Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (54 page)

“My mother. My sister, her husband, and their three children. My two brothers, their wives, and their six children.”

“Nine children.” Bryce looked thoughtful.

“That won’t be a problem, will it?” Ciara asked.

Bryce drew himself up to tower over her. “No.”

“Good. Agent Andrews?”

“I see no problem. Children like me.”

“What?” Ciara blurted.

Andrews’s eyes chilled. “Protective custody isn’t like day care where you can choose whether to drop your child off or not. I take my job — and this threat — very seriously. I go wherever Mr. Gannon goes.”

Ciara looked between Andrews and Bryce. She’d thought only to ease the strain on Bryce. She fought a totally inappropriate feeling of disappointment.

“How stupid of me. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Andrews’s stiff posture eased and her eyes thawed. “It’s not a problem. I can sit in the car outside the house.”

“Nonsense. It’s the Fourth of July. You’ll join the celebration. Um, do you have anything casual to wear?”

“I’m on duty,” Andrews reminded her.

“I’d really like not to have to explain protective custody to my family.”

On the drive to her sister’s house in Royal Oak, Ciara debated calling ahead to warn her family that she was bringing guests, but she decided she’d rather surprise them.

Ciara glanced at Bryce in the passenger’s seat. He looked at ease, as though she hadn’t seen how much he enjoyed being the one in control behind the wheel mere days ago. Maybe it was his casual attire that made him seem more … approachable, less tightly in control. The warm red color made him seem less cold. She wrenched her gaze from him.

She thought a brief overview might be in order before they arrived. “We’re going to my sister Carmen’s house. She and her husband Esteban live there with their three children and my mother. My mother is separated from my father, so try not to mention him.”

Bryce gave her a sharp, inquisitive look.

“Any other mine fields to avoid?” Andrews asked.

Other than that she was Carmen’s older, unmarried sister? “None that I can think of.” Or wanted to admit to. Oh, God, what was she getting herself into?

• • •

Ciara pulled her red Toyota Camry into the driveway of an older white two-story house. The flowerbeds were a riot of blooming colors. A child’s purple bike lay discarded on the front walk. The driveway already contained two minivans.

Bryce watched her draw in a long breath and lift her chin before she exited the car.

Agent Andrews put a hand on his arm. “Let me check it out first.”

She climbed out of the car. She’d let down her wheat blonde hair and changed into a white tank top and navy shorts from the gym bag she carried in her car. Her gun was tucked into the sweater she had tied around her waist.

Bryce breathed out and forced himself to relax. He’d asked for the protection. Now he had to accept it. But he wished he could have come here alone with Ciara. He thought she might relax and slip up around her family. He might even learn her true relationship with Steele.

Agent Andrews opened his door. “All clear.”

Bryce stepped out to meet Ciara’s dark gaze. He couldn’t read her expression.

As they’d agreed beforehand, Bryce took Agent Andrews’ arm. Ciara led them on the concrete sidewalk between the house and garage, her plastic grocery bags swinging from both hands.

“Aunt Ciara,” a trio of dark-haired girls trilled. They grabbed her hands and dragged her towards the back yard.

A mob of dark-eyed, dark-haired people met them. Slowly everyone turned to stare.

A thickened woman in her early fifties set a dish on a table and wiped her hands on her green apron as she hurried towards them.

“Ciara, you brought guests.” Was that gentle censure in the woman’s voice?

“Mama, I’ve brought my boss — ”

Her mother gasped. “Your boss?”

“Mama, this is Bryce Gannon and his girlfriend Sonya Andrews. Bryce, Sonya, my mother Ascension Salazar Alafita.”

Ciara’s mother seemed speechless so Bryce took her hand. “Thank you for opening your home to us, Mrs. Alafita. Sonya and I hadn’t made any plans, so when your daughter graciously asked us to join your festivities we accepted.”

Mrs. Alafita smiled and Bryce saw where Ciara got her beauty. “I have never met Ciara’s boss before. But she has lived far away for so long.”

“You must be very happy to have her home again,” Bryce said.

“We still see so little of her.”

“I’m settling in and looking for a place to live,” Ciara explained.

Interesting. So Ciara’s excuse for moving home wasn’t the whole truth.

“It is time you were settling down,” her mother said.

Well, Ciara had told them the truth about that, at least.

“Let me introduce you to the rest of my family.” Ciara led them to the large group.

Bryce met the hostess and her husband, Carmen and Esteban Hernandez. Bryce was startled to find Carmen nearly a decade younger than Ciara. He knew Ciara was thirty-two, but this young woman couldn’t be more than mid-twenties. Ciara had nearly a head of height on Carmen and was more beautiful. Strange, then, that her much younger sister had married first.

“You’re the one injured by the letter bomb!” Carmen exclaimed.

He forced himself to relax. He’d known the story would haunt him for months, maybe years. “Yes.” Thank God yesterday’s attack had been suppressed. He wondered about that for a moment.

Carmen shook her head and pursed her lips. “It just goes to show you can’t believe what you read in the papers. They said you’d nearly been killed. But you look fine.”

Bryce wasn’t about to divulge his injury to strangers, or that he’d spent most of yesterday in the hospital.

“I’m fine.”

Carmen shooed children out of the way so the other adults could meet Bryce. Ciara’s brothers were closer to her age but older than her. Carlos Junior looked a lot like Ciara and shared her height. His wife Eloisa was a round dumpling of a woman who looked like she wore a perpetual smile.

Ciara’s other brother Francisco studied Bryce as they shook hands. “I never thought Ciara would give up the Attorney General’s office, and especially not to practice defense law. When I heard, I thought … ” He looked from Bryce to Agent Andrews to Ciara. “Well, I don’t know what I thought.”

Bryce became more convinced that Steele had ordered Ciara to Bryce’s side. What hold did the racketeer have over her? Was it her family? Ciara didn’t behave like a woman acting under threat. Bryce couldn’t see a long-distance love affair between Steele and Ciara. What would make a woman sell her soul to the devil?

The Hernandez’s yard contained a swing set, a vegetable garden, and a profusion of blooming flowers surrounding a statue of the Virgin Mary. Bryce, Agent Andrews, and Ciara settled at a wooden picnic table with plates loaded with tamales, black beans and rice, and the best enchiladas Bryce had ever tasted.

“These are wonderful,” he exclaimed.

Ciara’s mother beamed. “A family recipe passed down through five generations of Salazar women. I have taught Carmen and my daughters-in-law to make it.” She gave Ciara a telling look.

Francisco’s wife Nina piped up. “Ciara is a working woman, Mama. She doesn’t have time to cook.”

“Even working women have to eat,” Mrs. Alafita said. “Look at how thin Ciara is. I do not believe she makes time to eat.” She tsked. “Too much time working.”

Bryce thought Ciara exactly the right shape. She had curves in all the right places and what she did to his libido … well, he couldn’t think about that in this company.

“
Abuela
, someone’s here,” one of the children cried.

Agent Andrews reached towards her weapon. Bryce stiffened as everyone at the table spun to look toward the yard’s entrance. A Latino in his late thirties glanced over the assemblage.

The man spotted Ciara and strode toward her.

“Mama, you didn’t,” Ciara whispered.

Ah, enlightenment dawned and Bryce relaxed.

Mrs. Alafita rose, beaming. “I am so glad you could come. Ciara, this is Juan Mendoza. His mama and I go to church together.”

Ciara rose and Bryce could see the reluctance in the stiff line of her back. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Mendoza — ”

“Miss Alafita.” The man practically fawned over Ciara. “Please call me Juan.”

“Juan. Would you like to have a seat?”

Mrs. Alafita made a production of making room next to Ciara. Up close Juan’s soft, sallow skin suggested a sedentary life indoors.

“What do you do for a living, Juan?” Bryce asked.

Juan blinked away from Ciara and smiled. “I run an Internet company, Cesar.com. We’re in our fifth year and growing exponentially.”

“What do you sell?” Ciara inquired with polite interest.

“Oh, I don’t sell things. I’m a connector, a liaison. I bring people together.”

“Like a matchmaker?” Carmen asked.

“No, no.” Juan made negating motions with his hands. “People who need things. Like yesterday a man in Chile needed to place his cousin with an Ohio grower. I made it happen.”

“Oh, job placement.”

“It’s much more than that. I help people find products, places to live, places to vacation, animals, lost relatives.”

Carmen frowned. “Is there much of a market for that?”

“We made fifty thousand dollars last year.”

Mrs. Alafita beamed from Juan to Ciara.

“Where is your office located?” Ciara asked.

Juan looked sheepish. “We’re still small yet. It’s in my mother’s basement. She’s my business partner, you see. Silent partner.”

Bryce nearly choked. Ciara looked like she was having a similar problem.

“Juan is a good son,” Mrs. Alafita said, her enthusiasm growing as she spoke. “He provides for his widowed mother and keeps her company while making her feel useful in taking care of him.”

“My mother would love to cook for a family,” Juan said. “She would welcome my wife and children into her house with open arms.”

Ciara sputtered, coughing into her napkin. “What a convenient arrangement.”

Juan’s smile broadened. “Isn’t it?”

• • •

Ciara was forced to listen to Juan’s detailed stories while her family conversed with Bryce and Agent Andrews. Ciara couldn’t help comparing the two men — Bryce so independent and self-contained to Juan tied to his mother’s apron strings. Bryce hadn’t lived with his mother since he was twelve. Bryce functioned well in society while Juan wouldn’t leave his basement and deal directly with people. She’d found out the two men were nearly the same age, but they couldn’t be more different inside than they were on the outside. She found Bryce compelling, but Juan made her want to run away.

Was it that Juan reminded her of her family and their Latino problems? She couldn’t be sure.

Agent Andrews moved her hand on Bryce’s arm, attracting Ciara’s attention. She hated the way Sonya’s little touches conveyed her part as being with Bryce, leaving Ciara to Juan’s advances. Ciara had asked Bryce to this picnic. He was supposed to be with her. She wanted to claw Sonya’s eyes out.

She shook herself. Bryce wasn’t her anything, except her temporary boss. She had no right to be jealous of Sonya’s playacting.

“Papa, he’s a bad man.” Carmen’s youngest son, Federico, pointed at Bryce, his high-pitched voice slicing through the conversation. Silence followed in its wake.

Esteban scrambled to his feet and gathered his little son in his arms. “What nonsense is this? Mr. Gannon is our guest. Apologize to him.”

“But, Papa, he has the smokes in his pocket. You said they were bad. He’s a bad man.”

Esteban turned to Bryce, his face flushing. “I’m sorry. We’re teaching our children not to smoke. It’s okay if you do.”

Bryce frowned. “I don’t smoke.”

Federico pointed. “In his pocket.”

Like a blind man, Bryce slid his hand up his chest until he encountered the bulge in his pocket. His inhaler. Only because she was watching him closely did Ciara see the look of almost despair that flitted through Bryce’s eyes. Her heart ached for him. He pulled out the round object.

“I don’t smoke,” he explained to the child. “This is to help me breathe. It’s an inhaler filled with medicine.”

“Why do you have trouble breathing?” Federico asked in his piping voice.

Esteban looked horrified. “Hush, Fico.” He turned to Bryce. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d been injured that badly. And you were trying to downplay it.”

“It’s all right. He’s just a child trying to do what his parents taught him was right.” Bryce turned to the boy. “Someone poisoned me. It got into my lungs. I was very sick for a while, but I’m getting better. If my lungs bother me, I use this.” He tapped the inhaler.

“And the medicine makes you all better?” Federico asked.

“When I use it, yes.” Bryce slid the inhaler back into his pocket.

Ciara wondered if she was the only one who’d caught Bryce’s evasion.

There was a stilted silence until a group of children came running up to their table yelling, “We want ice cream!”

Ciara retrieved the ice cream novelties from the freezer and handed them out. Agent Andrews had her hand on Bryce’s forearm again. Ciara longed to be the one to comfort him. She shook her head to dispel that thought. He didn’t need comfort. He wasn’t diminished by his condition.

• • •

Bryce seethed inside until they could leave. He didn’t want anyone’s pity and he didn’t like that the only thing people remembered about him was that he’d been poisoned. He was so much more than a victim. He didn’t like appearing weak or vulnerable in front of people especially with his own personal protection on his arm. In his job, that was fatal to his cases.

He’d been feeling normal again, just a guy and his girlfriend at a picnic. In a split second that had been ruined. Ciara’s family couldn’t move past the moment of revelation. He saw the questions in their eyes they were too polite to ask a stranger. He was the one who cross-examined people, not vice versa.

When Juan pressed Ciara for a date, Bryce wanted to smash the other man’s face. Bryce wanted the Steele case finished so he could find out the truth about Ciara. He hated feeling desire for a women he thought a spy, a liar, and a betrayer.