4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Ava
The next day, Stephen is in my circular driveway, talking to one of the other guards, while I’m soaking up the scene from the second-floor window of Landon’s suite. His new uniform—a tailored suit like a secret service agent’s—is no less appealing than his police clothes used to be.
Everything about him is so familiar, from his height to the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes to the way his biceps flex when he gestures across the lawn.
He hasn’t let himself go—so strong and muscular.
Hollyn, my brother’s wife, once described Stephen as a “tree of a man,” and when I told him, I compared him to a giant sequoia.
He laughed, and my chest warmed. The rarest sound of joy that made me feel like I’d won a prize at a carnival.
Truthfully, the comparison to an ancient tree fit. Tall, strong, sturdy, and ageless. Stephen was a man who’d live forever, overcome any obstacle. A true superhero.
As though he can sense me, he glances up, scanning until our gazes lock.
A full-body shiver races through me, and my breathing stutters.
The desire to throw open the window and lean out over the sill is almost overwhelming.
I don’t even know what I’d do from there.
Invite him in? Try to breathe in his familiar scent from here?
The memory of the blend of oak, sandalwood, and citrus combined with his natural manliness flickers at the edge of my consciousness.
A smell I drew deep into my lungs every time he bent to speak to me, every time I was able to nuzzle under his ear while he curled over me, coming hard, his big hand gripping my ass to keep me pressed tight against him.
I turn away from the window, tempted to fan myself.
All of these remembrances are teenage notions that I should have outgrown when I tamped down all my impulsive tendencies.
Most of these urges vanished with Stephen anyway. Suppressing my recklessness was surprisingly easy once Stephen left. Raul stabilized my business, and Landon stabilized my life. Sure, the old Ava Tucker had to die for those things to happen, but I’ve never regretted that.
I turn back to the windowsill, my hands resting on the edge, itching to draw the pane up, let trouble in, but I force myself to step back.
No passing impulse is worth putting either of my relationships, with Landon or Raul, in jeopardy.
Two days later, it’s as though Stephen never returned at all.
Landon and I have been all over Bellerive, enjoying his last gasp before starting school—which he’s excited about and I’m dreading.
The older he gets, the more I realize that he might drift away from me the way my brothers and sisters have drifted from our mother, the way I drifted for a long time.
Even now, Landon craves independence in a way he didn’t two months ago.
“Where to next?” the bodyguard who’s been driving us around asks from the front seat.
“Gage’s house,” I say.
We pull away from the curb of the children’s store we’d been shopping at in Rockdown and head toward Ember and Gage’s modest estate along the coast of Bellerive.
The interior highway is the quickest route, and although I don’t know our bodyguard, he seems familiar with the island’s quirks. He must be local enough.
“Not Uncle Gage’s house. Nova and Charlotte won’t want to play cars,” Landon says, “and Ivy’s a baby. Aunt Maren’s is better.”
“We’re not going to the palace to see your cousins, Dante and River. I want to talk to Auntie Ember. You’ll just have to play something other than cars with Nova or Charlotte,” I say.
“Sounds boring,” Landon says with a huff.
“You can swim,” I say on impulse. “You all like swimming. I’ll sit on the deck to talk to Auntie Ember.”
“I’m a very good swimmer,” he says, his chest puffing out.
“You are,” I say, stroking his dark-brown hair off his forehead.
Stephen was right in that Landon is my mini-me.
From the color of his hair to the color of his eyes to the shape of his mouth, he’s all Tucker.
Dark hair and light eyes are Tucker traits—dominant ones, apparently.
I’ve been grateful that resemblance hasn’t changed as he’s grown. He’s mine.
A motorcycle revs beside us, loud and obnoxious. I turn to show them my annoyance, and something hits my window with a crack, splattering across the surface. Startled, it takes me a moment to process what’s smeared across my view.
Egg. Shell and yolk slime.
Then we’re being assaulted from what feels like all sides. Motorcycles with egg cartons are pelting the car, and when I catch our driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, he is neither cool nor calm. In fact, he looks more panicked than I feel.
“What’s going on?” Landon cries, trying to scooch closer.
“Angry people,” I say over the sound of eggs continually pelting the car.
How many eggs did these bikers bring?
“I’m scared,” Landon whimpers.
“Can you get us out of this?” I yell at our driver.
“Yeah, I just—”
Something hits the windshield with enough force that cracks spread across the window.
“Shit,” he curses. “I need to pull over.”
“Pull over?” I screech. “Are you kidding me?”
But the motorcycles, either because they realize they’ve gone too far or they’ve done as they intended, streak away, the sound of their engines getting farther away as our vehicle veers onto the shoulder of the road.
Immediately, our driver hops out, slamming his door.
I rub Landon’s back, and I peer at the front windshield. Whatever landed on it is pinkish-red and large, and it hit with enough force to cause a web of thick cracks.
“I’m going to pop out and see what that is, okay?” I say to Landon.
“No, no, no,” he says, trying to cling to me.
“We’re safe,” I say in a soothing voice. “They’re gone. We’re safe.”
“Don’t leave,” he says again, and I don’t have the heart to get out.
It’s not long before another car’s tires crackle on the gravel at the side of the road as they pull in behind us. When I glance over my shoulder, my heart kicks.
Stephen.
“Do you want to get out with me?” I ask Landon.
“No more bad people?”
“Stephen’s here,” I say. “You met him at the house the other day. The big, tall guy?”
“Stephen!” Landon’s face lights up. Every day, he’s asked when the first guy is coming back. “Yes, Stephen!” He unbuckles his seat belt and scrambles out of the car before I can.
“Hey, buddy,” I hear Stephen say. “You should get back in the car. We’re on the edge of the highway here. It’s not that safe.”
I climb out my side, and Stephen shakes his head as though he knows I got out because he said my son shouldn’t.
“What’s on the windshield?” I ask.
“A frozen steak,” Stephen says. “More like a roast, actually.”
“They’re unionizing because they feel poor, and they’re throwing meat at my car?” I say with a huff. “Make it make sense.”
“One roast,” Stephen says, raising his finger. When Landon is in front of him, he scoops him up, but he’s still not really making eye contact with me.
“Still,” I say, “it’s such a waste.”
“They’re returning it,” Stephen says.
“What’s that mean?”
He turns to face me, Landon still in his arms, and my chest tightens at the sight of them together. My son, so tiny, so innocent next to Stephen’s natural bulk. I’m tempted to squeeze my eyes closed to avoid having the image burned into my brain. It’s the last thing I need right now.
“Marlo,” Stephen says to my driver, his gaze boring into mine, “you drive this back. I’ll bring them in mine.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, dipping his head. “I’m sorry I let you down, Mrs. Santos.”
“We’ll discuss all the ways you let everyone down later,” Stephen says. “Get the windshield fixed and the car cleaned. You’ll be reassigned. Is there a car seat I need to grab?”
Marlo runs a hand down his face, and his shoulders are slumped. “No,” he says. “Bellerive law has kids out of car seats at five.” He gets into the filthy, damaged car.
“Doesn’t feel that safe,” Stephen mutters, more to himself than anyone.
“I don’t know what you expected Marlo to do,” I say to Stephen once he drives away.
“Get in the car,” he says to me, his gaze tinged with annoyance.
I cross my arms.
“Mrs. Santos,” he practically growls. “I’m putting your son in the car, and if you’re not in there, I’ll send another car to get you. You can stand here by yourself and wait for it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Honestly, I’d rather not. In the past, Stephen’s stubborn streak paired with mine led to several uncomfortable situations. That, yes, he eventually got me out of.
Throwing a glare in his direction, I practically stomp around the car in my heels and get into the back. Landon is shaken, and he might need me. Letting Stephen leave me alone on the side of the road would only make things worse.
Instead of putting my son in the car, Stephen and Landon are engaged in some sort of conversation by the door. I can’t hear anything other than the low murmur of their voices, and I’m on the verge of getting back out when Landon opens the door and climbs in beside me.
“You okay?” I ask, running my hand over the soft hair on the top of his head.
“Stephen says that’ll never happen again.”
Does he? A shot of annoyance snakes down my spine, making me sit up straighter.
When Stephen slides into the driver’s seat, I meet his gaze in the mirror. “I try not to deal in absolutes with my son. He’s only five. He’ll think you can really stop that from happening again.”
“I can,” Stephen says. “When I’m with you or your son, this will not happen.”
“You’re not with us,” I say. “Other people are.”
“I am now,” he says, guiding us back onto the highway. “Marlo was too green to be with you alone. We’re short-staffed, but I’ll reassign and reprioritize the remaining people we have to keep you both safer.”
“Why would you be doing that?”
“The Bellerive division is mine to run,” he says.
“Since when?”
“Since about six months ago when I bought into the company.”
“You’ve been back on the island for six months?” A heaviness settles across my chest that he’s been here for so long and I never knew.
“Give or take,” he says, and his hands flex on the wheel.
“How have we never run into each other?”
“I don’t know why we would.”
“You’re security. The people I spend time with, the circles I’m in, are the type to employ you.”
“Yes.”
I let out a frustrated grumble that he’s giving me so little. This never used to be how our conversations went.
“But, what?” I say, trying to catch his gaze in the mirror. “You’re the boss, so you don’t need to actually guard people?”
“Something like that.”
“You lied to me the other day.”
“How so?”
“You said Owen was tied up with another assignment, and that’s why you came alone.”
“I didn’t lie about Owen.”
He clearly didn’t want me to know he was the boss in Bellerive and not Owen. I let out a huff of annoyance. This game of hide-and-seek he’s playing with information and the truth is not my favorite.
“Now you’re going to guard me and Landon?”
“I do what’s needed for the company to maintain its reputation. Today was a massive mishandling by Marlo of a very important client.”
A little part of me wants Stephen to tell me he stepped in because he cares about me, not because he cares about the company’s reputation. Apparently, long-dead habits are still hard to break. The intense desire to be put first by him is scabbed over but easy to pick at, to uncover.
“I still don’t understand the steak,” I say.
“No?” He finally meets my gaze in the mirror. “You and your husband don’t talk?”
“What does the steak have to do with Raul?”
“Those steaks were delivered to The Nile workers with a card that said, ‘Vote No and the steaks stay cheap.’”
“He’s bribing them?” I say, and then I glance at Landon, realizing he’s probably following at least some pieces of this conversation.
“You seem surprised.”
“I don’t know,” I say, not keen to push when little ears might repeat what’s said. He doesn’t see much of Raul, but Landon is a parrot when a topic comes up that he thinks he knows something about.
Stephen seems content to let the conversation die when I don’t admit that I’m not surprised that Raul would do anything and everything to get what he wants. He’s not a terrible man, but he’s not a good one either.
“How do you even know all this?” I ask as we get close to my place, and it’s only then that I remember I was going to Ember’s for a visit.
“About his tactics?” Stephen asks, his expression shuttered.
“Yes.”
“My sister works for The Nile in the warehouse.”
“You have enough money to buy into Owen’s company, but your sister is still working a low-wage job?”
His jaw hardens, but he doesn’t make any attempt to explain himself.
The stonewalling only causes my mind to run wild with theories.
Vanessa, who is fifteen years younger than Stephen, has the same stubborn Foster streak as her brother.
She was in university off the island when Stephen disappeared, and she swore to me that she didn’t know where he’d gone. Probably bullshit.
We turn up the long driveway to my mansion, and it’s clear Stephen is done talking to me for today. Frustration bubbles inside me. For two people who used to be the rawest and realest versions of ourselves when we were together, I almost can’t believe how distant we’ve become.