Desperate (Cunningham Security Series Book 3)

by A. K. Evans

  “Wes and his crew didn’t show up tonight,” Dom stated. There was a bit of a questioning tone in his voice, though.

  “My brother is overly concerned with Charley right now,” Elle replied. “She’s so pregnant, due any day, and is utterly exhausted. I met up with her earlier this week and insisted she stay home tonight. I know they all wanted to be here, but my soon-to-be nephew is more important to me. Besides, I know we’ll see them all tomorrow and they’ll be at the wedding in two weeks.”

  “It’s the same with Zane and Emme,” Levi added. “Zane is being extra cautious since Emme’s still a month away from delivering their twins, but my sister-in-law is determined. Zane called me earlier today and explained that he had to bribe Emme. He promised her several dances at the wedding if she stayed in tonight.”

  Wow.

  Brothers and sisters-in-law and babies.

  Family.

  Something I wanted more than anything else, more than I wanted to become a librarian.

  “If you guys don’t have plans and are looking for something to do tomorrow night, we’ll all be meeting up at Zane and Emme’s place. You’re welcome to stop by,” Cruz offered.

  Trying to tamp down the excitement I felt at the prospect of being included with such a wonderful group of people, I directed my hopeful gaze to Dom. He looked down at me and his face warmed before he turned to the table and announced, “Ekko’s meeting my family tomorrow. Depending on what time the festivities end at the Moore residence, we can swing by Zane and Emme’s for a bit before heading home.”

  When I looked back at the group, I found smiles of excitement from the girls and approving nods from the guys. The conversation continued to flow after this, but I was too caught up in my thoughts and feelings to really get involved in it. I was only a few hours away from what I had a feeling was going to be the best Thanksgiving of my life.

  It was Thanksgiving morning and I was hard at work in my kitchen.

  Last night, after Elle’s show at Big Lou’s, Dom brought me home. I really wanted to wake up with him this morning, so I asked him to spend the night. He did, but he left early to run home, shower, and change before we needed to leave to go to his parents’ house.

  After Dom left, I got to work on making some pies. Earlier in the week, I had asked him about what I could bring today, and he insisted that it wasn’t necessary. Maybe that was true, but I refused to go there empty-handed.

  My apple pies had just finished in the oven and were sitting on the countertop cooling while I put together the ingredients for my no-bake pumpkin pie. Once I had combined all things pumpkin and pumpkin spice with a few extras, I filled the crusts and covered the pies.

  An hour later, after I had showered, gotten dressed, and put on some makeup, there was a knock at my door.

  Dom was right on time.

  I opened the door to let him in.

  The minute he came in and shut the door behind him, he gave me a once-over and said, “You look amazing.”

  Feeling proud of myself, I returned, “Thank you. I wanted to make a good first impression with your family, so I kind of took myself shopping on Tuesday after I left the library. It wasn’t the outfit I really wanted, but it was on sale. Even still, it’s much nicer than anything else I have.”

  Dom put his hand to the back of my head and brought his lips to mine. After kissing me, he pulled back and stated, “You want to buy new clothes to make yourself feel good, or because you work hard and deserve to treat yourself to something nice, you do it. But don’t buy them because you think you need to impress my family.”

  I dropped my gaze from his and took a step back. “Dom,” I started. “You know how awful my situation was. I’m certainly not living in the lap of luxury now, but I’m doing better. I don’t want your family to think I’m total trash.”

  His eyes flared, and he took a step toward me. “What did you just say?”

  Evidently, that was the wrong thing for me to say. I tried to backpedal and explain myself. “You have two parents and four siblings. I have nobody. You have a nice home, a beautiful truck, two motorcycles, and a great job. Up until a few weeks ago when you walked into my life, I was living out of my car, rationing any food I had, and working at a diner.”

  “You were living out of your car for two days,” he pointed out.

  “My living situation prior to that wasn’t much better. I was with a drug dealer,” I countered.

  “You didn’t know he was and the minute you found out, you left,” he shot back.

  I looked away again and my voice got soft. “I know. I just…I just don’t want them to know how awful things were for me. I hate that you even know. It’s so embarrassing.”

  Dom brought his hand up to my jaw and nudged my head back toward his. “Nobody needs to know anything you don’t want them to, but I’m going to tell you now that I do not ever want to hear you call yourself trash again, Ekko,” he warned.

  “Poor choice of words,” I tried to brush it off.

  He knew it and he didn’t let me get away with it. “You’ve thought that from the first night I brought you to my place. You told me you didn’t want to go with me because you had no business being near someone like me. I had an inkling then that this is what you were thinking, but decided not to call you out on it given the situation. I’m not holding back on that anymore.”

  I gasped.

  He held my gaze.

  I couldn’t argue with him. It was the truth. That’s precisely how I felt. And try as he might to get me to see it differently, I’d lived for twenty-nine years knowing where I stood on the social status scale. Being lucky enough to get back into an apartment, land a new job, and date the most incredible man I’d ever know wasn’t going to change my perspective.

  “Just please promise me you aren’t going to tell them,” I pleaded.

  “I promise, but you need to not be ashamed of who you are.”

  It was a holiday, we had to go, and I didn’t want to spend the day arguing with him, so I gave him a nod and a smile. I’m not sure if that convinced him, but he let it go.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I just need to get the pies. Will you help me carry them? I’ve got four made.”

  “I told you that you didn’t need to bring anything.”

  I turned and started walking toward the kitchen as I replied, “I know, but I didn’t want to go without anything, so I made two apple pies and two pumpkin.”

  As I walked into the kitchen I heard Dom chuckling as he followed behind me. Our disagreement forgotten, we loaded up the pies and made our way over to his parents’ house.

  Twenty minutes later, Dom was pulling into the driveway lined with cars and my nerves had skyrocketed. I hadn’t noticed until he parked and reached across the center console, but my leg was nervously bouncing.

  “Relax,” he said softly. “They’ll love you.”

  My head bobbed up and down with understanding, but I was only mildly reassured. I hoped I’d make a good first impression with the people I presumed Dom held closest in his heart. I had a feeling Dom could still see the worry in my features.

  “Stay put while I come around to help you out,” he instructed.

  I did as he asked, mostly because I was too consumed with worry to do anything else.

  Once Dom made it to the passenger side of the truck, he opened my door and held his hand out to me. As I moved to step out, Dom pulled me toward him and caught me around the waist. My feet never touched the ground and I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist. Before I had a chance to think, Dom captured my mouth with his.

  While our tongues tasted and hands roamed, the last bits of anxiety melted away. All that existed was the two of us and I realized that no matter what else happened, if I only had him, I could be happy with that.

  The sound of a car door closing caused me to pull back from Dom. I tensed as we both looked to the side. A man, just as tall, but not nearly as bulky as Dom, was striding
toward us with a smirk on his face.

  Despite the cold outside, I was certain my cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. I began wiggling in Dom’s arms. He got the hint and lowered me to the ground.

  “Looks like it’s a Happy Thanksgiving for you,” the man said to Dom before turning his attention to me. “I’m Dom’s older and much wiser brother, Colton. Are you Ekko?”

  My eyes rounded, shocked that he already knew my name.

  “Hey, asshole. If she weren’t Ekko, this would be one hell of a way to ruin the holiday, don’t you think?” Dom finally addressed his brother.

  Colton didn’t take his gaze from me. He simply grinned and declared, “With the way you talked about Ekko for months, I knew she couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  Dom had been talking about me for months.

  I stood there in silence, too stunned to move. Either Colton thought I was crazy and decided to get away or he realized I was too dazed to form a coherent sentence because he ended, “I’ll catch you two inside.”

  Once Dom and I were alone again, I found my voice. “Why am I not surprised?” I practically exploded. “Leave it to me and my horrible luck to have that happen. Why did you do that? Why did you kiss me?”

  Dom’s hands framed my face as he bent and lowered himself to be eye-level with me. “Sugar, relax. I kissed you to take your mind off everything. And it worked perfectly until Colton showed up. He was just joking with us; you need to stop worrying.”

  My eyes filled with tears. “I really want them to like me, Dom. I want it more than you can imagine and I don’t want to do anything to screw that up,” I whispered.

  His thumbs stroked back and forth over my cheekbones. “You are an amazing woman, Ekko. That, in and of itself, is enough to make them like you. You also make me a very happy man. And that will make them love you.”

  “Are you sure?” I worried.

  “I promise.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I needed to trust him. More than that, I needed to find a way to start believing in myself. Dom was showing me that I was someone worth knowing.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  Dom pressed a kiss to my forehead before we opened the back door to the truck and pulled out the pies.

  A minute later, Dom ushered me through the door from the garage leading into his parents’ house. We walked right into a room just off the kitchen. Dom managed to carry his two pies while keeping one hand at the small of my back. I appreciated the comforting touch from him.

  As soon as we entered the kitchen, he set his pies down and took mine from me. There was an older woman that I knew immediately had to be Dom’s mother standing there. Her back had been turned when we walked in, but the second Dom had set the remaining pies down, she turned around.

  I could see her mind working as she assessed me and waited for an introduction. Dom walked right over to her, gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and wished, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  She gave him an adoring look, returned the sentiment, and brought her curious gaze to me.

  “Mom, this is my girlfriend, Ekko. Ekko, this is my mom, Angela.”

  Dom’s mother waited about three seconds before she walked over, pulled me into her arms, and announced, “Happy Thanksgiving, Ekko. I’m so happy to finally meet you; I was beginning to think he made you up.”

  “I’m real,” I assured her. “And Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, Mrs. Moore.”

  “Angie, please. Everyone calls me Angie.”

  Before I could respond to her, I was distracted by the voices entering the kitchen. When I looked to my left, I saw an older man I believed was Dom’s father, two younger women that had to be his sisters, his brother, Colton, and another guy I suspected was Dom’s other brother, Memphis.

  Dom wasted no time in introducing me to the remaining members of his family. All of them were warm and welcoming. Dom’s father, Bill, gave him an approving nod after he greeted me. Colton and Memphis had a way about them that was similar to Dom. They struck me as the protective type. Kendall and Jolie, or Jojo as they called her, were a breath of fresh air, instantly folding me in their arms. They had a kind and caring nature about themselves. The siblings all bared a physical resemblance to each other in one way or another, but their mannerisms and personality are what told me they belonged to the same family.

  I felt an immediate connection with Jojo. I didn’t know if it was because we were closest in age or if it was because she was, by far, the most outspoken of the group. That was saying something since they were all outgoing and friendly.

  After we got introductions out of the way and Angie ordered us into the dining room, I realized my nerves had melted away. I was silently kicking myself for having gotten so worked up for no reason. Even though your relatives didn’t necessarily always reflect the kind of person you are, I should have known that Dom wouldn’t have subjected me to a group of people that wouldn’t have been accepting of me.

  We sat down to eat, and the conversation immediately started flowing. I expected to be under some scrutiny, but it wasn’t ever unwelcome or nasty.

  “So, what do you do, Ekko?” Kendall asked.

  “I’m actually in the process of changing jobs right now. I’ve been working as a waitress for quite some time now, but I just got a new job as a library assistant at the Windsor Public Library. I start just over a week from today on the first Monday in December.”

  “That’s cool. What does a library assistant do?”

  “Mostly, I’ll be responsible for a lot of the clerical duties: checking books and materials in and out, shelving materials, assisting patrons with questions, and helping out with library programs to name a few. But my goal is to become a librarian. I’m hoping to start school again next semester.”

  “Will you have to go away to school?” Bill asked, an edge of nervousness in his tone.

  I shook my head. “No. I have a semester left to finish my undergraduate degree. Then, I’ll be taking courses online for my master’s in library science.”

  “How did you and Ekko end up together?” Memphis asked Dom.

  He thought for a moment before he responded, “I went to the diner one night when she was working.”

  Memphis and Colton both narrowed their eyes at him. They didn’t believe him.

  “Don’t push it,” Dom warned, knowing their thoughts.

  “What?” Jojo cried. “What did I miss?”

  Dom ignored his sister and looked at me. “Ekko, let me tell you about my family and what they do. “Mom is a school teacher and Dad’s an attorney. Kendall’s a nurse, Jojo is a massage therapist, and Colton and Memphis are detectives for the Rising Sun Police Department.”

  That explained a lot. Kendall and Jojo both had nurturing personalities that it was only fitting they worked in professions where they took care of others. Dom’s brothers knew he wasn’t being entirely truthful because they’d been trained to spot it. I didn’t like that they had reason to mistrust him, or more specifically, me. And it was all because I made him promise that he wouldn’t tell them the truth about my situation.

  I figured if there was any time to make a good impression on them, it was now. And because I was trying to accept that I was someone who was worthy of companionship and a little bit of good luck, I didn’t think there was any time like the present to start showing that I was worthy.

  “Dom and I got together after he came into the diner a couple weeks ago, but we met before that,” I announced to the table. Suddenly, I felt his hand wrap around mine under the table. He was offering me encouragement. “I’m not comfortable getting into all the details of what happened right now, but I’ll tell you this. I found myself in a bit of a rough spot a few months ago that led me into a pretty bad situation, which could have been catastrophic, but Dom happened to be there that night to help me.”

  When I finished speaking, I braced myself for their reaction. I had expected to see looks of disapproval. I mean, Dom’s family was so put toge
ther. They were all wildly successful and it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibilities that they’d see me as someone who was unworthy of their son and brother. Instead, I received glances of approval for me and smiles filled with pride for Dom.

  From that point forward, any lingering tension I felt was gone and I could thoroughly enjoy spending time getting to know Dom’s family. The conversation shifted to other topics and I never once felt left out.

  We spent most of our day with Dom’s family, but as the evening rolled around and everyone started leaving he asked, “Did you want to stop by Zane and Emme’s place?”

  I leaned in and answered, “I’d love to, but I have to work tomorrow morning. I think it’s going to be busy with holiday shoppers out and about.”

  “It’s up to you. If you want to stop over, I have no problem going. If you’d rather call it a night, that’s okay, too. There will be other opportunities to meet everyone.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be a good idea for me to be out late tonight. You should probably take me home. But if you want to go visit with your friends, you should.”

  Dom lowered his mouth to my ear and whispered, “I’d rather visit with you.”

  Heat spread through me. “That works for me,” I said softly.

  Dom and I said goodbye to his family before we took off back to my apartment. Even though he’d already insinuated it, I still wanted to confirm that he was going to spend the night with me. All of the festivities for the day had worn me out and I wasn’t sure I’d ever been around so many people at once, but I knew I didn’t want to be alone tonight.

  We got ready for bed and a few minutes after we’d been curled up in each other’s arms, I spoke. “Thank you for giving me my first Thanksgiving worth remembering.”

  Dom kissed my hair and whispered, “My pleasure, Ekko.”

  “You’re so lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  I sighed, trying to figure out how to tell him how I felt without making it seem like I was having a pity party. It wasn’t that I believed he didn’t appreciate what he had in his life, but I wanted to make sure he knew just how fortunate he was.