by Cat Johnson
That sounded like the most frightening prospect Gabby had ever heard. “And what if he doesn’t agree with what I want?”
Amanda shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Easy for her to say. Gabby’s heart began to pound just thinking about initiating this conversation with Zach.
She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Gabby, you’re a strong woman.”
“No, I’m not.” She shook her head.
Did her best friend not know her at all? She spent a dozen years with a crush on Zach and never once told him. That was not the actions of a strong woman.
“You survived your Tijuana adventure and got the job done. Beautifully, I might add.”
She would agree, when it came to getting things done for work, she could kick some serious ass. But sadly, that wasn’t enough.
Gabby let out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter though. That job hasn’t gotten me any new ones.”
“It might once she opens the shop.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been posting the whole thing on my blog and even doing some live stuff on IGTV on Instagram and nothing. Not one nibble. And the worst part is, even with driving to Mexico to get the tile cheaper, I still don’t think I made any money on the shop.”
Amanda frowned. “That can’t be possible.”
“I’m afraid it is. I bid real close to my margin so she’d be happy and recommend me to all her friends, and I didn’t make hardly anything.”
“Get me your receipts. I’m going to look at it for you.”
Amanda, as a CPA, might be able to get a more detailed cost versus profit analysis than Gabby, but that wouldn’t change the end result.
After all the unexpected expenses and the amount of time it had taken her, the profit she’d hoped would be enough to set her up in a nice apartment and keep her rolling along until new jobs came pouring in just wasn’t there.
Especially since there were no new jobs pouring in. Not even a trickle.
Amanda stood and said, “Go get your paperwork. I’ll get my laptop and go over your numbers . . . while you call Zach.”
“What?” Gabby’s eyes popped wide. “Nuh, uh.”
“Do it.” Amanda folded her arms.
Gabby had been up against that stubborn look before. There was no winning.
She let out a huff. “Fine.”
Her only consolation was that Amanda wasn’t in for an easy night either. She knew that as she hoisted her overstuffed tote bag off the floor with a grunt. It contained her entire business life, in no order whatsoever.
She plopped it on the table in front of Amanda with a thud.
“All my receipts are in there.” Satisfied that would suitably punish her friend for the torture Amanda was inflicting by making her call Zach, Gabby reached for her cell.
She scrolled through the contacts in her list to find Zach’s number. She couldn’t go to recent calls or the text log because, surprise, surprise, he’d never texted or called her.
Zach really was a terrible communicator when she wasn’t right there in the same room with him.
She hadn’t realized that until now. Probably because they’d been together so much. Finishing his house. Running from drug lords. Having multiple orgasms.
God, she missed that. All of it. Even the bad stuff, because at least they’d been together for it.
She had it bad. And she was going to be a mess if this was over.
With a mixture of hope and dread, she called his number. It was past dinnertime. He must be done at the base by now, right?
Then again, what did she know? As he’d said, she was no frog log . . . or was it hog? Which was a very unflattering reference.
As her mind spun it was becoming obvious he wasn’t going to answer. When his voicemail prompt came on—the computer generated one, not even his own voice—she hung up.
“No answer.”
Amanda glanced up from the pile of papers on the table. “He’s probably out running or something. Send a text instead and he’ll get back to you when he can.”
“Fine.” Gabby opened a new text. “And what am I saying in this text?”
“That you’d like to talk.”
“That should scare him away nicely.” Gabby scowled, punching in the message.
“Oh ye of little faith.”
Yup. That was her. Amanda had nailed her in one but she hit send on the text anyway and then walked to the counter.
If she was going to have to wait for Zach to get back to her, possibly forever, she might as well have a glass of wine while she did it.
“Want some wine?” she asked Amanda.
“No thanks.”
“Really?” She frowned. That was odd.
“I’m working. Can’t drink and calculate.”
Gabby laughed. “I can’t even calculate sober so I can respect that.”
Glass in hand, Gabby settled in to wait it out. The wine could only help soften the blow of what she was sure would be bad news.
Gabby’s glass was empty by the time Amanda made it through the pile of papers she’d dumped out of the bag and onto the table.
When everything was in neat little stacks, Amanda glanced up. From her expression alone, Gabby knew the news wasn’t good.
“That bad?” she asked.
Amanda drew in a breath and let it out. “Well, you didn’t lose money.”
“That’s good.”
“But you didn’t make a whole lot either.” She turned the computer to face Gabby.
After a few seconds she found the bottom line of the spreadsheet. The number for profit was far less than she’d hoped.
“For your first job, a thousand dollars isn’t bad.”
She sighed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t enough.
“But I think I have some good news for you,” Amanda continued.
“What’s that?” Gabby asked, wondering if more wine would help or just depress her further. Drinking alone wasn’t fun.
“I can give you another decorating job,” Amanda said.
“No.” Gabby shook her head. “I’m not letting you keep making up jobs for me.”
“I’m not making it up. I really need you to decorate the spare room.”
“For what?” she asked, not believing her friend.
“To be a nursery.”
Gabby’s gaze whipped to her friend. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yup.”
“Oh my God. That’s so great.” Tears in her eyes, she jumped up and ran around the table to hug Amanda. “But now I really can’t stay here with you any longer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. First of all, I have like eight more months before the baby comes. Second, you’re going to be here anyway, decorating the nursery—”
“Which I’m not going to charge you for,” Gabby interjected.
“We’ll see about that,” Amanda countered. “And third, I want you here. How great is it living together again, just like in college?”
It did sound great, but reverting back to the simpler times when she was carefree and eighteen wasn’t going to solve her adult issues.
“Promise you’ll stay,” Amanda begged.
“I’ll stay . . . for now.” Defeated, it was easier to agree even if she did plan on leaving the minute the nursery was done.
She needed some privacy to search for flights without Amanda seeing. Gabby began gathering the piles, trying her best to keep the papers in the painstaking order Amanda had placed them in.
“But tonight, I’m beat. I know Jasper is working late, but would you mind if I go to sleep early?” she asked.
“Not at all. You go ahead. I want to finish my book anyway.”
Gabby smiled. It might be a fictional heroine in a romance novel, but at least someone would be getting a happy ending tonight.
In her room, she changed for bed. She couldn’t bring herself to put on Zach’s T-shirt. The reminder of him hurt too much. So she pulled out her old flann
el bottoms and a tank top and crawled into bed to check her cell.
No reply to her text. No surprise.
That was all the hints she needed from him. He’d ghosted her.
It was better this way. She knew what she had to do.
She’d finish Amanda’s nursery this week and then head to Hawaii on the first flight she could get a reservation for that didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
No jobs. No apartment. No boyfriend. Zach being out of her life would only make it easier to leave California.
There was nothing keeping her here, except for her best friend. That part would be hard.
But Amanda would be busy with her new baby before she knew it. And maybe Gabby could save her money and use her frequent flier miles to come back and visit after the baby was born.
It would be fine.
With a sigh, she opened her computer and navigated to the travel booking site to start looking at options.
As the search results loaded she picked up the phone and scrolled through, hitting one contact.
She listened to the ringing as the dread built within her.
Finally, the ringing stopped, replaced by, “Aloha.”
“Aloha, Mama.” Gabby forced brightness into her voice as she said, “Guess what?”
TWENTY-THREE
“Training on the day we get back from leave. What the fuck? I swear they do this shit on purpose. The sadists.” T-Bone tossed his bag onto the floor to unlock his cage.
Zach couldn’t agree more. Coming back from two weeks off to an unannounced week long training in the Nevada dessert where cell signal was as elusive as hot running water had been an unwelcome surprise.
“Trial by fire. We needed to see how the new guys perform with the team before we go out on a real op,” Justus pointed out.
“Better a fuck up here than in, say, Yemen,” Nitro pointed out.
“True that. Wouldn’t want anyone screwing up and getting shot in the ass or anything.” Rocket’s lips twitched with the joke.
Zach knew the reason they’d had the training. It didn’t mean he liked it.
Though he could appreciate the slam against Dutch for getting shot in the ass last mission. Poor guy was never going to live that down.
But the training was done and he didn’t have to be back on base for two whole days because, sadists or not, at least command had cut them a break now.
He was happy he could take a hot shower and get something to eat that didn’t come in a bag. And, finally, he could take the time to sift through the multitude of texts and voicemails he’d gotten in his week off the grid.
His mom and dad had called and left a voicemail, of course. They called weekly to check in since they’d retired to Arizona.
There was a message from Hawk, plus a couple of funny gifs and memes Compass had texted to the team as a group.
He found only one text from Gabby, but enough from Amanda to make up for the shortage. He figured Gabby probably hadn’t wanted to bother him so she had Amanda text him instead. He smiled at the thought.
She was so cute. He’d missed her during his week away.
Being in the desert had given him lots of time to think. Time away from her tempting body and adorable smile so he could evaluate things a little more clearly.
Maybe he was ready to get serious after all. To see where this thing with her might go.
His hesitation because she was Amanda’s friend was a moot point now.
They’d spent too much time tangled up together to ignore it had happened so things were going to be awkward whether he dated her and they eventually broke up, or he’d never dated her at all.
And with his sister by her side for support, maybe Gabby could handle the kind of life he lived as a SEAL.
There was a reason every man on the team was currently single, however, he also knew plenty of guys who had girlfriends, wives, kids—sometimes the relationship even survived.
This was definitely a conversation he needed to have with Gabby in person. And though he wasn’t at all opposed to the idea of video chat sex with her while he was deployed, there was something else he’d like to do with her in person.
With that motivation, he showered and changed on base. Then grabbed his truck and headed for his sister’s house.
It was just about dinnertime. Perfect. He’d get a meal out of the visit too.
Family. Good food. His woman. Everything he could want after a tough week of training. Yeah, he could get used to this.
Happy with his plan he headed directly to Amanda’s rather than stopping by his empty house.
Sure, Gabby had made his house nice. Beautiful. Magazine-worthy actually. But people made a house a home. Not things.
The first thing he noticed when he pulled up to his sister’s was that Gabby’s car wasn’t in the drive.
That had him cutting the engine and jumping from the truck to stride to the house.
The car, and Gabby, and now his sister and her husband, were all on the radar of some pretty nasty people and Zach didn’t know Silas Branson enough to trust the DHS to keep everyone safe from blowback.
Sure, maybe she was working late at a design job. But maybe she wasn’t. He pounded on the door with his left hand while trying the knob with his right. It was locked.
He was about to reach for his cell phone. If no one answered the door or the phone, he wasn’t above kicking the door in.
What most homeowners didn’t realize was how shockingly easy it was to force your way through a locked door. The lock might be metal but the door holding it was nothing but wood. Usually pretty flimsy wood at that.
And why hadn’t he thought of that before? He needed to beef up his sister’s security. Even if everything turned out to be fine, he’d do it tomorrow.
He heard the jigging of the lock and Amanda telling him to wait a second.
She yanked open the door, frowning. “What’s wrong? Why are you pounding like a maniac?”
“You tell me. Is everything okay?” he asked, glancing past her into the house, which was neat and clean as usual.
“Yes, why wouldn’t it be?” she asked.
He had given her enough information about their Tijuana trip to make her cautious, but not enough to scare her.
She didn’t realize his worst fear was that the drug ring would come after them all in retaliation for the DHS taking them down. If the DHS had done anything at all except trail them. Who knew? He’d been kept completely out of the loop. It was infuriating.
Fucking Branson.
“Where’s Gabby’s car?” he asked.
“For now, it’s in my garage, behind my car.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Was the drug cartel looking for her car and she had to hide it?
“Nothing’s wrong. She just won’t be driving it anytime soon.”
“Why won’t she?” he asked, not liking the sound of that.
She lifted one brow. “Did you not notice all her stuff is gone and your garage is now empty?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t go home first.
“We moved all her stuff to a storage unit.”
She had to be paying a lot per month for a unit that size. “I told her she could leave her stuff there until she found an apartment.”
Amanda moved into the house. He followed her and closed the door behind him. When she turned back, he saw an expression he didn’t like. “She left.”
“Where did she go?” he asked, not liking the feeling of dread growing in his gut.
“She’s in Hawaii. I dropped her at the airport yesterday.”
“She visiting her parents?” he asked, knowing it was a shot in the dark to hope this was just a routine family visit and she’d be back in a week or two.
“Nope.” She met his gaze. “She’s moving back home. I convinced her not to ship all her stuff yet. To give it a few months before she decided.”
Thank God his sister had convinced her to leave her stuff here for a while. It gave him some hope things would
change. That she’d change her mind and come back.
“Why did she leave?” He knew she’d been thinking about it, but for the future. Like maybe months from now. Not this week.
“Lots of reasons.” She tipped her head toward the kitchen. “Come sit. I’ve got dinner on the stove.”
For the first time he noticed the house smelled great as the aroma of cooking meat wafted to him.
“Stew?” he asked.
“Beef stroganoff,” she corrected.
Though he felt like he’d been hit in the gut with a two-by-four and had lost all desire to eat when he’d heard Gabby was gone, his empty stomach had scented food nearby and was starting to wake up in a big way.
In the kitchen, Amanda gave the pot a stir, replaced the lid and adjusted the heat of the burner. Finally she turned back to him. “We ran the numbers on her last job. She didn’t earn what she’d been hoping on it.”
“So she can get another job.” No big deal as far as he was concerned. Hell, she could probably earn a living turning trash into stuff to sell.
Amanda shook her head. “It wasn’t just the money. I told her she could stay here for as long as she needed but she refused.”
“Why now? She was already living here. Nothing’s changed.”
“Actually, something has.” Amanda’s hand dropped to her belly.
His gaze followed the move. The clues started to add up in his mind. Her refusing wine. Her having only one small cup of coffee the other morning when she was usually guzzling the stuff by the gallon.
His eyes grew wide. "You're . . ."
“Knocked up?” She smiled. “Yes, I am. You’re going to be an uncle.”
He moved around to his sister and wrapped her in a big hug. “That’s really great, sis.”
“Yes it is. Now you have to be nice to me because I’m pregnant.”
He pulled back and scowled. “It figures you’d think of that.”
But now Gabby moving out made sense. She didn’t want to impose on her friend after the baby came.
But still, Amanda wasn’t even showing yet. The baby was more than half a year away. So why did she pick up and run? He’d only been gone a damn week.