“And by the way, they were going to cancel, but Brennan asked them not to.”
“What?” I asked as I stopped and turned around.
“He thought you might appreciate your first time out to be with a smaller group,” Eli said, the humor in his voice on full display.
“You’re enjoying this just a little too much,” I murmured.
Eli wrapped his arms around my neck. “It’s kind of my first time too,” Eli said before he brushed a kiss over my lips. I didn’t need to ask Eli to explain because I knew what he was talking about. Admitting the truth about what Jack had done to him had finally set Eli free, and while he had a ways to go before he could relinquish the bits of self-doubt that still had him wondering if he hadn’t done something or said something to bring what had happened on himself, he was making great strides in accepting that his family had never seen him as an outsider. It had only been a few days since Jack had been arrested, but Eli had been through the wringer more than once.
His mother, Mariana, had arrived in Seattle the following day and hadn’t had any clue what was going on until Dom had brought her to mine and Eli’s hotel room to break the news to her. It had been brutal. There was just no other word for it. And I’d been there to bear witness to it all. The tears, the guilt, the regret, the anger, the rage, the denial…the emotions had been endless for all three of them. But the best thing that had come from the ordeal, was the decision that Dom, Eli and his mother would seek professional help, both together and individually, to try to deal with the trauma. Mariana had filed for divorce that same day and she’d made arrangements to have hers and Caleb’s things sent up from D.C. rather than traveling back there to collect them. When asked what should be done with the house, she’d told her lawyer to find someone to burn the fucker down.
Caleb had been a different story. He’d met with Declan the day after Declan had met with us and he’d shared the same information with him that he had with me, Jace and Eli. When Eli’s mother had arrived, she’d told Caleb that they would still be a family and that he would be staying with her in Seattle, but the young man had seemed disinterested. And I suspected the reason why.
Because Jace had left.
I had no idea if Jace had told Caleb if he was going or not, but one day the man had been there and the next day he wasn’t. It seemed he’d only been waiting long enough for Eli’s mother to arrive to look after Caleb before he’d taken off. Caleb had shut down after that and while there were plans to get him some professional help as well, my gut was telling me it wouldn’t be so easy. He’d also be tasked with testifying against his father at some point when Declan worked with the D.A. to add murder charges to the many counts of felony rape the man had already been charged with.
“We need lots of these,” I whispered against Eli’s mouth.
“Lots of what?”
“Firsts together,” I said.
Eli smiled and took my hand in his. “That gives me an idea,” he said coyly as he led me across the small stream that was one of many that carried runoff from Mount Rainier. We’d decided on taking the spur of the moment day trip this morning after we’d dropped a still healing Baby off with Eli’s mother and Caleb who were staying at the same hotel as us. Fortunately, the dog’s injuries hadn’t been life threatening, and the first thing I’d done when we’d gotten the Rottweiler back to our hotel room the day after the attack, had been to order him the best cut of steak the hotel restaurant offered.
I had a lot of firsts planned with Eli, one of them being getting a place together. For me, it also meant having a place to call home for the first time in my life. And one day there would be a wedding – a huge first for both of us. I wasn’t so sure about kids, but I wasn’t ruling them out. I’d ended up enjoying myself at Logan and Dom’s during their daughter’s sleepover, despite the fact that all the little girls had taken turns brushing and playing with my hair before Eli had come to rescue me from their clutches. And last night I’d had another first when I’d told Eli the truth about what I did for a living. I’d been worried that he would struggle with the fact that Ronan’s group worked outside the same law that his own family so strongly believed in, but he’d surprised me when he’d told me he’d already figured as much, considering all the resources that had been used to protect him. There’d been no requests for me to quit the business, which I was grateful for. Would there be a day when it was time for me to get out? Probably. But my work had been one of the few things in my life I’d been proud of, and I suspected it was something only Eli could ever understand about me.