Just Breathe (The Protectors Book 2)

by Leeanna Morgan

  Kelly leaned across the table and kissed Nick’s cheek. “I will. Can I borrow these prints? Tanner will want to see them.”

  “Of course. I am surprised he didn’t come with you.”

  Kelly looked away from Nick’s probing gaze. “We had a disagreement.”

  Nick patted her arm. “Life is too short for disagreements, my dear.”

  “I know, but some things aren’t meant to be.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Life does not always get delivered to us on a silver platter—think about Abagail and the journey she took.”

  If Kelly did that, she’d burst into tears. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Nick. I’ll ask Senator Jackson if I can send a copy of Mary’s journal to the restoration team at the Smithsonian. I think they’d like to know what it says, as well.”

  Nick stood up. “I am sure that would be very much appreciated. Take care.”

  As Kelly left Nick’s gallery she looked at the cuckoo clocks.

  If art was a reflection of life, then Kelly had no idea what the cuckoo clocks meant. The only thing they’d done was make her smile.

  She looked at a lime green bird sitting on top of the nearest clock.

  Maybe making her smile was the whole point.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kelly pulled some books off a shelf in her apartment and frowned. The fire hadn’t reached them, but they were water- and smoke-damaged.

  After four days of not being able to enter her building, she’d finally been given the all clear to come inside.

  The ground floor was a disaster zone. Everything in the store was either burned, covered in soot or broken. Glass vases and crystal glasses had melted, the display shelves she’d spent hours sanding and repainting were charred beyond recognition, and the front counter looked like something out of a horror movie.

  “Do you want to keep this?” Luke held a yellow cushion in the air. “It probably just needs a wash.”

  She looked at the other cushions on her soggy sofa. “Put it in the plastic bag over by Ethan. The other cushions can go in there, too. I’ll take them to the laundromat with the blankets and duvets.”

  Her entire family were in her apartment, salvaging what they could. It was like triage in an emergency room—if the item was damaged beyond repair it went into her spare bedroom. If it looked as though it had some life left in it, it went into her main bedroom to be reassessed later. If it was just a little water-damaged, smelly, or covered in soot, it went into a plastic bag or box for cleaning. So far, most of the contents of her apartment had made it into one of the bedrooms.

  Her mom came out of her kitchen. “The pots and pans are fine. All your cutlery survived, but I’m not sure about the electrical appliances. I wouldn’t plug them in—you could get electrocuted.”

  “I’ll ask Charlie to put them in the spare bedroom with the other rejects. I’d sooner be safe than sorry. Where did Steven and Brett go?”

  “Downstairs,” Ethan said as he moved through the living room with her Christmas tree. “They’re determined to save something from the store.”

  “They’re fighting a losing battle,” Luke said. “Apart from what’s in the vault, everything else is toasted beyond recognition.”

  Kelly bent down to pick up a Christmas ornament that had fallen on the floor. She bit her bottom lip to stop the tears threatening to spill down her face.

  “I’m going downstairs to see what they’re doing,” she said to no one in particular. Not that her brothers or mom paid her any attention. They’d gone back to the areas they were clearing.

  Luckily the stairs between floors were at the back of the building. Most of the fire damage had occurred at the front, which was why the windows and doors looked like a bomb had exploded beside them.

  Even though the stairs were safe, the fire department had told them to stick to the wall and watch where they were stepping. The last thing Kelly wanted was for anyone to hurt themselves.

  She walked into what had once been her antiques store. As she stepped over the charred remains of a piece of furniture she tried not to breathe too deeply. The smell of burned wood, melted plastic, and water-logged furniture was overwhelming, even after four days.

  Steven stood in the middle of the room, picking his way through the debris with a shovel. She didn’t need to ask if he’d found anything worth saving. The box beside him was empty.

  “Hey, sis. How’s it going upstairs?” He took one look at her and walked toward her. “It will be okay,” he said, folding her in a big hug. “After your store is rebuilt you won’t know yourself.”

  “There’s a long way to go before that happens.”

  “But it will happen. Why don’t you go to the café and buy yourself a huge mug of hot chocolate and one of Tess’ famous muffins?”

  “There’s too much work to do.”

  Steven gave her a gentle push toward the door. “That’s why we’re here. If you’re feeling extra generous you could buy another seven muffins for the hungry horde in your building.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Her bottom lip trembled. Steven was right. She needed to get away for a few minutes or she’d burst into tears. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Don’t hurry. We’re not going anywhere.”

  And for that, Kelly was profoundly grateful.

  She went outside and took a deep breath. As much as she enjoyed Tess’ company, she needed some time on her own. Sitting in a busy café, trying to look as though her world wasn’t collapsing around her was beyond what she could do at the moment.

  Her hands sunk into her jacket pockets. She bowed her head against the wind whipping along the street and headed away from town.

  “Kelly! Wait.”

  She looked behind her. Great. Her day had officially hit sub-zero.

  Tanner skidded to a stop beside her. “How’s the clean-up going?”

  “How did you know what I was doing?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’ve been listening to the police scanner, haven’t you?”

  “You should have told the police you were going into the building. They thought someone was breaking in.”

  “We thought the fire department had told them,” she muttered. Next year, the story of how two patrol cars had parked outside her burned-out shell of a building with lights flashing, would be amusing. Today, it was just another layer of stress she didn’t need.

  “Where are you going?” Tanner asked.

  “I need some time alone.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Kelly glared at him. It was better than bursting into tears. “Time alone means just that. Time on my own. Two people don’t count as time alone.”

  “I understood you the first time.”

  “So why didn’t you listen?”

  Tanner held onto her elbow and started walking in the direction she’d been heading. “Your bad habits have rubbed off on me. Besides, if you don’t get away from here and have a good cry you’re going to explode.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “How do you know that?” she choked out.

  “Because you’re angry with me…not that you don’t have every reason to be. But it’s not your normal type of anger.”

  Kelly wasn’t going to ask what he was talking about. The tears she wanted to shed in private were too close.

  “Down here.”

  Tanner led her along a narrow street and into the side entrance of a building. “It’s too cold to wander around outside. Stay here—I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He disappeared into an office and came out a few seconds later. “A friend is remodeling the office space upstairs into apartments. We’re borrowing one of the rooms.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  Tanner held her hand as they moved toward an elevator. “Yes we can.” The doors opened and he nudged her inside.

  She pulled her hand out of his and frowned. “I can walk on my own.”

  He clamped his mouth shut and pu
shed the button for the third floor.

  When the doors pinged open, Kelly stepped into a wide corridor. Marble tiles in a warm honey color, accented with a border of dark mosaic tiles, told her this wasn’t your average renovation project.

  Whoever the designer was had done a good job. The walls matched the color of the floor and recessed lighting highlighted the paintings on the walls.

  She turned to Tanner. “This looks finished.”

  “Nearly. Come with me.” He walked down the corridor, stopping at the last door on the left. When he waved the key card over an electronic lock, a green light appeared on a small box above the handle.

  “I feel like I’m breaking into someone’s home.”

  “You are, but don’t worry. My friend won’t tell anyone.”

  Kelly looked at her boots. “I can’t go inside. I’ll leave soot and dirt everywhere.”

  “Take your boots off at the door. The floors are made from solid wood and heated.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My friend told me.”

  Kelly pulled off her boots. She was beyond caring about whose apartment she was in. As long as she didn’t leave a mess she’d take whatever privacy she could get.

  As soon as Tanner opened the door, she forgot that she didn’t care about who owned the apartment. It was beautiful—too beautiful for her grubby clothes and bone-weary tiredness.

  Tanner went in ahead of her, looking around the living room.

  She stayed in the entrance, holding her boots, too afraid to move.

  “You can come into the apartment. It’s not booby-trapped.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you get dirt anywhere. A commercial cleaning company are coming in when the building is finished.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tanner nodded.

  Kelly left her boots beside the door and stepped further into the apartment. She glanced left and right, sure the owner would appear out of one of the rooms.

  “No one’s here, Kelly, except us.”

  She stood in the middle of the room and stared through the windows. The apartment had a 180-degree view of the ranges surrounding Bozeman. The bright blue sky clashed with white, snow-capped, mountains. It was the kind of view that put your life into perspective.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and walked toward the window overlooking Main Street. People were walking in and out of buildings, wrapped in heavy jackets, hats, and scarves.

  Most people had issues to deal with. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t change what she had to do—it would only make the whole process more painful.

  She watched a woman as she moved along the street holding a little girl’s hand. “I don’t need to cry anymore.”

  “That’s good.”

  She nodded and stuck her hands in her jacket pockets. “The fire in my building was started by an electrical fault on the ground floor. The wiring in the walls has been there since the 1950s.”

  “Tom Callahan called me yesterday with the news. I’m glad someone wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

  “So am I.”

  Tanner stood beside her. “Thanks for the copy of Mary Jackson’s journal. I read it over the last two nights.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Abagail was lucky that Mary looked after her. Alexander definitely didn’t want anything to do with his daughter.”

  “He would have sold her when she was a baby if he could have.” She glanced at Tanner. “Do you think he killed Anton?”

  “If what Mary said was true, he could have easily killed him. He had the motivation and the temperament. He was better off in Boston. At least that way Mary didn’t have to live with him.”

  Kelly nodded. Alexander Jackson had been a ruthless, cold-hearted man who made a fortune off slave labor in the South. His wife did everything she could to make the lives of their slaves better, but even she couldn’t have foreseen the level of his brutality.

  Tanner turned toward her. “I’m sorry about what I said on Saturday. If the building in Great Falls works out it’s probably a good idea. You’ll have a bigger client base and it’s a lot easier going to auctions further north from there.”

  “I’m looking at the building on Friday.”

  “That’s…good.”

  She wanted to wipe the worry lines off Tanner’s face, but if she touched him she’d cry for reasons that had nothing to do with her store. “I’ve been visiting buildings in Bozeman, too.”

  “You have?”

  Kelly nodded. “Jacob Green has been helping me. He’s a property developer and has a big network of contacts.”

  “I know Jacob. He’ll do everything he can to find a building in the right location.” Tanner took a deep breath. “I want to tell you something important, Kelly.”

  “If it’s about what happened on Saturday, it’s okay. You’ve already said you’re sorry.”

  “It’s not that—not directly, anyway. I don’t want this to sound like a pity party, because it isn’t. I want you to understand where some of the things inside of me come from. I’ve missed you, Kelly. Not seeing you has made me realize I can’t keep pretending that my past doesn’t matter. It does. It matters more than I ever thought it did.”

  He sat on the edge of the windowsill. “When I was younger, I didn’t trust anyone. Mom abandoned me and my foster parents mostly saw me as a temporary pay-check. At school I was bullied. I built a tough shell around my heart, Kelly. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to get rid of it, it’s still there.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

  “Yes, I do. From the first time I saw you I knew you were special. I wanted to know you better, but I was too scared you’d reject me like everyone else had. I’ve pushed you away so many times that I’m surprised you’re here with me.”

  “I needed to cry.”

  “I know.”

  Kelly wasn’t sure what Tanner wanted from her. She couldn’t promise that her antiques store would stay in Bozeman. There were only a limited number of buildings available for lease—even less with an apartment attached.

  Tanner looked as lost as she felt.

  “I don’t know what to do next, Kelly.” Tears filled Tanner’s eyes. “I’m not proud of how I acted. You mean the world to me and I ruined everything by thinking you’re like everyone else I’ve cared about. I know you need to reopen your business. Leaving without listening to you wasn’t the right thing to do. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Kelly searched her heart for the words she needed. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned since the fire, it’s that love and friendship are the most important things in the world. If it’s my forgiveness you need, then you’ve got it. But you’re human, Tanner, just like the rest of us. At least you know where your hurt comes from. A lot of people spend their whole life pretending they’re someone they’re not.”

  Tanner wiped his eyes. “Do you think we could be friends again?”

  Kelly stepped closer to him. “It depends on how good you are with a shovel.”

  “A shovel?”

  “Steven and Brett could do with a hand on the ground floor of my building. They think they’re going to find something worth salvaging. If you could give them a hand until they come to their senses, I’d appreciate it.”

  More tears filled Tanner’s eyes. He opened his arms and wrapped her in a hug. The gentleness and strength in their embrace said more than words could have.

  She loved Tanner Sutherland and she knew he loved her.

  ***

  Tanner tightened his arm around Kelly’s waist. “Don’t peek. I want this to be a surprise.”

  “Did you really need to put a blindfold over my eyes?”

  He smiled. “What do you think?”

  “It was probably a good idea,” she mumbled.

  It had been three weeks since the fire had destroyed Kelly’s business and ten days since he’d returned from an assignment in Chicago. While K
elly had been busy with the insurance claim, he’d been working on a solution that would benefit both of them.

  The building in Great Falls had been leased to another person before Kelly was able to look at it. She’d been disappointed, but hadn’t let that get her down.

  Jacob Green had shown her three buildings in Bozeman and two in Billings that were available for lease. Great Falls was still an option, but the buildings that were available weren’t in her price range. If nothing else came on the market, she would choose one of the stores in Bozeman or Billings in the next few days. Maybe.

  The store in Bozeman that Tanner was leading her into wasn’t one of the options on her list. “Just about there. We’re going through the front door now.”

  He took her to the far side of the room, stopping in the exact spot he’d decided would give her the best view. “Are you ready?”

  “More than ready.”

  Tanner lifted the blindfold off her head.

  Kelly blinked a few times before looking around the room. “Wow.”

  The knot in Tanner’s stomach began to unravel. The architect had kept the original character of the building during the renovation project, but introduced all the modern conveniences a business needed.

  “The building has the fastest Internet speed you can get. Wifi is available on all floors, including the store. There are heat, smoke, and security sensors everywhere. The landlord is happy to paint the walls whatever color you want, but you’ll need to decide by next Monday. The painters arrive on Tuesday morning.”

  “The windows are beautiful.”

  Tanner glanced at the stained glass panels above the main windows. “They’re from the original building.”

  Kelly looked up at the pressed tin ceilings. “It’s lovely. Are you sure it’s in my price range?”

  “Yes.” He hoped Kelly wasn’t paying too much attention to the heat hitting his face.

  She looked through the front window at the passing traffic. “It’s in a great location.”

  “The best there is.”

  “It’s so big compared to the other buildings I’ve looked at.” She moved further into the store. “I could put a partition wall about here and have an area under this window for my online orders.” She looked around the room. “There isn’t a kitchenette or faucet anywhere.”