Secrets Collide bb-5

by Kathleen Brooks

  Gemma gave in, and it was better than sex. At least the sex she’d had recently. In fact, she was so in love with the food that she didn’t even hear the conversation going on around her. When her plate was clean, she looked up and Katelyn gave her a knowing smile.

  “You’re lucky you’re not dating Cy,” Annie said.

  Gemma looked at her in confusion. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten so eagerly?

  “Yep, you're lucky. It would be bad,” Cole agreed.

  “It definitely wouldn’t be an enjoyable dinner for you, to say the least,” Morgan added.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s not fun then,” Katelyn smiled sweetly.

  “Stop scaring her. It would be so cool if she was dating Cy,” Tammy giggled.

  Gemma felt glued to her chair. She was stunned. She’d never been warned away from someone so blatantly and was too embarrassed to even be insulted.

  “Well, of course we’d love for her to date Cy,” Marcy said with a sweet smile. “Don’t you dare scare her off.” Marcy narrowed her eyes at Pierce and he just grinned wider.

  “Who? Me?” he asked innocently.

  “And your sister and brothers.”

  “Us?” they all asked in unison. Gemma was totally confused, but the way their faces all showed mocked innocence had her cracking up.

  “Don’t try to act like y’all didn’t interrogate every date one of you brought home. I was grilled to well-done when I first came to dinner.” Cole stared at his brothers-in-law and shook his head.

  “I think we all were. Although, I must say Miles and Pierce were the worst. Miles with all his serious questions about our stability and Pierce just shouting out randomness,” Annie said to Cole and the other wives.

  “Totally agree with you there,” Katelyn laughed.

  “For me it was Pierce and Marshall,” Morgan said with a smile.

  “If I recall, y’all handled it like a pro. We’re happy to have each and every one of you in our family. Now that we’ve settled that our sons and daughter are rude interrogators of unsuspecting dates, let’s have some dessert,” Jake said, putting an end to the discussion.

  Paige rolled her eyes. “We weren’t that bad. Okay, maybe we were. I’ll get the pies I made this morning.”

  “Excellent. I’ll go check on the babies in their new room.” Marcy shot from the table and disappeared upstairs. Within seconds her voice came over the monitor as she cooed to the babies.

  “We won’t see her again,” Jake said. “Guys' night to do dishes after dessert. I get her piece since she left the table.” Jake grinned and Gemma could see what Cy would look like when he was older. All the brothers shared the hazel eyes and the strong build of their father.

  Gemma took a seat in the corner of the living room and let her thoughts take her away again while the women talked weddings and babies. She guessed that was why Gia was so successful and Gemma was still working for a gossip rag. Not that she wasn’t good at what she did; she was just a dreamer. This time however, her thoughts made their way back to the same thing—Cy. He worked with ease as he cleared the table. But then he stopped and looked at his phone and reality came crashing in. She could like him and be attracted to him, but that was all it was ever going to be.

  “Focus on the case,” Gemma murmured.

  “What was that?” Paige asked.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking of the case.” Gemma gave a little smile and hoped they couldn’t see her blushing.

  “What about the case were you contemplating so hard?” Cy asked smoothly as he came into the living room.

  “I’m itching to get back to my sister’s notebooks. I know the answers have to be in there.”

  “Well, I’m all done with my part of the cleaning. Let me take you back and we can get to work. Good night, ladies.”

  “Good night, Cy.” Tammy smiled and looked to Gemma and she realized she hadn’t gotten away clean. Someone had noticed her looking at Cy. The question was what Tammy was going to do, if anything.

  Miss Lily’s porch light was on as they pulled to a stop at the bed and breakfast. Gemma was relieved to see the warm lights of the old house. She’d only been there for the day, but it felt like a retreat.

  Cy opened the front door for her and she walked into the large entrance way. These old houses with the wide, sweeping staircases and gorgeous wood detailing just didn’t exist in L.A.

  At the top of the stairs, Gemma paused at her door to dig for her key. No matter how small a purse she carried, she still couldn’t find what she wanted in it. Somehow her tiny purse would turn into a bottomless pit the second she tried to find something.

  “Gemma.”

  She raised her head and saw that Cy stood closer than she thought. He was looking down at her with a look she hadn’t seen before. Whatever it was, it was not the normal carefree mask he always wore.

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted . . . well, I thought . . .” Cy leaned forward and Gemma held her breath as anticipation coursed through her. Dink-dink. An incoming text on his cell phone interrupted the moment. Cy barely acknowledged the phone as he pulled it out, but Gemma caught an eyeful.

  “Isn’t that the lingerie model who just posed nude on the cover of . . . ?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Gemma gave a shy smile. Was he really talking about her? Dink-dink. Gemma let out a frustrated breath. Every dink of that cell phone was a splash of cold water to the face. How stupid did she have to be to think he would want to be with her when that was texting and calling him? “And it seems she wants to talk to you. Better answer. Good night, Cy.”

  Cy wished Gemma had slammed the door. Then he would know that she cared. Instead, Gemma quietly closed and locked her door as Angelina kept calling his phone and he kept sending it to voicemail.

  With a sigh, he turned and headed for his room. He may not be taking Angelina’s call, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be making one of his own.

  “Hello. Tonight?” Cy said into the phone as he stood by the window looking down to the front yard. “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  Gemma took her time getting ready for bed. She had worked a couple hours on the first notebook as darkness fell outside her window. She took a seat on the window bench and stared at the stars, still unused to seeing them so clearly.

  She glanced at the clock and saw it was already close to midnight. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had to admit the reason she hadn’t let the exhaustion claim her was hope. Hope she would hear a small tap on the door and open it to find Cy standing there ready to finish what it appeared he wanted to start earlier. Of course, that was just a dream.

  Gemma climbed onto the big four-poster bed and slid under the covers. Well, a little dreaming never hurt anyone—so long as you realized it was nothing but a dream. Gemma closed her eyes and dreamt of the kiss she had hoped to receive. The way his lips would dance along hers before taking her mouth possessively and with such eagerness, robbing her breath.

  Cy checked his watch and slid on his sneakers before heading out the door. He quietly went down the stairs and unlocked the door. He drove in silence out past the Ashton Farm and turned into the next drive. He gave a nod to the man at the gate who buzzed him in.

  He traveled the long drive and passed the dark massive house before turning down a side road and heading farther into the property. A two-story brick Federal house with black shutters stood at the end of the road. Lights warmed the house and made it look like a family home instead of a bachelor pad.

  Before he could park, the front door opened and Ahmed walked out to greet him. Next to him a large pit bull stood at attention. “Zoti, go greet our friend,” Ahmed said in an unusually relaxed voice. The large dog wagged his tail and ran over to Cy. He sat down at Cy’s feet and raised a paw.

  “What a good boy you are,” Cy reached out and shook his paw before Zoti caught his face with a lick. “Nice dog, Ahmed. I kinda pictured him attacking me, though, not giving me kisses and wiggling around my l
egs.”

  “I thought you of all people would know not to judge something by its appearance. Zoti, alert.” Ahmed gave the quiet command and the dog’s demeanor changed in a split second.

  He was tense and scanning the area and Cy could easily see the well-trained protection dog within.

  “Relax. Good boy. Who’s a good boy?” Ahmed praised as he rubbed behind Zoti’s ears.

  “Impressive. I guess you’re right. I should've known better.” Cy walked up the steps and followed Ahmed into his surprising house. Another assumption he should not have made. He had expected dark and masculine with weapons lying around for some reason. Instead he found a home that was bright and welcoming. The walls were dark beige, the couch was red with navy accents, and the floor was a gleaming honeyed oak. Pictures from around the world were framed and hanging on the walls.

  “I’m sure you recognize some of those places,” Ahmed said as he handed Cy a beer.

  “I do. These are amazing.” The pictures played with lights, shadows, and angles in such a way as to captivate the observer.

  “Thank you.”

  “You took these?”

  “Judging by appearances again?” Ahmed almost cracked a smile. If he had, Cy would have thought he entered an alternate universe.

  “I guess so,” Cy turned and took a seat in a chair across from Ahmed, who sat on the couch with Zoti. “So, tell me about Sergei.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gemma cursed under her breath and threw her pen down. She had been working on translating her sister’s notebooks for the past three days and was still only getting bits and pieces. She remembered the alphabet Gia used to spell out a name or words that didn’t have specific symbols. But it was those symbols that were hanging up her translation.

  To make matters worse, she found a flash drive in the bottom of the box. Gemma worked all day yesterday and couldn’t even get the thing to open. She tried to think like Gia and tried to crack her password, but she had no luck.

  “Oh, bless your heart. It’s not going well, is it,” Miss Lily stated more than asked. “I just came inside from taking Dinky a snack and thought you might want some iced tea and cookies to help you while you work.” Miss Lily set the tray down on the chest of drawers and smiled understandingly at her.

  “No. It’s not. We grew up talking this language and then we made up this huge written language when she came home with this box. The trouble is, I haven’t used it in well over a decade. There were around seventy-five words we had symbols for—all the pronouns and so many adjectives. I just can’t finish translating without them.”

  Gemma paused and took a deep breath. “See, this sentence. Blank will be at the blank club on blank at eleven. I’m just glad I remembered the symbols for words like and and the or I wouldn’t even have this much and what I do have does us no good.”

  “Tell me when you came up with these symbols. Was it at home? Did you do it all at once or over the course of the year?” Miss Lily asked as she handed Gemma a cookie.

  “We were upstairs in our secret place. She sat down with this box and we agreed it would hold all our secrets. It was then that Gia suggested we make up a way to write in our secret language so we could pass notes at school. That way, if they were intercepted, no one could read them.”

  “What then?”

  Gemma thought back and envisioned the meeting. “We wrote down all the words we used frequently and then spent the whole night coming up with symbols for them.”

  “Lordy! How did you remember all of that?”

  “We didn’t . . .” Gemma paused and her heart started beating quickly. “We didn’t! I totally forgot about that. We had a master list that each of us looked over and practiced for weeks until we remembered everything. Then it became second nature. Gia learned it quickly but I had to use the cheat sheet. Once I didn’t need it, Gia told me to destroy it so our parents couldn’t find it.”

  “But you didn’t, did you?” Miss Lily asked with a grin.

  “No, I didn’t,” Gemma grinned back as she leapt off the bed. She grabbed the bag that Cy had packed with all the pictures from her apartment. “I put it behind a picture of Gia and me.”

  “Here, let me help you. Which one?”

  “I don’t know. I'm horrible about stacking pictures in frames. Instead of taking a picture out of the frame when I put a new one in, I just move it behind the new picture. It could be somewhere in any of these. The frame would have to be old, though, so probably a smaller one. Kids don’t enlarge photographs.” Gemma started prying off the backs of the frames as Miss Lily handed her all the smaller frames.

  One after another, Gemma pulled off the backs and sorted through the years of pictures. But there was nothing. “There are three more, dear. Don’t lose hope,” Miss Lily said reassuringly.

  Gemma didn’t feel too reassured, though. In fact, she was worried she had thrown out the frame a long time ago. She popped off the back of the silver frame in her hands and pulled out the thick stack of photos underneath. It must be an old frame to have that many photos in it. She turned them over—a picture of her and Gia at the Journalists Award Banquet where Gia won two honors that night was on top. Underneath was a picture of them in their dorm room in their senior year of college, followed by a picture of Gemma and one of her friends at a frat party in their freshman year. Gemma looked further back and found a picture of the two sisters and their friends in high school. Underneath that was an old scrap of white lined paper folded into a rectangle.

  With shaking hands, Gemma dropped the remaining pictures and stared at the wrinkled piece of paper. “Well, go on,” Miss Lily gently urged.

  Gemma opened the paper and stared down at the list written in her sister’s handwriting. She had found the key, all thanks to Miss Lily. Without saying a word, Gemma threw her arms around the older lady and hugged her.

  “Oh,” Miss Lily exclaimed before returning the hug. “There, there. You have a lot of work to get done. Call if you need anything.” Miss Lily gave her a smile and headed back downstairs, promising to return with more snacks as the day went on.

  Gemma picked up the first notebook again and, with renewed determination, went to work translating. It was time to discover what her sister had left for her to find.

  * * *

  Cy tossed the cards on the table and scooped in the pot. He enjoyed wiping that smug smile off Marshall’s face. His phone vibrated again and Pierce grabbed it before he could.

  “Really? A socialite? So boring compared to the America’s Sweetheart who called you an hour ago,” Pierce complained as he tossed the phone back to the table, ignoring the dark look Cy tossed him.

  “Sorry to be late,” Ahmed said as he walked into Mo’s study and took a seat next to Mo. “What did I miss?”

  “Besides the who’s who of Hollywood calling my brother wanting to know where he is and offering to send planes to Kentucky to rescue him from the boredom of retirement?” Cade sniped.

  Ahmed simply raised an eyebrow at Cade and then looked at Cy.

  “I’ve gotten through about half of the unknown pictures and have been able to identify them. They’re mostly arms dealers, some higher-level foreign politicians, and known operators on the black market,” Cy snapped as he dealt the next hand. He tried to take a deep breath, but it felt as if his undercover life was smothering him. He was lost in the lies of his job.

  His phone vibrated again and Cy bit back a curse as Pierce grabbed it again. “Oh, this one I bet he takes,” Pierce teased as Cy yanked the phone out of his brother’s hand.

  “Gemma? Is everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt poker night, but I found something,” Gemma squealed. She sounded so excited and proud that Cy couldn’t help but smile. The tension coiling around his heart eased slightly. Immediately his brothers snickered.

  “No problem at all. I’ll be right there.” Cy hung up and glared at his brothers and his friends. “Really? You’re a prince and you’re laughing at me?”<
br />
  “I am sorry, but it’s so obvious you’re completely out of your element,” Mo said while sounding not at all apologetic.

  “Did you hear his voice?” Cole asked.

  “I did. He’s a goner,” Miles said as he tossed a chip onto the table.

  “I noticed whose phone call he didn’t take while he leapt to get Gemma’s call,” Cade teased as he placed his bet.

  “Please. She has nothing on Gemma,” Cy folded and stood up from the table.

  “Except she’s the highest-paid actress in the world,” Pierce snickered.

  “Gemma’s real; she’s not. Gemma’s also funny and braver than her any day. Miss Actress threw such a hissy fit when she had to pick up a snake for a scene, but Gemma . . . Gemma didn’t even scream when she was being chased and shot at by those thugs,” Cy told them. He respected Gemma and he trusted her. That’s more than he could say for any of the other women in Hollywood.

  “Let’s cut to the chase here,” Miles said as he won the hand, “you like her. Why aren’t you with her?”

  Cy looked down at his feet. It was embarrassing. “I don’t think she likes me. She doesn’t find ways to touch me. She doesn’t bat her eyes at me. She doesn’t try to find ways to spend time together,” Cy shrugged. “Doesn’t that just beat all? I finally find someone I like and she’s not interested.” The tightness returned around his heart and Cy felt his jaw tighten. He was lost again to the smothering feeling of his life.

  “Well, she called you, didn’t she?” Marshall offered.

  “Yeah, to tell me she found something. She’s been locked in her room for the past three days. I’m glad she sounded so excited. She’s been too hard on herself for not being able to contribute more.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s see what’s she found.” Cole stood up and the rest of the table followed.

  Gemma was pacing the length of the front porch when she saw the line of cars pull up to the curb. Apparently poker night had moved to the bed-and-breakfast.

  “Oh my. I better put more cookies in the oven and get more snacks ready.”