Barely two hours later, Brick woke to the light of morning in a new world. A world where Remi Ford slept beside him.
The night before felt like a fever dream. The light those green eyes took on when she came. The way she clung to him like he was her rock. The feather-light caresses of her fingers on his back. Her body responding to his in a way that was so right he couldn’t remember his reasons for fighting.
Remi’s confession.
There was work to be done. Preparations to be made. Battle plans to be drawn. Because he wasn’t going to let anything scare her, hurt her again. No matter what the cost.
She was sound asleep on her stomach, one hand tucked into his armpit as if she was afraid he’d disappear.
In turn, his palm was splayed over one firm ass cheek, anchoring her to his side.
Her hair spilled out over her bare back onto the ivory pillows like a river of fire.
The wave of possession that crested inside him nearly took him under. Everything was different now. He had work to do. Work that required him to do the impossible—walk away from naked, sleeping Remi.
Which took superhuman effort. Telling himself her safety was more important than his need to hold her for the rest of his goddamn life, Brick quietly climbed out of bed and went in search of his clothes. His underwear were MIA, but he found his jeans and shirt.
After one hit of old, cold coffee and one of mouthwash, he crept back into the room.
“Remi? Baby?” he whispered, stroking his hand over her hair and down her back. Silk on silk.
“Mmm,” she muttered into the pillow.
His lips curved. At least some things remained the same. This new Remi wasn’t a morning person either. He had so many memories of her slinking down the stairs at her parents’, hair disheveled, grunting good morning.
Unable to help himself, he pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade and, when she still didn’t wake, he nipped at her skin.
“Mmm. Brick.”
He’d go to any length to make sure his name was the only one she muttered in her sleep for the rest of her life.
“I have to run an errand,” he said in her ear.
She grunted what sounded like a mournful whine.
“Be here when I get back,” he ordered.
“Mmph,” was her only response.
He indulged himself and brushed that long curtain of hair off her back so he could kiss her neck. “Go back to sleep, baby doll.”
He fussed over the sheets and blanket for another minute before dragging himself out of the cottage and locking the door behind him.
He locked the gate, too, and hunched his shoulders against the wind that whipped off the lake. The low-hanging clouds, an off-gray color, melded with frozen waters. But in his gut, a coal burned bright and hot. Hate for a man he’d never met. Rage for the careless disregard of something so precious. The idea of living in a world without her was unthinkable.
It was a dehydrated, thoroughly wrung-out Brick who burst into his boss’s office ten minutes later.
“Well, good morning to you,” Chief Ford said, glancing up from a stack of reports and eyeing his rumpled appearance.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
“Isn’t this your day off?”
“It is. But there’s a problem.”
“Sit,” she said, gesturing toward the chair in front of her desk.
He closed the door behind him, removed his hat, and sat.
“This must be serious,” she observed.
He crossed an ankle over his knee and tried not to look like a man who had just fucked the boss’s daughter. “I’ve got reason to believe someone on the island is in trouble. Serious trouble.”
The chief steepled her fingers and waited.
“This individual was threatened off-island. I believe it’s credible, and I think there’s a good chance trouble could come here.”
Darlene slumped back in her chair and rubbed her temples. “What’s Remi gotten herself into now?”
“I didn’t say it was her.”
Great. Remi was going to murder him. And then who was going to protect her?
“Brick, honey. You show up here in last night’s crumpled bartending get-up, missing buttons, glowing brighter than the sun with two love bites on your neck.”
He slapped his hands to his neck as if he could feel his way to the hickeys.
“You and Remi finally got horizontal, and she told you why the hell she showed up here in the dead of winter pretending everything was fine,” Darlene summarized.
“I— Uh. We—” He couldn’t focus on the conversation and rebutton his shirt at the same time.
“It took you damn long enough. Do you realize how lucky you are that she held out for you this long? My daughter has the attention span of a gnat. If she didn’t feel something powerful for you, she’d be working on divorce number two to some idiot she met at Burning Man or an organic cheese tasting by now.”
Brick’s tongue had double-knotted itself to his tonsils.
“Erm.” It wasn’t a word so much as a gulp.
“Anyway, what’s my daughter gotten herself into?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said, thankful when his mouth formed actual words.
“Swore you to secrecy, huh?”
He looked at his boss, the woman who had given him a career, helped him carve out a place on this island, dead in the eyes and said nothing.
“But you came straight here anyway?”
Remi was going to kick his ass when she found out.
“It’s serious enough to chance incurring someone’s wrath,” he said.
Darlene swore under her breath. She picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk.
“It wasn’t her fault,” he said.
The chief’s eyebrows rose. “For once. How serious we talking?”
“From what I’ve heard, very. But I’d like to do some digging before I formally brief you and get my ass kicked for it.”
She blew out a breath, the pencil tapping double time now. “Okay. I am trusting you to get to the bottom of this. Figure out what we’re up against. How credible this threat is. What’s the likelihood of it coming here or—God forbid—her going to it. Then we’ll talk specifics. Whether my daughter likes it or not.”
He gave a curt nod and got to his feet, suddenly anxious to get back to her. To stand guard while she slept. To pump her for information until he knew exactly what he was up against.
“Oh, and Brick?”
He paused, hat halfway to his head. “Yeah?”
“I don’t like to give my cops or my daughters relationship advice. But be good to each other. By my calculations, you two have been circling this for a long-ass time. I’d hate to see one of you fuck it up.”
He swallowed hard. “Are you giving me your blessing to date Remi?”
She snorted. “I’m not an idiot, like someone else in this room. You’ve had my blessing since she was of age. Not that I was going to broach the subject. They don’t come better than you.”
She put down the pencil and picked up a half-eaten donut. “You two are what the other needs. But if you know my daughter at all, having my blessing is just as likely to push her out of your bed. So if you want my advice—which I’m giving you anyway—don’t tell her anything about anybody blessing anyone and quit wasting your time. You two have been tangled up together for far too long without doing anything about it. Now get out of here and don’t let anyone else see those hickeys, or you’ll never hear the end of it.”
Dismissed, Brick settled his hat on his head and he walked out with a distinct spring in his step.
Remi wasn’t in bed when he got back to her place. A lick of panic flamed to life in his gut as he checked the bedroom and bathroom. There were no signs of her. It wasn’t until he returned to the main living space that he saw the note on the table next to his neatly folded underwear.
I’m at your place. Get your ass over here.
The words were encircled with a heart.
Carried by both temper and the driving desire to see her again, he hauled ass across the street.
“I see you took my advice,” Spencer said, stepping out of the kitchen, a smug look on his face and a bowl of cereal in his hand.
Brick stared down at the toes of his boots and squashed the urge to toss his brother aside like he wanted. “What advice would that be?” he asked, trying to sound innocent.
Spencer punched him in the arm. “Remi’s in the back. Weird coincidence about you both showing up with matching hickeys.”
Brick slapped his hands to his neck to hide the evidence.
“Relax. I’m happy for you, man,” his brother said with a genuine grin. “Seriously.”
Brick reached out and squeezed Spence’s shoulder. “Don’t be happy for me yet,” he said grimly. “I have to go lay down the law with her.”
His brother snorted. “That’ll go well. What kind of lining do you want for your casket?”
“Flannel,” Brick said, shooting the smallest of grins over his shoulder as he stomped down the hall.
She was wearing one of his old t-shirts and singing at the top of her lungs behind the easel. Just seeing her swamped him with a wave of possessiveness. Mine.
Tears streaked her cheeks, and he wanted to go to her. To stand between her and whatever was upsetting her. But there was something triumphant in her stance, in the way she held brush and palette that held him back.
Shoulders back, head high. She jabbed the brush at the canvas. Her ability to not just feel emotions, but embrace them, always floored him. Where some sought to numb themselves, Remi welcomed them all.
He stepped into the room and stopped. She didn’t let people watch. She’d always been fiercely protective of her art, her process. Magnus hopped off one of the work tables and came to wind around Brick’s feet. He bent down and stroked a hand over the cat’s long tail.
The song started over, and she swiped at fresh tears with the sleeve of her shirt. He wondered what it was about this particular song that captivated her. Or haunted her.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there watching, but when her eyes found his, when her mouth stretched into a victorious smile, time stopped.
She crooked her finger at him, and he wandered down the ramp in her direction. Her hair was pulled up in a high tail. There was a smudge of purple paint on her jaw and flecks of blue and red on her fingers.
He was still two feet away when she launched herself into his arms, locking her legs around his waist.
The lecture he was going to deliver, the questions he needed answers to, fell out of his head as she cupped his face in her hands and poured herself into a kiss.
Her mouth was jubilant against his. On instinct, he gripped the back of her head and coaxed her mouth open so he could taste her. The kiss spun out into something wild and free, like her. When she pulled back, he tried to follow her. But she stopped him.
“I painted,” she whispered over his lips. Then she sank her teeth into his lower lip.
He growled his approval and gave her a nip of his own. “I can see that.”
“Look,” she said, turning his head in the direction of her easel.
It was hard to look at anything other than her lovely face. The shadows had been vanquished from her eyes. Selfishly he hoped he’d played a role there.
“It’s kind of just a draft. Sometimes it takes me a couple of attempts to get it right. But this was more of an exorcism,” she said, unaware that he was still looking at her instead of her painting.
He managed to drag his gaze away from her and focus on the canvas in front of him.
Dark purple bled into unrelenting black around two jagged, off-white splotches. Sharp, hard lines in orange and yellow divided the eerie night from the bottom of the canvas. She used the palette knife not so much to blend, but almost to rend. The bottom was a snowy white with scarlet red stains.
Brick’s heart started to hammer in his chest with recognition. He knew what she’d painted.
Pain, trauma, terror. Lights cutting through the dark. And the unholy splatter of red on pristine white. It made him feel. Rage, bone-deep fear.
A few colors on a canvas, and she’d made him feel as if his heart was being carved out of his chest.
She turned back to him, tears and triumph on her face, rendering him breathless. “I won,” she whispered.
She’d vanquished demons. She’d painted their likeness. She’d risen from the ashes in oils and color.
Remington Ford wasn’t scared anymore. But he needed her to be.
