Mine

“Is it?”

“No offense, but I’ve had sex since we were together.” Right after Eli bugged out, Andy started having sex with a lot of men. Some he didn’t know. They formed a faceless, nameless line in his head. Not his finest or safest hour, but he’d been lucky enough not to damage his health.

Eli laughed. “I sure as hell hope so.”

“I got over you.” He hadn’t, but Andy felt his mind and body inching closer. Eli had changed. But with time passing and Wade in the picture too many doors closed for Andy to hope for anything more.

“Look.” Eli sat forward in his chair. “What I’m saying is that I’m sorry you had to waste one second getting over me. I was a shit back then and the way I handled what you told me—”

“That I loved you.”

Eli nodded. “I blew it. I wasn’t capable of hearing the words or dealing with them because I knew I was pretty unlovable.”

“But now . . .” Andy sensed Eli had overcome that affliction. Sensed it and felt it reverberate like a sucker punch through every bone in his body.

“Wade is the one, Andy.”

When Eli repeated it the second time, Andy got it. Hated every minute and felt it to his soul, but he got it. “Right.”

“And you are the one who deserved better than me. I truly hope you find him.” The words rang with genuine feeling. From the sadness in Eli’s eyes to his concerned expression it was clear he meant every syllable.

“I will.” Andy didn’t say the whole of the sentence—that he would eventually.

Eli stared for a second before pushing ahead. “I need to see Natalie.”

The change in topics helped ease the rising tension in the room. Andy grabbed on to the lifeline and let it pull him out of the emotional darkness. Work he could handle. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Eli broke eye contact but just for a second. “She needed me to check on something and I did.”

The scent of lying hit Andy. He wanted to dig and ferret out what Eli wasn’t saying, but he threw out a softer question instead. “Want me to pass a message on?”

“Sorry, I need a face-to-face.”

Something. Andy’s mind skipped through the possibilities. Could be she was ready to leave. Andy could understand the need to keep moving forward, but that would suck for Gabe, and he had more than enough to deal with right now. “I’ll let my brother know.”

Eli stood up. “Call me with the details of my next visit.”

“I can have someone else get in touch with the arrangements if that’s easier on Wade.” Andy could make that concession because he should. He needed to put behind him the days of looking for reasons to talk to Eli or see him.

“Do that if it’s easier on you. Wade’s a big boy. He’ll handle it.”

“I’m okay with going through you.” And for the first time in months Andy meant it. Maybe he’d finally given up, but he couldn’t fight the regret nagging him about what could have been. The man Eli had become was exactly who Andy always hoped he’d be, but the timing passed without them ever getting a true chance. “We need to focus on Gabe and Natalie now.”

Eli nodded. “Let’s get the job done.”

Andy waited for the steady beating to start and the headache to overwhelm him. This time it didn’t happen. He felt nothing but a twinge of sadness. Maybe this is what closure felt like. He sure as hell hoped so.

TWENTY-FIVE

Eli had said the tests would take about two days. He showed up in three. Natalie had set this all in motion. She took responsibility for that. Still, standing on Gabe’s flagstone back patio and looking at the large envelope in Eli’s hand made it all real.

She’d been so practical when she grabbed the evidence and passed it on to Eli and Wade. She solved problems. She found answers. That’s how she operated. She kept secret those things that needed to be hidden for security reasons and uncovered those items that needed to be discovered because the knowing would bring relief.

But that was work, and this was personal. The idea of hurting Gabe made her waver in her convictions. She’d gone back and forth and debated. Doubted whether she should get involved. Tried to let Gabe come to the decision on his own.

He’d opened his home and made it clear she could use his place as a base while she worked her way through the mound of problems facing her. Now the practical side of her took a backseat to the side she didn’t even know she had. The part she kept buried and ignored. The part that was falling in love with Gabe MacIntosh.

Eli glanced at the file then back at her. “Be sure about this, because once you know, once you pass this on, you can’t undo it.”

The choices played in her mind. She waffled, bouncing from one to the other, knowing the results could emotionally destroy Gabe and sensing whatever ripped him apart would now shatter her, too.

Still, she couldn’t shove the truth away. The common sense side of her insisted Gabe needed to know. That in the end Rick wouldn’t give his brother a choice. She half wished Eli would have failed to handle the test, but that wasn’t his style.

She didn’t reach for it. Didn’t even look at it. “You don’t know what it is.”

“It’s a DNA test, which means it’s about to change someone’s life and I don’t think it’s yours.”

Eli got everything else right but the last part. “It might.”

“Meaning?”

This was not her secret to tell. She’d already broken too many unspoken rules without smashing Gabe’s insistence on privacy to pieces. “Not important.”

Eli shifted until his back leaned against the glass and he blocked her view of Andy and Gabe milling around in the kitchen. “Natalie, look. I know we haven’t always agreed on every operation and every maneuver.”

“Did we ever agree on anything?” She remembered yelling and heated debates. Eli had been a good agent but not always a careful one when it came to his own safety. He’d do anything to get the job done, which meant she’d spent more than a few nights worried the man had a death wish. He’d changed, but those memories lingered.

“You sacrificed a lot—everything—for me to be able to live the life I have now. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to repay that.”

The words struck her as the most honest thing she’d ever heard Eli say. He made the vow not just in what he said but with his eyes and tone. “Is this the same Eli who once told me I talked like I had a desk shoved up my ass?”

“That sounds like something I would say.” Eli nodded. “The answer is yes and no. I’m smarter now. Maybe a bit more tactful. I know what it means to be in a position to lose something. I no longer zip through life expecting to die or assuming I know the right answer.”

Wade. She got the message and what Eli was trying to tell her, but the whole sharing-her-worries thing was not her strong suit. “I’m happy for you. Honestly.”

He leaned in a little closer as his voice dropped lower. “And I’m telling you we’re more alike than you want to think, so if the information in this envelope is going to wreck something you’re trying to build then let me take it back with me and shred it.”

“You know what it’s about.” She didn’t have to ask. She knew every inch of his file. His training and skills. Add to that the new layer of personal understanding and Eli put pieces together faster than ever.

“I have a clue who it’s about. At least the adult part, and the photos all over the house of Gabe with a kid hint at the rest.”

She put a hand on his arm. “You can’t tell anyone about the test or Brandon.”

“I don’t know anything about any of it.”

The anxiety welling in her stomach died back down as she dropped her hand. Eli could keep a secret, his and others. “Thanks.”

“Gabe’s a good guy. Ending up with him wouldn’t suck for you.”

She figured that was Eli-speak for saying he knew they were sleeping together and approved. For some reason, having her personal life paraded around still stung. “He’s protecting me.”