Read Online Solid Muscle (Unseen Enemy Book 5) by Marysol James - Free Book Online Page A

doing? It’s important. It’s more important that anything I may want or think or feel.”
    “You’ll be careful?”
    Cordelia’s face softened. “Hunter may be many things, but he isn’t a man who lets his partner get hurt. If I’m with him, Mom, he’ll have my back. I’m safe.”
    “Promise, honey?”
    “I promise.” Cordelia gave a wry smile. “He won’t let me make him a damn cup of coffee but he also won’t let me get hurt. I know that.”
    **
    Sully glanced at the clock on the common area wall. It was going on eight o’clock now and he knew that the nurse would be around soon with the medication. He knew the nursing home routines like the back of his hand.
    “Hunter?”
    “Yeah, Dad?”
    “You leave tomorrow or the day after?”
    Sully had given this information six times already, but he didn’t act like it. “Day after. Me and Cordelia drive to Kansas bright and early and we’ll have a few days to settle before we have to get to work for real.”
    “Ah.” Richard Sullivan’s dark eyes were puzzled. “And who’s Cordelia?”
    “A woman I work with,” Sully said for about the twentieth time. “She’s going to be an amazing profiler one day.”
    Richard’s face lit up at that: he’d been a psychologist for the FBI for twenty years and any talk of profiling perked him up every time. “Smart girl.”
    “She is. Damn smart.”
    “Are you dating her?”
    Sully paused. “No.”
    “Because?”
    “Because… we work together.”
    Richard snorted and displayed an unusual – though badly-timed, really – moment of clarity. “That’s never stopped you before.”
    “Yeah, well. Cordelia’s different, OK? Her kid is sick and she’s up to her eyeballs in things to deal with. The last thing she needs is more crap.”
    “So you think you fall under the category heading of ‘crap’?”
    “Christ, Dad, what’s with you tonight?”
    “I’m kinda on the ball, huh?”
    “You sure as hell are.”
    “So answer the question… you think you’re hard to deal with?”
    Sully paused. “Yeah. I guess so.”
    “Hunter,” the older man said gently. “That was all a long time ago now. You’re forty years old and you’re not built for being alone like this. You’re the kind of man who wants a wife. A family.”
    Sully stared down at the checker board.
    “You are allowed to be happy, son. You are allowed to move on.”
    “I’m not sure that I want to.”
    “You punishing yourself, still? After twelve years?”
    Sully was silent.
    “Listen to me, Hunter.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “That’s enough now. You’ve mourned them long enough and hard enough, I promise you. I have never seen a man hurt the way that you have since you lost them. You never have to forget them, you know, never stop loving them. But you do need to let them go. You need to rejoin the living, not freeze your heart solid to stop yourself from feeling. Not anymore.”
    Sully hesitated. “It’s not just about that, Dad.”
    “I know. It’s also about feeling that you failed Jessica and the baby, isn’t it? And since you’re so sure you failed them, you’re also sure that you’ll fail like that again. And what keeps you up at night is this question: if you do fail the next person who trusts you and loves you, then how bad will they be hurt this time?”
    Hunter stared at his father. “I – I just don’t think it’s a good idea for someone to let me love them. I’m not a good bet. Not a safe one.”
    “My God, boy. What you are is an idiot.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Not ‘maybe’. You are. You have so much damn love to give and you’re letting it all shrivel up and die inside of you. Share it, Hunter. Give it to someone.” Richard grinned at his huge, strapping son sitting there like he’d just been caught throwing a baseball through the neighbor’s window. “Give it to Cordelia.”
    Right on cue, Sully blushed like a ten-year-old kid and his Dad laughed.
    “Yep. She’s your girl, whether you want to admit