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“Everything you brought fit in the safe?”
He grunts while I shake my head. I don’t know anyone who can travel as light as him. With nothing other than a carry-on that probably only had a computer and a phone, both of which are likely burner ones with nothing on them, just in case.
I waggle my eyebrows as I stare down at the strip of beach that is just ours. Well, ours and the other people around us, but all of them are old and hardly ever come down to use it. “Good thing it’s a private beach. I always thought skinny dipping might be slightly kinky, but I can guarantee the little old ladies won’t mind seeing your buns and abs of steel one bit if they happen to look out the window before we can get into the water.”
He groans. Loudly.
I wink at him and grin my fullest and happiest—my heart is doing a happy dance right now in my freaking chest—grin. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
EPILOGUE
Alden
“You’re grilling my buns all wrong.”
It’s pretty hard to suppress a laugh when Granny says something like that. I shudder involuntarily and glance at Azalea. She’s standing beside me, keeping me company while I grill all the burgers and even the buns—for those who are very picky and require that extra special barbequed touch. She’s biting the corner of her bottom lip, her cheeks turning red as she tries to hold in her laughter.
Apparently, Granny thought I needed some checking up and came out to supervise her buns.
“Don’t say things like that, Granny.” I groan. “People could take it the wrong way.”
“Oh yeah?” She fists her hands on her hips and gives me one heck of a comical Granny look. With her black power suit, sparkling dangle black earrings, and her hair swept up in the classic twisted knot that she prefers, she’s overdressed for a backyard barbeque, but I wouldn’t expect anything less. “What kind of wrong way is that?”
“The way that involves your gluteus maximus,” Azalea explains. She makes it about two seconds before she loses her even tone and her perfect poker face and bursts into giggles.
“I’ll have you know this a serious occasion,” Granny chides, but she’s not being serious either. I can read her I’m-holding-back-a-smile-so-badly-that-my-face-is-going-to-crack-from-seriousness look from a mile away.
“It’s serious, alright,” I agree stoically.
I guess it is. Ransom is going undercover because last week, when Granny was visiting San Diego for a nice, very much needed vacay, some rough-looking biker dude literally almost ran her over with his big, obnoxious bike when she was crossing the street. The fact that he was wearing a cut from a club and flipped her the bird while cussing a blue streak when he was the one in the wrong by driving dangerously only hardened her resolve. She memorized the plate number, and a few minutes after arriving home, she had everything she needed to know. Well, not everything, and I guess that’s why we’re all here.
No, correction. That’s why my brothers are here—here being a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere in North West Ontario. That’s where Azalea and I ended up. She picked the town because it was known to have great sunsets and wasn’t hot, but it was on a big, beautiful lake. She moved her parents to a gorgeous cottage right along the lakeshore while I moved in down the block. After six months of that, she gave her parents the cottage and moved into mine. It’s also on the lake with a big private beach. All my brothers and Granny descended here en route to Operation Take Down The Very Secretive Biker Club in California.
You see, when Granny ran the plate, she found out the name of the club, and that was it. Nothing. Whoever is working for them is amazing at covering their tracks. If Granny couldn’t hack it—and she didn’t ask me because since I decided to make a go of it with Azalea, Granny’s been asking me to do less and less of the dangerous stuff—then yes, there has to be someone professional on the other end.
As for my end, since Granny agreed to basically let me off the hook except for some very light hacking and very non-threatening stuff, I even have a day job now. A real, bona fide day job. At least during the spring, summer, and fall. I happen to work as a dockhand at one of the fishing camps on the lake. I never figured myself as much of an outdoorsman, but I wanted to do something different, and I was surprised to find that I really liked it.
“Buns? What buns?” Ransom pops his head out the door. “Did I hear buns?”
“Not the bottom kind,” Azalea tells him.
“Oh.” He sighs in disappointment. “And here I thought you’d maybe invited a hot neighbor or two. Possibly those extra hot moms walking their dogs out by the lake earlier?”
