I reached into the fridge and grabbed a basic bottle of water and handed it behind me to my brother. Then, seeing all the ingredients, I reached back in and pulled out all the makings for a sandwich.
The bread was thick and looked homemade. I sliced off two wide pieces and set them on a paper towel. My stomach grumbled at the delicious scent of the sourdough, something I really loved. Daniel and I had lived off power bars and basic packaged crap the entire way here. He hadn’t wanted to stop anywhere beyond those seedy gas stations, so food options were limited.
Daniel drained the water as I slathered the bread with mayo and added cheese, turkey, and some tomato slices. Once done, I slid the sandwich across the counter toward my brother and pointed at it. “Eat that.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not hungry.” I lied. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. My body might be hungry, but the rest of me couldn’t even think about food.
He picked it up and took a massive bite.
I piled the stuff back in the fridge and wondered about Alex’s self-proclaimed sister. The one who was close enough to him to keep his fridge stocked with more than bachelor food and how much time she spent with him. What was their relationship like? What side of Alex did she get to see? There were so many of them.
I felt the bitter tinge of jealousy when I wondered if perhaps this woman got to see all of them.
I busied myself getting another bottle of water for Daniel and handing it over, along with a banana that seemed perfectly ripe.
“I see you’ve made yourself at home,” he said, polishing off the sandwich.
“Hardly. You look like you’re about to fall down. I’m just making sure you don’t.”
He grunted. “Takes a lot more than this to bring me down.”
I slumped, sort of sad this kind of thing was so normal to him it didn’t even faze him. Daniel noted my momentary pity party and set the water down, came around the counter, and pulled me into a bear hug.
I reached around him, digging the pads of my fingers into his solid back.
“How you doing, Brin-brin?”
I lifted my head. “You brought me here, and you still need to ask?”
His eyes darkened a bit, but his resolve never wavered. “This is the best place for you right now.”
I laughed and pulled away. “You can’t actually mean that. I mean this”—I spread my arms out, indicating the house—“is exactly what you never wanted.”
His face shuttered, and his arms crossed over his chest. “I was wrong.”
“Yeah, yeah. You said that ten minutes ago.”
He smiled briefly. “It’s still true.”
“Well, it’s too late. I won’t stay here. Take me anywhere else, and I won’t complain once.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah right. The world would cave in on itself.”
My eyes narrowed. “I will kick you. And it will hurt. You taught me how.”
His teeth flashed. Pulling the black T-shirt Alex gave him off his shoulder, he shrugged it on. The material skimmed over his fit body nicely, and I knew it must have been a tighter fit on Alex because he was a little bigger than my brother.
“I don’t have time to cajole you. I don’t have time to beg. The hard, cold truth is that the men after me are mean motherfuckers who would take a woman like you and break her in ways you can’t even imagine.” He glanced away, then back, letting me see the naked truth right in his eyes.
I drew in a breath, caught not by his words, but by the haunted and tortured look he wore.
“I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve heard keens and cries… pleas for death that will rattle around inside me until I die. And that was from their own women, Sabrina. That is nothing compared to what they would do to a woman of one of their enemies.”
Unable to stop myself, I shivered. My toes curled into the floor, and I tugged the too-long sleeves of the flannel over my hands, tucking them inside.
I wanted to ask him why we couldn’t just call the police, but I held back. I knew why. What my brother did went well beyond the scope of the police. Involving them would only get more people killed. Good people who didn’t deserve to die.
“What about Rush?” I asked, thinking of another one of the men who’d been on their team. “He can protect me.”
He shook his head once. “The only man who will protect you the same way I would is Alex. I think you know that.”
I did know that. I felt it. I felt so many things I wish I didn’t. Still, I resisted. “It’s not right to ask him to do this. You and me, we’re family. But Alex… he walked away.”
“Because I asked him to.”
I sucked in a breath. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not like I made it a secret that I did not want my brother hooking up with my little sister. Especially since you were barely legal.”
“We all know. You threw a large man fit.”
“A man fit?” he asked, blinking.
“Like a temper tantrum the little boys at my daycare throw. Except you didn’t throw toys and snacks. You threw punches and insults.”
I thought back to the last night I’d seen Alex. The night my brother walked in on us kissing. His head damn near exploded. If he’d had his gun on him in that moment, Alex would have had a bullet in him somewhere. The two went at it hard. Punching, kicking, breaking furniture. It hadn’t mattered how much I yelled for them to stop. It was like I hadn’t yelled at all.
I left partway through. They’d been so busy hitting each other that they didn’t even know I’d left.
That was the last time I saw Alex. He never even said good-bye.
“Whatever,” he muttered. “I told him to keep his hands off. He didn’t listen.”
“But apparently he listened when you told him to leave.” I fumed.
“He did the right thing. Something I respect him for.”
“Well, as long as you think so.”
Daniel grabbed my arm, pulling me back around. “I’ve apologized more than I’d care to. I won’t keep doing it.” Gentling his tone and his eyes, he let go and stepped forward. “The point is he’s the best option—the only option—to protect you while I’m out there trying to clean this mess up.”
I lifted my chin and refused to meet his eyes.
“Please,” he said softly. “You can hate me and blame me every day for the rest of your life. You can even give me the silent treatment and make me go to chick movies every time we hang out. I’ll take any anger you want to dish out at me for this… but please just say you’ll stay here. If they get ahold of you…” The horror in his voice drew my eyes. His fear was so real, the anxiety so palpable, I reached for his hand. “It will break me.”
All the anger and fight drained out of me. Not even the intense anger and discomfort I felt around Alex was a match for my brother in pain. “I could never hate you, Bear.”
“I’m so sorry I brought this on you,” he whispered.
I made a sound and moved forward. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and hugged me close.
“I’ll kill every last one of them. I’ll make sure you’re safe again.”
I didn’t want him to kill for me. I knew he had to.
I pulled away, but he put a palm to the back of my head and stared down.
“I’ll stay. I’ll stay here with Alex until you say it’s safe to come home.”
His eyes closed briefly, and his nostrils flared. “Thank you.” He pressed his forehead against mine and smiled. “Thank you.”
“You owe me.” I warned.
He chuckled and pulled back. I did a doubletake at his sudden transformation. He looked about five years younger instantly. The lines around his mouth were softened, and the tension I hadn’t even realized was clinging to him whisked away.
“Please stop worrying about me,” I implored.
“Not possible.”
I swallowed. “I know you miss Dad.”
He stilled, his body going ramrod straight. “What?” he wh
ispered, shocked by what I said.
“You were old enough to remember him when he left… I never was. I only know what he looks like because I’ve seen pictures. But not you. You have actual memories, and I know that sometimes, underneath the anger that he abandoned us, you miss him.”
“Sabrina…” He shifted uncomfortably.
“Not remembering him isn’t why I don’t miss him.” I forged on, wanting to get this out before my throat tightened so much with emotion I wouldn’t be able to speak. “I don’t miss him—having a father—because I never needed one. I had you.”
He sucked in a breath.
“You never treated me like the annoying little sister I know I was.” I flashed a grin. “Still am.”
He chuckled.
“You let me climb into your bed when it stormed outside, and you’re the one I yelled for in the middle of the night when I was sick or couldn’t sleep. You always came. Always.”
“Brina—”
I held up my hand and shook my head. I had to say this. I don’t know why, but I had to.
“You taught me how to ride a bike. You beat up Tommy Graham in the third grade because he said I had buck teeth and bug eyes. You’re the one who took me school supply shopping and to the store for girl stuff when I started my period and freaked out. Then later, when I was sixteen, you took leave for two weeks so you could come home and teach me how to drive. You bought me a car, Daniel. You might be my brother by birth, but in my heart, you’re my father, mother, and brother. I can’t even miss the family we never really had because I’ve always had you.”
He put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor.
He sniffed.
Without looking up, he reached out and hugged me again, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “I love you, Brina.”
“I love you, too.”
If staying here with Alex could repay even a fraction of everything Daniel had done for me in my life, then I would do it.
Before he pulled back, he kissed the top of my head, then swiped at his face with his hand. “Fuck,” he muttered, pulling away finally to snag the bottle of water and drain it.
The door opened, and Alex poked his head in. “Is it safe to come in?”
The plastic bottle made a loud crunching sound when Daniel smashed it in his fist. “Yeah, man. Come on in.”
He did, and I avoided looking at him. Instead, I began wiping off the counter where I’d made the sandwich.
“All clear,” he told my brother, setting his gun in front of him like it wasn’t a deadly weapon and instead something as mundane as a mug of coffee.
“Good to know.”
“You think you were followed at all?”
Daniel shook his head. “No. I took the long way.”
When there was nothing left to clean up, I was forced to turn around.
“You make sandwiches?” Alex asked me.
I nodded.
“Where’s mine?”
That got me to look up. “Let’s get one thing straight. I might be staying here, but I am not going to cook and clean for you.”
He smiled. It was the kind of smile that could resurrect the dead butterflies in my gut. In fact, it did.
Damn him.
“As much as I would love to stay and watch the show, I’ve got to split,” Daniel commented, clearly amused.
“Already?” I said. “You should get some sleep.”
“I don’t have time for sleep. I’ve gotta get some distance between me and this place before first light. I’ve already been here longer than I wanted to be.”
I made a sound and looked at Alex for help convincing him to stay.
Alex shrugged. “He’s right.”
“I’ll be in touch when I can,” Daniel told Alex, who nodded. He stepped up to him and stuck out his hand, offering it to Alex. “If something happens to her, I’ll come back here and make you wish you’d never been born.”
I made a sound.
“I’d expect nothing less,” Alex said, shaking my brother’s hand.
Daniel moved away from him and held his hand out to me. I stuffed mine in his, and we walked toward the door. My chest was tightening again, and tears threatened the backs of my eyes. I shoved them down and ignored the squeezing feeling of my heart. I knew he had to go. I’d seen him off a hundred times before. I’d worried about him and scoured the news, making sure there weren’t any disasters on the other side of the world he could have been killed in.
I’d done it all more than once.
It never made the next time any easier.
In fact, stepping outside with him now, it felt like the first time all over again, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might never see him again.
I stayed on the top step, but he moved down them enough so when he turned back, we were eye level with each other.
“Try not to bust his balls too much, huh?”
“No promises.”
He smiled. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
“Hurry back,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I will.”
“Be careful, okay? My life isn’t worth yours.”
His eyes roamed my face, and a tender smile lifted his lips. He didn’t say anything to what I said because I knew he didn’t want to argue anymore. Instead, he glanced behind me at Alex’s house. “You should see where that leads. You’ve got my blessing.”
It was too late for me and Alex, but like him, I didn’t really want to argue anymore.
“Catch you on the flipside,” I quipped, using the same line we always did when he had to leave.
Leaning forward, he kissed my forehead, then stepped off the deck and headed toward the SUV.
I stood and watched, my fingernails biting into my palms. Just as he was about to be swallowed by the darkness, I called out, “Bear!”
He stopped and turned and smiled.
I smiled back.
Even after the SUV drove away with no headlights and the sound of the engine couldn’t even be heard, I stood there. My gaze strayed from where he’d been up to the sky and the millions of stars floating overhead.
A little while later, Alex came out the back door, shutting it softly behind him. He came and stood beside me, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweats, and took up the same stance as me, and we both stared up at the sky.
We didn’t say anything, and neither of us acknowledged the tears that eventually forced their way down my cheeks.
Alex
The instant I heard the approach of a car in the distance, I was up and out of the chair I’d been sleeping in.
I moved lithely toward the window overlooking the kitchen sink and out to the side of the house. The second Bellamy’s SUV nudged into sight, I tucked the gun back in my sweats and turned to drop a pod into the Keurig.
While it was brewing, I went to the doorway and glanced into the living room where Sabrina was curled up on the couch. I didn’t even try to stop the surge of tenderness I felt seeing her there. I was powerless against it. She made me feel like this almost from the first moment I saw her in Mercer’s old place.
The guys had gone for beers and poker to blow off some steam between some intense missions, and there she was, perched at the table, looking like a flower blossoming in the dead of winter. She was settled at the card table, chips all lined up neatly, with a look in her eye that promised she would wipe the floor with all us “big bad soldiers.”
She damn near did, too.
I’d felt such intense jealousy when I’d thought she was Mercer’s girl. Then he announced she was his sister, and an unstoppable attraction roared to life.
I liked Merc, but in those following days, I liked him a little more. I hung out with him more than I might have, on the off chance she might be around, too.
I let it go too far, though. I was grabbed by the heart and led around until I looked up one day and realized how deep I’d fucked up.
Sabrina shifted, just barely. The small movement was like a lou
d bang to me because my attention jolted back to her, appraising to make sure nothing was wrong.
It wasn’t. She was just shifting in sleep. I was gut punched seeing her last night. I was still gut punched seeing her in the morning light. Fuck. The feeling honestly never fully went away when she was around. Here we were almost three years later, and I still felt it.
She refused to sleep in my bed last night.
I stuffed down an audible laugh when I pictured her face when she asked where her room was, and I told her this place was a one-bedroom. Like I was the big bad wolf who was going to drag her back to that bed and eat her alive.
God. I fucking wanted to.
Instead, I grabbed some blankets and a pillow and handed them over. Once she was asleep, I slumped in the chair near the couch and dozed off and on the rest of the night, periodically waking up to stare at her.
Outside, Bellamy hollered to Charlie, and I snickered. She brought that damn dog everywhere she went. Liam still had a sore ass that he lost his loyal friend to his woman.
I pulled open the back door as she was coming up the steps, trying to wrangle Shaw, a bag of groceries, and a St. Bernard that weighed more than she did.
“Charlie!” she called out, seeing me. “Where’s Alex? Come see!”
The dog was nosing around the leaves in the yard as a nippy wind cut through the morning. “Charlie!” I called out, and he gave a woof and shot toward us.
I realized my mistake almost the second I yelled, and Bellamy gave a little shriek as the dog bounded up the stairs, pushing by her. She teetered on the step and cursed, rushing forward.
She righted herself, thank fuck, but I reached out and steadied her anyway. “Girl, will there ever come a time in life when you don’t put me into cardiac arrest?”
She laughed.
At the top of the steps, the baby in her arms started making noises and held his arms out to me.
“There’s my man!” I said, reaching in to snatch him up immediately. I held him up over my head, and he kicked his little legs. “Dude! What you been eating? You’re almost as big as me!”
Subzero (BearPaw Resort Book 4) Page 6
