Page 11 of In It for the Long Ride

It killed me to do it. I’d dreamed of her tender, loving touch for over half my life. I was fucking haunted by the memory of it for so damn long.

I ripped open the liquor cabinet and said a prayer of thanks when I found a bottle of unopened Cognac. I gripped it tight and started back toward the kitchen. Daisy placed a shot glass on the table, and I filled it for her after wrestling the cork free.

I sank down into my chair, leaving her with the shot glass.

“Well… don’t you mean to drink it?” She laughed.

I stared into her eyes and swigged straight from the bottle.

“I see,” She whispered, and reached down for the drink.

She slammed the shot and sank down into her own chair. I knew she’d want to talk, and I wasn’t in the type of headspace one shared, so I refilled her glass, before she could return it to the table.

“Oh,” she managed, her eyes bugging.

I saluted her with the bottle and swigged long and hard from it again.

She hesitantly followed suit with her shot, but when I reached to refill her glass, she all but choked trying to offer out a protest before she could finish swallowing. She held the back of her hand to her mouth, and I took another haul of the Cognac.

It was warming my insides, and each breath was crisper than the last.

“That’s good shit.” I couldn’t keep the gravel out of my voice, and the sigh was all but plucked from me as I dug deep inside myself to scrounge up enough energy and wherewithal to lead her away from the wounds of my soul.

“Daisy, if Crystal is a cop, we’re all fucked.” I kept my voice low, and my face emotionless.

I didn’t want my words to be twisted into another argument, and I damn sure didn’t want to wake the boy up with talk of his mother.

Daisy violently shook her head, making the long, salt-and-pepper-colored curls tremble on either side of her features.

“That’s not true. You just need to start over with us. With me and the boy. You can do it. We can save him.” She began to frantically whisper, the hand with the shot glass started to lower toward the table.

“If we’re talking, you’re drinking. If you can’t keep up, I’ll go find Mak,” I bluffed.

Her jaw set and she stared at me like I was insufferable, but in the end, she downed that Cognac like she’d been shooting whiskey all her life.

“Good girl,” I grinned.

“Fuck you,” she shot back, her eyes lighting up with indignation.

I smothered a laugh and reached to blanket her hand with my own.

“There is a part of me that desperately wants to be that fucking selfish. To forget about it all and just be in it for the long ride with the woman of my dreams. With you.”

I saw the way the smile in her eyes flinched, it was hard not to with how intensely I was staring at her.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, was to come home to you,” I quietly continued.

“Then why didn’t you?” she blurted out, her words taking such a hard edge that I instinctively lifted my hand, expecting her to withdraw her own.

I let out a breath that was tinged with morbid, unintentional laughter.

“There’s something funny about that?” She’d kept her hand still, but now she tried to slide it away.

I planted mine on top of hers again and anchored it.

“There is nothing funny about the places my mind has been. I’ve seen what the darkness beyond hell looks like. For years,it was inescapable. There was a good, long, time when I simply could not fathom a day without suffering, I’d given up hope of both rescue and survival. The torment and depravity were something I won’t burden you with, but for what it is worth… I was never without you. Some men cling to Christ in their darkest hour. I clung to the image of your brown eyes, lit up and glistening with life. Your smile and the warmth of your hands, the knowledge that you were mine...”

I closed my eyes and conjured the feeling of her hands on my face again. They swiped away my tears and then her lips found mine, and I sucked in a startled breath.

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