Tied Up in Knots (13 page)

“And why in the world would you go after Odell?” he yelled.

The look on my face must have answered his question, which was good since I still couldn’t speak around the enormous, jagged lump in my throat.

He sucked in a breath and I saw his face register what I now knew. “Fuck,” he groaned, shaking his head, angry and hurt at the same time. “I didn’t want—goddamnit.”

I concentrated on keeping my voice level. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“No,” he murmured, hands fisted on the lapels of my overcoat.

“Why?”

“You don’t—I don’t—” He stopped, inhaled sharply, looked at my chin a second, and then lifted his gaze and locked it with mine. “I can’t ever have you thinking I’m weak.”

It took a second for his words to register because they were so alien. “What?” That made zero sense. “You’re the strongest person I know!” I shouted. How could he think something so ridiculous at all, let alone think it about me? “Jesus, Ian, don’t you know me at all?” I gasped and I could hear my heart breaking in my words.

“Yes, I know you!”

“Then what the hell?”

He let go of me but didn’t move. “Yeah, but already you’re thinking I did something wrong and—”

“Who am I to criticize you for who you slept with before we got together?”

“I wasn’t a good guy.”

“I was a slut, and you’ve never once been judgmental about that.”

“I hate it,” he confessed. “And when we run into guys you’ve been with… I don’t like it.”

“But you don’t think bad of me.”

“No.”

“So how could I do that to you?”

He nodded.

“You’re a very good man, Ian Doyle.”

I watched the emotions chase across his features: fear, relief, anger, hurt, happiness, all of them tightening his jaw, creasing his brows, and making him swallow hard and breathe deeply through his nose.

“This isn’t just about you and a married woman.”

“No,” he agreed, moving away from me, pacing, stopping a few feet away.

“Contrary to popular belief, I am not a mind reader.”

He scoffed. “Please, no one ever accused you of being a—”

“Ian!” I barked.

“Fine! I don’t want you to feel sorry for me about what happened in the desert!”

“I can’t help that.”

“But if you think I’m weak or—”

“We covered that already,” I said, closing the distance between us, moving into his space, taking hold of his elbow so he couldn’t move away and bringing us flush together so we were breathing the same air. “I know you’re strong.”

He closed his eyes.

“Just tell me.”

He made a noise, not quite a cough, but enough. “There’s this way you look at me, and it’s only for me and I can’t—if you stopped feeling that way and then looked at me different because of it”—his voice cracked—“I couldn’t… I’m afraid you’re gonna stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Loving me.”

Ah.

The truth. Finally. It was always good when it came out.

“Yeah, no,” I said, sighing and smiling, rubbing my clean-shaven cheek over his stubbly one, the sound as well as the sensation sexy and soothing. “Never happen.”

He trembled against me.

“We fight, we make up, but I know you’re never gonna say when. You’re never gonna say stop and go away. We both say shit like it could, but it can’t.”

“No, it really can’t,” he assented, wrapping his arms around my neck and hugging me tight. “I was afraid it would change things if you knew.”

“It doesn’t,” I vowed. “But I need to hear it all.”

He let me go slowly, and when there was space between us, I saw a glint in the depths of his eyes, the blue at the center of the flame. “It could never make you less, idiot. How could you even think that?”

“I think stupid shit sometimes.”

“Yes.”

“They left me, and I didn’t want you to know ’cause I thought you’d care about the why.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.”

“And we really should stop that.” I sighed, so tired, zapped of my strength because it took so much just to get Ian to hear me sometimes. It was worth it, always, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard.

“Stop what?” he asked, trace of alarm in his tone.

“Stop saying that either one of us could go. It’s like when people bring up divorce all the time when they’re married. One of those times it’ll stick.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean, it’s stupid, right? I can’t imagine me without you.”

His grin was warm. “Me neither.”

“So then—”

“That’s why I was so pissed last night.”

“We were both mad.”

He shook his head, closing on me again. “No, I mean when I came downstairs and the lawyer was there talkin’ to you, putting his hands on you and pettin’ Chick.”

This was a surprise.

“What?” He was surly.

“You were not jealous of Barrett.”

“The hell I wasn’t!” he flared.

“Are you serious? You’re being serious right now?” I didn’t believe him; there was no way Ian Doyle was jealous of any man, but it was something I could fix, instantly and without question. The normalcy of that made me smile. And that was how it was with Ian and me. Big reveals followed by whatever the thing was simply being absorbed and becoming part of our shared history. It was one of my favorite parts about us, and how I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was the one for me.

“I am,” he growled, and I saw the uncertainty, pain and self-recrimination was gone from those gorgeous blue eyes, replaced by a healthy amount of irritation.

“What the hell would you be jealous for?”

“Oh, I dunno, a rich, handsome lawyer who’s crazy about you moves in next door, likes Chick, and has already met your friends without me…. I think jealous about sums it up.”

“Oh, come on.”

“If the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t be worried?”

I thought about it a second. “No.”

“Why the hell not?” He was indignant now, and it took a lot of concentration not to smile at how adorable that was.

“Well, for one, you’re not as charming as me,” I replied, loving the fact that even though he had nothing to worry about with me, ever, that he was still rattled. There was a vulnerability there that touched me deeply. Scary-ass Ian Doyle worried that anyone could turn my head was terribly endearing. “And we both know you don’t make friends as easy, and—”

“Go to hell, M,” he groused, whacking me in the belly. “I’m plenty fuckin’ charming.”

“—I know you’d never cheat on me.”

He froze. “Now, wait, I never said you did somethin’ with him.”

“No?”

“Fuck no!” he yelled, getting more worked up by the second. “You’d never.”

“That’s right, I would never.”

“It doesn’t make me any less jealous,” he husked, leaning in and kissing my cheek. “But that’s on me. I’m the one who leaves you all alone.”

I was not getting into his military service at a funeral for his fallen team member. “Well, I’ll always be right here, waiting.”

“That’s good,” he said, letting out a deep breath and hugging me tight again. “That’s all I need.”

I hugged him back so he’d know, of course, I felt the same.

“Okay, so we better go back,” he said, and I heard the hesitance in his voice even as he nuzzled a kiss against my cheek before slowly easing free. We moved like honey, savoring the contact, hesitant to break it but knowing our quiet moment of respite was done.

Walking around the crypt, we moved out onto the cemetery drive that ran the length of the property and made our way back toward the others.

“Goddamnit, Doyle!”

There was Odell, Bates, and two other guys I didn’t know, and really, my plan was to be good. I was going to just shut up until it was time to leave, but then I got a clear look at the man I’d punched and the laughter rolled right out of me.

“Fuck you, Jones!”

It was hard to look menacing with tampons shoved up your nose, Ranger or not, and Odell—the picture he made, all puffy-faced and outraged—was hysterical. Even when I tried to stop laughing, the staccato snickering couldn’t be helped.

“You proud of this shit?” one of the guys I didn’t know flared, the hostility thick in his voice and in his hands fisted at his sides.

I shrugged. “He came at me first, man.”

“It’s a funeral, you fuck!”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied, gesturing at Odell. “Tell your boy.”

Two other men joined them, and I saw Ian’s eyes dart around. We were away from other people and we were outnumbered, and probably it was just going to be a lot of back and forth, but I wasn’t taking any chances. All of these men were trained soldiers who could hurt me—Odell notwithstanding, with him being three sheets to the wind—and I wasn’t about to let any of them harm Ian again. Once was more than enough.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on?”

Everyone turned to see smiling Deputy US Marshal Chris Becker. At six three, built like the linebacker he was in college, he was one of the nicest guys anyone could ever hope to meet—until he wasn’t.

“What’s up, ladies?” he asked Ian and me, snorting out a laugh.

“Sorry to bug you at a funeral and all,” his partner and best friend, Wes Ching, said as he bumped through the men surrounding us and walked up on me. “But if we’re going to the Befuddled Owl for torture, we’re making sure you and Doyle are too.”

At five ten and the smallest member of our team, people made the mistake of thinking he was not the scariest of us all. That was
so
not the case. I’d seen Ching with three bullets in him taking down a fugitive, seen him run down the middle of the Eisenhower Expressway dodging cars and trucks, and I’d seen him sprint over scaffolding twelve stories up at a construction site. His balls were so big it was a wonder he could walk, so when he moved through a crowd, people got out of the way, even the clustered military elite. They made a hole for him. He, like our boss, had been a Marine. Apparently that chip stayed on the shoulder even when you left the Corps.

“Attention!” came a yell from behind the men.

Everyone froze where they were and saluted the man who also moved easily through the crowd. Ian showed the same respect, saluting as well, and held the rigid posture as the man stepped directly in front of him. The uniform’s black nametag read “DELANEY.”

“At ease,” he said to Ian, but everyone else relaxed too. “Doyle.”

“Sir,” Ian answered, and the icy tone was not lost on me.

“I need you to come to Laird’s house so we can discuss an issue of a highly sensitive nature that impacts all of us.”

“Pardon the question, sir, but I haven’t been a part of this unit in quite some time.”

“But you were when Lochlyn was, and therein lies the problem.”

“Sir?”

“I believe he’s trying to kill a few of us.”

BEFORE WE
got to Eddie Laird’s house in Canaryville on the 700 block of West Forty-Eighth Street, I made Becker stop at a Dunkin’ Donuts we passed on the way so we’d walk in with something. Three dozen glazed seemed the least we could do. When we got to the house, I was surprised by how much Janice appreciated the gesture.

“Come in, have something to eat,” she urged us.

“Ma’am,” Ian said, introducing her to Becker and Ching, who were there with us now, as well as Ryan and Dorsey, who’d gotten held up at the office, but since Ryan knew I needed backup, he’d sent the others on ahead.

The house was built around the 1800s, I could tell from the neighborhood. As I looked around, I realized it was two stories of small box rooms with an asphalt roof and a basement covered in wood paneling Eddie and Rose never got around to renovating. A scrolling metal railing—brown with rust instead of black—wrapped around the front porch, the front door had a tiny window that looked like a porthole in it, and inside shag carpeting patterned in green, white, and black became beige Travertine linoleum in the kitchen. I had no idea what was in the bathroom because I had no reason to go in there. An oppressive damp coldness inside the cluttered home felt real, but could have just as well been my imagination. I didn’t ask anyone else if they felt it too. I just needed to bide my time so I could take Ian home.

As we stood in the living room, all of us still in our coats with plates and drinks Janice insisted on, Ian finally got around to asking our fellow marshals what they were doing there. He’d been so busy in the car, catching up from being away for four months, happy to see them, that he didn’t notice the timing was odd.

“You needed backup,” Becker explained, smiling at Janice as she came by to check on us. “Ma’am, may I say that this chicken tetrazzini is marvelous.”

Her smile was instant and flushed her cheeks a very becoming shade of pink. “Thank you, it’s my mother’s recipe.”

“Well, she must be a great cook.”

She patted his arm. “Yes, she was.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it was years ago. It’s just so lovely to see you eat. I always wanted to cook for Eddie, but he was never home, and now I won’t have grandbabies to cook for either.”

“My condolences,” Becker said gently.

She squeezed his bulging bicep and then turned to Ian. “I know you’re not in their unit anymore—Rose just told me—but are you still on active duty?”

“Reserves,” he told her.

“Oh good, that’s good,” she sighed, smiling at him through welling tears. I suspected she’d be weeping on and off all day. “Stay home and settle down, Ian. There’s more to life than being a soldier.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ian replied automatically.

Of course my heart was lodged in my throat, so I could not have said one word. Amazing that people just spoke your wildest dream out loud.

When she left, we were all quiet until Rose joined us.

“The meal is wonderful,” Ching offered.

She nodded. “Yeah, Greta, Odell’s wife, she’s a great cook, and my mom made the chicken dish ’cause it was Eddie’s favorite.”

We fell silent again, not sure what else to say to her. She wasn’t my friend. I had no shared memories to offer up in the moment.

“Where are Eddie’s folks?” Ian finally asked. I’d watched him scan the room.

She scoffed. “Oh, Ian, come on. You know they never thought I was good enough for their son. They buried him in the family plot and took the flag right outta my arms—did you see her do that at the grave?”