All or Nothing: The Lonnigans, Book 2

by Dee Tenorio

  Belinda ached, knowing it was true. Amanda Riggs didn’t know who she was without Adam to define her. But what about herself? Who was she to point fingers? Hadn’t she fallen apart without Lucas?

  But somehow, her broken heart was different.

  Lucas didn’t define her. Making him happy wasn’t how she spent her day. She didn’t worship him. She didn’t make every decision by his leave. In fact, for the last twenty-five years, she’d made her decisions whether they aggravated and annoyed him or not.

  He was gone and yes, she’d folded emotionally. She’d been lost, like a compass blinded to north. But she’d still continued. The world kept turning. Her work continued getting done. Even the dog had gotten fed on a daily basis. Losing Lucas hadn’t been the end of her existence.

  Just the dumbest decision of her life.

  They were never going to have a peaceful life together. He was too grumpy, stodgy and pushy. And those were his good points. He was also loyal and determined, and he had the kindest heart she knew. He would never ask the things of her that Adam demanded from his wife. And as his wife, she would never stand to be dominated.

  She decided to skip a list of her own good qualities—that wouldn’t take long and really, the groveling should be saved for when he’d hear it.

  Looking down at her own hands, Belinda forced them to open, forced herself to push her hurts and her fears away, sighing when the coiled energy seeped from her fingertips into the house that had borne them.

  “I have to go, Mama.”

  “To Lucas?”

  Belinda tilted her head. “How did you know about him, anyway?”

  Amanda smiled. “He came to see us yesterday. About you and your fountain.”

  Lucas? Here?

  “He must love you very much, honey. He was so sick, but he came anyway. I’ve never seen anyone treat your father like a gnat before. He’s been a royal pain ever since.” Which usually involved his stomping and other people ducking, but Amanda simply looked amused. “I knew he would wear you down sooner or later.”

  “I thought you wanted me to marry Kyle.” Her mother’s sense of reality did not need some misconceptions about which Lonnigan was which.

  “Heavens, where would you get that idea? I love Kyle, truly, but you’d be walking all over him in no time.”

  “You wanted me to marry the nice Lonnigan boy, remember?”

  “I know. Lucas is nice.”

  Because nice men were capable of treating her father like a “gnat”? Better to let Amanda rewrite history. Fixing it would take more time than Belinda had. Right now, she wanted to get to Lucas.

  Amanda stood quietly, immediately smoothing the blanket from the rumpling they’d created over the old dents. Belinda watched her, then took her mother’s hands and pulled them over her own heart. No matter her own hurts, she still loved Amanda. Still wished she could do more for her.

  “There’s room for you with me,” she whispered. “There’s always room for you. That won’t ever change.”

  Her mother’s faded blue gaze met hers with understanding. Then she shook her head. “My place is with your father. I’m happy with that.”

  You can’t change them, Lucas had said. Maybe that had been part of it, too. She had to stop trying. There had to come a time when she lived her life for herself and it had to start now. She let go of her mother’s hands and stepped back. A few steps later, she was out of her childhood room, leaving the hurts there where they belonged. As quietly as she’d come, she left the house.

  She knew where home was now and for the first time, she wasn’t scared to go there.

  “How sick is he?”

  If Lucas didn’t know his fever was ridiculously high, he’d have thought Belinda was in his apartment. It sounded like her—loud, brash and pissed off.

  “For God’s sake, Lonnigan, what have you done to yourself now?” her imaginary voice asked in his head.

  Lucas managed to lift a ten-pound eyelid to see her peering down at him, pale, worried and touching his face with cold, cold fingers. Well, if he was going to boil his brain, at least he got nice delusions like this.

  “Oh, the usual,” Kyle was saying tiredly. “First, he worked himself into a state. Didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and then I guess one of his neighbor’s kids here had a nasty case of bronchitis, which Lucas caught along with half the building. Did the moron go to the doctor? No. He spent two weeks turning it into a lung infection, then pneumonia. I’m surprised he’s still alive, he’s been so damn stubborn.”

  “What’s his temp?”

  Keeping his eye slit open took too much energy, so Lucas let it drift back shut. He could still hear them, could still feel her next to his bed.

  “Just under a hundred and five. We made breakfast on his forehead this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”

  “He won’t go. The doctor says to keep him cool and to keep fluids in him, but we can’t even keep the medicine in him. I’m not looking forward to making use of that suppository—”

  “Go home, Kyle,” Belinda interrupted, just the way Lucas hoped she would. Someone had to. Fever or no fever, he’d kill Kyle before that particular indignity took place.

  “I’m not leaving him here with you.” Great, now Kyle was playing the grand protector.

  “Then go out to the living room. You need some rest. I can take care of this.”

  “He’s not a slab of metal, kid.”

  “No, he’s not. But if you stay on your feet much longer, you’re going to end up just like him, and unlike you, I’ve got no problem making use of suppositories on others.”

  It sounded like Kyle was thinking about it. What the hell was there to think about? He would have ditched by now.

  “You can’t just spring in and spring out again, Belinda,” Kyle said quietly. Lucas tried to strain to hear, but his voice grew softer and the blackness of the fever started sucking him down. “I won’t let you hurt him anymore.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she replied, sounding dismissive and…worried? Lucas knew then that this was just another hallucination of the fever. Her hand slid into his and her hold followed him into the darkness, along with her dreamed words. “I’m not going anywhere, ever again.”

  It was a nice dream.

  Well, it was until he heard her voice again.

  “…sorry, Lucas, but I’m guessing this is probably going to hurt.”

  “What is?” he managed to say through lips that felt cracked and dried. Why did all his bones ache this way? And why did he feel so dizzy? And when did he stand up?

  “This is,” she said, then he was sprayed with ice cold blades. At least, that’s what it felt like. Minutes later, he realized it was only water. And she was in it with him. The unrelenting heat started to abate, in tiny steps, but the cool water turned hot by the time it reached his feet. “There you go, let’s lean you back into this chair…”

  How she got a chair into his shower, he couldn’t imagine, but he settled into it like a sagging bag of aching bones and the cold water streamed against his face. A touch of heaven in the pit of hell.

  “This is the best dream,” he said to himself.

  “Sure it is, Lonnigan,” Belinda’s dream-voice said. “I’m sure you’ve never had better dreams than a raging fever and ice-cold showers.”

  “Dream of you every night. This time you feel like you.” He lifted sore arms to double check she was still there, letting his hands slide over her whipcord body. Her skin felt smooth, its familiar texture even more defined beneath the fever-magnified sensitivity.

  “Open your mouth.” She held something in her hand, something long and obscured by the overhead lights.

  He did as he was told, surprised to taste sweetness on his tongue. Thick and sweet. Orange. But it was quickly gone. Every now and then, she’d ask him again to open his mouth, gifting him with another taste of oranges. Between the cold water and the gentle rub of her hands over his aching body, he felt him
self relaxing a little more. Soon, he was being dried and shifted again.

  “Stay with me?” he asked. It was wrong to ask. She hated being asked for anything. But this was a dream, and in his dreams, Belle didn’t mind slipping into his bed with him, beneath the sheet, just to hold him in her arms.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me now, remember?”

  He smiled, sleep starting to claim him again, pulling her close, where she felt best. “Been stuck with you forever, Belle. But I like it.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly, brushing her lips against his forehead. “I like it, too. Now go to sleep, before I slug you one.”

  Holding her tight, that’s exactly what he did.

  Chapter Eleven

  It took two more days to break the fever. Belinda leaned back in Lucas’s chair, watching him sleep peacefully. He still coughed, but the weak thrashing and heaviest wheezing had stopped. They’d managed to bully him to his doctor’s office once his fever was low enough to move him, and he’d received a shot of concentrated antibiotics as well as strict instructions to keep him hydrated. Her little trick with the liquid Motrin, fed in painfully small drops at a time, chipped away at the fever, giving him faint relief while the antibiotics did their work.

  She wished she could climb in his bed the way Sparky had the second he’d arrived, but apart from a few minutes after that shower, she’d kept herself clear. Jessica had run errands for her, going to her loft for some changes of clothes, a few special items and to collect the dog. The three of them had created an indefinite sense of shifts. She stayed with him overnight, the only one of the three who had no trouble being awake all night long. Kyle made her sleep for an hour or two when he took over in the morning, but for the most part, she stayed by Lucas’s side. Every hour, she managed to get sips of water into him and at least a few spoonfuls of broth. Sick unto falling down or not, he wouldn’t accept more than a leant shoulder to help him to the bathroom to relieve himself, which she counted as something in their favor. As long as his body was working—and he was cranky about it—he had to be on the mend.

  Finally, at four a.m. on the second day, his brow was cool. She let her hand remain there, being tickled by his inky hair falling over his forehead. She gave herself the luxury of ruffling her fingers through it. It rippled under her touch, the straight strands finally long enough to fall back into place. She couldn’t remember the last time Lucas had let his hair grow beyond military lengths. The thick masses had always been his best feature, but he kept them shorn, probably to differentiate himself from his brother. As if they needed a haircut to be told apart.

  She longed to stretch her limbs out next to him, to lay her cheek over his heart and listen to the steady beat. For now, though, she contented herself with touching his face.

  His lids fluttered, the heavy lashes lifting carefully. He blinked slowly, probably realizing the haze was gone. Then he must have registered her touch, because he lolled his head her way, confusion in the dark blue gaze that met hers for the first time in days.

  “You’re really here.”

  She nodded, feeling tears sting her eyes. “Yup.”

  “Did Kyle call you?”

  “No, I came all on my own. He tried to throw me out a couple of times, though.”

  “Yeah?” His barely-there grin made her chest swell with relief. He really was going to be okay.

  “I swear.” She raised her hand in a girl-scout pledge. “It’s just lucky I’m wearing my clodhoppers or I’d have been pitching my tent at the front door. He’ll be walking funny for a few weeks, but at least he stopped trying to get rid of me.”

  “He’s protective.”

  “Yes, he is. He’s a good brother, Lucas.”

  “I know, but he’s still a moron.” He finally lost the battle to keep his eyes open and went back to sleep.

  She let him, content to watch him for a while. When she finally tried to slide her hand free from him, he startled back awake. “Don’t go.”

  “I won’t,” she said, ridiculously thrilled that he still wanted her. He shouldn’t. He was a smart man. He should have ditched her spiteful self years ago and never looked back. But he never had…and she was going to spend the rest of her life making it up to him. To herself. “You keep forgetting. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Love you,” he said, almost sounding like he was correcting her.

  “I know you do.” She pressed her lips to his cheek and eased her arm free. “I love you, too. Now sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise. Now sleep.”

  He tried to say more, but he was back in the hold of sleep and there was no getting free. She crept from the room, taking Sparky with her so the pup could get some fresh air. She stayed quiet, finding Jessica asleep on the couch in the living room and Kyle in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar, head resting on his forearm.

  Kyle lifted his head, blinking blearily at her. “Everything okay?”

  Belinda nodded. She could say a lot of things about Kyle, but she’d never again accuse him of always putting himself before his brother. “Fever broke. He’s sleeping now, but I think he’s through the worst of it. My brothers both got this when they were little. Losing the fever is a good sign. He just needs sleep now. I was wondering, could you take Sparky out for a bit?”

  “Sure.” He rubbed his face with the back of his hand. As he passed her, he surprised her by laying a kiss on her cheek.

  She frowned at him. “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “I was. But he’s better and you’re still here. Gives me hope that I wasn’t wrong about pushing you two together all these years.”

  “You need your temperature checked.” She pushed at his side, making him laugh.

  “You’re good medicine, kid. Bitter, but good.”

  “Thanks.” She rolled her eyes and headed for the small table on the other side of the room. The snick of the front door closing behind him was a relief. The vigil had taken its toll and the relief was almost as exhausting. She ached for the chair and just a minute or two to close her eyes, but she had the strangest sense of someone watching her. She turned, ready to threaten various precious parts of Kyle’s anatomy only to gasp at who she found. Lucas, wearing a dark blue robe, rumpled hair and the sexiest frown Belinda had ever seen.

  “Where were you?” he demanded as if he’d been looking for her for hours. Given his exhaustion, he probably felt like he had.

  “Right here.” She tried not to smile. He wouldn’t appreciate it.

  “You said you were staying.” The accusation in his gaze was the same as she’d seen when he was six. And just as cute.

  “I am.”

  “Good.” Except now he looked more aggravated.

  Belinda pushed her tiredness away and put an arm around him. “Come on, big boy, let’s get you back to bed. Better yet, another shower. Your sheets need changing.”

  “It’ll wait.”

  “No it won’t.”

  He stopped her in the hall by leaning against the wall and scooping her in front of him. “It’ll wait.”

  She swallowed, meeting his fiery gaze. “All right.”

  The cute look disappeared, leaving an impatient strain to his mouth and his breathing. “Say it again.”

  “Say what?”

  “What you said when I was falling asleep. Say it again.”

  She thought back, then smiled as his hands cupped her jaw. She took his lapels into her hands and shook her head at him. No bottleneck this time. “I love you, Lucas.”

  He looked down at her, then closed his eyes as if he were savoring the sound. She rose on her toes to whisper it again, right in his ear where he’d hear it for sure. His arms tightened around her, pulling her close and breathing deep against her neck.

  She let herself enjoy the embrace, but not for long. He shouldn’t be up. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. There’ll be plenty of time for talking later.”

&nb
sp; “You’re sure?”

  Not really, but she would try to be. She nodded and he finally let her lead him back into the bedroom.

  Lucas let her fuss with his bed after he showered and brushed his teeth. His skin felt raw, his gums were swollen and he was pretty sure he’d die if he didn’t lie down again soon, but there was still some measure of happiness that she was insisting on fresh pillowcases and fluffing his pillows first.

  She finally let him sink into the soft, crisp fabric and he sighed in relief. Then he tumbled her down next to him with a yank on her hand.

  “This is not going to help you get better, Lonnigan.”

  He coughed, none too pleasantly, and had to agree with her. “Even if you did all the work, I’m not sure I could handle you.”

  “Since I’m such a slave driver when it comes to sex, better for you to save your strength.” She settled him back against his pillows, but stayed on the mattress with him, leaning her head on his arm, her bent leg over his and her arm around his waist. It was nice, lying together peacefully. It wouldn’t last, but it was nice.

  “You ready to talk to me now?” he asked, watching her face for any sign of panic.

  She grimaced. “Probably not.”

  “Belle, I’m a sick man. Show a little mercy.”

  She shifted, rotating until she could cross her arms over her breasts and her feet at the ankles. He watched her stew, wondering suddenly if those were his socks on her feet, and waited for her to talk.

  Maybe he could fit a nap in.

  “I don’t know where to start,” she complained, ruining that idea.

  He stifled a yawn. “Anywhere’s good.”

  “Thanks, that helps a lot.” But she sounded more amused than angry. Always a preferable tone.

  “How about where you were before you came here?”

  She shrugged. “My mother’s.”

  That gave him pause. He didn’t remember being too friendly with her father. If Lucas had made him angry and she walked blindly into it… The thought made his blood cold. “Did he hurt you?”