The Problem with Peace: Greenstone Security #3

by Malcom, Anne

And it was a big thing.

  I hoped the biggest of all things.

  But I wanted to keep it small for as long as I could. Small enough to hold onto. Treasure. Keep to myself.

  I stood in the middle of Heath’s living room holding my phone and my heart. I really hoped that the latter wasn’t going to get broken again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Heath

  He had left her. Without a note. Without waking her up.

  He’d done so because she was dead to the world, she hadn’t even exhaled roughly when he moved her off him. Fuck, he loved that. The way she clung to every inch of him in her sleep. No way in fuck would he classify himself as a ‘cuddler.’ Ever. But he found that Polly attached to him, sleeping deep and peacefully—something he knew was rare for her—was something more than cuddling.

  It was fucking everything.

  Knowing how little sleep she got, seeing how finally at peace she was in his arms was what made him not wake her up. Fuck, it had almost stopped him getting out of bed at all. But this was their morning. This was a fresh fucking morning.

  A fresh fucking start.

  Yeah, there was shit to sort.

  A lot of shit.

  Because clean slates were well and good in practice, but they didn’t work in reality. And he wanted them to be in reality. Not some fantasy where they could go on from everything they’d been through without mentioning it.

  Heath didn’t want to mention it.

  He didn’t want to even think about her marrying another man. Building a life with him. Then breaking it apart.

  He hated the thought of her with someone else. So bad he wanted to rip the skin from his body.

  But what he hated more than that was the thought of her in any kind of pain. And that’s what got him through when she’d actually married the fucker. That she wasn’t in pain. That she was with someone else. Happy. It killed him that it wasn’t with him, but he could breathe knowing she was happy.

  But when it ended, he hadn’t felt relief, not immediately. He felt dread, utter bone-deep dread at the thought of Polly going through pain. Because she put her whole heart into everything she did. And he knew that whatever everyone else thought, she wouldn’t jump out of marriage as soon as she jumped in for no good reason.

  And a good reason involved a fuck load of pain for her.

  Then he’d turned cruel and bitter and contributed to that pain. He hurt her because he was hurt himself and he didn’t deal with that shit well. Or at all.

  Then that kiss.

  That fucking kiss.

  Every kiss with her was spectacular. Beyond anything. But every single one was something different. Because it meant so much more than a kiss. Ever since the first time she’d pressed her lips against his.

  “I just wanted to see what it was like to kiss you.”

  The open honesty, the beauty of it hit him in the cock and chest cavity simultaneously. And he knew then, in that shitty bar, in what he thought was going to be a shitty night—a shitty three days—that he’d found her.

  Her in the sunflower dress and fucking pigtails.

  Far too young for him.

  Too good.

  Too naive.

  But he took her anyway because he’d known he couldn’t have her forever, even if that’s what he itched for. She was it. She was fucking his. And he wouldn’t be able to have her. So he’d been greedy, needing to have as long as he could to carry him through the years.

  That’s why he reacted the way he did when he saw her again.

  Like a fucking crazy person. Trying to claim her like the years hadn’t passed. Because to him, they hadn’t. She was still his. She was still it.

  He wouldn’t have come on like he did had he not seen it on her too. Because she wore her heart in her eyes, in the effort she put into hiding things from her sister. He saw that she wanted him too. And as a man who’d made an art out of controlling everything in his life, the fact he couldn’t control the one thing that mattered drove him crazy.

  So instead of being gentle, trying to see where she was coming from, he treated it like a battle, a war, reasoning he’d get through to her and then get her.

  He’d tried to use a battle to get the girl who lived for peace.

  He was a fucking idiot.

  And he shouldn’t have been surprised when she had another man. One that he hated instantly on principal and also because there was something off about him. But then he’d searched for evidence, a shred of it to give him a solid reason to kill the fucker. He knew Lucy and Rosie were doing the same. No one found anything.

  And Polly had her heart set on this. No, she had her mind set on it. He saw that. So he had to step aside. Let her work through it.

  He hated it, but he’d gotten it.

  He did not expect her to fucking marry the fucker. For him to push her that far away. Yeah, that fucked him up. He wanted to hate her just so he could stop wanting her.

  But he didn’t hate her.

  Not when she walked down the aisle looking utterly beautiful but not like her.

  Not when she left the man two months later. Not when she walked away from him for a fucking year.

  And not when she came back.

  But he acted like he hated her because he couldn’t act like he had before. Because he was scared that he’d push her into the arms of someone else.

  He’d hurt her acting like that. He’d seen it. Because he saw everything with her. And he wanted to stop, but he fucking couldn’t. Because his coldness was the only thing he could control. Even if it was fucking bullshit.

  He’d been driving her to hate him, so maybe he wouldn’t love her so much. But every day, seeing how much she gave to everyone around her, even when it meant taking everything she had, watching her doing it with a brightness and that outshone the sun, he loved her more and more each day.

  Yet he continued to hurt her. Even when it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t need to be following her around every day on some bullshit protection detail. He was worried about that fucker of an ex, but not enough to warrant the constant surveillance. He’d used that as an excuse to be with her every day. It was a shitty thing to do, even shittier because he treated her like dirt.

  But she’d still fucking kissed him.

  Walking away from her after that kiss was the hardest thing he’d ever done. No, leaving her after only forty-five hours of knowing her, of taking the most precious thing she had to give and taking it with him to get bloodied and dirtied by a war zone, that was the hardest.

  Walking away after that kiss was a close second.

  He’d done it because he knew she’d give him everything, even after the way he’d treated her. And he was mad as fuck with her for it all. But she didn’t deserve the brunt of his rage. He knew that Craig had done something ugly to her. He didn’t know what. But he knew it was something. Something she was hiding.

  And he’d turned into a bad person. She hadn’t turned him into that. Not on purpose. It was them. He’d been of the opinion that he wasn’t going to make her forgive another man that didn’t treat her right.

  Him.

  He was trying to be too fucking noble by walking away and he’d regretted it. But he held firm because that was who he is. He stuck to decisions. Even stupid fucking decisions.

  He would’ve broken at some point. Maybe that very night. Since Duke had texted him and told him the name of the bar he’d damn near driven over there. Reading that had been a punch in the chest.

  She went there.

  After everything he’d done. Everything she’d done.

  She fucking went there.

  And then she came to his place.

  Slept on his chest.

  Rode his cock. Hard, fast, beautiful, fucking perfect.

  And that was it. She was gonna be his. She was gonna stay his.

  So he’d gone out to provide for his woman because he didn’t have shit in his fridge to eat. ‘Cause he’d been here as little as possible. Living here w
as his version of torture. Because it was full of her. It was all he fucking had of her.

  And it was pathetic. His home that wasn’t a home. No pictures. No personality. But she had seeped into the walls, and no way was he moving when that’s all he had left. He could afford a bigger place. He could buy one.

  Cash.

  Keltan paid handsomely, he lived simple.

  But what was the point?

  Now there was a point.

  He was making a mental note to hire an estate agent while loading his cart full of that healthy shit Polly loved. She took care of what she put into her body.

  He liked that.

  Even if it confused the shit out of him. What in the fuck was a chia seed pudding? He didn’t know, but he had ten because he knew she ate them.

  And didn’t eat meat. That would be a transition since he was a carnivore. But he’d give up meat in a second if she asked. She wouldn’t ask. She’d fry him a tenderloin every fucking night if he asked.

  That was her.

  His phone had rung as he was deciding between almond and oat milk. How the fuck did someone milk an almond? Or an oat for that matter? Throwing both in the cart, he’d answered.

  “Need you in the office, now,” Keltan clipped.

  Heath was on alert the second he heard the tone of his friend’s voice. Shit was going down. And when shit was going down, Heath was there. Because he had nowhere else to be and work was where he found his peace. Even if peace was helping Rosie chop the balls of a rapist when her husband was busy.

  Or when her husband didn’t know she was doing it since she was now pregnant.

  “Can’t come in,” Heath replied.

  There was a pause.

  Heath knew why.

  Because he’d never said no to Keltan. Not since he said yes to the job when he came out of the Marines.

  “What? You on your deathbed, missing a limb?” Keltan demanded.

  “Busy.”

  Another pause.

  “You’re never busy unless...fuck,” Keltan muttered, putting two and two together. “Well, then you definitely better get in here.”

  Heath froze with some shit called kombucha in his hand. “What?”

  “It has to do with Polly, or more accurately, to do with Craig, and it’s not fuckin’ good.”

  He left the cart and went straight to the office.

  He should’ve called Polly, but he didn’t. Because he assumed Polly would sleep most of the day away—she sure as shit needed it and he made sure to exhaust her—and he’d be back before she woke up.

  He didn’t plan on it being any other way.

  Didn’t plan on his whole fucking world blowing apart.

  Lucy

  Being pregnant sucked.

  I didn’t care what all the movies and books said about it being a glorious and beautiful time of growth and new life, it was utter bullshit.

  I had a backache. I’d already thrown up three times today and it was barely noon. I could be sure I’d throw up at least another three times. Whoever coined the term ‘morning sickness’ was full of shit and I would’ve sued them if I could.

  I had heartburn hotter than Satan’s fireplace. My ankles were starting to look a little puffier than usual and I had to wear an elasticated waist.

  Yes, I loved that Keltan’s child was growing inside me, and the way he protectively placed his hand over my bump at every moment, but the rest of it was bullshit.

  Especially since I was pregnant everyone decided that I was now an invalid. Keltan included. I wasn’t allowed to do anything fun. Not blow things up. Not investigate the latest string of women gone missing from L.A. in disturbing numbers. I’d tried to, of course. But my editor had snitched on me. My editor who had been held in contempt of court for not divulging his sources gave into Keltan. The United States Court system he hadn’t bowed down to. But somehow he was my husband’s errand boy.

  And my husband has taken me off the story.

  Then he’d used emotional blackmail to keep me off when I protested.

  “I watched you bleed out on the fucking street for a story,” he hissed. “I almost lost you. You’ve got my whole world inside you. My baby, your lungs, still drawin’ breath. So you’re not doin’ a story that could threaten that. You want to threaten that, Snow?

  Obviously I’d look like an asshole if I continued doing the story behind his back.

  So I relented.

  Only because I’d gotten the next best reporter at the paper on it and giving me updates. Which was allowed since I wasn’t technically on the story. And also Keltan didn’t know. Which was good, since pregnancy was making him as insane as it was making me nauseous.

  He’d tried to take heels from me. Heels.

  At least Rosie was in it with me. We hadn’t planned being pregnant at the same time, but it was pretty fucking awesome. Or it would’ve been if I had someone to suffer with. But the bitch didn’t have any morning sickness and my hormones were making that in itself seem like a reason to cut off all ties and never see her again. And also snitch to Luke about her taking cases behind his back. But that would mean that I’d have to tell him Heath was involved. Then he’d kill Heath. Then Polly would get mad.

  And no matter what was going on with them right now, Polly would care if Luke killed Heath. Because things would work out. They had to work out. Polly deserved it. And despite my low opinion of him currently, so did Heath.

  Keltan had to go into work early for some emergency. Which meant I didn’t even have morning sex to perk me up. Now that was a good thing about being pregnant. My sex drive was ramped up like a thousand percent. And if there was one place where Keltan was willing to stop treating me like I was going to break, it was the bedroom.

  I was tired, cranky from decaf coffee, vaguely thinking I’d be throwing up again soon and praying that my feet wouldn’t become too big for Manolos. I needed cheering up. So I was going to Polly’s.

  I was thinking she might cheer me up. Since Duke had the biggest mouth in the office and he’d informed me—under only the smallest amount of duress—where Polly had been dropped off last night.

  And no one had heard from her since.

  Or Heath.

  Fine-fucking-ly.

  Before this, I was starting to get scared. That my beautiful, kind, caring, hopeless romantic sister was going to be the exception to the alpha male rule. The rule that said when an alpha male found it—the mystical it that lived in the woman perfectly imperfect for them, the mystical it that was that woman—he didn’t let go. He wouldn’t stop fighting.

  I started to fear he’d stopped fighting.

  That there would not be some sort of grand overcoming of the obstacles between them.

  Granted they were a lot different than what we’d seen, but Heath loved her. It was painfully obvious. And just plain painful.

  Because it wasn’t a beautiful, storybook kind of love. No, it was the kind of love that you saw chewing at his very insides. Like leading up to the wedding. Polly’s short marriage. Her divorce. Her disappearance to Europe. Her reappearance.

  And when I saw my sister, I saw the pain there too. Nothing that had ever been on that face of hers before, despite being ‘in love’ more times than I could count. She’d been in love but never truly miserable until Heath. Which meant she’d never been in love until Heath.

  Hopefully they’d boinked each other’s brains out and all was well.

  I’d known that Heath would’ve gotten called into this emergency meeting so I was deciding to chance the fact that Polly was home and was going to give me all the details.

  And that she’d be smiling.

  Really smiling.

  But when I got to her door—which was ajar, not unheard of for Polly, since she sometimes left it like that when she’d lost her keys—she was not smiling. Because she was unconscious and bleeding from her head.

  And there was someone standing over her.

  That fucking prick of an ex-husband.

&n
bsp; I rushed toward her on instinct, my hand reaching into my purse for my gun, until I realized it wasn’t there.

  I realized that right at the same time Craig—the fucking asshole—punched me in the face. Then I joined my sister on the ground, the punch not enough to knock me out so I twirled in the air to best protect my baby.

  Such a twist did not protect my head which whacked against the floor with enough force to knock me out.

  Keltan

  He had been prepared for Heath to come storming into the office. Anything to do with Polly had him storming, swearing and almost murdering Duke moving some file in his anal as fuck office.

  This was under normal circumstances. Or whatever circumstances passed for normal when Polly was involved.

  He loved his sister-in-law, not just because of her connection to the woman he loved more than anything in this world, but because Polly was completely and utterly unique. Because it was impossible not to love her. She was sunshine in a fucking person. Everyone saw that. But you can’t bottle sunshine, can’t own it. Can’t hold it down. Many poor fuckers tried.

  And watching a man he respected and liked try, and fail, it was fucked. More so when he saw that Polly wanted that man too. And for reasons known only to Polly, she married another man. Maybe because what was between the two of them wasn’t sunshine.

  He’d been quietly hopeful about recent events bringing them together.

  Especially since Heath had stormed into the office the night Craig accosted Polly and demand they put a rotation on her.

  “As much as I wanna keep Polly safe, and I do, no matter how impossible that job is, I don’t think he’s a threat,” Keltan said, planning on paying a visit to Craig. Or more accurately, his fist taking a visit to his face.

  But, by the looks of Heath’s knuckles, that had already been done.

  “He’s not a threat? He overturned a fucking table in a restaurant in public. Would’ve put his hands on her if Polly hadn’t tased him,” Heath yelled.

  Heath didn’t yell. He was cool under pressure. In normal circumstances. In extenuating circumstances.

  But not with Polly.