Tracked by Trouble (Bad Boys Need Love, Too #3) (13 page)

“Was that her?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe nothing. Your face is ten kinds of red. I’ve never seen you blush like that. My brother’s crushing
hard
.”

“So what?” he said, feeling sixteen again. His phone buzzed again. He kept his eyes on Caitlin.

“Go ahead,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “See what it says.”

He picked it up and read,
Sorry it took me so long to connect. Phone went dead on the plane. I didn’t bring a charger! Idiot alert!

So that’s what it was,
he thought, relieved. He grinned. He typed,
No prob. I’m with my sister.
His fingers hovered over the keys as he thought of what else to say.
Should I say I miss her? Probably not. Take care? Hell, no.
He settled on,
enjoy your training. Let me know when you get back. I’d like to see you again.
He congratulated himself for being simple and direct, placed the device on the table, and turned his attention on his sis.

When the smartphone buzzed again, Caitlin said, “Last one, dude,” giving him a cocked eyebrow glare.

He sheepishly retrieved it and read,
when I get back??? What about in the meantime? Phone sex? Sexting? Heavy breathing? Shared carnal dreaming? Your call.
He let out a loud laugh, bit his lip and said, “Not going to answer that one. Not with you around.”

“Do
not
tell me what she said. I’ll never un-hear it and I need to meet her before I pass judgment.” She chuckled. “It’s nice to see, Zed. I mean it. You haven’t looked happy for a long time, maybe ever truly happy. And no, I don’t think you need a relationship to make you happy. I’m not Mom. I do think you need to stop hiding in the shadows of brother dearest. He’s a huge bully. I hope he gets caught. But then again…I don’t ever want my kids to be the focus of ridicule if he does get caught. Our entire family could be ostracized because of what he did. Have you thought of that?”

Zed scoffed. “What do
you
think? How do you think it feels to be starting out a new relationship knowing one day she’ll ask me something probing about my family and I’ll get to say, ‘oh, you mean the brother I told you about who’s a marine? Yeah, well, he murdered someone and threatened me with a gun but we have a really stable family. Just ask my mom.’ I’ve thought about it a lot. How do you tell someone you barely know but want to know more a story like that?”

“I don’t have a clue. And no I haven’t told Jeff, in case you’re wondering.” His sister rapped the table with her tiger striped nails. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d like to slug Lawson. He can’t get away with this. When I think of what you told me I get so pissed. I can’t even see straight. And don’t even start with your ‘I shouldn’t have told you’ bullshit. I’d be super pissed if you hadn’t told me. I mean…we’re the siblings of a
murderer
,” she hissed with quiet intensity, looking right and left to make sure no one heard her. “We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“No,” Zed said, brooding. “We don’t. No one has ideas on what to do, either.”

“Who have you told? I thought this was top secret between you and me.”

“Jace. I told Jace. He’s been in some messed up trouble and his, er, counselor has done time before so he asked if he could share with the guy.”

“Do you think that’s safe? To tell them, I mean?”

“They’re outside our family fishbowl and pretty trustworthy so, yeah, I do. Jace has turned around. The counselor dude…he’s not really a counselor, he’s someone who wants to pay it forward in life. He’s the guy who helped set Jace on a better path.”

“Why don’t
you
see the guy?” His sister pounced on the idea like it might get away. “Have a conversation, nothing more, that’s all I ask. Zeddy, I’m worried about you. I’m worried about what Lawson will do to you if given the chance. Get the guy’s number. Do it for me. If nothing comes of it, so be it. But I’d feel better if I knew you were getting some sort of guidance in the matter.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Jesus, Caitlin, don’t cry.” Zed reached for her hand. “I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“But what if you’re not? What if Lawson has truly snapped? My whole family adores you. The kids think you’re the best. Rickie can’t stop talking about his uncle Zed racing to save Murphy. Jeff thinks of you as the best kind of family. I love you. You can’t let anything happen. Talk to the guy…please. You only have to agree to one conversation and I’ll drop the whole thing, promise.”

Zed saw utter desperation pouring from his sister’s eyes. “All right. Okay. One conversation. That’s it.”

“Good.” Caitlin squeezed his hand. “You owe it to yourself to pursue healing, Zeddy. You owe it to this new girl—what did you say her name is?”

“Beck. Rebecca Tosetti.” Even saying her name evoked pleasure inside.

“You owe it to Beck. You don’t want her to worry, do you? Women worry. We fret and worry about our men. At least the ones who truly care do.”

The thought of having a woman who fretted over him, who actually cared, made Zed feel all kinds of strange. He nodded in affirmation. “Yeah, okay, I hear that.”

Caitlin looked at her watch. “My client will be arriving in a few minutes. I’ve got to get back to the shop. Here’s a topic change.”

“Go ahead.”

“Rickie wants to watch you in training. He wants Jeff to bring the GoPro and video his uncle training to save Murphy. Are you game?”

A mix of pride and self-consciousness vied for attention inside Zed’s chest. “Yeah, I suppose. How about this weekend? I don’t know what kind of footage he’ll get or how interesting it will be. I do sprints, I swim, I bike. Nothing fancy.”

“Oh, it will mean the world to him. He’s so excited about you doing this, I can barely get him to bed at night. Even Cerise is excited. I tell you, you’re a total hero to the kids.”

Zed’s chest filled with pride. “So, the sea lions are doing okay?” he asked.

“Apparently everyone’s alive,” Caitlin said. She stood and Zed followed suit. “The mom has started suckling the pup again. According to the biologists, pups nurse for over a year. And their mom’s go away for a few days to forage for food. Murphy got a slightly longer and more traumatic time away from his mom but the two are reunited and mom doesn’t have to go away to feed. They get daily feedings. As soon as they’re well, the center plans on releasing them back into the wild. Rickie’s learning a lot about marine life through this ordeal. Thank God it’s turning out to be a happy ending. One big death in the family is enough.”

“You thinking of Dad?”

“Yeah. What a shocker that was. Now all this shit with our brother.” She shuddered. “All I want is to live a normal life, and raise my kids to be decent individuals, but no, Mom and Dad had to spawn an asshole.”

“They got three of the four right, at least.” Zed smirked, pushed open the door for her and they walked toward the salon. When they arrived at the shop, he hugged his sister goodbye and turned to head back to his truck. His phone vibrated again, and he pulled it free from his pocket and read,
I hope you know this is more than sex to me
.
Although sex with you is the best I’ve ever had and we haven’t even fit the big bit into the small tight hole.

She ended with a smiley face. Zed felt stunned and aroused. No one had ever hinted at something like that with him, not the “more than sex” part. They’d barely dipped their toes in the relationship waters and already it exceeded his scope of experience. A thrill of exhilaration filled his heart, until they collided with thoughts of his brother.

Damn it all to hell. Even if the dickwad didn’t swoop in and claim her like a buzzard, his actions could stop the best thing that ever happened to him from growing into something fantastic. “Brother of a murderer,” he muttered, as he stomped to the truck, wondering what in the world he could do to get rid of his brother for once and for all

Zed paced through the day, wishing it would hurry up and finish. After work he had a meeting with Mitch Jamison, Jace’s counselor, or whatever the hell he called himself. After that, he’d be meeting Beck for drinks. She’d sent him a text late last night, telling him her phone had died while on the plane and the charger was in her checked bag.
Maybe I’ll buy her a large-ass battery for her phone.
He chuckled.
Too soon?
It seemed like a dumb yet practical idea for a gift, but the girl had some serious technological malfunctions to keep draining her phone dry.

Finally, the damn day ended and he headed to the address he’d been given. When he arrived at the small Victorian home, overlooking the water, not far from Beck’s home, he got out of the truck and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants before tromping up the steps. He’d met Mitch once, at Jace’s wedding, but hadn’t really talked to the guy…not like this, anyway.

They guy answered the door quickly, as if he stood at sentry, waiting for Zed’s arrival. “Hey, Zed. I was just about to head outside to check and make sure you found the place all right. I’m OCD that way.” He grinned, putting Zed at ease. “Come on in. I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee.”

Zed followed the male into the kitchen. The dude looked like a badass, plain and simple. Granite muscled arms protruding from his sleeveless tank. Black Harley vest, no doubt recently plucked off the garage floor, blood-colored ink adorned arms, shaved head so smooth it must have been done with a straight edge razor and an eye for detail. A wicked scar snaked across his smooth skull like a slash from a scythe or a switchblade. Good thing he was one of the good guys.

“Sit,” Mitch said, indicating one of the kitchen chairs. “Mi casa es su casa.” He plunked a mug in front of Zed and asked, “Can I pour you a cup? Life’s better with caffeine.” He grinned again.

“Sure, coffee’s fine,” Zed said, wanting something to hold in his hands to keep them from shaking.

“So Jace filled me in on the situation with your bro,” the male said, his lined face crinkling into a deep frown. “Rough stuff. I take it you have no interest in snitching on him, am I right?”

“Not really, no. I, uh, I don’t know what he’d do to retaliate…if he knew I did.”

Mitch filled both mugs, placed the glass coffee carafe back in the Cuisinart, and settled across the table from Zed. “Yeah. Makes sense. A dickhead rarely makes sense. Trust me. I’ve met more than my fair share and I’ve been one. But that’s not the topic of focus today. Savage tell you my terms?”

“He mentioned something about you don’t take payment, bringing a pound of coffee, and I have to pay it forward if I get something out of it.”

“That about sums it up. I take the coffee to Al Anon and Narcotics Anon meetings.”

“He said you gave it to charities in the city,” Zed said.

“That was when he came. Now, it’s meetings. I don’t keep it, if that’s what you’re implying.” He gave Zed a level, serious whiskey-eyed gaze. “I can buy my own damn coffee.”

Again, Zed felt thankful Mitch was one of the good guys. Or he hoped he was. “Got it,” he said. “Not my business what you do with the coffee.”

“The community service and paying it forward part—that’s a non-negotiable.” Again with the steely gaze.

“Understood,” Zed said, feeling like he was on trial for a crime he never committed.

“Okay,” Mitch said, rapping his knuckles on the flowery tablecloth covered table. “So, what can I do you for?” he asked, breaking into another engaging smile.

Zed eyed him skeptically. “Not sure,” he said, cautiously. He sipped his coffee. “My sister thought it a good idea to talk to someone.”

Mitch nodded, his goateed face appearing stern and thoughtful. “What would make her think that? Sisters can be highly intuitive.” He ran a hand over his shaved skull, a soft rasp of skin on skin sounding. “Mine sure is. Nothing escapes that little brat.”

Little brat?
Unless Mitch’s dad divorced and married a twenty year old, Zed doubted Mitch’s sister was younger than forty or forty-five. He smiled, gamely, not sure what to say.

“Care to share?” Mitch prompted. “I asked you a question. Should I repeat it?”

Heat flooded Zed’s cheeks. “No, I got it. You asked me what would make my sister think I needed to talk with you.”

“Good. Your ears work.”

Anger prickled Zed’s insides like porcupine quills. “No offense, but I didn’t come here to be ridiculed or schooled by you. I’ve had more than my fair share of that.”

Mitch chuckled. “None taken. Just checking to see if you had a pulse.”

“What’s that mean?” Zed asked, feeling like an ornamental poodle being examined by a pit bull.

Mitch shook his head. “Can’t help you with your bro, man. What I can help you with is
you.
You seem a little victimized, like you’re your brother’s bitch.”

Zed wanted to launch across the table and tear Mitch’s throat out, poodle or not.

“Got something you want to say to me?” The male’s eyes glinted.

“I’m not my brother’s bitch.” Zed eyed the door, ready to bolt out of here.

“Then stop acting like it.” Mitch leveled him with his dispassionate gaze. “You come in here all nice and polite but you’re seething with anger, man. You’re one pissed off male.”

“What makes you so certain of that?” Zed challenged.

Mitch laughed. “Son, I spent time in lock down, what do you think? I could spot your kind from a mile away in the pen. You’d be an easy target. Your asshole would be so sore at the end of the day you wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone see straight. And you’d just let it happen.”

Zed’s gut bubbled with shame, revulsion and rage. In a few brief minutes, he’d been coldcocked, figured out the way a surgeon could assess a gaping wound.
And found to be lacking.

“I asked you if you had something to say to me,” Mitch challenged.

“Not really, no,” Zed said, not wanting to rise to the bait.

“Bitch,” Mitch muttered.

“What did you say to me?”

“I called you a bitch.”

“You don’t get to talk like that to me. I came here in goodwill, seeking help. You’re acting like my brother. You’re nothing but a hard-ass prick. I don’t see what Jace saw in you.” Zed shoved his chair away from the table. “I’m out of here,” he raged, ready to bolt from the room.

“No, you’re not.”

“Want to bet?”

Mitch stood, towering over Zed, appearing at least twice as wide, ten times as solid. “You don’t get to leave until
I
say we’re done.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. What’s a fucking criminal going to do to help me?” Zed took a step toward the door. He didn’t know what he expected out of coming here, but it sure wasn’t this bullshit.

Mitch blocked Zed’s pathway. “You want to leave, you have to get around me.”

“Get the fuck out of my way, Jamison.” Zed put out his hands and shoved the guy’s chest. His hands met a solid wall of flesh, like trying to move a steel gun safe.

In a flash, Mitch somehow spun Zed around and pinned him to the door, his hand around Zed’s neck in a chokehold. A strange feeling of panic pulsed through Zed’s veins. His heart began to race.

“What are you going to do to me, you little bitch?” Mitch glared at him, his gaze unflinching.

Zed stood, paralyzed, his vision going black. Fragments of memory catapulted through his brain like lightning flashes. Lawson’s hand around his neck in the bathroom. Lawson holding a gun to his head in the hotel room.

Him escaping the room, stumbling down the hall, finding the elevator and taking it to the lobby, then finding the elevator to the garage. Him sitting in his truck, numb. And then the door to the parking garage opened, banged shut with a metallic clang and his side window exploding into fragments, and fetid, sour breath in his face from…from…Lawson?
Isn’t he up in his room screwing Nora?

“Son. Son. Zed. Wake up, son. Zed. Come on, Farrell, wake up. Come on. I may have pushed you too hard. Come back. Son. Son.”

Zed blinked, cleared his gaze, blinked some more. That prick Mitch crouched before him and he sat on the kitchen floor. How he got from there to here was a mystery.

Mitch reached his hand out to Zed.

Zed angrily refused to take it, scrambling to his feet instead. “What the fuck happened? Did you hit me? Were you trying to strangle me, like my brother did in San Diego? Was this some sort of tough love initiation you learned in prison? Huh? Was it?”

“No, man, I’m sorry. I was going for a reaction of some kind.”

“Mission accomplished.” Zed felt a fury rolling through his gut. “What an asshole! This wasn’t what I expected when I agreed to come here. I didn’t come to be bullied. Had enough of that in my life.”

“Yeah, I get that. I’m sorry, man. I wanted to prove a point. To see what you’d do if you were pushed.”

“Yeah? And did you get the reaction you hoped for? I didn’t.” Zed shook with anger.

“It’s true, you’re one pissed off male.”

“How could you sense that from a simple greeting? Huh?”

“It’s rolling off you, boy. You’ve let yourself be bullied by that brother of yours. But you need to find a way to be smart with your rage. Working out at a gym won’t help. That’s Savage’s path. No,” Mitch said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “You need something different.”

“What, are you some psychic now, able to see into the hearts of damaged souls like myself?”

“Come. Sit. Let’s sort this out.” He strode across the small kitchen and settled in the wooden chair.

“I’m not sure if I want to sort things out with you, Jamison.”

“Yeah, I get it. I pushed too hard. But let’s sit a spell and see if we can sort things. Come to an understanding of where I was coming from. You don’t like it, you leave, no hard feelings.”

“Maybe not for you,” Zed said. He stood stiffly, arms crossed over his chest.

Mitch inclined his head toward the chair opposite him, looking anything but threatening.

Zed stepped across the floor like a sulky teen and sat.

“I needed to see if there’s fire in your belly. There is. That’s good. But if you come at your brother in defensiveness and reactivity, the way you came at me, you’re dead.”

Zed shuddered and swallowed hard. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“He’s retiring soon, am I right?”

“Yeah. And supposedly moving back home to help my mom. I’ll believe it when I see it. He only believes in taking care of his own needs. He’s all about the glory.”

“What’s your bro’s name? Savage told me but I don’t remember.”

“Lawson. I call him Lawless sometimes.”

Mitch nodded, stroking his goatee. “Lawson’s a trained sniper. A combat militant. All that means is he’s ready, more than capable and sanctified to kill. Only he crossed a line. He chose to do something immoral and took the life of one of his own soldiers. That’s murder. When you cross a line like that, you can do it again. It’s like you give yourself permission to be immoral. Then when you overheard him, he threatened
you
with murder. That’s what I mean. They have a saying in prison—once you’ve committed murder and gotten away with it, you’ll do it again.”

Prickles of fear danced up and down Zed’s body. He gripped the mug in front of him, as if it could keep him secure.

Mitch scanned Zed up and down. “You look like you’re in good shape but you’re no trained assassin.”

Zed turned away from the guy, staring blankly at a picture of red tomatoes on the wall. “So, you’re saying there’s nothing I can do except hope I dodge the bullet? Sometimes I feel that’s all my life consists of—dodging bullets.”

“Yeah, I hear that.” Mitch drummed his fingers on the table. “You passed out on the floor back there. Where’d you go? What happened?”

“You mean when you tried to kill me?” Zed snarled.

“I told you, I may have pushed too hard.”

“May have?” Zed’s eyebrows launched up to his hairline. “May have? Fuck that, Jamison, you
did
push too hard.”

Mitch put his palms up. “I apologize. My methods are what they are. So tell me what happened.”

Zed glanced at the guy, unease and wariness competing with trust. “You put your hand around my neck like Lawson did in San Diego. I started remembering more to the story. There are a lot of blank holes. This time I heard the door to the parking garage slam shut, my side window blew out, spraying glass all over me and…” Zed shook his head. “That’s all I got. Someone breathing in my face. Some sour, whiskey soaked breath. I don’t know if it was Lawson’s or the other marine he was with or…” He shrugged.

“You might need more help than I can give. Sounds like you have some sort of dissociate amnesia. That happens when you’ve experienced trauma like you experienced.” He took a sip of his coffee.

An icy chill washed through Zed. “What do you mean?” His pulse began to race, amped up as if heading toward the finish line.

“Easy, boy. This is serious stuff. You’ve got yourself in a conundrum, through no fault of your own. I like you. Don’t want harm to come to you. When I started to get straight, I got me a good woman who believed in me and I began to fight for the unprotected. I began to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. I’ll do the same for you if you’ll let me, but only until you can find your smarts and stand up for yourself.”