Archibald suddenly grinned, saucy and devilish, hopping up from the table and pushing his chair away. “Fine then, you heathens. I do admit to hoping against eternal hope there would come a time when I could bellow, ‘In your face.’ On that admission, in your face, homie!” he shouted, fanning the money on his palm and shooting it at Nina with deft fingers, making it flutter to the floor as he did a little dance.
Teddy laughed so hard, she almost cried, her body leaning into Cormac, who howled with laughter, too. That was the moment she realized how long it had been since she’d just hung out with people for the sake of hanging out. Enjoyed someone else’s company other than the animals at Sanctuary. Accepted an invitation to have a beer with her coworkers.
When had she become so fond of isolation?
You know when, Teddy Bear. You know why. But this is nice, isn’t it? Cooking with Carl today. Chatting with Marty about what color best suits you. Listening to Nina and Wanda share stories about some of their OOPS adventures. Sure, there’s a dark cloud hanging over your head, but there’s a life you’ve been missing. You accused Cormac of isolating himself, but you did the same thing. You just weren’t in a cabin in the woods. You were in your bedroom at the ranch or in your office at Sanctuary or in that prison in your head. Not so different than Cormac after all.
And then there was Cormac himself, and all these new feelings he kept stirring in her. How just his lips against hers for no more than a second left her yearning for more—for something she was still so unclear about.
Her phone signaled a text, interrupting the retrospective on her pathetic, cloistered life. As she pulled it out of her pocket, Cormac rested his chin on her shoulder and watched her read the bad news from her brothers.
“Damn,” she muttered, looking up at everyone. “My brothers are snowed in and can’t get a flight out.” Shit. Shit. Shit. They needed as much manpower as necessary if they were going to manage to get to Stas.
And then another text popped up.
One that made her gulp.
Her hand squeezed the phone with a shaky grasp. The universe had a bone to pick with her, it seemed. But now just wasn’t the time to add more fuel to the fire.
“Who’s Dennis?” Cormac asked against her ear.
She set Lenny on Cormac’s lap and pushed her chair from the table. “I have to use the ladies’ room. Excuse me.”
Teddy didn’t bother to look back to see Cormac’s reaction to her abrupt departure or to see if anyone else noticed. She needed air. Crisp, clean, cold air, filling her lungs, reminding her to just breathe.
Blindly, she made her way out of the kitchen and stumbled down the long hall where a door led to a small courtyard just outside the hedge maze. She’d found it earlier today, and now she was grateful. All she needed was cool air and a moment to gather her thoughts, rein in her fear enough to keep it together.
Pushing open the door, she poked her head outside and sniffed, at least thinking enough to look for danger before she stepped into the snow and pulled the door shut behind her.
The moon was brilliant in the sky, buttery yellow in the velvet ink of night, casting a peaceful glow over the entrance to the hedge maze. A light snow continuously fell, white flakes sticking to the boxwood hedges that made up the maze, sugaring the tops of them with crystal flecks.
The covered patio made of white stone and swirly circles of some kind of crushed blue and green mosaic tile would be beautiful to sit on and while a day away under normal circumstances. Tonight, the beauty of the craftsmanship and time put into creating a masterpiece like this escaped her.
There was a black wrought iron chair she shook the snow from before she sat down and put her head between her knees, inhaling, letting the frigid air cleanse her.
Dennis was on the loose again. This could only mean one thing.
She didn’t just have the Russian mob knocking at her door—she had the man who’d almost killed her last year likely hunting her down, too. And Dennis would hunt her down. She knew it as sure as the day was long. He’d never let her get away with putting him in jail, even if his stay hadn’t been nearly as long as it should have been.
He would find a way to find her—wherever she went.
Yanking her phone from her pocket, she reread the text from Vadim. Dennis is out of jail. Word in certain circles is he’s asking questions about you. You have to tell everyone about him so they can protect you. Stay where you are until we can get to you.
Her disgust crept up along her spine as she scrunched her eyes shut. Eight months for assault and battery was hardly the kind of punishment Dennis deserved for leaving her unconscious in a ravine, where she would have bled out had it not been for Vadim and Viktor finding her in time.
Teddy’s chest tightened when she remembered Dennis’s eyes just before he’d round-housed her in the face, knocking her a hundred feet to the forest below them. There was hatred in his eyes, thick, black, and rich with evil.
“Teddy?”