Barefoot by the Sea

Chapter Fifteen

The Batphone buzzed. Right in the middle of a sodding lunch rush.

Ian slipped the device from his pocket, knowing who’d sent the text before he looked; only Henry Brooker could reach him on this line and the only outgoing call the phone could make was to Ian’s government liaison. That made every contact urgent.

The text was simple, and short: Call me now.

Ian looked around the kitchen for help that wasn’t there, but then he’d only been running this kitchen for a few days. Still on abbreviated hours for food service, he was far too shorthanded to walk out. With one prep cook/dishwasher peeling and dicing and Marcus on the line, Ian was far more than an expediting head chef in this operation. He was up to his ass in crabcakes and steaks and no time to breathe, think, or take a piss, let alone find a quiet corner and make a critical call.

Orders from the floor were coming in at a steady clip, the small kitchen finally thrumming with something close to a solid heartbeat. Well, too bad. Nothing, no customers, orders, or rush, could keep him from calling the man who held the key to Ian’s future with his children.

Marcus cruised by, carrying a pan of veal chops from the oven. Anthony, a silent, hardworking prep cook who’d clearly been in a lot of restaurants but had near zero ambition, was head down, dicing ingredients for more pineapple salsa, an unexpected hit on the rum-soaked chops.

“Hey, Marc, can you cover this grill?” Ian asked. “I have to run out.”

The young man whirled around, disbelief in his midnight eyes. “Out?”

“Emergency. Can you flip these steaks to order and finish the crabcakes?”

Marcus raised the dish of veal, along with his eyebrows. “Got four orders for these and those customers are getting antsy as shit.”

They had been waiting, Ian agreed silently, scanning the room again to weigh his options. He could ignore Henry and get the orders up. He could threaten, cajole, or otherwise strong-arm Marcus and risk the chop customer’s order. Or he could walk and get fired.

In his pocket, the phone vibrated again. He knew what it said but looked anyway. One word, clear message: Now.

A cold sweat marched up Ian’s back and iced the nape of his neck. Left hand on the crabcake pan, right-hand thumb out, ready to check the temperature of the steaks, he bit down hard on his jaw.

“Got the fresh parsley and extra pineapples!” Tessa’s voice rang through the noisy kitchen as she sailed in the back door, carrying a bushel-sized basket of greens and vegetables.

Instantly, Ian felt better. He didn’t know why, because she certainly wasn’t the answer to his immediate problems, but that was what she did. She made him feel better. Until he got into bed at night and felt like shit on a stick for lying and pretending and totally fucking with her heart and head.

He squeezed his eyes shut. One problem at a time.

He glanced to the side to catch her distributing her garden goods. The instant they made eye contact, he felt the zing down to his toes and, from the look in her eyes, so did she.

At least he didn’t have to pretend that part. Didn’t pretend to like kissing her or holding her hand or making her laugh or listening to diatribes about seashells and saffron. He had to pretend to be someone he wasn’t and convince her she wanted to—

The phone vibrated again.

He checked the steaks and gauged the rest of the orders. If he could get these out and then—

“You look shell-shocked.” Tessa came up next to him, her cheeks flushed, her hair mussed, her smile as fresh as the food she carried. He didn’t return the happy grin, too torn by the vibrating phone, the half-cooked food, and the need for a savior right now.

“In the weeds.”

“I’d offer to help, but—”

“I’d take that offer.” He tapped the crabcake pan. “Can you flip them for me?”

“Now?”

“In a minute.” He angled the fork to the steaks. “Do you know how to test for doneness? Use your thumb. I have two medium rare, one rare, and one a hint under well with a bit of color left in it.” He waited a beat as the words hit her, clouding her eyes with confusion. “Tessa, can you cover for me?”

“Me?”

He grabbed a spatula and pressed it into her hand. “Just flip the cakes. Look for a deep gold, but no hint of brown, and turn them until you have the same thing on the other side. And the steaks you press until they feel…” How could he describe it to her? “You can do steaks, right?”

She lifted her brows. “He asked the vegetarian.”

“You don’t have to eat it, just cook it.” His voice grew gruff with frustration. “I have an emergency.”

She hesitated one second, then shooed him away. “I can handle it. Go do what you need to do.”

An unexpected wave of affection rolled over him at her attitude. “Thank you,” he said, taking one second to brush her cheek to let her know how much the assist meant to him.

“No problem.” She waved the spatula. “Off with you.”

No questions, no argument, no complaints. Another tsunami of affection threatened, inexplicable but real. “I’ll thank you later,” he promised, taking a step backward but still holding her gaze.

“You better hold that gratitude in case I totally wreck your work.”

“You can’t. Turn the cakes in thirty seconds, dress them with that remoulade and a few sprigs of your unparalleled parsley. The rare steak’s done now. Be back.”

She winked at him. “Hurry.”

God, she was sweet. Just…perfect. He was so, so wrong to think he could bamboozle her into some meaningless marriage to help him out of a jam.

One more vibration had him darting through the kitchen to the dry-goods pantry. The door didn’t lock from the inside, but he put his whole body against it, and that was as good as any lock. With remarkably steady hands, he tapped the phone and Henry answered on the first ring.

“What took so long?” the gruff Brit asked.

“Work. What’s up?”

Henry didn’t answer right away, but blew out a maddeningly noisy breath. “There were some arrests in Brixton last night.”

An imaginary band squeezed Ian’s chest, stealing his breath or ability to reply. Brixton, the gang-ridden south London neighborhood where the last of the N1L members purportedly lived and worked. A group of murderers, thieves, drug dealers, addicts, and the scummiest of the world’s scum who proudly called themselves “No One Lives” and made sure that was true for anyone who got too close to the operation.

No one lived. Including innocent young mothers who were simply doing a favor to help a scared little brother.

“How many arrests?” Because if they weren’t all behind bars, Ian’s life remained on hold.

“All but two, but they’re on the radar.”

“Okay.” He heard a new order for crabcakes get called in from a frantic server and could have sworn he heard Tessa respond. God love that girl. “Okay, that’s good, Henry. But why the barrage of texts to call you?” Henry never made a big deal out of good news, only trouble.

That ice up his back chilled to a fine, freezing sheen at the thought.

“I contacted Canada.”

Oh, here we go. “Canada” was Henry’s shorthand for the Canadian arm of the UK Protected Persons Service, who had placed and monitored two innocent babies three years ago. Ian had been allowed no contact, not even a picture, for thirty-eight months. And six days.

He didn’t speak, waiting for the verdict.

Behind him, a sharp knock. “John?”

“I told you the kids started pre-kindergarten.”

“You said nursery school,” he corrected. “Like day care, I assumed.”

“It’s a little more formal than that.”

“So?”

“So, they feel if the children are in the program too long, then removing them will cause anxiety issues, separation issues, you know, the kinds of things social services people hate.”

No, he didn’t know. And he didn’t know what the hell it had to do with him getting his kids back. “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s a timing thing, Ian. If the kids are in the program more than three weeks, that passes some arbitrary twenty-one-day limit and—”

“What the hell are you saying?”

On the other side of the door, Tessa’s voice rose, but the blood in Ian’s head drowned out her voice as he worked to make sense of Henry’s words.

“I’m saying that assuming all goes well in Brixton, and I believe we are that close, that you’ll need to be in Canada in less than three weeks.”

Less than three weeks! He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. Shiloh and Sam would be in his arms in less than three weeks.

“So you can see the problem.”

No, he didn’t see any problem at all.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to get all the proper paperwork in less than three weeks and—”

“Of course I am.”

“You’ll have a marriage certificate?”

“John, please.” Tessa’s voice rose. “Can you answer a quick question?”

Tessa. Sweet, unsuspecting, salt-of-the-earth Tessa.

“Do I absolutely have to marry someone?”

“Yes. This new board is quite inflexible where Emma and Eddie are concerned.”

Emma and Eddie? “Who the fuck are they?”

“Your kids.”

“Their names are Shiloh and Samuel.”

Henry hesitated. “Not anymore.”

Ian’s heart scudded around and fell down to his belly. Someone else was raising his children. Someone else was loving them, naming them, keeping them. Way deep inside him, something angry and achy and uncontrollable erupted, bubbling up like hot lava. The power of the emotion choked him with the burning need to change everything, do anything, punch someone, to fight and claw and lie and kill his way back to the only thing that he had left in the world.

His children.

The door handle rattled. “John, if you need help—”

“You got three weeks, Ian, not months. Make it happen.”

Stabbing the phone with one hand, he yanked open the door with the other. Tessa almost fell in, letting out a small shriek as she tried to gain her balance. Before she took a breath, he pulled her into the room, spun her to the side, and used her whole body to close the door again.

Her eyes went wide as he lifted her up a few inches and brought her face-to-face with him.

“I do need help.” The words were little more than a groan, part of that pain and determination that took over his whole being. He needed her to say yes, to help him, to get back Shiloh and Sam.

“What can—”

“I need you,” he growled again, pressing into her, gripping her with all the utter frustration that rocked him. “You…have to…”

He crushed her mouth with a kiss, their teeth cracking with the impact, his mouth open wide to delve into hers. He felt her fingers tighten on his shoulders, her mouth slacken with response, and her whole body respond to him.

How did he ask her to marry him? Instead he pressed harder. “More,” he murmured into her mouth. “I want more. I want it all. I want you.”

She answered with another kiss, clinging to him and intensifying everything by battling his tongue with hers. “I want you, too,” she admitted on a soft choke.

He dragged his mouth down her jaw, to her neck, kissing and sucking with all the fury that rocked through his body. Sex and fear and a crazy sensation of being alive again made him suck her skin so hard it made noise.

“John,” she laughed, tilting her head, squirming away. “You’re leaving a mark.”

He lifted his head, burning her with a look as he held her so close he could hear the echo of his own heart in her chest. “We have to move fast,” he murmured.

Her brows drew closer, her eyes confused. “To do what?”

“Everything.” He kissed her, not trusting himself to keep all this emotion and need and urgency inside.

“Oh.” She melted a little, sighing, resigning, letting him know she was his. “Then I guess you won’t mind that I burned the crabcakes.”

He smiled into another kiss, wishing like hell he didn’t like her so damn much. “I don’t mind as long as you give me…everything.”

She kissed her answer and left no doubt she would.