If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Read online

  Tim shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

  He eyed Riel and me warily, as if he wasn’t sure what to think about us going on vacation together.

  Well, that made two of us, buddy.

  We were fumbling right along with everyone else.

  We were attracted to each other, yet neither of us had acted on anything.

  We knew that something huge—an elephant named Luca—sat in the room with us, making everything feel awkward.

  And the damn DNA test was taking too long.

  Granted, it’d only been a couple of hours at most since we’d dropped the samples off in the lab last night, but that was enough that I felt like I had time to overthink.

  “Okay.” I nodded. “Do you want us to drive? Or do you want to follow us?”

  Tim was already shaking his head.

  “No driving,” he said. “We have a military plane at the airport.”

  There was a long moment of silence before Riel said, “A plane.”

  I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “We won’t have a car when we get there,” he said. “How will we get back? How will we get to Destin?”

  Tim looked thoughtful for a second.

  “We’ll figure that part out when we get there,” he finally said.

  My eyes locked with Riel’s, and his answering ‘are you okay with this’ lift of his brow had me smiling despite the butterflies that were racing through my stomach.

  In truth, those butterflies had been there for a while now.

  The first time that Riel did something that reminded me of… no. I wouldn’t go there. Not right now.

  “We’re ready when you are, then.” Riel swept his hand out, indicating for Tim to take the lead.

  Tim did take the lead.

  Then Tim took most of my baggage while Riel got all of his.

  I looked longingly at the vehicle that Riel had packed to the gills with our things.

  “How’s your dog doing, Riel?” Tim asked, trying to make small talk.

  Riel shrugged as he stopped next to the vehicle he’d arrived in.

  It was a military Humvee.

  I didn’t even realize that they drove these in the states.

  “The dog doesn’t know who I am,” Riel said. “I saw him yesterday for the first time because my so-called parents decided to give him up for adoption the moment that Malachi’s foot stepped out of the country.”

  There was a long pause, then Tim said. “Malachi’s parents were always dick heads.”

  That was when I realized that he’d referred to Malachi in the ‘third’ person just as Riel had.

  What the fuck?

  Did he know something?

  “Do you know any of what’s going on?” I asked curiously.

  Tim had his game face on, though, and not a single guess slipped out as he said, “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

  I looked over at Riel to see what he thought about Tim’s words but was awarded with a just as blank of an expression on his face, too.

  I sighed, thinking that this vacation wasn’t going to be at all what I expected it to be.

  In fact, I was guessing that there was going to be a lot of ‘oh my Gods’ coming out of my mouth here shortly.

  We planned on arriving in Destin, Florida two days ahead of my entire group of classmates.

  That was all because Cromwell wanted to take three-quarters of a month vacation in Costa Rica.

  A vacation that took his brother out of the country while there was yet another shooting that he was involved in.

  Though, they didn’t realize that he was involved in it until after he’d already boarded the plane and was halfway there.

  Not that I really could complain.

  I mean, Cromwell leaving meant that we could leave, too.

  Because technically we weren’t allowed to practice without a doctor there to make sure we didn’t fuck anything up.

  Meaning he signed off on us early, then kicked us to the curb until next year.

  It was a much-needed break for sure, and I was ecstatic that I got to spend a little time with my family and… Riel.

  Talking was limited after Tim said he couldn’t say anything more.

  In fact, it was so quiet that I could hear myself breathe, and then I started being aware of my breathing.

  Have you ever thought about your breathing before? Thought, how cool is it that I breathe for myself?

  But then you start being aware of your breathing, and then breathing doesn’t come so effortlessly anymore?

  That was the way I spent my entire trip to the airport.

  Counting my breaths and forcing myself to breathe, wishing that the involuntary breathing would come back already so I didn’t hyperventilate.

  When the Humvee pulled up next to a couple of other Humvees, Riel bailed out of the vehicle, then opened my door for me.

  I got out, too, reaching inside for my bags.

  Only, Riel gently pressed up against my backside and said, “I got it.”

  I licked my lips and tried to tell myself not to press myself back against him.

  But I didn’t manage it.

  In fact, I failed so spectacularly that both of us froze with the movement.

  His body, right there pressed to mine, stayed that way for far longer than either of us should’ve allowed.

  Yet, neither one of us moved.

  And I remembered a time far in the past, when Luca had first done it.

  “Here, let me help you get those out of…” He leaned over me and reached over my shoulder for the bags of groceries that I’d just gone to the store with him to get.

  The move plastered him up against my back, and my entire body froze as my heartbeat began to race erratically.

  I’d never had a man like him pressed up against me like he was.

  Never felt what it felt like to have someone plastered against me from thighs to chest.

  It surprised me that it felt good.

  I would’ve thought it would feel suffocating, but it wasn’t. Not at all.

  Not even a little bit.

  Almost inadvertently—at least at first—I pressed against him and felt what I thought was his phone pressed up against my backside.

  When the phone shifted and jerked, I realized that it was for sure not his phone.

  It was his penis.

  Luca’s penis was pressed up against me.

  And I couldn’t stop myself from shifting my hips.

  He hissed into my ear and caught me by the hip, his mouth coming down to nuzzle my neck.

  “You’re hell on my control,” he rasped.

  “You’re hell on my control.”

  The raspy voice was darker now, manlier.

  But no less the same.

  My heart rate was pounding so hard in my chest that my iWatch started to vibrate at me, indicating that I might be suffering from a heart attack.

  I looked down at the readout and saw that it said, ‘tachycardia rhythm detected.’

  I began to laugh.

  “What?” he growled, pressing in farther to get the other suitcase of mine.

  I showed him my watch.

  “My watch thinks I’m having a heart attack,” I told him.

  He blinked.

  Then his eyes met mine.

  “That makes two of us.”

  ***

  A pair of unsettling eyes landed on me.

  They were full of authority, unapologetic, and quite frankly terrifying.

  Honestly, the man wasn’t all that ‘scary’ looking at first glance.

  He was a man in his late fifties, with graying brown hair, a weathered face, and an intense, clean-shaven jaw.

  But his eyes were where things changed.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  He was in full uniform. He was so put together that it literally took everything I had not to
reach forward and push the medals on his chest slightly to the side. Just to see how he’d react.

  “This is Francesca Solomon. The fiancée,” Tim said. “One of our deceased SEAL team members. You remember Gabriel Luca Maldonado, III. Right, Commander Mooney?”

  Recognition flared in Commander Mooney’s eyes.

  Then sadness and worry.

  I frowned, wondering what had put those two emotions there.

  “And this is…”

  “Riel,” I said his name, not wanting him to be introduced as Malachi since he hated it so much.

  “I thought your name was Malachi?” the man asked.

  “It’s supposed to be, sir,” Riel grumbled. “I just don’t like going by it. It doesn’t feel… right.”

  Sergeant Mooney’s eyes were sharp as they focused all on the man that I was starting to have feelings for.

  “Is that so?” he asked, his eyes turning to Tim. “Have a seat.”

  Everyone did, me taking up the spot closest to the wall at our back.

  Riel sat beside me, looking for all he was worth as if he was comfortable being in the room when he and I both knew he was not.

  He didn’t like being in closed spaces.

  And we were in the ultimate closed space.

  Five floors up, the room we were led to had been in the middle of the building. There were no windows in the room we were in, and I could tell that Riel was starting to feel trapped.

  He didn’t show his discomfort, though.

  Not to mention the lights were so bright and harsh that there wasn’t a single shadow to be had in the entire room.

  Meaning his scars were on full display for all to see.

  I felt my belly clench when I looked down at his hands that were under the table to find them fisted so hard that his skin was turning a pale, sickly white.

  I pressed my knee against him, and he softened.

  Infinitesimally.

  “What’s this about?” Riel finally said, sounding mad and annoyed.

  That was when the door opened across the room, and another man filed in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” the man said. “I’m slower than I usually am.”

  Nobody said anything until he finally took his seat across from us, next to Tim.

  Commander Mooney was still standing beside the table looking pissed.

  “Have a seat, Hayes,” Tim said, pushing a chair out.

  Hayes’ head turned to survey the man sitting beside me once he’d taken his seat.

  “Shit,” he said once he got his first good look at Riel. “I was there five months longer than you, and you can’t even tell.”

  Riel didn’t know what to say to that, so he stayed silent.

  “Time to explain, Tim,” Mooney ordered, voice full of authority and something else that I couldn’t quite decipher.

  “You’re not Malachi,” Hayes said softly. “You’re Luca.”

  Those five words dropped like a bomb.

  The room exploded.

  “What?”

  My shout of surprise was the loudest.

  I’d wondered why the commander had allowed me to stay.

  At first, I could see his absolute abhorrence at me being there in the first place. But then Tim had introduced me, and something had changed.

  That unreadable emotion that had passed over his face had been pity.

  And now I knew.

  Hayes’ eyes went all around the room, his face closed off as he remembered something, then finally landed on the man beside me.

  Luca.

  “Malachi and you were held in the same cell,” he said after a while. “Before I was moved to the new facility. For ‘better accommodations’ they said.”

  Luca nodded. Riel.

  Fuck, I was confused.

  The bad thing was, it hadn’t even come to me as a surprise.

  If the last two days hadn’t been enough of a warning that Luca… Riel… didn’t know who he was, the last six months had been telling.

  I’d known.

  My body had known, even if my cognitive mind hadn’t made that connection.

  Riel… Luca… he’d always affected me like that. Always.

  “The guards gave y’all a choice. One or the other,” Hayes said softly. “They thought you were twins. That it would break something inside of you to no longer have the other to lean on… and it did. I watched as Malachi took his own life so you could live. Because you had Frankie waiting on you at home and he had nobody.”

  I felt sick to my stomach hearing the recounting of some of his time in captivity.

  Nobody should ever have to experience what Malachi, Hayes, and Luca had.

  Nobody.

  “When they pulled Malachi’s body out of the cell, him still bleeding out, they tossed his dog tags at you as they took him and left. Hit you right in the face with them.” He winced. “You were so fucked up, though. I don’t even think you realized what was happening at that point.”

  Riel rubbed his face.

  “Luca,” he said. “For the first time in so long… God. That feels almost… right.”

  I’d call him Luca from that point forward.

  I didn’t want him to feel wrong anymore.

  Though, I’d definitely ask his permission first.

  I didn’t want him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

  “How did this even come up?” I finally asked, gesturing to Hayes. “How did you know he wasn’t Malachi? How did you know he was even going by Malachi?”

  Hayes repositioned himself in his chair, then looked at Commander Mooney as if asking for permission.

  Mooney nodded once.

  “I was rescued from the hellhole a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “The information was shared on the news, and I got to thinking about Malachi and Luca. We were all really good buddies, and the shit that happened in… yeah. Not going there. But we got tight,” he said. “I wanted to check on Luca. Knew he got out because I overheard the guards saying that he was ‘rescued’ but he’d never be the ‘same’ again. I wanted to make sure that he was okay, I guess. And everyone got all confused when I asked for Luca. One thing led to another, and yeah. That’s how it got to this point.”

  Luca still hadn’t said a word.

  I looked over at him to see him staring blankly forward.

  “I don’t remember you,” he said finally. “I’m sorry.”

  Hayes stared at Luca for the longest of times before saying, “It’s understandable. What all you went through…” He stopped when he looked at me, staring at him intently. God, I wanted to know everything that happened. Everything.

  But it looked as if Hayes didn’t think that I needed to know those particular details.

  “Bomb,” I said, touching Luca’s shoulder where the scars were mottled. “Torture.” I touched a straight slice that bisected Luca’s cheek. “Neglect.”

  The table was deathly silent.

  “I can guess,” I finally said. “But no, you’re right. I don’t think that I want to be here for that.”

  I absently started spinning the diamond engagement ring that I’d yet to take off of my finger since Luca had put it on there.

  With that comment, I stood up. “I’m going to see if I can find some coffee. And some air.”

  And I did.

  Forty-five minutes later, I was on my back on a stone bench staring up at the sky.

  It was so hot that I had sweat running down my cheeks and into my hair.

  Yet I stayed exactly where I was, not sure what to do next.

  Then I felt him—just like I always did when he was around.

  He sat down on the bench next to my head, and I glanced up at him.

  “Hey,” I said softly.

  His eyes caught mine.

  “You… hey,” he finally settled on.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  What to feel.

  But I knew two
things. It was my Luca sitting beside me. My Luca who I was still engaged to. My Luca who I’d prayed and prayed to come home. My Luca who had been tearing me up for weeks.

  Mine.

  Mine.

  Mine.

  “Luca,” I breathed. “Riel… I don’t know what to call you anymore. Is it okay for me to call you Luca?”

  He thought about it long and hard. I could see the indecision written on his face.

  “I feel like an imposter,” he finally settled on. “That’s why I couldn’t go with Malachi. I don’t know who I am still, Frankie. I may be Luca, and for once the name actually doesn’t make me want to cringe… it does feel right. But… shit.”

  “But shit is right.” I laughed weakly, tears springing to my eyes.

  What he didn’t know was that I didn’t care what I had to call him. I had my man back.

  Even if he was a little broken and needed to be put back together again.

  “I’ll call you whatever you want,” I said finally. “Just as long as you know that you’re allowed to like me now. And I’m allowed to like you.”

  He seemed to understand that all too well.

  We’d been fighting a pull since the moment he came back to Kilgore.

  One that had brought us into contact with each other, whether we wanted to be or not.

  I should’ve known—allowed myself to believe—that this was my man.

  But it was hard.

  Everybody told me he was Malachi. And Malachi wasn’t mine.

  I should’ve known when seeing ‘Malachi’ had invoked such intense feelings within me that he wasn’t who he thought he was.

  There was only ever one man that I’d been that intensely attracted to, and Luca was it.

  “You can call me Luca,” he said finally, wiping away my tears.

  I sniffled, unable to stop myself.

  The tears just kept coming.

  I was feeling such intense joy about the entire situation that my emotions were all over the place.

  I was happy that he was here. Sad that we’d lost so much time. Horrified that his parents thought he was still missing when he wasn’t. Upset that we now had to tell my dad, his parents, and Cora when they weren’t together to offer support.

  Shit, but there were just so many things going through my brain that I didn’t know where to begin.

  “We have to tell Gabe and Ember,” I said. “And your sister will be sharing a beach house with us in two days.”