Gentle Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 4) (2 page)

Mac sat stock-still. “You… you had a choice between being gang-raped or beaten near-to-death?”

“Yes.”

“And you obviously went with door number two.”

“Yes.”

“And you survived.”

She looked at him. “Barely. But you know that, Shane. You know what they did to me.”

He thought about her smashed, destroyed body; about the months and months of recovery that she’d suffered through. “I know.”

“So… that was who hurt me,” she said quietly. “My own father and my own brother and a group of men who had known me from the time I was a newborn.
That
was how I ended up in the hospital that night.
That
was the price I paid to get out.”

He was silent, trying not to imagine what it had been like for her to stand there, waiting for those punches. Knowing that once one man had finished, another one was waiting to step up and take his turn. Even when she’d been down on the ground and bleeding and half-conscious, they’d have carried on hurting her. He hoped that at some point, Mirrie had just passed out and found some peace in blackness.

Even if she had, though, Mac was sure that she remembered a lot of her ordeal: he thought about the times that she’d woken up next to him, screaming and shaking. She’d never talked about it, but now he thought he knew what she’d been dreaming about.

He stepped down hard on his rage, tried to stay focused. “And they’ve left you alone since then?”

She looked away and his stomach clenched.

“Mirrie? They’ve kept their word, right?”

She almost snorted. “They’re a criminal MC, Shane. A bunch of one-percenters. They’re not men of their word.”

“So… what? They beat the crap out of you and almost killed you and then they didn’t leave you alone after all?”

“They did for a while,” she said slowly. “But then they came back.”

“When?”

She hesitated. “When we got serious.”

“You mean you and me?”

“Yeah.”

“They knew about us?”

“They did. They knew… everything.”

“Why did they care?” he asked. “They’d had their pound of flesh and then some.”

“They didn’t want me to be happy,” she said simply. “They wanted to make sure I was alone in my new life… no close relationships, no real ties to anyone. They wanted me to pay for making my choice to leave them – I was out, but I wasn’t going to be allowed to have a whole, entire life. I wasn’t free, not really.”

“Fuck.” Mac leaned back, floored by about the tenth thing to kick him in the balls that morning. “And what? They told you to stop seeing me? End things between us?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Tell me.”

“That weekend,” she said. “That weekend that we were supposed to spend up at your cabin. The one where I never showed up…”

“Yeah.” Mac stared at her. “That’s when they made their move?”

“They had you surrounded,” she told him. “They were watching you when you were alone in the cabin and waiting for me.”

Mac was horrorstruck. God, the thought that those animals had been right there outside his front door and he’d been totally unaware of it was chilling. “And – what?”

“And they met me on the road leading up to your cabin.” Mirrie took a deep breath. “My brother explained to me that I had two choices.”

“Fuck,” Mac growled. “Not this bullshit illusion of choices again.”

“Yep. Donovan told me to turn around and drive away and never see you again. Never contact you, beyond an uninformative e-mail breaking it off. Never tell you why. Never go near you ever again.”

“And if you didn’t do what they said?” Mac asked, already knowing the answer.

“Then I could watch as they stormed in to your cabin and killed you right in front of me.” Her breath caught as she remembered her brother’s threat and her eyes prickled. God, she’d been so, so scared for Shane in that moment. It had been nothing short of pure, shrieking terror. “Donovan said that the pack of them would drag you outside and he’d make sure I got a clear view of them kicking you to death.”

“So that’s why you never showed up.” Mac felt a surge of guilt and shame at the things he’d said to her the day before at the art centre. “You were keeping me alive.”

She nodded, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I – I’m sorry I left you sitting there and wondering. I’m sorry for all of it… for everything I did and didn’t do.”

“Fuck, no.” Now he did reach for her hand, held it tight. “
I’m
sorry. God, the things I’ve thought about you over the years. And this whole time, you walked away to help me. To keep me safe.”

“Yes.” She wiped her eyes impatiently. “I loved you.”

“Goddammit.” He was rough and angry again, furious about all the time he’d wasted being wrong about her. “But why did you stay? In Denver?”

“I wasn’t going to,” Mirrie said. “I was planning to leave but I… I stopped by a bar first.”

Mac’s chest felt tight. “You relapsed.”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “It was… it was bad. It set me off drinking again.”

“What do you mean?” Mac was horrified at the implication. “You mean that it wasn’t just the one time?”

“Oh, no.” Mirrie bit her lip. “I relapsed completely.”

“Fuck.” Mac spoke softly now. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She tried to smile. “Anyway, after I drove away from you, I went on a two-day bender. I was so desperate to avoid thinking about you sitting up in that cabin, waiting for me to show. I was trying to get up the fucking guts to send you that e-mail and then to just get the hell out of Denver.”

“You sent me that e-mail when you were plastered?”

“Yeah.” She looked down and Mac saw shame on her beautiful face. “I don’t remember writing it, but I obviously did.”

“So what happened to change your mind about leaving?”

“I stopped to say goodbye to a friend of mine before I left, but I was a fucking hungover
wreck
. He saw how upset I was and he pushed and prodded until I finally broke and told him everything. He told me to stay if I wanted to, that he’d take care of the Fallen Angels.”

Mac’s eyebrows shot up. “How’d he do that?”

“I still don’t know.” Mirrie opened her hands, palms-up. “Spider sat me down with a pot of black coffee, told me not to move a muscle. He left and when he came back about two hours later, he told me that it had all been sorted out.”

“All what?”

“All of everything to do with me.” Mirrie shook her head and Mac saw her confusion. “He said that he’d arranged everything with the Fallen Angels and that I could stay and live under my new name, no problem. Hell, he even offered me a job in his café.”

Mac stared at her. “A – a
café owner
negotiated with an MC? And got everything that he wanted?”

“Yeah.” She smiled at the look on his face. “Believe me, I begged him to tell me what he had on the Fallen Angels, but he said it was better that I didn’t know. Together, we changed my appearance pretty dramatically and I lived with Spider for a while, just until I got my shit together. It took me almost a year and I stumbled and relapsed a few times, but eventually I got totally sober.”

“Good for you, Mirrie.”

“But the thing is that Spider’s never told me what he said or did or threatened the Angels with, and I’ve stopped asking.” She shrugged. “I mean, it’s been four years and even though I’d bet that they keep an eye on me, they haven’t come near me that whole time that I know of.”

“Right.” Mac puzzled over all of that for a minute, dropped it. “So that’s what you do now? Work for Spider?”

“Yeah. In his café.”

“Which one?”

“Why?” She was defensive now, he saw, and his heart sank. “What does it matter?”

“How can you ask me that?” he said. “It matters because now I know that you didn’t leave me because you wanted to… you didn’t just fuck off on me. It matters because it changes
everything
, Mirrie.”

“How?”

“
How
?” Mac echoed.

“Yeah. How. I agreed to
one
conversation with you and then we’d go our separate ways. I said I’d tell you the truth because you deserved to know what happened. That’s it.”

“Not for me, it’s not.”

“What?”

“Now that I know what really happened, I want to try again,” Mac said doggedly. “I want to try to make us work.”

“You – for God’s sake,
why
?”

“Fuck, babe, I never stopped loving you, no matter how hard I hated you. I want you back in my life… I want you back.”

Mirrie was literally unable to speak for a few seconds. She stared at Shane, incredulous and bewildered. Finally, she managed to get her throat to work.

“Have you not been listening to a single goddamn thing I’ve been saying?” she demanded.

“Yeah, I have.” He shifted in his seat and despite her shock, she couldn’t help but run her eyes over his body with appreciation.

Shane was muscled and rugged, with a build better-suited to a boxer than a neurologist. Throw in the tattooed arms and the broad chest and the killer eyes, and you had a drop-dead sexy man with an intimidating brain and a smart mouth. She’d never known him to be serious about a single goddamn thing – except her. When it came to her, Shane had
always
been serious and right now, that scared her to death.

“No,” she said, trying to fight down her panic. “No, you haven’t because if you
had
, you’d have heard the part about how they told me to never make contact with you again. Donovan specifically told me to never tell you
any
of what I just told you.”

“So?”

“
So
?” Mirrie raised her voice. “So if they
are
still watching me, then they’ll notice that you’re hanging around, right? And they’re going to figure that I’ve told you everything.”

“Again, I say ‘so’?”

“
So
?” Mirrie repeated. “So… they’ll kill you. Both of us.”

“Maybe not,” Mac said. “Maybe this time we can stop that from happening.”

“How?”

Mac fell silent, his mind racing. He was thinking about his friend Aidan Carter, Gabriela Torres’ boyfriend and the bartender at Curves. Like Spider, Aidan had something on the Fallen Angels – or at least on one of them. Mac had no earthly clue what the hell it was, but it had been good enough to get the MC to tell Aidan and Matt Kingston where Gabi had been buried alive. Maybe Mac could use it too, to get a second chance with Mirrie? To keep them
both
safe? But if Mac was going to go for the fucking jugular and take on a bunch of MC dickheads, he had to make sure of one thing.

“Do you still love me?” he asked her abruptly.

“What?” she stammered. “Do I – Shane…”

“No.” He ground out the word, his voice low and almost angry again. “Just answer the fucking question. Do you still love me?”

“I – I –”

Her breath was coming too fast now and worry flared in his chest as he reached for her hand once more.

“Breathe, babe,” he murmured. “Just breathe and answer my question. Do you? After all this time? Do you still?”

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 Neil 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 that 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.