The Law of Motion (Law Series) (52 page)

"You better," I warned him jokingly, and he grinned that perfect, sexy, crooked smile that was all mine.

He seemed to shake just a moment, and then steeled himself, before bending down to grab his hat from the ground. He tugged it on backwards and pushed away from the barn wall, giving me one last look as he walked back inside.

I tried not to look in when I heard Liam ask, "Where's the bomb, Myles?"

When the only answer he got was, "Fuck you," a scream tore through the barn doors and out into the trees.

I shook my head and walked away.

"Adrian?" Tink answered.

"No, it's me," I sighed, plopping down on the bank of a small creek yards away from the house, the barn, and all the craziness going on. "My phone's lost, so I'm using his."

"Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha," she chanted in her usual manner. "Need me to get you a new one?"

"Yeah, one less thing, I guess." I leaned back against a tree, feeling a little better. I'd taken an extremely hot shower after Myles's confession of touching me. I'd scrubbed until my skin was raw, trying to shake the violated feelings that I'd been left with, but it gave me a chance to think about his personality. "I have work for you, pixie. There is a second bomb somewhere, we need to find out where."

"Well, I have problems," she stated, almost groaning. "I can’t get info on C&K because once they remove themselves from involvement, records are gotten rid of. So I’m willing to bet the only one that can help us on that end now is Paul Neil or someone there."

"Oh damn," I whined, shaking my head. "What happened? Him closing the factory is why half of these guys are on this mountain."

"In his defense," she answered, "it wasn’t feasible to keep it open, because almost all of the waste areas were restricted. He transferred about seventy-five people into different jobs within Neil Industries."

"Seventy-five compared to the four-hundred employees that were there doesn’t matter. " I shook my head answering. “So what about everyone else?”

"Some," she replied, and I could hear her typing away. "I mean, most found jobs nearby...something different, but I guess some ended up following David and the others."

I grimaced, picking up a stone and tossing it into the creek. “Thanks a lot Paul."

“It’s not completely his fault you know. I’d blame Sir Isaac Newton.” Tink corrected typing on her computer.

I made sure I was in a comfortable position, because I knew that this was going to be good. She always found a way to bring science into our situations, and I never knocked it because it was who she was, not to mention I learned a lot of shit. “All right Tink, lay it on me.”

“Newton’s Law of Motion.”  She started. “Well, one of them. ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’”

I nodded remembering that in school. “But what does that have to do with Paul?”

“You know how you drop a coin in the water and it ripples? Well everyone is blaming each other when in truth; everyone is just reacting to the ripples above theirs.”

“Which would make Paul Neil closing down C&K the coin drop.” I muttered dryly.

“Not necessarily, because there were factors at hand to cause him to do that as well. A vote on the shareholders end, the economy, or whatever. It’s practically impossible to find the initial coin drop.” She lectured matter-of-factly.

I laughed, because there was nothing that couldn’t be broken down into science in that little head of hers. “Thanks Tink, you actually make me feel better.”

"Sure, no prob," she muttered, already preoccupied with her task. "How's it going over there?" she asked, and I could almost see her all-knowing smirk.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Don't ask. It's exhausting and foul. But I know they want to finish up here in order to find Zoe and Terry."

"Yeah, Jackson called...said something about Adrian losing his shit?"

"That, my pixie, is an understatement." I laughed humorlessly, remembering Adrian's show of pure ire. Though, I felt a touch of pride that I could bring him back to me. "He was truly going to snap. Not to mention Hunter, he’s probably going to catch hell."

"So I heard," she chuckled a bit. "I’m actually surprised that you are the voice of reason up there. Can you blame them, Chance? I mean,
 
really
?"

"No," I stated firmly, thinking of all the shit Myles had done. "But they need more from Myles, and Adrian and Hunter needed to back off."

“Finally, they are on the same level on something, and you put a stop to it.” Tink harrumphed, like it was a great disappointment that Myles was still breathing, but she said nothing else, except, "I'll keep looking."

“Thank you Tink.” I sighed glad that she was letting it go, because I was trying not to think about it. “How is my godson?”

A giggle chirped through the phone. "He's currently telling Kristen and Joanne that a nap is completely unnecessary."

I grinned, a chuckle erupting from me. "Well, that's a battle in and of itself. I'll call back when the dust settles," I laughed.

"Right?" Tink chortled. "I'm not sure who is more determined, actually."

"Exactly. I'll talk to you later, Tink. Let me know what you come up with."

"'Kay, bye!"

I ended the call, staring down at Adrian’s phone. His wallpaper was a photo of me curled up on the hammock in the back yard. I was laughing wildly when it was taken. And for the first time in a while I noticed, I looked like my mother— all dark hair, laughing eyes, and wrinkled nose—a thought that made me smile, in spite of the fact that I was alone, surrounded by nothing but trees and slow, trickling water.

I wondered why Adrian would choose that particular picture, when he had plenty of them saved, but he loved
that
one. I'd been laughing at him at the time, because he'd tried to join me in the hammock, only the damn thing wouldn't cooperate. He could have picked another chair like everyone else and he'd almost fallen on his ass. We all had been laughing so hard, and he'd just stopped and stared at me, taking the picture when I wasn’t looking.

A few more touches to the screen, and I was looking at the other pictures in his phone. Some were of the two of us when he felt like goofing off. There was even baby Makenna the day she was born, with all of us crowded around Kristen's hospital bed. Some more of Juan and I playing in a park, others of our crew at different times. And then there was just me. Glimpses of my sleeping face, or a smile caught when I was on the phone, or even just sitting on Victor's front porch, when I went to visit him for his birthday at his house outside of Olympia. The most beautiful one was of me sleeping on my stomach, and he'd caught the morning sunlight gleaming across my face. My hair was a dark splash across my pillow as my hand reached out to his empty place in our bed. It was the mere hint of bare breast peeking from underneath me, a bare leg that had snaked out from under the covers that was hitched up and searching for him just like my hand was, and it was the small, barely there love bite that was just above my right butt cheek. The way I was angled, with my hair and the sheets covering me in all of the right places made me look flawless. No scars. It was breathtaking and a touch embarrassing at the same time, because he saw me so differently than I saw myself.

"You don't have to snoop," I heard behind me. "You won't find any...incriminating evidence," he chuckled, kneeling down beside me, but when he saw what I was looking at, he froze. "Oh..."

I wanted to laugh at the pink that touched his cheeks, but his sexy ass crooked smile, along with the tilt of his head, stopped me.

"You're beautiful, love," he said without apology, shrugging. "I couldn't help it. That was the morning after our anniversary."

I studied the picture again, shifting forward as he took a seat behind me against the tree. I barely remembered dinner, or dancing, but I remembered not being able to stop touching Adrian. We'd barely made it out of the car and inside the house before we lost ourselves.

I huffed a laugh, but his hand reached out and touched the screen, bringing another picture up, then another and another. They were all similar, taken of me in some sort of state of undress. Some I remember him taking, because I'd laughed at his perverseness for wanting them, but some were just...perfectly secret.

"Adrian," I breathed, unable to speak much more than that, due to how much I could feel he loved me through each and every snapshot.

"Just you, Honeyface," he stated, kissing the back of my head. "It's always you."

             
I turned in his lap, draping my legs over one of his and leaning back against the other. He reached up and brushed a stray hair from my face, leaning in to kiss my temple as his other hand landed softly on my thigh to hold me close.

"I wasn't searching for evidence of other women, Adrian," I teased him, handing his phone back over, and he set it down beside him. "I just saw your wallpaper and got curious."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I love that one. You never see how gorgeous you look just walking around every day.”

I grinned, biting my bottom lip as I gazed up at his handsome face. He seemed calmer now, in more control, and his sweet smile was melting me.

"Are you done back there?" I asked, reaching up to pull a leaf that had landed on his shoulder.

"For now. He won’t give up the name of the guy you fought with," he answered, his voice a little gruff, but his hands were gentle as one caressed my thigh, while the other ran over the top of my head and down my ponytail. "I didn't kill him, if that's what you're asking, Alyssa."

I shook my head, twirling the leaf between my thumb and forefinger. "No, no...I wasn't. And I'm not sure that I care one way or the other," I muttered, shrugging one shoulder. Wrinkling my nose, I looked up at him. "He's an asshole, but if Hunter takes him, he'll never be released, so that works for me."

"He...put a
 
gun
...he fucking touched you!" The fact that he couldn't finish his sentences meant that his anger was still just under the surface.

"I know," I rushed, shifting quickly so that I was kneeling between Adrian's legs. I grasped either side of his face and kissed him roughly. "I know," I said again. "I was just simply telling you how I feel about it, baby. That's all."

I studied his face, tracing his eyebrow, his jaw line and finally his bottom lip, and he slowly relaxed under my touch. "Did you stop to think that maybe he's lying about that? He seems to live for the negative reaction, baby. He seems to like saying shit, just to set people off."

Adrian's brow furrowed as he absorbed what I was saying. "Do you believe that?" he asked, and I could hear it was an honest question, not a scoff coming from him.

"I don't know," I said truthfully, "but I do know when I woke up the second time, it was Kris in the room with me...not Myles. I can't tell you if he's telling the truth, but Kris would know. We could ask him..."

Adrian took a deep breath and let it out. "We could..." he mumbled, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"I was completely dressed when I came to," I added with a shrug. "I've been replaying the shit over and over in my mind, baby...and to be honest I’m not sure if I want to know."

"Well I
need
to know Alyssa," Adrian snapped in barely controlled anger.

I sighed, shaking my head. "Okay," I surrendered, holding my hands up. "I don't want to fight. I just don't know if it's true, baby. Maybe ignorance really is bliss..." I started to get up, but strong hands grabbed my waist.

"Don't," he commanded, but it was filled with remorse as he tilted his head up at me. "I'm not fighting, Honeyface," he murmured, his face almost in a pout. "I'm sorry... I just... I can't think of someone ever touching you against your will again, or hurting you in anyway Alyssa. I just can't." He took another deep breath. "I need you happy, whole... we’ve come so far," he said, breaking into a sexy smirk when I giggled.

"See this?" I asked, gesturing between us, and he nodded. "This is the happy, the whole, Adrian. You make me strong, baby. You remember what it was like for me before. So maybe if I don’t know, if I didn’t experience it, it doesn’t count.

"It counts to me," he whispered, "but I understand what you're saying."

"I'm offended that he may have touched me, baby," I explained, "but
 
I'm okay
."

             
I knew that's what bothered him the most—the possibility that I might slip into some sort of relapse. The guy was an ass, yes, but I believed he liked just getting a rise out of people—no matter how dangerous those people might have been.

The worry didn't leave his face, so I snatched up his phone. I scrolled through his contacts, hitting send, even though this person was just yards away.

It rang once. "Son?"

"No Liam, it’s Alyssa," I huffed, rolling my eyes at Adrian's fight for the phone. I smacked at his hands and shushed him. If he needed to know, I would give that to him, and I would just deal with myself later.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Is Kris anywhere near you?"