Caballo Security Box Set

by Camilla Blake

  I gasped a little, those words cutting through what was left of my self-control. “Why, Brock? Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you come to California like you said you would?”

  “Things changed,” he said, shuffling his feet.

  “What changed? Did you stop loving me?”

  He choked a little, forcing him to stand a little straighter. “It was a long time ago, Eva.”

  “Not so long ago. Not for me.”

  He tucked the long hair on the left side of his face behind his ear, studying me with that one eye. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to do that.”

  “Then why did you?”

  He shook his head, something about the movement breaking my heart. I moved close, reached up to touch the cheek still hidden under all that dark hair. Before he shook his head, before he moved out of my reach, my fingers touched something that wasn’t human, wasn’t flesh.

  Puzzled, I moved closer, trapping him against the vehicle. I brushed the hair away from his face, revealing a thin, almost perfectly flesh-colored piece of plastic that covered the majority of the right side of his face. I frowned, catching the edge of it with my thumbnail. Just as he brushed my hand away, a bit of twisted, damaged skin revealed itself.

  “What happened?”

  “It was a fire.” He shook his head, allowing his hair to fall in front of his face again. “Not long after you left, a group of my classmates came to the apartment to study. I went out for a six-pack—you know we couldn’t study without a six-pack—and the place just exploded as I came back. I was on the steps, just a yard or two from the apartment door. The blast threw me backward, onto the front yard, burning debris falling all around me. I didn’t care, didn’t realize that I was already hurt. My friends were in there and I could hear them screaming, could hear Mrs. Lazarette next door screaming for help… It was a mess. Only four of the seven of us survived.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “My face and upper torso, both arms and hands all suffered second- and third-degree burns. The doctors said it was a miracle I survived.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  He shook his head, kicking his toe against the asphalt. “You’d just begun your career. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

  “To hell with that! Jesus, Brock, don’t you know I don’t care about that? I only got into it because of you. I only stuck with it because you encouraged me to! And I only stayed in Los Angeles because you broke my fucking heart!”

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you come find me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why did you let me think that you just didn’t want me anymore?”

  “I tried. I went to Los Angeles once, looked you up. You were on the beach, doing a photo shoot for Victoria’s Secret. You were so beautiful, and you seemed so happy! I couldn’t take that away from you, not again.”

  “I would have welcomed you into my life. I would have made a place for you.”

  “But I didn’t want that.” He tilted his head slightly, enough to expose that one eye again. “I wanted you to go on with your life, and you have. I wanted you to find happiness, and you have. Haven’t you?”

  When he said that, the only thing I could think of was Akker, the only thing my mind could focus on was his face. I bit my lip, feeling like the worst person ever, choosing the undamaged brother over the one I’d grieved for so long. But then I realized it wasn’t his face I’d fallen in love with. Akker and Brock were twins, and they’d once looked exactly like one another. But they were two different men, formed by two very different sets of experiences. Once upon a time, it was Brock my world revolved around. But now, it wasn’t so much about needing an axis to hook my world to; it was about a mutually respectful relationship. I was a different person from who I was when I was with Brock. So was he. Maybe more so than me.

  I took his hands in mine and held them for a long moment, staring down at the way my pale skin looked against his dark gloves.

  “I loved you so much. I think I’ll always love you.”

  “I love you, too, Eva. I just… I’m not what you need. Maybe I never was.”

  “You were once. And I will forever be grateful for all you did for me back then. But now…”

  “It’s Akker now, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, tears blurring my vision as I looked at him. “But he won’t unless he knows you are okay with it.” I squeezed his hands. “I think we both would understand if you couldn’t go there.”

  Brock was quiet for a long moment, then he pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me. It was such a familiar feeling, such a warm, secure feeling. He was thinner than he’d once been, and his scent was different. But he was Brock, he was my first love, my first… everything.

  I was so glad to finally be able to come back to this place, to let go of the anger and the grief and to move on. To truly move on. And to embrace that love once again.

  Chapter 18

  Akker

  The funeral was a quiet, somber thing. As it probably should have been.

  I stood beside my daughter, touched by the number of friends Marnie had. Men and women of all walks showed up to the service, more coming to the graveside service. Noah cried like a baby despite everything, grieving like a man who’d lost the soulmate he’d spent forty years loving. And Josie… I was a little worried about Josie. She was quiet. She didn’t spill a single tear.

  “They’re going to be saying very upsetting things about your mom in the press for a while,” I’d told her the morning after. “If there’s anything you don’t understand or you want clarity on, you come to me or Noah. Promise?”

  She’d nodded, but hadn’t commented. And she hadn’t said a word since.

  To her credit, Eva’s publicity team had done a phenomenal job of keeping most of the details out of the press. The public knew that Marnie had died in Eva’s hotel suite, and they knew that four people had been charged with stalking and attempted murder against Eva. But the true details, the fact that it was all Marnie’s idea, the fact that Marnie was sleeping with the two men who tried to shoot Eva on the River Walk, the fact that Eva and I had both been in the suite when Marnie died, had all been kept from the papers. It might come out later, especially if any of her coconspirators went to court, but that was later. This was now.

  As the wake died down, I pulled Josie aside. “How you holding up?”

  She shrugged. “It’s strange, you know? I always knew she was a little weird, but I never imagined… I never thought it would get her dead. I always just assumed she’d go to jail or something someday.”

  I stared at this child and realized for the first time that she wasn’t really a child anymore. I pulled her into my arms and held her tight, needing to keep her from growing up any more than she already had.

  Josie stayed with Noah, showing once again her level of maturity in the fact that she recognized that he needed her more than I did. I drove to my apartment, feeling a profound sense of sadness that was combined with this sense of loneliness. Despite the fact that it was incredibly dysfunctional, Marnie and Josie had been my family for fifteen years—the only real family I ever really had. Now it felt as though it was all dissipating, drying up and blowing away. And that made me sad.

  I drove into the parking garage under my building and rode the elevator up to the tenth floor, wondering if I should have taken some of the casseroles that now filled Noah’s oversized freezer. I hadn’t been home in days, didn’t even know if there was anything in my fridge.

  “Hey.”

  Drawn out of my thoughts, I realized my brother was standing at my apartment door, watching me through his ever-present veil of hair.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to apologize for not coming to the funeral.”

  “I don’t think anyone expected you to.”

  “Yes, well, I should have at least made an appearance at the wake. For Josie’s sake, if nothing else.”

&
nbsp; “Josie’s fine. In fact, I think she’s handling all this better than the rest of us.”

  “She’s always been more mature than the rest of us.”

  Leave it to my brother to understand my daughter better than me.

  I unlocked the door, and gestured for Brock to enter with me. He shook his head. “I can’t stay. I just… I wanted to touch base, let you know I spoke to Eva.”

  That made me stop. I stood there in the doorway of my apartment and studied my brother, what I could see of his broken face. “Did you tell her everything? About the fire and the choices you made?”

  “We talked for hours the other day, and then again today. I think we talked about everything, even things I never expected to think about again, let alone flesh out and put to bed.”

  “That’s good.” I nodded, forcing myself to believe my words. It was good. They had a past and it was only right that they reconnect, forgive each other for misunderstandings and hurts that were growing older every day. It was good for them, for Brock’s mental health and Eva’s happiness. Those were things I wanted for them.

  So why did it feel like a knife twisting in my back?

  “She understands that I made the choices I did for us both. She was angry with me at first, I think, but she’s good with it now. She understands.”

  “That’s good.”

  Brock smiled. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Brock waved his hands, showing a surprising bit of indifference. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that. She said it was important for you to know that we’ve dealt with our past and we’ve both agreed that we’re better for the experience, but okay with where our lives are now.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I might have known her first, but the person I knew was a young girl whose mother had just died. She’s not that person now. And she doesn’t need me anymore.”

  “Brock—”

  “I appreciate you putting me before you this time, Akker, I do. But the thing is, what happened between you and me all those years ago was different. It was a childish thing, a stupid mistake that became so much more than it ever should have. I should have been there for you back then, not the other way around. We let each other down.” He dropped his hand on my shoulder, jarring my healing wound. “But none of us are those people anymore. Not you and not me. I would never stand between you and happiness. I hope you realize that.”

  He slapped my shoulder once more. “Goodnight, Akker.”

  I watched him go, wondering what the hell had just happened. But then my attention was pulled away, shifted to the beautiful woman walking in my direction. Her expression was filled with uncertainty as she watched me.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came back for the funeral, but I lost my nerve. I couldn’t just show up and—”

  “Why would you want to come to the funeral after everything she did to you?”

  “For you, you idiot!”

  “Eva—”

  “I don’t know what happened between us. I don’t know if I just got carried away because I was scared and you made me not scared anymore. Or maybe it was just because you reminded me of him—I don’t think so, but maybe. But I want to find out. I want to know what being with you feels like. I want to know what loving you will be like.”

  I groaned. “Eva, I—”

  “And Brock and I, we talked for hours and hours, and I know that I will always care for him, but it’s not like this; it’s not the same as I feel when I look at you! He’s different from you, so different, and I’m different from who I once was, and I—”

  “Eva, shut up!”

  I grabbed her face between my hands and tugged her toward me, staring into her big, beautiful eyes, the sight such a sweet relief that I couldn’t even describe it. I’d thought of her so often over the last few days that it bordered on obsession. And now she was here and all I wanted was—

  “Kiss me before I explode!”

  A woman after my own heart.

  ~~~

  BROCK

  Chapter 1

  Luna

  “Call your families, your lovers, your babysitters! We’re not leaving until every one of these things is done! Understand?”

  Loud groans filled the room, followed by multiple under-the-breath curses that included a few mutterings of “Bitch!” tagged on. I ignored them even as I let my eyes move slowly over all the familiar faces there in that room. Some of these people had worked with me since we opened the doors four years ago, but most were short-termers, here for less than a year, some for only a few months or even weeks. The work was demanding and few people could hack it. And fewer still were trustworthy with the expensive materials we tended to use.

  Let them be angry. As long as the work got done, I didn’t really care.

  “Paris is four days away. We have to be ready with these prototypes. Get to work!”

  I turned my back on the anger and the dirty looks, taking the three steps into my office with as much grace and dignity as I could muster, but when I sat behind my drawing table, all the steel went out of my body. I wanted to curl up in my bed at home and hide under the covers, pretend the world didn’t exist outside those four walls.

  I made jewelry. I began at my student’s desk in my childhood bedroom, spending hours taking apart costume jewelry I bought at the discount store down the road, putting it all back together in a mix-matched style that my friends loved. I took that little hobby and turned it into a million-dollar business that made me wealthy beyond my greatest dreams. I nearly gave up my dreams when life didn’t go quite the way I thought it would, but then… jewelry couldn’t talk back, it couldn’t hate you for being yourself around it. Jewelry wouldn’t let you down.

  Jewelry became the only friend I wanted or needed. Twenty-two and I was already jaded, already the kind of adult I used to make fun of as a child.

  I had everything I’d wanted when I was young. I’d dreamt of making enough money to buy my dad a nice house, to buy myself all the shoes a girl could ever use and more, of buying myself a nice car. I did. Daddy lived in a lovely ranch-style house three blocks over from my classic colonial in the Alamo Heights section of San Antonio. I had Christian Louboutin, Balenciaga, Valentino Garavani, Saint Laurent, and Prada pumps, boots, sandals, and whatever else was made to go on the foot. And I wore all these while driving a Porsche Panamera.

  Not bad for a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in a place that the word slums didn’t do justice to.

  I should be happy. I should be over-the-moon happy with the life I’d built for myself. I wasn’t.

  Things change when you break out of the place where you grew up, when you become something better than you once were. People want to be your friend because of what you can do for them, not because of who you are. Trust becomes a new sort of thing; it develops a new definition that you never imagined you would have to learn. It was like the life I lived before I became successful no longer existed. The thing was, though, it still existed for me. And I wasn’t going to forget just because someone wanted to make amends they didn’t really mean.

  A tap on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. I unfolded myself from the stool where I was sitting and pulled it open, eyeing the woman standing there.

  “What do you want, Angela?”

  My tall, unhappy floor supervisor crossed her arms over her ample breasts, looking down her flat nose at me. “We need the stones.”

  “You can’t be ready for those just yet.”

  “We are, ma’am. Jenny’s making some real progress.”

  I shook my head, finding it hard to believe her. I pushed past her and walked down to the floor, storming up to one particular workbench. A petite, dark-haired woman was bending over a magnifying glass, using her teeny tools to adjust a bit of silver on the oval pendant meant for a simple diamond necklace. I studied the work, comparing it to the sketch I’d drawn m
yself months ago that was sitting on the desk beside the technical drawings that would be sent to the manufacturer when these pieces were purchased by one of our potential buyers. The work was beautiful, better than I’d imagined when I designed it.

  “You should make sure all your work is quality. I don’t want to present faulty work to a potential buyer, especially not at Fashion Week in Paris.”

  “I’ve double-checked everything, Ms. Walsh.”

  “Check it again. Then start on the next piece. I’ll place the stones myself.”

  “Ms. Walsh, don’t you think it would be better—”

  I kept walking, not bothering to stop and hear what this woman thought might be better. It was my business. I was going to do things my way, so why bother listening to other opinions.

  “Ms. Walsh,” Angela said in a tone that told me she wasn’t interested in being ignored, “with the time crunch before Paris, don’t you think it would be best to allow the artists to put the stones on themselves?”

  “If they finish by tomorrow afternoon, as they are expected to do, there will be plenty of time for me to put the stones in before we pack them up for the trip.”

  “But—”

  “Do you really think I’m going to trust a roomful of resentful employees with a handful of stones worth more than I pay these people in a year? Hardly.”

  “Ms. Walsh—”

  “I’m not discussing it any further with you, Angela. You just make sure your artists are done with their work by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I went into my office and slammed the door, making it clear I didn’t want to be disturbed. All this talk about the stones, however, made me nervous. I’d mortgaged everything I owned the first time I bought stones for my jewelry, but that was four years ago, back when I’d only sold a few hundred pieces, mostly from a table next to the various street-level entrances to the River Walk. Now, purchasing these stones wasn’t as big of a deal because I had credit with some of the most reliable experts in the business. But if they were lost or stolen before I could get a contract with a buyer, that would be a whole different story.