” Willow asked.

He nodded and they both watched Scamp find a smaller stick, what looked like a sapling, carrying it along the beach all proud and shit. A second hand slid into his and he looked down at Dani. “Hey, baby.”

A happy sigh came from her as she rested her head against his arm. It was an amazing thing to realize he wasn’t fucking up his kids. They weren’t overly spoiled, they weren’t in the eye of a camera, they weren’t putting shit up their nose because their old man did and they weren’t looking at the world with sad eyes. Not bad for an asshole like him. Not bad at all.

****

Chin resting on her bent knee, Kate stared at the sketch pad that had nothing on it. Her finger flicked the drum stick back and forth. Yesterday’s shopping spree at her favorite flea market had landed her a violin case, an old acoustic guitar, and a bag of assorted scrap. The bag had been a gold mine. A collection of guitar picks that were broken, a piano key, a drum stick, a broken guitar string. Oh the beauties that had been bagged up for her, salvaged from things that wouldn’t normally sell. She was currently lusting over an old piano and was trying to justify the cost and adding it to her inventory. She already had two pianos in various states of disembowelment. Did she need a third?

You betcha.

But her loft was getting crowded, so denying herself the piano made her heart ache just a smidge. The loft was hers. The minute she had seen it, she had lusted. It had been the high ceilings because that meant high walls. High walls meant storage. One wall was made up of custom shelves that held small items from all kinds of strings to wind instruments to salvaged items off instruments. It had given her a total rush when she had begun to fill them. Instruments in various stages of dismemberment were on the walls like artwork. A gutted cello, her guitar collection. Her two pianos were equally gutted. Heck, she even had a drum kit she had found for cheap at a garage sale. Hanging between her massive track lighting system were all kinds of bows from stringed instruments. Her rolling safety ladder got a hard workout some days.

Thanks to Cyanide’s manager, she had an endless supply of guitar picks, broken guitar and bass strings, and black drum sticks that had been broken or worn down. She had the broken guitar from when Jace had been drunk and smashed it. She had all the old, dead amplifiers and even a cymbal from Doyle’s drum kit because he hadn’t liked its sound. If the band was given free instruments or accessories they didn’t like, they were in her inventory.