“What did you mean tonight?” he demanded, pausing mid-stride to stare at her with a strange intensity crackling in those blue eyes.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said, lolling her head on the back of the sofa. “I talk a lot.”
“When you were talking to Kimber.”
“I said a lot of things to my sister. And none of them are your business,” she said, pulling a soft throw off the back of the couch and spreading it over her legs.
He was pacing again.
“Wait, you’re mad at me about something I said to my sister in a private conversation?”
He stopped again and took a step toward her, then shoved a hand through his hair. “Mad doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”
She’d never heard that tone from him before. It was brittle, jagged. He swallowed hard like the words were lodging themselves in his throat. But she squashed the desire to fix it, to make him more comfortable.
“You told her that you were hard to love. That you thought you were too much.”
The man had fought her off, zip-tied her, then hauled her ass to a holding cell, and he was upset that she’d announced a universal truth to her sister.
She tucked her feet under her. “I’m tired. What’s your point? What do you want me to say?”
He was moving again. Stepping into her space, he put his hands on the cushion on either side of her head. The fire flickered behind him as he loomed over her.
“Do you believe that?” His voice was a rasp, his eyes almost silver in the low light. A long beat of silence stretched on, broken only by their breaths.
Finally, she nodded. It was the truth. One she’d known as long as she’d known her own name.
“Remington, anyone who ever makes you feel as if you’re hard to love is a damn fool and doesn’t deserve to be in your world.”
She blinked. His nearness was taking the chill out of her bones, lighting up the shadows.
“Why do you care?” she whispered.
In slow motion, he removed one hand from the back of the couch and gently cupped her cheek. On instinct, she nuzzled against his palm and was rewarded with his hiss of breath.
“Because you’re the best person I know.”
His words were like a caress. A balm on some raw spot that had never healed. His thumb brushed over her lips. Once. Twice.
And then he was pulling back, straightening away from her. “Go to bed, Remi.” The order was gruff yet gentle.
Mouth open in stunned silence, she didn’t move from the spot as Sergeant Brick Callan put his hat back on and walked out, locking the door between them.
26
It had been a long, shitty day.
She spent the morning in her parents’ basement when Darlene and Gilbert forced their daughters to prime and seal the cinderblock walls. Apparently adult children could indeed be punished by their parents.
Kimber had barely spoken a word to her for four straight hours.
After that, Remi had gone straight to the island’s medical center, where Dr. Sarah Ferrin had asked about how many vegetables she’d eaten that week and then cut off her cast. It should have been a celebration, the end of healing, the return to normal. But normal still eluded her.
She’d gone straight to Brick’s house, and the brush she’d held in her good hand had pulled a Brick Callan and done not a damn thing.
It was depressing. Her past had caught up to her. Her present was a dismal tightrope routine with nowhere to go but down. And at this point, her future was non-existent.
It was as if she’d just walked into a giant pit of quicksand and then let it swallow her whole. She was creatively, physically, mentally stuck. And she hated it.
Sweaty and dejected, she turned off Radiohead’s “No Surprises” and switched over to a relaxing instrumental playlist. She forced herself to put brush to paper, finally managing to swirl a few oils around in what looked more like brush technique exercises than any real exercise of creativity.
“This is bullshit,” she bitched at the canvas.
“Know what else is bullshit?”
“Mary J. Blige! Spence, what the fuck are you doing here besides giving me a heart attack?” Spencer Callan was sitting on one of her work tables, eating ice cream out of the carton.
“It’s March 1.”
“You’re kidding. Right?”
He shook his head and shoveled in another mouthful of ice cream. “It’s March 1, and we’re both here.”
“No. I’m not good company right now,” she warned him.
“Good company or not. You’re coming with me.”
“I’m not speaking to your brother.”
“He’s gonna be so busy he won’t even notice you’re there,” Spencer said, sliding off the table. He peeked at her canvas and frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s garbage just like the rest of my life,” she grumbled, swiping the painting off the easel like a bad-tempered cat.
“Self-pity is a new look on you,” he observed. “Want to see something that will cheer you up?”
He pulled out his phone.
“Unless it’s that pit bull in the bathtub wearing a shower cap, no.”
“Here’s Brick when I hand-delivered his new machine today.” Spence swiped through his photos. “That’s his surprised face. I only point that out because it looks a lot like his pissed-off face.”
Remi’s lips quirked. It was very, very difficult to stay self-pitying and mad around Spencer.
He swiped again. “This is when he realized the giant bow on it meant it was for him. And then here’s his face when I told him you bought it for him.”
Remi snorted. In the picture, Brick looked as if he was about to punch a hole through Spencer’s phone.
“You chipped in,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but it was funnier to tell him this way.”
She had to agree. “What was his reaction?”
“Claimed he wasn’t going to accept it. I called bullshit and moved it into the yard, and I caught him doing this right before he left for his shift.” He showed her the last picture of Brick sitting astride the shiny red and white snowmobile, hands gripping the handlebars, a fierce frown on his handsome face.
“I think we can consider our debt paid,” she said.
“Which is why you’re coming out with me,” Spencer insisted.
“Ugh. Fine. But if your brother picks a fight with me, I’m not backing down.”
“I’d be disappointed if you did. You might want to shower first.”
While not a national holiday, March 1 had special significance on Mackinac. It meant only another month of long, dreary winter before the seasonal workers and tourists began to return to the island in April. The Tiki Tavern made a tradition of celebrating the first with a boozy country Caribbean mash-up party that ran from opening until close.
By the time Remi arrived on Spencer’s arm, the place was packed with people. It was wall-to-wall Hawaiian shirts and flannels. Despite the chaos, Brick still looked up from the bar when she walked in, his gaze locking on hers like a heat-seeking missile. Like he’d been waiting for her to walk in.