The door slammed open behind her; she startled wildly, flattening up against the wall and smacking her head on the metal handrail. Michael MacKenzie stood in the doorway, looking both disoriented and fierce—until he saw her, at which point his expression flickered to the kind of man panic that meant, Oh, God, she’s crying. What do I do?
She flapped her hand in a useless gesture, hunting for explanation—and instead burst into a sad waiclass="underline" “Hair sticks!”
She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d turned and run in the opposite direction. But instead—barefoot, shirtless, tattooed, and sporting only half the injuries he’d displayed the evening before, he sat down beside her, tucked her in under his arm and pulled her close. And then he kissed the top of her head, and that was the end of that; she burst into tears all over again.
“You—you—you,” she said, never getting further than that word.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
So she cried a little more, and then she sniffled mightily, and she muttered, “I’d go get a tissue, but they’ve probably been stolen.”
Wisely, he said nothing; just stroked her hair—her horrible hair—and squeezed her shoulder.
But she must have been thinking again, because she narrowed eyes that felt distinctly puffy, pulling back to aim that stare at him. “How did you find me? I was quiet.”
Surprise crossed his face. “I—” He shook his head. “I must have heard you.”
But she was sure she’d seen a flinch. Some truth he didn’t want to face any more than she wanted hers. “No,” she said. “You didn’t.” And eased away from him.
Gotta give it to him. He wasn’t slow to turn the tables. “What about your father?”
She blinked. “I— What?”
“Last night. You said—”
Offense. Best defense. Now. “You mean, when you were thrashing?” She pointed at her face. “Thrashing.”
He did his own double take, absorbing the implication of her new bruise. When he spoke, his voice sounded forced. “So it would seem. You said—”
No. That had been a mistake. A long day, a dark night, and words that had slipped out. “I don’t want to talk about my father.”
“Funny,” he said. “Because I really do.”
“Really? I want to talk about how everything was going just fine until I met you, and now suddenly I’m out my purse, everything that was in my car, and apparently every bit of good sense I ever possessed!”
He drew breath as though he’d come right back at her, but at the last moment he didn’t—instead, frowning...trying to work out the meaning behind her words.
It maybe wasn’t fair to use shorthand against a man who’d been so very sick so very recently and who, for all his absurd recovery, still looked very much battered.
In a heroic sort of—
Oh, my God. Stop that.
Coming to conclusions—and the right conclusions at that—he said, “Hair sticks?”
She nodded. “From my car. Which was broken into. Along with a whole lot of other people’s, it seems, not to mention various muggings and a lot of disgruntlement overheard in the lobby over the free breakfast. You should get down there, by the way. It won’t last forever.”
He stood, on his feet faster than she’d ever expected of him—pacing away and back again on the limited landing area, moments during which she paid too much attention to the way his jeans settled over his hips.
Note to self: ogling does not count as “stopping that.”
Shock. It was the emotional shock. Surely. Her hand closed over the pendant, as if she would possibly, after all these years, receive some sort of divine guidance from it. Some voice from her father’s past, before he became what he became.
Michael MacKenzie held his hand out. “We can’t talk about this here.”
Right. Because it was so much safer in the room.
But she took his hand, and she stood and brushed herself off, and she dabbed the last bit of moisture from beneath her eyes, and then she followed him back to the room.
Where he stopped, a vulnerable chagrin coloring his expression—mingled with that same wry self-awareness. Barefooted, bare-chested, and staring at the door lock. “This,” he said, “could be a bad moment.”
Gwen’s laugh was a little watery, but held a smile nonetheless. She held the key between two fingers, turning it back and forth in the hall light. His relief made her smile bigger, and he stood aside so she could unlock the door and lead the way.
But she didn’t fail to notice the truth of it all. He’d heard her, he said.
He’d heard her, as impossible as it was, and he’d come to her—without regard to shoes, shirt, or even the key to get back in.
He’d just come.
For her.
Chapter 4
Mac grabbed another protein drink. It wasn’t nearly enough to fuel a body being force-healed from layers of assaults, but it would assuage the immediate gnawing in his belly. And then, while Gwen pressed a washcloth to her face as if she could hide the bright shine of lingering tears and the strong pink of high emotion, he grabbed a quick shower, brushing his teeth in the spray.
He came out to discover her doing the same at the sink and set himself to pacing the room—driven by the blade’s restlessness, driven by the picture he was forming of the previous night and knowing that this surge of energy would be all too brief. The burning in his blood told him as much—told him the damage had gone deep, that the blade still worked on him.
That the toll had yet to be completely paid.
He had to get a handle on the situation before he lost these moments.
He found himself drawn to the window—pulling back the privacy drapes, letting the light wash over his face...letting his eyes adjust.
Plenty of chaos below. Broken glass in the parking lot. A police car—no, two of them—parked skewed across the lines, and people milling around. Gesturing. Upset.
Gwen was right. More right than she knew.
No coincidence at all.
But what it meant, he didn’t yet understand. Only that he now had a very good idea why the blade had brought him here. The blade that thrived on high feeling and righteous death and other people’s pain. The blade that used him to gain these things even as he used it to stop them.
But he didn’t know why Gwen was here. And he didn’t know why she was here. With him.
He did know what the blade thought of it. What the blade wanted.
They aren’t my feelings. Aren’t who I am.
Was it?
She came out of the bathroom and stood uncertainly in the middle of the room.
Uncertainly. Not like her.
As if I’d know.
But he did. The hesitation in her movement, the way she’d so briefly held her breath, her hands jammed into the pockets of that snug thin stretch thing passing for a jacket. She’d done what she could with her hair, coiling it in a knot and wrapping her hair band around it, but it was clearly out of control, gleaming subtly red in the morning light.
He said, “Your father.”
Her lower lip—round and full—firmed. “No.”
He stepped away from the window, taking advantage of the uncertainty while he had it—fighting the impulse to restore her confidence instead. “It’s no coincidence. You know it. I know it. I need to know why.”