“I know.” It helped to admit it out loud. Instead of feeling trapped, he felt calm for the first time in months. “Bridget dodged a bullet.”
“Hmm,” was all his brother saw fit to reply.
That annoyed him, exactly the same way it would have annoyed him any other time Shay had information he refused to share. Enough so, Trace didn’t filter himself when turning the situation back on his brother. “You know what you did, right?” He figured he’d sworn not to share Lilah’s secret with another living soul, so Shay didn’t count.
His brother’s smile remained. “Yes. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, and if I had the chance, I’d do it differently, for Lilah’s sake, but again, everything happened the way it was meant to happen.”
“This baby is meant to grow up without its father?” Shay wouldn’t be able to mistake the accusing note in his voice. He’d heard it too often when alive.
“Lilah and our baby will have everyone they need, including a guardian angel.” Shay pointed his thumb at his chest. “And trust me, with Lilah’s good looks and my personality, that kid’s gonna need me full-time.”
Trace smiled in spite of himself. “No doubt.” He followed the mild insult with a huge yawn. “Love you, Shay.”
“I love you, too.” So saying, Shay stood, approached the bed, and reached out to touch Trace’s forehead. He felt nothing—no brush of fingers, no warmth of flesh—but sleep suddenly dragged at him, heavy and tiring, like swimming in deep water, fully clothed. “Trace, you’re the best big brother anyone could want. I always saw that. I should have said it more often. Go to sleep, now. Get some rest. Then wake up, live your life, and be happy.”
The pull of sleep intensified. “Izzy…”
“Go get her tomorrow.”
“How?” He tried to will his eyes open, because this was important, but they were so heavy.
Shay laughed. “Shit, man, have you never fucked up with a woman before?” Still chuckling, he went on, “No, probably not. Look who I’m talking to. Okay, bro, listen closely. You’ve gotta do what men who have fucked up throughout the ages have done. Apologize. Beg. Woo her with highly persuasive make-up sex.”
“In…that…order?”
“In that order.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Danny lamented, arm thrown dramatically over his eyes, no doubt highly aware of what a figure he cut with his long, trim business-casual frame slung across her small office sofa.
“I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving HH&R,” Izzy replied from her crouched position beside her desk, steadily packing a box of personal effects from the lower regions of her bookshelves—reference materials from continuing legal education courses she’d attended, small Lucite monuments commemorating some of the larger deals she’d worked on, a collection of thank-you gifts co-workers had brought her from destinations across the globe. Hey, Izzy, thanks so much for honchoing the deal to close while I went on my honeymoon/vacation/family reunion. Twenty-two-hundred billable hours a year for five years of her life meant she’d spent at least one hundred thousand hours in the service of the firm, and yet she’d carry away the memories in about three file boxes.
“You’re leaving me, eventually,” Danny insisted, flinging his arm down. “You can fool yourself, if you choose, but I’m not so easily duped. You’ve got a faraway look in your eyes.”
“I might go home and visit my parents for a bit,” she conceded, crab-walking to the next shelf. Chuck had been decent enough to let her wait until after hours on a Friday evening to clear out her office. “But not to stay. My heart’s not in Nevada.”
“It’s not in Southern California, either.”
“It might be if I give it an actual chance. Could be I’ll discover the charms of SoCal if I’m not so busy with work that I forfeit a personal life and rely on stress-relief exercises to see me through.” She blew out a breath and stood. “Maybe I’ll move to the coast, join a small firm, and practice beach law.”
“What’s beach law?”
“I don’t know.” She smiled. “But I’m willing to find out.”
“It’s not what you really want. You’ve tossed a lot away for…for…”
“For love?” she supplied, relieved that her voice held steady even if her heart didn’t.
“For an idiot who refuses to admit he’s making a mistake. He doesn’t deserve you. Want me to fly up there and knock some sense into his stubborn bear-daddy brain?”
Izzy walked over, knelt by the sofa and wrapped her arms around him. “Honey, he’s six-five and solid as a sequoia. The only thing you’d get for your trouble is bruised knuckles.” She hugged him, hard, and he returned the gesture. “But I love you for offering.”
Her office door opened on those words. She turned in Danny’s arms, and watched Chuck peek his head in. “Oh, good. You’re still here. There’s someone to see you.”
Chuck stepped back, and a tall, handsome, well-groomed man in a gray suit filled her doorway. The floor dropped out of her world. She simply stared, unable to believe her eyes or find her voice. “Oh my God,” she finally whispered, not quite sure she hadn’t lost her mind.
“Oh. My. God,” Danny echoed.
“Danny,” Chuck called from the hall. “Can I see you in my office, please?”
“Hell no.”
Trace’s gaze shifted from Izzy, to Danny, and back again. “Have I interrupted something?”
Izzy unwrapped herself from Danny and stood, fingers twined awkwardly in front of her to stop from throwing her arms around him. “No. He was just keeping me company while I packed up my office. Trace, this is my friend Danny. I think I mentioned him once or twice. Danny”—she turned to her friend—“this is Trace Shanahan.”
Danny stood and extended a hand. “AKA, the bear daddy. Delighted to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Trace said, never taking his eyes off her. Which seemed only fair, since she couldn’t take hers off him. Big, rugged Trace Shanahan standing there, clean-shaven, absently tugging at the knot in the tie he’d clearly rather not be wearing did stupid things to her insides. Ironically, she had on an oversized white T-shirt that read, Don’t Make Me Use My Lawyer Voice, in flowing black script, black yoga pants, and white Chucks—by far the most casual outfit she’d ever worn to the office. “Izzy, could I talk to you? Privately?”