“TELL ME AGAIN why we have to do this,” Parker grumbled. He had a fucking headache, his stomach was rumbling from hunger, and his plans for spending the evening wearing Angelina on his dick were quickly fading. In short, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what you see before you is an unhappy camper.
Angie was doing her usual. Tearing around the room, climbing over boxes, and shoving bins out of the way, she took a dozen outfits out of the closet when only one was needed.
“Can’t we just stay in and throw some cow on the grill?”
“Family dinner, Counselor,” she chirped happily. “Command performance. According to Tori, you and Calder can both go shit in your Stetsons if you think for one minute of tapping out.”
He was going to bill Alex for all the goddamn time he spent sitting in the dude’s empty chair.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Scraping a hand across his face, he felt the five o’clock shadow of a beard that was more like three days without a shave and groaned.
His Desert Angel dropped what she was doing and came to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and rubbing on his overly tense body.
“What’s really the matter?”
Was there something the matter besides just being in a shitty mood? Parker relaxed into her embrace and gave it some thought. The answer was a quick and resounding no. The only thing the matter with him was the insatiable desire he felt for this girl. They’d wasted so many years running from their feelings. Now that he had her, absolutely nothing else mattered. Nothing except making love to her morning, noon, and night.
He pulled her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. She smelled sweet and feminine with a hint of wicked sexuality that turned his cock to stone. Parker sighed deeply. If she wanted to have dinner with the family, then that was what he’d do. Anything to make her happy. Anything.
“Don’t mind me, baby girl. That fucking city lawsuit my firm is working gives me a headache. I’ll shower and change, okay?”
Her fingers were doing some sort of magic on his neck and the back of his head. “Shh,” she murmured.
Fine with him. Feeling like a puppy having his belly rubbed, Parker got lost in the sensation her massaging fingers brought. Knowing where and how to touch him, Angie sent the tension in his shoulders and much of the dull throb in his head packing.
When he relaxed a bit, she stepped back, took his hand, and smiled. “I have something to show you.”
“If it needs a litter pan or a leash, you’re going over my knee.”
She struggled to contain a laugh. “Hold that thought.”
Leading him through and around more shit than any two people should have, she started down the hallway toward their bedroom but surprised him by detouring into what used to be a guest room. Now, it was a holding area for their new house and was crammed with whatever crazy fuckery his Angel baby got into.
They couldn’t move out of here and finally get settled fast enough for him.
“Look.” She giggled.
Following the finger she pointed, Parker found a piece of furniture. Wait. It was furniture, right?
“What the hell is that?”
Delighted by his confusion, she clapped her hands and bounced on her toes with delight. “Oh, good! So it’s not obvious? Thank god. I think this should find a home in our bedroom. The playroom has enough other stuff.”
Oh, god. The playroom? She had to stop ramping him up like this. They’d picked out more equipment and kinky fuckery trappings for Angie’s naughty den of delights than most couples do for an entire house.
But what the fuck did a padded prie-dieu have to do with their bedroom or playroom? A prayer bench was about the last thing he’d expected her to want.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she asked. Running her hands over the wood, she pointed out the leather padding and sturdy rubbed bronze upholstery nails.
Um, okay. Whatever.
“You planning on saying the rosary every morning?” he asked.
Angie’s chirp of amused confusion got his attention. “What?”
“It’s a prayer bench, right? A prie-dieu. Don’t ask me how I know that word, I just do.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
What was he missing?
Like a spokesmodel on The Price is Right, she quickly ran him through a detailed explanation, complete with demonstrations, of what she insisted was a spanking bench.
A very expensive looking handmade one-of-a-kind bench. Not for prayer. For spanking.
Wait a minute.
Parker zeroed in on every detail.
Angie was still prattling on when he cut her off with a growl. “Did you say it was custom made?”
She beamed as though winning a major prize. “Yep. Had it made to my specifications. Needed measurements and everything! Your height. My height. It’s cool, isn’t it?”
Cool? She’d better be kidding. Desert Angel had some explaining to do.
“I swear to god, Angelina Marquez, if Draegyn St. John had anything to do with this, then you’re in for more than just a spanking.”
Angie rushed at him and grabbed his arm. “Drae? What does he have to do with anything?”
“Well, I don’t know!” he railed, suddenly unglued at the mere thought of that fuck stick St. John poking his nose into Parker’s sex life. “Jesus, Angie. You present me with a custom-made, what-the fucking-ever you call it and jibber on about measurements and specifications. Isn’t that sort of in Drae’s wheelhouse?”
“Oh,” she murmured as a deep blush spread across her face.
Goddamit. He was gonna kill that motherfucker.
Suddenly, a warm, clinging vine overtook him as Angie wrapped around him and seductively shimmied all over.
“Oh, baby. I like it when you go all caveman on me.” Pressing hot, wet kisses along his chin, she flicked open a couple of buttons on his shirt and slid her fingers against his skin.
Grabbing her arms, Parker gave her a little shake and pushed her off him. “Young lady, you either swear on everything that’s holy that Draegyn St. John had nothing to do with this or I’m gonna tie your ass to that fancy bench and take away your ability to sit for the next week.”
Pouty Angel started giving him that damn look. The one she knew made his brain turn to mush.
Using a little girl voice, she tempted him right to the edge of his endurance. “But if I swear Drae had no part in making it, does that mean you won’t tie me to the bench and …”
Oh, for Christ’s sake. She really was going to be the death of him.
Stopping her wicked mouth by hauling her in and kissing her so ferociously she crumpled in his arms, Parker put an end to the discussion.
By the time he finally made it to the shower, sated Angel replaced pouty Angel, and he was feeling mighty good. Good enough to put up with a family dinner, even if it meant having to play nice with that douchenozzle St. John.
Calder couldn’t possibly fuss over Stephanie any more if he tried. He was on her with every move she made. Keeping her glass filled. Making sure she had the dressing she wanted for her salad. Hell. He was all but counting how many times a fork or spoon traveled to her mouth.
“If I promise to make a happy dish, will you please stop worrying?”
“No,” he growled quietly. “I have to take care of you.”
He furtively glanced around to be sure no one was listening. Luckily, the group was so big and boisterous that he and his fiancée didn’t attract much attention as long as they didn’t yell or make out like teenagers.
Counting mouthfuls quickly came to a screeching halt when she calmly laid the fork down, picked up a napkin, and dabbed at her mouth. Placing the napkin in her lap, Stephanie folded her hands on the table in front of her and turned her head to face him.
“Sweetheart,” she murmured. “I’m fine. Truly.”
So she kept saying, but he wasn’t convinced. “Have you ever fainted before?”
“No,” she said with a decisive headshake. “I, uh …”
Calder felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle when she didn’t finish. Stephanie rarely left words unspoken. It wasn’t her style.
“What?” he demanded. “You what?”
She leaned closer. “Well, I did get lightheaded and almost go down a couple of times when I was pregnant with Victoria.”
He barely had a chance to process what she said before her pained gasp cut off his thoughts.
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “Do you think? Could it be?”
Could it be what? his head screamed.
“The start of menopause?” she whispered.
The way she said the word, you’d think a canister of the Ebola virus was just delivered to the table.
Well, fuck my life, he thought. Menopause. How the hell was he supposed to know what the right thing was for him to say? How was he supposed to react? This shit was way above his pay grade, and since he had more cash than a vault at Gringott’s, that was saying a lot.
Her hands fell to her lap where she started wringing the ends of the napkin.
Reaching out, he took hold of one trembling hand and lifted it to his lips for a gentle kiss.
“Hey,” he murmured—but she didn’t look at him. “Duchess,” he said more firmly. Her eyes rose slowly to his. She looked bewildered. Anxious. Upset. Should he assume menopause was kryptonite to Stephanie’s normal poise?
Because nothing stayed a secret long once Family Justice picked up the scent, Victoria swooped in from across the table and demanded, “What’s wrong? And don’t say nothing. I’ve had about all of that crap I can stand.” A second of side shade thrown Drae’s way followed and then she fixed her mother with a serious look. “Mom, what the hell is going on? You two are acting weird, and the whispering is setting off all sorts of alarms.”
He made a snap decision. Fuck it if he was wrong, but he knew less about women’s shit than he knew about floral arranging, and since menopause wasn’t a joke, he had to bring more to the table than an armful of mismatched flowers. Maybe Tori could help him out.
“Your mother had a fainting episode.”
“Excuse me?”
“Calder, stop it!” Stephanie implored. “You’ll just scare her for no reason. It was nothing, shugah,” she tried to assure Tori. “I forgot to eat, and it caught up with me in this heat.”
Tori stared a hole through her mother’s head and then turned a deathly glare on him. “Uh-huh. She forgot to eat. Right.” The bold disbelief in her voice was kind of jarring. Tori wasn’t about to allow any bullshit where her mom was concerned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Stephanie huffed and puffed, pursed her lips, glared at Tori and then at him. “Do the math, Victoria. I’m fifty!”
“And? What the hell does that mean, Mom? You have an expiration date or something?”
Mouthing a word without sound didn’t work, and Tori got more and more agitated. Finally, her mom snapped and blurted out, “Menopause, okay?”
Tori sat back heavily in her seat and just stared at them slack-jawed. After a minute, she responded carefully. “Mom, that’s not how it works. Just because you hit a date on the calendar with a red circle around it doesn’t mean your ticket to menopause got stamped. Calder, tell her. Tell her she’s being ridiculous.”
Draegyn approached from the far end of the table where he’d been holding court with Daniel in his arms. His face made it clear he’d been observing their exchange and was probably about to demand what the fuck was going on.
Calder groaned. He might as well tap his knife on a glass and ask for everyone’s attention.
Luckily, a commotion and whoops of laughter from the cluster of people gathered around Brody offered enough of a distraction that they weren’t the center of attention.
“Where’d it go?” Bella asked.
Brody bit back a laugh. Meghan’s brother Finn turned out to be an amateur magician and had been playfully teasing Mia all through dinner.
“I don’t know,” Finn gravely replied to the clearly mystified five-year-old. “Better check behind your ear and see if you feel anything.”
Bella’s little fingers searched all around her ears but came up empty. Heather took Brody’s hand and squeezed. They’d been worried about a group get-together being too much for his daughter. After all, they’d barely settled in the new house and were still trying to acclimate the little girl to her new life when Family Justice came calling. But Bella Mia continued to surprise them both. Not only had she been the picture of a well-mannered child from the second a dozen new faces pressed in, but she’d also shown a willingness to engage with people who were total strangers to her.
His baby girl was a warrior—a five-year-old warrior in ruffled denim shorts and a pair of new cowgirl boots. She was so in love with those boots, it was a struggle to get her to remove them each night.
Finn tapped her on the nose and made a buzzer sound. “Hands up, little missy.” Bella’s hands shot into the air as he reached into her armpit and magically produced the shiny silver dollar he’d made disappear.
Bella clapped her hands with delight. “Again, again!” she cried.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Dylan approaching as his chubby little legs thumped the wooden floor beneath him. Seated in a baby walker resembling a shiny red Ferrari sports car, the happy kid was scooting through the clusters of people gathered around their huge table.
Pounding his hands on the steering wheel and knobby gearshift, he stopped for the occasional high five, added his joyful voice to the rowdy group noise, and looked to be having the time of his life.
His mom, though, trailing right alongside him, didn’t look nearly as happy. Fuck. He didn’t like seeing Lacey upset.
Drae filled him in shortly after their arrival in Arizona. He’d been mildly surprised by how readily the guy shared what was happening with Cam. Sort of felt like a validation. An acknowledgment that—yep—he was part of the Justice inner circle now. Gave Brody the perfect opening to pass along his impressions of the recent dealings he’d had with the military and government people.
It wasn’t always a good thing to fall under curious eyes, no matter how influential and potentially advantageous the attention was. There was always an agenda. At first, he thought it was just him. There was a natural progression to the way the FBI went through the motions. Brody had deep ties at Quantico. Ties he didn’t like to think about.
But from what Drae had told him, a bigger lens was focusing its crosshairs on Justice. Not only had Cameron been sucked into some fucked-up black ops rescue mission, but some heavy-handed pressure was being visited on Alex as well.
Chills ran up and down his spine as Drae explained how the Major’s end-of-honeymoon stopover in D.C. was still dragging on. The suits and earpieces wanted something or had something to gain by picking them off, one by one, and very subtly working them over.
He sighed. It never ended, did it?
And poor Lacey. She and Dylan were collateral issues—maybe even used as leverage to gain Cam’s cooperation.
Bastards.
Dylan and his hot rod came right at Brody’s knees and slammed into him, which made Heather laugh and, in turn, got Bella’s attention.
“Whoa there, speed racer.” He chuckled with a ruffle of the hair on the kid’s head. “You drive like your old man.”
“He missed you,” Lacey told him as she watched their interplay. A resounding thud of guilt hit him straight in the center of his chest. He had a special bond with Dylan Cameron. Not to diminish the little kid’s connection to Drae, but so did Alex. With Cam doing who the fuck knows what, he or Alex should have stepped in to be there for Dylan and for Lacey. A quick assessment of the vibe between the St. Johns told him that situation was still a hot mess, so Drae had his hands full. Not just with his family, but also with keeping the whole agency and family situation afloat while Alex was gone.
It was time for him to step up. Justice saved Brody and gave him a sanctuary where he found the strength to heal and move forward. He had a lifelong debt to repay.
“I can’t believe how big he’s gotten in just a few months!” Heather was eyeing the slobbering kid like he was the main course of a gourmet meal.
Lacey chuckled. “They have a way of doing that.” She smiled at Bella and blew his daughter a kiss. “You’ll see. Time goes by way too quickly.”
The tinge of sadness in her voice practically gutted him.
Bella wiggled down off her chair and crouched by Dylan’s side. He watched how careful she was and wondered how she knew to be so gentle. Communicating on some kid wavelength, she and the excited boy soon engaged in some lively antics—each of them honking the Ferrari’s horn, then twisting the big red key back and forth as a ratcheting noise sounded.
“Does he have a dog?” Bella unexpectedly asked.
He, Lacey, and Heather all smirked at each other. Kids were so broad in their thinking that it was impossible to predict what would come out of their mouths next.
Lacey pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning forward over her knees until she was almost eye level with both kids. In a very matter-of-fact way, she mimicked their actions, turning the key and honking the horn.
Lacey was using a conversational voice he knew well from Heather’s handling of Bella, so he watched and listened to the exchange.
“We don’t have a puppy. Not yet,” she informed the observant five-year-old. “But I was thinking of telling Santa a pup would be a great idea for Christmas.”
Brody smiled. What a great answer. Heather smiled too. As usual, Lacey Cameron hit it out of the park.
And then Bella unleashed a big old flock of very angry birds into their unsuspecting midst.
“Santa couldn’t find me either.” She said it so quietly that he strained to hear her words. And then his heart exploded when he understood what she was saying.
All around were people having an exuberant and noisy time but at that moment, a heavy pall of ear-splitting silence descended upon the three of them as they stared at Bella’s pained expression.
Her gaze found his, and her face held far too much sadness. More than any kid should have.
Without missing another beat, Lacey diverted Bella’s attention by excitedly proclaiming, “Well, guess what! When you guys moved, Betty sent change of address notices out.” Play counting on her fingers, she said, “Let’s see. There was Santa, of course.” For good measure, she added a wink. “And the Tooth Fairy. Very important that one.” Scrunching her face in a pantomime of deep thinking, she looked around and murmured, “Hmmm,” then suddenly put up a third finger and yelped, “And the Easter Bunny!” She held up the three fingers and waggled them for Bella to see. “Gotcha covered. You’re Family Justice now, Bella Mia! And we always watch out for each other.”
Heather had to look away when a tear started rolling down her cheek. Brody reached for his drink and took a hefty swallow.
A slow smile crept onto Bella’s face and spread into her expression.
Lacey, God bless her, slyly murmured, “Hey. Wanna know a secret?”
Flashes of conflict and uncertainty appeared on his daughter’s face. “Can my daddy know too? And Heather?”
“Of course, honey!”
Bella’s bottom lip trembled. “I don’t like secrets.”
Taking the statement at face value, Lacey rushed ahead. “No problem. And come to think of it, this isn’t really a secret. It’s more of a surprise. A happy surprise.”
In five minutes, he learned a whole hell of a lot. Bella was taught that Santa randomly lost track of children and for reasons he most likely didn’t want to know, she had a thing about secrets.
Heather joined in. “We like surprises, don’t we, Bella?”
An enthusiastic head nod vanquished her fears, and a smile played on her face once more.
“Well, surprise! I’ll see you twice a week at school. Won’t that be nice? The principal at your school, Mrs. Two Clouds, is a friend of Auntie Lacey, and she’s going to let me help in the library. That means I get to read stories to your class! I can’t wait.”
“What’s a lie-berry?”
Nonplussed by the question, Lacey prattled on. “A library is a special place to keep books. Lots and lots of books. Picture books. Storybooks. Books for mommies and daddies. Books for teachers. Books for everybody.”
“I like books,” Bella assured her new aunt in a serious voice. “Heather and Daddy read to me before bed.”
“I have an idea,” Lacey exclaimed. “Would you like to go to the library with me next time I take Dylan?”
Bella hesitated. Was she ready to venture out without him or Heather as a backup? School was starting in a couple of weeks, and he was worried she wasn’t prepared to be away from them all day.
“Um, can Heather come too?”
“Well, of course, she can, honey, but I was kind of thinking it could be just the three of us. You, me, and Dylan. The little library in town has a children’s story hour. You can help me with Mr. Wiggly Butt. Sometimes, he has a hard time sitting still.”
Heather ran her hand down Bella’s hair. “Aunt Lacey can help you pick out some books to borrow. Maybe you can find one about dogs that Daddy would like to read.”
How the hell did a clueless dude like him manage to fall into the middle of such awesome women? With this kind of support, turning Bella’s life around might not be a cakewalk, but at least, their wisdom and guidance would keep his little family moving forward.