Page 37 of Fury
Bethy smiled, lips still trembling. “Then Mason and the rest.”
***
Bethy waited, ringing phone held to her ear, eyes closed against the afternoon sunshine. Still slightly swollen from her afternoon crying jag, they burned every time she opened them. A final ring and then voice mail picked up, Sarge’s voice brusque and gruff as it demanded, “Leave a message.”
“Sarge, it’s Bethany.” She’d stick with the name he most often called her, hoping he would pair her voice and name, and come up with the right person. “I’m coming up to see Ty. I’ll be there this evening. Call me and let me know if there’s a time that’s best. Otherwise, I’ll aim at around seven.” She disconnected abruptly, without a farewell. By not asking permission, she’d hopefully taken away Sarge’s ability to deny her access to Ty. It wasn’t something she’d ever demanded before, but she knew where the facility was, having picked Ty up more than once.
As she’d predicted, right at seven she wheeled her car up the long, sweeping drive that wound between trees. She parked next to a muddy SUV with a comical spare wheel cover that read, “If you can read this, call help” in upside-down lettering.
As she was unfolding from the car, stretching after the two-hour drive, the front door of the cabin opened and Sarge walked out to stand at the top of the steps, staring down at her. “Hi.” She waved, slamming the door and stepping to the side. “I’m here to see Ty.”
“So I gathered.” He didn’t move, and where he stood with arms folded across his chest, she would have to push past him to gain access to the porch, much less the building. “He’s not in a good place, Bethany.”
“I know.” She decided to offer him a little more information, hoping he would understand it didn’t matter what condition Ty was in mentally, she would always be his friend. “I spent some time with Dot, so I know how things were when you came and got him. I wasn’t there.” She swallowed, trying to shove down the guilt that followed that statement. “I’ve always been there, and I wasn’t. Please.” She swallowed again, holding her eyes unblinking, trying to force away the sudden tears by willpower alone. “I need to see Ty.”
“He ever talk about being here?” Now she blinked, because that wasn’t what she expected him to ask. She shook her head, and then nodded, because Ty had, once.
“Only one time. He said your methods of helping your men”—they were all Sarge’s men, whether they’d served together or not, once he took them in they became his—“were unorthodox, but he also said it helped him and some others so much more than they’d ever gotten from the government. I don’t care what’s going on, what you’ve got cooked up in there, as long as it keeps making Ty better.”
Sarge’s eyes had narrowed as she spoke, his lips flattening in reaction, but she didn’t know him well enough to read that expression. It could be anger at Ty for talking at all, or satisfaction that she was placing her trust in him.
They continued to stand like that, in opposition both figuratively and literally. Bethy refused to allow her gaze to drop, so she stared at Sarge and she waited. His lips flattened even more and he sighed. “Okay.” She smiled and reached for the handrail, putting her foot on the first step. “Wait.” She froze, because when Sarge said anything in that tone, it paid to listen. “I have more men here than just Tyrell. I won’t compromise the privacy of my other men by allowing you inside.” Tipping her head towards one shoulder, Bethy waited in silence as he sighed again. “I’ll talk to him and bring him outside.” He took a step back and pointed towards a sagging upholstered armchair wedged into the corner. “Wait here.” She nodded and sat. Pulling out her phone, she brought up a word guess game she’d been trying to beat. Wordlessly he stalked past her and inside.
Her phone’s battery was at 50 percent when the door opened again and a sleepy-looking Ty stumbled out, Sarge’s hand clamped on his bicep. She jumped to her feet, then felt the smile on her face crack, sliding away as she looked at Ty. His lids were drooping over badly bloodshot eyes, and that paired with his faltering gait told her he’d been smoking a great deal of pot. The grin he gave her was pure Ty though, and his arms opened in an invitation she would never ignore. Even as he folded her against him, arms curling tight around her, Sarge was maneuvering him to sit in the chair she’d abandoned. Ty pulled her down with him and she didn’t argue, just crawled up into his lap and rested against his broad chest.
He held her for a moment and then let out a sigh that seemed to begin at his toes and work its way up his body, muscles relaxing in a wave. “You always feel like home, Bethy.” She smiled, her face hidden in his shirt. The interlude lasted a few seconds more then he tensed and she knew what would be coming next.
Shaking her head, she leaned back and squinted at him. “Don’t.” The sober expression on his face didn’t change. “Just don’t, Ty. None of this is your fault.”
“I shoulda called Sarge earlier.” Bethy felt her brows draw down into a scowl, but he just looked at her. “I shoulda. I knew it, and thought to myself, ‘Oh, hell. I can do this.’ But I was wrong, Bethy. I’m always going to need someone to help me see when things start to fall back on themselves.”
“And I’ll be there.” Ty shook his head as he tightened his arms, one big hand traveling up to cradle her head, pulling her against his chest. She didn’t fight him, letting him hold her as he needed even as she argued her point. “Every time it’s a little better.” He didn’t say anything, just shifted so he was more comfortable and stayed seated, her in his lap. “I’ll be there, Ty.”
The shadows of the trees around the cabin had lengthened, working their way up the outer walls and shrouding much of the clearing in dim twilight when Sarge spoke. Ty had gone to sleep long ago, his arms still wrapped around her even as he slumbered. “He’ll do better in one of my homes.” Bethy tilted her head, cutting her eyes so she could see his shape as he leaned against the post. “I have staff there all the time, and he’ll be around the other guys he knows. Being on his own is something he’ll have to work back up to, Bethany.”
She knew it was best. It was something Sarge had talked to Ty about in the past, and Ty had always turned down the offer and come home, telling her he didn’t want to move. Maybe staying in that apartment was holding him back. She could keep the place, she made plenty of money with the studio, so that wasn’t a consideration.I’ve never had to be alone. Other than the scant times Ty had spent up here at the cabin, she’d never lived alone. She’d gone from her father’s house to her husband’s at fourteen, then to Ty’s at sixteen, and lived there since. The prospect was terrifying, but for Ty…I’ll do anything.
“It’s not your fault, Bethany, any more than it’s his.” With one sentence, Sarge had hit on the emotion that kept swirling around her. She’d spent nearly the entire drive up here muttering various renditions of, “If I’d only been there.” Logically, Bethy knew she couldn’t take the blame, because her extended stay in Lamesa hadn’t been in her plans.Still. “He’s managing better than before. Take strength from that.”
The soft tone in his voice hit her like a stick crashing down on the overstretched head of a drum, breaking and shredding the faltering control she had. Bethy didn’t lift a hand to wipe the tears, trying to keep them silent as things from the past week battered at her. Threats, actual threats against her family, real enough to warrant frighteningly tight security; Fury, there and gone again, leaving her with a series of texts that stripped their encounter of anything important; Mason, always the puppeteer, pulling her strings yet again; Ty, needing her and not finding her, so far gone in his head that his mother’s voice trembled when she spoke of how she’d found him.Too much. Her shoulders shook and she heard a choked noise, realizing it came from her throat.It’s just all too much.
“Hey, Bethany, he’ll be better.”I won’t be. Strong arms shoved underneath her, peeling her away from Ty’s chest and Sarge backed up against the wall, sliding down to sit on the porch, her in his lap. “Don’t cry.” She tried, clamping her lips to keep the cries inside, holding herself stiff and trying to touch him as little as possible. “Hey, don’t cry.”
Rough fingers touched her chin, hooking under the edge of her jaw and lifting. Before she could take a breath, his mouth was covering hers, the brush of lips light and gentle, delicately working across to the corner of her mouth. “Hey.” Sarge pulled back and she opened her eyes, staring at him. He looked confused, as bewildered by his behavior as she was. “I’m sor—I didn’t mean to intrude, Bethany. I just.” The pad of his thumb glided in front of her ear, and down the side of her throat. “I don’t like it when women cry.”
She snorted a laugh at the idea and then reached up to wipe her tears finally, chasing the feeling of tightness across her cheeks. “So, you kiss them?”
A haze of red began to creep up the curve of his ears, matching color blooming on his cheeks and neck. “Not generally, no.”
“I’m the lucky winner of the lottery, then?” She shifted and froze, her ass cheeks sliding across his very evident erection. “I just...had a shit week, Sarge. No application of kisses necessary. That’s part of the problem, anyway.” She decided to ignore his physical reaction and pushed on his chest, intending to move to sit beside him, but his arm tightened around her waist, holding her in place. Ty let out a groan, and she glanced over at him, catching sight of his face, slack-jawed and about to…a loud snore broke the quiet and she laughed quietly.
“What happened in Texas?” Sarge pulled her attention back to him, and she studied his face for a moment before deciding to continue the path of truth she’d begun with him so many months ago.
“My brother’s in a MC. You know what that is?” He nodded. “Well, he had one of his men acting as my ‘security’ while I was in Lamesa.” Bethy rolled her eyes as she gave the word the air quotes it deserved. “I fucked up and slept with him.”
“Bad deal, mixing business and pleasure like that.”
“No, shit. I knew better, but there was just…Fury, that’s the guy’s name, he seemed familiar somehow. Safe. And I thought it was…” She sighed. “More. But it wasn’t.”
