Dare to Dream: The Maxwell Series

by S. B. Alexander

  Now I was proud of Dad. He dove right in, not mincing words or wasting time.

  “Wes told me,” Jeremy said with no sign of emotion.

  Chloe and Gloria sat regally, postures straight, left hands in their laps as though they’d been to a Miss Manner’s school of proper etiquette. I graded my own posture. My left elbow was on the table, and I was hunched over my bowl. Not wanting them to think I hadn’t been taught properly, I straightened my spine and placed my hand in my lap. Mom and Dad weren’t strict on perfect table manners. Mom’s pet peeve had been talking with food in your mouth. Apart from that, we ate, talked, laughed, and fought over the last piece of bread or the last of the mashed potatoes.

  “And you’re okay with that?” I asked. Dad was related to two mob families. I didn’t know much about the mob. Mostly what I’d learned was from movies or TV shows, but I didn’t think mob families aligned with each other, especially if one was Russian and the other Italian.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Jeremy asked. “You’re family. I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

  Dad glared at me.

  “Well, can two mafia families get along?” I took a bite out of my bread.

  Jeremy laughed heartily. “The bigger issue here, Lacey, is finding that ledger Lorenzino is after and stopping him from harming anyone in the process.”

  “What is so important in a ledger that someone would kill over?” I chased down my mouthful of bread with iced tea.

  Jeremy wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Names, dates, burial grounds, money laundering information, tax evasion. Could be anything.”

  “Information like that is old news,” Dad said. “The ledger has to be at least forty years old.”

  “True. And the statute of limitations has probably expired on most of the criminal activity associated with whatever is in the ledger. However, burial grounds are not just for bodies. Harrison Lorenzino’s great-grandfather was tied to several bank robberies. He was known to bury money to hide it from the Feds. That ledger may list the places where some of that money is still buried.”

  “We’ve looked everywhere for that ledger.” Dad swiped his fingers across his forehead.

  “Do you think you missed something when you sent my dad the package from his mom?” I asked Gloria.

  “Sorry, sweetie. We don’t have anything else and neither does my mom. I went through all her belongings after her funeral a couple of years ago. If we had anything of your father’s, I would’ve put it in the package. And our father passed away four years ago.”

  Wow! Dad’s past slowly unfolds. “How did he die?”

  Dad grasped his spoon. His knuckles became white.

  Gloria regarded Dad before she said, “My parents weren’t the healthiest. My mom died of heart disease, and my dad had a bad liver.”

  “Gramps drank a lot,” Chloe said. “I always try to get my dad to cut down on his whiskey.”

  My dad was about to bend his spoon in half.

  “Here’s how I see it,” Jeremy said. “Lorenzino is waiting and watching. The LAPD have been questioning him, so he’s being cautious. If he is your father, I don’t think that matters one way or the other. Greed can drive some men over family.”

  “I’m not his family, and I want nothing to do with him,” Dad stated firmly. “If he did kill my family, then I want to see him pay dearly for it.”

  Dad couldn’t catch a break. I had the urge to hug him. We were talking about one father who was dead and another who might’ve killed Mom and Julie.

  “Can we talk about something else?” Chloe asked. “Better yet, can Lacey and I be excused?”

  Maybe it was a good idea to talk about something else and give Dad a chance to breathe before he converted that spoon into a piece of art.

  “Take your dishes to the sink first,” Gloria said.

  Chloe shot off the chair with her bowl in her hand, her ankle boots scuffing the wood floor.

  “I have one of my men looking into Dennis Weeks’s background. Kade mentioned him to me the other day,” Jeremy said to Dad. “Do you know that name?”

  Jeremy sounded like he and Kade were old friends. Kade had told me everything they’d discussed. Hearing it from Jeremy, though, made the deliciousness of the stew turn sour in my stomach.

  “No.” Dad released the spoon. “The LAPD apparently has a confidential informant. I guess Weeks’s name was brought up. Detective Fisher has been silent about what type of lead he has.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find.” Jeremy sat back and draped his arm on the back of his wife’s chair. “I have feelers out on Lorenzino, too.”

  Dad smoothed his fingers across his mouth. “Mmm. When I stopped my research on my mother, the detective I’d hired had given me a report with names of people my mother was associated with. I could reach out to them.”

  Another avenue to investigate.

  “Not a bad idea. Just be careful those people aren’t connected to Lorenzino,” Jeremy warned.

  Chloe returned. “I’m sorry to hear that you and Kade broke up.”

  “Chloe,” Gloria said. “Don’t pry. Where are your manners, young lady?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s true. How do you know?” I took my bowl to the sink with Chloe on my heels.

  “I called him to tell him I passed my math test. I was supposed to have another tutoring session with him, but his mother came home and he wanted to postpone.”

  “And he told you we broke up?” I filled my bowl with water as I tried to imagine a conversation where Kade told someone other than his brothers or Hunt that we’d broken up.

  “I asked about you.” She twirled her hair in both her hands. “He said he messed up. I don’t know what’s going on. I do know my daddy is a very demanding man. He wanted to feel Kade out and see how well Kade knew your family. Like I said, my mom was worried about both of you. Your dad didn’t want to talk to my mom, and I desperately needed a tutor. That was Daddy’s way in.”

  “Young lady.” Jeremy’s deep voice reached us from the table.

  “She needs to know. You could be responsible for their breakup.” She frowned at her father.

  It still wouldn’t change anything. Our problems went deeper than Jeremy and his scheming ways.

  “Anywho,” Chloe whispered. “Is Kelton dating anyone?”

  “Kelton?” I didn’t know how to answer that one. Do I warn her away since Kelton is a playboy? Do I play matchmaker so she doesn’t set her sights on Kade? Or do I stay completely out of it?

  “He’s yummy.” She tucked strands of her hair behind her ear.

  The triplets were definitely handsome. I shut off the water. “I’m not a good matchmaker. I suggest you talk to Kelton yourself.” Kelton’s playboy ways or who he was dating wasn’t any of my business, and I barely got anywhere with him when I tried to talk to him about love. The Maxwell boys didn’t kiss and tell either.

  “I already left him a message,” she said.

  Wow. She works fast.

  Gloria brought her dishes to the sink. “Chloe’s right. My husband can be overpowering,” she whispered. “You and Kade will work it out.”

  “Does Jeremy keep things from you?” I asked.

  “When we first met he did. It drove me crazy. But beneath his tough exterior is a man who loves and cares deeply for his family. He’d do anything to protect us.”

  “How did you handle it? I mean, Jeremy keeping things from you?” I rested my hip against the counter. I could use all the advice I could get.

  Chloe was texting. The men were in their world talking about the statute of limitations.

  She swept my hair over my shoulder, her brown eyes searching my face. “At first, I had to walk away. But I realized that wasn’t the answer. We both loved each other. He isn’t perfect, and neither am I. Look, sweetie. You can’t get mad every time Kade keeps something from you. Understand his reasons. You have to meet each other halfway. Decide what you can and can’t handle and communicate with him.”<
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  I hadn’t even given Kade a chance to explain, and I certainly didn’t understand his reasons, except the part about Dad’s adoptive family not being his story to tell. I’d assumed he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to worry me.

  “Gloria,” Jeremy called. “We should get going. I have an early meeting.”

  “Daddy, I barely got to spend time with Lacey.”

  “There’ll be time for that later,” Gloria said.

  Chloe huffed.

  It had been a long day. I was tired both mentally and physically.

  Jeremy and Dad agreed to swap information if they had anything of substance regarding the ledger, Lorenzino, and Weeks.

  After they finally drove away, I asked Dad, “Are you okay?”

  “I am,” he said as we cleaned up the kitchen. “I never had a problem with Gloria. Now, my father was a different story. He and I never got along. He always treated me like I was a male Cinderella. Over the years, he drank more and more to the point where he took out his drunken frustrations on me. He was very abusive. One night when I was seventeen, I came home past curfew. He was waiting up for me. We had words, then it got out of hand. We both ended up in the emergency room. After that I took off.” He loaded bowls into the dishwasher.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad.” I stopped wiping down the table. “I know that had to be hard for you to tell me.” I wasn’t about to ask for details. The fact that he’d told me that much was a win in my book. Frankly, that was all I needed to know. The details would only serve to anger me more, and I couldn’t take out my anger on a dead man.

  “I don’t like talking about him. I don’t even like thinking about that time in my life, though it did feel good to say it. But let’s concentrate on the future.”

  Great idea. “So when are you going to call those people your mom was associated with?”

  “I want to talk to the private investigator I hired first. Jeremy’s right. We need to make sure the names in that report are not associated with Lorenzino.”

  “I can do an internet search while you talk to the PI. Better yet, I can have Kody help. He’s good with finding things on the internet.” Kade had once told me Kody was a whiz with Google searches and computers in general.

  “Tell you what,” Dad said. “Let me read through the report and talk to the PI, and then we can put our heads together on a plan of action. Deal?”

  I smiled so wide, my cheeks hurt. It was the first time I’d felt like an adult with Dad, and I was excited that we had another avenue to search.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kade

  Kody and I sat on my tailgate down by the lake watching our friends and family enjoying themselves. My brothers and I had liked the idea of having a party. In my mind, it was a way to let loose and maybe reconnect with Lacey. During the past week of school, it had driven me fucking insane not to be able to sit with her at lunch or talk to her or touch her. Something had changed in her since the night of her first baseball game. She seemed happier. Maybe it was her first win. Maybe she wasn’t mad at me anymore. Or maybe she was moving on with her life. The last thought gutted me. I grilled Hunt for information since he spent nights with her. All he said was that she was happy she was finally getting to know about her father’s past. Please let it be that and nothing more.

  Not surprisingly, news of the party had zipped through the school halls like a damn rocket. Anytime anyone was having a party, the entire school seemed to show up. I hadn’t gone to many. At the ones I had, people had been packed in like sardines in the kitchen and open areas of the house. Not my scene. The lake—and the breathing room that came with it— was the perfect venue for me.

  The night air was fresh and crisp as the campfire crackled and threw the occasional spark. “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol blared from speakers that Kelton set up on the deck of the boathouse my father had renovated into a game room. Lacey had dubbed it the funhouse. Tents dotted the landscape. Anytime we had parties, we set up our tents and told others to bring theirs. Battery-powered lanterns hung from tree branches, giving the lake area a dim glow. Guys were snuggled up with their girlfriends around the fire, including Kross and Becca. I’d give anything to have Lacey cozied up to me by the fire. Instead, I hung with Kody, drinking a beer. I didn’t drink all that often, and I was hoping the alcohol would ease my nerves. I was mainly waiting for my baseball beauty to arrive. My plan was to play it cool. Not suffocate her. Keep it casual. Hunt texted me and said she was on her way.

  “Your girl might want my help doing some fancy Google searching. Her dad has a couple of names of people his mom knew. They might be able to shed some light on uncovering her or the ledger.”

  I growled. I should be helping her, although Kody was the computer mastermind. He could find a needle in the haystack that was the net.

  “Are you ever going to talk to her?” He also had a cup of beer in his hand.

  “And say what? I already apologized. That’s not enough.”

  “Grovel then. You’re brooding.” He finished off his beer and burped.

  “Says the brooder.”

  He nudged me, flicking his chin toward the path leading down from the garage. Lacey glided down it dressed in tight jeans and knee-high boots, her hair flowing behind her and a smile on her gorgeous face. Heat unfurled inside me, sliding down to my groin as I pictured her on the stairs in nothing but her thong as she caressed her naked breasts. That seductive image vanished in an instant when Tyler trotted down the path.

  “Lacey,” he said. “Wait up.”

  I tightened every muscle in me. If he so much as touches her, the cold lake has his name written all over it.

  Kody held out his arm. “You can’t let him bother you. She’ll always have guys checking her out or vying for her attention. Trust her. Trust what you guys have together.”

  I wasn’t sure we had anything at the moment.

  Tyler planted his hand on the small of her back as they found their way to the campfire.

  I cussed under my breath, and every one of my muscles vibrated.

  “Easy, tiger.” Kody slowly lowered his arm.

  I gulped a large mouthful of beer, my eyes glued to Lacey and Tyler.

  Becca and Kross scooted closer to Shaun, who was the only guy in the circle without a girl. Lacey sat cross-legged next to Becca. Tyler scanned the grounds. When he found me, I tipped my cup to him. Restraint burned a path through me. Fighting wasn’t the way back into Lacey’s good graces. I had to be the bigger man. I had to show her I was in control, even though I envisioned throwing Tyler into the lake. He said something to her, and she nodded. I tracked his movements to the cooler then back to Lacey. He handed her a can of soda.

  She swept her hair over her shoulder as her eyes met mine. I waved casually. She set down her soda and pushed upright as my phone buzzed.

  A text from Hunt. Sullivan is here on crutches. You want me to stop him?

  I showed Kody my screen.

  “What the fuck?”

  I typed my response. Is he alone?

  Seever and his girl, Tammy, are with him.

  Nah. Let him walk among the wolves.

  “You sure, bro? This can’t end well, and it’s not a way to win your girl back. Although I’d love to have a go at Sullivan again.”

  “He’s not here to fight if he’s on crutches.” I was curious why he was here.

  We hadn’t seen or heard from Sullivan since he’d been shot. It had only been a few weeks since the ordeal. He had to be recovering still. I texted Kelton, who was in the funhouse playing poker, and copied Kross on the message. The music died. Kelton flew out of the funhouse. Kross stretched to his full height, keeping his sights on the path down from the garage.

  Lacey began her trek toward me. At the same time, Sullivan emerged. Seever and Tammy were by his side. Kody hopped down, meeting Kross and Kelton as they converged on Sullivan. The kids around the campfire scrambled to their feet. Others at the water’s edge did the same. Shaun and Becca sidl
ed up to Tyler, who swung his gaze from my brothers to me. He angled his head and opened his palms.

  I shrugged. I wasn’t moving. My brothers could handle the situation. I’d intervene if need be.

  A light scent of citrus floated in the air as Lacey propped her hip against the edge of the tailgate. “Hi.”

  Her sugary tone sparked goosebumps on my entire body. “Thanks for coming.”

  “A party, huh? When I first moved here, I remember some kid at school bragging about how off the hook the Maxwell parties were. Seems tame to me.”

  “Well, give it an hour or two. The brave and drunken ones will be throwing themselves in the lake.” I searched her face, my gaze landing on those glossy lips that I was dying to capture between mine. Hell, I wanted to devour them, slide my tongue into the warm cavern of her mouth, and taste her.

  “You’re not going to read Sullivan the riot act?” Her eyebrows knitted.

  “Nah. My brothers can handle it,” I said easily.

  “Are you sure you’re really Kade Maxwell?”

  I stretched out my hand. “I am.” I wanted to touch her so bad. “You must be Lacey Robinson. The school is abuzz about this great pitcher who pitched two more winning games this week.”

  She placed her hand in mine. “Nice to meet you, Kade Maxwell.”

  When her fingers landed in my palm, tingles shot up my arm. I lowered my head and planted a soft kiss on the back of her hand. “It’s my pleasure.”

  She blinked, her long lashes fanning out over her silky skin as a slow ball-squeezing smile materialized.

  Our quiet, pleasurable moment died when the bane of my existence hobbled toward us with Seever and Tammy flanking him. The triplets had wry smirks plastered on their faces as they stalked up behind them.

  “It seems they need your help,” she said.

  “Will you stay? I need backup.” Give her the choice.

  She lifted a shoulder. “Sure. I’ve been known to kick butt.” She climbed into Kody’s spot on the tailgate.

  Tammy, Seever, and Sullivan settled in front of Lacey and me. I felt as though we were the king and queen of the land. My brothers crossed their arms over their chests, never losing their annoyed expressions. Tyler wormed his way up to stand next to Lacey, and Shaun and Becca ponied up to Tyler. Our other guests clambered closer, and hushed whispers buzzed around us. Sullivan hunched over his crutches as his dark and insolent gaze fixated on Lacey and me.