Page 3 of Kane (Ghost Ops #4)

Chapter Two

Kane sauntered into the Salty Dawg Tavern, and six chicks made eye contact and smiled. He smiled back, knowing he could take any one of them home for a marathon in the sheets if he wanted to.

Which he didn’t. Hadn’t for a while now, though he kept up the pretense since everybody expected him to chase tail like a man ten years younger. His own fault, really. What people saw was what they believed, and he was an expert at making them see what he wanted them to see.

“Dude,” Chance said as he walked over and took a seat at the usual table.

“What?” Kane reached for a chicken wing from one of the baskets in the middle of the table.

Theo Harper, co-owner and chef of the Dawg, made some damn fine wings.

Even Ethan agreed, and he was from New York.

Not that NYC was Buffalo, where chicken wings in hot sauce originated, but it was a lot closer than small-town Alabama.

“Heard you’re taking Daphne car hunting again tomorrow. Are you gonna stop jerking around and pick a fucking car or what?”

He should have known the news would get around when he’d mentioned it to Ethan before he’d left the range for the day. “Yeah, I’m gonna pick a fucking car. What’s wrong with taking my time to find the right one, huh? Daphne’s got a budget.”

Alex snorted. “Yeah, but it’s been, what, four months now? She’s probably got a bigger budget by now.”

Kane shrugged his shoulders, shaking off the teasing. “Car shopping is better now. More used cars in her price range on the market than there were before. We’ll find something good.”

Seth arched an eyebrow. “You should just tell her to buy Trigg’s car and call it a day.”

“That car’s a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, but it works and he’d sell it to her cheap. She doesn’t go anywhere except to work and things around town. She doesn’t need to be able to drive to the other side of Huntsville, for fuck’s sake.”

“Would you want Callie driving around in an old rust bucket with no anti-lock brakes or modern crumple zones?”

“Not the same thing. Cal drives to Huntsville every day. And Daph’s been driving that beater for the past few months, so what’s your point?”

Kane eyed his teammates. They were all there except Ethan, who was on the way.

“Is there a reason y’all are busting my balls tonight?”

Blaze shook his head while Chance may have grimaced. Seth remained blank.

Kane studied them. And then it dawned.

“Wait. It’s your women. They’re turning the thumbscrews, right?”

Chance groaned. “Dude, Rory is filled to the brim with fucking pregnancy hormones?—”

“Emma, too,” Blaze added, because that was a new development he and Emma had announced recently.

Apparently, despite her parents being pillars of the community and regular church goers, they weren’t scandalized at all by their unmarried daughter having a baby with her fiancé.

No, they were thrilled and making huge plans for baby showers and shit.

“Yeah,” Chance continued. “Two women in nesting mode, who’ve known Daphne for a while now, and who feel protective.

They’ve got that book club and they talk, and one of the things they talk about is Daphne’s relationship status, her car situation, and God knows what else.

But they’ve chosen to focus on the car for the moment.

Girl needs a functional, decent car, STAT. ”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kane said, dropping the wing he’d cleaned and grabbing another one. “I’ll get it solved, promise.”

“This week?” Blaze asked.

A shot of temper flared. “Sure, man, I’ll poof up a magic car that fits the bill and she’ll be all set.”

Alex intervened. “I realize your feelings about Daphne are complicated, but either solve this shit by the end of the week or one of us will help her instead.”

Chance dropped a wing in the empties basket. “Or let her solve it herself. Daphne isn’t helpless. She’ll find a car, take a mechanic to look at it, and make a decision.”

“What mechanic?” Kane fired back, ignoring the part about complicated feelings. He didn’t have complicated feelings. He was protective because Daphne was young and sweet and she didn’t need some asshole taking advantage of her. How was this so hard to understand?

“Hell if I know. But Emma and Rory know everybody in this town. They’ll make a recommendation.”

Kane held up both hands in surrender. “I’ve got this.

You dickheads act like I’ve purposely avoided finding a car, but everything we’ve looked at has either been overpriced or a death trap.

And let’s not forget the drama around here when we’ve all been doing other things because the women some of you love were in trouble and needed our help.

Not exactly prime car shopping opportunities, ‘specially when she had Trigg’s car to drive.

But she wants to give it back, and we’re solving this ASAP. ”

“Good. Glad to hear it,” Alex said.

“Thank God,” Chance said.

Blaze nodded. “Agreed.”

Kane swung his gaze over to Seth. “What? You aren’t getting shit from your woman too?”

Seth shrugged. “I am, but I’d say it’s a normal level of shit, not a pregnant level.” He shot a glance at Blaze and Chance. “Gotta admit, that level seems kinda terrifying.”

“You have no idea,” Chance muttered into his beer.

Blaze squeezed Chance’s shoulder and sighed.

Ethan swaggered in, the last to arrive, and took the chair next to Kane. “What’d I miss?”

“Me getting my ass grilled over a hot fire about Daphne’s car search. Thanks for telling everyone we’re on the hunt again.”

Ethan shrugged. “You didn’t say it was a secret.”

“It’s not.”

Waitress Nikki strolled over to take orders and the conversation moved on.

Thank fuck. Kane kept his eye on his surroundings, same as they all did, looking for things that weren’t right.

They weren’t the kind of men who sat in restaurants, oblivious to the people around them.

Sutton’s Creek was typically safe, except for a few notable exceptions involving his teammates’ women, but letting down your guard was the kind of shit that could get you killed on operations when the location wasn’t as secure.

For Kane, no matter where he was, he stayed on high alert.

He knew how badly things could go wrong in an instant, even in the most seemingly normal of places.

Hell, Blaze had met Emma when he’d walked in on a robbery at the Gas-n-Go outside of town.

If he hadn’t gotten there when he did, who knows what might have happened?

All it took was a single moment in time and your life changed forever.

His life changed forever.

Shit.

He focused on the conversation, not really paying attention as memories of that time in his life pushed against the barrier he kept them locked behind.

Fortunately, Theo Harper arrived with Kane’s cheeseburger. “Just the way you like it with smoked gouda instead of cheddar,” he said, setting it down in front of Kane. “The rest is coming. Y’all good tonight?”

“Yeah, man,” Kane said. “You?”

Theo grinned. “Doing great, my man.”

“How hard was it to get Rory to take the night off?” Chance asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Duuuude,” Theo groaned. “So hard. But we’ve got it.

Amber has the bar, Nikki and Keisha have the floor, and I’ve got my guys in there rustling up the grub.

If it was Friday or Saturday, different story.

But we’ve got this, which I had to stress over and over again.

Rory worries it’ll get busy or somebody will ask for a drink only she knows, but I promised to call her if it happened.

Don’t worry,” he added. “Even if it did, I’m not calling her. ”

“Good man,” Chance said.

“She texted once,” Theo said. “But that was over an hour ago. Think she’s probably too engaged with the book club to care by now.”

“That’s my hope,” Chance said. “If she’s having fun, she won’t worry about this place.”

“I’m doing my part to make sure she knows we’ve got this. Once she has the baby, I expect her to take some time off. Which I’ve told her,” Theo said.

Chance snorted. “Lemme guess—she told you to fuck yourself, right?”

“Pretty much. I know she’ll be in here just as soon as she feels up to it, probably with an infant strapped to her chest in one of those sling things, but I’d like her to take a couple of weeks off at least. Preferably more.”

“Rory knows what she needs and what she can handle,” Chance said. “But I’m with you on taking some time off before she jumps back in with both feet.”

Waitress Nikki showed up with their food, Theo helped her deliver it, and then he returned to the kitchen while they dived in. The conversation shifted to things that didn’t piss anybody off for a while, and then one of the women who’d smiled at Kane earlier accosted him on the way to take a piss.

He managed to disentangle her arms from around his neck, politely turn her down, and continue on his way. He’d no sooner returned to the table than the book clubbers came strolling into the Dawg.

Chance was on his feet in an instant, grabbing the bag Rory carried, setting it on the table as he kissed her forehead. Emma went into Blaze’s arms for a hug and kiss. Seth and Callie looked soulfully at each other and tangled their fingers together.

Kane deliberately looked away, ignoring the pinch of anger in his gut that always flared whenever he watched his teammates with their women. It pissed him off that he felt that way, because they were his brothers and he wanted them happy, but it reminded him how unpredictable life was.

As if he didn’t live with that knowledge every moment of every day. It got easier with time, like people said it would, but it didn’t make it fair. Hannah had only been twenty-three, like Daphne was now. So much life left to live. So fucking unfair.

Nikki went to high-five her ‘twin’ while Emma took a step to the side to reveal another woman who’d followed them over to the table.

She was short, probably five-one or two, with black hair that was cut short against her head.

It was a masculine cut, but on her it looked feminine and flattering.

Took a well-shaped head and a pretty face to pull that one off, but she had those things.

She was curvy and pretty, with a slender neck and big blue eyes.

She wore a black sheath dress that wasn’t tight but somehow emphasized all her curves.

“This is Paisley,” Emma said. “She’s the new librarian.”

Paisley waved, revealing a small tattoo heart on her wrist. “Hi.”

When her gaze reached Ethan, she looked puzzled for a second. But then it was gone and everyone welcomed her, including Ethan. Though he looked like he’d just got hit by acid reflux or something. Maybe he was knocked flat by her beauty, or he’d been hit by the love lightning. Who knew?

Kane would have thought his teammate was about to offer her a chair, but instead he shoved to his feet and said he had to go.

He threw a few bills on the table, made polite excuses, and walked out like he hadn’t just been sitting there laughing about Dorothy Jones’s review of the range.

The sixty-eight-year old grandmother of two had used the words meemaw and action hero , which now had a prominent spot on their homepage.

It’d been Daphne’s idea to solicit reviews, and the ones from older women were often hilarious.

“Where’s Daphne?” Kane asked. He’d thought she’d stopped by the restroom and she’d be here any second, but she still hadn’t appeared.

“She said it’d been a long day and she wanted to go home and get ready for bed,” Callie told him.

Kane didn’t like the sound of that. At all. Daphne usually showed up at the Dawg when they all did, unless she was with Limp Dick. But since they weren’t dating anymore, she should be here with the gang, kicking back and having a few laughs. Besides, it wasn’t even nine o’clock.

“Is she sick?”

Callie seemed to consider it. Then she shook her head. “No, she didn’t seem sick. She ate everything, didn’t seem off or anything. And we laughed a lot while discussing, uh, stuff. Book stuff. I think she’s just tired, like she said.”

“You could go check on her,” Rory said, showing a surprising ability to overhear conversations she hadn’t been a part of. “It’s a short walk to the Sutton building.”

Rory grinned and Kane stomped down on the urge to do as she said.

Everybody thought he and Daphne needed to be a thing, but that was impossible.

She was too nice for the likes of him. And she was too young.

Twenty-three was just starting out in life whereas he’d lost that rosy outlook of youth. Left it in the rearview miles ago.

Sweet, innocent Daphne Bryant didn’t need his brand of darkness in her life.

“Nah, if she’s tired, let her be,” he drawled, grabbing a few pretzels and tossing them back for something to do.

What he really wanted to do was walk out the way Ethan had. Then he’d make that trip to the Sutton building, head up three flights of stairs, and knock on her door. Just to make sure she was really okay.

He’d seen her talking to the guy on the camera today when he’d glanced at the feed on the monitors.

Something about her body language had made the hairs on his neck prickle.

He’d been about to storm out there and make himself known when Ghost asked him a question.

By the time he made it to the front, the man was inside the range and Daphne was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.

Of course she’d denied there was anything wrong. And really, it didn’t have to be anything the dude might have said to her. It could be fucking Trigg. She’d gotten drunk and cried the night she’d told them about how Trigg had dumped her. That was a month ago.

Had she really cared for the scrawny guy that much? They were still friends, she said, but maybe she was hoping for more. Hoping to get back together.

Whenever Kane thought of Warren Trigg putting his hands on Daphne, his gut twisted. He’d imagined them kissing, imagined Trigg touching Daphne’s soft skin, making her moan his name, and it’d made him ragey in a way few things had in a long time.

He shook his head. Not his business. Not his problem.

Daphne was a friend, and he cared about her.

That’s all. He didn’t want some guy to hurt her, and he didn’t want her upset by anything some asshole said at the front desk.

He’d be there for her, just like the night they’d found her squatting in one of the unfinished apartments in the Sutton building.

He’d taken one look at her and known he had to help.

Known they had to help.

And they had. Gave her a job, which helped her afford the apartment she’d hidden in, and gave her a friend group she could count on. He’d be there for her if she needed him. They all would.

Daphne was family, same as his guys, same as their women. That’s all it was. All it would ever be.