Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“They had a family cruise planned and he said he needed time to get ready. I stayed with a friend.” Those old wounds suddenly felt so fresh. Open and bleeding, but in a slow, painful way.
“He’s weak. If my stepfather had ever suggested my mother not pay attention to me and my brother, she would have left him. I’m sorry he wasn’t strong enough to take care of you the way he should have. He sucks.”
She sniffled and laughed because that was a simple truth. “He does suck.”
“My stepdad is so afraid of my mom that he sent someone else in to convince her that me going into the military was the best thing for me. I was in college at the time. Grad school, believe it or not.”
“You went to grad school?”
“Well, I didn’t finish,” he admitted. “I was damn glad I’d gotten through my undergrad so I could go in as an officer. Your stepmom would have liked me. I was studying business.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a business degree. It just wasn’t for me. Why did you need the military?”
He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if their sharing was over. Then he set the glass down, and his eyes went to the windows and the lights outside. “I was in a car accident with a friend of mine. He was driving but it was my car. I drank too much, and he had to get us home. We got hit and he died. I found myself in a self-destructive spiral and needed to find some discipline. My mom wanted me to go into therapy, but I wasn’t anywhere close to being ready for that. I talked to one of my stepdad’s sous chefs at the time, and he convinced me the Navy was the way to go. As I’m still alive and not incarcerated, I think he was right. But now I’m back and I have no idea what I’m doing here.”
“I thought you were being a bodyguard.”
“Not the career I thought I would have. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. I’m in a state of flux.”
She was starting to find this man fascinating. “Why did you leave the Navy?”
“I had an op go wrong, and now I don’t trust my own instincts. It was time to leave. It was time to try something new, but new feels like old—as in I have no car and no house and I’m living like I did when I was in college. I think I’m having an early midlife crisis.”
She could understand that. “I live with a woman who still parties like she’s nineteen and doesn’t know what silverware is. She steals plasticware from restaurants because that way we don’t have to clean anything. I don’t have any forks. I thought I would have forks by now.”
He chuckled, and the darkness seemed to have fled. “David has lots of forks. They match and everything. We should all learn from my brother. Except for the tweed jackets. How does he think that’s cool? They have leather patches on the sleeves.”
He started talking about his brother and MaeBe sat back.
And realized she was in real trouble with this man.
Chapter Three
Kyle Hawthorne was the most frustrating man she’d ever met.
She looked over to where he sat at one of the tables arranged around Top’s private banquet room, a beer in his hand. He wasn’t sitting with the rest of his team. He’d selected a place toward the back of the big space where he could almost disappear in the shadows. She was worried he might disappear altogether.
“Hey, how’s it going with the lawyer? I heard things went weird.”
She turned to her side and Kori Ferguson was standing there, a drink in her hand. There was an umbrella in that drink, but then there were a whole bunch of those since Beck and his girlfriend, Kim, had a sense of whimsy when it came to engagement/going away parties. His future wife was also his old one. This would be their second wedding. Big things had been happening at McKay-Taggart the last six or so weeks. Kimberly Solomon had been located and retrieved. Tasha Taggart had been catfished by a CIA operative, and Big Tag was still bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t been able to murder the dude because Kim had gotten there first.
Not that she’d been a part of that op. She’d been in her cube working tech for her friends and wondering why Kyle watched her but didn’t approach since that night when they’d connected. He’d been polite and nice and standoffish, so she’d let herself be set up.
She’d also gotten herself a brand-new apartment. Without a roommate. She was inching toward whole-ass adult status, and it felt good. Even if rejection still hurt. There were more fish in the sea than Kyle Hawthorne.