Page 71 of Impossible Love

“Mmm?” The bites are coming fast and furious now, so I have an excuse not to speak. I think they’re teasing me. I think they’re trying to get the scoop on what’s happening with Cal and me.

This must be the aforementioned sledgehammer.

I rise from the table, put my plate in the sink, and mumble out a “Thanks for the snack.” They start giggling before I reach the front door.

Chapter 36

Cal

“Put me down, you brutes!”

“Shove a sock in it, Evander.” I’m on the left side of his wheelchair and Declan is on the right. We’re carrying his dead-weight ass up the front steps of my house while he pretends to be a damsel in distress.

Finn’s laughing as he holds open the front door. Special K is making everything harder than it has to be, which is his specialty. He must think we’re amused by him walking backward up the steps, signaling with his arms, and making tractor-trailer backup noises.

“Get out of the way, K, or we’ll mow you over,” I hiss through my teeth. Evander weighs two-forty easy, and his wheelchair has got to weigh another sixty, so we’re lifting about three-hundred pounds of awkwardly balanced weight up these stairs. My usual five-hundred-pound deadlift is far easier than this shit.

It has to be done, though. I don’t have an accessibility ramp, and the only secure conference facility on Yosemite Ranch is in my house. My brothers and I have some serious StellaR Tech issues to address today, in addition to my report on the contract negotiations.

We get Evander into the foyer and set him down. He immediately rolls himself into the kitchen to see what I’ve got in the refrigerator. Clearly, he’s feeling better.

“Got any chicken breasts? I need extra protein.”

“No.” That’s a lie. I have a freezer full of organic free-range chicken breasts, but I think he’s looking for something he can eat now, though chomping down on frozen poultry may not be out of his wheelhouse.

“Damn, bruh,” he says, opening crisper trays. “How about turkey and Swiss for a sandwich?”

“No. Let’s get to work.” I point toward the master bedroom wing of the house. He rolls past, glowering, and I follow behind. “Besides, if you eat any more, you’ll have to carry yourself down the stairs.”

He grunts at me in annoyance.

We all file into the conference room. It’s equipped with a custom-designed conference table made of acacia wood surrounded by ten leather executive chairs. Four sixty-inch video monitors are mounted on the soundproof walls. We're wired up with all the secure comms equipment we need. Since our work is classified, our Navy contracts require us to maintain a secure facility to meet with our defense project managers. We use it to talk to our technical teams in San Diego as well.

I close and lock the door, thinking to myself that not a day goes by that I don’t stop and be grateful for our good fortune. Everything changed for us three years ago. It was a tough time for me. I was starting to wonder if I was ready to leave my brothers behind and leave the Navy and have a life that didn’t involve blowing shit up for SEAL teams. Dad was driving the ranch into the ground, and I was legit worried we’d lose it all, everything six generations of MacLaines had poured their blood, sweat, and tears into.

Then one night, Declan and Finn scribbled some software designs on a bar napkin. Declan started to wad up the used napkin, and Finn grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard, saying, “Don’t fucking move. Give that to me.”

A half-hour later, they knew their chicken scratch had satellite intelligence surveillance applications. Finn asked the bartender for a stack of napkins, and two hours later, they’d figured out how to scale up their design.

When they called to tell me the news the next morning, I thought they were shitting me.

Nope. I developed a business plan and came on to manage StellaR Tech. We submitted our proposal and got our first contract in short order. It was more than enough money to keep the ranch from foreclosure—it was enough for all of us to come home, make much-needed improvements to facilities and operations, and lift the day-to-day stress off Dad’s shoulders.

It changed all our lives and kept the MacLaine legacy alive.

I look around the table now and smile. We got lucky. We work our asses off, no doubt about it, but we got seriously fucking lucky and I never forget that.

I get the StellaR Tech business development team on a video conference call and dig into our agenda without delay. There’s been a snafu with the latest statement of work issued by the Navy, and we have to speed up our deliverable timetable. After about an hour of back-and-forth, we’ve hammered out a solution.

I thank our San Diego team for all their hard work and end the call.

“Now, let’s get to the good stuff.” Evander drums his manicured fingers on the conference table, and just like that, my mind goes to Victoria and our two days in the penthouse suite.

Only yesterday I experienced my first manicure and pedicure. That was her surprise number two and surprise number three. And there I was, thinking I’d hate it. I didn’t. I enjoyed the hell out of it and even fell asleep during my foot massage. But the real reason I enjoyed the experience was because Victoria was at my side, making me laugh, touching my arm, and just being her.

I am a well-fucked man, and I know that an endorphin rush can do crazy things to my brain. But it’s more than that. Because Victoria is more. And in addition to being well fucked, I am well and truly fucked.

I'm falling in love with her. No, that may already be yesterday’s news.

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