Page 46 of Jack of Hearts
“Nice try, Grasshopper.”
His amused chuckle made her smile. She stopped inches from him, lifted a hand, and gently touched one of the scars on his right shoulder. “Who did this to you, Alex?”
“My father. How do you want your coffee?”
“Cream and two sugars.” She put her hands on his waist to hold him in place, pressed her mouth against a jagged scar on the middle of his back, kissed it, then moved to the next one and the next one and the next one. What father did this to his child? It was beyond her comprehension. Her father had been nothing but loving, his hands gentle even when she had misbehaved.
As she placed kisses across his back, tears streamed down her cheeks. Tears for Alex having a father who’d tortured a boy he should have protected, and tears for the father she missed with every aching beat of her heart every damn day.
Alex stilled, unable to breathe. He felt her tears, hot against his skin, and although all the places she’d pressed her lips had long gone numb from the scar tissue, her kisses were a balm to his soul. No other woman had put her mouth on his back. Some had pretended not to notice, some had been visibly turned off by the sight of his back, and one had even asked him to put his shirt back on.
He’d long ago decided he wouldn’t hide the results of his father’s cruelty. It was what it was. It had happened, but he’d put it behind him. Or so he’d thought until Madison stood in his kitchen, her mouth seeking out each place a belt buckle had ripped his skin open as her hot, burning tears slithered down his back. A shudder rippled through him, and he sucked air back into his lungs.
“Madison,” he whispered. Unable to take any more of the tears she shed for him, he faced her. “Don’t cry, Mad.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him, burying his mouth in her hair.
“I can’t help it.” She slid her hands up his chest, then farther up, until she clasped her fingers together behind his neck. “All children should have a father like mine, and no child should ever”—she put her feet on top of his, and he had the thought that she was trying to climb inside him—“ever, ever know the kind of pain from a parent who puts scars on his back.”
He couldn’t argue with that. He held her close, wishing she really could climb inside his skin and live there. Somehow she’d stolen his heart on a morning when all he’d meant to offer her was a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs. Who saw that coming?
If he didn’t get her to her bookstore in the next few minutes, he’d never take her back. As he held the woman he knew he could love forever given half a chance, he glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Can you take the day off?”
She sighed, her breath tickling his chest. “I wish. But no.”
“Then let’s have some breakfast before I abduct you and carry you to my cave like a barbarian. Another minute and I’ll drag you there by your beautiful hair.” He kissed that beautiful hair. “I’m that close, Madison, so you need to back away.”
Her lips curved against his skin. “And I’d love that, but I think we need to go rescue Lauren from the mad, bad dog.”
“Hopefully, they haven’t killed each other yet.” He’d never known Court not to find a way to get along with any woman, and he was skeptical that his brother and Madison’s roommate were squaring off like feral dogs.
Lauren glared at Court from the kitchen—which she’d refused to leave even after Alex had walked in with Madison tucked next to him—and if she could shoot fire from those eyes, Alex would have feared for his brother.
The two of them were like a pair of rabid dogs, each snarling from their corners, just waiting for the chance to attack. Alex had never seen his brother so worked up over a woman, and, fascinated, his gaze darted between Court and Madison’s roommate.
“You kept me up all night with your snoring,” Lauren said, her lips curling in a sneer.
Alex found her attitude interesting considering her gaze was locked on Court’s bare chest.
“I. Don’t. Snore.” Court turned away, yanking on his T-shirt.
As far as Alex knew, his brother didn’t snore. He leaned his mouth close to Madison’s ear. “I think they like each other.”
She made a noise that sounded like a half snort, half laugh. “I think we arrived just in time to keep them from killing each other. You take him, and I’ll try to calm her down.”
As soon as she slipped out from under his arm, he wanted to grab her and tuck her back next to him, but the snarling dogs needed to be dealt with. “What’s wrong with you, bro?”
Court turned furious dark eyes on Alex. “The next time you need a babysitter, lose my number. The woman’s a raving lunatic.”
If that was how he felt, why did his gaze settle on Lauren’s ass as Madison led her from the room, the two of them disappearing down the hallway? Alex grinned. “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”
“What kind of crap are you spewing now?” Court grunted. “I’m outta here. The two of them are all yours.”
Alone, Alex circled the room, eyeing the shelves, wondering which things belonged to Madison. There were a lot of books, but that wasn’t surprising. A framed photograph caught his attention, and he picked it up. Madison and two adults he recognized as her parents stood on the beach. He studied Michael Parker, smiling at seeing the red hair and green eyes so like Madison’s. The man stood between Madison and her mother, an arm around each, and Alex could see the affection they had for each other shining in their eyes. What would it have been like to have loving parents like that?
He set the picture back on the shelf but continued to stare at it. Had Michael Parker been killed because of a story he was working on? Their bureau chief had approved their request, and Taylor was supposed to schedule an interview with Parker’s editor this week. If the editor would agree, Taylor would bring back to the office whatever files and notes the newspaper had saved of Parker’s. If he didn’t agree, they would ask for a court order to confiscate them. Not that they’d get it. The thread tying Parker’s last story to the Alonzo family was tenuous at best, based on nothing more than a feeling Alex had.
Hopefully, the newspaper would cooperate on the chance the agency could identify their reporter’s killer. How would Madison react to him nosing into her life? He guessed she’d want the person who took her father away caught and tried, even if it was her cousin, but would she ever forgive him for the big lie sitting between them? Eventually it was going to come out that he was more than a co-owner of a biker bar, and he’d give anything if he could sit down and tell her everything.
He’d tried to stay away, but the past two weeks had felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. She had been the first thing he thought of on waking and the last thing before sleeping, and all the hours in between.
