Gardens & Ghosts: RELIC #5 by Maz Maddox

Author:Maz Maddox [Maddox, Maz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MONTANA

I felt horrible.

I hadn’t meant for the words to come out harshly, but they landed with a heat I hadn’t been expecting. I could give myself a mountain of excuses, attribute it to the stress of the trip or even something as trivial as being hungry. If I was being honest with myself, all of those passable reasons why I acted like a jackass were pathetic.

I knew exactly why I had acted like such a damn fool.

That moment had been a defining one, and it had rocked me more than I had realized. Feeling his hand on my chest was an anchor, grounding me into the present instead of lost in a sea of planning, grief and memories. For a couple of heartbeats, I was standing still, no longer drifting like a ghost. His breath on my lips, the subtle heat of his body next to mine, the crisp bite of his cologne and herbal shampoo. The promise of a connection, a tangible, physical connection to a handsome man was a desperate breath I had needed so, so badly.

I was so lonely. I wanted to kiss him, feel him, lean into the possibility of being happy—

And that scared the absolute shit out of me.

I felt the guilt and the panic like acid.

I hurt Henry. I saw it in his honest, beautiful eyes.

He could do so much better than a ruined old thing like me. He could find someone not chewed up by loss and imperfections, someone without a century of baggage and heartache.

I would need to make it up to him somehow, in some way. I would apologize and make it right.

I would show him that life would be better with someone else.

For the time being, I needed to focus, get my head back into the game.

Blanco was surrounded by vultures picking at his attention, fake laughing at jokes and fishing for conversation. The original plan had been to wait until after drinks, but the way the attendees had reacted to us sped up the momentum. It wasn’t a large enough party for us to blend into the background.

They’d talk. The topic of orgies and ladies with tarps would start circulating, which meant we needed to strike.

Baatar, to his credit, was damn good at playing defense while we inched our way through the pecking order. He charmed, complimented, distracted people with polite conversation so I could slip ahead of them. Without him, it would have been a much slower process to weasel our way through and still seem casual.

Blanco held himself like a man born into status. A hundred years ago, he would have been a man who funded naturalistic expeditions to far-flung corners of the earth he expected no humans actually lived in, demanding a zebra pelt. A century later, he wore a suit that cost more than my truck and threw galas to keep people from socially bombing his art galleries.

His laugh reminded me of a man who used to sift for gossip.

Fredrick. That was his name. God, it had been years since I thought of that man.

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