"It's a hobby," I insisted, feeling odd at admitting it was more.
"It's a passion," he corrected, shaking his head. "Don't do that shit."
"What?"
"Play something down that you enjoy. What's the point of that?"
"Self-preservation," I admitted, not knowing what possessed me to do so, to open up to this person. Of all of those in the world.
"Because someone belittled this," he assumed, motioning to my picture.
I was finding it hard to swallow as I nodded. "Yes."
"Your parents."
"Yes."
"You could draw like this as a kid?"
"Probably better," I told him. "I practiced more. Now, it is mostly about work designs."
"Better than this, and someone talked shit about it," he went on, sounding like he could only half-believe it. "That sucks, duchess. Your parents were fuckheads."
"Yes, they were," I agreed. "When I was thirteen," I started, almost feeling like I was going to burst if I didn't get the words out, the desire to share something very foreign to me, but in this situation, seemingly unstoppable, "I didn't have any money to buy my mom a birthday present. There was never any money for anything," I added, shrugging off something that was my driving force in life - the desire to get out of that crushing poverty. "But I wanted to get her something because my dad usually forgot. And then she would cry and drink and get mean about it."
"And you were the only target in sight," he guessed.
"Yeah," I admitted, looking off into the fire. "So I spent two weeks making this really intricate family portrait. It was good," I added. "Looked exactly like all of us. I even made this little makeshift frame for it out of woven sticks from the woods behind the house. I wrapped it up and gave it to her."
"What'd she say, duchess?" he asked, seeming to sense my need to say it, and also the need to have encouragement to get it out.
"She said I made her look like a monster. Then lit it up with the edge of her cigarette. It burned up right there in the kitchen sink. All that work," I added, the pain still a raw thing, right there in my heart. Even after all these years. Even with an adult mind that knew my mother for what she was - an abusive, alcoholic, selfish woman who had no more love for me than a dog had for his fleas.
"Your mom was a bitch," he said, the crassness making a smile tug at my lips.
"Yes, she was. Is, I imagine," I added.
"How long ago did you cut ties?"
"The day I graduated high school. I never looked back. But she's alive out there somewhere still."
"How can you be sure?"
"She sends letters," I admitted, cringing like I did every single time Mateo would bring me the mail, and I would see her handwriting there. "To my office in the city."
"What does she write?"
"Nasty things. About how I would never be where I am without her. Or how I owe her."
"Tell me you never sent her a dime."
"I sent her exactly forty dollars," I told him. At his curious brow raise, I shrugged. "That was the cost for my one and only art class before she declared I was no Michelangelo, and that she wasn't wasting her hard-earned money trying to teach a cow to speak Spanish."
"Good for you," he said, giving me those warm eyes paired with a warm smile that did that gosh darn warm thing to my insides yet again.
"You really think I could make a go of this?" I asked, taking my pad away from him, flipping the pages, and closing the cover.
"Absolutely. Won't promise you you'll make a fortune, but you could sell this stuff. People would buy it."
"Whose name will I be signing on it?" I asked, feeling my stomach churn a little at the idea of having to be someone new.
"You get to keep your first name. Time and time again, I find that changing a first name is a recipe for disaster. And since there is no clever way to cut down your first name, you'll keep it as-is. Your last names will have to go though."
"I can live with that. They're my mother and father's names anyway."
"Both?" he asked.
"Yeah. My mom's last name was Blythe. And since my dad, a Meuller, was a deadbeat who dropped in and out of her life, she said she'd be damned if she gave me his last name only. So she hyphenated to help make school paperwork and everything easier."
"Why didn't you change it before you started your career?"
"It wasn't a conscious choice. I was making moves in the design business, using my name because it was my name. I didn't have the time to try to change all my papers. Then, suddenly, someone important got a hold of one of my bags. And it was too late. My name was my identity in the business."
"Well, how do you feel about being a Livingston?"
"I can live with that," I agreed, glad it wasn't something ridiculous.
"Good. Now, what is for lunch?"
"Remember those sandwiches you spoke so highly of?" I asked as I got up to go to the fridge where I had put a few bowls of ice around his lunch to keep it cool. "I made you two turkey, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on rye," I told him, holding out the plate.
"You seriously not going to eat again?" he asked, looking actually angry at the very idea.
"I have a sandwich too," I informed him with a chin lift. "Well, I don't think you can call it a sandwich without bread."
"How can it not have bread?" he asked, taking his food over to the table to eat, and I felt a surging feeling inside at the idea of him being so eager to eat something I made him, no matter how simple that something was.
"I have turkey and tomato wrapped in lettuce," I told him, walking over to the table to sit down with him.
"And that is gonna fill you up?" he asked, eyeing my admittedly much less-filled plate than his dubiously.
"Yes."
"It wouldn't hurt this whole starting over thing if you put on some weight."
"I can't," I told him, shrugging.
"Can't?"
"I guess it is genetic. My father was always tall and thin. My mom was almost gaunt-looking all my life. I used to be insecure about it, try to cram carbs and fat and sugar. But it never did anything but make me feel sluggish."
I had learned to embrace it, the thinness. It wasn't in vogue these days. Fuller bodies, curves, were the rage. I narrowly missed the days when mostly straight-up-and-down women were in fashion. But that was okay. I had accepted my long legs, my lack of hips, my barely-there breasts. I had learned to dress in a way that made the most of my figure, especially my behind. It worked for me. Even if it wasn't today's ideal.
"So the no bread thing isn't about avoiding carbs like those bullshit diets?"
I smiled a bit at that. "Your brain needs carbs to work right. I just prefer to eat them shamefully. Mac & cheese or pasta," I clarified. "I'd rather have that than bread with my lunch."
"Fair enough," he agreed, eating steadily.
"Do you have any ideas on how I might make coffee without electricity?" I asked, sounding about as hopeless as I thought the matter was.
"Got a coffee machine right there," he said, sounding confused. My lack of understanding must have been on my face because he shook his head at me much the way a teacher might to a student who asked a really ridiculous, common sense question. "Prepare the pot like you'd normally do, but instead of adding cold water, pour boiled water over it. Though, that's a good reminder. Gotta get a French Press up in this place for the future."
"And maybe some solar panels," I suggested. "I mean, this isn't so bad," I admitted. "You kind of get used to, ah, what's the term..."
"Roughing it," he supplied easily.
"Yeah."
"If you, Big City, can adjust, just about anyone can, I imagine."
"You make me sound so materialistic," I said, not caring that I was showing that his opinion of me was affecting me. I didn't like showing that kind of vulnerability. But here in the woods under a foot of snow with no modern comforts to distract us, I somehow felt comfortable doing something that - in my old life - I never could have.
"But you were," I objected. Confrontation - outside of work - was never a strong suit of mine, but I somehow felt like this was important. Why? I couldn't tell you. But that was the feeling regardless of the motivation behind it. "You've made a lot of comments that imply I am spoiled."
"Because that's how you project yourself, Miss Blythe-Meuller."
"I never told anyone to call me that."
"You never corrected us either."
"It was a business interaction. Most people speak that way. With formalities."
"Well, drop them," he suggested, as though it was that easy. I had worked hard at this, cultivating myself, improving myself, being someone worthy of doing business with, investing in, being obeyed by employees. You had to project a certain image to be able to pull that off.
And, after a while, you become that person.
I became that person.
Happily, I might add.
Because then no one could see the girl I used to be. The girl in a twenty-year-old double-wide with an alcoholic mom who took her anger out on me and a father who popped in only to insult me, screw my mother, steal from us, and be off again.
"It's not that easy."
"You're gonna have to try, duchess," he told me, standing, moving to put his dish in the half-full of water and soap sink. "I'll bring in some more wood and water, but I want to get back to it while the sun is still out."
With that, he did.
I cleaned, drew, tried not to obsess, then set to work on dinner.
A chicken and rice stew.
It stole all the rice, but I figured we would get by without that for another couple days if we had to.
The odd closeness we had shared the majority of the day was gone as Gunner came back in, tired, grumpy, hungry. He ate, making no comment about the fact that I ate my food this time as well. Then he went into the bathroom, where I could hear him cursing as he scrubbed with too-cold water.
Coming back out, he had changed into soft black heavy sweatpants and a long-sleeve gray tee.
"Wanna hit the sack early?" he asked as the cabin got darker.
Seeing as there was nothing to do at night anyway without technology, I agreed, got myself ready for bed, then met him back in the living room where he had made the couch - and not the cot. The realization that he still wanted to sleep together - in the PC version of the word - sent an odd thrill through me.
"The fire should last a bit longer," he told me, turning away from where he had carefully stacked a bunch of logs before moving onto the couch. "You coming?"
Even with his somewhat surly attitude, yes, yes I was.
And as he yanked me back on his chest, mumbling something about how I would wind up there anyway, then pulled the blankets over us, I had the oddest thought.
This feels so right.
SIX
Gunner
"This is cozy."
The low, rumbling, deep voice woke me up in a goddamn blink, my hand already reaching for the gun I had put on the floor beside me.
"If I were Cortez, you'd be dead already," the voice added, and my brain was clearing of the fog of sleep enough to recognize it.
Not Cortez.
But an even more unlikely person.
Ranger.
"The fuck are you doing here?" I asked, voice low. Why, I wasn't sure, since I could probably have a kegger in this joint without waking up Sloane who was curled up on me like she had been the night before - head on my chest, hand on my shoulder, knee between my legs.
Which, to be honest, was creating a bit of an issue when I was awake to notice it.
Because there was no way to deny that this woman was hot. Beautiful, really. And because I had gotten to see the more human - less cyborg - side of her all day, it was easier for me to accept my body's reaction to her.
It was all a front.
Not because she wanted to impress anyone - though I was sure that was a bonus she enjoyed - but because she came from a shit world, and she was doing everything in her power not to be seen as that girl with the shitty parents who likely came from a shitty area.
It was impressive that she had made her life what it was considering she came from those beginnings. I had judged her too prematurely, just assuming she was some trust fund baby, or some rich guy's arm candy.
But she had worked for every bit that she got.
A woman who hustled, who knew her worth, who demanded respect because of that, well, she was sexy.
Sloane was sexy.
And having her on my chest, smelling like those creams she smeared all over her skin, her long body curled into mine, her body warm and pliant, yeah, it was giving my cock ideas.
Ideas it needed not to get.
Since this was a job.
And you didn't fuck around on a job.
That was the rule.
The rule I had lectured Quin about breaking with Aven.
I wasn't going to repeat that myself.
Even though it had worked out for him.
That was the exception, not the rule.
The rule was you didn't fuck on the job.
Case closed.
"Helpless as a goddamn baby out here," Ranger rumbled at me, turning his giant back to me to go toward the fire, carefully placing a few more logs on it to get it going again.
"Doing fine," I countered, shrugging.
"Fine? Oh, you mean the half a drive you got going? Did you know they haven't run a plow down the main drag yet? Likely won't at this point."
"How'd you get here then?" I asked, watching as he dropped his ass down on the coffee table, sitting close, so we could keep our voices down. Which, well, wasn't exactly like him. Delicate and considerate were not words anyone would use to describe this giant brute of a man.
He was giant, first of all.
I was tall.
He dwarfed me.
I was in shape.
He made me look small by comparison.
His hair was black, eyes black, beard black, clothes... you guessed it, black. And if you asked any of the people we chucked his way to babysit - seeing as he was The Babysitter - they would likely claim his heart and soul was black as well.
To be fair, he was a decent enough man.
Just wild.
Just used to doing shit his own way.
He didn't put up with whining or laziness or emotional crap.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, he was alone in the middle of the fucking Pine Barrens, surrounded by nothing but nature.
That one percent when Quin had to throw someone into his temporary care, they quickly wished they had listened and done whatever Quin had demanded of them in the first place.
"A plow on the truck," he said, like I was an idiot for not thinking of that myself. "This is a new way of protecting a client," he added, jerking his chin toward Sloane.
"Her teeth chatter," I defended, not knowing why I felt like I needed to explain myself. He wasn't my boss. He had no say in how I handled my cases. And he wasn't one prone to gossiping since the fuck didn't even have a personal cellphone.
"It's a good seventy-degrees in here."
"I bet you that if I weren't right here, she'd be shaking."
"City chicks," he said, shaking his head, his voice implying that those words were perhaps the biggest insult he knew. Which, judging by the way he lived off the land, was likely exactly right.
"Did Quin send you?" I asked, knowing I had sent him a text explaining the situation.
"Heard the news. Figured this would be your situation. Grabbed you some shit to hold you over."
"What kind of shit?"
"Generator, some extra food, the connector you needed for the well. Gas. I'll plow you out, but I figured life would be easier with a city chick if she could shower and have heat." Which meant we'd be on our way. No more walking in on her sketching looking like a nerdier version of her usual self. No more of her opening up
to me about her life, her past. No more of her clinging to me in her sleep, getting her addictive goddamn scent all over me. It was ridiculous, but I didn't want to leave for some reason. "Unless you want me to pack back up, and leave you two to your own devices."
"What are you implying?"
"Just observing."
"How far out is the road not plowed?"
"About four miles north you hit the main road again. I can do it once I get some light again."
"What time is it?"
"About four-thirty."
Four-thirty.
And I was still out cold?
I never really did lose my military time, always getting up before the sun. It was something Ranger, Quin, Smith, Lincoln, and I all had in common. Much to the chagrin of Kai and Miller when we were working jobs together.
"Must be all the... shoveling," Ranger supplied in that rumbling growl of his, lips twitching up as his gaze went to Sloane's face. "Really makes a man want to stay in bed," he added for emphasis.
"I get it," I said, trying to convince my cock to calm down when Sloane made some soft mewling noise in her sleep, her body shifting over mine, the top of her thigh almost pressing against my crotch.
Soft.
She was so fucking soft.
She tried to be hard to cover it.
But once you spent some time around her, you could see it was all a front. She was just trying to protect herself. Hell, it sounded like she had valid reasons to do so too.
"You're gonna be tossing her on her ass in a new life in a few days," he went on, clearly thinking I didn't, in fact, get it. "Figure she's had enough shit hands dealt her way recently. Doesn't need to become a notch in your belt on top of it. Never to see you again."
"I fucking get it, Ranger," I said, voice getting a little louder. "I gave this speech to Quin last year."
"Yeah, and look how that worked out," he said, lips curving up a little. It was rare to find humor in him, unless maybe it was at your expense, like when he once threw his head back and laughed at Kai attempting to figure out how to change the oil on a generator at Ranger's place.
The Ghost Page 7
