Page 24 of A Very Titan Christmas (Titan #14)

The dreary morning came far too quickly.

If Bryce had slept, he hadn’t realized it.

He had replayed last night’s dinner a hundred times.

Each time he analyzed it, he either came up with reasons he should never have taken Rachel out or, on the complete other spectrum, why he should not have returned to his cabin. Alone. So very alone.

Bryce padded into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. Titan Group had carte blanche at the resort lobby’s coffee shop, but it was early, and he didn’t want to risk seeing any of the Porters.

The front door opened, and Roman walked in from a run.

He pulled off his sweatshirt and wiped the sweat off his face with it, then gave Bryce a long, confused look.

“I thought you were out with Rachel last night. What are you doing up this early?” His eyebrows rose, and he dropped his voice. “Is she here?”

“No.” Bryce scrubbed a hand over his face. “It wasn’t like that.”

Roman snorted. “Bullshit, brother. Don’t forget I was three feet away from you when you were finagling those dinner reservations.”

“I wasn’t finagling.”

“You were, and if it weren’t for some reservations being canceled in preparation for the turn in the weather, I’m pretty sure I would have seen you begging for a table.”

Bryce shrugged it off and tried to change the subject. “What were you doing?”

“What does it look like I was doing? I went for a run before the weather turns to shit.” Roman tossed his sweatshirt onto the hook by the front door. “It’s cold as hell and icy as shit out there. That wind isn’t messing around. Don’t recommend it. Why are you up?”

Bryce pulled the coffee carafe from the maker before it finished brewing and poured himself a mug. Coffee dripped and sizzled on the burner before he replaced it. The first sip scalded his tongue. “I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep.”

“So, you and Rachel used to date?” Roman asked, not changing the subject.

“Yeah, I told you that.”

“But not the specifics. Call me curious.”

“I could call you a lot of things,” Bryce grumbled.

Roman snickered. “You are touchy as shit about this. So explain.”

“We dated in high school.” He shrugged. “But, being the genius that I was, I broke up with her when my parents announced we were moving for the hundredth time. Sort of trying to keep from hurting her, but”—he shook his head—“that’s not how it worked out.”

“Genius move,” Roman agreed.

“Montana told me I was an idiot, but I didn’t listen.” He cupped his hands around the mug and embraced the burn. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

Roman poured a cup of coffee and pulled up a chair. He tucked his chin to his chest as if he wasn’t ready to say whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “You know I almost didn’t go to Montana’s funeral.”

Bryce’s chin jerked up. When he’d died, Montana was assigned to a special training project with Titan Group.

Bryce told his brother it was a small fuckin’ world when Montana called to say he was working with Roman and Cash.

They all knew each other from assignments years before, and it had been surreal to see members of Titan at his little brother’s funeral.

“I had taken him under my wing, but he saved our asses in Mexico when an IED hit our vehicle.” Roman put down his mug and folded his hands in front of him.

“I’m alive because of him, and that a car crash took him out—” He let out a pained breath.

“I’m not you. I can’t say I know what it feels like, but it killed me. ”

“Yeah.” Montana’s death had fuckin’ slaughtered him.

“He was a hell of a guy. Always brought the laughs.” Roman chuckled softly then sobered. “And I thought we’d work together for years to come. Shit, man. I don’t know how we haven’t talked about this.”

“I don’t know when we would have.” Bryce swallowed against the lump in his throat. “He was one hell of a brother.”

Roman nodded. “The kind of guy who didn’t flinch when things got messy.”

“He used to say life was a wild ride. Something like trying to tame a runaway horse. All you had to do was hold on like all hell. Don’t steer too much, and enjoy the ride.”

“That sounds like him.”

The back of his throat ached. “He got that from our dad, who never met a plan he didn’t run from. I think I’m the opposite of them.”

“Can’t plan for everything.”

“Our dad planned for nothing and hauled ass when the going got too hard.”

“That wasn’t Montana.”

Bryce nodded. “True. Balls of steel.”

“Takes ’em for this kind of life. Doesn’t it, man?” Roman asked. “What does Rachel think about you joining Titan?”

“We haven’t talked about it much. We wouldn’t. It’s not… This isn’t real.”

Roman didn’t look as though he believed Bryce. “I can’t imagine Eloise Porter as my mother-in-law.”

Bryce held up his hands. “That’s not what’s happening here. Not in real life.”

“Isn’t it?” Roman arched an eyebrow. “Coulda fuckin’ fooled me, watching you practically sell your kidney to nail that dinner reservation.”

“It’s fake. Pretend—”

“That’s why you were off the clock at some fancy-ass restaurant last night?”

Bryce settled back in the chair. “We’re pretending, but… it’s starting to feel real. Or at least reminiscent of real.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, she and I did this already.”

“Fucked or fell in love?”

“Jesus fuckin’ shit, Roman. Give me a break.” Bryce tried to ignore the meat of the question but couldn’t. “You know, I can’t figure out if this is a mistake.”

“What’s a mistake? You haven’t done anything yet. Or have you?”

“Not really.” But he could have. They had toed up to the line and, if they weren’t careful, would cross it. “I don’t know how to do something that lasts.”

“Eh, that’s bullshit.” Roman picked up his mug and sipped his coffee. “You may not want to. But not knowing how is a load of crap.”

“She’s got her life. I’ve got mine. We live states apart. Our careers are pulling us in different directions.”

“All manageable,” Roman pointed out. “So what’s the real problem?”

He liked that Roman was always ready to cut through the BS. “All I can think is what if it ends in a crash like Montana’s?”

Roman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He worked his jaw, sipped his coffee again, and stared at Bryce as though he understood where he was coming from. “Montana didn’t die because he took a chance. He died because life blindsides all of us eventually.”

Wasn’t that the damn truth?

“You know what?” Roman stood up. “Montana would kick your ass if he saw you playing it safe with a woman like Rachel.”

Another truth bomb. “Yeah, he would.”

“Guess you better decide what to do about that.”

All the cell phones in the cabin dinged and chimed. Roman groaned. “That can’t be good.”

Cash stumbled down the stairs, rubbing his eyes. “Parker needs to talk to us.”

Bryce scrubbed his hand over his face. This was the reminder that he needed. They were in Vermont for work. They could be reassigned at any moment, or a problem could throw a wrench into his day.

Jax joined them at the kitchen table. “Does he ever sleep?”

Cash tossed his phone on the kitchen table after he dialed, announcing after Parker answered, “You’re on speakerphone. What’s going on?”

“The weather.”

Bryce raised his eyebrows and glanced out the window.

“Just about as gray and gloomy as it has been.” They’d been briefed about the impending snowstorm.

Lucky for him, it had cleared his schedule of Eloise Porter’s activities for the day.

But for the most part, no one in Vermont seemed to blink an eye at snow, sleet, wind, or ice.

“The warm water in the Gulf Stream has been relatively mild…”

Bryce held up his hands as if asking what Parker was talking about.

Parker continued, “The arctic air moving southward from Canada…”

Roman and Cash exchanged looks.

“Parker, man, we don’t need an explanation,” Jax said. “What’s all that mean? Two feet of snow or something?”

Jax lived in Iowa. Two feet of snow on top of what they already had in Vermont probably didn’t sound like trouble to Jax. To Bryce, it sounded like a big fuckin’ security problem.

“A possible nor’easter,” Parker said. “Heavy snow. Gale force winds.”

“Like a blizzard,” Jax shrugged like a Midwesterner well versed in snowstorms. “We can handle that.”

“I’m not a weather guy.”

“Could have fooled me,” Cash said with a laugh.

“But I think the winds are stronger, and the snow is wetter.” Parker let out a frustrated breath. “Nor’easters aren’t common, and for a variety of crappy reasons, we don’t have the NOAA data that we would usually rely on.”

“How does that affect our plans?” Bryce asked.

“We need to be flexible and assist Porter’s security staff if they want help with the senator, but other than that, Bryce, Sugar Plum should be good to go.

Just make sure she has whatever she needs before the snowstorm hits.

Her cabin, like yours, is already hooked up to a generator.

Jax, run point on assisting Snow Queen. I don’t suspect she’ll need anything. ”

“Got it,” Jax confirmed.

“Got it,” Bryce echoed, his mind wandering to the possibility of being snowed in with Rachel in her cabin.

Roman gave Bryce a pointed look. “I’d pack a bag if I were you.”

“If it’s between you guys or her,”—he pushed himself out of his chair—“you all will have to fend for yourselves.”