“That doesn’t sound so horrible to me.”
“You don’t under-stand. I…I’ve moved fi…fi…five times. She’s only fi…fi…five months old. She’s had fi…fi…five different places to sleep. That’s…just…unacceptable.”
“Baylee…”
“No, it’s true. We started out in Denver, and then we came back to L.A. and stayed with K…K…Kit for a while…and then…I moved in with my Da…Dad and Tanya…and…then we moved into Glo-ria’s little house…and now…we’re…we’re living here with you. That’s fi…fi…five moves.” She held up five fingers on one trembling hand. “I…I feel like such a trans…” She sniffled. “Like such a trans…”
She hiccupped before she sniffled again.
“Transvestite?” Dylan teased.
“Tran-sient.” She surveyed the heap of tissues hiding her feet. With her shoulders slumped, she kept her head bowed, staring at the mess on the tile floor.
“Baylee, you’ve had a lot going on in the last six months, more like a year, more than most new mothers. Stop beating yourself up for trying to keep Boyd from knowing Sarah exists. Your moves were necessary.”
“Oh, Dylan, it isn’t just that. When I found out I was pregnant I left L.A. I gave up my apartment. So when I came back, I didn’t have a place to stay and I moved in with my father and that was a terrible mistake and I’ve been moving around just like a trans…”
“Transvestite,” Dylan grinned.
“Noooo. I…I…I can’t keep moving around so much. Don’t you see, I’m such a bad…mo-ther.”
“Hey, stop that. Hush now.” He moved closer to her just to see if she’d let him. He knew she was upset when she didn’t inch back the way she usually did. He put a hand under her chin and brought her head up to make her look at him. Her red nose looked like Rudolph’s. Her crystal blue eyes were red-rimmed. Her face was flushed. But to him she still looked beautiful.
“You’re a great mother. Fantastic even. These last five months with Sarah, you’ve been carrying around the weight of the world on your shoulders. I think it’s time you cut yourself some slack.”
“I’m…so…scared. What if Connor…”
“Well, don’t be. If Connor comes looking for you here, he’ll see a man and a woman living together with a baby and move on with his nice tidy life.” At least Dylan hoped that’s what would happen. He took the almost-empty roll of toilet paper from her and twirled off the last of several sheets. “Now dry those eyes.”
She sniffled. “I’m a mess.”
“You are. But you’re such a beautiful one,” he agreed lightly.
Through bleary eyes, she looked up. His blue eyes speared hers. A fleck of need kindled. But only for a second until Baylee’s dimmer switch clicked on. It wasn’t hard to picture this man with his surfer good looks keeping a bevy of women dangling on his own personal string.
“Won’t the fact that we’re staying here put a major crimp in your social life?”
“Yeah, but I’ll live. Maybe I’ll take Sarah out in that stroller thing, walk her around the neighborhood, show her off, cruise around the beach some, pick me up a couple of new women. That baby’s probably a real chick magnet.”
Baylee’s mouth fell open. She looked appalled.
Dylan laughed. “God, woman, you are so easy.”
But Baylee’s sense of humor was a bit out of whack. She still had that solemn look on her face when she offered, “I’ll help with the cooking and cleaning…and…”
“Baylee, I don’t expect you to be my damn housekeeper.”
“But I want to carry my weight around here, Dylan. Kit says I can’t even go back to the Book & Bean. I have to do something.”
He grinned and tried to lighten the mood. “Baylee, are you nervous because we’re attracted to each other?” He saw her swallow…tremble a little at the idea. Always a good sign.
“Not nervous. Surprised maybe?” Baylee answered.
“Surprised. Why?”
“Why would you be attracted to me of all people? Right now, I’m in this mess. It’s not my best moment.” She laughed. “Not only that, but I don’t feel very attractive. Look at me.”
“I have.” His tone turned serious when he realized she wasn’t playing a game with him or fishing for a compliment. It was time to level with each other. He tucked a strand of her hair behind one ear and went from the gut. “Well, for starters, you’re beautiful.”
Dylan thought she was beautiful, what a concept. “But I have a baby. I thought you single guys avoided all women with kids like we were some kind of combined pestilence better left alone.”
He laughed. “I admit I’ve given some thought to that. Sarah definitely changes things.”
“And?”
“And I think it’s doable. We’re doable.”
“Are you serious?”
“I admit it’s awkward, you living here now. But we can take it slow. Get to know each other first. That’s the part I haven’t done…for quite some time, maybe never. Usually…”
Baylee nodded in understanding. “Usually, it’s hop in the sack first. I get it. But I can’t do that with Sarah. I have to be careful.”
“I know. This is definitely not the norm.”
She sniffled. “I’ll say. Thanks for letting us stay here, Dylan.”
“No problem.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess.” She blew her nose again on a soggy piece of tissue that came apart in her hand. “It’s embarrassing.”
“You’ve had a rough day.”
“Thanks for pretending to be Sarah’s father.” She sniffled again. “You’re a nice person.”
“Yeah. I’m a saint.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” She smiled weakly.
He smiled too and picked up one of her hands, stood up. “Now, what do you say I walk you to your door? You’ll feel better about things after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
Baylee stood up. “Dylan?”
He angled his head and looked down at her. At six-one he was a good eight inches taller, toned and athletic, but the woman looking up at him was just as fit, just as toned. Probably from hauling around Sarah in that infant seat thing, he thought, as he waited for her to go on.
“Tanya called. She’s my… she’s the woman who raised me.” She was actually the closest thing to a mother Baylee had, but Dylan didn’t need to know that. “She takes good care of Dad. Apparently, he isn’t doing too well. I need to go…see him. ”
He noted the guilty look on her face. He remembered what she’d said at the Book & Bean about her alcoholic father being verbally abusive. Never known as reticent, he wanted to know more. “Talk to me, Baylee.”
She bit her lip. “I have some issues with my father.” That was an understatement, but at least it was an honest first step. What would Dylan think when he actually met the man? “He’s difficult.”
“You want to tell me about it?” He couldn’t imagine what it was like for her to grow up with an abusive father.
She shook her head. “Maybe some other time.”
“Okay, no problem. Just let me know when you’re ready to see him.” The visit would be their first foray into this fictional scene they’d created. And he would see what the legendary William Scott was like for himself.
“Look, Dylan, I know you have a job, work to do. I can go over there by myself.”
He let out a weary sigh. “We’ve been all over this. For this to work, we need to make sure people see us together, see us as a couple, that is until we’re comfortable being one. And Jake is onboard with this.
“I’ll work from the house and do whatever it takes, for however long. Until Jordan Donovan puts a team together that will keep an eye on the Boyd brothers, the job falls to Jake and me to keep an eye on the two of you. So forget it, Baylee, we stick together…like superglue. Your Range Rover’s back at Gloria’s. If you need to go anywhere, any place at all, we go together. And stop acting like you’re a visitor here, like you�
��re intruding.”
She’d been doing it all evening, asking if she could use this or use that, hesitant about settling in.
“I want you to feel at home here, be comfortable with the situation, and be comfortable with me. I know you’re bummed about not going back to the Book & Bean, but if you’re working at the store, you’re more vulnerable now that he knows you’re there. Next time he could zero in on the baby. If it means that much I suppose you could work at the store without taking Sarah with you, and leave her with a sitter. Is that what you want?”
“I was upset at first. But after I thought it through, I understand. It’s better this way until things calm down.” She wiped her nose. “You have a lovely home here, Dylan. I can’t help it if I feel like I’m intruding.” She was intruding. Then she looked up into his blue eyes. Even though he towered over her, she felt no fear, not like she had with Connor.
She was so petite, thought Dylan, and so close. He tipped her chin up slightly just before he stepped into her body and brought her up against his chest. Touching his mouth to hers, lip to lip, the kiss started slow, gentle. In an instant it began to build hotter. A tender touch of lips became open-mouthed tongues bursting with flare and heat. Baylee angled her head for better access, allowing Dylan to taste and sample while she began to climb.
Her body was on fire. She felt slick and warm, heated from head to toe. She had no idea why the small space was suddenly so hot. She was burning up. And she wasn’t the only one; she could feel Dylan’s body vibrating with the in and out, the give and take of the kiss.
And what a kiss.
They came up for air.
Immediately missing the contact, Baylee muttered, “That was…” Incredible, she thought.
He continued to hold her as her body clung to his. He finished her thought in a hoarse whisper.
“Hot. Somehow I knew it would be like that.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound too thrilled.”
“We just agreed to take it slow. And yeah, thrilled, I’m not. But I’ll live.”
CHAPTER 3
Since watching the sun sink into the water, Connor had downed an entire bottle of Rey Sol Anejo along with snorting several lines of coke. Outside on the terrace of his Malibu beach house, he’d been sitting alone for hours casting an occasional glance out to sea into the black night trying to feel—something, anything at all.
The tequila hadn’t helped, nor had the drug. They never did, at least not the way they once had. The only emotions he mustered these days began and ended with blind rage. Today had been no different. He thought about Baylee, tried to conjure up a sense of caring. Instead, anger bubbled up. Lately, he couldn’t seem to control it like the old days. Rage, anger, there was no mellow. He wanted to hit something, preferably that little bitch Baylee.
The image of them that night at the hotel blurred with so many images of other women. Baylee should have felt glad to be included in his own personal private club of sorts. She should be grateful he had kept himself under control in that backwater little coffee shop today. She’d been lucky. If Kit and Boston hadn’t come in when they did he might have had to teach her another lesson… The Connor Boyd life lesson.
When he heard footsteps behind him, he glanced up to see his uncle, Frank Geller, walking toward him. He turned, catching the smug look on the man’s face. It pissed him off. Connor took a deliberate puff on his Cuban cigar and bellowed, “It’s about goddamned time you showed up.”
He’d been expecting Frank two weeks ago. But then he’d been conveniently out of touch on yet another honeymoon, somewhere on the Riviera with his fifth wife, a busty blond tart half his age.
Connor intended to give Frank as much grief as he could for it. “Just now getting back into town, Frank? Took your sweet goddamned time about it, didn’t you? We buried the only two sisters you’ll ever have last week along with my father, your business partner, you dumb fuck. We couldn’t very well put off having three funerals long enough for you to decide to show back up again, now could we? Three goddamned funerals in two weeks. Why the hell didn’t you answer your cell phone?”
In his late sixties with the dark brooding eyes that ran on the Geller side of the family, Frank did his best to look sheepish. The nervousness was real though. Knowing full well he didn’t like to tangle with his volatile nephews, especially this one, he’d taken his sweet time finding a flight back to L.A. after receiving the news about the murders.
One didn’t rush back into a cesspool when you were enjoying all manner of perversions, the best money could buy, in an exotic foreign land. That would have been incredibly foolish. And Frank Geller was many things, but foolish wasn’t one of them.
It was no skin off his nose if someone had finally taken matters into their own hands and dealt with a few vendettas from the past. Settling a few scores was to be expected. No one knew the risks of doing business like they had over the past forty years better than his own two sisters, Jessica and Eva. And certainly Sumner Boyd had made his own enemies throughout the years.
Even in the dark, staring into the soulless eyes of his nephew, Frank wasn’t about to be so bold and forthright to share those feelings now. That would only feed deeper into Connor’s instability. Frank snaked an unsteady hand through his dyed-too-many-times slick black hair and merely stuck his hands in his pockets, tried to look chagrin.
“We were staying at an exclusive resort. When we booked our accommodations, cell phone service wasn’t exactly our primary concern at the time, if you know what I mean. How was I supposed to know some nutcase would be back here in L.A. exterminating my family?”
“Yeah, well, if I were you I’d crack open my wallet and hire a personal bodyguard, one that isn’t too smart and is willing to take a bullet for you because this nutcase isn’t just brilliant at what he does—he’s seriously pissed.
“Because Frank, my friend, of the four original partners you’re the only one left standing. Do you have any ideas what the hell is going on here? Other than the fact he’s discovered that our little family law firm started its roots and all with a double murder.”
Frank tried the deep-in-thought look and scratched his chin. But he didn’t dare talk back to this one. He knew better.
“I understand Alana’s murder triggered this whole thing. Why would anyone wait so long for revenge though? Did you consider that? Forty years is a long damned time. I can’t imagine who could have found out. And Cade tells me Auslo and Taft couldn’t locate the incriminating piece of evidence.”
Connor’s eyes flashed.
Even though Connor was seated, Frank took a step back.
“You aren’t in court, Frank. It’s just the two of us here. You don’t have to tippy-toe around the word. They couldn’t find the gun, the .357. They tore up Alana’s house, Kit’s, Gloria’s, even searched Boston’s software company. Didn’t find a goddamned thing in the process, total waste of time, total waste of money. And Auslo and Taft were two total wastes of excuses for lackeys.”
Frank saw Connor starting to work himself up. “We’ve no idea if Alana even still owned the thing. She could have gotten rid of it ages ago.”
Connor snorted. “Didn’t know the bitch very well, did you? She kept it for leverage, Frank. Blackmail material, you stupid fuck.”
Frank tried reason. “Now we don’t know that for certain, Connor. It’s probably long gone by now anyway and nothing to worry about. I certainly couldn’t find the damned gun when I was married to said bitch, and believe me, I looked. We don’t even know if, in the larger scheme of things, the gun is that significant anymore.”
“Frank, the gun is the least of our problems,” Collin pointed out, as he sauntered outside to join them, wearing nothing but jeans, bare-chested except for the large bandage covering an obvious wound to his shoulder. Other than being a little pasty-faced from blood loss, a fact that stood out because his coal black hair was still wet from his shower, Collin showed no si
gns of having stared death in the face twenty-four hours earlier. In his macho way he looked rather cocky, pleased with himself that he’d survived a bullet.
He walked over to the outdoor bar, uncapped a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, and poured a generous portion into a crystal goblet.
“What the hell happened to you?” Frank asked.
At Frank’s obvious stupidity, Connor laughed. “Haven’t you heard? The nutcase tried to take him out—and missed.”
“Missed? To hell you say. What does this look like, a paper cut? It was the same SOB who took out Auslo and Taft with deadly accuracy.” Collin suddenly remembered the bullet hitting him, the searing pain, and how lucky he’d been just to get up and run out of that warehouse.
But like the immature man he was, Collin made like he was target shooting and formed a gun with his index finger, sent it jabbing through the air in Frank’s direction. “You’re next, uncle of mine. If I had to put money on it, you’re the one’s he’s gunning for next, old man. I’m lucky his aim was off, so lucky I might even go out and buy a lottery ticket.” Aiming his finger in a mock shot, he added, “Pow!”
Connor turned slowly to face his brother. “You can be such an idiot some times. How can you joke about this? The doctor said one inch the other way and we’d be planning another funeral. I’m surprised you’re up and at ‘em and not milking this for all it’s worth. Did you get a good look at this guy?”
“Are you kidding? It happened too fast. One minute I was body-shielding Kit, the next my chest was on fire.” Collin said this with all the guile of a man playing his part to the fullest.
Connor shot a disbelieving look toward Collin. “Save it, bro. You don’t have to pretend in front of Frank. That may be the official story for Jacob and Adam. And knowing our less than brilliant-cousins they’ll never figure it out. The Gatz branch of the family has always been more than a little slow on the uptake. But when it’s me, I don’t want your bullshit. You were supposed to let Auslo and Taft handle the abduction while you waited back at the warehouse where no one would be able to connect you. That was what we agreed on.”
Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2) Page 5