Authors: Addison Fox
Grier had missed nothing.
And he simply couldn’t bear to let the ugliness of his past touch what was between them.
Mick shrugged as a fifteen-year-old memory rose up to swamp him. “Not particularly.”
The heavy tones of the doorbell echoed through Julia’s kitchen. Avery glanced up from where she and Julia had their heads bent over a sleek laptop, trying to identify the best flights to Ireland and back.
“I’ll get it.”
The smile she couldn’t stop spread across her face as she thought about the flights she’d take and the clothes she’d pack and the adventure she was going to have.
And it fell sharply as she opened the door and stared at Roman, standing on the porch.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She shook her head, suddenly realizing how cold it was standing there with the door open.
“Avery!” Julia’s voice echoed from the kitchen in the back of the house. “Who is it?”
Roman bellowed into the house again. “It’s me, Grandma!”
He closed the door behind him and she risked a glance at him as his attention stayed focused on Julia as she came down the hallway. God, but it was so unfair a person should look that good. Even after traveling what was probably the last twelve hours, he looked as if he had walked off a photo shoot.
His six-foot-four frame ate up all the space in the foyer and he looked like a giant as he enveloped his grandmother in his arms.
Julia’s voice was a study in delighted surprise. “I thought you weren’t getting in until tomorrow.”
“I wanted to keep it a secret. I made the gals out at the airstrip swear to keep it to themselves.”
“Not an easy feat,” Avery interjected. She heard the dry, dusty notes of her voice and willed herself to calm down. Her evening with Julia had been fun and she’d be the worst sort of guest if she treated Roman like a piece of old gum she’d just peeled off her shoe.
Add to it Sloan had given her a dressing-down for her behavior the last time Roman was in town and she knew she needed to pull it together.
She had a new life and a new adventure coming up and she needed to let go of this stupid, petty attitude toward Roman. If she ever wanted more out of her life, she needed to start by letting go of the things that no longer mattered.
“What are you two up to?” Roman pulled out of the hug and positioned himself to look at them both.
“Avery got some wonderful news yesterday and we’re celebrating.” Julia beamed. “Come on into the kitchen and we’ll tell you all about it.”
Avery followed that large imposing frame down the hallway and did her level best not to look at his ass. She lost the battle about three steps into it, but at least she tried.
It was all part of her brand-new “put the past behind her” attitude adjustment.
“Come on, Ave. What’s going on?”
Her heart constricted at the nickname, but she planted a broad smile and refused to lose ground to her memories. “I’m going to Ireland.”
“What?” Those vibrant green orbs widened and his mouth slackened. “I mean, how did this come about?”
“She’s doing an exchange.” Julia beamed proudly as she puttered across the kitchen to grab a crystal tumbler out of a cabinet.
“Three months working in a B and B over there and then I’m going to travel for another month.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Isn’t it?” Julia set the glass in front of Roman. “I’m so proud of her. And to think we’re going to get an Irish woman here in Indigo for three months. It’ll be so much fun.”
“Sophie must be rubbing her hands at the tourism opportunities,” Roman said with a false lightness Avery didn’t miss.
“I need to go get the scotch out of the front room.”
“I’ll get it, Grandma.”
Julia waved a hand. “Nonsense. Let Avery tell you more.”
Avery smiled at Julia as she left the room and began counting in her head.
Three…
Two…
“What the hell are you thinking, Avery?” Roman’s harsh whisper echoed around the kitchen but was low enough not to carry down the hall.
“I was thinking about expanding my horizons.”
“To go to another country and work as a slave for someone you don’t even know?”
“And how is that different from what I do for your mother?”
“You’re not a slave.”
“No, Roman, I’m not. I’m an employee. And I’m taking advantage of a career opportunity by spending three months in Ireland.”
He frowned at how she’d twisted his words, but it didn’t keep him silent for long. “What does my mother think of it? You’re leaving her at her busiest season.”
“She’s been quite encouraging.”
Anger practically pulsed off him like blinking neon and Avery fought hard to hold back her smile. She hadn’t looked into this opportunity to spite Roman—in fact, she’d done it in spite of him.
But his reaction was a pleasant surprise.
“What has you so worked up?”
“You’re going to be a stranger in another country.”
“I’m not going into a war zone. It’s a bed-and-breakfast in Ireland. You know, big fluffy quilts on beds and tea towels and scones and clotted cream.”
“It’s too far.”
“It’s not the fucking moon, Roman. It’s Europe.”
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t do this.”
Whatever humor had filled her fled on swift wings. “You don’t have a say in it.”
“I’m only thinking of you.”
“Now that’s a funny thing. You haven’t thought of me in a very long time. And you have no right to think of me now.”
“That’s not true. I think of you often.”
The words pricked holes in her carefully constructed armor and she fought the rising pleasure at his words.
Focus, Marks. Focus.
Summoning up the biggest smile she could, she thought of her future. “Well, now you can think of me in Ireland. I’ll be sure to e-mail you plenty of pictures.”
Grier fought to hold on to her composure as she stared at Mick where he still stood in the small foyer of his hotel room.
“So you won’t talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Right. Because the subtext of that conversation downstairs was about as subtle as a moose walking in that door over there. What are you hiding?”
His shoulders jerked as if she’d slapped him and she wondered all the more at the reaction. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“Mick. What is it?”
“Nothing.” He slammed across the room and dragged off his coat, throwing it over the room’s lone chair. He pulled his cell from his back pocket and started fiddling with the screen.
“If you’re trying to convince me nothing’s wrong, you’re doing a piss-poor job of it, Mr. Honesty Is the Best Policy.”
“So now you’re going to play the hypocrite, Grier?”
She shrank back from the anger in his gaze. “I’m the hypocrite? You’ve been the one telling me for the last two weeks I need to address things head-on.”
“You just spent the last three hours sulking in my plane, refusing to talk to me. I’d hardly call that head-on.”
The urge to move closer and touch him gripped her, but she stood still and held her ground. “So this is
some sort of quid pro quo? I had a few bad moments trying to digest what happened at Brett’s and you’re going to shut me out?”
“Damn it! I’m not going to sit here and talk about my feelings like this is some session with a shrink. Save that for your New York friends.”
Another layer of shock came flooding in over the initial surprise of his reaction to her probing. Something was very, very wrong. The man standing across the room from her was as feral as a cornered bear.
Where was the Mick she knew? And what had possibly happened to him to make him act like this?
“Please don’t make me ask you again. What is going on? It all happened when Petey mentioned that gun for your father.”
“My father doesn’t need a fucking gun.”
“Okay.”
When Mick didn’t say anything else, she tried a different angle. “What did he say that was so upsetting? It was clear he was only trying to be nice.”
His mouth twisted before settling into a harsh line. “You don’t give guns to someone who doesn’t know how to use them.”
“I got the sense from the conversation that your father was a collector of some sort.”
“My father’s a hunter and he had an accident.”
No matter how many ways she tried to work through his words, Grier couldn’t see what had him so upset. “Mick. Please. Enough with the riddles.” She moved slowly toward him until she stood before him
and laid her hands on his chest. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“Fifteen years ago my father shot and killed my mother.”
The words echoed around the room like a gunshot. Mick mentally berated himself for the shitty comparison, but nothing else quite fit.
“Oh God, Mick, I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”
He planted his gaze on the top of her head and avoided meeting hers as she stared up at him. “It was a long time ago and it rarely comes up. And it was an accident. He was going after something that had wandered into their backyard. I don’t even remember what it was, he’s mumbled so many different animals in his grief. He was a six-pack into the evening and she’d followed him outside to holler at him to put on a coat. The bullet ricocheted off an old snowmobile he kept back there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s better left in the past.”
“It’s a part of your life.”
“A part of my life that I’ve gotten past.”
Which was a nice story to tell, but it was a sizable load of bullshit. The vision of his mother, lying in the snow, blood streaming from her temple, was one he’d learned to compartmentalize in the back of his mind, but it had come back with a vengeance since that night with the researchers.
And had continued coming back ever since.
Grier lifted her hands to cup his jaw. “It’s a horrible thing to have to live with.”
“It’s an even more horrible thing to have happen to you. I wasn’t the one who was shot, Grier.” He slipped from the comfort of her arms, surprised by just how cold he felt moving away from her.
“Is this the real reason you were in the sauna that night after you pulled the men off the mountain?”
He thought about that first night they were together. The researchers he’d pulled off Denali had left him in a bad state and Avery had sent him into the sauna to warm up with a bottle of Jack.
“So Avery sent you in there?”
Grier hadn’t moved from her spot and instead stood there, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “She told me where you were. I went of my own accord. Important distinction.”
“So it is.”
“Do you have nightmares about it?”
“Occasionally.”
“Have you talked to a professional about it?”
The urge to lash out at her once more was strong, but he held it back. “I’ve spoken to Father Tom about it several times as well as Doc Cloud. I’m fine, Grier.”
“And the incident on Denali hasn’t brought it all up again?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“And you don’t appreciate the concern?”
The snow outside had left a heavy wet splotch on the top of his boot and he traced it with his eyes as he stared down at his feet. “I’m lashing out and it’s the last
thing I want to do to you. But this is something I simply don’t talk about.”
“I thought things had changed over the last few days.”
He glanced up from his shoe. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve had no problem digging around in my past, but the moment I ask the same of you, I get silence.”
“I didn’t realize it was a competition.”
Grier let out a small frustrated moan as she dropped into a sitting position on the bed. “That’s a fucking cop-out.”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got.”
Grier lay in bed and heard the sink run as Mick finished up in the bathroom. The urge to cry threatened in the back of her throat, but she refused to let the tears fall.
How had she never known any of this about his parents?
A big part of her wanted to be mad at Avery or even at Walker since they had to know about Mick’s mother, but she quickly squelched it. Friends didn’t randomly stir up issues and it was unfair to ask them to be the ones to deliver this news.
Mick needed to tell her himself.
And he hadn’t felt the need to do so.
Just like you avoided telling him you’d been engaged,
that extraordinarily reasonable voice in her head whispered. It was the same voice that told her to eat broccoli and
carrots instead of cake and as far as she was concerned, the prissy bitch could just suck it.
Even if she happened to be a one hundred percent
right
prissy bitch.
She heard the bathroom door open and moments later Mick’s heavy tread as he walked toward the bed. “Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m arguing with my sensible inner voice.” Grier moved to the far side of the bed to give him room to crawl in next to her.
“Do you want me to join you?”
“First you get two rooms after we sleep together. Now you want to sleep somewhere else. Are you trying to piss me off, O’Shaughnessy?”
He climbed in without saying anything else and pulled her against his side once he was settled in. “That’s better,” he grumbled against her temple before pressing a kiss there.
A flutter of warmth floated through the middle of her chest and she took her first calm breath since their fight started.
“So you’re having an argument?”
“Yes. With that über-reasonable voice that tells me when I’m being unreasonable or making poor food choices. I call her the prissy bitch.”
“Oh.”
She rose up on an elbow to look into his eyes. “Before you go convincing yourself I’m hearing things and/or crazy, I can guarantee you every woman has a
prissy bitch in her head. Most just aren’t as vocal as I am about mentioning it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See that you do.”
She lay back down against his side and ran a hand over his stomach. He still wore a T-shirt and she enjoyed the feel of the soft cotton, warmed by his body heat, under her fingertips.
The stress of the last few days faded in the comfort of Mick’s body and Grier felt herself begin to relax. She knew she and Mick still had a lot to work out, but she’d muster the energy to discuss it tomorrow.