Chasing Serenity (Seeking Serenity) (6 page)

“Yes,” Sayo answers for me.

“Look, Sayo, I know you don’t like me, but—”

“Damn skippy.” As though they are at all threatening, Mollie and Layla stand behind Sayo and their disgusted expression and curled lips mirror my best friend’s. “Why don’t you go, Tucker? Your little minion is here, that’s plenty of help.”

“I’m not his fecking minion.”

Sayo’s fierce scowl is focused on Tucker whose shoulders have tensed. He takes a step back when Declan approaches. This won’t be good. A silent prayer that my best friend will forget her vow to smack Tucker around the next time she saw him flits around my mind. There’s so much tension in the room that the air hisses.

Eager to defuse the impending explosion of shouts, I tug on my best friend’s wrist. “It’s fine. Calm down,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound demanding or stern. I turn to Tucker. “I didn’t get your message. And it’s probably not a good idea, you being here.”

“Autumn, it’s obvious you guys need my help. Fraser and your girls aren’t going to be able to handle all of this.” Tucker’s hands sweep around to the endless boxes.

“I can leave, you know.” Declan says, heading toward the door.

Tucker scratches his fingers over his face, lets them rub on his temples. “You’re staying where you are.”

“If you’re here, I’m not needed, am I?” Declan says, pausing just before he reaches the door.

“You need to learn humility.” Tucker pats a box on the table. “Getting filthy in the library will serve that purpose.”

“Humility? You uppity bollocks—”Declan starts toward Tucker, moving his neck side to side, as though he’s gearing up for a tussle.
 

It’s my classroom all over again. Nose to nose, chests out like idiots as if we’re in the center of a cage match and not in a hundred year-old library surrounded by nerdy academic types. For the second time in a week, I wedge myself between Declan and Tucker as they look eager to pounce on each other.

“That’s enough.” I turn to Sayo. Her eyes gleam with laughter. I know she’d like nothing more than to see Tucker’s face smashed in. “Why don’t you get Declan to bring in those boxes from the donation room?” She nods, her mouth twisted into a disappointed pout, but she pulls on Declan’s sleeve and they disappear out of the room. Mollie and Layla grumble between each other, clearly disappointed that Tucker and Declan didn’t turn the Reference room into a makeshift MMA fight, but as Sayo and Declan left, they return to the books in the corner.  Satisfied that I’d distilled the tension, I glance at Tucker. There are hard lines creased on his forehead and his arms are tense in a cross over his chest. “I appreciate the offer, but you can’t be here.”

“Why not? Because Sayo doesn’t like me?”

“Because it’s her library. Besides, I think you and Declan in a room together all day would be a disaster.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Yes, well, you’re supposed to be his captain, aren’t you? Be the bigger man.”

He rubs the tip of his boot against the carpet, seems to agree with me. The wrinkles disappear and his fingers hang loose on his hips. “Autumn, we still need to talk.”

I don’t know what he expects from me. This isn’t really the time or place to have a heart to heart, not that I’m at all interested in that. Our relationship was always one-side, always about him, and now that he’s back and he sees that there are other concerns in my life, it must shock him. I find it hard to care about his feelings and just want him gone.

“No, we don’t. What I need to do is go through these books and you need to walk away. You’re good at that, remember?”

The tension that stiffened his body moments ago is back. He doesn’t bother to respond. Tucker simply backs away and tosses our neatly stacked books off the table, scattering a couple onto the floor as he passes. I close my eyes for a second, unsurprised by his temper. As Sayo and Declan return to the room, Tucker pauses, lets the Irishman walk through. They exchange glares and I think I might need to break them a part again, but Tucker leaves and Declan comes fully inside with a large box weighting down his arms.

“What did he want?” Sayo asks. Declan’s head tilts toward us as he listens. He doesn’t need to know my business.

“Later,” I tell Sayo, giving her a glare of warning as I nod my head in Declan’s direction.

“Don’t let me stop you, McShane.” He doesn’t look up from the box he drops to the floor. “If you want to go on about that amadan, by all means—”

 “No one was talking to you.” Half an hour in and he’s already pissing me off. “You’re here to work, not listen in on our conversations so unless you want me to call Tucker back.”

“Call him. I don’t give a shite.” He kicks the box away with his feet. “But the day would go smoother if you lot wouldn’t sit around yammering on about Morrison.”

Sayo sighs and steps behind Declan to shove the box he kicked onto the table.

“What did he ever do to you?” I ask Declan, wondering what could have made him hate my ex so much.

“Why do you care?”

“You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”

“Jaysus, McShane, you wound me.” Declan makes his accent inflate. He waves his hands and stiffens his back acting like an over exaggerated idiot. “I’m slighted by your wicked insults. Tell me, does your mum know you speak with that sort of slaggish tongue?”

I freeze. Behind Declan Sayo’s eyes widen and I hear Mollie and Layla’s low gasps. His expression is expectant and a wide grin stretches his mouth. My eyes close and air fills my lungs, chasing back the knot that has formed in my throat.

“No, she doesn’t,” I say. “She doesn’t know anything, seeing as how she’s been dead for five months.”

Immediately his expression changes. He no longer smiles, he has, in fact, erased all emotion from his face save shock, perhaps embarrassment. “I—“ he begins, then takes a step toward me, but I turn away from him and stand next to Sayo.

“I’ll sort through the books in the basement.” She nods and I don’t let her touch me when she reaches for my hand. The last thing I see as I leave the room is Declan’s softened, remorseful eyes.

Why anyone would stack a heavy box full of books on the top shelf, is beyond me. I narrow my eyes at the ladder leaning against the bookshelves. It is suspect, to say the least. There are rusted bolts securing the rungs to the frame and the foot grips are worn and frayed. I could call Sayo and have her send down the jackass to help me out, but that would require being in the same room with him and I’m not altogether eager to be anywhere near him.

The rational part of my brain tells me I shouldn’t be angry. How was he supposed to know about my mom? He doesn’t know anything about me and he was just mouthing off like he always does. Still, his comment was unsettling. I don’t mind the jibe about my filthy mouth. I have heard myself speak, after all. But being reminded of my mom, when I’ve tried so hard to never speak about her to anyone, especially with someone like Declan, has my heart pounding, a panic attack threatening in my chest. And, it hurts. Thinking about her, remembering her makes a million pinpricks of pain scatter in my body. I miss her. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing her.

Determined to get on with it, I grab the ladder and move it in front of me. I say a quick prayer that I don’t end up with a broken neck and shimmy up the rungs. Everything is fine, sturdy even, until I get to the top and reach for the box. I’m just not tall enough.  Even with the stretch of my fingers, I barely manage to scratch the bottom. A quick glance behind me has me squeezing my eyes shut. That’s a long way down.  I stretch again and this time I raise up on the balls of my feet and am able to reach the cardboard cutout on the box that serves as a handle. I grip it, but the ladder shakes and then, because clearly the gods hate me, my ring gets stuck inside the box. I’m going down.

“Shit! Not good. Not good!”

The floor inches nearer and I squeeze my eyes shut, body tensed for a crash I know will hurt like hell, but then a pair of tennis shoes squeak on the marble floor and a large arm wraps around my waist. The ladder smashes to the ground and I am pulled aside as a dozen or more hardcover books fall around me.

A solid chest fits against my shoulders and a heavy, tattooed arm wrenches around my waist, gripping me tight. I try not to think about how heated his skin feels or how I like the way his breath smells as he pants against my neck, moving my hair with each exhalation.

Wait. Did I just think about liking anything at all about Declan Fraser?

“Alright then?” he asks and I can only manage a quick nod in response. His arm is still wrapped around me and I see an intricate Celtic knot weaving around the name “Moira” in elegant script beneath the thin black hair of his arm.
 

“Um. Thanks,” I say and scramble to my feet. I don’t speak further, instead, I make quick work picking up the fallen books. He’s at my side on his haunches, moving the broken ladder. “I’m sure Sayo would rather you help her out upstairs.”

“She sent me down here.”

Great. Note to self: pencil in the best friend for a lecture. An armful of books has me staggering, but I find an empty box behind the bookshelf and move it in front of me with my foot. Declan watches me. It’s a feeling I’m unaccustomed to. There is the sense of a substantial weight on my skin, the warmth of awareness inching over my body, that sensation that someone notices every twitch of your fingers, all the small gestures that you make without realization.

The sound of the broken ladder being picked up is to my right and I get the distinct feeling Declan is distracted in his task. I try not to let him affect me. Mentally, I prepare myself for his superior smirk or whatever sarcastic insult he’s going to use. I’m sure it’ll involve my incompetence or my idiotic notion that I could use a rickety ladder to pull down a hundred pounds of books.

But he doesn’t speak, doesn’t utter a single insult and, to my great surprise he isn’t even complaining to himself. Curious, I look over my shoulder and notice his eyes on me.

“What?” I return to the books lying on the floor. He only shakes his head and helps me gather up the mess. His silence has me on edge. From my brief experience with him, he always has a sarcastic remark or a lewd comment to make.

Dismissing him and his constant leer, I reach for another box, this one just above eye level and as I stretch for it, Declan moves over me and grabs the box with one hand.

“Let me,” he says and I nod in thanks. He doesn’t give me the box, instead he lifts it over my head and sets it on the long conference table next to the door. 

Our arms brush, brief and only occasionally as we sort through the books, separating them into categories and when we reach for the same book, I jerk my hand back as though the feel of his fingers against mine send an electric current to my skin. We exchange a gaze that lengthens, stretches into a gape and his glance lingers over my face.

I try to ignore how intense his gaze is, how dark his green eyes become. “I got this. You don’t have to help down here,” I say, trying to pull the book out of his hand, but his grip is firm, unwavering.

“Sayo asked me to help you.”

“It’s fine. You can go tell her I don’t need your help.”

“That right? And if I hadn’t been here just a bit ago, you’d be flat on your arse with a broken back.” When I glare at him and begin to mutter more of what he calls “slaggish tongue” under my breath, Declan drops the book on the table, then pushes the box back to allow him space to sit. He grabs the book I’m holding out of my hand, flips through it idly, and I wonder what rude comments he’ll have for me now. “Do you think we can ever have a conversation that doesn’t begin with me apologizing to you?” he asks.

I can’t help it. The sound that leaves my mouth is somewhere between an undignified snort and a low gasp. His eyes widen and my cheeks flush hot, but I forget my embarrassment when his laughter echoes through the basement. After a few seconds, he sobers and lets his fingers run through his hair. “I was an arse earlier. About, well, about your mum.” At first, my lips lower, quiver, but when I turn my attention to the books, he touches my arm and squeezes his fingers gently over my skin. “My mum, she’s gone as well.” 

My eyes pop back to his face and I relax my expression. “I’m sorry,” I say, forgetting the books for a moment. He nods once. “When?”

Declan lets his hand fall away from my arm.  “Oh, it was some time ago. I was just a kid, but I don’t reckon that knot in your gut ever goes away.” He stands and we return to the books, but his eyes are on my face again and he smiles. “I should have known better than to say something so rude when I don’t really know you.” Declan shakes his head as though another thought comes to him. “Fact, I should apologize properly for the first time we met.”

“I thought you did that,” I say, earning a smile from him, a silent confirmation that his forced apology didn’t mean anything.

“I was pissed out of my head. Too much whiskey.” Again Declan frowns, moves his head as though he can’t believe what an ass he made of himself that night on the pitch. “It’s no excuse, I know, but I am sorry. I’m not like that, really.”

“Well, I wasn’t really pissed at you.” He raises one eyebrow and I smile. “Not for being rude today. You’re right, you don’t know me, but it’s still a bit, new, you know?”

“I do. It was a shitty thing to say so, again, I’m sorry.” We return to the sorting and our hands work together in the box. Several times we touch. His skin is rough and there are blisters on his knuckles, on his palms. He has a player’s hand, calloused and slender, good for grabbing, holding the ball, and I find myself looking at how long his fingers are, the width of the joints, the show of vascular lines on the tops.

“What do you play?” I ask and he stops for a moment, notices me staring at his hands.

“Wing. Well, normally I’m wing. Tucker’s convinced Mullens to set me as scrumhalf.”

“Ah, so that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you hate Tucker.” He doesn’t respond, just returns to the bookshelf to grab another box and my gaze follows him, takes in the rigid set of his shoulders. “He’ll be gone at the end of the season, you know.”

“Hmm. If I’m lucky,” he says.

“Mullens is a good coach. I’ve known him forever and he’s friends with Ava.” A wrinkle forms between Declan’s eyebrows. “Dr. Winchell.”

“Thick as thieves with the president, aren’t you?”

“No. Well, yes, but it’s not what you think. She was my mom’s best friend. They’d known each other since college.”

He opens his mouth as though he wants to say something, but then just nods before he clears his throat. “Sayo mentioned it was a car crash?” When my eyes narrow, he shakes his head as though I shouldn’t be angry. “That was after she and the other two barked at me forever. Told me what an arse I was, how rude I was, how you didn’t deserve to be disrespected.” I relax and he continues. “You were hurt?”

“Yes.” My hands shake, tremble as they rest on the box in front of me and I can see myself bloody and still in the car, remembering the pain, the suffocating feeling of my mother’s loss. A breath tamps down the burn of tears in my eyes. “Three broken ribs, a completely busted up leg, and a lacerated abdomen. I had more scrapes and bruises than even you’ve probably had.”

“I’ve had many. Loads of scars as well.”

I don’t know what possesses me to do it, perhaps some subconscious need to prove how tough I am, that I’m not some sniggering girly girl, but I lift up the side of my shirt and show Declan the top of my incision from the surgery. It’s a horrid, long line still pink that runs from my hip to just below my bellybutton.

“A steel rod from the truck that hit us pinned me to the seat. Seven hour surgery.” Declan winces. The scar had faded and the doctors told me that over time it would continue to diminish, but it would never disappear completely. Five months on and it’s still quite disgusting.

Seemingly without thinking about it, Declan reaches down and rubs his thumb against my scar and at his touch, my stomach flips. I know he can see the light hairs on my stomach stand on end and how my skin covers in goose bumps. He looks at my face again and once more his eyes linger too long in my eyes, then down to my lips. But then he breaks contact and unbuttons his shirt.

“I’ve got a few nasty ones as well. See this?” He lifts his undershirt back over his left shoulder and I nod, curious of his point, his intentions. “Rory McDonald pushed me straight through the rusty, broken uprights when I was fifteen. Twenty-nine stiches that ached like a bugger. And here,” he lowers his shirt then pulls up the hem to show me a smooth gash just below his bellybutton. “Mickey Douglas forgot to ditch his watch during a practice match when I was eighteen. Fecking thing nearly ripped me in half when he lined me up and smashed me as I went for a try-scoring pass.”  The scar is faint, barely noticeable and doesn’t register really as I am distracted by muscles so taut that I can see the lines across his stomach. There is a long trail of black hair below his navel that disappears beneath his belt and I can’t help the wild dip of my stomach as I watch his bare skin.

“That’s um, yeah.” I swallow against the dryness in my mouth and Declan steps closer, his shirt still raised. Again I feel him watching me, and I don’t realize how close we are standing until he drops his shirt. There is no smile on his face, no condescending little grin that tells me he thinks I’m an idiot.

I don’t react when Declan reaches for my face or when his hand cups my cheek. The tips of his fingers are smooth, not like the rough callouses on the tops and palms of his hands. I’m about to speak, say something glib, sarcastic, but just then Declan rubs his thumb across my bottom lip, a mimic of what I’d done to him Thursday night on the sidewalk. I can only manage to watch his head lower until his lips are at my ear. When he whispers, his voice is low, a soft rasp that nears a growl and instantly makes my body ache.

“Like what you see, love?”

He steps back and the crackle present in the air, the one I’d forced the other night, returns, collects into the stillness of the basement. The seconds stretch, he moves forward, and the only sound I can hear is the low hum of the lights overhead and my own heartbeat thumping in my ears.

“
Yes
….um, no…it’s not like that.”

 
“Liar.” He runs his fingers through my hair, by my ear and I like the way his hand fits perfectly against my skin.

I ignore the pulse that throbs between my thighs, close my eyes to breathe in and out. When I step away from him, Declan lets his hand smooth down my arm before I walk to the bookshelf. Another box rest precariously on a shelf above my head, but Declan doesn’t give me a chance to grab it. He reaches over me, only this time he stands directly behind me and I feel the heat of his body behind me. One hand stretches to secure the box, the other rests lightly on my hip. I pray he can’t feel how I’m affected by him standing close to me or how I unexpectedly enjoy the warmth his body gives off.
 

“You know, I don’t think standing so close to me is necessary for an apology,” I say, as I bump against him to emphasize my point.

His laugh is deep, raspy and he lowers his mouth close to my cheek. “Probably not, but a bloke’s got to try to make amends, no?”

Declan steps aside then sets the box down and we sort through the books. I try to keep my distance, moving my body to the other side of the table. He shakes his head, smiles to himself as I put space between us.

“I’m not going to bite, McShane.”