Chapter 12
twelve
MAC
There are times when Brenna’s an open book. With large type. And then there are times when I feel like I need the audiobook version, because I can’t read her at all. Her reaction to the debacle of my marriage falls into the latter category.
She was understanding and supportive while I was telling her the sad tale. She was grateful afterwards that I gave her the head’s up before dropping her into the chop with Amy. But this morning, a little shadow has crept back into her eyes, and I’m sure that’s what’s caused it.
I can’t blame her for being wary now that she knows the whole sorry story.
And there’s nothing I can say to fix it.
All I can do is show her that I’m not that stupid, cruel, power-drunk kid anymore.
I’m not even the bewildered, wounded man I was when Amy kicked me out.
In part, that’s because of time and distance.
But in part it’s because of Brenna herself.
Seeing the growth of her trust, feeling her settle into my control, has knitted together those parts of me that were shredded after signing the damn divorce papers.
Bren makes me happy. Something I haven’t been able to say about the women in my life for a long, long time.
Liking the sound of that thought inside my head, I repeat it aloud to Logan. “Bren makes me happy.”
He pulls another sheaf of leaflets off his printer and adds them to the stack on his desk.
We papered the neighborhood with “Have You Seen This Tattoo?” flyers before I took Bren on the Rolling Blue charity ride.
Disappointingly, no one’s called to turn in the skinhead.
I hope that’s because he’s running scared and not because he’s tied into Aryan Nation and they’re frightening the locals.
But, for the sake of thoroughness, Logan and I are doing another round with the flyers this morning.
Emily’s dragged Brenna off to Blunts for some girl-time at the spa.
I’m planning on convincing Logan we should join them for lunch and a scene once we’ve done the leaflets.
After Bren called me and my men heroes last night, we made out for an hour, until she fell asleep on my chest in the middle of giving me a huge hickey.
I didn’t fuck her either last night or this morning, though.
I wanted to give her time to recover. What’s more, I like sending her off a little needy.
The idea of her thinking about me for the hours we’re apart absolutely does it for me.
“I’m happy for you, Mac,” Lo says. “The ride went well, then?”
I nod. “She was a trooper. Never complained once. Sweet as pie to everyone we met.”
“Sweet as pie?” Logan repeats incredulously. “DirtyGurl? Did you lobotomize her or something?”
I chuckle. “You ass.”
“Mac.” Logan taps his fingers on the pile of flyers. “Seriously, Brenna may have a heart of gold, but it’s wrapped in pure sass. I can’t see her being so sweet unless she was changing herself to please you. You’re not trying to turn her into something she’s not, are you? Because that never works.”
“What are you trying to say, Lo?” I ask. “Spit it out.”
“I know you feel you failed with Amy, sir—”
“You think I’m trying to fix my failures with Bren?
” A thought grabs me. Does Brenna think I’m looking for a do-over?
Is that the source of the new shadow in her eyes?
“She’s my second chance, Lo, but not that way.
I’m not trying to remake her into a sweet submissive.
I’m letting her be who she is, letting her show all her natural sweetness, without the misery of going it alone all the time.
And, hopefully, without dimming any of her sass, because it turns me the fuck on. ”
Logan snorts. “I have no idea how you stand it.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Emily challenges you in little ways all the time.
I’ve watched her do it. She’s not as mouthy as Bren, but it’s there.
She wants to know she can count on you to enforce the boundaries you’ve given her.
Bren needs that reassurance, too, but she doesn’t need boundaries.
She just needs to know I’ll always have her back.
That girl’s been swinging at the world on her own for far too long. ”
Logan blinks at me, startled, before he puts his hands flat on the desk. “That’s why you’re a better Dom than I am. I didn’t see that. And even if I had, I couldn’t have given it to her. She annoys me too fucking much.”
“I can’t think of a single thing about her that annoys me. Except that she has about a hundred loose socks in her underwear drawer. That, I am going to have to change.”
Logan shakes his head, grinning, probably with the memory of my oh-five-hundred inspections and insistence that my men’s socks were rolled so the folds made a happy-face in each pair.
“For real now, Lo. If I move in upstairs.” I gesture with a finger to where there are faint banging noises. Logan hasn’t wasted any time starting on the renovations once I approved the blueprints. “Are you going to have a problem with her being around all the time?”
“Nope. I’ll have enough to worry about in the next few months to care about Miss Sassypants. And Emily will be over the moon to have a live-in bestie.”
Logan might think I’m a better Dom than he is, but he’s a damn fine daddy. “If that changes, you’ll let me know. I don’t want to impose.”
“Can’t impose in your own home, sir.”
I catch myself and reverse course.
“Sorry, son. You’re right. I’m still thinking like a guest. I’ll try to get a handle on that.”
Logan nods before he pushes the flyers into two large envelopes and holds out one to me. “We’d better get going if we’re going to meet the girls for lunch.”
I clap him on the shoulder as he rounds his desk. “You read my mind.”
He laughs. “That’s not hard to do these days, sir.”
“Ah, gauntlet thrown. What am I thinking about as a scene after lunch, then, Kreskin?”
“Kreskin?” Logan asks.
“Famous mentalist in the seventies. Probably before your time, whippersnapper.”
Logan leads me out into the hallway, shaking his head.
“Well before my time. And I can’t guess what you’re thinking in terms of a scene, but I can tell you that this weekend’s the festival of the October Horse at the club, so if you wanted to try pony play with Bren, this is a good opportunity. Club’s all set up for it.”
I slap the thick envelope against my thigh to discourage the tentpole starting there. “Perfect. How do you feel about putting our pony girls through their paces?”
Logan grins as he pulls on his shoes. “I can’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon than breeding two, horny, little mares.”
I can’t either, which does nothing to help with the tentpole.
We make a long loop up to East Eleventh Street with the flyers so I can check out the guy who can’t spell respect.
Shameless Studios is a tiny shop in a walk-down off the street, dark and dingy despite the bright, fall day.
There’s no sign of Mad Bob, just a bored teenaged girl sitting at the counter, cracking her gum and flipping through a magazine with a lot of pictures of very tall, very skinny women wearing animal prints.
“Go Primal!” screams the article’s headline in dripping red letters, and while I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment, I’m fairly sure my definition of primal is very different from the magazine’s.
I look around the shop, pretending to be interested in the designs taped haphazardly to the walls.
Compared to what’s on the walls of Bren’s shop, Mad Bob’s designs look crude and half-finished.
Maybe that’s why the wolf catches my eye.
It’s head and shoulders above any of the other designs.
The wolf’s face dissolves into a full moon over a landscape of pine trees.
The fur is richly detailed and fades into artistically swirled shadows at the edges the same way the fins and water of my mermaid do.
Instead of the usual man on the moon, there’s a woman’s face in the moon’s subtle shading.
It’s when I see the feathers trailing off the moon and realize it’s a dreamcatcher as well that I’m sure.
That would scream Brenna to me, even if I hadn’t seen a similar moon dreamcatcher in her sample book.
I lean in, pretending to examine it closely, and pull away the edge of another design that’s overlapping the bottom of the sketch. All of the designs in Bren’s book are signed, and, sure enough, worked into the wolf’s ruff are her initials: BT.
I fold down the overlapping paper, take out my phone, and snap a picture of the pilfered sketch. It has to be stolen. I can’t see Brenna donating a design to Mad Bob.
Once I tuck my phone away in my pocket, I smooth out the sketches and approach the desk. “Mad Bob not around today?” I ask the gum-cracking girl.
She shakes her head. “Not until this afternoon. He had a meeting this morning. Wanna make an appointment?”
“Not right now. Mind if I take a card and give him a call later?”
She looks around aimlessly as though a box of cards will materialize on the cluttered desk. “Don’t think we have any.”
I wait to see if she’ll offer any other way to contact the shop, but she doesn’t, so I tell her goodbye before escaping back up to the street where Logan’s waiting for me. I show him the picture of the stolen sketch and his mouth tightens.
“Not the kind of proof a cop would want,” he says. “But I don’t like that he’s got one of her designs right up on his wall. Anything else? I’m guessing there’s no skinhead with ‘Move On’ tattooed on his knuckles in there?”
“No, just a girl with no sales skills. Mad Bob’s out until this afternoon. I didn’t see any swastikas, but there were a couple of those spread-winged eagles and a bulldog wearing a spiked helmet. Pops would be rolling in his grave.”
“Mmm. I think it’s time Max started keeping an eye on Mad Bob.” Logan pulls out his phone as we walk back towards his place. Our place.