Thank you.
That night when I had dreams of Noel, I welcomed them. For the first time since getting entangled with Noel, I allowed hope to overcome fear when it came to our future.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
Noel
Letting Harper go tonight was difficult and it wasn't because of my hardon and not having sex.
Well, not the only reason.
As awkward as the date had been at times, overall it was an enjoyable evening.
Eating dinner together and then her helping me with Mo’s bath and putting him to bed felt domestic, normal. I'd spent much of my life avoiding normality in favor of adventure and danger.
I systematically left that world behind after Bastion died, but struggled with feeling settled and content without it.
When Mo came into my life, I finally had a new focus and purpose, but with Harper, the three of us together, for the first time maybe ever, I felt content. Is this what Archer felt when he and Lane came together?
Even Bran, who could be such an asshole, had found a woman that he was so devoted to that he came up with a crazy scheme in an attempt to get me to help her business. Assuming that the story was true. A part of me still did not believe it, but spending time with Harper was outweighing my concerns.
Because she left me in a state of arousal, I went to my room to take care of it, imagining her kneeling before me right there in the doorway of the house. I slept better that night than I had in a long time.
The next morning, I woke with extra pep in my step as I got Mo up, fed him, and headed out for our morning walk.
"I think your old man is falling for that woman," I told Mo as we walked along the beach. "What do you think about that, little man? I don't think your mother is going to come up here. But Harper could be your mother, don't you think? I know you like her."
Mo made gurgling noises I took to mean yes.
We reached the end of the beach, and I turned heading back toward home when my phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, I saw it was Dax.
"Dax, what news do you have?"
"I don't have much time, but I wanted to warn you that I think El Pirata is up in your area.”
A chill ran down my spine. "Do you know why?"
"No. Odds are it’s for business. The cartel has a lot of people in Southern California, but he and Lupe are very hush-hush about the whole thing, and I did overhear your name at one point."
"What about Guillermo? Are they talking about him?" I didn’t give a shit if somebody was coming after me, but Lupe and whoever her right hand man was would have trouble if they came after Mo.
"Not that I heard. And like I said, he's her fixer, taking care of all business issues, there have been some distribution problems up there. But I wanted to give you a warning just in case."
"Do you have any indication about whether or not they've got eyes and ears on me and Mo?" It occurred to me that perhaps cameras and bugs were arranged by Lupe. In fact, I was an idiot to not think of it sooner. Maybe that's why she kept calling in such a state of worry since I’d confiscated the devices.
"I'm not aware of anything, but that doesn't mean that they are not trying. The two of them are quite secretive."
The more I consider it, Lupe’s bugging me made so much more sense than Bran and Harper spying on me. Now I felt like an even bigger idiot and asshole for all the time I wasted blaming and mistrusting Harper.
"Thank you for looking into all this. Now it's time you came back. I've taken enough of your and Archer's time."
"Give me another day or two. There is something going on and I'm on the verge of figuring out what it is."
Dax was a solidly trained expert, and I shouldn't have felt concern about leaving him down there, but I did. Memories of losing Bastion and being forced to abandon him haunted me. I didn't want history repeating itself with Dax. "Just two days then you need to be back here."
"Will do. Gotta go." The line went dead.
I walked in silence trying to understand what could possibly be going on. One thing was for sure, Lupe was in deep with the cartel, clearly by choice. The cold murderous woman that she'd have to be to be a leader was in stark contrast to the woman who called every now and then weeping about missing her son. Something just wasn't right about that.