A Gentleman in the Street (32 page)

She dismissed him. He wouldn’t know where Jacob was, so he could officially be classified as Not Important.

Lemonade sat in a pitcher on the center of the table, a tray of cookies next to it. Akira had no doubt this was a common event at this cozy home, the family gathering around a table in the beautiful backyard as they ate and chatted.

“What are you doing here?”

Kati’s borderline-rude question startled Akira out of her introspection. The query arrowed into her, making her wonder. What the hell was she doing here? This sort of domestic familial bliss was not her thing.

But Jacob is your thing.

That was right. Still, her voice was more subdued than she hoped when she answered. “I’m looking for Jacob.”

Kati’s eyes narrowed. “Well, he’s not here.”

Steel in your backbone. Ice in your veins.
Just for now, until she found Jacob. She straightened and gazed down at Kati. “So I hear. Where is he?”

“I’m not telling you. And I know your tricks now, so don’t think you’ll be able to figure it out on your own.”

“Kati,” Ben said, a gentle sting in his voice. “Relax.”

“Why do you want Jacob anyway? He already gave you my jewelry box.”

Akira raised an eyebrow at that. “Your box?”

Kati had the grace to flush, but she lifted her chin. “It was Mei’s. She gave it to me. It was mine.”

The kid had potential as a worthy adversary. Her words contained a good deal of sense, pricking the part of Akira’s conscience bothered by the fact that the girl did have a valid claim to Hana’s box. So she nodded. “You can come over next week and pick something out of Mei’s jewelry collection. I was going to sell it and give the money to charity, but a piece or two won’t make much of a difference.”

Kati blinked. “Uh—”

“That won’t compensate you entirely,” Akira continued smoothly. The box was worth more to her than any single piece of Mei’s jewelry. Hell, it was worth more to her than all of Mei’s jewelry. “But it’ll be a stopgap measure until I can work something else out.”

Connor linked his hands over his flat belly. “That’s not necessary.” He shot Kati a stern look when she stirred. “None of it. We were happy to return it to you.”

Ugh, these men. Why wouldn’t they just let the women deal amongst themselves? Everything would be so much easier. “Excuse me,” she said coolly. “My business is with Kati.”

“Kati’s only seventeen.”

“I can contract with a minor.” She paused, not looking away from Connor. “But if that’s really a problem, when do you turn eighteen, child?”

“In two months.”

“There.” She gave Connor a thin smile. “In two months, she and I can deal with each other as adults.”

Connor returned her smile. The brain, Jacob had called him, and Akira didn’t doubt it. There was something calculating in his gaze that none of his siblings shared. “Hey. Darren.”

Darren. That was right. The boyfriend.

“We have some family business to take care of. You mind excusing us?”

“Darren can stay,” Kati protested.

“Nah, it’s cool, Kati,” Darren said, shooting wary looks at Connor. “I gotta go home. I’ll pick you up for ice cream later?”

Connor broke their gaze to turn narrowed eyes on the boy. “Are you asking us, or are you asking her?”

“Um. Both of you, sir.”

“They don’t have any say in whether I go out or not.” Kati glowered. “Pick me up at seven.”

“Where are you going for ice cream?” Ben asked mildly.

Darren swallowed, shifting his gaze between each brother as if he were unsure which one might attack. “Mabel’s?”

“Hmm.” Ben clucked his tongue. “Really? Are you sure about that?”

“Uh—that is…”

Kati let out a low growl, sounding so much like Jacob, Akira hurt. “Oh my God. Stop teasing him. Come on, Darren. I’ll show you out.”

“Okay.” Darren folded his hands together and inclined his head slightly. “Namaste.”

Ben gave an audible groan. Though Akira had just found herself annoyed by the brothers, she couldn’t help her smirk when Connor crossed his hands over his chest, stared at Kati’s boyfriend, and shook his head once. “No.”

Ben coughed. “See you later…Darren.”

It could have been a cheerful sendoff, if it weren’t for the silky menace in his voice. Darren looked more than a little worried as Kati dragged him out, giving Ben and Akira a wide berth.

“Aren’t one of you going to follow them?” Akira asked dryly. “He could be trying to take advantage of your sister right on the front stoop.”

“I would, but Kati’s still cranky I sat between them during the movie last night.” Ben wiggled his eyebrows.

Akira pounced on the kernel of information. “So Jacob’s been gone since yesterday?”

Ben rubbed the back of his neck. “Jacob’s been gone for a couple of weeks, Akira.”

Akira froze. Jacob wouldn’t have up and left his family on a whim, not for that length of time. Unless he had desperately needed to be alone. Maybe because he was in pain?

Had she hurt him so badly?

When she had sat in the guestroom that morning, she’d stared at the bedspread as she waited for Jacob to leave and told herself she was letting him go for his own good. So he could be happier, so he could have what he deserved.

Of course you hurt him. If you felt like you’d ripped your arm off, imagine how he felt, writing you a note telling you he could love you.

Akira clutched her purse, lead weighing in her belly. “Please tell me where he is.” Unaccustomed as she was to pleading, her words were halting, unsteady.

Connor was silent, but Ben fixed her with a sympathetic look. “Akira, see…I don’t know if we can. He’s in a strange mood—”

“Strange how?”

Ben shrugged. “Grim. I mean, he’s always serious. But this is extra dark. Even for him.”

“Dark?” she asked faintly. Jacob only appeared taciturn at first glance. When he brought a person into his world, he was warm and funny and clever… He brought her dinner and perfect roses and gave her his socks.

Darkness had no place in his soul.

Connor was studying her with an intensity that would disturb her if she weren’t already so disturbed. “We know you guys had a run-in a while ago when he came to you about Mei giving Kati that thing.” He cocked his head. “Do you know anything about why Jacob’s acting this way?”

Unable to say anything, Akira looked away. She couldn’t lie to Jacob’s brother, but whatever was between them felt far too new and unsettled for her to open up to the man either.

Jacob had kept their unusual relationship from his family. She had suspected he would, and she didn’t fault him for it. But it didn’t feel right to come clean to them without him here.

“See, the reason I ask is because it’s really out of character for him to call us with no warning and tell us to come stay with Kati for an extended period of time like this. So if you did have something to do with him running off…”

“Connor, this isn’t our business,” Ben interjected.

“It’s absolutely our business,” Connor shot back. “We’re the ones who had to put our life on hold to take care of Kati.”

Satisfaction mixed with anger. Satisfaction Jacob was putting himself first for once, even if she was the reason he had to take some time away. Anger at these dumb, thickheaded oafs. “Really?”

“Really what?”

“Really. You had to put your life on hold for a couple of weeks?”

Connor set his jaw. “Yeah, we did.”

“That must have been hard.” She nodded so furiously, her hair bounced. “So hard for you to do that.”

“Your tone is conveying sarcasm, but it
was
hard. We have a business, and personal lives and—”

Oh. No. He. Didn’t. Akira stepped right up into Connor’s face, crowding into his personal space, exposing him to her most ferocious glare, the one that made grown men run for their lives. This young pup didn’t stand a chance. “Jacob has put his life on hold for you since you were born,” she hissed. “For you and your brother and your sister. He has a career, and he could have a personal life, if he were able to have some fucking time to himself, if he weren’t always worried about his precious babies at home. So shut your goddamned whiny mouth. If he needs you to pull some duty at home on short notice, you do it. Hell, if he needs a kidney, you rip it out with your bare hands and hand it to him. It’s the least you owe that man.”

Shock chased across Connor’s face. He folded his arms over his broad chest. The resemblance between all the brothers was strong, but Connor’s features were more refined than Jacob and Ben, his full lips and long lashes making him almost pretty. “I know exactly what Jacob’s done for me. Us,” Connor responded defensively.

You’re overreacting. This is not your place.
It wasn’t her family, after all. Her ire was controlling her mouth, however, and there was no stopping her now. She sneered. “So put on your fucking big-girl panties and act like it. It won’t kill you to help him out now and again.”

Connor grew silent and studied her for a long moment before glancing over her head at Ben and exhaling. “Damn you. You were right.”

“I told you so,” came Ben’s mild response.

“I didn’t think he would actually jump in the deep end.”

Realization dawning, Akira slowly took a step back. “You were playing me. Trying to get me to tip my hand.”

“No.” When she lifted an eyebrow, Connor had the grace to look shamefaced. “Not entirely.”

“We don’t haze Kati’s dates because we’re chauvinist pigs and she’s the baby girl,” Ben explained. “We’re all protective of each other.”

She curled her fingers, trembling from leftover adrenaline. “Fuck you both. That’s what this was, hazing Jacob’s date? What are you trying to do, get me to prove myself?”

“Wait, Jacob’s dating
that woman
?”

They all turned at the feminine yelp to find Kati standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands in her back pockets.

That woman. That Akira.
Akira was pissed to begin with, and the girl’s words only exacerbated her temper. “Don’t call me that.” Her voice was low but clear.

“What?”

“Don’t refer to me as
that woman
,
” she clarified. “You sound like my mother. I hate it. Call me by name or not at all.”

Kati paled, but to Akira’s surprise, nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know better.”

Akira was tempted to smack her down further, but Kati lifted her chin, and there was something in the curve of her jaw, the downturn of her lips, that resembled Jacob so closely Akira didn’t have the stomach to swat the girl away.

A bit more subdued, Kati frowned at her brothers. “Did you guys know they were dating?”

“No.”

“Yes.” When everyone looked at Ben, he shrugged. “Jacob was crushed when he was an ass to you, Akira, and then a couple days later he says it’s cool and forget it? He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I knew something was up, especially when he started to disappear at night.”

Kati’s frown became more pronounced. “No one ever tells me anything.”

Akira would have loved to throw up her hands and storm out of this awkward three-ring circus. Unfortunately, she didn’t know where she would go. “We’re not… It’s not like that,” Akira interjected.

“Then what is it like?” Kati asked, hostility slipping back into her voice.
“
Are you the reason he ran off?”

Akira’s lips tightened. “Maybe.”

“What the hell did you to do to him?”

“That’s between me and him,” Akira replied.

Kati snorted in obvious disbelief. “So why do you want to see him now?”

Akira could manipulate them. She could outsmart them. She could verbally reduce them to ashes.

Instinctively, she knew that would get her nowhere. “I need him,” she said softly. Humbly. Truthfully.

The Campbell siblings were silent for a moment, making Akira wonder whether they would close loyal ranks against her, keeping her out.

To her surprise, Kati was the first to speak. “Will you hurt him?”

A no might get her the answer she sought, but it wouldn’t be honest. “I won’t intentionally hurt him.” She couldn’t promise anything else.

The only person who had ever loved her the way these people loved each other was her grandmother. She was out of practice and out of her depth with Jacob, and she feared she would probably fuck up more before all of the dust settled. Generating chaos had always been something she excelled at.

But she would try.

Ben looked at Connor, who eyed Kati. She was the one who piped up. “He’s at the cabin.”

Connor stepped past Akira and picked up the pitcher from the center of the table, pouring a glass. “Have a drink, if you’re driving there now. Your lips are dry.”

Because she hadn’t drunk or eaten anything since the previous night. She accepted the glass, nearly lightheaded with relief. That was it? They weren’t going to torture her some more? “Why did you tell me?”

Connor stared meaningfully at the glass, and she quickly took a large gulp of the sweet, tart drink. “Because he’s already in rough shape,” Connor responded matter-of-factly. “Our main concern is not making him worse. But I don’t think you’ll do that.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause you don’t look so hot either, Akira,” Ben said sympathetically. “Go see him. Work things out, please. We’ll hold down the fort as long as he wants, but we do miss him.”

Akira drained her glass. She looked at Kati, who merely shrugged. “I owe you.”

“For what?”

Kati’s lips firmed, and she glanced down at the ground. “You must be eager to get going. I’ll walk you out.”

Akira nodded. “I am, yes. Thanks.” She shrugged off Ben’s sweatshirt and handed it to him. “Bye. Maybe I’ll…see you?” Only if things worked out with Jacob.

Please let them work out with Jacob.

Connor murmured his goodbye, and Ben gave her a bright smile. Kati followed Akira up the steep staircase, her flip-flops squeaking on the metal. They were silent until they left the earshot of the men, and then Kati spoke. “That was nice of you, trying to pay me for the box.”

Was that what the girl felt she owed Akira for? “You did have a claim to it, and I’ll give you fair value.”

Kati bit her lip, her steps slow as they walked through the kitchen to the foyer. The colors Jacob had chosen for his home were soothing blues and creams. Akira caught a glimpse of warm wooden antique furniture in the dining room and living room. “Mei used to wear a necklace a lot,” Kati murmured. “It was a delicate gold chain with a starfish on it.”