“I need you to find her,” he said, barely seconds after they’d sat down.
The man’s face was impassive, certainly not surprised. Then, in the face of Luke’s terse words, bordering on aggressive, he’d smiled.
It wasn’t cruel, or intended to laugh Luke out the door. It was something different than that.
“It’s ’bout time, mate.”
Luke jolted. “Come again?”
Keltan leaned forward, clasping his hands together, his smile trickling away. “I’ve been waitin’ for you to pull your finger out of your arse and start this war. I’m already smack-dab in the middle of mine.”
Luke blinked. “War?”
Keltan nodded, reaching underneath his desk and coming out with two cold beers. He handed one to Luke, who took it more out of reflex than anything else.
“Love, mate,” Keltan said, sipping from his beer. “It’s a bitch of a fight, isn’t it?” His eyes moved with something that Luke only recognized because he’d seen it in the mirror.
He knew Keltan and Lucy had been in some kind of dance for months. Knew she ran away, right into the city where he’d set up a security company. And that look told him that Keltan had finally caught her.
Lucky bastard.
Then again, he didn’t look like he’d triumphed in that war of his.
“Yes,” Keltan mused to himself. “Thought mine was a bastard, a long fuckin’ wait. But you’ve got me beat. You were fighting long before I entered the fray.” He eyed him. “I’m thinkin’ you’ll be fighting long after I’ve lost.”
Luke failed to hide his surprise at the brisk Kiwi’s sage words. They hadn’t interacted much, but when Luke had encountered him, he’d had a grudging respect for the man. Another outsider falling for someone inside the club. Someone who didn’t understand it, who didn’t want his woman involved.
“Lost?” Luke repeated. “You think you’re going to lose her?”
Keltan chuckled. “Nah, mate. I’m never gonna lose her. No fuckin’ way. Which means, of course, I have to lose the war.”
Luke tilted his head, not sure if that was the most profound thing he’d ever heard or the stupidest.
“Already lookin’ for her,” Keltan continued, not giving Luke enough time to come to a conclusion. He frowned. “Got my best guys on it. Nothin’ yet. Your girl, she’s good.” His tone was a mingling of impressed and sympathetic. “So for now, I can’t give you her, but I can give you a job. How’s that?”
And somehow, Luke had said yes.
Those months were full of frustration and dead ends and battles. Against himself. Trying to figure out who the fuck he was outside of Amber, outside of his uniform.
Without her.
That was easy.
He was nothing without her.
And there he was, in the same seat where he’d begun his search. And he hadn’t found her. She’d found herself. And he still didn’t have her.
Keltan had been right. This war wasn’t gonna be short.
“How about we sort that when we get back?” Keltan said, standing.
“Where are we going?”
Keltan grinned, the lingering demons of Lucy’s almost death tainting it. Luke guessed he’d never smile properly, not for the rest of his life, with that memory.
“My wedding, of course.”
Chapter Nine
Rosie
“I can’t believe you’re getting married in a hospital bed. After being stabbed. In polyester.” I screwed up my nose. “I don’t know which is worse.”
“Neither do I,” Lucy admitted. “And I was the one who was stabbed.” She laughed and the motion jerked my hand, which was applying eye shadow to her closed lid.
“No moving,” I snapped, hitting her shoulder. “I’m trying to work my magic.”
Lucy went still but scowled at me with closed eyes. “You just hit me,” she gasped. “I’ve been stabbed.”
“You’re fine,” I shot back. Because her eyes were closed, she couldn’t see the utter disconnect between my joking tone and my horror-stricken face.
I was only joking because it was one façade I could clutch onto with my newly applied acrylic nails. The other option was complete mental breakdown.
That was not happening.
This was my girl’s wedding day. Even if the wedding was taking place in a hospital room that reeked of cleaning products.
Despite my magical skills with a makeup brush, it was hard to mask the thin pallor of death still clinging to my friend’s beautiful face. It was sticking, etched in there like a scar you could only see if you looked really close, or if you had one similar.
Or if you’d inflicted one similar.
I was doing all three.
The only thing that could chase that darkness away from her was the happiness that pulsed around her, the warm glow fighting the cold grip of death. It was working.
It would work.
One had to only look into Lucy’s violet eyes to see that. To taste the air when she and Keltan were together.
Which was, since I’d been back, every moment. I tried to alternately give them time together while greedily claim my friend back before she was lost to me forever.