About that time, as was our luck, a loud knock came at the front door.
My head went up and his fingers dug into my ass as he snarled, “This is fuckin’ unbelievable.”
He had that right.
We waited, frozen in position, and then it came again.
“Fuck,” he clipped. One hand left my ass, drove into my hair, and he positioned my face close to his. “Don’t want whoever’s there to get one of the boys or wake ’em. I’ll be back.”
I nodded. Brock lifted his head, touched his lips to mine, rolled me off of him, and rolled off the bed. Tagging his jeans off the floor, he pulled them on as another knock came at the door. He tagged his tee off the floor and prowled to the door, yanking it on, jeans still undone.
Damn but my man was hot.
The door closed and I pulled his pillow to me, hugging it close and smiling.
Then I smelled his hair on the pillow. His hair, not cologne, not aftershave, all Brock.
My smile got bigger.
I rolled off the bed, went to the bathroom, and cleaned up, thinking about our upcoming day.
No, thinking how much I was looking forward to our upcoming day.
It was Saturday after Thanksgiving. Brock got the boys yesterday at three. Why Olivia didn’t let him have them all day Thursday and Friday considering they had both days off school, I did not know.
Upon asking Brock, his response was to ask back, “Why the fuck does that bitch do anything?”
I had no clue as to the answer to that question but also, at his response, I decided not to prod further.
Since our plans were what they were for that day, I came over last night, made dinner, and spent the night. We were going to see how it went with the boys as to whether I spent the night tonight.
And what we were going to do that day was go out and buy Christmas decorations, a tree, and decorate Brock’s tree and house. Then we were going to go back out and buy another tree and take it to my house and decorate that.
With the boys.
I already had my Christmas decorations out and at the ready.
Double the Christmas.
Double the joy.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
I rinsed out the washcloth and smoothed it around the edge of the basin. Then I stared at it.
Navy blue, like his sheets, both of which I bought.
My eyes went to my own personal toothbrush in the holder on the wall. Then they went to the shower where my shampoo, conditioner, and bath wash was. I’d noted Brock’s brand and bought him shampoo so his was in my shower. He also had a toothbrush at my place.
I leaned forward and opened the medicine cabinet.
My face wash. My body lotion. My moisturizer. My contact lens solution. My deodorant next to Brock’s.
I did the same thing with his deodorant, buying his brand and putting it in my medicine cabinet.
This all came about naturally, no words, no discussion. He came to my place and found the stuff then didn’t say a word but didn’t bother packing it again. He only brought over clothes and when he did, he brought enough to last awhile. I went to his place and saw a new toothbrush in its wrapping on the vanity. A statement. The next time I went over, I stocked his bathroom. He didn’t say a word. Nor did he say a word when I brought a big workout bag filled with fashion selections, and as he did in my house, deposited it in a corner and that was where it stayed unless it was scheduled for rotation.
I smiled again.
Yeah, it was gone. That thing in my belly was long gone.
This different kind of wild was a good, safe place to be.
I closed the medicine cabinet, spied my undies on the floor, nabbed them, and slid them on.
I walked into the bedroom thinking Brock had been gone awhile. Maybe he was making coffee. Maybe one of the boys was up.
I considered this dilemma. Then I walked to the nightstand, slid my glasses on my nose, and walked to Brock’s closet and selected one of his flannels. Soft, oft-worn, burgundy. I slipped it on and it engulfed me.
Okay, it wasn’t a robe but it hid more than most robes and if I saw one of the boys, I could hightail it back to the bedroom and put on clothes.
I rolled back the cuffs and walked out to the landing.
I stopped dead when I heard Brock’s clipped, “Jesus, she’s in the next fuckin’ room, brother.”
To that I heard the whispered, but still loud angry words, “So?” Then, “Fuck, Slim, this is the same damned shit as with Bree.”
Levi.
But who was Bree?
“Leave it,” Brock growled.
“Honest to God you think I’m gonna leave it? You think I’m gonna stand aside, keep my fuckin’ mouth shut, and watch you slide over the edge again, tied to another woman with a mountain of problems you think you can fix?”
I sucked in a silent breath and put my hand to the wall.
“Levi—”
“No, Slim, fuckin’ no. You need me to spell it out? I will. Bree got raped. That was tough, man. You know I know it. It was ugly, it was brutal. Fuck, Slim, it was me who went with you to visit her in the hospital and I saw her, Slim, I fuckin’ saw her messed up, jaw wired, teeth gone, eyes swollen shut, bones broken, same as you.”
At these words, I closed my eyes but opened them again when Levi kept speaking and his next words also rocked me.
“Then you go gung ho, nearly losin’ your job, I might add, pullin’ out all the stops to take that motherfucker down. I get that too. Then she finds her way to deal and she does it usin’ a needle. She checks way the fuck out before she injected too much of that poison and finally checks out. What do you do when your ex-fuckin’-girlfriend overdoses? You leave the force and take a job with the fucking Drug Enforcement Agency and no one fuckin’ sees you. You’re undercover, livin’ with the scum of the earth on some wild-ass crusade to turn back time and bring Bree back. Well, man, you can’t do that. It isn’t Bree’s ass hangin’ out there, ’cause she’s dead. It’s yours. Mom, Jill, and Laura, and, I’ll admit, me, we all lost sleep with you doin’ that job, wonderin’ when the call would come.”
“Well, now you don’t have to lose sleep, Levi,” Brock said low.
“No, now we don’t. ’Cause sweet Tess and her cakes are in your life now.”
I moved closer to the wall of the landing and tried not to hyperventilate.
“Careful,” Brock snarled.
“Careful?” Levi asked. “Not even for your own fuckin’ wife, and I will give it to you, I wouldn’t do shit for that bitch either, but not for your own fuckin’ boys did you leave that job. But Tessa O’Hara with her haunted eyes walks into your life and what do you do?” A pause, then, “No, your answer will be bullshit so don’t even say it because you told Laurie and Laurie told me that you knew before you even approached her to see if she’d accept you back in her life that you looked for a way out of the DEA so you could concentrate on her and give her what you didn’t give Olivia and you couldn’t give Bree, seein’ as the bitch essentially killed herself and took her time doin’ it.”
My heart started thumping and my legs started trembling.
Levi kept talking.
“And not only that, you lived in your goddamned place since Olivia took your ass to the cleaners but all of a sudden”—another pause where I visualized him throwing out an arm—“here you are in a sweet condo that sweet Tessa of Tessa’s Cakes would find more agreeable. So now you’re a homicide detective with a middleclass condo and five months ago you were an agent for the DEA with a death wish but at least you had a fuckin’ mission and all that is for her. Fuck, I’m lookin’ at my brother in his fuckin’ kitchen with new fuckin’ dishtowels and I don’t even know who the fuck he is because he’s losin’ all that he is, again, for another, lost, haunted soul with a great pair of tits.”
That was when I moved because it came over me. I didn’t know what it was because I’d never felt it before. Nothing like it. But it was there and I had no control o
f my actions.
I just moved.
And I did it quickly.
So I forged through the abrasive atmosphere of the Lucas brothers’ mood and in the middle of Brock growling something low in response, I ran down the stairs, took three long strides, and then ran up the steps to the kitchen.
Brock’s eyes came to me, his mouth snapped shut, and Levi turned in the direction of his brother’s stare.
I ignored Levi and launched right in.
“I don’t believe you,” I hissed at Brock.
“Tess—”
I shook my head and made it to him. Planting both hands in his chest, I gave him a shove. He went back on a foot, his head jerking in surprise as his hands came up and clamped on my wrists.
I got close and went up on my toes to get in his face and snap, “I told you I didn’t want you to change for me.”
His face went soft and he whispered, “Baby—”
“No.” I shook my head again, tried to yank my wrists out of his hold, failed, and gave up. “I don’t need you to be anything but what you are. Hell, when I fell in love with you I didn’t even know your…” I got closer to his face. “Fucking…” I got even closer. “Name.”
He let my wrists go but only for his arms to fix around me. I pulled at them but he held tight, murmuring, “Tess, darlin’—”
“Unh-unh, no way, Brock. I don’t need a nice apartment where I don’t take my life in my hands walking up the rusty, rickety staircase to get to it. Don’t you see? I’d walk through fire if you were what I was walking to.”
“Fucking hell,” Levi breathed and I watched Brock do a slow blink but I was in another zone. Totally in pissed-off la-la land and there was no going back.
“If you had a dangerous job that took you away from me, it would suck and I’ll admit, I would hate it because I had three months without you and that was enough. But if it meant something to you, I’d suck it up. I’d deal. Because I’d know you were doing something you believed in and you’d eventually come back to me so that would be enough for me.”
His arms separated, grew tighter, gathering me closer, his eyes so warm they were liquid mercury, and he whispered, “Baby—”
“You can be Brock. You can be Jake. You could call yourself Errol fucking Flynn and I wouldn’t care because, bottom line, you’d be the man for me. I know from knowing a bad one, the worst, I know a good man when I see him and it’s important to me to let him be just who he is, not what he thinks I want him to be.”
“Tess—”
“No, I—”
“Tess—” he growled.
“No, I’m not done—”
“Tess,” he clipped, one arm leaving me so his hand could cover my mouth and his face got in mine. “Shut it.”
I glared at him.
He held my glare and stared at me.
Then his eyes started dancing and he asked, “Errol fucking Flynn?”
“This is not fucking funny,” I said against his hand so it came out garbled.
He burst out laughing, his hand leaving my mouth to become an arm wrapped tightly around me again and he shoved his laughing face in my neck.
“I’m not finding anything funny, Brock,” I told the wall behind him as my hands slid up and put pressure on his shoulders (to no avail).
He lifted his head still chuckling and gave me a squeeze.
Then he asked, “Can you shut up for two minutes so I can talk?”
“Yes, but I’ll give you that answer with the warning that you better not say anything that pisses me off or I’m cancelling Christmas.”
His body started rocking and his eyes were still dancing but he wisely didn’t verbalize his still-obvious hilarity.
“Right,” he muttered but it came out sounding choked.
“You have two minutes,” I prompted him.
He grinned at me, repeated a muttered, “Right.” Then said, “All right, baby, no games, no bullshit, no lies. You called the scene and I’ve been playin’ by your rules. I told you, shit got hot for me with what I did at the DEA and I was facin’ a desk. I didn’t lie. What I didn’t tell you is that I had an option. They were thinkin’ of transferring me to LA.”
My body grew tight at these words and his arms grew tight with it.
“Now, I got family in Denver. I got kids in Denver. And, yes, you are in Denver and my boys are gettin’ older. Shit is not right there so I had a decision to make. Bail on all that, leavin’ my boys, and yeah, you behind or takin’ a job with the DPD, doin’ something that has less of an opportunity for my dead body to be found in an alley. Or stay here, take care of my sons, and explore things with you. No lie, you know you meant something to me when I was going over my options so you were part of that decision. But I didn’t do it to change into what I thought you would want. I did it because it was time.”
“Oh, well then,” I whispered and he grinned again.
Then he said, “I got that apartment because Olivia worked part time as a medical receptionist when we were married. She wasn’t very good at it and doesn’t have any other skills except whatever she did to get her bulldog attorney to wring me dry. I didn’t fight that too hard because kids get caught up in that shit and I didn’t want my boys in the middle of a dirty war between their parents. I also didn’t fight because, bottom line, she needed the money to take care of my sons. I lived in a shithole so they wouldn’t. I got on my feet since and two years ago she got herself a man where the extra she asked for and I gave her, I stopped givin’ her. But I had no time or need to move outta that apartment. In fact, livin’ there solidified the cover I was under at the same time it allowed me to set aside a whack. Not havin’ that job or crippled by Olivia, I didn’t need to live there anymore. It isn’t a great place for me to take my woman, for my boys to stay in, but honest to God, babe, I didn’t like it either. I got my shot, I moved out. End of story.”
Hmm.
Maybe I overreacted.
I didn’t share this. I just held his eyes.
His arms gave me another squeeze and his lips twitched.
He knew I knew I overreacted.
Crap.
Then he asked, “Now, I was gonna suggest tomorrow that you go with me and the boys to look at new trucks. My heat doesn’t work, the tires need changing, winter’s almost here, and any money spent on that truck is the same as burnin’ it. So are you gonna have a shit hemorrhage if I buy a new truck?”
“I didn’t have a shit hemorrhage,” I denied.
His face dipped to mine. “Baby, you flew up here, put your hands on me, and lost your mind. I had to put my hand over your mouth to shut you up. If that isn’t a shit hemorrhage, I don’t know what is.”
Oh man. I did that. I shoved him.
Not good.
“I…” I swallowed. “That wasn’t cool, Brock. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have shoved you.”
His body started rocking again and he shook his head like he didn’t know what to do with me. But, luckily, he was shaking it like he thought I was so damned cute, he didn’t know what he was going to do with me.
“Darlin’,” he said low, “I love that body of yours, all soft, all curves, no way you could take me, even in the middle of one helluva shit hemorrhage and you know it. You didn’t do that to hurt me because you know you can’t. You did it because you were pissed and wanted my attention. There’s a difference.”
“It still wasn’t good,” I whispered.
“You make a habit of it, I agree. You do that often?”
I thought about it. Then I said, “Uh… not to my recollection.”
He burst out laughing again.
I glared at him still not finding anything funny.
“Uh… hello,” Levi called.
My body grew tight. Brock stopped laughing and his eyes went over my shoulder.
Damn. I totally forgot about Levi.
All humor was void in his tone when Brock announced, “You and me got problems, brother.”
Uh-
oh.
I turned in Brock’s arms and he let one drop but the other one he used to tuck my front in his side and keep me close as I looked to a Levi who had his hands up and his thoughtful hazel eyes were on me.
Then they went to his brother as his hands dropped. “I’m seein’ I might have got it wrong.”
“You think?” Brock asked sarcastically.
“I was—”
“You were doin’ what you do, Levi, mouthin’ off without thinkin’. You gave me the two minutes Tess gave me, I woulda told you the same thing I told Tess.”
Levi’s lips twitched and he reminded his brother, “You had to put your hand over her mouth to get that in there, Slim.”
“All right, next time you mouth off and piss me off, I’ll let loose the urge to find a way to shut your mouth so I can have my say. Is that good for you?”
Hmm. It appeared even though Levi admitted he was wrong, Brock wasn’t going to let it go.
It was time for me to intervene, mainly because we’d lucked out the boys hadn’t shown in the middle of this drama and the longer we were at it, the more we courted it.
So I found my mouth saying, “Lenore is in love with you.”
Levi had his mouth open to retort to his brother but his head jerked, his mouth snapped shut, and his eyes sliced to me.
Brock’s arm around my back gave me a squeeze.
“What?” Levi asked.
“Jesus, fuck,” Brock muttered.
I looked up at Brock to see him scanning the ceiling.
Oh well. It was out there.
I looked to Levi.
“Lenore is in love with you,” I repeated.
He did a slow blink.
Uncanny, just like his brother.
Then he asked, “Did she tell you that?”
“A girl knows,” I informed him.
“A girl knows,” he repeated after me.
I shrugged.
He stared at me.
Damn. I had to keep going.
“Okay, well, you’ll probably never notice shit like this but her outfit at Thanksgiving… very nice. It suited her. This is good for you if you’re, uh…”—I paused, then forged on—“interested in her. She’s young but she knows herself, what suits her. A lot of girls struggle with that through their twenties and into their thirties. She’s already found her style. That’s impressive.”