by Angel Payne
The woman. That face.
I’d never forget it. I never had.
Over the years, she’d made sure of that. Every few months, never in the same place, she’d show up when I least expected it. Once at the outskirts of a fancy fundraiser. Next in the lobby at work. One time at the airport, when I’d been leaving for a business trip. The only time she’d made a repeat appearance was at the hospital, in those dark days after the break-up with Doug. She’d come every day, just for a few seconds, lingering in the hall outside my room. Most recently, she’d turned up again at the airport, on the day Michael and I publicly announced we were seeing each other.
Caroline.
It was her. I knew it now. I was close enough. She was real enough.
I was so shocked, I jostled my phone back and forth between hands, dropping it to the pavement and nearly shattering the screen. I caught it on the first bounce but when I recovered from my clumsiness, she was gone.
“No. Wait! Please!”
Everyone on the sidewalk stared like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. At the moment, I was nothing but a woman clutching her cell phone for dear life, shouting to someone who wasn’t there.
“Damn it!”
I turned to the closest bystander, a stylish elderly woman who’d definitely been giving her own credit card a workout.
“Did you see that woman? I bumped into her—she was just here—then she ran off—right? Did you see her?”
The woman adjusted her dozen shopping bags in order to cup my shoulder. “Dear, are you okay? Did you fall? Did you hit your head?”
A man walked up, cosmopolitan enough to be her young son. “Maybe we should get you medical help. Is there anyone we should call?”
“No.” I pushed free of their holds, smiling away my brusqueness. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Honestly.”
I needed to stop sounding like a crazy street person—granted, a crazy street person decked in the latest Manolo Blahniks—or Michael and Andre would be responding to a code 5150 at the closest county hospital.
How was this happening?
This time, I’d seen her up close. I’d touched her.
I needed to tell Michael. The need burned like a branding iron. I scrambled for my cell but stopped dead in my tracks again. I was still pissed off at him.
“Fuck! Damn it! Fuck!”
The couple who’d just stopped for me paused next to their Jag, looking freshly alarmed. I was acting like a lunatic, to anyone’s observation. I had to leave. I needed air but was already outside. I needed to get away but there was nowhere to run. Was this a panic attack? The one person I wanted to reach out to, I was furious with.
Fuck!
I sank to a bench, staring at my phone—then did what any normal woman would do. Or at least what I thought any normal woman would do. Normal and I hadn’t had a lifetime to become besties. I was shooting a little blind here.
“Hello?”
“Sister mine.” I let it out in a desperate breath, almost falling apart at simply hearing Claire’s sweet voice. That bitch would know what to say. She always did.
“Hey. Hey.” Her voice changed as soon as the reality of my tone sank in. “What’s wrong? I’ve been sick with worry since getting your emails this morning. What’s going on? Is it Michael? I swear, if he’s upset you again, I’m going to kick his ever-loving butt. Tell me. Now.”
Despite my misery, I laughed. “Are you knocked up again? You sound like a hormone replacement ad.” I couldn’t help it. Her speech was hilarious. Claire Montgomery-Stone was five feet, three inches tall and maybe a hundred and five pounds after a holiday feast. Still, my girl knew the meaning of family and all the happy horseshit that went with it. If you messed with her tribe, she was coming for you—with both guns blazing.
“It is Michael, isn’t it?”
I tossed back a knowing hum. “Is it?”
“Well, I know he has a dick. That automatically makes him a dick.”
“Aha. So this is actually about my brother. Maybe I should be the one asking some questions. What did the amazing egomaniac Killian Stone do to get his little bear so wooly today?”
“I am not wooly.” She giggled now, too. Or growled. They kind of sounded the same with her.
“Can you meet up?”
“Grrrr. Wish I could, Mare. I have a doctor’s appointment in thirty. My overbearing ass of a husband won’t let me drive there myself, so I can talk while Alfred drives me.”
“Won’t let you drive? Why?” As the words came out, the answer started auto-populating my mind. “Wait. Ohhhh…so that’s what this is about…”
“Don’t start.”
Her huff gave away even more.
“What did you do to lose your driving privileges?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I barely held in my laughter. As awful as it sounded, my mood was lifted just hearing about their issues. It made me feel better, knowing other couples bickered over stupid stuff, too.
“Out with it,” I commanded.
“I got another speeding ticket. And if you laugh…I swear, Margaux, I will hang up this phone. You know how they set those speed traps on the five? I didn’t even see the bastard until it was too late. By then, he’d already flipped on the lights and climbed up my ass.”
I busted into giggles, though muffled them with my free hand. My sister’s third speeding ticket in the past year was doubly ironic because she hadn’t even wanted her Audi, a gift from Killian, in the first place. Now she burned rubber like Danica Patrick in the thing.
Maybe life had a sense of humor, after all.
“Are you laughing?”
“No. I’m coughing. Yeah—sure—coughing. I’m in La Jolla. My allergies are a wreck. The sea lions smell gross.”
“You’re so full of shit, Mary Stone.”
I sobered. “Oh. No. You. Did. Not.” I allowed few people to use my real birth name and live to tell about it. Even then, the occasion had to be drastic. I’d let Claire survive. This time.
The little wench wasn’t a speck apologetic about it, either—not that I expected her to be. “I did,” she declared, “and I’ll do it again if you utter one word about this to that cocky hunk of a boyfriend of yours.”
“I can’t be responsible for what I say to him sometimes.” Most of the time. “He has ways of making me talk, Claire. Dirty, filthy ways.”
“Stop. I do not want to hear this!”
“You totally do. Don’t be a prude. I’m not buying that anymore.”
She cleared her throat—making mine tighten. The woman always found a way to steer back to the point “Okay, all kidding aside—”
“But the kidding was fun.”
“—what’s going on? Tell me, sissy. You’re better now, but five minutes ago you were falling apart.”
I curled my knees to my chest. While the night breeze off the ocean smelled infinitely better than the sea lions, it carried a chilled bite. “Declan Pearson has decided to pursue legal charges…about the drama from Saturday night.”
Claire gasped. “Is that even possible? Did Michael touch Declan?”
I bit my lip. “Depends on who you ask.”
“What?”
“It’s complicated, okay?”
“Well, shit.”
I was too exhausted to go into details and knew she’d forgive me the edit. “Well, I convinced him to hire Doug, to help us with this whole mess. Doug has branched out into PI work, and he’s good at it—and we are definitely going to need some outside help with this bullshit. We met him over at the Brockton Villa, to go over preliminaries about the case and—”
“Wait. Whoa. Hold the phones. You hired Doug. Doug who? Are you talking about Doug Simcox? Mare…seriously?”
I borrowed a page from Kil’s book, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours. But nobody is going to be okay with that scumbag back in your life. No wonder Michael is coming unglued.”
“The shit between Doug and me is water under the bridge.”
“And Michael believes you?”
“I’m long over it, Claire.”
She snorted. “If you say so.”
“Okay, let me put it this way. If Killian were in trouble like this and Nick showed up offering skills that could help, wouldn’t you put whatever reservations you had behind you? For Kil?”
“First, let’s be clear. Killian would never need help from anyone because he is, after all, Killian. That being said, I would drill through a damn mountain to help that man—as I think I’ve proved in the past.”
“Exactly!” Before she could formulate more of an objection, I plowed on. “Don’t forget the thousands I’ve already spent on therapy about this, too…right? Tons of therapy. Tons. That makes me so healed about this shit. So normal. I’m normal.” Say it enough times and even you’ll believe it, babe.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
A low rumble vibrated over the line. “Sister mine, you couldn’t pass for normal right now if someone handed you a sweater set and June Cleaver’s pearls.”
“What’s that supposed to—?”
“Hush. Just hush. What the fuck, Margaux? What kind of thread are you really hanging onto? And who the hell do you think you’re fooling? What’s the real problem here?”
“Christ, Claire. I—”
“I’m guessing it was your idea to bring Doug into the fold.”
“So?”
“So…what’s the deal? Do you still have feelings for him?”
“No!”
“Though you answered that a little too quickly, I still believe you.” Her voice gentled. “I know how much you love Michael, and how much he loves you. So this has to be about something else.”
“It is. I had to leave the restaurant…leave them both there. They started going at each other like pissy schoolboys. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take—or can take.”
She let a long beat go by. Another. “Well, what would you be doing in Michael’s position?”
I dropped my head to the top of a knee. Traced a contemplative finger along the edge of the bench. “I didn’t think of it that way.”
“Of course you didn’t.” The statement was more a sympathetic fact than an accusation. “You know you aren’t into Doug, so you expected Michael to simply believe you and deal with it. But guess what, babe? They’re men. Their brains fit inside the heads of their dicks. Doug was the cause of a lot of pain and drama in your life. Imagine if there was a female equivalent in Michael’s past and she just showed up one day—then he asked you to work peacefully with her. Could you do it?”
“I…don’t know.” I worked my chin up over my knee, rolling it around the cap as I inwardly debated. “If it meant getting his name cleared, like this could?” I lifted my head, newly resolute. “Doug is one of the top private investigators in the state, Bear. You know the Christopher Landen case, the one all over the news? That was Doug’s team.”
“Those are impressive credentials,” she conceded. “And I know you only want the best for Michael…but you need to look at it from his perspective, too. Emotions are new to you. I realize that.”
“Watch it, you saucy little witch.”
“Or what, fairy ice queen?”
My laugh echoed hers. “Fuck, you drive me nuts.”
“I love you, too.” She sighed. “Just remember to take his side into consideration.”
“Fine, fine,” I grumbled. “I know you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“Hey.”
“Hmmm?”
“Why the doctor? Everything okay? Am I going to be an auntie?” I sing-songed the last part.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” She chanted it back at me.
“Ahhhh! Evil!”
“Speaking of evil, my jailer is already here. I’d better get off the phone before Kil disconnects this privilege, too.”
She finished it in a giggle. It was clear, even over the phone, that she adored my brother and all his overprotective ways. It helped that everyone knew that Killian Aidan Jamison Klarke Stone would capture the moon, wrestle it to earth and lay it before her feet if she even mentioned the desire to dance in moon dust.
They made me want to puke.
“All right, Bear. Kiss the man for me, too. I appreciate the talk.”
“Margaux?”
“Hmmm?”
“You know I really do love you.”
“Bleccchh.”
Things were suddenly so much better.
Eventually—hopefully—it would become second nature for me to turn to my family. My real family, the people I truly cared about, the ones I actually loved. My mother—well, Andrea—had my mind and instincts so warped, I still shied away from them…from needing anyone.
I didn’t like it anymore.
Maybe, when life settled back down again, I’d do something I swore against ever trying again in my life.
Maybe it was time to go back to therapy.
* * * *
“Declan Pearson isn’t taking a piss without us knowing about it.”
I grinned gamely at Doug across my dining room table. “Well, you have my attention now.”
“I have one man on him pretty much around the clock in Julian. My office girl-slash-media guru, Tiffany, is tracking every mouse click he makes online, including gambling sites, credit card charges and social media. Another one of my guys is standing by here in town, in case he decides another San Diego field trip is in order.” He broke into the update with a tight scowl, directing his attention to an equally somber Michael. “The connection to the goons, or whatever you called them from the night at the Del, is proving to be our sticky challenge.”
Michael’s mien didn’t change. This was the third of our weekly check-in meetings with Doug, though the first that took place at the condo. Michael wasn’t any more pleased about it than Doug was comfortable.
Leaving tonight’s giant helping of awkward all for me. Goody.
I was damn glad Michael had already gotten home when Doug arrived—though I also didn’t miss that sometime during the day, the school desk had been pulled away from the wall, farther than normal. The everyday clutter had been cleared from it, too. The remodel definitely wasn’t Sorrelle’s doing, since he was assisting me at the office more and more lately, proving invaluable to the ramp-up team of Stone Global’s beauty products division.
I wasn’t sure if Michael’s territory marker was adorable or annoying. I didn’t want to flaunt our sexual shenanigans in Doug’s face, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be distracted with thoughts of that night, when we needed to focus fully on Doug’s latest news. Right now, nothing was more important than clearing Michael of the ridiculous assault and battery charges. Our entire life was in a holding pattern, waiting to get over this hurdle.
Still, since he’d taken the time to clear the desk off, I wondered what saucy little act of defiance might earn me a punishment later. Hmmm.
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating…Dougie.”
Shit.
Punishment tabled—unless it turned into Michael’s instead of mine. This wasn’t the most ideal situation for anyone but tonight it was the most convenient. Michael seemed hell-bent on forgetting that part, jumping right into poking Doug with the alpha caveman stick.
To his credit, Doug actually grinned. “Excuse me, man?”
Michael chuffed then growled. “Oh, come on, man. The way you just said that—like you don’t believe me—that wasn’t a slip.”
“Stop.” I grabbed his forearm and curled my nails in. “Stop.”
“Stop what?” he flung. “Calling him on his truth, when he won’t believe mine?”
Doug stood. “I believe you, okay? It’s just that—”
“The fuck you do.” Michael twisted his arm free and shoved to his own feet. “The fuck anyone does.” With hands clasped behind his neck, he stomped toward the patio. �
��What are we even doing this for?”
“Michael.” This was getting painful—in the worst translations of the word.
He spun around, spearing a stare into Doug. “Ohhh, wait. I forgot what a convenient opportunity this is for you, man. Yeah…great idea. Bilk your old girlfriend out of her money and have the chance to spend some nice, cozy free time with her.”
Doug shook his head. “You’re letting the stress talk, buddy.”
“The stress—or the truth? Come on, it is a great idea, man. Getting rich while getting back in her panties. Real smooth.”
Doug rammed his chair back under the table. “I don’t have to take this.”
Michael spun. “Neither do I. That’s English, Dougie-poo, for get the fuck out of our house.”
“Michael! Stop!” Now this was beyond painful. He was making an ass out of himself.
“Oh? So it’s Michael, stop. Not Doug stop. Just Michael.” He bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “Fucking. Perfect.”
“Oh my God.” Against my control, my volume rose to match his. “Are we really doing this again?”
One end of his mouth tugged up, lifting those full lips in a sneer. “I don’t recall ever doing this a first time.” He threw his glare back to Doug. “Do you, buddy? Have we done this before?”
Doug held up both hands. “I’ll just leave.” Remarkably, he’d recalibrated his tone. The statement went along with his pose, an attempt at keeping the peace without placing blame. “I thought this would be easier for you guys, but we can reschedule something for my office.”
I exhaled gratefully.
Michael let out a predatory snarl. “I get it. Now you’re the hero, too, right? I’m the hotheaded idiot boyfriend and you’re the sweeping knight, making everything all better.”
Doug started shutting down his laptop. “Pearson, I’m not talking to you like this.”
“Of course you’re not. Why should you, Mr. I’m-Above-This?” He pushed behind Doug, puffing out his chest as Doug scooped up files. Yes, puffing out his chest. “I have it just about right, don’t I, Simcox?”
I couldn’t believe what I was watching. What the hell had the universe done with the understanding, levelheaded, I’m-a-patient-man-Margaux person that I loved?