The safehouse is a small wood cabin with a wide front porch. Cash's boots stomp up the front steps and he pulls open the screen door, gesturing for me to go ahead in a mock-gentlemanly sweep of his arm. I was expecting something rundown, but as I step inside I'm surprised to see it's been well maintained. The hardwood is old, but clean. There's a stone fireplace to my left, a cozy looking green gingham sofa and a TV. The kitchen is towards the back, next to a door that he informs me leads to a small deck.
This place is nicer than my trailer.
"Bedrooms and bathroom are on the right. Yours is the one towards the back." He says, shuffling immediately to the fridge for a beer. "I know you're tired, but Doc'll be quick, I promise."
I plunk down wincingly on the sofa, jostling my shoulder slightly. It's worn, but comfortable, nicer than the one I'm used to sleeping on.
"Want a drink?" He asks.
Scotch would be nice.
The urge to soothe my nerves is a strong, but with no food in my belly, I'm liable to get hammered after one sip.
"Just water."
He sets a glass down on the coffee table in front of me. It's cool against the scraped skin of my palm. I gulp it all down in one go, feeling his eyes on me. I must look like a wild animal; beaten, starved, and thirsty. I keep wishing he'll say something, crack the quiet open so it doesn't feel so strained.
"What'll happen to the Stella?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you want the Stella. Why?"
He shrugs. "The income."
I chew nervously on my lip. "The girls there"-
"We won't throw them out on their asses. If they want the work, they can stay."
I exhale shakily, satisfied with that answer. Where else would we even go? There aren't any other jobs in Throckmorton that pays like the Stella does. With Hoyt out of the picture, we could keep the majority of our earnings instead of forking them over as protection money.
Unless the Black Spades are interested in that too. Cash hasn't been revealing about his true intentions for wanting Hoyt gone. No doubt the drugs and the Stella are lucrative, but what if we throw Hoyt out of Throckmorton and then owe the Black Spades protection money instead?
"Listen," I begin, but the door bangs open and a woman enters dressed in green scrubs. She looks like she must be in her early thirties, with light bronze hair swept up in a bun and sharp, elegant features.
"This the patient?" She asks, pointing at me. Cash nods and she comes over, kneeling in front of the couch. "Mind if I take a look at your shoulder?"
"Please." I say, suddenly feeling a little shy as she gestures for me to remove my shirt. Cash stands and averts his gaze as the woman helps unwrap the sling and slip the t-shirt over my head. Something about a female presence is a little comforting, but I wonder what a medical professional is doing making house calls for the Black Spades - especially at this hour.
She pokes and prods at a few sore spots, apologizing as I wince.
"Have you put much weight on it since it came out of socket?" She asks.
"I tried not to." I glance up at Cash, whose face has paled slightly. "It got pulled backwards."
She winces. "Christ, that must have hurt."
"The pain's gone down a bit now that it's back in place."
She shoots Cash a glare so intense I can practically feel the heat of it. "Just because I showed you how you could set a shoulder doesn't mean you should do it yourself."
He meets her gaze with equal intensity. "Worked, didn't it?"
I wonder if there's something between them. They seem unusually terse with each other, yet here she is doing him a favour late at night.
"Cash, next time wait for me. You could have really fucked up her shoulder."
"Is it fucked up?"
"No."
"So there you go. I know what I'm doing." He folds his arms defensively across his chest, then his expression turns playful. "You sound like Mom when you lecture like that."
Oh. Siblings.
I wonder how I could have missed the resemblance. Her hair has red-tones, but they have the same sharp jawline and eye colour I still can't quite name. She's cool, I think. Kind of no-nonsense like Val.
They go quiet as she rewraps my shoulder, then cleans and bandages the gash on my thigh. I gasp as she presses against the bruising on my abdomen, but she informs me nothing's broken.
"You'll be sore for a while, but as long as you take it easy you'll heal up in no time."
Cash clears his throat. "Concussion? She almost blacked out earlier."
Doc shakes her head. "Not that I can tell. She must be hard-headed like someone else I know with a penchant for trouble." She stands, looking pointedly at her brother.
He ignores her, turning his attention back to me. "Think you can still work at the Stella with that arm busted up?"
"I can probably serve tables. I'll be careful." I glance at Doc, who seems less-than-satisfied with my response.
"She'll be out of the sling in a few days. Technically she can work, I guess." Doc murmurs, standing with a groan. "But don't use that arm to lift anything heavy, got it?"
"Thank you." I shoot her a grateful smile as she gets up. She mutters a terse goodbye to her brother, and then - just as quickly as she came - Doc is gone again.
I turn back to Cash. "You want me back at the Stella? What will I tell Hoyt?"
"What do you mean?"
"He'll be suspicious that Bliss and I haven't gone back to the trailer. His guys check up on that. And I-I need to get him his money."
He leans forward slightly, resting his forearms on the back of the couch. I can smell leather and mint. "I'll give you the money you need. He can't do shit to you anymore, okay?"
"Okay."
His eyes skate over my body. My discarded t-shirt is next to me on the couch. I'm so tired it didn't occur to me until now that I'm only in a bra.
Cash clears his throat. "I'll get you some things to sleep in."
I almost tell him not to bother, that I'd just have to unwrap and rewrap my shoulder yet again, but I've been in the same clothes for more than a day. He returns with a blue and grey button up flannel shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.
He gestures to the TV. "Feel free to put something on if you can't sleep." He disappears into the first room, presumably to crash. I fiddle with the remote until I find a generic true crime show. I barely watch, chewing on my lip.
What have I landed us in? Here I am agreeing to protection from a group of bikers without even thinking about what it means for me, but as long as Bliss is safe, does it really matter? Whatever the founder of the Black Spades feels I'm useful for, I can go along with it if it means Hoyt never gets his hands on her.
Out of the fire and into the fucking fryer.
At the very least, we don't have to run.
I get up to use the washroom and to change into the spare clothes. I think about moving to the bedroom, but when I peer into the dark room and clock the queen sized mattress, I balk. I tell myself a bed that size will be too strange compared to the trailer's sofa. I turn the TV down a bit, listening to the crickets outside until my eyes feel heavy and I drift off.
~~
I wake to the smell of coffee and the sound of cupboards banging shut. When I sit up, Cash rounds the sofa and sets a red mug down in front of me. Ironically, the white lettering across it says 'Home Sweet Home'. I take a tentative sip, avoiding his watchful gaze.
"Bed not good enough for you, princess?"
"Fell asleep watching TV." It's a half-truth. What else can I say? Your bed is too big, too nice. I'm well-adjusted to lumpy cushions and I don't want to get too comfortable here.
He nods, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He doesn't believe me. I am entirely transparent to this man, and I hate it. I might as well have a buzzing neon sign on my forehead that broadcasts my every thought to him. This is something I will have to adjust to.
He vanishes from my sightline and returns, tossing something at me. My denim jacket lands in my lap, along with a brown fast food bag. I look up at him, blinking in shock.
"When did you"-
"Went back for this on my way to grab some breakfast. Had one of the guys bring back your car, too." He parks himself next to me, the couch sagging under his weight. We sip our coffees in moderate silence. He's not wearing the leather jacket yet, dressed plainly in jeans and a t-shirt. The logo is so faded it could belong to a band or a pizza joint and I'd never be able to decipher which. I eye a sizeable collection of tattoos trailing from his knuckles all the way up to where the sleeves of his t-shirt are straining to contain his shoulders. My eyes rake over a black spade, a sparrow, a mermaid, the tendons in his hands flexing beneath a tiger, the sharp angle of his jaw.
At some point, I stopped breathing. I blink and turn away with a flush, hoping he hasn't noticed my one-way staring contest.
I unwrap my breakfast - a greasy egg and bacon mcmuffin - and devour it at a pace that seems to alarm the biker sat next to me.
"Should've bought you two." He muses. "When's the last time you ate anything?"
I'd denied a bite of Blister's lunch yesterday. I hadn't eaten during my shift at the Stella or at Val's. That meant my last meal had been Thursday afternoon, almost two days ago. It seems unnecessary to confide in this strange man, to suggest that I might need more to eat when so much has already been offered. I just shrug and mutter "it's been a while". I don't look up to see how this has resonated with him.
"I have to go out again today. Tex will watch you until I get back." Cash nods towards the front porch, where I can see a guy in a cowboy hat lounging in the rocking chair. "He just came from dropping off your sister."
I quirk an eyebrow. "I need watching?"
"Clearly. I found you with an open wound and a busted shoulder. You're a liability."
Not entirely incorrect, but ouch.
"I still don't know if you intend to bolt on me." He's looking at me intensely, like he's trying to pull a confession out from my behind my eyeballs.
"No plans to at the moment, but I'll keep you posted."
I stand, slide the denim jacket across my shoulders, and head for the porch. The guy in the cowboy hat doesn't hide his expression of momentary shock when I step out into the morning sun.
He's fair-haired and tanned, the dark suede of his hat contrasting starkly against his features. If his face weren't so youthful, he might look right at home on the cover of a harlequin romance novel set on a ranch. He must be nearer to my age, maybe younger.
"Hey." He says, hazel eyes giving me a once-over. "Wow, you and Georgie are twins."
"Georgie?" My eyebrows raise. "There's no way she let you call her that."
Tex grins, looking slightly guilty. "You'd be right, Miss Dallas, but I had to get her laughing somehow."
"You made her laugh?" I'm surprised by that. Blister doesn't warm up to people fast, certainly not strange men. She sounded so forlorn on the phone last night I'm surprised she didn't try to jump from his vehicle and take off into the bush.
"It took the entire drive, but eventually I cracked her. Took a joke about a horse, do you want to hear it?"
"Don't tell her the goddamn horse joke, Tex." Cash groans from the doorway. "The girl's been through enough."
"I can see that." Tex whistles. He talks at the pace of a breakaway horse. "Face is a mess. Still pretty though. That shoulder busted?" He moves closer and Cash steps in front of me, large frame blocking the sun. Tex catches the movement and his smile widens.
"Careful." Cash grumbles. "It's healing."
"It was out of socket." I offer, trying to alleviate some of the tension. "Cash set it back in place."
"You mean you climbed the fence and busted into the garage with one working arm?" Tex whistles. "We gotta up our security measures."
"Our mistake was thinking no one was stupid enough to break into a garage with known Black Spade affiliations." Cash mutters.
I roll my eyes. "Your mistake was forgetting to factor in desperation."
I'm expecting to receive some attitude for my lip, but a flash of a smile crosses his face when he angles his head in my direction. He stares at me for a long moment before looking back at Tex. "She took the handle off the back door. We're gonna have to replace it. I had to send X-Ray over this morning to clean her blood off the damn floor."
"A woman worth protecting, huh?" Tex is testing him, I can tell.
"If we want to get a good shot at Hoyt, we need a girl on the inside. It's the right call." Cash carves his shoulders into a casual shrug. "It'll take some manpower, but it has its benefits."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll be thinking long and hard about the benefits." Tex teases, shooting me a wink. I flush scarlet, turning my eyes to the ground.
It's obvious what he's insinuating, and even more obvious that he's only doing so to try and irritate Cash. It works. He muscles past Tex and takes off towards the truck. We both watch him vanish into the trees before the cowboy turns to me.
"That was fun." Tex grins gleefully.
My face is still red, so I opt to change the subject.
"Why are you called Tex?"
"Isn't it obvious?" He tips the cowboy hat at me. "I'm as Texan as they come, little darlin'."
I can understand how this walking cartoon of a man was able to get Blister laughing. "Thanks for looking after my sister."
"It was nothin'. She's in far better hands with Pearl."
"You mean it?"
"Absolutely. That woman is a saint, but she's no pushover. She's tougher than any man or woman I've met, besides the ones she raised." When it's clear I don't know who he means, he gestures with his thumb towards the low hum of the truck. "Cash didn't tell you? Pearl's his Aunt. She brought him and Doc up after their Mama died."
I plunk down on the top step of the deck, listening to the truck pull away. "He didn't mention that."
Tex sits down beside me with a groan that would rival an eighty-year-old's. "He's the private sort. I heard you met Doc, too."
"She seems nice."
"Nice?" Tex whistles. "That woman is sharp as a whip, and bites twice as hard."
I can't help myself, I laugh a little.
"There we go." Tex grins. "I didn't even need the horse joke to crack ya."
///