by Brynne Asher
I look up when the door to his bedroom opens—and not quietly, I might add, the way one would slip into a room when the occupant just survived two surgeries and should be resting.
He stands over his bed I’m currently lying in. “Baby, you need to get up and walk.”
I angle my eyes to him right before I nearly roll them out of their sockets. “I have been walking. You weren’t here to witness the grand event.”
The arsehole has the nerve to cross his arms and glower. “You can leave this room, you know.”
I pick up the remote and change the channel to a different station, hoping to catch some world news. “I’m fine here.”
He drops his arms and rounds the bed. When he reaches me, he snatches the remote and tosses it out of my reach. “Come on. You hardly ate breakfast, which isn’t like you. I’ll make you some lunch and we’ll sit out back so you can get some fresh air.”
“Cole—”
“Sweetness, as much as I want to keep you here, I want you strong and that’s not going to happen unless you eat and move your beautiful body.”
“Bring me a sandwich.”
He shakes his head and the standoff ensues. “No can do. Get up.”
I change the subject. “I thought you said you were getting clothes for me.”
“They should be here today.” He gives my hand a squeeze and hikes a brow. “Even though I’d rather see you swimming in mine any day of the week.”
I pull my hand from his and close my eyes. “I feel and look like death and don’t have the energy for you.”
The mattress dips and I open my eyes to find him sitting next to me, invading my space the way he does. Leering, with hands rested on either side of my pillow, his dark eyes are as intense as his tone. “Tell me what I need to do to get you out of this bed. I’m desperate, Bella. I’m trying to get you better, deal with Abbott, and shut Red down because he’s a grown-ass man and needs to act like one. If he weren’t my father, his ass would be in the ditch by the main road right now. I’ve got shit stirring at work and I’m trying to figure out why you were here to begin with since you refuse to tell me.”
I roll my eyes again, and in turn, he leans in closer and lowers his voice even more.
“And that right there,” he continues, “makes me hard. You know it does. But I refuse to even kiss you until we come to some sort of understanding. There’s a middle ground, Bella, we just need to find it. I swear, it’s on my list right after I check off all the other shit, the first is nursing you back to the kick-ass woman who ensnared me years ago.”
I look up at him, his lips close to mine despite his promise not to kiss me. I’m honestly relieved. My resolve is not weak but my body is. I don’t have the strength to punch him in the face. “You’re a shitty nurse.”
“You’re a shittier patient,” he boomerangs.
True. I decide to negotiate because the four walls of his bedroom are about to close in on me. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laid in one position for so long. “I’ll get up on one condition.”
“Name it. I’m desperate.”
“A phone. A laptop. A tablet. Something to check my messages and touch base with my people.”
He pulls in a deep breath and stands straight, all six feet and four inches of him, holding out his hand again. “Done. But in return, you eat every meal in the kitchen, walk around the house, sit in the family room. I want Abbott to get used to you being here. You can cuss at Red for all I care—he deserves it. But unless you’re sleeping, you’ll spend time among the living.”
Damn. He knows I’ll do anything to communicate with the outside world. He has me by my lady balls.
I put my hand in his and bite back my wince as I sit up. “If you’re hell-bent on torturing your family with my presence, then you’re the craziest bloke I know. Fine. I’ll do what you want—I needed a phone last week in the hospital.”
He helps me to my feet as I try to ignore the smug look in his dark features. His lips even tip on one side and the pain in my chest it creates has nothing to do with the hell I’ve been dragged through in the course of the last week. His warm hands land low on my hips where he gives me a light squeeze. “Your phone was delivered two hours ago. I encrypted it. I know you know how to cover your arse, even though I’d rather be the one in charge of that. I’m fond of your ass and miss it.”
I narrow my eyes and mutter, “Bloody hell.”
“You agreed.” He gives me one more squeeze before dropping his hands and turning away. “I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow and I need to know everyone under this roof isn’t going to kill one another when I leave.” He turns back one more time as he reaches the door. “You’re a woman of your word. Now, get out there, fetch your new phone, and take in some fresh air. It might not be the shores of the Mediterranean, but you could use some color.”
And he’s gone.
Well. If he wants me to run roughshod over his household, he can think again. He’s forgotten how skillful I am at blending in. I’ll do whatever is necessary to survive my time in the Carson home with the least amount of drama possible.
But first, I need that phone. Then I need a shower.
I move slowly out of my self-imposed prison for the first time in the light of day and get a look at the rest of Cole’s home.
It’s not fancy, but I didn’t suspect it would be. Besides dressing for an undercover role, Cole might be the least fancy man I know, and that’s saying something since I pretty much only know men.
I move toward the voices wafting from the back of the home that looks out to trees so thick, Cole’s home might as well be a castle surrounded by a wall of foliage.
Trees, trees, and more trees.
I almost make it to my target—my new, encrypted cell and the rest of Cole’s family, the likes of whom I’d rather avoid like a modern-day plague—when an off-key chime rings through the space.
Abbott tears around the corner and almost runs me over followed by Red, who glares at me. “I was gonna feed you leftover weenies but the boy is making you lunch. Don’t expect that kind of service when he goes back to work.”
He doesn’t give me a moment to answer and shuffles off in his coveralls after Abbott. When I turn the corner, I find Cole standing in front of the stove in a large farmhouse kitchen—almost as expansive as the family room.
I’m about to ask him where my phone is when I hear voices.
Feminine voices, to be exact, mixed with that of a child—an enthusiastic one.
Cole’s gaze twists to me. Then he takes me in from head to toe as female voices come from the front door. “Good to see you up, sweetness. I opened a can of soup and I’ll make sure to give you your payment for getting up, but first, you’ve got some visitors.”
“Visitors?” I shift to see who could possibly be here for me.
Two women, both petite and beautiful in their own right, are parading toward me carrying bags for days. On their heels is a small child about the size of Abbott—blond and tiny with too much energy. The child runs past us but the ladies’ eyes are on me when they greet the man standing at my back.
It’s the strawberry blonde who speaks first. “Cole, you didn’t tell me how thin she was. We could’ve gone down a size in everything.”
His hand lands heavy on my hip. “She’s lost weight. I’ll make sure she gains it back.”
“Isabella.” The tiny brunette with bright blue eyes addresses me carefully. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Baby.” Cole’s lips brush my hair but nothing close to the kiss he promised to withhold until he figures my shit out. “This is Grace Cain. She was with you after you were shot until the medics got to you. She kept you from bleeding out.”
“Ah, Grace.” I exhale and try to smile.
I’m not a woman who’s afraid of anything. But that night … I’ve done all I can to not think back on it. However, this woman’s young face and dramatic eyes bring it all back. Her image was the last I saw before I lost c
onsciousness. I don’t even recall being transported to the hospital.
I clear my throat. “I understand I have you to thank for not dying on the banks of the Chesapeake—”
She shakes her head and those bright blues cloud just shy of a spring shower. “Call me Gracie. And don’t thank me. I would’ve handed over my own blood had I been able to. Noah is walking and talking and planning our future because of you. Keeping you alive so I could thank you properly was the least I could do. I wanted to visit you in the hospital but—” her eyes dart over my shoulder before she shrugs, “—well, that didn’t happen.” She lifts her hands which are gripping approximately five hundred shopping bags. “But I am able to thank you this way. Keelie and I shopped ‘til we dropped. Noah’s credit card got quite the workout.”
Cole motions to the older, but no less beautiful one, who looks like she’s been held hostage in an American mall by the sheer number of her own parcels. “Baby, this is Keelie Hollingsworth. I work with her husband. And the little one, who shot through here, is their daughter Saylor. We’re trying to get her and Abbott together—they’ll be in the same class together in the fall.”
I look over my shoulder and see the girls in Cole’s family room. Specifically, Abbott doing all she can to get away from this Saylor child who isn’t respecting her personal space. I can’t count fast enough, but I’m pretty sure Abbott is only getting in three words to every ninety of Saylor’s. The poor girl doesn’t know what hit her.
“Saylor is our…” I look back to the lovely Keelie who’s wearing a wince on her fair face as she apologizes for her daughter, “extrovert.”
“Abbott needs to break out of her shell.” Cole is quick to forgive the pint-sized tornado a little too quickly for my taste. If Abbott doesn’t want this child in her face, she should bloody-well speak up about it. “She’ll be fine.”
“Where can we unpack these?” Gracie changes the subject, for which I’m grateful. “I have to admit, we went crazy—and before you insist on paying him back, Cole, you can stop right there. Noah said this was on him. It’s the least we can do for Isabella. I know what it’s like to all of a sudden be without everything. Trust me, you’re set.” She looks back at me. “And you need to get off your feet. I’m a nurse—I insist.”
Keelie and Gracie parade to the sofa as poor Abbott is being pulled out the back door by Saylor, who’s blathering on about a donkey, of all things.
I turn and find Cole gazing down at me. “She’s right, you need to sit. I’ll bring you a bowl of soup.”
Bags rustle and tissue paper crinkles as Keelie announces, “I hope you like everything. Cole told us you love red. You could fight bulls for days with as much as we bought.”
My jaw goes hard, and through a deathly whisper that I hope holds the promise of his demise, I grit, “You didn’t.”
He tucks a chunk of my unruly hair behind my ear before brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. “I did.”
“I hate red,” I seethe the fact he knows all too well.
His voice lowers to match mine as a satisfied smirk settles on his lips. “You know what it does to me when you wear red.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Everything you do taunts me, but you in red? You better believe I’m going to keep coming at you.”
“You’ll never get what you want.”
“Wave your matador cape, sweetness. We’ll see about that.”
I reach out and touch him for the first time on my own accord since I woke in the hospital with him by my side. It’s not the kind of touch he wants, I can tell from the narrowing of his eyes. I squeeze the pressure point at the inside of his elbow to remind him I can take him down in a hot second should he need the reminder. “You’ll never win.”
“Do you like?” I look to the family room where Keelie is holding up a maxi dress the color of dusk in the desert. “It’ll be nice and loose while you’re recovering.”
“I love it and can’t thank you enough,” I call.
Familiar lips brush my ear and his words aren’t just a promise, they’re so steadfast, they come as a warning. “I’m the bull in this scenario and I’m fucking relentless. You’ll eventually let your guard down and I plan to take every advantage.”
I turn and he’s so close, his dark eyes are burning into mine, red hot—the way he likes it.
I hold my ground. “Are you laying a challenge at my feet?”
“There’s no challenge. You know you’re mine. I’m righting wrongs which should’ve been taken care of a long time ago.”
I want to argue but we both know I’m standing on shaky ground as it is. Unfortunately for me, that meaning isn’t only figurative, it’s literal too. I’ve been standing in one place for far too long and the pain is starting to creep in like sheers, carving me from the inside.
My new phone will have to wait. My mum would lecture me into next month if I were to bury myself in messages or tell these lovely ladies that I, in fact, hate red and prefer colors that reflect my dark, hardened heart.
I tip my head and give Cole my brightest and fakest smile to hide the pain eating away at my gut. “My darling, self-righteous, forsaken man. If a fight is what you want, the years have only sharpened my sword—it’s deadlier than ever. The bull is going down.”
“You know that turns me on more,” he challenges.
He’s right.
“There was no way to color-match you, so we decided to go with a tinted moisturizer. I’m sure you could use a little TLC after your stay in the hospital,” Gracie says.
I drop my hand from Cole and turn to my new friends. “You don’t know how true that is. A stiff drink would do the trick but a good facial cream comes in a close second.”
The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can get my hands on the phone I bartered my freedom for.
Chapter 6
Unless You Piss Me Off
Cole
“I’m going back to work tomorrow. I expect you to be on your best behavior. You pulling this shit isn’t helping me any.”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout, boy.”
“Like hell. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
He humphs without a glance as he toys around the shed, pretending to fix a lawnmower that’s already lived eight lives. Red Carson can mend what others consider garbage—rebuild any engine and reincarnate scrap metal into something a million times better than it was before—basically work general magic in overalls and a dirty T-shirt. It might not be a pretty process, there are usually left-over pieces when he’s done, and most of the time he’s shed blood, but it’s him. It’s what he does, what he’s always done, and what makes him happy.
That and Abbott.
I’m an only child and Red never minced words when I was younger—he wanted a daughter. Hell, even my mom never complained about only having a boy. My dad loves his granddaughter. So much so, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone so happy to hear the news that a mother walked out of their child’s life. When I became a full-time parent with no help, it was his idea to move in with us. He said Abbott had experienced more shit in her short life than any one person deserved. My mom died a year earlier and he’d since retired from his job as a maintenance worker for Union Pacific. He sold the only house he and my mom ever owned—the home I grew up in and the one he loved—to move in with me and help with Abbott.
It’s why I sold my townhouse and bought this old farmstead. It sits on enough land that I can’t see my neighbors, there’s no street for Abbott to dodge traffic, and it has a barn for all of Red’s junk. But it’s falling apart around me and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss the city.
Living with Red again isn’t what I’d call the perfect life. Hell, some days it’s the perfect storm. He’s a gruff, grumpy old man who misses my mom. She was a saint, especially to put up with his ass. But nothing puts a smile on his sun-aged face like his granddaughter.
He’s less lonely. I don’t have to pay for
childcare. Abbott gets to grow up with her grandfather. Even surrounded by old pipes, creaky floors, and a roof that needed to be replaced ten years ago, it’s a win-win-win.
Red tosses a wrench into his messy, rusted toolbox and turns to me. “Months ago, my son came home and damn near poisoned his liver because the Queen of England broke him. Now she’s here and you expect me to wait on her hand and foot?”
I cross my arms. “You’ve been watching too much daytime TV.”
“Lifetime Network has nothin’ to do with it. I keep that old tube on for background noise while I work out here.”
“Maybe you should turn on a ballgame instead of the shit you watch that’s causing you to see life as a soap opera. No one’s broken and quit calling her the Queen. She doesn’t like it and it pisses me off.”
“I can call her whatever I wanna call her. What’re you gonna do, kick me out?”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter and drag a hand down my face. “I don’t need you acting like a child, I already have one and you’re doing nothing to help with the situation. I need Abbott to warm up to the idea of Bella being here.”
“You said she doesn’t want to be here. I’m not gonna be part of some dog-and-pony show to romance a woman who doesn’t deserve my son.”
“You must be smoking crack out here in the barn at night. Mom would lock you out if she saw you acting this way.”
That stirs a reaction because he takes a step, his beer gut closing the distance between us, and I get a grease-covered finger jammed in my chest. “Your mother only locked me out four times in our marriage and I always got her to let me back in before the sun rose.”
“Right,” I agree. “For being a hard-headed idiot like you’re being now. You know for a fact she’d kick your ass out for what you’re doing to me.”
He crosses his arms and I can tell he knows I’m right. I might not have grown up with a lot but my parents made sure our family was happy and it wasn’t done by throwing money and stuff at me. They couldn’t have afforded it if they wanted to.
