The drive from the airport in this traffic is making me agitated.
Slade's midnight black Charger R/T with cool red stripes was waiting for me to drive when we disembarked our chartered flight from New Orleans. We just had to pick the keys up from the FBO (fixed base operator), except apparently—according to Mathias—I didn't call ‘dibs' so I had to be the passenger.
“Stop shaking your leg, it’s irritating,” Mathias complains in his slightly accented English.
Christ! It’s the only outlet that’s stopping me from shoving my brother’s leg down on the accelerator, but I force my leg to calm itself and try not to think about how long it’s taking to get to Whisper.
It's a pretty cool car as far as cages go, but I would rather be on a Harley and riding like the wind because it would be a damn sight faster! Instead, my brother is driving like an old man out for a Sunday drive, and I got nowhere to go.
“I’m not driving like an old man,” he snaps at me good-naturedly. I let a smile slip through. Must have said that last bit out loud?
“Drive a little faster, and I won’t be so frustrated, or give me the wheel,” I complain back because I seriously wouldn’t mind having a drive of this beast.
Getting grumpy with my brother feels natural, it’s something we missed out on doing as kids. The photo album showed how much I’ve missed out on and Mathias wasn’t going to let me come to San Diego without him tagging along. He’s soaking up this time with me as much as I am because we know he’ll be going back to Norway once this shit is over.
“You’ve been texting her every day, and you’ve been real-time talking, almost every other day. There’s pretty much nothing you don’t know about each other by now. Try to take this time to relax a little before you see her. Just because you don’t have to wear that moon boot anymore, doesn’t mean you have to rattle that leg of yours like you constantly did on the whole flight here.” Mathias is speaking, but my body isn’t settling.
I want to hold her.
Taste her.
Touch her baby bump.
“When you get a woman, then you’ll understand,” I grumble back. It’s been silent torture I’ve been carrying around with me. “You just like driving this car.”
"Ooh… listen to her rumble," he coos running his hand over the dashboard, not even trying to hide the fact he's enjoying this drive a little too much. I glare at him. "What?” He fakes innocence. "I'm doing the speed limit. The last thing we need is for the cops to pull us over and you get us delayed even more than my"—he raises the same hand and makes a quotation sign wiggling his fingers—"slow driving."
I’ve been having withdrawal symptoms, putting up with cravings of the sexual kind, which might be one of the reasons I’m a little on edge. I want to taste that sweet pussy of Whisper's, watch my girl's body riding mine; hear my name screamed when she comes.
Both legs start shaking now, tapping out a beat, and I have no fucks to give. I’m about crawling out of my skin with my greed for her love.
Whisper’s absence in my life has made me impatient, and when you’re so close to getting what you’ve been missing so much, you can’t get there quick enough.
I decide to shut my eyes and put effort into relaxing, and we should be at Slade’s house in half an hour or so. I can give Mathias his time with the muscle car.
My brother’s been easy to get along with these past months, as we allow our new sibling relationship to evolve naturally. He’s helped me by working side by side on Whisper’s garden, not forcing conversation, just letting it flow as we cleaned it up for Miss Catherine. Something I wanted Whisper to see when she could finally come back to her home.
The more time we’ve spent together, the more similarities revealed themselves to those observing us. Lily, Doc Evelyn, and Miss C couldn’t help finding it was cute to bring them up… all the time.
It’s been a curse being away from my woman, but being able to get to know Lily and Mathias has been great. We’ve had no choice being cooped up in Connard, waiting for that Hell’s bastard to reveal himself or make a move.
Fucker has done neither.
There’s been no sign of anybody lurking about in Connard. Boxer put feelers out with Paco and Lenny who were manning the bar. Connard didn’t get a lot of strangers having a reason to loiter about in Connard, but if they did, they headed for the bar. And when anybody was new to town, even a tourist, they were carefully interrogated as to what they were doing here, and none were the wiser to it.
The guy running the local gas station just outside of town was a good friend of Boxer’s and on the watch for any newbies of interest.
Boxer and Miss Catherine were able to feed the curious minds who wanted to know where they had all disappeared to for six weeks with some half-truths. Lenny had already laid some groundwork there, saying he was house and bar sitting, but they needed to hear it from the horse’s mouth, then the mainly older generation living in this town accepted it and carried on doing whatever the hell they did in this town.
The excuse given to the curious minds who were bold enough to ask Boxer where they’d all been, as Miss Catherine’s absence was noted, was Whisper had mono, and Miss Catherine was caring for her and Boxer was back and forth on business.
Ghost had made his way back from San Diego—under his own shadow of anonymity—he was Doc Evelyn's private bodyguard when she was away in New Orleans working, and Boxer wasn’t letting her out of his sight. We had Miss C, and Lily covered with the hidden eyes watching from the tree line twenty-four/seven and inside the house.
We couldn’t be too careful because Filip could hire people to watch us. He had to know we were here? It’s the first place he should have looked.
Stephanie, a highly trained soldier, has been playing the role of Whisper. She’s a beautiful looking chick; a real doppelganger for my girl, although I never once confused the two—because she wasn’t my Whisper—no matter the eerie similarities that were presented for Filip to believe, right down to the baby bump, she’s now sporting.
Doc Evelyn ordered one of those fake baby-belly bumps actresses wear in movies to sell her role, which matched where Whisper is at with her pregnancy. Another in-my-face reminder of what I’ve been missing out on with Whisper gone.
We didn’t want the townsfolk seeing Steph, even from a distance, in case anybody caught on that Steph was not Whisper. We weren’t seen together in public in case the townsfolk wondered who-the-fuck I was with Whisper’s doppelganger.
Nobody from Connard was even to know, Whisper, was pregnant because that would cause too many questions. We didn’t need any well-wishers dropping in unannounced at Miss C’s home and getting caught in any crossfire or finding heavily armed men guarding the place.
Boxer and Doc slept at her place in New Orleans, or they stayed at the bar. She had a job to do, and he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Ghost was their shadow.
The only person to drop by Miss C’s place unannounced was Lenny. He had a crush on her, and she knew it too, and I think she was enjoying herself a little too much turning that man down. It was a weird courting dance. She let him stay for dinner under supposed protest on too many occasions, and she saw him out on the front porch too many times, for a little too long.
Lincoln or Joel was always on hand to drive him back home because he rides what looks like a bicycle from the 1920s with a wicker basket on the front. The boys always put his bike in the back so he would be able to pedal over the next time he wanted to call on Miss C.
We just kept waiting for Filip to make his move and the fucker wasn’t attempting anything.
He was playing with us.
My patience was wearing thin. I wanted to maim, torture, and kill the fucktard and end all this once and for all.
By all reports from Hazard, things were quiet in La Jolla. There was no suspicious activity, which added to the plausible theory there would be no reason for Filip to know where we hid Whisper.
Even if Filip knew the tail number of Whisper's plane; her flight plan was under-wraps. She would have flown into Oregon under the radar. No paper trail to lead to her destination, just like Cezar had his pilots do when stealing the women.
Hudson Raine, the owner of the planes, knew how to fly in and out of places without causing a stir with paparazzi and screaming women catching on to where he would be landing. He'd set up the private airstrip in Medford, Oregon as a secure place for his luxury plane to land. Another thing I had to thank the guy for.
Mathias and I managed to do a good job of sneaking out of Connard via the back of one of the delivery vans that delivered the bar’s alcohol stock. We paid the guy to let us ride with him back to New Orleans and then caught a chartered flight to San Diego.
By all accounts from some of Boxer’s men who discreetly followed us to New Orleans, there wasn’t one tail. We got out of New Orleans on a clean run.
Hazard said it was quiet their end with nobody suspicious loitering around. Nobody was tailing them. Every day Slade and Phoenix's cars were checked for trackers, the security footage picked up nothing.
It was too quiet.
Too much time had passed.
We were beginning to wonder if somebody had killed the fucker for us.
“Hey, open your eyes, we’re here,” Mathias pulls me from my thoughts.
I bolt upright and see the Cape Cod home and the girl in the blonde wig sitting on the garden bench, talking with Phoenix.
She hasn’t noticed the deep rumble of Slade’s car and I ain’t waiting about for my brother to drive it down the driveway. I undo my seatbelt and throw the door open.
“Whoa there Edge, you’ve got two days here with your girl,” he laughs at me.
“Once you get a woman you can’t breathe without, then you’ll understand,” I tell him jumping out of the car and throwing the white picket fence gate open.
I purposely walk toward her thinking ‘Happy birthday to me.’
I can’t wait to give Whisper her birthday present.
She stops chattering and turns her head toward us.
There’s my girl.
“Edge!” she squeals in surprise, jumping up from the bench.
She races toward me. My heart trips over itself when she runs down the porch steps waving her arms in the air, grinning all silly at me with her baby bump bouncing in front of her.
And I’m fucking petrified she’ll fall.
I scoop her up, so she can wrap her legs around me and then she’s kissing me, her arms circling my neck, locking me into place. I adjust her body to make sure there’s enough room between us, so the little nuggets are okay and try to tamp down my hard-on.
I can hear Mathias laughing beside me.
I don’t think she’s even seen him until she releases my lips and peeks around me. “Hey Mathias, it’s so good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, you’re looking well.”
“I’m much better now I have you both here,” she virtually sings.
She grabs my head and starts kissing me again. Apparently, that's all the conversation Mathias was getting.
“Fuck… I love you,” I growl against her mouth, my hard-on getting uncomfortable.
“I love you too, Edge.” And don’t I fucking love hearing those words reciprocated. “I need you, so bad,” she moans quietly before crushing her lips against mine again. She’s tugging at my longer hair. She’s as desperate as me.
I have to get somewhere private, or I'm going to come in my pants. I ease our lips apart to say, "Room?" She smiles sexily, her big browns hooded. I'm gonna fuck her in front of everybody if we don't get moving.
I start walking toward the porch and climb the stairs carefully. If I fall, I could hurt Whisper. Phoenix already has the door open for me with a knowing grin. I lift one hand to wave at her and keep walking.
I can hear Hazard, Tucker, and Slade cheering us on from various parts of the house.
I aim for the staircase taking directions until we’re inside her bedroom. I use my foot to kick the door shut.
I’m about to make the love of my life scream the house down.
Loud music starts playing a beat downstairs, and then I realize what song it is, Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard.
Fuck’s sake, Tucker!