Barefoot With a Bodyguard (39 page)

Marriage
. She took a slow breath, letting that word, that word that once had terrified and infuriated her, fall back into the realm of what was possible.

She inched closer to him to make her point. “It would be…impossible—”

He closed his eyes with a grunt, as if she’d punched him.

“—not to dream about that with you.”

“Really?” The joy and hope and certainty on his face were so beautiful, she closed her hands over his cheeks just to feel it all.

“Really.”

“I dream about it, too,” he admitted. “And that’s what I want. Kate, you’ll…wait. Wait. I have to do this right.” He inched back and got down on one knee, making a laugh and tears bubble up at the same time.

“Alec, you don’t—”

“Katherine Louise Kingston.” He closed his eyes to compose himself, and she tried to crystallize the moment in her memory, her heart slamming against her chest, her breath caught in her throat. She sat half-naked on a massage table in a cabana on the beach, wrapped in red chiffon and real love.

It was perfect.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black bag, one she immediately recognized. Opening it, he dropped the ring she’d so recently returned to Gabe into his palm.

“I know this fits, Kate. I know
we
fit. Please say you’ll spend the rest of your life letting me show you what a partner can be. What a husband can be. Please say yes, Kate. One little word, one single syllable.”

“Why use one syllable when four will do? Absolutely.”

Laughing, he stood and pulled her off the table and into his arms to kiss her. “I love you, Kate. I love you so much.”

As they broke the kiss, she took his hands and lifted both of them to her mouth. First, she kissed his tattooed knuckles. “I love you, too.” She kissed the wedding band he still wore on his left hand. “My wonderful, sexy, tender, worthy husband.”

As they kissed, the red drape fell to the floor in a soft sigh, like the sound of pure contentment.

“What have you got?”

“A headache from you asking me what I got.” Chessie looked up from her laptop, her eyes tapered in warning.

“I thought you can find anyone.”

She glared at Gabe. “The magic doesn’t happen in five minutes, dear brother.”

“You’ve been at this for over an hour, Chess,” Gabe said. “How long can it take to break a code?”

She sighed, adjusting her horn rims. “It’s a tricky one, and a lot of the keywords are in Spanish. You can come in, it’s your office.”

He stepped inside, closing the door so Poppy or Nino didn’t come barging in. At the moment, they had no clients for the undercover operation, giving Gabe a chance to concentrate on what was the most important. Cracking his knuckles, he paced the length of the office, while his sister returned her attention to the computer, gnawing her lower lip like she always did when she was trying to break code.

“I know this is stating the obvious, Gabe, but it
would
help considerably if you’d actually tell me who I’m looking for.”

He shook his head. “Don’t need to know. Get me the whole list, Chess. Every name and their status. I’ll take it from there.”

“Not all of them have a status or address. Like, there are a few thousand e-mails on here, and I did crack them, but they’re just cryptic e-mail addresses, like Rojo1 and CasaL2. Do you want those?”

“I want actual names, but I’ll take the e-mails if that’s all you have.”

“Okay.” She clicked quickly. “I made a database and forwarded it to you.”

“Thanks.” He crossed the room and grabbed his laptop, trolling through the supersized spreadsheet Chessie had sent him. “Shit, that’s a lot of names.”

“Think how simple it would be if you would tell me her freaking name, Gabriel Rossi. And don’t try to tell me you’re not looking for a
she
, because you would not go to this much trouble for another dude.”

He didn’t answer, studying the addresses. “These aren’t in alphabetical order.”

“Sucks to suck.”

Huffing, he started scrolling, easily skimming the sea of meaningless handles, looking for a word or a clue that would strike him.

“So you haven’t asked about Matt,” Chessie said.

“Because I want you to work, not moon over your ex.”

“What makes you think he’s my ex?”

“The fact that you’re here. You wouldn’t have left if you thought there was still a chance with him. He’s a dumbass dickhead cocksucking moron with webbed feet, Chess.”

“No, his feet are fine.”

He smiled. “You’ll meet another guy.”

“I don’t want another guy.”

Gabe didn’t answer as he reached a group of e-mail addresses that used English words, forcing him to look harder for something that felt right. No luck. “They all say they don’t want another guy, Chess,” he murmured. “Then they meet me.” He grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes.

“Seriously, you should stick around here,” he said, back on his campaign to get her to stay. “Lots of hot guys for you to hook up with.”

“First of all, I don’t want to hook up. Second, this place is crawling with newlyweds and nearly deads.”

“Not true. Luke’s hiring bodyguards, and there’s a whole baseball team coming in. You like athletes. And look at what a matchmaker I turned out to be with Alec and Kate.”

She gave him a dreamy look. “They’re so in love, Gabe. Is she really going to live in Brighton Beach with him?”

“Yeah, she’s all fired up. No law firm for her. Now she wants to be a prosecutor and take those Russian bad boys to task. And Alec’s going to step into Gregg’s shoes and mentor the younger ones.” He gave a smug grin. “I totally knew that was going to happen.”

“You’re totally full of shit.”

“The fact that you know that makes me love you even more, Chess.” He abandoned his spreadsheet for a full-court press. He
wanted
her here. “Luke is really hiring. Maybe he needs a tech specialist.”

She snorted. “Vivi would have a cow instead of a baby.” Then she slammed her hand over her mouth. “Shit, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

He blinked at her. “Wait…
what
? They did it? Lang is actually not shooting blanks? I’ll be damned.”

“No, but I will be for telling you. She’s not even two months along yet.” Chessie grinned, but there was a definite sadness in her eyes. “I’m so jelly.”

“Your time will come.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Chessie. You’re a female version of me.” He gestured toward his face. “Impeccable bones, killer dimples, and eyes the color of heaven. The only baby blues in the whole Rossi clan.”

“Yeah, Mom had a lover,” she joked, calling up one of their favorite theories as to why they looked a little different than the other Rossi kids.

“I think it was Bud the lawn guy.”

Chessie giggled. “Or that handyman, Timmy. She was always flirting with him.”

He laughed and gestured toward the computer. “You know, we’d have fun if you were here, Chess. Plus, you could keep Nino and his Jamaican nemesis in line.”

“I can’t leave with Vivi pregnant.”

“Just for a few months? Before she takes maternity leave?” He leaned forward. “You are always doing stuff for someone else in our family. What do
you
want?”

“A family to do stuff for,” she said. “Of my own,” she added.

“Like a husband, two-point-five, and a picket fence?” That was what his super-brained little sister wanted?

“You make it sound horrible.”

“It just doesn’t seem like that fits with your love of souped-up cars and supercomputers.”

She shook her head. “I want Mom and Dad’s life, Gabe.”

“All those kids, a couple of Italian orphans, and Nino?” He drew back. “I can’t see that.”

“I mean I want the love they have. The permanence. The stability.” She sighed. “I just can’t find the right guy.”

“This from the girl who can find anyone.”

She gave a wistful smile and looked back at her monitor. “Oh, yes, I can,” she said, a smug smile breaking. “And I just did.”

“What?” Gabe shot up and came around the desk, leaving his spreadsheet to break his sister’s cardinal rule of no spying over the shoulder when she was hacking.

“I got the list of couriers. I’ve been trying to get into this for an hour.”

A little zing shot through him. “Those are the volunteers on the ground who distribute the news throughout Cuba.” The
activists
the young woman at Radio and TV Martí had told him about.

Chessie hit a few more keys and waited while nothing happened on the screen. “You
do
know that our relations with Cuba are just about normalized now. There is essentially no need for subterfuge.”

“There is always a need for subterfuge in my life.”

The screen flashed, then darkened, then flashed again. Suddenly, it was filled with names, a long list, each with an address and phone number. Gabe’s heart rate kicked up, and he hoped against hope that this was the lead he needed.

He
had
to find her. He had to.

“And, lookee here, it’s alphabetical.” Chessie scrolled, still in the C’s and D’s. “Tell me when to stop.”

W
. “Go way down.”

“Past H, I, and J?”

“Way.”

“Past Q, R, and S?”

His chest was so tight, he couldn’t catch even a shallow breath. It made sense that she’d be a volunteer, an activist, and a courier.

“U, V, W—”

“Stop.” He pushed closer, taking over the touch pad to slow down the slide, reading every single name.
Viteri. Vivas. Vives. Ybarra
.

“Where’re the W’s?” he demanded.

“Spanish surnames don’t start with W, do they?”

Her name’s not Spanish.

Frustration and desperation clashed like symbols in his chest as he swore mightily, flipping his finger angrily over the touch pad so the list scrolled full speed to the very end, stopping on
Zubizarreta
.

“
Damn
it.” He rocked back on his heels, the familiar sensation of bone-deep disappointment rolling through him.

Chessie didn’t respond, probably being too sensitive to his pain or not wanting to get barked at in his wrath. Instead, she scrolled some more as he fought the sting in the back of his eyes.

Son of a bitch, he wasn’t going to let his sister see how much this mattered. There had to be another way. When Mal got out—

“Gabe.”

“It’s okay, Chess. Keep digging around those files, but it’s okay.”

“No, I just want to—”

“I don’t care!” Anger fired through his veins because, shit, he
did
care. He’d never cared about anything in his life so much.

“Gabe.” She put her hand on his arm, a gentle touch that just made him madder because—

“There are more names.”

He stared at her, his flash of fury subsiding.

“One starts with W. Winter. Isadora Winter. Is that who you’re looking for?”

He froze completely, almost unable to believe what he’d just heard. Had he wanted it so bad, he
imagined
Chessie saying that name? Very slowly, he crouched back down, vaguely aware that he was shaking. All this time.
All these years
. All the nights of wondering and hoping and, yes, damn it, praying.

He’d found Issie.

“Where?” His voice scraped out of his throat, barely audible, the words dancing before him on the screen.

“Right here.” She pointed to the name, one of five in a group.

Isadora Winter.

Holy, holy
shit
. He was only somewhat aware that he’d gripped his sister’s hand as he leaned forward and stared at the name of the only woman—

“Gabe.” Chessie’s voice was so, so soft, barely a whisper.

“That’s her,” he said, desperately wanting to share his joy with someone. He looked up at Chessie. “That’s her.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.

“What? Why? You found her, Chessie. You really
can
find anyone! You found the woman I—”

“Gabe.” Why were Chessie’s eyes filled with tears?

An ice-cold fear slithered up his spine and into his veins, turning him numb. In slow motion, he looked back at the screen, taking a second to find her name and slide his gaze across to the right to—

Deceased.

He blinked, checked again.

No, oh, God, no. Not possible. It had been only five years. Five years since…

No, she can’t be dead.

He inched back, denial blinding him until he looked one more time and double-checked the line.

Isadora Winter …………… Deceased

“Is that who—”

He cut Chessie off by standing and slamming the computer closed. “We’re done here.”

Done. Done.
Deceased
.