No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) (19 page)

Again.

Goddamn
feelings
.

Goddamn boyfriend.

I couldn’t even screw up the girl balls to blame Michael. Not completely. Before I got involved with him,
I’d
been the one in charge of this shit. I’d stowed these things neatly away, tucked where I’d never have to deal with them again—
ever
. I just plowed through the days and filled the nights with empty dates, parties, shopping sprees. Whenever “emotions” got stirred, I really did laugh. I’d throw down my big giant mixing paddle and walk on with my bad self to the next sand box, never looking back at the scorched earth I’d left behind.

Not now.

No. Now I dealt with tears and sniveling. And the worst part of it all? They were all my own.

I shook my head in disgust and turned from where I knew Andre had parked and headed in the opposite direction. I needed some air and a few minutes to pull myself together—
away
from my driver. Apparently, the Jamaican had become a part-time shrink. Not only did he know the fastest route to every venue in San Diego, he also knew the fastest course through my bullshit. And right now, I couldn’t face his all-knowing dark brown stare and approving little nod, letting me know it was fine to fall apart if I needed to, because he’d be right there to catch me. I loved him like the dear friend he’d become but right now, I just needed some head time.

“Head time”?

What the fuck?

Suddenly, I wanted to cry even more. Throttle someone harder. When had I become the fragile girl everyone watched so carefully, awaiting the little tells that she was about to go down in flames? Did that mean I was also the subject of their concerned, condescending conversations, whispered in corners when I wasn’t around?
Poor Margaux. She’s losing it but if we stay close, we can see her through. We’ll save her this time, before it gets really ugly…

No way. I’d done this ride before, courtesy of Doug Simcox. Bought the ticket then washed the T-shirt so much, it was falling apart. I was done. Really,
really
done.

Rage boiled, steamrolling my self-pity. I smiled, recognizing its arrival. Balled fists, gritted teeth, twitching eyes. Rage was my old friend. I welcomed the bitch more than sadness or—
gasp; God help me
—helplessness.

By now, I’d stomped all the way to Prospect Street. I strolled past a few favorite shops, peering into their window displays. Nothing spoke calm to me like shopping. I could always do a little damage to my plastic then reevaluate how I felt after. Best idea of the night.

I waited for the little tickle in my belly that came when I verged on buying something totally unnecessary. When it didn’t crash in, I frowned.
Shit
. I was in deeper than even I realized. No sense buying something just for the sake of it, if it meant no contact high from my black card.

Maybe…I needed to go to the gym? Laugh-out-loud time now. Had I really just channeled
that
Michael Pearson thought? I would never understand the gym rat mindset no matter how hard I tried, even for his sake. I hated exercising and always would—except for sex, which was
so
off the table right now. Pissed and horny were like socks and sandals. Mixing them was against nature’s plan.

That led me back to where I’d started.

Fabulous
.

Square one really sucked.

My phone rang in my bag. With a sigh, I fished it out, curious who was bothering my perfect sulk.

Speak of the devil. A text. From Michael.

:: Where are you? ::

I stabbed angry thumbs at the pad.

:: Leave me alone. Go have some more fun with Doug. You two can’t be done with your pissing tournament yet. ::

:: Is that why you left? ::

:: Gold star for the hot guy. ::

:: Come back. Please. ::

:: I thought begging was my bit. ::

:: Will doing it again bring you back? ::

:: Have Andre take you home. I’ll find my own way. ::

:: I’ll wait. ::

I wanted to cry again. Then laugh. The impulses were tangled even more by the giddy ache in my stomach. The man truly made me crazy, especially when he turned back into his sweet, considerate self. I couldn’t stay mad at him for long. My heart softened, inspiring a resigned sigh in my throat—

Until I thought of returning to the restaurant.

Where those two jackasses had embarrassed the crap out of me, and nearly propelled us all back onto the tabloids’ front pages.

I glared at my phone, so engrossed in composing my next smart-mouthed reply that I slammed right into another pedestrian. “Crap,” I muttered. “I’m really sorry. I—”

I choked during my double-take.

The woman. That face.

I’d never forget it. I never had.

Over the years, she’d made sure of that. Every few months, never in the same place, she’d show up when I least expected it. Once at the outskirts of a fancy fundraiser. Next in the lobby at work. One time at the airport, when I’d been leaving for a business trip. The only time she’d made a repeat appearance was at the hospital, in those dark days after the break-up with Doug. She’d come every day, just for a few seconds, lingering in the hall outside my room. Most recently, she’d turned up again at the airport, on the day Michael and I publicly announced we were seeing each other.

Caroline
.

It was her. I knew it now. I was close enough. She was real enough.

I was so shocked, I jostled my phone back and forth between hands, dropping it to the pavement and nearly shattering the screen. I caught it on the first bounce but when I recovered from my clumsiness, she was gone.

“
No
. Wait! Please!”

Everyone on the sidewalk stared like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. At the moment, I was nothing but a woman clutching her cell phone for dear life, shouting to someone who wasn’t there.

“Dammit!”

I turned to the closest bystander, a stylish elderly woman who’d definitely been giving her own credit card a workout.

“Did you see that woman? I bumped into her—she was just here—then she ran off—right? Did you see her?”

The woman adjusted her dozen shopping bags in order to cup my shoulder. “Dear, are you okay? Did you fall? Did you hit your head?”

A man walked up, cosmopolitan enough to be her young son. “Maybe we should get you medical help. Is there anyone we should call?”

“No.” I pushed free of their holds, smiling away my brusqueness. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Honestly.”

I needed to stop sounding like a crazy street person—granted, a crazy street person decked in the latest Manolo Blahnik’s—or Michael and Andre would be responding to a code 5150 at the closest county hospital.

How was this happening
?

This time, I’d seen her up close. I’d
touched
her.

I needed to tell Michael. The need burned like a branding iron. I scrambled for my cell but stopped dead in my tracks again. I was still pissed off at him.

“Fuck! Dammit! Fuck!”

The couple who’d just stopped for me paused next to their Jag, looking freshly alarmed. I was acting like a lunatic, to anyone’s observation. I had to leave. I needed air but was already outside. I needed to get away but there was nowhere to run. Was this a panic attack? The one person I wanted to reach out to, I was furious with.

Fuck
!

I sank to a bench, staring at my phone—then did what any normal woman would do. Or at least what I thought any normal woman would do. Normal and I hadn’t had a lifetime to become besties. I was shooting a little blind here.

“Hello?”

“Sister mine.” I let it out in a desperate breath, almost falling apart at just hearing Claire’s sweet voice. That bitch would know what to say. She always did.

“Hey.
Hey.
” Her voice changed as soon as the reality of my tone sank in. “What’s wrong? I’ve been sick with worry since getting your emails this morning. What’s going on? Is it Michael? I swear, if he’s upset you again, I’m going to kick his ever-loving butt. Tell me.
Now.
”

Despite my misery, I laughed. “Are you knocked up again? You sound like a hormone replacement ad.” I couldn’t help it. Her speech was hilarious. Claire Montgomery-Stone was five feet, three inches tall and maybe a hundred and five pounds after a holiday feast. Still, my girl knew the meaning of family and all the happy horseshit that went with it. If you messed with her tribe, she was coming for you—with both guns blazing.

“It
is
Michael, isn’t it?”

I tossed back a knowing hum. “
Is
it?”

“Well, I know he has a dick. That automatically makes him a dick.”

“Aha. So this is actually about my brother. Maybe
I
should be the one asking some questions. What did the amazing egomaniac Killian Stone do to get his little bear so wooly today?”

“I am not wooly.” She giggled now, too. Or growled. They kind of sounded the same with her.

“Can you meet up?”

“Grrrr. Wish I could, Mare. I have a doctor’s appointment in thirty. My overbearing ass of a husband won’t let me drive there myself, so I can talk while Alfred drives me.”

“Won’t let you drive? Why?” As the words came out, the answer started auto-populating my mind. “Wait. Ohhhh…so that’s what this is about…”

“Don’t start.”

Her huff gave away even more.

“What did you do to lose your driving privileges?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I barely held in my laughter. As awful as it sounded, my mood was lifted just hearing about their issues. It made me feel better, knowing other couples bickered over stupid stuff, too.

“Out with it,” I commanded.

“I got another speeding ticket. And if you laugh…I swear, Margaux, I will hang up this phone. You know how they set those speed traps up on the five? I didn’t even see the bastard until it was too late. By then, he’d already flipped on the lights and climbed on my ass.”

I busted into giggles, though muffled them with my free hand. My sister’s third speeding ticket in the past year was doubly ironic because she hadn’t even
wanted
her Audi, a gift from Killian, in the first place. Now she burned rubber like Danica Patrick in the thing.

Maybe life had a sense of humor, after all.

“Are you laughing?”

“No. I’m coughing. Yeah—sure—coughing. I’m in La Jolla. My allergies are a wreck. The sea lions smell gross.”

“You’re so full of shit, Mary Stone.”

I sobered. “Oh. No. You. Did. Not.” I allowed few people to use my real birth name and live to tell about it. Even then, the occasion had to be drastic. I’d let Claire survive.
This
time.

The little wench wasn’t a speck apologetic about it, either—not that I expected her to be. “I did,” she declared, “and I’ll do it again if you utter one word about this to that cocky hunk of a boyfriend of yours.”

“I can’t be responsible for what I say to him sometimes.”
Most
of the time. “He has ways of making me talk, Claire. Dirty, filthy ways.”

“Stop. I do not want to hear this!”

“You totally do. Don’t be a prude. I’m not buying that anymore.”

She cleared her throat—making mine tighten. The woman always found a way to steer back to the point “Okay, all kidding aside—”

“But the kidding was fun.”

“—what’s going on? Tell me, sissy. You’re better now, but five minutes ago you were falling apart.”

I curled my knees to my chest. While the night breeze off the ocean smelled infinitely better than the sea lions, it carried a chilled bite. “Declan Pearson has decided to pursue legal charges…about the drama from Saturday night.”

Claire gasped. “Is that even possible? Did Michael
touch
Declan?”

I bit my lip. “Depends on who you ask.”

“
What
?”

“It’s complicated, okay?”

“Well, shit.”

I was too exhausted to go into details and knew she’d forgive me the edit. “Well, I convinced him to hire Doug, to help us with this whole mess. Doug has branched out into PI work, and he’s good at it—and we are definitely going to need some outside help with this bullshit. We met him over at the Brockton Villa, to go over preliminaries about the case and—”

“Wait. Whoa. Hold the phones. You ‘hired Doug.’ Doug who? Are you talking about Doug
Simcox
? Mare…seriously?”

I borrowed a page from Kil’s book, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours. But
nobody
is going to be okay with that scumbag back in your life. No wonder Michael is coming unglued.”

“The shit between Doug and me is water under the bridge.”

“And Michael believes you?”

“I’m long over it, Claire.”

She snorted. “If you say so.”

“Okay, let me put it this way. If Killian were in trouble like this and Nick showed up offering skills that could help, wouldn’t you put whatever reservations you had behind you? For Kil?”

“First, let’s be clear. Killian would never need help from anyone because he is, after all, Killian. That being said, I would drill through a damn mountain to help that man—as I think I’ve proved in the past.”

“Exactly!” Before she could formulate more of an objection, I plowed on. “Don’t forget the thousands I’ve already spent on therapy about this too…right? Tons of therapy.
Tons.
That makes me so healed about this shit. So normal. I’m
normal
.”
Say it enough times and even you’ll believe it, babe.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

A low rumble vibrated over the line. “Sister mine, you couldn’t pass for normal right now if someone handed you a sweater set and June Cleaver’s pearls.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

“
Hush
. Just hush. What the fuck, Margaux? What kind of thread are you really hanging onto? And who the hell do you think you’re fooling? What’s the real problem here?”

“Christ, Claire. I—”

“I’m guessing it was your idea to bring Doug into the fold.”