Where It All Began (Phoenix Falls Series)

One minute earlier

Once I pack up all of my gear I trudge my way through the quickly emptying bar, out of the front door, and then straight over to the Wrangler. I unlock it so that I can set my guitar down in the back and then I turn to the truck next to me, brow furrowing as to why it’s still here.

Shouldn’t Kaleb have taken Kitty home by now?

I look at the pitch black sky, not liking the turn that the weather has taken.

Rain on the roads when Kitty’s being driven home…

I look around the lot, jam-packed as the patrons descend, picking up taxis or generally milling around, but I don’t see Kaleb anywhere. I try and remember if he was meeting up with anyone after the show but my head is too scrambled for recollections, having just obliterated every thought out of my head after the hottest fuck of all time.

I shift my belt, already feeling the need to take her again.

I’m just opening up my driver’s side door when I hear a voice behind me.

“Nice neck, man.”

I turn around and look at Tyler, his expression glib as hell.

Here we fucking go.

“What?” I ask him, trying to keep my own face neutral. It’s kind of hard to do when your eyes are turning red.

“Your neck,” he says, over-enunciating each word. “I bet it matches Kaleb’s sister’s real nice.”

I squeeze my fists behind my back, begging myself to not bite the bait.

Kitty’s been wearing a scarf all night so I know that he hasn’t seen her neck, but I sigh internally as I realise that I never bothered to check my own.

Tyler continues. He really shouldn’t.

“You come out here black and blue like you’ve been shacking up with a vampire, and Kit’s in our crowd with her neck all hidden?”

I try not to laugh when he says our crowd.

Who does he think he is? Jimi Hendrix?

“With all due respect, which is none, I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence,” I say curtly, trying to kill this conversation in its tracks.

Tyler pulls out his CPR pads and replies, “A coincidence the size of Quebec.”

Stay calm, Montgomery.

“Drop it, man,” I say steadily, although I’m twitching to let loose on this guy.

He gives me an unfriendly smile. I give him one back.

“It’s a little cruel if you ask me,” he says, putting on the whole Patron Saint act. “Fucking her brains out before you leave without a trace-”

I slam my door shut and squeeze my nails into the palms of my hands.

“Your wiring twisted or something?” I ask, jaw ticking like a time-bomb. “I said drop it.”

He shoves his way into the gap between the SUV and the Chevy, getting right in my face. Obviously he has a screw loose. I gauge that he’s over two hundred pounds but my muscles swell in the knowledge that I’m about to crush him like a grape.

“Couldn’t keep it in your pants for three fuckin’ weeks, huh?” he snarls, his own hands twitching violently at his sides.

Okay, so he must have seen us go backstage. But he’s not Kaleb, so his knowing anything doesn’t mean shit to me.

I try not to smirk when he presses his gym-hardened chest up against my own. Guys like him with their designer weights… try hauling metal on a construction site, asshole.

“You tryna dance, sweetheart?” I ask when he pushes me up against my own door.

And I thought that I had anger issues. This guy has even less of a right to get pissed over Kitty than I do, and he’s vibrating like he’s about to detonate.

“You’re one cocky bastard,” he grits out, and suddenly I’m not laughing anymore.

Getting called a bastard when you’ve only get one parent left… an ice cold chill runs down my sternum as the increasing raindrops lash at my skin.

“What did you just call me?” I ask, finally pushing back on him, serial killer calm.

“I said that you’re-”

“Madden, don’t!”

My head snaps up at the sound of Kitty’s voice and I see her running towards me from the other side of the lot, the blur of the rain obscuring her small body.

I instantly hold my hands up in surrender, letting her know that if she doesn’t want me scrapping then I’m not about to continue, and I feel the change in the air as Tyler similarly accepts defeat.

No point fighting over a chick if she doesn’t actually want you to.

I shove past him and start striding towards her, actually completely thankful that she just nipped that shit-show in the bud. I want her in my arms. I want her in my bed.

The rain splashes up my jeans as I storm my way forwards, a new idea, a new future, suddenly flashing in my mind crystal clear.

I’m about twenty feet away from her when I hear the sound of skidding tires.

A huge truck, lifted as hell, swerves its way around the bend in the lot, plummeting down the blacktop like it’s trying to go back to the fucking future.

It’s Chase’s car.

And it’s heading right for Kitty.

“Baby, move!” I bellow, hurtling towards her. I see the exact moment that understanding dawns on her face.

She spins on her heels, sees the truck a second away, and then throws her body down sideways in an attempt to miss its bumper.

The driver, seeing the impending collision, spins the wheel drastically, and runs a wide uncontrolled U turn, the tires completely skewed.

I stay on my spot, panting, having only scraped the turn of the truck by the skin of my teeth.

And then my eyes find Kitty on the ground and I’m on her in less than three seconds.

“Kitty!” I say breathlessly, knees wet as soon as they meet the rain-coated road. I quickly scan her body, an erratic pulse in her neck and her hands impaled with dirty gravel.

She breathes out a shaky exhale and then whispers, “It missed me. I’m fine.”

A wash of relief sheathes my throbbing brain.

I wrap my arms around her, burrowing my face in her hair and shielding her from the rain.

My worst fucking nightmare. My worst fucking nightmare almost came to life right in front of me.

A surge of emotion swells in my chest, the memories of losing my mom suddenly unlocked. The way that it felt to have the person you love the most taken away from you without a goodbye. The fears of cars and driving that it took me years to finally overcome…

It could have happened all over again.

I press a series of hard kisses onto her small warm shoulder, easing her body off the blacktop and setting her gently onto my thigh.

She turns her head slowly to face me and my eyes immediately fall to the top of her cheek. A series of angry red scrapes glimmer with blood in the moonlight.

My rage goes stratospheric.

“That fucker,” I growl out, hauling us both upwards so that I can get my hands around Chase’s neck.

“Madden, I’m fine,” she says quietly, stroking at my arms like she’s consoling me.

I run a hand down my face. Calm the hell down. If I hadn’t been about to fight Tyler in the first place, none of this would have ever happened.

I nod at her, although I’m seriously considering turning Chase into a Slushie beneath the bonnet of his car, and I lift Kitty up to kiss her, holding her gently against my chest as the rain streaks between us.

“We should take you to hospital,” I murmur, wincing when I catch a look at her grazes again. “Oh baby,” I whisper, stroking my fingers around the area.

She shakes her head. “We can disinfect it at the ranch. I’ll be fine. It’s all fine.”

I move us safely to the curb and then kiss her again, longer and deeper. For a second I think that she’s pushing at my chest, telling me to get off of her, but maybe my head’s going crazy, so I keep kissing her anyway. I run my hands over her thighs, so fucking happy that she’s right here, but she taps fervently at me again and this time I do pull away.

Her eyes are wide open, raindrops hanging like little crystals in her criss-crossed bottom lashes.

“What is it?” I pant, trying to read her expression. “Did you change your mind? You need me to take you to the hospital?”

She shakes her head and her eyes slide over my shoulder.

I know that it’s him before I even see him.

Not now. Please not now.

“Kaleb,” I begin, turning slowly around, gently dismounting his sister from her straddle around my waist.

His face is the darkest shade of red that I’ve ever seen.

“She was running, and there was a car, and she had to jump out of the way-”

“Why’re you holding her like that, man?” Kaleb asks, his brow low and his eyes sharper than a knife’s edge. He takes a step closer. “What the hell do you think that you’re doing?”

“Let me explain-”

“Don’t tell me that there’s something going on, man. Don’t tell me that you’ve been messing around with her.”

I feel Kitty hide herself behind me, her little paws clinging to the shirt at my back.

“I’m not messing around with her, Kaleb, it’s not like that-”

“It shouldn’t be like anything,” he bellows, arms slicing through the air. “She’s my sister. You’re my best friend. You think I can work with you everyday if I know that you wanna get with her? Or, worse, if you’ve actually been with her?” He drops his face into his hands, his angry façade crumbling. “Please tell me that you haven’t been with her.”

I keep my mouth shut.

“You know what, don’t tell me. Just promise me that you’ll stop this. We’re going back on the road in two days. I don’t want this to ever be brought up again.”

I’m confused by his speedy dismissal, his desire to brush it under the carpet, and I’m thinking that he’s taking the news pretty well until Kitty peeps out from around my back and his face sets into steel.

“You can kiss the Fender goodbye,” he snaps, jabbing his pointer towards her.

“But Kaleb, my show-!” she begins, voice pitched high with suspended tears. Kaleb shakes his head, looking stone cold betrayed.

“My best friend? Really Kit? Couldn’t get someone of your own?”

“Kaleb-”

“And now you think that you can be a little rockstar? Trying to impress my friends?”

Sibling rivalries aren’t something that I understand having never had any siblings of my own, but what I’m gathering from the tension radiating from Kaleb is that the concept of sharing does not exist here.

“Kaleb,” I say, aware that I’m probably overstepping a boundary. “If anyone should be punished for keeping this from you, it should be me. Don’t take this out on her, man. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Kaleb continues talking as if I haven’t said a word.

“Drive yourself home Kit. I’m not hitting the ranch tonight.”

He turns on his heel, rain water spraying up his calves, but then he hesitates for a moment and spins back around.

“And you?” he says, turning his lasers to me. “I want your ass off the ranch by tomorrow morning. When we’re back on the road, we never speak of this again.”

I’m too stunned to speak. Never in a million years would I have thought that in this situation Kaleb would turn on Kitty rather than me.

Kaleb thunders away, and I spot Chastity waiting for him with a group of her friends.

I turn to talk to Kitty but she brushes straight past me.

“Kitty,” I say quietly, trying to chase after her without getting her brother’s attention again. “Kitty, I’m sorry, I can fix this.”

She throws me a look and then starts sprinting to the Chevy, too distraught to care anymore.