Shattered (The Protectors 11)

Another smile split his gorgeous lips. “For the right price,” he said.

I’d only seen this side of Caleb once before. It’d been when I’d spent Christmas with him and Mav and Eli. While Eli and Mav had attended a wedding, Caleb and I had gone sightseeing in Seattle and it was like he’d become a different person. We’d laughed and joked as we’d explored the marketplace, aquarium, and Space Needle. Under all the pain was a bright, charming, kindhearted young man with a melodic laugh and sparkling eyes.

I eyed him and said, “Okay, what is this going to cost me?”

He studied me for a moment, then said, “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to cash in my chips.”

There was something about the way he said the words that had my insides heating and my cock reacting. We’d somehow wandered into dangerous territory, but I couldn’t find it in me to object.

“Fair enough,” I murmured. I paused and then admitted my shameful secret. “I can’t ski.”

“Lots of people can’t ski,” he said.

“No, I mean, I really can’t. When I was a kid, my parents paid for me to take lessons with an Olympic gold medalist who lived in the area. I broke her skis… and her arm.”

Caleb sat there for a moment, his fork halfway to his mouth, before he laughed. “What?”

I nodded. “She was trying to guide me down the bunny hill and by the time we reached the bottom, I was lying on top of her. She was only the first in a long line of many. I ended up giving another instructor two black eyes and a broken nose when my skis got away from me as I was getting them out of the car. I broke my own leg once and sprained more joints than I can count. Even after almost four years of lessons, I never made it off the bunny hill.”

Caleb began to laugh so hard he had to put his fork down. He covered his mouth with his arm, but I was glad when he was unable to muffle the sound.

“Nice,” I said, feigning irritation.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t picture it. You’re so… so…”

He shook his head.

“So what?” I asked.

“Put together… untouchable,” Caleb finally said after settling. “I’d have thought you’d be good at everything.”

I shook my head. “Nope, I was such an awkward kid… you wouldn’t have even recognized me.”

“Do you have a picture?”

“Maybe,” I said as I began eating again.

“Can I see it?”

“Maybe.”

“How do I turn the maybe into definitely?” Caleb asked, his eyes dancing with amusement.

I pretended to study him for a long time before saying, “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to cash in my chips.”

Caleb chuckled. I grabbed my wallet and searched out the picture I kept in it. It was an old, wrinkled photograph of me, my sister, my parents, and my grandparents standing in front of a Christmas tree. I handed it to him.

“Wow,” he said as his eyes scanned the picture. “How old were you here?”

“Fourteen. It was the last Christmas we had together. My grandfather died a couple of months later and we lost my parents the following summer.”

“I’m sorry, that must have been hard.”

I nodded. “What about you? Is your grandmother still alive? The one who taught you to cook?”

Caleb shook his head. “She died about a month after my mom did. I think losing my mom broke her heart, you know? She kept saying no parent should outlive their child. My mom’s dad died when she was a little girl and my dad’s parents were both gone by the time I was born, so Nana was the only grandparent I had. No aunts or uncles, either.”

I’d figured there hadn’t been any other relatives, since it was his stepmother, Eli’s mother, Mariana, who’d had to take Caleb in after his father had been arrested.

“How were things with Mariana?” I asked. “Before you moved in with Mav and Eli.”

Caleb began to pick at what little food was left on his plate. “She was always really nice. We got along well from the time she married my dad. But that made things worse, you know?”

“How so?”

“I could tell she really loved my dad. It was hard to be a part of the secret he was keeping from her. And since I knew what Eli and my dad were doing, it felt like I was lying to her about that too.” Caleb lifted his eyes and quickly said, “I mean, what I thought Eli and my dad were doing at the time – I didn’t know Eli wasn’t into it.”

I reached out to cover his hand on the table. “I know, Caleb. Your father was really good at making people believe what he wanted them to.” It was a polite way of saying the man was a lying bag of shit who deserved a bullet to the brain like no one’s business. I’d seen the proof myself that Eli had been led to believe for years that he’d drunkenly instigated the first sexual encounter between him and his stepfather. The fucker had gone so far as to doctor a video of the brutal rape to make it look like Eli had not only been a willing participant, but that he’d started it. The reality was that he had, in fact, been drugged. I had no doubt Jack Cortano had played the same kind of mind games with his sons.