Family Stone Holiday Box Set: (including Stone Cold Heart, Carved in Stone, and Heart of Stone) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense)

by Lisa Hughey

  Shelley’s laugh trilled softly. “The view gorgeous, isn’t it? I never get tired of it.” She propped her chin in her hand and stared out the large window. “I still remember the first time I saw the ocean. I was awestruck. Remember, Con?”

  Connor shifted on his heavy wood chair. “Um, yeah. Of course.”

  Connor had gotten very quiet and Ava wondered what he was thinking. He looked pensive and slightly uncomfortable.

  “You were such an adorable, quiet little guy,” Shelley said softly.

  Connor appeared to blush but didn’t say a word.

  “Not much has changed.” Shelley cleared her plate from the table and carried it to the large farm sink. “I’ve got to run to Watsonville. I’m volunteering at the food bank this afternoon. Ava, honey, stay as long as you need to. Con filled me in last night. You need to be safe,” she rambled on as she loaded the dishwasher. “And we have plenty of room.”

  “Thank you,” Ava replied softly. She had to admit that going home to her lonely little Victorian didn’t hold much appeal. She thanked goodness that her parents were in Sinaloa visiting relatives, they would be freaking out at the fact that she’d nearly been abducted. Although she worried about them there, they were probably safer in Mexico right now.

  “Con, be a sweetie and start the dishwasher when you’re done.” She bent over and brushed a kiss against his cheek. Ava couldn’t help but notice that he tensed up just a bit. “You did good bringing her here, honey.”

  But the thought was swept away as Shelley patted Ava on the head and then rushed out the kitchen in a whirlwind.

  Ava sat at the table somewhat stunned by the force of nature that was Connor’s stepmother. “When did Shelley and Jessica come to live here?”

  Con watched Shelley go, then twisted back to face Ava. Twenty years later, his stepmother never failed to give him some affection and it still threw him. She’d blown into his life at eight and made him her own. He might always be out of step with his siblings but Shelley never let him get away with that with her.

  Even in his rebellious teen years, when he had acted out against Little Miss Perfection, Jessica, who got good grades, never came home drunk, and could do no wrong. Con did everything he could to live down to his father’s expectations, until Shelley set him on the right path. He owed her everything but he still had trouble with her easy affection. And he never forgot that she was not his real mother.

  He’d realized after talking to Jess on the phone last night that he needed to clear the air with her. It wasn’t her fault that their father was an ass. It wasn’t her fault that with his long hair and weird tawny eyes, he looked unlike any of his siblings or his father. Just one more way he didn’t fit in. His brothers used to tease him that he was probably adopted but everyone knew Jack Senior had paternity tests done every single time some new kid popped up. And every time they’d come back positive, including Con’s, because dear old dad was a complete man whore.

  So when Jess and Shelley had come to live with them, suddenly there was a face for all of his feelings of being an outsider, and he’d rebelled against being perfect like Jess. But he was an adult now, and Jess’s surprise when he’d called to ask for help had been crystal clear even through a transatlantic connection.

  Con shook off the memories. He needed to focus on here and now. Ava was still waiting. What had she asked? Oh, yeah. “I was eight.”

  “Did your dad get remarried?” Ava asked curiously.

  He’d never been married to Con’s mother. His mother had dropped him at Jack Stone Senior’s, taken a lump sum payment, and hit the road. Con didn’t even remember her. He’d been dropped off to live with Jack and Riley and their dad when he was a baby. The only reason he knew exactly what happened was Jack Senior made sure to give him a callous recitation of the truth when he’d been five and thrown a temper tantrum when he didn’t get what he wanted.

  And his dad may have devastated him with the circumstances of how he’d ended up with him but Con had also learned then that bad behavior got him noticed. Even if it wasn’t the attention he’d wanted.

  Ava seemed to be calculating something in her head and then she blurted out, “You and Jess are only three months apart.”

  “I am aware.”

  She opened and closed her sultry mouth a few times. “So….”

  “Dear old dad was screwing my mother and Shelley at the same time.”

  “Connor!”

  “My father couldn’t keep it in his pants.” Con stood abruptly and stalked to the sink. He dumped his tea down the drain and put the empty glass in the dishwasher. “Still can’t for that matter.”

  “Does he live here too?”

  Con snorted. “No. Thank God.”

  Their family dynamics were messed up enough that it would take a flow chart to figure everything out. Con couldn’t be sure but he thought his father might have finally stopped spreading his sperm around and gotten a vasectomy a few years back. “Horny bastard,” he gutted out.

  “You shouldn’t call your father—” Ava scrunched her eyes closed. “Wait, he said something.”

  Con stopped. “Who?”

  “The guy who grabbed me.”

  “What did he say?” Con wanted to nail these guys. He balled his fists on his hips and waited impatiently for her to share. He forced himself to sit back down at the table and let her remember.

  Ava was swamped by his navy sweats and an old Army t-shirt. She looked adorable in his clothes, and he couldn’t help but feel proprietary as he watched her move. Her full breasts filled out the worn t-shirt nicely and he was thankful that she hadn’t had a choice of attire. Because Ava wouldn’t have fit in Jess’s clothes, she had too many curves—in all the right places, as far as Con was concerned—she’d had to borrow some of his.

  “He called me a puta.”

  Slut. “Why would he call you that?” Con got up and began to pace the Saltillo tiles. “You’re about as far from a slut as a nun.” Connor’s shoulders tightened and he bulked up as if getting ready to face an enemy. No one called his girl a slut.

  His girl? He mentally jerked back. Whoa. She wasn’t his. But he’d like her to be, the thought wound through his mind like a wisp of fog that slithered along the ground in the early morning.

  Ava blinked, lowered her lashes and averted her gaze. “If they saw me on Jack’s desk yesterday they might have had reason.”

  Con stalked to the table so quickly, Ava’s head jerked up. He gripped her delicate shoulders, her muscles tense and bunched beneath his fingers. “No way. That wasn’t—”

  But she interrupted him, clearly not wanting to discuss their interlude on the desk. “He was probably just mad that I got in a few good shots before he could get the cloth over my face. Instinct.”

  So Con let it drop and concentrated on her revelation. The guy had used one accented Spanish word. Just like Ava when she got upset, little hints of her accent would come out. “So at least one of your attackers was Hispanic.”

  “I still don’t understand why they would want me.” A frown puckered her elegantly-shaped brows.

  Con didn’t like the theory that was forming in the back of his mind. So he looked for anything that might dispute his uncomfortable conclusion. “Any unusual behavior lately?”

  She shook her head mutely.

  “Any other feelings of being followed?” He knew he had been right not to dismiss her concerns after she felt like she’d been followed on the beach.

  Again, a negative answer.

  “Take up any hobbies lately. Start doing something new?”

  “No, no and no. All I do is work and work out,” she said glumly.

  He didn’t know why she looked quite so down. “Me too.”

  If it wasn’t about her personally, then it would make sense that it had something to do with GHR and Stone Consulting. “Have you done anything differently at work lately?”

  Her eyebrows rose. And she spoke without thinking, “The only new thing I’ve done is
you.”

  Con stifled a laugh and pressed a quick hard kiss on her lips.

  But that niggling sensation that he got when he was debugging code wouldn’t let him go. He hated the connections his brain had made without even trying to connect the events. But he sensed he was on the right track. Ava was the link between the kidnappings eight years ago and Stone Consulting’s investigation into Jose Fernandez now.

  What if Fernandez thought that Ava knew something about whatever happened to those girls? What if he knew that Stone Consulting was investigating him? Or what if Fernandez realized that Stone Consulting was investigating him and he thought Ava would be the weak link? It became even more crucial than ever for Con to find out what Fernandez was hiding.

  “What?” Ava’s fingers were curled around Con’s wrists as if she didn’t want to let him go. Con normally didn’t like being touched but with her he craved every stroke of affection she was willing to give.

  Con only had his own suspicions and it was a long shot. But his brain kept going there. He hesitated, Jack had asked him not to tell anyone what he was working on. But Ava wasn’t anyone. She was his. And she had a right to know what he thought. “Before Jack left he asked me to investigate Jose Fernandez.”

  “Fernandez?” she grimaced again. “Why?”

  Jack was gone, he’d left Con in charge. He had two goals now. One to keep Stone Consulting and GHR exactly the way Jack left it. Two, protect Ava.

  But that order was wrong. Ava came before the company.

  “I don’t know. He just wanted everything and anything I could get on the guy.” Con wished he’d found something glaring in the check he’d already done but whatever Fernandez was hiding, it had to be buried deep. “It was a Stone Consulting job, not GHR.” Revealing that difference was not something that necessarily sat well with him but this was Ava. And he trusted her.

  “While I don’t know everything that the company is involved in, I’m not an idiot.” Ava traced the woven circles of the placemat with her finger. “You think the Fernandez job has something to do with me?”

  “Someone obviously wants something from you. If Fernandez knows you work for us, and if he thinks you know something about the disappearances of those girls, then maybe. Yes.”

  “You think Fernandez was behind the kidnappings?” she said incredulously. “I mean, I don’t like the man but that’s a pretty big leap.”

  “You are the only connection between the two events.”

  Con watched her process his suspicions. Watched her brain make the same lightning conclusion that he had.

  “If that’s true….” she trailed off. Her elegant fingers had covered her mouth in distress.

  “We have an opportunity.” Connor didn’t candy-coat the truth or try to hide his suspicions. She was a big girl. She could handle whatever he threw at her, so he put his idea out there. “If Fernandez was behind your kidnapping, then we could flush him out.”

  Right now they had nothing. Just three isolated events and one single, very thin denominator. The fact that one of her attackers, may or may not be Hispanic was hardly a strong enough connection to take to the police and definitely not the kind of intelligence that Jack was looking for. But….

  “Bait,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” If they could draw Fernandez out, they might get evidence that would incriminate him.

  “No.”

  Con’s shoulders sank. He couldn’t say he was fond of the idea of putting her in potential harms’ way. On the other hand, they had nothing concrete. But he certainly didn’t blame her for refusing. “Okay.”

  “I don’t want to dangle out there waiting for him to come to me or go after me.” Ava fisted her hands on her hips, her black eyes sparkled with anger. “I want to confront him. I want you to control the situation.”

  “What?” Connor just barely stopped himself from reaching for her again.

  “Forget waiting for him to come after me again.” Ava jabbed her finger at Con. “Let’s go after him.”

  “Ava,” Con started. His heart expanded, swelling in his chest at her expression of trust. And that’s when he fell. His heart had teetered at her sweet confession when she’d been only half conscious. But her fierce need to expose the truth and her insistence to be proactive instead of passive caused him to tumble the rest of the way in love with her.

  Ava placed her hand over Con’s clenched fist. “I mean it.” Her touch soothed him and excited him. People didn’t touch Con. He knew it was his own ‘back off’ vibe that gave off a serious, ‘do not touch’ message. But Ava bulldozed right over it and stoked the fire higher. She ignored the signals and went with her gut.

  “If he had something to do with those girls’ abductions, my friends,” she said fiercely. “Then I have a responsibility to make sure everyone knows about it.”

  Con could hardly argue with her. He understood about making up for the past. He understood about atoning for prior sins. “Ava, you know there was nothing you could have done.”

  “I know that now.” Ava quietly confessed, “But it didn’t stop me from feeling guilty all those years ago.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “Old enough to be working in the fields. “She licked her lips, the downturn of her plump mouth distracted him for a second. The urge to crowd her up against the table and kiss her senseless was strong.

  “Now if I have the chance to find out, to do something to expose his sins and I don’t take it, that would be my fault.”

  Con acquiesced. There was only one response to her resolution. Con laced his fingers with hers, marveled at the sheer softness of her skin. Marveled at her fierce devotion to her friends, and her willingness to get to the truth.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed his fingers with hers.

  “I will keep you safe.”

  “I have no doubts.” She brushed her lips over their clenched fingers.

  Ten

  Ava inhaled deeply, slowly through her nose, focused her thoughts and wished she’d paid more attention in the one yoga class she’d taken. She needed to find a calm center.

  She wanted to do this. She did. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t scared out of her mind. Worst case, Fernandez had nothing to do with her friends’ disappearance or her attempted kidnapping, and she would make a complete fool out of herself by making the accusation. Best case, Fernandez was in it up to his eyeballs and she was instrumental in helping to expose him. Maybe finally there would be some justice for Maria and those other girls.

  Connor kept crowded to her right side. Ava swallowed when she noticed that attached to his belt was a holster that held a big, black gun. The presence of the weapon ramped up her anxiety rather than reassured her.

  Connor noticed her gaze linger on his weapon. “Don’t worry. I’m a marksman.”

  It took Ava a moment to compute his words. He thought she was worried about her safety. “I know you can defend us. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “That’s…nice.” One corner of Connor’s mouth curled up in a half-smile. With his left hand, he smoothed his thumb across her cheekbone. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I never had any doubt.”

  The surprise in his tawny eyes hit her like a punch to the heart. She knew that his family cared about him, it was evident in the way they interacted with each other. Easy banter and subtle digs, but always delivered with a smile, as if everything they did and said was an inside joke. But Ava had seen the shadows in Connor’s eyes. Recognized the way he held himself back from his brothers and with Jess. But he didn’t hold back with her.

  So how could Connor think for a moment that Ava wouldn’t trust him to take care of her? Her heart stalled at the vulnerability she’d glimpsed and she vowed to make sure that Connor knew how much she trusted him. “I would never have suggested this if I didn’t have absolute faith in your ability to keep me safe,” she said the words like a vow.

  It was time to confront Fernandez o
n his own turf. His own very public turf.

  Jose Fernandez was considered a pillar of the community. Nothing would happen to her while she was in his office. And if Ava repeated that thought to herself silently over and over maybe she could make the belief true.

  Jess had returned from England early. Much to Ava’s surprise, Connor had called her late last night and she’d caught the first plane home to help out. So she was backing up their little mission.

  Jess was ensconced on the rooftop across the street from the office. Her rifle was assembled and ready but more importantly, her weapon of choice this afternoon was a high-powered camera she had focused on the interior of Fernandez’s storefront office.

  Before she could chicken out, Ava brushed a kiss over his lips, initiating the sweet contact. “For luck.”

  Connor curled his arm around her waist, and yanked her body flush with his. He slanted his head and covered her mouth in a possessive, demanding kiss. She melted against his hard body as she savored the public show and let hope blossom.

  Maybe, just maybe, he was as swept away by the allure that flared, bright and hot, between them as she was.

  “Okay you two, let’s get this show on the road.” Jess’s voice sounded in her ear, and Ava heard the underlying affection.

  A thrill swept through her as she noted that he’d kissed her back, even knowing that his sister was tracking them through the lens of her camera.

  “They’ll have to go through me to get to you,” he said fiercely. “That’s a promise.”

  Before she could tell him she didn’t want anyone else’s hurt on her conscience, Con checked their surroundings. He opened the door to Fernandez’s office with his left hand, his right resting loosely on the hilt of his gun. They walked in together, Connor slightly in front of her, not completely blocking her but covering her body with his.

  The office was small but tastefully decorated. Couldn’t be too fancy seeing as the constituents who got him into power were frequently new immigrants, factory workers, and field workers. He’d built his entire reputation and platform on helping underserved and marginalized citizens.