Alec’s Dream
Gemini Group
Riley Edwards
Alec’s Dream
Gemini Group Book 4
Riley Edwards
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
* * *
Copyright © 2020 by Riley Edwards
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design: Lori Jackson Designs
Written by: Riley Edwards
Published by: Riley Edwards/Rebels Romance
Edited by: Rebecca Hodgkins
Proofreader: Julie Deaton, Rebecca Kendall
Alec’s Dream
Print ISBN: 978-1-951567-05-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951567-02-6
First edition: February 25, 2020
Copyright © 2020 Riley Edwards
All rights reserved
To my family - my team – my tribe.
This is for you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Riley’s Rebels
Also by Riley Edwards
About the Author
Acknowledgments
1
“Mama?”
“Yes, darlin’?” I asked, and tossed two boxes of mac and cheese into the shopping cart.
When my daughter didn’t answer right away I glanced down at Aurora, who incidentally looked like she was deep in thought.
It was never a good thing when my six-year-old was deep into anything. One could say she was curious—which actually was a nice way of saying she was six and asked a buttload of questions and did it frequently. Aurora had a question for everything and when she wasn’t asking, she was imparting whatever knowledge she’d learned in school that day.
“What’s up your butt and around the corner mean?”
I stared down into my daughter’s stunning blue eyes, something she had inherited from her father—unfortunately or fortunately for her, I wasn’t sure—and was shocked silent. Even my son, Caleb, got quiet and attentive.
“Um…”
“Today at recess, Larry got mad. He stuck his bad middle finger up and told me up your butt and around the corner. I don’t understand, what’s around the corner from your butt?” Rory blathered on, and not for the first time I thought about wringing this Larry kid’s neck.
Which was totally inappropriate and not nice but we were only a few months into the school year and the kid was already on my last nerve with the name-calling.
“Baby girl, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just not a nice thing to say,” I tried to explain.
“If it doesn’t mean anything why did he say it?”
The question why me popped into my head as I now stood in the canned vegetable aisle wondering if the sodium in canned veggies would mummify my children while simultaneously feeling guilty I couldn’t afford fresh anymore. And like always when I thought about money or my lack of it I started thinking about my ex-husband. Which led me to wonder if a word stronger than hate had been invented yet.
“I don’t know why he said it.” I opted for honesty and instead of calling the school and demanding little Larry get his recess taken away, I figured this was the perfect opportunity for a lesson. And God knows there’d been plenty of opportunities for lessons these days. “What Larry said wasn’t nice, neither was him giving you the middle finger. Just because you’re mad at something or someone doesn’t mean you get to be unkind. Remember what I told you?”
“Kindness is free. Sprinkle it everywhere,” she recited.
“Do you understand what that means?”
“Yes. And I try to be kind to Larry but he’s always mean. He pulled Lucy’s hair and he called Paige fat and he told Mallory her new glasses make her look stupid.”
I bit my lip in an effort not to teach my daughter a different kind of lesson—the kind where I told her to throat punch the bully and there were only so many times you could turn the other cheek.
Instead, I stayed the course of teaching my children to be the better person. Or maybe it was all a ploy to remind myself to take the high road which was becoming increasingly harder these days.
“Did you tell your teacher?”
“Yes. Mrs. Phillips said she’d talk to Larry. But she’s talked to him a bazillion times and he doesn’t care.”
Of course Larry didn’t care—bullies never do. Not six-year-old ones and not forty-two-year-old ones.
People suck.
“Larry’s older brother, Peter, is a jerk, too,” my son smoothly entered the conversation.
“That’s not—”
“It might not be nice, but it’s true,” Caleb imparted, using his I’m twelve, therefore I know everything tone.
“How about we change the subject and talk about dinner?”
“Hot dogs,” Rory happily chimed in.
“We’ve had hot dogs like three times this week,” Caleb rejected his sister’s idea and my belly clenched.
I hated, hated, hated my ex-husband. Hated that I now lived paycheck to paycheck. Hated that I had to feed my children canned veggies and processed food because we could no longer afford the healthier alternative.
I glanced into the shopping cart and my heart literally hurt looking at the contents. There wasn’t much there and none of it would win me mother-of-the-year, but it would fill their bellies until next week when I got paid.
There had been a time when the cart had been full of good food and lots of it. We hadn’t been rolling in it, but we’d been far from hurting. That was until my fucking ex-husband decided he needed a hobby. Unfortunately, he picked one he wasn’t very good at, and in the process had lost all our money. After he lost what we had, he went into debt. And not with the bank—with not-so-nice men. The kind of men who knocked on your door at three AM looking for payment.
“Can we get hamburgers from the Freeze? Please, mom. We haven’t had them in forever.” Caleb’s pleading brown eyes—incidentally, my son got my eyes—came to mine and I couldn’t say no.
I quickly did a mental check of my bank account, deducting the groceries we already had in the cart and prayed nothing came up in the next seven days because after checking out and buying dinner at the Freeze, I would have approximately nine dollars left.
“Sure, baby—”
“I’m not a baby,” Caleb reminded me.
This was something new. It had started when he went back to school this year. Gone was my baby boy and in his place was a middle schooler and preteen. He no
longer asked me to tuck him in, he refused to allow me to hold his hand in public—not even crossing a street, and he demanded I not call him baby anything.
“All right Caleb, the Freeze sounds good.”
He nodded then looked down at his sister. “Next time Larry says something nasty to you or your friends, tell him he’s answering to me.”
“Caleb—”
“It’s not right Larry and Peter get a free pass to be jerks,” my son told me. “I know you keep telling us to be kind and walk away, but it doesn’t work. It never works. The only way to make them stop is to teach them a lesson.”
“Not sure it’s your place to teach that lesson, Caleb.”
My son’s eyes turned hard and I hated that, too. Which made me despise my ex-husband even more. I wanted to ask the universe where my sweet boy had gone. But I didn’t have to ask. I knew. While Rory wasn’t old enough to remember, Caleb was. I’d tried my best to shield him from the arguments but when Doug was mad there was no shushing him. He let it fly. He did it loud and he did it ugly. Which meant my son had heard. The name-calling, the cursing, the doors slamming, and the fists being punched through the drywall.
Fucking Doug.
It didn’t lessen the guilt that it had never been me doing any of those things. It had been Doug calling me every ugly name he could think of. Doug yelling the house down and not caring his children were there hearing, fuck this, fuck that, fuck you, stupid cunt—the list of dirty names was endless. But it had been me who had stayed thinking I was doing the right thing trying to keep my family together.
I’d been wrong. I should’ve left three years before I did, but then I wouldn’t have Aurora and she was worth every ounce of pain Doug had caused. Except Doug’s bullshit hadn’t just affected me, my son had been caught up in it, too.
“Someone has to,” Caleb returned and I gave in.
Not for good, just until we were out of the grocery store and in private where I could explain to Caleb why it wasn’t his job to teach anyone a lesson.
“How about we checkout so we can go get dinner?”
“Can I have a milkshake with my hamburger?” Rory asked, going up on her toes.
“Of course, you can’t have a burger from the Freeze without a shake,” I answered even though my bank balance was in serious jeopardy of going into the negative.
The Freeze was packed, as per usual. It was the premier place in Kent County to get milkshakes. Though I’d never been a sweets person, therefore, in my opinion, their fries were the best around—and I’d know, I was somewhat of a French fry connoisseur. Sure, I liked all kinds, curly, beer-battered, even shoestring crispy ones, but the Freeze fried the best fries. They were perfect, and because of that and my lack of funds, they would be my sole nutritional intake for the evening.
We’d had to wait a solid ten minutes to order, standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with all of the impatient patrons. The Freeze was popular but it was small. There were two well-worn—okay they were actually worn out benches—for people to sit while they waited for their orders but there were no tables to sit and eat. The place was truly take-out only. In the spring after a ball game it wasn’t unheard of for the parking lot to be jam-packed with cars and kids of all ages milling about enjoying a shake. Most of the time still in their uniforms. The rest of the year, even in winter when it was twenty degrees outside, the place was no less packed.
I’d just finished paying and was trying to move out of the way so the next person in line could order when I heard Rory speak.
“Your baby’s really cute, mister.”
What could I say? My daughter was friendly.
“Thanks.” The man chuckled and my body froze.
I knew that voice. I’d dreamt of that voice. Deep, smooth, rich. I closed my eyes and behind my lids, I saw Alec Hall’s smiling handsome face. No, handsome didn’t do him justice—smoking hot, smiling face. Though the man didn’t smile often which was a crying shame because when he did, holy smokes—panty-melting. If anyone could make me come out of hibernation it was Alec.
Thankfully I’d sworn off all men.
Who the hell was I kidding? A man like Alec—tall, broad-shouldered, muscular build, (yes I’d checked him out and his forearms were to-die-for) gorgeous eyes, (yes I’d paid too much attention) complete with a smokin’ hot smile would never give me more than a cursory glance. And I’d be lucky to get that if I was dressed to the nines and spent five-hundred hours trying to look presentable. Which these days, I dressed for comfort and looked like I was auditioning for the part of a homeless person.
I peeked over my shoulder and I was right. There was Alec with his daughter Jocelyn perched on his hip. Good night, the man was sexy as hell holding his baby girl. I, of course, had the pleasure of seeing this on many occasions considering I worked at the daycare center where Alec dropped Jocelyn off every day.
“Macy,” Alec greeted.
“Hey, Alec,” I returned then looked to Jocelyn. “Hi baby girl, fancy seeing you here.”
Of course, Jocelyn had no idea what I was saying being as she was only nine months old. But she still lifted her cute, chubby baby arms in my direction and wiggled her baby body trying to throw herself at me.
“Daddy’s got you, silly,” I cooed. Then belatedly remembered we were in line and there were approximately fifteen people waiting to order. “We better get out of the way, Rory, so Mr. Hall can order.”
I started to gently push my daughter to get her moving toward her brother when she looked up at me and asked, “Do you know him?”
“Yeah, honey, but let's move. People are waiting.”
“Can I hold your baby?” Rory asked instead of moving.
“Not now, Aurora. Let’s move out of the way.”
Finally, my daughter did as I asked and glanced back at Alec to say goodbye, but he was staring at Aurora before his eyes came back to mine.
“It’s uncanny, she looks just like you,” Alec said and something flashed in his eyes. Something I didn’t understand because it looked a lot like anguish.
“I get that a lot. Have a nice night, Alec, see you in the morning.”
Thankfully Rory was silent until we made it to Caleb who was standing against the back corner.
“Who was that?” Caleb asked.
“A dad from work.”
Caleb nodded his boy/preteen head like my answer was acceptable but nothing else would’ve been and I sighed.
And for the millionth time, I wondered where my little boy had gone.
2
“Yo! You leaving to get Jocelyn?” Nixon asked as Alec passed by his office.
“Yep.”
Nixon Swagger had been Alec’s teammate, then his friend, and now his boss. Nix, Holden, Chasin, and Jameson had been smart—as soon as they’d left the Navy, they’d formed Gemini Group. Alec had chosen the path to easy money and accepted an offer with Homeland Security. Something he’d regretted three months into his tenure but had stayed as long as he could.
However, after his last case, Alec had had enough. He could no longer turn a blind eye to the bullshit. He’d never been a man who liked to play inside the lines but he was also a man with morality so there was only so far he’d push the boundaries. Alec wasn’t surprised his resignation was met with swift approval and his boss was all too happy to shove him out the door—corrupt bastard.
Thankfully, Nixon had been offering Alec a position in the company since the day it’d been formed. Accepting the job also meant moving from D.C. to the sleepy rural area. Something he was even happier about now that he had Jocelyn.
“McKenna needs your expense reports,” Nix reminded Alec.
“Shit. I’ll do them tonight after I get Jocelyn down.”
Nixon’s mouth bowed up into a smile and Alec’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s funny?” Alec asked.
“Nothing, brother.”
“Your shit-eating grin says otherwise.”
“I can assure you if I was eating shit
I wouldn’t be smiling,” Nix returned.
“Whatever,” Alec grumbled and checked his watch.
He needed to leave if he was going to make it to the daycare center to pick up his daughter on time.
“Never thought I’d say this,” Nix started, “but fatherhood looks good on you.”
Alec shook his head and chuckled. Just thinking about his daughter made something warm hit his chest—an emotion he was getting accustomed to—one he now understood. Pure, unadulterated love.
If nine months ago someone would’ve told Alec he’d be a single dad and head-over-heels in love, he would’ve laughed his ass off.
The first month after Jocelyn’s arrival had been hell. Not only did Alec not have the first clue how to take care of a three-month-old but he couldn’t wrap his head around the guilt and shame. If it hadn’t been for his friends, he would’ve been fucked.
But they’d all rallied around him. Nix, Jameson, Weston, Holden, and Chasin hadn’t allowed him to wallow in his self-pity. McKenna, Kennedy, and Silver had stepped up and taught him what they could about how to care for the baby.
Hell, it had been McKenna who’d taught him to change a diaper. Kennedy who taught him how to make a bottle. Silver had been there when Alec attempted to bathe the wiggly, wet infant for the first time. By the end of the catastrophe, Alec’s tee was soaked through, Jocelyn was screaming her head off, and Alec was having second thoughts about his ability to care for his daughter.
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