She was new to Cutthroat, didn’t know the details of everyone’s lives. Small towns were like a microscope; everything was magnified. He didn’t tell people about the fucking mess with the drugs and his mom’s illness, but he never avoided it either. Now she knew Mac’s not-so-secret secret.
The way he’d reacted showed how much he was into Sam. I’d never seen him like that with anyone else. An asshole at a bar he could shrug off. The old-timers who’d remembered what happened still gave him pitying stares. He didn’t give a shit. But with Sam? He seriously cared what she thought. He wanted her to like him, to know who he really was. To know what made him tick. And all that was completely separate from what we’d just done on the couch.
Sam saw the real Mac now. No question.
Thank fuck she wasn’t a stuck-up bitch who’d snub him for what he’d done. Some women had, and we didn’t even remember their names a minute after they walked away. Good fucking riddance.
Sam understood because she was so fucking smart. No question she’d had a rough childhood. Her parents were still alive but not part of her life. She was a loner. Hell, I was too. Total introvert who liked reading a book over a night out. But I’d never felt alone. My parents were decent My brother was one of my best friends.
I knew what real friendship was. What a real family was. Knew that what we’d done on that couch was so much more than fucking. Sam didn’t, but she would. Now she thought we hated her. She thought she’d blown it.
There were moments like this where her brains got in her way. She thought we wouldn’t want to know about the break-in, that we wouldn’t want to take on a woman’s problems. She thought too fucking much. Again, she had no experience with people helping her, being there for her, so she didn’t expect it from us either.
Even as a kid she’d been alone. Her parents hadn’t done their jobs; a Swedish housekeeper had done it for them. She hadn’t gone to school, so she hadn’t played with other kids. Then Harvard at fourteen. No shopping at the mall. No sleepovers like all teenage girls had. No dating. No prom. Then medical school. Again, alone.
Had she ever had someone to lean on? No wonder she questioned everything; it was a version of self-preservation.
But she was ours now and she had to stop fucking thinking so much and just feel, like she had on that couch… and it had been stunning.
She’d come to the shop because she felt safe here, felt that she could trust us, at least subconsciously. When she stopped to think, that was when she screwed herself and got us where we were now. We’d have to teach her to run with those feelings, to go with her gut. And that meant sharing everything with us.
Good and bad.
Seeing her collect her clothes from the floor to leave was the saddest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
She had her hand on the doorknob when Mac went over and wrapped an arm about her waist, pulled her back into him. Held her close.
“You didn’t mess up, sweethe
art,” Mac said, nuzzling her neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry for pushing you.”
She shook her head against his chest and kept her head tipped down. “It’s my fault. After what happened, of course you’d think the worst of me.”
“We’re here for you. Deep down you know it.”
If she were wound any tighter, she’d snap, but at his words she relaxed, almost wilted.
“Something scares you, you tell us or that one handprint on your ass is going to have some friends.”
She gasped at his threat, which wasn’t an idle one. So much for relaxed.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Turning in his arms, she wrapped hers around his waist, clung to him, set her forehead on his chest.
And cried.
Mac glanced at me over his shoulder. I could read his look, knew exactly what it meant, without saying a word.
She was ours. No question. There was no going back. No letting her go.
“I’ll call Nix,” I said, reaching for the phone on the desk. It was time to get the police involved, although if they couldn’t find the fucker, Mac and I would.
No question. The asshole was going down.
Sam came out of her bathroom dressed in yoga pants, thick socks and an old Harvard hoodie. She’d taken her time in the shower, but I hadn’t wanted to rush her. She was a thinker and needed a little time to herself. We’d hashed out a lot of stuff, and she’d just had sex for the first time. With two guys.
That was a lot for her small shoulders.