Page 37 of Heated Rivals
“In that case…” Carrigan snapped her fingers. “Nonprofit.” When he motioned for her to continue, she shrugged. “They aren’t the simplest things to set up, and there’d be some serious challenges along the way—especially for a family like yours or mine—but as long as you kept the funds collected going exactly where they’re supposed to and aboveboard, it would be a valid option.”
Maybe for her. She moved in the circles of society who liked to whip out their checkbooks for that kind of thing. In his neighborhood, most everyone was struggling just to get by. “Hmm.”
She turned to face him fully. “Are you seriously considering something like that? I thought you guys dealt in the sex trade.”
“Sex trade is different than slave trade.” He knew he sounded furious, but it was hard to rein it in when he’d worked so fucking hard to get them out ofit, only to have his brother trying to drag them back to hell. “I got us out of the involuntary flesh trade.”
“And now you’re thinking about getting back into it for different reasons.” Even in the moving shadows of his car, her green eyes saw too much. “You could make a serious difference, James. Even if you did it on a small scale, every person you save is a miracle.”
He couldn’t have her looking at him like that, like he was some kind of white knight or hero or some shit. He wasn’t. He was just a man who’d done more bad than good, a man who wanted to balance the scales in any way he could. “It probably wouldn’t work out anyway.”
“James…” She trailed off and turned back to look out the window. “I was going to offer to help, but I can’t promise anything with my current situation.”
Which was the exact thing he’d brought her out here to help her forget.Great job, asshole.
He took the exit for York, and wound down to the little seaside town. It was a summer tourist spot, so it was nearly deserted this time of year, and the evening hour only added to that. Which was perfect. He didn’t have the patience to deal with other people right now. All he wanted was some one-on-one time with Carrigan away from Boston. He parked next to the beach and climbed out of the car.
She was out before he could come around to open the door for her, and she wasn’t looking at the ocean behind them. Instead, she was focused on the house at his back. “I know this house.”
If she’d spent any time looking at that album, she would. “It was my mother’s.” The only thing that had been hers and hers alone in her marriage with Victor.He didn’t know how she’d managed to pull that off, but he was grateful. She’d brought them up here—just her and her boys—for a few weeks each summer every year while they were growing up.
She’d passed it to James when she died.
He ignored the dull ache in his chest that always came with thoughts of this place. Some of the happiest times of his life had been spent in this little town, but they were all because of her. She could have taken them to a shack in the middle of the woods with no running water, and he still would have been in heaven.
“I haven’t been back here in something like twelve years.” Not since he’d come up here after he turned eighteen to set up a maid service to clean the place out once a month after his mother died.
He looked over when Carrigan took his hand and squeezed. “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.” Her shiver belied her words. She wasn’t dressed for the frigid winds coming off the water.
That got him moving more than anything. He kept a hold of her hand as they crossed the street and walked up the steps. The place still looked the same as it had when he was fourteen. He’d paid for repairs out of pocket as they came up—most recently it had been the roof that needed to be completely replaced. James unlocked the door and stepped back to let Carrigan precede him.
They moved through the entrance to the living room and kitchen, turning on lights as they went. It was like stepping into the past, the cheery beach decorations and bright colors still almost painful after all this time. She stopped in front of the mantel and touched a paintingof three boys playing on the beach. None of their faces were visible, but he had no problem recognizing which was which.
“Your mother?”
“She said painting calmed her thoughts and she needed all the calm she could scrape up in a houseful of boys.” The bittersweet ache in his chest unraveled a little. His old man didn’t talk about Elizabeth Halloran, and James had learned pretty damn fast after her death that to bring her up was as good as asking for a beating. But his brothers didn’t want to talk about her, either. It seemed like the pictures of her had disappeared overnight—as if she’d been a figment of his imagination all along and he was the only one still clinging to it. This beach house was the only place left untouched, the only one that still bore the stamp of her years in this world.
James sat on the couch and ran his hand over the knotted afghan draped over the back of it. The thing had more holes than yarn. “She tried knitting, but she was terrible at it.” He smiled at the memory of her cursing up a storm as she finally threw it across the room. And how he’d picked it up and brought it back to her and told her that it was the most beautiful thing he’d seen. He’d been maybe all of ten.
“You don’t have to…”
“I know.” He looked around the room again, seeing the ghosts of so many good memories that he’d locked away. “I didn’t bring you out here to whine about my poor dead mother. This was just the one place I figured we could both sit down and breathe for a little bit.”
“So you didn’t bring me up here to seduce me.” She smiled as she sat next to him. “I’m horribly disappointed.”
“I think I could sneak in some seduction.”He tugged on her hand, pulling her to sprawl across his chest. It felt right to have her here in this place with the wind howling around the house and the memories of a time long gone around them. “Come out with me.”
She arched her eyebrows. “I hate to be the one to point this out, but Iamout with you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He paused and tried to figure out the best way to go about this. She hadn’t signed on for anything, let alone anything beyond sex. But seeing her sitting across the table from that kid tonight had really struck home how fucked up their situations had been since they met. He wanted a slice of normalcy, even if normalcy wasn’tnormal. “Carrigan O’Malley, I’d like to take you on a date.”
Her eyebrows rose. “A date.”
“Yeah. The whole nine yards.”
“But not tonight.”
“Nope.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Tonight I swept in and crashed your date with that idiot—you’re welcome, by the way—so it doesn’t count.”
