Page 32 of Cutter's Hope

“Cuban cigars, moonshine and what else?” she asked softly. I froze and cocked my head to the side. Moment of truth, it seemed she knew some things. I didn’t know how or from where but if she held some truths… Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I want to tell you but it goes against our code, Darlin’, nothin’ heavy. I can tell you that much. We don’t traffic in girls, or hard drugs. Me and my boys are clean from any of the really dirty shit. Next school shooting you see on the news, I can confidently say me and my boys had no hand in it. You get me?” She searched my face and nodded carefully.

“I get you,” she said solemnly, “And I’m sorry I pointed a gun in your face.”

“They give it back to you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Good, point it at me again it won’t be just me fucking you and it won’t be just your pussy,” I told her and let that sink in.

“Right,” she said with a frown, I could tell she was trying to figure out if I was serious. I smiled to myself. She was mine. I would never let my guys pull a train on her, not in a million fucking years, still, if it served as some incentive to keep her gun pointed away from my face, I was okay with that.

“You aren’t serious, are you?” she asked finally and I chuckled.

“Usually I don’t mind sharing, but for some reason, with you, I got a problem with that,” I told her truthfully. She nodded carefully and I dished us up some food.

“Good to know,” she murmured and pushed to her feet. She went to the fridge and brought out a bottle of white. I wished I could say it was interesting that she wasn’t outwardly phased or outraged by a threat of rape but she’d been in the military and threats of that nature, hell,follow through, wasn’t an uncommon practice.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, why?” she asked.

“Suddenly feeling a little guilty for that asshole remark,” I told her.

She set the bottle and glasses on the counter and came to me, pulling me into her by the belt loops on my jeans. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down the couple of inches into her dark and lovely eyes.

“I’d knee you in the balls if it made you feel better but I’m going to need them later,” she murmured demurely and I chuckled darkly.

“Run for my money,” I uttered and kissed her softly, she bit my bottom lip playfully and I went from zero to hard in point three seconds.

“I’m hungry,” she whispered against my mouth, punctuating the statement with a chaste kiss before stepping back.

“Dinner is served as soon as you sit your ass down at the table and pour us some wine,” I told her. She smiled coyly over her shoulder and took the bottle and glasses she’d scared up to the table, pouring two generous glassfuls.

I brought the food over and we sat in silence, eating quietly, savoring our dinner. It was nice not having to fill the silence with inane chatter. Nicer still that she rose and did the dishes with me at the sink. Dishes done and put away I took her hand and linked my fingers with hers, leading her to the living room couch. We took our wine with us and sank into the leather, cooled by the house’s AC.

“Tell me about yourself,” I murmured.

“Not much to tell, really… My mother had me young, she was sixteen… then she had Faith when I was ten and Charity when I was 12,” she fell silent and I could tell that this was going to be a painful story for her.

“What about your dad?” I asked, low and careful.

“Took mom’s virginity, left her pregnant, and bounced, I never knew him. Only picture I saw was out of the high school yearbook. Mom never talked about him really, I don’t even have his last name. My mom put hers on the birth certificate. I’m not entirely sure the encounter was consensual if you catch my drift. Any time it came up she would just shut down, I’m not sure he even knows I exist.” I pulled her back against my chest and she took a large swallow of her wine.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, you can’t miss what you never had in the first place. I mean, am I right?” she laid her head back against my chest and I nodded slowly.

“I guess.”

“Anyways, mom met Dirk when I was eight or nine and they got hitched. A couple of years later she had Faith, then a year and a half, two years after that there was Charity. Dirk started drinking or drugging or both and Mom ditched his ass by the time Char was two and it was just the four of us. She hooked back up with him off and on while the girls grew up until I was around fourteen, then she lost him for good.” She was quiet for a minute, sipping her wine thoughtfully, before she roused herself to continue.

“Then Mom got sick when I was sixteen. She died the day after my eighteenth birthday. Thank God she managed to hang on that long, otherwise Dirk may have gotten Faith and Char and that was going to happen over my dead body. It was a fight and a half for custody as it was… I enlisted, Grammy helped out as much as she could ‘til I got through basic and the rest is sort of history,” she said.

“How old were the girls when your mom died?” I wanted to check my math.

“Eight and six, I went from big sister to sister-mom overnight,” she sighed and sagged into my chest a little, “Not like I would trade it for anything, I love my Bubbles and Blossom to death,” she smiled.

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