Eli was silent as he played with his Spiderman figurine. “Peter Parker didn’t have a mom or a dad.”
“That’s true. He loved his Aunt Mae and Uncle Ben very much, just as much as he loved his mom and dad.”
“I think it’s okay if Dillon wants to be my dad,” he finally said after a long silence.
“I think Dillon would be really happy about that.” I pulled the sheets down on the bed. “Come on, Bean . . .” I bumped the palm of my hand against my forehead. “I mean Eli.”
“It’s okay, Mom. Bean’s not so bad. Dillon said Mexican jumping beans are pretty cool. He’s going to get some and show me how to make them jump.”
“That will be cool. I’ve never seen one either.”
Eli climbed under the covers. “Mom, I don’t want to go to sleep by myself.”
I snuggled under the covers beside him, curling my arm around his neck. Eli was growing up so fast, and I cherished moments like these, the simple things like holding hands and cuddling would be gone well before I was ready to give them up. These quiet moments when my quickly growing boy just wanted the love and comfort of his mom would be memories I would forever cherish. I kissed his forehead and sighed in contented comfort. We were safe for tonight. The world felt a little quieter and a little less scary. I only had twenty-four hours to come up with the cash for Phillip’s debt, and the only way I could see out of this situation was to take everything out of the coffee shop account. It would leave me unable to pay my employees, and I’d slip well behind on my payments to Jaxon, but I couldn’t see any other way around it. I wanted to tell Dillon, I wanted to tell him so bad, and that need tugged at my heart and conscious with such force that I almost climbed out of bed right there and then with every intention of telling him. I bit on my lip with frustration as I felt Eli’s breathing fall into longer, deeper breaths. Maybe tomorrow. Dillon would know what to do. This was his area of expertise, and I knew he could keep us safe. God, how foolish I had been to keep this from him. This was the kind of stuff he did for a living. He needed to know. Eli shifted at my side and turned to bury further into my warmth. First thing in the morning, I was telling Dillon everything. He deserved to know; after all, I could have been putting him in danger just by taking refuge in his home. That thought alone made me feel ill. I let my eyes fall shut and drew long, deep breaths, matching Eli’s. Within minutes, I felt the weight of sleep pull me under.
Chapter 14
Dillon
Braiden pushed a cup of steaming hot, strong coffee across the kitchen counter until it sat before me. He turned and resumed preparing Emily’s breakfast. As usual, it was a peaceful, quiet start to the day, but that would soon change. Annie and Eli were sleeping in the guest room, and I had heard the shower as I passed by only moments ago. They would soon join us and the quiet circle of three would become a noisy circle of five—Eli would see to the noisy part. I enjoyed my quiet mornings with Braiden and Emily, but having Annie under the same roof as me had been supremely satisfying. It had also been an exercise in supreme control and restraint not to sneak her into my room after Eli fell asleep. I had gone so far as to sneak a peek before I went to bed, hoping Annie was awake with the intention of dragging her off to have my wicked way with her. My plans were thwarted, though, when I had discovered her curled protectively around her sleeping son, the slow rise and fall of her chest confirming she too was fast asleep. I wanted nothing more than to slip under the sheets and join them, holding their smaller bodies in the protection of my arms, but I also didn’t want to disturb them. So, with a contented sigh, I left them to sleep peacefully, knowing Braiden’s home had the best security money could buy and they would be safe. My need for Annie had been almost embarrassingly intense. I had made love to her twice in the last twenty-four hours, and I could still think of little more than burying myself in her. Perhaps it was new romance excitement, but it certainly wasn’t an experience I had felt with other women.
I sighed and tried to hide the smile that tugged at my lips behind my mug of coffee.
“Why are you so happy this morning?” Braiden asked, dragging my thoughts from Annie’s flushed, naked body back to the quiet kitchen before me.
“No reason,” I answered a little gruffly.
Braiden’s smile was small and knowing.
“He looks like you do after visiting the guest house.” It wasn’t Emily’s soft voice that had me startled, but the fact that she was smiling . . . and teasing me. She melted into Braiden’s open arms and almost purred as Braiden lowered a kiss to her neck.
“I don’t smile,” Braiden responded.
“You can try and act all dark and mysterious around other people, Shakhta, but Dillon and I know the truth.” Braiden’s eyes softened at Emily’s pet name for him, shakhta, which I’d recently discovered meant ‘mine’ in Russian.
“And what truth is that, Malen’kaya?”
“That your eyes aren’t as cold as you would like people to think. You smile when nobody’s watching, and your heart is big and warm.” Braiden kissed her tenderly as he backed her to a stool and forced her to sit.
“I have something else big and warm, but I need to feed you and get you to work, so sit and behave.”
The words were whispered for Em, but I heard them clearly and tried valiantly to hold back my smile and give them privacy. Yeah, I really needed to start thinking about getting my own place, and soon. My cell phone chimed in my back pocket offering me the reprieve I was after. Noting it was Sam, I swiped the screen to answer.
“What’s up, Sam?”
“Okay, I took a little stroll through Dr. Beth’s reports on Phillip, and he is one sick man,” Sam grunted. “Anyway, according to her notes, Phillip stopped taking his medication two months before Eli’s visit, and his state of mind was deteriorating quickly. In one visit, he ranted for the entire session about some friend from prison overdosing; apparently, he was the brains behind some crazy business scheme the two were working on. Dr. Beth never really got a straight answer on what the business was about. Phillip was getting too scattered to maintain a rational, coherent conversation. When he mentioned he wanted to see Eli, to make sure he was safe—Phillip’s wording, not Dr. Beth’s—the doc told him it wouldn’t happen unless he went back on his meds. Apparently, his moods plateaued pretty quickly after he did, and she set up the visit. The doc seemed to think something was off with Phillip; she thought there was something more going on, an external problem that was weighing on him. She even made mention of financial struggles in her notes. Leading up to Eli’s visit, Phillip became withdrawn and unwilling to give anything more than casual conversation at his appointments. After his visit with Eli, Dr. Beth called Phillip to see how he was. During the phone call, she noted he sounded very detached. Phillip told her he was fine and that everything would be okay now. She didn’t pursue it, and when he failed to show for his next two appointments, she made notes that she tried several times to contact Phillip by phone. After appointment no-show number three, she notified his parole officer.”
I almost growled. “She should have notified his parole officer well before number three.”
“Uh-huh, it sounds like Dr. Beth has a bad case of hero complex. She wants to cure the world of mental illness, and I don’t think she really believes that sending these men and women off to prison is the fix they need.”
“You got all that from Phillip’s medical history?”
“Nope, I read her journal.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Don’t tell me that shit.” Sighing, I sat back at the kitchen counter. “We need to find Phillip.”
“Yeah, that would be a good start,” said Sam. “I’ll call you if I find anything else.”
“Thank you, and get out of the doctor’s damn files. We’ve got enough from them.”
“I slipped out of the good doctor’s system over an hour ago.”
“That just sounds wrong,” I said before hanging up on a laughing Sam.
“Do you need me?” Bra
iden asked, drawing my attention from my phone to him. He leaned casually against the kitchen counter, but I knew the relaxed look was a farce. He would be ready to take on an entire battalion in that moment if he had to. Emily watched him, her eyes now filled with a little fear.
“We need to find Phillip,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t want to take Braiden away from Emily. I knew her fear at being separated from him, but I also knew that Emily was safe. Annie was not. I needed to focus on Annie and clean up this mess, whatever the hell it was.
Braiden nodded, kissing Emily’s head. “I’ll pack a bag and get the first available flight out. Email me everything you have. I’ll find him.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled through a tight smile
“No thank you needed. You had my back when I was taking care of Em; now I have yours. We’re square, and even if we weren’t, we’re family. This is what family does, takes care of each other and each other’s families.” Emily kissed Braiden’s jaw and ran a soothing hand over his as he held her tight, and this time my smile was real. She was silently letting him know that she was alright, pacifying the beast’s dark mood at being parted from her.
“Would you like me to drop Em over at Rebecca’s?”
Braiden gave me a quick smile and patted Em gently on the backside to move her forward. “Nope, I got this. Don’t you have a meeting with some cop today?”
“Sergeant Maitland,” I chuckled. “He wants to discuss some liaison work.”
“This is the perfect opportunity for teamwork. Get your family safe and go do your business-suit stuff, and I’ll find Phillip.” Braiden paused a moment, a look of terror in his dark eyes. “Unless you want to swap, and I’ll do the meeting?”
“Yeah, you and that sparkling personality of yours talking to local law enforcement about working together, as a team. What was your motto? There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there’s an ‘M’ and an ‘E’?” Braiden frowned while Emily laughed.
“I worked just fine with Larz, Bomber, and Gabbie.”
“Yeah, you did, but you were motivated,” I confessed, nodding in Em’s direction.
“Fine, I’ll go find Phillip, and you do the office stuff. I’d hate for you to get your soft hands dirty, anyway.”
“Who’s going to find Phillip?” Annie asked from behind me. And she thought I walked like a mouse? I hadn’t even heard her, and nobody got the jump on me.
Braiden and Emily excused themselves as I turned to face her. She looked breathtaking in a pair of cargo pants and a plain pink shirt. Nothing special to the casual observer, but to me, she was stunning.
“Sam got a little more information on Phillip. He’s been on and off his meds the last few months, but his doctor was worried for other reasons leading up to his disappearance. Apparently, Phillip had some business deal going on that fell through following the death of his business partner. She was concerned about his mental stability with the weight of a possible financial situation hanging over him. It seems your concern for his finances were spot on.” Annie’s body stiffened for a moment, and she glanced out the glass doors leading to the pool, her thoughts suddenly whisking her attention away from me.
“Braiden is going to try and find him?”
“Yes, and you know how good he is at that.” She nodded, seemingly satisfied with Braiden’s involvement. “Maybe you and Eli should come into the office with me today.” At this, she pulled away and Angry Annie suddenly slipped into place.
“Fine, hush, don’t get huffy with me.” I almost laughed, holding my hands up in surrender. Annie didn’t breathe a word, but she did give me a bad attempt at a stink eye. “How about I call Jax and Ella? When I spoke to Jax yesterday, he had to do a couple of collection runs for Mercy today, and Ella wasn’t too crazy about tagging along. He doesn’t want to leave her home alone, though, so close to her due date. Their home is secure—it’s a little further out of town than I’m comfortable with, but it’s like a fortress—you’d be safe.”
Annie settled immediately. “We can stay with Ella. Good plan.”
“Why don’t you go get Eli up. We should get moving.”
Annie turned to slip away but hesitated a moment. She turned back to face me, and her lips parted to speak, but almost as quickly, they closed, and she stood seemingly frozen, a look of indecision plaguing her features.
“Annie,” I whispered in an attempt to break the moment, to get at that secret that hung so precariously on the end of her tongue. She gave me a false smile and shook her head before turning and disappearing down the long hall. As soon as she was out of my sight, I began pacing, my mind assaulted with concerns. Concerns for Annie’s and Eli’s safety, concerns for Phillip, concerns over the secret that Annie was holding on to so tightly. Trust, such a delicate fucking thing, and I hadn’t even been the one to betray her. But Phillip had and it had left behind one hell of a mess that I was more than prepared to clean up. I’d earn every single ounce of her trust and then some. She’d tell me what was going on, and soon, even if I had to pry it from her sweet, pink lips. And then there would never be another damn secret between us.
“Dillon!” screamed Eli from somewhere behind me. I turned just in time to catch him as he launched himself into my arms. “Mom said I don’t have to go to school today, and we’re going to Jax and Ella’s house!” he cried exuberantly. He was dressed in Spiderman pajamas, his hair a chaotic mess, his body a comfortable warmth in my arms that I was pretty sure I could never grow tired of.
“So I heard,” I said, offering him a smile. “How ’bout you go get dressed and pack some of Braiden’s games in a bag. You can play Jax’s Xbox.”
“Seriously? I can take some of Braiden’s games?”
“Sure you can, little man,” Braiden said from over his shoulder. I placed a scrambling Eli back on the ground, and he threw his fist in the air triumphantly.
“Everything is awesome, everything is cool when your part of a team.” He ran down the long hallway back to the guest room, singing the unfamiliar tune.
I raised a brow at Annie, and she sighed.
“It’s this ridiculous song from the new Lego movie. I swear, the people who create those movies are trying to silently torture parents.”
Braiden snorted as Emily let out a little chuckle.
“We’re out of here, cousin. Stay safe and keep your phone close.”
“Will do,” I said, giving Braiden a nod as Annie gave Em a quick hug before stuffing a few things into her handbag.
“I’m pretty much ready to go. Do you need a hand with anything?” I asked. Annie gave me an appreciative smile, and I somehow refrained from dragging her down to the couch and kissing her senseless.
“If you can make sure he puts underwear on and brushes his teeth, that would help me tremendously.”
Unable to help myself, I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I like having you here, in my home. It feels right,” I murmured. Annie tried to hide her smile, but I caught it, and like a slow unfurling rose, red flooded her cheeks. “I’ll go help Eli.”
“Little dude, what’s going on in here?” I asked when I found Eli sticking out from under the bed.
“I can’t find my Ironman backpack.” His little, irritated voice was muted as he tried to crawl further under the bed. I bent to the floor and dragged him out, tossing him on to the mattress.
“And why would it be under my bed?”
Eli’s brow crinkled with thought. “It’s not your bed; it’s the guest bed.”
I rolled my eyes, much like Eli did when his mother was giving him a long winded lecture. “Okay, but you don’t live here, so I’m sure your backpack isn’t under this bed.”
“But I brought it with me,” he glanced around the room, “and it’s not here.”
“Maybe your mom put it in the closet?” I suggested, standing to take a look. “How ’bout you get dressed, and I’ll find the backpack.” Eli jumped off the bed and picked up a pair of shorts off the floor. “Are they clean?�
� I asked. He shrugged as he shucked off his pajamas. “At least put clean underwear on,” I murmured as my attention turned back to the closet. Annie had neatly tucked away their overnight bags into the closet, and I grabbed the ever faithful Ironman backpack.
“These ones aren’t dirty,” Eli protested, pointing at his matching Spiderman underwear.
“Little man, you’ve had them on all night. Grab some clean ones, and trust me on this, girls do not appreciate dirty underwear.” By the time I stuffed a couple of comic books and his Spiderman figurine in his backpack, Eli had his shorts on, a wrinkled shirt, and was attempting tie his shoelaces. He’d learned the task not long ago and was managing, albeit slowly. His tongue darted out and followed the concentrated path his fingers took. As much as I wanted to kneel down and do it for him, I respected his need to learn and find independence. It felt like the longest five minutes of my life, standing there, watching him struggle.
“Mom said you would like to be my dad,” Eli said as easily as one might comment on the weather. The eight-year-old sliver of nothing rendered me speechless. “That would be cool, and even though you’re not my real dad, Mom said it didn’t matter, ’cause it’s how much you love me that counts. She said you love me a lot.”
“To the moon and back, Bean.”
Eli smiled. “And it’s okay if you want to call me Bean, and Mom wants to see the Mexican jumping beans, too. She’s never seen one before.” He jumped off the bed, laces finally tied. “And I love you to Mars and back, which is more than the moon cause Mars is further away.”
Speechless . . . again. I’d always wanted children; as a man it wasn’t something I talked about, just a silent desire that I hoped and prayed would one day be my fate. I didn’t care in the slightest that Eli wasn’t my biological child; I couldn’t imagine loving him any more than I already did. He filled a place in my heart I didn’t even know was empty. He made my life that much brighter and that much louder, and I would love him like my own for every day I walked this fine Earth.
Mother's Love Page 14