“No, you won’t. But I’ll pass that note along anyway. My dick thanks you.”
Adding fuel to the flame, Cliff added, “Tell Sydney I said hello,” knowing that it would rile Dylan up. And sure enough, the man clenched his fists at his sides.
“Fucker,” the man mumbled under his breath as he turned to exit the shop, Logan followed suit.
“See ya tomorrow,” Cliff called out with a laugh as he watched the man leave the shop. He headed to the front door to lock it back in place before returning to his station.
For the first time in a few weeks, Cliff had the urge to go out in the field and capture nature’s beauty with his camera. He sat back in his chair and wondered if the notion of family had something to do with that or if it was the mention of the woman that he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Family. It has to be family.
Cliff knocked on the front door of the Connelly’s home. The red door opened wide before his knuckles left the wooden surface and Amy tugged him into her arms. Despite her petite stature, Amy gripped him tightly within her embrace, his breath leaving his lungs in a whoosh.
“Cliff, I am so glad you could make it.”
Feeling admonished at his actions, Cliff sheepishly replied, “I figured it was time to make an appearance. Thank you for having me, Mrs. Connelly.”
“Amy, please.” She stepped around him and closed the front door before leading him through her house toward the ample dining space. Cliff had been in the house before, but always under the worst reasons. The Connelly’s were a target for bad luck and usually required Cliff’s sniper and reconnaissance expertise, not that he ever minded. With a family of billionaires, rock stars, and celebrities, it was almost inevitable that bad shit would find them. Luckily, it had been quiet on their home front since all of the children were married off. Fate had a strange way of bringing people together.
But tonight, Cliff was here on good terms, better terms. The table was filled to the brim with food and every available seat at the extended table was occupied. Every seat except the one next to Amy. As he passed by his friends, all the men smiled knowingly while the women nudged their husbands, silently thanking them for getting Cliff to accept the invitation.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed no random woman awaiting his arrival either.
“This looks delicious, Amy. Good to see you, Mr. Connelly.” Cliff made sure to shake the hand of the man that raised his best friends. It was a surprise to even see him at dinner considering he was the fire chief in the town, providing both fire and rescue assistance in the town as needed. The town’s budget only allowed for one hired employee, volunteers provided the rest of the help. Even Cliff made it a point to aid when he could, but with the influx of residents to the town and the new retirement community opening in a few weeks, he knew that Joseph was stretched thin. Cliff, along with hundreds of others in a town hall meeting, have petitioned the mayor to increase the fire and rescue budget.
Cliff sat silently as he ate his meal, humbly listening to the conversations flowing around him. Despite the siblings bickering back and forth, he could hear that their words were filled with love. Growing up, Cliff had always dreamed of having a family as large as this one. But it wasn’t in the cards for him then and it wasn’t in the deck now.
As the dinner ended, Amy stepped away and returned with a few pies as dessert. Saliva pooled in his mouth at the thought of devouring a slice of Amy’s famous apple pie.
The matriarch plates him a large slice and he holds the scalloped edged plate with reverence. Taking a hearty bite, the crusty edges with the sweet inside melted in Cliff’s mouth and he has to fight back a groan of appreciation.
“This is the best pie I’ve ever had, Amy.”
“Why thank you, Cliff. It is nice to see someone taking the time to enjoy it instead of scarfing it down like everyone else at the table,” the mother of the family admonished. The table grew so quiet that the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantle could be heard.
Cliff chuckled, his laughter breaking through the silence of the room and quickly others began to join in. The group offered their apologies to Amy before diving back into their desserts, but he didn’t miss the wink she aimed in his direction before enjoying her own piece of pie.
Down at the other end of the table, Dylan stood abruptly with his phone pressed to his ear, Sydney watched with alarm. Her expressive brown eyes bulged with alarm and her hand pressed to her mouth. Something has happened and by their expressions, Cliff was guessing that the news wasn’t a good one.
The people in the room stared and listened as Dylan gave one-word answers to the caller on the phone, his face developing an ashen shade with each passing moment. Cliff’s fear spiked, his skin grew clammy in expectancy as Dylan met his gaze. Patience had never been Cliff’s strong suit, and the seconds that passed were agonizing. Like shards of thin paper, Cliff’s skin felt as if it was being torn apart, shred by tormenting shred, bleeding out onto Amy’s gleaming hardwood floor, staining it.
Dylan ended his call and maintained his stare at Cliff. “I need you and Logan, now.” Standing without a second thought, his chair clattered to the floor behind him. Logan did the same, missing the look of alarm on Avery’s face as she cradled her stomach.
Questions were thrown across the room and Dylan shut them down with a hand raised in the air. “Listen. I don’t have a lot of information. I got a call that someone needs my help and they requested a doctor and someone that can protect the victim. That’s all that I know.”
“When will they be here?” Amy asked, the question on everyone’s mind. There was no other safer place for this person to come than to Carson. The caller must have known this fact, which left Cliff with only a few options running through his mind.
“They are twenty minutes out; just turned off the highway. Cliff, where should we go?”
“My studio. The building upstairs is monitored by my security system and I have sterile equipment at the shop for piercings. Logan can use it.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, the three men arrived at Cliff?
?s shop, parking the two vehicles behind the building and using the back entrance. Once they entered, Logan went to work unpacking his travel medical bag and sifting through the sterile cabinet Cliff mentioned to him on the way over. They aren’t sure what to expect when the victim arrived, just that there were multiple wounds.
As Cliff reset the security system, Dylan gripped him by the bicep.