Salvation (The Protectors, Book 2) (14 page)

Ronan

“Wow, you are a really terrible driver,” I said as I studied the tight grip Seth had on the steering wheel he was hunched over.

“What? No I’m not,” Seth responded in irritation as he checked his rearview mirror for what had to be the twentieth time in the last minute.

“You’re going five miles under the speed limit and I’m waiting for the hunchback to appear on your back any second now. And if you hold on to that steering wheel any tighter, they may need the jaws of life to pry it from your fingers.”

Seth snorted but he did straighten somewhat and eased up on his stranglehold on the wheel. I’d been surprised when Seth agreed to let me go with him to work and to my amazement, he hadn’t asked me why. He’d done a lot of things that had surprised me since he’d shown up at the motel the day before. That in itself had been a shock I still couldn’t get over.

I’d finally forced myself to walk away from Seth after I’d made love to him in his kitchen a week earlier but I hadn’t been able to walk away completely. It would have been easier to bring out another guy to work with Hawke to provide round the clock security for Seth without him knowing it, but just the idea of actually leaving Seth all together had made my chest hurt in a way that I couldn’t explain. So I’d resorted to my old habit of watching him from afar and I’d spent my days following him using the tracker I’d planted on his car. And I’d spent my nights tossing and turning as I remembered the feel of Seth beneath me, surrounding me in a way that I was coming to fear that only he could. On the few occasions I’d actually managed to fall asleep, I kept hearing Seth’s broken voice telling me not to come back.

That’s when I’d gone in search of the alcohol. It was the only thing that gave me any measure of peace but it never lasted long. Maybe if I’d been willing to give up my monitoring of Seth all together, I could have drowned myself completely with the mind-numbing liquid, but I’d been too afraid that something would happen to Seth and I wouldn’t be there to protect him.

Like I hadn’t been able to protect Trace.

I’d felt only shame yesterday when Seth had spied the alcohol on my nightstand, even though I had no reason to since Seth didn’t know anything about my history with it. The only other time I’d relied on alcohol to numb me was in the weeks following Trace’s death and I’d gone a step further and made it part of a lethal combination with the painkillers the doctors had prescribed after I was discharged. Hawke was the only one who’d seen me in that time and I suspected he’d noticed my downward spiral in the last several days as he and I met up to switch shifts watching Seth. He’d finally told me to go back to the motel a couple days ago to get some rest when I’d been too out of it to do Seth any good if something were to happen. I had no doubt that Hawke was well aware that my lack of sleep wasn’t the only thing that had me bleary eyed and confused. I’d managed to sober up somewhat before Seth’s arrival, but only because I’d just woken up a half an hour earlier and hadn’t had the chance to lose myself in my bottle again.

My negative relationship with alcohol had been something I’d struggled with my entire life, though I hadn’t been the one with the problem. While I’d always hesitated to label my father an alcoholic, there was no doubt that’s what he’d been. Of course, there hadn’t been anyone around to ask if he’d always been that way since my mother had died giving birth to me and the aunt who’d raised me for the first few years of my life had been killed in a car accident just before I’d turned five. I’d been too young to understand the dynamics of my family but I’d learned very quickly the penalty for referring to the woman who’d raised me as “Mommy.”

It was the first of many times that my father took his fury at my perceived role in my own mother’s death out on me. But as the years passed, his rage turned into something else…something that often had me missing the beatings. Because those bruises had healed…the ones he’d inflicted on my soul hadn’t.

“You okay?”

Seth’s question knocked me out of the past. “Yeah, why?” I asked as I glanced at him. His eyes fell to my hands and I realized I’d reverted to my habit of tapping my fingers together. I had no idea at what age I’d started doing it but to this day, it was a vice I just couldn’t shake, mostly because I never even realized I was doing it. It had driven my father crazy but no amount of slaps or punches had broken me of the habit.

“Yeah,” I said as I separated my hands and rested one of my arms on the armrest between me and Seth. “Just wishing I’d had time to grab some coffee,” I said lamely, hoping the excuse would satisfy him.

“I told you we had to leave at five sharp to make it to the terminal in time,” Seth murmured. “They have coffee on the ferry,” he added, his voice sounding lighter than it had since I’d shown up over a week ago.

The idea of being friends with Seth was such a foreign and seemingly absurd concept to me considering everything that had happened between us, but in the twelve hours since I’d moved back into the guest room, I’d seen a different side of Seth. Sure, there was the initial awkwardness between us when I’d joined him for dinner, but then he’d starting talking to me about inconsequential things and I’d felt myself relaxing once I realized he wasn’t asking me about anything more personal than what types of movies I liked and if I’d read the latest book in a detective series that his favorite author had written. When I’d said I hadn’t, he’d gone on and on about the speculation over what had happened to the main character who’d been stuffed in the trunk of a car that went over a cliff at the end of the most recent book. He’d become so animated in telling me all about Detective Nick Archer and his troubles, that I’d ignored what remained of my dinner and just sat back in my chair to watch his excited hand gestures as he spoke.

The awkwardness had returned after dinner was finished and there’d been a point while we were cleaning up the dishes that I’d caught Seth looking at the kitchen island almost longingly, as if remembering what we’d done against it just one short week ago, but the moment had passed quickly when he’d realized I was watching him. He’d made an excuse about needing to catch up on some work and I’d gone up to my room to take a shower and call Mav to see how Daisy was settling in. Just before ten o’clock, Seth had knocked on my door. His pale skin had flushed with color when he spied my belt draped over the same chair he’d taken it from the night we’d made love for the first time and it had taken everything in me not to drag him to me at that point. With a mumbled explanation that he was heading to bed, he’d handed me the book he’d been holding and told me I should check it out if I was interested and then he was gone. The book was the first one in the series he’d talked so excitedly about at dinner and I’d ended up cracking it open a few minutes later and finally forced myself to put it down just before two in the morning when I could no longer keep my eyes open. My grumpiness as I’d stumbled into the kitchen a few hours later was met with a wide, knowing smile and a declaration that there was no time for coffee and Seth didn’t have any travel mugs.

“Hey,” Seth said again and then he briefly nudged my arm where it was resting on the armrest with his elbow. “First cup is on me.” I felt my heart constrict painfully in my chest at the sight of his smile but I managed a nod. Seth was taking this friends thing to heart but all I wanted to do was to tell him to turn the car around and take us home so I could get him beneath me again.

“You told the vet you were going to New York,” I managed to say in a desperate effort to distract myself from my thoughts.

“Um, yeah. Stan…that’s my dad’s business partner, well, my business partner now – he set up a meeting with another shipping firm that’s interested in buying our company.”

“You’re selling?” I asked in surprise. “I thought you wanted to run the business.”

Seth shrugged his shoulders. “I do but Stan convinced me to hear them out – he says they’re offering a lot and Dad’s company has been struggling since he…”

I waited quietly as Seth pulled himself together. As much as I would have liked to take his hand in mine, it wasn’t an option.

“This company is the industry leader and Stan says they’ll make sure no one loses their jobs. That was always real important to my dad…he thought of the people who worked for him as family, you know?”

Seth glanced at me and I nodded. I’d never met more kind-hearted people than Fred and Corrine Nichols. They’d welcomed me with open arms from the second Trace and I had walked in the door and I’d been overwhelmed that not only would I not be judged for my sexual orientation despite their own son being gay, but that they weren’t looking down on me for being from humbler roots than Trace. Yes, I had achieved a certain level of success in my career but I was a blue collar guy through and through, despite my attempts to appear otherwise.

“Yeah, I know,” I said reassuringly. “You’ll do what’s best for the company, Seth. Everyone knows that.”

The words seemed to soothe Seth because he visibly relaxed before continuing. “I’m thinking about seeing if they might be interested in a partnership instead. They have a really strong presence in Europe and the Middle East but our company has had more success with the Asian and South American markets.”

I listened as Seth explained the intricacies of the business and I couldn’t help but admire how much he knew for his young age and limited hands-on experience. I’d known Seth was smart but I was realizing it was another thing I’d underestimated about him. And he’d clearly inherited his father’s passion and work ethic, something Trace had never managed to pick up. From the time he was a kid, all Trace had ever wanted was to join the military. And while he’d been intensely devoted to it and, more often than not, it had been his sole focus, he’d consistently struggled to commit himself to anything beyond the life he’d built for himself. It was the reason he’d left Seth in the care of their grandmother rather than leave the military to take care of Seth himself – because he couldn’t see himself in any other role…not wouldn’t, couldn’t. I’d struggled with Trace’s selfish choice but as I’d thought back to my own father, I’d realized that in some strange way, maybe Trace’s decision had been the right one. I’d figured maybe it had been better that Seth hadn’t had to suffer his brother’s resentment.

That was before I knew the truth about how much Seth had suffered during the home invasion that killed his parents. Or that he’d been left in the care of a woman on a spiraling mental decline.

By the time we arrived at the ferry terminal, there was already a line but Seth had timed it perfectly and the line of cars began moving onto the ferry minutes later. True to his word, Seth bought me a cup of coffee and we stood at the railing near the front of the slow moving ferry and watched the mainland come into sight as the sun began its morning ascent. We didn’t speak, but I couldn’t help but notice how right it felt to be standing there next to Seth. It would have been so natural to move just a little bit closer to him so our bodies were touching but I managed to stay where I was.

Friends.

Something I desperately needed but wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted to be with this man. But it was all I could give him. And it was all I could take from him.

Seth’s driving was even worse once we got off the ferry and into heavier traffic but I held my tongue. As mentally mature as Seth was and as grown up (and hot) as he looked in his crisp navy business suit, there were a lot of areas of life that he’d been deprived of any kind of normalcy and driving was one of them. And it had to be made a hundred times worse by the anxiety he felt about leaving the safety of his home. It wasn’t until he’d pulled his car into his space in the parking garage of his building that he relaxed, but only marginally. It was tough to see Seth struggle with tasks that everyone else, myself included, took for granted and part of me felt a shimmer of anger at Trace for him choosing his own needs over his brother’s. As much as I’d loved Trace, I’d struggled to accept his inability to see beyond his own needs. Since I’d been more than happy to not have to share too much about my own past, Trace’s lack of sensitivity hadn’t bothered me overly much, but knowing the pain his choices had caused his younger brother was hard to stomach.

As we rode the elevator to the office, I glanced at Seth and noticed a slight tremor in his frame. But as soon as the door opened, he pasted a slightly too big smile on his mouth and began greeting people as he made his way through a set of glass doors. The receptionist greeted him and it was strange to hear her referring to him as Mr. Nichols.

It took less than a minute to reach Seth’s office but once he’d closed the door behind us, his whole body seemed to sag in relief. A pang of guilt went through me at my part in this – if I hadn’t been blinded by my own grief and hatred, I would have been able to stop Seth from suffering such an extreme level of anxiety brought on just by merely being in the presence of less than a handful of people. Since it was still relatively early in the morning and he was the boss, I presumed his day would only get harder as he had to deal with more and more people.

“Um, you can work over there if you want,” Seth said as he motioned to a small round table in the corner of the spacious office. “I’ll get you the password for the wireless network,” he said uneasily as he moved past me. I wondered if his nervousness had to do with the remnants of his agitation or if it was because we were once again enclosed in a small space together. Not that Seth’s office was all that small, but somehow it seemed like no room we were ever in together was big enough to lessen the heat that simmered between us. Even as electric as my chemistry with Trace had been, it was never as all-consuming as this. Guilt went through me at the thought. I’d loved Trace with everything I was but I couldn’t deny my almost crippling need for Seth.