Page 6 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

The bell over the shop door jingles as my dad disappears into the back room, humming something that probably came from a telenovela soundtrack.

A few customers are milling around, locals browsing the front shelves, pretending they’re not curious about the sign announcing Dad and Penelope’s spicy book club taped to every available wall.

When my brothers first told me Dad started a romance book club, I thought they were screwing with me.

I didn’t even bother responding to the text.

Then, a week later, I got a photo from my brother, Santi, with him, my dad and my twin brothers, Rio and Enzo, all crammed into Pages and Perks, holding up a book with a half-naked dude in a kilt on the cover like it was just another Tuesday.

The caption read: Your shift next. Families who read smut together stay together.

I thought it was a little twisted at the time, but somehow, this place, this club, has settled my dad into Echo Valley.

I hover near a display stacked with books by Lola Pen, pick up one of them featuring an alien with abs and glowing blue… other parts. I’m not sure everything hanging out of the kilt are legs.

I put it back down on the stack then glance at the front window. Lara should be rolling in any time now.

Dad reemerges carrying a pitcher of something that smells like sangria laced with sin.

“Careful, hijo,” he says, “The ladies around here are thirsty. For wine…” he winks, “and gossip.” He sets the pitcher beside a plate of pastries and claps me on the shoulder. “Are you staying for the meeting or just lurking until Lara arrives?”

I tried and failed to bake the cookies on my own. I knew asking my dad for help would get his wheels turning in the wrong direction.

“I’m not lurking.”

He laughs like that’s a joke I told. “This is going to be interesting.”

I pop a piece of gum in my mouth. “Why’s that?”

“Because I haven’t seen this Gabriel in a long time.” His brow lifts. “She always brought out a caring side of you.”

Penelope walks past with a fishbowl and a smirk. “You have a caring side, G? Shame. This is morally gray territory tonight.”

I don’t respond because just then, I hear it. A soft thump of a truck door. And then her laugh, sharp, dry, like it slipped past her defenses.

I shift to the large front window and catch her through the glass.

Blonde bun. Purple tank top. Jeans that hug curves that look new to me every time I see them.

Lara struggled to keep on weight when we were kids, but since she’s been taking these miracle meds, there’s a vibrancy not only in her smile and cheeks but in her fuller breasts and ass.

Goddamn it, she gets under my skin. She stretches her arms overhead, neck tilting with that fluid, unthinking grace that used to undo me.

She walks up Grenvista Trail with her friend, and I melt into the wall to hide myself. I’ll let her have a little space. At least see the apartment. And the note…

Should I have left the note? Or at least made it clearer? Call if you need anything. Even if you don’t? Now that I’ve put it out there, I’m not sure it was the best idea. Maybe whatever wall she put up between us is better for us both.

I peek out the window again, feeling less like a bodyguard and more like a lovesick loser who didn’t get the girl. I mock myself internally. That’s exactly what you are.

I saw her not too long ago. It was only four months ago we were both at Xander’s little Poppy’s eighth birthday party. Lara avoided me as usual. I begged my brain to stay present, focus on my surrogate nieces and simply catch up with my buddy and his parents.

Now will be harder because she’s not leaving after cake, and neither am I.

Out on the street, she moves like she always has, as if gravity’s just a suggestion. She shines as bright as the sun, but she’s more lively, more unpredictable and far more magical.

That’s how I started calling her Firefly. Her childhood was shrouded by a dark future, the possibility of dying young, and yet she danced in that shadow with her subtle brilliant glow. Her light is a big fuck you to fate itself.

I shift behind a display, watching through slivers. Penelope blows past me outside.

The women talk. I quickly fake interest in the local bulletin board when Pen slips back in.

Another glance.

Lara checks her phone. They head for the alley. She pauses. Scans the street while Freya walks ahead.

Doorways. Cars. Windshields. Shadows. Her whole body braces.

My fists curl. Cameron didn’t just scare her. He rewired her.

She used to leap first, laugh on the way down. Now she looks both ways.

I crack my neck. Roll the tension off.

She’s here, Gabriel. She’s safe.

The question is when do I go up to the apartment? I’ll obviously sort the boxes in the U-Haul…

Just then, Penelope sidles up next to me. “I saw two hotties out on the street, and one of them seems to know your dad. Expecting anyone?”

She doesn’t give me time to answer.

“They’re coming to the book club tonight.” She winks and walks off but throws me a smug grin over her shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

I expected Lara to walk into the shop fifteen minutes ago. Now the bookstore’s full, including my brother, Enzo, his fiancée, Ava, Santi’s girlfriend, Kat, and Anton, who I suspect is here to read my reaction to Lara more than the smut.

Dad sits up front with Penelope. Ava slides in beside me, where I stand in the back.

I wear my sunglasses like a douche because I don’t trust myself not to give away how much Lara affects me, and Ava, like her “big brother” Anton, is highly perceptive.

The club is underway, and the scent of cheap red wine wafts by me in waves as readers pass with red plastic cups. I discreetly throw my tasteless gum into a trash can beside the refreshments table among five other discarded pieces and unwrap another to pop in my mouth.

My therapist said mint was calming. In what situation she meant, I don’t know.

Lara should have been here by now…

I check my watch. She’s been in Echo Valley for thirty-seven minutes. I can’t go in all guns blazing and knock on their door this soon. I know how to keep an eye on someone without ever making contact.

But if she’s not here in five, I’m going up.

Ava laughs beside me at something I didn’t hear.

Not even talk of seven alien dicks can distract me as I camp out here for a few minutes before my life implodes.

I’m about to exchange words with Lara for the first time in years, and simply thinking about it has me losing focus over anything but her voice, finally, after so much aching silence, directed at me.

Lara hasn’t been rude or mean when I’ve bumped into her at Young family functions. She’d lift her chin at my casually me like a buddy. Or offer a curt wave with a millisecond of eye contact. Just enough to not make her parents, or worse, Xander, ask why things are now weird.

And it fucking hurt that she put walls up.

But I kissed her boundaries and prayed that one day, we could be close again.

Never did I want it to be under such a fucked-up circumstance.

Or forced…

My dad’s voice is all distorted and distant in my head, and whatever he says is followed by another uproar of laughter.

I should’ve gone up. She must be exhausted, and I know tiredness can bring on symptoms…

Suddenly, my dad’s voice is clear again, because he’s calling my name.

“G,” my dad beckons. “You’re up.”

I blink. “What?”

He gestures to a fishbowl in Penelope’s hands.

“Pick the next question of the night.”

The last thing I want is to be the center of attention, but refusing would just make more of a scene, and I am, at least on the surface, here to support my dad. I push off the back wall and head up front.

I walk with confidence like I’ve been trained to, but inside, I’m halfway to bolting. I don’t like being on stage.

I snatch out a piece of paper and unfold it.

And then, the bell above the door jingles.

I look up.

And Lara walks in.

The room doesn’t fall silent, but it feels like it does. My pulse jumps before my brain catches up to control it. Her eyes find mine, and even from this distance, the hazel gold in her gaze shocks through my system.

Penelope nudges me. “Come on, G. Don’t leave us hanging.”

I glance down at the slip. My throat tightens.

“It’s the end of the world,” I read, “and you’re stranded on a desert island. Which character would you want with you, and why?”

A few readers chuckle. I glance up again. Lara’s watching me, arms crossed, lips twitching like she’s already three steps ahead of whatever disaster I’m about to say. After all, she was there when I got stage fright in a forced drama production during my senior year.

I lift a shoulder. “Didn’t do the homework.”

A few playful boos echo. Lara raises her eyebrows like she knew I’d mess up, but also, like it amuses her.

“Fine,” I say. “I’d take my old friend, Xander. Navy SEAL. Knows which berries not to eat. No risk of dying stupid.”

Penelope lets out a fake gasp. “No romantic partner? No curvy space princess?”

Lara’s voice cuts in from the back, smooth and sharp. “So you’re just gonna let the human race die out? That’s cold, Mendez. Even for you.”

More laughter.

My heart nearly jumps out of my chest, reaching out with hunger for another one of those sharp words. Her wit. It feels… normal.

I try a comeback on for size. “You volunteering?”

She shrugs. “You wish.”

I shake my head, urging the smile that creeps onto my lips off my face.

By the way my body is reacting to her actually saying a few words to me, sarcastic joke or not, I know I’m in trouble. No other woman could make me the butt of her joke and make my dick twitch at the same time.

Dad darts his eyes between us, grinning ear to ear like it’s Christmas morning.

Penelope fans herself dramatically. “The tension! This is better than Chapter Twelve.”

Lara dares me to test her, confident, smug as hell, and unfairly gorgeous for a woman who just slid out of twelve hours in a U-Haul.