Danny trailed behind Zeke down the basement stairs and gaped at the room’s rough interior. “Wow, your decorator did not get the memo down here.”
Trevor handed Danny a bottled beer. “The moms got full say upstairs. Down here, it’s just us. Nothing except what reminds us of our past and where we’re going.”
Axel motioned toward the simple ladder-back chair at the table. “We brought that one down from the kitchen for tonight. You’ll need to pick one of your own and bring it over another time.”
The men gathered around the table, Zeke taking his place in the chair next to Danny’s.
Jace settled in his black leather banker’s chair at the head of the table. “Zeke bring you up to speed on what’s going down in your neighborhood?”
Danny fidgeted, obviously a little uncomfortable with his place at the table, but still buzzing with so much hyped-up energy it practically bounced off the walls and ceiling. “Yeah. Said we need to go in if we want to find anything but that it should be straightforward.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little more complex than we thought.” Beckett tossed an architectural plan on the center of the table and unrolled one end toward Axel. “Security’s tight. Nothing the seven of us can’t get around, but they’ve got a lot of fail-safes. One fuckup and the moms will be bailing our asses out of jail.”
Beck leaned in and pointed out key concerns while Knox rattled out a bunch of jargon Zeke couldn’t follow. Danny ate it up, nodding his head about every other sentence. The rest of the guys hung back and waited for the Reader’s Digest version.
“It’s doable.” Danny zeroed in on Beckett. “If you take the CFO’s office, I can handle the big guy’s.”
“What are we thinking time-wise?” Jace asked.
“I need more intel,” Beckett said, “but I’m thinking next weekend. Security’s always lax then.”
“What about Danny’s house?” Trevor said. “We ever going to get it wired up?”
Danny glanced at Zeke beside him. “Zeke’s right to be worried about Gabe asking questions. She’s loyal to a fault, but until she knows people, she’s leery. If Beck and his crew started wiring the place up out of nowhere, she’d want answers. But I’ve got an idea.”
Beckett lifted an eyebrow.
“That night at the compound,” Danny said, “you mentioned me wiring up Mrs. Wallaby’s house. She may have said no to our upgrade, but what if we play it up that I took a notion to trying my hand on our own house?”
Beckett shrugged and crossed his arms. “If it was Wallaby’s house, that might work, but I wouldn’t have put much more than a basic system in her house. What I’d put in yours you couldn’t install alone.” He grinned, not the least bit repentant about his upcoming jab. “Not and have it actually work.”
Danny harrumphed and reclined in his chair, the discomfort he’d shown before displaced by the easy camaraderie.
“So get her out of the house.” Trevor looked to Beckett. “How long do you need?”
“With a decent crew and no interruptions? A twelve-hour day. We’ll have to wire the whole thing since they don’t have anything pre-existing.”
“Gabe’s back on regular duty at the garage, so if you do it on a weekday, you’ll burn an easy eight while she’s there,” Danny said.
Trevor swiveled toward Zeke. “Then all you need to do is pick your girl up, take her out for a long dinner.”
“Or, better yet,” Jace added, “take her to your place for the night.”
They were right. Outside of coming up with an excuse on why she should spend the night at his place, the plan was simple and straightforward. It still didn’t sit right. “I don’t like lying to her.”
“You’re not lying to her. You’re just not waving a bloody red flag in her face.” Axel swirled his Scotch in his thick crystal tumbler. “Besides, how a woman could fault a man for keeping her safe, I’ll never know.”
Jace scoffed and kicked back in his seat, feet outstretched to one side and ankles crossed. “Goes to show you’ve never been with a woman longer than one week.”
“That’s by choice,” Axel shot back. “You might like strapping yourself down to one lass. Me? I like strapping down as many as I can get my hands on.”
Guess that answered how much Axel trusted Danny. His proclivities when it came to sex weren’t exactly a secret, but the casual share was a whole lot more personal info than he’d expected Axel to reveal at Danny’s first rally.
Undaunted by the info bomb, Knox snatched the diagrams off the table and started rolling them up. “No one said you had to keep Gabe in the dark. Danny can tell her as soon as he’s done. Hell, he’ll have to if we expect her to use it.”
“He’s right,” Danny said. “She’s my blood so I’ll take the brunt. If I say it’s best to keep things quiet, then it’s on me. Not on you.”
The idea still rubbed him wrong. “She’s your blood, but she’s my woman.”
“And you’ll be the one who levels her out after the fact,” Danny said.
True. Outside of her new friend, April, Zeke wasn’t altogether sure Gabe had anyone to talk to about anything. “What about after? When she learns more of the details. More about what’s behind the security?”
Beckett thunked his beer down on the table. “You’re overthinking it, man. Let’s jump one hurdle at a time. We’ll get the house secured, see what evidence we find, and then figure out how to break the news, if there even is any. Like Axel said, gonna be kind of hard for her to rip you a new one if all you’re doing is making sure she keeps breathing.”
Danny scanned the men lined around the table. “So when do we do this?”
Jace chin-lifted to Zeke. “It’s his call. He’s the one making sure our girl’s well and truly occupied.”
The tongue-in-cheek comment earned a whole lot of dirty grins and rumbling chuckles. While he sure as hell didn’t mind muddling Gabe’s mind, he still wasn’t thrilled with the underhanded agenda. “I’ve got a seven-o’clock shift this morning and a Sunday-night overnight. If you want to run the system on Monday, I can pick her up at work and take her to my place.”
Beck jerked a tight nod. “Done. I’ll get the installers ready to go. Danny, Knox and I will work out the details for the Lakeside gig next Saturday and give everyone a rundown midweek.”
“Then it sounds like Danny’s first rally is done.” Jace stood up, rapped his knuckles on the tabletop, and ambled over to Danny with his hand outstretched. “Welcome to Haven, brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Six o’clock on a Monday near Dallas’s Mix Master was no place for the weak of spirit. Not unless you could appreciate the frenetic energy with a beautiful woman on a third-story rooftop while the sun crept toward the western horizon. For the past hour, Zeke had lavished Gabe with the comfort foods he’d grown up with via the roof of his town house and their private urban picnic while the rest of the world scrambled to make their way home. With two bites of pavé left on his plate, Zeke set his fork aside and slid the decadent dessert across the table to Gabe. “You gotta try this one.”
“Mmm.” Gabe motioned to the varied plates of food with the tip of her fork and shook her head. She still had one bite of brigadeiro left, but if the rapturous expression on her face was any indicator, the chocolate truffle wouldn’t last long. “No way. I’m finishing off whatever sinful thing this is and calling it quits. I can barely breathe as it is.”
“Just a bite.” He nudged the plate closer. “It’s chocolate, cookies and coconut. How can you say no?”
“It’s the only thing I’ve said no to. I’m almost in a food coma.”
She did have a languid presence about her now, far different than the protesting woman he’d dragged out of work a few hours ago. Since then he’d plied her with cheese and beef filled pastéis, which weren’t
too far off from the more popular empanadas, moqueca de camarão, a creamy shrimp stew made with coconut milk and palm oil she’d compared to clam chowder, and fried coxinhas, which was basically fried mac ‘n’ cheese minus the noodles with chicken thrown in for good measure.
She lowered her fork for the last of her truffle, but shifted paths at the last minute, digging into the pavé. “Oh, damn,” she said around her mouthful. “That’s good, too.”
“Of course it’s good. It’s Brazilian.” He winked and stood, ambling to her side of the table. “You ready for the best part?”
She dropped her fork on her plate and raised both hands in surrender. “No way. I’m done. No more food.”
“Ah, the food was just a ploy.” He pulled her to her feet and guided her with one hand at the small of her back toward the chaise loungers situated near the terrace railing. “There’s something I want to give you and figured overwhelming you with culinary goodness would make you too relaxed to put up a fuss.”
“Give me what?”
He motioned her toward one of the loungers and sat on the one beside it. “Just something I thought you’d like.” On the small table beside him sat the white box he’d left out before he’d intercepted Gabe at work. He set it on her lap and anchored his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them to hide his fidgets. “Open it up.”
For two excruciating heartbeats, he thought she’d refuse, her hands positioned on either side as though she might hand it back to him. Instead, she cautiously lifted the lid and set it on the concrete at her feet. The tissue paper inside the box rustled in the gentle evening breeze. Pinching the delicate white paper between her tiny fingers, she peeled it back and sucked in a sharp gasp. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” And he’d given Knox carte blanche to go as overboard as his nerdy inclinations dictated.
With the kind of reverence usually reserved for sacred artifacts, Gabe lifted the new state-of-the-art laptop from inside. Beside it sat a brand-new phone with enough power and memory behind it to power a small data center.
“I told Knox how you work,” he said. “The programs you use and how you import. He said those were the best for graphic work and that they run on parallel operating systems so they’d make interfacing easier.” He paused, retracing his conversation with Knox. “At least, I think that’s what he said. When Knox gets wrapped up in gadgets, I only catch about a tenth of what he actually says.”
She smoothed her hand over the laptop’s soft aluminum surface, her fingertips trembling.
He fisted his hands tighter, forcing himself to stay put, but damn, this gift-giving thing made him antsy. “If they’re not what you wanted, we can exchange them. I just thought—”
Her head snapped up, the awe on her face staggering in its beauty. “They’re perfect.” She studied the gifts on her lap, swallowed, then met his gaze again. “They’re way more than I can accept, but they’re exactly what I would have bought myself.”
“If they’re what you want, then keep them.”
“I can’t do that. It’s too much.”
“Gabe, you dropped a good chunk of your savings for a dress to wear on a date with me. Would you have bought it and all the fancy stuff that went with it if I hadn’t asked you to the dinner?”
She ducked her head and tucked the laptop back in the box, though her face was painted with regret. “That’s not fair. It’s not the same.”
“It is the same.” He grabbed her hand before she could cover the gifts back up. “You did it to be with me, and it damned near made me swallow my tongue. Which, by the way, means I enjoyed it a hell of a lot. So, why can’t I do this for you?”
“Because it’s about four times as much.”
“Since when does the price tag matter? You didn’t skimp for me.”
Her eyes widened, the tiniest bit of hope zinging behind them.
“Take the gifts.” He laced his fingers with hers and leaned closer. “Let me do this for you.”
“But you’re already giving me more than I can ever give you.”
And he was deceiving her even as they watched the sun set, even if it was for her protection. “You’re wrong on that. You have no idea how much you give me. For the first time in my life, I don’t have to chase some kind of thrill just to take the edge off. I can actually sit still and enjoy what’s going on around me. I’m even sleeping for a change. Being next to you settles me. Or, maybe what I’ve been chasing my whole life was you, and now that you’re here, I don’t have to run anymore. Whatever it is, I like it. A lot. Don’t discount what a gift you being in my life is.”
Untwining her fingers from his, she stroked his jawline, fingertips playing in the scruff. “You think I’m a gift?”
“I think you’re everything. Worth everything. Worth any risk.”
She frowned. “What risk?”
His heart stuttered and his lungs seized. Granted, keeping her in the dark with the Lakeside break-in was a risk in itself, but there was a bigger insecurity where she was concerned. One he could absolutely share if he had the balls to do it. He covered her hand with his, reveling in the soft sensation beneath his palm and the open curiosity on her face. “I always thought love was a risk. One I wasn’t willing to take. You’re worth it.”
Her mouth parted on a soft gasp and she tried to pull her hand free.
Zeke tightened his hold and kissed the center of her palm. “Relax.”
“I can’t relax. I don’t... I mean, how am I supposed to interpret that?”
“It means I love you, gatinha. All of you. Just like you are.” He clasped her hand between both of his, needing the simple contact more than he needed air. An anchor to hold him steady while his senses rocketed on an adrenaline high. Nothing he’d ever done, no high-octane sport or thrill ride, beat the euphoria of that moment. “I know it probably seems fast, but I think I knew it the second I laid eyes on you. Never once have I felt that for another woman. Never said it to anyone else, but it’s true.”
“You love me?”
He traced her lower lip, her fluttering breath warm against his thumb. Funny how she quieted everything inside him. The same shocking peace that came the second his parachute unfurled from a free fall and offered him absolute silence. “Eu te amo e cada dia que passa eu me apaixono mais por você.”
“What’s that mean?” she whispered.
He slid the box off her lap, set it on the small side table and pulled her to him, guiding her knees so she straddled his hips. Cupping the back of her neck, he pulled her close. “It means I love you, and every day I fall a little more.”
Her hands fisted in his T-shirt and her breath ghosted across his face. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just listen and know it’s not only Danny anymore who’d do anything to keep you safe.” He lowered his voice. “There are no rules where you’re concerned, Gabrielle. No risk, no chance that wouldn’t fall under an entirely different criteria where you’re concerned. I need you to understand that.”
She combed her fingers through his hair, her eyes searching his face with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. “That sounds a little ominous.”
More like a Hail Mary he hoped she’d remember when the time came to lay his cards on the table. “Your man just admitted he loved you. My gender requires I macho that shit up or they’ll yank my man card.” He squeezed his arms, hugging her closer to him. “Proper form is for you to lay those plump lips of yours on mine and kiss my ego into the stratosphere.”
She smiled so bright that the sun seemed a little dimmer in comparison. “I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Zeke Dugan loved her. Not just liked, but loved her. Gabrielle Parker. A nobody mechanic with enough social dysfunction to make people point and laugh. Even after an hour of long, indolent
kisses and sunset watching, his words still hadn’t sunk in. Now she sat nestled between his legs on his oversize couch, perusing the new toys he’d given her.
He pointed over her shoulder at the email icon. “Knox said everything’s set up and ready to go. Fully integrated.”
She clicked the image and, sure enough, the program opened, new emails flying into her inbox. “How’d he do that? I mean, doesn’t he need passwords?”
Zeke stilled behind her, so silent and motionless she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. When he spoke, his voice seemed thin. Uncertain and vulnerable, just like the night he’d left to meet his brothers in the middle of the night. “Most people would.”
She twisted and barely bit back a gasp.
Wariness painted his features, but his eyes were sharp. As though he were waiting for something. “I promise you, not just anyone can get to that information. Cybersecurity is one of Knox’s specialties. He works for a lot of corporations and helps them safeguard their secrets. I didn’t know he’d take me asking him to set you up so literally until it was already done.”
“But if he can get into my accounts, then what’s to stop anyone else from doing it?”
“That’s why he added his contact information in your app. He wants to sit with you when you have time so he can walk you through how to better protect yourself.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, but the move lacked his normal confidence. “Don’t think of it as an invasion of privacy. Think of it as your own personal cyber consultation.”
Well, there was that aspect to it. And better someone she knew, or in this case someone close to someone she knew, than someone out to steal what little savings she had. Still...
She faced forward and reclined against his chest. “A little notice would have been nice before he did it. At least I could’ve taken embarrassing stuff offline before I’d hired him.”
Wild & Sweet (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 24
