Maya Banks - Colters’ Gift

“Now, I want someone I can trust and someone I know will do a good job. Callie could do it, but I don’t want to lay that on her. She and Max travel frequently and the thing is, she doesn’t need the job. Max has more money than his grandchildren will spend in a lifetime. Not to mention, I don’t want my sister to shoulder that kind of a load.”

“Why did you say Lauren was worried about us?” Liam asked softly. “And how would you know this?”

Seth’s mouth turned down into a grimace. “She confided in Mom that she’s scared that you both gave up too much for her. That you won’t be happy here. She’s worried that you’ll feel too much pressure to support her and her desire to stay here with family. She’s mentioned that she wonders if she shouldn’t be willing to go back to New York so that you two can resume your lives and careers, but at the same time, it terrifies her.”

“Son of a bitch,” Noah muttered. “That’s a hell of a note.”

Liam didn’t look any happier with the news.

“Jesus, and here we’ve thought that she’s still dealing with what happened,” Liam said. “I never once imagined she had gotten such a crazy thought in her head that we wouldn’t be happy here or that for the love of God, we were making this huge sacrifice for her. Fuck that. We’re right where we want to be. That’s not changing.”

Dillon grinned broadly. “So you’ll take the jobs?”

“Whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Noah said. “That’s a lot to lay on us all at once. While I don’t doubt for a minute that Liam could do the job as a deputy, I have zero experience in retail.”

Dillon shrugged. “You’ve run your own business for years. Now you’ll be running mine. Business is business. If I didn’t think you were capable, believe me, I would not hand over my entire livelihood to you. I have a wife and a child to think about. Those businesses are how I support them, how I support my family.”

Noah glanced at Liam again to see a thoughtful look on his friend’s face.

“Liam?” Noah asked. “What do you think?”

Liam’s expression darkened a bit. “What I think is that we have a lot to talk to Lauren about. And a lot of points to reassure her on. She’s our fucking life. And our life is here. There’s no sacrifice too big to make to have that life with her.”

“This could go a long way in reassuring her,” Noah said quietly. “If we had jobs here. Worked with people we like. No amount of talking is going to completely convince her that we’re happy. But we can show her.”

Liam looked at Seth, a grimace etched on his forehead. “Have to tell you. I’ve been my own boss for a lot of years. I appreciate the offer, and I’ll do the best job I can, but I’ll warn you now. I’m used to doing things my way and not having a boss hanging over my shoulder all the time.”

Seth chuckled. “I never imagined you did. Look, I don’t micromanage my deputies. Do the job, and you and I will never have an issue. I’d rather you look at this as a partnership. A shared duty to protect this town. And the people we love.”

“I think I can handle that,” Liam said slowly.

“What about you?” Dillon asked Noah. “Are you in?”

“Hell, I’d be a fool not to, but we need to at least discuss my salary. I don’t come cheap you know, and eventually I plan to have children to support as well.”

Dillon threw back his head and laughed.

“You up for a trial by fire? I only have a few weeks until Lily delivers, and when that happens, I’m out. I won’t leave her. Not even for an hour. This is too important. She’s been through hell before, and over my dead body will that ever happen again.”

“Liam and I need to discuss this with Lauren. This affects her too, and I want to be sure she’s on board. And evidently, Liam and I haven’t been seeing what’s going on in her head lately. We thought . . .” He ran a hand through his hair in a weary motion. “She hasn’t been sleeping. She still has nightmares. And the fact that she’s been stressing about us . . . Goddamn. That guts me. I wish to fuck we’d known. We purposely haven’t addressed the issue of what we’ll do, because we haven’t wanted to spend even one minute away from her. She needs us. We had plenty of time to work it all out, and I wish to fuck she hadn’t worked herself in knots over it.”

“She’s a sweet woman with a heart of gold,” Seth said. “She wants what’s best for everyone around her. She never thinks of herself.”

“That shit’s got to stop,” Liam said bluntly. “Starting now.”

Noah nodded his agreement.

“How about you come into town this afternoon and fill out an application at the sheriff’s office?” Seth said to Liam. “There will be a town council meeting in a few days to announce Jim’s retirement. He’ll be happy that I found a replacement so soon, because he promised to stay on until I hired someone else, but he wants out now. And the council will listen to my recommendation. As long as you don’t have any skeletons in your closet, you’ll be a shoo-in. With your military background and your experience in personal security, the town will feel safe in your hands.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Liam said. “Noah and I appreciate this. More than you could possibly know.”

“You’re family,” Dillon said with a grin. “One of us now. Which means you’ll have the dads breathing down your neck, making sure you stay on your toes. Mom will smother you with hugs and take over your lives. And of course babysitting the new niece or nephew will keep you occupied from time to time.”

“That goes both ways,” Liam said, a gleam in his eyes. “I’m planning to have a few munchkins myself, and I can’t think of a better place to leave them than with their aunt and three uncles.”

Wonder seeped into Noah’s heart. How easily they sat talking about the future. A future with Lauren. And their children. The families spending time together and babysitting.

But first . . . First they had to ease Lauren’s fears and make sure she knew that there was nothing in the world they wouldn’t do to have her with them forever.

LAUREN brushed out her hair and strained her ear toward the door, trying to figure out if Seth and Dillon were still here. She wasn’t sure what they’d wanted to discuss with Liam and Noah, but she didn’t want to intrude.

Her hand shook slightly as she laid the brush down and stared back at her reflection. She needed no one to point out the fact that she still had shadows in her eyes. She could see that herself. And no matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to shake the residual fear, shame and worry from her heart.

She sighed. It was senseless, all of it. Joel couldn’t hurt her. His sidekick couldn’t hurt her. He was going to rot in jail, of that she had no doubt. And even now, the district attorney in New York was cleaning house. The scandal had already been blasted across the media.

She’d been terrified that somehow her name would be linked to it all. That there was nowhere she could escape her past. She’d watched the news for four straight nights, glued to the television, despite Liam’s and Noah’s objections. They hadn’t wanted her to see it, to dwell on it. They wanted her to put it behind her. But she’d needed to know if she was somehow linked to it all.

But no, the news had been full of the resulting arrests and the splashing about of prominent names on the screens. All involved in a prostitution ring.

She shivered, more grateful than ever that the D.A. hadn’t involved her. That he hadn’t needed to. She would have likely been a target for a lot of people if it had been known she was the one who turned over the information to the authorities.

“Baby?”

Lauren picked her head up, startled by the soft endearment Liam whispered. He was standing behind her, in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her intently. Concern was bright in his eyes, and she hastily smiled to reassure him. She didn’t want them worrying. They worried far too much and had lost as much sleep as she had since they’d come home.

One day . . . One day it would all be behind them. Not so fresh in her memories or in her mind. Until then, all she could do was take it one day at a time, knowing that each day that passed was one day closer to redemption. Forgiveness. Self-forgiveness.

Liam walked over and slid his hands over her shoulders, squeezing gently before gathering the strands of hair in his hand and allowing them to slide over his fingers.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

Her smile grew bigger and her chest tightened.

“Yeah, you have, but that’s one thing I’ll never grow tired of hearing.”

He leaned down, sweeping her hair aside so he could kiss her neck. A shiver overtook her, prickling her skin as chill bumps popped and danced their way across her flesh.