I need a reason to confront him. And my opportunity comes at five pm on the last day of work before Thanksgiving break. I take a call from the assistant of the lawyer who’s handling the land deal for the Blackthroat Family Foundation.
Emergency paperwork, he explains. We need Brick Blackthroat’s signature ASAP.
“My boss has left for the weekend, too. If I don’t get these signatures, she’ll fire me.” The young man sounds close to tears.
“Can it wait until after the holiday?”
“The seller is impatient. He’s making things difficult for no reason. My boss thinks he’s on the verge of backing out, but we got their signature. After this, it’s done.”
I promised Brick I’d do everything to get this land deal. And I will.
My calls and emails to Brick go unanswered, so I start ringing the rest of the executives numbers. I’ll fly out to California if I have to.
“California? They’re not there anymore.” Nickel’s head assistant tells me. “There was an accident with Benson’s son. They pushed the vote on the deal to after Thanksgiving. And the whole executive team flew home for the holiday.”
Home. That means the Berkshires. A few more rounds of calling confirms this. Brick still won’t call me back.
He won’t come to me. So I’ll have to go to him.
John Acker, Brick’s helicopter pilot, does pick up his phone.
“I need you to fly me to the Berkshires,” I blurt before I have a chance to really think this through.
“You what now?” John has that habit men who work around machinery have of shouting into the phone.
I explain my dilemma.
“Ah, no, I can’t-“
“I will make sure you are compensated appropriately,” I promise, which of course, I have no right to do since it’s not my money. I’m just the executive assistant who could get fired at any moment. Maybe for this stunt, who knows? “I know this is a holiday weekend.”
“You know, even if I could, the weather doesn’t look good. Have you looked out your window lately?”
The view outside the windows is pure gray, as if the building is swathed in clouds. I shiver just looking at it. “You’d better hurry, then. This really can’t wait. Please.”
The pilot curses loudly. “Then let’s go. We don’t have a moment to lose. This storm is bad news.”
“Thank you.” I grab my beautiful coat and call my mom because she was expecting me to come over and help make pies tonight.
“Hon, this job really requires a lot of you,” she says when I’ve explained the situation.
“I require it of myself, Mom. I’m the best assistant this guy has had, and I intend to maintain that badge of honor. I’m sorry. I will call you when I’m back in Manhattan. Or maybe I can have the pilot deposit me somewhere close to you-I don’t know.”
“All right, sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love you, Mom.”
I hang up and wait for the call from the pilot. Looks like in addition to daily limo rides, I get to add helicopter trips to my new normal.
Brick
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I run with the guys for hours on my acreage in the Berkshires. I headed straight to my family estate from California.
Before Windows became my assistant, I came out here every weekend. Now I’ve been taking the helicopter over in the middle of the week, so I can shift and let off some steam. I’ve been cranky as hell.
The snow is falling hard-thick, wet flakes that melt when they hit our noses. The sting of cold on my paws satisfies this need I have to wring Madison out of my cells, out of my soul. She’s become a haunting presence to my every thought.
Fucking her didn’t take the edge off, it made my obsession worse. Infinitely worse. I’ve become constantly irritated. Always on edge. Yet my instinct to tear the heads off of everyone around me has diminished. Madison makes me think before I go for the throat. I try to see things through her eyes. Would she want me to maim here? Or would she want me to show compassion?
I run until the guys all turn back, exhausted, and even then I don’t want to go inside.
By the time I head back, I realize I ran until my paws are bloody. It doesn’t matter-they’ll heal within thirty minutes. The dogs run out with their happy yips of joy and race circles around me as I go into the mud room through the dog door in wolf form, then transform and grab a towel to wrap around my waist. I take a quick shower and get dressed, then head toward the living room to find my adorable niece and nephew.
“Brick.” Liz stops me in the hallway before I get there. She wears a tight expression, and she’s wringing her hands. I narrow my eyes to discern what the problem could be. She doesn’t ordinarily bother me with anything related to the running of the property. “Your mother is here. I’m sorry. She came with your sister.”
From the look of hatred on Liz’s face, it’s clear she’s in the anti-mom camp with me. She and I were the ones who found my father after my mother’s visit. When he’d been poisoned by silver.
Anger rushes through my body like venom, tainting my vision, stiffening the muscles I thought I’d finally worn down.
“Fuck!”
I stalk into the living room, which is decorated like a hunting lodge, with large overstuffed furniture and a stone hearth on each side.
My mother is on the couch talking with Ruby and Eagle. She shoots to stand the moment she sees me. She, too, wrings her hands, and there’s so much emotion in her eyes it nearly knocks me down. Guilt. Hope. Adoration.
That’s the part that twists in my gut and turns me inside out.
I want to hate her. I do hate her.
But she’s still my mother. The woman I never could have enough of growing up. The one who was kept from me. Only allowed to visit once a week. The one who loved me so deeply, she cried every time she had to leave.
I’m suddenly as gutted as I was as a child every time I had to see her go. She’s my mother.
That’s the only reason she’s still alive.
Otherwise, I would’ve avenged my father’s death long ago.
“Brick.” There’s so much hope and angst woven together in her voice. Enough to cut with a knife.
“Get out.”
Ruby surges to her feet. “No. She’s staying. I invited her.”
I grind my teeth, trying to keep the rage from turning me back to wolf form. I’m sure my eyes are flashing amber.
I tip my head toward the doorway and rephrase my command, “Get out of my sight.”
“Brick, I just want-“
“
Now.” I put enough alpha command in my voice to make both Ruby’s and my mother’s knees go soft.
Eagle also stands now and puts a steadying hand on his wife’s elbow, but he wisely keeps his gaze averted from mine.
Both my mother and Ruby start toward the door.
“Not you,” I bite at Ruby.
She freezes. She’s fuming, but her wolf biology makes it impossible to refuse my commands.
I wait until my mother is gone before I start in. “What do you think you’re doing inviting her here? You can’t bring that woman into my home.”
“It’s my home, too, and my children have a right to know their grandmother. It’s a holiday, and holidays are family. She’s our family, Brick.”
“Their grandmother is a murderer.”
Ruby sucks in a shocked breath.
“Do you think those kids are safe from her? Do you think any of us are?”
She draws herself up. “Yes Brick. I know we are. She’s our mother.
She loves us.”
“How can you know that?”
“How can you deny it?”
She’s right. It’s plain as day how much she loves us. The longing on her face when I walked in. The mixture of pride and grief emitting from her was palpable.
Because I have no answer I care to give to that, I glare at Eagle. “Did you know about this?”
He averts his gaze once more. “I’m sorry.”
“I guess mate comes before the pack, hmm?” I grumble. I can’t blame him. A male wolf will do anything to make his mate happy, even risk enraging his alpha.
I pin Ruby with a dark look. “I won’t throw her out, but you keep her away from me. I’m not going to talk to her, so if you don’t want things to get even more excruciating, make sure she doesn’t try me.”
“Uncle Brick!” Ruby and Eagle are saved from more of my vitriol when August comes sliding in on stocking feet. Ruby catches him around the waist, stopping his trajectory to barrel into me.
“Not now, Auggie. Uncle Brick is mad at Mommy.”
Damn her. She’s using my nephew against me now.
“Why?”
“Come here.” I hold out my arms. Auggie runs into them, and I tosses him high into the air. “Know who I’m not mad at?”
“Who?”
“You. You are the only one I’m not mad at right now.”
“What about me?” April appears and stands at my feet, holding her little arms up. My heart twists. It must be the alpha instinct to protect the pack young at all costs that makes me such a sucker for these kids. Just having them near me makes me go soft.
The anger dissipates.
I put August down and scoop her up, tossing her in the air too. “Nope, not mad at you either. You would never ruin your uncle Brick’s Thanksgiving would you?” I look pointedly at Ruby.
“Don’t be a dick to her,” Ruby says.
“Mommy said a bad word,” Auggie gloats. “Uncle Brick is a dick, Brick is a dick!”
“
August.” The alpha command in his father’s booming voice makes my nephew freeze in his tracks.
“Sorry, Daddy,” he says quickly.
“Apologize to Uncle Brick.”
Auggie turns wide eyes on me.
I crouch down. “Come here, buddy.” I hold my arm out, and he steps into it. I lift him, and my equilibrium starts to return. I love this kid. Both of them.
I know most people who know me-humans, anyway-think I’m incapable of love.
The truth is that I guard my heart like a fucking dragon because once it’s been pierced, I’m utterly helpless. And I really fucking hate feeling helpless.
“You know dick is a bad word, right?” I ask gently. Auggie is the prince of the pack until I have pups of my own. In line to inherit the throne. My father’s alpha lineage runs through his veins.
“Sorry, Uncle Brick.”
“It’s all right, buddy. I’m not mad.” I walk toward the door to alleviate any embarrassment he might have. “Do you think it’s still snowing outside? Let’s go look.”
I take him outside, needing the breather for myself as much as for him. At least a foot of snow has already accumulated, and it’s still falling hard, swirling with a whipping wind that howls around our ears.
Auggie tightens his grip on my neck. “Brr, Uncle Brick. It’s cold out here.”
I go still. Over the howling wind, I hear the sound of a chopper rapidly approaching.
“Is that your helicopter, Uncle Brick?”
“No,” I answer. I look up, trying to locate it, but the visibility is total shit.
Except the sound is getting closer, and then the black chopper comes into view-my black chopper-headed straight for my landing pad.
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