Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “Been in it?”

  “Yeah. It’s sick. And it’s just the three of them living there.”

  “I’ve never understood why people would want to live somewhere so big. I get wanting to have your own space and everything, but that just seems completely over the top.”

  “I guess when you have that much money, it doesn’t matter.”

  “But you’re liking it?”

  “Yeah, I do like it. They’re paying me really well. And the girl, Stella, she used to race mountain bikes, so we definitely have some common interests.”

  Jen looked at me closely. “Cole,” she said. I looked over at her as I pried the tire from the rim, then pulled out the tube. She had one eyebrow raised, the other eye narrowed slightly, the tiniest of smiles on her face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t play innocent with me. You like her, don’t you? This girl.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can hear it in your voice. And I can tell by that expression on your face. Don’t even try to deny it.”

  I could hear the water running in the bathroom, and Ella banging on the door, telling Jasper to hurry up.

  “Don’t make a mess in there!” Jen yelled.

  I had my bike stand set up in the corner of the living room, and I went over to the bookshelf next to it that housed spare tubes, new tires, chain lube, spare parts, a spray bottle of bike wash, and clean rags. I busied myself looking for a new tube, even though I found it right away. I was hoping the kids would come back out and Jen would stop this line of inquiry, though I knew that was a futile hope. Jen had always been very perceptive, especially when it came to me, it seemed. She always knew when I liked a girl, or when I had done something I shouldn’t have, or was lying about where I claimed I was going to be. Luckily, she was almost always on my side, unlike my other sister, Liz, who most definitely would have ratted me out.

  “Fine,” I said, turning back around with the new tube. “I do like her. She’s really cool. She’s been through a lot and she’s kind of standoffish, but I think that’s just an act.”

  “Hmm,” Jen said. “That sounds like a really good opportunity for you. I don’t think you’ll want to mess it up by getting involved or anything. That’s probably really against the rules. Are there rules?”

  “Of course there are rules. And I’m not going to get involved or anything; it’s not like we’re going to go out on a date.”

  The kids came tromping back into the living room, Jasper’s hands still soaking wet. Ella looked at me. “Do you have a girlfriend? Uncle Phil was saying that you had a lot of girlfriends.”

  “Shush,” Jen said.

  I smiled. “Oh, did he? What else did Uncle Phil say?”

  “Um…” She looked up at the ceiling. “He said you were a... a... man lady?” She scrunched her face up. “No, not a man lady, a—”

  “Ladies’ man!” Jasper yelled. “I want to be a ladies’ man!”

  “You don’t even know what that is,” Jen said. “And I’m fine with keeping it that way for as long as possible!”

  I knew that it was simply a case of Phil being envious—he was married, and though it seemed that he and Kira had a good relationship, they’d been married a while and sometimes seemed more like good platonic friends than romantic partners. I knew that Phil was sometimes jonesing for the days when he could go out and flirt with lots of different women and maybe even engage in some good ol’ casual sex. He probably assumed that I was living the dream, but really, I was wanting what he had.

  “Speaking of girlfriends, though,” Jen said in a low voice after she’d told the kids to go over to the window and count how many taxis they saw drive by, “I have this friend and I want to give you her phone number. Her name’s Melanie. I’m not sure if you’ve met her before. She’s really nice, and she’s looking to get back into the dating scene. I told her that I’d pass her info along after I found out about Carrie.”

  “I don’t need you to play matchmaker.”

  “But it’s so fun! And I do think the two of you would hit it off. She rides bikes, too. More bike path stuff, but I bet she’d try hitting up the trails with you sometime if you asked.” She gave me a big smile, raising her eyebrows up and down a couple of times.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  Chapter 10

  Stella

  After we parted ways with Trevor and Ethan, Lauren drove back to my house and we went and hung out on the rooftop deck. “That guy is your new babysitter?” Lauren asked. “The guy we saw at the farmers’ market?”

  “That’s the one,” I said.

  She licked her lips. “Damn, girl. He is hot.”

  I felt a strange stirring in my chest that it took me a second to realize what it was: annoyance. Normally, Lauren’s voracious appetite for men didn’t bother me at all. Sure, she was definitely over the top about it, and did I think that her getting married was going to change that? Probably not. But hearing her talk about Cole that way, for some reason, did not sit well with me.

  “He’s all right,” I said nonchalantly.

  “So, your dad’s basically paying him to watch out for you? Protect you? That’s seriously hot. Maybe I should have my dad hire some drop-dead gorgeous guy to look out for my well-being.”

  “Maybe—except for the fact that you’re getting married, and I think husbands are supposed to do that sort of thing for free.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me.”

  “And you’re making it sound like my dad is trying to set me up with someone—that’s not what this is about. He just doesn’t want anything bad to happen again, and he thinks that if I have a bodyguard, that will somehow prevent it.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  I shrugged. “I mean, Cole’s only a person; he’s not a superhero. All we’ve done so far is go for one bike ride—and I have to admit, he is a pretty good rider.”

  “You’re so competitive.”

  “I’m not trying to be.”

  Lauren smiled. “I know you’re not trying to be. But you still are!”

  We were both competitive, Lauren and I; it was just in two completely different ways—and maybe why our friendship had been able to endure after all these years. Lauren had been friends with countless people, some famous, some not so famous, and almost all of those relationships had ended, usually because of a guy. Or several guys. She was always the most beautiful girl wherever she went, and I’d heard her say before that, while being ugly wasn’t easy, always being the best-looking person in a room wasn’t easy, either.

  “You know, my mom is getting herself all worked up trying to plan this wedding, but what I’m more interested in is the bachelorette party! We should start talking about that. I’ve got a few ideas.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I was thinking maybe we could fly somewhere. Ibiza? Dubai? I want it to be fun, but classy. Nothing too crazy.”

  I snorted. Yeah, right. Lauren’s bachelorette party would probably be the party to end all parties.

  “How many people do you think I should invite?”

  “I don’t know. Your friends?”

  “You’re my only true friend.”

  “Well, it’ll be a pretty lame bachelorette party if it’s just me.”

  Lauren was quiet for a minute, lost in thought, most likely realizing that she didn’t really have that many girlfriends she could invite because she’d burned almost all of her bridges. “We’ll deal with those details another time,” she said, waving it off. “I just want it to be the best night of my life.”

  “I thought your wedding night was supposed to be the best night of your life.”

  “I want them both to be.”

  I smiled, not having the heart to tell her that I didn’t think it worked that way.

  ***

  The next day, I texted Cole and asked him if he wanted to go for a ride in the East Bay. We drove over to Belton Park, which had a few technical trails but
was a more relaxing ride with lots of smooth, fast, swooping sections. It was always warmer in the East Bay, and it was particularly hot today, especially once we’d crossed the bridge. At the middle of Belton Park was Round Pond, which was actually more of a lake. It was one of my favorite places to swim because it was deep and clear and the water was always refreshingly cold.

  There were several sandy beaches at Round Pond, with picnic tables and little charcoal grills that were chained to the nearby scrub pines, but those beaches would be crowded, especially on a hot day like this. There were more secluded swimming spots, places where the beach was just a little patch of sand, but you’d have the access all to yourself. When we got to one of these areas, I turned down the path and stopped, looking out at the water, which was so still it might have been a mirror, reflecting back the blue sky and the clouds.

  “Let’s go swimming,” I said.

  “You want to go swimming?” Cole asked.

  “Hell, yeah,” I said as I took my helmet off and wiped sweat from my brow. I looked at him. “Chicken?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right. You might be able to eat more pancakes faster than I can, but no way in hell you’re a better swimmer.”

  He laid his bike down on its side and I leaned mine against a tree. Too late I realized that I hadn’t been here since the accident, when I used to just strip naked and jump right in. No way that was happening now—but how was I supposed to get out of it? It had been my idea to go swimming, and if I backed down now it would look like I was all but admitting he was a better swimmer than I was.

  So, the only option then was to go fully clothed.

  “Oh, yeah, don’t want to forget this.” I reached around and pulled my phone out of my jersey’s back pocket and dropped it in the sand.

  “You can put that up by my water bag so you don’t forget it,” Cole said.

  “It’s all right; I’ll see it here when I get out.”

  I walked over to the water’s edge. The water was clear and you could see all the way to the bottom. It got progressively deeper as you walked out, and then about thirty feet from the shore there was a steep drop-off where it eventually bottomed out at about eighty feet down. I waded in, and then Cole was next to me, in his shorts but no shirt. He had a smooth, nicely defined torso, which I tried to ignore. His arms were incredible. Arms—and especially shoulders and biceps—were probably my favorite part about a guy, and Cole’s did not disappoint. I didn’t like bulky, too-toned muscles, but I also wasn’t into slender, barely definable muscles either. Cole was right there in the middle, his shoulders round and supple, obviously strong without being overly sculpted. He glanced over.

  “You’re going in like that?”

  “I am.”

  “I won’t look, if you want to, you know…” He let his voice trail off.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re going to ride in wet clothes?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  And then he dove in, disappearing under the surface of the water. I waited a second and then I dove, too, and immediately wished that I wasn’t wearing this outfit, but there was no way in hell I was going to take it off and let Cole see me. The water felt good, though, despite having all these clothes on and now a waterlogged chamois. Cole resurfaced several yards out, treading water.

  “This place is great,” he said.

  “You’ve never been here?” I frog-kicked for a few feet and then flipped over and floated on my back, arms outstretched, sun warming my cheeks, the tip of my nose.

  “I’ve been here, but never this part of the pond. I like it. Nice and secluded.” He grinned. “Which I suppose is good, because no one will be able to see me beat you to that dock out there.”

  I flipped back over and looked out. To our left, maybe fifty yards away, was a floating dock that was, at the moment, not in use.

  “I’ll even give you a head start,” he said.

  “That won’t be necessary. I want to know that, when I beat you, I did it fair and square.”

  “All right. I’ll let you call it.”

  “Fine. Ready, set... go!”

  It was a short distance and I knew if I pushed hard, I could beat him. I did underwater breaststroke, vaguely aware of him next to me. I came up for a breath and glanced over, seeing that he had pulled ahead slightly. He was doing front crawl, and I didn’t go back underwater right away because this way, I could watch those arms of his propel him easily through the water, and with considerable speed. Even if I hadn’t slowed like this, he probably would’ve beaten me, and there was even a chance that he might’ve beaten me if I’d agreed to the head start.

  He was already up on the dock when I made it. He leaned down and held his hand out, which I took, and let him pull me up. The wood was smooth and warm from the sun, and we both stretched out and lay there on our backs, looking up at the clear blue sky.

  “You’re a faster swimmer than you are a bike rider,” I said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. You might be able to go a little faster if you didn’t have all those clothes on.”

  I felt a warmness spread through me, this sort of tingling happiness, even though I knew he wasn’t flirting with me—he was just being matter-of-fact. I would have been able to go faster if I’d been wearing a regular bathing suit, or just a bra.

  “I’m not trying to get you naked,” he added quickly.

  I swear, it felt like I had butterflies thrumming around in my stomach. “Good,” I said. “Because that will never happen.”

  We lay there quietly for a few minutes, though my mind was racing. What was going on? I was certainly not trying to develop any sort of feelings for this man. But it almost felt as if there was nothing I could do about it, that I was powerless to stop it.

  Chapter 11

  Cole

  We took turns doing cannonballs off the dock, and then swam back to the tiny beach where we’d left our bikes. I used my hand to wipe the droplets of water from my arms and chest and then stood there and let the sun dry me off a little more. I felt a bit bad for Stella, that she was now going to have to continue the ride in a wet kit. I had a feeling that if I hadn’t been there, she would’ve had no problem disrobing and going right in.

  “I have to pee,” Stella said. “I’m going to go over there.” She nodded toward a thicket of branches.

  “Why don’t you just go in the water?”

  She made a face. “I’m not going to pee in the pond. I’ll be right back.”

  Once she had disappeared, I pulled my damp boxer shorts off and then put my dry shorts on, stuffing the wet ones into my water bag. I saw Stella’s phone lying in the sand, so went to retrieve it. It turned on as I lifted it up, and there was a new message, from person UNKNOWN. I wasn’t trying to read it, I swear; my eyes looked at the screen because it lit up and my brain registered the words even though I hadn’t wanted them to.

  Unfortunate consequences await if you continue down this path.

  The screen went dark, but I pressed the on button, certain I had read it wrong. But no—that’s exactly what it said. It sounded like something you’d get out of a fortune cookie, if fortune cookies were vague and sort of threatening. I looked to the right where Stella had disappeared to. Everything over that way was still; I couldn’t see her at all. My heart started to race and I dropped the phone and quickly strode over through the woods, pushing past cat briar and undergrowth—and hopefully that wasn’t a poison oak branch that just slapped me in the face. I stepped around the thicket right as Stella was standing, struggling to pull her wet shorts up. Ever tried to pull wet spandex on? Not easy.

  In the moments of her struggle, I was given full view of her ass, which, okay, yeah—it was glorious. Not that I was thinking that. Well, trying not to. She turned her head and saw me; her eyes widened and she started to move like she was going to turn all the way around to keep me from seeing her ass, but then I would’ve seen her front, so she gave her sho
rts such a hard tug that she ended up tripping and falling, though fortunately the shorts were up and covering everything they needed to cover.

  “Oh, my God!” she yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hurrying over to help her up. “I’m not spying on you or anything; I wasn’t trying to—”

  “You just snuck up on me while I was peeing out in the woods! Of course you were spying.”

  I held my hand out to her, which she ignored, and instead just glared at me.

  “No,” I said. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “What is it like then?” She stood up on her own, brushing her hands off. “Tell me what it’s like because I’m having a hard time seeing this as anything but that.”

  I hadn’t had enough time to think about whether I was going to say anything about that weird text message I’d seen on her phone. I mean, the messages she received weren’t any of my business really, and I didn’t want her to think that I’d been snooping. Because I really hadn’t been.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you what happened. I saw this message on your phone—”

  The glare deepened as she cut me off. “Wait—you were looking at my phone?”

  “No! I mean, well, yeah, I was, but only because I saw it lying there in the sand and I was going to get it and put it up by your bike. I didn’t want you to forget it. And so I picked it up and it turned on, and there was a message right there and my eyes just sort of went to it... I wasn’t planning on reading it, I swear. I looked away, but I can’t help it if my brain picked up on the words.”

  “And what did it say?”

  “It said something kind of weird, actually. Something about bad consequences if you keep doing what you’re doing. It sounded like a crappy fortune cookie, to be honest. But then I guess I felt a little freaked out because you were off in the woods and I was just hanging out here on the beach when I’m supposed to be like, you know, watching out for you. So that’s why I came rushing back here like that. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you or spy on you.”