Chapter Eight
Desert Rose.
Warm, earthy and floral.
Caleb inhaled Gia’s scent, tension easing from his body as she settled into the passenger seat. “You know, you still haven’t told me your last name.”
“Does it matter?” Gia kept her gaze on the passenger window, her voice distant.
He kept his tone light. “I told you mine. Fair’s fair.”
A quarter mile of silence stretched out before she answered. “Barone.”
Gianna Barone.
It rolled through his mind like a song lyric. Delicate, but with a core of strength. Like her.
She cocked her head toward him. “President Blackwater said he’ll observe the traditional four days of mourning. Will you do the same?”
He shrugged to loosen the sudden knot in his shoulders. “In my way.”
Maybe he’d take a few extra days after settling his mother’s affairs in Phoenix—let the shoulder heal. He could still get back in time to take the New York job.
“There.” Gia pointed to a small single-story house—off-white stucco trimmed in gray stone .
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He knew this place.
His grandfather still lived in the modest home he’d built for his wife not long before she died. Caleb had expected the Navajo Nation president to have fancier digs.
Street parking was their only option. He stayed in the Jeep, seatbelt latched, as his grandfather, aunt and uncle, and Zach streamed inside, the security detail close behind.
Gia’s hand slid over his.
“Caleb?” Her voice was gentle. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah.” He forced a smile and unlatched his belt.
Memories buffeted him as he stepped inside. The black, wood-burning stove in the living room corner. The tan sofa and brown armchair around a wood coffee table. Even the oak dining table crowded with documents instead of plates looked familiar—a workspace rather than a place for communal meals.
In the kitchen, a silver-haired Navajo woman stirred a cast-iron pot on the stove.
She was new—to him, at least. The smell of mutton stew and fry bread made his stomach gurgle.
His grandmother had made stew like that.
After they moved to Phoenix, his mother had tried—cheaper cuts of meat, fewer spices—but eventually, even that had stopped.
“Lucy, this is my grandson, Caleb.” His grandfather’s voice brought him back to the present. “Lucy keeps me fed and my house in order.”
“ Yá’át’ééh , Caleb.” Lucy handed him a steaming bowl and a generous piece of fry bread.
“ Yá’át’ééh, shimá sání .” He returned the greeting, adding my grandmother as a term of respect.
Meal in hand, he hovered, unsure where to sit. The small space made him claustrophobic. His family probably had seats they gravitated to after years of gatherings he and his mother hadn’t been part of. Would he have grown up sitting next to Zach? Would his life have been different if they’d stayed?
A dull ache bloomed in his chest. His jaw tightened.
No use mourning what might have been. He’d survived and was doing just fine.
His grandfather settled into the armchair by the stove. His aunt and uncle carved out space at the dining table. Gia and Zach took the sofa.
“Come sit,” Gia said, patting the cushion beside her. There was something in her expression—the way her gaze lingered on his family, that hinted at a longing Caleb recognized all too well.
He lowered himself next to her and set his bowl on the coffee table, then tore a piece of fry bread and scooped a bite of stew into his mouth.
The flavors—tender meat, spicy chilies, carrots, onions, and—exploded across his taste buds and warmed his stomach. His eyes fell shut, savoring the connection to a life that used to be his a long time ago.
“My grandson approves, Lucy.” A smile hovered over his grandfather’s lips, despite the sadness in his eyes.
The small boy inside Caleb leaned into the hint of affection. The grown man remembered the years of silence, the abandonment.
His jaw tightened.
Too little, too late .
He wiped his mouth. “We need to discuss Gia’s protection.”
Gia placed her bowl carefully on the coffee table with unsteady hands.
Straightening, she turned toward Ben. “I’m so grateful, President Blackwater, for all you’ve done. But I think it’s best if I leave so my personal issues don’t endanger anyone here.”
“Gia—” Zach started .
Their grandfather silenced him with a lift of his hand. “You’re safer here. And our clinic is short-staffed. You have a twelve-week contract, and we need you for every one of those weeks.”
His gaze cut to Caleb. Calculating. “My grandson’s job is protecting people. Perhaps he’ll stay until we know the threat has passed.”
“I don’t work for you.” “We don’t need him.” Caleb and Zach tripped over each other’s protests.
Their grandfather’s eyes darkened in rebuke.
But what made Caleb’s gut twist wasn’t that—it was the hurt flashing across Gia’s face. The pink dusting her cheeks.
The stew turned to lead in his stomach.
He was being an ass.
Maybe if someone had stood up to his father, offered his mother a way out, she wouldn’t have spiraled into addiction. Maybe she would have had choices. Opportunities.
If he’d stayed in Phoenix, instead of chasing freedom in the Army, he could have helped her. She wouldn’t have died alone, abandoned by everyone she once loved.
Including him.
His fingers curled into his palms.
Maybe it was too late for his amá , but he could damn well help Gia.
Protecting people was his job. One he had a particular set of skills for. Could he look his Dìleas teammates in the eye if he didn’t help? Lachlan, Nathan, and Ryder had all put their lives on the line at some point to protect a woman.
And had ended up married or soon to be married to those women.
Moisture beaded on Caleb’s hairline. This wasn’t the same situation, of course. He shifted on the sofa cushion, avoiding the gaze of the woman seated next to him, the smooth skin of her thigh inches from his .
“I’ll stay another day or two,” he kept his voice neutral, “to help Gia figure out the safest path forward. Then I need to get back to my job.”
And the life he’d made for himself that wasn’t here.
Gia had told the men who attacked her that she was just a stranger passing through, but Caleb didn’t trust that her ex—whoever he was—wouldn’t ferret out where she lived and worked, if he hadn’t already.
Until Caleb conducted a more thorough threat assessment and gathered intel on her former fiancé, he couldn’t recommend she upend her life without solid reasons and a clear plan.
The Navajo needed her medical skills, and she had a contract he could tell she wanted to honor.
He carried his bowl to the kitchen.
“If you’re ready,” he said to Gia when he returned, “I’ll take you home.”
“So you’ll stay?” Ben asked Gia.
She drew in a breath. “Yes.”
But Caleb could see the for now in her eyes.
Ben turned to him. “Will I see you before you leave, Grandson?”
Caleb hesitated. The weary hope in his grandfather’s voice twisted something deep inside him. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Guilt prickled under his skin. He hated how easily these people had slipped beneath his armor.
“If Gia stays,” he added, “I’ll draw up a security plan. Zach can help her implement it.”
She stood quietly at his elbow. Unlike his relatives, her presence calmed him. The fact she had stood physically close to him all day, unafraid, made his chest puff a bit.
“I’ve got to head into work.” Zach shrugged into his jacket. To Gia he said, “I’ll check on you later.”
Gia stayed silent as she followed Caleb to his car .
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for my response to sound like I wasn’t interested in helping you.”
She sighed. “You don’t have to feel obligated. It’s best if you don’t get involved.”
He opened her door. Watched her slide inside.
Too late. “I’m already involved.”
The truth of that statement hit him like the concussive blast from a grenade. No matter how this ended, walking away from Gia wouldn’t be easy.
He’d text Ryder. Take an extra week off. He could still take over the New York job if Ryder assigned one of the other guys to do the preliminary leg work.
They drove in silence, Gia staring out the window, arms folded tight across her chest. Caleb kept his hand loose on the wheel even as tension coiled tight through him.
She was shutting down. Retreating into herself. Like his mother used to do when life overwhelmed her.
“Tell me about him. This ex.”
Her shoulders sagged. “The smart thing to do would be to leave. I don’t want anyone else paying the price for my mistake.”
A knot formed between his shoulder blades. “What mistake would that be?”
Was she protecting the bastard? His mother had always defended her husband, no matter what he did.
Silence stretched between them, thick and oppressive.
“What’s his name?” he pressed.
“Please, you don’t want to cross him.”
He pulled to the shoulder. Killed the engine.
“What are you doing?” Tension radiated off her .
“His. Name.” Caleb stared her down. Waited as emotions danced across her face like a highlight reel.
Finally, a whisper. “Vincente Garcia.”
He leaned back, studying her closely. “What does Vincente Garcia do for a living?”
“Caleb—”
“Gia, Give me something to work with. You can make this easy, or make it hard, but I will find out what I need to know.”
Her voice cracked. “He owns a nightclub and some restaurants.”
“Where?”
“Miami.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes. Not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.
He started the Jeep. Pulled back onto the road. Shifted to the oncoming lane to pass a horse and its rider on the shoulder. “Is that where you’re from?”
“I did my residency there, then joined a practice. Concierge medicine.” Her lips puckered, like she had a foul taste in her mouth.
Concierge medicine for the rich and powerful. A far cry from Gia’s job at the clinic on the reservation.
“You meet him through your practice?”
She flinched, but said nothing.
Frustration was a low simmer in his veins. “Any idea why those men were looking for you?”