Bruiser laced his fingers together behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “I’m trying to be good to get custody of Elliot.”
“Hmm. Is that all?”
“Of course that’s all.” Bruiser got up and paced the room in his boxers. “Isn’t that enough to stress a guy out?”
Brett sat back against the pillows, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. “You’re pretty damn transparent.”
“Since when?”
“Since I’ve gotten to know you so well. You have feelings for Mac, and she does for you. Hell, I’d be thrilled if that was happening to me.”
“I wish it was happening to you. I’m all wrong for her.”
“She doesn’t think so. If she did, she’d kick you to the curb for good.”
“She did.” Bruiser stopped and stared out the window at the Boston skyline.
“Bullshit. Nah, it’s just one of those female things where they play hard to get and want you to prove your devotion. That sort of crap.”
“You think?” Bruiser turned to eye the lump on the bed.
“Hell, I’m not the expert you are but, yeah, I think so.”
“I’m far from an expert on relationships. Sex is a different story.”
“Yeah, I get that, but the team has had a lot of guys getting hitched in the past couple years, and they seem disgustingly happy.”
“Except Harris.”
“Harris is a law unto himself. He might not be wearing a wedding ring, but he’s sure as hell wearing a ball and chain.”
“Pussy-whipped.”
“You’ll never see that with me.”
“Me neither.”
Brett laughed. “Buddy, you’re already on your way. The second you give power to a woman to set your moods, the moment your happiness depends on her happiness, then you, my man, are screwed.”
“Fuck you.”
Brett laughed.
“Hey, your time will come.”
“Never. I’m not the marrying type. Too much baggage for any decent woman.”
Bruiser wondered what kind of baggage Brett might be referring to, but he never asked, and Brett never volunteered. That was the way their friendship went.
Besides, Bruiser had his own baggage to worry about, baggage that needed to be stowed somewhere so he could get on with his life.
Chapter 22—Zone Blitz
Returning home from dropping off Elliot, Mac caught movement in her backyard. Gripping a baseball bat, she slipped out her side door and stayed in the shadows of her house, heart pounding so loudly she couldn’t believe the intruder didn’t hear her.
Just as she stalked to within a few feet of the skulking figure, whose shape looked remarkably like her father’s, the man climbed on top of a stool and lowered himself over the fence into the neighbors’ backyard. Mac stood on tiptoes and looked over the fence.
“Dad, what are you doing?” she hissed.
Craig held his hand up to his mouth. “Shh.”
“Get out of their yard.”
“I saw them leave.”
“They could be back any minute. Where’d you park your car?”
“Down the street. Shh. We don’t need to announce our intentions to the rest of the neighborhood, especially nosy old Mrs. Rockhurst.”
“Mrs. Rockhurst has been invaluable in keeping us apprised of what’s happening over here. She’s as nosy as you are.”
“Not that invaluable, or they’d be arrested.”
“Get out of their yard, now, or I’ll call the police on you myself.”
Her father shook his head. Mac leaned the bat against the fence. With a sigh, she climbed the fence to retrieve the stubborn man, even though she didn’t know what good it would do other than get them both arrested for trespassing.
In one hand her dad held a shovel, in the other a flashlight.
“What are you planning on doing? You have a restraining order. You can’t be here.”
“That bitch killed my son. I have a right to know. If the law won’t handle it, I will.”
“Dad, they could have dumped Will’s body in the woods or the sound. Somewhere we’ll never find it.”
Craig turned to her. “We will find it or die trying.”
Mac frowned. She didn’t want to do this the rest of her life, she really didn’t. She wanted more. She wanted—
Bruiser. And Elliot. A family.
If only they could make it work, but the odds were not good as long as her father obsessed over his missing son.
“Get out of their yard.” She grabbed his arm and pulled. “Come back to the house with me.”
They both froze as a car came down the street and turned into Mac’s driveway. She looked through a crack in the fence. Thank God it was Bruiser, though she had no idea what he was doing here this late at night. The team plane must have just gotten back after a heart-wrenching fourteen-to-ten loss to New England.
While Mac’s heart did a little waltz right up to Bruiser, she almost forgot her body was standing in her former sister-in-law-turned-murder-suspect’s backyard.
She ran back to the fence and called to him.
Bruiser peered over the top board. “What are you two doing?”
“I’m trying to get Dad out of their yard before the police show up and arrest him.”
Bruiser vaulted over the five-foot fence like it was nothing, the epitome of athleticism and grace. “Come on, Craig, we need to get you out of here.”
“They’re gone and won’t be back for a long time.”
“What if they have motion cameras?” Bruiser suggested.
Both Mac and her father turned as one to stare at the back of the house. Sure enough, there was a camera mounted above the back door and another over the patio area.
“Crap,” Mac spoke under her breath. “Let’s get out of here and hope we’re out of camera range.”
“Not until I’ve had a chance to do some digging.”
Bruiser grabbed Craig’s arm. “Not tonight, old man.” He pulled Craig along, not taking no for an answer.
Mac grabbed his other arm, and they literally dragged him to the gate, only to find it padlocked. “Double crap,” Mac cursed.
“I’ll get us out of here. Let me get a ladder.” Back over the fence Bruiser went. A few minutes later, they stood on the lawn in Mac’s side yard, breathing heavily, just as a police cruiser, lights flashing, pulled into the neighbors’ driveway followed by Sonja’s car.
“Busted.” Mac groaned. She turned to Bruiser. “Wait in the house. They can’t see you out here. It’ll be all over the papers. This is our problem, not yours.”
Bruiser hesitated.
“Don’t be a hero, Bruiser. Go inside,” Craig insisted, looking more than a little sheepish.
Bruiser glanced again at the patrol car now sitting in the driveway. The officer was talking to Sonja and her husband; then he turned to Mac’s house.
“Get inside. Please.”
“Okay, but if you need me, I’m here.”
Mac had no idea why he was here. He’d saved her ass and possibly her father’s by getting them out of the backyard before the police came, but he’d shown up here for a reason.
She hoped she was that reason.
* * * * *
With one exception, Bruiser had never been a guy to back down from a fight or run from a problem. He faced his problems head on, but Mac’s father needed to face up to reality. Bruiser just hoped Craig didn’t drag Mac down with him. Still, he felt like a coward as he watched the entire thing play out in Mac’s driveway through the slats in her blinds.
After a short conversation with Mac and her father while Sonja and Ben looked on, the officer cuffed Craig, put him in the back of the patrol car, and drove off. Sonja and Ben cast a last threatening glare at Mac and returned to their house.
Bruiser met her at the front door and wrapped her in his arms. She melted into his body, clinging to him. He held her tight, burrowing his fingers in her hair, intoxicated by her fresh scent and the feel
of her sexy body against his.
“You okay?” He spoke into her hair.
Mac pulled back, and Bruiser loosened his hold. She looked up at him, her gaze oddly resigned. He’d expected to see tears. Instead he saw defeat. “They arrested him for violating the no-contact order and trespassing. It was inevitable. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
“He needs help. He’s out of control.”
“Tell that to him.” Mac’s voice took on a monotone he’d never heard from her. Weariness lined her face and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her makeup had long ago worn off. Even like this, she was still the most beautiful girl in the world, and he wanted to make her smile again.
“Do you need bail money?”
“I can’t ask you for that.” She fisted her hands in his shirt and gazed up at him. He liked how she clung to him, as if he gave her comfort.
“Sure you can. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“I guess.” She frowned, as if he’d disappointed her, and nodded. “I’ll take a loan. I don’t have many other options. And God knows Dad doesn’t have any money.”
“You got it.” Bruiser slanted a grin at her, hoping his signature smile would loosen her up a little. She was wound tighter than his sister on a bad hair day.
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I couldn’t stay away.” He nuzzled her, burying his face in her hair and inhaling her scent.
Mac pushed away from him, and he let her go, even though his arms felt empty without her. She moved into the kitchen, effectively putting the counter between them—her own personal barrier. Bruiser understood barriers, and the emotional barriers Mac put up were proving a challenge to tear down, while Bruiser’s were about as stable as a rotten picket fence.
Bruiser slid onto a barstool in front of the kitchen counter and took the beer she offered him. He lifted it to his mouth, hesitated, and set the bottle down. “I guess I shouldn’t be drinking this if we’re going to the police station. How about a rain check?”
“After we get Dad home and tucked in for the night in his own bed?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile lit up his life, warmed his heart, and made his day. After the team’s loss earlier, he needed to come home and see that smile.
Home?
God, how he’d missed that brilliant, sassy smile of hers in the night that he’d been away. How he’d missed her. He tried to recall if he’d ever missed a woman as much as Mac, or obsessed over a woman as much as Mac, or when he’d been tied up in such knots over a woman as much as Mac. Not even his ex-wife did it to him like Mac did.
That realization hit him in the gut like a sucker punch from a prizefighter.
Maybe his marriage proposal had more to do with him than with Elliot. He fought for balance; Mac made him so dizzy he didn’t know which end of the field to run toward.
“What the hell was your dad doing?” He leaned forward, chin resting in his hands.
“Trying to find evidence.” Mac sighed and poured them both a cup of strong Tully’s.
Bruiser laughed. “What’s he expecting to find?”
Mac glanced in the direction of Sonja’s house and swallowed. “My brother.”
Bruiser processed that comment. “Why?”
She met his gaze. “Dad thinks he’s in the garden, compost for the tomatoes.”
“Seriously?”
“Damn serious. He says you don’t get tomatoes that look like hers without some incredible fertilizer.”
“Dead bodies make good fertilizer?” Bruiser rubbed his stomach. He felt a little queasy, and he wasn’t a squeamish type of guy.
“The best, and to think I’ve eaten her tomatoes back when we were still speaking, asked her how she managed to have such a great crop, what her secret was. She just laughed.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Mac leaned against the counter, looking a little green herself.
Bruiser stood up and walked to the window. He could just make out the garden in the distance. “Good place to hide a body.”
“Especially considering when Will went missing, she’d just started digging it up to plant it. The police never had enough evidence for a search warrant.”
Bruiser swallowed and wondered how Mac could live in this house knowing what might have happened next door. “I guess we should get your dad.”
Mac nodded and Bruiser took her hand as they walked out the door as if they were a real couple.
And perhaps they were.
* * * * *
A few hours later, they were on their way back to Mac’s house. Her dad had been bailed out of jail and was home in his bed. Gone was the obsessive gleam in his eyes, replaced by defeat and absolute sorrow. Mac wasn’t sure which was worse. She’d never thought she’d be thinking this, but she liked him better when he was fighting. At least it gave him something to live for.
Up until an hour ago, she’d been prepared to tell her father that he couldn’t drag her into his schemes again or his endless searches for information. But after seeing the look on his face when they’d picked him up, she didn’t know what to do.
Bruiser walked Mac to her front door. She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, debating on the wisdom of inviting him in. But wisdom was highly overrated.
“Do you want to come in?”
“Always.” His smile settled in her heart, while his sexy blue-gray eyes wrote a love story in her dreams.
Love? The for-better-or-for-worse kind? Was she ready to try for that? Was Bruiser? Elliot had already declared his intentions and made it sound so simple. If only it could be. She was far from sure, yet part of her screamed, Go for the Hail Mary and take the risk. Risk was what made life worth living, and she hadn’t lived her life in at least three years. She’d been hunting for her brother, who’d be the last person on earth to want this life for her.
Could she take that leap of faith with Bruiser? Was he the right choice?
“What are you thinking?” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head. His gaze slid over her face, as if memorizing every curve.
“I’m thinking I’d like you to come in the house and finish that beer.”
Mac grabbed a beer for each of them and steered Bruiser to the patio. It was a warm, late-summer night, too good to waste by staying inside. They sat together on the love seat.
She lit a few candles on the patio table, strictly to drive away mosquitoes, of course.
“Elliot came over last night.” Mac watched Bruiser’s reaction in the flickering candlelight.
“Mac, thanks for spending some time with him.”
“I didn’t exactly invite him. He ran away, but I took him back.” Mac repeated the entire conversation with Elliot, leaving out the marriage part.
Bruiser lifted his troubled eyes to her. “What do you think that means about the uncle looking at him funny?”
“Could mean a lot of things besides the worst-case scenario.” Mac hated the thought of brave Elliot living with some kind of child molester.
“I need to get him out of that house,” Bruiser said with renewed determination and took her hand. “What are we going to do?”
“Elliot wants us to get married. Did you put him up to that?”
Bruiser chuckled. “Nope, but he’s a smart kid. What do you say? Wanna give it a shot?”
Wanna give it a shot? What kind of marriage proposal was that? It sounded like the kind a man gives to a woman he isn’t marrying for love.
Bruiser rushed on, as if he had his foot in the door and was going to bully his way inside. “I think we could make it work if you made our family your priority.”
“And give up the search for my brother?”
“At least scale it back for your own good and your father’s.”
“I don’t know if I could do that to him. You saw him tonight. But what about you? Are you going to give up being someone you aren’t? Bruce Mackey wasn’t the one who died all those years ago. He dese
rves a life.”
“So do you.” Bruiser spoke so quietly she barely heard his words.
“I know.” She met his gaze and let her guard drop, squeezed his hand, and took the risk. “Tell me about the accident.” She needed to know that he trusted her. She could work with that, build on it.
For a long time, Bruiser stared at the candle flame as if hypnotized, but he didn’t let go of her hand. Mac waited, holding her breath.
Without lifting his head, he began to talk in a quiet, unemotional voice. “We were goofing around. Brice was always the charming daredevil, the attention slut, everybody’s favorite. I was the quiet one, the thinker, the one who lived in Brice’s shadow. So I swiped some of Mom’s cigarettes and a lighter. I was showing off with them, letting Brice know I could be a daredevil too. Brice wouldn’t be outdone. He grabbed the cigarettes, stuffed one in his mouth, and lit it. I chased him, and he ran behind the gas barbecue and tipped it over, cracking the gas line. There was a huge explosion. It knocked Brice all the way across the patio. His clothes burst into flames. I ran to him and tried to put the fire out with my sweatshirt. A neighbor heard the screaming and came to help.
“They rushed him to the hospital with second- and third-degree burns, his face all but melted off.” Bruiser stopped for a moment, breathing as if he’d just done wind sprints. “He almost died. The doctors induced a coma, did so many operations I lost count. After nine months, they finally released him.
“Three months later, on the anniversary of the accident, we got into a huge fight. He told me he hated me because every time he looked at me he saw the person he once was. He said I cheated him out of his life. He went into Mom’s bedroom and shut the door. She kept a pistol under the bed. I’ll never forget the sound of that gunshot.
“I ran in there, expecting him to start laughing, teasing me for being such a wuss, but he was on the floor and his blood was everywhere.” Bruiser gripped her hand so tightly that it hurt, but Mac didn’t care. Pain and sadness shone in his eyes, along with something else. Relief? Relief that he’d finally gotten this childhood secret off his chest?
Draw Play: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 4) Page 24
