Dawn Unleashed

Her heels clunked noisily across the linoleum tile of the kitchen/dining room and whispered over the aged shag carpet of the living room and bedroom. She stopped for the hundredth time to check her makeup and hair and then retraced her steps. Her heart was pounding and her palms sweating as her anticipation built with every second that passed.

She wanted to kick herself in the butt for being so nervous. At eighteen, almost nineteen, she shouldn't be so wound up about what amounted to nothing more than a stupid dance. She'd been to the prom before. The senior prom couldn't be that much different than her junior prom. It was going to be the same gym. Attended by the same people. The same corny love songs, and the same rank punch and awful cookies from the school cafeteria were going to be served. This prom was not going to be any different at all. Then why was she so nervous if everything was going to be just a repeat of last year? Because, she realized, even if everything had stayed exactly the same, she had not. She was different.

Her life had changed so much in the short time between early graduation in January and now. Her days weren't filled with worries over the trivialities of high school. Things like homework, makeup, the latest and greatest fashion trends, and vicious girl gossip were a thing of her past. She was already past high school, a woman, all grown up, with childhood firmly behind her.

A soft tap on her door startled her. Maggie resisted the urge to wipe her palms on her dress and turned the knob. She couldn't stifle the smile on her face when she saw Cole standing in the doorway wielding roses. She had to force herself to take a breath. He looked so good in his tux. The cut of the suit exemplified his height and the wide bulk of his shoulders beneath the jacket. The black wool slacks clung to his powerful thighs and narrow hips. He looked all danger in his leathers, like a boy in his casual shorts, tennis shoes, and loose floppy, faded t-shirts, and in his tux, he was all man and absolutely breathtaking. "Wow."

Cole slid the reddest, fullest rose from the foil wrapper clutched in Maggie's fist and trailed it down her cheek. He grinned at the way she stared up at him. Wide-eyed and almost star struck. "I cleaned up ok?"

Maggie nodded and broke her gaze away from Cole. She moved to the sink and filled a vase she'd found in the cabinet with water. Her fingers trembled, arranging the roses clumsily. A shower of baby's breath and stray petals littered the countertop, fatalities to her awkward efforts. Cole stood next to her, holding a rose, for safekeeping.

"Are you ready?" Cole asked. He held the rhinestone studded sheer material of her shawl open, at the ready to wrap around her narrow shoulders. He wound Maggie in the shawl, maybe a little too snugly and just a hair too high on her neck. He didn't want anyone male sneaking a peek at the gentle rise of her cleavage above the low neckline of the dress or at the soft, silky expanse of bare skin along her collarbones. Those parts, every part of her, belonged to him.

Maggie bumbled, still barely capable of speech at the sight of him. She took a deep breath, searching for big girl words to speak. All that came out of her mouth was a weak and embarrassing, "Yeah." She adjusted the shawl lower on her shoulders. Cole had her wrapped up like a mummy so that no bare skin showed through the gauzy layers. She was kind of showing off tonight, for him. Letting him get a nice peek at her bare skin. What she hoped to gain by enticing him so openly, she wasn't sure yet. She only liked that he looked at her.

Cole's arm was light through hers, helping her pick her way down the steep stairs of her apartment. She appreciated the gesture. The last thing she wanted was to twist an ankle in the heels and fall on her ass, or worse, break her damned neck. She expected one of the stark, utilitarian, black SUVs to be idling in the drive. He wasn't rich. That she knew of, none of the brothers were. A Jaguar, sleek and dangerous and obviously expensive, purred in the gravel drive.

Cole grinned at Maggie's shock. He moved around her to open the passenger side door. "Ah, the joys of communal property," he teased. The car belonged to Patrick and he'd been threatened within an inch of his life if the car came back with so much as a speck of dust on the paint job.

Ginger peeked out of the kitchen window, just in time to see her daughter ushered down the stairs by one of the Sons. They were dressed to the nines. Maggie was never the sneaky one. That honor went to Lori. After surviving one teenage daughter, there wasn't much Maggie couldn't get away with that Lori hadn't already tried. She scrambled for her camera and ran for the backdoor. "You two hold it right there!" she shouted, snapping shot after shot.

The prom was tonight. Since Maggie hadn't mentioned it. Ginger assumed she wasn't going. After the breakup with Glenn, Ginger hadn't had the heart to ask. She'd missed out on a day of mother-daughter bonding at the beauty shop, giggling over pictures of elaborate up dos in magazines, and sighing as she helped Maggie slide into her dress. She'd be damned if she was going to miss out on pictures too.

Ginger directed the poses, ordering Maggie and Cole to smile, as she aimed and shot. One thing was too apparent, not picked up by the camera's lens, but by her mother's intuition. She was about to lose another daughter to a warrior. These two were in love. They might not know it yet. But, Ginger, and anyone else who cared to look, could see the fragile beginnings of love blossom between them.

Maggie rolled her eyes but smiled brightly for the camera. Tiny bursts of white sparked behind her vision from the incessant flashing of her mother's camera. Cole was ever the dutiful boyfriend, keeping his touches and his poses light and casual. If he minded the lens of her mother's camera snap, snap, snapping away, he never let on. He kept an arm wrapped around her shoulders and just smiled as her mom took picture after picture.

"Just a few more," Ginger pled. Maggie was getting antsy, shuffling from sandaled foot to foot. The light on her camera flashed impatiently at her. "The battery is almost out," she cursed under her breath and shouted over her shoulder. "Get out here and see your daughter you old fart!" Her husband had gotten home from a grueling forty-eight hour over the road haul and was fast asleep in his recliner. He'd sleep through a nuclear war if she let him.

Maggie ground her teeth as her mom screeched for her dad to wake up. Getting her father out of the recliner and to the back door was going to take an act of God. They didn't have time for miracles tonight. Besides, her mom had taken at least a thousand pictures. "Mom, we're going to be late." She blushed furiously. Her mom's ear splitting shouts had roused the curiosity of the neighbors. She felt the neighborhood staring at them from behind the sheers over their living room windows. "Mom!"

"You can wait one more minute, young lady. Get out here!" Ginger wasn't about to turn her back on Maggie and Cole. No way. This was a family moment. And her husband needed to get his butt out here. Much to her daughter's chagrin, she bellowed even louder and more annoyingly. Finally, she heard the springs in the recliner groan and the fall of his heavy footsteps lumber through the house.

"What? What are you bellowing about?" Buck grumbled through the screen at Ginger. Usually, she had the good graces to let him sleep a few hours before she started in on him. Fix this. Carry that. Go here. Not today, though. He scratched his head and noticed the hairs grew thinner and thinner every passing day. Partly, due to his wife, and well, partly, due to the fact that he was a balding middle- aged man with a pot- belly and the noisiest spouse in the tri-state area. "What?" He pushed open the backdoor and ambled down the narrow trio of stairs to the drive.

"Look at your daughter. Isn't she beautiful?" Ginger said, gesturing to Maggie. Buck looked haggard and exhausted and more than a little pissed off that she'd disturbed his sleep. Glaring at her from behind, bushy, graying eyebrows and puffy lids, he blinked.

Buck turned his head to follow where his wife's dagger like polished fingertips pointed. He rested his hand on his hip and wished he'd taken time to change out of his worn, grease stained, jeans and flannel shirt before collapsing in his chair for a nap. He wasn't a fit sight for company. Especially, a young kid, with a head full of thick hair, a flat abdomen, and the biggest shit eating grin he'd ever seen. "Well hell," he muttered.

Maggie blushed at him, shyly waving the way she used to when she was a little girl and he'd back the big semi out of the drive for another long haul. Sometimes it was easy to forget that his little princess wasn't so little anymore. Time just kind of slipped away and he'd be damned if he knew where it went, quickly, all too quickly.

Buck sighed. Maggie was the spitting image of her mother before time and hair dye and the dreaded thing called life had changed her into who she was now. He still loved Ginger, always would. Didn't know what he'd do without her by his side. But, seeing Ginger in his daughter's looks took him back to a time and a place where his wife and he were much younger, innocent and hopeful. When life was just a mystery yet to unfold before them. They didn't love each other then they way they did now. In that subtle way that life partners do that was never demanding and always so accepting. But, they were so very, very much in love. Infatuated with life and with the idea of one another.

Buck grinned adoringly at his daughter and scowled threateningly at the boy. All males, no matter what their status in a woman's life, saw other males as competition. He didn't know the kid and it didn't matter. He already didn't like him. Nevertheless, he sauntered over, as much of a strut as he could muster with his aching low back and arthritic knee and stuck his hand out.

The kid had a handshake like a linebacker. Buck squeezed harder and pumped faster. The game was on. He kept it polite for Maggie's sake. He'd love to chase this punk off and have his daughter to himself. He resisted the urge to pull the shawl draped over Maggie's elbows up around her shoulders. She was showing way too much skin for his tastes and flashing way too much cleavage from the neckline of the dress. She looked and was all grown up. But, she was and would always be forever his little princess. "Have her back at a reasonable time."

"Yes sir," Cole said respectfully. Maggie's father was a tough old bird, proud as a peacock of his family, especially of Maggie. Fiercely protective of what was his. Cole couldn't blame the man. Maggie was a prize to be jealously guarded.

Maggie tugged on Cole's jacket. The sky was growing dim with the first beams of silvery moonlight and the pale winking of stars. They were going to miss the prom entirely. Her cheeks were heated in embarrassment as Cole and her dad sized one another up. Any moment, she expected them to start pounding on their chests. The testosterone in the air was thick enough to gag on. "We're going to be late."

Maggie rose up on her sandaled feet and gave her dad a peck on the cheek. "I love you." She backed away from her dad and toward the car. Her mother relentlessly snapped away with her camera.

"I love you too, sweetheart," Buck answered. He reluctantly released one of his most prized possessions into the care of a boy he didn't even know and really, really didn't like. But, he let her go, nonetheless. Time marched on and wouldn't stop or slow to wait for anyone to get used to the idea of its inexorable passing. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that too soon he'd be giving his little girl away. When the kids were little and life was so busy, Ginger and he had dreamed of this day. Now, that it was here, and their nest about to be empty, what he wouldn't give to go back and do it all over again.

Ginger snapped away. Picture after picture. Cole had tucked Maggie into the passenger side and climbed behind the wheel. She returned Maggie's wave and stifled a little choking sigh. Watching long after the brake lights disappeared around the corner. She picked her way over the gravel, still in her house slippers, to Buck. His brawny shoulder was soft beneath her cheek. His scent, the smell of diesel, the faint wisps of truck stop food and road dust, and the musky, pungent smell of sweat, so comforting and familiar. "To be young again," she sighed. "Do you remember our senior prom?"

Buck wrapped an arm around Ginger's waist. "You went with what's his name. Martin...somebody." Ginger smelled like home, earthy and spicy as her name suggested.

"Jones," Ginger chimed in.

"Yeah. What ever happened to that guy?"

Ginger shrugged. She really didn't know what happened to Martin Jones, nor did

it matter in the least. "I should have let you cut in." She stood on her tiptoes, clinging to the mountain of man, her man, gently maneuvering into his arms. The neighborhood had gone quiet in the softness of twilight. The air was filled with the smells of meat searing on the grill, the sound of kids playing, and dogs barking in the distance. Hardly romantic, hardly music, but they swayed against one another to a beat all their own.

"Care to dance?" Buck asked. Ginger was in his arms, her body stretched against his. But, the feeling of her wasn't seductive, nor was it meant to be. It was the comforting sensation of familiarity and the irreplaceable sense of peace that came from being loved and loving in return.

Ginger sighed and rested her head against the firmness of Buck's chest. His heart beat in a steady rhythm, lub-dup against the shell of her ear. She took comfort in that reassuring beat and the rise and fall in his chest. The sensation of him pressed against her, of his hands traveling down the curve of her spine to cup her butt was one of familiarity. She'd felt his hands on her countless times and never grew weary of his touch. She relaxed in his arms. "I think we are dancing."

"For the rest of our lives," Buck said. Kissing his wife, the love of his life. He didn't know if he'd go first or if she would. Hopefully, the Grim Reaper was a long, long way from his doorstep and he wouldn't have to worry about it for a while. Even if it did happen sooner than later, even in death, they'd always have each other, the kids, and the life they'd worked so hard to build for themselves. That life, he was happy to admit, albeit ordinary by the measure of man, was pretty damned good.

Chapter 119

Maggie sank down into the leather seat. The Jaguar's engine was a quiet purr beneath the hood. The headlights cut out a bright path through the dimness of the streetlights of the neighborhoods. "I'm sorry about that. My parents can get a little carried away at times."

Cole chuckled and eased off the gas, signaling to turn into the school's driveway. "Your parents are perfect. They love you." He pulled into the long line of cars waiting his turn to drop Maggie off at the front door.

"I know," Maggie said. Rolling the stem of the rose between her fingers, she admired the perfection of the flower and avoided Cole's stare. "Sometimes though, it can be a little...,"

"Stifling. I know." He grinned devilishly, "I don't think your dad likes me very much." He'd gotten under the old man's skin and worked his dander into a lather.

"Of course he doesn't. You're a guy, Cole. Competition." Maggie returned Cole's crooked grin with one of her own. "He thinks you mean to whisk me off my feet and steal me away from him."

"I do," Cole agreed. He leaned his arm across the back of Maggie's seat and slid as close to her as the gear shift between them would allow. He felt her breath catch in her throat with each inch closer he got. "Are you? Are you absolutely and thoroughly swept off your feet?" The skin of her cheek was soft as the petals of the rose clutched in between her fingers. Slowly, he moved his mouth to hers, a gentle brush of his lips against hers. The harsh, loud, impatient blare of a horn from the car behind them broke them apart before the kiss could become more intimate and official.

Cole righted himself in the seat and pulled the car to the curb. He almost had her. He could read it in the whispers of her thoughts in his mind. Sense it in the quickening of her pulse and the breath trapped in her throat. The answer had been on the tip of her tongue ready to tumble from her lips before the jackass behind him so rudely interrupted.

Maggie was grateful for the interruption and the brief moment to gather her thoughts. She wanted to scream "yes!" "yes!" admit she was not only swept off her feet, but hopelessly and utterly his for the taking. Instead, she hopped out of the car before he could come around to open the door for her. He moved human slow, missing the chance to play the gentleman. Here, he had to play human. This was her world, not his. The best he could do was pretend to be part of it.

Cole tossed the keys to the valet and slipped him a twenty. The valet service was part of the French Club's money-making scheme to finance a summer trip to Paris for the underclassmen. Far be it from him to have them paddling across the Atlantic. He caught up with Maggie, who was standing by the door, nervously shuffling her feet with the shawl tightly wrapped around her shoulders as if she were freezing in the balmy evening warmth, watching him with round eyes. Prom jitters? Were there such things? "Do you want to get some fresh air before we go in?"

Maggie took a deep breath and shook her head. She was walking into the prom with the guy of her dreams. Already, she felt the envious stares of girls she'd once considered friends, on her back. She had no reason to be nervous. This was just another dance, nothing of great significance in the bigger scheme of life. Yet, her stomach flip-flopped and butterflies beat their wings in her throat.

"Maggie, you look amazing. Every girl in there is going to hate you because they're so jealous of how awesome you look. Every guy is going to wish he was with you instead of the ugly hag he's with." Cole whisked Maggie over to an abandoned corner of the entrance and smoothed a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. "You can do this."

Maggie glanced over Cole's shoulder and caught two girls, pointing and whispering in her direction. "I don't even know these people anymore. I thought I wanted to do this, go to the prom. But, now, I'm not so sure," she admitted. Cole held her hands wrapped in the warmth of his palms, reassuring her with the strength of his grip.

"I don't know them either," Cole said gently with a shrug. "The ones that are really your friends will be glad to see you here. As for the rest, screw 'em. Now come on, I want to show off my girl to the world, strangers, friends, enemies, and everyone in between."

"Your girl," Maggie repeated. Gingerly, she slid her arm through Cole's and took a step away from the shelter of the building's shadow. "Does that make you my guy?"

Cole grinned and snickered lightly. "You bet your ass it does. Let's go. It'd be a shame to deprive the world of our collective awesomeness one second more. Just hold your head up and smile like you're having the time of your life." He guided Maggie to the line of ticket wielding teenagers and waited their turn. He bent close to whisper in her ear, "It'll make people wonder."

"Wonder what?" Maggie whispered back. She huddled against Cole and the press of her former classmates.

"If you got laid today." He chuckled at Maggie's bemused expression and planted a gentle kiss to her forehead and another, careful of her lipstick, right on her mouth. When their turn came, she handed their tickets to the doorman. A staunch pot-bellied man with a bored look on his face that said he'd seen one too many prom nights just like this one over the years. Cole slipped their torn ticket stubs into his jacket and just like that, they were at the prom.