“Has there been an update to the employee handbook, Miss Belfast?” I asked, keeping my voice as innocent as possible. I knew damn well there hadn’t been a change in that book since before I was born.
Rhoda pursed her lips. “There has not.”
I smiled sweetly at her. “Then my hair isn’t against the dress code.”
I walked away before Rhoda could say anything else, grateful to the customer who was waving me over to the makeup section. I’d put the pink streaks in my long, platinum blonde hair after one of the women from my other job had given me the dye she’d had left over, but the fact that they were pissing Rhoda off made me want to keep them in as long as I could.
“How may I help you?” I asked politely.
“Yes, dear.” The older woman patted my arm. “I’m trying to decide what nail polish to get for my granddaughter. She’s about your age.”
By the time I finished helping Grandma Esther out – she’d insisted I refer to her that way – it was time for my break, and I was able to duck into the ‘lounge’ for ten blissful minutes of peace and quiet. I dug my phone out of my bag and plopped down into the closest chair.
As my screen lit up, I frowned. I had three missed calls from Iva Keyes, my babysitter. She never called unless it was something important. I pulled up the voicemails and listened, my heart in my throat.
“Cheyenne, sorry to bother you at work, but Austin’s feeling sick. If you can bring home some ginger ale and crackers, that’d be great.”
“Cheyenne, it’s Iva again. Austin’s thrown up twice since I last called. I’ve managed to get some water in him, but you need to come home early because I can’t catch whatever he’s got.”
Shit.
I listened to the last one even though I already knew what I had to do.
“Look, I feel bad that Austin’s sick, but I need you to come home. I mean it when I say I can’t get sick. I have an important interview this week. I thought you usually took a break by now. If I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’ll call the store. I know I’m not supposed to, but you haven’t checked your phone, so I don’t have a choice.”
I scowled at the phone, as if that would do any good. Iva baby-sat for me a few times a month, usually when my regular sitter wasn’t available. She wasn’t bad, but she didn’t interact with Austin the way Estrada did, and it was hard not to hold it against her. I knew I wasn’t paying her a lot, but she knew how hard I worked, and I didn’t think it was wrong of me to expect her to be a little understanding. After all, she was only a couple years older than me, and she didn’t have a kid to take care of.
I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled a deep, long breath, then let it out just as slowly. I couldn’t be angry at Iva. Austin wasn’t her responsibility. He was mine. If I really thought about it, I was lucky. He was four years old, and I could think of only a handful of times that he’d ever been sick. I’d never had to call off work a single time before. It had been bound to happen.
I stood up, took off my vest and hung it on a hook. My phone went in my pocket, and my purse over my shoulder. I knew I should probably talk to Rhoda first, but I also knew that it wouldn’t matter what she said. I was going home. Austin needed me, and he came before everything else.
I swiped my card, waited until it beeped, and then headed back up front. Rhoda was waiting at the register, looking even more pissed off than she had before I’d left. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.
“My sitter called, and I need to go home.” I kept it simple, hoping for a miracle, or that Rhoda had been body snatched and her new alien mind would have more sympathy for me than the human had.
Rhoda shook her head, her thinning blonde hair flying around her face. “No. No, you can’t do that. You’re working until three o’clock. You’re on the schedule.”
“I know I’m on the schedule, but Austin is sick, so I need to go.” I tightened my hold on my purse. “I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Rhoda laughed a brittle sort of laugh, her blue-green eyes flashing. “‘Nothing you can do about it’? Your ungrateful, lazy generation likes to think that about everything, don’t they? Nothing’s ever your fault or your responsibility.”
A flicker of temper heated me. “Austin is my responsibility.”
I caught a moment of surprise, probably because I hadn’t softened my voice like I usually did when I talked to her, but then she was back in possession of herself. She came around the register to stand in front of me, loom over me. I was barely over five feet tall, and she had to be close to six feet, and large rather than willowy. She used every inch and pound of that now, her determination to cow me written on her face.
“Maybe you should have thought about what it would mean to have a kid before you opened your legs for whatever greasy-haired pot-head knocked you up.”
I stared up at her. What the hell?
“I know girls like you, Cheyenne.” She practically snarled my name. “With your piercings and tattoos. The sort of girls who will do the nasty things that good girls don’t do, and that’s why you get the boys while the good girls, the ones who deserve to have someone, end up alone.”
I was aware of my jaw hanging open, but I couldn’t do anything except listen because I couldn’t believe the things that were coming out of her mouth.
“I should have fired you as soon as I was promoted, but Mr. Garvey said you were a good worker. It makes me wonder exactly what kind of ‘work’ you were doing for him.”
I held up a hand, the accusation snapping me out of my shock. “Let me stop you right there. I don’t have the time to stand here while you dig yourself deeper into a hole, but know that after I take care of Austin, I’ll be contacting corporate to file a complaint.”
She reached out and grabbed my arm, her vice-like grip painful.
“If you walk out of this store before three o’clock, you’re fired, and I’ll be sure to give corporate a nice long list of reasons as to why I fired you.”
I twisted my arm away, enjoying the expression of surprise on her face when I broke her grip. I’d faced off against guys bigger and badder than her, and she was mistaken if she thought she was going to tell me what to do.
“I’m going home,” I said firmly. “Write it up however you want, but we both know that this is the only day of work I’ve missed in the past four years, and I’ve never been late or left early. If you fire me over this, I will make sure someone higher up hears about what you just said to me.”
She smirked. “Do you think anyone is going to take one look at you, with your pink hair and half dozen earrings,” she ran her gaze down to my feet and back up again, “and your cheap, trashy clothes, and believe you over me?”
I lifted my chin. “No, I don’t. But it doesn’t change what I need to do.”
And I walked out.
Three
Slade
It was snowing in Atlanta, which meant the city was all over the news, and that didn’t help my resolve to get back to my usual routine and stop thinking about my family. At least there’d been nothing about flight issues. Cai would be able to handle snow on the ground. Boston wasn’t like Maine or anything like that, but all four of us boys had learned to drive in real winter weather. Addison was from Minnesota, so that was enough said.
I frowned as I realized that Cai and Addison would probably take a cab from the airport, which meant the insane traffic making the news this morning could have my brother right in the middle of it. I doubted Georgia drivers would know what they were doing. Maybe I should text Cai and make sure they were okay.
“Whoa, Hunter, what is that on your face? A frown?”
The voice made me smile. Joey Kimble was thirteen days older than me, a fact she reminded me of constantly. When she turned thirty in the fall, those thirteen days were going to be a blast for me. I’d been planning all sorts of things already. She was going to regret every joke.
“That’s more like it,” she said as she lean
ed against my desk. “I was getting worried for a minute there.”
“Just thinking about how glad I am it’s Saturday,” I said. “You got plans this weekend?”
“You mean am I finally going to trip up and tell you who I’ve been dating for the last three months?” She grinned, aquamarine-colored eyes sparkling. “You gotta try harder than that if you’re going to get me to slip up.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
I didn’t tell her that I’d completely forgotten that I’d been harassing her about it for the last twelve weeks, playing the overprotective big brother role. Joey and I had come to the team within months of each other and had bonded almost immediately. On the odd days I couldn’t keep the past in the past, I wondered if this was how it would have been with me and Aimee, if she’d lived.
I pushed the thought away. Not right now.
Seeing my brothers in Boston had made things from the past resurface and seeing Cai here hadn’t helped any.
Joey’s expression sobered, and she glanced around to make sure we were alone. I knew what was coming next but didn’t bother to cut her off. Joey was as stubborn as she was badass. Best to just ride it out.
“How are you?” She rolled her eyes. “I know you told me that you and your grandfather weren’t close, but it still has to be rough. Him being gone.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
She leaned over and put her hand on my forearm. “You know I’m here if you need me, right?”
Before I could tell her that I’d never need to talk about my feelings because I was fine, a wolf whistle cut through the room.
“You two should get a room.” The eldest member of my group of friends was Neely Burgin, a thirty-five-year-old who behaved like he was still a teenager. A lot of the time, I wasn’t even sure why he was part of the group, but everyone had that annoying family member they put up with.
Better him than my three brothers, right?
“How many times do we have to tell you that we’re not like that?” Joey said with a sigh. She took her hand off my arm. “It’d be like fucking my brother.”
Neely grinned and shrugged. “To each her own, right?”
“That’s sick,” Joey said, wrinkling her nose. “You know that?”
“You need to stop letting Burgin get to you,” I said. “It just eggs him on.”
“I sometimes think refereeing the three of you is harder than corralling my kids, and there’s twice as many of them as there are of you.” Ramon Domingo was two years younger than Neely, but he’d only joined the DEA six months or so before I had. Like me, he was ex-military, but he’d been a SEAL for nearly ten years before leaving the service.
He looked down at me, concern on his face, but he didn’t ask the question I knew was on his mind. That was why, as much as Joey and I had a brother-sister sort of relationship, it was Ramon I was closest to. He let me tell him things when I decided, and he didn’t pry other times.
“Anything exciting come in?” I asked him. “I’ll get stir-crazy if we have to stay in the office much longer.”
“Things are quiet,” Ramon said as he lowered himself into the chair next to me. “But it’s usually that way before the storm.”
Neely snorted. “You got a book of those sayings? One for every day?”
“Don’t be an ass,” I snapped. Everyone went still, and I realized how harsh I’d sounded. I forced a smile and lightened my tone. “I know it’s a difficult thing to do since it’s second nature and all, but you should try it occasionally.”
Neely let out one of his obnoxious, braying laughs. “Good one.”
“How’s Angela?” Joey asked.
Ramon’s face lit up, and he reached into his pocket for his phone. Neely grinned, but I couldn’t say that I was overly thrilled at the idea of being treated to the newest pictures of Ramon’s youngest. Granted, Angela was an adorable baby, and I loved his family, but the man took too many pictures.
“She rolled over by herself last night,” he said.
I tuned him out, letting the words wash over me as I let my mind wander. That had been my MO in school, letting my brain take a break. I paid enough attention to graduate with a solid B average, but I had to credit my ability to guess as much as I did any general intelligence. Well, that and my charming smile. I’d wormed my way out of more missing homework and project deadlines than I cared to admit.
Maybe it was because I was thinking about how things had once been, or maybe it was because seeing Cai yesterday had my mind already listing toward Boston, but as Ramon started passing his phone around, my thoughts were in the past. Not the distant past, but a month ago, when I’d gotten the call that reminded me that not everything was as perfect as I liked to pretend.
I groaned as I rolled over. What time was it? I felt like I’d just fallen asleep. When I saw the bright red numbers of my alarm clock, I knew I had just fallen asleep. I’d been out with Neely and Joey until two hours ago, celebrating a massive bust we’d all been a part of, and I’d had enough tequila to be a step or two beyond buzzed but not quite full-out drunk. Still, I’d been looking forward to sleeping non-stop until noon on my first day off in ten days.
But whatever asshole was calling me at four fucking thirty in the morning was ruining my plan.
I grabbed my phone without looking to see who it was. I didn’t care who it was because I planned on tearing them a new one. “You better have a damn good–”
“Slade, it’s me.”
I frowned into the darkness. “Jax?”
I had to be dreaming because I hadn’t talked to my oldest brother in years. Christmas had even been a text and not a call.
“Slade, are you there?”
The edge to Jax’s voice was normal, but I heard an undercurrent of something else, and it was that sound that forced out the last of sleep. “Yeah, just needed a moment to wake up.”
“Grandfather’s in the hospital.”
I still didn’t understand why he’d had to call me this early. The man was eighty – no, eighty-one – and still worked even though he’d officially retired. It made sense that he’d worked himself into pneumonia or something like that. Nothing to blow off at his age, of course, but certainly not something to–
“It’s his heart. He doesn’t have long.” That strange, flat quality I’d heard before had taken over.
I sat up, mentally shaking myself. I couldn’t figure out why I was having such a hard time understanding what was going on. “Wait, what are you saying?”
“They called it a catastrophic heart attack. He’s dying. You need to come home.”
“Jax–”
“I’m sending a private plane for you and Blake. There’s no time for you to get a regular flight.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text you when I have an arrival time for the plane,” he said.
“Jax,” I paused, then forced myself to ask the question, “is there anything you can do for him?”
“He told them to keep him alive until you guys got here, and then after that, he just wants them to keep him comfortable.”
My invincible brother sounded tired. Beyond tired. It was that more than anything he said, that finally made me accept the reality of what he was saying.
My grandfather was going to die, and I needed to hurry if I wanted the chance to see him one last time.
“Slade.” Joey smacked my shoulder. “You seriously just zoned out on us.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Neely and Ramon were hurrying across the room. “What’d I miss?”
“We got a tip about some possible mules. Let’s go,” she called over her shoulder, and I had to jog to catch up to her.
I hoped this turned into something big. I could do with the distraction.
Four
Cheyenne
I leaned over Austin, smoothing back his hair as I kissed his forehead. His skin was still cool, and I hoped that meant he didn’t have a fever. By the ti
me I’d gotten home with ginger ale and crackers, he’d been beyond miserable. Iva barely said two words before she was rushing out the door, and what she had said had been about payment. If my attention hadn’t been focused on Austin, I would’ve snapped at her about priorities, but once I had a few moments to think, I knew it was a good thing that I hadn’t had a chance to say anything. I needed to be able to call her when I needed her.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, and then at the door.
Estrada was on her way. She hadn’t called to say she was running late, which meant she’d be here soon. I could rely on her. She’d proven it over and over, but I wasn’t the sort of person who trusted easily. For good reason.
I quietly backed out of the bedroom, not wanting to wake Austin now that I’d gotten him down. He hadn’t been wanting to take a nap most afternoons, which told me more than anything that he’d felt awful. He’d only thrown up once since I’d gotten home, and when I’d gotten him into a bath, he smiled and said he was feeling better.
I left the door open a crack, so I could hear if he woke up, and then went into the bathroom to change my clothes. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering what I was going to do when Austin was too old for us to be sharing the bed. I supposed I’d go back to sleeping on the couch, like I did back when Mom was alive, but I knew that was only a temporary fix because I didn’t intend to follow in Mom’s footsteps.
I was in the process of pulling my shirt down to cover as much skin as possible when I heard the front door open.
“Cheyenne?”
“Hi,” I greeted her as I came out into the tiny living room slash kitchen. “How’d your appointment go this morning?”
Estrada smiled. “Good. Thank you for understanding. I’m sorry it was a last-minute thing.”
I waved a hand and then returned to pulling my hair up. “Austin was sick earlier, so he’s sleeping.”
“Is he, all right?”