“Be good,” I tell the girls, kissing them one by one on the cheek. “Listen to your mom and grandma. A lot of things are going on right now, and we want to make sure neither one of you get hurt. That’s our number one goal.”
“But what about you?” Harley asks as she looks up at me.
This kid, she gets me every time she sees more than she should. “I’m gonna be fine,” I say it with enough confidence that even I believe it. “I can protect myself. I’m more worried about the four of you.”
“Because we’re women?” Justice asks.
Women. She’s a damn child, but I can tell by the look on her face this is important to her. “Not just because you’re women, but because all of you are mine. You’re my family, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
A smile spreads across her face, and I know I’ve said the right thing. With girls, I never know for sure, and this makes me pat myself mentally on the back. It’s hard to be the type of guy who wants to protect them, but also wants them to think for themselves. I do the best I can every single day, but I know I fail more often than I succeed.
“I love you, Dad.” She wraps her arms around my waist. “Love you too. I gotta go to work, but I’ll see you ladies later.”
Charity makes her way over to me, giving me a firm kiss on the lips, smoothing my cut and shirt for me. It’s such a couple thing to do. “Be careful. As much as you care about us, I care about you. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you. This works both ways, babe.”
“I know.” I give her a hotter kiss, palming the globe of her ass.
We break apart. Looking around, I notice we’re alone, so I give myself a few more minutes with her. Touching our noses, I place a light peck against her lips. “Remember that day we were out on the screened-in porch?”
I feel her lips spreading wide in a grin as she recalls our teenage embarrassment. “Oh my God!” She giggles, putting her forehead against mine, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’ll never forget all the noise your dad made as he walked up the stairs of the front porch. It felt like a million years, waiting for him to come inside.”
“I have to give him credit.” I run my hands up her back, pushing them under her hair, my fingers through the strands. “I don’t think I could do that with the girls. If I knew there was a guy with them, the way I was with you.” I shake my head. “The things they would be thinking about.”
She shakes her head along with mine, never letting our foreheads break apart. “Luckily for you, he was your dad and not mine. But call it curiosity or just wanting to travel down memory lane. What were you thinking?”
“How fuckin’ hot you were. You were the hottest girl in the school, but smart as hell too. I knew you would go so much further than Bowling Green, but I never thought you’d come back.”
Charity makes a noise in her throat. “When I was gone I missed you. Every guy I dated never lived up to you, and I compared every single one of them, but I knew I had to leave. I had to grow up. We both did, otherwise we never would have made it much further than what we were.”
“You leaving allowed me to appreciate you so much more when you came back.” I nuzzle her neck. “I thank God every day you came back. Which is why I’m pissed as hell somebody is messing with our lives. It took us longer than I would have liked to get them started.”
“You’ll figure out for sure who it is,” she whispers. “I have so much faith in you.”
“More than I’ve ever had in myself,” I whisper back to her.
Our lips meet again, I let it get a little out of hand for my parents’ living room, just because I can. Pulling away, I breathe in deeply, before letting it right back out. “I better get to work.”
“You should.” She grins, putting her fingers in the belt loops of my jeans. “Since my office imploded, you’re the one bringing home the bacon.”
Her playfulness is exactly what I need this morning. It keeps me from taking myself and the situation too serious. “I’ll be bringing home more than bacon if you don’t move your hands.”
The blush across her cheeks is cute as hell and makes me lean in again, giving her another kiss, nipping at her bottom lip, shamelessly. “I’ll see you ladies tonight. Don’t go home until I get back, and don’t go anywhere without an escort. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
It’s a superhuman effort to leave her. Our fingers remained entwined until they can’t any longer, and I’m at the door. “Be safe, Drew.”
“I will, I love you.”
She blows me a kiss, and as I close the door, I make a vow that things will be back to normal as quickly as possible.
Chapter Fifteen
Drew
Everyone thinks I’m going to work today, but I’m actually going to meet Dalton. He and I, we need to have a conversation, and we need to have it without others seeing or hearing it.
Since he moved, we’ve been meeting at his and Mandy’s home. This is something I don’t want to bring to their front door, so we decide to meet someplace else today.
A grove of trees near his house is our designated spot, which is far enough away from our regular stomping grounds no one should be seeing us. Dalton and Mandy live in another damn county, so if someone from the club is out here, especially since I know they don’t have any business here, heads will roll. As I pull into the field, I see him already waiting on me.
“Morning,” he greets as I get off my bike, pushing the kickstand down.
“Morning,” I answer, taking my gloves and helmet off. “Sorry, I had a hell of a time leaving today. Harley wanted to ride on the bike, Charity gave me shit, and it’s been one thing after another.”
He makes a non-comital sound in his throat, which causes me to look up. There’s a smile on his face that can’t be missed. “What are you so happy about? Kentucky get a good football team?” I joke around.
He shakes his head with an even wider grin. “Mandy will kill me for telling you, but we just found out she’s pregnant. Like she’s early, early pregnant. Like it’s a couple of days before her missed period, pregnant. She took one of those early tests.”
“Dude, that’s amazing.” I lean over, hugging him tightly, a smile spread across my face. I will never say no to a new niece or nephew.
No matter what’s going on with the club, our friendship is still strong and always will be if I have anything to say about it.
“We’ve been trying for a while, took us longer than we thought it would, but we’re happy.”
“Shit, there should be some happiness around this place. Lately we ain’t seen enough of it. When all this is over, that’ll be the exciting thing we can all celebrate.”
He takes a cigarette from the hardpack in his pocket, handing it to me. “I guess we should get down to business then.”
“Yeah, the sooner we get this shit figured out, the better. I’ve got kids being affected by this. Mandy is pregnant. I’m sick of it disrupting our lives, and I know we’re getting closer. If we weren’t, they wouldn’t have hit Charity’s office. That was meant to be a scare tactic.”
“He did a damn good job of it,” Dalton takes a long drag off his cigarette. “So who are you thinking is the mole?”
There has been so much going through my head the last few weeks and months, but especially since yesterday when I faced off with the guy at Charity’s office, and one thing has become very clear to me. The person doing this has access to almost everything, but the one thing they don’t have access to is Charity’s client emails, because of the privacy laws.
“Travis,” I say the name without hesitation.
“Do you really think so?” Dalton asked, surprise obvious in his voice.
“Yes, it has to be someone who knows almost everything about us. He’s basically the conductor of our orchestra. He makes sure people are where they need to be, things are updated as they should be, and he keeps an eye on everyone all the time. The only things he’s not into Charity’s private
emails is because of her business.” I run a hand through my hair. “Today when I was riding with Harley, I whistled, and she asked me where I learned to do that. I asked her why, and she said because Jagger taught Christine how to do it.”
“Which makes sense as to why someone would email her a clue like they did. He wouldn’t be able to see it,” he comments, thinking through what I just told him. “So are you thinking Jagger or Christine is The Whistler?”
“I’m not sure, but I think we’re on to a good theory. I’m obviously not happy about this, and it’s going to take some digging to get to the bottom of what he’s doing, but we just need to be patient.” I take a long drag off my cigarette.
“Patience isn’t my virtue,” he laughs.
“Mine either, but we have a lot of people counting on us. A lot of important people. Dad and Tyler wouldn’t rush this. They’d wait and let this play out, but it’s going to be a hell of a wait. They left us in charge for a reason, and I don’t want them to regret it.”
He’s quiet for a few minutes, probably running things over in his head, wondering how we’re going to fix this situation. He rubs his beard with his free hand. “You think we should tell them about it? Bring them in on it, in case we need help?”
I’ve given it some thought too. “My gut says yes, but my head says no, I want them to know they can trust us. They’ve turned over their life’s work to us, and I don’t wanna fuck it up the first time we have friction.”
“Yeah, but your gut is never wrong, and they have experience with this, Drew. We don’t. We’re flying fucking blind here.”
I understand what he’s saying, but there’s a part of me that wants to impress my dad, wants to show him we can do this without them always being there for back up. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since this all started, it’s they won’t be around forever. “Let’s give it a few days, and if we still haven’t gotten as far as we figure we should, we can pull them in on it. Fair enough?”
I can tell he wants to argue, but most times he leaves the decision-making to me. “Alright.” He nods. “But if it looks like we’re getting into something we can’t handle. We’re calling them in.”
“Agreed.”
Plan of attack made, he leaves our meet-up spot. I’m not too far behind him, but when I drive by their house and see Mandy’s SUV still in the driveway, I can’t help but stop.
“Why aren’t you at the shop?”
“A hello would be nice, or how about come in?” I poke the bear as she opens the door for me. Turning her back, she picks up a few toys and I carefully close the door behind me.
“Be sure and re-engage the child lock. Walker’s learned how to turn all of them, and I swear to God one day I’m going to find him out on the road, lookin’ for some damn trouble to get into.”
The little stinker walks up to me. “Drew!” Reaching down, I grab him up in my arms, holding him on my hip. “You giving everybody around here a damn heart attack?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head, innocent looking.
“He’s lying to you.” Mandy tilts her head at him, a look of disbelief on her face.
“From what Dalton said, sounds like you’ll have a busier household in a few months.”
She groans, her face flaming. “He wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.”
“Anybody?” I put Walker down, holding my chest. “I’m your brother. Your twin brother. How can you think about not telling me is the better question here?”
“I don’t know.” She puts her hand on her forehead. “It just took us so long to get pregnant this time, I was starting to feel like it wouldn’t happen, and I was upset about it.” She shrugs. “I know it’s stupid. We have him.” She points to Walker. “And I should be happy with the life we have, but I’ve always wanted one more.”
Throwing my arms around her neck, I hold her close. “I’m sorry you struggled, but I’m really excited for you and I’ll keep it quiet. You know, except for telling Charity.” I let her go, running a hand through my hair.
She rolls her eyes. “Charity has known for three days. I took the test at the office. She keeps secrets better than you.”
The way Mandy says it sends a shiver down my spine. I know my wife isn’t keeping secrets from me, but after the issues we’ve had in the club, it still hits me in probably the wrong way.
“Hey, I’m kidding.” Mandy grabs hold of my shirt as I turn around. “She wouldn’t keep super important stuff from you, but I did ask her to respect my privacy.”
“I get it, I’m just on edge right now.”
“We all are, and I hope it ends soon.”
“Me too kiddo.” I grin when she scoffs at the nickname. “Me too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Charity
“How has Drew been handling it?” Denise asks as we sit on her screened-in porch. I have my laptop with me because I truly intended to work, but now that we’re talking, I’m not sure I can concentrate on what I need to. “He doesn’t talk to me. Not about this, and I won’t ask Liam. I don’t want to break any of the trust they have in each other. If I do get up the courage to ask Drew, he just smiles and says there’s nothing for me to worry about. Which pisses me off. Of course there’s shit for me to worry about.”
Mandy has been the only person I’ve really been able to discuss things with, and even then I haven’t told her much. I don’t want her to get involved, and there’s no way for me to know what Dalton’s told her.
“Not great,” I admit. “He’s not sleeping well, he’s having dreams, and he’s losing weight. I think he’s spending more time inside his head than he has since we were in high school.”
She takes a drink of her sweet tea. Her hair is beginning to show signs of aging, even though she’s meticulous in getting it cut and colored. It chills me to the bone to realize how much we’re growing up, how much time is just passing us by that we’ll never be able to get back. All because we’re living in fear. “That’s never a good place for him to be. He gets way too caught up in all the things that don’t make sense.”
I grin. “But they make perfect sense to him.”
“Since he was a little kid, he’s been too serious.” Denise takes another drink of her tea. “Between the two of them, back when we didn’t have any money, he was the one who would worry. He’d give up his food to let Mandy eat.” Her voice is faraway, like she’s remembering a time she can barely believe happened. “Not that Mandy ever knew it, but he’s always taken care of the people in his life. He doesn’t know how to let it go, and I can just imagine how he’s feeling with everything out of his control.”
“It’s like he’s holding on with two hands, digging his feet in, and it’s still running away from him,” I agree with her.
“Mamaw, can we bake a cake?” Justice comes running out on the porch.
Baking isn’t my thing, but the girls hung out with Harper over Spring Break, and they learned they loved baking. Denise enjoys it, which isn’t to say she’s good at it, but she’s better than me.
“Can we bake a cake?” She lets the inflection in her voice show how excited she is they’ve asked. “Yes! We can bake a cake.”
I watch Justice run off, wishing I could be as carefree as her.
“You wanna come with us?”
Part of me does, but the other part of me knows this is something they do with Denise, and only with Denise. Since I never had a close relationship with anyone in my family besides my mom, I like to encourage theirs. “Nah, I’ll get some work done. You ladies have fun.”
I finish my sweating glass of sweet tea, enjoying the morning, listening to the sounds of the birds, before it gets way too hot. The world is blissfully going on, not realizing the turmoil we’ve lived in for the past year. Opening my laptop, I get down to business.
The thought makes me laugh. If I want to stay in business after all the shit that’s happened, I’m definitely going to have to do some work. The problem is, I don’t want to. Maybe my love of the law is sta
rting to wane, I don’t know, or maybe it’s stress, but I’m not looking forward to spending the day with my nose in this screen, trying to get caught up from something that wasn’t my fault.
Opening my email program, I crack my knuckles and get to sorting. One email in particular catches my eye.
I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I was hoping to let everyone know who the mole is before now, but I think he’s on to me. Please know I’ve tried to help everyone I can, and if you think I’m angry, I’m not. I pray you find him soon.
The Whistler
“Why the fuck won’t you just tell me who he is?”
I say the words aloud, as I type them in a reply message. This needs to be over, and if they have the means to finish it, I don’t know why they won’t. When the message comes back as undeliverable, I slam my palm against the table, sloshing the ice around at the bottom of my glass.
I’m beginning to figure out why Drew’s been so frustrated.
“What did that table ever do to you?”
I glance up, seeing Liam walking through the doorway. “Nothing.” I grin. “I’m just irritated.”
“We all are, sweetheart. We all are.”
If there’s one person I trust other than my husband, it’s Liam. “I got another email.” I turn the laptop around, letting him read it.
“If they’ve been found out, then they’re in more danger than we know.” Liam strokes his beard, those blue eyes of his showing different emotions as he works through what’s going on in his head.
“But what do you suggest?” I ask. “How do we get them to feel comfortable enough to tell us who this is?”
“Obviously it’s someone we know.” He talks it through with me. “So we need to put them in some sort of situation where they aren’t the focal point.”
An idea hits me, causing me to lean forward with excitement. “Do you think Drew will agree to a cookout? You know like a beginning of summer thing for everybody? It’s been a while since we’ve done anything like that. It will bring everyone together, and while we have everybody together, we can start trying to see if anyone acts suspicious.”
Fury (Heaven Hill Generations Book 3) Page 8
