Booker (Courting Chaos Book 3) Read online

  When Joe had first hired me, we talked over Marina’s situation in depth. Even the family situation. When he mentioned he had a son named Booker, I put it with the Coyote and knew I’d heard it somewhere before. So I went searching online and fell down an internet rabbit hole that I had to force myself away from. Before this job, I’d heard his name in passing. After, I knew at least what had been reported over the years.

  “Paige,” she said so I’d know it was time for me to actively listen again, “It’s time for my morning nap.”

  Nodding, I walked back to her and release the wheelchair breaks.

  “I got it,” Joe said, taking hold of the handles on the back. “I’ll walk with you two. I’m headed that way.”

  As we approached the house, Joe headed for the ramp he had built just for this and kept going until we got inside. In the kitchen, he stopped.

  “Don’t you need to get back to the horses?” Marina asked him.

  “I do but I can get you into bed first.”

  “No, no.” She brushed him off. “You go. Paige and I have this.”

  He squatted down next to her. “You sure?”

  “We do it all the time.”

  Joe nodded then kissed her on the cheek before returning to his full height and going back out the door.

  Getting Marina into bed wasn’t all that hard. She wasn’t heavy, and I was stronger than my size would make it seem. Usually once I got her tucked in, she began to drift off almost right away. Marina liked to act as if everything was normal, but she tired out quicker with the pneumonia.

  “It’s not that I didn’t want Joe to help,” she said once I had her all settled and cozy.

  I nodded but didn’t necessarily understand why. Marina and I had already grown comfortable with each other. It happened quickly when two people spent as much time together as we did. Not to mention being someone’s nurse was just about as personal as someone could get.

  “Why didn’t you let him then?” I asked.

  “I love that he helps sometimes and that he even wants to.”

  “He loves you.” I knew that as a fact after my first day there.

  She shrugged and said, “He does. But I don’t want him to take care of me all the time in this way. One day, hopefully, I’ll be fully recovered, and we’ll have a normal relationship again. I don’t want him to view himself as my caretaker and not my husband. It’s why I insisted we hire a live-in nurse even though I knew he’d do it all himself if I let him.”

  Ah. She was talking about sex. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard from someone that they didn’t want a spouse being their caretaker. The fear of one’s spouse seeing them in a different light if, for example, that spouse was wiping the patients butt was a real thing. Marina didn’t need quite that level but there had been times she needed help in the bathroom as well as she wasn’t allowed to bathe alone yet.

  I sat on the edge of her bed and said, “You know you don’t have any limitations in that area, right? I mean, right now you have pneumonia so you should rest but when you’re not actually sick.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “But I can’t imagine I’m all that desirable in this condition.”

  I’d seen the way Joe looked at her. That was definitely not an issue. “Well, when you’re ready, you should talk to him. I’m pretty sure you’ll find that he thinks you’re just as sexy as before.”

  “Oh please,” she rolled her eyes which made me laugh.

  “OK,” I patted her hand. “You get some rest. Call if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, Paige.”

  I left the room, quietly shutting the door behind me. Everything I’d told Marina was absolutely true. The kicker with this whole stroke was that Marina and Joe weren’t old yet. She was only fifty-one, so the stroke had been a real shock. I’d been expecting a woman in her eighties not… well, her. Though I hadn’t pinpointed Joe’s age quite yet, he didn’t seem all that much older.

  While she slept, I used that time to take care of my own things and today that meant paying the few bills I had. Being a live-in nurse meant I got to live cheaply but still had some expenses of my own. Though I did still put in for rent on my regular apartment that I shared with my best friend Barrett.

  The obscene amount of money Joe had offered me was the entire reason I’d taken the job. Now that I knew Marina, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, but the money had drawn me in. When this assignment ended, I’d have a really nice savings account in place. Enough that I could breathe.

  This was exactly what I’d been working for since I graduated high school at sixteen. Security. A place where I belonged. I didn’t push myself this way for fun. It was for survival. Growing up in foster care gave me a different perspective on life. I’d already seen how a lot could go wrong and how ugly people could be.

  But Barrett and me, we had each other, and we’d take care of each other. I did this for her and I did this for me. Now that she’d graduated from college herself, she’d be pulling her own weight, not that I ever once minded helping her. But we had a plan and while it may not have been much to a lot of people, it was everything to us.

  We were both going to graduate from high school, which we did when a lot of the other foster kids we knew dropped out. We were both going to college and we’d done that too in a time when an education was a pipe dream for a lot of kids. At least three of the kids I’d been fostered with at one point or another were already in prison. Then we were going to have some adventures. Something we’d never been able to afford before.

  A warm place to live, money for food, a savings so that if something goes wrong we could handle it, and each other. That was our dream.

  Chapter Three

  Booker

  I landed in Detroit in the middle of the night. Ideally, I would’ve hopped a quick flight to Saginaw, then driven from there, but unfortunately, the last flight out had left hours before I’d arrived. Since I had to wait, I grabbed the nearest hotel room to snag a few hours of sleep.

  Unfortunately, I slept later than I meant to and after a quick shower, I boarded the flight to Saginaw. That half-hour flight cut my drive time in half. This time after arrival, I rented a car, sent my dad a text letting him know I was on the move, and headed out. I’d wanted to get home as early in the morning as possible, but with my crashing so hard on the hotel mattress, it would be after noon.

  The two-hour drive was boring. Beautiful but boring. When I turned into the long driveway leading to my parents’ house, this familiar knot of apprehension formed in my stomach. Coming home was always a little bumpy.

  “Booker!” Dad called when I got out of the car.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said back and like every other time since I’d turned twelve, he reached out and shook my hand. And like every other time, I took it.

  We walked side by side up to the house. When we stepped inside the entire place was silent.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “Napping. I would assume. I’ll go check.”

  Dad went out in search of Mom while I headed into the kitchen for a drink. It’d been a long drive and I hadn’t wanted to make any stops. After I pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and turned back around, my heart leapt in my chest when I found someone else in the room with me. I hadn’t even heard her come in.

  When she saw me, her eyes grew wide and her mouth formed a surprised ‘O.’ Then she blinked rapidly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

  “It’s fine. I was just surprised I didn’t hear you.”

  “I’m a light walker.”

  I chuckled. “What?”

  This small blonde woman with her hair wrapped up into one of those buns that ballet dancers wore slapped a hand over her face. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “Said what?”

  She was about to answer but shook her head, as if she’d thought better of it. “I thought you were Marina.”

  I was about to ask more questions to figure out
who this woman was, but my mom entering the room stopped me. It was still hard to see her using a walker and she’d told me that for longer travel, she sometimes had to use a wheelchair. That I never wanted to see. But I kept telling myself that at least she was walking. Right after her stroke, they didn’t know how impaired she’d be the rest of her life. Things could’ve gone so much worse for her so honestly, I should’ve been thankful that she wasn’t a vegetable.

  After getting her patented hug, though not nearly as strong as it used to be, Mom asked how I was doing, how things with the band were, if I was dating anyone, and all the other things moms liked to know.

  Then she said, “I see you’ve met Paige.”

  “Not really,” I said, turning to the blonde. “I’m Booker.”

  “Paige Wilson,” she said, laugh lines crinkling the corners of her eyes as she shook my hand. “I’m your mom’s nurse.”

  “Warden is more like it,” Mom said, but since both women laughed, I had to assume it was an inside joke. Paige resembled a gorgeous, college co-ed more than a warden though I wouldn’t have minded her bossing me around a little. “I’m kidding. She pushes me when I need pushing, but she won’t let me do my therapies today.”

  “Um, the doctor won’t let you do your therapies. I’m just following his orders,” Paige said but then softened her face while looking at my mother. “Your body needs a rest.”

  “I like what she’s saying,” I told Mom while pointing at Paige. But honestly, Paige didn’t look old enough to be a nurse and she sure as hell wasn’t dressed like one. She wore Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt. I’d known Mom had a live-in home nurse to aid in her recovery. Had I really expected the 1950s white dress and stockings with the pointed hat? No but even if I hadn’t, at the very least I thought she’d be wearing scrubs. Something official.

  “So, we have a few hours before dinner,” Mom said, pulling my attention away from Paige. “Why don’t you and I go catch up?”

  “Sure,” I said because that was why I’d come. If I were being honest with myself, I’d waited too long to visit in the first place but seeing her like this was like being punched in the throat over and over. Mom had her stroke two months ago just before I’d gotten the call about Courting Chaos. I’d come right home, of course, but once we’d known she’d be all right, I took the job. Hadn’t been back in six weeks, but I always called. Always checked in. It wasn’t good enough.

  “Let me get your afternoon antibiotic while you get settled,” Paige said as we walked down the hallway toward the living room. Or main room. Whatever the hell they called it. The house was too big, in my opinion. I’d grown up here and used to assume that my parents would add some siblings to our family but they never did.

  Mom got comfortable on one end of the couch and I dropped into the chair nearest it. Paige came in with a small medicine cup with three pills inside and a large glass of water. Actually, when she got closer, I realized it wasn’t three pills. The jagged edges made me believe that it was one pill cut into thirds. Mom gulped them down one at a time and held on to the glass.

  That was when she pounced. Pummeling me with question after question about the band. The tour. Had I met anyone special? I answered honestly but with more detail than I’d given in the kitchen. Mom and I had that kind of relationship. Hell, I always answered Dad honestly. He just didn’t like the answers. With Mom I could talk about whatever I wanted, and she never judged my decisions even when she thought I was wrong. She’d tell me I was wrong but told me it was my life to fuck up if that’s what happened.

  At one-point, Mom tried to get me to take her for a walk around the grounds, but she looked so wiped out that I pretended I was too tired to do it. As we talked, the kitchen came alive with activity, which meant Paul, their personal chef, had arrived and started prepping dinner. If there was one thing I could say about Dad, it was that he never spared any expense when it came to Mom—and she deserved it. But it’d also always thought he was constantly making up for something.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Paige said as she peeked around the corner. “Need any help?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mom answered. “Booker’s right here if I do.”

  She didn’t need anybody to get up. I still hovered close until she was safely sitting in a chair at the table in the kitchen. We had a huge formal dining room that we’d rarely ever used the entire time I’d lived here. Glad to see that hadn’t changed. That room was meant for large parties, not a group of four. Though I wondered if Paige joined them every night. I had no idea how this live-in nurse situation worked.

  As we sat down, I pulled off my hooding and hung it on the back of the chair. Paige snorted.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just noticed your shirt. It’s funny.”

  My shirt? Oh, right. I’d thrown on one of my Star Wars shirts that morning. The one with Darth Vader doing his Force choke without touching anyone. It read, Some People Lift Others Up Instead of Tearing Them Down.

  “Most people I hang around wouldn’t have gotten it,” I said back to her. Who was this woman?

  “I’m not most people,” she said back with a big smile.

  “How’s the tour?” Dad asked, though he didn’t seem actually interested. It sounded more like a cursory question. One he had to ask because he was my dad and he was supposed to ask things like that.

  “Good,” I answered, not going into any detail.

  “Is this permanent?”

  “Not yet.” I knew what was coming next. We’d made it halfway through dinner without any complications, but a complication was coming. It usually did but I could always feel it like electricity in the air.

  “Maybe it’s time to come home,” Dad said. “Help run things around here.”

  “Dad, I don’t want to breed horses or whatever else you do. Even if I didn’t want to do music, I’d still be doing something else.”

  “Joe—” Mom tried to help me out.

  “Marina, he’s twenty-five. It’s time to settle down and get a real job. This thing with this new band isn’t even permanent.”

  “Permanent or not,” I jumped back in. Mom didn’t have to defend me to him. “I’m bringing in money and isn’t that what you’re most concerned about?” Really, I didn’t want to argue with him in front of Mom or Paige, who’d stopped eating and was watching the two of us like a spectator at a tennis match. Eyes bouncing from one to the other.

  So I did the right thing: got up from the table and headed outside to cool off.

  Chapter Four

  Paige

  I so didn’t understand Joe Coyote. Sure. His son was tall, his hair disheveled, with tattoos running all the way down one arm making me wonder where else he had them. And the Coyotes were the richest family in Stone Creek, but his son was getting paid to do something he loved and getting paid pretty well, I assumed. Possibly the money didn’t mean as much to Joe as it did the rest of the world. But that kind of money doing something you clearly loved… that was a gift. A gift not to be looked down upon. Something inside me made me want to go after Booker to make sure he knew that what he had was a gift, even though that would’ve been inappropriate. I didn’t know the guy and it was a family matter. Not to mention I’d be way overstepping my place in this house.

  So instead I sat there and pushed the food around my plate while Marina finished eating. Each of pretending as if we hadn’t witnessed anything out of the ordinary. For all I knew, this wasn’t out of the ordinary and who was I to judge how a normal family unit acted. I’d never truly seen one before.

  Now normally, Joe and Marina finished dinner together, which we ate admittedly early, then they’d sometimes go out for a few hours, though not often, or retire to their amazing bedroom suite and watch some TV or read or whatever else they did that I didn’t want to know about. Tonight, they went to their bedroom. I’d have to knock on their door around eight to give her some more medication, give her a quick check-up, then leave. If she needed anything else, they’d text
me.

  I was only there to take care of her medical needs. I wasn’t the maid and they never treated me as such. But I honestly liked Marina, so if she couldn’t make it to the kitchen and Joe wasn’t available, of course I’d get her whatever she wanted.

  Once Joe and I had cleared the table, I told him I’d take care of the dishes, which I did sometimes. No, it wasn’t part of my job but for as long as I lived there, I’d still do the normal things I’d have to do anywhere else. Sometimes Joe took care of them. And sometimes, we did them together while the three of talked. We’d chat about the news, the day, they’d tell some old stories that made me laugh. Even some that involved Booker when he was a kid, though those weren’t as frequent.

  After the dishes, I disappeared into my room for a while. I scrolled through somethings on the internet and answered some emails. I also responded to some texts from my best friend Barrett. I wished she was closer. Then I’d have a little but more of a normal life. I could go out at night then. As it stood, I didn’t know anybody up here which gave me a lot of time to read. But I didn’t want to read tonight.

  After I took Marina her night time meds and gave her the quick once over, I had time on my hands and a rock star in the house. I couldn’t exactly waste that. I could hear the TV going in the living room and headed that way. Booker was leaning back on the couch with a beer in his hand watching a sports recap show. Such a normal thing for a guy to do, but he made it look good.

  I shouldn’t even have acknowledged, to myself or anyone else, how incredibly good-looking Booker was. Tall so his legs stretched out in front of him and went on forever. Strong arms, I’d guess from playing his bass for countless hours. His hair was dark and just long enough that my second foster mother would’ve said he “needed a good cut,” but I thought it fitting. The deep brown eyes had an edge of kindness to them when we were at the table in the kitchen. One that reminded me of Marina.