“Unless it’s Levi’s pick,” Natalie said. “There seems to be a phenomenon that happens when it’s Levi’s turn to pick the game. Suddenly, not one of the brothers can manage to beat my nine-year-old.”
Gia frowned, bits and pieces clicking together. Her gaze shot to Ninette who, not surprisingly, had eyes on Gia as if she was simply waiting for two and two to equal four. “Today’s Wednesday. Why are you with me?”
If there was any doubt Ninette Kennedy was Jace’s mother, the devious smile that split her face would have eradicated it. “Well, we always do girls’ day out before family night, but normally by now we’d be out at Haven.”
Sylvie’s eyes hopped high and her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Ninnie, what are you doin’?”
“Uh-oh,” Vivienne said.
Natalie scooted so she faced the front of the car and Gabe slunk lower in her seat like she was braced to avoid any flying debris.
Ninette held Gia’s stare. “Beckett asked us to move family night to Saturday this week. Said something about having a window of opportunity and needing to make sure his woman was nowhere near that window while he took it.”
A window?
As soon as her brain tossed up the question the answer swung right in behind it. Brantley Davis. “He’s breaking into Brantley’s apartment, isn’t he?”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Sylvie popped her seat belt. “The lad just landed the woman he’s always wanted and here ye are stirrin’ the pot.” She twisted and faced Gia. “Don’t get too mad at him, lass. It’s just their way.”
“He would have told you afterward,” Darya said low beside her.
Gia wasn’t sure what shocked her more. The fact that she’d been referenced as Beckett’s woman, that Beckett had orchestrated the whole day to make sure he got what he needed, or that Jace’s mother had tipped the whole plan on its head. She focused on Darya. “You knew?” She scanned the rest of them. “You all knew?”
“Well, we knew family night was rescheduled,” Gabe said.
Natalie glanced at Vivienne. “And that something was up.”
“So,” Ninette added in a verbal equivalent of dusting her hands after a hard day’s work. “Now we’re here. Let’s get inside and introduce Gia to the wonderful world of cooking.”
Obviously eager to escape the building emotions in the SUV’s interior, Gabe and Sylvie both popped the passenger doors in perfect synchronization.
Vivienne dared a glance at Gia and grinned as she scooted out behind Gabe. “Sylvie, I think we might have miscalculated this idea. You sure it’s a good idea to let Gia play with knives right now?”
So tangled up with what she’d learned and wrestling with what action she most wanted to take, she was two steps into Sur la Table’s entrance before the words cooking and knives took root. She stopped so hard Natalie nearly plowed into her back. “What are we doing here?”
Ninette moved in next to her, wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her to a wide room off to one side. “Well, if you ask Sylvie, she’ll tell you she wants to share her love of cooking with you. Truth is, she’s got the hots for one of their instructors.”
Sticking close to her other side, Darya leaned in and muttered, “Don’t tell Knox I said so, but he is pretty cute.”
Sylvie paused right before crossing the room’s threshold and hissed. “Hands off. You’ve got one.” Her gaze cut to Ninette. “You—haud yer wheesht.”
“I will not be quiet.” Keeping Gia close, Ninette steered her to the front of the room. “What’s the fun in having a new daughter if I can’t teach her a thing or two along the way?”
Before she knew it, Gia was standing behind a stainless-steel cooking table big enough for two. All kinds of bowls, spoons, knives and gadgets she didn’t recognize were neatly arranged on top and on shelves beneath.
Family.
Daughter.
The woman he’s always wanted.
Beckett’s woman.
She splayed her hands on the cold table, needing something—anything—to hold her steady through the storm wrecking her insides. “I don’t know how to cook.”
Ninette snagged the crisp ivory and sage apron folded in front of her and shook it out. “Beckett might have mentioned that little tidbit, too.” She lifted the top loop over her head and leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper as she tied the string around her waist. “Personally, I’d keep it that way. Kind of sexy seeing a man in the kitchen. Especially if it’s breakfast they’re cooking and they’re all rumpled from a good tussle the night before.”
Gia stared down at her own apron. She knew she should put it on. Knew she should just let go and roll with the moment, but her body wouldn’t move. Was too weighted down and distracted by foreign emotions grappling for control. Hell, even breathing was a challenge.
Ninette sidled closer, her posture such that, to everyone else, she probably just looked like a woman getting the lay of the land and striking up a casual conversation with the woman beside her. But her voice was that of a wise and comforting mother. “Which part got you? The fact that he went all out for you, or the number of people that fell in with him to do it?”
God, she was good. Freakishly adept at lasering straight to the heart of the matter. Nowhere near the head-in-the-clouds, detached perspective her mother seemed to have had for the last decade. “I’ve always taken care of myself.”
Ninette nodded, hummed as though she understood and unfolded the apron still waiting in front of Gia. “You’re a strong woman. Beckett loves that about you.”
For some reason the comment struck deep, jarring her head up the way her foot would respond to a reflex test. “Then why not let me take care of this, too?”
The smile Ninette beamed on her was as bold and bright as the late afternoon sunshine slanting through the room’s wide windows. She hooked the apron’s loop around Gia’s neck and spun her to tie the strings in back. “Maybe it’s his way of showing you you aren’t alone anymore. Of showing you you don’t have to shoulder everything solo the way you’ve always done. My boy’s got lots of muscle on the outside, but his heart’s just as strong.” She patted Gia’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let him show you.”
Easy chatter from the other women and other class attendees filled the space around her. Gabe’s quiet but husky voice. Natalie’s honey one. Vivienne’s snark and Darya’s accent. Sylvie’s Scottish lilt was mingled with them all while she peppered the instructor who’d made it all of two steps into the room before she’d moved in for a highly flirtatious welcome.
Ninette slid onto the bar stool, quiet for the first time all day. As if she knew there was more just waiting on the tip of Gia’s tongue and was content to wait however long was needed.
“Why did you tell me?”
For several heartbeats, Ninette stared at the brushed steel tabletop, her gaze unfocused. Only when she seemed to find the right words did she look up. “I was a lot like you, once upon a time.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Still am.” She studied Gia’s face. “The difference between now and then is I’m not alone anymore. I have family. I have strong sons with solid moral compasses who know what it means to protect and provide for the women they care about. I have strong daughters who can hold their ground when they need to and can give their men safe haven when it’s needed.” Her gaze drifted to Sylvie and her smile softened. “And I have a best friend who’s stood with me for longer than I probably deserve.”
She looked back to Gia. “I told you when you were with us because I remember how hard it was to be strong and to try and come to grips with the fact that I didn’t have to be anymore. But I also told you when you were with us so you’d have absolutely no doubt.” She covered Gia’s hand and squeezed. “You’re not alone anymore either.”
Chapter Sixteen
The only thing that tanked Beckett’s mood faster than a bad answer w
hen he went digging for one was coming up with no answer at all. Considering he and Danny had canvassed every inch of Brantley Davis’s place and walked out with a big fat zero, his mood was seriously in the shitter. The fact that Gia hadn’t called or texted him back after a string of attempts to make contact cranked his mood to downright dangerous.
Rounding the front of his ’Vette, he scanned the parking lot fronting Gia’s town house—partly out of habit, but more so to combat the constant itch beneath his skin. The eastern sky was already slipping into the deeper blues of evening, but the sunset on the far side of the town houses was still strong enough to cast a few glints off the high-rises along the edge of downtown Dallas.
Something wasn’t right. Not with the lack of answers he was finding and not with Gia being silent either. He knocked on her front door, putting enough juice behind the contact she’d hear him even if she was camped out on the roof. Hands braced on his hips, he strained for any hint of sound and waited. And waited. He dug his phone out of his back pocket and checked the useless piece of shit for the fiftieth time since rolling out of Brantley’s parking lot.
Nothing.
He knocked again then punched in Gia’s number. Like it had the last ten times, it went straight to voicemail. He ended the call without leaving a message, flipped to Knox’s number and stalked back to his car. One thing was for damned sure. First thing when he found Gia, they were trading keys to each other’s places and he was putting a tracker on every purse she owned.
“Yo.” No nonsense and straight to the point. Thank God for Knox.
Beckett slid into the driver’s seat and slammed his car door. “I can’t find Gia.”
Apparently, Knox was distracted enough he didn’t pick up on the anxiety riding his voice, because what came back to him was a quip he hadn’t expected. “Yeah, they’re tricky that way. Kind of like cats. But if you feed ’em enough cream and make sure you pet ’em the right way, they usually come back.”
“Brother, you’re missin’ what I’m saying. My woman isn’t where she’s supposed to be, she’s not answering my calls and someone’s got a beef with her. Where’s Darya?”
This time the alertness he needed was fully online. “With me. Got home a few hours ago.”
“Fuck.” He floored the gas and pulled out onto the main road. “This doesn’t feel right. Need you to see if you can track her.”
“I’m on it. Where are you headed?”
“I’m gonna run by her gym. See if she’s there. Maybe swing back by Brantley’s place in case she got any ideas to tail him on her own.”
“Right. Give me five and I’ll call you back.”
Beckett tossed his phone to the front seat and all but begged Dallas’s finest to pull him over with the speeds he was pulling. Gia would be fine. No matter what happened, she could absolutely hold her own. He knew that on the same level he knew he’d find her—one way or another.
Unless she doesn’t want to be found.
His mother sure hadn’t. Not that he thought his dad had bothered to look, at the time, but he and Knox had years later. Out of all the people they’d tried to track, Evie Tate—or whatever she went by now—was the only one who’d ever ended up a complete dead end.
He pulled into the offbeat gym Gia used a few miles away from her place and killed the engine just as his phone lit up with Knox’s name on the display. “What’d you find?”
“Her phone’s off. I’ve got nothin’ to track.”
Beckett peeled himself out of the front seat, shut the door with enough force to rattle the whole car and all but jogged toward the gym’s front door. “Call the guys in. Find out where the women went today, what time they broke up and where they last saw Gia.”
Knox cleared his throat and a whole lot of discomfort coated his voice. “Don’t think we need to.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because the whole time I was on my computer my hot little Russian was staring me down with a smug look on her face.”
“She knows where Gia is?”
“If she does, she ain’t talking.”
“Did you ask?”
Knox shifted so his voice registered away from the phone. “Baby, you gonna chime in and keep Beckett from forming a search party, or make him stew a little longer?”
Darya may not have been right next to him, but her sassy Russian accent traveled the distance just fine. “You men handled everything else on your own today. Surely you can figure this out, too.”
Knox chuckled and shifted back to Beckett. “You hear that?”
“I heard it. Don’t know what the fuck she means, but I heard it.”
“You ever tell Gia what you were doing today?”
Fuck.
Knox chuckled. “I’ll take the silence as a no.”
“I told her I’d tell her more when we were done. Hell, I called her almost as soon as I cleared Davis’s apartment.”
“My guess, the girls got a jump on you.”
“Well, I can’t fix that situation if I don’t know where she is.” He paced outside Gia’s gym and fisted his hand in his hair. “Put Darya on the phone.”
“He wants to talk to you,” Knox said to Darya.
Beckett could easily visualize the pout that went with her answer. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Knox paused a second. “Okay, tell me this much. Is she safe?”
“Very.”
Knox’s voice got clearer. “You hear that?”
“I heard it and it’s not good enough.”
“Brother, that’s the best you’re gonna get tonight. My suggestion? Suck it up and start figuring out how you’re gonna grovel and get back in her good graces.”
“Suck it up? Are you kidding me?” Earning a suspicious look from a guy ducking out the front door and heading to his car, Beckett forced his voice down a notch, but the heat was still there. “I don’t know where the fuck she is!”
Silence echoed back at him.
When Knox spoke again, his tone was that of a man all too familiar with the panic beating through Beckett’s veins. The verbal equivalent of one man helping another back away from a fatal ledge. “Beck, she’s pissed. She’s taking a breather. Probably so she doesn’t cut your nuts off the second she sees you. But that’s all this is. Nothing else. Whatever your past is hittin’ you with, let it go.”
Axel had tried to tell him. Hell, they all had one way or another. “It’s not that I don’t trust her, I just—”
“Wanna protect her. Yeah, I get it. She will, too, if you give her time.”
The phone beeped in his ear indicating an incoming call.
He checked the screen and barely managed not to toss the damned device across the lot when he saw Axel’s name instead of Gia’s. “Axel’s calling.”
“Good. Talk to him so I can get on with smoothing my Russian’s feathers.”
“If she tells you anything, you call me.”
“Yeah, she’s not gonna tell me shit. You think we men are tight, those women are cutthroat mercenaries when it comes to loyalty.”
The phone beeped again.
“Talk to Axel. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”
Too pissed to do anything else and out of options anyway, he stalked to his ’Vette and punched the answer button. “What?”
Axel was apparently not only in a much better mood than him, but found a shitload of humor in Beckett’s abrupt greeting. “Who shoved the monster cactus up your arse?”
“I’m not sure. One of the women. I’m banking on Ninette at this point, but someone told Gia what we were doin’ today, now she’s MIA.”
For a few seconds, Axel held his tongue, but movement sounded in the background and a whole different vibe drifted through the line. When he spoke again his voice was hushed. “The lass isn’t MIA. She’s a bottle of wine in with the
moms and Vivienne in the kitchen.”
“She’s at Haven?”
A door clicked shut in the background and Axel’s big voice went back to normal volume. “Safe as a babe and laughin’ loud enough you’d think they’d known each other their whole life.”
The ’Vette’s engine revved to match the beast roaring in his head. “I’m on my way.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I might ought to reiterate—they’re in the kitchen.”
“So?”
“They’re cooking.”
Okay, that was weird. He turned the corner onto the feeder road that would put him on Highway 75. “Gia hates cooking.”
“Well, from the looks of the boxes scattered on the counters, Gia’s now the owner of a lot of cookware, one of them a particularly nice set of knives.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Axel grunted. “Think I’ll go pry Jace outta the garage before you get here. Maybe see if Zeke’s on call. You and Gia goin’ at it with booze and sharp objects involved, not sure if Haven’s about to get a hell of a good show, or its first bloodbath.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.” He started to hit the end button, but Axel’s next question cut him off.
“Don’t you want to know why I was calling?”
Beckett punched the button to send the call to Bluetooth and dropped his phone in the center console. “Does it include how to keep women from being a pain in your ass, or how to keep ’em tied up and out of trouble?”
“Well, the first option doesn’t exist. A simple Yuki knot here and there would do the trick on the second one if you’d ever slow the hell down long enough for me to teach you one.”
“Get to the point.”
“That man in Atlanta—Peter Trannell.”
“Yeah?”
“I got an in. You want Gia to get the deal, we can make it happen.”
“Do it.”
Axel hesitated for all of a heartbeat but the smile in his voice was evident when he finally spoke. “You sure you wanna do that without talkin’ to the lass first?”
Stand & Deliver Page 18