CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bones stared at the computer screen, seeing tits still. Fuck, he hated having her here. She was like a drug to him. Thanks Reginald. You stick me with all your chores, your needy girlfriend. You make me fuck her enough times to have every part of her body memorized and then just… up and fucking leave. He’d need to set boundaries. Clear, hard, boundaries.
He turned at the knock on the door. Finally. When he’d gotten back from normal errands, she was sleeping. Then she woke up hungry. Was endless. “Come in.”
He turned when she entered and froze. “I said you could borrow my clothes.”
“I did.”
“Those are Reginald’s.”
She beamed in joy, looking down. “They are?” She stroked the shirt.
“You can’t wear them.”
She lifted her fallen face. “Why not?”
“I said mine, not his.”
“What’s wrong with—”
“I said no!” he cut in, making her jump.
She watched him for several seconds. “Maybe next time you should specify.”
He stormed past her to his room and showed her his drawers. “These are my clothes. These are his.” He realized she was still hobbling after him. When she finally made it, he showed her which drawers were whose.
“Fine.”
He straightened and raked a hand through his hair then walked out. “I’ll be waiting in the office.”
Halfway down the hall he heard her mumble, “I’ll be waiting in the office,” followed by “Maybe you should be more specific the first time.”
Five minutes later, he got up and stormed back to the room only to find it empty. He went to the kitchen and lo-and-behold, there she sat at the kitchen table, stuffing her mouth.
“I was hungry!” she mumbled to him from where he scowled at the door.
“Again?”
“I told you I’m on a diet. I eat in small portions now. Often. And I don’t mix vegetables and fruit, they don’t digest the same.”
“Dear Christ,” he muttered. “Eat in the office.”
“On my way, Bossman,” she said, downing her milk and scooting out of the chair.
He waited for her again, about to go in search of her when she finally hobbled in.
“I had to get coffee, sorry.”
“Grab that chair.”
She fought to pull the antique dining chair, and he got up and dragged it for her, setting it next to his. He regarded her in his clothes now. She wore one of his black t-shirts and it fit her tight, the outline of her nipples glaring at him.
“Sorry, you didn’t have a bra I could borrow,” she muttered, looking at where he stared.
“I have undershirts.”
“And I have one on,” she replied, matching his angry tone. “Maybe just keep your eyes on the level?” She fluttered her fingers at her face. “Focus on these eyes.”
“Very funny.”
She smiled and winked at him then turned her attention to the computer. “So what’s up Boss, what we got here?”
“Nothing,” he shut the laptop. “That’s the graveyard schedule.”
“You got a busy season?”
He turned his chair and stared at her. “I need you to help me backtrack.”
“Okay, I can do that. Do I need a paper and pen? Or like a recorder?” She pushed her hair behind an ear and stared at him with those clear green eyes. Flashes of her kneeling over his face, fingering her pussy burned his mind, and he clenched his eyes shut.
“What’s wrong? Are you remembering?”
“No,” he growled.
“Did you have a flashback?”
“Yes. I mean no.”
“Okay, look, Bones,” she said. “We need to establish some work ethics if we’re going to succeed as a team and get Reginald back. First rule. You gotta be straight with me on everything, okay? I can handle it. And two? I need you to treat and talk to me with respect. Can you handle that?”
He opened his eyes finally. “Fine,” he agreed. “And I have some work ethics too.”
“Go. Shoot,” she said, straightening in her chair.
“You don’t leave here without talking to me. You don’t contact anybody without talking to me. And you don’t touch Reginald’s stuff. And you don’t touch me.”
She sat there, eyes wide. “You running a prison, warden?”
“Yes or no.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “And we share the cooking. And I’m not your maid, you pick up after yourself.”
“Deal. And I sleep on the couch. Until you’re well enough to stay in the shed. And you don’t interfere with the graveyard business without talking to me.”
“Got it. And I like to sleep till at least 8 in the morning.”
“Fine. But lights out before midnight.”
“Great.”
They stared at each other for several seconds and Bones fought the need to look at her chest.
She suddenly held her fist up and aimed at him. “Team Reginald?” she said. “Oh, one more thing, Bones. You be nice to me.”
“Define nice.”
“As in polite. Using manners. Pleases and thank yous and good mornings and goodnights.” She raised her hands with a shake of her head, eyeing him. “Those are my hard limits. If you get stuck, just ask yourself, what would Reginald do and you’ll do fine.”
“Cute.”
“You like that?” she said smiling. “We should do bracelets. What would Reginald do?” He stared at her, feeling stuck in a nightmare. “Where do we start?” she said, getting serious.
Where do they start? He sat back, feeling like he’d just done ten thousand rounds with the devil himself. “I don’t fucking know,” he muttered.
“Well,” she began her tone softer. “What if we start at the beginning? Work your way to the point where Reginald came?”
“Reginald came when I called him,” he muttered.
“Okay… And when did you call him.”
“About ten years ago.”
“Were you at the graveyard?”
“Not yet. Was before I inherited it.”
“Okay, that’s a good start. Where were you living before you inherited the graveyard?”
“California.”
“Really,” she said, sounding impressed. “Never been there. Well, tell you the truth, I’ve not been anywhere besides here.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that. “I don’t remember much about California. Trouble happened, I know that.”
“How do you know?”
“I was institutionalized.”
****
Winter’s heart hammered at that bit of info.
“You remember what for?”
“Not really.”
“Do you remember how you got out?”
“My Grandfather came for me.”
“So you met him? I was thinking he died, and you inherited after.”
“No,” he shook his head, tapping his finger on his boot. “He rescued me.”
“From what?”
He shrugged. “Hell.”
The casualness in his tone said he’d become bored with the whole thing and it didn’t faze him. “At the institution?”
He gave a light snort and leaned back in his chair, angling his head at her. “No. The institution was more like Purgatory. Dividing one hell from the other. Like… North Hell and South Hell.”
Winter might have thought it was a joke except something dark and sinister peeked out in his gaze, making her tense. “And which hell was worse? The first… or the second?”
“Good question,” he muttered. “The missing piece is there. Something happened in that Purgatory.”
She wondered then, carefully. “So… where was Reginald? When you called him?”
He gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I never found him.” He leveled a stare on her. “I have his spirit. I told you we share the same body but we’re two different people.”
He stared at her f
or several seconds as though weighing something. If she were trustworthy? Probably. “We were four. My mother sold him…” he looked down, tapping his finger on his boot again. “To some bad people.”
“Your mother?” she whispered.
“I still say it was my Aunt Theresa, my mother’s evil twin. She was a real, dirty bitch,” he muttered with a barely stifled rage. “I always hid Reginald when she came over to babysit. I made sure he was safe. She always wanted to hurt him and she couldn’t tell us apart.”
“We’re exactly the same age. My mother said they cut us out of her and they had to pry us apart.”
Sadness hit her as hard as her curiosity. What in God's name had happened to cause Bones’ need to create Reginald?
“Why do you think you're mean Aunt wanted to hurt Reginald and not you?”
“Have no idea,” he said lightly. “I just protected him. But… my grandfather said evil loves to hurt good. And evil uses people who have no good in them.”
“But… you were a good boy?”
“Maybe,” he said, shrugging like nothing mattered when it came to him, only Reginald.
“So, you were his protector from the beginning.”
“Until they took him.”
“That was a very good thing of you to do,” she said, watching his reaction.
“He would’ve done the same for me.”
“But you did it.”
“I was kind of bossy.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that.”
He glanced at her, nodding when he caught her grin. “I guess I had the dominant gene. And I grew into it early and used the fuck out of it.”
“To protect him.”
“Which I failed to do.”
He shook his head, looking at his boot again. “Nope.”
“Where do you think he is?”
“Somewhere.”
“And you don’t think… he’s…”
“No, he’s not dead, or he wouldn’t be alive, with me here.”
He stared at her and seemed to realize it the second after he said it. He stood and began to pace. “He left on purpose.”
“Do you remember the last thing he said?”
At seeing his agitation, she tried to refocus him. “Is that all he said?”
He went back to pacing and thinking then stopped. He covered his face with both hands and turned away from her.
She swallowed, her heart aching at feeling his agony. “We should stop,” she whispered. “That’s enough.”
“It’s not enough, I need him back,” he mumbled. “The last thing he said to me was... ‘You did it, Bonesy. You made love to a woman. I knew you could. You’re a good man, Bones and I’ll always love you. Don’t ever forget that.’ Those were his exact words.”
She swallowed back a sob, lowering her gaze and wiping the tears that fell. “He was rooting for you,” she whispered.
“Bullshit.”
She eyed him at the window now, staring out.
“All he talked about was my happiness, my well-being. But this is all bullshit.”
“He learned that caring from you, Bones. He wanted to pay you back, maybe?”
“Oh he paid,” Bones said, nodding. “God only knows how much he paid. Then I forced him to live a prison life with me, in a dysfunctional darkness. Forced him to play the normal one so I could hide from life. All he ever wanted was to see me happy,” he said. “And then you came and everything changed. Then he started wanting things that were uncomfortable to me and I denied him. And for a while, he denied himself for me.”
Winter wiped her tears again, wishing they’d stop pouring. But to hear Bones talk like none of it bothered him was worse than anything. She knew better. But she needed to keep things on track. She needed to think about the reality. “Did… Reginald know why you called him?”
“No. I never told him.”
“Because you didn’t remember,” she thought.
“Right.” He leaned with his shoulder against the wall by the office window and stared out.
She chewed on her lower lip, treading carefully. “Knowing Reginald… if he knew he was there to help you… he probably did the best he could with what he saw.”
He turned and put his back against the wall, his arms crossed at his chest, those black stormy eyes silently begging for understanding.
“I’m thinking he would’ve helped with whatever wrong he could see,” she explained.
“He did,” he said, following the crumbs with interest. “He was always trying to help me with something. He was taking classes to help me help myself.”
“And that’s… why you called him.”
“Not for that, no.”
“But even though you didn’t know what the reason was, he still knew you needed him for something.”
“Yes, so? I still need him.”
She eyed him, hoping he’d see the connection.
“Why not just spit it out,” he said, annoyed. “You clearly have connected the dots and I don’t feel like playing your guessing game.”
“It’s not a game, I’m—”
“Whatever, just fucking say it.”
Her anger ignited and sealed her mouth shut, leaving her only able to glare at him.
“So, you want me to guess, is that it? You like to play guessing games?” He paced up and down before her, his arms still crossed. “Fine, I’ll guess. You think Reginald thought my whole problem was fucking a woman—any woman would qualify—” he gestured to her. “So, he got with the first available option, pretended to fall in love with her, got me to fuck you and then said congratulations Bones, all your problems are solved, I’ll be leaving now.”
She hung her head, her cheeks on fire with shame and hurt. She hated more than anything how stupid it all sounded too. How ridiculous. “I’m just trying to help,” she said.
“You think he’s dead,” he muttered. “Or you think maybe he’s somewhere and doesn’t care about me, you think he’s living his life and doesn’t give a shit about me. His soul mate. You have no fucking clue about our bond, and you wouldn’t, would you? You sold yours for a fucking high, remember?”
“That’s not what I think,” she whispered, shaking her head, fighting back tears.
“You think he’s survived hell, and he’s off living the life somewhere?”
“No—”
“You think he’s not trying to find his way back? You think he’s—”
“No!” she shouted, standing.
“What then? What do you fucking think, huh?” She stiffened when he stormed over and put his face in hers. “Tell me! Tell me what you think! I see it in your eyes, I see you hiding and lying to my face.”
“I can’t,” she finally gasped. He couldn’t handle what she thought. He would hate her and she’d lose this precious ground she’d gained. Or worse, he’d flip and do God only knows what.
“Oh you can’t,” he gasped back, his brows raised. He backed away slowly and gestured with an arm to the door. “Then leave,” he said simply. “I have no other use for you.”
She stood there, staring down at the floor, trembling in anger and pain. All the ghosts of her past screaming in her face right along with him. She was only needed when being used. Needed to meet somebody else’s needs. Needed to connect one dot to the next. A piece of debris to be stepped on so that others could get to some place happy. She was never wanted or needed because she wasn’t worth keeping and loving.
She fought not to limp as she left the room, gasping with the pain in her body and heart as she went. She reached the hallway leading to the living room or bedroom and ran into confusion. There wasn't even enough purpose to get her five more steps.
Away. Away was her destination. Away had easy options. North South, East, West, it didn’t matter. Away was at all of them. Anywhere but where she stood, anywhere but in that house. Anywhere but near that hateful man.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Where are you going?” he demanded as she made her
way to the door.
“Away from here.”
“So, that’s it, you’re running?”
She spun to him. “You’re the one that’s running. Like a damn bull, chasing everybody out.” She pointed at him. “I’m trying to help you. I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” he yelled. “How can you hurt me anymore than you have?”
She stared at him, facing him and nodding. “Alright. Alright you want to do this, let’s do this. You need to know what happened at that institution, right? Well, have you thought to contact them and ask? Get your records? And where is your mother in all of this?”
“Six feet under in this graveyard,” he seethed, glaring at her. “Where she belongs.”
She stared at him, her sympathy returning to tangle up with her confusion and frustration. “And your records?”
He lowered his head and shook it. “I kept… planning to make the trip. You have to get them in person.”
Her heart clenched at hearing his regret. “It’s been ten years, Bones,” she said carefully.
He only kept nodding then finally said, “Maybe I didn’t want to know.” He shook his head now. “I had Reggie and... why did I need anything else?” He aimed his distraught gaze at her. “I kept thinking… what if the shit I forgot wasn’t supposed to be remembered? I had Reggie with me even when they took him,” he tapped his temple. “They could never take him,” he swore, then lowered his head. She watched him release several gasps. “But… life got so fucking dirty all the time, all the fucking time, and… I didn’t want him to know or see,” he pleaded, finally looking at her. “I left him,” he barely whispered. “I couldn’t stand what I was, what I did, I didn’t want him to know what I did. I didn’t want him to know I had to do it for him. He would be… so pissed if he knew. If he knew Winter, if he knew the things I did.”
The massive shame in his voice crushed Winter’s fears of what to do or not do. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him tight, pressing her cheek to his chest. The pounding of his heart reached out to her, it had been hiding and alone for so long with all his fears. “What a good brother you are!” she wept. “You did exactly the right thing, exactly the right thing. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise. Reginald loves you so much.”