Mission: Without a Trace - Nicole Edwards Page 0,44
about twenty minutes. He was havin’ a panic attack over bein’ out in public with me.”
He could see the sympathy in her eyes.
“I don’t need your pity, JJ. It’s done. He decided it was best to call things off.”
“He did?” She took a sip of her orange juice.
“I’ve been pretty damn patient with him,” he bit out. “Woulda continued on. It’s too much for him.”
JJ sighed. “That sucks, B.”
“Better now than later. Happens once, chalk it up to the situation. Twice?” Brantley shook his head. “He’s not gonna be able to handle it.”
“It happened more than once?”
He went on to tell her how he’d found Reese at Moonshiners, the guy ignoring his texts while he had drinks with a woman.
“He’s straight, JJ. Curious but straight. Now it’s outta his system. He can move on and not have any regrets. He knows it’s not like I’ll go off runnin’ my mouth. No one’ll be the wiser. As long as he can do his job, we’ll be fine.”
“You considered maybe seein’ it from his point of view?” JJ asked, her eyes boring into him. “Reese is thirty years old, Brantley. Thirty. All that time, he’s been passin’ time with women. Then you come along and shake the foundation of his life. All those years, he was playin’ tonsil hockey and doin’ the horizontal mambo with women and suddenly he’s got the hots for a man. Think about that. You’ve never been with a woman, right?”
She knew he hadn’t.
“Pretend you woke up this mornin’ and suddenly you’ve got this thing for a woman. How would you feel? Awkward? Scared? Confused.”
Brantley couldn’t imagine it, but he certainly understood where JJ was coming from.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she tacked on.
“You saw what you hoped to see,” he countered. He knew because he’d done the same.
“Maybe he needs some time.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But I’m not gonna sit around and wait.”
“Please tell me you’re not gonna hook up with Cyrus.”
“And what if I do?”
“Brantley…”
“Don’t, JJ. Just … don’t. I’m done with this shit. I’d rather be single for the rest of my fucking life than find myself caring about someone who can’t handle it. Now it’s your turn. What happened with Dante?”
Her gaze instantly dropped to her coffee cup. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
He grunted.
JJ’s eyes shot up to his. “I will though. I promise. For now, all you need to know is that I’ve told him to stay far away from me.”
It was something, at least.
“Fine. Then let’s find a neutral topic.”
“Good idea.” She took a sip of her coffee, set it down. “I hear we’ve got storms rollin’ in tonight.”
“It’s what I hear,” he muttered. “Not lookin’ forward to it.”
“Don’t tell me you developed a fear of thunder and lightnin’,” she teased.
“No. But the sounds…” Brantley stared down at his hand on his coffee mug. “Seems to be a trigger for flashbacks. Nightmares.”
“That sucks.”
“It is what it is.”
“What do you say we hit the range after this?” She offered when he said nothing more on the subject. “Might be busy, but we can get in an hour or so.”
“Sounds like a perfect plan.”
And that was what they did.
After breakfast, Brantley followed JJ back to her house so she could get her range bag. They managed to get two lanes for an hour in the main gallery. When they were leaving, Brantley saw Reese’s truck in the parking lot, swallowed down the pain that came with it. Thankfully, JJ didn’t say anything.
At that point, he wasn’t feeling up for company, so he dropped JJ back at her place, then headed home. He contemplated hitting Cyrus up because his kind of company was different. The thought was fleeting, more of a thought on how he could get back at Reese for hurting him. And yes, Reese had hurt him. Irrevocably. At that point, Brantley decided to swear off any sort of sexual relationship for the foreseeable future. Right now, he needed to work on the task force. It was a damn good place for him to direct his attention. Hell, he could likely spend day and night working on cases. They definitely had enough of them.
As he pulled into his driveway, Brantley heard thunder rolling in the distance. He was prepared for it this time. No way would some storm send him reeling into the past again. It had happened numerous times since he’d come back home, but he had a good handle on it now.