Inescapable (Men of Mercy Novel, A) (23 page)

“Kai can handle your brother,” Pippa soothed, her hand gliding over Flick’s messy hair.

“I thought I knew what I was doing, thought that I had this under control,” Flick said between hiccups and sobs.

“Honey, love isn’t something that you can control. Though I have to agree, I wish you hadn’t fallen in love with a commitment-phobic, ex–Special Ops guy who’s seen too much and done too much.” Pippa pushed Flick onto a stool and grabbed another one before holding Flick’s trembling hands in her own. “Fee, are you sure there’s no chance?”

Flick shook her head. “He’s not interested. I was a fling, a fun time, someone to waste some time with.” When Pippa’s eyes narrowed in anger, Flick hastened to explain. “It’s not his fault. That’s what I was spouting when we first met, when we started sleeping together. He didn’t move the goalposts, I did. I just thought . . .”

“What, honey?”

Flick gulped and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I just thought that I made him happy, that there was a chance that we could . . . I don’t know, have something more than that.”

Pippa picked up the corner of her apron and gently wiped the wetness away. “I’m so sorry that you’ve been going through all this alone, that I wasn’t there for you.”

“Again, not your fault.” Flick sucked in a breath. “That is all your mother’s fault, and it’s not a situation I intend to leave festering for very much longer.”

Pippa’s hand stilled. “So you’re going to tell me?”

“I’m going to make Gina tell you. We’ll visit her tonight and we won’t leave until she spills the beans.” Flick hauled in a big breath and her shoulders lifted and dropped. “It’s nothing to worry about, Pips. Well, it is, but not in a she’s-going-to-die way.”

Pippa looked like she was about to argue but then she seemed to swallow her words. “Okay, tonight. That’ll be good. So, how are we going to fix your broken heart, Fee?”

Flick closed her eyes. “I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to work through it. I’m going to make breakfast muffins and croissants and I’m going to greet my customers. Then I’ll make bread and do inventory and take my dog for a walk. I’m going to draw up a quote to cater that wedding and I’m going to do a sample range of meals for the boys at Caswallawn. I won’t think about him or miss him. I’m done crying for him!”

Pippa wiped a tear off Flick’s cheek. “Oh, Fee. You’re not nearly done crying and I suspect that you won’t be for a while. Why don’t you take the day off, climb into bed, and try to sleep? You look exhausted.”

Sleep and a smashed heart weren’t happy bedfellows. Flick gestured to the mixing bowl and the flour. “I need to make muffins. Moses isn’t coming in until later.”

“I’ll make the muffins,” Pippa told her.

“You?” Flick shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Hey, Gran taught me to bake too. I can do breakfast muffins,” Pippa said. She stood up and walked over to the shelves holding all their recipe books. “Hand me a recipe and I’ll do it.”

Her love life was going to the dogs but Flick didn’t think that was a good enough reason to punish the residents of Mercy with Pippa’s baking. “I’ll make them, Pips. But thanks.” Flick pushed back her hair and pulled it into a messy tail. “Thanks for being here. It means a lot to me.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Muffins I can do, anything else is up for debate.”

“God, I could just kick Kai,” Pippa muttered, hopping up onto the counter as Flick got to work.

“You know the saying ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than not loved at all?’” Flick asked, reaching for the packet of flour.

“Yeah?”

“Bullshit.” Flick sighed. “Perfect, utter bullshit.”

Ch
apter Fourteen

MayorBob: It has come to our attention that this forum is being misused. It was created so that the residents of Mercy would have a place to—anonymously, if necessary—make comments on local politics and council decisions. It is not a vehicle to sell items or to dissect the personal and private lives of Mercy residents. Please refrain from doing either.

HankPriceCheatedOnMe: So sorry to see you so miserable, Flick. ALL men are bastards and Hank Price is their king!

***

“I wouldn’t look good in prison orange,” Pippa said into her glass of wine. Flick grimaced as Tally reached across the table and topped off Pippa’s glass. Pippa took a long pull, cradled the glass to her chest, and glowered at Rufus. Ru placed his paws over his eyes and whimpered.

“You’re upsetting my dog, Pips,” Flick said, putting her running shoes up onto the porch railing. They’d just returned from inspecting Gina’s house and Flick had had to steer Pippa from one room to the next, her cousin almost robotic with shock. Eventually, her reaction had morphed from shock into pure anger and apparently the solution was red wine.

Flick wanted to tell Pippa that dealing with the house and its contents was hard enough but dealing with it with a hangover was going to be a lot harder. But she knew her cousin, and Pippa wasn’t in the mood to listen.

Pips had taken the news that Gina was a sort-of hoarder rather well last night, thinking, no doubt, that Flick had been overreacting. Gina downplaying the situation hadn’t helped either.

“It’s just a little bit of collecting,” Gina had finally said after realizing that her daughter and niece were going nowhere until she opened her can of worms.

“And I’m a little short of cash,” Gina had added.

“Gina,” Flick had warned.

Gina, the manipulative witch, had just sighed, closed her eyes, and waved a languid hand. “I’m feeling a bit tired. Flick will fill you in on the details, darling.”

Flick thought that the easiest, quickest, and most direct way to fill Pippa in was to take her to the house and show her how much Gina was downplaying her problems.

Seeing how furious and shocked her cousin was, she didn’t have the heart to tell Pippa that Gina was flirting with bankruptcy as well. One problem at a time . . .

Flick exchanged a look with Tally, who’d joined them on the tour of the house to answer any questions Pippa had on the value of some of the items. Pippa hadn’t started to think about values yet—she was still stuck on how much junk there was in her old house.

“I’m going to kill her, I really am,” Pippa muttered.

“You’re not,” Flick assured her. “The shock will pass.”

Pippa lifted up her head to nail Flick with a hard look. “Any other surprises I should know about?” she demanded.

Flick gnawed on her bottom lip. “Why don’t you wrap your head around the fact that your mom is a borderline hoarder first?”

“Maybe I should go,” Tally said, standing up and pushing her chair back.

Pippa placed her glass on the table next to her and looked up at Tally. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I’m still not sure why you’re here and how you know about the house.”

Tally pushed her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie. “Well, Flick hired me to do an inventory of the contents of the house because Kai found a rifle that’s worth quite a bit of money. She thought that there might be other items that are valuable, so I’ve done an inventory and a lot of research.”

Pippa rubbed the tips of her fingers across her forehead. “I really don’t understand any of this.”

Tally wrinkled her nose at Flick and looked uncomfortable. “Why don’t you go home, honey, and I’ll talk Pippa through it?”

Tally looked relived. “Thanks. Do you need the iPad?”

“No, I think we’re okay.”

Tally looked relieved. “Good, because Kai is going to Skype me later.”

Lucky Tally, Flick thought, her heart bouncing off her ribcage. She hadn’t heard jacksquat from the man. Okay, it had been only a couple of days, but still . . .

Still what? He wasn’t going to call, Skype, email, send a carrier pigeon. They were done, and she was, at best, a memory of someone he’d shared some mattress time with.

She wasn’t special or unique, and she wasn’t someone who he’d think about again. Why couldn’t she remember that?

Tally kicked the porch floor with the tip of her shoe. “Should I tell him that you said hi?”

Flick immediately shook her head. She wasn’t going to come across as pining, needy, or brokenhearted. “No, don’t bother.” She forced a smile onto her face. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

Rufus lifted his head as Tally walked down the porch steps, but didn’t bother to get up and give Tally a lick good-bye, as he normally would. Her dog was depressed, Flick decided. Like her, he was missing Kai, missing his runs on the trails around town, missing those big hands rubbing his stomach, his ears.

Flick could sympathize. She missed those big hands on her as well.

“Talk to me, Flick,” Pippa ordered, lifting up her feet to place her heels on the edge of her seat. She rested her chin on her bent knees and looked at Flick, her gaze demanding answers.

“Well, I’m still crying and it still hurts like acid in a stab wound—”

Pippa released an annoyed grunt. “I meant talk to me about the house, about my mother the hoarder.”

Oh. Pippa wanted to talk about her problems.

“Well, in hoarding terms she’s not that bad. Bad enough, but not a basket case. Tally didn’t find thirty years’ of newspapers and mummified cat carcasses.”

Pippa looked like she wanted to heave. “That happens?” she asked, slapping her hand over her mouth.

“Apparently.” Flick tucked her legs up under her and rested her head against the back of the chair. Actually, it felt good to focus on Gina and her problems. It was a nice distraction from thinking about Kai and the hole he’d left in her life.

“What do you think prompted this, Flick? I mean, she never had this problem when I was growing up.”

Flick ran her finger up the curve of her wineglass, thinking about her response. She thought about batting away Pippa’s question but decided that she was never going to lie to Pippa again. “Well, she always liked shopping, liked spending money, but not on collectibles, antiques, furniture.”

“But this? Some of her purchases were totally random. She bought entire estates that were being liquidated. Everything at one time, from linens to guns. That really doesn’t make sense.”

“This won’t be easy to hear, Pip,” Flick warned her.

“Can’t be any harder than hearing that comment I threw at you about your mom.” Pip bit her lip. “I’m so sorry I said that, Flick. I really am. I didn’t mean to.”

Flick blew out her breath. “It was the truth. Mom didn’t love me enough to get help, to want to get better.”

Pippa tucked a cushion behind her head. “Tell me, Flick.”

“Your dad, according to your mom, was pretty controlling. And, according to Gina, not very supportive.”

“Living with Gina wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. She was a perfectionist herself.”

“Hear me out before you react, Pips.”

Pippa started to protest but stopped before forming the words. She gripped the arm of the chair. “Okay, go.”

Flick explained Gina’s quest to prove to Roger, and herself, that she could find another treasure, and after she’d finished explaining Pippa looked at her with a what-the-hell expression. “That is such a crappy excuse! Who nearly bankrupts themselves to prove a point to their dead husband?”

“I think she was trying to prove a point to herself, but then the collecting became an obsession,” Flick said quietly. “Eventually it stopped being about the big score, about needing to prove a point, and became more about the pleasure spending money gives her. She gets a kick out of it and she’s very reluctant to sell anything. When I suggested that she sell that rifle, she nearly cried.”

Pippa frowned, confused. “She cried over a gun?”

“A very expensive, very rare gun, and one we need to sell to cover her medical bills.” Pippa now looked calmer and more in control so Flick thought she’d hit her with Bad News: Part Two. “She’s all but broke, Pips.”

Pippa tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “Crap on a cracker.”

Flick allowed some time for that news to sink in. This was nice, she thought, sitting on the porch talking to her best friend, sharing a bottle of wine. The autumn air was cool, the wine was good, and her dog was between them.

Nice. If she discounted her cracked and battered heart, and the fact that her beloved aunt was a hoarder and penniless, and possibly nuts.

Pippa drained her wineglass and filled it up again. “Tell me about the gun. You said it’s rare and valuable. How rare and how valuable?”

Flick filled her in and Pippa’s accountant brain crunched numbers in her head. “Well, that needs to be sold, and quickly.”

Flick bit her bottom lip and stared at Rufus’s shaggy coat. “Kai will buy it, no questions asked, and at the price you want. You can call him. He knows about Gina and your situation.”

“He knows?”

Flick wriggled in her chair. “Yeah . . . he . . . I told him. I needed to talk to someone and I trusted him to keep it quiet. He and Tally are the only people who know, and they both would rather squeeze water out of a rock than talk.”

Pippa looked past Flick’s shoulder to the road behind her. “Can we keep this quiet? Is that even possible?”

“She’s managed it this far. Having a house on the outskirts of town helped,” Flick answered. “She’s angry that I made her tell you but she’s relieved as well. She was worried that you’d think less of her, that you’d be angry with her.”

Pippa took a moment to answer her. “I am angry with her. I can’t deny that, and frankly, I’m not sure what I think. It’s all just very . . . weird. “

“We have to talk to her about selling her stuff. I’ve brought it up before but she’s very resistant to the idea.”

Pippa’s chest rose as she pulled in air. “I guess. You said we—are you prepared to help me?”

Flick rolled her eyes. “No, I’m just going to hand this over and leave you to flounder. Of course I’m going to help, Pips.”

“Even though I was such a bitch to you?”

“Even so. Though you did redeem yourself by getting up at dawn to hold my hand.” Flick heard the wobble in her voice and told herself that she could not, would not shed another tear for that moronic man! Okay, she was going to
try
not to shed any more tears . . .

“Have you heard from him?” Pippa asked quietly.

“Nope.”

A corner of Pippa’s mouth lifted. “At least you’re consistent, darling. You consistently choose badly.”

“Unfortunately, he wasn’t so much a choice as a compulsion. Guess Gina isn’t the only one having problems in that area.”

***

In
Aberdeen, Kai watched as the latest group of oil ship workers left the small boardroom and his second-in-charge wiped the whiteboard clean. Mark didn’t really need him here—he had this training course firmly under control. Normally Kai was in the thick of the training but this time, with this group, he’d let Mark run the course. He was doing a damn good job and had only once, maybe twice, asked Kai for his input. He could easily leave Mark to run courses for Caswallawn. The man could handle the smaller groups with ease.

Kai nodded when Mark asked whether he wanted coffee, and when the room was empty, he closed the door. To be honest, these courses bored him; there wasn’t enough action. Yes, they were important, but he preferred to be more hands-on, to be getting down and dirty. Even running that self-defense course for women back in Mercy had been more fun than this anti-hijacking course. He enjoyed doing specialized, advanced training, preparing men and women to serve and protect.

Except apparently he hadn’t done such a good job at that, since the sheikh was dead . . . Dammit, he should have insisted on more training, or that the sheikh employ Caswallawn PPOs.

Kai picked up his phone and hit speed dial two. Axl answered immediately but the video feed didn’t show his face—rather a distorted view of his laptop monitor. “Will you please stop bugging me? You are not doing rescues!”

“What?”

On the screen Axl’s face came into view. “Kai. Sorry, I thought you were Reagan. Again.”

“Nope, just me.” Kai sat down in a chair and propped his feet up on the corner of the desk. “How is she enjoying her gig with Callow?”

Axl scowled. “Far too damn much. Apparently his film shoot is wrapping up but the threat is escalating and he wants to temporarily relocate to a place where no one will find him and his kid.”

“He has a kid?”

“Yeah, a four-year-old son he’s raising. He keeps him out of the limelight. Our favorite girl suggested that he relocate to Mercy, that he rent a farmhouse outside of town. She’s moving in with him.” The muscle in Axl’s jaw clenched.

“That’s what PPOs do,” Kai pointed out, his tongue firmly in his cheek.

“It’s still a stupid-ass idea.”

For Callow’s safety, it sounded like a damn good plan to Kai. But since Axl looked like he was about to start foaming at the mouth, he changed the subject.

“Have you spoken to Sawyer lately? How’s he doing?” he asked. He was missing his friends, missing Mercy.

Axl frowned. “He’s stressed. He’s blaming himself for not keeping Doug on the straight and narrow, for not keeping him off the drugs.”

Kai shook his head. “That’s so stupid. He was a kid—it wasn’t his job to protect Doug or to look after him. He should give himself a break.”

Axl cocked his head and looked at him. After a moment a small grin touched his lips. “That’s kind of how we feel about you. Sawyer and I both wish that you’d give yourself a fucking break, dude. Stop beating yourself up and give
yourself
permission to be happy.”

Kai stared at him, feeling as if Axl’s fist was clenching and squeezing his heart. “Low blow, Rhodes,” he muttered.

“I don’t care if it’s low as long as it’s effective. Later.” Axl disconnected and Kai tossed his cell onto the desk, feeling his heart thumping in his chest.

Axl didn’t understand—the sheikh’s death wasn’t on him. It was Kai’s fault. But Sawyer didn’t blame him, and neither did Axl. Flick agreed with his friends. They all accepted that he’d done his best, that he’d tried to dissuade the sheikh from relying on his guards for protection.
Had
he?