Inescapable (Men of Mercy Novel, A) (13 page)

“Usually when someone starts a sentence with those words, it’s
never
any of your business.”

“—but you really don’t need an excuse to go and talk to her.”

“It’s really not any of your business,” Kai reiterated, opening the door and gesturing for her to walk out first. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”

Tally’s curls bounced as she shook her head. “It’s two blocks over. I’ll walk.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Tally rocked on her heels. “Thanks for the burger and you know . . . Thanks.”

“It’ll be okay, Tally.” The words jumped out of his mouth and he was as surprised by them as Tally.

“I know.” Tally dragged the toe of her boot over a crack in the pavement. “I’ll be fine . . . it’s just . . .”

“Tough? Lonely?”

Tally puffed air into her cheeks and he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “Yeah. That.”

“I know. It gets better.” Kai jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “Go on now. Get some rest. I’ll be in touch in the morning.”

Tally hauled in a breath, straightened her spine, and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Later.”

“Later.”

Kai watched her walk down the road and it was only when she turned the corner that he crossed the road to his car. He hesitated, hand on the handle, before jamming the keys back into his pocket and walking north. Artsy Tartsy was just around the corner, in the opposite directi
on, and maybe Flick was still there. He could ask her advice about Tally, get a decent cup of coffee, a leftover cookie, and relax.

Wind down, because dealing with bereft teenagers, running Caswallawn—living in Mercy—was damn hard work.

Ch
apter Nine

KevTheFirefighter: Rufus has got to be the stupidest dog in the history of creation. All lust, no sense.

DocMolly: But the sweetest.

AbbyM: More important, let’s discuss Mr. G’s outfit. The ruffles did nothing for him, and those heels were very Princess Di.

***

In the Artsy Tartsy, after a long day, Flick lifted the screen of her laptop, thinking that she’d pick up her email and surf her social media accounts in the now quiet, empty space. She loved being alone in the bakery at the end of the day. It was a friendly and happy space, a place she could unwind. Except that every time she tried to relax today, she remembered the tense conversation she’d had with Gina earlier.

“Please can I tell Pippa?” she’d begged.

Gina looked about ten years older than she normally did. “I can’t, not just yet. I need . . . time.”

“We don’t have time, Gin! You’re going to have to go home at some point, and Pippa will find out. Then Jason and, eventually, Rogan—if he ever comes back to town—will find out, and when they realize that I kept this from them . . .” Flick let the words trail away.

Gina put on her stubborn face and Flick knew that she wasn’t going to get anywhere. “Why not? Why can’t they know?” she demanded, shoving her hands into her hair.

Gina stared at her. “You and I realize that people are not always who they seem to be. That there’s always a churning mass of emotion beneath the surface.”

Yeah, of course she did. Life hadn’t been easy for Flick—she’d lost her brother and her mother in the space of a year, and her father had been a physical presence but not an emotional one.

When she spoke, Gina’s voice was so low that Flick had to strain to hear the words. “I’ve been a good mother, Flick.”

“Nobody is disputing that, Gin.”

“And I’ve been good to this community. I’ve worked hard, created an identity for myself. A good wife, a good mother . . . a do-gooder.”

Flick had realized the implications of what wasn’t said immediately, and, as a result,all she could think about was what her aunt had been trying to convey. Gina’s identity, her security, were tied up in how her children and her friends saw her, and her collecting didn’t fit into that image of the well-dressed, confident, efficient woman she showed to the outside world.

Admitting her problem would be, for Gina, the equivalent of standing naked in the town square, inviting the community, her extensive family, to judge her and to find her wanting. She would no longer be seen as perfect.

Gina had always had high standards, Flick mused, for her friends, her community, and especially for her children. They were part of the fabric of the town and they had an image to uphold. Coloring outside of the lines was not encouraged.

And Gina’s collecting wasn’t just coloring outside the lines—it was obliterating them. Mercy would never look at her in the same way. The gossip would be brutal, and she’d be knocked off her pedestal. Flick still didn’t understand what had caused her aunt to start collecting, but she understood, reluctantly, why she’d want to keep it under wraps. Gina rather liked her place on her pedestal, and she was relying on Flick to keep her there. But not being able to tell Pips was eating a hole in Flick’s stomach.

Flick heard a soft rap on the window and turned in her chair to look across the shadows of the empty bakery to the huge windows. She immediately recognized the figure’s height, broad shoulders, and long legs.

Kai.

It was ridiculous how her heart went from calm to a full gallop just because a hot man was standing in front of the door to her bakery. Flick stood up and walked across the room to the door to flip the lock. Kai stepped inside and she closed the door behind him. He reached across her shoulder to lock the door.

Kai looked around the dark interior of the shop and frowned. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

Flick nodded to her laptop on the table in the far corner. “There’s enough light to see what I’m doing.”

“What
are
you doing?”

“I’m looking for ideas for the ready meals. And I had an inquiry about catering a small wedding.”

“That’s great.”

“It is. But now I’m thinking that I maybe bit off more than I can chew. Your lunch reminded me that catering’s damn hard work.”

“Hard work never killed anyone.” Kai followed her to the table and dropped into a chair, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles. He put his hand to his mouth and smothered a yawn. His eyes dropped to the black screen of the laptop and he cocked his head. “Here’s an idea—you need the laptop to be up and running in order to do work.”

Busted.

“So, actually, you were sitting here and brooding.”

Brooding made her sound sad and bitter. Which she sorta, kinda was but there was no way she was going to admit that to him. “I was
thinking
.”

“Brooding.”Kai’s eyes flicked across her face.”Dark rings under your eyes, taut mouth, tension in your neck.” He linked his hands behind his head. “Definitely brooding. Want to talk about it?”

Flick had to smile. “I can’t quite see you in the role of agony aunt, Manning.”

“I’m not normally, but I’ve just done a session with Tally so I’m in the zone.” He sighed, dropped his hands, and rocked his chair back so that he was balanced on the two back legs. “You’re wound tighter than a spring and you need to let go. It’s either talking or sex . . . I can either listen or take you to bed.”

Flick felt the throb between her legs and the butterflies in her stomach went crazy. Yeah, bed would be a fantastic distraction, and she was tempted . . .

But it would just be another way of running away from her problems, of procrastinating. Gina and her craziness would still be there when she left Kai’s bed. She’d be physically satisfied but mentally she would be even more fried. Because she was done with using men as a panacea for her wounds, as a distraction . . .

She could justify sleeping with Kai once, but she couldn’t do it again. But, damn, she still wanted him. “I’d like to, but I can’t.”

Kai’s mouth quirked. “Yeah, I figured.”

Astute man. Or maybe it was because Flick had the opposite of a poker face—she had a shout-it-out-in-six-foot-neon-letters face. She’d never been able to disguise her emotions, let alone keep secrets. Hence her current Gina-related problem. She rested her forearms on top of her closed laptop and frowned.

Kai didn’t say anything. He seemed to know that silence was a more powerful inducement than an appeal to talk.

Flick propped her feet up on the chair next to her and tapped her nails on the table. “Pippa is my best friend, my partner. We’re cousins and we share everything.”

Kai just lifted one eyebrow in a yeah-so? gesture.

“I’m keeping a pretty big secret from her and it’s killing me that I can’t tell her,” Flick said, the words rushing out.

“You’ve been asked to keep whatever it is quiet?”

Flick nodded.

“Will the secret affect her?”

“Indirectly. She’ll be surprised, hurt, when she finds out,” Flick admitted. Damn, she wished she could tell him. Not only because it would help to share the load but also because she thought that he’d have an idea of what to do with the junk, of how to start. Kai, she guessed, wasn’t a man who was short on ideas, and he’d help her find a plan of action.

Kai was silent and Flick gave him some time to sort through his thoughts. “Is anyone in danger? Is keeping this secret going to result in physical harm to someone?”

Only if one of her children murdered Gina when they found out that she’d all but emptied her bank accounts to fill up her house with junk. It was a possibility. A very remote possibility but still . . .

“No,” she replied.

Kai shrugged. “Then you can’t tell, not until they give you permission. It sucks and it’s horrible but you chose to hear the secret, so you have to keep your mouth shut until you’re given permission to do otherwise.”

That was what she’d thought. Flick dropped her feet to the floor, swiveled around, and placed her forehead on the table, knocking it against the wood. “Dammit, crap, hell.”

She felt Kai’s large hand slide into her hair. “Hey, there are better ways to bang.”

A laugh made its way up her throat and came out sounding rusty.

Kai’s fingers massaged her skull and she released a soft, grateful moan. “Not the type of moaning I had in mind either,” Kai quipped, and she turned her head to look at him. His fabulous eyes were filled with amusement and . . . could that be . . . tenderness? Affection?

Yeah, no. She was imagining emotions he didn’t feel. The man liked her enough to talk to her, and definitely was attracted enough to want to sleep with her, but that was it.

“About this secret . . . It’s worrying you and you obviously need help to sort something out.”

“Yeah.” Flick moved her head under his fingers in a silent plea to get him to start massaging again. When he did she felt warmth slide down her neck, into her shoulders.

“Ask her if you can tell me. I don’t know anyone in town, I don’t talk to anyone in town, and her secret will be safe with me. Maybe I can help you.”

“You’d do that for me?”

Kai looked as surprised as she felt. Obviously he hadn’t been intending to make the offer. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, yeah, I suppose I could help you work through some shit. If I’m here and if I can.”

And he would, she knew that. Flick sat up and stared at him. Did Kai still have something of a white-knight syndrome? Was that the reason why a long-ago, now-dead friend sent her daughter to him? Flick could understand it, she thought. His strength, mental as well as physical, encouraged people to lean on him, to take a load off. He radiated control and calm and a can-do attitude.

God knew that she desperately needed some can-do. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” Kai yawned again and sent a hopeful look toward the coffee machine behind the counter. “Any chance of firing that up?”

Flick nodded and pushed her chair back from the table. Walking over to the machine, she turned it on. “It takes a couple of minutes to warm up.”

“I can wait.”

“Long day?” Flick asked, pulling her hair up into a messy knot and securing it behind her head with a band she found in her pocket.

“Long. Frustrating. Confusing. Weird.”

Flick tipped her head in a gesture inviting him to elaborate.

“The team-building exercise was long and frustrating, my partner Axl dropped in unexpectedly and went ten rounds with Reagan—you met her earlier.” Kai rested his forearms on the table and tapped his fingers against his big biceps. “I think we might have trouble with those two.”

“Meaning?” Flick grabbed two cups off the rack above her head and pulled milk from the small fridge under the counter. “Cappuccino?”

“A double espresso would hit the spot,” Kai replied. “They fought, which isn’t unusual—they fight all the time. But—” His words trailed off.

He couldn’t stop now, Flick thought—this was just getting interesting. “But?”

“But I sensed that if I wasn’t in the room, they’d be ripping their clothes off and banging each other senseless.”

Flick smiled at his grumpy tone. She pushed a button and liquid poured into the small cup below. “And why would that would be a problem?” she asked as she picked up his coffee and walked back to the table.

“It would be like putting a match into a tank full of liquid gas.”

“They are both adults and it’s their explosion,” Flick reminded him. “Speaking of adults—or rather kids who think they’re adults—how did your conversation with Tally go?”

Kai groaned. “As well as can be expected.”

“I know it’s not any of my business, and you don’t have to tell me, but how did she end up in Mercy? Why is she here?” Flick asked, knowing that there was a good chance that Kai would tell her to butt out, that he’d clam up, or that he’d change the subject. Kai, she knew, would rather have his legs waxed than open up.

“Now that’s a long story.”

Flick wrinkled her nose. Well, it was worth a try.

***

Kai looked at his watch and was surprised to see that he’d been sitting in the bakery for a half hour already. Time seemed to fly when he was with Flick, whether they were making love or just, it seemed, talking. She was easy to talk to. He didn’t find himself checking his sentences before they left his mouth.

But now she was asking about his past, which was a minefield he didn’t really want to revisit. But Tally’s arrival in Mercy had catapulted him back to that time, to the person he was before he was the Kai of today. Talking about it probably wouldn’t help but for the first time—ever—he wanted to share . . . something. He wanted Flick to know something of the person he still was, beneath the muscles and the good clothes and nice car. Because that person, that was a large part of who he really was. Part savage, part thug, all mean.

Maybe it would douse the warmth he saw in her eyes, the desire. Both could disappear when he explained who he really was, what he’d done. And it would be better that way; she would distance herself and he’d stop thinking about her, and that part of his life could go back to normal.

“Are you sure you want to know?” Kai demanded, steel in his voice.

Flick didn’t seem fazed by his hard tone. “I asked, didn’t I?”

“It’s not pretty.”

“The truth seldom is,” Flick countered.

Kai took a sip of his espresso and placed the cup back in its saucer. “I grew up rough. Very rough. No parents, very little adult supervision.”

Flick’s eyes remained steady on his face and she didn’t react to his blunt statement. Okay, then. “I’m not going to talk about my childhood,” he told her, pinning her to her seat with a fierce look. “I’m not going there.”

Flick’s expression didn’t change and her lack of reaction enabled him to go on. Oh, he still expected her to run, but she’d do it with grace and dignity and little fanfare. He hesitated, not wanting to jump, wanting to keep the status quo. Wanting to pretend, for just a second, that he could be a man who could be worthy of her, of something more than a hot, temporary affair.