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But while the pain she’d felt after Giorgio’s death wasn’t something to be dismissed, there was another reason she’d never considered having a serious relationship. If she couldn’t shareallof her life with someone, was that a relationship she—or he—would want? And since she’d set herself against being with another agent, someone who she might be able to share all aspects of her life with, she’d just tossed the entire idea of a relationship out the window.
Her mind started to drift down the rabbit hole of what-ifs when she thought of Gavin. What if they did have a relationship? What would it be like to live and work with someone with whom she could share everything? What would it be like to be with someone who wouldexpecther to share everything? What if something happened to him while they were working together? Giorgio’s death had been hard; Gavin’s would be devastating.
As soon as that thought—that reality—settled in her mind, the bitter taste of cowardice washed through her body. The truth was, anything could happen to either of them at any time. The truth was, they both had dangerous jobs, and they both knew better than to take anything in life—like love and time—for granted. The truth was, she’d be devastated if anything happened to him. That last little nugget, more than anything, told her all she needed to know about how she felt. And the only viable reason she was shying away from him—from them—was fear.
In his room down the hall, Gavin got up to use the bathroom, and she tracked the subtle squeaking of the old floorboards as he crossed his room. She wasn’t sure how she felt about knowing he was awake, too, but she did know that he wouldn’t be knocking on her door. No, he’d wait for her to come to him. He deserved to know that she had chosen him over fear, and he had enough respect for himself to not settle for anything less.
With a sigh, she turned onto her side and gazed out the window. A spring storm was brewing off the coast, and the stars were barely visible behind the drifting, thickening clouds. She’d left the window cracked open, and the rhythmic sound of waves crashing gently on the rocky beach at the edge of her property provided a quiet soundtrack.
Staring out at the ocean, her mind started to drift away from the question of Gavin, and how she felt about him, to the vastness of the water that stretched as far as the eye could see. Mentally, she traced the waters from those that lapped her shore, across the Atlantic to Europe, through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal and into the Red Sea. From there her mind traveled through the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific Ocean, then through the Panama Canal and finally through the Caribbean and back up into the Atlantic. A single journey that could take her everywhere in the world. A thing so vast that it made her life feel insignificant. Not in the things she’d done or accomplished, but in her place in the world. She was a tiny speck on the planet and an even smaller one in the span of time.
Rather than depress her, the reminder the ocean had given her grounded her. Her time on this planetwasn’tvery long, nor was any time promised to her. A sense of strength surged through her, warming her body and settling the anxious energy she’d carried since her conversation with Gavin. She didn’t have an epiphany about what to do with, or about, Gavin, but she no longer had blinders on that kept her from seeing her own motivations or feelings. Thinking of her own inconsequence had opened a door for her to see the truth. She had no answers, but at least now, she felt she could ask—and maybe answer—the right questions.
Chapter Twenty-Five
On Sunday morning,Gavin and Joe stood on Violetta’s back porch sipping coffee. As promised, Heather Wheaton had come over on Saturday, and they’d all—Violetta, the club, Heather, Gavin, and even Joe—worked furiously on the complaint Heather would file on Monday. Now all but Heather, who’d left early in the morning to prepare for her brother’s funeral, had finished brunch and he and Joe had moved outside while the club updated Franklin on their plan for Monday.
“I heard from the ME this morning. The autopsy on Julian Newcross is scheduled for this afternoon,” Joe said.
“I assume Julia is being kept updated?” Gavin asked. Given the mood of the group yesterday, it had been appropriate that a storm raged on most of the day. But now the sky was a bright blue, the ocean waters calm, and the smell of damp earth rose from the ground as it warmed in the sun.
Joe nodded. “She arrived back in Boston yesterday and is staying at their home in the city.”
Gavin took a sip of his coffee and stared out at the ocean, letting his mind wander. Was Julia upset over her husband’s death? Had she ever loved him? Or had she known what DePalma had planned?
“When we were working yesterday, did anyone come across any background as to why she married Julian in the first place?” Gavin asked. According to Julian, Julia had been having an affair with DePalma pretty much her entire life.
“They met at a farmers’ market. She was getting Shanti Joy up and running, and he owned the land that hosted the market,” Joe responded. The details of how and why the Newcrosses had met and married weren’t relevant to the complaint, so Gavin hadn’t bothered to ask before.
“She’s a user and a liar. He must have had something more going for him than just being a landowner,” Gavin said.
“He did. His parents owned a chain of high-end organic grocery stores. The perfect place to launch an organic, ethical cosmetics line. And much easier to marry into it than try to pitch to it,” Joe answered.
“They still around?”
Joe shook his head. “Both died while hiking in the Andes a few years back. He inherited the chain and sold it about a year later.” He paused and looked out at the ocean as well. “You know, I never thought about marriage or a lifelong commitment until very recently. It wasn’t something I felt ready to take on while I was in the Navy.” Joe had put in his twenty years before retiring and moving into work as a police officer, then as a detective, and now chief of police. “I can’t imagine marrying someone for such mercenary reasons.”
Gavin glanced over at the man and realized that his reasons for not choosing to get into a committed relationship while in the Navy were not dissimilar from Violetta’s. Yes, Violetta had experienced a loss that brought her to that conclusion, but it was the same conclusion.
“Violetta feels that way, too,” Gavin said. Joe’s gaze came around, and he raised a brow. “She’s reluctant to start anything that might involve a commitment while still working for AISE.”
Joe gave a small smile. “Yeah, Cyn was like that, too. Despite their jobs, I think those women,” he said with a small jerk of his head in their direction, “don’t like to lie. Not to people they care about—I think that’s one of the reasons they all live so far from their families, too. I don’t know Six’s specific reasons, but Cyn had never been in a committed relationship because there were—are—huge parts of her life that she can’t share, and that didn’t seem fair to her. I don’t know if that’s what’s holding Six back, or if it’s something else, but at least that’s something you and I have going for us.”
That might be part of what was holding Violetta back, but given what she’d told him last night, it wasn’t the only reason. “What do we have going for us?” Gavin asked.
Joe smiled. “They may not be able to tell us what they are doing on specific operations, but they don’t have to lie to us about being on them. They don’t have to make up reasons for suddenly having to jet out of the country or for all the extra security they have on their technology. Generally speaking, they don’t have to lie to us about anything. Like I said, we may not ever know the details of what they do, but we know they do it. And given that we’re both military, we know the cost some of those ops can take. We’re good people for them to talk to—again, not about the specifics, but about how their jobs affect them.”
Joe’s observation shed new light on the situation with Violetta. After seeing the very real pain reflected in her eyes when she’d told him about Giorgio, Gavin had considered the possibility that nothing they felt for each other would ever be stronger than her desire to avoid a similar situation. He’d been viewing his active agent status as something gettingbetweenhimself and Violetta.
But Joe’s comment made him realize that there was a benefit, a very real one, to it, too. He could be there for her in a way very few other people could. And though shewas his only active op at the moment, that didn’t mean he didn’t have his own demons from the past. Demons she’d understand. Demons she’d not shy away from.
“What do you think about the plan for tomorrow?” Gavin asked, changing the subject. He’d been thinking about Violetta more than he ought to given the situation, and he’d come to accept that there was nothing he could do but wait. He’d made a promise to himself that the next move would have to be hers. He understood her reticence and he understood her fear, but Violetta wasn’t a woman who could or would be cajoled out of her chosen course. She had to decide her own path, make her own decisions. And if she did choose him, then that act in and of itself would tell him everything he needed to know about where he stood with her.
In the meantime, they had work to do.
Joe shot him a half grin. “It’s a little crazy, but not nearly as crazy as what we did in January, so I count that as a win.”
Gavin chuckled. He’d heard what had happened five months earlier when the five of them had traced and taken out a small but violent group of young white supremacists. Bringing Julia Newcross and the Fogarty brothers to heeldidseem rather tame in comparison.
