Frankly, she missed the boat on a “normal” life with a mother like hers and falling in love with a billionaire’s son, but I like to humor her.
We climb out of my SUV and before we can shut the doors a bee floats past my face, lazy and stupid.
“God damn it,” I bark, pointing at the .025 ounces of death with wings.
Shannon shrugs.
I open my door. “Get in. We’ll go somewhere else.” What the hell was I thinking? Adrenaline streaks through me like I’ve been injected with it.
“See?” She jangles her purse and reaches in, pulling out two EpiPens. “I have two. One for me, and one for your penis.”
I should be in a conference room right now. Million dollar contracts should be presented before me, arrayed like a fan, with entire divisions of companies hanging in the balance, waiting for my decision. That kind of power is what I handle best. Finding weakness, shoring up strength, making money, making more money—that’s what Declan McCormick does. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am. Power, influence, and authority are my trifecta.
Out here, in nature, where a single insect could steal the most precious being in my life away from me, though, none of that matters.
Not one shred of power can stop Shannon from dying because of a single random god damn drop of poison on a bee’s ass.
And I can’t do anything about that. The fucking bee wins.
Sure, she has those EpiPens in her hand, and we can race to a hospital again. I could cloister her and make her stay inside eight months out of the year, living in constant fear like my brother.
Or I could walk away. Break it off. I have every right. This hits too close. My mother died and Shannon has the same, exact vulnerability and it’s killing me that no matter how many millions I have in the bank, no matter how many businesses rely on my decisions for sustenance, no matter how many people I control, I have to place my heart in Shannon’s hands and trust that everything will be fine. My life with her stretches out into a captivating eternity, and if she doesn’t walk the entire journey with me because of a bee appendage no bigger than a splinter, I—
I don’t know.
I have no other option.
She walks around the SUV, takes the keys out of my open hand, beeps the locks and starts walking down the trail. She’s a hundred feet or so ahead of me before I choose to take a step toward her, willing myself to stop scanning the air for bees like a Special Ops dude on a mission.
“My penis,” I call out to her, “doesn’t swell up when it gets bitten.”
Just then, two hikers come out from around an enormous oak tree. I pretend not to notice them as I catch up to Shannon. They’re snickering. That’s okay. I’m accustomed to public ridicule being par for the course when it comes to being with Shannon. Remember #HotSanta?
“Your penis,” Shannon says under her breath as we continue the walk up the hill toward the meadow where we first began to make love and she almost died. Those two phrases really shouldn’t be in the same sentence. Ever.
“My penis what?” It responds to sound and is listening intently. She leaves those two words hanging.
She pauses and reaches into her back pocket, pulling out her phone. It’s buzzing. I groan.
She reads the screen. “Carol. Can I come and watch her kids for an hour while she does a quick mystery shop?”
I groan louder.
“Or,” Shannon asks pointedly, “she says I could do the shop for her instead.” Shannon’s eyelashes flutter and she looks at me with mischief. “It’s a dropped sex toy shop. The mystery shopper who was supposed to do it was a no show. Carol has no choice. In fact,” she adds, trying to butter me up with a coquettish look, “I was doing nine dropped mystery shops the morning I met you.”
I narrow my eyes and try to stare her down.
She doesn’t budge.
Damn. That used to work.
“You and Greg promised me you’d stop doing shops,” I say, knowing I’m full of it, because any day now Greg’s going to beg her to do the fake restaurant shop for me.
“You’re right,” she says, tapping away on the screen.
“What are you typing?” I can see the edge of the field where we can walk to privacy. Shannon grabbed the backpack with our blanket in it as she got out of the SUV, and I have a condom in my wallet....
“I just let her know we’re on our way to pick up Tyler and Jeffrey to take them out for ice cream while Carol does the mystery shop.”
I look at the field.
I look at Shannon.
The Field of Dreams in one direction.
The Children of the Corn in the other.
My shoulders slump and I start walking back to the SUV. “Fine,” I say as she lifts an imaginary chain attached to a body part and leads me off to babysit.
CHAPTER SIX
“When are you going to be my uncle?” Jeffrey demands as we walk through the front door to Carol’s apartment.
I look at him. He can’t stop grinning and giggling. Wait a minute. Something’s off.
“Marie!” I say in Resting Asshole Baritone. “I know you’re here somewhere! How much did you pay him to ask me that?”
Shannon pulls a one dollar bill out of her pocket and stage whispers as she hands it to him. “Nice try.”
“Grandma paid me five buckth. You’re cheap, Thannon.” She gives him a huge hug in spite of the insult. I give him a high five not for the uncle comment, but because I can admire a budding entrepreneur. Jeffrey may be my investment banker someday if he keeps this up.
And my nephew, too.
“You need a hug,” Tyler announces from the hallway, the corners of his mouth turned down in sadness.