and confident. He also didn't see how beautiful she is now.
"I'm feeling obligated to help her," I admit.
"You're not." Cutter doesn't even think about it. He wants nothing to do with her, and I don't blame him.
She's been raining down random acts of revenge on me and my family for six years. She's never forgiven me for using her to bring in her fallen-from-grace father. I was just doing my job, but she's never gotten over it.
Now I'm torn between helping her or bailing on this whole situation. "I'm also feeling a rope being tied round my wrists, and I'm wanting to cut and run."
"Cut and run then. She's on her own." Cutter makes it seem so simple. Why can't I just do it?
"I thought you wanted Loralei to help us with Giselle." He asked me that just a few hours ago.
"Not worth getting mixed up with her."
I grunt in agreement.
"Mace?"
"Huh?"
"Cut and run. You're not obligated."
"Mm-hmm."
"Holy shit. You want to fuck her. Don't you?"
My grunt is non-committal this time. I want to fuck her, no doubt. I want other things too that I'm not willing to think about right now. I've always been tempted to go after her again. I held back because I assumed she was happy, didn't need my shit in her life. Now I know for a fact she has no one. Why? She doesn't have one person she can call from the hospital? I'm supposed to walk away from her when she's in a tough spot?
"No, Mace. Jeez." Cutter reads my silence over the line. "She's trouble."
"I'm not afraid of her." She's all of five-foot-seven with her petite little body. She's a cop though, so she has a gun and knows how to use it, which only makes me want her more.
"Plenty of other women out there who aren't psychos trying to exact revenge on you." I can almost hear him pacing the room back at home.
"Psycho chicks are wicked hot in bed." She was a live wire the first time at eighteen. I can only imagine how she's evolved as she became a grown woman.
"No, man. Get that thought out of your head. Cut and run." Cutter is speaking reason, but I don't want to hear it right now.
"Let me talk to Mom."
There's static on the phone as Cutter finds my mom and talks to her with a hushed voice. I hear him mention Loralei losing her job and "psycho" and "what to do" but luckily he leaves out anything sounding like "bang her" or "sex."
"Mace?" My mom sounds alarmed by whatever Cutter told her. "Should I come down and help her?"
"No. She's the one who brought your old family down on us." My mom's mafia-boss uncle from New York showed up at Twist Cabins a year after I was with Loralei. He told us she said he could find my mom in California with Foster Dunham, my dad's previous name. It all worked out, but it was a tense situation with my dad prepared to defend my mom again like he had to do before they were married.
"I know who she is and what she did. It doesn't matter. She's in a bad situation. We can't abandon her. I'll bring her some clothes and things."
That's my mom. Doesn't hold a grudge and would never consider bailing on her like I'm thinking of doing.
"Please don't come down here. I'll handle it."
She sighs. "All right," she says reluctantly. "I trust you'll do the right thing, Mace. You always do in the end." God, I don't deserve that woman for a mom. She has way too much faith in me.
"Thanks, Ma. I'll call you later."
I end the call and start up my truck. I know what I need to do.
***
Later that afternoon, I drop a handful of shopping bags on Loralei's hospital bed.
She sits up and stares at the pile. "What's this?"
"Clothes, shoes. Blue stripes and headbands. All that nautical stuff you like."
"Wow. Thank you." She digs into the bags and removes the tissue paper. "These are exactly my style."
"You can't walk out of here in a gown with your ass hanging out the back." As beautiful as it may be, she needs to cover it.
"I hadn't even thought about it. Today has been so busy with tests and phone calls." She wipes her forehead and takes a deep breath. She looks calmer now, more like her normal self.
"You ready to be discharged?"
"Yes." She exaggerates the word like she's dying to get out of here.
"I'll take you