Chapter Twenty-Six
He loved Gia.
Love.
It was the first time Caleb let the word rise fully to the surface, even though it had been there, waiting, just beneath his thoughts.
He lay on his side and watched her sleep. Moonlight filtered through the blinds, casting the bed in pale stripes of silver and shadow.
They’d crawled out of bed long enough to eat dinner, made love again, then crashed. He’d been sleeping pretty soundly, in fact.
Until a hot, wet mouth on his dick blasted his eyes open. Gia kneeled between his legs, hair cascading like rainwater over his thighs, sapphire eyes wide with hunger.
And fear.
No matter how many times he’d made her scream with pleasure, he hadn’t been able to erase the shadows clinging to the edges.
He wound a strand of her hair around his finger and brought it to his nose.
Desert rose.
When was the exact moment he’d fallen for her?
Maybe it was when she walked into Lucero’s Lounge with that scared-doe look.
Or when she slid into the seat beside him at his mother’s funeral, refusing to let him sit alone.
Maybe it was wh en she took command at the accident scene—boss-lady energy in full force—yet still trusted him enough to back her up with his training.
Hell , all he knew was he wanted her.
Wanted her safe.
And he’d do whatever it took to make sure she stayed that way.
His fists curled, bronzed knuckles standing out against the sterile white sheets.
Those hands had worshipped her. Every inch of her softness and curves. He’d sunk his fingers into her wet heat and lapped up her screams when she came.
He flexed them now. Those same hands had killed—and would again, without hesitation, if that’s what it took to protect her.
Would she look at him differently?
Her, with her healer’s hands and gentle heart.
Him, with his warrior’s fists and cold calculation.
Lopez wouldn't walk away from this alive. He'd make sure the drug lord didn’t live to see the end of the week.
Restless, he slid out of bed, threw on his jeans, and slipped quietly into the living room so as to not awaken Gia.
His grandfather’s words from earlier in the day lingered.
We are your family.
He’d learned, finally, the meaning of family—family were the ones who had your six, the ones you called when your back was against the wall, the ones you were willing to fight and bleed for.
His teammates at Dìleas. They weren’t just people he trusted.
They were family.
Zach.
Despite the risk to his career, Zach stood with him, ready to help take down Vincente Lopez. His grandfather risked his position, too. They saw him as fa mily—even when he hadn’t been ready to do the same.
Caleb’s gaze drifted to the box his grandfather had given him—the one he’d set down in the corner when they’d returned to the safe house, too preoccupied with the call to Lopez to worry about what it contained.
The one with his mother’s belongings.
He picked it up and carried it to the couch.
Just a plain brown box, like a million others delivered across the country every day. Unremarkable, with no hint of the weight it carried.
Digging out his multi-tool, he sliced through the tape.
Inside was a wad of white tissue paper. It had weight to it. When he peeled it back, a turquoise and silver squash blossom necklace emerged—nearly identical to the one someone had placed around his mother’s neck in her coffin.
A pang pulled tight in his chest.
One of her prized possessions, given to her by her mother on her wedding day. He’d thought his old man had pawned it years ago. Somehow, she’d kept it hidden—protected it, even as his father stole whatever he could for coke, booze, or whatever the hell else he was chasing.
On impulse, he fastened the heavy chain around his neck. The silver felt cool against his skin. Then it warmed to him.
He reached into the box again and found a sterling silver cuff bracelet, set with five turquoise stones, similar to the ones worn by Zach and his grandfather. He slipped it onto his wrist.
Beneath old photographs and insurance papers, he found a stack of journals. The top one had a colorful floral design on its cover.
It took him a moment to recognize it as the same adhesive shelf paper his mother used to line their kitchen cupboards.
He set the jour nal on his lap. Stared at it. Seconds crawled by.
Read it.
But what if it confirmed everything he’d always believed?
That her family had turned their backs on her.
Or worse—
What if everything Lillie Blackwater Varella told him was a lie?
Lifting the cover, he saw his mother’s light, looping scrawl.
At a glance, he could tell her mood when she wrote—on good days, the letters were big and rounded. On bad ones, when depression dragged her into a ravine she couldn’t escape, her handwriting turned small and pinched, like her emotions.
The first entry was dated the day she met Julian Varella—an outsider working at a local construction job—at the Navajo Nation Fair. A teenage girl, flush with excitement, who’d caught the attention of a handsome man in his twenties.
Caleb skimmed through the entries. They were sporadic rather than daily, reflecting the highs and lows that apparently dictated when his mother felt the need to write.
Her parents’ disapproval of the man she’d chosen.
The shock of finding out she was pregnant.
Her belief that the baby was her way out of reservation life.
And then, the slow unraveling.
The man she’d married wasn’t Prince Charming.
He isolated her after Caleb was born. Got her hooked on drugs.
Threatened to have her declared unfit when she tried to leave.
Her mental health declined, especially after her mother died when Caleb was twelve. They’d fought constantly, but Patricia Blackwater had been her anchor. When she was gone, something in Lillie broke.
Not long after, they moved to Phoenix. Even as her family reached out, fear and shame kept her from going back.
The only bright spot left in her life was Caleb. She’d clung to him. Feared losing him. Feared her family might believe the lies—that she wasn’t fit to raise her son.
Caleb closed the last journal and ran his fingers over the frayed cover.
It hadn’t been his mother’s family who cut ties.
It had been her.
And she’d regretted it.
He swallowed hard. Then again. Grief—raw and aching—pushed up from where he’d buried it for years.
If things had been different, he might have grown up knowing Zach. Might have had a relationship with his grandfather. Might have belonged—to his people. To the Diné culture he’d always kept at arm’s length.
“Caleb?”
Gia. He hadn’t heard her come into the living room.
She crept to the couch and sat beside him. “I woke up and you were gone.”
Her fingers brushed his cheek and came away wet. Tears he hadn’t realized he’d shed. “You opened your mother’s box.”
“I should have done more.”
“You were a child.” Her hand drifted to the necklace at his throat. “This is beautiful. Was it hers?”
“She was ashamed of what she’d become. Afraid of losing me.”
Gia took his hand and squeezed. “It’s not too late to get to know your family.”
He kissed her—gently at first, then deeper, pulling her close, needing her warmth to quiet the storm inside him.
She was his ref uge. Her sweet kisses softened his grief. Her hands smoothed up his arms and curled around his neck, anchoring him in the present.
He breathed her in, her scent like desert flowers after rain, and molded her softness against the hard edges of himself.
His mother would have liked her. Would’ve seen a kindred soul—someone who understood what it meant to survive violence and chaos and still find strength on the other side.
And he had to dangle her like bait in front of a cartel prince just to set her free.
The thought turned his blood to ice—then sent it surging through his veins like a fire hose, threatening to rupture the one organ he couldn’t live without.
The one that belonged to Gia.
“Come back to bed,” she whispered when they finally broke for breath. She twined her fingers with his and rose, gently pulling him to his feet.
He followed—willing, undone.
And then he made love to her again—slow and reverent, pouring every piece of himself into her.
Her soft, breathy cry as she came unshackled the boy he’d once been—watching life from the outside—and freed the man who could finally love.
He loved Gia. She was his family.
And, after reading his mother’s journals, he owed his Diné family a fresh start, built upon the ashes of misunderstanding and regret.
All they had to do was get through the next few days.