by Brynne Asher
Cole – I’ll stop at the store on the way home. You know my shitty skills in the kitchen but I’ll do my best. What do you want?
I ignore Cole because Red pauses where he stands at the front door. So much for leaving me be and putting me out of my misery. “Gotta admit. You’re not at all what I expected.”
I’m not sure I want to know but lean back in my chair and ask anyway. “How’s that?”
“Thought you were gonna come in here and try to stake your claim to my boy. Cause drama in the life he’s tryin’ to build for Abbott. Worm your way in then escape back to your job that’s so important to you. You do that, Cole’ll never recover. He finally settled down and neither him nor Abbs need a woman flyin’ in and outta their lives like a drive by.”
I shake my head and swallow over the lump in my throat that feels more like the bullet I caught. “I know my place, Red. Trust me, I’ve been trying to stay in it for years now.”
“My son is nothin’ if not persistent.”
I know that better than anyone. “Yes, he is.”
“You care about Cole?”
Cole – Baby, what sounds good?
My eyes shift to the old man whose expression shows me he’s as serious as a terrorist threat and I tell him the truth. “A great deal.”
“Then do him and Abbott a favor—don’t let him win. Take your show on the road and keep it there. I know why you’re here, why you’re a secret, and why you’ve been creepin’ around that part of the world. He thinks he can save you, but we don’t need your drama, not when life for my granddaughter has been turned on its fuckin’ head. We’re workin’ to get her back to happy, so she can forget her good-for-nothin’ mama. But you bein’ here does nothin’ but dredge all that up.”
I shake my head and look back to the woods—alive with birds, bugs, and who knows what else. My palms bead with sweat that has nothing to do with the heat and humidity heavy in the air. If I could, I’d damn myself to hell for my own weakness. Dress me up as a cocktail waitress and throw me into a room full of terrorists—I will find their leader and have him tipping me in the process. But anything to do with Cole Carson and my nerves are a shoddy mess.
I focus on the forest as I keep speaking the truth to the man who just put me in my place. “You won’t have to worry about me. I plan to leave as soon as I can. You have my word.”
“Good,” he belts and smacks the chipped siding next to the front door. But he adds one last zinger before allowing the rickety screen door to smack him in the arse, finally ending the berating he’s so soundly handed me. “If only my son would fall in line, we could forget this ever happened.”
My phone vibrates again.
Cole – Bella, don’t go silent on me.
I’m exhausted from the heat, the pain pills, and I swear, I still have an anesthesia hangover. It also seems nothing can take it out of me like Red Carson. All I want to do is go back to bed and pray I wake up in the humble home I’ve created in Pakistan.
Instead, I pull myself to my feet, determined to make one more lap around Cole’s property. I need my strength and I’m not going to build it wasting away in bed.
But, first, unlike the truths I told his father, I lie to the man who will probably haunt my heart for the rest of my days.
Me – I’m good. Going to catch a quick nap. I’m knackered.
I step down onto the forest floor and put my hand to my belly over my nasty scar. It doesn’t hold a candle to another one that’s proving to get uglier and deeper by the day.
Chapter 9
The Ghost
Cole
I pull the covers up and tuck her in. “Night, baby.”
Abbott grabs my T-shirt and her words come out in a rush. “Don’t leave.”
“It’s late and Grandpa said you got up early this morning.”
I’ve been home from work for two hours and she’s been glued to my side the whole time. Not that she isn’t usually when I’m home. It was worse in the beginning when Tabitha was newly out of the picture. I did everything I could to make sure my daughter knew I’d never leave her—that she’d always have one parent who cared about her more than anything else because she never got it from her mother.
“Sleep with me.” Her little hand grips tighter. Like I usually do when she wants something, I give it to her. It’s easy. Abbott only ever wants my time and attention. I’m sure it will change someday when she’s a teenager and she’ll want all the shit I know nothing about but, for now, when she wants me, I’ll be here. She deserves it.
“I’ll stay ‘til you fall asleep.”
“No, don’t leave, even after I go to sleep.”
I settle in beside her as she wiggles out of the covers and practically crawls under my skin. I put my lips to the top of her head where her hair is still drying from her bath. “You know I have to go to work before the sun comes up.”
“Will you come with Grandpa and me tomorrow to get my cat?”
I shake my head. “I’ll try to be home early but work is busy right now.”
“I don’t want you to go to work. I want you to help pick out my cat.”
“Baby, you know I have to go to work. Someone’s got to pay the bills. And, apparently, buy cat food.”
She looks up and I see the purest smile I’ve seen on her face in days. “And cat toys!”
I smirk. “You think the cat will need some toys? I thought it was going to catch mice.”
Her little face scrunches up. “Ew. I decided I don’t want my cat to catch mice. I want it to be inside with me.”
I tap her nose with the end of my finger. “So basically this cat isn’t going to be pulling his weight around here. I get it now.”
“I want a girl. There are enough boys here.”
I sigh and pull her into my chest to drag my hand through her hair the way that makes her fall asleep in no time. As much as I want to bring up the subject of the other female currently residing under my roof, I’m not cracking that can right now. Abbott avoids Bella like the plague.
She won’t look at her.
She barely responds if Bella speaks to her.
The only time she recognizes the fact Bella is here is when she asks when Bella is leaving.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I’m not sure it could be worse.
I have no idea what the Carson household was like while I was at work today, but from the moment I got home, Bella hasn’t left my bedroom. In any other cosmos, I’d be fucking jolly about my Brit never leaving my bed, but not now. Now, I need Abbott to like Bella and Bella to want to stay. I want to rip the band aid off and I don’t care how painful it’ll be.
But quick is not on the agenda. Hell, we’re not even taking a step in the right direction. As the days click on, we’re one step deeper into this awkward hell.
“We could use some more girls around here,” I agree.
My daughter is as smart as a whip, which I take complete credit for because she sure as shit didn’t get it from her mother. “Just a cat. That’s enough girls.”
I put my fingers to her chin and lift her face from my chest where she’s resting. “I know what that means and I don’t like it.”
She pulls her face away and burrows back into my T-shirt. This time she stays silent.
“Abbs, I need you to try. Bella is important to me and once you get to know her, you’ll like her.”
“Grandpa doesn’t like her.”
“Your grandpa doesn’t like a lot of people. He can be a crotchety old man.”
“He loves me.”
“More than anything. But Grandpa also doesn’t see the world for what it is sometimes. I don’t want you to be like that, and Bella has a good heart. Your Grandpa will come around, like you need to.”
She yawns and her little body sinks into my chest. There, she mumbles, “Doesn’t matter. She’s leaving soon. She said so when Grandpa told her to today.”
What the fuck?
My hand freezes on her head for a quick s
econd but I force my muscles to relax. I need to pull all the information out of her I can without her knowing she’s selling out her best friend. “Grandpa’s ornery.”
I feel her smile against my chest. “I know.”
“What’d he say?”
Through a yawn, the words are jumbled yet still clear as day. “He told her to get her show on the road like he says to me when I’m a slow-poke. And some other stuff. She said she’d leave. That’s when Grandpa gave me my iPad.”
Shit. There’s nothing else to get out of Abbott because when she’s staring at a screen, the rest of the world might as well melt away. I can barely get her to acknowledge me, let alone get her to comprehend. I want to stomp on the damn thing some days and it’s not even connected to the internet. “Not too much time on the iPad, okay, baby?”
She yawns again. “I know.”
“Go to sleep and dream about cat names.”
She doesn’t answer this time.
“Love you, Abbs.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
It doesn’t take but another few minutes for her breaths to deepen and her body to become heavy on mine. But I don’t get up. If I do, I know for a fact a bomb will detonate and my father might not survive. I don’t need a wedge between him and me, but hell if I need another force pushing Bella away. There are too many as it is.
I warned Red. And to have my own father stab me in the back…
Bella
I’m not sure the days here in Virginia could drag any longer or be more utterly miserable, but here I lie. The day will not end, no matter how much I will it to.
At least I’m exhausted. I didn’t nap today.
After I walked Cole’s property three times at a pace slower than a slug—which was more than frustrating—I managed a shower and found myself some dinner. That was before Cole came home. Luckily Red and Abbott were in the backyard nosing around the vegetable garden.
I’m a wizard at hiding, which makes escaping to Cole’s bedroom the easiest thing in the world. Keelie texted to check in. I know it’s what women do—even if not many have extended that gesture to me—and I appreciate her kindness.
Gracie, however, more than checked in. She can jabber on, that one. Even to my surprise, I found myself smiling during the marathon text thread we amassed. When she finally brought our conversation to an end because Jarvis had arrived home, I knew more about Gracie Cain than I ever expected to know, but not before she demanded I contact her should I find myself needing clothes, makeup, accessories, or pretty much anything else under the sun.
Then I had other things to keep me busy. I have contacts to keep up with. Leads I cannot allow to cool. And, most importantly, a certain senator to spy on. He is the reason I’m here, after all.
I’ve also decided I’m done with pain pills. I need my brain sharp and alert.
But I planned to be dead asleep at this point.
When Cole came home from work and interrogated me about my day, what I ate, what I did, if I was still hungry, and what I needed for tomorrow, it was surreal. Like so many times in the past, he changed clothes right in front of me as if this is what we do every day. Then he demanded I join him and his family for the evening.
Well. I’ve had about enough family time for one day. Of course, I didn’t tell him that.
I lied, said I wasn’t well, and needed to rest.
Once I assured him my stomach was plenty full and quiet time would be the only thing to heal me, he frowned and stormed out of his room.
That was hours ago.
Now, the bed dips behind me but doesn’t stop there.
Like a rerun of my favorite show, he plasters himself to my back and a hand grips my hip, pulling my weight to him. It’s not terribly late and Cole Carson does not need a full eight hours to be at the tip-top of his game. He’s never been an early to bed type unless there were sexual aerobics going down in the bedroom—or anywhere else we felt the urge.
I allow the heat from his body to creep into mine like the ghost of us that continues to haunt me.
I sigh.
He buries his face in my messy hair and inhales.
Neither of us utters a word.
There is no yin and yang when it comes to me and my American. We’re not opposite nor do we complement the other. We’re cut from the same cloth, and during our time together when we were at our best, we probably argued more than we didn’t. Cole is all alpha—headstrong and takes no prisoners in anything he does. And I’m no fool. I know my assets are feminine, but I also know how to use them in a man’s world, and as a bonus, can kick their arses if needed. As an operative, I’ve definitely had to. In the end, Cole respected that and he respected me.
Together, we were a force.
The best.
Even butting heads. I think that fire made everything else all the better.
But I knew we would never be more. From the beginning, I tripped over myself for him, knowing he had Abbott and she was his first priority. As Abbott grew older, he made the correct decision to return to Langley, to be a constant in her life.
He knew I wasn’t ready to hang up my hat. Then life went to shit and I had no choice but to go dark.
As he tortures me by running his hand up and down my thigh, like we’re something we’re not, I finally decide to break the silence because I need Cole’s help.
“I need something.”
His hand on me squeezes. “Look, if this is about today, I promise—”
I shake my head where I’m lying on his pillow and interrupt because there’s only one thing I want to talk about right now. “I need a ticket to a fundraiser. I’ll foot the bill, of course.”
The room goes so stale, the locusts singing outside seep through the thin walls. “Excuse me?”
“You hardly have a polite bone in your body, Cole. That excuse me did not come from the heart.”
“Okay, then. What the fuck?”
I sigh. “That’s more like it.”
“Fundraiser? To actually attend? In person?”
“Yes.”
“Well, blow my mind, Bella. Tell me why.”
“Because I care about … things. I want to attend.”
He presses into my back and the sudden energy zinging through his muscles is palpable. “Tell me about these things you care about so much you’re willing to risk everything for.”
I shrug, and in the process, try to push him back. “The Everglades.”
He allows me no room and repeats through gritted enamel. “The Everglades.”
“Yes. Catch up, Cole. I’m tired.”
“Why do you give two fucks about the Everglades?”
“I’m empathetic to nature. The Everglades are an important part of our ecosystem. I’d like to purchase a chair, maybe donate a bit more once I get there. It will be something to do while I’m in the States. And I’ve never seen the Kennedy Center—Camelot … all that jazz.”
“The Kennedy Center is a building and has nothing to do with Camelot.”
“Well, thank you for ruining it for me.”
He knows I’m blowing smoke up his arse. “Who’s gonna be there?”
“I assume other Everglade-loving humans, such as myself.”
“Quit fucking with me, Bella.”
“Seats are one thousand of your precious American dollars. I’m sure I’d like to give more at the event and we both know I can’t simply write a check with my name on it.”
“When is this shindig?” he growls.
“The week after next. I’m sure I’ll be ready for a night out by then. I’ll arrange for a car. I don’t want to be caught without a driver’s license.”
“Yeah, it would be bad if you were stopped without a DL since you’re wanted all over eastern Europe and North America. An Uber is the way to go.”
“You know me. I’m nothing if not thorough.”
“Dammit. Tell me what’s going on.” His tone is as tense as his arm wrapped around me.
“The event is sold o
ut but I know if anyone can score a ticket, you can. I’ll only need one, please.”
His forearm angles up—above my stitches, between my breasts—and I have to work to keep my breaths even. His lips brush my ear when he whispers, “I’ll look into it. But I have one condition.”
I tell him something he damn well knows. “I don’t like conditions.”
“I know. And you know I don’t give a shit.”
I close my eyes. “Go ahead.”
“Tell me what happened today with Red.”
I open my eyes and look across his shadowed room. “I told you. He made me another hotdog. It was no pork pie but it was thoughtful.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Something happened. Abbott mentioned it and I want to know what the hell my father did.”
Shaking my head, I tell him the truth. “Nothing happened that I didn’t expect from you forcing me into your home. Red loves you, as he should.”
Still supporting my weight, he leans on a forearm and turns my face to his. “Red doesn’t understand. I want to know what he said.”
I shake my head. “I’ve seen you extract information from scarier subjects than your father, ask him. If you expect me to cooperate because I’m sleeping up against you, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“He told you to leave, didn’t he?”
“Red didn’t say anything I don’t agree with. Only now that I have a gala I’d like to attend for my favorite charity, I’m afraid he’s going to have to deal with me for a bit longer.”
“Bella—”
“The ticket, Cole.” I rip my chin from his grasp and settle back into my pillow. And because it does take the pressure off the niggling pain in my gut, I freely give him my weight.
He settles behind me as his frustrated sigh brushes my hair. “Sweetness, you haven’t changed. You’re as frustrating as ever which makes me hard as a rock. The only thing I know for certain right now is I’m fucked in the head for agreeing to any of this.”
“If you’d prefer I call Crew, I’m sure—”
