Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEAMUS
I worked directly for my uncle for a week and cracked someone else’s kneecaps. It made me puke—and I quit the next morning after a sleepless night.
I’ve been stabbed, once, but the other guy is much worse off…
Between the Honey Do job and acting as Ellie’s assistant, I’ve suffered a cracked rib and a mild concussion within the past week.
Not for the first time, it occurs to me that karma might have skipped over Jeffrey Nichols and decided to give me a hug. Old friends, reunited.
That’s what I’m thinking as I’m sitting in the emergency room again—this time because Sophie insisted. She works at Buchanan Brewery, it turns out, and on Friday, her boss’s day off, she’s the taproom manager. She’s sitting across from me, worrying her hands, one of them in a wrist guard from her own recent injury. Otis is sitting next to her with his head in his hands, reminding me of a dog who just pissed on the carpet and got caught. Ellie isn’t here, because she got called into the hotel because some pervert was poking around in her room. For half a second, I worried it was Emma, but then they described Jeffrey —something I overheard since she put the call on speaker for the entire emergency room to enjoy.
Most people would probably take it as bad news to hear someone had been sniffing their underwear, but she looked practically orgasmic. Then again, she’d been trying to pull him in, and she’d gotten her middle-aged fish.
Otis looks up, his eyes like a sad hound’s. “She had me under a spell. That’s really what it felt like.”
Sophie sighs and pats his hand. “Aunt Penny would say it’s because of Leap Day. All kinds of strange things have been happening all day.”
“Like that skunk wandering into the tap room?” he asks.
“No, that was from the petting zoo you allowed that woman to set up in the backyard,” she says. “There were goats, too, and they chewed up the owners’ new evergreens. Just remember how lucky you are Mr. James caught Ms. Reed. If he hadn’t…”
Otis gulps and seems to sweat on command. “Am I going to get fired?”
Sophie heaves a tired sigh. “That’s not my decision. But we did have to close early for the night for a deep cleaning because of the skunk. And there’s no denying you brought two visitors on an unsanctioned tour and let Ellie climb the ladder. Of course, it happened on my managerial day, so it’s not looking great for me either.”
He gives her that dog-who-piddled-on-the-carpet look. “I just don’t know how to say no to powerful women,” he says. “It’s impossible.”
Sophie’s mouth edges to one side, and I can tell she’s preparing to step in and comfort the kid who might have just gotten her fired. She’s a soft touch. She reminds me of my mother, who grew plants and talked about world peace—all while her brother-in-law made a fortune off other people’s vices. I like Sophie, but I can tell the world’s going to keep being bad to her unless she toughens up.
“No is a one-syllable word,” I tell the kid. “And it sounds the same no matter who you tell it to.” I pause, reaching up to touch the mask gathered at my forehead, and laugh at myself. “Then again, I’m sitting here wearing a ski mask because she wanted to be on camera with a masked man. I guess she is pretty hard to say no to.”
I think, for the fiftieth time, about how badly my brother is going to freak out when he finds out my face was on camera in a livestream viewed by fifty thousand people, several of whom probably recorded it.
He doesn’t know yet, but I suppose I’ll have to tell him.
And I’ll have to explain why it’s not as big of a problem as he’ll worry it is…
Otis rubs his head.
“Why don’t you get us some drinks?” Sophie says with an encouraging smile. “That would be super helpful.”
“He never got to try the Hair of Hops beer,” Otis says contemplatively, straightening up. “You think they’d have it in the cafeteria?”
Otis isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer—and from Sophie’s split-second facial response, it’s obvious she knows it, but she just nods politely and says, “Maybe, but they wouldn’t sell alcohol to someone who’s not twenty-one, and let’s stick to non-alcoholic in case they give him some pain medication. How about a soda?”
He swings his head toward me. “Would you like a soda?”
“Yeah, pal,” I say. “That’d really be something.”
He gets up and takes off, Sophie watching him with a concerned look on her face.
“The kid already got shit-canned, didn’t he?” I ask, because it’s there on her face.
Sighing, she nods, her gaze following Otis as he tries to go down the wrong hallway, is redirected, and then nearly walks into a pillar while staring down at his phone. “I’ll help him find a job somewhere else if they won’t take him back.”
“Why?” I ask, feeling like there’s no point in being indirect. “He’s an idiot.”
She gives me a censorious look. “That’s not very nice. It’s not his fault he’s a poor judge of character. If I were a poor judge of character, I’d want other people to go easy on me.”
But they probably wouldn’t. Because she’s a nice person—the kind who gets walked over six times ’til Sunday. I’m guessing it’s already happened.
“Besides,” she adds with a sigh. “He’s my cousin. My great aunt takes care of him. She’s sick, and she already has too much to worry about. She doesn’t need anything else to worry about.”
“You got him the job at the brewery, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll never learn if life doesn’t teach him,” I point out, watching as someone else points Otis in the direction of the cafeteria and he disappear from view.
I was a dumb kid, high on what I thought was love and the possibility of power, and I had to learn that way. There’s nothing quite like diving in the deep end and nearly drowning to teach a man the value of standing still. And yet…
I haven’t been standing still lately. I’ve been taking a different kind of stand, and even though most of this week could hardly be described as fun, I feel better than I have in a while. More motivated.
Sophie wiggles in her seat. “You’re probably right, but I don’t have it in myself to be the lesson that breaks someone.”
I get to thinking about that, my mind lost in the thickets of the past. My hand wrapped around his throat. Shaking…
My chest, bleeding…
I’m still lost there when the kid gets back, having acquired a soda for me but nothing for the cousin who wants to keep him gainfully employed.
He may not understand how to say no to powerful women, but he sure as shit doesn’t know how to repay kindness.
I’m about to tell him as much—because I’ve got no problem being someone’s hard lesson—when a hand touches my shoulder. I jolt, but the next instant I relax, because her scent has twined around me. It’s Emma. I know it from the capable touch of her hand as much as the scent from the closet earlier. It’s the first time she’s purposefully touched me since she watched me in the shower, and I can feel the knowledge of that shared moment ripple through the place where her flesh connects with my shirt.
“Who are you?” the kid asks with big eyes as I reach for the soda.
“I’m Emma Rosings Smith, Seamus’s lawyer,” she says sharply. “And I saw all of the footage from this evening. So did a lot of other people.”
Otis drops the soda can, and it punctures on impact, spraying me directly in the eye.
I kick it on reflex, and it scoots over to spray Sophie in the face.
A man who’s been sniffling into the same scrunched-up tissue since we arrived shouts, “Oh shit,” and I couldn’t agree more.
I get up too quickly, intent on picking that sucker up and throwing it away, and pain shoots through my side—nearly bad enough to trip me. Meanwhile, Emma stalks forward with stoic efficiency and picks up the punctured can, which is still spraying soda like a geyser, and walks it over to a trashcan.
I watch her, feeling a warm glow of appreciation, because she really is one hell of a woman. She could probably defuse a bomb.
I look for Otis, but he’s gone.
“He ran off,” Sophie says defeatedly as she pulls a wad of clean-looking napkins from her purse and starts padding at the soda spray on the floor. She has some on her sweater too, but I’m not surprised she’s more concerned about the filthy floor than her own sweater. “I suppose he’s not very good in stressful situations.”
“Let me help with that,” I say, trying to bend over without making my body feel like it’s being sawed in half.
“Absolutely not,” Emma tells me, joining us. Giving Sophie a coldly assessing look, she says, “You work at the brewery?”
“Was it the branded shirt that tipped you off?” I ask with a laugh, while Sophie sighs and says, “Yes. Or at least I do presently.”
Emma’s gaze catches on me. “Can I talk to you privately for a moment?”
“Anytime you please, sweetness.”
She gives me an annoyed look but hustles me up and then behind a tall, rounded white pillar. Tissue Guy gives the pillar an annoyed look but no one else, other than Sophie, seems interested.
“Are you going to take me somewhere you can put on a show for me?” I ask Emma in a whisper. “Because that would definitely make me feel better.”
She gives me a look meant to eviscerate me. I laugh—and then groan, because it hurts to laugh.
“Do you want to sue them?” she asks pointedly, glancing around the pillar and at Sophie, who has an unhappy look on her face as she pores over her phone. At a guess, she’s probably trying to convince Otis the cops won’t show up in the middle of the night to black bag him—a thought that instantly makes me want to convince him otherwise. For fun, and also because he deserves a little discomfort.
Discomfort is the kind of life lesson that sticks.
I shift my gaze back to Emma. “Yeah, no. The soda kid tried to tell Ellie not to climb the ladder, but she wouldn’t listen. Could he have stopped her? Probably, but he would have had to grab her, and then she would have sued him. Besides, we don’t want to make a big deal of this. My rib probably isn’t even broken. I vote that we leave.”
“You’re staying,” she says. “And we’ll discuss our next steps after we know how much damage was done.”
I grin at her, suddenly feeling a whole lot better. “Be careful. I might start thinking you care about me.”
“I care about all of my clients’ physical health,” she says in a lawyer voice if I’ve ever heard one. Then she lowers her hand to her hip, and I let myself imagine what I’ve been promised—Emma, sliding that hand between her legs. Emma, throwing her head back. Emma, whispering my name. Emma…
Yeah, I don’t want to get a hard-on in a hospital waiting room with a possible broken rib and a definite minor concussion.
Shaking it off, I look at her and say, “I don’t recall hiring you.”
“You hired me for a cat custody case,” she says with a half-smile. “So now I’m on retainer.”
I let myself take in her mossy green eyes and the hints of amusement playing around her lush mouth. “And how is our darling Shadow?”
A crease forms between her dark eyebrows. “With Mother.”
“So we can expect a mild concussion at the very least.”
Her lips twitch slightly, as if she can’t help herself, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want her to be able to help herself with me. Cool, collected Emma is for other people—I want everything.
“Perhaps.”
“What happened at the hotel?” I ask. “I’m assuming the pervert Ellie got called about was Jeffrey.”
She quickly fills me in on everything—her search, her quick thinking, and Nicole’s trap. The thought of her being tucked under that bed, nearly helpless, with that man wandering the room makes me want to break something. Like his femur. But she got through it, and she’s here. I remind myself of that a couple of times before speaking. Loosening my hand, which has made a fist, I say, “I hope that fuckwad is having a real horror of a night in hotel security.”
She smiles at me. “Me too.”
I take her hand, and for a second she lets me hold it. “Nicole said she got access to Ellie’s phone. This might almost be over, Emma. It should almost be over.”
She brightens and then squeezes my hand. Her lips open, and my eyes glued to them, everything inside of me primed for what she’s about to say, but then a man calls my name from the entryway to the not-so-promised land.
I look up and see my old buddy and pal, Paul, who does not seem excited by my return—and looks even less happy to see Emma, whom he knows is Mrs. Rosing’s daughter. He looks toward the popcorn ceiling and murmurs something to himself. The only words I catch are “full moon.” I wave to him anyway, because I’m feeling almost fond of the guy.
“They’re playing my song,” I tell Emma.
“Call me if your rib’s broken,” she says, surprising me by reaching up and tucking some hair into my hat. I capture her hand and hold it there, against my cheek. The look in her eyes changes slightly, and I know she’s thinking about what happened earlier. Good. That’s a place I’d gladly live in my brain, and I’d prefer to have company. She clears her throat and tugs her hand away. “I’ll bring you home as soon as they discharge you.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say, before I can stuff the words in. “Thank you for coming.”
She looks surprised, but she only nods. I’m surprised too. I’ve been told I talk a lot for someone who says nothing. I’ve certainly tried not to say anything real to her, to make up for all the shit she already knows and shouldn’t.
It’s not until after I’ve turned around and taken a few steps that Emma says, “I’m glad I did.”
I’m smiling as I approach Paul and salute him. “You got another charcuterie board for me, my friend?”