“So Shawna, huh?” I knocked into him while we walked, throwing him off balance for a few steps.
“Don’t read more into it than it ever is with me. You know how I roll,” he answered with very little emotion.
“You think you’ll ever collar someone again?” I asked randomly as we walked around the infinity edge pool toward the extensive guest bedroom wing.
At once, Elijah spat, “Hell no.”
I almost scuffed to a full stop. “Wow,” I blurted instead.
“What wow?” he volleyed.
“You just answered so fast, and with such conviction,” I explained, stabbing my hands into the front pockets of his butter-soft lounge pants that he’d given me. “I’d like to feel that way about something. Shit—about anything—right now.”
The path forked, and he led the way out toward the lookout point over the ocean instead of back toward my guest room. “You don’t feel like that about Rio?” he queried, almost too casually, as we walked.
“Well, of course I do. I love her,” I declared into the briny air. “I’d get down on one knee—hell, I’d get down on both—and straight-up beg her to marry me, but I know she’s not ready. So for now, I have to be satisfied playing the sad puppy chasing behind her. I’ll keep lapping up her crumbs, and I’ll be grateful for it.”
He grew still, as if literally comparing me to the big hound that galloped next to his jogging owner on the sand below us, looking more than happy with his crumb-filled life.
At last, he asked, “Is that really how you see yourself?”
“Kind of,” I muttered. “Yeah, I guess I do. At least right now it is.”
He didn’t hesitate to turn and stare at me. Forget that—he was fully gawking as if I had three eyes and he was trying to figure out how he could get a third for himself.
Finally, I snapped. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
“You, my brother. Very definitely you.” He didn’t let me sputter anything as he rolled his shoulder and then arced a thumb over it. “Because, you know, I’m trying to figure out what happened to the guy.”
I drew in air through my flared nostrils. “Okay, just spit it out, Banks. You already know I’m going to ask.”
“Yeah, but humor me.”
Goddammit. “Fine,” I muttered. “What guy?”
“Oh, you know,” he said with a shrug. “The guy who called me demanding I pick him up out front of SE to go storm the castle walls of some looney bin so he could rescue his princess.”
I couldn’t help but grin at his retelling of the story. If Rio and I had kids one day, I could hear Uncle Elijah in the other room telling them how their parents got together.
He narrowed his eyes and waited for me to focus. “Have you seen that guy?”
With pursed lips, I made a hmmm sound. “Yeah, I vaguely remember him. But last time I saw him, he was thrown into the Pacific Ocean between a couple of the Channel Islands after the water was primed with a bunch of bloody chum.”
“Christ,” the guy gurgled out before the sound developed into something rougher. “Grant, for the love of—” He pivoted hard and finally went for a hard grab on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me that when I picked you up? You need to see a doctor right the hell now.”
I wrenched away with a wide step. “And I didn’t tell you because I knew that was coming.”
“Twombley—”
“Banks,” I returned. “Listen. I’m fine, okay? I just want to talk to Rio and then take another nap. Or ten.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want me to tell her you’re crashed? Exhausted?”
“No. I should be the one to do it. If it’s you, I guarantee that little firestorm will drive Kendall straight through your front door.” The image brought me to an instant and undeniable smile.
My friend peered back as if wondering if he really wanted to know why.
“Kendall?” he asked.
“That clown car she drives.”
“Her car has a na—” He held up his hand in a stop gesture. “Nope. You know what? I don’t even want to know. I’m just going to answer a few emails that look like they need my personal attention, and I have a security issue to deal with for Bas. After that, I’ll be working on my tan out by the pool. If you have trouble napping, you’re welcome to join me.”
“Yeah…okay.” Jesus, I was going to have a mess to return to. The job that had been the center of my orbit had been all but nonexistent from my considerations for weeks.
Great, and I could just add that to the pile of guilt at my feet. Right now, I could step over the rubbish and keep pushing through the day. But I wasn’t sure how much longer that would be the case if I dialed Rio’s number.
I hadn’t been able to force my fingers to punch the sequence of keys since my feet hit solid ground in Catalina. What made me think I’d be brave enough to do it now?
Chapter Four
Rio
“Okay, but this is the last one,” I said.
It was those big eyes. Robert looked at me with those big round eyes, and I was a goner. I couldn’t say no to him, but when I saw the little kitty gut he was sporting when he lay around the house these days, I knew we both needed a kitty-treat intervention. He was the junkie and I was his enabler, and our codependent relationship needed to change.
Yeah, I was losing it. I didn’t even need a heartless asshole like Elijah Banks up in my face to point it out today. I could see the writing on the wall all by myself. Well, look at that! A gold star in the self-awareness journal!
My cell phone’s ring stopped my runaway train of self-loathing before it careened off the mountainside. When I looked at the display, I didn’t recognize the number, but with Grant still missing, every phone call could be an important one. I picked up the call without a second thought.
“Hello?”
The line was quiet for a few beats, but I could tell someone was there. Finally, a voice broke the still air. And then broke my heart wide open.
“Blaze.”
It was all he said. But it was all he needed to say. His voice was deep and husky, like he’d just woken up.
“Grant? Is…it really you?”
“Last time I checked,” he answered with a chuckle.
I shot to my feet. My free hand fluttered to my throat and then back down again.
“Are you…laughing about this?”
Because if that were the case, I was truly going to kick his ass. All right, so it would be a slight pleasure because his ass belonged in its own glass case in the world’s finest art museum, but I’d still kick that fine thing to the Canadian border and back.
As if he’d heard that whole diatribe, he dialed back the mirth. “Only because it feels so good to hear your voice, baby,” he said softly.
I gulped hard. Then even harder. It was nearly impossible, considering every drop of saliva in my mouth had been sucked dry by shock and elation.
I needed to stay calm. I wouldn’t be useful to either one of us if I got hysterical. But my voice didn’t get the memo on that sentiment yet. “Where are you? Do you need me to come for you? Can I see you?” I was on my feet, scurrying around the house, looking for things. Not sure what things, exactly. But things.