Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (15 page)

I watched him do this, thrown, because
apparently he felt he had to go with me, then I darted my hand out
and curled it around his wrist.

He looked back at me.

“You don’t have to go in,” I told him. “I’ll
get the coffees and come out.”

His eyes moved over my face, his expression
not giving anything away, until suddenly his wrist twisted,
disengaging mine but only so he could catch my hand, lift it, and
jerk it. He did this hard enough to bring me closer to him, not
hard enough to cause any pain.

When I was leaning across the cab, he leaned
in to me.

“I’d never do anything to harm you and I’d
never do anything to put you in danger,” he declared.

In the face of going to get coffee before a
road trip, that was suddenly and surprisingly heavy.

If welcome.

“Okay,” I agreed.

He continued, “The only lie you live is
calling me Priest. That’s already asking too much. I won’t ask
more. That means you don’t hide me. You don’t protect me. You want
it, we find our way to it, I’m your man. In your life. When I’m
here, I’m at your side. Not secret. But that’s your call. You don’t
want me walkin’ in there with you, I sit in the truck. You wanna
work toward us findin’ a way for me to be a part of your life, I go
in with you.”

“I want you to go in with me,” I replied
immediately and just as immediately he released my hand.

But he did it so his could flash out,
fingertips grazing my jaw as they moved back into my hair. He
curled them in, putting pressure on, pulling me to him as he bent
to me, and when he got me where he wanted me, he kissed me
dizzy.

I started blinking when he released my mouth,
expending effort to focus on him as I tried to get over the kiss
and more, what he’d said through it.

“Then let’s get my Cassie a coffee,” he
muttered, letting me go, and turning to his door.

My Cassie.

Seriously, I was wondering who’d actually
taken up the challenge.

Because it might not be big and grand, full
of words, flowers, orchestras playing, fairy dust filtering through
the air, but he found his quiet but spectacular ways to make me
more and more happy. He did it repeatedly. And he did it
successfully.

Which meant I had to step up my game.

* * * * *

I was halfway through my huge-ass, awesome,
Mexican cinnamon coffee and we were a quarter of the (silent, so
far) way to our destination when it hit me.

Last night, I’d prodded gently.

And if Deacon didn’t want to answer, he
didn’t. He didn’t do it mean. He didn’t shut me down (well, not in
an overt way). He didn’t get angry.

He just didn’t answer.

So I turned to him and stated, “Right, Deacon
Deacon, tell me something.”

At my
Deacon Deacon
, I saw the grooves
form at the side of his mouth, his eyes crinkling, and this
heartened me.

When I was done speaking, he invited,
“Shoot.”

“I’m taking it the license you gave me was
fake.”

“Yup,” he answered easily.

“Is it your only one?” I asked.

“Nope. Got eight.”

I stared but I did it with my lips
moving.

“Eight?”

“Yup.”

Interesting.

I took a sip of coffee, experienced its
goodness, and went on.

“Where’s home?”

“Home?”

“Home. Your house. Where you go when you’re
not working.”

“Where I went when I wasn’t working was cabin
eleven, Glacier Lily.”

I felt my body go still.

Whoa.

That couldn’t be.

“Really?” I asked.

He glanced at me and back at the road.
“Yup.”

“I…you…” I shook my head. “You come to the
cabin pretty infrequently.”

“That would be ’cause I work a lot,
Cassidy.”

I faced forward but sat back in my seat,
trying to process this information.

It was impossible to process that information
so I changed topics.

“Can you tell me the difference between
Deacon and John Priest?”

There was a moment’s pause before he replied,
“Handful of people know me as Deacon.”

He said no more so I looked to him and used
the word, “Okay,” as a prompt.

He again glanced at me then back to the road
before he went on.

“Every one of them I trust with my life.
Every one of them I’d trust with
your
life.” He paused
before he asked, “Do you get that, Cassidy?”

I got it. I liked it. Even if it was slightly
scary, it was also kind of sweet.

“Yes,” I answered.

He said nothing further but I decided it was
time to get down to it.

That said, I didn’t particularly
want
to get down to it, but it was time.

So I asked (though I did it cautiously), “Are
you a criminal?”

He didn’t hesitate with his answer.

“I don’t pay taxes.”

I felt my head give a slight jerk at this
informatively uninformative (but still scary) response.

“Sorry?”

“I have work. I make money. I get paid in
cash. And the government does not know I exist.”

Yep. I didn’t want to get down to it.

Still, we were here and he was answering so I
kept at it.

“And is what you do for cash illegal?”

He kept his eyes to the road even as he
reached for his coffee. I watched him take a sip, return it to the
cup holder, and then he again spoke.

This time his tone was gentle even if the
words were not.

“I’ll tell you this, if you knew from start
to now about what I do, how it began, why I do it, and you had a
problem with it, I’d think straight up you’re a judgmental bitch.
Then I’d walk out the door and you’d never see me again.”

At that, I did a slow blink.

But he wasn’t finished.

“I’m good at what I do. There’s a reason I do
it. I believe in that reason. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a part
of a world that will never—if I become a part of your life in a way
that’s lasting, it’s important you hear this, woman—it will not
ever touch you.”

“I’m not sure any of that makes sense,” I
said softly, saying that instead of saying that he was speaking but
he wasn’t really giving me anything.

“It does to me and that’s all you need to
know.”

That was not gentle, but firm and
unyielding.

In other words, he didn’t intend to give me
anything.

“That’s the part that makes the least sense,”
I returned, still talking quietly.

“That’s the part where you have to take a
leap of faith with this, believe in what you felt when you made
your choice yesterday, that bein’ believin’ in me.”

“I barely know you,” I pointed out.

“You barely knew me and you brought me pie,”
he returned.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Again with the pie.

Man, seriously. It sucked that he knew the
significance of that pie.

“You barely knew me and you got naked on that
table for me,” he kept going.

I looked back through the windshield, and
before taking another sip, muttered, “You’ve made your point,
Deacon.”

“Not sure I have.”

Now he was talking quietly, his tone so
changed, my gaze went back to him.

He must have felt my eyes because he kept
going.

“All of this is your choice.”

“I know it is,” I replied.

“Any time, you can go back on that
choice.”

I sucked my lips between my teeth, not liking
that idea and finding that I kind of wanted Deacon to go back to
nonverbal communication.

Or silence.

“You change your mind,” he carried on, “I
won’t like it, but I’ll submit to it.”

“That feels sweet at the same time not so
much,” I admitted.

“Yeah,” he muttered to the windshield, again
speaking like he was talking to himself. “Your world, a man gets
hold of you, he’s a fool, he lets go.”

His words made me pull in a soft breath.

He looked to me and finished, “I don’t live
in your world.” Then his eyes went back to the road.

I knew this but having it confirmed, waking
up tucked to his back, being in his Suburban, it hit me with a
clarity it never had before because I’d accepted him in my life. A
man who existed most of his time in a world I’d never share, and I
had a feeling I wouldn’t want to, but even if I did, he wouldn’t
let me (which made me know I was right about that feeling).

And that clarity was what that would mean to
me, not just right then, but if it happened that he became a bigger
part of my life, my world, like he’d mentioned frequently.

If he became my man.

If, when he was with me, he was at my
side.

If he met my friends. My family.

If the time came where life needed to be
lived.

Commitment.

Babies.

This made me ask, “Forever and ever?”

“No, baby,” he said instantly, his hand
moving to curl around my thigh, a gesture of affection and
connection that he was spare in giving when we were not in bed,
making each one he gave more meaningful. But at that moment I was
glad he gave it because it was what I really needed. “You do not
live in that world forever. You find your way in it while that way
is healthy and then you get the fuck out.”

That made me feel better.

“So, when—?”

“I don’t know,” he cut me off to answer my
unasked question. “I just know for the first time in ten years, I
got an incentive to find the door outta that world and use it.”

There was a lot there even when there weren’t
that many words.

Most of it was good, that part being it was
clear I was his incentive.

The ten years, though, that was
intriguing.

“Bein’ in that world, Cassie,” he went on,
“you gotta know, even when I find that door, in some ways, it’ll
always be with me.”

“It’s with you now,” I noted. “And I’m with
you now knowing it. So why would I care if it stays with you?”

His fingers squeezed hard at my thigh but he
didn’t say anything.

Back to nonverbal communication.

I drew in a breath and released it.

Then I asked, “Ten years?”

His hand left my thigh and went to his
coffee. He took a sip, put it back in the holder, and put his hand
back to the wheel.

Okay, that one he wasn’t going to answer.

I looked to the road and took my own sip of
coffee.

No music, no words, we sat there in silence.
I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was wondering if I was crazy
at the same time knowing I totally was and not caring even a little
bit.

This, of course, making me crazier.

“Magnificent.”

Deacon said this on a mutter, breaking the
silence.

I looked at him again. “Sorry?”

“The way you laid it out for that punk-ass
bitch before you stomped outta that cabin. Fuck, so goddamned
magnificent, if I wasn’t fightin’ the urge to rip five teenage
fuckwads’ throats out, I would have clapped. “

I grinned at him, feeling the heaviness in
the air dissipate and going with that flow.

“That
was
good, wasn’t it?”

“Nope,” he disagreed. “It was
magnificent.”

I kept grinning but did it at the windshield.
“I find it amusing that you call them punk-ass bitches. Not to
mention apropos.”

“Apropos?”

“Fitting,” I explained.

“Know what it means, woman, just don’t know a
single person who would use it.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

There was a slender thread of humor in his
voice when he muttered, “Look forward to that.”

I liked that thread of humor. Even slender, I
didn’t care. It was there. And I gave it to him.

“That’s why,” he stated confusingly and I
looked to him again.

“What?”

“That and your eyes.”

I didn’t say anything, just watched him
drive.

He said something. “And your Christmas
kiss.”

Oh my God.

My Christmas kiss. He remembered my Christmas
kiss.

“Deacon,” I whispered.

“And a hundred other things,” he stated.

I went silent again.

He kept talking.

“That’s why I’m bein’ a dick. Why I didn’t
leave you on that table and walk out, like I should. Why I kept
comin’ back when I knew I shouldn’t, every time courtin’ my control
slippin’ so I’d be in the place where things got outta hand and I
got your back on that table. Why cabin eleven was home to me for a
few days every year, the only home I had, ’cause you were
there.”

“You’re gonna make me cry,” I warned on a
whisper, my voice already clogged with tears, feeling that emotion
at the same time being annoyed that he was again doing
way
better at making me more and more happy.

He didn’t look at me.

He said to the road, “You gotta know.” He
reached to his cup, took a sip, and finished on a murmur, “Now you
know.”

“Now I know,” I replied, still
whispering.

He finally fell silent.

I put my coffee in my cup holder, undid my
seatbelt, and leaned across the cab where I kissed the hinge of his
jaw then said in his ear, “Thank you for telling me.”

“Gotta know something else, Cassie,” he told
the road.

I dropped my forehead to his shoulder.
“What?”

“Anything. You want it, I got it in me to
give it to you, you got anything from me.”

My hand darted to his thigh and curled tight
as tears pricked my eyes.

“Now, baby, sit back and belt up, yeah?” he
ordered gently.

“Yeah,” I said to his shoulder, shifted to
touch my mouth to his neck, then I sat back and belted up.

I looked to the road.

Deacon drove.

Silently.

* * * * *

“So badasses play footsie,” I noted, my ass
on the pad in my sanded and repainted Adirondack chair, my stocking
feet up on the railing, tangled with Deacon’s.

“Yup,” Deacon replied nonchalantly and I
looked his way to see his gaze to the trees, his hand wrapped
around a glass of my good Kentucky bourbon, his profile soft and at
peace.