Chapter 7 #3
“That’s cold. What did you tell her?”
“I told her to hire a private security detail for the house, and to tell Charlotte to stop giving the family’s unlisted numbers to anyone who asked nicely. I told her no statements.” He paused. “She cried. I haven’t heard her cry since I was thirteen.”
The finger on his arm started moving again, slower now. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m used to it.”
“That’s not the same as being okay with it.”
He thought of his mother on the other end of that call.
Her voice thinner than he remembered. The careful phrasing she’d used to avoid asking directly if he was drinking, if he was sleeping, if he was alone.
Eleanor Whitaker had hosted galas for thirty years.
She knew how to ask hard questions sideways. He’d dodged all of them.
“You should call her tomorrow. Tell her that this sucks for you. Be honest with her.”
The last thing he wanted to do. “Not gonna happen.”
“Lynx.”
He loosed another sigh. “I’ll think about it.”
Sutton’s finger traced a shape on his forearm. “I take it your family avoids emotions.”
“Absolutely. In my family, you avoid uncomfortable topics. Everyone does what they’re supposed to do.”
She turned his arm over, tracing her finger on the sensitive skin along his inner wrist. “Except you.”
“Except me.” He watched her outline what looked like an invisible cat.
A lynx, he realized. “The Secret Service was supposed to be a phase. A rebellious detour before I came to my senses and went to law school. My father tolerated it because it had a certain prestige—his son protecting the President, which played well at cocktail parties. I never did guard POTUS, only family members of other officials. Then the shooting happened.”
“And you became famous.”
“My father was proud of me for exactly one week. Longest streak in our relationship.” The words came out dry.
Practiced. He’d said them to himself enough times that the edges had worn smooth.
“Then he started talking about what was next. The book deal. The speaking circuit. A Senate run—his father’s old seat was opening up, and what better candidate than America’s Hero?
He had the whole thing mapped out. I’d ride the wave of goodwill straight into politics. ”
“But?”
“I had no interest in it. The arguments were akin to Armageddon. I’d killed a man and nearly died, and I wasn’t interested in turning it into a career platform.
He said I was being ungrateful. We haven’t spoken since.
Mom texts once in a while, and my sister is always there for me.
But Dad? I think he’s relieved I disappeared from the spotlight. He can now act as if I don’t exist.”
He waited for sympathy, or the polite deflection people used when someone else’s family dysfunction made them uncomfortable.
“Your father and mine should start a club,” she said.
Sebastian smiled. “They should.”
“I’m glad you still have your mom and sister.
My mother works a bookkeeping job. She used to paint.
Watercolors—really beautiful ones, landscapes mostly.
She hasn’t picked up a brush since Penn died.
I call on birthdays and holidays. The conversations last less than ten minutes.
” She paused. “So I get it. What happened affected both our families in bad ways.”
Two families broken by the same thirty seconds. Two fathers who’d chosen their own comfort over their children. “But we’ve stayed standing when everyone else walked away,” he said.
Her finger stopped moving. Her hand found his again—fingers curling around his palm. She squeezed. “We’re stronger than they realize.”
She pulled her hand away, yet he could still feel the pressure of her fingers. The warmth of her palm. The lynx she’d traced on his inner forearm.
“Were you thinking your arm or back?” she asked.
He blinked. “What?”
“The tattoo. Arm? Back? Somewhere else?”
“I don’t know. I was going to ask the tattoo artist for a suggestion.”
She shifted, motioning for him to turn around. “Lift your shirt. Let me see your back.”
He didn’t move. If he showed her his back, she’d see the scar under his ribs. “Why?”
“I want to know what my canvas looks like.”
“You think it should go on my back?”
She shrugged. “I can’t recommend the spot until I see the options.” She gestured again. When he didn’t move, she froze. “Sorry, is that off limits?”
“Sort of,” he admitted, then thought of a decent argument. “If it’s on my back, I won’t be able to see it unless I look in the mirror.”
Her eyes studied his face for a long moment, and it was as if she was looking into his soul. “You don’t like to look in the mirror, do you?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. She was too perceptive.
She gently pinched his cheek. “With this pretty face, I figured you’d admire yourself for at least an hour every day.”
Her tone was teasing again. He tried to play along. “It’s hard not to.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you want the ink visible to you but overt, the inner forearm is a good spot.” She tapped the skin where she’d traced the lynx. “If you want it to be more private, the chest or upper thigh are good places. You can still see them without everyone else seeing them, too.”
Her hand patted each corresponding spot, making him tense. She touched people, left ink on their skin, every day. It was natural for her, but it wasn’t for him. Outside of training with his SPS teammates, no one touched him. Her touch did things to him. Things he didn’t want her to see.
He looked toward the sketchbook and pens stacked on the nightstand. The book they’d stoken from Vivi was on top. “Do you have a design in mind? Mine was rough.”
She rose, excitement evident as she crossed the floor to grab the tools of her art. “I do, in fact.”
The redirection had worked, giving him a heartbeat to regain a measure of composure, but her shorts were too short, causing his already active imagination to take another turn into dangerous territory.
He tried to shut it down. It didn’t work.
For six years, he’d kept everyone at arm’s length. The team. His family. Every woman who’d tried to reach the man behind the medal. He’d turned isolation into a discipline, refined it the way he’d refined every other skill—through repetition, through commitment.
As Sutton turned with her hands full and smiled at him, his heart did a funny skip.
She returned to plop down facing him. She’d already walked through every wall he’d built, not by force or with charm.
By being the one person in the world who carried the same wound and refused to let it make her smaller.
She was stubborn, sharp, damaged in ways that mirrored his own.
Her knee brushed his leg and her voice became animated as she picked a blue pen and started sketching. “You want it to mimic fluidity and grace, not just vigilance. Your sketch was good, but we can improve it.”
And she did. The way the pen moved, the way her whole face lit up as she talked about embodying so much in one single animal, fascinated him.
For the first time in all these years, he’d let someone inside his personal perimeter. The realization landed in his chest like a fist.
When she was done, a huge smile had spread across her face. She held up the sketchbook, showing him the design. “What do you think?”
I think I’m falling for you. He swallowed the words, focused on the drawing rather than her animated face. “It’s…perfect.”
The smile grew wider. She turned the notebook back around and studied her artwork. “It captures you in a very unique way, I think.”
He couldn’t disagree.