She kissed me and then laid her head down again, a restless slumber finding her. My eyes closed, and I let myself settle into a resting doze. One that would jerk me awake at any threat. One that would have me alert and ready to fight at the smallest, unexpected sound.
♫ ♫ ♫
When we got off the plane and out to baggage claim in the wee hours, Mac and Georgie were waiting for us. I was surprised to see them, but Dani was not, and I wondered when she’d texted them. Mac stepped forward and hugged her so tight I was surprised she didn’t yelp.
“Go with Georgie to the car. Nash and I will get the bags,” Mac said as he turned his eyes to me with a glare.
Dani nodded. Georgie wrapped her in a hug of her own, and then they walked toward the exit, arm in arm.
When I turned from watching Dani to Mac, he punched me in the jaw.
My face and body jerked to the side by the unexpected hit, but I didn’t raise my fist or return the shot. I just stared at him. His eyes were glowering in a way I’d only ever seen Mac once. The time he’d watched me get off a plane with four flag-draped coffins.
“That’s for sleeping with my sister and then letting that bitch near her again.” Mac’s words were full of anger and hurt. I couldn’t defend myself against either emotion. He had a right to them. But I also wasn’t letting her go.
When Mac turned and stormed toward the conveyor belt, I called after him, “I love her.”
He stormed back at me.
“What. Did. You. Say?” The anger was still rippling off him in waves.
“I love her.” And I readied myself for another punch, stance going wide, arms crossed. I wouldn’t stop him. I deserved it. I would punch myself if our roles were reversed. Hell, I wanted to punch myself for all the stupid shit that had happened between us and to her since I’d first accepted her challenge to play poker.
My repeating my admission of love seemed to take the steam out of him. He brushed a hand through his hair, meeting my gaze. “Hell… Does she love you?”
“Yes.”
He still looked like he wanted to kill me. “Jesus. How long has this been going on?”
“Do you really want me to answer that? The hows and whens or whys?”
“No! You’re right. I don’t want the details.” Then he raised a finger at me. “But if you hurt her or let anyone else hurt her ever again, I will come for you in the night.”
Any other time, I would have laughed at him. I would have reminded him that the chance of him ever getting the drop on me would be almost a million to one, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I nodded and said, “I’m going to hold you to it.”
Dani
REMEDY
”When the pain cuts you deep,
When the night keeps you from sleeping.
Just look and you will see,
That I will be your remedy.”
Performed by Adele
Written by Adkins / Tedder
Nash didn’t look happy to find Georgie in the back seat of the SUV with me when he and Mac returned to the car with our bags, but he didn’t object. He climbed into the passenger seat, and Mac pulled out of the garage and out on to the freeway that would take us from Ronald Reagan to Wilmington.
Nash and I hadn’t said much since leaving the theater. We hadn’t said much since leaving L.A. But we’d said the most important things. We loved each other. It seemed like those were the only words that mattered. There was more we needed to say. More things to figure out. But my brain was too exhausted, so it would have to wait.
I felt bone-weary. The rest on the plane had hardly been sleep. It had been filled with people’s hands on me, my neck, my legs. Holding me down and back. Each time I woke, my throat felt like it was closed. Both my neck and throat were still throbbing as were my knuckles underneath the bandage Nash had wrapped around them in the penthouse.
As if sensing my increased pain, Nash handed me a bottle of ibuprofen he must have retrieved from his bag and the water bottle I thought I’d left behind on the plane. I downed the pain relievers and then looked at all of their quiet faces in the predawn light filtering in the tinted windows. I noticed a red mark on the side of Nash’s chin, and my eyes flicked to my brother’s in the rearview mirror. His face was tight, and I could see the tension in his jawline and shoulders.
“Squirter, please tell me you did not hit Nash.”
Neither one of the men spoke.
“Really?” I said, anger winging through me. “You’re both ridiculous with your male hormones flying about like we live in the prehistoric age. Should I have hit Georgie when I found out she’d slept with you? Or how about when she broke up with you and moved out? Should I have hit her then? Would that have solved anything?”
Georgie snorted a half-laugh, and I knew again why I loved her.
“This is different,” Mac barked.
“How? Tell me how it’s different.”
“Because he let someone get their hands on you. Because he hasn’t once been honest with any of us about his family or his relationships. Because he’s going to go off on every damn mission and leave you sitting here wondering if he’ll ever come home,” Mac said, and pain radiated through me at the truth of his words.
I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around the seat and his chest from behind, giving him the best hug I could while he drove. “He saved my life. I wouldn’t have been able to stop her from choking me if he hadn’t taught me what
