Break the Sky (Spiral of Bliss Spin Off) (7 page)

Dean looked at me. “Help out?”

“Yeah.”

I had nowhere I needed to be, not unless Mick wanted more help at the garage. I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to the desert anytime soon. There wasn’t anything to go back
to
.

And, unexpectedly, I was starting to like frilly Mirror Lake with its window boxes and painted white shutters. I liked Liv with her home-baked cookies, and Nicholas with his dragon shirt. I liked sitting on the terrace by the lake, drinking coffee. And though I didn’t like my brother much, I could deal with him.

Especially if staying here meant I could see Kelsey March again.

“I’ve done a lot of construction,” I said. “Had jobs laying hardwood and tile. I’ve done electrical work. Drywall. Painting. There was a house I was supposed to restore near Vegas, but it didn’t get finished. I’ve worked on a lot of other houses, though. ”

Dean scratched his head. “I thought you were leaving soon.”

“I can stay for a couple of weeks.” I shifted and shoved my hands into my pockets. “You, uh, you wouldn’t have to pay me.”

“I wouldn’t feel right about not paying you.”

“I’m not asking for paid work.” I wasn’t asking for anything. Except that I didn’t want to go back yet. Back to the dry heat and nothing else. “Look, if you let me stay in the trailer, we’ll call it even.”

“The trailer?”

“Yeah. It’s got everything I need, and it’d be much better than the hostel. Hell, it’s a palace compared to some of the shitholes I’ve lived in.”

Dean’s expression darkened. My fists clenched. I went on the offense.

“I’m not using anymore,” I said. “Been clean for almost three years.”

Some of his tension seemed to ease.

“That’s great, Archer. Good for you.”

“I can work,” I said.

“I know.”

“So?”

I’d never been able to read my brother’s thoughts. He had a good poker face when he used it. But he also had a tell. He always shrugged right before he agreed.

He did that now. “Okay. Thanks for offering. I could use the help, especially with summer coming up.”

“When do you want me to start?”

“As soon as you can. Let me know when you want to stop by the apartment, and I’ll give you the spare key to the trailer.”

“Dean, we should get going.” Liv approached from the garden, carrying Nicholas over the rocky path. “Nicholas is getting hungry, and I’m working the dinner shift at the café.”

Dean tilted his head toward me. “Archer’s going to stay in town for a couple of weeks and help with the house.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Liv looked as if she really meant it. “We could use your help with the time crunch and all. Thanks so much.”

“Uh, sure.”

Liv gave Dean’s arm a quick squeeze. “I’m leaving Nicholas with Marianne for a couple of hours, so you can pick him up at her house. Call me if you need me.”

Dean leaned closer to her and murmured a response too low for me to hear. I figured I wasn’t supposed to hear it anyway.

Liv smiled at him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before she headed toward the car with the baby. I started to follow when Dean’s voice stopped me.

“Archer.”

I turned. He leveled his gaze on me with unmistakable warning.

“I appreciate your offer, but you watch yourself around my family,” he said. “Because I’ll be watching you, too.”

I got it. I had a history of asshole behavior. I couldn’t hold a job. Slept with a lot of women. Talked our mother into giving me cash. I’d gotten into countless fights, did drugs, spent time in prison for theft. Dean had once beaten the crap out of me after I’d insulted Liv. He had no reason to trust me. No one did.

But I was also fucking
here
.

I took a step away from him, my fists tightening again. “What the hell do you think I’d do, man?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

I shook my head. I knew coming here was a stupid idea. Knew there would be hundreds of little cuts. Most of which I deserved.

But I’d be damned if I was going to run now.

“You watch me, then,” I told Dean, backing away toward the car where his wife was waiting. “You just watch.”

CHAPTER FIVE

KELSEY

THE WONDERLAND CAFÉ WAS HOUSED IN
a Victorian building at the corner of Poppy and Emerald Streets. A whimsical sign held by a sculpted white rabbit hung from the roof, and red rockers sat on the front porch. Inside, the first-floor rooms were decorated with murals of the Mad Hatter tea party and Munchkinland, with a painted, “yellow-brick road” staircase leading to the upstairs rooms.

Though I didn’t have much to do with the café’s daily operations, I dropped by every so often to see how things were going and to sample the newest chocolate confections or cookies. Plus, though I’d never admit it aloud, I liked the crazy bustle of the place, the noise of birthday parties, the lively chatter, and the way Liv and Allie were always sailing around like happy little boats.

Today, however, I had the added motivation of thinking it would be easier to ask Liv rather than Dean about Archer West.

When I went into the café, I found her talking to Max Lyons, Allie’s father, whom I hadn’t seen in months. A handsome, older man, Max smiled and stood as I approached the front counter.

“Max, Dean told me you were in town,” I said, after we had exchanged a brief hug. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks. It’s good to see you again.”

“And you’re just in time,” Liv added, setting a glass of water in front of me. “We took some ham-and-cheese croissants out of the oven five minutes ago. I’ll bring you one.”

She glanced from me to Max and hurried toward the kitchen, as if she couldn’t wait to leave us alone together.

Max slid his gaze over me. “You look great, Kelsey.”

“Thank you.” I was suddenly self-conscious. Max and I had gone out a few times months ago before he got busy with a commercial office project in Cleveland that took him out of town frequently.

I remember not being as disappointed by the waning of our brief relationship as I probably should have been. A successful architect, Max was as gentlemanly and responsible as they came. On paper, he was everything I should want, and our dates had been pleasant.

But that was all. Pleasant.

We sat at the counter and talked for a few minutes about his work and mine. And though Max was polite, intelligent, and a good conversationalist, I didn’t hear much of what he said because I was too busy wondering what Archer West was doing right that very second.

Archer had said he was staying for a couple of days, so he might already be gone. But he’d also said he was going to
finish it
. What the hell did that mean?

“There’s a new place over on Dandelion I’ve been wanting to try,” Max said.

“Excuse me?”

“Friday night,” he said, a crease appearing between his eyebrows.

“Friday night?” I repeated.

“I just asked if you’d like to have dinner with me on Friday night,” Max said with a resigned smile.

I groaned inwardly, feeling like a terrible person.

“Max, I’m sorry. It’s been a rough week.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said gently.

“No… I mean, I’d like to…” I sighed. Truth was, I didn’t want to go out with Max again, especially not when I couldn’t stop thinking about Archer. I wasn’t sure I’d want to go out with him even if Archer hadn’t shown up in Dean’s office.

“It’s just a bad time,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”

Max stood, dropping a few bills onto the counter. “No problem. Sometimes the timing is off.”

“It was good seeing you again,” I said truthfully.

“You too.” He touched my shoulder and brushed his lips across my cheek. “Take care, Kelsey.”

Oh, lord, he was so nice. My mother would love him to pieces.

The thought of my mother intensified my guilt. She would love it even more if I finally settled down and married a man like Max Lyons.

I watched him leave the café. I’d dated a number of men like Max over the years. Kind, well-mannered. Men with good jobs who liked sports and nice dinners. Men whom I always broke up with after I realized I was bored out of my skull.

And that always happened long before I’d considered sleeping with any of them. Hence the reason that it had been three years since I’d been “fucked real good.” Or fucked at all. I couldn’t even remember the last time it had been “real good.”

Oh, but it would be so much more than that with Archer West…

I grabbed my glass of iced water and took a few gulps in the hopes of cooling myself down.

“Here you go. I brought you a strawberry tart, too.” Liv came in from the kitchen with two plates of food. “Where did Max go?”

“I don’t know. Home, I guess.”

“Oh.” Liv put the plates in front of me. “He asked about you when he first came in. He seemed quite interested.”

“He was. Unfortunately, I wasn’t.”

“You turned him down?” Her eyebrows rose with surprise.

“Never let it be said I can’t make a decision.”

“What happened?” Liv asked. “He’s such a nice man.”

“I know. He’s perfect, actually. A perfect gentleman.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

“I don’t get it.”

No, she wouldn’t. I sighed. My sweet, lovely Liv with her trusting nature and heart of a lion. Not for the first time, I wished I had her goodness, her love for stability. I wished I didn’t have this dark, urgent pull toward recklessness and danger.

I shook my head. I didn’t have that desire anymore. I couldn’t. I’d spent so many years trying to eradicate it. I wouldn’t let a few encounters with a wild boy unleash my suppressed urges.

Except I was scared shitless they already had.

Liv went to ring up a customer’s bill before returning to where I sat. Though I knew she would figure out the reason for my question, I asked it anyway. “Hey, have you seen Dean’s brother since he got into town?”

“Yes, he stopped by the apartment yesterday, and we went up to the Butterfly House,” Liv said. “Dean told me he showed up in his office without warning. You met him, right?”

I nodded. “In Dean’s office. I hit Archer in the head with a door.”

Liv grinned. “Good thing he’s hard-headed, then.”

He was hard everywhere, I thought. A shiver of awareness traveled down my spine.

“So why are you asking about him?” Liv asked.

“No reason.” I tried to make my voice light, though I was glad to finally get it out there that he was on my mind. “I mean, he’s hot and all, right? But I’m not stupid.”

“You’re anything but
stupid.”

“And Archer is a total slacker.”

“Huh,” Liv mused. “Sounds like something Dean would say.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t make that assumption based on one meeting,” Liv said.

I thought of that night in the bar. My blood warmed.

“It is true that Dean has plenty of reasons not to trust Archer,” Liv continued. “But as far as I can tell, you don’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just what I said. You sound like you’re trying to come up with reasons
not
to be interested in him, even though you obviously are.”

“No, I’m not.” I shook my head. “He’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

Liv didn’t respond, only looked at me with her thoughtful brown eyes like she knew me better than I knew myself.

“What?” I said.

“That’s your life’s work, isn’t it?” she asked. “It’s what you love.”

“What is?”

“Disasters waiting to happen.”

Irritated, I pushed away from the counter. “My life’s work is figuring out how to predict disasters. How to warn people that a tornado is about to hit so they can get out of the way. I’ve already predicted Archer West, and he’s as destructive as they come.”

“You’d better get out of the way, then,” Liv suggested.

I’d had that chance already. Instead I was afraid I’d put myself right in the tornado’s path.

“The van got stuck on a muddy road outside of Muskogee,” Colton said. “I had the camcorder in my pocket, but it fell into a puddle when we were trying to push the van out. Ruined all the video. I did get some good stills, though.”

He turned the laptop toward me. Luke, Derek, and the others passed around photos and the log they’d compiled.

My conviction about the Spiral Project was solidified every time my students went out into the field. I knew to the core of my being, both emotionally and intellectually, that sending out a fleet of scientists and specialized vehicles to collect data would give us unprecedented insight into how tornados and storms formed. Our findings would lead to ground-breaking forecast improvement and could also launch my scientific reputation to a whole new level.

I wouldn’t give up on the project, no matter how tough things got. I couldn’t.

After we finished talking about the chase, I opened one of my folders. I had been dreading this announcement for the past few days. My grad students had always been so supportive and excited about tornado research.

“I wish I had better news for you,” I said, steeling myself for their disappointment, “but my meeting with SciTech the other day was a disaster. They didn’t like my results from the first phase, so they pulled the funding for the Spiral Project.”

My students stared at me.

“You mean for good?” Luke asked. “How can they do that?”

“They’d agreed to sustain funding if we had conclusive results from the first phase, which we didn’t. So they took the money away.”

A ripple of anger passed through the room. I held up my hand.

“That doesn’t mean I’m giving up,” I assured them. “I’ve already sent the proposal to five other scientific agencies, including NOAA.”

“But if everyone knows that SciTech killed our initial funding, what are the chances of another agency giving us a shot?” Colton asked.

Not good, Colton. Our chances are not good at all.

“I’m going to keep the agencies apprised of new data we’re assimilating,” I said in a voice I hoped was reassuring. “And things are changing all the time, so I’ll keep trying.”

That seemed to mollify them somewhat. After we worked for another hour, I gathered my stuff and returned to my office. There was a voicemail from my mother on my cell, and I called her back. Some of my tension eased as we talked in Russian about her activities and her gift shop.

“You will come for a visit soon?” my mother asked.

“I don’t think so.” Regret twisted inside me. “Not until summer, at least. With the tenure decision coming up and classes, I have a full schedule.”

“You work too hard.”

“I’m fine, Mama.”

She sighed. “You know I worry about you,
dochenka
.”

I tightened my fingers on the phone. I suddenly couldn’t wait to see my mother again. I’d visited her over the Christmas holiday, but that had been almost five months ago.

Now I had a sudden, sharp longing for my mother’s down-to-earth dependability, the way she cupped my face in her hands the minute I walked in the door, studying me for signs of stress, fatigue, worry, whatever. I wanted to be in her little Russian gift shop surrounded by matryoshka dolls, painted lacquer boxes, icons, and embroidered shawls. I wanted her egg bread, blinchki, and borscht.

I wanted her strength. For most of my life, I hadn’t known or acknowledged my mother’s strength. She had always been the peacekeeper between my stubborn, iron-willed father and me. But after my father died, and my mother was forced to pull me from the wreckage of self-destruction while also fighting her own battles, I realized she had always been stronger than me and my father combined.

“Kseniya?”

“I’m here.” I straightened, clearing my throat. “I’ll come and visit as soon as I can.”

“The university had better give you a vacation after all this work you do,” she said. “I will talk to the board of trustees myself if they do not.”

That made me smile. I didn’t doubt she would.

“It’ll be over soon,” I promised.

“Next time you come, you bring me more
pysanky
.”

“I will.
Ya tebya lyublyu
.”

“
Ya tebya lyublyu
, Kseniya.”

I ended the call and logged in to my computer to check email. There was a message from Stan reminding me about the deadline for my tenure review file, and another from the NOAA grant department declining to fund the Spiral Project.