Always (Family Justice Book 1)

by Halliday, Suzanne

  Filene’s reaction was to overreact and bear a grudge. If she weren’t careful, the time she’d taken for an extended family leave could crush her client roster.

  The mild but irritating kerfuffle with her business brought the bigger picture into focus. She was only in Arizona temporarily. Eventually, no matter how long she tried to linger, she’d have to return to the world and her real life.

  Daniel was three weeks old and was the best baby on earth. Tori was doing so much better. On doctor’s orders, she walked every day. At first it was just around the downstairs but as her strength returned she started staying on her feet more and more.

  Things felt like they were stabilizing. Life was normal again.

  Today, Meghan and Lacey were over for a photo shoot with the babies. Last-minute gift idea for the new daddies.

  Lacey was giggling as she kissed her beautiful son all over his chubby little body between applying a thick layer of bright red lipstick. The effect was adorable. Cute baby, covered in his mommy’s kisses. It was going to make a wonderful picture.

  “Cannot wait for Christmas,” Dylan’s mommy proclaimed gleefully. She lowered her voice and chuckled, telling them “I got Cameron a Santa outfit—thought we’d start out right with some holiday traditions. When I told him he had to wear the suit every Christmas Eve when he put the presents under the tree, he started laughing so hard I seriously thought he was going to have a seizure!”

  Tori added her two cents— for what it was worth. “Don’t suppose you also picked up the naughty elf costume, hmmm?”

  “Says the woman who has a tacky harem outfit shoved in a bag somewhere.”

  Meghan looked up from the camera she was fussing with and rolled her eyes. “What is it with you guys and the costumes?

  Lacey grinned and rolled her shoulder as she pushed Dylan’s chubby little legs into a footie adorned with Christmas images. “She started it,” she said, pointing at Tori.

  Stephanie had to laugh. The three Justice wives teased and needled each other non-stop. It was hard not to find the humor in how they interacted. Quiet and gentle Lacey, little but feisty Victoria and balls-to-the-wall Meghan.

  “Where are the men,” she asked when it occurred to Stephanie that she hadn’t seen any of them for some time. Usually, one or all of them were in full hover mode when the ladies got together.

  Meghan made an inelegant snort. “Boys Club meeting.”

  Dylan was squidgy while his mommy and Meghan tried to get him propped up in the cute seasonal scene before he drooled or spit up and ruined his outfit. Each of the boys had a half dozen changes plus a matching set of tuxedo footies for a shot of the two cousins.

  As the camera clicked away, it occurred to Stephanie that she wasn’t going to have much wall space from here on out since every available inch will end up covered with photographs of her precious grandson. Oh, boo hoo!

  Tori finished nursing Daniel and propped him on her shoulder. They were adorable together and she couldn’t be happier for her daughter. Big D, as he was being called, had his father’s steel blue eyes and mother’s sweet lips.

  “Boys Club? Hmmmm. Wonder what that’s all about,” she murmured, distracted by a tiny burp and baby grunt. “Hope they’re not re-inventing the wheel or anything.”

  “Is that normal?” Stephanie asked. “The formal meeting, I mean.”

  Lacey shook a soft baby toy for Dylan and peered awkwardly under her arm at them. Keeping the lively three-month-old him distracted while Meghan did her photographer thing wasn’t all that easy. “I’ve been here longest and this is the first time in a year they’ve schedule a team meeting.”

  Really?” Meghan drawled. “I suppose because they talk all the time it does seem kind of weird that they actually scheduled something.”

  Stephanie had spent too many years running her own business not to immediately recognize the significance of a group sit down. My goodness. Something was definitely up.

  “Hold on,” Meghan blurted out suddenly. She looked at Stephanie and asked, “Isn’t Calder up at the house with all of them?”

  Indeed he is, she thought. Nodding at the girls she told them, “Now that I think about it he did say he’d be tied up most of the afternoon.”

  All three of them had a similar reaction to this news as hands slapped laps, snorts could be heard, and Lacey mumbled, Oh Lord, what are they up to?”

  ALEX SWAGGERED INTO THE STUDY thinking he was all that and then some only to find when he shut the door behind him that absolutely nobody gave a shit that he was there.

  Why in the hell was it that when he wanted them to pay attention, they’d be off in their own little worlds. Like today. And when he wanted them to mind their own, they were generally all up in his grill.

  Draegyn and Cameron were side by side on the sofa, engaged in some bang bang shoot ‘em up on the TV which was blaring the sounds for Call of Duty at ear splitting decibels. Typical.

  Over at the wet bar, Calder and Brody looked like they were browsing a catalog spread out in front of them. Motorcycles. They were talking motorcycles—Alex could tell by a couple of the gestures they were making.

  Everyone was oblivious to his presence.

  Some fucking CEO he was, goddammit. I mean, what the fuck? My own people don’t stand at attention when I walk in the room? The outrage! He had to chuckle at how ridiculous it all was. Team Justice. Pfft.

  Making his way to the enormous carved desk that dominated the room, Alex made sure to walk right in front of their videogame. When they barked at him to move his ass, he simply picked the remote control up off the table and switched the TV off.

  Their loud howls of outrage bounced off the walls and got Calder and Brody’s instant attention.

  Dropping a stack of folders onto the wood desk with a thud, he ignored the caterwauling like it wasn’t happening. A good commanding officer always let his closest men have an opportunity to be irreverent and belligerent before it was hammer time. Some things never change.

  “Alright ladies,” Alex jeered, crossing his arms across his broad chest and glowering at the four of them with a crooked grin. “In case you girls didn’t hear it—the bell rang and class is about to start.”

  Drae sneered at him then pretended to drag a ball and chain around his ankle over to the chairs set up on the other side of the desk. The sound effects were kind of over-the-top but for an overall score—Alex was giving it a seven.

  Cam, on the other hand, showed some motherfucking respect by snapping to attention and offering a ramrod straight and absolutely exact salute. Then he marched with military precision, mockingly stomping his feet the entire way, to his seat—making sure he stopped and pivoted in true unit drill style.

  Brody was trying not to laugh and Calder simply snickered and shrugged.

  When they were all seated, Alex picked up a control pad and hit a few buttons, then dropped it dramatically, fixing them all with a stern look.

  “Okay kids—the room is now live. Everything we say is being recorded . The transcript of this meeting will be entered in the files. So—no talk of sedition or treason. Let’s try to remember who we are. Everyone understand?”

  He looked around at the nodding heads and pulled the first file off the stack toward him. There was so much to say and so much protocol to follow that he’d made notes. Seemed appropriate for the occasion.

  “Let the record show that in attendance are: Alexander Marquez, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operations Officers, Cameron Justice and Draegyn St. John. Also in attendance are Calder Dane and Brody Jensen.”

  Okay. Formalities taken care of. Alex pulled out his big desk chair and sat down, scooting into place and scraped his hand back and forth through his hair.

  “Alright, so…” he began. “Before we go any further—I’m going to ask Calder and Brody to step out of the room for a few minutes so we can have an executive conference.” He looked at the men and told them, “Give us a few minutes, okay? I’ll holler when you can come back.�
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  He carefully weighed the expressions on Cam and Drae’s faces as this game of musical chairs began. Alex felt a thud in the pit of his stomach and hoped he was doing the right thing. After tonight, everything was going to change.

  Drae, who never missed a chance to make a comment, looked at him with one raised eyebrow and a slight smirk. “Is this the part where we slice open our thumbs and become blood brothers?”

  Cam folded his hands over his stomach, reclined in his chair with his feet stretched out casually in front and his crossed his ankles. “That was a bit cloak and daggerish, Boss. What’s going on?”

  He could hear Meghan in his head telling him to turn down the noise and go from the heart. She said it was his best quality.

  “I want to bring Brody in. Make him an Operations Manager. Give him junior standing in the agency.”

  Cam and Drae both sat up straight. He’d caught them off guard with something that was literally coming out of the blue. They were quiet for a minute then Drae spoke.

  “We’re at a crossroads. Time to make some changes. Figure out where this is all going.”

  “Exactly,” Alex agreed.

  “You have a plan, don’t you, Alex?” Cam asked sounding not all that surprised.

  “Look guys, after the fuckery that just went down with you two, I realized this shit wasn’t going to work anymore. Bottom line—we’ve worked our asses off to make the agency a success. This is one sweet deal we have going on here.”

  Alex was glad to see them agree with quick nods.

  “But I think we need to start executing the second part of our original plan.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Cam asked, shocked.

  “Yeah. More than you know.”

  Drae’s brain kicked in. “Expand the compound? Offer world-class facilities to anyone willing to pay out the ass? You know I always liked that plan.”

  Alex grinned. “Hold on to you shorts gentlemen ‘cause I have an announcement.”

  Cam punched Drae in the arm and drawled, “He sounds excited. You know what happens when the Major gets excited.”

  “My cock is available for blowing anytime you’re ready,” Alex sneered with a laugh.

  “This announcement somehow concerns Jensen, right?”

  “Correct, Drae.” He looked at them and considered what he was about to say. It was going to change everyone’s life.

  “Not gonna bullshit you two or make up some wild fucking story. Just going to come right out and tell you.”

  He grabbed another folder from the stack and lifted the flap, handing each of them a blueprint for a grand new vision for the agency compound.

  “When I first started kicking this around, I was thinking out loud and mentioned to Meghan that we’d have to apply for a loan on agency collateral. We could probably join our personal assets and do this without help, but that was counter-intuitive to why we’d expand in the first place. So, she asked how much the agency would need to see the vision through. I gave her an off the top of my head figure and she simply contacted her financial guy and had him transfer the funds into an escrow account.”

  “I know you’re not kidding, but are you fucking kidding?” Drae stammered.

  “Not even a little bit,” he replied solemnly.

  “Alex,” Cam exclaimed as he studied the paperwork. “Holy shit. A pool and a parking lot? Conference center? Business offices. You’re pulling out all the stops.”

  “Well,” he explained. “This is the way we saw it, right? I even spoke to an environmental engineer about the impact of the expansion. There’ll be no personal vehicles beyond the lot with people moving around the compound by cart, Segway, bikes. And the pool? Fuck. That’s all about separating Justice from Family Justice. No more agency barbecues at the Villa. Now that there are kids in the mix, we have to ensure that our family lives remain private.”

  “Wow. Good thinking on your part.” He could see Drae analyzing every detail. “So where does Jensen come into all this?”

  “Fuck,” Alex said. “That’s practically a no-brainer.” He grabbed some more papers from another folder and shoved them at his brothers. “Take a look at those numbers. We could triple the size of the canine program, and it still wouldn’t meet demand. Plus, that shit is bringing in a small fortune.”

  Cam whistled when he got a good look at the printout. “I had no idea the pups were so lucrative.”

  Alex sat back in his chair. “Brody’s big reveal about his kid made me start thinking. He brought it up now ‘cause he’s ready to make some changes. Cam,” he said with a brief nod in his direction, “I know you’ve been lobbying him hard to stick around full-time.”

  “Yeah. Dylan likes him, what can I say?”

  “Good a reason as any,” he assured Cam. “I figured if we gave him the opportunity, he could easily develop of top-notch canine program. Making him a junior is the right thing to do. Plus, he’s kind of on the fence about it for obvious reasons, but he also has mad sniper skills in stealth, CAMMO, infiltration, and shit like that. He could be our go-to guy for that kind of thing. The fucking FBI came out of the woodwork and tried to recruit his ass for their agent training so we need to step up with a better offer.”

  “Well, fuck it,” Drae declared. “I’m in. It’s a damn good call.”

  Cam nodded his agreement. “What the hell,” he quipped. “Why the fuck not?”

  “There’s something else,” Alex muttered. He really didn’t know how to say this and hoped it didn’t come out wrong. Last thing he wanted to do was piss anyone off or hurt their feelings.

  “Oh fuck,” Drae grumbled.

  “It’s past time for you two to come out of the field. We’re not the young guns anymore, guys. And you both have other responsibilities that come first.”

  Alex blurted all that out in a muttered rush. It felt awkward telling his right hands that, in a nutshell, they were getting too old for this shit. But he knew it was the right thing to do. The time had come.

  Drae and Cameron were absolutely silent. Like, paralyzed, immobile, slack-jawed silent.

  Alex squirmed even if it was just in his mind. He was way too controlled for that, but their stunned silence unnerved him.

  “Holy fucking shit!” Drae boomed as he shot to his feet. For a split second, Alex thought he was going to come over the desk at him.

  Right then—the whirlwind of emotions swirling loudly in the room got way intense.

  Then Cam started laughing. A deep, rumbling laugh that got his attention. Cam stood slowly and moved next to Drae—thumping him firmly on the shoulder blade.

  “Dude,” he chuckled. “Here we were trying to handle the Major with kid gloves while this guy just double cocked us without blinking an eye.”

  Drae started laughing, too.

  What the fuck?

  “Man,” Drae said as he tried but failed to keep a straight face, “we’ve been tiptoeing around here trying to find a way to bring this up. That last bit of bullshit with Majid? Come on. So totally unnecessary. The closest we should have come to that shit,” he bit out in that short, clipped tight-assed way he had, “was from a five-star hotel room where we directed a secure team to do the grunt work.”

  It took a minute for Alex’s brain to catch up with what he was hearing. They wanted to stand down? For real? Aw, fuck. This was all happening.

  Cam exhaled impatiently and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked pissed off and was nodding his head to what Drae was saying. “About the time my face was getting smashed by an iPhone, I remember thinking—this is fucked up. Frankly, bro—kicking those fucker’s asses? Annoyed the hell out of me. I don’t want to be doing that shit anymore. Got a wife and a kid, man. And nothing left to prove.”

  The rest of the executive meeting took less than five minutes. This was it. They were done with the boots on the ground shit. All of them. From here on out, they turned their attention to expanding the agency, bringing on new talent, and coordinating without being the fool to lea
d the battle charge when the time came.

  CALDER FIGURED THAT AT HIS age it was a good thing he’d figured out the fine difference between chasing pleasure and engaging in real intimacy because it gave legs to what was going on between him and Stephanie.

  Now that Tori was getting around more and the St. John household was starting to establish a rhythm, his lady preferred spending time with him at the casita rather than entertaining him, as she so quaintly put it, in her suite.

  She was giving Drae and Tori the widest berth possible so they had all the space and time they needed be husband and wife and not just new mommy and daddy. He had to admit, Stephanie had uncanny senses when it came to reading other people’s moods and understanding their needs.

  Not that he was complaining, because he was certainly benefitting from the arrangement. Sometimes they had dinner together and sometimes they didn’t. Her priority was Tori and Drae—if they wanted family dinner—she made sure it happened. If they wanted alone time—they got that, too.

  But after dinner, that was when he was more or less assured that the beautiful and elegant Stephanie Bennett was all his.

  There were times when he’d court her with his best gentlemanly behavior with a little flirtation and teasing until he got her so flustered she’d blush and giggle. Other times, he flat-out seduced her. She always seemed shocked that he focused so much effort on her pleasure. Made him grateful that no man before him had managed to get close to her. She was unique.

  They were in bed, engaging in the sort of mind-blowing eroticism that always seemed to break out when they were alone.

  Calder enjoyed getting off just as much as the next guy, but when it came to this woman, what he’d come to need as much as his body wanted an orgasm, was to see her pleasure. He loved watching her come. Craved the little noises she made. Like the ones she was making right now as he slowly stroked in and out.

  The lady was like sexual crack. He was addicted more and more every day. After all, there was nothing like being treated to a sensual ballet while she was under him, her moans and writhing body wiping out his brain so completely it was a wonder he could function afterward.