Hard to Let Go

by Laura Kaye

  She smacked his butt and laughed. “Shut up. You’re not supposed to brag.”

  “I’m not?” He watched her open a few of the containers and steal a piece of broccoli from the Drunken Noodles. “Why not?”

  She smirked at him. “Because it’s . . . smuggy.”

  Beckett grinned. “See, I wore you out so much you’re making up words.”

  “Oh, my God. Let’s eat, already.” They settled at one corner of the table rather than across from one another, the table so small their knees touched. But Kat didn’t seem to mind. “Thanks for getting plates and everything. I should be the one doing all this, though. I kinda fell down on my hostess duties.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind. It was nice to take a walk.” Except for nearly plowing over a guy on the street. What the hell had that been about anyway? His gut went ice cold. “Hold on a minute,” he said, getting back up and going to his duffel on the coffee table. He always carried some kind of go-bag with him when he traveled—a bag of necessities and survival gear in case he ever found himself in a situation where he needed to disappear fast.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, following him.

  He pulled out the mobile bug detection device he’d given Kat to use after the meeting at the coffee shop. “Some guy smacked into me on the street.” Beckett flicked the power switch and slowly scanned the small black rectangle over his arm, shoulder, chest, and stomach. Not even a little blip of reacting lights.

  “Did he hurt you?” Kat asked, stepping closer. Her face was set in a frown.

  “Run this over my back?” he said, handing it to her. She took it and moved behind him. “No, I’m fine. Honestly, I didn’t think twice about it on the street.” Beckett sighed. “But, given everything, I should’ve done this the minute I returned.”

  “It’s not picking anything up,” she said, turning it off and placing it on top of his bag. “Better safe than sorry, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Beckett stroked his fingers down her cheek, hating the concern he saw there when she’d been so open and playful moments before. At least he’d put his mind at rest about it, though. “Sorry.”

  Kat smiled and shrugged. “No worries. Come on, let’s eat.”

  Back at the table, they filled their plates with Drunken Noodles, Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, and Basil Shrimp.

  “Everything’s so good, Beckett. Thank you. All great choices,” Kat said, spearing a shrimp.

  “Yeah?” How stupid was it that her comment made him feel so good? “Welcome.” He struggled for something to talk about. Outside of this whole situation, did they even have anything in common? Actually, they did have at least one thing—Nick. “What was it like growing up with Nick?” he finally asked.

  Kat’s grin was immediate. “I am a girl with two older brothers. It was pure torture.” They laughed, and she wiped her mouth and took a drink. “Actually, they weren’t that bad, I suppose. Nick walked a fine line with me between being awesomely protective and overbearingly so. Jeremy was just as chill growing up as he is now, and every bit as flirtatious, too. Our family did a lot together, vacations, Sunday dinners, game and movie nights, so we were all pretty close.”

  “Sounds nice,” Beckett said. He took a big bite of noodles and wondered what it would be like to be a part of a family like that.

  “It was,” she said, a warm, affectionate smile on her face. “Nick shocked the hell out of Mom and Dad when he decided to go into the Army, though. Holy crap, I still remember that night.” She paused for a bite of the Pad See Ew. “It was fall semester of his senior year of college. He took a leave of absence without discussing it with them first. I’m surprised my father didn’t stroke out from how mad he was.”

  “That was after September eleventh, wasn’t it?” Beckett remembered Nick telling this story.

  Kat nodded. “Yeah. Stupid, brave boy. I understood why he wanted to do it, but when I think about the night he told us, I can still feel the flutter of fear in my chest. I was half convinced he’d go and never come back.” She pushed the noodles around on her plate. “And that almost happened.”

  Beckett laid his hand on her arm. “Big difference between almost and actual, Kat. He’s back and he’s good.” What he didn’t say was there was also a big difference between being back and actually living. A lot of guys had difficulty adjusting to the real world when they got out, which was why some people suffered problems like Easy’s. Beckett couldn’t say he’d done the best job of transitioning himself, as evidenced by his nearly empty house, lack of friends, and the general isolation he’d built into his post-Army life. What he was doing right here—having dinner with a girl he really liked—wasn’t something he’d done in longer than he wanted to admit. Hookups? Yes. A dinner date? Not in a long, long time.

  “Yeah. You’re right. Especially now that he’s found Becca.”

  Smiling, Beckett nodded. “She has the uncanny ability to chill his ass right out.”

  Kat chuckled. “Yes, she does. You gotta love her for it.”

  “She’s good people. Her and Charlie, both,” Beckett said, thinking how strange it was that once, Frank Merritt had been a central part of his life. Now his kids were. And had Frank never died, Beckett probably never would’ve met Becca and Charlie.

  Life had a twisted sense of humor sometimes. That was for damn sure.

  “Oh, I’m stuffed,” Kat sat, dropping her napkin on her plate.

  “You hardly ate anything,” Beckett said, frowning.

  “I had some of everything. Besides, I have to leave a little room for ice cream.” She grinned.

  “What is it with you Rixeys and ice cream, anyway?” Because Nick and Jeremy had such a fixation that their freezer often stocked a dozen different flavors.

  Her eyes went wide. “It’s ice cream,” she said, as if that explained everything. Beckett chuckled. “Growing up, our mom would throw impromptu ice cream sundae parties on Saturday nights. Multiple flavors, candy toppings, chocolate and caramel sauce, whipped cream, cherries, the works.” She braced her chin on her hand. “God, that was fun. My mom was good like that. She could make totally ordinary things seem like the most fun you’d ever have.”

  “Sounds like you miss her.”

  “I do,” she said, and then her gaze dropped to the table. A whole lotta fast blinking, and—

  “Hey, are you . . . come here,” he said, catching a glance of the glassiness in her eyes. He pushed back his seat, grasped her hand and tugged her into his lap. Those long brown eyelashes were wet with unshed tears. “God, Kat, I’m sorry.”

  Sitting on his lap, she shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said, her voice thick. “Sometimes it sneaks up on me just how much I miss her. I never mind talking about her, though. If I ever have kids and I manage to be half the mother she was, I’ll be great.”

  Beckett took her chin in his fingers. “You’re gonna be a fantastic mom.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Not even a question,” he said. He genuinely meant that, but then his thoughts went on a little trip. Because, in order to have kids, she’d have to get pregnant. And in order to get pregnant, she’d have to have sex with a guy. And he sure as fuck did not like the idea of her having sex with any other man.

  But kids weren’t something he’d ever let himself think much about.

  And, cart before the horse much? Because a few days of fantastic sex in no way equaled having a family.

  It’s more than sex.

  Yeah, okay. Probably. But still . . .

  “You gonna have some ice cream with me?” she said, her breath ticklish against his throat.

  Beckett chuckled. “Well, who says no to ice cream?”

  She sat upright, smiling. “Right? And thank you.” Kat kissed him on the cheek, slid off his lap, and cleared her plate. “Take your time finishing up. I’ll grab everything we need.”

  Minutes later, Beckett was done with his dinner, and Kat had loaded down the table with bowls, spoons, ice cr
eam scoops, tubs of ice cream, candy, and a container of chocolate sauce.

  She held out her hands, clearly proud of herself. “We’re making sundaes.”

  Smiling, Beckett nodded. “I see that.” But he was more pleased than he let on. Because she wasn’t just making sundaes with him, she was including him in a family tradition she clearly held quite dear. And that made him feel ten feet tall.

  For another hour they sat at the table, eating and talking and throwing M&Ms at each other to see who could catch more in their mouth. Beckett totally ruled at that, much to Kat’s chagrin. And then they went back to bed, and Beckett made good on his promise to make them both weak in the legs.

  It was, quite possibly, the best night of his life.

  Chapter 21

  From the moment Marz and Emilie picked them up, a weird tension had taken up space between Kat and Beckett again. It didn’t seem like Beckett was upset with her. Nor that he regretted their night together as he had in the past. And when she asked if he was okay, he simply said that the meeting with Seneka was weighing on his mind.

  She could hardly blame him for that.

  So despite the fact that they didn’t talk any more on the ride back to Baltimore than they had on the way down, which was to say not at all, Kat needed to give Beckett the benefit of the doubt. Because their stolen night away really had been amazing. Romantic and playful and full of great food, fun conversation, and the best damn sex of her life.

  Besides, there were more important things to think about this morning, like the heavy sadness that hung around Mrs. Garza’s shoulders like a mantle. She was a petite lady with salt-and-pepper, shoulder-length hair, and she spoke with the slightest bit of a Spanish accent. But Kat almost couldn’t look into her dark brown eyes without feeling like her own heart was ready to break. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen more anguish in the eyes of another person. Not only had the woman lost her son, but she’d also recently learned about all his criminal activities. Both would be an overwhelming amount of grief for any mother to handle.

  After some stilted attempts at conversation, Kat finally brushed at nonexistent lint on her black slacks and gray silk blouse and watched the scenery out the window.

  So the trip to the cemetery was quiet and long, because of the silence that filled the truck and the traffic that clogged both the D.C. and Baltimore beltways. They were meeting Nick and everyone else at the veterans’ cemetery where Manny would be interred. The small service would be at graveside, because Emilie had feared that holding a wake and service at a funeral home or church might attract the attention of Manny’s enemies.

  Kat hated that Em and her mom couldn’t honor Manny the way they would have otherwise. Emilie told stories about their big family all the time, and Kat had no doubt that they’d all be attending if things were normal. But they weren’t. Not even a little . . .

  They pulled into the long drive of the cemetery at twenty-five minutes to ten, cleared the gatehouse and followed the winding road through seemingly empty fields. You could just barely make out the headstones lying flat in the green grass, and the lack of standing markers gave the place a lonely feel. Built on the grounds of an old farm, the place was huge, and Beckett guided Marz to the correct section of the cemetery using a map they’d received at the gate.

  Their destination stood out before they even parked, marked by a blue tent covering a single row of six chairs in front of a skirted metal lowering device upon which Manny’s casket would eventually sit. A tarp-covered mound sat off to the side—the dirt from the hole, no doubt—and two large arrangements of flowers stood on wire easels.

  They were the first to arrive.

  Quietly, as if a hush blanketed the place and them within it, they climbed out of the truck. Marz rushed around and offered Mrs. Garza a hand down from the backseat, and he and Emilie flanked the older lady as they helped her cross to the gravesite. Kat and Beckett hung back, giving them a little space.

  She glanced at Beckett, who looked so very handsome—and not a little sexy—in a dark gray sport coat over his black T-shirt, both of which emphasized the size of his shoulders. Luckily he’d had the coat in his duffel. Since they hadn’t planned to spend the night in D.C., he had no other shirt. Kat had never seen him in anything more than a T-shirt, though, and damn was she impressed. She sighed. “This is so sad for Em and her mom,” she said.

  Nodding, Beckett took her into his arms.

  She almost melted against him, she was so relieved to receive his touch. He hadn’t been as openly affectionate this morning as he’d been last night. “Are we okay?”

  “Yeah, Angel. We are. I’m sorry—I get so tangled up in my head sometimes.” He gave her a small, sweet kiss.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I know today is a big day. I’m just glad.” Her head against Beckett’s chest, she took in what would otherwise have been a beautiful view of an open field against a line of bright green trees, all painted with the morning sun. The field appeared to hold one of the newer sections of the cemetery, judging by the small number of headstones. A long oval pond sat between them and the edge of the woods, the whole scene almost mocking in its beauty and vitality.

  Car engines sounded from down the road. Kat and Beckett turned to see a line of cars slowly rolling up the drive. Nick’s classic sports car and Jeremy’s Jeep followed by a plain blue sedan. They came to a rest behind Shane’s pickup, and then everyone spilled out onto the grass, the five men in dress pants, crisp button-downs, and ties—even Jeremy, who’d gone as far as finding a jacket, and the three women in jeans and nice shirts. Kat still felt bad that she hadn’t been able to bring them clothes in time for the funeral. Vance stepped out of the sedan wearing a sharp-looking navy suit and a serious expression on his face.

  They’d all just had time to say a few quick hellos when the hearse came down the road, bypassed the line of cars, and parked in front of Shane’s pickup. And just then it hit Kat. Who was going to serve as the pallbearers?

  As the funeral director opened the hearse’s rear door, Kat whirled to Beckett and Nick. “Are . . . are you guys gonna . . . ?” She nodded toward the casket visible in the back of the long black vehicle.

  Beckett and Nick exchanged a loaded glance, and then Nick nodded. “Yes. For Emilie and Derek.”

  Kat almost felt like she’d been punched in the gut, so she could only imagine how the guys felt to have to honor a man who’d not only destroyed their lives but harmed the people they each loved the most. “Oh God, Nick. I’m sorry,” she said, giving him a quick hug. His arm came around her shoulder, and she pulled back to meet his gaze. “And I’m sorry about everything . . . this week.”

  “So am I,” he said.

  As Marz joined their group, Kat gave Beckett a hug, too. With a hand on his neck, she urged his ear down so she could whisper to him alone. “This is so unfair for you. I’m really sorry.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “We got this, Angel. Don’t worry.”

  She gave a quick nod as a voice behind her asked, “Are you gentlemen the pallbearers?” Kat turned to find a tall man all in black giving them a thin smile.

  “Yes,” Nick said, following the man to the hearse. Beckett, Marz, Shane, Easy, and Jeremy followed. The six of them lined up at the car’s rear opening, three on each side, and slowly pulled the charcoal gray casket out. A spray of red roses covered the top, the color deep and stark against the lid.

  Someone grabbed Kat’s elbow and leaned against her. “I love Emilie,” Becca whispered. “But seeing Nick have to do this hurts my heart. Is that horrible?”

  “No,” Kat said, meeting Becca’s bright blue eyes. “Not in the least.”

  The women let the pallbearers pass, then made a slow procession to the grave site, where Emilie and her mom already sat. Mrs. Garza burst into tears as the men settled the casket onto the lowering mechanism. They were just moving to stand behind the small row of seats when an engine sounded in the distance.

  Nick looked at Emilie. “Are
you expecting anyone else?”

  “No,” she said, dabbing her eyes.

  The team closed ranks as a black Suburban came around the bend and into view.

  “I don’t like the look of that,” Beckett said.

  “Maybe it’s here for another funeral,” Nick said, tone wary, eyes trained on the big SUV.

  “Dude, isn’t that the same kind of truck that participated in the attack on Hard Ink?” Jeremy asked, standing with the team and next to Charlie. You almost never saw anger on Jeremy’s face, but it was there now.

  And he was dead right, too.

  “Yeah,” Nick said, watching the SUV like a hawk as it continued past all of their cars.

  Kat sighed in relief.

  And then the Suburban came to a slow stop in front of the hearse.

  “Oh, no,” Kat whispered as her heart climbed into her throat and her stomach knotted.

  Nick and Beckett exchanged a dark look, then Nick scanned the group. “Everyone without a weapon stays on this side of the casket. Marz and Vance, hang back and guard the group. Shane, Beckett, and Easy, you’re with me.”

  “Is there a problem?” the officiant asked, his whole face frowning.

  “Hopefully not, sir,” Marz said. “But if you’ll just come this way.” He nearly manhandled the guy to get him to move.

  Dread washed over Kat’s skin and adrenaline flooded her bloodstream. Both left her shaky even as she followed Marz’s directions and gathered behind the casket, the only immediate cover they had. Marz and Vance formed a human blockade in front of them as the rest of the guys stalked toward the curb. Nick drew a gun from the small of his back, but that was all Kat could see around their protectors.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. Garza asked in a tear-choked voice. “Who’s here?”

  “I’m not sure, Mama,” Emilie said.

  Kat and Becca clutched hands, and then Becca grabbed Sara’s hand while Jenna hugged Sara’s other arm. Everyone the four of them cared about had just gone to investigate some unknown threat, and it was the worst, most helpless feeling Kat had ever had.