Deacon (Unfinished Hero #4)(45)

But leaving me hanging?

Forever?

That didn’t seem very Deacon.

Which was another reminder that I didn’t know Deacon. I didn’t know what he did for a living. I didn’t know his full name. I didn’t know where he came from or how he became the man he was.

I knew he was thirty-eight, had slept with that same amount of women, (well, with me, one more), he was mellow, didn’t talk much, was great in bed, liked my cooking…

And that was all I knew.

This put me in a bad mood. A bad mood where I sat on my porch in the rain (though I’d do that anyway) staring at the trees, trying not to make a big deal of this. A hot guy, great sex, a feeling of hope it was the start of something beautiful, something that could be forever—women got that feeling all the time and found they were wrong.

I tried to make it that simple.

But I knew it wasn’t that simple.

I was staving off heartbreak…again. Doing it with the impending official adoption of the dog Deacon bought for me. I had pictures. The breeders e-mailed them to me weekly—the puppies rolling around, nursing from their momma, growing up, and playing.

I was in love with all of them and had no idea how I would choose when the time came two weeks from then when I’d have to.

I also had no idea how I would claim and care for a dog that would forever remind me of Deacon.

I closed my eyes tight on that thought, fighting the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, and not in a warm way. In a devastated, I’m-an-idiot, I’d-picked-the-wrong-guy, when-was-I-gonna-learn way.

But I opened them when I heard the growl of an engine through the patter of rain.

I turned my head right to see who was there, and when I saw the rain slicked black Suburban through the gray dusk, I quit breathing.

I started again but only to do it erratically as I watched the driver’s side door open and Deacon unfold his long frame from the seat. I heard the door slam and remained still, my eyes on him negotiating the trees at the side of my house as he stalked to the porch.

My breath caught again when he arrived at the porch and I could see his eyes pinned to me, his face blank, the mask returned (not a good sign), but there was no escaping the heaviness that descended from whatever it was that was emanating from him.

This could have been why I couldn’t move.

Deacon could move. He put his hands to the porch railing, and even though the porch (and definitely the railing) was elevated several feet from the ground, he hauled himself up and threw his body over the rail, his boots hitting the deck with a definitive thud.

At this miraculous display of upper body strength, I swallowed a gasp.

I had no idea what he was doing there, and even if his expression was giving me nothing, I still understood from somewhere deep he didn’t want to be there.

But he was.

And I didn’t get that.

Though maybe I did. Maybe I was right. Maybe it was Deacon’s time to say good-bye, face to face.

Suddenly, I wished he’d left me hanging.

He stared down at me and I still didn’t move. Just had my neck twisted, my head tipped back, because his unfathomable eyes were locked to mine in a way I couldn’t escape.

“Thought you were more woman than any woman I’d met,” he declared, his voice low but cold, a voice I had for six years. A voice I thought was gone forever.

A voice it was a blow that hurt like a bitch to have back.

It was also a bizarre opening.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“A woman who’s any woman at all, she wants shot of a man, she’s got the guts to tell him.”

I stared in disbelief.

What did he just say?

Shot of a man?

Before I could ask, Deacon kept talking

“You don’t have that and I should let you make that play. But what you gave me, Cassidy, not gonna let you make that play. So you want shot of me, I’m standin’ right here. Now you say the words.”

“Are you crazy?” I whispered, knowing he was because there was no way in hell he could think I was shot of him.

Him shot of me, yes.

Me shot of him…

Absolutely not.

“You quit callin’,” he stated.

I finally moved, turning in my seat and keeping my eyes glued to his.

“You did too.”

“I was workin’,” he clipped.

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “For weeks, without a moment to phone just to say hey?”

“For weeks, without a moment to phone and say hey,” he confirmed, his words still terse.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously,” he answered shortly and kept going. “Situation was not good. It was intense. And there were people there I did not know, I did not like, and I did not trust. No way in f*ck I’m gonna take a call and expose shit to those f*ckers. And no way I could take a call from you and not expose you mean somethin’ to me. Since I was with them practically twenty-four f*ckin’ seven, I didn’t take a call and I didn’t make a call. Told you, I would not put you in danger. That world I live in, Cassidy, it does not exist for you and by that I mean you don’t know that world and that world does not know you.”

This made some sense, and some of it was very sweet.

However.

“So what’s that mean, Deacon?” I asked. “Incommunicado for weeks with no idea when that incommunicado will end?”