Whisky State of Mind (8 page)

Sky hesitated, battling a flutter of nerves as she realized she was about to come face to face with a man she hadn’t seen in a decade. She lifted her eyes to Sawyer and realized the apprehension must have been visible in her expression when he gave her a very un-Sawyer like smile of encouragement.

“I’ll wait out here,” he murmured.

Straightening her shoulders, she stepped into the office and forced a confidence she was far from feeling.

“Hello
, Whisky,” her father said after a few moments of terse silence. His voice was still the same. It instantly sparked a deluge of memories and emotions and she had to blink hard to keep them all at bay. Gone was the faded bandanna he’d always worn around his forehead, holding back his hair. The hair was still longish, but was now liberally scattered with more grey than brown and had been given some kind of style cut so that at least he now looked moderately tidy. He was still as large as she remembered. A big, solid man who looked every bit as intimidating as his reputation suggested. Despite the office he now sat in—he wasn’t dressed in a suit. As he stood, very slowly, she saw he wore an old pair of jeans and a faded shirt. Apparently, there were limits to how far he was willing to go to reinvent himself.

“It’s Sky,” she forced herself to speak past the large lump in her throat. “I go by Sky now.”

He nodded faintly as his gaze roamed across her face. “You look so much like your mother.”

She got that a lot. There were photos of her mother all over her grandparent
s’ house. The photos of her as a toddler could have, in fact been a twin to the photos of her mother at the same age. However, the photos only went as far as seventeen. After that there were no more photos of her mother in her grandparents’ house. That was when they’d lost her. That had been when she’d ran away from home and started down the path of destruction, as her grandmother had said on more than one occasion. To them it was as though she’d died at that age, instead of five years later at twenty two.

She’d always thought it was sad and had shown her grandparents the photo she had of her mother, taken when Sky had been two years old, but her grandmother had stared at the photo for a few moments before shaking her head sadly and handing it back to her.

“That’s not the daughter I knew. That woman is a stranger—a sad, lonely stranger.”

It had hurt Sky that her mother’s own parents could simply stop thinking about the daughter they lost and practically reinvent her death. Not that anyone had asked them, but the few times she’d heard them discuss her mother they had always said they’d lost her to drugs as a teenager. And maybe they had. The reality was, the daughter they had known had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist the moment she’d left their house.

“This place has changed.” She didn’t really want to start this conversation with a deep and meaningful walk down memory lane.

“Sawyer told you we
’re legit now?” he asked.

“So he said,” she nodded, her gaze wandering around the room curiously.

“I wish I’d done it earlier. I wish you’d been around—”

“So what was so important that you needed to send Sawyer to drag me all the way out here?
”
Sky cut him off before he could finish.

Her abrupt question silenced him and his expression lost the almost vulnerable look of a moment before. She was glad he was now frowning. She could handle anger. She wasn’t ready to deal with anything else yet…if ever.

“He had to drag you?”

“Well he certainly wasn’t taking a polite no for an answer. So, here I am. You got your way. What do you want?”

“I wanted to see you again…I want to fix things.”

“Fix things?” she asked
, staring at him.

“Look, Whis—” he started then quickly corrected himself as he caught her frown of protest. “Sky. I know you’re angry. I also know this is something I should have done a lot sooner—”

“You think?”

“I wanted to,” he sighed, and sat back down in his chair.

“Well that’s nice. It’s the thought that counts after all,” she muttered sarcastically.

“What was I supposed to do?” he said
, raising his voice across the desk. “You were settled and thriving in a good school with real friends…not to mention your grandparents had the money and the legal team to make sure I never got anywhere near you again.”

“You seem to have money now,” she pointed out
, gesturing around the office and all the renovations that had happened.

“Now, yes. Not back then. It was too dangerous to bring you back here even though I wanted to.”

“I was raised here—how could it have been any more dangerous?”

He gave a brittle laugh. “Try encouraging an outlaw biker club to go straight. It took a bit of discussion to remove ourselves from a long line of bad influences. I made a lot of enemies. I wasn’t going to bring you into all that. Not until I was sure it was safe. But by then—you were already used to another way of life.”

“You didn’t even try to contact me. Not once in all those years,” she snapped.

“I couldn’t! Damn it Sky, you don’t know your grandparents like I do
.
I knew they could give you the best—that’s all I ever wanted for you. You think I wanted to let them get their holier-than-thou claws in you? Of course not. They’d like nothing better than to destroy me…this whole club. I had a responsibility to these people to keep my promise and make something of the club—to make it without the drugs and the guns and all the other shit that we used to do.”

“It’s nice to know you keep some of your promises then,” she said quietly, wishing she could have sounded a whole lot more angry and a little less choked up.

She almost felt bad when she saw his shoulders slump slightly.

“I was hoping you’d come and work here…be part of the club. I’m stepping down soon and I’d really like to know there was still some McKenna blood in this place.”

“Work here?” Was he serious? “Police raids and drug busts aren’t my kinda’ fun. I’m just a humble waitress and I’m happy working where I work.” 

“You think I’d bring
you back into this life if there was any chance you could get mixed up in something?”

“How would I know? When I left, you were about to be arrested…and what? I’m supposed to just accept you’re now clean? I’m supposed to
know
you? Well I don’t.
I don’t
know you. I’m not that little girl you left behind. I’ve grown up… I’ve changed.”

”And so have I. Look, baby girl, I don’t expect you to welcome me back with open arms. I just want to be back in your life again…someday. I wanted to start with today.”

Sky eyed her father warily as he came to a stop before her. It hurt so much to be this close and yet still feel so angry.

“I don’t know.” Damn it, she was so confused. It was so much easier to hate him when she wasn’t face to face with him. Everything about him brought a stab of memory. She’d loved her father so damn much. He was her world…and then he abandoned her. I’m sorry…I don’t think I can do this right now,” she said, fumbling for the door knob behind her back as she edged away from him. “I need some time to think,” she mumbled, unable to look at the pain in his eyes her retreat was causing.

“That’s okay, darlin’,” he said quietly. “You take some time to think it over. I’ll be right here.”

God damn it!
Her eyes were burning with unshed tears as she slipped through the open doorway and headed back down the hall. She didn’t want to hurt this much again. It was bad enough the first time around.

****

“You know, he’s really trying to fix things,” Sawyer said without taking his eyes off the road ahead. She’d been turned away from him and looking out the window the entire trip back.

He’d looked up as she’d hurried past him at the bar and had to break out into a jog to catch up with her outside. He had a feeling this first visit wasn’t going to go as smoothly as Johnny had hoped it would. He’d tried to tell him she was still mad.

She didn’t answer, just kept her gaze fixed on the street flashing by as they drove.

Usually he was fine with silence. Most of the time he found women never knew how to shut up. There was nothing wrong with enjoying another person’s company without having to fill in every minute with endless chatter. However, Whisky’s silence was beginning to irritate the hell outta’ him. 

“You weren’t in there very long.”

“Long enough,” she said quietly.

“Did you at least hear him out?”

“Yep.”

“He was probably expecting too much too soon…but he just wanted a chance to explain.”

“Why the hell do you care, anyway?” she demanded.

He glanced across at her briefly, glad that at least she’d stopped the silent treatment. “Because I know how much it means to him.”

“You think a lot of him don’t you,” she said quietly.

“If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably have ended up in prison
.
He’s like a second father to me.”

He saw her nod slightly, then turn back to look out the window. “Well, at least he wanted to be a father to one of us.”

Her words, spoken with such sadness stabbed at his heart. What did he say to that? He knew Johnny’s reasons for staying out of her life were legitimate. He’d sacrificed his daughter—giving her to two people he knew would poison her mind toward him, but he’d done it because there was a very real threat to her safety if she’d stayed with him. Still, he could see how knowing her father had practically raised someone else’s kid, would feel like the worst kind of betrayal.

“He loves you, Whisky. He never stopped.”

Her shoulders shook a little as she took a breath and in the reflection of the window he saw her squeeze her eyes shut tight. He felt her pain, it filled the car like some kind of tangible thing and he wished to God he knew what to do or say to make it better. He knew his limits though—and had a feeling anything that came out of his mouth right now would have been the wrong thing, so he kept it shut and kept his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

Chapte
r
7

Sky picked up the phone and dialed the number as she lay in bed later that night.

“Hey, girlfriend, I was just thinking about you. How weird is that?” Bella’s voice chirped in her ear.

“I saw my father today,” Sky blurted, then bit her lip against a wave of anguish.

“How did it go?”  Bella said after a moment of stunned silence.

“I don’t know…okay, I guess. He’s…I don’t know, Bell. I feel so torn. I wanted him to be this selfish, loser of a man…I wanted to be able to walk away with my head held high...and hurt him the way he hurt me.”

“But?”

“I don’t know,” Sky felt her lip tremble a little and pressed her fingertips against them tightly. “It was so freaky. He was the same as I remembered, but older…I just don’t know how I should be feeling, Bell.”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you for needing a bit of time to get used to the whole idea first. You haven’t seen him for a long time.”

“That’s just it! Everyone expects me to just forgive and forget—like the majority of my life didn’t happen! He expects me to get over it. Like he did this big, noble thing and it was all for my own good.”

Bella was quiet on the other end of the phone. “Do you think that maybe he
did
do the right thing? Don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly, “the way he left you with your grandparents and then never had any contact with you again, was sucky. But from what you’ve told me over the years, the club really didn’t seem like the best kind of life for a kid…maybe in his own way, he was doing what he thought best for
you?
”

“I don’t know what to believe. He said my grandparents threatened him and he had no choice but to stay away…”

“I wouldn’t put it past your grandparents to pull a stunt like that. They disowned their own daughter…it kinda’ makes sense they’d do something like that to make sure they kept him out of your life.”

“That doesn’t excuse why he waited until now, to make a sudden reappearance.”

“Maybe it took him this long to work up the courage. You do hold a grudge like nobody’s business, ya’ know,” Bella teased gently.

“Look who’s talking! Miss, I-got-a-hair-in-my-donut-when-I-was-five and refuses to set foot inside a
Dippin’ Donuts
store ever again.”

“It wasn’t just any old hair…it was short and curly…
Oh God
you
had
to bring that up,” she made some dry-heaving sounds in the background and Sky rolled her eyes as she waited.

“You done?”

“Let’s change the subject. Heard from
Mr. Mysterious
yet?” Bella asked.