by C. D. Gill
His low voice reminded her far too much of the authoritative males in her life. He was her employee, technically.
“You seem like a man who has great taste and discernment in life. Would you say that of yourself?”
His expression didn’t change, but he nodded slightly. “I would use synonyms of those terms, yes.”
“Would you also say that you do your homework on the people you are assigned to? Knowing them in and out. Their schedules, routines, wants, needs, innermost loves…passions.”
The corner of his left eye twitched. That was all that moved, as if unaffected. She almost growled in frustration. She’d wanted him squirming in discomfort. A worthy opponent. Collected and calm under fire.
He took a step toward her. “It’s what makes me an expert at what I do and keeps people and myself alive.”
“And you’ve studied everyone around me to ensure my day-to-day safety.”
A dark eyebrow arched. “Is there someone you’ve noticed acting suspicious?”
She feigned a look of what she hoped appeared to be slight fear. “Yes, but if I tell you their name, I’d like your promise that you will report to only me on your findings.”
His back stiffened as he cleared his throat. “I can’t do that, Miss Carter. I report any findings to Amos directly. We’re a team here.”
With her head cocked, she took a step toward him, willing him to feel intimidated.
“Unless…” he dragged out.
She waited.
“Unless you aren’t talking about suspicions directly related to who might be targeting you.”
Bingo.
“And if I were?”
“Then you’d be sending me chasing a red herring while anyone could be ready to pick you off. It’d be signing your own death certificate.” His voice raised a fraction.
When he put it like that, it did sound ridiculous to send him after Cara to find out what she had gotten herself into recently. There had to be another way.
What turned Cara into an over sharer usually? Being super caffeinated. Enjoying really delicious food. Holding baby animals.
“Okay then. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me on a girls’ night out some time in the near future. Be prepared.” She flipped her hair and sat back in her chair. This would require advanced planning if she wanted to get on Cara’s calendar these days.
“I’ve been on more than you know.” Andy laughed. “Oh, the secrets I could tell you.”
Now he had her full attention.
“But I won’t.” He winked. Tease. “I’ll be a fly on the wall, not even listening to your inappropriate stories and disrespectful girl talk.”
Sure, he wouldn’t. She humphed, as he walked toward the door but stopped.
“If I may, Miss Carter,” his voice softened. “I know it’s a huge drag to have me knowing your whereabouts constantly, but please don’t let it stop you from living your life.”
She lowered her chin to look at him. “And what makes you think I have more of a life than what you’ve seen this week?”
It was idiotic to ask. He probably had pages of reports on her normal comings and goings. Daddy wouldn’t have held back and Amos knew a fair bit.
Andy shrugged. “I’ve seen fear crush the life out of my former clients, stealing from them what no stalker should ever be able to take. And I would hate for that to happen to you.”
As he left, she called, “You’re getting bored with my schedule, huh?” When the door closed behind him, she muttered. “Yeah, me too.”
Living her life would have to wait until after she got feedback at Friday’s blueprints and design check-in with the engineer team. With two-and-a-half weeks until the end of the year, the pressure sat on her like a two-ton boulder. She had made amazing progress. Things were going much smoother than she’d anticipated, but still the performance anxiety set her senses on fire.
The whole space needed to have the open flow that allowed claustrophobic guests to see the ocean on one side and exit out the other to a majestic view of the mountains nearby. Shade from the heat, but plenty of exposure for the sun seekers. She’d planned for infinity pools on every side of the U-shaped building with a few luxury cottages down closer to the water’s edge with private beach access.
Joey was a pro at these things, but he was no romantic. She, on the other hand, had envisioned her honeymoon at this place with the potential to take her future children back and still have them enjoy it. So one side of the resort boasted green space with nooks to tuck into for privacy while other sections of the resort had clean fields of vision with low greenery and wide open spaces for families to be near each other without being on top of each other.
The family space featured a kid friendly food hut with shorter table tops and lots of colorful animals and fairly easy access to the beach. The other food shacks boasted a variety of colors, food options, and TVs for those who didn’t want to miss the games. The romance side had no such distractions. Instead it offered intimate dining spots, adjustable lighting, and acoustic ambiance. The amenities offered babysitting services for when parents wanted to steal away for a dinner alone.
A dream vacation.
She stared at the renderings, imagining herself newly married walking along the quiet pathways hand-in-hand with Xander. No work pressures or endless survival demands. Waking up with the sun and dozing in the shade of the trees. Calling room service late at night to their romantic hut with a dessert tray or local seasonal fruit. Just the two of them chasing their passion wherever it led them.
It’d been far too long since she’d been back to Rio. Next year, she’d make it a priority.
The clock on the desk—once Uncle Angelo’s—unobtrusively passed the time with a quiet clicking. She wasn’t happy with her design. Something was off. Saving her project to three different places, she then printed off the mock-ups to take home and run by her family.
Someone would see what she couldn’t.
The blue water taunted her. A peace out of reach.
Restless, she packed her bag to leave for the evening. How much would a flight to Denver cost her if she booked one for this evening? But Andy would still follow her. This past year was agonizing proof that trouble would find her there as easily as here.
The sigh started in her lower abdomen.
Joey was probably having the time of his life. No, she wasn’t going to think like that. He was her brother overcome with grief, not a college friend taking a gap year to see the world on his parents’ yacht. Nothing about this situation deserved her envy. In pure disgust, she marched out of her office, waited a few seconds for Andy to scramble to get his things together, and drove straight to the driving range. She didn’t stop to see if Andy ambled around the shop and checked for exit points or queued up next to her driving that little white ball to the back fence.
Why had Cara rejected her so bluntly? Suddenly, they weren’t allowed to talk about this tsunami of grief they were both drowning in? They couldn’t share the pain of Joey’s unexpected absence?
With a solid whack, the ball flew into the air, but the wind cut it right. Flighty. Cara was almost jumpy. Gia adjusted her stance and brought her driver down hard. Had she been like this after Uncle Angelo died? Joey had never mentioned it. The ball’s path stayed true bouncing and rolling near the flag.
Maybe she needed a puppy or kitten to care for. Somewhere to direct her love.
Gia yanked out her mobile and shot off a few texts to Cara’s friends she’d hung out with a few times. They might know where Cara disappeared to.
A few more balls disappeared onto the range before she switched clubs and worked her irons. She pinned a frustration to every little white missile.
One for the intense pressure of this resort project.
One for the underlying fear that Joey wasn’t okay.
One for Cara cutting her out.
One for the stupid stalker.
One for the hole that distance left in her re
lationship with Xander.
One for the dream of wishing she could figure out how to be what her family needed for once.
And the rest for the endless need to run away from her growing problems.
Her bucket of balls had run out when a server approached her with a drink. “Excuse me, this is for you from Mr. Mallington. Says you’re the best with irons that he’s seen in years.”
The server placed a fruity looking drink on a table near her bag. Mr. Mallington was the flirty, old golf pro shop cashier who worked there to keep busy in retirement. He regularly asked her to marry him. She laughed.
No one had ever bought her a drink here before. “Thanks to you and Mr. Mallington.”
She polished her irons and dropped them into place in her bag. It’d be nice to sit here, sipping a cold beverage instead of running home. There was a coconut scent to it. She brought the glass to her lips, but a pair of arms wrapped around her middle as the force of a body hit her from behind. A warmth pressed against her neck. The liquid sloshed over the rim, spilling near her clean golf shoes.
A squeal of annoyance came unchecked. “Excuse me.”
The hands gripped her waist, steadying her. Her heart lurched. The cologne was not Xander’s. A low mumbling filled her ears as Andy twisted her toward him.
“Hey, baby!” he said in a too loud voice. “Oh, your drink. Sorry, sorry.” He had napkins, patting at her hands, feet, the ground. In an almost whisper, he said, “But I know you were not about to drink without any hesitation something a virtual stranger bought for you.” His glance up at her was a scolding in itself. “Please, tell me you were putting on a show.”
Plopping the glass onto the table, the heat burned in her cheeks. A hundred retorts whizzed through her mind. Normal Gia would go for gracious restraint. Today that girl was nowhere to be found.
“You know what? Yes, I was.” She propped her hands on her cocked hips. “I forgot myself for a minute, that I’m not the girl who is allowed to accept a kind deed from a sweet, old man. In my thirst, I almost ingested a cold beverage from an unknown source. What a fool.” When Andy stood, his face was inches from hers, so she had to do no more than hiss. “I spent the last hour trying to forget and instead feel something that wasn’t guilt or confusion or grief or pain. I guess it worked.” She looked him up and down. “At least enough to scare the likes of you into reminding me of who I am with a body check.”
Sliding her golf shoes off her feet, she stuffed them in her bag. What was she doing here messing around? The glass of cool liquid sat on the table sloshed, but untouched otherwise. An embarrassing reminder of what happened when she tried to free herself from her present restraints.
“Thanks for that,” she said to Andy as she shouldered her bag.
The shaky exhale came in the car. Such carelessness amidst the feeling of…peace. When she drove past the driving range on her way out of the parking lot, the glass had disappeared from the table. This was exactly why she’d not gone anywhere for the last three days. Where would she be if Andy hadn’t been there? If Xander wasn’t there to help her keep her mind on straight? If someone wasn’t always keeping her between the lines?
Dead.
Or worse, married to the biggest abuser east of the Mississippi.
At home, she cut straight to her bedroom’s en suite to wash off the day. By the time she came down, dinner had been cleared and the family had dispersed to their nightly entertainments. She raided the refrigerator for cooling leftovers. As she sat down to eat them, Avó Ana shuffled over to the sink that was piled high with dishes. Ma left yellow plastic gloves out for her to protect Avó’s delicate skin. After years of persuading, Ma had finally convinced Avó to only work on the big dishes that couldn’t easily fit in the dishwasher.
Although she was an eighty-three-year-old guest in her daughter’s home, Avó still refused to let the dishes sit unwashed for any length of time. Ma said it stemmed back to her childhood in Brazil when flies and ants would swarm into the house to get what was available if traces of food and drink were left out. Avó didn’t like to talk about her childhood much because she said it was very difficult. If anyone asked, she’d clam up tight.
If anyone knew hardship, it was Avó.
Gia finished her dinner and grabbed a rag to dry what was on the rack. With the family eating here every night, the dishwasher ran overtime, but the nice serving platters and pans couldn’t go in.
“How did you do it after Vovô died?” Gia asked her in Portuguese. “How did you raise two kids by yourself away from your family?”
Avó said nothing for a bit, except for the quiet clicking of her tongue as she thought. Her careful words pulled no punches. Gia admired how much weight her words carried—positive or negative.
After two more dishes, Avó hung the gloves to dry. There were still dishes to be washed, but Avó didn’t seem to notice. “That’s enough for tonight. Let’s sit on the patio.”
Avó grabbed a tonic and lime to pour in her glass and followed Gia outside. They sat under the heaters as the night came to life around them. Warm and comfortable, Gia felt the drowsiness hit her square in the chest.
“For years when the kids were small, I struggled to keep us alive. Bento felt that trusting others would force us to be dependent on them and then they’d pull the rug from under our feet when we weren’t watching. In those days, women dare not speak against her husband’s leadership. We were married so young that I had become accustomed to living that way. And others had let us down time after time. So when he died, I continued to feed that lie in my mind, justified when someone took a misstep. I was so sure if I was to be a real adult that I needed to be independent, stand on my own two feet. There were countless times I wanted to drop the kids off on a church’s steps and start a new life alone. My independence suffocated me.”
Avó took a long drink of her tonic drink. Gia had heard about Ma’s birth father, Bento, a handful of times, but he’d died when Ma and Uncle Angelo were very little so their memories were restricted to the few things Avó had told them. After a few years, Avó remarried Grandpa Ignatious and had Roberto and Judith.
Avó Ana coughed. “See, it’s a lie we’re conditioned to believe—that we don’t need community to stay alive, physically and mentally. Self-sufficiency is as much a poison as co-dependency, but wounded hearts struggle to believe that. When I stopped thinking of my needs as a weakness and an inconvenience, that is when we started to thrive. I met Ignatious through that community I’d help at arms’ length, and I can say I know what true love is because I stopped blinding myself.”
Gia swallowed the lump in her throat. Was it a lie she’d been believing? Listening to Avó’s story brought up the ugly reality that Bronc and Grant had really messed with her ability to trust people.
But could she afford to stop shouldering all these burdens alone? Could she afford not to? There would be pain either way.
Chapter 10
“He found what?” Xander growled into the phone.
“Boy, you need to listen better. Ar-se-nic,” Gia stated it again so calmly that he wanted to reach through the phone and shake her, or hug her and never let go. He couldn’t decide. “Andy took the drink with him when we left the driving range and had it tested for any possible traces of a contaminant.”
“How did the person get it into the drink without the bartender seeing?”
“Bartender was working alone since it wasn’t a peak hour. One of the waiters tripped on the way to deliver drinks to high-profile clients, so the bartender prioritized their beers, giving whomever it was time to drop enough liquid arsenic in the glass to shrivel my organs in minutes.” Her voice wavered, but she paused and cleared her throat.
She was crying. He’d put money on it. Pulling the phone from his ear, he let out a shaky exhale. “Andy did his job and might have even earned a small Christmas bonus.”
Gia’s small laugh lightened his mood. He ran his hand through his hair. This attack accentuated his envelope i
ssue. They might not need to get him alone if they could get to his food or car.
Andy, Andy, Andy. He was a hero. Xander might even send him a personalized thank-you note, too, but the admiration in her tone made him unreasonably jealous. It was proof that five plus years without a mature, adult relationship had him fighting the same immaturity he thought he left behind in his early twenties. Gia wasn’t like other girls, falling for the shiny armor nearest her.
“How did the last workshop go tonight?”
“Oh, aside from Reggie, there were two others who had come before.” It was a low attendance night, but that was okay because his mind had been elsewhere. However, the video feed was no longer relevant since the envelope had come under Lucy’s door.
Lucy’s door. He shot off a quick text to Lucy asking about seeing her video feed.
“Uh, well. I need to go. I have a big design meeting tomorrow. I sent the plans to the engineers today. Tomorrow, they’ll let me know how much they don’t like and what I need to redo.” She huffed out a laugh.
They said goodbye. Lucy responded to his text as he hung up. Perfect timing.
Probably can’t. Security feeds were on and off last week, due to a reno project at the antique shop next door. Why they need to update anything is beyond me. They’re supposed to look old.
Of course, they were. How convenient. Someone was spending a lot of time doing the footwork to keep secretly informing him of other people secretly watching him. Like playing poker, everyone watching each other watching other people.
The thought kept him awake for a while, turning over the possibilities regardless of how ridiculous they seemed. It was no comfort that whomever was watching him would come out of hiding eventually.
The next morning, he dragged himself into work. He’d wasted time on the security cameras yesterday, but today was his day for profitability. Tomorrow, he and Reggie were scheduled to go out dumpster diving to get whatever they could get their hands on. There were at least a half-a-dozen new housing developments to explore within a thirty-minute radius.