by Alice Bello
Abbey snorted. “And Santa Claus.” She plopped down on the picnic bench right beside Lucy. “They’re both just capitalistic propaganda.”
Lucy smiled, remembering back to a certain Christmas present she found under the foot of her bed when she was eight. A present that no one in the world knew she wanted: a harmonica. Her mother wrapped everything in glossy paper with sparkly ribbons and bows. That package was covered in plain red paper, no bows or ribbons. She’d known immediately that it had come from Santa Claus.
“No. There really is a Santa Claus.”
Abbey looked at her like she was crazy now, and then shook her head. “Okay, there’s a Santa Claus.”
Lucy smiled. “But definitely no Easter Bunny. A giant Bunny hiding candy and pastel colored hardboiled eggs around the house. It’s just too creepy!”
They nodded their heads in agreement.
Chapter 9
THOUGH it had been almost two years since Gabriel walked the scarred wood of the docks, and breathed the salty air of the sea, it still felt like home. And with hardly a second thought he wound his way through the maze of the marina. He and his brother had never liked the sanitized country club docks. It was here in the real world of those who spent their lives on boats that they had found their place.
And with a rush of sadness Gabriel realized his brother was still free—yet he’d left him to be alone. He’d abandoned him.
He picked out the gleaming red mast of The Belt-Buckle. Micah had thought up the name, and Gabriel had been so drawn into their new, short-lived freedom that he had agreed.
A forty-foot wooden sailboat called The Belt-Buckle…it still made Gabriel smile. Mostly because he knew his horn-dog of a younger brother well enough that he knew he used the ship’s name as a pickup line, and that it worked with eerie consistency.
Gabriel turned the corner and saw the boat for the first time in forever, and the longing for the sea, and for his brother’s company tore at him. But then he caught sight of his brother, shirtless of course, saying goodbye to his latest conquest.
A redhead—Gabriel remembered Micah had always wanted a redhead—with short cropped, spiky hair, maybe four inches or more shorter than Micah, and built thinner and sleeker than his hulking brother. The redhead was shirtless also, and his shoulders and arms were speckled with light freckles.
Micah grabbed the redhead and pulled him to him in a startlingly deep, passionate kiss. That surprised Gabriel. Usually when the bedroom antics were at an end, his brother wanted mostly to be alone again. Now he seemed to be begging, with his entire body, for the redhead to stay… or at least to come back soon.
After a good two minutes of blocking out and erasing the memory of his brother’s vigorous use of his tongue, Gabriel finally saw the redhead stagger off the boat and drunkenly make his way down the dock in the opposite direction. Gabriel and Micah met eyes at the exact same instant, and both shared a rueful smile.
“Well fuck me, if it isn’t the elusive corporate shark!” Gabriel winced at his brother and Lucy using the exact same words. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you here again.”
Gabriel walked over to the side of the boat and squinted up into the afternoon sun at his hulking brother. “So can I come aboard?”
Micah scowled and tilted his head. “It is your boat too… or did you forget that?”
Gabriel smiled as Micah held out his massive hand to him, yanking Gabriel up onto the deck like he was just some stuffed toy. Micah gave him a big grizzly-bear hug, then held him at arm’s length for a moment, his eyes happy—Lucy had been right… he was missing me.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re here, bro.” And Micah crushed him to him again.
Gabriel was having trouble breathing, but he instantly felt the comfort and bond being close to his brother invoked—the feel of him, the smell… the colossally juvenile essence of his brother.
A burning seared the backs of his eyeballs, and he blinked back an unwelcomed wetness. He wasn’t fooling himself. He’d missed his brother all too much, too.
“Wanna beer?” Micah chortled when he let Gabriel out of his crushing embrace and gave him a playful, painful swipe in the arm.
“Sure,” Gabriel said, rubbing his now numb arm as he followed his brother to the cabin, where the beers lived.
When Micah opened the fridge Gabriel’s mouth fell open. There was a whole shelf of food—real food: vegetables, steaks, cheeses, and even some fruit—right in the middle of all the frosty bottles of beer. Gabriel’s jaw dropped.
Micah didn’t cook, microwave, slice, stir, or even make the occasional sandwich. He ordered in, or ate out.
Micah cleared his throat, and then wrangled two beers from the top shelf. He closed the door and shoved a beer into Gabriel’s gut, making him wince. Gabriel was about to say something, something rude and probably about Micah turning into Martha Stewart since he’d moved out, but then he caught sight of what was sitting by the sink in the galley.
A plate rack with a draining board under it. And in the rack, clean, sparkling dishes. Gabriel’s eyes bugged out.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Micah took a gulp of his beer and sauntered back toward the deck, ignoring Gabriel’s question.
“Micah!” Gabriel followed his brother out onto the deck, but not before he caught a look at Gabriel’s bed—it had been made, not a wrinkle in sight.
Micah was already standing at the bow of the ship when Gabriel caught up with him. He was shaking his head and stammering. Gabriel was about to smack him in the back of the head when Micah said: “I love him.”
The air blew right out of Gabriel’s chest, and he felt his entire body sag. It was as if Micah was speaking to him in Chinese, and he’d grown an extra head.
Gabriel stood there, shocked and silent, for over a minute. He didn’t know what to say, and what’s more, he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth. Finally he said, “The redhead?”
Micha smiled shyly. “Ian. Ian Granger. He’s a doctor and he has a sweet little boat on the other side of the docks.”
“Oh.” Gabriel tried mulling this over in his head. His horn-dog, perpetual bachelor brother was in love. And with a doctor? Micah wasn’t known for his thinking, so it must be true that opposites attract.
“At least Mom will be happy. You know, about him being a doctor.”
Micah snorted and took another pull from his beer.
“So, you… cook for him?”
Micah spit out the beer he had in his mouth and turned outraged eyes on his brother.
Gabriel smiled as he pushed that button again. “I mean, it’s great that you’re the little woman in the relationship.” He ducked just as Micah threw a punch at his nose.
“Asshole! Ian does the cooking.”
“Right, right… I’m sure he does the dishes too.”
Micah’s expression didn’t change, but there was a change in his eyes, something minute that anyone but his brother might not have picked up on. But Gabriel read it like the bluff it was.
“You do the dishes… really?”
“He makes me help.” Micah’s tone was a little bitter.
“I like this Ian already. When are you bringing him to dinner with the family?” Gabriel sounded cocky, and he knew just the thought of going to a family dinner filled his brother with dread. That’s why he so seldom attended one.
But there was a smirk on Micah’s lips, and a glint in his eyes. “About the time you bring your fiancée to one.”
Shit, he knows. “How did you find out? And who else knows?”
“The hyena twins made sure every single person in the family knows about your girl.”
Gabriel closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. If Sophie and Olivia knew, that meant that his Uncle Remy knew. He was just looking for a way to bring Gabriel down. He hoped Dante would be careful not to paint too pristine a picture with the background check. Nothing like no flaws to make someone look suspicious.
“So what’s sh
e like?”
“Like?” It hadn’t been the question Gabriel had been expecting from his brother. Maybe Is she good in bed, or does she have a website on Go-Daddy.com?
“Yeah, bro, what’s this Lucy of yours like?” He moved in on his brother, getting right in his face with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
Gabriel shook his head and turned away from him, suddenly lost in thought. It wasn’t that she wasn’t great. He really liked her spunk… no, her moxie. And her determination and practically preternatural gift for getting what she wanted had earned her a great amount of respect in his book. But none of that was anything he could say about the woman he was supposed to be in love with.
But then there was a flash, a fresh, recent memory that whispered through his brain like a silk ribbon in a breeze. The way he felt when they were talking in his office. Her bluntness. Her way of drawing out things from him that he kept hidden, close to the vest, even from Delia…
“She’s a surprise.” Gabriel thought about those words for a moment, smiling to himself as his thoughts about Lucy did indeed surprise him. Just the thought of her felt so fresh and cool and comforting, so welcomed. And her smile…
“That’s it? She’s a surprise?” Micah sounded bewildered, yet there was humor in his tone.
Gabriel tried to push the thoughts of Lucy and her smile out of his mind. He couldn’t be having those kinds of thoughts about her. He was in love with Delia!
Finally he looked to his brother and said, more than a little ruefully, “She keeps surprising me.”
“Okay, big brother with the stoic vibe. Now you’re surprising me.” Micah patted Gabriel’s arm, their eyes met, and for one excruciating moment Gabriel wanted to tell his younger brother everything.
He closed his eyes, taking in a long, hungry breath of the ocean breeze. More than anything, right then, Gabriel wanted to stay right where he was. He missed the sea. He missed living on the boat, just hauling up anchor and heading out into the vast nothingness of the ocean. To be able to go anywhere you wanted, or all the way around the world—all on one tank of gas.
And he missed having his brother with him. For so long they’d been inseparable. Especially after college, when Gabriel didn’t know whether or not he really wanted to go into his field of choice. But then their father had offered him the CEO position, and though he was reticent, the honor of it was overwhelming.
But honor or not, being so close to the ocean, and with his brother again, was pulling him apart inside. He’d always been able to tell his brother all his problems. And now he was standing right in front of him and couldn’t tell him anything.
It sucked!
“I’ve got to go,” Gabriel said, handing his half full bottle of beer to Micah, then hastily making his way toward the dock.
“But you haven’t finished your beer!” Micah groused. Gabriel waved him off without looking back. But then Micah said something that stopped him in his tracks. “And you haven’t told me why there’s female vampire scent all over you.”
~*~
Gabriel stopped with his hands gripping the cool metal of the rail. He was gritting his teeth and seriously contemplating lying to his brother. After all, maybe he was just bluffing. Gabriel hadn’t been with Delia in almost a week.
“I mean, really! I’m the best tracker in the family, probably on the continent, and you didn’t think I’d smell that?”
Shit…
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been busy—”
“Busy boning a vampire?” Micah’s eyes flashed, the beast in him looking out through his eyes for an instant.
Gabriel shook his head. “I ran into a couple a few nights ago. We fought and—”
“Bullshit! My gift—besides being beautiful and athletic as hell—is my nose. And I smell horny vampire… a female, horny vampire.”
“Micah.”
“So fess up, bro.” His eyes were back to normal—back to just being Micah again. “You know you can trust me with your secrets.”
And Gabriel knew he could, he really could. “But some secrets are deadly.” If either of the families found out about him and Delia, there would be war, and they might both lose their heads.
Micah wriggled his eyebrows. “Danger’s my middle name.”
Gabriel laughed, and it made his chest hurt in a really good way. “I thought your middle name was Linus?”
“You know what I meant.” Micah’s voice was turning into a husky growl.
“And I can’t remember… were you named after Mom’s great uncle, or after the Peanuts character?”
“So are you going to tell me about your undead lady love before or after I kick your ass?”
They looked each other in the eye for a long beat, both no longer joking around. “What do you want to know?”
~*~
“I’m not eating that.” Lucy felt sick to her stomach just thinking about it. And to her horror, it had smelled and looked really good. But she had asked what it was, which usually didn’t matter. Gabriel wasn’t one for eating gross food. There was always some kind of meat in what he ordered for their office dinners, and usually the savory sauces and the sources of the food spanned a multitude of cultures.
But when Gabriel had said “Lamb Curry,” Lucy had envisioned Mary’s Little Lamb, and then the adorable lamb that she had held during a Christmas pageant when she was nine years old. She’d wanted her father to buy it for her, the fleece was so soft, and it had licked sugar cubes out of her hand.
But Adam Hart would not abide a farm animal in his house or on his property. Pets of any kind had been one of the few things he had denied Lucy and her brother.
And that’s all she could think about as Gabriel set out two high-end disposable plates on the coffee table he had brought in when it turned out they spent most of their dinner meetings lounging on the big black leather couch. She’d felt pretty good that he’d added furniture to his office just for her. But she would not be touching the baby lamb he was now spooning out over the white rice that formed a base on the bottom of each plate.
It really did smell good, and she’d skipped lunch, opting to spend her break having her nails done at a local, though excellent, nail salon. They now gleamed with an incredible crimson orange, and shimmered with tiny gold hearts. She’d missed getting manicures, and that sense of whimsy she’d had about her nails. But right at that moment, Lucy was missing lunch most of all. Maybe she should just call out for a pizza, maybe some of that divine manicotti they’d devoured the night before?
But then Gabriel pulled out from the take out bag something wrapped up in aluminum foil, and as he unwrapped it, steam rose into the air and the rich scent of garlic bread engulfed her senses.
“This is called naan bread,” Gabriel said as he pulled a piece of the delicious smelling flat bread from the pack. Holding it in his hand he ladled the lamb/rice mixture onto the bread in big spoonfuls, wrapped it up fajita style then brought it up to his lips and took a huge bite.
The look of utter bliss that took over Gabriel’s face would usually have creeped Lucy out. But she was starving. It didn’t help either, the look on his face as he chewed up his lamb/rice fajita and swallowed—sighing rapturously before shooting Lucy with a maniacal smile then taking another big bite.
Lucy’s stomach actually growled.
“Come on Lucy… you’re hungry, or at least your stomach’s hungry—and I know you really want to.” Gabriel was practically laughing as he spoke, his deep brown eyes electrified with mischievous taunting.
Lucy groaned in defeat as she sat down on the couch and grabbed herself a piece of naan bread, then shoveled as much of Mary’s Little Lamb onto it as she could, rolled it up and took a big old honking bite.
It was good. No, it was incredible. Spicy and rich, the meat had this juicy, tender quality, the sauce was to die for, and the rice and flat bread added a wonderful texture to the whole thing. She took another
bite before she’d even swallowed her first.
“See?” Gabriel said with a smug expression on his handsome face.
“I hate you,” Lucy mumbled through a mouthful of absolute bliss.
After wolfing down every last bit of the lamb curry, they settled back into the couch and put their feet up on the new—doubtlessly expensive—coffee table. Lucy spotted the little red step stool sitting under the last photo she’d been examining whilst waiting for Gabriel.
Strangely enough, the length of time she spent waiting for Gabriel each day had drastically started to dwindle. Today she’d only been perched barefoot on the stool for a few moments, the total wait time since she’d set foot in the office was just under five minutes now. A far cry from the first week’s usual half hour.
“So,” Lucy said, lazily raising her arm up to point at the photo in question. “What is that?”
Gabriel looked to where she was pointing, got an unreadable look on his face for a moment, smiling guiltily. He even started to blush.
“That’s… well, you see…” Gabriel squirmed in his seat then turned his entire body around so he could face Lucy completely. “My brother and I have this… tradition.”
Lucy couldn’t help it, she was smiling. She could tell this was going to be one hell of a good story. All the stories that involved Gabriel’s brother, Micah, were hysterical.
“We bet on things.”
Silence.
“Like?” Lucy prompted him.
“Well… sometimes it’s just sporting events: horse racing, college football games, that Ultimate Cage Fighter show.”
“Okay,”
“That’s usually just a money bet. But sometimes we actually bet on who can…” He stopped and stared at Lucy, and she could see in his eyes that he was editing what he was about to tell her. He did that a lot, especially when they’d discussed his family, but never when they’d talked about the photos and his friends, or his brother. But he was doing it right now.
“You know, who can run faster—sometimes we spar, like fighting.”
Lucy looked back over her shoulder at the photo of the two of them on the boat. “You fight your brother, the giant?” She chuckled. “I’m sure that goes well.”
