Colour Series Box Set (19 page)

We haven’t been sitting here long, pretending to watch football, I know nothing about it and Rowan is so lost in his own thoughts that I am quite sure he hasn’t seen any of it. I hear a car pull into the drive outside the kitchen window, a loud roaring engine and the unmistakable crunch of tyres on the gravel. Rowan gets up and stops in front of me; He kneels down in front of me and looks right into my eyes. Please not now I just got to point where I may not embarrass him my passing out in my dinner.

“Callum is my best friend Lauri; you don’t need to be frightened of him I promise. I am going to meet with him in my office for a bit to discuss some business then we will eat dinner when we’re done talking. Does it help with the panic if you know how things are happening?” Rowan has a concerned edge to his voice; I can tell he will chase his friend away if I say I am going to panic again.

I manage a nod as he stands to go and let his friend into the front door. While he does that I wipe my now sweaty palms on my pants in an attempt to dry them. I hear the two men exchange greetings in the hallway before their voices get closer.
Don’t panic.
He’s a friend and he doesn’t know anything. He is not the devil.
Don’t panic
. I give myself a mental pep talk as I wait for them to return. My sweaty palms and shaky limb betray me, but I try to keep it hidden.

As Callum enters the room the first thing I notice is his bad hair, good lord he needs a stylist. He’s taller than Rowan and just his size commands all the attention in the room. Then I see his eyes. I don’t notice he is talking to me as the world spins and I am looking into the greenest eyes I have ever seen; only I have seen them before. Those are my Gran’s eyes the mirror image. Rowan coughs bringing me back to the present and the very Irish accent of the man greeting me, his voice is deeper than Rowans. I mumble a “Hi” and Rowan pushes him toward the office with a heavy hand between his shoulders and I go to my kitchen, my happy place and start cooking the dinner. However, all I can think of is those green eyes my god it’s weird. It’s like I see the ghost of my dead gran in those eyes, there are some things in life that you will never forget her eyes are one of those things, and that man with his bad hair and deep voice has stolen them.

I’M STILL PISSED
at Callum after last night and to add to the ten metric ton of shit on my brain Lauri had a panic attack while I slept and cracked her fucking head open. I thought she was dead when I opened my eyes and saw her bleeding on the floor.

Callum is making eyes at her, I will kill him, what is he thinking? URGH I better get him in my office fast so I don’t have to bury him in the vineyard tonight. I would prefer not to have to beat him to death in front of her. She was nervous enough about this. I don’t need her to see that there is this brutal anger between him and me right now. I just want to resolve this shit and have a nice dinner.

I nudge Callum towards to my office and shoot Lauri a smile as we walk away. She is so fragile yet so fierce. She is a walking talking contradiction. I am amazed still that she has survived at all. Callum is still eying her over his shoulder. Fuck. Better get this over with, business first then dinner.

I close and lock my office door behind us; I want Callum to understand very clearly right now that this is business and not friends. I’m still seething at his deception and I won’t tolerate being lied to by any client, even if he’s my best friend. In all honesty his lies have hurt me, cutting at my soul I cannot understand why I feel this way but I do. The betrayal of my only real friend hurts me. Damn these fucking feelings creeping in all over the place, that woman has turned me into a crazy person. I am most certainly losing my shit. I should shoot him just to prove to myself that I am still me beneath all this emotion.

I sit behind my desk open the drawer and take out my gun with a silencer attached and place it in the middle of the desk so Callum understands that this is work and it is serious. I look up and see him drop his head of messy hair into his hands in defeat before we even exchange a word. I’m gutted at the betrayal of my oldest friend it down right hurts. I can see it’s hurting him too. There are things eating him alive too.

“You better start talking Cal, I’m livid with you and I don’t need to tell you why.” I keep my tone all work and no friend I want him to know that this is not just alright; I would simply have shot anyone else who broke my trust this way. I don’t want him to know that I actually feel anything over it either. Cal looks up to me and I can see in those fucking green eyes that he knows what he has done.

“Rowan, I don’t know where to start. I guess I am sorry is the first thing. Shit I didn’t know what else to do? Pop said it had to be done and I couldn’t trust my goons to do it without talking.” Cal won’t look at me as he replies in an almost exasperated tone. He’s in trouble. I have known this man since he was four years old and I know my friend is in the shit and not just a little either. He is drowning in tons of it.

“Spill it Callum, all of it. You are in trouble I can tell you idiot I have known you all your life you cannot fool me with lies. So don’t insult me by trying you fucking idiot.” I raise my voice at him now. My right hand rests on the gun on my desk and the left is balled into a fist that I want to smash into his face.

Callum spends the next forty minutes outlining his fucked up fathers human trafficking business and that the container full of women I killed was a message to an associate who had tried to buy the commodity from another supplier. I can hear the anguish in Callum’s voice, he has no problem with the drug business, in fact he thrives on it, but this is eating him alive. He doesn’t like what’s going on and he is afraid. This is bigger than drugs these are lives. Callum hates the thought of taking lives. He knows that it is part of the life we live but the problem is my friend has feelings. He has a real life bleeding fucking heart beating in chest and he cannot switch it off. He never could. We hash out our differences over this incident and I make him swear to keep me in the loop. I’m afraid for him as these are not his everyday business associates. I know because I work for them too. I don’t want his name on my next email order. I eventually put my gun away and we shake hands over the desk. Before we leave to go eat whatever it is that I can already smell through the locked door I ask Callum one more question.

“Do you have any more stupid fucking secrets my friend? If you do, this is your one free pass with me. Next time I will shoot you. Not kill you but I will fucking shoot you.” His face drops immediately. Oh crap. What else are you hiding you stupid fuck? His broad shoulders sink just a little and I know that something else is wrong with my friend. Why is he hiding all of this from me?

“Rowan, don’t take your gun out again but I do have a secret one I have kept from you since we were boys. Well, all my life I kept it.” He sounds nervous so this cannot be good. I don’t answer I just glare at him waiting for him to spill it. Really can there possibly be more after the bomb he just dropped?

“You know my Ma died when I was just wee, I never knew her. But I do know who she was, not many people do. We were never allowed to talk about her. There is good reason my Pop hates me Ro, because he hated her almost as much. My Ma was a Spillane; Rowan my Ma, was my father’s enemy.”

My interest is now piqued, Cal has never once in our lives even mentioned his Ma, and in fact no one has. I can see sadness in his eyes at the mention of his Ma, his stepmother treated him like shit actually worse than shit.

“It’s no secret that my Pop hated Mick and that the blood between our families was bad for many decades. Well my Ma was Mick’s sister. Their fathers arranged the marriage in an effort to mend fences between the families. It never worked and my Pops killed Ma so that they could all just go back to hating each other. So there you have it. That stunning woman in your kitchen is my cousin. My Pops killed my Ma in front of me and I was just collateral damage in their little war.”

I don’t have a reply for him; I have always known that the demons in Callum were different than mine, that his need to feel everything so deeply had to have come from somewhere. I always believed his father just never taught him well enough. Now I know that my friend’s darkness is born from a different place, the mother he was not allowed to know or love was murdered in front of him. I know what that will do to your soul, I watched the knife sink into my father’s heart the day he died, I saw his killer’s smile and it broke me, but it also made me who I am. The other part of his revelation, that he is related to her that is another revelation I don’t quite know what to do with. I think we should tell her.

“We’re going out there to tell her you fucking idiot. You didn’t think to tell me this all the years I watched her? Huh?” I snap at Callum as I stand and walk to the door of my office. I feel a little better now that the air is cleared between us. In saying that, I feel like I might not know my best friend, my surrogate brother quite as well as I thought I did all these years. He carries a different kind of darkness in him, just as dangerous as mine but different. I have no family; his never wanted him, hated him, used him and sent him away.

My senses are overwhelmed as I open the door and am met with smell of the most amazing food. My stomach immediately growls at the thought of a good dinner. Good god this woman can cook. It smells like heaven in here.

This could be fun actually I think I may just let Callum stew a little over telling her his little revelation. I whisper to him that he’s to shut up until after dinner as we walk together into the kitchen. Lauri is moving around the kitchen like she was born there. I see that the doors are open and the patio table is set beautifully. She’s even lit candles. It seems like so much effort for us two thugs but it’s very sweet that she has gone to the effort to entertain my guest. I forgot to get her paperwork from him in the office; I will have to ask him after dinner. I’m distracted by the creature in my kitchen, the one that is unaware of how she is changing me and making me feel. I want it to stop but now that I know what it is to really feel I don’t think I can.

“Hello boys.” Lauri greets us with a huge smile that actually reaches her eyes; I have only seen that smile a few times now. Mostly when she is cooking and today when she was done getting inked. She seems to be floating around the kitchen on a little cloud. She seems more alive than she has been since the day she arrived here.

“Hello Lauri, I’m Callum. I must say it’s nice to meet you at last.” Callum introduces himself properly since I seem to be lost in my own head again. She smiles nervously at him. I know she knows he is like me, as in he is a criminal of some sorts. “Hello Callum. Are you two ready to eat?” She asks looking at me not him, her voice a little shaky and almost shy.

“Starving thanks.” I finally manage an answer. She has my iPod playing Drops of Jupiter in the background. The kitchen is so clean you would never say she just cooked in it and the food is all laid out on serving plates I never knew I had. My mouth waters at the smells and colours in front of me.

“You pour drinks I will bring the food to the table; I hope you are okay to eat outside?” Lauri asks quietly while picking up a platter of food and moving to the open door with it.

“That’s great I will get you some wine, we already have scotch.” I raise my half-filled glass to show her before I go to get her a glass.

“Thanks Rowan,” she calls back over her shoulder as she takes the food to the patio table.

We sit outside in the crisp night air while Lauri serves up the most amazing salmon I have ever tasted. I cleaned my plate and so did Callum. I am not sure he has had anything home cooked in over ten years to be honest and he devoured her meal. The conversation was a bit strained as it was obvious she didn’t feel comfortable with Cal. He asked her about her tattoo and she averted that topic so fast his head nearly spun right off his shoulders. I clear our plates while Lauri dishes up a dessert that looks like it’s should be served at some fancy hotel, not in my kitchen. The pretty plates are waiting at our places on the table; Callum had to take a phone call for work so he walked away a little so we don’t have to hear him. As I sit down again Callum returns looking a little irritated until he sees the sweet creation in front of him. He loves sweets, sweet anything is his drug of choice. Designer sugar he calls it. His reaction to her dessert had Lauri laughing and her laugh sounds so good after the tears of the last few days. She laughs right from her belly and it’s a sound that I want to get used too. She and Callum finally have a conversation that isn’t strained; yes it’s over desserts and chocolate versus vanilla. I just sit back and watch them. I have become accustomed to watching her over the years and it seems I have eased right back into it again. Before I know what’s going on the two of them have made plans to go out to some bakery in the city for a cupcake tasting afternoon. I am instantly jealous of Callum spending time with her, but it just sounds too girly for my taste, besides I don’t think I’m a cupcake kind of guy. The pull of the green monster at my heart has me a little uncomfortable, she isn’t yours I remind myself again, and you are just here to help her nothing more.