When You're Back

by Abbi Glines

  I knew he was going to say something. He had to. It was the way he was. I flashed him another friendly smile. “Nope. Just trying to make this easier. I have no reason to be defensive with you if you’re not flirting with me.”

  Finally, the file appeared, and I grabbed it. I stood up and dusted off my jeans before walking back behind my desk. “More paperwork for me to file?” I asked.

  He tilted his head and studied me. Well, crap. This was supposed to be easy, but he was going to make a big deal out of it. “Not today. I actually need to see a receipt I brought you last week. If you’ll point me to the right cabinet, I’ll dig through to find it.”

  I nodded. “OK. The second drawer has files labeled with the dates on the receipts.”

  He was still looking at me like he wasn’t sure what to do with me. Finally, he nodded and walked over to find his receipt. I took that as my opportunity to sit down and find the information that I needed to text Piper. I pulled out my phone and took several pictures of the paperwork she needed. Then I sent them to her in a text.

  It was time to return voice mails about lessons, but Captain was still in my office, which seemed awkward. Besides, if he was watching me, I wouldn’t be able to write without messing up.

  I decided to get another cup of coffee, even though I was getting jittery from all the caffeine. I had to get better sleep tonight. Maybe I could sleep with one of Mase’s shirts. If I smelled him, it might help.

  “Found it,” Captain said, standing up with a paper in his hand. “Thanks. That’s very organized.”

  I nodded. I was proud of that. Before Mase, I never would have been able to file anything according to its date. He had changed that.

  Captain walked over and kept his gaze on me. “There were a couple of dates that were a little mixed up. I fixed them. I’m sure staring at numbers that much gets to your eyes after a while.”

  Crap. I felt my face heat up. Here I was feeling so accomplished, when I’d messed up some receipts. Of all the people to notice, it had to be Captain.

  “No need to look like you did something unforgivable. It was just a couple of receipts.”

  My face only flushed more. I wanted him to leave. I needed a moment to regroup. Then I was going to check all the files. I didn’t want Piper to see them and think I couldn’t do this job. I was proud of this job. I was good at it. Or, at least, I’d thought I was.

  “Reese, look at me.” Captain’s voice sounded commanding, and my head jerked up to meet his gaze. “You look like you’re about to cry. Fuck, if I’d known it was gonna upset you like that, I wouldn’t have told you about the few receipts I found. It was an honest mistake.”

  My eyes stung with tears, and I hated that. I didn’t want to feel weak or damaged. I also didn’t want Captain to see my weakness.

  “Swear to God, if you cry over this, I’m going to be pissed. Why are you so upset?”

  Maybe it was exhaustion coupled with all the caffeine I’d poured into myself, but I was definitely emotional. I was also missing Mase. He was my security blanket, and with him gone, I had to be strong. I had always been strong before I met Mase. Why was I falling apart now?

  “Reese—”

  “I’m dyslexic,” I blurted out.

  He went still for a moment, and then regret flashed in his eyes, and for the first time ever, I saw Captain look apologetic. I didn’t want sympathy, though.

  “I’m learning how to work around it, and I’ve come a long way. I just hate making mistakes like that. It reminds me of where I was before. I don’t want to feel like that again.” I prepared myself for Captain’s apology and gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew it was coming.

  “Lock up, and come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said, as if I would do exactly as he told me.

  I shook my head. “I have to work.”

  He frowned. “Fine. After work, then.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere with Captain. “I can’t.”

  “Because of Mase.” It wasn’t a question. He was just stating a fact. “Then I’ll bring him to you.”

  Who? I had started to ask when Captain turned and walked to the door to leave.

  He glanced back. “I don’t want you to ever cry again over that. You should only be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Hell, that’s an honest mistake anyone could have made. Don’t let your weakness define you, Reese. Ever. Your strengths should define you.” Then he was gone.

  Mase

  Dean Finlay opened the door to the mansion he shared with Kiro in Beverly Hills. “He’s already passed out for the night. I’ve had a room prepared for you,” he said when I walked inside. “He’ll be a mean bastard in the morning. It’s his new routine.”

  I wasn’t scared of the old man’s temper. “I’ll handle him. This shit has to stop. He’s so damn selfish,” I said, angry that he was making life hell not only for Harlow but also for Dean, his best friend. Other than Harlow, Dean was the only person who loved the man.

  “You don’t know what she was to him. Unless you lived through it with them, you can’t understand, Mase. He was a different man because of her. The accident, it created someone none of us recognized. It shattered his soul. When that happens to you, you never come back from that.”

  I was tired of hearing how losing Emily gave him the right to be a world-class asshole. “You know this because you’ve had that kind of love? ’Cause you sure as hell don’t act like him.”

  Dean sighed heavily and shook his head. “Never been in love like that. After seeing how it changed Kiro when he lost her, I never let anyone get close enough to me. I wasn’t going to ever know that pain. Don’t want it.”

  I wasn’t sure which was worse, loving and losing or not ever knowing that kind of love at all. Life without Reese seemed empty, devoid, pointless. Would I become like my father if I lost her? I wanted to believe I wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure a man without a soul could be anything else. If that was true, then could I forgive the man? Could I understand him and not hate him for what he was doing to my sister? Had she already made this connection? She had not only Grant but Lila Kate, too. I didn’t want to think of her losing either of them.

  “Don’t judge him when you haven’t been there,” Dean said, with a slap on my back. “Now, go get some rest. You’re gonna need it. He won’t be thrilled to see you.”

  He was right. Kiro was going to be pissed that I was here to deal with him. He didn’t want dealing with. He wanted to wallow in his pain. But when I faced him tomorrow, I knew I was going to see him differently. I had to remind myself that this would be me if I lost Reese. A world without her in it was incomprehensible.

  I’d set my alarm to wake me up at nine so I could be dressed and ready to face my father. I would need coffee before I did this. Yesterday, Harlow had kept finding reasons to keep me in Rosemary Beach. Finally, I had told her I loved her but I had to go. Getting home to Reese was important, and I had to get to Kiro before I could go home to Reese.

  Heading to the kitchen, I heard two voices. I recognized Dean but not the female he was with; she had an accent. Stepping into the bright room, I saw an older lady working over the stove while Dean sat at the table, drinking coffee and leafing through an issue of Rolling Stone magazine. He glanced up and smiled at me.

  “Good morning, sunshine. You got up before him. Thank fuck,” he said.

  “Coffee?” I asked.

  The lady wiped her hands on her apron and started to hurry over to the coffee pot.

  “I got it,” I told her. “Just point me to the cups.”

  She gave me a nervous smile, then glanced over at Dean.

  “Marlana is new,” he said. “Marlana, this is Kiro’s son. You don’t have to wait on him. He’s nothing like his father.”

  She glanced up at me, still looking nervous, then reached into the cabinet and got me a cup before hurrying back to her skillet on the stove. Poor woman had to deal with my crazy-ass father. No wonder she was a nervous mess.


  I poured my coffee and walked over to the table to sit across from Dean.

  “You want a newspaper? I think there’s one over by the front door. Marlana normally gets it and puts it there. Don’t know why we have one, since neither of us reads it.”

  “I get it,” Marlana said, turning around and hurrying out of the room. I didn’t need the paper, but she was fast.

  Dean shrugged. “She’s very eager to please. If Kiro doesn’t scare her off first.”

  “My plan is to make sure his head is on right before I leave here.”

  “Plans don’t always pan out. Remember, that man lives and breathes for that woman. He’s really losing her this time.”

  My chest ached. All I could think of was losing Reese.

  “Makes you regret falling in love, eh?” Dean said, looking back down at the magazine in his hand.

  He was wrong. I’d never regret Reese. I would never regret those feelings. She had opened up my world in a way I had never imagined. She had changed my life. She had given me true happiness. I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Dean looked back up at me.

  “Before Reese, I didn’t know that the world could be full of dreams. That you could wake up every day excited to breathe. That one smile from her could make me feel like a fucking king. Loving her is worth . . . it’s worth it all. Living in fear of love isn’t living.”

  He frowned and put his magazine down, then continued sipping his coffee. He didn’t look like he believed me. In reality, he was as sad as Kiro. He didn’t know true, raw emotion. He didn’t know that one woman could make you feel everything.

  I could tell he was thinking of saying something, but he changed his mind.

  “Kiro won’t crawl out of bed for another two hours. I suggest you let him get up on his own. If you wake him, you’re just going to have a more difficult time.”

  “Fine. I’ll eat and then call Reese.”

  Dean set his cup down. “Marlana is making pancakes and sausage. Or she was, until she ran off to get your paper. At least look at the damn thing. The woman is too old to be running around so much.”

  That was all he said before he walked out of the kitchen with a swagger that was similar to my father’s. I decided a long time ago that only rock stars knew how to walk that way.

  Marlana came shuffling in and put the paper in front of me. “Breakfast ready soon,” she assured me, then went back to the stove.

  I opened the paper, not giving a shit what it had to say, but, like Dean said, she’d gone and gotten it for me. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  Reese

  I had called and gotten Maryann to pick me up an hour early yesterday so I wouldn’t be there when Captain returned. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I hadn’t told him about my dyslexia. What was it about him that made me blurt stuff out?

  Mase had called me when he landed in Los Angeles. We talked during his ride to his father’s house in Beverly Hills. I could tell he was tense and nervous about what he was going to find when he got there, and I felt guilty about not being there with him.

  To make up for leaving work early yesterday, I had come in early this morning. I had slept better than the night before because I was so tired from lack of sleep. If all went well today, Mase would be coming home.

  Piper would also be back today, and I wanted to make sure everything was neat and ready for her. I checked on the horses and swept the floors of the dust that had blown in overnight. Then I headed back to my office.

  The rest of the morning went quickly. I kept waiting for a call from Mase, but I focused on getting all my work done in case anything new came up today.

  Right after Piper left for lunch, the door opened, and in walked a little boy who couldn’t have been more than ten. At first, I thought he was a student of Piper’s whose parents had gotten the time wrong. Until Captain walked in behind the kid.

  What?

  “Glad you’re here. Henry and I made the drive out yesterday to find you’d already gone home. Early.”

  He had planned on bringing a kid to see me? I was confused. “Um, yes, I finished up early,” which was a lie. I felt a twinge of guilt.

  “That’s all right. Henry and I made plans to come back here today. We even brought steak fajitas from the restaurant. Henry’s dad is the head cook at Stouts and Hawkins here in Dallas. He’s become my bud. I wanted to introduce him to one of my other friends.”

  What was he doing? Bringing me food again and using a kid so that I would eat with him and be nice? Captain made no sense. He said he wasn’t flirting with me, but then he did things like this.

  “My daddy makes the best steak fajitas,” Henry said proudly. He was a cute kid. “He made you special ones. With his secret sauce.”

  “Oh, thank you. It smells delicious,” I said to Henry as Captain began laying the food out in front of me.

  “Can we have a picnic? It’s more fun to eat outside. Besides, this place smells like horse poop,” Henry said, looking up at Captain and crinkling his nose.

  Captain laughed and brought his gaze to mine. “Would you be OK with that, Reese?”

  Like I was going to tell this kid no. He knew that. Dang him. “Of course,” I said through clenched teeth, then forced a smile as I picked up the box Captain had put in front of me.

  “Great. I’ll grab the blanket out of the back of my truck,” Captain said. He headed out to his truck, leaving Henry and me with our hands full of food.

  “He has a blanket in his truck?” I asked.

  Henry nodded. “Yep. We look at stars on nights my daddy has to work too late.”

  So Captain watched a little boy while his daddy worked. Not what I was expecting. That didn’t go with the image of Captain in my head.

  “Kinsley went with us the other night. She was off work, and we got milkshakes and went to see the stars. But Kinsley didn’t like it much. She griped a lot.”

  That didn’t say a lot about her character. I hoped Captain wouldn’t force her to be around Henry anymore. He didn’t need that. I wondered where Henry’s mother was, but it didn’t sound like she was around, so I didn’t ask.

  “Got it. Lead the way, Henry. Take us to a prime picnic spot,” Captain said, grinning at the boy. I had never seen that grin on him before. It was real. It wasn’t calculated or planned. It wasn’t a bad smile.

  Henry walked a short way from the stables and stopped where I assumed he couldn’t smell the horses anymore. He nodded his head to let us know we should settle here, his shaggy brown hair falling into his eyes. I wanted to tuck it behind his ear, but I was sure he wouldn’t appreciate it.

  Captain spread the blanket out for us, took the food from me, and placed it on the blanket while Henry laid out the food he had been carrying. Captain reached into his back pocket and tossed Henry a can of soda. Then he looked at me. “Got you one, too.”

  He handed me the can, and I managed a “Thank you.” I sat with my legs crossed and placed the box of food he handed me in my lap.

  “Ain’t gonna be easy eating fajitas out here. But it don’t stink, and it’s more fun,” Henry said, smiling at me.

  “You’re right. It does smell better, and it’s a lot more fun. Besides, I eat in my office every day. This is a nice change.”

  Henry looked at Captain. “She’s better than Kinsley. She knows what’s fun,” the boy said.

  I didn’t look at Captain. Instead, I focused on my food. I had to get through this lunch. I would set Captain straight when Henry wasn’t with him. I didn’t know what his motives were for bringing the child here. Was he trying to manipulate me?

  I didn’t trust him. This only justified that feeling.

  I picked up my fajita and took a bite. I could see Henry’s eyes on me, waiting for a reaction.

  “Mmmm, this is amazing. The best fajita I’ve ever had. You’re right, your daddy sure knows his stuff.”

  Henry beamed, then turned to his own food and began eating.

&
nbsp; I could feel Captain watching me, but I wasn’t going to look at him. I was going to eat this food and be nice to Henry, and then I was going to start locking my office door when Piper was out. No more Captain interruptions.

  “Why don’t you tell Reese about the book you’re writing, Henry?” Captain said. I watched as Henry looked at him shyly, as if he was unsure. “She’ll love it, promise,” Captain encouraged him.

  Henry finally turned his big brown eyes to me, and the freckles on his nose made his face even cuter. “Back in November, I won the spelling bee at my school. Then I went to a statewide spelling bee, and I won it, too. I’ll be going to the nationals in May.”

  Wow. That was something to be proud of. At his age, I hadn’t even been able to write my name correctly. “That’s awesome!” I beamed at him. “You must be a very gifted speller.”

  Henry glanced at Captain again before looking at me. “That’s why I’m writing a book. Because I’m dyslexic. That’s when you don’t always see words and numbers the way other people do,” he said, watching me closely.

  The reason Captain had wanted me to meet Henry was now becoming clear. This hadn’t been some scheme. I nodded my head. “I know what dyslexia is,” I assured him.

  He seemed relieved that he didn’t have to explain himself. “Lots of times, kids with dyslexia get ignored or believe they can’t do something. I want to tell them they can. My daddy and I spelled words every minute we had a chance to for months before those spelling bees. I think people with dyslexia can do anything they want to. They just have to believe in themselves.”

  I felt emotion clog my throat. This little boy was going to live a full life. He’d never be told he was stupid, and he would have a chance to finish high school and get a college degree. I didn’t know his father, but I loved him. I loved that Henry wasn’t suffering what I had gone through. I put the unfinished fajita down and sniffled, trying not to cry. “That’s a wonderful thing to do, Henry. Kids and adults with dyslexia need to hear that message. They need to be inspired by your story.”

  Henry was smiling from ear to ear now. “I think so, too. If it hadn’t been for my dad telling me I could do anything over and over, I don’t know if I’d have tried out for the spelling bee. But I wanted to, and he convinced me I could.”