Abby turned around and grinned, her two crooked front teeth giving her a mischievous appearance. It wasn’t just an appearance. At ten years old, she was both more responsible and more conniving than I’d ever been. Spending a large portion of her life around Ian definitely shaped her.
“Hey, Mama,” she said. “You were supposed to stay in bed. We were gonna bring you breakfast.”
“Well, this is better,” I said. “Getting to watch is half the fun.”
“I’m making pancakes,” she said, turning back to put the griddle on the stove like she’d seen me do. “Can we do that now, Uncle Ian?”
He caught my eye in a funny grimace. Hmm, that
Uncle Ian
thing might need to be redefined a bit. It was always fine before, but now—now we’d jumped the fence. We’d actually put the words out there. And they stuck.
Ian was in our lives now, for real.
“You bet, let’s do this,” he said. “Your mom looks like she might eat us if we don’t feed her soon.”
“Give her a piece of bacon to tide her over,” Abby said, bringing a chuckle to my chest. “She can see if they’re burned right.”
“What am I, a dog?” I said, laughing.
Ian obeyed, strolling up with eyes saying love and body saying lust, holding quite the perfectly cooked piece of bacon. Jesus, if he’d had chocolate in the other hand, I might have cried.
That other hand went around my waist instead, pulling me close for a sweet kiss on the lips before sticking the bacon in my mouth.
“Mmm,” I said, chuckling, savoring the rich greasiness of the crisp yet yielding piece of pig. “Oh, my goodness, you found the magic.”
“So I remember,” he whispered, his eyes replaying every naughty second from the night before.
“Shhh,” I said, giggling.
Ian brushed his lips against mine again and then licked his. “Mmm, that’s good bacon.”
I smiled and he backed away, running a finger along my cheek, eyes saying I love you. God, that was amazing.
“All right, Sparky,” he said. “Let’s slap some batter down.”
But Abby was watching us. Standing there, whisk still in her hand and one eyebrow raised. As if she was thirty-two—my age—instead of ten.
“This is new,” she said.
Heat rushed to my face. “What?”
She pointed the whisk at me and then at Ian, little droplets of batter hitting the floor.
“That.”
She was too damn smart for her age. Too savvy.
“What, you see us kiss all the time,” I said, waving her off and heading to the coffee pot.
“Not like that,” she said. “Not all—squishy.”
Ian whirled on her and snatched her up around the waist, making her scream and sling batter droplets everywhere.
“Don’t knock squishy, young lady,” he roared over her giggling. “Squishy rules the world!”
They started chanting,
Squishy rules the world!
Which shortly turned into
Pancakes rule the world
, but that was okay. It was morning, and Ian was still here. He stayed. He loved me. It was real. And real smelled like pancakes and bacon.
Real.
My current reality smelled like prime beef and anxiety. I looked up at Ian’s profile, so much the same and yet different. Older, sadder. Lonelier. Two tears blinked free, and I whisked them away in horror before he could see.
Too late.
“You okay?” he said, placing my steak in the oven.
“I’m good.”
I wasn’t good. But it wasn’t me I was thinking about. Ian closed the oven and turned to me, arms crossed, eyes serious.
“Savi.”
“She was ten years old,” I blurted.
He blinked and I watched him catch up. I knew I was all over the place tonight, but so was he, and it didn’t matter. He knew damn good and well what I meant. His lips twitched as I touched on the nerve I was hoping to hit. Hoping it was still there.
“You were the closest thing to a—” I looked away and pasted on a smile to rein in the emotion that threatened to drown me. I took a deep breath and let it out before facing him again. “Not that you had any obligation—”
“That was never like that, and you know it,” he said, his eyes darkening, his voice growing deceptively softer.
“And yet just days before—that.” I gestured randomly toward the hallway. “You were cooking us breakfast. And telling us—”
“That I’d always be there for you,” he finished.
My breath left me. I stared at him, at the face I’d loved for as long as I could remember, and had spent the last decade trying to forget. Fuck—he’d remembered. The words sounded so nonchalant, but his eyes betrayed that.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t have it in me to figure out his thought process. I needed to remember his leaving process.
“I need to go,” I said. Again.
“I
was
there,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “In the only way I could be.”
“Enough,” I said, waving a hand and turning to go. No steak was worth this roller-coaster ride. I swiped fingers under my eyes, and he caught one of my hands, making me suck in a breath and hate myself for it.
“Just listen,” he said, his face too close.
“Just listen?” I echoed. “I’ve been here for half an hour and I’m not impressed so far.”
“I stole from the wrong people,” he said.
What?
Was it because he was standing too close, because my body’s reaction was overriding logical thought, or just because it was Ian? Whatever it was, his words were a jumbled-up mess in my head. And he had my hand. That’s all I had right then.
“What?”
Ian closed his eyes like the weight of whatever he was talking about was almost too much. Or like he didn’t want to tell me. He turned and shoved his steak in the oven like it was a bug in his way, and then faced me.
“I had a big plan,” he said. “It would have set us up for a while, and—” He blew out a breath and let my hand go, walking away a few steps. “I was stupid and got cocky.”
“Nothing new there,” I said.
“Over-the-top cocky,” he clarified.
I nodded, watching the darkness build in his eyes. “And got caught?”
“You could say that,” he said, bitterness lacing his words. “I tried double-crossing my boss.”
“Your boss?” I said, frowning. “Your dad?”
“Think scarier,” he said.
I searched my memory for any other jobs he’d had and couldn’t think of any. Especially right before he left. The butcher shop was all I remembered.
“I’m all out,” I said.
“Bobby Greene.”
I blinked and stepped back a step, my crossed arms falling and recrossing. “Bobby—when did you—” I looked away, searching the room for memories of things I couldn’t find. I shook my head. “I would’ve known that.”
Ian shook his head, too. Slowly, holding my gaze. “I didn’t tell you.”
I laughed, the sound bitter and hollow as it fell from my mouth. “Clearly. Seems I was quite the idiot back then.”
He closed his eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Of course not.”
“Savi—”
“Just get on with it, okay?” I said, suddenly regretting everything from the damn garbage on up. I should have just gone home.
I averted my eyes before the look he gave me could hit bone.
“You know what the Greenes do, right?” Ian said.
“Basically. So what did you do?”
“I was a runner,” he said, his voice going quiet. He paused until I met his eyes again. “I’m not proud of it, Savi, but I was doing what I had to do.”
I gave him a look that I hoped said he was stupid. “What the hell did you
have to do,
Ian? Please.”
“Make us some money,” he said. “Get out from my father’s grip.” He ran a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes. “Collecting for Bobby Greene paid well.”
“You mean harassing people to shell out their
own
hard-earned money,” I said.
“Beat me up if you need to, Sav, but I was doing it for us,” he said irritably. “And maybe for me. I was just tired of being nothing.”
I gritted my teeth together. “You were never nothing.”
His jaw twitched. “Of being James McMasters’s lap dog. I wanted something of my own.”
“Well, you got it.”
His eyes flashed. “Do you want to hear this?”
I sighed. I was pissed and disgusted, and I couldn’t figure out where he was going with this. The whole garbage dumping plan had turned into a complete mind-fuck, but I was along for the ride now. Delirious and past the point of hungry, bordering on a hot flash, but here.
“Go ahead,” I said, holding up my hands. “So you were one of Bobby Greene’s ponies. What happened?”
Ian scoffed. “I got greedy.” He leaned over to check the progress of our meals in the oven window. “Thought I’d speed up the process by skimming off the skimmer.”
“Jesus. You tried to steal from Bobby.”
“And got handed my ass for it,” Ian said. “Before turning me over to one of his partners.”
“There were more than just him and Georgie?” I asked.
Ian nodded, a look of restrained fury tightening the muscles in his face. “Evidently.” The strain in his tone matched his expression. “Although I’d never been clued in on that.”
I felt my brows come together as I regarded his body language. “And?”
“The
partner
then gave me ten grand to leave the state and never come back,” he spit out, as if it were venom on his tongue.
And hello.
My brain went on a whirlybird ride. What the hell did he just say? Did I walk into a made-for-TV movie?
“You— He what?” I stammered. “Why?”
“To cover his ass,” he said, pulling our steaks out. “And mine, if I’m honest. Protecting me, I guess.”
Protecting him. What the hell. All these years, I thought he just went pussy-up and bailed on me. Now I find out he was paid to get out of town. Like some damn mob movie gone bad.
“This is bullshit,” I said, shaking my head.
Ian’s eyes cut sideways. “You think I could make this shit up? I’m not that inventive.”
“Then why didn’t you tell
me?”
I said, stepping closer, crossing my arms. “Why—why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because—”
“Did they pay you to fuck the redhead, too?” I shot, stepping back again. “Come on, Ian, don’t insult me.”
“That was on me,” he shot back. “To make you step away.” He tossed our steaks onto plates unceremoniously and stabbed mine with a knife before shoving my plate down the counter. “You’re a smart woman, Savi. Figure it out.”
I studied him, my temperature on overdrive. Forget the damn freezer, I’d melt everything in there.
“You’re serious about all this.”
He speared a piece of dripping beef with his knife. “Do you really think I would have just left you and Abby—willingly?” he said before cramming the meat into his mouth.
“I watched you do it,” I said.
“Not willingly.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “You had ten grand.”
“No, actually I didn’t.”
I frowned. “But you—”
“I was
given
the money,” he finished. “I didn’t say I kept it.”
“Could have started up that dive shop of yours,” I said.
His eyes glittered. “Yes, it could have, but I wanted no part of that bastard’s money.” His whole face twitched and he looked away. “I may have sold my soul to start MJ’s later, but it certainly wasn’t at the hands of him.”
“So you gave it back?”
“Hell no.”
I laughed bitterly. “So where’d you stash the money?”
Ian smiled. “Let’s just say I donated it to a worthy cause.”
“So what, these phantom people were gonna kill you or something?” I said.
He shrugged and stabbed another piece. “I doubt it, but they would’ve made some noise, caused some damage. Make a point in some way.”
“To make a point?” I said. “Jesus, who was this partner?”
“My father,” he said through his teeth, and then pointed at my plate. “You gonna eat?”
Chapter Eleven
All my ire and impatience drained right out of me. The old pain that Ian managed to pull out of retirement and bring to the surface was forgotten. I sank onto a nearby stool, trying to process what that meant. Ian kept eating, standing up, the tension coiling his body so that every movement looked spring-loaded.