Trevor’s border collie, Lady, was on Levi’s heels before he was two steps in. Ruger, on the other hand, stayed sprawled out on the floor next to Jace’s chair, his chin on his paws and eyes locked on the food prep.
Levi latched onto his collar as he circled the table, not the least bit intimidated by the oversized and deadly-looking Doberman, then glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Mary was following suit. “Come on, Mary, I’ll show you Uncle Jace’s fixer-upper while we’re out.”
Mary slid off her dad’s lap. “What’s a fixer-upper?”
“A black 1969 Camaro,” Jace answered.
Danny looked up from his phone, his face pinched in an incredulous scowl. “You’re still workin’ on that thing?”
“He’s been workin’ on that thing for five years,” Ninette said from the stove where bacon sizzled in the skillet in front of her. “My guess is if he ever finishes it, he’ll just take it apart again.”
Still snuggled with her back to his front, Gia’s body shook with silent laughter.
“What?” he murmured close to her ear.
She shook her head like the lot of them were crazy then flipped the griddle for all she was worth, sending the cake about twice as high as it needed to go. “You guys are nuts.”
The cake landed on its side first, then settled on the nonstick surface. Beckett helped her slide it off on the platter and moved the batter closer so she could pour another one. “You keep forgetting, gorgeous. It’s a we now, not a you.”
She hesitated with the batter over the griddle just long enough to know what he’d said struck home, then nodded and got back in the groove. “We’re all nuts. Every damned one of us.”
Beckett splayed his hand low on her belly, kissed the top of her head and filled his lungs with her paradise scent. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Before she could answer, Axel’s voice cut from the kitchen table. “Hey, Gia. What’s the word on the thing in Atlanta?”
“The word?” Axel might not have learned the subtleties of Gia’s teasing, but Beckett clocked the smile in her voice even without a direct visual.
“Did you get it or not?”
She set the batter aside and craned her head to peer around Beckett’s torso, her wry tone strong enough to match Jace or Ninette’s humor. “You know I got it. Why bother asking?”
Beckett grabbed his coffee and moved out from behind Gia in time to see Axel grin, kick back in his chair and drape one elbow over the back of it. “Well, a man might hope he’d get a sweet kiss on the cheek and a solid hug for helpin’ a lass out.”
Leaning back against the counter, Beckett crossed his feet at the ankles, sipped his coffee and studied Axel over the rim. “You know, for a guy who likes his arms and legs working like they’re supposed to, you sure hit on my woman a lot.”
“Now, boys,” Sylvie said from her place next to Gia at the stove. “No fighting or bloodshed in the kitchen.”
Either Trevor wasn’t the least bit clued into the good-natured ribbing or his coffee hadn’t kicked in and he was operating on a time delay. “Yo, Beck. Where are we with the tampering deal? Anything come out of your visit to Brantley’s place?”
“Nothing,” Knox said before Beckett could answer. “The guys we’ve kept on him haven’t reported anything suspicious either.”
Zeke looked to Beckett. “How’s that play into Gia’s thing?”
“It’s a risk.” For the first time all morning, Gia frowned and gave up all pretense of becoming a pancake professional. “Gives me an extra complication to plan for and introduces an unknown element I’d rather not have.”
“We’ll cover it,” Beckett said. “We’ll keep someone on Brantley and the guy in Atlanta and keep digging for answers.”
Refilled on coffee, Jace settled back into his chair. “What about Nat’s ex? Any possibility he’s the one behind this?”
Trevor shook his head. “Me and Ivan have been diggin’, but he’s got alibis for the gaps in the range’s footage.”
With a knowing grin on her face, Natalie stood and headed toward the stove. “Plus, Wyatt’s an idiot with guns.” She waved Gia away and snatched the spatula out of Gia’s hand. “You’re gonna burn ’em. Go. Sit. Plan and plot.”
“But—”
“Not gonna be your last breakfast at Haven, G.” Beckett handed her the coffee she’d kept parked next to the stove and guided her to the massive table. “Not gonna be your last chance to flip flapjacks either.”
“Anything from Sergei?” Danny asked Knox.
“Wasn’t any blowback from Darya’s deal so far as he can tell.”
Darya laid bowls loaded to the rim with blueberries, strawberries and chopped pecans on the table. “No, but he did warn us he’s coming for Christmas and bringing a few of his men with him.”
“Good Lord,” Ninette said turning from the stove, an almost frightening amount of bacon piled on a huge plate. “We’re gonna have to expand.”
Zeke chuckled and hugged Gabe who’d snagged the chair next to him close. “Like you’ve got a problem with that.”
“Ye’ll not hear me complaining.” Sylvie hustled toward them with a stack of pancakes, eyes locked on Vivienne. “They had to force me back on the plane in St. Petersburg. Russian men are easy on the eyes.”
Vivienne snickered and took her place next to Jace. “I don’t think they’re used to brash Scottish women. I swear you made at least two of them blush.”
Axel grunted, snagged the stack of pancakes before anyone else could and dropped two on Gia’s plate next to him. “You know, my guy mentioned your buddy Judd’s got one of the teams lined out for himself already.”
If Gia was disconcerted by his actions or the rapid shift in topic she didn’t show it. Just rolled with it like she’d lived with them forever. “He’s not my buddy.”
Ivan planted both forearms on the table, curiosity drawing him out of his shell a little. “What is he?”
She hesitated in buttering up her cakes for a second, thoughtful, then shrugged and kicked back into gear. “Somewhere between a neighborhood kid I grew up with and an annoying cousin your parents adore but you can’t decide whether to hug or punch.”
Ninette shook out a napkin and dropped it in her lap. “Your parents like him?”
“My parents adore him. Between my senior year in high school and halfway through college they tried every trick in the book to get us together. He’s a good guy, but he’s not for me.” She bit into her bacon and scrunched her nose the way someone would if an unwanted guest had just shown up. “It’s funny. We had a ton in common growing up, but somehow always end up butting heads.”
Natalie opened the sliding glass door. “Mary! Levi! Breakfast!”
“Damn.” Gabe snagged two more slices of bacon. “You know Levi hogs the bacon.”
Zeke chuckled and added another two strips to her plate before sliding the platter over to Natalie.
“When’s your event?” Ivan said to Gia.
“September 30th.”
“Still four weeks away,” Axel said. “A lot can happen in that kind of time.”
“Probably not as much as I’d like,” Gia said. “I’ve got a full team to put together, the event to research and travel to figure out.”
Trevor took the plate Natalie handed him and pulled her into the chair next to him. “Think you’re forgetting something on that last one.”
Gia paused mid-forkful of pancake. “Forgetting what?”
“Family comes with a built-in travel service. Not thinkin’ logistics on getting your team to Atlanta’s gonna be a hardship.”
For a second she frowned like she didn’t understand what he meant, then her eyes widened when the pieces came together. “Trevor, I can’t do that.”
Jace set the syrup bottle on the table and shoved the slowly disappearing stack of pancake
s closer to Gia. “Shut up and eat, woman. Family flies. Get over it.”
Yep. They were loud, funny as hell and sometimes hard to keep up with, but as a whole they were unbreakable. Beckett wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her in close and kissed the top of her head. “Tough love, gorgeous. This family’s got it in spades.”
Chapter Nineteen
So many trees. Tall maples and fat magnolias with flowering dogwoods dotted here and there, all of them with an unmarred stretch of deepening blue evening skies overhead. The familiar beauty blurred past Gia from the passenger side window, the foliage lining the winding streets of Atlanta’s most elite neighborhood still stubbornly hanging on to summer’s rich green colors even at the end of September. Logic or at least common decency said drawing this close to where she’d grown up should build all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings, but with every mile Beckett drove the knot in her stomach grew bigger.
“You wanna talk about it?” Beckett covered her fisted hand on her lap with one of his, easily navigating the secluded neighborhood with the other.
“Not much to talk about.” She uncoiled her hand and laced her fingers with his. The heat from the simple contact was a godsend. A welcome respite from the ice that seemed to have penetrated her bones. “Visits with my parents are a crapshoot. Either we’ll go, make mostly meaningless conversation and escape before our cheeks end up frozen in a fake smile, or we’ll find ourselves in land-mine-rich terrain inside of ten minutes and start plotting our escape before dinner starts. There’s not much hope for anything in between.”
The playful smile she’d grown to crave beamed down on her and he squeezed his hand in hers. “Maybe next time we’ll bring Sylvie and Ninette. They’d loosen up a convent inside of five minutes if they put their mind to it.”
“God, there’s an image.” She huffed out an ironic laugh. “I can’t fathom one good reason we’d ever get them in the same room together, but seeing Dad have to hold his own with Ninette would be a hoot. Not to mention, it might teach my mom a thing or two.”
Beckett’s smile shifted, softening a little as an emotion she couldn’t quite tag moved behind his eyes. “I could think of a few reasons they might have to share close quarters.”
For a second, she just stared at him, torn between simply appreciating the warmth in his expression and scrambling to figure out what the heck he was talking about.
And then it clicked.
She swallowed hard and shifted her attention back to the carefully manicured wonderland around them. The last four weeks had been perfect. A leisurely exploration into each other’s daily quirks, pet peeves and outright annoying habits. Some nights they’d spend at Beckett’s loft with Darya and Knox, or with the whole family at Haven, but most ended at her place. A fact evidenced by Beckett’s growing presence in her bedroom and bathroom. It wasn’t anything major. Not like he’d taken over drawer or closet space, and he was insanely minimalist on toiletries, but the feel of her place had changed by his being there. As if the air had taken on a protective, masculine energy.
“Too soon to talk about it?” he said.
Too soon? God, she wished that’s what she thought. As it was, she’d caught herself drifting off into happily-ever-after scenarios more times than she cared to admit. “We haven’t even let anyone outside your family know we’re seeing each other yet.”
“Gorgeous, that was your demand. Not mine. Remember?”
Oh, she remembered. Since the head-to-head and consequent make-up sex at Haven they hadn’t had too many heated discussions, but her asking to keep things quiet on a professional level had been one of them. “It wasn’t a demand.”
He glanced away from the road long enough to cock an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe it was. But I wanted us to have time to ease into things without people we work with giving us shit.”
“That mean you’re ready now?” He kept the question light and his gaze never strayed from the road, but she’d be a fool not to recognize the underlying edge to his words. He wanted this. Had made it crystal clear he wanted everyone and anyone to know she was his and vice versa. And while the idea of letting the universe know that she’d scored the man of her dreams appealed on a variety of levels, the risk of possibly losing him on a very public scale terrified the hell out of her.
But it was time. He’d been patient. Given her everything she’d wanted and then some. “Maybe after this weekend we could do something.” She chanced a look at him. “The guys are always arranging happy hours. We could go to one?”
His gaze slid to hers and his thumb skated back and forth along the back of her hand, calming them both. “We could do that.”
She nodded, her heart jogging just a tad faster than it had before.
“‘Course if you think I’m gonna wait for one of those morons we work with to get a social burr up their butt, you’re out of your mind. I’ll set up my own damned happy hour.”
“Beckett.”
“What?” He grinned and turned onto the long drive that led to her parents’ house. “You know what happens when you give me the green light.”
She scoffed and straightened in her chair as if her mom could already see her lousy posture. “Oh, don’t blow that smoke at me. You don’t even need a green light once you decide what you want.”
He winked. “You got that right.” He turned the corner that brought the gate and the main house into view and his smile slipped. “Jesus, Gia.”
Yeah, that pretty much summed it up. Propertywise her parents’ estate stretched over three acres, but one of the three served as the front yard. A wide ivory fountain stretched between the incoming and outgoing driveways just beyond the gate and the Mediterranean masterpiece that was her father’s pride and joy sprawled at the far end. “It does what Dad intended it to do.”
“Shock the hell out of people?”
Gia snickered. “Reginald Sinclair does not shock people. He impresses them.”
Beckett scoffed. “Gorgeous, that’s the structural equivalent of a go-fuck-yourself if I’ve ever seen one. Either that or he’s got serious issues with the size of his dick.”
Her sharp laughter filled the Escalade’s interior, unwinding a huge chunk of the knot that had built on the drive over.
“Seriously, how many rooms does it have?”
Still chuckling, she cocked her head and tried to see it from Beckett’s perspective. Red slate roof, butter stucco walls and stone terraces. With the sweeping drive and the trimmed hedges around it, one would think they’d either reappeared in Italy or relocated to Hollywood. “Nine bedrooms.”
“Only nine? Hell, we have ten at Haven and it doesn’t look like that.”
“Wait till you see the bedrooms.” She shook her head. “The funny part? There are twelve and a half bathrooms.”
“Why?”
“Because one can’t be troubled to walk all the way to a bedroom when you’re in the cigar room, the theater room, the salon, or any of the other more traditional rooms. Oh!” She raised her hand for added emphasis. “Let’s not forget there are three kitchens. Because...well, I don’t know why.”
Beckett stared straight ahead, his jaw slack and his eyebrows high. “That’s whacked.” His eyes narrowed as though a whole new scheme had popped into his head. “Though, Sylvie might dig extra kitchens.”
She giggled and waved Beckett to the intercom poised outside his window. “Just punch the button already and let’s get this over with.”
Needless to say, there was no back-and-forth through the speaker. Ever since her dad had cameras installed, no one bothered to actually greet the people who came to meet them. At least not at the gate. Once guests had parked and ambled up the big stairs fronting the main porch with their mouths hanging open in awe, then it was all hugs, air kisses on either cheek and manly handshakes.
Beckett parked dead center of the front door, b
ut before Gia could hop out, he snatched her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “No matter what happens, I’ve got your back. Just be you and we’ll get through it.”
God, he was good at warm and fuzzy. In the last month, he’d spun her up in so much of it she barely felt like her feet touched the ground anymore. And as gifts went, having someone beside her while she waded into one-on-one time with her parents was about as good as they got. She opened her mouth, the words she’d almost spilled more times than she could count nearly leaping out. “Thank you,” she said instead.
He smiled and nodded. “Now keep your ass in that seat and let me help you out. I have a feeling your dad’s the old-fashioned type.”
The front door opened just as Beckett opened her car door, the timing so perfect Gia halfway suspected her mother had watched through a window for the most ideal moment.
“Gia!” How her mother could offer such a greeting and still come off on the dry side, Gia couldn’t figure out. It’d been years since she remembered a genuine laugh or emotion coming from her mother. Even her bouts of worry seemed strained through a polite filter specially designed to muffle any undesirable uncouthness. “I thought you’d never get here.”
Translation: You’re beyond the acceptable limits of fashionably late.
Gia shared a look with Beckett she hoped conveyed something on par with an eye roll and cleared her throat to fight back a scoff. “Sorry, Mom. Beckett and I had to finish running through some things with hotel security before we could leave.”
Her father strolled through the open front door, bringing with him a rigid restraint she’d swear made the setting sun dim a little. He didn’t say a word. Just stood there tall and proper in a deep charcoal suit that had to have cost a grand while her mother hurried down the steps.
“You and your father—both cut from the same cloth. Work, work, work.” She grasped Gia’s shoulders and did the air-kissy thing to each cheek before standing back for a thorough once-over. “My goodness, look at you.”
Gia braced. Either she’d get two thumbs up for the jaunty tweed jacket with its fringed three-quarter-length sleeves and black pants she’d paired it with, or a subtle nudge toward laying off the sweets. Given that her mother was the picture-perfect modern Southern woman in a crisp white linen suit and not so much as an ounce over one-twenty-five, the assessment could go either way.
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