“Don’t you turn your back on me—” Warren reached out, grabbed Lucas’s arm and spun him around. Drawing his right arm back, the man took a swing at him, but Lucas blocked the punch easily enough and threw one of his own into Warren’s stomach that had him bending over and wheezing for air.
Irritated beyond belief, Lucas just glared at the man. “What the hell were you thinking? Throwing a swing at me? On top of being fired you want to be arrested?”
“You hit me.”
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I told Sean I wouldn’t, but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Had to ratchet this up into a fight. You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”
“I’ll sue!” Warren managed to say, raising his furious gaze to Lucas.
“No, you won’t,” Julio said from right behind Lucas. “I saw the whole thing. You took the first punch. Lucas was defending himself.”
Grateful, Lucas nodded at the younger man. A lawsuit would have been expensive and time-consuming. With Julio stepping forward, they’d avoid the hassle, and he appreciated it. “Julio, get security back here to escort Warren to his car.”
Julio sent the still wheezing man a disgusted look, but nodded and said, “Right, boss.”
Lucas moved away, still feeling a nagging sense of something unfinished inside him. Even hitting that moron hadn’t helped any.
He walked out of the warehouse, oblivious to the noise, the laughter and conversation. The fog was burning off and the sun was a hazy, rising ball of fire overhead. He shoved his hands into his pockets, took a deep breath of the sea air and told himself that the real problem wasn’t Warren, and he knew it.
It was Rose. How they’d left things.
When she’d walked out of his house last night it had taken everything in him not to go after her, carry her back into the house and tie her to his damn bed. He could still see the look of wild fury in her eyes when he had called her Saint Rose. And he remembered, too, that arguing with her had been as damned intoxicating as making love to her.
The woman was getting to him on so many levels he couldn’t count them all.
So it was best that she’d left last night. And good that he hadn’t spoken to her since. After all, he reminded himself sternly, this had been the plan. He’d gotten her into his bed. Now all he had to do was tell Dave all about it and then stop seeing Rose altogether. Perfect.
Except for the niggling question of whether or not they’d created a child. Gritting his teeth, Lucas reined in his thoughts and tucked them at the back of his mind, where no doubt they would continue to torture him all the damn day.
“You hit him, didn’t you?” Sean asked when he strolled up alongside him.
“What?” Lucas turned and frowned at his brother. “How’d you know?”
“The guys are talking about it. You came off really well in the telling, by the way.”
“That’s just great,” Lucas muttered. “Warren took the first swing, but yeah. I punched him.”
Sean handed over his latte. “Here. Have some.”
Lucas took a few long swallows, welcoming the caffeine before handing it back.
“I knew you’d hit him,” Sean said with a shrug. “That’s why I wanted to go in with you.”
“To stop me?”
“Hell no,” Sean said. “I wanted to hit him.”
Reluctantly, Lucas grinned. No matter how screwed up his life was, it was still good to have brothers.
The knock at the front door came only a few minutes after Rose had returned from her predawn walk through the fog. She was still exhausted, still struggling with her thoughts and in no mood for company. She pulled back the edge of the curtains to peer out and sighed.
“Ready or not,” she muttered, “company’s here, and it’s not going anywhere.”
Her own fault, she told herself as she walked to the front door and unlocked it. If Rose hadn’t called an hour ago, Dee wouldn’t be standing on her front porch right now, with two lattes and a bag that hopefully included doughnuts.
She opened the door and gave her friend a half smile. “You didn’t have to come over, you know.”
“Right,” Dee said, walking past her into the living room. “My best friend calls me at the crack of dear-God-why-am-I-awake, and I should just roll over and drop back into dreamland.”
Wincing, Rose closed the front door, locked it and followed her friend into the small, cozy living room. Dee was already on the couch, her sandal-clad feet propped on the coffee table and the serving tray of lattes on the cushion beside her.
Even at six-something in the morning, Delilah James looked gorgeous. She wore a body-hugging pale yellow shirt tucked into skintight dark-wash blue jeans. Her red hair was styled and fluffed, her makeup was flawless and her green eyes were practically glowing with curiosity.
All in all, Rose thought sadly, as she walked to the couch in her baggy sweats and battered sneakers, she felt like the ugly stepsister next to the shining Cinderella.
“I hope there are doughnuts in that bag,” she said as she took a seat on the opposite end of the couch.
“Am I breathing? Yes, there are doughnuts in the bag. And a latte with your name on it.”
“Thanks.”
“Skip the thank-yous and tell me what’s going on.” Dee took a sip of her own latte and waited. One of her best skills as a girlfriend was that she was a terrific listener.
Rose knew all too well that Delilah would sit right there on the couch all morning and into the afternoon if she had to, waiting for Rose to spill her guts. Then she would listen without judging—mostly—and after that, she would support whatever it was Rose decided to do.
If only she knew what to do.
“It’s a long story,” Rose said, taking a sip of the latte and letting its heat slide through her system like a blessing.
“I brought a lot of doughnuts,” Dee pointed out. “So start talking.”
Surrendering to the inevitable, Rose dug in the bag for a doughnut, took a healthy bite and started talking.
An hour later, she was stuffed full, her eyes were grittier than ever and she was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life.
“So,” Rose said on a sigh as she rummaged in the now empty bag for the few remaining crumbs, “that’s the story of my incredibly screwed-up life.”
“It’s a beauty of a story, I’ll give you that,” Dee said, taking the bag away to crumple it, ignoring Rose’s frown. She tossed it onto the coffee table beside their empty latte cups. “The question is, what are you going to do now?”