Sins and Scarlet Lace

chapter FOURTEEN

Dinner with the MacKenzies was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. The house was just as sprawling on the inside as it was on the outside, and it was obvious the large dining room was one of the newer additions to the house.

The large cherry wood table sat twenty-four, and every seat was taken. The older kids were too cool to sit with the adults, so they’d been banished to the sun porch at the large table out there. The smaller kids sat in booster seats or high chairs between their parents, and Dec had been right, there were enough kids in the room that the MacKenzie women probably spent a lot of time pregnant. But if the rest of the men in the family were anything like Declan in bed, it probably wasn’t such a hardship to keep trying.

She’d once thought of having children with Declan, maybe a few years after she graduated college so they’d have time to spend some alone time together first. But she hadn’t thought of bringing a child into the world since before her wedding night, and after she’d married Kane she’d made sure she got her birth control shot every three months like clockwork because she couldn’t have imagined bringing a child into that situation.

But that once forgotten longing swept over her as she sat at the center of the table next to Declan. Dane sat across from her and she watched as he took turns rubbing his very pregnant wife’s back and cutting up meat for the toddler sitting next to him. Riley sat to her left and held a sleeping baby of only a few months on his shoulder while he talked baseball with Cooper sitting across from him.

It was a family that treasured the blessings they had and truly enjoyed each other’s company. The men loved their wives openly—not only did they love them—they liked them. Her parents had been married almost forty years, and she knew they loved each other, but she couldn’t say that they liked each other enough to spend extra time with each other. And it was a shame. If you were going to spend your life with someone, the friendship was the most important thing. Friendship survived old age and sagging body parts and illness and sorrow. She realized with clarity that’s what she’d missed most after Declan had cut ties with her so abruptly. She’d lost her best friend and lover all in one fell swoop.

Declan squeezed her thigh beneath the table while he continued arguing politics with his brother Grant.

“Aw, man. You guys started the party without us.”

Sophia looked toward the entryway along with everyone else, and she was caught off guard by the men who stood in the doorway. No one had run away screaming at their intrusion, so she assumed they were part of the family. She wondered briefly if the MacKenzies were related to Lucifer himself, and she hoped to God he was on their side.

“If you’d ever show up to anything on time, we wouldn’t always start without you,” Grant called out.

The man smiled and dimples winked at the corners of his mouth, and it almost made up for the imposing picture he made. He stood tall, several inches over six feet and his shoulders were broad and muscled. A black T-shirt fit tight around his biceps and it was tucked into black cargo pants. Dog tags hung around his neck and she could partially see a scrollwork tattoo peeking from one of his sleeves. The dimples might distract at first sight, but his eyes were as dark as night and intelligent. And he didn’t look like someone you’d want to cross. Ever.

“Grab a plate and sit down, Shane,” Cat, Thomas’s wife, said. “There’s room for you and Brady both at the table. A couple of the kids have fallen asleep in their plates.”

Adjustments were made and the kids were moved into another room to bed down for the night as Shane and Brady made room for themselves at one end of the table.

“Shane MacKenzie,” he said, holding out a hand as he sat down across from her. “Nice to finally meet you. I like that mole by your mouth. Very sexy,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

She burst into laughter at his boldness and felt an instant kinship with him. He was the youngest male in the family, and it looked like he’d been doing his best to needle his brothers and cousins in as many ways as possible over the years by the way everyone around them groaned at his outrageousness. Shane MacKenzie was a heartbreaker, plain and simple.

“The man standing patiently next to my Neanderthal brother is Brady Scott,” Declan said. “He’s Darcy’s husband’s brother, and he and Shane belong to the same SEAL team. They help us out on occasion.”

“On occasion?” Shane snorted. “We pull your asses out of a lot of situations to just be considered occasional help. You’re welcome by the way.”

“It’s not like you’re working for free,” Dec said. “If your prices keep going up I’m going to start using SEAL Team Eight out of Texas as backup. And there’d probably be less whining.”

“You get what you pay for, brother.”

“I’d like it noted that I have no objections with working more than occasionally,” Brady said. “I’ve almost got my house built and paid for.”

Shane snorted out a laugh and slapped his friend on the back. “Kiss-ass. Brady has ideas of home and hearth. I’ve never met a SEAL so bent on putting down roots. It doesn’t seem natural.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Charlie said, handing her plate to Dane as they started clearing the table.

“Better watch it, Shane,” Cat said, laughing. “It’ll be you next. You’re the last MacKenzie standing.”

“Bite your tongue, woman. This MacKenzie is going to be footloose and carefree for a lot of years. Someone has to carry on the MacKenzie family tradition since all of you seem to enjoy being shackled a little too much for my liking.”

Sophia felt her cheeks heat as she remembered exactly how much Declan had enjoyed being shackled, and when his hand squeezed her thigh again she realized he was remembering as well.

“How’s the perimeter?” Dec asked, moving to business.

“It’s secure. You’ve done a hell of a job with the setup, so it made our jobs easier. We added a few bonus features spanning out several miles from the perimeter of the compound, but it’s ready. We’ve split up into teams of two.” Shane laid a couple of napkins out flat and picked up several utensils that were laying nearby.

“This first napkin is the original MacKenzie land. It’s a lot of space to cover, and I don’t think there will be any danger to anyone outside of your location, but I have two men set up in the hunting cabin out by the lake just to be safe.” He put a fork in the general location of the hunting cabin. “There’s more than a hundred acres that stretches between your compound and this property.”

He put another fork down where Declan had built his secured command center and his own home. “I’ve got another team of two set up at the cabin you built outside the walls on the southwest and another team of two in the cabin to the northeast. Brady will stay inside the gated perimeter and be backup for you there just in case, and I’ll monitor the nifty electronics we’ve got placed around. Everyone needs to stay clear of open land areas, because we have a few surprises in strategic locations. It shouldn’t be a problem since it’s open land anyway, but you probably want to avoid any romantic picnics in the middle of any hayfields. That would be a terrible thing to lose a vital part of your anatomy when you’re just getting to use it again.”

Several of the men at the table snickered and the women rolled their eyes.

“Some day some woman is going to put you in your place, and I’m going to enjoy watching it happen tremendously,” Dec said.

“When hell freezes over,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m assuming that you’ve been doing some work on your end and haven’t just been relying on the SEALs to do everything for you?”

“Whoever we’re dealing with has a pretty extensive knowledge of computers that goes beyond mere hacking. I’ve set up some cyber-bait to see how far his curiosity about Sophia goes. As far as the money goes, that’s a mystery. If Sophia had possession of accounts or the cashier’s check Kane withdrew from the bank, then they’d be hard pressed to find it in the ashes of her home. Which means they think she has passwords or whatever is needed to get the money memorized.”

“That’s not good,” Shane winced.

“Why not?” Claire asked.

“Because if they think she has the information memorized then Sophia becomes the target instead of the money itself. They’ll do whatever they can to get to her, and then they’ll do whatever it takes to get her to talk.”

“On that note, I think I want to skip dessert,” she said.