Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,31
Thomas wasn’t exactly the sit back and wait kind of guy, but he was going to wait this time. Thank goodness for that.
Chapter Six
“I should have known she would call you.”
“You should have called me,” Thomas nearly growled. “We’ve always been close. I’m sorry you hate me now.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I love you more than I love myself, Thomas. You’re a huge part of my heart and you know it. I just…Adam was a huge part of it too and I just needed some time away.” She came to help Alyssa, not get a surprise call from her big brother on a Monday morning at the store when she couldn’t use any excuse to get away. She had just opened ten minutes ago and as Alyssa had told her, the store didn’t start to get busy until about ten o’clock. She was sure that was something her big sister had alerted Thomas to when she called him and told him she was in town.
“You took the job,” he said somberly. “The one in London. You’re going and we’ll never see you again. We hardly see you now.”
“Good Lord,” she sighed. “It’s not like I’m moving to Mars. Get a grip. It’s not like you to dramatize things. I think Thena’s rubbing off on you,” she had enough humor in her tone to make sure Thomas knew she wasn’t insulting him or his wife. “And about Belfast,” she turned serious. “I didn’t tell you I was going there so you could play big brother. I can’t believe you sent Blaine in there. I was fine.”
“Fine?” He nearly snapped. “From what I hear things got hot and you could have died. You might not care if you end up in a box, but I do! I’m not going to lose you. It would kill me, and you know that.”
She couldn’t argue with him there. Things had taken an unexpected turn for the worse…no, she would be lying if she said she didn’t expect it. All along she knew it would. This was the IRA, they didn’t do interviews unless they had hostages on the other end and they were trying to get demands met. They also didn’t leave people behind alive. She knew that going in, and on some level she just didn’t care. She was going to get the story even if she didn’t live to write it; somebody else would get her gear and they would write it for her. When the shooting started she hadn’t bothered to try to get away. She just stood there and shot as many pictures as she could get. That’s when she felt a large hand grab her arm and drag her out. She looked up to one angry looking Blaine Ashworth and she knew her brother had once again been looking out for her. But did he have to send Blaine? The man seemed to think he was her father or something. Way too protective—much like Thomas in that regard.
“Details,” she said passively dismissing his concern for her safety.
“You want me to bury you is that it? Well I won’t do it. You tell me where you’re moving in London and I’ll have somebody there to watch your six because clearly you don’t care enough about yourself or this family to do it for yourself.”
Jeeze, he was angry. Maybe he had a right to be. She hadn’t been thinking about anything other than the enormous pain where her heart used to be. She just wanted it to stop, to go away, and she hadn’t, not until Belfast, thought about what her death on any of those assignments would mean to anybody other than herself. Blaine had, not so delicately, pointed out the error of her ways when he broke it down for her in morbid details. He painted her the picture of her body in that box, her family standing over that grave, and the one that hurt her most was the image she conjured up of Thomas standing there weeping over her dead body. She couldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t do that to him.
“Look, I’m not—”
“You are telling me!” He barked. She laughed and that seemed to anger him more.
She laughed harder. “Thomas, if you would just put your war horse back in the stable I could tell you that I’m not moving to London. They offered me the job, but I decided to take the one in Hawaii instead.”
“You had a job offer in Hawaii and