Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Present Day
Palm Springs, California
Mission Day Three
It had been a really nice day.
Before going back to the hotel, on a whim because really, they weren’t in a hurry, Emily and Mick had taken a walk downtown where they’d stumbled across the art museum, from which they didn’t emerge until well after noon.
They had lunch before going to the pool and taking that post-pool shower, which had been as lovely as she’d imagined.
They’d then crawled, clean and cool, into that insanely comfortable hotel bed where Emily had fallen sound asleep.
She woke up now to find Mick sitting up in bed beside her, quietly reading. Ooh, he was almost halfway through the book she’d finished yesterday. He was just about to get to the really funny part.
Emily didn’t move—at least she didn’t think she did—but it was possible he’d heard her stomach growling, because he glanced over at her and smiled. “Welcome back, oh hungry one.”
She laughed. Busted. “What time is it?” She’d been enjoying this unplugged day so much, her phone was still locked in the little safe in the closet. She might never take it out again.
“Around four-thirty,” Mick told her.
“Oh,” she said, sitting up, pulling the sheet with her. “Shit. You wanted to pick up your car. Is there still time...?”
“Already done,” he said with a smile. “I guess I didn’t wake you when I got dressed and left the room.”
Got dressed, wrote a note—which was still on the bedside table where he’d left it for her, a quirky little drawing of the dancing man emoji included—got the car, came back, climbed back into bed, and read many, many chapters of that book.
Emily laughed as she flopped back against the pillows.
“Wow, I was unconscious. Guess I found a cure for my insomnia.”
“We can run tomorrow, too, if you want.”
She smiled up at him. “Run, then shower? I think it was the combo, although if I had to pick just one, I’d go with the really, really great sex.”
Mick laughed a little as he closed his book. “Hey, you know I’m always all in.” He leaned down to kiss her, which was delicious except...
“Oh shit,” she said again, “We have an early reservation at that Italian place you wanted to try—”
“We can cancel,” he said easily. “Go tomorrow, if you’d rather just stay in tonight. Room service on the balcony works just fine for me, too.”
Maybe it was the way he smiled as he said that. Or maybe it was the memory of his words from the other night, you’re my most favorite thing, or maybe it was just the right time and the right place after months of taking things excruciatingly slowly that made her heart just... explode.
“Or... now that we’ve got your car back, we could take a road-trip up to Las Vegas and get married,” Emily said.
Mick laughed his surprise.
“I’m serious,” she said, her heart suddenly in her throat. “Marry me, Mick.”
As he gazed into her eyes, she saw his realization dawn. Realization that she was dead serious, along with a jumbled mix of emotion. Love, yes, but also something that looked like fear or maybe it was pain or... heartbreak?
Oh God, was he going to say no?
But, “Em,” he said, which wasn’t a no, but wasn’t exactly a yes, either.
She tried to explain. “This should’ve been, like, the shittiest week I’ve had in years, but it’s been the opposite. The fact that you’re here with me, instead of running away or hiding because I’m too much with my dead mother and my crazy aunt—”
“No,” he tried to argue.
But she cut him off. “I know I’m too much because everyone else always runs. But not you. My life is so much better with you in it. I just... I want that forever. And I thought maybe... you might... want that, too...?”
“I do,” Mick whispered. “I really do.” There was that unspoken but clearly written in his eyes though.
Oh, God, he was already married, he was a priest, he was dying of cancer.
.. There were lots of reasons he might need to say no to her impetuous Let’s get married, and most were absurd.
Although... Okay, she didn’t know much about him—and virtually nothing about his family or the parents who raised him.
She’d only been to his house in Woodland Hills once—early in their relationship—but that really wasn’t weird, since even though his place was nice, her bed was bigger and far more comfortable.
Still, she’d never met any of his close friends, which in this moment seemed odd.
But he was always willing to go out to dinner, or to the movies, or on walks in very public parks.
He’d invited her to the premiere of a movie where he’d mixed the sound.
The only slightly—maybe—weird thing about that was his absolute refusal to walk the red carpet and pose for photos in the lobby.
But then again, his avoidance of that kind of attention was so very Mick that she really hadn’t thought much about it at the time.
They’d sat with other members of the post-production team in the theatre, and he’d seemingly happily introduced her to the people that he’d worked with, so. ..
“There’s a lot about me that you don’t know,” he told her.
“I’m listening,” she said, but of course her stomach growled again—which made them both smile.
“Let’s just pretend I didn’t say what I said,” she continued. “You’re right. It’s too soon. Let’s have that early dinner and feed my inner beast.” She pulled him toward her for a kiss, which he gave her so sweetly. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”
“I do know.” Mick was looking searchingly into her eyes, and he nodded as if he’d come to some silent decision, and God, she hoped whatever it was, it wasn’t the realization that he needed to break up with her because she wanted too much from him—gently and kindly because he was, after all, Mick.
But then he leaned in and kissed her the way he always kissed her—as if he wanted it to last forever.
Somehow though, as he always did, he pulled back, leaving her breathless.
“Let’s start,” he said, “with dinner.”
Studio City, California
Robin’s brother-in-law, Cosmo Richter, was out in front of his wife Jane’s enormous old house as Jules and Sam pulled up.
He was on the phone, no doubt rounding up the security team that he and Jane had put together through the years.
They didn’t need security at their home often these days, but when they did, they reached out to some of Cosmo’s former SEAL teammates who’d wound up living in the Greater Los Angeles area after they’d retired.
Hmm. It’d be worth talking to Cosmo about possible candidates for expanding the manpower in this new LA office that Jules was building.
Cos looked at Jules over the tops of his mirrored sunglasses, then glanced down the end of the driveway to the street and back—his question clear.
He was assuming—correctly—that they’d made an effort to ensure they weren’t followed on their way over here, and Jules gave him a solid affirmative nod.
Cos then pointed over to where he wanted them to park their newly rented car—their third, so far, since taking this case, God help them—as he continued his phone conversation.
He was making sure there’d be room for his security team to park when they arrived. He may have left the Navy, but he was still a SEAL chief.
Sam swiftly parked, backing in.
Robin must’ve been watching for them, because he opened the front door before Jules even hit the first of the front steps. He had his nephew Billy up in a piggy-back.
As Jules came into the big front foyer, Robin swung Billy off his back and down to the floor, which made the little boy shriek with laughter that immediately turned into dismay as he realized that his ride was ending.
“No, no, no, no, no, Uncle Robin, no!” Billy proclaimed, and it came out Unca Wobin which was pretty hysterically adorable combined with the look of total tragedy on his face. Although, this child had lungs.
“Hey, don’t worry, buddy, I just want to say hi to Uncle Jules.” Robin got down on Billy’s level to reassure the little boy, even as his sister Jane, coming down the stairs, chimed in ironically loudly with, “Inside voices, please!”
“I’m gonna be here for days and days, okay?” Robin said. “Lotsa piggy back rides, I promise.”
Robin really did have the magic touch, or maybe he’d just always delivered on his promises, because Billy nodded, then turned and looked up at Jules, with that sweet, trusting little face. “Unca Jules, you here for days and days, too?” He really did speak at a very high decibel level.
“That’s the plan,” Jules told the boy.
It wasn’t the definite yes that Billy was looking for and his eyes narrowed.
“You gotta go wheels up?” he asked, using the time-honored Navy SEAL expression for flying out of the country to places unknown.
He leaned in, and spoke in what he clearly meant to be a whispered warning, but wasn’t quite inside-voice level.
“Unca Wobin get sad when you gotta go wheels up.”
“Well, if I do have to go, at least it won’t be too far this time,” Jules said, smiling as Robin straightened up and leaned in and...
Handed him a pair of tweezers.
Jules laughed, then kissed his husband hello. It was far too briefly and unsatisfactorily from the expression on Robin’s face, but that swift G-rated greeting was gonna have to do for now, considering this foyer was currently Grand Central Station.
At least Robin didn’t do his spot-on, ridiculously inspired Billy impression—no had long been the kid’s favorite word—but Jules knew just from looking into his eyes that he wanted to.
Instead they just smiled at each other, both thinking the same thing—that they’d do a steamier version later, a hello-I’m-happy-I-didn’t-die-today kiss that could last for a more appropriate number of minutes or even hours.
Yeah, that look in Robin’s eyes said hours.
Which was more than fine with Jules. The adrenalin that he still had way too much of in his system agreed.