Page 47 of Blackbeard
If Dad pulled me out now, everything we’d worked for, every inch of ground I’d painstakingly earned so far would bethrown out the window. Did the Blackjacks trust me? No. But Blackbeard was getting there.
Besides, no one would explicitly state it to my face, but I knew the gossip would fly behind my back. Daddy’s Little Princess had screwed up the whole plan by getting herself shot.
Deep in the back of my mind, a voice whispered skeptically.
Was I really staying to prove myself? So I didn’t blow my cover?
Or was there another reason—a more selfish reason—for choosing to stay?
I had to watch my step from now on. The line between reality and fiction was beginning to blur. If I wasn’t careful, I might start developing real feelings for my husband…
Chapter eleven
Blackbeard
For the next two weeks, Leigh stayed at home and rested, regaining her strength, little by little.
Somehow, Abuela heard through the grapevine that Leigh wasn’t feeling well—whether she figured out it was a gunshot wound, and not the flu or a stomach bug, I couldn’t tell—and stopped by with a giant container of soup, plying her with cup after cup of Mexican hot chocolate.
On more than occasion, I returned home to find Abuela and Leigh in the living room, laughing and chattering like school girls.
I should have felt some nagging concern that Leigh was ingratiating herself so easily and smoothly into the lives of my family. Especially when things with the Forsaken seemed to be even more volatile than ever before after Popeye barged into my home, blustering about breaking our contract.
But I couldn’t be here around the clock to keep Leigh company. I got the sense that she was listless and bored on herown, all day long. Abuela’s presence gave Leigh something to look forward to, and I was grateful for it.
Apart from that night when Leigh asked me to stay, I didn’t sleep in the same bed with her again. Not because I didn’t trust her.
I didn’t trust myself.
Even though she’d fallen asleep right away, I had remained wide awake, hour after hour. The steady rhythm of her breathing, the softness of her skin beneath my hands, and the scent of her in my lungs made me start to question…had I been too harsh with her all this time?
Leigh was always alert, scanning every word of every conversation. Prepared to fire off a devastating quip that could be anything from salacious flirtation to scathing sarcasm.
But holding Leigh that night while she slept, wrapped up in my arms, it made me realize how young she truly was. Fragile, too, as my fingers skated over the bandage at her side.
When she was awake, Leigh was vibrant, dynamic, with a larger than life attitude that rendered her a force to be reckoned with.
Until that bullet grazed her. Until she fell to the pavement, blood spilling between her fingers.
Her façade had cracked just a little. Just enough to glimpse the real woman underneath the bravado she wore to survive in a world that would have snuffed her out if she didn’t learn how to fight back.
No, I couldn’t share the same bed with Leigh. Not again. Not when I felt myself slipping and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to pull myself back to safety.
“Hire me,” Leigh declared.
She slapped a piece of paper on the table next to me, displaying a printout of a help wanted ad. The same ad that the Blackjacks had plastered on every job board and in every newspaper throughout Brightwater.
I choked on my early dinner, wolfing it down as fast as possible. Abuela’s heating unit went out last night, so I spent all morning fixing that. Then I got cornered by half a dozen cousins, peppering me with questions about my new wife.
On top of that, it was my turn to tend the bar at the clubhouse tonight, and I was running late already. I could cop out and push it onto Crash, but I hated shirking my responsibility in the club unless it was an emergency. As VP, I didn’t earn my position by foisting the work onto someone else when I didn’t feel like doing it, and I wouldn’t make a habit of it now.
“You're serious?" I replied.
Leigh’s eyebrows flicked upward. I shook my head.
“You need to stay off your feet.”
She gave a dramatic groan.
