Page 58 of Savior

“Fifty-fourth,” she grumbled. “Are you going to stay outside that door all night?”

“Until someone can tell me where to find Lauren, think I’ll just camp out right here. Do your thing, Cougar,” I encouraged.

“For Chrissakes, boy,” Torch ground out. “Lauren ain’t here. She’s probably out at Angel’s or Celia’s… somewhere you can’t find her. If she wants you, she knows where to look. Now, get the fuck out of my house!”

I sighed and scratched at my jaw, trying to determine where she would’ve gone. As Angel had been with me just a half-hour before, I knew she wasn’t at his place. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she would’ve gone to my mom’s, which left Celia.

I’d never get through what needed to be said if Celia was watching me with those cat-like green eyes of hers, searching for signs of Grey.

Instead of pretending I didn’t exist like most women would’ve done, Celia had always gone out of her way to make me feel as if I belonged.

As a teen, I’d laid awake at night, imagining what it would’ve been like to have her as a mom. By that point, I was living down by the beach with my mother, but I’d never forgotten how Grey’s knockout of a wife had never once excluded me from their family events.

Not all of my adolescent fantasies were as pure. More than a few had ended with me fucking Celia up against a wall, satisfying her needs as a widow. In 2009, when Grey turned up at my house to reveal that he was alive, I was relieved that I’d never acted on the fantasies.

My old man would’ve snapped me in two.

I fought to clear my head just as Torch asked, “Now, where were we?” Louisa’s giggling quickly turned to moans of pleasure.

“Really? Not even gonna wait until you’re sure I’m out of the house?”

“That’s it. Hand me my gun. I’m gonna teach this little shit-for-brains a lesson,” Torch announced as I jogged toward the back door.

When I made it around to my truck, I fell against the door, wheezing with laughter.

Torch and Louisa… who would’ve guessed it?

I was strangely happy.

If two people who’d both suffered through such severe loss could find love again, then maybe it wasn’t crazy to think that a quick-tempered redhead might still want a washed-up addict.

I might have lost my opportunity with Lauren tonight, but I wouldn’t give up until she was mine again. As if a lightbulb had been turned on, I suddenly knew exactly what I was going to do to show her that I’d changed.

Chapter Thirteen

Mike

The miter saw whined as I pulled it down, cutting my two-by-four to length. I blew the sawdust off as I held it up for inspection.

“Michael!”Abuelitacalled from the porch. “Your dinner is ready!”

“In the garage,” I shouted across the yard before going back to studying the printed diagram on my workbench, trying to decipher the next step.

The side pieces to the cribs were lying on the spare workbench across from me, the slats held together with clamps. The ends were leaned up against the wall, just waiting to be stained. I’d added a decorative triangle with some of the leftover wood pieces, hoping to give them more of a farmhouse feel.

“Oh, Michael,” Gloria gasped as she entered the detached garage, carrying a large plate in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. “They are going to be so beautiful. You have done so much work.”

It turned out that Angel was right. I just needed something to keep my mind focused. Woodworking had always been something Grey had done, but I found that I liked getting my hands dirty too.

I liked the process of turning nothing into something.

Kinda like me.

“It’s coming together. Might even be ready to assemble by tomorrow. I need to find out what stain Lauren used on our nightstands—”

“Oh!” Gloria held up a finger. “She used the Precipitation Gray—no, it’s the word that means it’s not new. It’s old and worn. Michael, do you know what I am talking about?”

I nodded slowly, fighting a smile. “Weathered?”

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