She pulled her hand away, stood up quickly. “I have to go.”
“No.” He stood too. “No, you stay here until you tell me the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” she said, her voice shaking. “I told you what happened to me. I told you my real name. I told you why I just disappeared from your life without a word. That was the deal and I’ve honored it. We’re done now.”
“No, we’re not.” He grabbed her wrist maybe too roughly, pulled her closer. “Not until you tell me that you don’t love me anymore.”
“Is that what you need to hear? To make you leave me alone?”
“Yeah.” His blue eyes were hard again as he stared down at her. “Tell me.”
“Fine.” Mirrie gathered up her courage. “I don’t love you anymore.”
Mac studied her closely, really took in those eyes and lips. They weren’t anywhere close to steady: her eyes were darting away, her lips were trembling.
“You’re lying to me, Mirrie.”
“I am not.”
“You are. I know you.”
She drew herself up to her full height. “I think, Shane, we just spent the past hour determining that, in fact, you don’t fucking know me at all. You never did.”
And with that, she turned and walked out, leaving Mac staring after her. Completely lost about just what the hell to do now.
Fuck. I need to get some help with this one.
Chapter Two
Mirrie walked out of Cassie’s with tears in her eyes, wondering just how the hell her legs were actually holding her up. She’d gone in to that conversation with Shane hoping that he’d take it all reasonably well – and then he’d gone and taken it too damn well.
Wanting to try again? Wanting to get back together? Wanting her – wanting her despite being Donovan Kane’s sister, and an alcoholic, and a marked woman? Wanting to take that risk… for her?
No, she hadn’t seen any of that coming, not by a long shot and damn him for it, because now Mirrie wanted him too. He’d given her a tiny glimmer of hope for them – and that was the one thing in this world that she was scared to hope for. She couldn’t give herself over to him and then lose him. Not again.
Mirrie walked aimlessly, just walked and breathed. When she finally became aware of her surroundings, she saw that she was near a park. She spotted an empty bench and went over to it, sat down. She dug through her backpack for her cell phone and she dialled Neil’s number from memory.
He answered almost immediately. “Mirrie?”
The concern was palpable in his deep voice and she shut her eyes with relief. “Hi, Neil.”
“You OK?”
“No.”
“What do you need?”
“Can we – can we meet?”
“Yeah. Where are you?”
“Ummm.” Mirrie looked around blearily, tried to focus. “I’m not totally sure.”
Neil paused.
“I’m not drunk,” she rushed to reassure him. “I just had a shock and I kind of wandered for a while without paying attention.”
“Alright,” he said gently. “Walk around a bit, get your bearings. I’ll stay on the phone with you.”
“OK.”
She got to her feet and started to walk towards what looked like a busy intersection. Sure enough, she found a few street signs and peered up at them.
“Ummm… Neil? I’m at 30th and Champa. I see an ice cream place, actually, just across the street. Can we meet there?”
“Yeah. Give me thirty minutes, OK?”
“Sure thing,” Mirrie said and then made a stab at levity. “Shall I order you a hot fudge sundae with extra whipped cream?”
Neil paused. “You better, girl. I get the feeling I’m going to miss my lunch today.”
Mirrie felt tears well up in her eyes for about the fifth time that morning. “Yeah. Yeah, you will. I – I need to talk, Neil.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “As long as you need. How much time have you got?”
“All day,” she said. “I don’t start work until four o’clock.”
“Good. I’ll take the rest of the day off and we’ll just talk until you say everything you need to. Alright?”
“OK.” She was still shaky and frightened, but at least she wasn’t alone. “See you soon.”
**
Neil Gammon stared across the table at Mirrie, not at all liking what he saw. He’d been her AA sponsor for two years and he’d seen her in a really bad way more than once… but nothing like this. Whatever this was, it was serious.
When Neil had first agreed to be her sponsor, he’d demanded total openness and honesty from her – and she’d immediately set some boundaries around that. When he’d pointed out that – by their very definition – openness and honesty were all about not setting up walls or withholding, she’d gazed at him for a very long time. To this day, he remembered the look of pain and panic in those amazing light-purple eyes.
“Neil,” she’d said. “I have to keep some things from you, OK? Things about my family. It’s for your own safety.”
Well, he hadn’t liked that at all and had asked for some clarification.
She’d worried her full lower lip, silent and thinking. Finally, she’d said, “My family is… bad news. Criminals. Dangerous guys. They – they don’t know that I’m an alcoholic and they sure as hell don’t know that I’m looking for help. If they knew, they’d… well.” She shuddered. “They’d hurt me, Neil, to stop me from talking to outsiders about my problems. They’d – they’d maybe hurt you for helping me. For knowing things about them.”
“They would?”
“Yeah.” She twisted her hands. “If you – if you can’t accept my need to stay quiet about some specifics, then just say so. I’ll find another sponsor. No hard feelings, I swear.”
He’d looked at Mirrie for a very long time, then he’d said, “I’ll be your sponsor, Mirrie. But I want you to tell me everything that you can without compromising your safety, OK?”
Startled, she’d agreed. And although it had taken her a while, she’d started to let him in a tiny little bit at a time. Now, he knew all about her family and the Fallen Angels – and he knew about what had happened to her when she’d tried to leave that life for good. He’d been horrified at the damage done to her when he’d visited her in the hospital and despite the fact that he was a short, pudgy accountant, he’d seriously considered kicking the crap out of Mirrie’s thug father and brother.
When Mirrie had gotten together with Shane, Neil had been delighted for her. But then it had ended abruptly and Mirrie had relapsed immediately after and even now, Neil didn’t know why it had ended.
From Mirrie’s extreme reaction, he’d assumed that Shane had finished it, but Mirrie had never spoken of Shane again. She’d relapsed and disappeared for just over six months and then returned to AA almost unrecognizable: gone was the quiet girl of the flowy dresses and the long blonde hair, and in her place was a tattooed and pierced young woman. Angry and aggressive. She’d told him that she didn’t want him to be her sponsor anymore and despite his hurt, he’d agreed to respect her decision.
That was when they’d lost their closeness and by this point, Neil and Mirrie had barely spoken over the past few years. Oh, sure, they nodded and chatted at AA meetings, but Mirrie hadn’t phoned him or deeply confided in him for a long time. Her panicked call today was a bolt out-of-the-blue and Neil knew – knew with every inch of his being – that she was in nothing less than full-blown crisis. The kind of crisis that can cause relapses… and worse.
He ate his beloved ice cream sundae, to hell with his diet, waited for her to start talking. With Mirrie, silence and patience were the only ways to go. Push her and she’d run; force her and she’d fight back. Best to let her begin when she was ready.
Mirrie glanced up to see Nei
l calmly eating his ice cream. She smiled, suddenly realizing just how much she’d missed his steady presence. It was her fault, of course, that there was distance between them. First, she’d pulled back to avoid any conversations about Shane. Then Mirrie had taken on an AA member of her own to mentor and she took her role as Naomi’s sponsor damn seriously…and it was a handy way to avoid Neil asking too many questions.
Not anymore, though. No more walls or lowered eyes or evasive mumbled greetings. Mirrie was here and she was afraid. Neil would do anything to help her, she knew. Still, despite her coldness. She bit her lip, ashamed of herself for avoiding this good, kind man for years and then calling him when the shit hit the fan. He deserved better.
“Neil?”
He looked up at her now, his green eyes gentle behind his glasses. “Yeah?”
“I – I saw Shane.”
He sighed, pushed his dessert away. “When?”
“Yesterday and again today.” She took a shaky sip of tea. “Naomi’s art center had an opening yesterday and I was there… turns out that the world is small and Denver is fucking miniscule. Naomi’s boyfriend is good friends with Shane. He showed up and we both almost died on the damn spot, I think.”
Neil studied her closely. “You argued?”
“Not exactly. He confronted me when I was alone in the kitchen and demanded that we meet today.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Her voice trailed off. “Because four years ago, I just dropped out of his life without a word.”
Neil leaned back, seeing that all this time, he’d had the breakup backwards. “OK, Mirrie… talk to me.”
She nodded, started talking. She told Neil the whole story – she told him everything. Up to and including Shane saying that he wanted her back, that he wanted to try again.
“And so,” she concluded. “I told him that he doesn’t know me and he never did and I left him standing there in the café. That was when I called you.”
Neil hadn’t said a word this whole time, and he didn’t speak for almost a full minute now. Then he said, “Why did you lie to him and say that you don’t love him anymore?”
“I didn’t lie!” she burst out. “I – I don’t love him!”
“Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m…”
“You’re lying to yourself, too,” Neil said quietly. “Why?”
She skidded to a conversational halt, uncertain. “I’m – I – oh, God, Neil. I just can’t take that kind of risk.”
“You mean with the Fallen Angels?”
“Yeah, of course!” She shook her head. “Who’d you think I mean?”
“Shane.”
“You – what?”
“Are you afraid to take the risk with the MC – or with Shane?”
She was silent. “I guess… both.”
“Which one more?”
“Neil. They’ll kill him… they’ll kill us both. Don’t you see that?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” She was stunned. “Isn’t any risk of us getting hurt too big of a risk?”
“It sounds to me like Shane knows some pretty dangerous people himself… these people can protect you, can’t they? Matt Kingston’s known around town, you know.”
“You mean King’s Men?”
“Yep.”
Mirrie stared down at the table, thinking hard. Yeah, Matt Kingston’s team – known as ‘King’s Men’ – was an elite group of highly-trained men and women. They specialized in things that Mirrie didn’t even want to start to think about: they got kidnapping victims back, and they tracked down wanted killers, and they busted up drug cartels. King was Naomi’s boyfriend and if truth be told, Mirrie had no idea how Naomi managed to stay sober sometimes when King walked out of their apartment door to an op. The stress of not knowing where he was or what he was doing was hard on her.
But hiring King’s team? Hiring them to protect her? No way Mirrie could even begin to afford that – King and his people were the exact opposite of cheap. They were way beyond a humble barista’s income.
“No,” she said quietly. “I can’t go that way, Neil. King’s team is expensive.”
“Maybe Shane would get a nice discount, seeing as he and King are such good friends?”
“No,” she said again. “It’s not that simple. What – King would have bodyguards follow me and Shane around for a few weeks? All Dad and Donovan would do was lay low until the bodyguards went away, then they’d make their move.”
“Right.” Neil paused. “Yeah. I guess living under protection permanently isn’t an option.”
“Nope.”
“Well, what if this guy King sent his people to the MC clubhouse? Had them talk to your Dad and whoever makes the decisions?”
“You mean negotiate?”
“Yeah.”
Mirrie almost laughed. “Yeah. No. Naomi told me that King actually negotiated with Trigger MacGee, the President of the Fallen Angels recently, and the guy went back on his word. Totally.”
“So no way you can trust what the Fallen Angels say?”
Mirrie thought about a woman named Gabi being buried alive after Trigger swore to King’s face that she was safe. “Uh, no. No way.”
“So…” Neil shrugged and decided to play devil’s advocate “Maybe you’re right and it’s all hopeless.”
“Yeah. It is.” She sighed a bit. “I can’t put Shane in danger. Not again. If anything happened to him… if he got hurt, or worse… I think I’d die. I just – I can’t lose him all over again, Neil. I wouldn’t survive this time.”
He moved in for the kill. “Because you still love him?”
Mirrie opened her mouth to say, Of course I don’t! and then shut it again. Neil’s face was so open, so gentle… he’d never judged her, not once in all the time that she’d known him. Even when she’d reappeared at AA after losing Shane and still in the throes of her relapse, so angry and so damn hurt and kicked Neil to the curb as her sponsor, he’d always accepted her feelings and decisions. Neil was just about the last person on the planet who’d try to make her feel ashamed for loving someone.
And yeah, she did love Shane. Fuck, of course she did. She always had and she always would, no matter how hard she’d pretended otherwise or how desperately she’d tried to forget him. But that didn’t mean they could be together – and that hurt her. Badly.
Time to tell the truth. Time to be vulnerable.
Fuck. I hate being vulnerable.
“I… I do.” She spoke quietly. “I do love him, Neil, and that’s why I need him to be safe. Can you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“And so… and so I’m going to let him go. Again.”
“Are you sure?”
She paused.
“Mirrie?” His expression sharpened. “You sure?”
“Yes.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt, OK, and I’m not going to say that it’s easy. He just offered me the chance to be with him again, Neil. He told me – he said flat-out that he loves me.” Her eyes were tearing up yet again. “God, I’ve missed him so damn much. And then to have him holding my hand and wanting me back? It’s – it’s like a dream-come-true. It’s also a fucking nightmare.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
She shrugged. “What can I do? It’s over. I get on with my life, he gets on with his.”
“You never see him again?”
“Nope.” She fought to stay cool about it. “Seeing him changed nothing.”
Neil cocked his head at her. He had serious doubts about that statement, but he decided to let it pass for the moment… though he’d lay his next year’s salary that Shane MacIntyre didn’t share Mirrie’s opinion that nothing had changed.
No, if Neil were a betting man, he’d say tha
t the stubborn, hard-headed, demanding doctor that Mirrie had fallen in love with thought that, actually, much had changed. Also? Neil would bet his house and his car that Shane would be popping up in Mirrie’s life again. Soon.
Neil had no idea just how right he was.
Chapter Three
Mac leaned against the bar at Dangerous Curves, staring at the pool tables as his friends chatted around him. To a casual observer, he was intently watching the games; in reality, he was gazing at nothing at all. He was thinking, and thinking hard.
He’d been thinking hard all day, actually, ever since Mirrie had walked out of the café that morning. He’d let her leave – not wanting to push her or scare her – but that didn’t mean that he had any intention of letting her go. He’d lost her once and he wasn’t letting that happen again. No goddamn way.
The question, of course, was how to stop that from happening again. She’d been right about her asshole father and brother being threats. Mac knew almost as well as Mirrie what could and almost definitely would happen to her – and to Mac – if the Fallen Angels found out that she’d come clean about everything. And no fucking way Mac was letting those animals get their hands on her again. He’d die himself before that was going to happen. And there was the problem: how was Mac going to convince Mirrie to be with him and how was he going to keep them both safe?
He took a long drink of beer, lowered the bottle, considering. It was odd, but Mac wasn’t hesitating about being with her again. That part wasn’t even up for consideration. She was his and he was hers, and that’s the way it was. No debate, no discussion and there never had been. He was sure that they’d still be good together, even after all this time apart and all the changes in their lives. Hell, he wanted to get to know this new Mirrie… he needed to. He needed her. He’d been a fucking mess since she’d left him and he knew it; he’d known it for a while.
So, OK, it was a bit of a risk to track her down and push her to be with him, but Mac wasn’t a man to avoid risks worth taking. It was the main reason that he was the best consulting neurosurgeon in the state – maybe even the country – and why he had patients and their families calling him from every corner of the globe and paying ridiculous amounts of money for private consultations. Shane MacIntyre was known for his crazy, fearless and unorthodox approaches to treatment and to both the delight and dismay of the medical field, more often than not, his wild ideas worked.
Gentle Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 4) Page 3