Broken Barriers (Barriers Series Book 4) (13 page)

Everett rattled on about how Morgan lured him in and how I was not to trust her. That was how she finally snagged him years ago. If she got her claws in me, I was done. There was no going back. So, if I’d gotten an “in” with Cole, I was to take the opportunity and seize the shit out of it.

“How exactly am I going to do that?” I asked as a knock sounded at the front door. Everett raised an eyebrow, tilting his head toward the door, and I shrugged, not knowing who the hell was here. As Everett talked about Morgan, I stared at him while I slowly made my way to the front door. He pointed across the lake at a small bungalow.

“See that little brown house directly across the lake from you? That’s hers. Just go over there and talk to her.”

My eyes focused on the house he pointed to. I stopped dead in my tracks. That was the house that I’d seen the past few nights with the light that captured my attention. It had been her this whole time, and I never knew. After another rap on the front door, I moved my feet again down the hall.

“If you go after Cole, does that mean I can have a go at Lacy Legs?” Everett insinuated. “Trust me, I couldn’t care less about sloppy seconds.”

I turned and continued walking backward. He grabbed his junk and laughed. Everett was one of those players that loved the ladies’ attention. A bachelor for life, perhaps.

“Dude, you can have her. I’m done riding that train.”

“Yes!” Everett hissed with a fist pump in the air as I swung open the front door. A screaming high-pitched noise rang out before the object screaming slapped its feet across the hard wooden floors and into my living room. My eyes screwed shut as the pounding instantly returned inside my head. I groaned outwardly in pain and a tap on my shoulder brought me back. My fingers scrubbed at the sides of my temples, massaging away the heavy pounding.

“What’s the matter, kid? Never been around a two year old before?” My eyes lifted to see my brother-in-law standing in front of me. “Or…are you just really hungover?” I narrowly stared at Josh who laughed and entered the house, walking straight upstairs with a few bags slung over his shoulder. I rubbed my eyes and remembered that Sam told me he’d be up with Dean this weekend. I had completely forgotten what day she said. Shit.

My nephew, Dean, continued to run around the living room, stopping every so often and falling on his ass. I shut the door slowly and walked toward him. Dean’s hands pushed against the floor until he was standing again. His eyes lit up, and he squealed with excitement as he watched me walk closer. Then the little guy was immediately stammering in my direction.

“Unca Dew! Unca Dew!” he yelled as he ran before pummeling into my legs. His head fell back as he stared up at me. I reached down to pick up the chubby-cheeked toddler. His feet kicked, and his arms flailed before I perched him on my hip.

I heard Josh running down the stairs. Everett grabbed his pants from the chair in the living room and pushed his legs through. I went to hand Dean back to Josh, but he waved his hands and backed away. “Oh, no.” Josh headed over toward Everett. “I think it’s time for Uncle Drew and Dean to have some male bonding time.” Josh stopped next to Everett and eyed his bare chest full of red hickeys. He looked back at me. “Seriously, what the F-U-C-K happened last night?” I was about to ask Josh what was up with the spelling of words and introduce the two of them, but just as I adjusted Dean in my arms, he wrapped his arms around my neck and screeched with laughter in my ear.

With a deep calming breath, my eyes fluttered as I tried to put the pounding in my head to rest. I pulled Dean off my neck and held him out at arm’s length. I inched a few steps over to hand him back to Josh. “Dude, I love the little guy, but after the night Everett and I had, my head is about to blow the fuck up.”

“Great, Drew. That’s just great. This one already picked up A-S-S thanks to my brother.” He tilted his head to Dean. “Now, so help me, if he starts dropping F-bombs at the house, you can deal with your sister.” Josh turned to Everett and reached his hand out to introduce himself as my brother-in-law. The two quickly made introductions and shook hands. Everett gave Josh the abridged version of how we met. He explained that we met over at the tavern a few days ago, but his face turned a little peaked before he said anything else.

All of us moved to sit in the living room before Josh pulled some toys out of a duffel bag for Dean to play with on the coffee table. Josh looked between the two of us, then back at Everett who was now curled up in the fetal position on the other sofa. I swore, any minute he’d be pulling butt plugs out of his ass or pissing glitter. The poor bastard was suffering now, but he sure as hell had fun getting there. Josh just sat shaking his head at him as I silently mouthed, “Marine.” He angled his head to see Everett’s tattoo behind his arm. He nodded with a simple understanding of what might have happened last night.

Booze…strippers…the usual Marine weekend.

Dean slammed his toy police cruisers onto the coffee table and kept himself entertained. Josh leaned back in his seat, resting one arm over the back of the chair and propping his sneaker- covered foot on his knee. “So, tell me, do I need to make any phone calls to local police departments, or did you manage to stay out of trouble?” My brother-in-law would bend over backward to help me if I were ever in a jam. Just knowing what we went through together years ago with my sister’s ex-boyfriend was enough to make our bond thicker than blood.

“Pretty sure we stayed out of trouble.” It was Katie I didn’t stay out of, but I didn’t tell him that story. The whereabouts of my penis remained unknown to everyone, regardless. I turned away to look out the window and gathered my thoughts. If my sister Sam ever caught wind that I was screwing Katie in the Boston office, I’d be exiled from the family. But, if she also found out it was at the same time I was trying to help on her case… Well, not only would I be exiled, I’d also be forced to live with the fact that I let my sister down again, and I didn’t think I could live with that on my shoulders. She had been through enough without me adding problems to the mix.

My head twisted back to see Josh staring at me with a slack expression. “‘Pretty sure’ isn’t one hundred percent, but you know where to find me if you do need
help
,” he replied.

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. My head dropped to rest against the pads of my thumbs. As I closed my eyes, I suddenly just wanted to go back to sleep.

Josh’s cell phone dinged on the coffee table, and I peeked through my fingers at the glowing screen. He picked up the call, thinking I didn’t see whose name popped up on the screen. He muttered into the phone and tried hard to keep his voice hushed. When the call ended and he set the phone onto the table again, I let out a long exhale and the sense of nothing getting straightened out this summer suddenly hit me. This was my life now; I needed to embrace it and roll with the punches.

“How is she?” I asked as my hands dropped from my face and clenched together in front of me. I waited for Josh’s answer as the tightness within my chest grew.

“She’s good. Well, she
says
she’s good, but it’s hard to tell. Her bubbly personality is gone, but I think we both know why.” Josh tried to insinuate that by distancing myself from Courtney I had caused her to lose the one piece that attracted me to her in the first place. My hands gripped the edge of the sofa. I stood and moved away from him, even though I needed to hear his answer. Dean’s bare little feet smacked loudly against the floor as he chased after me. I stared out the window for a brief moment before I felt him tugging on my pants. I looked down to see his saddened blue eyes glaring up at me. God, those eyes. I ran my hand gently over his messy brown hair.

As I stared at my nephew, I knew I had to try harder and deal with everything as it came at me. Josh stood and made his way into the kitchen, opening the freezer and pulling out storage containers to see what each one was labeled. Chances were he was looking for my mom’s chili. “Hey, Josh,” I said as he shut the freezer door and placed a container onto the counter, evidently finding whatever he was looking for. He placed it into the microwave, hitting a few buttons as it lit up.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asked, turning to look at me.

“When you talk to her again, just tell her I said hi and that I do miss her. I just need more time to let it all sink in.” Josh nodded in understanding. “I’m just sorry I never truly fought for her when it mattered,” I whispered low enough so only I heard the words.

I turned back to the lake. My eyes roamed around from the boats to the marina. I caught a glimpse of a woman, who appeared about my age, wearing a baseball cap and a black tank top paddling her kayak onto a small sandy beach in front of a large bungalow across the bay. A woman who apparently bore just as much turmoil in her own life as I did in mine. And yet without even meeting me, she saw within my soul that I was broken in places. With a simple act of unselfish kindness, she brought a smile to my face. My mind rattled with different questions about her, but only one stood out more than the others.

Was she the one who could finally put all the broken pieces back together again for me?

I didn’t know the answer to that question right now, but I sure as hell was going to try to find out.

Sleeping in was not an option the next morning, not when I had a toddler staying with me. It was as though I was back at boot camp training, and the drill instructor came in at zero five thirty in the morning to get the recruits ready for the day. Only this time the drill instructor was my nephew.

Dean came barreling through my room before the sun was even above the mountains. The damn birds weren’t even awake yet, but he was ready to go. Damn kid reminded me of those toy cars—the ones you pulled the wheels backward and then BAM! The minute you let go it flew across the room. That was Dean.

I was already slightly awake after having another minor flashback in my sleep. When I awoke a while before that, I flicked on the bedside lamp. It cast a warm glow in the room instead of the dreaded darkness. The good thing was that the flashbacks weren’t occurring every night anymore. Fact was, the haunting images were starting to fade, and memories of the fun times we’d shared were filtering in. I’d take that as a small victory in the “adjustment” department.

Dean’s tiny hands kept smacking against the side of my bed until I paid attention to him. I heard Josh in the kitchen brewing coffee and laughing. I moaned in protest while I pulled the sheets further over my head. Dean grunted and squealed between the smacks. As he stood there bouncing and gnawing on his fingers, drool crept its way down his arm, and I cringed as I watched him. I was not getting bath duty again. Hell no. I already had the pleasure of that job last night while Josh cooked dinner out on the grill. More squeals and laughter bounced off my walls. Surely, any small wildlife animals that wanted to create a Zen-like morning for me were hiding at that moment. It was obvious I wasn’t going to sleep in any longer, so I gave in to Dean.

I got even, though. Dean thought I wasn’t aware of his presence next to the bed. I played it off really well, just barely peeking my eyes out from under the sheet. Then I finally struck. I rolled over quicker than a gazelle in the wild and roared like a tiger at him. The soft morning light crept into the room, and it was now bright enough to see his face. He was standing there stone cold and silent. No laughter. No screeching. Nothing. His eyes softened, his lip quivered, and I watched as the waterworks flowed. Clearly, I was not nearly as experienced with kids as I thought. The morning went south, fast.

Josh strolled in seconds later with a sippy cup filled with juice and a plush gray stuffed rhino, and all was right with the world again. Well, that was until he told me that we were all out of coffee, and then I nearly killed him.

I had zero coffee, and I was grumpy as all shit because it was way too early to be up on a weekend. Dammit, this was way too early to be up period. Josh tried to feed me some shit about trying to be in his shoes and how I could never cut it as a cop. I wanted to refute that he’d never cut it as a Marine, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I agreed on all fronts that the hours he worked sucked in general, but guaranteed they wouldn’t run out of coffee. Ever.

Thankfully, trying to find parking in downtown Wolfeboro at eight o’clock in the morning was not an issue. I pulled my Charger across from the tavern. At this hour, only a few people were out on a Sunday. A couple of older women jogged by. They easily carried on a conversation and politely waved as I passed them on the sidewalk. Another older gentleman with a long gray beard and red suspenders stretched over his protruding belly was walking his chocolate lab. He tipped his hat hello as he walked across the street and made his way down the boat docks.

Cool morning fog sent an instant chill across my neck. I pulled the hood from my zipper-down sweatshirt over my messy damp hair and glanced around for the coffee shop. Everett said it was downtown, so it had to be here. Finally, a small hanging wooden sign over a doorway at the end of the street caught my eye.
Trouvaille: Coffee, Confections, and Gallery
were all printed in pink and white lettering over a black damask backdrop. Soft lights from inside caught my attention as I crossed the street.