He returned with his wallet in his hand. “I want to show you something.”
“If it’s condoms, I think it’s a bit too late for that.”
“Not condoms. But you know I’m clean, right? I’ve never not used one until today.”
We’d come together frantically, so I was relieved to hear those words. Although they didn’t surprise me, Abbot wasn’t a careless man. And normally—when he hadn’t been driven to distraction by a stubborn redhead—he showed a lot of restraint.
“I trust you would never do anything to harm me,” I said as he slid back into the bed. “But I think we should use them going forward. At least until we’re sure about what this is.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I am. But you’ve never had a relationship. What if this doesn’t work for you?”
“Slater. I’m sure.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” He laughed a little, like he couldn’t believe I had any concerns about us. “And I can prove it to you”—he opened the brown leather wallet and rummaged through some cards and old receipts—“with this.” A small square of folded paper.
“What is it?” I took it from between his fingers and opened it up, noting the red numbering on the top right that told me it was an invoice, as well as the name of a jeweller. “You bought some jewellery?” The handwriting was a bit scratchy, but I could make out the letters CT and the word ‘gold’.
“It’s the date I want you to see.” He tapped the top of the paper with his finger.
“This is just after Kris and Ronnie’s wedding. A few days after I went home.”
He slid his finger into the coin section of his wallet and pulled out a ring—a small gold ring with diamonds all the way around it. “I bought this before we knew we were set up. Before you were designated to the hired help, you need to know that I’d chosen you before anything else. I was waiting though. I wanted to have something that was ours alone, no prying eyes, so I bought this in preparation. When I saw it in the window, I knew it was the right ring for you. You wouldn’t like anything too flashy that could get in the way.”
“I don’t understand.” I thought I did, but I didn’t want to assume.
“I didn’t say I would marry you because Jasmine forced my hand. It was what I wanted, but I was pissed at her for fucking up my plans and…” He shook his head and twisted the ring between his fingers.
“You made plans for us?”
He tapped his head with his index finger. “Attempted to.”
I’d had so many people making plans and decisions about my life, but something about learning that Abbot had been making his own plans involving me was flattering more than it was frustrating. It means he cared.
“Tell me about these plans.” I pressed up on my elbow, turned to face him.
“This job we’re doing isn’t safe, blue. I mean, no job is one hundred per cent safe, but this one…it’s fucking insane-level dangerous. I don’t like the direction the family business is headed. We used to pull pretty basic break and enter stuff on wealthy people who had big insurance policies. There was good money in that and the risk was low. But over the last eighteen months, the jobs have gotten bigger and increasingly riskier. There’s a reason for it, but”—his tongue snuck out to wet his lips—“this isn’t what we signed up for.” He glanced up from the ring and met my eyes. “I want out. When this job is done. If we survive it, you and me, we’re done with this life.”
If?
“Let me guess, Jasmine won’t let you walk so you’ll have to run?”
Setting his lips in a solid line, he nodded then looked back at the ring. “I planned to run to you. Win you back, or even sling you over my shoulder caveman style. Then I’d find you that perfect beach shack you want and we’d get married and make some demon spawn of our own, spend our days raising kids and enjoying each other.”
“That sounds pretty perfect to me.” I kept my voice soft, lying close as I listened to him speak, my heart filling up a little more with each word.
“I need you to know that I was never rejecting you, blue. I was always protecting you, even when it was just a game.”
“When did it stop being a game for you?”
“About the time I moved us into the Esplanade apartment. When you were talking about wanting to live by the sea and get married and have kids, I thought about what that would look like, and for the first time in my life the idea didn’t freak me out.”
“That’s actually kinda sweet.”
“That I didn’t break out in a cold sweat at the thought of commitment?” He chuckled slightly. “I don’t know about sweet, but it was definitely momentous. It got me thinking seriously about my life and how a wife and kids would fit in. And I think Trev got it right with you, keeping you away from all this bullshit and letting you live a normal life.”
“Normal didn’t really get me anywhere.”
“But it kept you safe. You didn’t grow up having to be careful who you were friends with or who you had a relationship with because you couldn’t risk bringing anyone into your world. I don’t want that life for my kids, blue. I want them to surf, and I want them to play footy, and date the girl who sits up the front in roll call, bring her to Sunday dinner, family barbecues and walk around in public holding her hand. I want them to have friends and fall in love without it being a life or death situation.” He frowned as he let out his breath then met my eyes, his shining, beseeching. “Do you want that kind of life with me, Sloane Slater? One away from here, just the two of us?” He held up the ring, the diamonds catching the light and glittering before me. So tempting.
“It’s beautiful, Abbot.” Placing my hand over the top of his, I covered the ring with my palm and took a deep breath. “But I want you to ask me when the job is complete and I promise I’ll say yes,” I whispered, keeping my eyes locked with his and watching for his reaction. It wasn’t that I didn’t want that life with him. Lord knew it was everything I’d been hoping we could become, and everything I’d ever wanted. Marriage, kids, a home by the sea. It was my dream, and this beautiful big, sweet man wanted to give that to me. I just couldn’t say yes, not yet, anyway. There’d been too many decisions made about my life that hadn’t had my input, and this wouldn’t be one of them.
“You want to wait?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.
I nodded. “Not because I don’t want to marry you, but because that’s when the time will be right.” I now understood his reasons for waiting, his frustration when it felt like Jasmine was trying to force him into making a decision when I’d turned up the other day, and why he’d blurted out a crappy proposal in the most unconventional of ways. He was biding his time to protect me, and my temper kept making it hard for him to do that. “If this job is as dangerous as you say, then you’ll need something worth making it back for. I expect you to return and run away with me, Abbot Cartwright. Can you do that?”
Leaning in, he pressed his lips to mine, inhaling deeply. “I can do that,” he whispered, sliding the ring back into the coin slot of his wallet.
“Good.” I rolled almost on top of him, leaning my arms across his chest as he relaxed back into the pillows. “Now, I want to know what we do about your family in the meantime.”
He ran his fingers up and down my upper arms sending delicious shivers rippling under my skin. I loved having this man touch me, loved that he was mine. Loved him.
“There’s a family dinner at the house tonight. Come as my date. They all know what that means.”
“What does it mean?”
“That you’re my girl and I intend on making you a Cartwright.”
“Who says I’ll be taking your name?”
He grinned, laughing a little from his nose as he brushed my hair behind my ear. “Always gotta find something to argue about. It doesn’t matter what name you take, Slater. We won’t be here for it to matter.”
“And are you really willing to walk away from all this? Leave your brothers—your t
win?”
He took a breath that seemed heavy when he released it. “Yes.” One simple word. So much meaning.
“OK. So we go along with everything in the meantime letting everyone believe we’re here for good?”
“Right. With you coming to dinner tonight, Jasmine will feel like she’s won and won’t be watching us as closely. Then we train for this job, and the moment it’s done we get on the road and never look back.”
My stomach burst to life with hundreds of butterflies, I didn’t know if this would work. Toby had made a point of telling me he could find anyone and drag them back. But, maybe Abbot knew his brother’s tricks well enough to outsmart him. Either way, it was worth a try.
“I like that plan. I’m nervous, but I’m with you.” I’d follow him wherever he wanted me to go. The last month had been absolute shit without him, and I didn’t intend to feel like that ever again.
Abbot popped his dimple as he studied my face with nothing but affection in his eyes. “I’m glad you’re finally mine, Sloane Slater.”
“I’m glad too.” It might have taken twenty-one years for the timing to be right, but he was definitely worth the wait for me. I hoped I was worth this risk he was taking too. I understood his desire to get out, but I also understood the other side of that coin, the reason I was so easily pulled back. This life was in our blood. Could we ever really escape it?
Chapter Thirty
Fucked-Up Shit
I arrived at Jasmine’s by seven, a cheesecake in hand and butterflies in my gut. There had been so many times that I’d walked through this door with no nerves at all, but I’d never been someone’s girlfriend—Is that what I should call myself? Either way, it was different this time. Abbot and I were announcing our relationship as well as manipulating the situation to our own desires. Freedom.
Abbot had gone ahead of me to speak to Jasmine before I got there. Something told me he wanted to read her the riot act so she didn’t give me a hard time. The woman was incredibly mercurial, so I appreciated that he’d do that for me.
“Sloane,” Jasmine opened the front door with her breezy demeanour in place, her smile said welcome and her apron said relax. I didn’t believe either though. Experience had taught me to always be on my guard around her.
“Am I late?” I asked as I handed over the dessert. Her house was filled with hustle and bustle, all hands on deck, preparing a feast that looked big enough for a kingdom.
Welcoming me like a lost daughter, she ushered me inside. “Not at all.” She placed her free arm around my waist as she guided me to the kitchen where I waved hi to Alesha, Holland and Ronnie, all busy preparing food. “You’re right on time. We’re making spaghetti from scratch. You still like spaghetti?”
“I love spaghetti.”
She grinned. “When you were little you used to say that my spaghetti was your favourite food in the whole world.”
I sniffed the air and my stomach growled. Abbot and I had been too busy doing other things to worry about food all afternoon. “I’ve never been able to recreate it.”
“She puts Vegemite in the mince,” Alesha said from in front of a giant pot. “That’s the secret.”
“Good one. Now she won’t need to come back for it.” Jasmine stood with her hands on her hips. Alesha stuck her tongue out and chuckled. Playful Jasmine? Interesting.
I scrunched up my nose. “Vegemite?”
Jasmine nodded. “Strange but true. The boys are outside getting the patio heaters started if you want to say hi. I’m sure Abbot is eager to see you.” She couldn’t even hide her grin as she pushed me towards the sliding door as if refusing wasn’t an option.
“Oh hey, Sloane,” Kristian said from where he leaned over the side of the heater.
Abbot was crouched down beside him with the door where the gas cylinders lived open. “Hey, blue. We’re trying to discover fire but we’re struggling.”
“Want me to take a look?” I asked with a smile, noticing that he seemed to be settling on calling me by my childhood nickname, an Aussie slang term for redheads—blue. It was a silly ironic name that was only used by those closest to me. He’d called me a lot of different names since I’d come back here, I wondered if this one would stick or if he was trying it on for size like all the others.
“It’s cool,” Abbot said. “The igniter isn’t clicking. I’m just checking the gas line to be safe.”
Kristian lifted his chin. “I hear you’re in on the insanity of the job my wife cooked up.” He stood up straight and laughed with his hands on his hips. “My wife. It’s been a month, and it’s still fun saying that.”
“I’ll bet.” I grinned, his smile infectious, although it didn’t escape me that Ronnie seemed to be the mastermind behind whatever craziness we were gearing up for. “Married life seems to agree with you.”
He nodded. “It really does. Looks like we get to send this guy to the altar next,” he said, clapping Abbot on the shoulder.
Abbot kept his head down. “I have to get her to say yes first, mate,” he said, causing me to smile as I thought about the ring tucked safely in his wallet.
“You’ll say yes, won’t you, Sloane?”
I smiled. “The wrong twin’s asking me, right now.”
“No time like the present, brother.” Kris tapped Abbot on the butt with his shoe.
“Fuck off.” Abbot slapped his twin’s foot away, both of them laughing.
I cleared my throat. “So, what makes the job so insane?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Sam came up behind me, handing Abbot a stick lighter for the heater.
“All I know is it’s a transport of drugs.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “A government transport. Top security. It’s gonna be a magical shitstorm that we’ll need unicorns to get us out of.”
“Unicorns?” I laughed, uneasy. A government transport? Holy fucking hell. No wonder Abbot is worried about this one.
Kristian took over in plain English. “We need you to teach us how to pick those BiLocks. Abs said you’ve done it before.”
“A few times. It’s not the easiest thing in the world though.” I tried not to react too harshly to the origin of the transport, partly so I didn’t seem like a liability and mostly because I didn’t want to put any more stress on Abbot. He needed me to be confident in the job.
“That’s what we heard,” Sam said. “Seems there’s two armoured vans full of drugs locked in security cases. Those cases use the BiLocks, but we don’t know how many we need to pick yet.”
“How fast do you need them opened?” I asked with a frown.
“As fast as humanly possible,” Abbot responded.
“That’ll take practice. Do I have to get you into the armoured van too?” That would be dangerous.
“No,” Abbot said, standing up now that the heater was working. As he hit his full height, my eyes went up and my heart fluttered. It was interesting that a man identical to him in looks was standing right beside him and had given me no reaction at all, but with Abbot, it was…at my centre. “The actual robbery has to be a smash and grab. Fast as possible. Lots of noise.” He mimed explosives. Crap.
“You don’t like noise,” I said. He’d said they always opted to do a job quietly so they didn’t make a scene and raise the awareness of would-be witnesses.
He held his hands out to his sides. “Necessity outweighs preference.”
Necessity.
“OK. So, you hit the armoured trucks, unload the cases, then you take them somewhere and we unlock them?” I asked, trying to piece together the extent of my involvement.
“You won’t be unlocking them,” Toby said, stepping through the sliding door with beers in hand. He passed them around as he continued. “You’re the coach who’ll teach all of us. We’ll have maybe fifteen minutes to get the cases open and empty before the handover. Anywhere between twenty and forty locks, each case has anti theft tech, so we can’t force entry without ruining the drugs.”
“I see. How long do
we have to train?”
“The court case associated with the product goes to trial in three months. After that, the drugs are being transported to a special facility for destruction, which is when we hit. That gives minimum of three months to learn how to pick those locks at world-record speed.”
“And a maximum of?” I asked as I took my beer from his grip.
“Three months and one week,” he said. “And since we’re bringing you in, confidentiality is obviously a non-negotiable clause here.”
“I swear by the scar on my leg,” I told him.
He nodded with a secret smile.
“You’ll be expert lock pickers when I’m done with you.”
“That’s what we expect,” Toby said.
“Enough business talk,” Jasmine said from the door. “Dinner is ready.”
Moving to stand beside me, Abbot held out his hand and I clapped mine into his grip, our fingers entwining. “So far, so good,” he said, kissing my knuckles. “Just remember that no matter what they say in there, we chose this.”
“What the hell are they going to say?”
“A whole bunch of fucked up shit, blue. And I need you to ignore it.”
“Do I nod and smile?”
He grinned, looking relieved. “It’d help.”
“OK. Then that’s what I’ll do.”
Guiding me by the hand, he took me head first down the rabbit hole. Fucked-up shit didn’t even begin to explain it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Drowned In Secrets
“What did you think?” Abbot asked as he walked me to my van after dinner and more drugs heist discussion, among other things.
“Of the spaghetti? I don’t know, it’s kind of weird now that I know there’s Vegemite in it.”
He laughed. “You know I’m not talking about the food.”
Fool’s Errand: Cartwright Brothers, Book 4 Page 22
