Sitting in a corner of the big, sunny kitchen, Quentin enjoyed the opportunity to observe Francesca in this unguarded moment. Her eyes were sparkling, her hair was tied up into a haphazard ponytail, and she looked younger and almost carefree. He liked her like this. In fact, it was hard for Quentin not to sit there and daydream about what it might be like to actually live this life.
There was a part of him that wondered if it was even possible. Could he do it? Could the man who had been considered a menace in his own hometown somehow manage to fit in and become part of a family? That’s what it felt like in this kitchen. They were a family. An odd sort of family perhaps, but a family just the same.
“Uh oh.”
Francesca’s voice drew him out of his reverie. Quentin looked up but did not react to the expression on her face.
Then Francesca gestured playfully toward him with a wooden spoon. “He’s thinking again,” she told Nona and Emily. “I always get worried when I see that he’s thinking.”
Emily cocked her head curiously and shot a sideways glance at Quentin. “Why ever for? He’s so good-natured that I’m sure he’s thinking of something good.”
“Are you cracked?” Francesca giggled. “Good-natured? Ha!” Francesca rolled her eyes. “He’s stubborn as a mule and twice as mean when he gets an idea in his head. And when he’s thinking, it usually means that he knows he’s going to have to tell me something that I don’t like.”
It was a startling bit of insight. Quentin hadn’t thought she was quite that astute. Or perhaps the truth was that he simply believed—foolishly—that he wasn’t that transparent. A man who supposedly had been an expert at keeping his interrogation victims from knowing what he was thinking wasn’t supposed to be read like a book by a regular old civilian woman.
She’s not regular in any way. There is nothing regular about that woman.
“What?” Francesca’s expression sobered as she left the island and moved toward the table where Quentin was sitting. “What’s wrong?”
“Nash texted me.”
The muscles around her mouth and eyes grew tighter. They were micro expressions that he might not have noticed if he wasn’t used to looking for such things. “And what does Nash want?”
“He and Ava are calling a family meeting of sorts to talk about the situation with Stedman as it stands.” Quentin could not help the way he felt about such a meeting. “This whole situation is bullshit to begin with. That’s my opinion, and I can’t pretend otherwise.”
She touched his shoulder. The contact seared him on the inside. “Nobody is asking you to pretend or to be anything other than who you are,” Francesca told him fervently. “I think that’s what has drawn me to you from the beginning. You showed up on my doorstep and informed me that I was in danger and you were here to keep me safe. I didn’t believe you. Do you remember what your response was?”
He felt the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. “Better safe than dead.”
“Exactly. And nothing has changed about that.” She rested her hip against the tabletop. “All of us are better safe than dead. So, we’re better off trying to figure out what Stedman’s game really is. I don’t believe he’s with the mafia. I don’t believe any of that bullshit. I don’t care what Ralston and Analise say. But it can’t hurt to try and plan for whatever Stedman is up to.”
“You’ve got enough on your plate,” Quentin growled. “You don’t need to sit around and listen to everyone speculating about the evil cloud that is hanging over our heads. That’s all I’m saying!”
Nona appeared beside him. “Eat your breakfast, Mr. Quentin. You’re going to need your strength to be patient.”
From over at the island, Emily let out a snort of amusement. “He’ll need the whole stack of pancakes if you want him to be patient! How about we settle for him not being surly? I think that sounds reasonable.”
“I’m not surly,” he said irritably.
He picked up his fork and dug into the pancakes. They tasted amazing. They were light and fluffy and pretty much exactly the way he liked them. Stabbing a sausage, he picked it up and used it to gesture to the women. Then he realized that he didn’t know what to say. So, he took a big bite of the sausage and chewed to keep himself from saying anything else to potentially get himself into trouble.
“What?” Francesca prodded him with her index finger. She was poking his shoulder. He didn’t really mind. It was a bit like a fly buzzing around his head. It could be ignored.
From across the kitchen, Emily put her hands on her hips and stared at him with eyes that had apparently learned to read male signals. “I think we should leave him alone. He’s a good man, and he’ll do what it takes to get the job done. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
Quentin could feel Francesca’s gaze. From the corner of his eye, he saw her staring at him with a half-smile on her face. “He is a good man.”
Her words made him feel warm inside, but they also made him feel protective. These women—this odd little band—they were his family. He had never before felt torn between duty to Nash and his job at Nash Security Solutions and his loyalty to someone else. There had never been anyone else. Now, though, he was done letting anyone else call the shots when it came to Francesca.
*
Francesca hated these “family meetings.” She understood that they were helpful in getting a clearer picture of what was going on with Stedman’s involvement and subsequent meddling in all of their lives. It helped to know what was happening or what had been said, etc., etc. But Francesca was sick and tired of feeling like everyone else called the shots.
She stood in Ava’s kitchen and wrapped her arms around her neck. Meetings always took place in Ava’s kitchen. The big, warm room was filled with the sounds of food and cooking because Ava loved nothing more than the chance to mother everyone to death. Her son, Ralston, and his girlfriend/bodyguard, Analise, weren’t here this evening, but Ava’s daughter, Tegan, and niece, Kayla, were present. The other attendees were Nash’s employees. Wrath had been Tegan’s bodyguard and had eventually fallen in love with the sharp-eyed blonde. Carson had taken his infatuation with Kayla just a shade further, and the two were now married and living in Kayla’s loft in Southie.
“Thank you so much for coming!” Ava welcomed them all and put plates in front of Carson and Wrath at her big butcher block table. Both men started to dig in. The menu tonight was Italian, and there was a huge vat of pasta covered in homemade white sauce to be consumed.
Francesca refused to be won over with the food or the welcoming atmosphere. She kept an eye on Nash instead. Quentin’s boss was tucked into a corner of the kitchen with his back resting against the wall and his arms crossed over his broad chest. He looked as though he were observing everyone. Francesca could not shake the mental image that he was a spider and they were the flies quietly being caught in his net.
It was Quentin who finally spoke. He was standing right next to Francesca. The two were not touching, but she could feel his presence like a living thing. “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? What’s going on that you felt the need to call a meeting? Do we finally have some useful information to end this thing?”
Nash stepped forward. The expression he leveled at Quentin was mingled surprise and warning. “When I call a meeting, you attend. That is your duty and part of your job. I didn’t think I had to spell it out, Quentin.”
Quentin waved his hand dismissively. “This job isn’t like the others, Nash. There’s something else going on here. It’s insidious, and it’s infecting all of us. We can trust each other. We can’t trust any information we have or we gain. Any other job would have been tied up in three weeks and we would have been off to a new city. We’ve been here five weeks, and things are still as confusing as ever.”
“That’s not true,” Ava broke in. “Ralston has given us some very useful and very interesting intel.”
“Can we trust it?” Quentin cocked his head to one side. He looked suspicious as hell. “No o
ffense, ma’am, but your son is doing an awfully good job of pretending to support his father. Are you sure he’s not playing you as well as Stedman? I wouldn’t put it past him and Analise to work this entire situation to their advantage and leave us all standing around holding our dicks and wondering what happened.”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Nash snarled.
The tension in the room ratcheted up to dangerous levels, and Francesca felt her entire body begin to tremble. She could not stay here and listen to them argue about stupid things. She was so frightened for so many reasons and so tired of being that way!
“Shut up!” Francesca shouted. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut. Up!”
Every eye in the room turned to stare at her. Even Quentin was looking as though he wasn’t quite sure what to expect next. She had the floor. Now she just needed to say what needed to be said. Right?
Francesca took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter if we can trust Ralston or not. I don’t even care. There’s nothing he can say that will change what’s happening for any one of us.” She pointed at Tegan. “Stedman wanted you to be a pawn. He tried to use you and didn’t even really want you around. What did he want?”
“He wanted me to marry into a rich family,” Tegan said dully. The poor girl looked so embarrassed, but now wasn’t the time to feel bad about that.
“Exactly,” Francesca nodded. “He needed capital.” She pointed to Kayla. “He wanted your real estate for the same reason. He was selling it to get an infusion of capital. And now he’s trying to regain my shares of Hyde-Pierson Financial. He wants control over how the company spends its money. That’s his main goal. He got pissed because I was giving away scholarships and putting funds back into the community.”
Beside her, she heard Quentin exhale a sigh. “We know that he’s been attempting to take over the Bratva. He wants control of the Russian mafia. We know that he’s been double-dealing with their second-in-command and that the main guy—Sokolov—went back to Russia a few months ago. The only thing that’s left to figure out is why.”
“We have to know that,” Francesca added. “But in the meantime, I have a court hearing to prepare for. So, you guys can all sit around here and speculate to your heart’s desire about what Stedman might do next. I’m going to go talk to my attorney and try not to wind up with Stedman as my legal guardian.”
Chapter Twenty
“I’m glad you agreed to meet with me, Frankie.”
Francesca stared across the table at Ava and wondered how uncomfortable this little interview was going to be. She was not unaware of the significance of the fact that Ava had asked Francesca to meet for lunch while Nash had a meeting with Quentin to discuss “strategy.” With all of this in mind, Francesca didn’t respond to Ava’s welcoming sentence.
The restaurant was crowded, but of course, it was one of Beacon Hill’s busiest and trendiest places. Despite the fact that Ava shunned the notions of society, she was the first one to try and play them to her advantage.
“Oh, hello, Myrna!” Ava waved to a woman in her fifties across the restaurant. The wave was heartily returned until Myrna Applebaum’s lunch companion turned around to see whom her friend was greeting.
Ava gave a little snort. Francesca watched in distracted fascination as Myrna’s lunch companion proceeded to lay into her with obvious vitriol. Francesca pursed her lips and wondered what was going on. “Who is that?” she asked Ava.
“That would be Patricia Ettinger,” Ava said with obvious glee. She took a long drink of her iced tea. “That horrible woman wanted her daughter to marry my son and had the balls to try and force it to happen by using her husband’s negligible business portfolio as bait.”
“I’m guessing Stedman approved the match,” Francesca said drily. “He would have enjoyed the increased revenues and that good old capital.”
“He would have,” Ava agreed. “Except Chelsea made a colossal fool of herself at her father’s fundraiser. She pretty much turned herself into a social pariah at the Hampshire House.”
“Tacky,” Francesca murmured. She stared at her sister-in-law and tried to see the woman she had known most of her life as a friend. “You’re rather devious these days, Ava. You know that?”
“Meaning what?” Ava picked up her fork and began to eat her chicken salad. “I’m only trying to protect my family.”
“You’re manipulating everyone.” Francesca prodded at her own chicken salad with her fork. “I remember how you were with Analise. The poor girl wasn’t even sure she wanted to be with Ralston, but you managed to make her so hot for him and so sure that it was the right decision that she essentially threw away her job and her career to be with him.”
“Analise loves Ralston,” Ava protested. There was a flash in her eyes that suggested Francesca had better back off. “Those two are good for each other.”
“Maybe,” Francesca said with a shrug. “But you couldn’t leave well enough alone and just let it happen. You had to push it.”
Ava put her fork down and pressed her hands together. She stared at Francesca. “What are you saying? Or more importantly, what’s happened to you?”
“Meaning?” Now Francesca felt uncomfortable. She shifted in the little booth and wished that her legs weren’t sticking to the seat beneath her skirt. She really needed to adjust her position. She squirmed a little and tried to get comfortable.
“Meaning that for years you have been a little mouse. I could barely drag you out of the house! You never wanted to go anywhere or do anything. People have always commented to me that you’re a little spacey.”
“Maybe that’s just an easy way to be,” Francesca admitted. She picked up her drink and took a long swig. It occurred to her that while she was currently struggling to come up with some kind of reasonable explanation for Ava, she had actually hit on a personal truth that struck very close to home. “It is easier. When people think you’re not quite all there, you can just go through life without them expecting much from you.”
“But then they try to take your freedom away because they believe you’re too weak-minded to fight them,” Ava pointed out.
“If you’re trying to pull an I told you so, you can just knock it off,” Francesca said sharply. “I’ve had enough of people telling me what I could or should do. I don’t need people second-guessing me or trying to understand my motives. Not even you.”
Ava drew back, obviously surprised. She lifted her hands slowly and held them palms up. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’ve never known you to be so prickly.”
“I’ve had enough of people trying to push me around.” Francesca felt like she was getting really tired of making that point. “Just because a person is quiet does not mean they’re a doormat.”
“I know that.” Ava’s expression turned sly. “Are you tired of Quentin trying to push you around?”
“Quentin doesn’t push me around,” Francesca retorted. The idea alone was preposterous. Quentin was a lot of things. He was surly and grumpy and given to bad moods and long silences. Yet within all of that, he was also polite and not one to give out unsolicited opinions unless he felt very strongly on a topic. When Quentin said something, you knew he really meant it. There were no wasted words with that man.
“So, you really like him,” Ava teased. “I thought you might.”
Francesca chuffed out a loud sigh. “You know, I think Kayla was on to something when she told you to quit matchmaking. It’s like you’ve created this entire security/Stedman situation just so you could somehow find mates for every member of your family. Stop sticking your nose into other people’s lives!” Ava’s brows shot up in surprise, but Francesca wasn’t even close to being done. “What about you?” Francesca pointed at Ava. “You and Nash are awfully cozy. Are the two of you sleeping together? Because the rest of us have speculated that you are. Just so you know.”
Ava’s low chuckles turned into peals of laughter that made the diners at the surrounding tables turn around to stare. Francesca shifted uncomfortably in her
seat. Was this what people felt like when she acted a little loony?
Then Ava abruptly sobered. She looked more than a little forlorn. “Let me put it to you this way. I wish I were sleeping with Nash. I would love to. The man is sexy as hell, and I enjoy being around him. He’s just”—Ava seemed to be searching for the right words—“not interested.”
Suddenly, Francesca felt bad for poking at Ava. Francesca had Quentin. It was odd, and it wasn’t always smooth sailing, but she enjoyed every single minute that she got to spend with that man. Even if it didn’t last, she felt blessed to have had what little time she’d been granted. For the first time in a really long time, Francesca felt lucky.
*
Quentin wanted to be in the back of the surveillance truck with Nash like he wanted to go to the dentist for a root canal. The twenty-by-fourteen space suddenly seemed a quarter of the size. Quentin sat on the stool in front of a monitor and tried to figure out why Nash had given him the thankless task of perusing video feed from the various security cameras they had set up at the Hyde-Pierson family locations around the city. There was nothing to be seen on these tapes. Quentin was sure of it.
He sighed. This felt like pointless busy work to no doubt keep Quentin out of the way while Ava had a little talk with Francesca about her attitude. Fortunately, Quentin had no worries that Ava was going to try to intimidate Francesca. So far, Ava had been the most protective of Francesca’s fragile mental state.
Fragile. Ha!
It had only taken Quentin two or three days on the job to realize that Francesca’s mental state was not as delicate as she let people believe. Yes. There had been the regular and terrifying trips down memory lane in Lyle’s study that usually wound up with Francesca holding in her hand the loaded gun that had ended her husband’s life.
Nash Security Solutions Page 58
