It Takes Two (10 page)

And it would prove to Emma that Isabelle was still adventurous and willing to go along with Emma’s crazy plans.

Isabelle sighed. “I
have
to tell him everything.”

“Yes. And you also have to help find the magical dragon pendant and deliver it to the drop site in the Black Hills.”

A magical dragon pendant? How could she say no to that?

Emma grinned knowingly and Isabelle felt the tension leave her body.

“What does this entail, exactly?” Isabelle asked, trying not to let on how intrigued she really was.

“I don’t know.” Emma’s grin grew. “From here it’s up to Big Time. They’ll send you messages and missions and stuff, I guess…and you do them. And enjoy. Oh, and Shane doesn’t know about it. He won’t be getting messages—only you. It’ll be more fun that way, don’t you think?”

Isabelle wasn’t sure what Shane would think about this, but she was in. How could it not be a good time? Besides, it was clearly making Emma happy. She thought she was helping.

If nothing else, Isabelle could—and would—play along for those reasons.

“A magical dragon pendant, huh?”

Emma jumped up and grabbed her in a tight hug. “Enjoy it, okay?”

“I love you, Em.” And she did. She really did.

Isabelle almost tripped over Shane when she stepped out of her front door ten minutes later. He hadn’t been there when she’d been loading the car, so he’d obviously just arrived.

He hadn’t called, texted or come over since their Wednesday night hook-up, but she wasn’t at all surprised to see him.

“Emma told you what time I was leaving?”

“Yep.”

Shane stretched to his feet from his seat on the top step. “I threw my bag in the backseat of your car so I don’t have to strap it on my bike.”

She glanced at her car. “What if you need to bring it back with you on the bike?”

“You mean if the trip sucks and we break up?”

She flinched slightly at the words. It was what she was thinking, but hearing him put it like that—and in that pissed-off tone of voice—made it hard to swallow.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said quietly.

“How about we not start all of that first thing in the morning?” he asked.

She didn’t especially want to get into all of it
ever
. She wanted it to all be fine and turn out that they were madly in love when it was all over.

“Fine. You want coffee?”

“No.”

Okay. Shane was crabby about something. Which for anyone else would be fine. It was early and there was some definite tension in them both about this trip. But this was worse. Shane was never annoyed with
her
. The last time he’d been frustrated was when she’d gotten mad about the Vegas trip and he thought she wasn’t listening to his explanation.

Until Vegas, they hadn’t fought at all since they’d started dating.

Well, they had a nice long drive ahead of them for him to cool off.

“Then I guess we should go,” she said.

“Guess so.”

She didn’t want to go. Suddenly in that moment she was seized with the desire to grab him, hold on and take him to bed.

But they had to do this. They couldn’t stay in bed forever.

The trip would be fine. Great even. If nothing else, she was going to be in the car by herself for hours. She could listen to whatever she wanted on the radio. Or nothing at all. She could listen to a new audiobook. She could sing to herself. The options were endless.

She started to move past Shane and was surprised when he grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him.

“Just—” he started. Then rather than finishing the sentence, he cupped the back of her head and brought her in for a kiss.

It was one of those kisses like the one in the supply closet at Trudy’s—soft, sweet and sexy all at the same time. It was a lot shorter though.

He lifted his head and looked down at her with an expression she could only label as sad. “Just tell me that won’t be the last one.”

“Why—”

But then it hit her. Everything had sunk in for him finally.

He had truly realized that this trip could end with them going in opposite directions.

Emma had told her that she’d been completely honest with Shane. She hadn’t spilled anything more specific than that, but clearly that had been enough. Emma knew all about living with Isabelle. But again, Emma
had
to keep loving her.

Shane didn’t.

“I don’t want it to be the last,” she said sincerely.

He looked at her for several seconds. Then he brought her mouth to his again. This kiss was much less sweet, but was fully hot. He urged her lips open and stroked his tongue along hers as he walked her backward and pressed her into the side of the car.

He tangled both hands in her hair, holding her still for his possession.

Like she was going anywhere.

She loved Shane’s size. She wasn’t tiny, but Shane could make her feel dainty in the way he touched her and held her. He often let her be the aggressor, but when he wanted to put her somewhere or do something to her, he could and did. And she loved it every time.

Now he had her effectively trapped against the car and his body—just like she liked it.

He lifted his head, changed angles and kissed her again, drawing her up onto her tiptoes and pressing close so that they were against one another from belly to toes. Her body heated and softened, welcoming him, wanting more.

Isabelle gripped his biceps, giving as good as she got, rubbing against him, exploring his mouth, eliciting a groan from him that made her tingle. She loved getting him going, knowing that she could do that to him, knowing that he needed her as much as she needed him. It was definitely addictive.

She started to move her hands to his back. She loved feeling his muscles bunching and moving when he touched her. But he lifted his head.

He stood looking down at her, breathing hard.

“Iz.”

“I love you, you know.” She wasn’t sure why those were the first words to come out of her mouth. But they were right. They’d said those three magic words to one another crazy early in their relationship. But it had been true after about two weeks and it had felt natural to tell him.

Like now.

Something flared in his eyes at her words and she felt his fingers flex in her hair.

Somehow she knew she’d been right to say it just then. He’d needed to hear it. How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but hearing it had mattered.

This trip was scary. It wasn’t about her not feeling those things for him. It was about the future and if it could be what they both wanted and deserved.

It wasn’t like she thought she’d ever
not
love him.

“When I was six, my mom brought me home after school, gave me a snack and then put me down for a nap.”

Isabelle frowned. What was he talking about? The intensity in his eyes was enough to keep her quiet, though.

He still held her head in his hands, their faces only inches apart, but she settled back on her feet and put her hands back on his arms, holding onto him too.

“She told me that I needed to sleep for a while and not to come out of my room. When I woke up later and went looking for her—I don’t even remember how long it was—I couldn’t find her. I looked all over the house, outside in the yard, everywhere. I called and called for her but…she wasn’t there. It took me a while to notice that the car was gone. And her purse.”

Isabelle gasped, but couldn’t speak. Her fingers curled into his arms, holding on tighter. She’d known he’d been in foster care, but that he’d been happy. He’d had a loving family—a huge, loving family—and he’d been well cared for. He’d only ever been in the one home and had eventually been adopted by the family. He talked to them all regularly and told funny, crazy stories about them with an affectionate grin.

She’d never known what put him in foster care or how old he’d been. She’d assumed he had been tiny and didn’t remember his life before the Kelleys took him in.

Clearly she’d been wrong.

He pulled in a long breath, then went on. “I don’t know how long I was alone. She’d apparently decided to go to a friend’s house. She had been upset about something at work and a guy she’d been dating. She was very drunk and was driving too fast and rolled her car. She was thrown free and died instantly.”

Isabelle’s whole body ached. She wanted to make it all better. She wanted to comfort him. To love him so much that none of that mattered. But she stood completely still, not moving, barely breathing, sensing he needed to keep going.

“The thing was, she was out on a country road that didn’t have a lot of traffic, the ditch she rolled into was deep—hard to see into from the road—and her friend didn’t know she was coming over so no one knew she hadn’t made it. It was hours before anyone found her.”

“You were alone that whole time?” Isabelle’s voice was scratchy from the tears that she was holding back with all she had.

He gave one quick nod. “I remember getting hungry at dinner time and eating leftovers from the fridge. Then I went to bed. I got under the covers and didn’t move until the next morning.”

“Someone finally came?”

“They had her I.D. They came to the house, I’m guessing to try to find family. I remember someone knocking on the door, but there was no way I was answering that. I was convinced that bad guys had taken her away and were coming back for me.”

Isabelle felt cold all over and she put a hand over his heart, wanting to feel his heat, wanting to feel his heart beating. “God, Shane.”

“The next day I didn’t show up at school. The school called mom’s work and were told about the accident. Anyway, it finally came up that I was missing. They knew I hadn’t been in the accident, so the cops came back and broke the door down. Scared the shit out of me.”

“When?” she asked. “How long had it been?”

“It was the next day. Almost lunch time.”

“Jesus,” she whispered.

“But I remember seeing those men in those uniforms, looking so strong and determined and
there
. To this day I’ve never been happier to see someone than I was to see them.”

Her heart was breaking. This man, this wonderful, strong, amazing man who made her laugh and feel things she’d never felt before, had been an abandoned, scared little boy at one time. He could have become hard and bitter. He could have crawled inside himself. But instead he was outgoing and fun and charming and everyone loved him.

A bright light bulb went off in her head. “That’s why you became a cop.”

“Yes.”

“And why you’re the life of the party.”

“I
hate
being alone. I
hate
the quiet. It feels…wrong to me. It always has.”

She felt some of the tension in his body release and she stroked her hands over his arms.

“I went from that—and it had always just been me and my mom anyway—to a house full of kids. There were twelve of us and there wasn’t a prayer for quiet or alone. And I loved it. I stirred most of it up. Not that it was hard to do.”

Isabelle felt a smile pull at her lips. “I don’t have a bit of trouble picturing you as the instigator.”

“Then one of my foster brothers got sick. Well, he was sick to start with. His mom had used drugs and his heart was bad. He got sick and I remember them telling us all that we had to be quiet and couldn’t play hard and to not mess around because Paul didn’t feel good and needed to rest. Then he passed away and our dad kept telling us we had to be quiet and play nicely because Mom was so sad and she needed time to be by herself and rest.”

He drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a quick huff.

“I fucking
hate
quiet and peaceful, Iz. It reminds me of being sad and scared. I like the laughter. I like music and friends and having a good time.”

She stared into those big brown eyes, not sure what to do, if there was anything she could do. “Let’s stay here,” she finally blurted.

He sighed, then dropped his hands. “No. That’s not why I told you.”

She didn’t let go of him when he tried to step back. “I know. You told me so I would understand. And I do. I can deal with all of that, Shane. I can do that for you. Let’s stay here. Forget all this crazy talk about my…knitting.” She could so ignore all of her issues if it brought back the happy, fun Shane. She hated seeing him sad or stressed.

He stepped back in spite of her hold. “You know what? I might go for that if I hadn’t talked to Emma last night.”

Isabelle scowled at that. “Emma’s a big talker. But her longest meaningful relationship has been about three months.”

“Wrong. Her longest meaningful relationship has been twenty-six years. With you.”

Dammit.

“You haven’t been
really
truly you with me, Iz,” he went on. “And I’ve made a lot of assumptions about our relationship based on what I thought I knew.”

“But this all sounds so stupid,” she said. “We’re talking about possibly breaking up because I like to knit and you don’t know how to sit still.” People didn’t break up because of knitting. But they did break up because their lives didn’t fit together.