Spiraled (Callahan & McLane Book 3) (20 page)

Baby steps.

The vibrations under her skin were gone, but something was still off. She felt drugged, still slightly removed from reality. Each time her brain started to wonder about Jayne, she ruthlessly yanked it back.
Think about anything else.
Beaches, warm water, sunshine.

“Better?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

They lay in silence.

“You scared me,” he said.

Her heart twinged. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I was terrified. I still am.” Fresh hot tears streamed down to her pillow.

“You’ve been through a lot in the last few days. Hell, you’ve been through a lot this year.”

She said nothing.

“I’m not sure where you are,” Mason said slowly. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean. I don’t know where I am, either.” More tears. She angrily brushed her cheeks, frustration welling in her throat.

At least I’m feeling something.

Mason pushed up onto his hands, watching her with cautious eyes, and her skin goosebumped at his close analysis. Or maybe it was the removal of his heat. She tried to meet his gaze and smile; she failed.
I can’t pretend everything is back to normal.

He slowly moved off and turned her onto her side, facing away from him, spooning her close to his chest. His skin felt like fire against her back. His mouth was close to her ear. “I think sleep would be a good thing right now. We can talk all we want tomorrow.”

Sleep helped everything. “I love you, Mason. I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing for your sister.”

She swallowed.
I’m not. It’s for me.

“You’re human. And you’ve experienced more than anyone should today. It’ll look different tomorrow.” He leaned closer and kissed along her jawline. “I’ll hold you tight tonight. And every night after. We don’t need to rush through anything right now.”

She exhaled and relaxed a degree, letting his heat seep through her skin and into her core.

“I love you, too, Special Agent McLane.”

28

He checked the pasta. It needed more time. He kept one eye on the clock as he stirred the sauce and listened for his mother’s footsteps on the stairs. She’d come home from work and immediately headed upstairs to change. His job was to have dinner on the table at exactly six
P.M.

Dinner would be late.

He prayed she’d take extra time upstairs, but he knew she stuck to a routine. He had exactly two more minutes to get everything on the table. The places were set, the water and her wine were poured, and the bread was covered with a towel in the center of the table. He transferred the sauce to the floral serving dish and placed it on a hot pad near her wineglass.

He checked the pasta again. Still way too chewy.

Sweat broke under his arms. Perhaps he should have chosen the angel hair instead of the regular spaghetti; the cooking time was shorter. No. He knew she hated angel hair. His father had always wanted the angel hair, but once he was taken away, his mother never cooked it again. A lone box still sat in the back of a cupboard. He’d considered throwing it out, but she got angry if food was wasted. So it stayed. A constant reminder of his father’s absence.

His father had ended up in prison. He hadn’t been allowed to attend the trial, but his mother had gone every day. She’d sworn to her son that his father would be back and railed at the system that was unfairly persecuting her husband. Until the trial was over.

Suddenly his mother became a different woman. She bought new clothing, her hair changed, she wore makeup and got a new job. She went out with people from work and talked about moving to a new state.

He didn’t understand.

His father had been unfairly ripped away from their home and sentenced to a decade in prison, but his mother acted as if she had a new life. She ordered him around, assigning him the tasks that had always been her job. Laundry, cleaning, cooking. He was busy from the moment he got home from high school until he went to bed. She simply went to her job and then came home to enjoy the fruits of his labor and point out everything he’d done wrong.

“The plates need to face the same way in the dishwasher or else they won’t get clean.”

“You put too many items in the washing machine. Run them again.”

She yelled. All the time. According to her he did nothing right. What did she expect? He’d never cooked or cleaned. That was women’s work.

Dad would have understood. A decade without him was going to last forever. He didn’t understand how a man could be locked up for something he’d hardly done. But he’d seen the newspaper article. A female judge had looked at his mother’s history of trips to the hospital and blamed his father for every last one. The cops had claimed his father assaulted them twice in jail while awaiting trial. The female judge had strung several sentences together, unfairly locking up his father for a long period.

After that the power in the home had shifted. He no longer had time to listen to music or game. His mother had turned him into the wife, while she went to work, bossing more men around. She’d landed a management position in retail sales. A favor from the husband of one of her girlfriends. He’d even heard her tell someone on the phone that she’d been shocked to receive it with her few years of experience. “But it’s like the position was made for me. It feels natural for me and I’m good at it. It’s like I never left the industry.”

His friends harassed him about his new chores. “He has to wear his apron tonight. He can’t make it to the football game.”

He’d tried to talk to her about it. She’d sat at the table after dinner one night, a cigarette in her hand and the wine he’d poured her in the other hand. The table messy with the dishes he was expected to clean up. He’d told her he missed his friends and felt it was unfair that he did all the work. She’d blown up.

“You bitch about cleaning some dishes? Do you know how many years I served your father? He had no idea how women were to be treated. Women first, Son. Always. Show your manners and treat them like queens, and you’ll never be sorry. Your father was clueless. He saw me as his property and never even gave me a credit card. He counted out money into my hand every Sunday night. That was my money for the week. I was expected to buy groceries, gas, and clothes for you and me out of that. If something went wrong, I was expected to make do with what he gave me. He was a control freak and stuck in a different era.”

He’d bitten his lip, thinking of the ten dollars she’d handed him on Sunday for school lunch that week.

She’d continued to rant, sucking on her cigarette and bitching about his father, never addressing his desire to attend a football game. The evening had ended with him picking tiny fragments of broken glass out of the sink. She’d hurled her wineglass at his head when he’d suggested she put away the leftovers. He’d ducked, and the glass had shattered when it hit the window over the sink, spreading sticky red wine drops that he still discovered in odd places three months later.

He learned not to ask for help.

He listened intently for her footsteps as he stared at the boiling water. Hurry!

No woman should make me feel like this. If Dad were here, he’d set her straight.

Steps sounded, and he snatched up a noodle to taste. Not ready. There was no way he could serve it like this. His shoulders tensed as she strode into the kitchen. She sat down in her chair, took a sip of her wine, and closed her eyes, savoring the flavor. Then she looked at him, her eyes ice blue. “Dinner’s not ready?”

“The pasta needs another minute or two.”

She raised an eyebrow, stood, and then strolled over to look into the pot. She sniffed at the steam and her wineglass clinked as she set it on the counter. “You know dinner is to be on the table when I get home.”

“Yes, I know.” He didn’t offer any excuses. He’d learned she didn’t listen to them and didn’t care.

He remembered the last time she’d made spaghetti and he and his father had watched from their places at the table as she’d drained the pasta. His father had been livid that it was overcooked.

Now he felt the same anger flooding off of her.

She grabbed the handles of the big pot and flung the contents at his face. “Why isn’t it ready?” she screamed at him.

He turned away and the boiling water hit the left side of his neck and scalp. Through his pain he couldn’t hear her shrieking at him.

If only Dad were here
 . . .

29

Ava had lost count of how many times she’d awakened. All night she’d woken, looked at her clock, and fallen back into a hazy sleep. One that never satisfied; she felt as if she were floating with her eyes shut. No rest, no brain break. Each time Jayne tried to enter her thoughts, she immediately shut them down. She’d mastered the light switch to her brain where Jayne was concerned. But then her brain would coast in the off position, unable to focus, unable to follow any other train of thought.

She’d pretended sleep when Mason kissed her cheek and got into the shower. Lying in the dark, listening to the water from the bathroom, she’d struggled to find a mental focus. Her body was physically drained and nothing tempted her to put her feet on the floor.

What am I going to do?

Do in five minutes? Do in five hours? She didn’t know the answers.

The shower stopped and a few minutes later she could hear Mason on his cell phone.
The job never ends.

Work could be the lifesaver for her. Something to keep her distracted and still moving. Her vacation was finished in a few days.

Until then
 . . .

She had nothing.

Light flashed across her eyes as Mason opened the door connected to the master bathroom. She squeezed them shut and gave up pretending to sleep, shifting her legs so he knew she was awake. He sat on her side of the bed, the bright bathroom light behind him making his eyes and facial expression impossible to see.

“Hey,” he said, bending to kiss her forehead. “How’re you feeling?”

“Shitty.”

He ran his hand down her cheek, pausing to cup her chin, and she felt him study her. She kept her expression as blank as possible; the rawness in her heart was too fresh, and she was still empty from her tears of the night before. His face was a dark silhouette. “I just had a call from Ben Duncan,” he said.

Alarm sent sparks through her nerves.
My boss called Mason at the crack of dawn?

“I’d left him a message last night. He got you an appointment this morning to talk with someone.”

“Someone. You mean a psychiatrist?”

“Yes. Don’t forget about it this time.”

She hated being handled and fought a bitchy compulsion to refuse to go. But the thought of picking up the phone and making her own appointment was currently beyond her energy level. A very small logical part of her brain could see it was in her best interest.

“Do you need someone to take you?” he asked cautiously. “I’m going in to the command center.”

Pride forced her reply. “No. I can drive. I’m not helpless.”

“I know you’re not helpless, and if we weren’t so close to an answer on this case, I’d stay home and take—go with you.”

His correction made her smile. Mason was well aware that she hated people to do things for her. Her request for Zander to pick her up last night had raised red flags for both men about the precariousness of her emotional state.

“I checked with the hospital about Jayne already,” Mason added slowly. “She went through the night fine, has surgery scheduled for this morning, and they have a psych evaluation lined up for later today. They seem to believe they’ll have a place for her for a few days while she heals. She’s heavily sedated. You wouldn’t be able to talk to her if you went there.”

“Her injuries are okay?” Ava whispered. It took all her strength to stay emotionally removed from the conversation and not let her brain speed down a Jayne tangent.
Focus on yourself.

“Yes. No big concerns. They’ll know more after the surgery.”

Ava nodded and shut the door in her brain that led to her twin. She sat up, attempting to show Mason she was capable of taking care of herself today. “I need a shower.”

He pulled her close, his grip tighter than usual. “You scared me last night,” he whispered.

Dammit!
Tears leaked down her cheeks. “I was scared, too.” She rested her head on his shoulder, seeking energy from his heat.

“I need to go. I’ll call you later to make certain you’re on your way to your appointment,” he said firmly.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I need to. Let me do it for myself.”

A lesson I need to learn
 . . .

He left and she lay back in the bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing he hadn’t left the light on in the bathroom. She craved darkness.

“I will make it to that appointment.”

She repeated the line out loud several times for the next half hour, determined not to let her man down.

Mason started his vehicle and let out a deep breath.

Ava had rattled his core and rocked the foundation they’d carefully constructed.

Is this what I need in my life?

Maybe he didn’t need it, but he sure as hell wanted it. He wanted Ava with him every day. No question.

He opened the console under his arm and dug through the papers and crap. His fingers touched a small velvet box and he pulled it out, flipping open the top. The diamond glittered. His heart sank.

Not yet.

The case shut with a loud snap, and he buried it among the debris again.

So when?