by Alex Lidell
I let her in.
“Excuse the mess.” Moving an armload of packing tape and Bubble Wrap from a pair of chairs, I create a small, human-appropriate space in the kitchen. Beyond us, boxes are stacked everywhere around the furniture that will stay here. I’m not taking anything with me that I didn’t bring in myself.
“You’re leaving.” Adrianna’s bright blue-green gaze washes over me, and I feel vaguely curious. How much does she know of me? Does she know that we’ve been sharing Cullen’s resources as well as his body?
“Yes,” I say.
“Shit.” Adrianna bites her lip. “I got it all wrong.”
I snort. “I imagine that you got it quite correct, actually. But not to worry. As you see, I’m leaving Colorado altogether. Cullen is all yours.” Bank account and all.
Adrianna frowns at me as if I’ve grown a third head, managing to look beautiful even doing that. “Cullen is all mine?” she says slowly, tasting each word. “Wait. You seemed familiar with my name, but I’m not sure I am who you think I am.”
I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, too exhausted to play games. “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Since you showed up at my door, I expect there’s something you wanted to say.”
Adrianna nods, gathering herself. “I do. Well, ask, mostly. I’m worried about Cullen. Seriously worried. And from what little I’ve gathered—the Tridents are a tight-lipped bunch of asses—I thought maybe you had something going with him and might be able to help… But it seems you may not want to touch Cullen with a ten-foot pole right now, so the question is moot.” She swallows, wrapping a lock of hair around her finger. “Since I’m really good at jumping to conclusions today, I might as well keep my foot in my mouth. I’m not involved with Cullen. I’m just saying that in case that changes anything for you.”
I hold up my hands. “Adrianna, seriously, you don’t owe me any explanation or justification. I know Cullen came back to Denton Valley for you. And—good, bad, or indifferent—I saw the bank statements. The flowers and the mortgage payments and the gift cards and all. More to the point, I’ve seen how his face lights up when he’s talking to you. If you want to sleep with Cullen—”
“With Cullen?” She looks horrified at the prospect, her forehead marred by three deep creases. “Like have sex with Cullen? Gross. Not that he’s not attractive, if you like his type, but I’m not into men who are blond and pushy as all hell. I like ’em dark, sweet, and willing to worship the ground I walk on.” Her features suddenly become downcast and wistful, and I realize that she’s thinking of Bar. “More to the point, sleeping with Cullen would be like incest. He’s like a brother to me. A big, overprotective, bullheaded brother whom I love deeply. And who needs my help right now.”
She stands and pushes in her chair, squeezing the back of it so tightly, her fingers blanch for a moment. Then, just as quickly, her back straightens, a mask of strength and composure slipping over her features. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. Please be safe wherever you’re going.”
I stare at her back, my chest tight, my thoughts racing too quickly for me to keep up with. I still don’t know what to make of a great deal of Cullen’s bullshit, but the journalist in me warns that once a set of facts are torn apart, all others must be examined. More to the point, if Adrianna is right about Cullen being in trouble—
“Wait!” I call, my words hitting her in the back as she reaches for the door. “Can we start over? If Cullen is in trouble and I can help before I leave, I’d like to.”
She turns slowly, her features now guarded enough to make heat touch my cheeks. She’d come with nothing but openness, and I didn’t exactly present the most trust-inspiring front. The teapot chooses this moment to beep its readiness, and I pull out two mugs and the last pint of Ben and Jerry’s from the freezer, waving the ice cream at her like a bribe. “You came all this way, and I have treats.”
Her gaze narrows at the Cherry Garcia. “Unfair tactics, not that it makes me immune to them.” With a small, hopeful smile, she returns to my kitchen table, pulls out her phone, and hits Play, the familiar fight from WorldROCK filling the screen. The footage starts with Cullen in midswing at Jaden, fading away with Liam and Eli both wrenching Cullen’s arms behind his back to keep him from ending the asshole permanently. By the time the video is done, so is Adrianna’s hint of a smile. “Something is wrong. The Cullen I know doesn’t go off on people for no reason—and he hasn’t been home or in the office or anywhere I could find him since. Idiot that I am, I told him about the video. Now I’m afraid that if we don’t find him first, he’s going to do something he’ll very much regret.”
My brows narrow as I rewind the video, something about the footage—besides the sight of Cullen half killing Jaden—bothering me. “The part you’re not seeing is Jaden having attacked me a few moments before the fight,” I say, taking the phone from her hand to force myself to review the horrid scene again. Swallowing down the bile that rises up my throat, I reach for my journalistic objectivity as I study the frames.
There had been hundreds of people milling about the various routes, so in theory, anyone could have happened to be around to capture the footage. Except the photograph here had caught the fight as if the photographer had been right there in the midst of it, which they couldn’t have been. The onlookers—whom I’d largely ignored—had been on the outskirts. “Whoever took this had a very good zoom lens,” I say, freezing the recording in place.
“It’s amazing what cell phones today can do,” says Adrianna.
I shake my head. “Most cell phones can take high-quality video, but it takes more than a good phone to get this. Look at the lighting. With that aspen tree there, there were hotspots and shadows all over the place, but the colors all look balanced here. Also, look how stable this is. No nauseating movements like most people holding a phone would have, especially when tensions are high. Whoever took this watched this scary, unpredictable moment and stayed as cool as a cucumber.”
“So a professional, then?” Adrianna says thoughtfully. “Not out of the realm of possibility given the number of reporters at WorldROCK.”
“But rather convenient to have been there at the right time and place. The climb hadn’t started yet. There was no reason to expect something to happen.”
I pinch my fingers together on her screen and push them outward to enlarge a section at the bottom. Numbers. A date-time stamp and some other nonsense that probably makes sense to whoever took the shot. Just like the type of marker Frank’s always on James Dyer’s ass about.
I frown at Adrianna, the question that I should have asked first only now coming to mind. “Wait, who sent this to you?”
“Frank Peterson. Bar’s brother. He’s been after everything Bar left me, and my house is the holy grail for him. The way the legalities are structured, he can only get it if it goes into foreclosure, so he’s been trying to get me to skip payments—mostly by ensuring I bleed money somewhere. But Cullen—”
“Cullen has been picking up the tab, hasn’t he?” I say, squeezing my eyes together as the pieces from the bank accounts and Cullen’s words snap together into a full picture. It wasn’t his disrespect for my career choice that made him protest my working for Frank, it was Frank himself.
Adrianna nods. “Frank sent me this today with a threat to make it public if I don’t stop accepting Cullen’s help. Not that I haven’t tried to tell Cullen to stand down, but this takes it to a new level. It’s just a house. I’m not letting Cullen get destroyed over it. Not if I can help it.”
“How exactly are you going to do that?” I ask. “If I know him, Cullen isn’t going to stop making the payments.”
“Because I submitted my notice to the bank this morning,” says Adrianna, her voice wavering for the first time. “He can’t pay for a house that doesn’t exist. I know this doesn’t take Frank out of the picture, but whatever is going on with him right now, he doesn’t need this adding to it. Looking at that video… I think he’s hurt too.
There’s been a piece of shrapnel in his shoulder that he’s been delaying surgery on—and I think that fight did a great deal more damage from the inside than the outside. If I’m right, he’s hurting like hell right now, and that’s not going to make him more agreeable, I can tell you that. I would normally go to the guys, but with something like this, I can’t be sure one of them wouldn’t go break Frank’s skull in on principle. I’m looking for a de-escalation, not an avalanche. This is all my fault.”
She tips her face up to the lights, her eyes glistening, and my chest tightens. Reaching out my hand, I place it atop Adrianna’s trembling one. “None of it is your fault, Addie,” I say, hoping I’m allowed to use the nickname. “Everything about this smells of a setup. A couple of days ago, Frank mentions Cullen’s violent tendencies to me. Which means they were on his mind for some reason. Then a pro photographer, just like the one who works for Frank, happens to be there right when Cullen loses his shit. Frank gets the video within hours. It’s almost like he knew to send his guy there.”
Addie scrubs her face dry. “You think this Jaden is working for Frank too? That he provoked the fight?”
“I don’t think they know each other, but I’ve been wrong before.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Either way, this flaming disaster we’re in, it’s not a natural fire. It’s one where someone has poured gasoline all over the place. We need to find Cullen.”
“Any ideas?”
“No, but…” I tap my finger on the table. “I’m about to suggest something that I would totally kill him for doing to me—but I’m rather sure that if the situation were reversed, he’d do the same thing without a second thought.”
Addie leans forward, her eyes sparking. “Please tell me you’ve implanted a tracker in his ass.”
“No. But I do remember his bank account log-in. Wherever Cullen is, I bet he used his credit card.” My fingers run across the keyboard, my heartbeat picking up speed with each stroke. Finally, something about today feels right. After all, turnabout is fair play, and I’m no more leaving Cullen alone than he’d left me when I headed to that house on Lincoln Drive.
Cullen and I may be destined to be apart, but I’ll be damned before I leave him in pain.
“Hey, Addie,” I call over my shoulder, copying down the motel address. “Can you drive? I need to do some research on the way.”
35
Cullen
Cullen sat behind the large table that passed for the Motel Colorado’s writing desk, his laptop screen flashing with unread emails. Knowing his lack of fitness for human company, he’d paid last night’s off-duty maintenance guy to pick up a laptop, clothes, medical supplies, and a few other things for him at the large box store a few miles down the road. Once Cullen got online, though, he’d wished he hadn’t. Hell, he’d wished he’d dropped his phone down the toilet and had a few more hours without learning that Sky had broken her lease and was moving out.
He’d already known he’d lost her from his life, so why did this news hurt so fucking much? He scrubbed his face, irritated at finding prickly stubble covering his cheeks. It was his own fault for allowing himself to imagine her stabilizing presence, that oasis with her strawberry-blonde hair scented with passionflower shampoo, was anything but fleeting. He opened the next email in the queue.
According to Kyan, Sky had given papers to the leasing office sometime yesterday, and even Jaz didn’t know what Sky was doing. Not that she’d tell them anything if she did, but she might have at least let him know whether Sky was all right. Instead, all Cullen knew was that she’d disconnected her number altogether. Fuck.
Of course she wasn’t all right. Getting attacked did no one any favors, and Sky had been traumatized in the past—that much had been clear from her reaction to simply watching Eli take a few shots in a friendly sparring match. And if that wasn’t enough, Cullen had lost it right before her eyes. No wonder she was packing.
“You’re damaged fucking goods, Cullen.” Cullen heard his father’s phantom voice in his memories, spitting out the words. “If you have any care for your mother at all, stay the hell away. That’s the biggest Mother’s Day gift you can offer.”
Cullen scrubbed his face again, this time with more vigor. He needed to get ahold of himself. Sky wasn’t his. But he could at least ensure that wherever she was going, she was all right. After everything he’d put her through, it was the least he could do. The least he should do.
Opening a fresh email, he put Liam on the line.
What do we know about the asshole who attacked Reynolds?
Unsurprisingly, the answer came within minutes. Liam had plainly anticipated the question and was just waiting for Cullen to ask. The bastard knew him too well. Just as he knew not to press Cullen for a location.
Jaden Harris. Investigative reporter for the Post and Reynolds’s ex-fiancé. He was the one to report her for allegedly falsifying the Fleet Week story. Made some calls. He did a stint in the marines and called in a bunch of favors to keep his ass from getting a dishonorable discharge for—you guessed it—assault. At least two women have filed restraining orders against him now. One of those during Reynolds’s engagement period, which I don’t imagine she knew about. He went after one of the ER nurses, btw, was on some meds and thought the woman was Reynolds.
Cullen’s hands curled around the edge of the table. Harris seemed to think Sky was some kind of property of his. He’d keep going after her unless something was done. A rush of fury hit his nerves in a cascade that made his breath halt, every instinct inside him demanding he find the fucker and put him down. Permanently.
Yeah.
Once he could breathe again, he forced himself to hit Reply instead of smashing the motel mirror.
Look more into Fleet Week?
This time, the answer came within moments. Liam was already on it.
Meanwhile, Jaden Harris needed to be watched. Dialing the hospital administrator directly—being the CEO had its perks—Cullen had a clerk check which ER the man was in.
“None, sir,” the young woman on the other line reported. “He checked out against medical advice early this morning. Did you—”
Cullen hung up, his heart pounding. He knew Harris’s type. The bastard would be looking for Sky, and with her phone disconnected, there was no way to even call her. Shooting a text with the news off to the Tridents, Cullen got to his feet, a sting of pain zapping through his shoulder despite the sling. The guys would help, but it would be a cold day in hell before Cullen sat this out on the sidelines, hoping that nothing bad happened to Sky. That someone else would do something. No. One way or another, he was finding either Sky or Harris.
Grabbing a button-up shirt from the pile the maintenance guy had picked up for him, Cullen braced himself to plunge his bad arm into the sleeve just as a knock sounded at the door. The image of the bespectacled clerk from last night popped into his head, the one who didn’t know whether to call the police or an ambulance for him and probably wanted to ensure he’d not carried the TV out the window to the nearest antique shop. Housekeeping was more likely, but he didn’t need them either—as the DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door indicated.
The knock came again.
“Not a good time,” Cullen snapped.
“No kidding,” a female snapped right back at him. Addie? Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cullen walked over to the door and pulled it open to discover not one, but two women staring at him.
Well…fuck.
For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do or what to say. Adrianna’s features showed her ferocity as she stood there with her hands on her hips, but Sky looked conflicted, every line of her beautiful face intently focused on him. Cullen’s heart stuttered like a damn schoolboy’s before starting into the kind of gallop he could usually control even in the midst of a firefight. Yet he had no defense against this woman, standing there in dark-wash jeans and a soft white jacket.
“Have you done anything stupid yet?” Addie asked, letting herself
inside. “Or did we get here in time?”
Cullen didn’t answer. Didn’t even move beyond shifting his weight to let the women by. With his focus pinned on Sky’s brilliant blue eyes, he feared that something he might do would make her turn and leave. And that scared him shitless.
“Going somewhere?” Addie called from behind him, her silhouette picking up his shirt in his peripheral vision. “Say, to see Dr. Yarborough?”
Cullen couldn’t turn toward her. Couldn’t look away from Sky. “Jaden Harris signed out of the ER,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to let him hurt you, Sky. I promise you that. I know you don’t want to be anywhere near me, but—”
“Shut up, Cullen.” Swallowing, Sky stepped into his room, her eyes narrowing on his sling. On the blood pooling beneath his skin where the shrapnel had been dislodged. Slender fingers with light pink polish extended toward the bruising, Cullen making himself stand rock still as Sky’s hand hovered just above his flesh. His heart beat hard enough to make his pulse echo in his ears. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“He brought a piece of shrapnel with him back from Afghanistan,” Addie declared impertinently. “Apparently, the metal shard didn’t much like its residence disturbed.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
Cullen shook his head.
Sky pulled her hand back, a flash of hurt in her eyes over the tiny lie.
Fuck. Cullen tipped his face to the ceiling, his throat closing. It shouldn’t be so very hard to say yes, but it was. He was supposed to be protecting her. How the hell could she trust him to do that if he was whining about a bit of bruising? And yet, Sky wanted the unedited truth. Demanded it.
“It hurts like a bitch,” he whispered. “I’m not all right, Sky. Something is wrong.”
Her teeth grazed over her lush lower lip for a moment, and then her arms were around him, pulling him into her, her warm body folding perfectly into his. The scent of passionflower filled his lungs, the shooting pain in his shoulder a distant pulsing irrelevance. Wrapping his good arm around the one woman in the world who could enter his soul and chase away the demons lurking inside, Cullen held her tightly.