The Cornerstone (31 page)

She kicked off her heels as the door closed, and came to a stop right in front of me. “Captain, is it now?”

We did not have time to discuss my ascension in the ranks. “Who the fuck was
that
?”

“What the fuck are
you
doing here?” she yelled. “I mean, it
is
nice of you to knock this time. Have you grown out of your breaking and entering stage yet, commando?”

I was on my feet and grabbed her around the waist before the last syllable passed her lips. “Tell me, peanut: when his name is on your lips, does it taste the same as mine?” I asked, my arms banded around her torso with her back pressed tight against my chest.

“That’s none of your goddamn business,” she bit out as she wriggled in my arms. My shoulder was aching and pins and needles were setting my last three fingers on fire, but I didn’t care. I was going to hold her until she drew the line and told me to stop.

“Would he mind if I did this?” I dragged my lips up her neck and over her jaw, melting even further into this woman as the taste of her skin spread around me. “What if…” I brought my fingers to her chin and angled her toward me. “What if I did this?”

She knew what I was thinking while I stared at her mouth. She knew I was going to kiss her, and that, in the long, disjointed history of us, kisses were never simple, never innocent. My lips found hers, and we were both uncoordinated and impatient, biting, sucking, licking, feasting on each other. When she released a sweet,
relieved
sigh, I knew she still belonged to me.

“Kiss me like that again and your clothes are coming off,” I warned, my hand tight on her hip.

When our lips met, I knew she was as desperate for this as I was. My hand ran down her thigh and then back up, and over the globes of her ass, squeezing and grinding myself into her. My lips landed on her neck and this—
this right here
—was worth crossing deserts and mountains, surviving helicopter crashes, taking a fucking ton of shrapnel.

This woman was worth it all.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked. “It has been eight fucking months, Will.”

“I needed to see you,” I admitted, my lips on her neck. “I told you I was coming for you when my tour was up.”

I couldn’t talk about the failures of my last mission, the scars it left behind, or the decisions ahead of me. Not tonight. The one thing I was capable of doing tonight was crawling into bed with Shannon and holding her—

“And I told you this was over,” she said. “You cannot show up at my door like this and think…I don’t even know what the hell you think, but you can’t do this. I’ve moved on. I’m
with
someone else.”

She fought against me, and for a second I debated whether she actually wanted me to release her. We were rough with each other as a matter of fact, but this seemed different. I loosened my hold, and she slipped out of my arms.

“You can’t do this,” she repeated. “You can’t be here.”

When I hopped a flight back to the States with the intention of sorting out my life and visiting Shannon, I knew there were several possible outcomes.

She could straight-up refuse to see me, and that was a very real contender. Shannon was a heavyweight when it came to shutting people out and pretending they didn’t exist.

She could order me to whip my dick out and fuck her until we both collapsed. Of course, she’d insult me the entire time and I’d get off on that shit.

Finally, and perhaps most realistically, she’d treat me to the coldest shoulder known to man, and once I earned the right, she’d let me touch her and taste her. I deserved plenty of that ice, and I’d take everything she threw at me. I also knew that, regardless of anything, she took care of her people. Too much. So much that she didn’t take care of herself.

“I’m staying with you,” I said. “Just a few days. Please. This is the only place I can go right now.”

“Let’s ignore the fact that your sister lives ten minutes away.” She rubbed her temples, and I saw when her muscles sagged in resignation. “You know where the guest room is,” she said. “Don’t break anything. No commando tactics. No bomb building. No gun fights.”

“That’s a good reminder,” I said. “Bomb-building was on my list of activities for tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to hear about your activities,” she murmured. “I don’t want you here.”

“And I don’t want to hear about you spending time with that asshole,” I called as she walked toward her bedroom.

“Let’s clarify a few things, Will.” She whirled around, wagging her finger at me. “One, you don’t call the shots here. Two, what I do is none of your business. Three, the only asshole in this situation is you. I had an epically awful day
before
you showed up, and I’m done. I cannot deal with the universe slinging any more shit at me. I am finished with this day.”

The door slammed behind Shannon.

It was her way: she worked hard at controlling every inch of her life, and here I was, messing it all up again. She kept her emotions on lock. She required time and space to warm up, to get comfortable, to relax. And there was a lot more time and space between us now than there had ever been before. I couldn’t throw her on the bed, own her pussy, and force her to chill the fuck out. Not yet. Not tonight.

So instead of tearing her door off its hinges like I wanted to, I inspected the locks and pulled the open kitchen windows shut. The pantry door stood ajar, and I ducked inside for a closer look. Wine, bottled water, crackers, nuts, dried pasta. The refrigerator offered little more, and though I was tempted to confirm she’d eaten, I made my way into the closet-narrow guest room without stopping by her door.

With my arms outstretched, my fingers nearly touched either wall.

Shannon could undoubtedly explain all of the architectural features and provide a short dissertation on why a room of this size and shape existed, and part of me wanted to know. But if there was anything to be interpreted from the tone of that door slam, it was that she wouldn’t welcome my appearance in her bedroom this evening.

I flopped onto the pillow-laden daybed and pressed my fist to the pain radiating through my shoulder and down to my elbow. Nine hours crammed in the back of a military cargo plane out of Germany had only made the situation worse, but I’d be damned if I resorted to wearing the sling. The worst part was the numbness through my forearm and part of my hand, and mostly because those fire-and-ice tingles weren’t numb at all. But the real problem—the one the Navy was hoping would disappear after some leave time—was my trigger finger.

Dropping anchor in Boston wasn’t the smartest idea. The best spot for me was the naval amphibious base at Little Creek, Virginia. I’d get the unit physician’s undivided attention, world-class physical therapists, and unlimited time at the shooting range. No redheaded distractions there.

But the redhead was the one thing that made sense right now. I needed her, and maybe she’d let herself need me too.

SHANNON

“T
his is…a
disaster,” Matt said. He turned in a slow circle, eyeing the interior wreckage of one of the two Mount Vernon Street brownstones I was hoping he’d love. The last owners—a house-flipping crew that ran out of money about five seconds after stripping the property to nothing more than studs and beams—were not kind to this structure. They blew everything out, leaving behind only the bones and a massive pile of soggy construction debris in the courtyard. “I mean…epic disaster. What is even left?”

“There’s nothing left, but there’s a ton of opportunity,” I said.

From the outside, this pair of homes looked like the picture of historic preservation. The façades were strong and solid, and save for some window box weeds and flaking paint on the shutters, spoke nothing of the abandoned shell of a home inside.

“For a masochist,” he murmured.

That wasn’t how I saw it. This house had a past and a future, but right now, it was lost in an odd limbo of broken emptiness. Much like our other restorations, it needed attention and patience and vision, but most of all, it needed someone to believe it was worth putting back together.

Sam liked to say that some things were worth saving, and he was right about that, but it didn’t stop with preservation.

After scaling all five floors and inspecting each room, closet, and alcove, Matt and I stopped in the cave that once served as the dining room. It was dark and closed off from the rest of the living spaces, and the ceiling was warped with water damage.

“This is a shit show,” he said, shaking his head.

“Your favorite kind of show,” I said.

He paced up and down the room, pounding his fist against the studs and kneeling to examine the fireplace. “If we moved these walls…” Matt started, “we could run floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the property, and open up into the courtyard.”

I pointed to the brick wall at the far end of the home, the one that separated this property from its twin. “What would it take to make these two into a single, giant home? To completely reimagine the structure and floor plan?”

Matt walked to the wall and stared at it for a long moment, as if he was having a little talk with the stones to get their opinion on the matter. He ran his hands over the bricks, pressing and following the mortar lines, and this was his wizardry. Structures made sense to Matt in a manner that seemed ingrained in his DNA.

“It’s a good wall,” he said. “I like this wall. But…buy me a burger and you might be able to talk me into tearing it down.”

We walked through Beacon Hill, discussing the current glut of flipper-abandoned properties, on our way to The Paramount for lunch. Once we were seated, Matt waved away the menu the server offered. “I already know what I want,” he said. He glanced over as I yawned into my menu. “But she might need a minute. You need some coffee, Shan?”

“That would be great,” I said.

The server retreated, and Matt eyed me from across the table. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said, stifling another yawn. “Tired.”

It wasn’t as if I had a better explanation. My mind was a battlefield, and every contradictory emotion I could conjure went to war when Will showed up at my door last night. I stared at the ceiling for hours, desperate to formulate a plan for handling the unwelcome visitor down the hall. But…he wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and that knowledge fired the first shot in this war.

There were so many things I felt for Will—most of which I wasn’t prepared to admit—and no amount of anger could bury those feelings. But it wasn’t like they were neat or organized. No, they were a jumbled mess of fondness and concern and belonging, and even as the sun rose over the city, I couldn’t grab on to anything more than stomach-twisting confusion.

The Will I knew never pleaded with me to stay anywhere, he never let me go, even when I demanded it, and he never accepted sleeping arrangements that didn’t involve sharing a bed.

At first, I thought his hesitant reaction was due to Gerard, but then I remembered the calm fury I saw brewing in Will, and the warning to stay away from Mr. Pemberton. On most days, I found Will’s possessiveness to be nothing more than obnoxious, misplaced jealousy, but last night awakened a part of me I hadn’t known was dormant.

Matt cleared his throat, and I realized I’d been staring at the menu, too lost in the memory of Will’s arms locked around my body to notice his expectant gaze or the server beside our table.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled. “Can I have a grilled chicken panini, but no chicken?”

“You just want the mozzarella and tomato?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, and held out my hands when Matt turned an arched eyebrow in my direction. “What?”

“Why do you do that? The chickenless chicken sandwich?”

“I’m particular about chicken,” I said, working hard to keep the defensiveness out of my voice. “I prefer it grilled, on a real grill, and not restaurant kitchen grills. I never feel like it’s cooked through all the way, and it always tastes like it was cooked right next to meat. Like, that greasy, griddly, beefy flavor. I hate that.”

He tapped his phone against the tabletop, smiling. “It’s funny because my greasy, griddly, beefy burger never tastes like chicken.” He gestured toward me and opened his mouth, but paused, as if he couldn’t select the right words.

“Let’s talk about these properties,” I said, more hurried than necessary. I knew where Matt was headed—straight back to my mind-wandering weirdness—and I knew I was too exhausted to build an excuse that sounded valid. “If you want this project, I’ll get a cash offer out before your lunch arrives, but you have to be certain. This is a long, messy, expensive restoration, and I’m not about to continue the conversation unless you’re fully behind this.”

He nodded and sipped his water. “Why do
you
want it?”

“It’s a gorgeous pair of brownstones,” I said, “and you secretly love hot messes.”

“Why
else
do you want it?” he asked.

I shrugged, turning my attention to my phone. Tom was bombarding me with several thousand quick questions in the form of texts and emails, his version of punishment for me spacing out during our regular Tuesday morning check-in meeting.

We kept that time sacred. In all the years we’d worked together, I could only remember a few occasions when we didn’t meet, and it was a result of Angus dying or Tom taking a week off to climb Denali. My late arrival—I didn’t want to go home and run into warm, sleep-rumpled Will after my barre class but I still hadn’t mastered the art of showering and dressing for the day in the communal locker room at my gym—and complete lack of focus meant we only discussed my schedule for the week while I signed another mountain of checks.

“Those are completely adequate reasons,” I said. “But for the sake of argument, let’s add a few more, Matt. How about one less garish, modern townhouse where a sustainably designed restoration belongs? How about a kick-ass Beacon Hill location? How about giving you a project uniquely suited to your skill set? How about a fifteen-million dollar price tag when this is all said and done, or better yet, the cover stories and awards that will absolutely come your way?”