Wintering with George, page 4
“So why didn’t she get here?”
“Apparently her boyfriend took her car when his wouldn’t start, without telling her, and by the time the service Sin uses could pick her up, all this happened.”
“Got it.”
“When we got in here, the timer was going off in the kitchen. One of the guys had Brad go turn off the timer but, you know, didn’t worry about the oven.”
“No, I suspect the oven was low on everyone’s priority list.”
He nodded, smiling at me. “Eat already before you pass out.”
“Is the oven off now?” I asked to be a smartass.
He shot me a look, and I laughed. So good to just be there with him.
The burger was amazing. I started wolfing it down, and as I ate, there was suddenly a four-legged black panther on the other end of the island, padding silently over to me.
“There you are,” I said to Bubs, my cat, smiling at him as he reached me, sniffed my burger, didn’t like the smell of it, and then bumped his head on my cheek when I leaned sideways to greet him.
He always did a weird thing where he nibbled my chin when I first got home. I’d wondered if he’d do it when we were somewhere else, and he did. He rubbed his face on my temple, scent-marked my hair, then took a few steps away and watched me eat. I always got the feeling, because he was such a picky eater himself, that I grossed him out when I ate.
Turning to Kurt as I dragged the onion rings through the ketchup mountain he’d squeezed out for me, I saw how fondly I was being looked at.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said with a sigh. “You’re just pretty, is all.”
I scoffed, but he reached out and took an onion ring, something he never did. As a rule, fried food was not his thing. “You just want to eat my food.”
“I missed you, and you were almost killed, and I—” He was shaking suddenly, ready to fall apart.
I put a hand on his cheek. “Oh, honey, I was so not gonna die. Not from those mutts,” I said, shaking my head. “The guys in my unit would be horrified at how messy that all was, but I’m fuckin’ tired and that’s my excuse.”
“Are you kidding?”
Being a shrink, you would think Kurt would know when I was changing the subject and getting him focused on something else. But perhaps he did know and just played along for my benefit. To let me think I was helping him.
“Listen, I’m better trained than those guys, or more likely, just plain trained at all in comparison. That wasn’t luck I had going for me.”
He nodded. “I know. I just don’t want to lose you.”
Hooking my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him forward and kissed him. When I let him go, he was smiling.
“What?”
“There’s grease on your lips,” he said.
“I know you like it.”
“You’re gross,” he said but kissed me again, so I was guessing he wasn’t that bothered.
I had no idea why fountain drinks always tasted better than cans, but as soon as I swallowed my latest bite and took a huge gulp of Pepsi, I took a breath. “If it would be all right with you, I would like to start paying half the mortgage on the house.”
His eyebrows rose, but that was all the reaction I got.
I ate a couple more onion rings and waited.
He cleared his throat. “What about your apartment?”
“I should get rid of that, don’t you think?”
He nodded while pressing his lips together, probably so he wouldn’t tell me it was about time, or to comment on what an idiot I was, or worst of all, laugh himself silly. I growled.
“I—yes,” he replied, keeping his voice level. That was his professional tone, the one he used with new clients before he got to know them. “I think that is a sound choice and a perfectly logical one, Mr. Hunt.”
“Knock it off,” I groused at him, taking another bite of the best burger I’d ever had in my whole life. “Don’t be a wiseass.”
“Me?”
“Like you haven’t been hinting about this for over a year.”
“I believe it was a week after we met when I basically came out and said that you should get rid of that hellhole you call an abode,” he said dramatically. “You never sleep there, none of your clothes are there, but we both know why you couldn’t let go of it.”
I scowled at him.
“And no, this is not me psychoanalyzing you, but come the fuck on.”
“Don’t swear in your sister’s house,” I scolded him.
His laugh was so good, warm and husky, and I smiled even though I didn’t want to.
“It’s your parachute in case I decide to throw you out of my life and my house, but we both know I would never do that because I’m madly in love with you.”
I couldn’t control my grin. “Madly?”
“I would smack you, but I have no idea what patch of skin on your body is unbruised or not covered in stitches at the moment.”
“Listen, you—oh no. Don’t get upset.”
But it was too late. That fast, his eyes filled, he started to shake, and I put down my burger, wiped my hands, and grabbed him. He gasped as I hugged him tight, crushing him against me, and then he started to cry. “I’m okay, honey. You can see I am.”
He pressed his face down into my shoulder as he shuddered.
“I had everything under control.”
That got a gulp and a trace of a chuckle before there was more crying.
I put my hand in his hair and held on.
“You could have died.”
“No.”
“When you came through the—I knew you were outside, but I didn’t know if you got shot by whoever was in the car, and I was scared that the boys were going to be killed or Sin or Brad, and I wanted to follow you when I got out of the car, but I was afraid I would get in your way, and then we went inside and those guys were there with guns, and I…I didn’t know what to do. I was helpless and—”
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I said, rubbing circles on his back, still holding tight. He was rambling, and he needed to breathe.
“And then you were just there, in the living room, and—you could have died.”
He was shivering in my arms, and I kissed the side of his neck and chuckled.
“George!” he yelled but didn’t try and pull free.
“Listen, you can worry when I’m gone because you don’t know what I’m up against or whom I’m fighting and you don’t know their skill set. But when I’m here in front of you—I truly wasn’t worried that any of those guys could hurt me. I was only worried about the boys when I came into the house.”
He nodded into my shoulder. “They shot you.”
“The bullet grazed me, you know that, you saw. It didn’t even need stitches.”
“You never go to the hospital.”
“I go when it’s necessary, but nobody touched me, and I didn’t even hit my head this time. You were impressed, weren’t you?”
“I’m always impressed with you.”
“Yeah?”
He lifted his head and looked into my face. “I love you. I can’t help but be scared when people point guns at you.”
Taking his face in my hands, I eased him forward into a kiss that really was the best thing I’d had all day, even better than the burger. When he pulled back, he licked his lips.
“I’m thinking you don’t mind the grease or the onion rings.”
“No, I don’t,” he agreed, and kissed me again.
FOUR
Ihad gone to what was Kurt’s and my room, upstairs on the opposite end from the boys, which was good because I planned to have sex during our holidays, and Kurt was loud in the sack. He always sounded so affronted when I pointed that out but smiled shyly at the same time. The combination made the man utterly attackable.
I’d just finished showering and changing and was sitting on the end of the bed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie, putting my socks on, when there was a soft knock on the door.
“Yeah?”
Thomasin poked her head in and smiled.
“Hey, Thom. Are you still gonna have your party thing?”
She sighed deeply and shook her head. “No. I think my family has been through enough for one night, don’t you?”
“Possibly,” I said, grinning at her.
“May I?” she asked, pointing at the spot beside me on the bed.
“’Course.”
She closed the door and took a seat next to me. When I looked at her, she was biting her bottom lip.
“So,” I said, “I saw that the boards are up where the glass doors were. You got those guys out here fast.”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “But those doors, they don’t slide right, they sort of pivot to open, so it’s all custom work. They told me it’s certainly going to be after New Year’s before they can make the repairs, since they need large single pieces of beveled glass.”
I was quiet a moment. “I feel like I should apologize, but at the same time—”
“George, no.” She grabbed hold of my forearm. “You saved my family. I can’t ever—and I feel terrible for what I thought.”
I grinned slowly. “What’d ya think?”
Her brows furrowed, but I noted that she didn’t let me go.
“I thought my brother was infatuated.”
“For two years?”
“I know,” she said, shaking her head, still not letting go of my arm, holding on as if afraid if she stopped, she might drown. “I just—he didn’t sound like him whenever he talked about you.”
“How so?”
She was silent, thinking, picking her words, I thought. “It was like he was happy but unsure of where he stood with you.”
I nodded.
“But unsure of how you felt, not how he felt. Please don’t think for a moment that I ever heard anything but gushing words praising how smart you are and how kind.”
“Kind?” That was an odd compliment. No one thought of me that way.
“Oh yes. Always. And how brave you are and selfless to the point where he worries.”
I kept my mouth shut.
“He didn’t like that you would sacrifice yourself for a member of your team without a thought to what that would do to him.”
“I—”
She put up her hand. “But also, he knows that when you’re in the field, there should only be your team to consider.”
“Yes.”
“And he hates when you leave, but his time alone is precious to him as well.”
“I know that.”
“I just didn’t understand because it was like he was going back and forth, contradicting himself, but then I met you, and I witnessed you saving us, and… I can’t imagine how anyone couldn’t fall madly, head over heels crazy in love with you.”
I squinted at her, and she laughed.
“My goodness, George, you’re an action hero in the flesh.”
My turn to laugh.
“No, it’s true. You’re this quiet, mysterious loner, and you’re absolutely gorgeous, so I completely get how he’s smitten and terrified at the same time.”
“Terrified?”
“Well, yes, of course,” she said as though I was being obtuse. “You’re you, and he’s a psychiatrist, for heaven’s sake.”
“So you’re saying what, that he’s not exciting enough for me?”
“I think he thinks so. And he is, in many ways, a curmudgeonly old grandfather.”
“What’re you—”
“Have you seen his clothes? There are no jeans in that man’s wardrobe. He actually has tweed blazers and herringbone sportscoats and—I mean, this is not the fifties. Why does he have a newsboy cap? He has a billion scarves, and his shoes… Really, how old is he?”
But I liked all those things.
“He sent me a picture of the two of you on New Year’s last year, and he’s in this three-piece navy, chalk-stripe suit, and you’re in a black Hugo Boss. He’s got a tie, you don’t, he has a pocket watch and cuff links, and—God, it was all just so fussy, and you have a black dress shirt on and look like you walked off a magazine cover. You two don’t fit together at all.”
I chuckled. “You don’t get it because you don’t see him with me.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
What that meant was, she didn’t see how possessive and confident her brother was. When we were out together, Kurt steered me through crowds, rooms, and always pulled chairs out for me, opened doors, and held my hand. When we were with his friends, he put his hand behind my chair, included me in every conversation, made certain that topics that could exclude me were seamlessly changed, and always asked my opinion. Because of that, I liked his friends; they were funny and nice and really good sports about trying new things. My friends, the few I had, guys I lived and bled with, liked him because he was genuine and could hold his liquor. He didn’t judge them and could talk about sensitive subjects with finesse and tolerance. We were truly very different people, the bodyguard and the shrink, but we fit. What I had to do, he said often, was to start taking him for granted. As in, he would be there, always. But no one but the men I bled with could make that promise.
“George?” Thomasin prodded me, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“You have to look at more than what’s on the surface.”
“Oh, I know, but as you said, I’ve never seen you together. I only know what he tells me, and what he tells me is that you’re the one and he hopes you feel the same.”
“That’s what he said?”
“He said you still have your own apartment.”
“Yes, but we’re getting rid of it when we get home.”
Her eyes warmed. “Oh, that’s wonderful news.”
“Do you think you will look into some private security for you and your family?”
“I think that might be good for now to ensure the boys are safe—that they feel safe.”
I nodded.
“Okay, good. That’s what I thought too.”
“Hey, real quick, I want you to know that I would have explained that I was armed before I came into your house, had there been time.”
“What?”
I cleared my throat. “I would never bring a firearm into anyone’s house without them knowing beforehand.”
She nodded.
“I should have mentioned it at the airport, but I’m a little tired. And now, even though you know, I need you to understand that because I just came from being deployed, I am still armed with my service pistol. Also, once they clear my gun through ballistics, I’ll get that back as well.”
“So you’re saying you’ll have two guns in my house.”
“Yes,” I said flatly. “Now, I do have a lockbox for storage here with me, but I need to know that it’s all right with you—”
“My God, George, I have nothing to say about that. Without your weapon, we would be—I mean, I don’t know where we’d be.”
I shook my head. “The outcome would have been the same. It’s just quicker and cleaner with the gun. If I had to subdue people with my knife, your couch and rug wouldn’t have been the only things you had to take out of your living room.”
And with that, she caught her breath and flung herself at me, which hurt a bit, but she meant it from the heart. When she started to sob, I made sure to hug her tight.
Alone in my room after she left, door open, Geri came in to check on me, did that thing dogs do where they put their heads on your leg and look up at you, wanting pats. I complied, stroking his head, watching as he lifted it off me and turned toward the door. I did as well and saw one of the boys walk by the door, once, then again, and finally I got up, walked out, and saw it was Dennis, the younger one. He jolted in surprise.
“You’re haunting my door, kid. What’s up?”
Geri was beside me, eyeing the boy, almost squinting, and I had to wonder if he was as tired as I was. Watching people was a full-time job.
Dennis looked nervous and crossed his arms tightly, hugging himself.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You can ask me anything.” But he didn’t speak, just stood there, staring up at me. At the rate we were going, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. “Come in here,” I directed him, then walked back into my room and took a seat on the end of the bed just like I had with his mother.
It took a few moments, as he clearly was unsure, but then he took a breath and followed me in. He didn’t sit down, but now we were at a closer eye level, which, at least from how he was standing, seemed to be better for him.
“Were you scared?” I asked, hoping to break the ice. “Because I sure was.”
His mouth dropped open. “You weren’t scared. I saw you.”
“I was afraid for you and your brother, and for your uncle Kurt and your parents.”
“Why?”
“Because if I didn’t move fast enough, maybe someone would have been shot.”
“Oh, I see. That’s why you shot at the window and came through that way.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you get glass on you?”
“No,” I lied because yes, there was some, but the pieces weren’t slivers or chips. Easy to see, easy to brush off.
“I never saw anyone get shot in real life.”
“Well, I’m very sorry you had to see that, and I want you to promise me that you’ll talk to someone about that, okay?”
“You mean like a therapist?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
He nodded. “I have Dr. Lee. Both me and Toby talk to him already about stuff.”
“That’s great.”
He was staring at my face as if searching for something. “You don’t think that’s whiny?” he asked. “Having to talk to a doctor?”
I shook my head.
The relieved exhale made me smile. “Okay, good, because Mom worries we’ll get messed up because she’s famous on TikTok and stuff, but I don’t care, you know?”
