“No,” I said, automatically, thinking of the last look into Perrin’s room before I joined the Mann family.
Watching the lovers forehead to forehead, lost in talking to each other, Perrin’s lips moving and nodding with Jack was how I had just left them. Jack had been on the bed next to him, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder to Perrin who was now sitting up. Perrin’s face looked like hell, black and blue already, bandaged but no longer bleeding, but every few words, Jack would lean over and kiss a cut, or a bruise. Sometimes Jack would just hold him as a tremor wracked though Perrin’s body.
That was thirty minutes ago.
“I’m sorry, what do youmean? He’s been here for hours,” Baylor said pointedly. Apparently, just as my research suggested, theManns owned Bear Valley and were not used to not having access to one or two of their own.
I held up my hands in defense.
“Perrin is just now lucid - literally just the last fifteen minutes or so before we came in here. They need a moment, alone,” I explained, more forcefully that I probably intended. “Don’t - don’t make Jack leave his side, ok?” I asked.
CJ, the sister, put her hand on my arm, and I felt her give me a squeeze. “You are right, that’s where he needs to be. We just needed to see that he is ok,” CJ said, and I knew she was speaking equally of Jack and Perrin.
“How are your people? Your team alright?” Quinn asked.
His name I knew.
I was aware of this brother from the first time I had met him a month ago.
Highlyaware.
He had watched me carefully as I spoke to them, which didn’t surprise me. Every time he would show up at Jack’s office, I could see him trying to puzzle out exactly what was going on. He left a clear impression that he wasn’t exactly buying the story Jack was selling months ago. Now, Quinn didn’t look smug or happy to be right, he looked . . . worried.
“Good,” I said. “Well, tired. It was intense, at the end. I will let Jack tell . . ..”
Matt, I think, held up a hand. I took the opportunity to pull my eyes away from the sight of Quinn’s eyes and dark hair brushing his shoulders.
“He’ll tell us when it’s time, then. You are right for them to stay together,” Matt said, a small smile played on his face. “You are a good man, Bishop.”
Just like that, I was instantly forgiven with him, at least. Quinn kept looking at me like he was trying to puzzle something out, and I figured he would be a harder sell.
I nodded, trying to answer their questions as much as possible.
“You all should come back to Black Diamond, how many people do you have?” Quinn was asking me. His voice was light like his eyes, with a west-coast almost breathy tone beneath it.
“I’m sorry, Quinn, what?” I asked, trying to focus on what he was saying.
I was exhausted and hungry, with hours left to go. I eyed one of the chairs, but they looked too comfortable. Better to stay on my feet for a while.
“I own the bar, Black Diamond, we will get your guys set up with some food, drinks, you know, Matt will help,” he said, gesturing to Matt, the chef who kept sending us food during the op. “Just send them over when they are done here, if you want. I mean, unless you aren’t done . . ..”
I rubbed my hand over my face, “Sorry, yes, that would be great. It’s an amazing offer, actually.”
“You watched out for our brothers, least we could do, Bish,” he said, with his smile threatening dimples.
Dimples and “Bish” in that voice? Those things crashed hard into me, unexpected.
There wasalwaysthe post-op sexual overdrive, this one four years in the making and I just needed to get past it in a place that did not also have Quinn Mann.
I would make a fool of myself for that man, and I knew it.
“How many people do you have?” Quinn asked again.
“Coordinate with Ed?” I said, pointing him in the right direction. Quinn nodded, giving me a squeeze on the arm that sent straight sparks down it as I turned to go.
Perrin
Hearing is the first sense to come back.
