Always (Family Justice Book 1) (15 page)

“Yeah?” he replied. “Well, there’s plenty of room for another little one,” Alex joked while demonstrating his potential baby juggling skills. “Can’t wait for the next bundle of Justice joy, Mrs. St. John.”

Dylan wiggled in his arms so Alex patted him gently on the back. The next thing he knew the tiny bundle of love on his shoulder let loose a tremendous burp that made everyone around them burst into laughter.

“Ah, the strident call of a Justice male!” Lacey giggled. “Sounds just like his daddy.”

With that, Cam swaggered into their midst and forced an impressive beer burp that made Alex, Meghan, Tori, and Stephanie all shake their heads in amused wonder.

“Like father, like son!” Cam proclaimed, puffing up his chest as if he’d invented making babies all by himself.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Cam,” Alex jeered. “I hope you only do that from the top end and not the other.”

Lacey rolled her eyes at his profanity and muttered, “Seriously. You guys are a lost cause.”

Cam chuckled and swept his son from Alex’s arms. “Actually, the farts are my wife’s specialty.”

“Shit, Cameron,” Lacey shrieked. “Shut up!”

“Language, Mommy,” he teased, earning him a sly smile and a deep blush from his wife.

Leaning down for a juicy smooch that reverberated off the walled terrace, he laughed at her and said, “Gotcha!”

Just at that happy moment, Alex saw Calder and Drae approaching from the kitchen doorway. They were in a deep conversation that looked pretty damn serious.

Meghan saw them, too, and arched an eyebrow at him. “Better go see what that’s about.”

Drae was standing with his arms crossed, his head lowered as if carefully considering whatever Calder was saying. It was a pose Alex knew well. It was Drae’s way. Clearly, he was analyzing something, and for some reason, a frisson of unease snaked along Alex’s spine.

As he approached, he heard Calder say, “There’s no other way, St. John. They’re specifically asking for you, and it’s not like the agency can say no.”

“Fuck,” Drae murmured, his mouth in a grim, taut line.

“What’s going on, men?” Alex demanded. Calder and Drae both looked at him in the same moment. His brother’s face was tense and unhappy while his uncle’s face looked frustrated and not just a little annoyed.

“We got a problem, man,” Calder told him. Yanking his phone from the pocket of his jeans, he tapped and scrolled for a minute then handed Alex a message to read. It took him all of ten seconds to realize that ‘problem’ didn’t quite cover what he found in the email.

“Shit,” he muttered then looked pointedly at Drae. “This is serious.”

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” Drae pithily replied. “Fuck my life, man.”

Looking back to Calder, he asked, “The King himself contacted you?”

Calder chuckled gruffly and quirked a crooked grin. “Yep. More than once. He’s a hard man to ignore. When I didn’t respond immediately to the initial inquiry from his office, he came at me in person. In a nutshell, he only trusts Justice to handle this and is specifically asking for Draegyn.”

Drae muttered an unhappy “Goddammit,” while he glanced at Tori.

Alex did a quick assessment of what was before him. “Okay. So let me get this straight. King Sharif of Dashur is asking that Justice, and by that I mean Drae, figure out why his son Majid, who was in the Unites States attending college, would have suddenly gone off the radar?”

Drae muttered, “Fuck,” again only this time a bit louder which instantly earned him Tori’s undivided attention.

“Why Drae?” Alex asked Calder.

Before his uncle could say anything, Drae cut in, “Because Majid, that little fucker, has a bad case of hero worship where I’m concerned. I’ve done their security detail for the last two years each time any of the royal family is in the States. It was me who got stuck with escorting Majid around when he came to visit the colleges he was interested in. According to Sharif, he suddenly disappeared last week from his college dorm. They don’t think he’s been kidnapped because there have been no demands for ransom or so much as a whisper that the kid is M.I.A. Also, there may or may not be a girl involved. He wants me to locate him. Thinks the kid will respond to me before he’d give in to his father’s security forces.”

“You have to go, St. John. There isn’t any other way. If the kid is in real trouble, only someone with their shit together could find him. And if he’s just being a dick, well…”

A worried-looking Tori appeared at their sides and placed a hand on her husband’s arm. “Tell me,” she murmured.

Alex cleared his throat and got ready to intervene but Drae got there first.

“I have to go to Chicago for a few days.”

“No!” Tori cried vehemently. “Thanksgiving is coming. I need you here.”

All kinds of Justice hell broke loose after that. It was as if a distress call went out and next thing you knew, everyone swarmed.

Stephanie appeared in their midst and put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Easy,
shugah
,” she murmured softly. “Come and sit back down. Draegyn, help me,” she snapped at her son-in-law as she tried to drag Tori to the table set for their dinner.

“Your mom’s right, honey,” Drae asserted as he helped lead the pregnant waif to a seat. “Easy does it. Everything’s fine. Please don’t get upset.”

Tori turned tearful eyes on Alex and whined, “What the fuck? Why him?” She wiped away a waterfall of tears that suddenly began streaming down her face. “Alex, please.”

He heard Meghan mutter under her breath, “Do something.”
Shit.
What exactly was he supposed to do? Quickly moving to take the seat next to Tori, he grabbed one of her hands so she’d look only at him.

“Shh, shh, shh. Take a deep breath, little mommy, and relax.” Tori nodded and tried to stop blubbering but wasn’t having much success.

Stephanie, who looked like a fearsome and very pissed off mama bear, glared at all the men present and demanded an explanation. “Someone better explain what is going on.”

With no hint of that genteel Southern twang evident in her tone, Alex knew she was damn unhappy and probably one click away from exploding. He noticed that she avoided looking in Calder’s direction. And for his uncle’s part, he had the distinct expression of a man who was dumbfounded by the pithy tone and fierce expression on the face of someone he’d decided was little more than fluff and stuff.

Drae dropped into the chair on the other side of his wife and spoke gently to her. “Honey, it’s just a quick assignment. I’ll be in and out as quickly as I can. You knew this shit was gonna happen from time to time.”

“But Thanksgiving, Draegyn. And my mother’s here.” Turning accusing eyes on Alex, she growled, “I thought you said he could take time off till after the baby came.” Eyeing Calder with disgust, she added, “Isn’t he supposed to be picking up the slack?”

Fuck
, Alex thought. She was coming unglued, but there was nothing he could do.

From out of nowhere, he saw Brody’s hand slide between them with an ice-filled tumbler topped with a lemon wedge. He put his hand on Tori’s shoulder and said, “Ice water. Drink.” Then looked pointedly at Drae before taking a step back.

Alex looked around at all the concerned faces watching this scene play out. What was to have been a pleasant family barbecue to welcome Tori’s mom had turned into a full-blown crisis. He had to get control of the situation before it spiraled into a huge mess.

Carmen, Ria, and Betty each looked crestfallen and after the plans they’d shared with him, he knew why. Thanksgiving.
Double fuck.
Even if Drae went wheels up in the morning, that’d only give him a couple of days to resolve the King of Dashur’s family problem.

Ben, Gus, and Brody were shaking their heads, each knowing full well that Drae had his work cut out for him. Meghan was silent, but she and Lacey both looked like they were going to cry.

Cam crouched down at Tori’s feet and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll go with him. I’m a better tracker than he is and with me along it’ll speed things up.”

Stephanie wasn’t placated in the least with the offer and bit out, “Why the hell does he have to go at all?” Turning an accusing glare at Calder, she ripped into him. “If you’re here to take over, why in God’s name did you agree to send Draegyn?
Why
?”

“Because the fucking King of Dashur asked for him, lady. That’s why. And frankly, this is none of your goddamn business.”

Aw, shit,
Alex thought
.
This was getting ugly fast.

“None of my goddamn business?” she shrieked with outrage. “How exactly do you figure that, you pompous oaf.”

Oh, my fucking God. Had the genteel Southern belle just called his uncle a pompous oaf?

“Alright!” Alex barked. “Enough.” Putting on his most dignified Big Daddy expression, he eyed everyone present. That was all it took for the whole crew to shut the fuck up and give him a moment to catch his breath.

“Tori,” he said gently. “This is important, sweetheart. A young man is in trouble and his father has asked for Drae’s help. He knows the family better than any of us. We can’t turn down this request nor should we. Bottom line, babe—there’s a nineteen-year-old kid out there who might be in harm’s way. Draegyn has to go.”

She nodded slightly and clutched at her husband’s hand.

Next, he looked directly at Cameron. “Good thinking, bro. Going with him will speed things up. Thanks.”

To Calder he said, “Get all the profile details—as much as you can—before Drae leaves. Let’s do whatever we can to mitigate any extraneous information. Just the facts, okay?”

Standing, Alex took Stephanie by the shoulder and gave her a side hug. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. This is what we do, but you have my word that Justice will pull together as a team and do whatever is necessary to help Draegyn and get him back here to Victoria as quickly as possible. Thank God you’re here so he can concentrate on the assignment and not worry about things at home. Okay?” he added with another slight hug.

He saw her shoot a hard glance at Calder and searched for the right thing to say. As everyone else started talking amongst themselves, he leaned in and whispered in her ear. “This isn’t my uncle’s fault. If the decision was mine, and realistically it is since I get the final say in everything, I’d be asking the same of Drae.”

Stephanie didn’t say anything. She simply walked from his side, went to the drink cart where he watched her pour a rather substantial amount of bourbon into a glass, and shoot it down like it was water. Damn. She was scarier than he ever imagined. The lady had brass balls and an iron stomach to do what she just did—but whatever it took for her to back the fuck down was okay with him. A tearful, burbling pregnant woman was one thing. An angry, pissed off mother-in-law, another.

It was then he noticed that Calder was watching her, too, with a rather enigmatic expression on his face. Alex wondered what in the hell he was thinking but now wasn’t the time to ask.

Good ol’ Ben chose that moment to suggest they all grab a seat while he and Ria brought out the food.

There was a reason why Alex relied on the man for much more than just driving him around. Besides handling the enormous garden and greenhouse that supplied Ria with all sorts of produce and herbs, Ben was the calm one who always seemed to know when to change the subject or go in a different direction. Not only did he owe the man a serious bonus and something over-the-top for Christmas just for being so cool about the limo thing, he now needed to double down with thanks for having helped diffuse an unusually uncomfortable situation.

LUCKILY, THINGS CALMED DOWN ENOUGH that everyone ended up having a pleasant evening. The food had been amazing, and once Tori relaxed and the storm passed, it was as if nothing untoward had happened. Thank God because Alex wasn’t sure he could take another outburst.

It was almost midnight and he was sitting by himself in his favorite easy chair. Staring out at the dim outline of the surrounding mountains barely visible in the darkened sky, he waited for Meghan to join him.

When she appeared, strolling toward him from the en suite with that naughty roll she did with her hips, he sat back and enjoyed the show she was putting on. Reaching into the hair piled haphazardly on her head; she pulled out a clip that let her beautiful auburn curls loose so they could cascade over her shoulders.

Wearing a simple purple satin nightie that stopped well north of her knees, he admired her long legs and fleshy thighs. He gave a short thanks to whatever god was listening that she’d regained the weight she’d lost when they were apart. He liked her curves. No.
Fuck that.
He loved them. Loved her magnificent ass and the glorious mounds of her big breasts.

He expected her to sit in the chair next to his but instead she swayed provocatively right up to him, took the tumbler of whiskey from his hand and took a good swallow, then set it on the table between the chairs. Without a word, she floated onto his lap, wiggled for good measure, then wrapped her arms about his neck and nuzzled her face into his neck.

“M
mmmm
. You smell good,” she purred.

“That the whiskey talking?” he teased.