The Runaway Gypsy

South Bond

Bo give my brother a shrug and tries to brush it off but my brother isn’t having it “You have just done everything but declare a war between two of the clans, you of all people should know the weight of what you just said and what you are about to do” Bo nods again and just stands frozen in what looks like thought. It’s when he turns snd looks me in the eye that he starts telling everything that happen. He isn’t tell us and a whole but rather he is telling me, telling me his secrets and letting me in. His words aren’t cold but sad as he says “ eight teen months ago my father found of he had cancer and he knew his life was limited, he wanted to enjoy the rest of his like holding the burden of our businesses. He passed it to me, he made the marriage oath so I would have a bride and I could take my rightful place. No one dreamed Laila would run away, so we just kept it quiet” my brother seems pleased with the answer and leave it alone. As we drive threw New York City I look out the window and take it all in. I missed it when I was gone, there is no where else like it, the city streets are alive with people. The lights of time square sparkle and shine. I just returned a few days ago and I’m leaving again, it seems to soon to say good buy again. I have bee so focused on my own life changing at the soled of sound, that I forgot about the city I love. When we got into the cars Bo set it up so Him and I rode alone, we aren’t in town cars this time, rather large black SUV’s with blacked out windows. As we shuffle threw the city I hear Bo mumble something under his breath “hmm what was that, I was distracted”

“ it was nothing. I was just mumbling about getting out of this city, I will be happy to get back home where there isn’t traffic like this. Annoys the hell out of my that it takes so long to drive some place here”

I let his words roll around in my head, it seems like he doesn’t love my city the way I do. Most people who don’t call it home normally doesnt. New York City is a life choice.

“Bo why did you buy an apartment here, you don’t love the city. It would be a simple thing for you to demand you and I move to Texas permanently. So why stay here” I have never thought about it before now, but now I feel like I have to know. He gives me a tight smile and reaches for my hand “ you darlin, I stayed for you” when he says things like that I feel as if he knows me better then I know him, I feel as tho he has more emotion in this then I do. “How long had you known about the oath before it was worked out”

He looks at me with a very serious look “you want the truth” I turn towards him in my bucket seat so I’m facing “nothing but the truth so help you God. If you don’t mind” he nods and what he tells me next floors me “I started putting it together a year before it happen. I came with my father two years ago to New York to meet with your father. We had business to take care of with him. We was in your home for maybe three hours when I had to use the bathroom. Some how I got lost and found you in the living room vacuuming, you had ear pods in and was dancing and singing. So I hung out in the shadows and watched you, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I knew who you was the second I seen you, I had heard of your beauty before but I had truly never seen some one as beautiful as you. The next day we came again and this time I got lost on purpose but only found your empty room. I had a plan of coming and talking to you, getting your number and try to get something going to good old fashion way, but you wants there. When I returned to your father office tho you was standing next to your father in swim top and a pair of shorts showing more of your self then you needed to be and telling my father how you loved to swim. You had plans and was leaving for the day and I had the feeling then to pull you in my arms and never let you go. When you bounded out of the room I could see the crest of your a** out of the back of the shorts and it drove me crazy. That’s when I made up my mind I had to have you. When my father and I returned to our hotel that night, I told him what I wanted, I told him I wanted you as my wife. I didn’t care that it wasn’t a good match all I cared about was having you. It took one year but I finally got the old man to get the ball rolling. Then one day my father got me in the main house and told me that we was to be married, I was thrilled and the plan I made then was to have you sent to Texas to me so I was all you knew and had, get you close to me that way. However Nova had talked to one of the girls up north and they told her of your party and she went to our father and got him to come to it. Once I knew the oath was signed I found you on the dance floor. I watch you shake your self and move till I thought I was going to c*m from just watching you. When you came back onto the dance floor with me and you let me hold you so close to me, everything about me came alive. You do things to me no other woman has ever done to me. I knew you loved it here so I stayed for you, so you would be happy.” He tugs on my hand and pulls me into his lap and as he tucks my wild hair behind my ear he says “ for you I would do anything because from the first second I layer eyes on you I know I loved you.” Swoon I do and he pulls me into a kiss that last till we hit the air strip.

Bo POV

When my sister came threw the elevator doors with my niece screaming her head off and told me that she had not seen Lucas nor had any help I got p*ssed, but then Laila come over and started tending to the baby and all I could think about was how amazing life will be when she is cuddling our child. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on Laila I was crazy for her, she just has a way about her that makes it hard for some one not to be. To say she is beautiful is a understatement she has thick long dark brown hair, that when the light hits it just right you can see a flare of red reflect from it, and big green eyes that seem to always be changing shades. She has olive skin that looks almost as soft as it really feels. She’s not tall by any means she’s only about five foot four in her bare feet or flats but she has a body that could stop a clock in its tracks. She comes off stuck up and b*tchy but once you get past that she is as soft as they come. She is one of a pair of identical twins, I have had the pleasure of wanting to strangle her twin brother for just over a year now. Every since he ran off with my kid sister and got her knocked up. As much as I adore my Laila, I could see her brother in h*ll. However my niece looks just like Laila, Rosilin could easily be mistaken for Lailas child and not my sisters. The child even has Lailas personality for Christ sake. I don’t under stand how a man can get so upset and act like such a child when he has a family to take care of but this has been going on and off for a year now with him and I’m getting to my wits end with it. I know I gave my word to Lailas family I would stay in this trap of a city for the first year we was married but my sister needs to go home, she can’t take much more of this. She doesn’t have any help and Lucas lost it when Nova said she wanted to hire a nanny to help her a few hours a day. At home she would have our other sisters to help her, it’s just cruel how he treats her. When Don O’Shea comes threw the elevator with his youngest son it takes everything I have not to jump on him for mistreating and disrespecting my sister the way he has, and from the looks of it his older brothers all feel the same way. I can see the worry in my sisters eyes when he comes in acting like a fool but when he calls Laila out for being with me, all bets are off. I know the code of the gypsy clans same as any one of does. I know what it says about how we treat our woman and what we are not allowed to do before we marry them, in our world we don’t make honest woman out of them, they make honest men out of our sorry a*ses. I know I crossed the line and took advantage but the code says the very second a oath of marriage is agreed on the man and woman is married in the eyes of our people. The code we live by is outdated and mid-evil but it’s worked for hundreds of years so why mess with a good thing. So either way our sins is our own and none of his business, he hasn’t married my sister and you don’t see me getting all upset and they have a child together. The oath of marriage they are under is different then mine because the oath I am under is the old kind, theirs is a new age first of its kind to keep shame off my sisters name kind of oath. When all hell brakes loss everyone but Don and Lucas stand with me, everyone but Don and Lucas has agreed to up and leave with me also. It’s a power high I’m not use to but a show of force we all silently agree needs to take place Lucas needs to be glued to a chair some where for a good long while. When Don either hands his roll of King of the East down or he does it won’t be Lucas who takes over but Mark the oldest son. I have never understood the rule because my oldest sister Page is more better for my role then I am but I’m the only son my father had. Mark knows Lucas will be a thorn in his side so it’s better to force him into his roll as pageboy now then latter. We agree to part ways and meet at the air strip in a half hour, he other men need to collect their wives and then we are off. I sent a text to Page to ready the guess house and a quick run down of what has happen and what is going on. She text thumbs up emoji. On our way to the air strip Laila ask me why I bought the apartment, I tell her the truth it was because of her. She then ask me how long I knew about the oath, not only do I tell her the truth but I tell her it was me who wanted it. I tell her about seeing her singing and dancing around her living room while she was cleaning, I will never forget the first time I seen her hair in a ponytail yet still cascading down her back, the hot pink sports bra she had on and the yoga shorts that didn’t cover much. I stood behind a decor flower piece that sat on a large round table in the foyer of the upscale maze of an apartment they live in. I was in the shadows and she never seen me but I seen her. I thought love at first sight was something a female stalker made up when she was on trial for being crazy and all the other woman of the world just ran with it but when I seen Laila, I knew i was wrong. Over the past year I have come to admire her, her will to be her own person, her grit to go out into this world on her own and not cave, but most of all when she gave in, her will to see what can happen. We are the first to the air strip and the first to board the plan, it’s giant compared to her families jet but my father has a love for air crafts and this is his pride and joy. Laila takes it all in and when the pilot comes out and greets us she seems to not know what to do. Our pilot is a older man, about the age of my father, and he refuses to dress like a pilot and not the rhinestone cowboy, but he is trustworthy and true never mind the best pilot I have ever meet. He flew in the war and is a highly decorated vet and when he flirts with my mother and pokes at my father he seems like family more then anything else. I take my seat toward the middle of the plan and Laila comes and sits on her knees next to me “Bo why are you so nice to me” I look from the window to her so fast my head spins “what do you mean” I’m totally lost by her question and she looks like she is trying to solve a Sherlock Holmes case “I have been really rotten towards you, I ran away and didn’t come back, I have been mean and spiteful and awful at times. So why are you so nice to me, why do you always defend me and stand up for me?” I would think the answer would be easy to figure out, I think it’s easy to see crazy in love with the girl but then again maybe she doesn’t see it “cause that’s what real men do for their woman, they act like cave men and best their chest.” She starts to laugh and it give me a feeling of ease and smile snd laugh with her then I reach over and pull her onto my lap so she is straddling me, I rub my hands up and down her legs and look at the center of the v of her legs as I give the shocking truth to her “I do it because I could never be cruel to the woman I love, to the woman who turned my world upside down in her hot pock shorts and sports bra, because I would fo anything for you darlin” the next thing I know she cups my face in her little tiny hands and lifts it to hers and she kisses me, I pull her close to me and wrap her in my arms and I swear I feel like the king of the whole world. When she pulls back from our kiss she leans her forehead to mine and whispers “you think you love me Bo?” I nod “oh darlin I don’t think I know I do.” She giggles and tells me I’m silly and then she kisses me again and I swear if I died right now it would be as a happy man. She kisses me and when she pulls back for air I whisper sweet little thing to her and she comes back for more kisses, till we hear Rosilin screaming her head off right out side the steps that lead to the flight I grumble that I should go help her Nova with the baby but Laila is off my lap faster then I can form words and down the main isle of the plan and heading for the door. By the time I get there Laila has Rosilin and is on her way up the stairs as quickly as she can come and hollering for me, when I get out the door of the plan I can see why Lucas is on the tarmac, at the side of the suv my sister has just gotten out of, mark and his wife has exited the car and Kathy, Marks wife is sprinting up the step behind Laila while Mark keeps screaming at Lucas to get back in his car and leave. Lucas keeps screaming that he won’t go with out his wife and child, I can see the other cars coming and fast. I rush down the steps to my sister and remove Lucas hand from her bicep and she runs to the stairs and up them “leave right now Lucas with out so much as another word and I promise you when things calm down they will return and life can all go back to normal” he spits in my face and goes into a rant that I’m not listening to, that’s when I hear “kick his a*ss Bo” I look to the voice to find Laila of all people standing alone at the top of the steps screaming for my to kick his a*ss, when he hears her scream it to me, he starts toward her saying he’s going to beat her like their father should have years ago and that when I see red and grab his shoulder and swing him around to face me and I start punching him Mark stands back and let’s me go. It’s not till my mother in law Lillian voice rings out that I stop and get off him he is bloody and beat pretty bad “i can not say my son does not deserve this treatment because he does for the way he has acted, but enough is enough” she tells her men to take him back to his father and two large men drag him to a waiting suv “come now Bo we have a flight to catch, I’m looking forward to catching up with your mother. It’s been a time since I last spent any real time with her, we were just girls back then” she tells me as we go up the stairs. Before my head even clears the door way Laila is there “oh Bo are you alright?, your hands they are all blood did you hurt your hands?, come on I’ll help you get cleaned up” she takes me by the hand and pulls me to the bathroom of the flight. It’s all the way to what you would think is the back of the deck but there is two bedrooms and another bathroom still. She shoves me in the bathroom and comes in after me, she closed and locks the door then turns in the small and now very filled space and says “sit” I do as I’m told and she turns the water on in the tap and dampens a paper towel and starts dabbing my hand “oh Bo I hope your not hurt to bad, I’m sorry I seen what he did and that was so wrong. I wanted you to know brother or not he needed hit and I wouldn’t be upset over it.” I push the hand that is dabbing my hand away and pull her into me “baby to protect you I’d give my life” she shoves at my chest “I think you might have got hot in the head or something” she smiles and goes back to cleaning my scraps. Most of the blood is Lucas blood, but I don’t bother to tell her that. When she is all done fussing over me and I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat I pull her close to me and she lets out a little half whimper half moan and I’m hard as a rock for her, why did I not take her to the back bathroom. I hold her close to me, and she rest her head on top of mine and for s moment we just hold each other. She is as sweet and caring as they come and I can’t get enough of her, but all to sound the red neck voice of rhinestone pilot comes across the pa “y’all gonna wanna buckle up for this one, what we gonna do is try and get this here pony up to its limits in the sky” Laila released me and pulls back from me. When I look up at her face she looks troubled “are you sure he knows what he is doing? He didn’t look like any pilot I’ve ever seen” I laugh “ya he’s the best, your safe in his hands darlin” . We exit the bathroom and take out seats it isn’t long before we are high in the sky and flying home. All I can think about is getting home and being able to stretch my legs no more suits and tailored cloths it’s back to jeans and my Stetson. My train of thought gets threw out the window when Laila unbuckles and leans over towards me grabs my one arm, slings it over her and snuggles into my side “what ya doin, darlin?” She wiggles and does next to me then looks up at me with those amazing green eyes “snuggling in and letting my man hold me so I can do to sleep. I’m dead tired.” I can’t help the smile that cracks my face when she calls me her man. I am her man and damn proud to be, hearing it from her lips tho that brings me pure joy: I slouch down and pulls her closer to me “ sleep sounds wonderful darlin” and with that we both drift off in to peaceful sleep.

Laila POV

For once my moron of a brother got what he deserved. Everyone walked away from him during one of his fits and then he got his but kicked. I won’t lie snd say I didn’t feel bad, because I did in a way but Lucas has always gotten away with everything. He is my fathers favorite and we all know it. My brother Mark has even asked if it will be him who takes my fathers place or Lucas. Thanks to the code my father knows it has to be Mark because he’s the oldest. When Bo gets on the remodeled boring 757, that looks more like a house then a plain, I take panic. He had blood on his hands and his shirt, I didn’t see Lucas get a swing in but I couldn’t see much anyways. I grab him by the hand and take him to the bathroom and start to clean his hands. Once he is clean enough to see there is no damage done to him I stop fussing over him, as he pulls me close to him I feel so precious and safe. He late his head to my chest and I rest mind on top of his, I’m so tired I could pass out where I stand, but it’s a short lived sensation, the older man that looked like the cowboy version of Liberace comes over the speaker and in his best tow matter voice used terms like “ what we gonna do is “ I look to Bo and ask is we are safe and he’s smiling at me “ya, he’s the best. Your safe in his hands darlin” I’m starting to really like being called darlin by this handsome tall man. We exit the bathroom and sit in one of the very few rows of seats, almost every other place to site is a single but where Bo and I sit it looks like a love seat sort of. Once we are flying I unbuckle and snuggle into Bo when he ask what I’m doing, I tell him I’m tired and want sleep. The biggest smile I have ever seen cracks his face as he slouch’s down and pulls me closer to him and we both drift off to sleep. I feel safe with Bo, he wanted this long before I even know about him. He seems to care for me, he even said he loves me. He is taking me away and has promised me freedom and I feel freer then I ever have before. Maybe I should give myself over to Bo, let my self give I to my feelings towards him and just be happy for a little while. When we get to Texas I’ll think about it, right now tho all I want is sleep.