I was just glad she did.
That rueful smile and shake of her head called to me, made me heave my ass up off the barstool and get up into her space. As I looked over her shoulder, I watched as she tried to ignore my presence at her back and toss the pasta and sauce together in the pan.
“It matters. Everything you say, everything you do, everything you’re good at. Everything you fail at. What you think. What you want. It matters to me.”
Isla flipped off the stove and set the pan on a cold burner, her movements stilling again when I ventured a little farther into her space.
“Well, you’d be the only one,” she murmured, and the hurt there in her voice was enough to do me in.
The only action I could take – likely the most stupid and reckless one to date – was to kiss her mouth. I brought a hand to her chin, turning her face up and to the side and stole a kiss from her perfect – if a little marred – pink lips. I didn’t intend for it to last as long as it did, but after about half a second of shock followed by the best little indrawn breath, she turned in my arms and kissed me for real.
Fuck dinner. Fuck her past. Fuck anything and everything but that kiss. Her delicate tongue touched the seam of my lips, and I was gone. My hands snuck into her hair as I opened my mouth to her, and then it was gasoline going up against a blow torch. Our tongues pressed and tasted, and it wasn’t until an unearthly whale song of a growl emitted from her belly did we break apart from our clinch.
“Hungry, Sugar?” I asked chuckling.
“Starved,” she murmured still looking at my lips. Jesus, fuck, that was the hottest fucking look she’d ever had. That, paired with her mussed hair and kiss-puffed lips had me aching in my jeans and imagining how else I could get that look on her face.
“For dinner?” I prompted.
“Umm, yeah. Right. Dinner,” she mumbled, shaking herself out of the lust haze and turning back to the pasta. She produced a pair of bamboo tongs and dished up into two deep turquoise bowls.
We sat at the bar as we tucked in, and I was treated again to Isla being right.
Other than her lips, this meal was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
12
ISLA
“You hungry, Sugar?” Levi’s voice broke into my thoughts and stilled my fingers on the keyboard. They had been working on autopilot as my brain ran over last night’s kiss. Every detail, every single sensation, everything – all on a loop, playing over and over again.
There were a million reasons to talk myself out of a relationship – or whatever this was – with Levi. Possibly a billion if I were being honest. But I was having a hard time making myself give him the ‘that was a mistake’ talk. I didn’t want to have that conversation at all, but the reason part of my brain really wanted to be heard. The emotional – and probably horny – part of my brain was beating reason back with a stick.
But still, the bitch had some good points.
Those points were vast, far-reaching, and possibly devastating for all parties involved. I should totally not go any farther into whatever the hell this was with Levi, but every time I thought I could muster up the courage to talk to him, he’d call me ‘Sugar’ or he’d smile at me, and I’d watch his lips pull in that half grin of his. That same half-grin that made my belly dip, and then the belly dip would take me back to how good his lips felt on mine. How I’d never, ever felt like that before, and then I’d be back where I started.
Not knowing what the fuck to do.
“Always,” I answered, saving my work and logging out as I yanked my jean jacket from the chair.
We headed to the diner, Levi’s shoulder brushing mine with every step. I didn’t quite know if he was holding himself back from me, or maybe he was taking baby steps, but I liked that even if he was wary of holding my hand, he still touched me somehow. Levi was decidedly in my space, just like in the kitchen. He stole the air and space in my little bubble, but somehow he gave it back to me too.
I felt greedy for it – the warmth of him being so close to me. But my greed made me feel guilty because it didn’t matter that I was starved for him – he didn’t know who I was.
Or what I’d done to get free.
“You okay, Sugar? You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine. Just need to eat. It’s been two whole hours,” I joked, but I could tell my smile was wane.
Levi opened the diner door for me to pass through, but the sight of Orin at the counter made me do a stutter step at the threshold.
I wasn’t sure who Orin was to Levi, all I knew was I didn’t want to be at the center of whatever tug-of-war pissing match they had going on. The grocery store was bad enough. Luckily, my bladder decided to make itself known for the seven-zillionth time today, and I took that opportune moment to get the hell out of there.
“I need to use the restroom. Could you get me some juice please?”
“Sure thing, Sugar.”
I hauled ass down the side hall towards the ladies’ room and felt the sweet relief when I did my business. I cleaned up, righted my chevron-striped maxi skirt, and washed my hands. I reached for a paper towel, but missed when the world tilted for a second.
Oh, man.
My stomach roiled, and I had to swallow at the heavy feeling of my tongue. I gripped the porcelain pedestal sink for all I was worth, trying to hold myself upright and not pass out on a dirty bathroom floor.
The squeak of the door opening didn’t even register until I heard her voice, and even when she spoke, it took almost a full thirty seconds for me to decipher her words enough in my brain to turn my head.
But when I turned my head, I couldn’t believe the disheveled woman before me was the poised and regal Pippa I’d met just two days ago. Whatever I thought about her shitty attitude, the Pippa I met gave me the distinct feeling of inferiority.
Not so much anymore.
The sleek hairstyle and fashionable clothes were replaced with a messy bun with hair that probably hadn’t been washed in the days since I saw her last, and a pair of ratty gray sweats with a long-faded logo on the thigh.
My first instinct was to ask if she was okay, but I saw the line of her shoulders, the heave to her breath, the balled fists at her sides and thought better of it. My brain screamed ‘danger!’ and it was a message I knew all too well. I’d seen that look many times before, just on a different face.
“Are you listening to me? I told you to stay away from Levi,” Pippa seethed through clenched teeth.
The light in her eyes was wrong, the blue a little too bright, her pupils a little too big. But I couldn’t quite concentrate on her because the room was still spinning. Maybe it was from the panic of being pinned in with Pippa blocking the only exit, or perhaps I was still reeling with another dizzy spell, but when she shoved me, I went down like a sack of bricks.
The thirteen-year-old scrapper of my youth would’ve been so pissed at me because I didn’t even get a shot in. I was too busy protecting my non-existent baby bump and holding onto the sink to keep standing to block her damn hands – to do anything but hit the tiled wall with my back and then lose my footing and smash my nugget on the sink.
All from one freaking shove.
I felt the blood running down my cheek before the pain made itself known. When it did, the dizziness and nausea joined the party in an epic fashion – slamming into me worse than one of Cole’s fists.
This was not good. My temple was pouring blood, and I was stuck on a bathroom floor with a crazy woman standing between me and the door. I struggled to focus on Pippa’s face. Surprise warred with malice and fear as she took a hesitant step toward me. I didn’t know what Pippa planned on, but this wasn’t likely the intention. Not that she minded too much that I was on the floor bleeding now.
In fact, I was pretty sure me bleeding was a perk by the uptick of the corners of her mouth. I could have passed all this off as an accident if I hadn’t seen that little grin, but the way she loomed over me, I felt more than a little fear.<
br />
“What the fuck?” The gravelly words echoed against the tile, and I’d never been so happy to hear a man’s voice in the ladies’ room in my entire life.
In a flurry of movement, Pippa’s cheek was mushed against the tile wall as Orin read her, her Miranda rights while cuffing her wrists. Levi was ripping paper towels from the dispenser and pressing them against my temple while simultaneously yelling for someone to call 911. I hissed at the contact, jerking my head back and managed to smack the back of my head on the wall.
Constance shoved Levi out of the way, crouching down in front of me and assessing the damage all the while scolding Levi like he was her kid.
“You get to hold her hand, and maybe carry her out of here, but son, you are way too close to losing it to be anywhere near a wound. Now sit there, shut up, and don’t make me sorry I told you Pippa came in here,” she ordered like a drill sergeant. Her voice was infinitely nicer when she addressed me. “Isla, honey, I had my cook, Joel, call the paramedics. They should be here any second, and we’ll get you fixed up.”
I wanted to nod but figured the movement would make me vomit. I appreciated her kindness all the same. I couldn’t believe I’d caused such a scene.
Again.
LEVI
“I’m sorry for all this trouble, Constance,” Isla murmured, her eyes fluttering shut as she winced in pain. Isla was already pale to begin with, but her face underneath all that blood was closer to gray than it had any right to be.
It scared the shit out of me. I knew in the back of my mind that she’d be alright. I’d been in her shoes a time or two before, knocking heads with my brother and having a bloody face to show for it. But on Isla, this was not okay. Pippa was my cross to bear, not hers, but she’d still been forced to bear it because of me.
“Not your fault, darling girl,” Constance assured her, but Isla didn’t look like she believed it even a little.
“What’s going to happen?” Isla asked, and she gave me a look that expressed every worry inside her head and a few that I probably didn’t know about.
Isla was running from someone. She’d all but spelled out that fact when I hired her. Someone who she needed a whole new set of identification to hide behind. Someone that was without a doubt looking for her.
Isla didn’t want to cause a scene. Not just because she didn’t like attention, but because more than likely the bastard who battered her face was out there searching for a beacon – a beacon that could lead him straight here to her.
A part of me wondered what she’d done to get free, but the need to know wasn’t as strong as the need to keep her here.
What if she left because of this – because of Pippa? What if tomorrow I woke up and she was gone? My body rebelled at the thought, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach as I crouched beside her. I wanted to hold her hand, but she had both of her palms pressed to her belly holding her stomach as if she were protecting it somehow.
Things were starting to click into place. She came here battered and bruised as if it wasn’t the first time she’d been that way. She had a whole new set of identification, running from whoever beat her. The dizzy spells and needing to eat every thirty seconds and extending out her lease for a year instead of staying with the six-month one.
Isla was pregnant.
I schooled my features to hide my surprise. Well, surprise mixed with a little bit of rage that she’d endured what she had while worrying about the child in her belly. I should’ve been concerned about what all this meant, but all I had was a bone-deep need to protect this woman.
“I don’t know, Sugar, but whatever happens, we’ll make sure you’re safe,” I murmured, my voice as calm as I could make it.
It was more than a promise. It was a vow that none of this would touch her. Not again.
I needed to talk to Hank.
13
LEVI
I was staring at Isla’s closed eyelids when Constance gave me a nudge. She’d left Isla and me alone to clear out the hallway full of lookie-loos and keep an eye out for the ambulance.
“Levi? The paramedics are here. Do you want to carry her out or have them come in?” Constance whispered.
“Have them pull around back, and I’ll carry her out.”
I brushed a strand of Isla’s hair off her forehead with a fingertip, causing her eyelids to flutter open and focus on me. Half her face was coated in a thick layer of blood, and her jean jacket was likely toast.
“Rough day, Sugar?” I murmured, the joke a little stale on my tongue.
“I’ve had worse,” Isla chuckled dryly as she struggled to stand.
I hated how much I knew that softly chuckled joke was true and wished with everything in me that it wasn’t.
“Allow me,” I offered as I snaked an arm under the bend in her leg and behind her back lifting her from that cold floor. Isla rested the good side of her face in the crook of my neck, and I took my first deep breath since Constance barreled through the diner to tell me Pippa had followed Isla into the bathroom.
For once, I was glad my stupid brother was in earshot. He followed us down the hall and slapped cuffs on Pippa’s wrists before I lost my fucking mind. He stayed calm – at least outwardly – when I was so close to ripping that room apart. Granted, it was after he got Pippa in cuffs did he about lose it, but that is neither here nor there.
What if we’d gotten there a minute later? What would Pippa have done to her because of me? What if I lost Isla over a dumb-fuck one night stand I was too drunk to clearly remember?
The only thing that kept me from losing it was Isla safe and warm in my arms. Knowing that Pippa couldn’t touch her, and I would make it so she never did. I walked down the side hall, through the kitchen, and outside the back door, meeting the paramedics so they could look Isla over.
Despite their best efforts, Isla refused the ride to the hospital and took a butterfly bandage to close the tiny cut just above her eyebrow. I knew I needed to do something but didn’t want to leave Isla alone. She needed to rest, and most of the people I trusted were working. That only left the one person I was trying to ease Isla into meeting. The one I was worried would scare her off the most.
I watched Isla cajole the female paramedic into laughing at one of her jokes as I yanked my cell from my jeans and dialed his number. Two rings, five rings, and then a gruff hello.
“Dad, I need your help.”
* * *
When the paramedics finally released Isla, I had a plan. It was probably a shit plan, but I fucking had one, and that was all that mattered.
Breaking it to Isla was going to be a challenge.
“Alright, Sugar, you’ve got two choices,” I started – admittedly, not my best opening – but it was all I had.
“What do you mean, ‘I have two choices?’ I have all the choices. You do not decide how many choices I have, Levi Grady.”
Someone was feeling a little penned in.
“As true as that is, right this very second, you have two options for how the rest of this day is going to play out. Orin has already texted me five times asking when you’ll be down to the station to make a statement. Are you planning on giving him one?” I asked, but I already knew what she would say.
Isla paled a little and shook her head, giving me a sharp look that told me just about everything.
“That’s what I thought. If you aren’t going to press charges against Pippa, I need to wrangle her another way. Her father, Hank, keeps her on a pretty tight leash in the form of a trust fund and an allowance. If I can talk to him before Pippa does, I have a chance at keeping you safe. Now, I’m not letting you go anywhere alone for the foreseeable future, so at this juncture, you have two choices. You can go back to work, but Graham will be your office buddy for the rest of the day,” I offered, and Isla went white. Yeah, her and Graham hadn’t had a chance to smooth things over yet. “Or, you can go home, get cleaned up, relax, and my dad will sit on your couch until I get back.”
Isla squinted at me
, probably deciding which option would be less painful.
“I want to go home.”
When we pulled in the drive, my dad’s banana yellow 1968 Ford Bronco was parked in his regular spot, farthest from the house and next to Isla’s Explorer.
I was beyond nervous for my dad to meet Isla. I worried how he’d treat her, how he’d react to the woman I was falling for just blowing into this town the way my mother blew out of it. I’d wanted to wait until Isla and I were solid, but my options were limited.
But Otto Grady wasn’t a man to wait around for anyone – least of all his youngest son – so his perch against Isla’s front door was expected. The look on his face when he saw Isla’s face half-covered in blood was not.
I get my height from my father’s side of the family, so the imposing figure of my dad is more than formidable. I also get my genial nature from him, so the times between dad getting pissed is far and wide. Otto Grady has always been known as an easy-going teddy bear of a man. Honest, thorough mechanic. Pretty fabulous businessman. I can count on both hands how many times I’ve seen my dad pissed. And just then he was pissed.
“You planning on doing something about this, son?” Dad seethed as his left eye twitched. I’ve seen his eye twitch only once before and that was when Orin and I nearly burnt the house down after knocking into the stove while wrestling – okay, maybe we were fighting – in the kitchen while Dad was cooking dinner.
“Planning on it as soon as Isla gets settled,” I replied by way of introduction. “Dad, this is Isla Young. Isla, this is my dad, Otto Grady.”
Isla, the tiny little slip of a thing she was, did not disappoint. She thrust out a hand for my dad to shake, which he took, treating her small hand like it was spun glass. Dad then wrapped her fingers around his bicep and escorted her to her own front door like the gentleman he was.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Young. Other than the obvious, how are you finding our little town?” Dad asked her, the charm in his voice something my brother got instead of me. Not that Orin used it except to get into a woman’s pants.
Seeking Sanctuary_A Shelter Me Novel Page 8