Page 41 of Heated Rivals
Her phone rang, startling her, and she hurried to answer before it woke James up. “What?”
“Where the hell are you?”
Aiden. She shoved her hair back. “What’s going on?” It was ten in the morning. There was no reason he’d be calling her this early—or at least nogoodreason.
“Where. The.Fuck. Are. You?”
Okay, this was bad. She looked around wildly, but the answer didn’t magically pop into existence. There were two options. She could keep avoiding and cowering, or she could try to brazen her way through this. So, really, there was only one option. “It’s none of your damn business.”
“Wrong answer. Would you like to knowwhyit’s my business?” A car door slammed. “Because our goddamn father is on a rampage, and our mother is practically breathing fire at the thought of someone, let alone one of her children, ruining this fiasco of a wedding.”
The wedding.Shit. She did some quick mental math. “The wedding is tomorrow.”Thank God. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about it. Yes, she’d had a whole hell of a lot going on, and technically Teague and Callie were already married, but neither of those were legitimate excuses.
“I’m aware. The rehearsal, however, is this evening, and no one can find you.”
She glanced over to where James was now awake and watching her. “There’s plenty of time. Calm down.”
“There would be, but Aileen hasactivitiesplanned for Callie and the bridesmaids—includingyou—today. Activities that you’re not participating in becauseno one knows where the fuck you are.”
Carrigan read between the lines. Their mother was furious, and she’d gotten their father riled up, and both of them were taking it out on Aiden. Shit rolled downhill and all that. “I’ll be back in an hour.” She hoped. Traffic would be heavier than it had been on the way up here.
“You have explaining to do, Carrigan. I’m not kidding.”
That’s what she was afraid of. But hopefully if she slipped back in and played her part for thenext twenty-four hours, everyone would be too busy to ask her uncomfortable questions. Hopefully. “Just stall a little longer. I’m on my way.” She hung up before he could yell at her anymore.
“Trouble?” The sleepy gravel of James’s voice made her body perk up despite the stress.
“Not in the way you mean.” She slid out of bed and started throwing her clothes on. “Can you drive me back?”
“Yeah, no problem.” He followed her to her feet, and she got hung up on how damn good he looked naked. Her gaze caught on the scars on his chest and held when he turned around to pull on his pants. His back was an identical mess, though the scars there almost looked… layered.
“James…”
“Let’s get you home before they send out a search party.” He yanked on his shirt, not looking at her. “If we leave now, we can swing by a drive-thru and eat on the way.”
He didn’t want to talk about the scars. She got that. She had plenty of secrets of her own. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to know. Even if she could put two and two together—the sheer amount of scars and their placement told her they weren’t from some sort of accident. No, every single one of them was intentional. There was only one person Victor Halloran would allow to hurt one of his children like that… and it was Victor Halloran.
She held her dress in a white-knuckled grip. He beat James. HescarredJames. She wanted to march down to the prison and put a bullet between his eyes. Everyone knew Brendan—and probably Ricky—was a monster. Had they started out that way? Or had their father—the one person put on this world to protect his own children—been the one who broke something inside them beyond repair? Children were to be protected. Yeah,Seamus wasn’t exactly father of the year, but he’d never hurt her like that. He’d never so much as lifted a hand orthreatenedthat kind of violence. And to go so far as to cut and whip and do whatever had caused the marks on James’s body?
Her mother would have killed him on the spot.
She forcibly loosened her grip and finished getting dressed, fury all twisted up with sadness for the boy he used to be. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been Victor who’d hurt his boy. Whoever did it hadn’t broken James. The more she found out about him, the more amazed she was that James had grown into the man he was. A man of worth. He might not see it that way—and she was pretty damn sure he thought the exact opposite—but it was the truth.
By the time she made it out of the bedroom, he was flipping his keys around his finger and staring out the window at the ocean. Carrigan paused a few feet away, not sure what the protocol was. Did she kiss him? Touch him? Just smile and head for the car? Throwing herself at him and hugging him and promising vengeance on whoever hurt him wasn’t an option, no matter how much it was exactly what she wanted to do.
He glanced at her, his expression shuttered. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Sorry about hauling you out of bed and forcing you to drive me back.” This was so wrong, so stilted. She hated it. She cleared her throat. “Look, we don’t have to talk about your scars. I’m sorry I mentioned them at all.”
He crossed to her, stopping within arm’s reach. “It’s fine. It’s not something I want to get into.”
Maybe it was something heneededto get into. But she wasn’t a shrink, and he couldn’t havemade himself clearer if he’d turned on a neon sign that read,Back the fuck off. He’d shared about his mother last night. That was unexpected enough. This whole baring-of-the-souls thing wasn’t what they were about. It couldn’t be. “I understand.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“Great.” He snagged the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss that curled her toes. “Let’s get you home.”
