I was not in the mood for breakfast food or the cheerful pop music on the diner’s speakers. For the second day in a row, I hadn’t woken up with that horrible crunching sound echoing in my head.
Instead, I’d woken up to Lina. And my asshole friend had ruined it.
“Where’s your marshal shadow?” my asshole friend asked.
“Probably still in bed. Where I should be. You interrupted something.”
“You should be thanking me.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I said just as the server approached.
“I can give you another minute,” he said hesitantly.
“Coffee. Black. Please,” I added as I slid my menu to the edge of the table and glared at Lucian.
“We’ll both have the smoked salmon eggs Benedict with yogurt and berries,” my cockblocking friend said.
“Sure thing,” the kid said before he hustled away.
Lucian had a way of intimidating and impressing people. Often both at the same time. Today, however, he was only pissing me off.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“I’m here to ask you that very question,” he said, frowning down at his phone before tucking it into his suit jacket.
“You’re like a vampire who stays up plotting how to cockblock his best friends.”
“You’ve spent two nights in bed with her and—”
“How do you know I spent two nights in bed with her?” I interrupted.
“Two nights in bed with who?” My brother slid into the booth next to me looking pissed off and like he’d just rolled out of bed.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
He yawned and signaled for coffee. “Lucy called. Said it was important. Two nights in bed with who?”
“I’m not talking about it. And how in the fuck do you know what my sleeping arrangements are?” I asked, turning back to Lucian.
“Information finds its way to me.”
“I swear to God, if Mrs. Tweedy is listening at my door with a drinking glass—”
“What the hell is going on with you two?” my brother cut in.
The server returned with coffee for all.
“Can I get you anything for breakfast?” he asked Knox.
“Maybe after I find out who my brother’s taking to bed.”
“Jesus. It’s nobody’s business who I’m taking to bed. What I want to know is why in the hell Lucian showed up at Lina’s door at six in the morning and dragged me out of bed for fucking breakfast.”
“You were at Lina’s at six in the morning?” Knox didn’t sound happy about that.
“Frankly, I wouldn’t have had to be there if my lunch with your bedmate had gone better yesterday,” Lucian said, sounding annoyed.
I was considering lunging across the table and grabbing him by the lapels of his fancy-ass suit when the server wisely decided to disappear.
“Why are we here? What are you doing having lunch with Lina? And what the fuck does that have to do with you suddenly having a hankering for eggs Benedict?”
“Why the fuck were you at Lina’s at 6:00 a.m.? And the answer better not be that she’s the one you’re banging,” Knox snarled.
Lucian cocked an eyebrow at me and picked up his mug. “She told you we had lunch, but she didn’t tell you why? Interesting.”
“None of this is interesting to me. Either get to the point or get out of my way,” I said.
“If someone doesn’t start answering questions, I’m gonna start throwin’ punches,” Knox warned.
“Things aren’t right with him,” Lucian said, pointing to me. “They haven’t been since the shooting.”
“No fucking shit, Sherlock. Some asshole put two holes in me. It takes a while to come back from that.”
“You say that as if you’re trying.”
A white-hot anger clawed its way to life under my skin. Next to me, my brother tensed.
“Fuck you, Lucy,” I said. “I am trying. I’m doing my PT. I’m going to the gym. I’m going to work.”
He shook his head. “Physically, you’re healing. But mentally? You’re not the same. You hide it. But the cracks are starting to show.”
“I’m gonna need something stronger than coffee if we’re having this conversation,” Knox muttered.
I picked up my coffee and considered whipping it at him. “Get to the point, Lucy.”
“You don’t need distractions. You need closure. You need to remember. You need to find Hugo. And you need to get him off the street.”
“Getting Hugo off the street doesn’t change a damn thing about what’s already happened. And how the hell is remembering what happened going to put me back together again?”
Did that blank spot in my memory hold the key? If I finally remembered how it felt to face death, would I be ready to live again? Wasn’t that part of what I was struggling with? I could put criminals behind bars, but that didn’t undo what they’d already done. I could stop them from doing it again, but I couldn’t prevent the first.
I must have raised my voice because the couple at the table next to us turned to look at me.
“I can’t believe you got me out of bed with Naomi for this,” Knox complained.
“Same here.”
“Your brother was in bed with Lina,” Lucian tattled.
“The fuck he was. The fuck you were,” Knox said, swinging my way.
“Don’t you fucking start,” I warned.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
“I told her the same,” Lucian said.
“What? Why?” Knox and I snapped together.
“Same team, Knox,” Lucian reminded him.
“Did you threaten her?” I asked, my voice low and dangerous.
“You’re damn right I did.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Both of you,” my brother demanded.
“She’s taking advantage of you,” Lucian insisted.
“You’re really starting to piss me off, Lucy,” I warned.
“Good. That’s a start.”
“You are not to go near Lina again,” I told him. “You can’t fucking threaten people on my behalf. Especially not her.”
“I can’t believe you’re sleeping with Lina after I told you not to,” Knox growled.
“And you can’t bury your head in the sand hoping things will get better. Your father spent the last few decades numbing himself to life. What you’re doing isn’t much different,” Lucian said.
A charged silence fell over our table as we glared at each other.
“I’m depressed. Okay, you fucking assholes? My life has been one big black hole since I woke up in that hospital bed. Happy now?” It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. I didn’t much care for it.
“Do I look happy?”
To his credit, Lucian looked miserable.
“Tell me what any of this has to do with Lina,” my brother said, his face in his hands.
“I don’t believe she’s being truthful. I have concerns she could take advantage of you when you’re…like this. She shows up in town a day before Hugo made a move on Naomi and Waylay. She didn’t tell you about her real job. She moves in next door. And she just so happens to have a history with the marshal assigned to you.”
“She also picked my ass up off the floor, got me upstairs, and helped me through a fucking panic attack two nights ago. I don’t know what the fuck it is about her but the closer I am to her, the better I feel. The easier it is to get out of bed and force myself to go through the motions. So while I appreciate your concern, I’ll point out that she’s been there for me in a way no one else has been. Not you. Not Knox. No one.”
Lina made me feel like a man, not like the broken shell of one.
Lucian’s jaw tightened beneath his neatly trimmed beard.
“Two smoked salmon eggs Benedicts.” The server appeared with our breakfast.
“Thanks,” I said flatly when it became clear Lucian wasn’t going to.
“Can I get you anything else right now? More coffee? Napkins to mop up any future bloodshed? No? Okay then.”
“She’s lying to you,” Lucian insisted. “She’s here because of you.”
“You both need to shut your damn mouths now,” Knox ordered. “Lina is one of the fucking good ones.”
“You don’t trust her with your brother either,” Lucian pointed out.
“Because he’s gonna get his stupid heart broken, that’s why,” my brother said in exasperation. “Not because she’s taking advantage or whatever bullshit you made up in that suspicious-ass mind of yours. She isn’t gonna settle down and be a cop’s wife and chase after a bunch of kids. So if you go fallin’ head over heels for her and she kicks you in the gut on the way out the door, I’m the one who’s gonna have to deal with your bitching and moaning about it.”
I was oddly touched, but still mostly pissed off.
I faced them both. My brother and my best friend thought I was too weak to survive this.
“Go near her again and I will make you regret it,” I said, my knuckles going white on the handle of my mug.
“I’m sayin’ the same thing to you,” Knox said to me.
“Not your call to make,” I reminded him.
“I don’t trust her,” Lucian said stubbornly.
“Yeah? And I didn’t trust that dental hygienist you dated for a month three years ago.”
“You were right not to. She stole my watch and my bathrobe,” my friend admitted.
“Lina isn’t after me for my watch and I don’t have a bathrobe.”
“No. But she’s after something. A liar can smell a lie.”
“Stop looking into her.”
“If you get your head on straight, I’ll stop keeping tabs,” Lucian said.
When Lucian Rollins kept tabs, that meant he knew what was in your garbage before it went out to the curb. It meant he knew what you were going to have for dinner before you did. The man had a gift for information gathering, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d wield it against me. Especially if he thought it was for my own good.
“I don’t need to be hearing this.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “I’m hearing more rumors that Duncan Hugo didn’t run off with his tail between his legs.”
“So what?” I shot back.
“You’re a loose end. A direct threat to him. You can’t hide in the blanks in your memory forever. I need you to be operating at one hundred percent. Because if he does get to you again, if he does manage to take you out…that leaves me with only Knox as a friend.”
“Hilarious.”
“Fuck you,” Knox muttered.
“You’re too good to let this end you. You need to claw your way out of this darkness if necessary and beat him. And you’re not going to accomplish that by distracting yourself with a woman you can’t trust.”
“There’s a simple solution to this. Both of you stay the hell away from Lina,” Knox said.
“Fuck you both.”
