Thrive (Guardian Protection) Read online

  My chin quivered, and my nose started to sting. I couldn’t imagine I had any tears left to cry, but it seemed I had an endless supply.

  “Hey,” Rhion breathed, rising to her knees and crawling toward me. She pulled me into a hug, one of many that evening. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m sorry.” I covered my mouth, but I couldn’t make it stop. “It’s just… I’m a little overwhelmed.”

  “I don’t blame you at all. You’ve had a crazy day.”

  Okay, so I’d talked a lot in those six hours, too.

  I sniffled. “It’s been a crazy life.”

  “That too,” she whispered.

  “I feel like—”

  “Hey,” he called from the door.

  That same hope that was quickly becoming my biggest enemy expanded inside me almost as quickly as my stomach sank.

  He’d come for me. Again.

  Only I knew he wasn’t the same Jeremy I so desperately needed him to be this time.

  “Jesus, Lark! Don’t sneak up on people like that,” Rhion scolded.

  “The waves were on. I didn’t think you’d hear a knock,” he replied, and it stole the breath from my lungs.

  It was kind—teasing, even—and reminiscent of a man I’d once known. But that was only because his words were aimed at someone else. That man would be gone the minute I turned around.

  With a sharp inhale, I steeled myself for more insults.

  More anger.

  More resentment.

  More hurt.

  But I could have built an iron fortress around myself and Jeremy Lark could have leveled it with a single word.

  “Mira,” he whispered.

  Yep. That was the word.

  Squaring my shoulders, I braced for the worst.

  And, as I turned to look at him, I knew that was exactly what I’d gotten.

  Because he looked so much like my Jeremy that it ripped my heart from my chest.

  He was wearing the same navy slacks, but a plain, white T-shirt now hugged his broad chest and thick biceps. A delectable five-o’clock shadow covered his jaw, and soft, concerned eyes topped off the entire beautiful package.

  I could do nothing but blink at him.

  My mouth dry.

  My throat tight.

  My pulse racing.

  And he did nothing but blink back.

  His face gentle.

  His body taut.

  His breathing labored.

  “Well, um…” Rhion said awkwardly, standing up. “I’ll give you two a minute. Let me know if you need anything, Mira.”

  I never tore my gaze off him as she moved toward the door.

  Before leaving, she patted him on the chest. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. But be nice or I promise you won’t be when you leave.”

  His gaze flicked down to hers, warming immediately. “Noted,” he replied with an honest-to-God smile. It felt like salt to the gaping wound in my chest.

  She nodded and then walked out the door, closing it behind her.

  When his gaze came back to mine, his smile had disappeared but his face remained soft.

  “You okay?” he asked as he meandered to the bed.

  My stomach dipped with the bed as he sat only a few feet away from me, my folded legs acting as a physical barrier between us. Lord knew we had enough emotional ones.

  I shimmied back a few inches to gain some space. “Yeah. You?”

  He turned, casually crooking one long leg between us on the bed, the other hanging over the side. “I’m fine. Nothing but a scratch.”

  “That’s…good. Right?”

  Yes. That’s what I said to him. The man who had come to my aid and gotten shot, or nearly shot, in the process—I asked him if this was a good thing.

  I pressed my lips together and pretended not to be mortified.

  He glanced up at me, his eyes dancing with humor. “Yeah, Mira. That’s a good thing.”

  “Yeah. I know… I didn’t mean to insinuate that it—”

  “Relax.” He lifted a hand, and it looked like he was going to pat my leg, but it froze in midair.

  I stared at it, nerves rolling in my stomach, waiting to see what he was going to do.

  Were we old friends who could offer each other such casual affections?

  Or were we archenemies sworn to hate each other for the rest of our days?

  Clearing his throat, he lowered his hand to rest it on his ankle and became enthralled with his shoes. “So, I think this is the part where I apologize for being a dick, but I honestly don’t know what to say. Any chance you’d be willing to let it slide, seeing as I got shot and all?” Without lifting his head, he glanced up at me, one side of his mouth twitching adorably.

  A surge of relief blasted through me.

  I half laughed, half sobbed. “What happened to it being a scratch?”

  He lifted his head, that playful smile now pulling at both sides of his mouth. “That was before I needed to utilize the guilt card.”

  I laughed, the levity relaxing me even further. “Fair enough,” I whispered.

  His forehead crinkled as if he were in pain, but just as quickly, he grinned and stood up. “Okay. Now that we got that out of the way, we need to talk about the next few days.” He gripped the back of his neck—his bicep flexing deliciously, not that I was staring or anything—and looked at me expectantly.

  “The next few days?” I repeated, my voice rising to a squeak.

  “I need a couple days to figure out the best plan of action long term. But, in the meantime, you’ll crash at my place. We’ll swing by tomorrow and pick up some of your things. I could call one of the…”

  He kept talking. I was sure of it. However, my mind was stuck on the fact that he had declared that I’d be crashing at his place.

  It was a ludicrous statement. Last I’d checked, Hell had not frozen over, nor were pigs flying. And, while I hadn’t been outside in several hours, when Johnson had driven me over, I’d not seen the first sign of zombies or the beginnings of the apocalypse. So yeah…it was safe to say I would not be going anywhere near Jeremy Lark’s house.

  I leaned forward and cupped a hand to my ear. “I’m sorry. What? Whose place?”

  He looked at me. Cool as a cucumber. Poor thing didn’t even appear to know he was having a stroke. “My place.”

  “Your place,” I repeated.

  “My place,” he confirmed by repeating my repeat.

  I stared at him.

  He arched an eyebrow and stared back. “You got a problem with that?”

  Closing my eyes, I tipped my face to the ceiling and performed some quick multiplication in my head before looking back to him. “Oh…about sixty-one hundred of them. No…wait. Sixty-two hundred.”

  He blinked. And then blinked again, his eyebrows drawing closer each time. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I can’t crash at your place.” I tossed him a pair of air quotes. “We haven’t seen each other in seventeen years!” Yes. I was yelling. No. I had no idea why. But it seemed absolutely warranted at the time. Unable to sit for a minute longer, I pushed to my feet and began to pace a circle.

  He chuckled, but it wasn’t in humor. “See, this morning, I’d have agreed with you. But then I got this phone call telling me you were in shit so deep you were drowning in it.” He shrugged. “Maybe I misunderstood, but I distinctly remember you asking for my help.”

  “Yes! Help in getting Whitney back. Not help in relocating my life!”

  “Not asking you to move in, Mir. Not even asking you to unpack a bag.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Sure as hell not asking you to relocate your life. But you do gotta sleep under my roof for a few days until the cops find your girl and get Jonah’s ass behind bars. After that, you and all your sixty-one or sixty-two hundred problems are free to go wherever you’d like.”

  If I had been feeling rational, I would have seen that he was trying to do me a favor. Well…another favor. But I was not being rationa
l. I was tired mentally and physically, drained emotionally, and all around done with the day.

  “There is no way I’m going home with you! Have you lost your mind?”

  His face lit in understanding. “Ahhhh…okay. So this is the part where you have the snit fit.” He shifted on the bed, making a show of getting more comfortable. “Sorry. It’s been a while. I wasn’t prepared.” He crossed his thick arms over his chest and made a shooing motion with four fingers while holding his bicep. “Carry on. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  I pinned him with a glare. “I don’t have snit fits, Jeremy.”

  “Mira, you have snit fits when the seasons change. And, though it’s been quite a while since we last spoke, considering that we’ve had three conversations today, this being one the third, and you’ve had a snit fit every single time, I’m of the mind that some things don’t change.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He lifted a finger in the air. “Organic orange juice.” He lifted another finger. “Swallowing rusty swords and shoes made of broken glass.” He lifted a third finger. “I’ll let you know when you get to the good part of this one.”

  Shit. Maybe I did have snit fits. But definitely not when the seasons changed. Illinois winters were the worst. “I’ve been under an exorbitant amount of stress today. You cannot call this a snit fit.”

  “Well, not yet. You haven’t really gotten started. Though you are an overachiever. I didn’t know it was possible to have a snit fit about having a snit fit.”

  “I’m not having a snit fit!” I yelled loud enough for it to rattle the window.

  And that’s when Jeremy lost it too.

  “Then shut up!” he yelled back. “Jesus, woman. What the hell is wrong with you?” He stood up and prowled over to me.

  Defiantly, I stared up into his hazel eyes. I told myself to stand my ground and refuse to back down. But, as he loomed over me, his strong shoulders rounded forward, his trim waist bent bringing his upper body impossibly close, caging me in, the louder voice in my head told me to run as far and as fast as I could.

  Because I didn’t actually want to move at all.

  My fingers tingled to reach for him. To rest my hands on his abs and curl into his side, stealing a fragment of the comfort he’d always offered freely when we were younger.

  Jeremy Lark’s hugs had been life altering. They were like this warm blanket that enveloped me and shielded me from the elements. They didn’t fix anything. The world still existed outside his arms, but whether they lasted seconds or minutes, those hugs were the one thing that made the rest of my life manageable.

  I’d been wasting away without them.

  My heart raced as I peeked up at him through my lashes. He was staring down at me, fury brewing in his eyes. But, even when narrowed in anger, they held a certain comfort.

  I’d stared into those eyes too many times to ever be scared.

  Lost in lust.

  Lost in laughter.

  Lost in…love.

  I’d have given anything for his eyes to light, his pouty lips to split into a smile, and his perfect mouth to whisper that everything was going to be all right.

  But it wasn’t all right.

  And he wasn’t mine to touch.

  Not now. And not ever again.

  “Back up,” I whispered, tears pricking the backs of my eyes.

  “You can’t go home,” he seethed.

  I closed my eyes and sucked in a sharp breath in an effort to get myself under control. It backfired, because he was so close that his masculine scent filled my senses.

  It was different than the way I remembered him smelling. More understated and subtle. Like soap rather than cologne. But it was no less intoxicating.

  And heartbreaking.

  “Mira, look at me,” he snapped.

  My eyes fluttered open.

  “You can’t go home. If you have somewhere else you’d like to go to wait this thing out, fine. Tell me where and I’ll see what I can do about getting one of the guys to keep an eye on you. Trust me—I don’t like the idea of you staying with me, either. But the alternative is you getting killed.”

  Ignoring the ache in my chest, I forced my legs to carry me away from him. It was only a few steps, but it might as well have been miles for the distance it put between us. “I have an apartment. Near the college. Whitney and I were supposed to be moving today anyway. I’ll be safe there.”

  “Johnson Googled you,” he stated as if it should have been a revelation.

  I twisted my lips. “Okay?”

  “That’s how we found you. If you know enough about a person, it doesn’t take much to track them down.”

  “Yeah, but this is a new place. Trust me. It’ll be fine. Just drop me off and I’ll be out of your life forever.”

  He scoffed. “Funny, I thought you were out of my life years ago. And yet here you are.”

  My whole body jerked as if I could dodge his jab, but it hit me square in the stomach. It shouldn’t have hurt the way it did. He was speaking the truth, which was probably why it was so painful.

  Slapping on a little sarcasm for defense, I replied, “And you seem thrilled about it. So, yeah. I’m thinking it’s best if I let you off the hook now and we go about our separate ways.”

  His eyes flashed wide as if I’d dealt a verbal blow of my own. “I’m not on your fucking hook, Mira.”

  I swallowed hard. “That’s…that’s not what I meant. I just thought—”

  He planted his hands on his hips. “That you’d get yourself killed? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen if you go at this shit alone.”

  “I’m not trying to go at anything, Jeremy! That’s the whole point in going home. You, Rhion, Johnson, Leo… Everyone was great to me today. I will never be able to repay all of you. And I’m not going to sit here and allow that debt to grow.”

  “I don’t know how you can repay people, either, but I assure you dying is not it.”

  “So I’ll lay low. He won’t be able to find me.”

  “Jesus, you are so fucking stubborn. Does Kurt know your full name? What about your birthday? Social Security number? Mother’s maiden name? City you were born?” This was not asked in query. This was not asked gently. This was not asked to provoke thought—unless that thought was to point out that I was an idiot. And he wasn’t done. “Considering I know the majority of those answers, I’m thinking your ex-husband has enough information to find you anywhere.”

  “Kurt is in jail!” I informed, and it was in a tone that said I thought he was the idiot.

  “And he still found you!” he roared. “And put a gun to your head. And kidnapped your girl. And stole your fucking dog. And tried to shoot me. Maybe not Kurt himself. But one of his men. And if you think for one second that after you turned in seven hundred thousand dollars of his money that he’s not going to use whatever means necessary to find you, then you are in for a rude awakening.”

  Pursing my lips, I glared. His attitude was shit. But his point was not.

  “Fine. I’ll go to a hotel,” I suggested.

  “Is the credit card going to be in your name?” he shot back.

  I rolled my eyes. “I seriously doubt Kurt has any buddies who work for the bank.”

  “You willing to bet your life on that?”

  “Maybe if it would get you to stop yelling at me.”

  With long strides, he closed the distance between us. “I’m only yelling at you because you are not using your head here.”

  My body came alive all over again. I couldn’t breathe. Not with him that close. I couldn’t imagine how torturous it would be to go home with him. I was barely standing after the two interactions we’d had. A couple of days with him would do me in. I didn’t want to go to his house and see firsthand how beautiful it was. I didn’t want to see pictures of his family hanging on the walls. I couldn’t handle the reminder that losing me was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

&nb
sp; Because losing him had been the worst.

  I couldn’t do it again.

  Reality sliced through me, taking my desire to fight with it.

  When my vision began to swim, I cut my gaze to the floor. “I don’t know what to do, okay? I’ve never been in this situation before.” I took a step away, desperate for space to breathe, but also to ease the sting his proximity was causing in my heart. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of floundering here.” I offered him a weak smile, but the act of trying to fake it only made my face crumble. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” I choked and spun away. “I’ve been working my ass off to get my life back together, but it’s always something else dragging me down. And yeah, before you even feel the need to say it, I know I did this to myself. I married Kurt. I stayed with Kurt. I lived his lies. And, God, it’s been exhausting. So maybe I’m not using my head. But I just want to go home.”

  “Mira,” he whispered.

  Soft.

  Sweet.

  Tender.

  Jeremy.

  It made my tears fall harder. “I don’t want you involved in this anymore. I was wrong to call you.”

  “But you did,” he whispered. “And I’m here. Trying to help.”

  More soft.

  More sweet.

  More agony.

  “Please. Please, I’m begging you, just….take me home.”

  I wasn’t sure if I could survive Jonah or whatever else Kurt had planned for me, but I knew, deep down to the marrow of my bones and with an absolute certainty, I wouldn’t survive even one night with Jeremy Lark.

  My throat got thick as the dark-brown eyes that had dictated so much of my life stared up at me, pleading.

  “Please. Please, I’m begging you, just…take me home.”

  She couldn’t go home, but seeing her struggle gutted me. My mind told me to pull her into a hug and soothe her in any way I could. But it was my heart that kept my arms at my sides. I couldn’t go back down that road with her. And I feared that anger and resolve were useless defenses if I had her soft body curved around mine.