Remi Ford was shit-faced. She was one of those charming, adorable drunks who just got happier and more excited to talk to people until she fell asleep.
By Brick’s guesstimate, she was about ten minutes from falling facedown on the bar and snoring.
She didn’t notice when he took the half-empty glass out of her hand as she questioned the Ashburn twins about island gossip.
“I’m going to walk our little problem home,” he told Darius, nodding in Remi’s direction. She was so close to Walter Ashburn’s face, it looked like she was trying to breathe the same air.
“Sure you don’t mind?” his partner asked.
Brick shook his head. “She’s less of a pain in the ass when she’s drunk.”
Unlike Sober Remi, Drunk Remi let him take care of her. Besides, there was no way he was letting anyone else see her home. He didn’t trust anyone else to pour her into bed.
He ducked into the office to grab his gear. When he came back out, she had wandered over to a table of two couples on their monthly date night. Apparently they were discussing the craziest things they’d ever done and whether or not they’d do them again. A topic no doubt broached by Remi.
It was yet another thing he appreciated about her. She abhorred small talk. If she walked up to a stranger at a party, she was more likely to ask them about the complexities of their relationship with a parent or what had been the best thing to happen to them that week. They’d had a lot of those conversations in his first year or two on the island.
“Come on, Remi,” he said, steering her back to the bar. “Time to go.”
She leaned way back to look up at him and then grinned. “Hi, Brick,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Hi.”
“You’re so tall,” she said earnestly.
“You’re very observant,” he said dryly, stuffing her into her coat and zipping it up to her chin.
“It’s one of my favorite things about you. Do you want to know what the other ones are?” she asked.
“No.”
He searched her pockets and found only one glove. Not a surprise. He put his own gloves over her tiny hands and led her out the back.
“Where are we going? Are we going to go do something crazy?” she asked, bouncing on her toes and looking hopeful. Drunk Remi was also Do Something Crazy Remi, which was exactly why no one else was going to get the chance to walk her home.
“Sure. But first we’re going to stop by your place.”
“Okay. And then we’re going on an adventure, right?” she clarified, her green eyes wide and hopeful.
“Yep.” She’d be ready to pass out by the time they got to the cottage. He took her hand and tugged her with him down the sidewalk. It was late, and fat flakes of snow drifted lazily toward the earth.
“Have we done this before?” she asked. “This feels vaguely familiar.”
He’d walked Drunk Remi home on more than a few occasions. Especially in her early twenties when the wild child in flowing sundresses couldn’t help but attract freaking day-tripping fudgies—fudge-shopping tourists—and vacationers with dicks. Men fell for her on sight when she was sober. And when she was half in the bag, the woman was fucking irresistible.
“Brick, your hand is going to get cold,” she said, holding up his bare hand.
“I’ll survive,” he promised her.
“Here. I’ll keep it warm for you,” she said, stuffing his hand wrapped in her own into his coat pocket. “If you weren’t you and I wasn’t me, this would be pretty romantic.”
“Do you wish I wasn’t me?” he asked before catching himself.
“I wish I wasn’t me,” she confessed. “I mostly like you being you.”
“Mostly, huh?” He couldn’t help but smile just a little.
She leaned into his arm, resting her face on his sleeve. “You are really good-looking. Do you know that, Brick? I mean. You just have the whole big, bearded lumberjack deal going on.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s only the best kind of thing. I bet women fall in love with you left and right.”
He decided it was wiser not to answer her and was relieved when she lapsed into silence next to him.
He’d known the second she walked into the bar. The atmosphere changed on a dime. The air electrified as if a storm had rolled in. He’d come out from the back and seen her in that green thermal shirt with the right sleeve cut off just above the cast. The denim that hugged her curves in a way that made his palms itch, his fingers curl in on themselves.
She’d been wrapped in Darius’s arms. And despite the fact that he knew Darius was in love and that Remi had nothing but sisterly feelings for his partner, Brick had still gotten sucker punched in the gut.
He despised the fact that others could be so free, so easy with her. That Darius could hug her and not have it send his world flying apart. That other men could touch her and not realize how fucking precious that contact was.
Remi stumbled over a seam in the sidewalk. He stopped to steady her. “You okay?” he asked.
“Fine and dandy,” she hiccuped, right before she fell off the curb.
“You asked for it,” he warned her. Bending down, he tossed her over his shoulder.
“Hey! Everything’s upside down! Wow. Are you always this far away from the ground?”
He rolled his eyes and plodded on up the street.
“Brick?”
“What?”
“Did you know your hand is on my ass?”
“I am aware,” he said dryly. As if there were anything else in the world he could think about except for the way her denim-clad curves felt under the palm of his hand.
“Is that on purpose or an accident?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Well, since you’re grabbing my ass, it’s only fair I get to grab yours.” Drunk Remi had her own logic, and it was always, always flawed.
Pondering this flaw, he nearly took a header into a picket fence when she grabbed his ass with both hands and squeezed. Hard.
“Remi, if you don’t behave yourself, I’m going to leave you in Sam Earl’s trash can.”
“No, you won’t,” she said, alternating squeezes. “You’re very muscular back here. And tense. I think you carry a lot of tension in this area. Have you ever had a massage?”
He was starting to sweat and he still had two blocks to go before he could lock her in her house and run like hell.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I dropped your glove.”
On a sigh, he turned around and retrieved the glove from the snowy sidewalk.
“Put your hands in your pockets,” he told her.
“But then I can’t play butt bongos like this,” she said, smacking his ass in a rhythmless beat with both hands.
“Remi. Stop,” he said, feeling desperate.
“Butt bongo!” she sang, still slapping.
“Remi,” he growled.
But her musical assault on his ass continued. He was left with no other option. At least, that’s what he told himself as he slapped her on the ass. Hard.
She yelped, levering herself up until she was almost upright over his shoulder. The sting of his palm, the noise she made, both went straight to his groin.
“You spanked me!” she said in a hushed whisper.
“You gave me no choice. And keep it down or the whole island will be talking about me spanking you.” It was moments like this that had defined their relationship. Every once in a while, she snuck in under his defenses and made him reveal something he didn’t want to about himself. Like how much he wanted to do it again.
“That would be terrible. Because then they might realize that I kind of liked it.”
Dear God in heaven.
“You seem really broody right now. Do you want to go somewhere for a drink and talk about it? There’s this place called the Tiki Tavern—”
“We’re going home,” he growled.
“My home or your home?” she asked. “Because my temporary home doesn’t have any booze in it. It doesn’t have much of anything in it actually. I left kind of in a hurry.”
The cop in him wanted to jump on that opening. Why had she left in a hurry? Why was the fearless Remington Ford so damn jumpy? But he’d made a promise not to pry. At least for tonight.
“My head is spinning,” she announced. “I can’t tell which end is up.”
“Join the club,” he grumbled.
She was quiet again as he navigated his way across the snowy street past cozy bungalows, crafty Victorians, tidy fenced-in yards. A pristine coat of snow blanketed everything in sight. He still loved this place. It was his first real home. He’d chosen it over the freedom to go wherever he wanted, over his own marriage. Mackinac Island had his heart. And on quiet nights like this, when chimneys puffed white smoke into the inky night sky, he wondered how much of his heart belonged to the island and how much of it belonged to Remi.
“I missed it here,” she whispered from behind him. “No other place has ever really felt like home, you know?”
She’d always been able to read him with unnerving accuracy. “I know,” he said solemnly as Red Gate came into view. The lights blazed behind the windows, pushing back the night.
He tried the gate and found it locked. If she’d finally started taking all his security lectures seriously, something was definitely wrong. Carefully, he set her on her feet on the sidewalk. She stumbled and caught herself in the hedgerow. Grinning up at him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight.
“You’re a good hugger,” she murmured against his chest, seemingly unaware that his arms were at his sides.
“Gimmie your keys, Rem.”
“Hug me first,” she insisted.
“Seriously?”
“But first open your coat. I don’t want to hug coat. I want to hug you.”
It was not a good idea to let Remington Ford through any layers of defenses. Especially clothing. It was too dangerous.
When he didn’t move, she attacked his zipper and the velcro closures of his parka. It took her three times longer than it would a sober person, but she finally managed with a shimmy of triumph.
“Okay. Here we go,” she said. “Are you ready?”
He was never ready for physical contact with her.
She resumed her original position, arms around his waist, face pressed to his chest. Without the protection of his coat, he felt everything too much.
It pained him to slip his arms around her small frame, to pull her tighter to him. He hated how well she fit. He could rest his chin on the top of her head and breathe in her hair. “Did you have a hat on?” he asked. She’d changed her shampoo somewhere through the years. Instead of a bright lemony scent, it now smelled like exotic oils. Tempting the senses like a spell cast.
“It fell off somewhere,” she said cheerfully. “Keep hugging.”
On a sigh, he did as he was told because arguing with Drunk Remi was even worse than arguing with Sober Remi. And Drunk Remi used deadlier weapons. Pouty lower lips, sad eyes. He could withstand her annoyance, her anger, but he couldn’t handle her sad.
Peeling her face off his coat, she leaned back to look up at him. “It’s snowing,” she announced unnecessarily. It was always snowing on Mackinac.
“I see that,” he said, reaching up to brush a snowflake off her cheek. She cuddled her face against his palm.
“Your face and my hand are freezing. You should come inside so you don’t get frostbite and lose my face.”
“I would if you gave me the keys,” he said in exasperation.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she yawned, burrowing her face into his shirt again.
“Remi?”
“Huh?”
“Keys.”
“Oh, right. Check my pockets.”
Cursing, he dug through her coat pockets, coming up with two hair ties, her cell phone, and a candy bar wrapper. He found the cottage key ring in the front pocket of her jeans and fished it out as quickly as possible with two fingers.
He noticed she wasn’t carrying her inhaler. That would be a conversation for Sober Remi.
“I’m sooooo sleepy,” she announced with a dramatic yawn.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, opening the gate and wrestling her through it.
She was shuffling her feet like it took too much effort to lift them, so he picked her up again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and then stuck her ice cube of a nose against his throat.
“If I wrote Hallmark movies, this would be a scene. The sexy lumberjack carries the drunk damsel in distress into a secluded cottage.”
He got the front door open and stepped inside. It was warm and bright inside. The fire cast a cozy heat throughout the living space. He was right—she’d turned on every lamp in the house except for the bedroom.
“What would happen next in your movie?” he asked, setting her on her feet and unzipping her coat.
“The sexy lumberjack and drunk damsel would totally have sex,” she said, swaying into him.
“I don’t think you’re talking about making a Hallmark movie then,” he said.
He took off his own coat and pushed her toward a chair at the little dining table.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“Sit.” He nudged her into the chair and knelt down to remove her boots. Her socks were mismatched.
She leaned on one elbow and closed her eyes.
“Not yet, Remi. Water first.”
“Water first,” she repeated without opening her eyes.
He went into the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap. A quick search of the cabinets revealed an old bottle of ibuprofen. With both in hand, he returned to the table where she was now facedown on top of some paperwork.
“Come on, baby. Drink up.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to drink anymore. Can’t you see I’m practically swimming in alcohol?”
“I meant water,” he said, pushing the glass into her hand. “And take these.”
“Are those Tic Tacs? Is my breath gross?”
“It’s for the headache you’re going to have in a few hours, and if there’s a god, all day tomorrow.”
“You know what sucks?” she said as she tossed the tablets into her mouth and nearly knocked over the water.
“A lot of things.”
“Hangovers. I turned thirty and BAM!” She slammed a hand down on the table. “It’s like getting hit with a three-day flu. I hardly ever drink anymore.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, you think I’m a terrible person, so I can see why you’d think that.”
“I don’t think you’re a terrible person. A terrible pain in the ass, yes.”
“Brick?” she looked up at him with sad eyes. Her lower lip trembled.
Damn it. Be strong, man!
“What?” God. What was she going to ask him, and would he be able to say yes? More importantly, would he be strong enough to deny her?
“Will you please make me some mac and cheese?”
His shoulders sagged in relief. “Yeah, baby. I’ll make you some mac and cheese.”
She smiled up at him. “You take such good care of me.”
“I’m glad you think so, at least when you’re drunk. Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I’ll bring you a bowl?” he suggested.
“Do I have to?”
He went into the kitchen and found the boxes of pasta he’d given her in the otherwise empty cabinet. At this rate, he was going to have to drag her ass to the grocery store. “Don’t women have to take off their eye makeup before bed?” he reminded her, putting a small pot on the front burner.
“Good point. How do you know that? Oh, right, I forgot. You were married. That was terrible, by the way.”
“It wasn’t exactly a good time for me either,” he murmured.
“If you didn’t want to be with me, you didn’t have to go off and marry my best friend,” Remi said.
He stood there open-mouthed as she shuffled off toward the bathroom.
There was a muffled yelp and a thump followed quickly by an “I’m okay!”
“Are you sure?”
“Is my macaroni done yet?”
He rolled his eyes and turned up the heat on the burner.
She was singing now as water ran in the bathroom. It sounded like she was getting ready to take a shower.
“Psst! Brick!”
He looked up and then immediately glanced away again. She was wrapped up in nothing but a towel. And that towel was only covering one of her two spectacular breasts.
He was a fucking gentleman, damn it. “Uh. What?”
“Can you find me something to sleep in?”
“Can’t you find it yourself? I’m making you a snack.”
“Oh, right! I totally forgot.” She smacked herself in the forehead, laughing. Then stumbled into the bedroom. He listened to drawers opening and closing and a few muttered curses before the telltale sound of her small body hitting the mattress.
He finished the pasta, dished some into a bowl and grabbed a spoon big enough for a drunk to hold. On his way to the bedroom, he stopped by the bathroom to turn off the shower she’d started.
“Remi?” He knocked on the partially closed bedroom door.
It was dark in the room, and she was curled in a ball on top of the covers. At least she’d managed to dress herself. The Mackinac PD hoodie was huge on her and it was on backward, the hood bunched under her chin. He let out a sigh and put the bowl on the nightstand. “Come on, Rem. Get under the covers before you freeze.” He managed to pull back the quilt and sheet and stuff her under them without coming into too much contact with her bare skin.
“Do you want to eat or do you want to sleep?” he asked, smoothing the covers over her.
“Will you turn the lights on?” she asked in a small voice.
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
He paused. “Are you afraid of the dark, baby?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “I just need to be able to see him coming.”
Him.
“Who, Remi? Who are you afraid of?”
Fuck temporary promises. If there was a man out there who scared her, he wouldn’t rest until the scales were balanced.
“This is why I came back,” she murmured against her pillow.
“Why?”
“You make me feel safe.”
He stood there staring down at her, hands fisted at his sides as a wave of possession knocked into him.
He made her feel safe.
She’d come back to be close to him. That made whatever problem she’d gotten tangled up with his problem. And he was going to solve it as soon as he pried some answers out of her.
He turned on the lamp on the nightstand, then did the same with the overhead light before lighting the fireplace to chase off the chill in the room.
She was sprawled out on her stomach like a starfish under the covers. Unable to help himself, he brushed her hair back from her face and spread it out over the pillow.
She was bewitching. Even drunk and snoring, all that fiery red hair, that smooth ivory skin made her seem so touchable.
This is why I came back.
Her words echoed in his head. He knew he was going to get more involved. Hell. He was involved the second she’d turned the aisle in the grocery store. He was going to do the thing he’d promised himself he’d never do: Get close to Remi Ford.
Because there were no witnesses, and because he desperately fucking needed it, he leaned down and brushed his lips over her furrowed forehead. The lines disappeared, and her expression eased as if he’d taken away her worry with the brush of his mouth.
He was so fucked.
He forced himself to walk out of the bedroom before he did something stupid like climb in next to her and cuddle up against that soft, warm body.
Back in the living space, he turned down the fireplace and shut off a few of the lights. He dumped the rest of the mac and cheese into a container, washed the pot, and put it back in its cabinet. Next, he got the coffeemaker ready to go because a hungover Remi required almost a full pot of caffeine before she was functional again. He fished out one of the rainbow of cereal boxes and put it on the counter next to a bowl and spoon.
He heard an insistent buzzing and found her phone faceup on the table.
Pain in My Ass.
It was late. It might be a friend calling with an emergency. Or it could be a guy calling to “Netflix and freeze” or whatever the kids were calling it now. He debated for two more buzzes before his desire to know more got the best of him, and he swiped to answer the call.
“Yeah?”
There was a brief silence on the other end, and then, “You have got to be kidding me. She got a new number and didn’t freaking tell me? Unbelievable.” It was a man’s voice. An annoyed one. Frankly, if he was dialing Remi’s number and sounding annoyed, Brick couldn’t blame him.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked.
“Alessandra. Well, technically a brat named Remi. I don’t suppose you know her?”
“Remi isn’t…available,” Brick said, choosing his words carefully.
“So this is still her number?”
Seeing as how the guy was in her contacts and had called the number looking for her, Brick felt okay with confirming. “It is. Can I take a message?”
He heard the sound of something like a pen clicking repeatedly on the other end. “Just tell her Raj called and she can’t avoid me forever.”
“Maybe you should take the hint,” Brick suggested dryly.
“Maybe you should take the message, Secretary Boy.”
“Maybe I see why she has you in her phone as Pain in the Ass.”
Inexplicably, this caused Raj to guffaw. “Ah, that ungrateful little twerp,” he said with what sounded like affection. “Tell her I called. Tell her to call me back or at least answer her goddamn emails.”
Raj—whatever kind of name that was—disconnected the call without any of the usual pleasantries, leaving Brick staring down at the phone in his hand. His gaze flicked to the bedroom. It had been a stupid move, answering the call. One a sober Remi would have his balls for.
He needed a game plan. One that had her opening up to him rather than him sneaking around behind her back.
The easel set up in the center of the room caught his eye. He wandered over to inspect the blank canvas and wondered why she’d bothered setting it up at all if she was supposed to be using his space for her studio.
An idea struck him. If he could make the studio space inviting enough—instead of just shoveling things to the edges of the room like he’d done—it would give him more time with her. And more time together meant more opportunity to drag some answers out of the woman.
It also meant more time resisting his insatiable physical attraction. But he’d spent fourteen years building a tolerance to it. He could handle a few weeks of proximity. Couldn’t he?
After a quick tour to check window and door locks, he was satisfied. Remi was safe. He could go home and for once not stare out his fucking window, wondering what the hell she was doing at 3 a.m. with all the lights on.
Instead, he’d go home and start clearing a space for her.
He was halfway across the street when he realized whose sweatshirt she’d worn to bed.
