Page 144 of Fearless

“Idid,” Mercy said. His voice had gone soft and Cajun-flavored, scary-calm. “I raised her. Don’t you dare blame her for loving me because of it.”

“Oh, God,” Maggie muttered.

Ghost opened his mouth –

And Ava said, “I don’t love him!” Her voice came out shrill and cracked. If she didn’t say this, there was a good chance her father and her lover would end up battling it out to the death right here on the blood-stained kitchen floor. “I don’t,” she insisted. “I hate…Ihatehim for what he did to me. I made a mistake today,” she added in a rush. “I was having a bad day – because I found out you” – she pointed at Ghost – “used Mason attacking me as leverage. Stephens wrote me a college recommendation letter, and neither of you ever told me.”

Maggie glanced away.

Ghost reared back visibly.

“And I was weak and upset today,” she continued, “and I made a stupid mistake, one I won’t make again.”

Ghost studied her face a long moment; Ava had no idea what he found there, how sincere she appeared. She had a feeling she looked like a bundle of unshed tears, because that was what she felt like.

“Wipe up the blood,” he said, and went out the back door, slamming it behind him.

Ava clenched the towel tight in her fingers, staring at it, trying to gather the strength to turn around.

“Here.” Maggie made a reach for it. “I can–”

Ava spun, keeping her eyes low, her movements quick, almost frenzied. She mopped the blood on Mercy’s stomach, scrubbed upward and cleaned off his chest. She faltered when she saw the tattoo over his heart, as its black shape was revealed beneath the blood. An oval of irregular little marks. Her mind went back, five years ago, plucking up a memory from the gloom: Bonita and James’s yard, up against the house, the silver moonlight, Mercy lifting his shirt.“I want you to draw blood.”

No. No, it couldn’t be…

But it looked like a bite mark. Little teeth marks.

She lifted her gaze and forced it to meet Mercy’s. He was watching her with open tenderness, his eyes wide and gentle. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. “It’s what you think it is.”

She let her eyes fall, moving the towel again, slower this time. It was a thin barrier between her hand and the hard padding of muscle, the firm contours of his body. She wanted to fold herself into his lap. She wanted to touch the tattoo – she did, one fast pass of a fingertip over the smooth stretch of his skin.

Then she remembered that her mom was in the room, and she wanted to step back…but she couldn’t. She wiped every last trace of blood, all the way down his tatted arm, over the large square shapes of his knuckles, his long fingers. Until the towel was soaked and pink.

Maggie stepped up beside her and took it away; Ava let it go, but didn’t move. It was too much. It was all too much.

“Merc,” Maggie said, “why don’t you head out, sweetie. Come by tomorrow to have your shoulder looked at.”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

When he stood, Ava was both soothed and mortified that he cupped the side of her head in one big hand, pulled her over, and kissed her in the middle of her parted hair. She stood, studying her toes, between her mother and the man she loved most in the world, Maggie’s arm around her shoulders, Mercy’s face in her hair, and for that brief second, all the planets were in perfect alignment.

And then Mercy pulled away and scooped up his shirts from the floor, leaving the way the others had.

When he was gone, Maggie pulled her into a tight hug. “Ava Rose,” she said with a groan. “Oh, baby, I wasn’t mad at you before. All of that this afternoon, that was a lie.”

Ava lifted her head. “What?”

Maggie smoothed her hair back, like when she’d been a little girl. “I knew your dad would fly off the handle. I had to prepare you. I had to get you thinking defensively so you’d be ready to handle him.” She smiled. “And you did; you handled him fucking fantastically.”

Ava felt numb. “So you don’t care that Mercy and I…”

Maggie pulled her in close again, hand on the back of her head. “If Kenneth Teague thinks he can keep the two of you apart, he’s stupid.”

“…just a small dose. We ought to be able to wake him up,” Rottie was saying as Mercy joined the others down at the mailbox. His neck, shoulder – that whole general area – hurt like hell, a sharp throbbing that radiated up into his skull and down the length of his arm. The pain was good, he decided. It would help keep him awake, keep him sharp and pissed off enough for the night’s task.

Ghost turned to glance at him over his shoulder as he finished shrugging into his sweatshirt and pushed the hood back. The moment they’d just shared in the house had been shoved aside. That was family business. This was club business. Ghost was drawing a firm line between the two tonight.

“Get as much as you can out of him,” he instructed, voice calm, authoritative.

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