by Lexy Timms
William cleared his throat, drawing attention to himself. Rising, he raised his glass, the ebullient host. Luke had the image of a ringmaster at a circus, and almost looked up to see if there were acrobats concealed in the antler chandeliers. “I do hope I was able to choose correctly; if not, I’m fairly confident that you will, at least, enjoy what I have set before you.”
The diners regarded each other with wary eyes. Dinner smelled delicious, but the aromas seemed to be in conflict and it was hard to pin down exactly which smell was which. Luke’s stomach rumbled, breaking the tension, Edwin not even bothering to muffle his chuckle, though Dani made a valiant effort which she covered by faking a cough and grabbing for her water glass.
Her water glass. The only glass at her place setting. Luke did a quick assessment of the table. Every place had wine except hers.
Frowning, feeling ill at ease though not entirely sure why, Luke put his hand on the cover, noting that the others were watching him carefully, waiting for him to take the lead. With a slight shake of his head, he pulled the dome off, only just resisting the urge to act the part of the magician doing the reveal, and exposed a large steak, cooked rare, with horseradish sauce, fried potatoes, and corn on the side. The whole meal was perfection down to the tiniest detail—the single sprig of parsley that he’d always favored as a child because he’d thought it had looked elegant on the plate. He flushed now, wanting to be angry that such a thing would be remembered by anyone at all, and he stared a long time at his plate, reminding himself that it was no great trick to remember parsley, when he’d certainly made enough fuss about it back when he was nine. Besides, it looked delicious.
Dani lifted her own cover and gasped. Luke turned his head to regard her plate with a raised eyebrow. Braised tuna, dill sauce, vegetable mix, and brown rice. Certainly not what he would have expected in a steak house, but something that seemed to delight her all the same.
“This is my favorite,” she said quietly, staring at the meal. Her hand trembled slightly on the cover which she set down hastily next to her plate.
Edwin revealed a veal culet over thin pasta and tomato sauce, asparagus, and mashed potatoes. Luke couldn’t see what Elaina had, probably the salmon she ordered whenever he took her out to eat when he visited.
William had chosen a scampi and oyster mix. By this time, all eyes were on the one plate that was still hidden.
Marcus sat still, his gaze fixed on William.
“Please,” William said, his smile seeming more smug than anything right now. The grand master, relishing the audience’s reaction. “Enjoy.”
Marcus lifted the lid, revealing a mixture that made Luke’s eyes water.
“What is that?” Edwin demanded, his face a crumpled mask of disgust.
“Kimchi,” Marcus said simply. “Kind of like a Korean coleslaw.”
“It looks like something that went through a rabbit.” Edwin blinked and turned away from his man. Luke watched Marcus, and realized that for the first time in days Marcus was on duty again. He would sit in that chair unmoving, or dive across the table to kill whoever was a threat. How he knew, he couldn’t say. Just that there was something different to how he sat. Or maybe in how he looked at William. And then at Edwin and Dani.
Who is he really protecting?
“Eat,” Luke suggested, finally raising his own fork and knife, prepared to dive into the meal even if no one else was. “Keep your strength up.” Perhaps his words were directed more at himself than anyone else.
Marcus gave him a very long and calculating look. He nodded once and reached for a fork without ever taking his eyes off William.
William smiled and nodded.
“Enjoy,” he said, settling back in his chair, the benevolent host.
The greatest show on earth.
Almost like a movie.
“So, tell me,” Luke said, cutting into his steak. “You’ve brought us here to show us your unlimited wealth, your ability to take over, and that you know all of us so well that you’ve prepared our favorite dishes, no matter how exotic.” He cocked an eyebrow at the partially fermented cabbage on Marcus’ plate.
“Blunt, rude, and accurate, my boy.” It was said with more emotion than was necessary. Expansive. Overacting the part.
Luke let it go. He took a deep breath and continued at a slower pace. Pausing long enough to savor that first bite, though he had half-decided that he couldn’t be bought off so easily as all that. Besides, why punish a perfectly good steak for the sins of the asshole serving it up for dinner? “You said something about a USB stick. Let’s assume for a moment that I have a single clue what you’re talking about, and we could further stretch the imagination to assume I cared. What would your interest be in something like that?”
“Straight to business, eh? There is a great deal to be said for focus; it’s an admirable quality to be sure. Still, as you grow older, you often find that business can be done just as quickly and as equitably when accompanied with fine wine, good food, and the pleasure of certain company. For example, how long has it been since we’ve seen each other? I would think it was when you joined the FBI, wasn’t it?”
Luke stared at his father, laying his fork down on the side of the plate with exaggerated care. “You weren’t there for that,” he said after a long moment. “Mom showed up for the graduation, not you.”
William smiled. Was he mocking him with that smile? Being snide? On anyone else, it would have seemed almost a sad smile, but that wasn’t who his father was. “Of course,” William said quietly, “I’d forgotten...”
“Luke,” his mother admonished, setting down her own fork, and turned on him, “you should apologize...”
“Never mind, Elaina,” William said, putting his hand upon his ex-wife’s arm to still her protests. “The boy has a right to be bitter. Let him vent.”
“I’m not a boy,” Luke said flatly. He could feel Dani’s hand on his thigh. Whereas William used the touch to squelch his mother’s words, Dani was offering support and strength. He felt her love for him in that gentle pressure, in the warmth upon his leg. For a second he closed his eyes, savoring it so that he might gather himself to go into the fray again.
“No?” William laughed. “When did that happen? You must remember that, to a parent, his boy will always be the hellion in the tree with skinned knees and filled with wonder at the shape of snakes and grasshoppers. You can never grow up, my son, because that memory is as alive as you are.”
Luke patted his mouth with the napkin and dropped it onto the half-eaten steak. “Very pretty. I assume that the child you refer to was in all the photos Mom sent you? You show up now, and after all this time, what is it you want? The stick. And you have the balls to use paternal love to get it?”
“Not at all!” William shook his head, effectively closing the subject as he attended to his own dinner, taking a large bite of seafood and closing his eyes to relish the flavors. It disgusted Luke, listening to his father make those little sounds of contentment as he ate. He washed it down with a hearty gulp of wine and sighed. Luke began to seethe, sensing that the conversation was over. Unresolved, but concluded, like so many conversations with his father.
“Tell me what you want with the stick, Father.” So, maybe the last word was sneered a little bit. Luke hated that he was having to prod his father back into the conversation, trying to force his hand the way William had been trying to force his. It put Luke on the same level as his father, and that was unacceptable.
“What do I want with it? Why, the same thing you do, of course.”
“You want to give it to the authorities?” Edwin piped up, giving Luke a look that clearly said he wasn’t entirely in agreement with this plan put forth by his future son-in-law.
“In a way...” William said, repeating the ritual with the next bite of food. “This is incredible. I’m sorry your appetite seems to have fled you, son, but this is wonderful. You really ought to try it.” He held out his fork to Luke, who looked at the offered
shrimp in disgust and crossed his arms, making no move to take it.
“In what way?” Edwin pressed.
William shrugged and ate the shrimp himself, following with another lingering drink. “Tell me,” he said, setting down his glass and regarding Edwin with sudden interest. “You said ‘to the authorities’.” He waited for Edwin to nod. “What’s his name?”
Edwin looked to the other diners, but each one returned his blank stare. Luke took a deep breath. This was the way his father had always been: all flash and distraction, and then asking probing questions to make you look the fool.
“I don’t understand,” Edwin confessed after a minute, shooting Dani a glance that didn’t bode well for either of them later. Edwin hated being made to look a fool. Luke remembered that being very clearly stated in his research before taking this particular case.
“Say you had it, right now. Who would you give it to? Who would be the beneficiary of your magnificence? The president? A difficult man to see, on or off the golf course. As I understand, the information contains evidence of misconduct in several countries. Do you petition to see the queen? What about one of her ministers? A senator? One who’s complicit? Or one who needs a political edge over a rival who might be on there? To whom do you give it?”
Edwin looked down at his plate in confusion.
“How about the FBI?” Dani spoke up for the first time.
“Excellent!” William cried. “My boy, you really have made a great choice. There is nothing like loyalty and honor. A spouse who will always choose the side you’re on, even if she doesn’t particularly believe it. Truly, that is the only sort of companion that matters!” He reached over and grasped Elaina’s hand for a moment before letting go.
Edwin bristled. Elaina snorted, and drank long and deep from her own wine glass.
Dani looked at Luke in confusion.
“Ray,” Luke said after a minute, as it was the only answer left to offer, even though there wasn’t a person at the table who would trust him enough to give it to him. In truth, Luke had been worrying at this problem on the entire drive in, and had rather been hoping something better would come to him when the time came.
“Ray,” William agreed, nodding his head, his expression serious. “Ironically, he had the option of taking it, didn’t he? He could have destroyed the thing then and there, but he was so fixated on the guest list, the possibility of bringing in the largest haul of gangsters and killers and bad drivers the state had ever seen. It would have covered his tracks, but that damn stick could put him securely under a federal penitentiary for years. Locked up with the population he put there.”
But that wasn’t the case at all. Meaning William didn’t know everything. Luke filed that tidbit away for future reference.
“How do you know all this?” Dani turned to him, her meal forgotten.
“Because,” Marcus said flatly, “he is ‘the authorities’.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met.” William smiled and raised his glass. A man appeared from the shadows and refilled it, but William never broke his gaze from Marcus.
“One of us would have remembered,” Marcus said, his tone agreeable. His eyes cold and dead.
“To be sure.” William sat back and regarded his son. “It would be best if I were to obtain the stick.” He smiled at his guests, the beneficent dictator allowing the masses to draw near. “Should the stick miraculously survive the ‘proper channels’, and somehow it managed to be transferred up the line from supervisor to manager, from one department to another without becoming lost or destroyed, it would eventually and inevitably arrive to its final destination.” William took a delicate sip of the wine. “My desk.”
“Who are you?” Edwin exploded, leaping to his feet, and reaching for...something that Marcus stopped him from reaching. Dani’s eyes were wide, and she eased her chair back just enough to move quickly to her feet should she need to. Combat-ready, even here.
Luke had never been prouder.
Or more frightened that something would go terribly wrong and he would lose her. Just how many more people did William have in the shadows? People who wouldn’t be content to just stand back and refill wineglasses?
Edwin seemed to come to that conclusion as well, sinking back into his chair with the look of a man who wasn’t going to be forgetting any of this.
“Who am I? I just told you.” William beamed like a child who’d discovered where his mother hid the Christmas presents. “I am where the buck stops.” He looked from guest to guest. His face fell when he looked at Marcus. “Oh dear, was my information incorrect? I was under the impression that Kimchi was your favorite food! You haven’t touched it.”
“I once told someone that I loved Kimchi,” Marcus said quietly, replacing the dome on his plate. “I’d never tried it. I was simply trying to impress a young woman in the hopes of a late-night tryst.” He folded his hands, placing them on his belly, indolent and contemptuous enough of his host to not play his games. He looked long and hard at William. “How long have you been building up for this?”
Luke could feel his eyes widening. His father’s constant jovial mood was gone, vanished like so much mist. The look he gave Marcus was the look of a magician whose greatest trick had been exposed. Marcus had pulled the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz.
“My mistake,” William said flatly.
Chapter Seven
“Five dollars,” Dani whispered in Luke’s ear. Luke looked up from the book he was attempting to read. She doubted he could even have said what kind of novel it was. Or even if it was a novel. He’d been staring at the same page for the last half hour. As his mother was summarily uninterested in television and didn’t even own one of those ‘infernal devices,’ there had been little else to do, and they were forbidden by Luke’s father to leave.
Luke looked up at her, uncomprehending, and blinked. The light dawned in his eyes. He snapped the book shut and set it on the table. Marcus smiled behind the copy of The Golden Bough he’d settled down with in the corner.
Edwin, William, and Elaina were gathered around the dining room table, intently whispering to each other, some emphatic gestures indicating that the topic under discussion was their children. The open-concept design of the house left them in plain view; they fooled no one with their nods and smiles when it was easy to see the pointing fingers and head-shakings that they seemed to think were somehow invisible to everyone else. Luke smiled, and shook his head as he got up and took Dani’s hand, leading her through the side door and out into the warm Florida night.
Her heart pumping, they stole over the grass and found the small side door of the garage unlocked. Glory hallelujah, something was actually going right. They slipped inside, and he leaned against the side of the Cadillac. Dani nestled between his legs, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her nose to his.
“At last,” she tried to purr the words, but lost whatever sexy vibe she’d been trying to give off by giggling. So maybe she wasn’t a great seductress. He had to give her points for trying. Besides, they had a moment alone, no one else, no other talking or distractions, just the time alone.
“You know...” Luke said, holding her waist just above the hips and idly stroking her belly with his thumbs. It was all the more romantic because it was an unconscious gesture, a familiarity that showed his level of connection more than any words could have. “...the church is just down the street. We can walk down there...”
Dani pulled away, feeling as if someone had doused her in ice water. “Really? After all this time? All you can think about is that damn...”
“No.” Luke’s eyes went wide. Panicky. “I’m sorry, you’re right. You’re right.” He stood and grabbed her hands when she would have bolted. “I got obsessed.” He shook his head. “I think we’re all a little crazy right now. These past weeks...”
In the diffused glow of the streetlight filtering through the window it was hard to see details, but he sounded contrite. She balled a fist and bounced it softly of
f his chest. “I thought maybe you and I could have a moment. It’s been days. we were nearly married, people have been getting killed all around us, we’ve been on the run either from someone or to something. Not to mention your former boss let us go and is hunting us again...” She sighed heavily, maybe a little dramatically, but she felt a little dramatic right now. Wired and strung-out. Like she’d been in a combat zone for too long and had no idea when the bombs were going to drop. “How much more can a girl take? I need you!”
Luke held her hips and gave her a small shake with his grip. “You say the sexiest things.” He laughed, and she melted a little at the sound, realizing that, yes, he was trying. He got as focused as she did, only his focus right now was on the problem and her focus was... well... elsewhere.
Dani opened her fist and caressed his chest and down over his abs. So, he was being a jerk. I can be pissed, or I can get laid. She smiled at the thought. It wasn’t just about sex though, at the moment, that was a severe need. It was about sex with Luke. She wanted him. You’d think he could see that.
Assuming he was going to waste more time apologizing, Dani took the lead and grabbed the back of his head, pulling him down to her. She crushed her lips to his, ran her hands up the back of his shirt, and pressed herself against his crotch. Again, the thickness of him pressed against his pants, growing stiffer as she rubbed against him.
Silenced, his mouth attacked the nape of her neck, and she could hear his breath speed up, could feel the urgency in him that mirrored her own. She stood back, letting his legs wrap around her, and slipped her shirt over her head, freeing her bra. Bare-chested, she launched herself back into his arms, relishing the feel of his shirt on her nipples, the way his hands touched every inch of her back.
They fell against the car, entwined and heated, fingers exploring every inch of each other, desperate to be together, as if they’d never parted. Her hands grasped his face, held him as she covered his lips and cheeks with kisses. He cupped her left breast, playing with the hardening nipple, and she dropped a hand to rub him through the cloth of his jeans.