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“I’m sorry.” Again. “About tonight.” Again.
“S’okay…” she mumbled drowsily, as she shimmied until her back was flush to my chest. “Night, Gerard… Love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered, feeling the familiar jolt of adrenaline rocket through my veins when those words spilled from her lips.
Claire meant it when she told me that she loved me. That was the first of two things in life I was sure of, and I meant it right back. That was the second thing I was sure of. If I knew nothing else in this world, then I knew that I loved Claire Biggs.
More than she could ever know.
More than one lousy four-letter word could ever depict.
And from my own limited experience, I was under no illusion as to how messy loving a person could be. Because love hurt. It burned like hell. I got that. I accepted the pain. The self-inflicted flesh wounds it took to love another human. I wasn’t afraid of that. Of being hurt. Of anything for myself. My fear rested in my inability to love her the right way. In the potential I had to hurt her beyond repair or recourse.
The same way he hurt me.
2
Sleepwalking Sweethearts and Bonehead Brothers
CLAIRE
“I’m telling you, Claire-Bear, we’ve got this,” Gerard declared, armed with Brian’s cat cage. “It’s in the bag.” Marching us through the fair, he didn’t stop until we reached the area of the field that was sporting the dog show. “Trust me.”
“I don’t know, Gerard,” I replied, chewing on my bottom lip as I hurried along beside him. “What if they don’t let us enter?”
“Bullshit,” he shot back, and then jerked comically when Brian swiped a paw through the bars of the cage. “They can’t do that.”
“Brian’s a cat.”
“So?”
“So, this is a dog show.”
“Nowhere in the rule books does it state that we have to enter a dog.”
“I think because it’s alluded to in the title ‘dog show,’ Gerard.”
“Do you see a cat show being offered anywhere?”
“Nope.”
“Me either, so this will work, Claire.”
“What if they laugh at us?”
“So what if they do?” he scoffed, completely unaffected. “Let them. We need that prize money, babe—and we have more than earned that first-place trophy for washing that deranged bastard.” Reaching up, he touched the part of his shoulder that had been mangled the worst. “I have the scratches to prove it.”
“But you know Brian’s not very friendly.”
“No, he’s not,” Gerard agreed. “But I promised I would stand by you and provide for our babies so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Shrugging, he added, “Besides, he’s the one tapping Cherub. He can do this for us.”
“We should have brought Cherub.”
“Yeah, well, she’s a preoccupied right now,” he shot back, “what with being in the family way and having a belly on her bigger than Fat Paddy.” Slapping on a smile, he added, “Let’s just work with what we’ve been given here. Brian might be a bastard, but he’s a beautiful one.”
That was true. Brian was a looker alright. A long-haired pedigreed Persian with a snow-white coat of perfectly combed fur. Too bad he was a demon on the inside. “What if he attacks the judges?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got that covered.”
