Page 112 of Declan

I didn’t need to move closer to the window to know he was looking at the Naval Academy’s Chapel Dome. I’d been in his office enough to have memorized the view, but more, I knew Zane. When he had something on his mind he often stared out his window, gathering his thoughts.

After my conversation with my sister, this felt easy, the knot of apprehension had faded, the pain had receded to a dull throb rather than a sharp bite. My shoulders felt lighter, my heart freer, and my soul was on the mend.

Therefore, I didn’t brace, and when Zane turned back, I realized my mistake.

“I’m gonna say this to you once. Don’t ever look back, brother. You keep you and your woman facing forward. You find a time you’re struggling to stay that course, you call me. You need something—anything, you call me. Don’t ever for one second feel guilt over what you’re doing.”

“Thanks, Z. Means a lot.”

“Good. Then promise me you’ll pick up the phone, you find yourself in a place where you need a swift kick in your ass.”

“Promise.” I smiled.

“Good, now get the fuck out of my office.”

“The guys—”

“I’ll handle it.”

“’Preciate that.” Then I stood frozen, staring at a man who had taken me in when I had nothing. Offered me a job, friendship, a team, had given me purpose, and he did all of that while silently supporting me. “You can’t know what your friendship means to me. That offer goes both ways—you need me, you call. You wanna shoot the shit, you call. You have my loyalty until my dying breath, brother, I hope you know that.”

“You gonna kiss me, too?” Zane snapped but he couldn’t hide the need to clear his throat.

“See ya around, boss.”

“Yeah, you will. Now, go, be happy and shit.”

“Right.”

I offered him my hand but he yanked me forward and gave me a one-armed embrace. Then he pounded my back. But before he broke away, in a very un-Zane-like tone, he mumbled, “Pleased as fuck for you, Declan.”

Zane abruptly let me go and turned back to his window.

I wasted no time leaving.

I had a future to see to.

Chapter 35

It had been over an hour since Declan left. A long, silent, uncomfortable stretch of time in which I’d showered, made my bed, picked up clothes off the floor in the bedroom, putzed around in my kitchen, and did pretty much everything I could think of to avoid the living room where my sister sat.

I didn’t know what to think about her being there. She hadn’t questioned Declan’s weird demand that she come to my house. All she’d done was agreed to stay until Declan returned, though he didn’t tell her how long he’d be. Then she sat down and didn’t try to engage me in any way.

Fuck it.

Fuck it all.

It was time I pulled my big girl panties on, ripped the Band-Aid off, bit the bullet… I was still standing in my kitchen trying to think up more idioms when I realized I was procrastinating. This was because I was a chickenshit, scaredy-cat, lily-livered, coward.

When I was a kid, I never understood the term lily-livered. My dad used it all the time to describe characters in movies who ran from the danger. Emerson wasn’t danger, she was pain, and I’d run from it so long I didn’t know how to face it. So, yes, I was a lily-livered character in a drama of my own making.

Damn.

I tossed the rag in the sink, wiped my hands on my jeans, and before I could think better of it, I stomped into my living room and stopped dead when Emerson’s eyes lifted and locked onto mine.

It wasn’t the first time she’d made eye contact with me since she’d seen me in Guyana. She’d also looked right at me when I’d helped rescue her in Mexico, and when I’d witnessed her marrying Thad. But it was the first time I’d allowed myself to see her.

Really see her.