House of Judges (House of Royals Book 4)

  “For real?” Ian asks doubtfully. “You’re like…this master baker, and you were addicted to this processed stuff that eternally gets stuck in your teeth?”

  “I know!” I say painfully. “It’s just when I have a package and a glass of milk, I just can’t stop! I did hear once that these are more addictive than cocaine.”

  “Now, that’s just ridiculous,” Ian chuckles as he takes the package from my hands and puts it in the cart. He grabs one more off the shelf. “What?” he says defensively. “There’s two of us and we’re going to be here for at least a couple of days.”

  I just smile as I follow him to the refrigerated section, where we grab a carton of milk.

  A few more snacks and food items later, we head for the checkout.

  The girl that checks us out keeps giving me these wary looks. Mixed in with the appreciative ones she directs Ian’s way. I give him a playful side-glance, and he just shakes his head with a little smile.

  We pay for our stuff, and each of us with two bags, we walk back outside.

  A light rain has started falling and the air instantly smells like the mountains.

  “How far is this from the closest ski place?” Ian asks as we walk back across the parking lot.

  “Ski place?” I make fun of him. “You act like you’ve never lived anywhere with snow.”

  “That’s ‘cause I haven’t,” Ian defends himself with a laugh. “I’ve never seen more than a dusting of snow, my entire life, until this year.”

  I chuckle and shake my head. “We’re about thirty minutes away from the closest ski resort,” I emphasize. “Take the highway over there, and you’ll drive straight to it.”

  “You ever ski?” Ian asks.

  “Our school took a field trip once when I was in eighth grade,” I reminisce. “I was horrible at it.”

  Ian laughs at my expense, right when I hear someone walk up behind us. I turn just as the man pushes a gun into Ian’s back.

  “Just hand over your wallet and cell phone, nice and easy.” The man speaks low, looking from side to side. We’ve just gotten out of the light of the parking lot and into the shadows of the road that leads off the side of the store.

  Ian’s eyes grow wide for a moment, and then a deep red ignites in them. And fear shoots up my spine. Not for Ian’s sake.

  “Sorry, man,” Ian says with a little shrug of his shoulders. “But I don’t have either of those things on me.”

  The man gives a frustrated grunt and pats down Ian’s front and back pockets. When he confirms Ian is telling the truth, he shoves Ian aside, which is only accomplished because Ian lets him.

  The man takes a step toward me, the gun pointed in my direction.

  I let out a frustrated sigh. “And here I thought my week was getting better.”

  Ian moves in a blur and the man is suddenly hoisted up and over his head before smashing down to the sidewalk with a loud yelp. Ian yanks the gun from his hands, pointing it at the man’s head as he places a foot on the mugger’s chest.

  “You picked the wrong two people to mess with tonight,” Ian says. He’s a terrifying sight. Slightly amused smile on his lips. Glowing red eyes. Toned body and tough-looking beard and long hair. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.

  “I’m sorry, sorry!” the man scrambles. “My mistake.”

  “Yeah, it was,” Ian says with a chuckle. “Now, I’m gonna keep the gun, and you’re going to go home and apologize to your mama for turning out to be such an ungrateful lowlife. ‘Cause if you don’t, I may come visit you in your sleep later on. You won’t wake up feeling quite the same.”

  Ian takes his foot off the man’s chest. He scrambles back and away from Ian, like an upside down crab. He falls in his haste to get away, flips over, and takes off running into the dark. He slams into a postage box, looks over his shoulder, and keeps on running.

  “You enjoyed that way too much,” I muse as we keep walking. Ian tucks the handgun into the back of his pants.

  “Maybe a little bit,” he says. “Gun wasn’t even loaded.”

  I laugh, something full bellied and hearty, into the black night. Ian looks over at me, a full, bright smile on his face.

  “This is nice,” he says. “Just you. Me. Being normal. Without all the extra pressure and supernatural shit. I feel like it’s the first time I’ve seen both sides of the real you.”

  I look over at him, my mood sobering. His eyes glitter in the light, streetlights reflecting off them. He looks so easy. So comfortable. “I’ve never really seen you relaxed before,” I observe. “I guess it’s a night of firsts.”

  Ian offers a small smile and bumps my shoulder with his. And silently, we walk the rest of the way back to the hotel.

  A SHOWER, NEW CLOTHES, A lot of cover up, and a good hair brushing later, Ian and I once again leave the hotel. We drive the six blocks east. There are only a few cars in the parking lot. No surprise when it’s barely six o’clock and Robbie’s Diner has just opened for breakfast.

  “How long until the sun comes up?” Ian asks. His voice is nervous. And I can’t blame him. He spent two months in a prison where he was tortured, every day, with the sunlight. As we walk to the front door, we’re both very aware of the sun below the horizon.

  “Probably just under an hour,” I say. I’m nervous, too, but this is going to be our only chance to come. The days are too long now. “We’ll be fine.”

  Ian nods, but I see him swallow hard.

  We take a seat near the back of the diner and take the two sticky menus from the rack at the end of the table. But instead of looking at the menu, I’m searching the diner for familiar faces.

  But it’s a young blonde girl who comes over and takes our order just a few minutes later. I’ve never seen her before.

  “I remember you saying once that your mom had worked at a diner,” Ian says. His eyes search the place. “I assume this was the place?”

  I nod and motion him over to the wall next to the door that leads into the kitchen. Every inch of it is covered in pictures. The owner. The patrons. The waitresses and cooks.

  I point to an old photo, faded and yellowed with time. “That’s Mom.”

  Her hair is pulled back, her bangs big and poufy. Her uniform is stretched to the max.

  “She was pregnant with you,” Ian says. The fingers of his left hand rise up to touch Mom’s round belly.

  I nod. “She was supposed to start veterinary school,” I say, a sad smile forming on my lips. “She made it through the first semester, even though she was so sick. But then she had to get a job. Robbie always said Mom reminded him of his daughter.”

  “Is this you?”

  Ian’s fingers have moved to a picture a little further down the wall, off to the right.

  I can’t help the smile that breaks out on my face. “Yeah,” I say through a laugh.

  In the picture I’m sitting at the bar, a milkshake in front of me. There’s a hearty helping of ice cream dripping down my chin. My overalls are paired with my red Mary Jane’s. My hair is braided into two sections, hanging long.

  I’ve got this huge, cheesy grin on my face. Mom is on the other side of the counter, in her uniform, reaching and trying to clean me off. She has a huge smile on her face.

  “You were a damn cute kid,” Ian says with a chuckle. “You’ve got your mom’s ears. Her chin. Definitely her smile.”

  “Not that you’d ever know if I had Henry’s,” I chuckle as I point at another picture of me and Mom. “I don’t know that he ever smiled a day in his life.”

  “True,” Ian says with a smile as he observes the picture of me, folding my arms over my chest, back to back with Robbie. We’re both trying to look so tough. It’s obvious he’s humoring me. “How long did your mom work here?”

  Once more, my eyes go back to the picture of her when she was pregnant with me. “My whole life,” I say. “She was family here, and they took care of us. My grandparents died a long time ago, and Mom was on her own. But here, she had people who
looked out for her. Who cared about her.”

  I feel Ian’s eyes on me and it takes me a moment to read into the parallelism I’ve accidently drawn. But I don’t return his gaze. I keep looking at Mom, letting a million memories wash over me.

  “I knew that order of French toast and a slice of apple pie had to be Livy Ryan.”

  I turn at the squeal behind me and my heart breaks out into a happy sprint. Rhonda Jameson stands there with our order on a serving tray.

  “Rhonda!” I squeal, rushing forward to wrap my arms around her bony shoulders. She hardly has time to set the food down before I tackle her with a hug.

  “Dang, girl!” she says. “You must be working out these days.”

  “Sorry,” I say, releasing her immediately. I take half a step back, resting my hands on her upper arms. It’s been less than a year since I last saw her, but she’s aged so much. Honey brown skin more wrinkled. The gray in her black hair more pronounced. The muscles on her body a little softer. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “I can’t believe you’re back,” she says with that wide smile. I slide into the booth, ushering her to sit next to me. “I mean, I always thought you’d be back, but then you never came home and I just thought you must have fallen off the face of the planet.”

  Her eyes flicker to Ian as he awkwardly sits back in his seat. “And I can only assume this fine gentleman is the reason why?” She gives me a look, waggling her eyebrows.

  “Uh…” I say uncomfortably, because I’m not entirely sure how to answer the question.

  “I’m Ian,” he says, taking control of the situation. He reaches a hand forward, and Rhonda takes it with a suspiciously flirtatious smile on her face. “It’s nice to meet you. I assume you were friends with Liv’s mother?”

  Rhonda looks so happy and giddy she could just shiver herself right out of her skin. She gives me a look, and says, “That’d be right. Marlane was my best friend. We raised two kids on our own, side by side. Working every hour we could get at this place.”

  “You never told me you had a near-sibling,” Ian says as he looks at me.

  “Oh, Livy and my Joshua were oil and water,” Rhonda says with a laugh. “Two couldn’t stand each other. They had to play nice when they were little, but as they got old enough, they just kept their distance. The diner was a lot more peaceful that way.”

  “Ah,” Ian says insightfully. “So you had a mortal enemy early on.”

  I smile uncomfortably. “Guilty.”

  “So,” Rhonda says, turning back to me. “You stayed down in Mississippi, then?”

  I nod my head. “It’s kind of turned into home, surprisingly.”

  “Did you learn much about your father?” she asks, her brows furrowing. “It’s such a shame you never got to meet him before he passed away. Your mother never said anything about him.”

  That weight drops back into my heart. That hurt and desire is never going to go away. “No,” I breathe. “He was kind of an enigma. I really haven’t learned much about his…personality.”

  I know some details. Ones I can never share with this woman who was practically family.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, baby,” she says as she lays a sympathetic hand over mine. “I know that must be hard.”

  I nod. I’m feeling these emotions once again that I don’t want to feel. “So, how’s Robbie these days? Is he working this morning?”

  “Um,” she says uncomfortably. “Actually, Robbie passed away about four months ago. Heart attack.”

  My own heart sinks. The man was like the only grandfather I’d ever known. The overweight cook and owner who laughed at everything, talked to everyone, and ate everything in sight.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say. And I really, truly am. “Did Gordo take over?”

  Rhonda shakes her head. “Gordo sold it. It’s this new kid who owns the place now. He’s nice, but it’s just not the same. I’m the only one left.”

  All the staff, who had for the most part worked here forever, are gone. Moved on. I’ve only been gone for nine months, but everything has changed.

  “Life moves on,” I say sadly. “I’m so glad you’re still here and that I got to see you.”

  “Me, too, baby,” she says. She leans over and wraps her arms around me. “I’ve got to get back to my tables, but please stop by and say goodbye before you leave, you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say with a smile as she releases me and stands back up. She blows me a kiss before heading back to work.

  I pick up my fork and stab a heap of the apple pie. I put it into my mouth and look up at Ian.

  He’s studying me. Deep. Thoughtful.

  “What?”

  He bites the inside of his lip, his eyes just searching me. He doesn’t speak for a moment. Just keeps looking at me. “I think I get it a little bit now.”

  “Get what?” Anticipation rises up inside of me. Dread. Nothing has been fixed between Ian and I. All the problems are still there. And I don’t think I’m ready to deal with them just yet.

  He takes a sip of his coffee, stalling just a moment before answering me. “Family has never just been blood to you,” he says. He plays with his food, not looking at me. “Your whole life it was always just you and your mom, but it was also the people around you. The ones who looked out for you.”

  I stab a slice of French toast, but don’t take a bite out of it. My eyes wander once more to the pictures on the wall. There’s Mindy and Tamara. Jaydon. Robbie. These faces that I grew up with. Some people came and went, but there were always bright stars in my life. And just because they weren’t in my life any more, didn’t mean they weren’t still family to me.

  “I grew up in a tiny town where I knew just about everyone. They all judged each other and knew everyone’s business,” Ian says. He bites off the end of a piece of bacon and takes a second to chew it. “They knew about my family’s problems, how much my parents hated each other. Knew they were dead, knew my grandmother was a crusty old woman who was raising these two little kids. I love the people of Silent Bend, but I also felt removed from them. But that was all me. I did that, not them. I clung so hard to this concept that no one but Elle and Lula understood. That it was us against the world.”

  His eyes rise to meet mine. “But it wasn’t like that for you. It was you and your mom and Rhonda and Robbie. Love was love, no matter if those people didn’t share your blood, huh?”

  Emotion hits me in every corner of my body. A sting zaps the back of my eyes and they well. “Yeah,” I breathe. And it’s the truth. “That’s exactly how it was.”

  Ian’s own eyes redden just a little bit. He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I think I get it a little better now.”

  And the truth is there in his eyes. He’s never understood how these flawed Born who had done terrible things for someone else came to be my family. How quickly they found a place in my heart.

  But there I see it: he does understand now.

  I’ve shown him my past. Shown him my roots.

  And he finally understands.

  I CAN FEEL THE SUN sinking in the sky outside. It’s still so odd. Being ever aware of where it is. Of how intensely it shines. I have an entirely new relationship with the sun. But I miss the old one where I could lay outside in it, soaking up the heat, letting it brown my skin. But those days are long gone.

  I lie on my stomach on the double-sized bed and stare across the dark to the form on the other bed.

  Ian lies on his back, one arm stretched up and lazing across the top of his head, which is turned in my direction. His other hand rests on his stomach. His shirt has worked its way up, exposing two inches of toned muscle.

  My eyes search his face, studying. The three months of beard growth that hugs his jaw. The longer hair that falls around his face in a wild mane. The small lines that have already formed in the corners of his eyes from so many years of worry. Nose that’s slightly too wide for his face. Lips that are pursed, as if he’s having a ba
d dream.

  There’s so much that I miss about our past. The passion and the excitement of sneaking around. The stolen moments at night in my bed. The measures that were always held back.

  But so much of what we were back then wasn’t real. Ian and I, we are such complicated people, and only time and trial could reveal our depths. If we had continued without bumps as we had before, we never would have discovered the truth of what the other held.

  It’s difficult to say I’m grateful for everything that we have gone through.

  But I think all this fire was necessary.

  We may never be anything again, it’s almost impossible to imagine that we can go back to anything smooth and gentle, but at least now we know.

  And for the first time in so long, when I think about everything that Ian and I are, a little smile crosses my lips.

  Careful to make my movements silent, I slip from the bed and head into the bathroom for a shower.

  When I finish dressing, I find Ian waiting on the bed. “You get any sleep?” he asks groggily.

  I consider lying for a moment, just to ease his mind. But the time for lies and deception are past. I shake my head. “Too much on my mind, I guess.”

  “That’s understandable,” he says as he stands. We switch places, him heading into the bathroom. “What’s on the agenda for today—tonight?”

  “You’ll see,” I say soberly.

  He doesn’t question it. He only closes the door and starts the water.

  Ten minutes later, we are driving toward the edge of town, towards the mountains. It’s a quiet, easy silence.

  Trees crop up out of the ground. The commercial buildings drop away. The houses become fewer and more spread out. The air grows crisper. We turn off the highway, before it starts up the canyon, and drive a little ways down the road.

  Soon, there’s a stone entryway with a great archway. An iron fence spreads out, encasing the huge plot of land.

  Headstones dot the space before us.

  Ian parks the car off to the side of the road and we both climb out. Twilight is fading away, darkness taking over. But our eyes do not falter, we have no troubles navigating our way.