Coming Home (7 page)

The insurance woman—Scout couldn’t remember her name—paced by the window, chattering like a small bird trapped in the large body of a woman. Scout had the distinct impression Elliot was her husband.

The door opened and the officer stepped in. He scanned the room, and when his gaze landed on her she drew back and shrunk in her chair. Cops had never been nice to her. Even as a child, she’d been taught not to trust them because, if caught, they had the power to take her from her mom.

“Evelyn?”

She nodded.

“I’m Officer Ludlow. How are you doing?” His voice and soft expression claimed sympathy, but Scout wasn’t falling for it.

She shrugged. “Okay.”

He grinned. He had very white teeth that were slightly crooked, but still made a nice smile. “You did quite a number on those guys out there. Did you take self-defense?”

Yes. The course was called
Life and Basic Survival 101.
Scout shook her head, and his expression sobered.

“I know you’re pretty shook up. I just need a statement from you, and then you can go.”

She didn’t like being put into this position. Authority made her nervous. She wanted Lucian, which was odd, being that he held more authority than anyone in Folsom. Or perhaps that was why.

“Hon, do you think you could tell me what happened?”

She wasn’t his honey, and the endearment did nothing to open her up. Her voice seemed lodged somewhere deep in the pit of her belly, and her trembling had morphed into a full-body tremor as her adrenaline ebbed.

Scout faced the woman in the office . . . Ellen, she thought. For some reason she was able to speak to the woman. Clearing her throat, she said, “Could you get someone on the phone for me?”

Ellen rushed to her desk. “Sure, sweetie.” Her chair creaked as she sat and her manicured fingers grasped the receiver. “What’s the number?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure. It’s . . .” He would be at work. Patras Industries. But her request wouldn’t budge past her lips.

You can do this! You do
not
need him!

Fear had her trembling. If she called him, he’d come. He’d handle everything and get her out of this mess as quickly as possible. Lucian would know exactly how to proceed. But she didn’t want to keep running to him whenever she needed help.

Eying the cop, she felt the same anxious tremors she’d always suffered when faced with an authority figure.
You’re not a child anymore! They can’t take you away from your mom.
She thought about Pearl, alone and afraid in rehab. She was doing her part, and this was Scout’s.

Swallowing back her request, she glanced at Ellen. “Never mind.”

“Are you sure, dear?”

No, but she nodded anyway. When the phone returned to the receiver, Scout faced the officer. “What do you need to know?”

“Why don’t you start with what you were doing in the alley?”

“I live upstairs.”

“There’s a small efficiency above our office,” Ellen confirmed. “The landlord notified us yesterday that Evelyn was the new tenant.”

The officer jotted down some notes in a little tablet and faced Scout again. Could you explain what happened from the time you arrived?”

She was fighting with everything she had not to fall apart. Her thoughts were jumbled and her hands wouldn’t quit shaking. Swallowing, she kept her focus on the man’s badge and explained what had taken place. She told him they’d been making a drug deal, how they tried to corner her, how they grabbed her, and how she just reacted.

“You did a fine job of defending yourself.”

She blinked at the admiration, but his praise meant nothing. What was she supposed to do? Let them attack her without fighting back?

Once he took down her information, he thanked her and left. She sat for a few moments just staring at the empty space where the squad car had been.

“Would you like me to walk you to your door, Evelyn?”

Reminded of her surroundings, she blinked up at the man in the suit. What was his name? “No, thank you. I should go.”

As she stood, her legs wobbled. She scooped up her belongings and thanked the insurance couple again. Her eyes combed every shadow as she made her way down the alley and quickly unlocked her door. Once she made it inside, she locked everything up tight.

Too stunned to cry, she climbed the stairs, stripped off her clothes and drew a bath. She did it, and she did it on her own.

***

Scout typically woke up a little after dawn, but the following morning she was up before the sun had a chance to rise. She jerked upright in bed and made a startled sound as something that sounded like a wrecking ball rattled her walls.

Scrambling out of bed, her foot caught on the cord of her lamp and knocked it onto the ground. “Shit!”

She righted the lamp and turned it on. Her feet turned in a circle as she tried to find her bearings. It was six in the morning. Shuffling to the kitchen, she grabbed a butter knife and her one-cup coffeepot. Not the best weapons, but they would do.

Marching down the dim steps of her apartment, she quietly waited, only to flinch when the banging started again. “Who is it?” she hissed.

“Evelyn?”

She frowned and lowered her weapons. “Lucian?”

“Open the door.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Open. The damn. Door.”

Sighing, she shifted the knife and coffeepot in her hands and unlocked the door. Pulling it open, she snapped, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

He wasn’t dressed like he usually was outside of the penthouse. He wore dark jeans, a rumpled sweater, and his jaw was unshaven. Shoving his way through the door, she gasped as his arm shot out in front of her. “What the hell is this?”

She glanced at the papers twisted in his fist. “It’s a newspaper.”

His jaw ticked. “Explain to me, why—at five in the morning—I am reading
your
address and description in the criminal reports.”

Her mouth opened.
“What?
I told them I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You were attacked?”
She jumped at the sharpness in his voice. He didn’t give her time to reply.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

Her lips firmed. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“Your safety has everything to do with me!”

“Pfft! Please, Lucian—”

Her words cut off as he crowded her in the tiny entryway. “Do
not
act like your safety has not been my priority since we met. Jesus, Evelyn! What the fuck happened? Are you hurt?”

She blinked at him. He was really upset. “I . . . I handled it.” Her voice was smaller than she would have liked.

Lucian forked his fingers through his hair and dropped to the second step of her narrow staircase. His seemed totally distraught. “I want you to depend on me in times of trouble. Why won’t you?”

Because she couldn’t trust him to always be there. “I’m fine.” How had he found her? “Did they put my name in the paper?” That seemed a major violation of her privacy. She wished she could read the article.

“No. They put your description and the location of the attack and stated it happened only a few feet from your residence. Whoever runs the office downstairs must have made a statement to the media, because there’s an article on page six of the business section. I’ve already been to the police. Dugan handled the rest. No more interviews will be given regarding your personal life.”

Damn it!

He suddenly looked around the small entryway. “What is this place?”

“It’s my home.”

His brow kinked. “Since when?”

“A few days ago.”

Letting out an aggravated huff, his expression turned defeated. She didn’t like seeing him like that. He reached for her hand and she allowed the contact. His fingers ran over the crest of her knuckles. “Tell me what happened,” he said with gentle patience.

Scout drew in a deep breath and attempted to set him at ease. “I was heading home from work and as I turned into the alley, I accidentally walked up on two guys making a drug deal.”

His eyes narrowed. Under his breath he said, “We won’t touch the fact that I didn’t know where home was or work currently is. Go on.”

She swallowed. “They saw me and when I tried to turn and leave, they wouldn’t let me go.”

His hands tightened over hers. “Then what happened?” he asked through clenched teeth.

God, he was going to freak. “One guy blocked my way and I punched him in the nose. I put him on the ground, but the other guy grabbed me.”

“Motherfucker,” Lucian hissed.

“He only tried to . . . but I got him down too. Then Elliot showed up and called the cops.”

“Who the fuck is Elliot?”

“He runs the insurance office. We share the building.”

Lucian turned like a viper on her. “This man is a friend of yours?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was introduced to him yesterday, and you should be grateful. He called the cops.”

“He also gave away enough personal information that I could tell it was you in the paper!” His expression turned sympathetic. “You handled the cops on your own?”

He wasn’t asking because he thought her incapable, but more because he knew how much she feared officers of the law. Her smile was shaky, but proud as she nodded. “I did.”

“I would have come. All you had to do was call and I would have taken care of everything.”

Her gaze lowered to her bare feet. “I know. But this was something I needed to handle for myself. Don’t you see, Lucian? I need to start depending on me first. I can’t run to you every time life gets hard.”

“Why not?”

“Because we aren’t together anymore.”

His gaze held hers for a long minute. “But you let some stranger help you.”

“I didn’t ask for his help. I screamed and he showed up.”

“You screamed?” he rasped.

“I was scared,” she confessed quietly.

“Jesus, Evelyn,” he whispered. His lips thinned, as he appeared to battle the impulse to do something. She wasn’t sure if that something was kissing her or throttling her. Neither was welcome at the moment. She withdrew her fingers from his tight hold.

Nodding tightly, he stood. “You’re changing.”

Her head slowly shook. “No, Lucian, my circumstances are. This is who I’ve always been. You simply covered it up with fancy dresses and jewelry.”

“Don’t act like all we had was some superficial arrangement. You know it was more than that.”

“It was, but now it’s over. I have to do for me and I can’t do that worrying about you.”

“How do you shut it off, the worry?”

I don’t.
She worried about him constantly; whether he was lonely, sad, taking care of himself. Although Lucian had the world at his fingertips, he only had a small circle of people he could really trust. “I just do.”

“I don’t know what hurts more,” he said. “Worrying about you or knowing you don’t worry about me.” He laughed without humor. “I’m supposed to be the hard one, Evelyn.”

“I was never soft.”

His onyx eyes drilled into hers. “You’re everything soft, everything gentle. No one said you couldn’t be strong too. Why do you assume I can’t see your strength?”

She stilled. She didn’t know why she thought that, but she did. Since they broke up, she created a list of faults in their relationship that didn’t necessarily mesh with what they shared. Anger toward Parker resurfaced as she contemplated all the negative thoughts he had put in her head. She didn’t know what to believe anymore, what was real and what was fabricated by her bruised ego.

“
Do you
see me as strong?”

His brows shot up. “You have as much, if not more, determination than me, Evelyn. It’s one of the things I love most about you, but you refuse to believe that. I don’t admire weak-willed people. Look at how far you’ve come . . . Sometimes I worry you’re so strong willed you’ll actually get to a point that you don’t need me. I need you to need me.”

And she needed independence. “Lucian . . .” What could she say? They were at an impasse. Aside from all their other issues, they were simply too broken to fix. She’d thought they were too different, but maybe the problem was they were too alike.

She fidgeted, as they both seemed to contemplate the stalemate situation they faced. Shifting her butter knife into her other hand, she held out the coffeepot, her only olive branch. “Would you like to come up? I can make coffee.”

Lucian eyed her skeptically, hope clear in his dark eyes. It would only be coffee. She couldn’t manage anything more.

Without taking his eyes off her, he withdrew his phone and pressed a button. After a second he said into the phone, “I’ll call you when I need a ride.”

Chapter 6

The Chipped Teacup

Scout anxiously glanced back at Lucian as she took the stairs slowly. His expression was blank, but his eyes moved, observing their surroundings as though he were cataloguing every aspect. As her feet reached the landing, she smiled nervously at him.

Once he reached the top she nearly giggled out loud at how ridiculous he looked in her tiny home. He hunched under the low ceiling and scanned the area, turning his frown on her.

“Evelyn—”

Rather than stand through a lecture, she went to her little coffeemaker, which she was proud to own. He was
not
going to come in here and shame her with comparisons of his life and hers. Her home was just fine! “I’ll make coffee.”

He sighed and went to peek in the bathroom, then the closet. She set the pot to brew and righted the covers on her bed. No table or chairs were available as she’d yet to purchase those items. Luckily the bed was small and likely didn’t look inviting to a man like Lucian. He was not invited there. However, she needed to offer him a seat.

Flipping her pillow against the wall, she tried to convert the tiny bed into a sort of sofa. “I haven’t bought any furniture yet.” He stared at her with a look she couldn’t interpret. Fisting her hands so as not to fidget, she moved to the small fridge and withdrew the quart of milk. “Coffee should be done soon. You can have a seat if you want.”

He slowly crossed the room and sat on her bed. She couldn’t expect him to stand when he was nearly as tall as her ceilings. Removing two teacups from the shelf, the ones she purchased at the thrift store in a set of five for twenty cents apiece, Scout noted how small they were. Trifling, compared to the gargantuan tubs people drank coffee out of nowadays, but she liked them.

She took the one that had a chip in the rim, not minding the flaw the way Lucian might. She liked that she’d given these five cups a home when they were a step away from being thrown out like yesterday’s trash.

After filling the cups, she handed Lucian one. He was Alice trapped in Wonderland, right about when she got her head stuck in the chimney. Scout giggled. He simply didn’t fit in her home. He glanced at the petite teacup, swallowed by his large hand, and chuckled. His eyes met her gaze and they laughed.

“Well . . .” She giggled as she sipped her coffee.

Dark eyes glanced at the delicate scrollwork on his cup and the tiny flowers. “These remind me of a set my grandmother used to have.”

“I doubt it. I got them at a thrift shop.”

His smile faltered. “Evelyn, how much are you paying for this place?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I don’t want you living like a pauper.”

“Believe it or not, Lucian, to me, this is living like a queen. I can come and go as I please. There’s running water that’s hot when I want it. I have electric, a bed, and a place to keep food. I don’t need much more.”

“I thought when you asked for money you’d use it as a down payment on a condo.”

“No. This is it.”

She gave him credit. It was clear he wanted to say more about how unacceptable her home was by his standards, but he kept his mouth shut. He scooted over. “Sit down. I want you to tell me again what happened yesterday.”

She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

“Well, I do. Those men will get theirs, I promise you that.”

“Do me a favor, Lucian. Don’t make me any more promises.”

His lips parted. “Please sit.”

She didn’t want to sit on her bed with him. That was dangerous. “I’m fine.”

“Evelyn, you were attacked less than twenty-four hours ago. Sit down.”

Relenting, she huffed and sat on the opposite end of the small mattress. “There. Happy?”

“No, but I’ll take that much for now.”

She’d invited him into her home, but the sad truth was she was still so very angry with him. “I saw Parker yesterday,” she said suddenly, not knowing where the confession came from.

Lucian stilled, his lips an inch from his coffee cup. His jaw ticked and his throat worked under the stubble there. His shoulders slowly lifted as his breathing became labored. He said nothing.

“You did quite a number on his face.”

“He deserved a hundred times worse,” he snarled.

“And what do you deserve, Lucian? Whom do you answer to?”

He stood and placed his cup on the counter. “Evelyn . . .” He paced. “He touched you,” he growled, as if that were reason enough to beat someone until they looked like a rotten piece of fruit.

“Maybe I asked him to.”

“Don’t,” he barked, angrily forking his fingers through his hair.

“Why?” She was poking a surly bear, but couldn’t help it. He was confusing her with all his sudden concern for her well-being, and they needed a reality check. “What did you expect? For all I knew you were never coming back. I was on my own.”

“I told you I would be back!”

She laughed derisively. “In thirty days, Lucian. What kind of assurance is that? In my book you were gone and never coming back. You threw me away and he wanted me.”

He lunged and she backed up, his arms bracing his weight over the mattress. “He had
no right
to lay a finger on you. Now, unless you want me to track him down and completely emasculate him this time, I suggest you stop taunting me.”

“Get off of me, Lucian.” The words whispered out in a perfectly calm voice altogether contrary to her emotions hidden inside. He glanced down at their position and stood.

“I don’t want to ever hear that man’s name again.”

“That makes two of us.” His sharp gaze met hers, weighing the sincerity of her words. “Don’t look so smug. My feelings toward you aren’t much different.”

“But there
is
a difference?”

Her lips twitched. He might as well know. “You were so afraid of losing me you gave me away. Yes, Lucian, there is a difference. If only you’d realized it sooner. I tried to help you understand. What I felt for him could never measure up to what I felt for you.”

He blinked, his eyes creasing with regret. “Felt. As in past tense?”

“The feelings I have about you now are too contaminated by anger to work in your favor. The only way I can process what you actually did, is to completely sever the future from the past. You’re a piece of my past. But that’s it.”

“That night . . . you said you loved me.”

“I was confused,” she lied. She should have never asked him up for coffee.

He approached, lowering himself to the floor. His eyes were tormented as he turned her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I fucked up, Evelyn. I fucked up and I have no idea how to fix it. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t concentrate at work. I want you back. Tell me how to fix this and I will. I’ll do anything. I love you.”

She pulled her chin away and averted her gaze. “You can’t.”

“That word isn’t a part of my vocabulary and it isn’t a part of yours.”

Her throat worked. “I don’t know how to forgive you.”

He ducked his head to her lap, his arms wrapping around her hips and pulling her tightly to him. She lifted her hands so as not to touch him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Evelyn. I go over what happened last winter again and again, and I don’t know how else I could have found you. I was scared to death for your safety. I knew the moment I agreed to his terms I’d made a deal with the devil, but there was no way around it. Don’t you think I would’ve done
anything
else if I could’ve avoided this outcome?”

“You could’ve told me,” she hissed. It took everything she had not to touch him and offer him comfort as he confessed his regrets. She clung to her anger, needing it to keep her grounded. If he’d actually confessed what was really happening, the truth may not have hurt so much.

“I thought you would’ve agreed to marry me. If you would’ve agreed to be my wife, all bets were off. I was shocked when you said no.”

“Is that the only reason you asked?”

He drew back. “What?”

“Did you only ask me to marry you to get out of the deal with Parker?”

“God, no. I asked you to marry me because I want you to be my wife. I still do, Evelyn.”

“You want me to be your wife, yet you sent me away and let another man seduce me.”

The muscles in his jaw locked. “You said no.”

“Oh. So for the first time in your life you decided to accept defeat without a fight. I thought
can’t
wasn’t part of your vocabulary.”

“You said no over a dozen times,” he said with not a little irritation ringing in his voice. “I practically fucking begged and you still rejected me, Evelyn! What more could I have done?”

“Leveled with me. Trusted me to understand. I have to believe, if you’d taken the time to really explain what happened last winter, I would’ve understood. But you let it go so far, Lucian. I let him kiss me, touch me—”

“No,” he snapped. “I’m not going to listen to this.”

“Well, I had to endure it! And the whole time, do you know what I kept thinking? What was wrong with me that I wasn’t enjoying it? I was so brokenhearted over you abandoning me, I wanted nothing more than to forget, but I couldn’t. For two weeks I thought of little more than dying, and then my fake friend showed up and I thought, wow, at least
he
cares. But he still wasn’t enough. I hated you for hurting me, and I hated you more because I think you broke me.”

“Evelyn, you’re not broken. That’s love. It makes it impossible to want someone else.”

“Well, I don’t want to
love
you,” she snarled, jumping to her feet and dumping her coffee in the sink.

Lucian turned and slowly lifted himself off the floor and onto the bed. His knees parted as he braced his elbows there and cradled his head. “This is making me crazy.”

“I think it’s time for you to call Dugan.”

He glanced at her, shock and fear warring in his expression. “Don’t ask me to leave yet.”

“It’s getting late, I have work soon, and there really isn’t any point in us rehashing things we can’t change.”

His head shook. “Evelyn, this isn’t the end of us. I can’t accept that. I won’t.”

“Your declarations are a little late and hollow. I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind.”

“What about how happy we were? What about how compatible we are, how well we compliment each other? Do you think it’s easy to find someone like that, someone who does it
all
for you?”

“I’m not looking for that. I never was. All I want is a home to call my own and my independence.” It was getting harder to argue with every passing second, because while her head knew what was best, her heart wanted him more than her next breath.

His brow kinked. “But you were happy.”

“I was. But that all changed the minute you left me. For as happy as I was, the sadness of being abandoned by you was great enough to make me never want to love again. Life’s hard enough. I choose to live it alone.”

“You aren’t meant to be alone, Evelyn. None of us are.”

She’d heard the theory of coupling a hundred times before, yet her experiences left her heart severed, and she never wanted to chance feeling that way again. “Maybe I’m not like everyone else. I’m a nomad. I can’t do things the normal way. I never could. I think,” her chest tightened and she swallowed back the pain. “I think you need to move on as well.”

“Fuck that, Evelyn. I don’t want anyone else.”

“Well, you can’t have me.” She needed to get away from him. His presence was suddenly too much. “I’m going to take a bath. When I come out I’d appreciate it if you were gone. Please lock the door on your way out.”

“You’re fucking dismissing me?”

What if this was it? There was really nothing more to say. “I get paid at the end of the month. I’ll drop a payment in your office soon after that.”

“Consider the loan forgiven.”

“You know I can’t do that, Lucian. You gave me your word you’d treat the loan as such. No favors. It’s business.”

“This is absurd.”

“This is the reality of it. The sooner you accept it, the better we both will be.”

He stood. “You’re wrong. Don’t forget I was your first, Evelyn. Your first kiss, your first lover, your first true friend. You can’t claim to know the outcome with things you’ve never experienced before. You’ll see.”

What was there to see? The agony of losing him compared to the joy of having him brought about so much turmoil, she couldn’t take the risk again. Her trust had been shattered and she wasn’t sure if there was any fixing that. What else could there possibly be to experience? Their time together was over.

They stood silently for a minute. “Well . . .” she said, edging her way to the small bathroom. “Thanks for coming to make sure I was okay, but as you can see, I’m fine. It was scary, but I managed.”

Her shoulders shivered as she sensed his hand brushing over the back of her hair, barely making contact. “You could have called me. You can always call. I know you can handle yourself for the most part, but . . .”

“My phone got wet somehow. I took it to the phone place, but they said there was no fixing it.”

“When?”

“When it first stopped working.”

“Which was when?” he asked again.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all a blur.”

“You called me when I was in Paris. Service was terrible there. It went right to voicemail, but I called you back shortly after. Was the phone broken then or did you deliberately not answer my call?”

Breath sucked deep into her lungs and she pivoted. “You called me back?”

“Yes, I fucking called you back. I was halfway across the world, cursing myself for leaving. Then there was an issue with the engine when all I wanted to do was get back to you before it was too late and tell you what a jerk I’d been.”

He called!

This was exactly why she should’ve locked herself in the bathroom ten minutes ago. Information like this was detrimental to her cause. “Were you alone?” she rasped, unable to meet his gaze.

“Of course I was alone. I was at my father’s. I was miserable here without you and figured, what the fuck, might as well drown in all the screwed-up parts of my life.”

She blinked as her throat tightened. “So no one went with you to Europe?”