Chapter 5 Distraction by Dessert #2
As I wiped them away, more instantly formed in their place.
Between my mother’s incessant messages and worry over my father’s health, I’d surpassed my limits.
Add in a new sister and the abrupt reappearance of my lost love, my emotional cup had sprung a leak.
I wasn’t on the verge of crumbling to pieces, I was breaking apart at the seams. Duncan clued in to my distress.
He quickly corralled the kids, suggesting they take their new cameras out back to practice taking pictures.
They hesitated, looking to me for guidance.
I gave them a lip-quivering smile and a nod, then breathed a sigh of relief when they took off out the side door.
A moment later, I was wrapped in his embrace, safe and secure.
Something I hadn’t felt in nine long years.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I corrected myself, answering honestly, “Everything. Ugh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Before I knew what was happening, my feet left the ground and my behind was deposited onto the counter.
Duncan used his hips to nudge my thighs apart, stepping between them.
In this position, we were almost nose to nose, giving him the perfect vantage point to watch the next set of tears fall from my eyes. He swiped them away with his thumbs.
“Bullshit. Talk to me.”
“Watching you with our kids was a dream come true, Duncan.”
“But?”
“No buts. My mini-meltdown has to do with a bunch of family crap I’ve avoided dealing with.”
“Stuff about your sister?”
“How do you”––I smacked my palm to my forehead––“I keep forgetting you work with Waverly, but no. Shannon is definitely not the problem. The opposite. I’ve been trying to convince her to move to Huntington.”
“Then what?”
“My parents. They’re not good people.”
His head tilted to the side. “Are they the arrestable kind of not good people? Because I happen to own several pairs of handcuffs.”
I huffed out a laugh. “If only it were that simple.”
“Tell me, Sunshine. I’m right here.”
So I did, and I didn’t hold back. Duncan deserved to know how two people who professed to love me were conspiring to use our children as their own personal organ bank.
How I’d been too much of a coward, running away and going radio silent, rather than confronting either of them.
He listened to every word without interruption, closing his eyes once I finished.
When they reopened, I shivered. Fury flickered like a raging wildfire behind his stone-cold gaze.
“You’re not a coward, Sloane.” The gentleness with which his fingers curved around the tops of my thighs contrasted with the venom in his tone.
“Out of everything I said, that’s what you narrowed in on?”
“Removing our kids from a harmful situation doesn’t make you weak, and it sure as fuck doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you a great mom.”
“It’s been weeks, Duncan. I need to deal with it before my mother gets fed up with me ignoring her ten thousand calls and texts. I’m not sure what I’d do if she ended up on my doorstep.”
“I’ve got bail money.” He winked.
“You might need it, just not for me. I’m positive Finn and Joel are already making waves for our father’s company in the business world.”
Joel was my brother’s head of security. He and his wife, Noreen––who was Finn’s assistant––had worked for him almost from the inception of Lachlan Industries. Over the years, the two of them became our family. Rogan and Reagan even called them Nana and Pop.
“Good. Saves me from having to do it.”
I grinned at the same time the side door flew open, slamming against the wall.
Both kids raced inside, but it was the look on their faces which had me hopping off the counter.
My feet had barely touched the floor before Reagan’s little body hit mine with enough force to knock me back a step.
Thankfully, Duncan was there to steady me.
Her face was buried in my stomach, so I looked at Ro.
“What’s wrong? Did you see a snake?”
As much as my kids loved nature, they were petrified of the slithering serpent. It was a common denominator in our household and the reason I carried a big walking stick whenever we went out on a hike.
“There’s someone in the woods, Momma.”
I froze solid at his utterance. Duncan did not. He dropped to his knees in front of his son.
“Did you see someone or hear them?”
“Saw them.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Reagan turned her head enough to share, “Dey had a mask like a ninja.”
“Gotcha.” He reached out slowly, placing a hand on Rogan’s upper arm. “What about their clothes? Do you remember what color they were?”
Ro nodded quickly. “Black.”
“Good job, Bud. One more question. Where were they?”
Even though we were inside, he pointed his finger. “In the corner, by the gate.”
Duncan shot to his feet, grabbed his jacket, and called over his shoulder, “Lock the doors behind me, then call Waverly and tell her what happened.”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“Hunting.”
Within minutes of ending the call, Waverly and four FBI agents descended on my little house, followed by one seriously peeved older brother.
The kids and I met her team a few days before at the party, so they weren’t exactly strangers.
That didn’t matter to Reagan. She slipped back into shy mode, using her uncle like a shield to hide behind.
Rogan, on the other hand, was completely enamored with a certain blond agent.
News flash: it wasn’t Koen. Poor Lanie had no idea the kind of attention she was about to receive. My boy was a shameless flirt.
Keaton and Noah left soon after arriving, racing to catch up with Duncan.
The others set up a makeshift command center on my kitchen table.
There were more laptops than people, which didn’t compute until I noticed one was split into four screens, each one showing a different live angle of my backyard.
The alarms on the doors and windows were explained to me when we moved in, but someone failed to mention a major component of the security system.
“How long have the cameras been out there?” My question wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular. Finn was the one who answered.
“I had them installed after the break-in.”
“First off, what break-in?”
“Oh.” He looked everywhere except at me. “We must’ve forgotten to tell you.”
Waverly stepped up beside him, patting him on the arm. “There was no we, Finnian O’Lachlan. You didn’t want to scare her.”
“Way to throw me under the bus, baby.”
“Anytime.” She rose up on her toes, kissing him on the cheek.
“It’s why Waverly was staying with me. My stalker broke in here and took a shot at her.”
“Whoa, someone shot at you?”
Shrugging like it was no big deal, she replied, “Sort of comes with the job description.”
My soon-to-be sister-in-law kicked serious booty.
At thirty-three, I was thankful my career didn’t include deadly projectiles whizzing past my head.
The most terrifying things I had to deal with as, CFO for Finn’s company, was the occasional corporate espionage and internal audits.
They were the bane of my existence and like Waverly’s bullets, they were part of my job description.
When the FBI lingo started flying, Finn steered the twins to the living room.
He flipped on the TV and sat on the couch between them.
“Nothing happened. They’re safe,” I repeated over and over in my head.
Regardless of the fact my babies were less than fifteen feet away, I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.
I couldn’t even blink without my mind racing toward the prospect of what might have been.
It scared the bejesus out of me. If Duncan hadn’t been there…
Nope. Pull yourself together, Sloane.
I forced myself to move, one foot in front of the other until I reached my destination.
The refrigerator. My mother taught me many things growing up.
Being a good hostess was at the top of the list. Crime fighter I was not, but I could whip up a heck of a spread.
That was how Duncan found me a short while later, arranging vegetables, cheeses, crackers, and dips.
Leaning halfway across the counter, he snatched a square of cheddar and popped it in his mouth.
“Hey, Sunshine.”
“Hey, yourself. Any luck?”
“No.” He exhaled heavily. “Whoever it was, they were long gone. I’m going to check in with Waverly, see if they’ve found anything on the cameras.”
“Mkay.”
“You know you don’t have to feed them, right?”
“It’s just a charcuterie board.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Charcuterie. It’s French. Basically, an assortment of finger foods on a fancy cutting board.”
Duncan strolled around the counter, coming to stand at my side.
When he reached for more cheese, I plucked it from between his fingers, placed it on a cracker with a smear of fig jam, dipped the edge in balsamic, then held it up for him to taste.
The groan that left his mouth when he devoured the treat in one bite was hot, much too hot to be considered polite, given we were in a room full of people.
None of them were paying us any attention, otherwise they would’ve seen my thigh-clenching squirm.
I wasn’t so lucky with Duncan. He grinned at my obvious discomfort, but thankfully, let me off the hook.
“Koen’s like a stray dog. If you give him food, he’ll keep coming back.”
I cleared my throat. “I like them.”
“That’s good”––his lips pressed to my temple––“because they’re part of our family.”