Finally, and perhaps most realistically, she’d treat me to the coldest shoulder known to man, and once I earned the right, she’d let me touch her and taste her. I deserved plenty of that ice, and I’d take everything she threw at me. I also knew that, regardless of anything, she took care of her people. Too much. So much that she didn’t take care of herself.
“I’m staying with you,” I said. “Just a few days. Please. This is the only place I can go right now.”
“Let’s ignore the fact that your sister lives ten minutes away.” She rubbed her temples, and I saw when her muscles sagged in resignation. “You know where the guest room is,” she said. “Don’t break anything. No commando tactics. No bomb building. No gun fights.”
“That’s a good reminder,” I said. “Bomb-building was on my list of activities for tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to hear about your activities,” she murmured. “I don’t want you here.”
“And I don’t want to hear about you spending time with that asshole,” I called as she walked toward her bedroom.
“Let’s clarify a few things, Will.” She whirled around, wagging her finger at me. “One, you don’t call the shots here. Two, what I do is none of your business. Three, the only asshole in this situation is you. I had an epically awful daybeforeyou showed up, and I’m done. I cannot deal with the universe slinging any more shit at me. I am finished with this day.”
The door slammed behind Shannon.
It was her way: she worked hard at controlling every inch of her life, and here I was, messing it all up again. She kept her emotions on lock. She required time and space to warm up, to get comfortable, to relax. And there was a lot more time and space between us now than there had ever been before. I couldn’t throw her on the bed, own her pussy, and force her to chill the fuck out. Not yet. Not tonight.
So instead of tearing her door off its hinges like I wanted to, I inspected the locks and pulled the open kitchen windows shut. The pantry door stood ajar, and I ducked inside for a closer look. Wine, bottled water, crackers, nuts, dried pasta. The refrigerator offered little more, and though I was tempted to confirm she’d eaten, I made my way into the closet-narrow guest room without stopping by her door.
With my arms outstretched, my fingers nearly touched either wall.
Shannon could undoubtedly explain all of the architectural features and provide a short dissertation on why a room of this size and shape existed, and part of me wanted to know. But if there was anything to be interpreted from the tone of that door slam, it was that she wouldn’t welcome my appearance in her bedroom this evening.
I flopped onto the pillow-laden daybed and pressed my fist to the pain radiating through my shoulder and down to my elbow. Nine hours crammed in the back of a military cargo plane out of Germany had only made the situation worse, but I’d be damned if I resorted to wearing the sling. The worst part was the numbness through my forearm and part of my hand, and mostly because those fire-and-ice tingles weren’t numb at all. But the real problem—the one the Navy was hoping would disappear after some leave time—was my trigger finger.
Dropping anchor in Boston wasn’t the smartest idea. The best spot for me was the naval amphibious base at Little Creek, Virginia. I’d get the unit physician’s undivided attention, world-class physical therapists, and unlimited time at the shooting range. No redheaded distractions there.
But the redhead was the one thing that made sense right now. I needed her, and maybe she’d let herself need me too.
Chapter Twenty
SHANNON
“This is…adisaster,” Matt said. He turned in a slow circle, eyeing the interior wreckage of one of the two Mount Vernon Street brownstones I was hoping he’d love. The last owners—a house-flipping crew that ran out of money about five seconds after stripping the property to nothing more than studs and beams—were not kind to this structure. They blew everything out, leaving behind only the bones and a massive pile of soggy construction debris in the courtyard. “I mean…epic disaster. What is even left?”
“There’s nothing left, but there’s a ton of opportunity,” I said.
From the outside, this pair of homes looked like the picture of historic preservation. The façades were strong and solid, and save for some window box weeds and flaking paint on the shutters, spoke nothing of the abandoned shell of a home inside.
“For a masochist,” he murmured.
That wasn’t how I saw it. This house had a past and a future, but right now, it was lost in an odd limbo of broken emptiness. Much like our other restorations, it needed attention and patience and vision, but most of all, it needed someone to believe it was worth putting back together.
Sam liked to say that some things were worth saving, and he was right about that, but it didn’t stop with preservation.
After scaling all five floors and inspecting each room, closet, and alcove, Matt and I stopped in the cave that once served as the dining room. It was dark and closed off from the rest of the living spaces, and the ceiling was warped with water damage.
“This is a shit show,” he said, shaking his head.
“Your favorite kind of show,” I said.
He paced up and down the room, pounding his fist against the studs and kneeling to examine the fireplace. “If we moved these walls…” Matt started, “we could run floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the property, and open up into the courtyard.”
I pointed to the brick wall at the far end of the home, the one that separated this property from its twin. “What would it take to make these two into a single, giant home? To completely reimagine the structure and floor plan?”
Matt walked to the wall and stared at it for a long moment, as if he was having a little talk with the stones to get their opinion on the matter. He ran his hands over the bricks, pressing and following the mortar lines, and this was his wizardry. Structures made sense to Matt in a manner that seemed ingrained in his DNA.
“It’s a good wall,” he said. “I like this wall. But…buy me a burger and you might be able to talk me into tearing it down.”
