Breakaway (15 page)

“You and Celia married?”

Gavin flashed a half smile. He knew Celia’s friends would be shocked by the announcement because there was no doubt they knew and had probably met Trevor-Jones.

“Yes, we are.”

“Congratulations. I’d shake your hand, but if I take off the mitt, then I’m going to lose my momentum. I can tell you now that some of my buddies are going to be disappointed to hear she’s no longer available. Most of them didn’t like her fiancé and when we got the news that he’d been killed during that hospital shootout they said all the proper words out of respect, but I for one thought he was a puffed-up pain in the ass.”

“I’m going to need some of your buddies so they can help me unload my truck. Celia decided to clean out the beverage store. After that, if you need help I’m willing to help you grill.”

Daniel turned to a tall, skinny teenage boy with a flaxen ponytail. “What’ll you have, Bobby?”

“Steak, medium-well.”

Reaching into a cooler, Daniel took out a rib eye steak and placed it on the grill. He then took off the mitt, handing it and the long-handled fork with a digital thermometer to Gavin. “Show me what you got.”

Smiling, Gavin put on the mitt and picked up another fork without the thermometer. “I don’t need a fork with a read-out to tell me when a steak is medium-well.” He inhaled the smoke coming off the grill. “Nice. There’s nothing better than mesquite-grilled bone-in steak.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Daniel nodded his head. “So, you do know a little sumptin’ about grillin’.”

“Only a little,” Gavin answered modestly.

His secret desire, once he retired, was to open a barbecue joint where he’d serve ribs, brisket, chicken, pulled pork and the requisite side dishes. If Celia had her college roommate and grandmother to thank for her culinary prowess, then he would have to pay homage to his maternal grandmother. Grandma Annie Mae Smith was an unofficial pit master, who’d learned the skill of smoking meat from her father. Whenever her church hosted barbecue fundraisers or a revival, everyone in Charlotte came out for the event.

Whistling sharply through his teeth, Daniel called out to three of his coworkers. “I need you to help with something.”

Gavin relinquished the mitt and fork and shook hands with the men, none of whom he recognized. Although none were in uniform, he could easily identify them as law enforcement.

“You a cop?” asked a short, stocky black trooper Daniel had introduced as Smitty.

“Personal security,” Gavin answered.

“You babysit folks like those crazy-ass Hollywood actors who have too much money, and don’t know what to do with it?”

Gavin’s impassive expression did not change. “No. I usually babysit the families of the invisible people who have enough money to buy private islands or run a small country.”

Smitty’s eyebrows went up a fraction. “The pay must be real good.”

“The pay is commensurate with the risks.”

Daniel slapped his colleague on the back. “Stop interrogating the man and go unload his truck.”

Gavin gave his host a surreptitious wink as he led the way back to where he’d parked the Yukon. There was something Smitty had said that he found irritating. Not only had the man asked too many questions, but the questions were too personal in nature to ask someone he’d just met. Trooper Smith would bear watching closely.

Celia sat in Hannah’s living room, holding her two-year-old son. The toddler had inherited his mother’s curly hair, but the color was raven-black like his father’s. His eyes were a beautiful hazel ringed by the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a boy. His coloring had compromised. It was a dusky peach with a spray of freckles over his pert nose and cheeks. Since picking him up, Daniel, Jr. had played a visual peekaboo with her. Celia felt sorry for the girls who would eventually become the recipient of his gaze.

Hannah sat on a matching club chair, supporting her bare feet on a footstool. She took a deep swallow of water, peering at Celia over the rim of her glass. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to get into your business by asking what’s up?”

Celia and Gavin had lain in bed earlier that morning concocting a story that would be consistent whenever anyone asked about their pretense of a marriage. “What do you want to know?”

“Where did you meet him, and does he have a brother?”

Celia shook her head in amazement. “You’re incredible, Hannah Walsh! You’re about to give birth, and you’re talking about hooking up with another man.”

A flush crept up Hannah’s face to her hairline. “I’m not looking for me,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade my Daniel for all the men in the world—even if they came with a perfect face and body like your husband’s.”

It was Celia’s turn to blush. She’d discovered Gavin didn’t have to do a thing to attract stares from women. All he had to do was walk by or walk into a room. He’d caught her attention immediately when he’d approached her in the supermarket.

“He is rather nice on the eyes,” she agreed.

“He’s more than nice, Celia. I’m going to let you in on a little secret.”

“What is it?”

“We Cooper girls like our meat either medium-well or well-done.”

Celia covered her mouth to hold back screams of laughter. “Now you tell me,” she said between her fingers. She lowered her hand when Danny gave her a puzzled look.

“I suppose you wouldn’t have given Yale a second look.”

Hannah shook her head. “Please. Not even if I was desperate. I’d always thought he was so wrong for you, Celia. He was too old, and if you hadn’t been who you are you would’ve ended up as his doormat. Daniel said he only hooked up with you because you’re smart
and
beautiful. It’s too bad he had to die the way that he did, but if he had to check out in order for you to find someone like Gavin… I don’t mean to sound glib, but such is life. Now, tell me how you met Mr. January, February, March and the other twelve months of the year.”

Celia didn’t want to believe that Hannah had echoed the sentiments of her family members. They’d called Yale spoiled, controlling and, at times, condescending. It was the attempt to control her that had them at odds with each other. She wasn’t certain whether his need to control came from their age difference or his warped sense of entitlement because he was a third-generation physician.

“Either you’re particularly horny, or you need some,” Celia said, teasingly.

“Both. I’ve been spotting the past two months, so my doctor has Daniel on booty lockdown.”

“Lockdown or lockout?”

“Both. Come on, Celia. Tell me how you met Gavin.”

Taking a breath, Celia told Hannah that she’d met Gavin when he worked a security detail for one of her brother’s Thoroughbreds when Nicholas transported the horse to a Florida racetrack.

“Nicholas came to see me before he drove back to Virginia. Gavin was with him because he was dropping him off in Charlotte. To say I was a hot mess was an understatement. I needed a haircut in the worst way and I was so thin I could’ve passed for a Halloween scarecrow, but when Gavin looked at me, I felt as if I were
the only woman in the world. He asked if he could call me and I said yes. Whenever he wasn’t assigned to provide security for a client, he would come and visit. And, as they say, the rest is history.”

Hannah flashed a Cheshire-cat grin. “That’s what I’m talking about! Although you’re thinner than the last time I saw you, you’re still stunning. Does he make you happy, Celia?”

She stared at the little boy who’d fallen asleep in her arms. “He makes me deliriously happy, Hannah.”

Celia hadn’t lied to her friend. She’d smiled and laughed more since meeting Gavin than she had in years. She felt closer to him than she’d ever felt with Yale. And sex had little to do with it.

“If that’s the truth, then why do you want to wait to have a baby? Daniel and I were different because he wanted to finish college and get his career on track so he could support me and our children without having to penny pinch. Neither of us anticipated how much income my illustrations would generate, but even if I never illustrated another book we would still live comfortably. You’re a doctor, Celia. Even if you decided not to go on staff at a hospital, you could always set up a private practice. You can either work out of your home or hire a nanny to take care of the baby when you’re seeing patients.”

“That is a possibility.”

“What is a possibility, Celia?”

Both women turned at the sound of a man’s voice. Gavin had come into the living room without making a sound. “We were talking about your wife having your baby,” Hannah announced.

Gavin moved closer, staring at the little boy in Celia’s
arms. It suddenly struck him that he and Celia were playing a very dangerous game. They’d concocted a story supporting their courtship and marriage, but they hadn’t talked about children. Most people wanted to know if or when a newly married couple planned to start a family.

He’d never denied wanting to marry or father children. It was his undercover work that posed the problem, because he didn’t want his wife to go through what his mother had experienced. Gavin didn’t want agents coming to his home to inform his wife that her husband had sacrificed his life in the service of his country.

He had an obligation to his mother, himself and the Bureau to bring his brother back alive, and he’d also promised Nicholas Cole-Thomas he would keep his sister safe. Gavin Tyrone Faulkner, Jr. had pledged to help everyone, but whom could he turn to when he needed love and understanding? Celia was as close as he’d come to a life partner, and even their time together came with an expiration date.

“If you’ve changed your mind, then we can start tonight,” he crooned.

Celia almost choked. “Can we talk about this later, Gavin?”

“Of course, darling. I just came in to ask you if you’re ready to eat.”

“Yes, I am.” As much as she always enjoyed interacting with Hannah, the baby talk was making her very uncomfortable. She watched as Gavin closed the distance between them, scooped the little boy off her lap and cradled him to his chest. A lump rose in her throat when her eyes met Gavin’s.

Her heart stopped, and then started up again in a
runaway rhythm. She’d tired of the lies only because she’d never been a good liar. Tell one lie and then she had to tell another to cover the first one. After a while, the lies escalated to where she wouldn’t recognize the truth even if it meant survival.

“I’ll meet you outside.”

Turning on her heels, she walked out of the house and into the warm afternoon sun. Perhaps she’d be able to pull off the farce without the angst she was undergoing if she hadn’t slept with Gavin.

She now found it almost impossible to differentiate between lust, passion, desire, infatuation and what she’d been afraid to acknowledge as another four-letter word…love.

T
he aroma of grilled meat lingered in the air long after the sun had set behind the mountains. The DJ had packed up his equipment and the families with young children had left to return to their homes after an afternoon filled with food, music and a carefree frivolity. Strategically positioned floodlights had been turned on at dusk, illuminating the property as if it were nine o’clock in the morning instead of nine at night.

Gavin liked his hosts. He particularly liked Daniel. He was generous, unpretentious and completely without guile. Daniel reminded him of Celia. He was brutally honest. Gavin was also glad he’d come to the cookout with Celia, because it’d been a long time since he’d been able to kick back and do absolutely nothing but eat, drink and listen to music while watching others do the same. Little children had run around in wild abandon,
teenagers had competed with one another in dance-offs. Their older siblings and parents were content to sit around talking or cooling off with a dip in the lake.

Gavin, who’d shared grilling duty with Daniel, sat on the man’s back porch with him and four of his police-officer buddies. He’d sat sipping Wild Turkey bourbon from an old-fashioned glass and taking puffs from a quality cigar. He was half listening to the conversations going on around him, because he couldn’t get the image of Celia cradling Hannah and Daniel’s son out of his head.

Living with Celia had given him a greater advantage of becoming more familiar within a shorter span of time than if he’d dated her. He’d learned to gauge her moods, which ran the gamut, from defiance to annoyance, joy, tension and anger. What he hadn’t glimpsed—until today—was serenity. The look on her face radiated peace, the emotion that probably had eluded her for almost a year. His gaze lingered on her as she sat with a small group of women sitting under a copse of trees. He smiled when she threw back her head and laughed with the other women.

“What’s your take on the robbery, Faulkner?”

The query shattered his musings and he turned to stare at a middle-aged sergeant with a noticeable paunch, who’d passed on the bourbon to drink beer. “I’m sorry, Jimmy,” Gavin apologized, “my mind was elsewhere.”

“And I have a good idea just where your mind was.” Isaac Smith had insinuated himself into the conversation.

Gavin ignored the gibe. He had no intention of discussing Celia with any of the men. “What were you asking?”

Isaac Smith took a deep drag of his cigar, blowing out a perfect smoke ring. “Jimmy Lee was asking about
the gang that kidnapped and shot that gun dealer who’s from around here.”

A shiver shook Gavin, and he uncrossed his legs, stretching them out in front of him to camouflage his reaction to Smitty’s reference to the gun shop owner’s kidnapping, which had been a closely held secret. Who, he wondered, had given the trooper classified information, because the details as to the kidnapping were deliberately excluded from any Bureau, local police and newspaper reports.

“Have they caught the bastards?” he asked smoothly.

Smitty took another puff of his cigar. “Not yet. Fortunately, Dane Jessup was able to give the ATF folks a description of the shooter. Let’s hope they catch him before I do, because I’d blast his ass and ask questions later.”

Slouching lower in his chair, Daniel Walsh crossed his feet at the ankles. “I read an article yesterday that’d been printed in the
Houston Chronicle
about high-powered gun purchases at a Houston-area store by a Gulf drug cartel cell. They were smuggled across the border by the syndicate and were tied to fifty-five killings in Mexico, including the deaths of police officers, civilians and gangsters.”

Gavin forced himself to relax as all of his senses came into focus. The reason he’d been ordered to hang out in Waynesville while waiting for Ray to contact him was to gather as much information as he could about the gun thieves, and it was more than luck that Celia’s friend’s husband was in law enforcement.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Daniel. The drugs flow north into our communities, contributing to more violence and compromising public health
and safety, but we know weapons from the U.S. flow south and are used in violent attacks.”

Smitty sat up straighter. “But, why steal guns when you can buy them legally?”

“Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free?” Daniel asked.

“Robbing gun dealers bypasses legal paperwork and background checks, which many wouldn’t pass,” Gavin interjected.

Daniel ran a hand over his hair. “That’s true for some.” Everyone stared at him.

“What aren’t you telling us, Danny?” the sergeant asked.

“I have a cousin who works for the ATF Houston division, which also includes the Rio Grande Valley and the Del Rio, and he said agents inspected gun dealer records and knocked on doors of people who purchased guns that wound up in Mexico. Many said they were stolen, but there was one case that involved a small-town Texas policeman. He’d bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and on the same night forgot to lock the door. He’s in a lot of hot water because he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t filed a police report or why he’d visited Mexico the next day.”

Jimmy smothered a belch with his hand. “I guess you can say that that good ole boy can say bye-bye to his pension. The local police may look the other way, but not the feds.”

Gavin nodded without commenting. The veteran police officer was right. The federal police had prioritized illegal gun sales. The file on Raymond Prentice included a report on the results of the Gun Runner Impact Team operation, which brought in one hundred
agents from around the country for temporary duty. Two hundred seventy-six full-scale investigations were opened against weapons purchasers as well as a handful of firearms dealers.

Since it was illegal to own firearms in Mexico, and the U.S. had top-quality guns readily available, the cartels organized cells that recruited U.S. citizens with clean criminal backgrounds to purchase the weapons without raising red flags. ATF inspectors, who’d gone through the records of more than one thousand dealers, issued warning letters about compliance to more than seventy and revoked the license of one. Many problems were attributed to sloppy record keeping.

“It’s not going to stop until our people stop buying the shit,” Daniel sneered.

Smitty blew out a series of smoke rings. “I doubt if that’s ever going to happen. As long as there are illegal drugs you’re going to have people selling their souls to buy it, and those on the other end who will annihilate anything and anyone who get in their way of making a profit.”

Jimmy Lee raised his longneck. “Preach, Brother Smitty.” The other four raised their glasses in acknowledgment.

Gavin drained his glass, and then pushed off the chair. He extended his hand to each of the men. “Gentlemen, it’s been good.”

Daniel stood up. “How long are you and Celia hanging around?”

“We plan to spend the summer.”

He slapped Gavin’s back. “If you’re not doing anything next weekend, then we’d like you to come on by.”

“It can’t be next weekend, but if the invitation’s open
for the following one, then why don’t you bring your family to our place?”

“That’s a bet, providing Hannah doesn’t go into labor before then.”

Gavin gave the men a snappy salute before walking off the porch and down to where Celia sat. Her head popped up when she saw him. Reaching down, he helped her to her feet, waiting until she said her goodbyes.

“What’s the matter?” he asked when she wrinkled her nose.

“You’ve been smoking.”

“The boys and I had a cigar to go along with our bourbon.”

Celia wrinkled her nose again. “Well, if that’s the case then you can sleep with the boys tonight.”

Holding her arm in a firm grip, Gavin led her around to where he’d parked his truck. “I had my fill of sleeping with
the boys
when I was in the army.”

“Well, I’m not going to share a bed with someone willing to risk their health because of an addiction.”

Gavin helped Celia up, and then came around to sit next to her. “I didn’t know you cared that much,” he teased.

“Yes, I care, Gavin. The problem is I care a little too much about you.”

“You care too much as a doctor or as my wife?”

“That’s something we’re going to have to talk about.”

He pondered her cryptic retort, starting up the vehicle. “What’s on your mind, Celia?”

“There you go again.”

A frown found its way onto Gavin’s face. “What are you talking about?”

“Why do you have to come off so condescending?”

“You think?”

“I know,” she shot back. “I want to talk to you about something and you make it appear as if I’m annoying you.”

He wanted to tell Celia something was bothering him, but it wasn’t her. It was Isaac Smith’s reference to the group of gun thieves kidnapping the gun dealer. Dane Jessup was carjacked on the way to work, taken across the border into Tennessee then returned to North Carolina where the thieves cleaned out his store with the intent of leaving him for dead. The case would’ve fallen under the jurisdiction of the ATF if it hadn’t been for the kidnapping, which was why the Bureau had become involved. Gavin had wanted to believe Jessup’s abduction was Raymond Prentice’s idea because he was apprehensive about his cover being blown. If not, then it was something new in the gang’s repertoire of brazen holdups.

“I’m sorry, baby, if I came off sounding so insensitive. What do you want to talk about?”

Celia turned, staring at Gavin’s strong profile. “I can’t do this.”

“Are you talking about our marriage?”

She nodded. “I can’t keep lying, Gavin, only because I’ve never been adept at it. I’m flubbing the script, and whenever someone asks about our dating and how you proposed I have to mentally backtrack and try to recall what I’d said before.”

Gavin’s hands tightened on the leather steering wheel. He could understand Celia’s exasperation because subterfuge wasn’t a part of her psyche. “What else is bothering you, sweetheart?” His voice was soft, as if he were comforting a child.

“I can’t stop thinking that Alton Fitch’s abduction is somehow connected to the hospital shooting.”

“And what if it isn’t?” he asked.

Celia managed to force a smile through an expression of uncertainty. “Then I have one less thing to worry about.”

“I don’t want you to worry about anything, Celia.”

“That’s easy enough for you to say, Gavin. You’re not the one who has to testify against a member of one of the most ruthless gangs in south Florida.”

“Are you having second thoughts about testifying?”

Celia shook her head. “No. The only way I don’t testify is if I’m dead, and I don’t plan on dying in the very near future. I was spared for a reason, Gavin, and I believe it’s to make certain the people who were murdered in that E.R. did not die in vain.”

“That’s my girl. For a minute, I thought you were going soft on me.”

A pregnant silence filled the vehicle as she stared through the windshield. “I’m not afraid for myself.”

“Even if you were, I’d still take care of you.” Gavin knew his pledge to protect Celia hadn’t come from his promise to Nicholas Cole-Thomas, but from some place that was totally foreign to him. Celia had admitted that she cared a little too much for him. Well if he was going to be truthful with her, then he would have to admit that his feelings were more intense than just caring about her well-being.

He didn’t want to think about or believe that a woman he’d known a week had changed him completely—inside and out. Solitary by nature, he was used to living and working alone. Even when he’d had relationships of what he’d considered long duration he’d never asked a woman to live with him, and when they’d made the offer he hadn’t hesitated to reject their offer.

Celia was different, though. It could be her independence and inner strength that drew him to her. She had her music, needlework, garden and cooking to keep her busy during the day, and when they shared a bed it’d become more than his making love to her. It’d become a time to heal, to love. Gavin wasn’t certain if he was falling in love with Celia because he believed he’d never been in love. He’d known lust, but not love for a woman who wasn’t a family member.

“Will it make you feel more relaxed if we make our marriage legal?”

“What?” The single word exploded from Celia.

“We can go to Virginia, where there’s no waiting period, and we don’t have to be a resident of the Commonwealth. We can get married the same day we procure the license.”

“We can’t, Gavin.”

“We can do anything we want to do, Celia. I shouldn’t have to remind you that we’re consenting adults.”

“But I’m not in love with you.”

“You weren’t in love with Yale, yet you’d agreed to marry him.”

Celia wished she could’ve retracted her words when she admitted loving Yale, yet not being in love with him. There were times when she’d questioned her decision to accept his marriage proposal, but when she’d analyzed why she had it’d come down to doing what was the norm. She had a career and the next phase of her life was to get married and have children.

“It was different with me and Yale.”

Gavin made his way slowly down the steep hill, stopping and looking both ways before driving onto the
paved road leading back to Celia’s house. “And it’s going to be different for us.”

“How different, Gavin?”

“The decision will be yours whether to annul the marriage or see if we can make a go of it.”

Celia stared at Gavin, tongue-tied. She couldn’t believe he could come up with such an absurd proposition. “You want to dump the responsibility in my lap.” The query was a statement. “No, thank you, Gavin. I’m not that desperate to be married.”

“What if I accept the decision as to our future together?”

“It still doesn’t solve anything,” she protested.

“Yes, it does, Celia. You can stop lying.”

Somehow he’d turned the tables, and as they say, the ball was in her court.
She
was the one who had little or no skill when it came to telling lies. “Answer one question for me, Gavin.”