The door closes, but Jocelyn’s eyes never leave it. “I’ll go check on them,” she says before hurrying outside.
Winnie shakes her head. “That girl has it bad.”
“He has a dog. He roped her in with pet love,” Tabitha replies, watching Jocelyn walk across the wooden deck and Spencer wrap his arm around her shoulders before they walk down the steps and into the grass together.
“So what has Nate done to you?” Tabitha asks once the couple is out of sight.
I consider the past few days for a second, trying to go over everything. “Nothing.”
But then as a silence sets in and the girls all stare at me waiting, a few things fall into place. Like the fact he has been reluctant to leave me alone the last few days. And on Wednesday when he had to work for a few hours, he had Pearl come over and sit with me. I asked if it was to help with Emma and he nodded but the way he said, “Yeah, Emma,” made a few strands of doubt settle deep.
And he put that tracker on my phone.
Although, he did that for my benefit.
Didn’t he?
Of course he did. And even if he didn’t, the tracker makes me feel better. But I’m not going to admit it to the room of women looking at me waiting.
“That’s what we thought,” Winnie says, nodding with understanding, but not asking for more information.
Tabitha pulls the last casserole from the oven, but there’s no room left on the island so she forces it on top of the burner. “Even though they’re crazy, something about those men keeps us coming back.”
I nod, but she doesn’t turn around to see.
“Can you help with some of these?” Tabitha asks, already handing us each a pair of oven mitts and grabbing a dish from the counter.
“Sure,” I agree sticking my hand in the thick bright pink glove.
Tabitha holds the door open with her butt, letting each of us walk out past her.
I’m halfway down the deck steps when there’s a rumble in the air. A motorcycle.
And then another. And then another. And then the sound explodes like it’s not one or two guys riding motorcycles together but an entire pack of them. A gang.
10
The noise gets louder and louder until it sounds like the motorcycles stop right on the other side of Ridge’s house. I put the casserole down on the wooden picnic table in the middle of the yard, and Nate stands beside me holding Emma to his chest. The fact he’s tense doesn’t go unnoticed and doesn’t make me feel better about the racket happening at the front of the house.
The engines cut off in unison and I hear voices.
From the right corner of Ridge’s house walk a large group of men — oversized and wearing more leather than they should in the heat of Pelican Bay summer. They stop at the edge of the yard.
One man in particular with a determined look stands with his arms crossed. His eyes drag through the crowd and stop at Anessa when he nods his head once in her direction. She nods back and then her head tips up, looking at Bennett, who stands by her side with a scowl written across his features.
“I don’t remember inviting you,” Ridge says, stepping up to the front of his crowd.
From the middle of the yard where Nate and I stand, the scene reminds me of one from Grease with the two sides standing off against each other. Except this time one side is nicely dressed in their matching black polo shirts and dark colored jeans and the other with hair slicked back wearing leather and looking as a rugged as possible. I bet at least one of them has a switchblade.
We can only hope it doesn’t end the same as in the movie version.
“I don’t remember inviting one of your guys to sit outside my shop all week,” the clear leader of the pack of motorcyclists says across the yard currently considered as no-man’s-land. “You’d think for a security man with such a celebrity status you wouldn’t be so obvious.”
Ridge laughs but it’s forced. “If I didn’t want you to know, Dom, you wouldn’t. Nate here has so much specialized training you wouldn’t see or hear him coming.”
I inch my head back and stare at Nate, silently asking him a hundred questions. Ones he’s never answered before. He doesn’t this time either. His head tilts down, and he smiles in my direction before giving his attention back to the standoff happening in front of us.
“What I have is some guy named Antonio in Vegas asking me where his storage unit full of drugs is. You know anything about that?”
I freeze. My heart is the only thing moving in my body. Nate wraps his arm around me and hugs me closer, squeezing me a small amount, but it doesn’t do enough to release my nerves.
“I don’t know. We don’t get ourselves mixed up in those things. Maybe you should hang out with a better circle of friends.” Ridge takes one step closer.
It’s matched with a step from the other guy, the space between them decreasing with each movement.
“I heard it’s not only drugs you’re keeping in the You Store It outside of town.”
The motorcycle boss rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t quite match his persona. “And what else has big bad Ridge Jefferson heard?”
“One of the men got a lead on a shipment of guns making their way from Columbia up to Canada. You know how I feel about my town as a shipping point.”
The motorcycle leader rears back, surprised by the comment. “I’ve done my best to turn this club around the last five years, but you still stand over there and accuse me of running guns. Unless it’s because you want to have trouble.”
Nate steps forward, dropping his hand from my shoulder and passing Emma off to me. I reach out for him but he doesn’t grab my hand. Instead he walks all the way up next to Ridge’s side. He’s followed by a tall guy who leaves Anessa and then another, the name Crispin etched into the pocket of his polo shirt.
“Now, guys,” Nate says, putting his hands out toward each man. “You can’t expect Ridge not to question the guns if you walk onto his property during a barbecue and accuse him of stealing drugs,” Nate says looking at both men. “Everyone has shit in the past they don’t want getting out, but the important thing is we’ve agreed to work together to bring down our mutual threat.”
No one else says anything, and the silence grows, waiting to see where the cards will fall. Nate looks to Ridge. “Right, boss?”
Ridge nods his head but doesn’t speak.
“Right, Dom?” Nate asks the leader of the pack standing opposite of him.
The guy in the leather vest with Mother Fucker on it nods too. “We don’t want any trouble, but I don’t like you bringing it to my backyard either.”
“I didn’t bring anything here. I’m trying to stop the crews who have run this town for years. If we’re going to reclaim it, we have to reclaim it together.”
Dom nods again. “That we do, brother.”
Nate smiles clapping his hands together. “Perfect, what does everyone want to eat? There’s plenty of food for everyone. Right, Tabitha?” Nate asks, searching Tabitha with his eyes and begging her to say yes.
“Of course,” she says an easy smile on her face.
That’s all it takes before the two men both visibly relax, not to a point they trust each other, but enough that the guys standing behind the motorcycle club leader shuffle in our direction and take up spots at one picnic table the furthest away from the others.
Nate makes his way back to me before I follow Tabitha into the house to get more dishes, and I pull on his arm to get his attention. “What’s all that about?”
He smiles. “I’m also a good negotiator. Part of the training.”
And that’s all he says before he laughs, patting Ridge on the back, and takes Emma over to talk to one of the guys in the motorcycle club with the name Ripper on his chest.
“So, this is what young mothers do on a busy Saturday night?” Nate asks. If he hadn’t been chuckling as he questioned my life choices, I would have thought him serious. As it is, the way he smiles and pops another Oreo in his mouth leads me to b
elieve he’s not so upset about spending our evening inside.
I lean closer to the side, resting my head on his shoulder. “It’s not an exciting life, but someone has to make the sacrifice.”
Nate turns, not taking his eyes off the TV and kisses me in the top of my head. “I’ll gladly sacrifice with you.”
My heart melts. Literally like it just goos out of my chest into a puddle on the ground. What man says the right thing to a woman all the time? And at what point is he going to fade away? I can’t stop feeling like my big fairy godmother granted me a wish, but he’ll turn back into a pumpkin at midnight.
We’ve been together pretty much every day and we’ve fallen into a routine. Breakfast in the morning, seeing Nate off to work, playing with Emma, dinner, and then TV before bed.
I’ve never cuddled with a man on the couch before now.
It’s amazing.
I’m dreading going back to work because my days will get crazier and I’ll have less time to see Emma and Nate.
“What are you think about?” Nate asks.
“Nothing,” I lie.
He pulls back, separating us a fraction, but I miss his warmth. “You’re thinking because she just said she’s going to have Italian bricks flown in to complete the patio and you didn’t throw a pillow at the television.”
My mouth drops open, staring at the TV screen, which has already moved to a commercial. “Italian bricks? What kind of budget does she think they have? It will ruin the project.”
“Out with it, Josie. What’s bothering you?”
I smile. I’ve also never had a man concerned with what was bothering me. Everyone has always accepted my “nothing” responses in the past.
“Nothing, I was just thinking of how crappy it will be when I go back to work. I’m gonna miss being home with Emma all day and seeing you.”
He squeezes me with the arm wrapped around my back. “Maybe it will work out and you won’t have to go back. You never know.”
“What does that mean? I like working. I want to keep doing it. I just hate how it interferes with the fun parts of life.” My mind fills with vivid images of getting to be a stay-at-home mom to Nate’s kids, but that won’t happen. I won’t allow myself to be into a situation where I don’t have to work again. It sounds odd, but getting divorced caught me off guard and I wasn’t prepared. I counted on my husband for everything and the day he told me he was leaving, he left me out in the cold with nothing. No job, no savings, and no prospects for the future.
I refuse to let myself fall back into that position ever again, regardless how wonderful the person I’m with treats me at the time.
“What about working part time or something?” His words sound almost hurt as if my response isn’t what he expected. I already only work part time.
I do my best to sit up straighter without leaving his side while I share a bit of my past. “When I found out about the cheating with Barry, it was the scariest time of my life. Not because he cheated — although that sucked — but he left me alone with a small child. I had no job and no job prospects. Nowhere to live and no way to pay the bills. It was like I opened my front door one morning and rather than a yard, I saw the black abyss of my future.”
I stop talking before the emotions run too high and I cry. Getting angry always made me tear up. The more pissed the more tears.
Nate stares and there’s pity in his eyes, which I don’t want from him or anyone else. I’m stronger now than ever before and I’m proud of my growth.
“But I’m happy now. I like my job and we have the apartment.” At the last minute, I leave out the part where if I don’t get back to work soon my savings will end in about four months.
“You’ll find this hard to believe, but I understand.” He squeezes me once again and then lowers the volume on the TV when it turns back to our show. “My dad and mom divorced when I was ten and until then I’d never seen the woman cry. Every time she checked the mail, one of us heard her in the bedroom crying. There’s nothing like being a ten-year-old kid wanting to help your mother and not being able.”
“I’m sorry,” I say because what else is there?
He snorts, but not over what I’ve said. “It sucked for a few years, but like you my mother is strong and she came back happier than ever before. If you talk to her now, she would say the divorce was the best thing to ever happen to her.”
I nod because I can already see how easily it could be true. Restarting and rebuilding my life with Emma was hard. I hope it’s the hardest thing I ever do, but in ways also the best. I wasn’t the person I should have been while married, and being on my own has given me the opportunity to find myself. Now, I’m figuring it all out and deciding what I want to be when I grow up, but at least now I have options.
“I just want you to know that I would never do that to you, Josie. You or Emma.”
This man. I stare up at Nate, and even though I want to trust him, I can’t make myself say the words. They would be a lie. I trusted someone before and look how it ended up for me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Hopefully he doesn’t get mad and storm out.
“It’s okay. One day I’ll earn your trust and I don’t care how long it takes me.”
“I hope you do.” And I mean it was all my heart. I want to trust Nate, but I worry that part of me is broken forever.
He turns back to the television, but it’s a commercial again. “Do you know why I came to work for Ridge?”
I think for a moment. “Because you heard Pelican Bay was a hopping town to live in and you couldn’t wait to meet me?”
He laughs. “Yes, all those reasons, but also because when Ridge talked to me about joining his team, one thing he said stuck out. They were a family. As a child, my family was very close after my dad left. We only had each other and then each of my siblings got married and had kids and I joined the military where I met a new family. In what felt like a heartbeat, it was time for my service to end and I faced my dark future. Nowhere near as scary as yours, but for the first time in my life I had to go out into the world alone without a family.”
I nod because I understand how that could be scary and terrifying. Even for a big tough SEAL.
“Ridge talked about the group of men he wanted to put together and how he considered us a family. At that point I didn’t care how much the pay was or what I had to do. I just wanted to be here and get a new family. Find my people again.”
“And you like them?”
“Ridge and the guys are great, and even though Pelican Bay is smaller than what I thought, I like the town. And the people.”
“We are interesting people. Aren’t we?” I took this apartment because it was cheapest and available, but I always planned to move closer to Clearwater where I work. However, after experiencing Pelican Bay, I changed my plans, deciding instead to look for something by the ocean.
“There’s one thing I didn’t plan for when I moved here. For the first time in my life, being surrounded by a group of SEALS isn’t enough family. I’d like to start my own.”
My stomach clenches in anticipation of what his words mean. Is it wrong of me to get so excited about a new relationship after my divorce? I told myself no more dating because men only caused problems, but I’d consider tossing it out the window for Nate. Could a man as nice, caring, and cute as Nate want to start a family with someone like me who already has a daughter and an ex-husband? He could find a beautiful, no baggage woman.
“Don’t freak out. I’m not asking you to marry me,” he says with a smile. “Although the way your body is tense right now, I’m a little worried if I ever popped the question.”
I laugh, trying to cover up my fears, and push against his chest. “We haven’t been together long enough to have the family talk.” Even though I wish we could. If only Nate and I had met before I had a past knocking at my back door.
“It is too soon. I’m not making any promises right now, but I want you to know where I’m coming from. Josie, I’m not looking for a two
-month stand. I promise I wouldn’t be in Emma’s life if I didn’t plan to be here a while, and I want to be in both your lives for as long as possible.”
Hearing him say he wants to be in our lives creates another little crack in the wall formed in my chest keeping me from trusting. It’s too soon.
Neither of us are ready to say the words yet, but I hope he has found a family in Emma and me. I never thought I could be taken with a person — especially after the divorce — but as corny as it sounds Nate and I have a connection. Being with him doesn’t make me feel like I have to fill every second with mindless chatter. I don’t have to dress up and look perfect every time he’s in the room. With him I can be myself. It’s as if before I met him, I was running around looking for the second half of my soul. Now that Nate is here, I’ve been stitched back together. It’s a weird feeling I can’t escape even though my brain isn’t ready to accept I’m ready to love again. The L-word was supposed to be far away in my distant future, not staring at me in the face while sitting on my couch.
But the emotions become too much and the topic too heavy. The room fills with the silence between us as I process what he said. It’s too much for me to handle right now, so rather than jump into his lap and tell him yes please take me away, I laugh pretending the moment is lighthearted even though it isn’t. At least not for me.
“I have so much family that if you stick around, you’ll regret those words. The only thing my mother loves more than hating people is helping make them better.”
Nate laughs, sticking to my ploy of lightening the mood. “What you’re saying is I can expect to wear a lot of khakis in my future?”
I start to say yes but stop myself. “No, I want you to be who you are.” No one should have to change for my mother, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care if she likes Nate or not. I like him and that’s good enough for me. I’m the one who has to live with the choices I make, so I’m the only one who gets a say in them from now on.
Lifetime Risk (Pelican Bay Security Book 7) Page 10
