“Fulfilled that prophecy with your usual outstanding attention to detail, dickhead.”
Fuck.
He’d just driven another truck through a fence and saved no one, marooning himself in a paradise that was nothing without her. He was a cult of one and hadn’t understood how badly he needed to be busted out of that way of thinking, clinging to fear as if it was more likely to save him than truth and love.
He had to wait till the next afternoon to get a seat on a plane off the island. He’d have chased after Rory, but he had no idea where she was going. When he finally had cell coverage and called, her phone tossed him to voicemail. A part of him was proud of her for that.
In the absence of a plan that made any sense, he just wanted to go home to his own Grand Master and his bamboo cotton sheets and his cool gel-infused pillow. It was the opposite to what he normally did when he couldn’t be near her, but he’d lost the urge to put more distance between them. She’d come home eventually, and he’d be waiting.
He’d been traveling for twenty hours when he stepped inside his apartment, desperate to shower and sleep, and encountered uninvited guests.
“Mom, Cal. What’s going on?” How did they know he was due home? Had to have been tipped off by the family car service he’d used from the airport. Had to have bribed his doorman to get inside. Goddamn it.
“You could call it an intervention,” Cal said from the couch.
“Or a support group. That might be nicer,” said Mom. “You know how those work for alcoholics and drug addicts and people who have a problem with grief, or too much sex, or desperately want to get recruited into a cult. Congratulations, darling. Job well done.”
“The Feds nabbed a container of cash from a ship headed to the Cayman Islands on Rory’s tip-off. And Mike is doing okay. Good work, both of you.”
That was great news, but it could’ve come as a text. “Thanks. The welcome committee is swell, but I’m jet-lagged and I really need to hit the sack. Can we do whatever this is another time?”
Cal shook his head. Mom laughed and lifted knitting to her lap. He blinked twice at her.
“It’s your Christmas sweater. I’d better see you wear it too.”
It was some loud green and red pattern that he’d rather see in a psychedelic dream than on his body.
“Better than being stabbed with your number zero.”
Mom made those needles click. “What did you say?”
“Never mind.”
“We’re of a mind, that’s why we’re here,” Cal said. “You have to fix things with Rory.”
Cal might as well have had cactus spikes coming out of his head. There was no grovel superior enough to fix things with Rory. “I don’t even know where Rory is and I’m not talking to you about her.”
“Because?”
“Because cactus.”
“Cactus?” Cal quirked his head. “I don’t want you to talk about Rory with me. I want you to talk to Rory about the two of you.”
Mom wagged a third needle at him. What sorcery was that? “He means how you fucked it up, darling. Go and apologize. Get on your damn fool knees and beg for a second chance and then never ever doubt her commitment again.”
“Always nice to know my mother is on my side.”
“I am on your side. That’s precisely why we’re here. You’d imagine Halsey was the one who overthinks, but no one tops you for that.”
“Makes you a sensational con,” Cal added, “but in your private life you never go deep because then you’d have to think about it and that would kill all the fun. Not to mention you have loved Rory forever.”
Shocked out of his stupor, Zeke looked from Cal to Mom and back again. It must be possible to divorce your family for cruel and unusual interference combined with senseless withholding of vital information.
“One of you couldn’t have mentioned this now stunningly self-evident truth fifteen years ago?” The two of them exchanged a what-gives look. He clapped his hands to get their attention. “Thank you for your opinions. You can show yourself out any time now. Just like you broke in.”
“Amazing, really, what you can do with a number zero,” Mom said. She was a damn witch.
He was about to show her what else could be done with a number zero by a jet-lagged man with a fatal heart wound who was having DMT trip flashbacks on top of an uncomfortable self-discovery experience and just wanted his Grand Master, when Cal cut in.
“Come on, Zeke. What do you need to be happy?”
“Jesus Christ. We were just stacked actors,” he said. “You know, imposters.”
“Is that a song title?”
Hell. Yes. Foo Fighters to the rescue. “What if it is?”
Could he sound anymore like the twelve-year-old Cal, only two years older, had to bail out for a badly executed piece of shoplifting? He’d tried to make off with one of those Irish Claddagh rings, with the heart and crown between two hands, for Rory, and been caught by the jeweler. They never caught him for the friendship bracelet with its little silver flower. Rory had worn it until the leather strap broke.
“For fuck’s sake, Zeke,” said Cal.
No, he could not. Why was he still clinging to excuses? “What if she doesn’t want me?” Might as well double down on the humiliation with the truth.
“What if she’s waited her whole life to know she does and then you reject her, you moron?”
“I’m not rejecting her, I’m just—” Okay, it would definitely feel that way to Rory. He’d as good as rejected her on the beach when she’d taken the trouble to come for him. Oh fuck. He yanked at his hair to try to wake up his brain. “She won’t answer my calls.”
“Smart girl,” said Mom.
“Did she come home? I don’t know where she is, even if I knew how to fix things.”
“She’s back. Last night. You know where she is,” said Cal.
Ah. Penny drop. The only thing you needed to have courage was fear and he had that in container loads. “Much as I love you both. Get out. I am not going to her unshaven and smelling of feet.”
Rory’s favorite bookshop-come-café was a block from his apartment walking east and a block from hers walking west. This was her happy place. Where she always celebrated a completed job with a big purchase of books.
One of two things was going to happen when he arrived. She would hear him out and he’d get another chance, or she’d win this round, and he’d have to come up with a new plan, because Rory was his endgame and he wasn’t giving up his belief in her until the day she said enough.
Today wasn’t going to be that day. Today was the first day of a whole new cult of learning how to love her right for every day that followed. If everything went to plan, this would be the last night he’d sleep in any bed, beside anyone who wasn’t Rory.
No overthinking it.
When he got to Better Read Than Dead, there was a for sale signboard out front and the door was shut with a closed for inventory sign in the window. What was the point in having a family with excellent spycraft if their intelligence was a dud?
Holding his breath, he peered inside, spotted what he needed to complete the rest of his life and then rapped on the door with more force than necessary.
A sales assistant with a pencil behind her ear opened up. She wore a name badge that read My name is Elena and underneath that, Ask me about Psy-Changelings. “Sorry, the coffee machine is borked and we’re closed this afternoon. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“Are you sure you’re closed?” He tipped his chin to indicate the only other person in the shop. He had to hope he wasn’t still seeing things and she wasn’t a changeling.
“Oh, she’s a regular, and she always buys up big.”
“What if I told you I intend to spend big too?” He’d spend his entire holding of pride to get what he wanted inside this shop.
“I’d say I don’t know you and I’m not letting you in.”
It wasn’t his best work; he was in a hurry. He flashed a Benjamin at her.
“That’s the woman I’ve been in love with my whole life, and I’ve been a shithead and I really need to apologize to her. You look like a person who could do with a coffee break.”
“LOL. No. Really nice try though.”
He was all out of finesse but had plenty of honest despair to go around. “Please.”
Elena eyed the money. “Hang there.” The door shut in his face. He watched her speak with Rory, who glanced his way once and then turned her back.
His entire future rested in the hands of a book-loving shop assistant with multiple piercings, at least one literary tattoo, and possible job-loss anxiety. Two seconds later, Elena was back.
“Good luck.” She took the cash from his hand and stepped onto the sidewalk. “We have security cameras. You’ve got forty-five minutes. Don’t screw it up.”
He stepped through the door, heard it lock behind him and Rory said, “Give Elena another C-note when she gets back. She’s a doll and she’s not paid enough. I can do something about that when I buy this place.”
He couldn’t see her between the rows of shelving, but at the sound of her voice all the tension wound up inside him coiled tight enough to ping against vital organs, tiny, nauseating electric jolts. His mouth was so dry he could drink the water in the flower vase near the till.
“You’re going to give up your life of crime and become a bookshop owner?”
“Bookshop, café owner. Halsey says it’s a terrible investment. I wouldn’t be giving up anything and I’m not scared of committing to something I love. What do you think?”
He deserved every potshot she aimed at him. He craned his neck to try to catch a glimpse of her. “That my opinion isn’t worth your consideration.”
She snorted. “Got that right.”
He went left. “Are you going to keep the name?” She wasn’t there.
“Thinking of changing it to A Likely Story.”
“That’s clever.” He moved over to another aisle. Not there either.
“Surprise, surprise. Just like me.”
That smarted. “If I had to give an opinion, and you had an inclination to take any notice of it, I’d say you should do what makes you happy.”
“I tried that. Flamed out.” She stepped into his line of sight and then disappeared around another fixture.
“And that would be my fault.” He followed, going to where she’d been, only to find she’d moved again. This place was bigger than it looked from the entrance. Forty-five minutes wasn’t a lot of time to mend two hearts. Surgeons needed at least a half-day and his means were far more limited to sleights of hand because Rory wasn’t going to give him time for a long con.
“In my defense, what do I know about relationships that last more than a month? I’ve had meals last longer than some of my hook-ups,” he said.
She reappeared. “That’s your defense?” Disappeared. “You made me think I didn’t know my own mind. You made me doubt us. And you were the last person I ever expected to do that to me.”
“I win.” He slapped his hands on his thighs. “World’s greatest shithead.”
“Yep.”
That really shouldn’t have cut. “I also made you cry like your heart was broken and tell me you needed space.”
She reappeared again, right in front of where he stood. He reached for her and she shook her head. “Don’t touch me.”
He used the useless arm movement to pluck a random book from the shelf.
“I cried, so what?” she said.
“You’ve only ever cried hard like that three times that I know of. When your dad died. When you broke up with Cal and right after we slept together. I can’t be the one who makes you feel grief like that.”
“Oh, you ridiculous man.” Her eyes rolled up. “I thought I knew you, turns out you’re some damn stranger who thinks it’s all about him.” She took the book out of his hand and put it back on the shelf. “I can’t believe I’m in love with you. Nothing you did made me cry. Big deal, I needed space to get my head together. I was upset. I still am, because I am not made for worrying the man I love might be dead. I’m not made for cult busts and rescue missions and the kind of risks we were taking. I don’t want to do those jobs. I never really did. I wanted to work with you. I was out to prove I was trustworthy, that I could take the pressure and not buckle. But it turns out no one needed me to prove anything and all I earned was your lack of trust.”
There had to be thousands of books in this shop. A whole wall of How To. There had to be at least one that had the answers to how to make the woman he loved believe in him again. He needed its inky wisdom injected into his bloodstream because he was stuck for answers.
“I don’t not trust you.” He winced when he said that. He’d second-guessed her into a corner.
“That’s not what I heard.”
Right. “I might’ve been a colossal fool who was overthinking things.”
“There’s no might about it.”
Desperate times. He went to his knees. “Might not be worthy of you.”
“I don’t know about that.” A glimmer of a smile at the corners of her eyes. “You have your good qualities.” She ruffled his hair and it was a relief to have her hand on him until she yanked hard. “Buried in there somewhere.”
He had to scramble to his feet to follow her when she walked on. He wasn’t losing her in the aisles again, anywhere again. “I’m sorry I was gaslight central. I’m sorry I made you doubt. I’m sorry I doubted you. I was wrong to do that. Wrong in so many ways.”
“Keep apologizing. It looks good on you.”
“You know how when you’re running a con and you press your advantage and the mark keeps falling for your story and you think any minute now he’ll wake the fuck up and work out what you’re doing?”
“Every single Continuer is wondering how they fell for a con like that.”
“It’s the moment when you can see a prize way beyond what you were aiming for and you almost, almost have it. So close you can smell the color of it, but you’re a pro and you know that greed can turn you into a mark, so you check yourself.” Pride was exceptionally bad company after the fall. Had Orrin checked himself, they might never have busted Abundance.
“You’re that prize for me, Aurora Rae. Always close but out of reach. When I could finally see a way to win you, I checked myself.”
“A great con never leaves money on the table and you’re a great con.”
And he’d never been greedier. Time to stop being a pretender and claim his prize. He followed her to a row of shelves in a nook near the darkened coffee station.
“This is my favorite part of this shop. The romance section.” She stopped in front of the shelving, not moving aside when he stood beside her. “I love what we do because there are too many bad guys who consistently get away with crimes that no one prosecutes. Tax evasion, money laundering, bribery and worse. But it means I spend my time managing uncertainty.”
She ran a finger across the spines of the books on an eye-level shelf. There was love in that gesture. He missed her touch, the rough of their past and the smooth they’d only begun to explore. It made him feel as if he’d found a firm place to stand in a confused world.
“In every single one of these books there is the comfort of knowing the hero and heroine will be happy in the end, no matter what. When I read a romance, I don’t have to worry about playing my role, about risking my freedom, and I sure as hell don’t have to worry I’m going to lose the love of my life.”
He opened his mouth and shut it again. She wasn’t finished, and she made him breathless.
“Right up until you scurried out of Abundance without a word, you were never something I was uncertain about. I thought we were headed for our own happy ending.”
Christ. Was she telling him it was off the table? “You said the folks in these books get to be happy no matter what happens to them.”
She nodded. “I don’t confuse fiction with real life, just like I don’t fall in love without a good r
eason.”
Hope was a borked coffee machine that could be made to work again. It was a business sold and a job saved, a salary raised and five-thousand people who knew the truth about the fake future they’d been promised. Hope floats, but he was sinking.
“Are you still in love?” His voice came out like it didn’t belong to him. Like he was still an imposter.
“I am.”
His body flooded with whatever the heck sixth-sense hormone signaled hold on to the ledge because there was a rock fall coming, a monster wave, a wipeout.
“What do I have to do to convince you I won’t ever run without you?” she said.
The rigidity of her posture signaled go away. He wanted to touch her so badly, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He gripped a shelf, then shoved a hand in his pocket, then crossed his arms. A plastic cable tie and a goon to bind his wrists could come in handy. It wasn’t on her to convince him of anything.
“Way I see it we’re at an impasse. You’re my greatest adventure. I am in this life with you no matter what ugliness or misfortune gets thrown at us. But I’ll do everything I can to prevent you sacrificing yourself for me.”
“I didn’t sacrifice anything,” she snapped, eyes like arrows. “I did my job, protecting my partner.”
That she’d had to was still something that rattled him from sleep, but he was ready to accept she didn’t need him to overthink this. “Who was a shit, right?”
“Completely.”
The elbow she rammed in his side made him grunt. He tempted more violence by saying, “No happy ending for us then.”
She put her hand to his chest and backed him against the shelf. “You hurt me.”
“I’m so fucking sorry.” He flattened his hands on the books, tried to absorb their insight. “I was freaked out and you deserve better from me. What do I need to do to convince you I won’t ever doubt you again?”
She leaned into him, walked her fingers up his chest and neck to rest them on his face. There were stars in her eyes and they shone on him. “You’ll have to put up with me constantly saying I love you. You’ll have to cope with thousands of kisses and millions of caresses and a semitrailer-load full of toe-curling sex. I’m not sure you can take it.”
The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game Book 3) Page 26