“You can’t protect me, Jo.”
“I know. Garrett’s right, you can fight your own battles. We’re your backup. I know. But when you’ve lived it too…there’s a solidarity that no one will understand.”
Unable to control her tremor, she tucks me into her and drapes her arm around my shoulders.
“You don’t stay broken forever, but the scars don’t fade and I…sugar…”
“It’s okay, Jo. I’m not mad—I understand why you wanted to protect me.”
“Not just you, Avery,” she murmurs at the same time as my phone vibrates in my back pocket. I’m fishing it out awkwardly so I don’t knock Jo’s arm off, when she continues. “Do you know, he’s been good to me. Better than a lot of children are to their parents.”
Doc: Coming? X
I smile at the kiss as another message comes through—a short video of Iris telling me they’re waiting for me. Jo doesn’t say anything more as she starts to get up, using her stick along with my help.
Pressing a kiss to my temple while I hold her up, she tells me, “He’s a better man than he knows.”
“I know.”
“Don’t forget the cookies. My baby girl won’t forgive you.”
Her baby girl. The smile already on my lips widens with the assurance that we are exactly where we belong.
I pause by the back door, staring at the small clear-topped tent. The mesh comes about halfway down the sides so that I can see Garrett and Iris sitting beside one another. She’s got his phone in her hand, and they’re staring at the screen as they hold it up to the sky.
He takes the phone from her, and almost instantly mine vibrates in the back pocket of my shorts.
Garrett: Get in the tent
With my heart picking up its pace, I go to the kitchen and grab a few plastic cups, milk, and the cookies. Joining them, I manage to crawl into the tent. The blankets and cushions from the couches are all arranged on the floor. Even in the dark, I can sense both of their smiles.
“I really shouldn’t leave you both unsupervised.”
“At least we’re not all wet again.” Iris shrugs, taking the cup I hand her.
“There’s that at least.”
I pour some milk for her and give her the cookie bag before I settle beside Garrett.
“Apparently you’ve never been camping,” he says, voice low and gravelly.
I can hardly breathe with how close we are, and although the breeze filters through the mesh, the air is stifling.
“No,” I tell him.
Unable to look at him without making a romantic fool of myself, I pour him a cup of milk too and offer it to him. We may have touched before, but the shock of his fingers touching mine in the dark is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. It throws me. Then I look up at him, and his eyes make it impossible to catch myself.
I don’t relinquish the cup, and he doesn’t release my hand. We’re sucked into a moment where the ground falls away beneath us.
“Hey, sunshine…” he murmurs, thumb stroking over my knuckles.
He sounds as breathless as I feel with my heart hammering in my throat and stars gleaming at me from his eyes.
“Hey, Doc…”
Lips hitching to one side, he runs his hand up my arm to the edge of my sleeve, caressing around my wrist with long strokes, so soft and light that my stomach flips. It somersaults wickedly until frissons of heat and electricity course through me.
“Are you going to kiss again?”
Garrett’s quick to take the cup from my hand before I drop it or crush it in my attempt to dissipate the chagrin of being caught out by my daughter. He places it on the floor where Iris has set up a small picnic with the cookies and her own milk.
“Sure are.” He sticks his tongue out at her playfully, earning him a squeal as he follows through with a light brush of his lips to my cheek.
As much as I love the chaste kiss, I want more. The yearning to pull him close and taste him is staggering, and while he’s smiling down on me, I contemplate taking what I want. Kissing him. Tasting him.
Every second ticks louder in my ears, palpably as my longing is mirrored back at me.
“Can we take a photo?” Iris climbs in my lap, pulling Garrett so close that she’s sandwiched between the two of us. “You gotta say cheese, okay?”
“Why cheese?” he teases her, taking the phone and holding it out in front of us so that we can see ourselves on the screen.
Immediately, my eyes are drawn to the happiness on Iris’s face and then Garrett’s. Their blonde hair is so similar, and although her eyes are a shade darker than his…
Maybe it’s wrong to think it in the midst of everything going on. Maybe this is the rainbow I’ve been looking for. Maybe we could be a family?
“Cece says that if you say cheese properly it gives you a perfect smile.”
“Cece?”
“Priscilla,” I tell him, trying to shake myself out of my overly eager thoughts.
“Well then,” Garrett hums, scooting closer and wrapping his arm around my back. His hand grasps the side of my ass with a gentle squeeze as Iris moves to sit half on mine and half on his lap. “Cheese on three, okay?”
“Ready!” she claps.
I’m so enamored by the pair of them that when he snaps the photo, I’m lost back in my daydream of them, and my cheese is nothing but a faint breath while I hold Iris tighter and press a kiss to his jaw.
Chapter Twenty-Four
GARRETT
The alarm goes off one more time. It feels too early, and the room is dark. Avery is still asleep, curled into me in yesterday’s T-shirt and a pair of my boxer shorts.
“Too early,” she mutters into my chest when I reach for my phone. “Shut it off. I can’t take it.”
Avery’s already getting up when I realize it’s not our wake-up call for her to get into her bed and for me to get up and let the horses out before heading back to my place to get ready for work. We’ve been doing this for almost two weeks. Since her ex and the feds showed up here.
Pulling her back to me as I check the alert for my house alarm, I answer the imminent call from the alarm company.
The operator tells me all about this courtesy call before she gets to the part where she actually asks whether I’m at home and if everything is okay.
Avery watches me with wide eyes, waiting for me to end the call. Although I’m trying not to worry her, I’m up and getting dressed as quickly as possible.
“What’s happening?” she asks the instant I hang up and start shooting a message off to Mark. Something about this feels odd.
“My alarm is playing up. I need to go deal with it.”
“Can’t the security company take care of it?” she asks with worry tingeing her tone.
Of course she would know that something was up. Avery is more intuitive than she realizes.
“If it goes off again, the neighbors are going to get pissed. I’ll be back later to do the horses.”
“That’s okay, I can do it. I’ve helped you enough times now.”
“How about I meet you at the school and we can grab a coffee?”
The suggestion gets a smile out of her while we make the bed. I’m walking her back to her room when she races back to the bed we shared and returns with one of the pillows.
“If I can’t have the real thing…” Avery shrugs.
Christ, she kills me. The action is so unexpected and yet so uniquely Avery.
“What?” She bites down on her bottom lip, looking up at me bashfully.
“I—” I pause before the words spill out of my mouth. They’ve been on the tip of my tongue for so long. I keep swallowing them down and telling myself that it’s too soon. Avery needs time. “I don’t know what to say, except that I’m jealous of that pillow.”
It’s the truth, pathetic maybe, but nonetheless true. I’m jealous of anything that gets to have her and be with her when I can’t. It’s as though the feeling is built into me, and as much as I try to t
amp it down and ignore it, I can’t. Avery is always at the forefront of my mind, unlike anyone else that’s ever come into my life.
I used to think I didn’t know how to love. Maybe I was too selfish. Too self-indulgent or purely incapable of loving another person enough to need them. To want to please them, protect and make them happy. But Avery’s changed that. I’ve never loved another the way I love her, more than myself, my career, and my own happiness.
My phone pings with a message from Mark, telling me he’s on his way. The knot in my stomach loosens, but as I kiss Avery a see you later, that ominous feeling claws savagely at my insides.
“I’ll meet you at the school.” I remind her, licking across her lips as I walk her into her bedroom and kiss her one last time before she gets into bed. “Later, sweetheart.”
“Later, Doc.”
The bungalow is dark as Mark and I walk in after I’ve dismissed the alarm response guys. Nothing is amiss with the exception of the glass panel on the door being smashed. Everything appears exactly how I left it this morning before heading into work.
“Anything look suspicious?” Mark walks around the kitchen looking into every corner and possible hiding place to one side as I do the other.
“Nothing.”
“You think this might be Trixie?” he asks while we move toward the bedrooms.
Never say never—that’s the saying, and with Trix, I’ve learned that it’s true. However, the feeling in the pit of my stomach is nothing to do with her. I’m sure of it.
“She wouldn’t break in.”
Mark gives me a look that asks, really?
“Word’s got around you have a girlfriend…she could be curious or pissed. It’s not exactly that far-fetched, shit like that happens all the time.”
“Maybe it does, but my gut tells me it wasn’t her.”
“Who, then? Who did you piss off this time?”
“If you think now’s the time to crack a joke, it’s not. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, and given Charlie got nothing from her contacts so far…”
“What’s your point?” Instantly on the defensive at my mention of his wife, he pauses in the middle of the hallway to level me with a glare. “Charlie’s doing everything she can.”
“I know, and I hope she finds something soon because I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
I don’t know how to explain it to him. The way my chest is constricting around my heart and the foreboding weight that’s lingering over me.
“You still have someone watching the ranch, right?”
“What do you take me for?”
“I’m not picking faults with you.” My voice breaks when I snap at him. After I’ve regained some of my composure, I add, “I’m worried.”
Mark nods, his hardened expression thawing as I walk past him back toward the kitchen and open-plan living space.
“You ever get that feeling that you’re going to lose something before it even happens?”
My heart threatens to tear itself apart as I voice my biggest fear. Something I never saw coming.
Leaning back into the fridge, he crosses his arms, watching me as I tell him, “I can’t lose them.”
Mark nods. He’s quiet for a beat before he says, “Gut feelings are a bitch.”
“What’re we going to do about it?”
“Make sure you don’t lose them.” He stands and checks the yard doors again before doing another walk-through of the house.
Meanwhile, my head is in overdrive. It doesn’t sit well that Carl comes here followed by the FBI and all of a sudden this happens. From what Avery told me of the conversation with the feds, they were assholes.
The trill of my phone brings me out of my thoughts, my chest tightening at the flash of Avery’s name on my screen.
“You should be asleep,” I answer, trying to keep my worry from my voice.
“Is everything all right?”
Contemplating how to reply, I take a moment too long, and it’s obvious she knows something is up.
“Garrett?”
I’ve never lied to Avery. I never want to be that guy with her, and even though I want to protect her, the best thing to do is be straight right now.
“I don’t know, but Mark and I are figuring it out, okay?”
An audible hitch of her breath tells me that she’s already looking for a reason to blame herself for something she doesn’t know anything about. I hate that. I hate that someone has made her feel like she’s responsible for every goddamn wrong.
Right on cue, she asks, “Do you think it’s—”
“Sweetheart…” I pause, hearing the waver in her breath. “I promise we’re going to fix everything. You hear me?”
There’s no reply; the only sound is her silenced sob.
“Avery.”
“Mhmm…”
“I’m heading back to the ranch as soon as Mark and I are done here.” The heaviness bears down on my shoulders as I hang up and focus on Mark, perched on the island counter. “What are the chances that this is just a coincidence and I’m being overzealous…paranoid about it? I mean, houses get broken into all the time.”
“Now’s not the time to second-guess yourself. In my experience, gut feelings are very rarely wrong, and if you don’t act on it and something happens…” He sucks in a breath before he continues. “You’ll never forgive yourself.”
“We’re at an impasse here. Avery’s waiting on the court order, and it seems like nothing is being done. We’re stuck in limbo, and it doesn’t matter that I’m doing everything I can to try and make her happy because I know that she’s constantly worried about what’s coming.”
Mark’s looking at me in a way I don’t think he’s ever looked at me. For once there’s respect staring back at me, and I feel guilty that I’m still being a selfish bastard.
“I don’t want to share Avery with some asshole that’s still trying to hurt her. It kills me that he has a claim on her that I don’t, and she doesn’t even love him. Fuck, Avery hates the bastard.”
A one-sided grin cuts his face while he remains quietly watching me lose my mind over a matter I have no say over. Something I can’t actually fix like I’ve promised her, at least not on my own.
“I don’t want to let her down, Mark, and there is no one else that I can trust to help me find a solution for this. Avery deserves to be happy and not live worrying about what will happen tomorrow. Those girls deserve a good life, and I’ll give it to them. I’ll give them everything I can.”
“Okay.” He nods.
“Okay?”
“Okay, you got me. I can’t exactly say no after that speech.” Standing, he pulls out his phone and starts tapping away. “Besides, Charlie’s not letting this go, and for what it’s worth, your gut feeling isn’t wrong. Even if whoever broke in got spooked by the alarm, there would be a mess. Things would be turned over in a grab-and-run attempt.”
“I was hoping I’m being paranoid.”
“No, this is was a message.”
“You think it’s Carl?”
“I haven’t heard from Frank, and I’ve made sure he knows to stay on his ass. It’s unlikely, unless he’s got someone doing his dirty work for him, but given what’s going on with the investigation…I don’t think he’s stupid enough to pull a stunt like this.”
While he continues running through all the information we do know and everything that’s happened, I pack myself a couple of days’ worth of clothes as he paces around the bedroom.
“You know what I still don’t get? And it’s what’s throwing me off.” Mark pauses when I turn to look at him. “The fed made a point of telling Avery that Carl was the last person they think saw Robert before he died.”
“I had a look at the coroner’s report, and it was a straight up heart attack. Right ventricular infarction.”
“Wait, why were you looking at the coroner’s report?”
“I’m a cardiologist, Mark. Hearts are my thing, and when Avery told me about her fa
ther’s death, it seemed odd that there was no history of heart problems. There are usually signs and symptoms, but the way she said it…it was like he dropped dead without warning.”
“So you think there was foul play?”
“You mean could it have been caused?” He shrugs as if to ask if it’s a possibility. “Sure, an altercation that causes enough distress could lead to it, but the underlying condition would have to be serious enough.” The cogs are visibly turning. “Do you think it’s relevant to any of this?”
“There has to be a reason they wanted Avery to know Carl was the last person to see Robert.”
“What if he knew something? The stress of knowing what was coming, of wanting to protect the girls…not to mention that if there was a bust-up it could have led to a sudden turn.”
The more I think about it, the more the foreboding feeling grows. I’m trying to search for a chink in my rationale, for something to be wrong, but it would all be a grand coincidence.
“Gut feelings are rarely wrong, Doc.”
“It would have to be a major altercation,” I tell him, hoping that he’ll say something to contradict my intuition, but all he replies with is, “Major enough that you looking into it has pissed someone off.”
Shit!
Chapter Twenty-Five
AVERY
The first sign that something is seriously wrong is Garrett’s silence. His normally free smiles are tense, and the light that shines back at me in every look we share is muted. Everything I love about him is strained; the only exception is his affection for Iris. That only makes me love him more.
I’m beginning to understand why it’s called falling in love. It’s a continuous free fall. Every second of every day, my heart fills a little more with admiration, affection, and respect for him. If I’m honest, it’s not my heart anymore. For the first time in my life, it doesn’t feel stolen or taken from me, I’ve given it to him. It doesn’t matter what happens, I don’t ever want it back.
Endurance: A Salvation Society Novel Page 22
