The Cornerstone (21 page)

I gazed at her, smiling. “When am I going to see you again?”

She capped her water and reclined back against her balled-up jacket. “When would you like to see me again?”

“Soon,” I said. I shifted to lie beside her, and wove our fingers together. There was an extended deployment on my horizon, and I wanted to steal every single moment of time between now and then with Shannon. “Really soon.”

“Why?”

I wasn’t sure what prompted the question, but it wasn’t like we spent much time defining this relationship or our feelings for each other. I only assumed she had feelings for me, and that was why she agreed to continue seeing me. “You’re so much,” I said, dragging my finger across that comet of freckles on her collarbone. “And I want all of it.”

*

Shannon was quiet
on the drive to the airport. She sat beside me, her fingers laced around mine, staring at the scenery as it passed.

I hated it.

“I noticed that it’s the end of November,” I said. “And December comes next.”

“A shrewd observation,” she mumbled. “Are commandos expected to memorize the sequence of months, or is that one of your special tricks?”

I hiked up my sleeve and made an exaggerated glance at my watch. “I had you biting a pillow two hours ago. You need me to pull over and fix that attitude?”

SEALs liked to say
anything worth doing was worth overdoing
and this thing with Shannon—this power struggle—was definitely worth overdoing.

Shannon shook her fingers free with a snicker. “You don’t want me to hop on?”

She gestured to my crotch, and as if the mere suggestion of her silky skin against mine was enough to turn me on, an ache rolled down my dick. Four days of unrestricted access to this woman wasn’t enough, and as I caught sidelong glimpses of her now, her hair wavy and wild, a splattering of new freckles fanning out across her nose and cheekbones, her lips arched in a scowling pout, I knew there wouldn’t be a time when I wanted anyone other than Shannon.

“I want you to spend Christmas with me.”

I wanted to piss her off and fuck her hard. I wanted to laugh with her and hear all her awful stories. I wanted her vicious insults and the purring sighs she made before she came. I wanted it
all
.

“No,” she drawled. She huffed out a laugh and glanced at me, her brows furrowed. I knew she was searching for a caustic comeback, and when she found none, she crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

“And by no you obviously mean yes,” I said. “We’re going to Mexico, a little place on the Baja coast.”

Shannon propped her sunglasses up and pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. She exhaled, as if this topic was inflicting pain. “You’ve omitted some critical details.”

“Like what?” I asked. My hand moved to the nape of her neck.

“You’re being obtuse,” she murmured. “Your entire family goes to Mexico for the holidays. I know this because Lauren’s told me all about it, and Matt went with her last year.” She met my blank stare, and raised me an eye roll. “And they’re going this year, too. I’m not interested in any part of that. No.”

“There will be plenty of pillow biting. Did I mention that?” Another eye roll. “Do you even have a reason? Or are you too busy glaring at me with all your hell fire?”

“I have several reasons,” she cried, knocking my hand from her neck. “First,
my
family is in Boston and
my
family has its own traditions. I took enough shit for ditching them this week—”

“And that’s exactly why you should spend a week with me in Mexico,” I interrupted, “where I’ll keep you drunk and naked.”

I fucking hated her brothers. Those lazy bastards dumped everything on Shannon. I wanted to sit each of them down and have a few words about how I expected them to treat their sister, and by
words,
I meant kicking the shit out of them until we reached an understanding.

“Yeah, being surrounded by your parents, Wes, Lauren, and Matt sounds like the perfect time to be drunk and naked,” she snorted. “We’re not talking about this anymore.”

“There will be moments when clothes are tolerated,” I said. “Few and far between, but they’ll exist, and you can hang with Judy, and tell her how much you love the blog. She will promote you to favorite in a fucking second. And you can give Wes shit about everything, because you can and I want to watch that.”

“What you’re talking about isn’t what we have going on,” she said, her hand circling the space between us.

“Let’s renegotiate the terms,” I said.

“You don’t want to negotiate with me,” she said.

“Maybe I do,” I said.

“Listen. I wouldn’t challenge you to a commando contest. You shouldn’t challenge me to a litigation duel.”

She continued sighing and murmuring about me losing my damn mind, and I returned my hand to her neck. She was tense, all tight, wiry muscles bunched between her shoulders, owed entirely to me messing up her universe again.

Her land mines were everywhere. Some I could spot, others were hidden, and all of them required caution. Patience.

And fuck me if patience wasn’t my middle name.

“Then let’s talk about some road head.”

SHANNON

Eleven months ago

I
used to
think whiskey taught me everything I needed to know about hangovers.

Whiskey was nothing when compared to a long weekend with Will Halsted.

Those glorious days in New Mexico came crashing down when I woke up Monday morning. A crunchy layer of snow covered the roads, the sky was gray, and my bed was void of delicious men in need of insults.

A dull ache throbbed at the base of my skull, and I frowned at my empty text message inbox. There were a fuck ton of messages when I landed last night—mostly Lauren and Andy sharing the holiday highlights, Patrick blasting me with questions about the status meeting agenda for this morning, and Will requesting confirmation that I was safe and snug at home. He sent a picture, too, one he snapped of us on the tail end of our hike. It was at a steep, rocky part of the path, far from the marked trail, with the snowcapped mountains framed in the distance. Will’s lips were pressed to my temple, and he was smiling. I looked sweaty and blotchy, and the angle gave me an extra chin, but I kind of loved that image.

When he delivered me to the airport, he swept me off the curb and kissed me harder than was polite for such a public setting. Then he explained he’d be leading training missions all week. He’d be off the grid, and the absence of his texts and calls made the hangover much worse.

I avoided the office, distracting myself with buying and selling properties, and walking through our current job sites under the guise of listing preparation. It was a good diversion. It gave me time to think, and though the distance from Will was hard, it was healthy.

I couldn’t keep doing the rollercoaster routine: the eager-anxious build-up before seeing him, the incredible lightness associated with great sex and good company, the sharp plummet when it ended, and then getting in line to do it all over again. It was too much—drama, travel, emotion, all of it—and over the course of this week, I refined a persuasive argument to end things altogether.

But I wasn’t going to.

If I was brutally honest with myself, I
couldn’t
do it.

I wanted these weekends, and even if there were costs and challenges associated with them, they weren’t substantial enough to get me off the rollercoaster.

*

My instant messenger
pinged while I was rewriting an injunction on Thursday morning.

Patrick:
Got a second

Shannon:
Yep

Shannon:
You’re welcome to walk down the stairs and have this conversation in person. People still do that.

Patrick:
Can’t. I’m on a conference call with the Castavechias and their interior decorator, who might be one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

Shannon:
Please tell me Andy’s doing the talking

Patrick:
Yes.

Patrick:
What have you heard about Thanksgiving?

I glanced at the clean crockery on the corner of my desk. Matt dropped the dishes off earlier, and thanked me for the butternut squash pies. Apparently, Lauren ate half of one for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning, and the others were demolished before the holiday bowl games ended.

Shannon:
That my pies were best in show

Patrick:
Not going to argue that

Patrick:
But there’s more to the story. Sam brought Tiel

Shannon:
That’s still happening?

Patrick:
Oh yeah.

Shannon:
I got some texts from Lauren and Andy. They said it got a little tense.

Patrick:
That’s a good assessment. I wouldn’t say it went badly, but I wouldn’t call it good either. There were some uncomfortable moments. She might just be socially awkward, in which case, they’re a good pair.

Shannon:
Uncomfortable how?

Patrick:
My gut says she’s a nice girl but she was really prickly.

Patrick:
She said some unusual things to Lauren and Andy.

Shannon:
How drunk were you?

Patrick:
Only a little. I can’t remember exactly what she said, and all in, she was pretty quiet, but when they left, we all looked at each other and we were like, wow. That was really fucking strange

Shannon:
Maybe you could tell me what made it so strange…details never hurt anyone.

Patrick:
She kind of bit Nick’s head off. And she yelled at Lauren.

Shannon:
About what?!?

Patrick:
Lauren invited her to lunch.

Shannon:
And she yelled at Lauren about that?

Patrick:
You should talk to Sam. Find out where his head’s at. See about getting him an appointment with that counselor.

Shannon:
I thought we weren’t kicking hornets’ nests anymore…

Patrick:
Talk to him. He’s not going to talk to me and I’m getting nothing out of Riley.

Patrick:
Let him bitch about something. That always opens the floodgates.

Shannon:
Awesome. I’m popping some headache medicine before I go in

Patrick:
Wait. You never told me about New Mexico.

Shannon:
It was good. Really good.

Patrick:
Did you try any fry bread?

Shannon:
No…

Patrick:
Back to neutral?

Shannon:
All the way.

*