RISK (24 page)

Nolan

"Can I help you?" That sounded about as civil as it's going to considering who I said it to.

"I'm looking for Ellie Madden." He scans the area behind me where a group of women has gathered around a new lipstick display. "She works here, right?"

"Who's asking?" It's an empty question. I know who he is. Tad Darling in all his fucked up, suntanned skin, blond haired, bastard glory is standing in front of me.

He gives me a once over, his eye catching on my wrist. "You rocking a Rolex, man?"

He's not.  I take some perverse pleasure in that. "I am."

"Nice." He leans in close. Too close. I can feel his breath on my bare forearm. "You work here?"

"I own the place."

I don't look like I do at the moment. I was at home with May counting sheep. Literally, counting sheep in a picture book.

When Kristof called to tell me Tad had landed in New York and was headed straight for Matiz, I took off out the door. I didn't bother to change out of the jeans and concert T-shirt I'm wearing. I have no fucking idea how a T-shirt from the farewell concert tour of a boyband ended up hanging in my closet, but I put it on this morning.

This is what happens when I'm walking around in an Ellie Madden daze. I pledge my allegiance to five grown men who dance in sync to songs from the nineties.

"You're a fan of them too, hey?" He points to the T-shirt.

I'm burning this fucking thing as soon as I'm home.

"Why do you want to talk to Ellie?" I check the area behind him to see if Ellie is in sight.

"I'm her fiancé." He puts too much emphasis on that last syllable. So much so that he sounds like he's trying to fake a French accent.

Fucking douche.

"I'm her boyfriend," I begin as I tap my shoe on the floor, "I'd say we have a problem."

"Boyfriend?" he huffs out a laugh. "She didn't waste a minute, did she?"

"What do you want?" I cross my arms. I think I'm her boyfriend. I don't know what I saw going down between her and Wolf, but I know what I heard in her voice this morning when I finally listened to the six voicemail messages she's left me since Sunday. They're just friends she whispered into the phone on a sob. I want to believe her. I want to believe that now more than ever.

He mirrors my pose. "I want to speak to my fiancée."

"Your ex-fiancée," I correct him. "What do you want to speak to her about?"

"Things that are none of your business." He widens his stance. "I have something personal to discuss with Ellie. This has nothing to do with you, Crew."

"It's Nolan. Nolan Black," I correct him.

"Crew Benton owns this store," he quips with a grin. "I read that on the company website. You trying to pass yourself off as the owner, Noel?"

"Nolan," I draw out my name on my lips as I mentally note that I need to put someone other than Crew in charge of website design. "I am the owner of Matiz, and I'm Ellie's boyfriend. Two facts you'd do well to remember."

"Where is she?" His gaze darts around the store. "I'm only in town a few hours. I came to New York just to see Ellie."

"You're looking for Ellie?" Verna, one of the security guards, stops as she passes us. "Ellie took a few days off. She blew out of town for a girls' weekend. I wish I could have gone with."

I bite back the urge to ask where the hell Ellie took off to but I don't give Tad the satisfaction.

"Shit," he mumbles under his breath as Verna walks away. "This fucks up everything."

"Looks like you missed your chance." I blow out a breath with the realization that I might have missed mine too. "If we're done, the exit is the same as the entrance. It's right behind you."

"I don't get why she'd go to Boston," he mutters. "There's nothing left for her there."

"There's nothing left for you here." I point at the door. "Ellie's moved on. If you have a legal matter to discuss with her, I'll give you my attorney's name."

"It's not a legal issue." He shakes off my words with a jerk of his chin. "We settled months ago. She gave it all away. Every penny I gave her went to charity. She'd give her last dollar to a beggar on the street."

"She'd do everything in her power to help anyone who needed it," I correct him. It doesn't shock me that Ellie helped other people instead of herself. "There's nothing left for you two to discuss so why are you here?"

"It's her sister's birthday today."

Sister? Ellie has a sister?

Tad examines my face. "I loved her. Whatever she told you about me, I loved her. I fucked it up. If I knew I had a chance to get her back, I'd take it. I'd give it everything."

I don't want to hear it. He broke her heart. I'm fucking breaking her heart right now. The last thing I want is to be like this clown.

"She's no good to the world on this day." His jaw tightens. "I'd have to hold her up to help her get through this day every single year we were together. Says a hell of a lot that she's not looking to you to give her that."

"Hold her up? Why?" I ask without thinking or planning or giving a fuck what he thinks.

I see the flash of satisfaction in his eyes when he realizes he holds a prize that I don't. My watch or my store or my goddamn misplaced sense of entitlement as someone important to Ellie doesn't matter right now. He knows something about the woman I love that I don't have a fucking clue about. "Ellie planned a trip to France for her sister's birthday five years ago. She worked two jobs while going to school to save for it."

"They never went?" I shrug my shoulders. I doubt like hell Ellie would fall apart over a canceled trip. It explains her knowledge of French, though. She must have studied in anticipation of the trip. I can take her. I can take her and her sister and her nieces and May too. I can make this right. I can make us right again.

"Her sister died three months before the trip."

Died? Jesus Christ. Ellie's lost so much. 

When I don't say anything, Tad goes on. "She's always blamed herself even though there was nothing she could have done."

"Why would she blame herself?" I can't honestly believe I'm asking Ellie's ex-fiancé anything about her, but he's willing to provide it, so I'm taking full advantage.

He glances at one of the sales associates as she tosses him an eager grin. "Ellie got shot the day her sister died. She saved that baby's life and she thinks it cost her sister her life."

Ellie

I glance out the hotel window at the lights of downtown Boston. I haven't been here in years. I grew up here, made friends here and then when my mom died, my dad came from New York with his daughter to get me. She was my half-sister, and by the time she died, she was my sister, in every sense of the word.

"Annie's birthday is today," I whisper.

"I know." Adley hugs me from behind. "I ordered a small chocolate cake from room service. We're going to sing Happy Birthday in French for her."

I bow my head. "She'd like that but I can't do it."

"She would love it and you will do it." She rests her index finger against the glass. "Remember the first time the three of us came here together? You ran up every flight of stairs in that building over there to prove to yourself that you were fit enough to be a police officer."

I smile. "I am fit enough, but that's not all they consider."

She smooths her hand over my hair. "They have so many applicants that only a small percentage of people sneak through. You'll have an advantage after today. It sounds like you nailed your interview."

I did. I'm confident that I'll get the job. I went into the office with all of my knowledge of the law and my experience to back me up. It's a temporary administrative position but it's something. I'll need to give up my job at Matiz if I'm offered this job, but I can deal with the cut in pay. I have some savings to fall back on and thankfully we live in a rent controlled building. I'll thank Crew for that when I tell him that I've accepted a new position with the NYPD.

"I know that you don't want to talk about the advice that Wolf gave you the other day, but did it help?"

I gaze out at the city and the moon beyond the skyline. "He's a grief counselor, so he understands loss better than anyone I've ever talked to. He told me that there's no time limit for mourning."

"That's true," she murmurs. "Everyone is different."

"I told him about Annie as soon as he explained what he does for a living. I asked him if he gets that a lot."

"I bet he does."

I turn to look at her. "He said that he loves helping people and he believes that talking about death can help celebrate life."

She moves so she's sitting next to me. "What else did Wolf say?"

"I told him about Paris." I feel the tears sting my eyes before I feel the lump in my throat. "He thinks it might be helpful for me to go one year on her birthday. I told him that I couldn't do that."

"Because you feel guilty?"

I drop my gaze to my lap as tears stream down my face. "Yes. It was Annie's dream to go. If I go now, I'll feel bad that she's not with me."

"Her heart was selfless, Bean." She reaches for my hand. "She'd want you to go. She'd want you to forgive yourself too. Annie would tell you that she didn't die because of you."

Adley was almost as close to Annie as I was. After our father had died, Adley's family took us both in. They nurtured us and included us in every Christmas, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving celebration.

They sat in the front pew when I walked Annie down the aisle on the day of her wedding. They came to the hospital when Annie had her twins and then again eighteen months later when she added another baby girl to her family.

They were also there, beside me, when we said goodbye to my sister. They held me at the funeral and helped to guide me through my life since.

I wipe the tears from my cheeks. "I wish I wouldn't have left her alone that morning, Ad. When I stopped by her place and she told me she had a headache, I agreed when she asked me to get her some ibuprofen from the pharmacy. If I had stayed with her instead, I would have known. She would still be alive."

"Ellie," she says my name soothingly. "The doctor told us that it was so fast. Even if you would have been right beside her, it was too late. You couldn't have changed anything. No one could have."

I push my hair from my face. "I don't believe that."

"I'll tell you what I believe." Her eyes search mine. "I think fate put you in that store that day so you could save that baby. That was your destiny that morning."

"That means that Annie's destiny that day was to die?" I whimper. "How is that fair?"

"Life isn't fair." She touches my cheek. "One life was lost that day and one was spared. We don't get to decide who pulls what straw."

A light knock at the door draws both our eyes across the room.

"That's Annie's birthday cake." Adley taps my knee. "We're going to sing Happy Birthday in French to our big sister and then we're going to spend the weekend remembering her together."

"Okay." I nod. "I'll try for Annie."

"That's all she would have wanted, Bean."

***

"What's my favorite Las Vegas security guard doing in Manhattan on a sunny Sunday evening?"

I turn at the sound of his voice. That voice. It's a voice I'd recognize anywhere. "Jersey?"

"Ellie, it is you." He pulls me into a warm embrace. "I thought I was seeing things."

I feel the same way. I've been back in New York all of an hour and I've already seen a billboard with Shelby's face in Times Square and now a much kinder face in person. I take a step back to look at him. "Why are you here?"

"My daughter's getting married." He runs his fingers through his short gray hair. "Caroline. I told you about her, remember?"

I remember everything about Caroline, including the fact that she's Jersey's oldest daughter. "Congratulations. When's the wedding?"

"A week from today." He stomps his foot on the sidewalk. "Janine wanted to get here to help with the wedding planning. By help, I mean take over but she's the mother-of- the- bride so it's expected, right?"

"It's tradition for the mother-of-the-bride to run the show." I think that it is. That's what I've seen on television and in the movies.

"Why aren't you in Vegas? Are you taking a vacation?" His eyes light up.

"I live here now." I beam. "Things didn't work out for in Vegas so I moved back here."

He winks. "Janine is thinking the same thing. She wants us back here permanently before our great-grandchild arrives."

"Great-grandchild?" My lips twist into a smile. "Is Caroline going to be a mom?"

"You bet." He claps his hands together. "She's taking the fast track. A wedding and a baby all before the end of the year."

"I'm happy for all of you." I grab his forearm. "You're going to be an incredible great-grandpa."

"That I will. I'll do my best."

"I'm meeting someone." I glance down at my watch, realizing that I'm late for my informal meeting with the woman who runs a church mission here in Midtown. I'm going to volunteer there every Saturday morning. I have the time and doing good will help me focus on moving on from Nolan. I haven't heard anything from him in a week. "I better run."

He cranes his neck so he can see my watch too. "I'm meeting someone too. Two special someones."

"Caroline and her baby?" I rub my tummy as I giggle.

He laughs. "A friend and his baby. Technically, she's not a baby. May is five now. I'm taking her to see that new musical for kids. It's her first Broadway show and I get to be her escort."

"I know a five-year-old May," I say quietly.

"May Black?"

I glance up the street to where Nolan and May are approaching, their hands held tightly together, her hair bouncing as she skips along beside him. She's wearing a red lined cape over her pink dress and a top hat. The magic wand in her hand is circling the air. I feel an urge to excuse myself and walk away before they get here, but the need to stay is stronger. "Yes. May Black."

"So you know her dad? Rigs?"

My eyes slide over Nolan as he nears.

I've only ever heard the name from Annie's lips and read his name in her journals after her death. 

I saw him from a distance once as he sat on a park bench with my sister. 

He had a sandwich for her in one hand and a toy for our dog in his other. He kept watch over my sister when we had nowhere to go. He gave her a safe place to be herself when she felt she didn't belong. He didn't care that she was so shy that she could barely speak or that she feared most people.

He befriended her. He cared for her and when her life was threatened, he protected her.

I should have known. I should have felt it.

He's Rigs. Nolan Black is Rigs.