Club Scars (25 page)

“Hold that on there and let’s get you out of these wet clothes and see how much damage is done,” she said, giving her a little smile. “Such grace.”

Kat tried to smile at the shared joke as Ginny efficiently stripped her sopping pajamas. She couldn’t help thinking Gin would’ve made a good nurse.

“You have a few cuts here but nothing too bad. I’m going to grab some bandages and clean clothes for you. You stay put.”

Nodding at the queen’s instructions, Kat numbly watched the other woman hurry through the living room and up the stairs. She closed her eyes for a moment. She’d called her best friend because she was the one person she could always count on not to be judgmental. She shook her head and looked at Cam. Still, what must Gin be thinking? She was a mother now. She didn’t have the luxury of being a basket case.

She looked down at the card on the floor and her heart ached. Tears pricked the back of her lids and she shook her head. She was a mother now. Cam was counting on her. She needed to pull her shit together. Her mother was dead. The flowers were a cruel joke, one more mind-fuck from her father and uncle. She knew this, but the damn words continued to cycle through her mind. The squeak of the stairs yanked her focus back to Ginny.

Kat didn’t have the energy to protest as Ginny bandaged her up and helped her slip into fresh pajama bottoms and a shamrock t-shirt. She took a deep breath and curled her toes as Ginny slipped green fuzzy socks on her feet. Ginny saw the card a moment before Kat could say anything.  She watched the color drain from her friend’s face and the tremor of her hand as she picked up the card. She’d probably looked much the same. People often said they looked like sisters. As fucked up as Ginny’s family was, Kat had often wished that were true. Anything had to be better than being a Merrick.

Ginny looked at the flowers and then back up at Kat. Fury flooded her beautiful features.

“You know this is bullshit, right? Daddy Dearest is fucking with you again. You can’t let that sick fuck mess with your head. You do, and he wins.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Ginny demanded, waving the card at her. “I know how much you want to believe this, but why would she wait twenty years to contact you? If your mother was alive she’d have found a way sooner than this and she sure as hell wouldn’t be still using that animal’s last name.”

Kat took a shuddering breath and nodded. Even in her fucked up head she knew that Gin was right. It was her damn heart that wasn’t listening.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she whispered.

Ginny squeezed her knee and waited until she met her gaze.

“It’s going to be okay, little sister. You’re no crazier than the rest of us. Your hormones are bouncing around and amplifying this shit but it’s going to be okay. I promise you. Trust me.”

Forcing a nod, Kat reached down and covered Ginny’s hand on her knee. The queen cupped the hand between both of hers and kissed it.

“I promise, Kat. You’re going to be okay,” she said, her anger softening but a determination and certainty sparkling in her eyes that made Kat jealous. “Cam’s fussing. Why don’t you take him in the living room, check his diaper and see if he’s hungry or if he just wants cuddle time with Mommy. I’ll clean this mess up.”

Kat nodded again. It was just easier to do what she was told at the moment. She still felt numb. Picking up her son, she turned her back on the mess and drama and went to cuddle on the chaise.  

Ginny put a steaming cappuccino on the end table and eased the sleeping boy from Kat’s arms. Laying Cam in the portable playpen, she came over and sat down on the couch.

“What happened?”

Kat took a deep breath and looked away from the probing stare. Picking up the mug, she took an experimental sip of the hot beverage.

“I went to the door. It was Scott. The flowers were so beautiful. I was excited and blown away. You know Crux doesn’t send flowers often, but we had sex last night for the first time since Cam, and again this morning. This morning was incredible. I just thought my gruff old man was being sweet,” she said with a wry smile. “I was shooting the shit with Scott. You know what a nice kid he is. Then he says that he didn’t know Katrina was my real name.” Kat closed her eyes and played with the fringe on Cam’s blanket in her lap. “I freaked. Cam was in the kitchen alone and all I could see in my mind at that moment was the back door. I ran in there to check on him and Scott followed me. I never really thought about what a big kid he is until he was standing there in the arch. I know this sounds crazy now, but the way he was acting and talking about Cam, I thought he was working with my father.” She shivered and took another sip of her cappuccino.   

“It doesn’t sound crazy. Scott is a big kid. He played on the line next to Mox in High School,” Ginny said softly. “With the problems they’ve had with mood swings and his temper since the accident, I can see why your mind would’ve gone there.”

Kat shook her head with a mocking smile. “And all of that before I even saw the card. God, Gin. It is exactly the way she used to sign all the little notes she left me. She always used those fancy little squiggles and called me her
precious darling.
” Letting her head fall back against the cushions, she gave a humorless laugh. “The way things don’t like to stay buried in Trinity, I should’ve seen this one coming. I just miss her so much. Even after all these years, twenty-two years, and I think of her all the time. Since I found out I was pregnant I don’t think there’s been a day that I haven’t thought about her.”

“I think that’s natural.”

“Maybe my father’s right and I need another trip to the loony bin. It hurt so much. I just shut down. I couldn’t move. The words just kept running through my head. I’m sorry,” she whispered, gesturing helplessly toward her friend. “I know I can’t do that. Not with Cam. I know. I just --. Maybe he’s right and I’m not fit to be a mother.”

“Stop!” Ginny said forcefully. She leaned closer. “The fact that you were, are, worried about Cam shows that you’re a good mother.”

“He was crying and I was afraid to pick him up. I finally pulled his carrier down with me so I could rock him, but I couldn’t pick him up.”

“You did the right thing. A little crying isn’t going to hurt him. The experts preach that if you’re upset or angry when they’re crying you should leave them safe in their cribs and walk away until you calm down. This isn’t much different, Kat. Picking him up when you were like that wouldn’t have helped anyway because he would’ve felt your stress.”

“I felt so helpless just sitting there on the floor but I was so numb and my mind was buzzing.”

“When Rhys was little he was colicky and screaming non-stop one night. I thought I was going to go out of my damn mind. We were still living above The Lantern. I left him in his crib screaming and stepped outside the apartment and sat on the stairs with the door closed. I sat out there in the stairwell and cried and chain smoked until Zeke came home because there was nothing I could do and I didn’t trust myself to pick up my son,” Ginny said with a shake of her head. “You’re not alone, Kat. Mothers aren’t perfect.”

“What am I going to tell Crux?”

“That you didn’t take your father’s latest jab very well, but you’re going to get through it. Oh, and that your crazy ass friend will pay for the broken window.”

Kat sputtered into her cappuccino in laughter. “You don’t have to do that and I need to get you copies of the new keys.”    

“That would’ve been very helpful today.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in their cappuccino and thoughts.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to apologize, little sister.”

“It seems like you’re always cleaning up my messes.”

“You’re always the first one there to help a sister in need. You were there to hold my hand when the pub burned down. Who sat with Lee while Reaper was in the hospital?”

“We
all
were in the waiting room with Lee.”

“Yeah, and I suppose that wasn’t you making her tea.”

“How do you even remember this shit in the chaos?” Kat demanded with a frown.

“I don’t miss much.”

“Maybe you should’ve been a cop like your old man.”

“I have even less tolerance for bureaucratic bullshit than Zeke does,” Ginny said, smirking.

The sound of a car door made Kat tense. Ginny patted her leg and stood up.

“It’s probably the handyman, Carl Mynear. I called him when I was cleaning up and asked him to come take a look at the window. Sit tight. I’ll be right back,” she said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Rolling her eyes at Ginny’s stubbornness, she warmed her hands around the mug. The teeth chattering chill of shock had eased, but left her drained. The murmur of conversation floated from the utility room and she wondered how Ginny was explaining the flying branch she’d used to shatter and clear the window. A tired smile curved her lips. She couldn’t have asked for a better sister than Gin. They simply didn’t exist. There was nothing Ginny wouldn’t do for her family and it seemed like she always knew how to handle any situation. Kat smiled. She wanted to be Ginny when she grew up.   

Crux frowned at the plywood covering the back window.  What the fuck now? He hurried his step despite the obvious repairs. Having to mess with the lock and then the dead bolt made him grind his teeth and he had to remind himself that she was following his orders. He was calling her name before he closed the door.

“Kat?”

He let out his breath as his wife appeared in the kitchen, but his eyes narrowed on her face. She looked tense and exhausted.

“What happened?”

“I had a little mental melt down and my BF got a wee bit over zealous coming to put all the pieces back together again,” she said with a smile that struck him more sad than amused.  

Crux stepped up into the kitchen and pulled her into his arms. She pressed tight, a shudder running through her slender form as he tucked her under his chin.

“What happened, babe?”

“I got flowers from my mother,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and tightened his arms around her, swaying slightly on his feet. Kat’s shoulders heaved in a sob. Her fingers dug into his back like talons as she tried to burrow into him and hide. He didn’t say a word as she started to cry. Rocking her gently, he just held on.

When her tears were spent, she hiccupped against his chest but stayed close. As difficult as it was, he waited. She finally pushed back. The pain in her shimmering eyes threatened to bring him to his knees.

“You’re right. I don’t think. I’m not careful enough. I swear I thought I’d be the last damn person I’d call trusting and naïve, but maybe I am,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “I didn’t see this one coming. I thought they were from you.”

Crux winced trying to remember the last time he’d sent her flowers other than Cam’s birth. Her favorite or not, he had a feeling the chocolate covered animal crackers he’d picked up at the candy store on the way home paled in comparison on the romantic scale.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said with a shrug. “I should’ve known better. They weren’t even your style.”

“Meaning they were expensive and classy and you absolutely loved them?” Crux asked with a wry smile.

“Pretty much so. They were gorgeous lilies with pussy willow accents.”

“I approve of the pussy,” he said, giving her a gentle shake in his arms. The perverted comment at least earned him an amused snort and a light punch to his midsection.

“You’re such a man.”

“You know this is just the latest volley by the sick fuck right?”

Kat leaned her forehead against his chest, but nodded slightly. He cupped her nape, rubbing a thumb along the bow of her neck.

“There’s a difference between knowing and
knowing
,” she whispered.   

Crux sighed. He couldn’t really argue that. At least he’d had a body to ID when the bitch that had birthed him OD’d. Kat’s father had taken that mind-fuck to the limit, insisting Kassandra was alive and refusing Kat even the minimal comfort of closure.  

“I wish I could give you that certainty,” he said with a helpless shrug.

“I know. I just need to get my head on straight,” she mumbled into his chest. “If Scott had been working with my father today I’d be dead.”

“You think he wants you dead?”

“Who knows what he wants, but that’s the only way someone’s taking my son from me.”

Eighteen