Fool’s Errand: Cartwright Brothers, Book 4

by Anderson, Lilliana

  Two weeks before the job, that was our final lesson.

  “I’m so sorry, Lizzie,” I said to my panel van as we pulled everything out of her to make room for the brothers to sit inside. She was up on wheel ramps with Toby underneath her—another rare moment seeing him out of a pants and dress shirt combo—messing with the shock absorbers so she’d rock more. He was making it as difficult as possible.

  “We’ll put it all back the way it was,” Sam said, chuckling at me as I patted her near the fuel cap. “She’ll be good as new.”

  “I think you could actually do with new shock absorbers all together,” Toby called out.

  “Really?” I turned my mouth downward. “She’s losing all her original parts.”

  “Original parts aren’t necessarily a good thing when it comes to cars,” Nate pointed out. “This car was released in the nineties. It’s a relic.”

  “Don’t listen to them, Lizzie,” I said.

  Nate laughed.

  “How’s it going out here?” Jasmine asked, walking outside and sliding on a pair of sunglasses. She was dressed in jeans and an emerald-green sweater. It was winter, but the sun still felt good on the skin.

  Toby slid out from under the car, placing tools in the ground with a clank. “I’m done. We’ll be on the road soon.”

  “You’re driving?”

  “I am,” Toby said, standing while wiping his hands on a rag.

  Jasmine nodded. “Be safe.”

  “Always.”

  She sucked in a lungful of air, like she was trying to let go of tension but couldn’t really relax. I understood how she felt because the closer we got to the job, the more anxious I felt too. And it was obvious that the rest of the family was the same. Long hours meant we barely saw each other and spent most nights sleeping at Jasmine’s to make life easier. But we were ‘on’ all the time, the job dominating the vast majority of all our interactions, all of our thoughts. Our time was running out, and I was spending less and less time with Abbot as he ran drills with his brothers and the bikers. I missed him, and I considered asking him daily if we could run early.

  “I’ll see you some time tonight?” Abbot asked after he walked out of the house with the bag of locks and tools they needed for their drill. He stopped right in front of me—toe to toe, nose to nose.

  “I’ll be waiting,” I told him, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing against him, wishing I could keep him right here. I was already tired of saying goodbye and not knowing how long until I saw him again.

  “Try to have fun with the girls?” He slid his eyes to the side were Holland, Alesha, and Ronnie were saying goodbye to their other halves.

  “I have been trying. They just keep doing spa days and shopping trips and I’m not about that life.”

  He grinned. “I get it. I’ll be thinking of you,” he said, kissing me softly before moving over to Toby who had just finished reversing Lizzie off the wheel ramps.

  “Thanks again for the loan,” Toby said, holding up my keys just as all the Cartwright brothers piled in the car.

  “I wish we could do some of this with them,” Alesha said as they drove off, leaving us, the group of dedicated women behind. “Every time they go it feels like goodbye, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Like we’re all on borrowed time.”

  She met my eyes and pressed her lips together, her gaze shone emotionally. “Exactly,” she whispered.

  “Want to go shopping?” Holland suggested to the group, her hand rubbing on her growing stomach. She was thirty weeks pregnant now and had a serious shopping for baby items addiction. I figured it was her distraction of choice, but not something I could handle at the moment. The stress of this job had thrown my usually clockwork-like cycle out of whack. I’d gotten excited when it was late, but the tests had come up negative, so I was trying my best not to even think about babies right now. The timing was all totally fucked up, and I couldn’t face any sort of hard reality right now.

  “I might sit this one out,” I said, squinting against the sun when I looked at her. “You guys go and have fun though. I might just go for a swim or something.”

  “At the aquatic centre?” Alesha asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re welcome to come.” See, I could get along with other girls. Abbot would be proud.

  “Do you guys mind?” Alesha directed at Jasmine, Holland, and Ronnie. “You go do some fun baby stuff and we’ll do laps.” She smiled, looking excited.

  “That sounds like the most unfun compromise I’ve ever heard,” Holland said with a laugh.

  “It’s fine,” Ronnie answered for everyone. “It’s insensitive for us to drag you around talking about all that stuff anyway.”

  Alesha waved her comment away. “I really don’t mind. It gives me something to look forward to. I just want to go swimming. I haven’t been in ages.”

  “OK,” Jasmine said. “Go, have fun exercising. We’ll meet you back here for dinner prep?”

  Alesha nodded, and I shrugged. Sometimes the traditional roles going on with this family really got to me. We were often separated into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ for domestic activities. I understood the reasoning, and that everyone had different roles to play, but I’d never been the most traditional woman and wasn’t much of a cook either.

  “Mind if we take your van?” I asked Alesha once they’d left. “Mine’s kind of not here.”

  Alesha laughed. “Of course. I’ll meet you out here in twenty?”

  “Sure.”

  It took me less than five minutes to get my swimming gear together, so I spent a few minutes staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth unnecessarily then putting my hair in a braid.

  That still gave me five minutes to spare.

  I opened the medicine cabinet and my eyes immediately went to the blue and pink box containing my last pregnancy test. I’d bought it the very first day my period was overdue and had already used up four out of the five, ever hopeful.

  Pulling the foil-covered stick out of the box, I held it between my fingers, twisting my lips in thought as I looked at my watch. What the hell? I’ve got time.

  Four tests had said no. So the odds were that this one would too. But it wasn’t as if I couldn’t just buy more later. And I refused to think of it as wasteful, because it would give me peace of mind for one more day, quieting that little question inside my head that kept saying, “What if?”

  Mind made, I tore into the packet and readied myself over the toilet, peeing on the stick then capping it.

  I’d just finished washing my hands when an almighty scream came from one of the other bedrooms.

  Oh God. Alesha.

  Rushing into the hallway, I raced straight to the room she and Sam had been sharing, my hands up like I was a ninja of some kind as I busted through the door, ready to take on whatever had caused the scream.

  “Oh my God!” She inhaled noisily, the sound coming from the bathroom.

  “Alesha!”

  I burst through the door, expecting something terrible to be happening but found her standing at the basin, fully dressed and crying at her reflection.

  “What happened?” Is she having a nervous breakdown?

  She shook her head, turning towards me, her mouth open and moving but no sound coming out.

  “What is it?” Softening my tone, I placed a hand on her upper arm and rubbed up and down, not knowing if it was too familiar, or exactly the right thing to do.

  “I…”

  “Is it this job? I’m freaking out too. I just got together with Abbot and if this goes wrong I might lose him for good. I feel sick thinking about it.”

  She cried harder, so it seemed I was on the right track by sharing my worries and continued.

  “I’ve watched a stack of movies with armoured van robberies, trying to compile a list of everything that could go wrong. I think being shot is my biggest worry. They’ll be armed and wearing Kevlar, but so will the cops. I don’t know how I feel about
them killing cops either. A lot of those guys have families, you know?”

  Alesha sniffed, seeming to calm down. “They’re using those gas grenades first. You know the ones that knock people out?”

  “I know. They’re actually called knockout grenades. They’re using flash bangs too to blind them, but there’s a lot of people involved and a lot of things that can go wrong. Nothing is straightforward. I keep wanting to question Abbot and make him tell me every contingency plan they have. But I’m trying not to be needy or put anything in his head that could take his mind off the job. They need laser-like focus if they’re going to pull this off.”

  “Oh my God,” Alesha gasped. “You’re right.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t tell him.”

  “I know.” Then I blinked. “Wait. Tell him what?”

  She took a breath then met my eyes. “I’m pregnant.” Her voice was such a whisper that I wasn’t sure I heard right.

  “Come again?”

  She smiled. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Holy fuck! Wow, Alesha. That’s…wow. Amazing.” So many high-pitched words flew out of my mouth at once, and I meant every one of them. I hadn’t spent as much time with Alesha as I had with Ronnie and Holland, but Ronnie had explained how hard it had been for Alesha, having wanted a child for so many years. And having only just recently had that time bomb go off in my own heart, I could imagine the anguish she’d felt over the years. This news far outshone my grief. She deserved this. God, I was so happy for her.

  “Thank you. I didn’t want to hope, but I couldn’t resist testing.”

  I know the feeling.

  “So, that’s what you were yelling about?”

  She nodded. “I was so excited, I just started screaming.” A sheepish grin took over her features. “Did I scare you?”

  “You scared the living shit out of me. I thought you were being murdered.”

  “Nope. Just growing a baby.” She grinned and let out a sigh. “A baby.”

  “There will be three cousins so close in age.” God, I hoped we could make it a forth, my test was sitting unchecked in Abbot’s and my bathroom. I desperately wanted to rush in and look at it, but I couldn’t face the disappointment of another negative test in the face of Alesha’s positive one. I wanted to be completely happy for her news without making it about me.

  “We’ll be able to help each other out. We don’t have a lot of family outside this house, so we can be the village for each other.” It takes a village to raise a family. No matter the outcome of the job, if Abbot and I managed to conceive a child, that child would be raised on its own away from this family. I knew it was for the best, but I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty and selfish for wanting to leave them all behind. Toby is leaving too. We aren’t alone.

  “I thought you had family. They run a funeral home?”

  “They do. But they’re…difficult, and while we’re on speaking terms, things aren’t all shiny rosy.”

  “I just have my mum. But she’s never been reliable. Too busy chasing men. And living the cat burglar life, it turns out.”

  “Like in the movies?”

  I shrugged. “I guess. I only found out a few months ago. Abbot helped me track down my pop’s money and it led to her.”

  “Did she steal it?”

  “No. Just moved it.” I sighed. “It’s a long story. Pop left me his shop, which didn’t have any cash flow because he was laundering his money through it. My mum got all the cash, some of which was clean and earmarked for me. But she claimed wouldn’t be released to me until I got married.” I rolled my eyes, thinking about the ridiculous rouse.

  “Oh,” she said. “So that’s why he changed his mind so suddenly.”

  My spine went rigid. Even though I would have thought the same in her shoes, it didn’t sit well coming from Alesha who had an airy voice and big doe-like eyes. The kind of girl guys loved rescuing. She was tall and slim and feminine with a beach boho style that was night and day against my basic jeans and T-shirts look.

  I opened my mouth to form some snappy retort, but stopped myself before it came out. She just found out that she was going to be a mum. I didn’t need to mar that moment with my own insecurities. I simply said, “He’s with me because he loves me.”

  “I know he does. He was just so anti-relationships, going to great lengths to hide his interest in you from the family. I thought there might be more to his change of heart.”

  I smiled, remembering how much I wanted him in the beginning and how quickly I realised I couldn’t just be his friend. “There is. He wanted something casual and I wanted more. I wasn’t willing to hand over the benefits part of our friendship if that’s all it would ever be.”

  “So it was all or nothing for you?”

  I nodded.

  “Wow. I think you just became my hero. You beat the Cartwrights at their own game.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the one in control this time. They’ve always called the shots, but not with you. You’re the kind of woman we all hope we grow up to be.”

  I scoffed, not so sure I was deserving of such praise. Jasmine and my mother did more than a little manipulating to get Abbot and me together. I simply held out until we couldn’t stand it any more. I didn’t know if that was being in control or just plain stubbornness on my part.

  “I don’t know that I was ever in control. We were just upfront with each other from the beginning. We thought we could be friends, maybe casual lovers. But when our feelings became real, I took a step back because I knew Abbot wasn’t in the same headspace as me.”

  “Was this when you left after the wedding? You seemed so close that night, I thought you were together.”

  “No. We were letting each other go there. We figured we’d end it before we went too far but—”

  “It was already too late.”

  I nodded.

  “Those Cartwright men can’t seem to walk down the aisle without a fight of some sort.”

  “It wasn’t smooth sailing for you either?”

  “Far from it. Do you know the story of how Sam and I met?”

  I shook my head. “Only that you were forced to marry alongside Nate and Holland.”

  “Wow, we could probably write a few books on the crazy shit that went down before now, but the CliffsNotes version is that the Cartwrights had targeted me as a person of interest. They used to talk their way into women’s beds then rob them while they slept. Except they didn’t rob me. Nate fell head over heels for Holland and they robbed her instead.”

  “That’s what she was talking about a few weeks back—he robbed her twice?”

  With a giggle, she nodded. “It was totally messed up in the beginning, but just like she and Nate clicked, so did Sam and I. We all ended up getting our happily ever afters. And you will too. They’ll get through this job. Abbot will propose and you’ll have a beautiful wedding. Then we can focus on growing this family and going back to the way things were before the drugs and the bikers and the smugglers.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?” I simply couldn’t believe the Grim Order would release a group capable of robbing a government drug transport and getting away with it. If they get away with it. Those kind of skills were criminal gold.

  “We’ll lie low for a while, but when they’re ready to work again, I really hope it’s going back to their roots,” she said, placing her hand on her stomach. “There are three very important reasons to step back once this mess is all cleaned up.”

  She was right. With babies coming, stepping away from these high-risk jobs was the best thing for everyone. Getting out entirely is best for everyone. But that was never going to happen.

  “Do you think Toby will really leave at the end of this?”

  “Well, he wants to. And Jasmine believes in letting everyone leave at least once to find their path…”

  “She does?” That surprised me, because she’d always seemed intent on keeping her sons
near.

  “Yeah, But it always leads back here.”

  “Because she makes it lead here or because they come back in their own.”

  She met my eyes and smiled. “Whichever gets the job done.” That’s when I saw something in Alesha I hadn’t noticed before—confidence. She knew who she was in this family and she believed in its cause. A mini Jasmine?

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to know the result of my test. I wanted to wait, focus on doing everything in my power to help this job go down without a hitch while helping Abbot plan our escape. Everything had to be perfect or we’d be dragged back into this life. They can never find us.

  From now on, every spare moment would be spent in planning. I was going to get my happily ever after goddammit. After all these years, I deserved my happiness and Abbot deserved to be free.

  Chapter Forty

  Positive

  “Walk me through every detail,” I said to Abbot and Toby later that night after Lizzie was put back to rights again. We were out by the pool having a beer. Although, mine was my usual non-alcoholic ginger one because anxiety over this whole thing was really starting to get the best of me and it helped to settle my stomach.

  “What do you want to know?” Toby asked, his feet stretched out on a lounger and his dog by his side.

  Abbot sat behind me, his legs bent to either side while I leaned against his chest. The outdoor heater kept us warm as the sun rapidly disappeared.

  “I want to know everything. Every detail.”

  Abbot and Toby locked eyes, seeming to quietly decide if they were willing to share. When Toby gave a nod, I felt a touch of relief.

  “The transport is leaving the courthouse at five in the morning to avoid sitting in traffic,” Abbot started, his voice rumbling against my back.

  “They’re sticking to major roads as much as possible because it’s the fastest route with the least chance of obstructions,” Toby continued. “But there are off-ramps.”

  “Which is where we’ll hit them,” Abbot said. “We’ll block them in on either side then move in.”