Another pause before, “Give me a couple of days.”
“To decide if you want to take the job?” Stellan asked, not a big fan of waiting, at least not for something like this.
“To get you everything there is to know about Sixx.”
Stellan stared at the marble of his kitchen counter.
“A couple of days?” he asked.
“You’re in a hurry, I’ll have a report to you by tomorrow afternoon. It will be comprehensive, but not as comprehensive as it would be if you gave me a coupla days.”
Holy fuck.
“You can take your time, Dillinger,” he shared. “I’ll be doing the same.”
There was another pause, this one longer, before Dillinger said, “You didn’t ask for it but you’re doing me and Angie a solid so I’ll give one back. You take that on, man, you might be in for a world of hurt.”
“I’m counting on it,” Stellan replied.
There was amusement in his voice when he muttered, “Right. Welcome to the dark side, brother. You got it in you, I suspect you’re gonna enjoy your stay. Now, we done?”
“We’re done.”
“Meet soon.”
“Yes.”
Dillinger disconnected.
Stellan tossed his phone on the counter and smiled a very slow smile.
BRANCH
Branch stood in his condo and looked around.
He should let her sell it.
But he figured that was a commission she didn’t need.
He hefted his bags up, walked five feet and dumped all three of them beside the door.
Ready.
Waiting.
It was early for them. He didn’t intend to move in.
What he did intend to do was move the fuck out.
But his next place, he’d be renting.
He went to the kitchen and grabbed his bottle opener.
On his count, she had three.
But he liked his.
So he was keeping it.
Pocketing the thing, Branch walked out the door.
And then he was on his way to Angie.
twenty-six
Match Point
EVANGELINE
Evangeline was pacing with Murphy at her heels.
She had her phone in her hand, cued up to call Cam because she was worried.
Branch had been gone almost all day.
A day he’d told her would herald the beginning of a weekend they’d share with no plans, except to be together.
When she’d come in that morning after spending time outside with Murphy, he’d told her he had “something to do.”
Not a job, “something to do.”
“And I might be late, babe,” he’d shared.
He’d done it with one of his hands cupping her face, the other arm engaged in holding an active Murphy against his chest.
She’d let him go. He had something to do, she wouldn’t hang on. That wasn’t how she was going to win this war.
She needed to hang on without hanging on.
It still cost her because when he’d told her that, he hadn’t hidden the conflict in his eyes.
Now it was late, after nine, and she hadn’t heard anything from him the entire time he was gone.
That was not like Branch. He might not share his every move but he didn’t keep radio silence when he was away from her.
She also hadn’t texted him, hoping she was making the right play with that, giving him some space.
She looked down at her phone for the fiftieth time that day and made the decision she’d made the other forty-nine times.
She set it aside on the kitchen island.
She’d only engage Cam if it was an emergency.
She had no idea what Branch did when he was away from her but they both lived their lives and he was often away from her.
This was no different, she told herself.
Not at all.
Murphy yapped and dashed away.
She looked in the direction he was heading, the kitchen door, to see lights illuminating her driveway.
Her sigh of relief was audible.
Branch usually parked at the curb.
Unless they were in for the night and she had nowhere to go. Then he penned her in, in her drive.
She took it as a good sign he was penning her in.
On that thought she rushed to Murphy so he wouldn’t make a run for it when the door opened, even though she knew this wouldn’t happen.
Murphy hadn’t been with them very long but she knew he wanted one thing.
His daddy.
He liked his mama.
But if he had the choice, he was a daddy’s boy.
She scooped him up, seeing Branch easily in the motion sensor light through the window.
Her relief took a hit when she saw the look on his face, but she forced what she hoped looked like a genuine grin at him and flipped the lock on the door.
She stepped back as he stepped in.
“Hey, honey,” she greeted.
“Hey,” he returned, his eyes only holding hers briefly before he reached out and plucked Murphy right out of her arms.
That made her grin turn natural.
“Hey, buddy,” Branch said quietly to Murphy, pulling him up his chest, letting Murphy lick his neck and bounce in his arms as Branch gave his ruff scratches.
“He missed you,” Evangeline shared softly, and unnecessarily, saying more with her words than sharing about their dog’s emotional state.
Branch didn’t miss it and his gaze cut to hers. “Can we talk?”
She looked right into his eyes.
Oh God.
Oh no.
God, no.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice sounding scratchy.
Branch looked to her mouth when he heard it then down to Murphy. “Has he been walked?”
“All good,” she said.
“No accidents today?” he asked, still looking at Murphy.
“No.”
God, she needed him to get on with it even though she sensed she totally did not.
“Right,” he stated, gave Murphy one last scratch, then bent and put him on the ground. He straightened and turned to her. “You need wine?”
“I, uh … have some. In the other room.”
“Right,” he muttered.
Then she watched him go to the fridge and do something strange.
He got a beer.
But that wasn’t the strange part.
The strange part was that he had a bottle opener in the pocket of his cargo pants.
He used it to flip off the top of his beer, pitched the cap in the trash and then, casually, he tossed the opener in her drawer with the others she had.
She stared at his hand closing the drawer, feeling something weird start fluttering in her belly. She just couldn’t figure out if it was a good flutter or, with the look on his face and his distant demeanor, a bad one.
“Babe.”
His call made her look at him, and when she did, he jerked his head toward the family room.
She went there.
She sat where she used to sit on her end of the couch before she’d made them the them she was making them and her position had changed. Head on his thigh with his hand in her hair or drawing circles on her hip or just holding her at her waist. Cuddled with her back into his front if he was stretched out.
That flutter turned bad when he sat on his side of the couch and didn’t give her any indication he wanted her closer.
He took a sip of beer.
She’d left her wine on the coffee table in the middle, too far away right then to grab without shifting. Her body felt so fragile, she thought any movement might make it shatter. So she left it where it was even though she had a feeling she would need a hefty sip, or to gulp the whole glass.
“I’ve made a decision,” he told the blank TV.
Oh God.
Oh no.
God.
“Yes?” she whispered.
r /> He didn’t lead into it easy.
“You don’t need my shit.”
Oh God, no.
“Branch, honey—”
His gaze sliced to her and he ordered tersely, “Let me finish.”
They said on the websites for PTSD that you had to listen and you shouldn’t interrupt.
So she shut her mouth and tried not to focus on the fact her heart was slamming in her chest and that flutter in her stomach felt less like something good and more like she was about to vomit.
He leaned to put his beer on the coffee table, and although he straightened, he did it sitting like he used to, on the edge of his seat, like he was going to get up and take off at any moment.
“You got a lot of knickknacks,” he declared to his beer, and at that, she stared.
As he could do, Branch surprised her, taking her somewhere she didn’t know he was leading and she had no clue where he was in his head, thus where he was guiding her.
He knew, though. She’d learned that.
So she kept silent and waited for him to take her there.
“Can see it. Everywhere. Except for what that fuck did to you, you’ve lived a good life. Got stuff all around to remind you of the good times. The people you spent them with.”
She said nothing and not only because he was right.
“When Aryas offered you up to me, I knew you,” his eyes finally came to her. “I was there that night so you know that. But it was more. He offered you up so I investigated you. Told myself it was about seeing if I wanted to take you on. Mostly it was about seeing how bad you taking me on would fuck up your life. So I looked into you. Your financials. Work history. Education. Even went so far as to download the floor plan to your place. Came one night when you were asleep, broke in, checked out your studio, walked through your house, saw you in bed.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered, unable to hear that and not speak, even if what he was saying wasn’t a surprise—that was very Branch—it was still a shock.
“Knew even then, if I made the decision to take you on, it was a big mistake. Not for me. For you.”
Evangeline pressed her lips together and he watched.
Then he continued talking.
“Barely could do my search, but not because I was an intruder and no one needs that, especially not you. Because I couldn’t stand to be in your space.”
She tried to keep her breath even but it was far from easy.
He shook his head. “This place, fuck,” he kept shaking his head, “all of it was so far away from who I am, the life I have, didn’t belong here not just because I broke in. In a way I felt it crawling over my skin. This house and the woman who made it a home were not for the likes of me.”
She felt the tears sting her eyes and was concentrating so hard on not letting them flow she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to him.
The look on his face, his detached manner, none of it giving her an opening, she let her hand drop.
She’d lost.
Now he was telling her he could take no more and he had to go.
So she had a decision to make.
And she had to make it now.
She hated it but that decision was clear. It had always been clear. She just wouldn’t let herself see.
For him, because that was how much she loved him, holding it together just barely, determined to fall apart when he didn’t have to watch, she whispered, “Branch, honey, it means a lot to me that you’re giving me this. But I see now I shouldn’t have asked for it. So I think to make it easier on you, that you should just—”
He cut her off. “Make it easy on me.”
“Yes, so you can—”
“You make everything easy, Angie.”
Evangeline shut her mouth again.
He turned more fully to her on the couch, lifting up a cocked leg to rest it in the seat.
And the flutter in her belly shifted.
“I was a soldier.”
Oh God.
She did nothing but nod, though it took some effort not to do it enthusiastically.
“You’ll never know anything about that, babe.”
She kept nodding.
“Not a thing. You can ask. I won’t tell. The shit I did,” he shook his head, “I can’t tell.”
“Okay, honey,” she whispered.
He stared at her like he’d just noticed she was there.
She felt some guilt about this because he didn’t know what she knew.
But she didn’t feel much.
All’s fair in love. Not war. Nothing was fair in war.
But all was fair in love.
“It fucked with me,” he said softly.
She started nodding again.
“I lost some people. They meant a lot to me. They didn’t go in good ways.”
“Honey,” she breathed, trying to figure out what to do, go to him or give him space.
“I didn’t handle that very well,” he admitted.
“I think you’re doing fine,” she told him gently.
“Baby, they lost their lives. In response, in a way that was fucked up, I took my own even if I was still breathing.”
“You needed to process,” she shared.
“I needed vengeance,” he declared.
She went still.
“I got it, babe,” he told her bluntly. “I got blood on my hands, I was a soldier so I think you might get that. But at least with that last, I didn’t bring it into your home. I didn’t bring that to you. How I needed to put them to rest is done. That was what I was doing while I was away. But how that vengeance went down was not on me. I just did what I needed to do to put my people to rest. It’s important to me you get that.”
“Okay, baby. Good. I’m glad you could do that.”
Murphy, who was done doing whatever he’d been doing after Branch put him down (that “whatever” she hoped wasn’t decimating something that wasn’t one of the twenty toys they’d bought him or making a lie of her saying he was all good with his bathroom business), made a jump to join them on the couch.
And failed.
Branch helped him out, lifting him up to the seat.
And watching that, everything settled for Evangeline, inside and out. So much, it was a wonder she didn’t sink into her couch, into the floor, becoming a permanent part of that house, permanently fixed in that time she was spending with Branch.
Murphy dashed to her and let her get one pet in before he dashed back to Branch and sat in the crook of his knee, right where he wanted to be, but he gazed at Evangeline, panting happily.
“It’s done,” Branch announced and her eyes shot from Murphy to him.
“Sorry?”
“That. What I was. Where I was. How I was. It’s done.”
That flutter went berserk.
“I … are you—?”
“There’s shit, that shit I mentioned earlier that you can’t have, Angie, that will always be there. For me, it’ll always be lurking. I’ll always feel I have to stay vigilant to keep you safe from what’s in my head and all I think that’s out there that might hurt you. But I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t think I could give you that already. It’s just that I’ve come to terms with the fact I always really knew that, I just didn’t believe I deserved what you were offering.”
“Branch,” she whispered shakily, starting to scoot toward him.
“Baby, just a few more seconds, yeah?” he whispered back, the distance out of his face.
It was warm.
Soft.
Hopeful.
She felt her heart thump and stopped moving.
“That shit you can’t have, Angie, like I said, it’ll never go away.”
“Okay,” she replied immediately.
That made his mouth go soft.
“You can take anything, can’t you?” he asked.
“If it comes with you, yes,” she answered.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Can I come to you now?” she
asked.
“You gotta know all you’re getting,” he told her.
“I already know.”
“Babe, it’s over. All of it. Aryas offered me a job working at his clubs. I took it. The shit I do, or did, shit I don’t want to bring into your home, your life, more shit you can’t know, that’s over too. But it was there. It was who I let myself be. The people I worked for. The things I did.”
“Okay. But I don’t care.”
“Babe—”
Right, it was time, she felt, to interrupt.
“Branch, I know who you are,” she stated. “I didn’t know you before but my guess, you’ve always been just who you are. What you did, how you coped, whatever happened, it is what you say it is. It’s shit. And it’s over. Now you’re here with me. That’s all I care about. You being here with me. Whatever you bring with you, I can take it because I want it if it’s part of you. And I knew from the beginning I’d take whatever I could get from you. So if you can’t give it all to me, if that’s something you need, then I’ll give that to you too and I’ll take what I can get.”
“Now, babe,” he growled, his expression no longer warm or soft or hopeful, but harsh, “you can get over here.”
She got over there.
Branch scooped up Murphy, twisting the dog behind him on the seat as he surged into her, meeting her halfway, taking her back into the couch and landing on top of her.
Murphy thought they were playing so he yapped and raced up Branch’s body, jumping into the side of the couch by their heads to snuffle into their faces and lick them both.
Evangeline felt it and didn’t.
Because she was getting another kiss, and she loved her new puppy, but she loved the kiss Branch was planting on her a whole lot better.
Branch ended it abruptly and rested his forehead on hers.
Murphy tried to push into their bodies so Branch lifted up, giving his boy what he wanted (like always, he was going to spoil the pooch rotten, but she didn’t mind) and Murphy pressed in, settling at Evangeline’s shoulder but doing it licking Branch’s neck.
“Never had knickknacks,” he said quietly.
And again Evangeline gloried in knowing more about Branch even if what she knew broke her heart.
“Honey,” she replied simply.
“Even before life turned shit, life was shit. Grew up in a home without things like knickknacks, babe. My dad was barely around but took off for good when I was eight. But when he was around, he knocked my mom around and he didn’t feel much of a need to hide that from his sons. Treated her like dirt. Didn’t treat his boys much better. Mom was a mess. Never kicked his ass out. Acted, when he’d disappear and then come home, like we were getting a visit from a king. After he left for good, she never sorted her shit out, just sank deeper in her own crap. She drank, before he left and after, and she was a sloppy drunk, Angie. When she was thirty, she looked fifty. When I left at age eighteen, she looked half dead.”