Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) (18 page)

“Instead of calling the police, you decided to take things into your own hands and break things off with me.”

“Do you honestly think the police—”

“Yes, I damn well think the police need to be involved. And not because I’m scared for me. I’m scared for you. I’m scared for your brother and his kids. I’m scared for your fucking partner and your coach, and the barista who sells you your morning coffee. This guy’s a fucking time bomb, from what I can tell.”

The last thing in the world I would ever want to do was subject my niece and nephew to anything Guy might come up with. And now that Levi had mentioned them, all sorts of horrible thoughts swarmed my mind. To that point, I’d only been thinking of myself and Levi. There were way too many people Guy might hurt in order to get to me, though: Levi, my mother and sisters, Cam and Sara, Connor and Cassidy. He could even try to hurt Anthony, Ellen, or Jesse.

I blinked, wishing my pulse would slow down. The blood raced through me so fast, my veins might’ve ended up with whiplash.

“How the hell can Jonny be aware of all this and not insist on involving the police?” Levi demanded.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Didn’t,” Cam cut in from behind us, his voice quiet and seething with fury. “I
didn’t
know. Now I do.”

“I…” Words failed me as I looked back and forth between these two furious men. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” Cam clipped off.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell him?” Levi asked. “I mean, I understand why you didn’t say anything to me. Sort of. We were only friends, or whatever the hell kind of bull you’ve got in your head about the two of us. But he’s your brother. You’re living with him and his kids.”

Cam came around in front of us, his arms crossed in an intimidating posture that broke my heart. “How much of this is my wife aware of?”

I shook my head. “Don’t blame Sara. I made her promise—”

“You made her promise not to say a word about this to me. When your safety was concerned. When
my family’s
safety is concerned.” His glare was enough to melt my bones. “I do blame her.”

“No, please don’t,” I begged, blinking back tears. What had I done? The last thing on earth I wanted was for anything to come between my brother and sister-in-law simply because I had acted like an idiot. But that was exactly what appeared to be happening. And it was all my fault. “She was going to tell you.”

“Oh, was she? When, exactly, was she planning to do this? Not soon enough.” He shook his head in a cloud of disgust and disappointment. “She should have told me as soon as she knew anything. She should have—”

“Please, Cam. It was only because I begged her not to say a word to you.” I blinked some more, but it was no use. Tears streamed down my cheeks. There were few things in the world that cut me to the core the way my brother’s disappointment did.

“We’ll go to the police in the morning,” he replied. Not a word about forgiving Sara for doing as I’d asked.

What a mess I’d caused. My only consolation was in the knowledge that the majority of their anger wasn’t directed at me. There was some, of course. Because I hadn’t trusted my brother enough to tell him. Because I’d ignored the signs Guy had given me for far too long. Because I’d been stupid and hadn’t thought about the very real threat he posed to everyone in my life, assuming he would limit his shenanigans to me. And that they’d merely be his usual tactics, not anything that would truly hurt me, despite the fact that he’d already done precisely that.

“I’m sorry,” I said, but my voice cracked, coming out as barely more than a whisper. “I should have—” But my throat closed up before anything else would come out.

“Yes. You should have,” he clipped out. Then he stalked across the waiting room and checked on the three kids, taking a seat beside Elin, who was now dead asleep, even through all the emotion pouring out of us on the other side of the space. Almost as soon as he sat, her head fell over to land on his arm. At once, he turned back to his usual teddy bear self, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her closer the way he used to cradle me when I was a little girl.

I tried to blink my tears away, but it was no use. All I could do was stare at my hands in my lap and rethink all the things I should have done differently. It went back for years, so I could easily spend weeks going over them all in my mind ad nauseam until I made myself sick with it.

Levi reached out a hand and brushed a tear from my cheek. “So is this the only reason you wanted space? Because you didn’t want Guy to hurt me?”

I nodded, swallowing hard in the hope that I could move the massive lump away from my vocal chords.

“So if I don’t care? If I refuse to let him intimidate me away from you? Then we can keep going as we have been?”

“I—” My tongue was thick and dry as I looked up to meet Levi’s eyes. “Maybe we should see what the police say first?”

He shook his head. “I don’t care what the police say. No one’s going to keep me away from you. Not now. I’ll only stay away if you convince me that’s what you want and it has nothing to do with this son of a bitch. And I promise you, I won’t be easy to convince of that. Because I think it’s bullshit.”

“I’ve never been a good liar,” I said.

“Good.” The corners of his lips quirked up in a cocky smile. “But Cadence?”

“Hmm?”

“I still want more. A lot more.”

The lump in my throat grew so big I couldn’t take a breath anymore because of the way he was looking at me. Like he wanted to wrap me up in his arms and hold on until I gave in. Like he wanted to take me somewhere private and do things that would make my brother want to kill him. Like he wanted to kiss me.

And I wanted to let him. I wanted it really, really badly. So much I almost tasted the wanting.

But Nicky bust into the waiting room, grinning from ear to ear. The slamming doors woke the kids, and he rushed over to their blinking faces. “It’s a girl!”

I WOKE UP
with a splitting headache, the urge to puke up my guts, and the knowledge that there wasn’t a damned thing I’d done to cause Cadence to want to back away. Not only that, but it looked like things might be moving forward again. Soon, at least. Maybe not immediately.

I looked down at my phone and saw the shitload of text messages from Koz, calling me a pussy-whipped douchebag for wimping out on his party and leaving before it was over. There were a ton of missed calls and voice mails, too, probably all from him. For all I knew, the party was still going on, well after eight in the morning. I was way too hung over to deal with him right now.

Ignoring Koz for the time being, I dropped my phone on the nightstand, dragged myself out of bed, and climbed into the shower to wash off the stench of last night’s excess. By the time I was clean, dressed, and trying to replenish my body with water to ease my hangover, I remembered that Jonny intended to go to the police station with Cadence this morning.

Should I volunteer to go with them, too? I wasn’t sure. I’d done my best to make it clear to her how I wanted things to go between us, that I wanted us to be more than the friends we’d agreed upon, and sooner rather than later, but did that put me in the go-to-the-cops camp? Might be too big of a jump.

Even though it ate at me to do so, I decided to let Jonny and Cadence handle this one on their own. I should stay out of it. If the police needed me for anything, I was easy enough to find.

The team had the day off. Since Koz and most of the single guys were hopefully sleeping last night off, they wouldn’t be up and about any time soon. If I didn’t start moving, I’d probably end up back in bed the whole day, burying my head under the covers to pretend drinking so much last night hadn’t happened.

It
had
happened. In a devastated stupor, I’d allowed myself to get more wasted in a single night than I ever had before. No point in trying to hide from it. Besides, while parts of the night were all kinds of fucked up, other very good things had come from it.

With nothing better striking me, I called for a cab to take me over to my brother’s house. My car was still at Koz’s, and I was fairly sure Ghost still had my keys. I’d talk Jamie into helping me deal with all of that later. Didn’t bother texting or calling first. Even if he had gone to the gym or something else equally responsible, I was sure Katie would be at home. She had turned one of the extra bedrooms into a recording studio, and most days she was in there working on her budding songwriting career.

The cabbie dropped me off in front of their house. I paid him and got out. Rang the doorbell.

Jamie answered wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His cat, Blackbeard, was draped around his neck and shoulders. He gave me a disgusted look—Jamie did, not Blackbeard, although that cat was always suspicious of me. Still, I guessed my shower hadn’t done enough to hide all of last night’s excesses.

“You look like death warmed over,” Jamie said.

“Not sure how warm I got it.”

“A cold shower might do you some good. Hell, any shower might help.”

“Already had one.”

He looked doubtful, but he stepped back to let me inside. Katie’s cat, Oreo, raced in to wind himself around my legs. Oreo had always liked me a lot better than Blackbeard did. Granted, Oreo liked anyone who would scratch behind his ears.

“You have breakfast yet?”

My stomach gurgled in response.

“Never mind. I don’t want you puking on anything.” He led me into the kitchen, where he was busy putting together something involving eggs in muffin tins. He finished adding all his ingredients and popped it in the toaster oven, Blackbeard supervising everything from his shoulder perch. “Coffee? Think you can handle that?”

I shook my head and took a seat at the breakfast bar. “Water would be better.”

Oreo jumped up onto my lap and purred, so I scratched behind his ears like he always wanted.

Jamie grabbed a glass and filled it from the fridge before sliding it over to me. “How late did you stay at Koz’s last night?”

“Late enough. Got wasted. Then I got the bright idea to go keep Nicky company at the hospital.”

Jamie raised a brow.

“Took a cab. But I didn’t spend too much time with him. He was busy with Jessica in the delivery room.”

“So what’d you do all night? Hang out with the kids?”

“While I was drunk?” I raised a brow. “They were sleeping by the time I arrived. Jonny and Cadence were there.”

Katie came around the corner wearing a towel, her hair wet and dripping. She took one look at me, blushed, winked, readjusted her towel to keep it in place, and left again before Jamie murdered me for seeing his wife in such a state. Like it was my fault! Haha.

My brother pretended he hadn’t noticed. Bunch of horseshit.

“What’s going on with you two?” I asked, hoping to turn the conversation away from me.

Jamie made a face, like he didn’t want to talk about it.

“That doesn’t look good.”

“It’s just… Katie wants to have a baby. We’re trying to get pregnant, but…”

“But no luck so far.” And there very well might not ever be. Twice already, Katie had gone through chemotherapy and radiation to treat different forms of cancer. “You both knew kids might not be possible.”

“We did.” He shrugged. “We do. She still wants them, though.”

“What about adoption?”

“That’s what I suggested, but she wants to keep trying for a while first. I doubt if she’ll give up until they tell us she
can’t
have kids, you know?”

“And you’re taking that all on yourself, aren’t you?”

He and I were a lot alike in some ways. Too much alike.

“Maybe.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and joined me, giving Oreo a tail tug for good measure. “So…Cadence? How’s that going?”

“Could be better,” I replied. “Could be worse. About to be complicated.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” But I wasn’t ready to tell him or anyone else about the son of a bitch who was trying to fuck with her life.

“Good complicated or bad complicated?”

“Just complicated.”

“Okay.” He took a sip and stared at his cup the same way I was staring at my glass of water. Times like this, it was unnerving how similar we were, even though there were countless differences. This must be another Babcock trait. Now that I thought about it, I recalled a lot of times I’d seen Dad in this same posture. Scary thought.