Page 87 of S.O.S. Billboard

He could quiet her mind on that front. “You’renotKaren anymore,” Billboard reminded her with conviction. “You left all that behind. You became O’Shea; a tough woman who’s an officer of the law. You gained independence and lived with your brother. You came to Boston…” He kept talking, reminding her of the people they knew, like Brigid, Anna, and Ethan. He eventalked about Zoe, and the way the savvy cat had led him to O’Shea at the town meeting.

About three quarters of the way through his spiel, he noticed her eyes weren’t quite so blank; her stare not quite so vague. Her tongue was actually darting out to lick her bottom lip nervously as she listened.

Billboard continued, delving into more personal territory. “You’ve actually been the strong one of the two of us, O’Shea. Did I mention that? You’ve been trying to get me to admit that I like you, and I’ve been fighting it. But sweetness, I’ve finally come to agree with you. Do you hear me? You’ve worn me down. Youaregoing to be my girlfriend,” he told her definitively. “You’re going to move to Boston permanently, and we’re going to see if we have a future together, baby.”

O’Shea’s hand fluttered toward her throat, and she blinked for real this time.

“B…Billboard?” she asked raspily.

“Yeah, honey, it’s me.”

Billboard’s guts unwound the slightest bit; enough to laugh at himself. Where had all those gooey terms of endearment come from? He didn’t know, but if the words were working, he’d offer up every one he could think of.

“Where…where are we?”

She startled him with her question. Clearly, she was returning to reality, albeit slowly.

He’d give her all the answers she needed, but first he had to get his hands on her.

“Move over here O’Shea. I need to touch you. I need to feel your hand in mine before we talk anymore.”

She looked down at her fingers that clutched the neck of her shirt, then glanced over at Billboard. “You’re really here? In…” She gazed around, and a tremor took her again.

Ah, hell no.

“Look at me O’Shea. Focus. Iamright here. And I’m going to stay here with you until Mizzay works her miracles.”

“Mizzay… Jail…”

Suddenly O’Shea was crab-walking over to him faster than he could have imagined a few minutes before. She reached through the bars to cup his face.

“Billboard?” she whispered, running her hands over his five-o’clock shadow.

“Yeah. It’s me,” he returned gruffly, grasping her wrists and turning his head to kiss her palms. “I’m here with you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He’d say it as many times as O’Shea needed to hear it.

“I… I think I might have lost it for a while.” Another sob escaped from between her clenched teeth as she leaned her head against the bars.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “We all have bogeymen. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you need to talk about it, though—about anything—I’m listening.”

“The bars…” she began in such a small whisper, he almost couldn’t hear her. “The cage…”

“It’s not a cage, O’Shea. It’s just a jail-cell,” he comforted, not letting go of her hands. He slanted his head until he was able to get his lips on hers, giving her the lightest of kisses. “Look around carefully. You can stand up. You can walk in here. I promise you it isn’t anything bad.”

It was. Sort of. But not the type of bad he figured O’Shea was remembering, and that pissed him off. If this grandmother of O’Shea’s was still alive—and he hoped sincerely she was not—he was going to hunt her down and make her very sorry she’d ever terrorized her young granddaughter.

“I know,” O’Shea told him, sounding more like herself with every second that passed. “It’s just that…”

“It’s okay,” Billboard assured her. “Your head got stuck in the past. Believe me, I get it.” And he did. Most nights, before he’d started therapy, he’d wake up in a cold sweat, thinking he was back in Estonia; a place where he’d been tasked with what his higher ups had called, “timely intelligence extraction”. A clean term for something that had been so very dirty.

But…enough. This Charlie Foxtrot right now wasn’t about him, it was about O’Shea.

He watched her carefully as her brows drew together. “I…”

Billboard placed a finger on her lips. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if youdodecide you need to get things off your chest, I’m here.” And I won’t judge, he wanted to add, but that would be a lie. He was already judging the hell out of the woman who’d caused his strong O’Shea to break down, and he was plotting revenge.

“It’s…okay. I want to.” O’Shea wasn’t shaking any more.

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