Page 85 of Cross To Bear

“I don’t know what I was thinking either…”

I barely whispered that before I stepped away from the table, from them, making a beeline for the back door, even as Mum followed me.

“Now, don’t pay too much attention to your father.” Mum’s tone was one part cajoling, one part terrified. “You know how set in his ways he is.”

“And you?”

I’d put on the thinnest turtleneck I had on over a tank top, so I could pull it off the moment I got into my car. I yanked it off over my head, just to watch my mother go milk pale. Her eyes went down first, to the sizeable muffin top that peeked over the top of my jeans, but right as she was going to criticise my fashion choices again, she saw it.

“What did you do?” She barely breathed that out, her brows smoothing, creasing and smoothing again. “What’s that…? It looks like an animal bite. Madeline, what did you do?”

“Bound myself for life to Jesse’s brother and his best friends in the middle of a biker bar, Mum.” I said that so flatly. “What did you think it was?”

I didn’t wait around to debate the finer points of it. As she gaped and gaped, her cheeks puffing out and then deflating, like a great big goldfish, I made a hasty retreat, only stopping to look back at the house I was born in once I was safely out the gate.

It looked so much smaller and old fashioned than I remembered. The fence palings needed a good paint, and the rose bushes Mum prized so much could do with a clip back. It was a three-bedroom house to my two-bedroom apartment, but it just looked tiny, cramped.

Like a bloody cage.

I pulled out the car keys to the hire car and jumped in, starting the engine and taking off, when I probably shouldn’t have. Tears welled in my eyes, making my vision a hazy, swirling mess.

Which was perhaps why this happened.

I was sucking in a breath, then another, cursing myself for letting myself get hurt again, even though I knew that would never stop. All the therapy in the world couldn’t give me the means to block my parents’ hurtful words. It was like the stories about the scorpion and the frog. It was in the scorpion’s best interest to ensure the frog survived, but despite that logic, he stung the frog anyway, ensuring they both drowned, because that’s what scorpions do. Scorpions gotta sting and my parents had to treat me like a fucking bonsai.

They were always hacking me back, lopping off my new shoots, pruning hard in order to try and get me to maintain the shape they’d trained me in. But I was a goddamn redwood in the making, born to stand tall, towering over each and every one of them, and no amount of cutting back would make me anything else.

That was what the bite on my neck meant.

More than just a spontaneous, somewhat risky moment, it was my true self striking out, trying to grow into the thing I knew I was deep down, not what my parents tried to make me. I sucked in a breath, then another, needing to settle myself, before I told Siri to ring Razor. As I drove down the road and up to the intersection, I heard the buzzing sounds right before a deep, rich voice came through the speakers.

“Babe…” That goddamn purr, it had me smiling despite the tears rolling down my cheeks, my fingers clinging to the steering wheel. “I was gonna call you tonight. We’re just at Nelly’s right now…” My smile evaporated instantly. “There’s a whole thing going on. Can I call you back?”

No! I wanted to shout. Don’t fucking listen to her. Listen to me! But I didn’t. I slowed down as I approached the intersection, glancing briefly left then right, before driving through.

“Yeah. I mean, sure—”

“You don’t sound real sure.”

The concern, the fact he saw through my mask gave me hope, helped me keep driving.

“I’m fine.” I let out a sob then, making a complete lie of that. “I went around to my parents and I… And I…”

I needed to get it out, to tell him, to make clear that whatever was going on with me the other night. That was the Maddie I wanted to be. Confident, fearless, sexy, his, not my parent’s Madeline.

“Just take a deep breath and pull over for me. You can do that, right?”

“Sure…”

I croaked that out as I scanned the road, looking for somewhere I could park but not seeing much at all. Not even the motorcyclist that came roaring out of a side street. Black leather on a black bike, almost invisible in the gloom of night. Completely indiscernible by me while I was crying. I just heard the roar of his engine, the flash of his headlights and this.

A god-awful sound of metal grinding into metal, engines screaming and then the whole world went into a tailspin, sending me swinging around in a dizzying arc, right as my head slammed hard into the window. Whatever I was worried about before? It didn’t matter anymore. I dimly heard the sounds of masculine shouts and then nothing at all.

Chapter 50

Bjorn

I knew what this was. We all did, if the wary looks my dads were giving me were anything to go by. Mum always liked to assert that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, so as I smelled the savoury aroma of roast lamb cooking, I wondered what exactly she wanted from mine.

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