Page 8 of Smoke Screen
Before hopping in the shower, he put on coffee and texted Zeke, requesting a meeting. Mom tried to keep track of all their schedules, but with five men to wrangle, that was an epic failure.
If they needed a meeting, Zeke would group text them and bam, everyone showed up. New business meant making money, and they all liked their toys.
Phin’s recent acquisition of an Audi RS 5 proved the point. Schmoozing slimeballs all night drained him and he needed time to decompress. Lately, the closest thing to heaven he’d experienced was opening the Audi up on a quiet highway.
He enjoyed the steep, winding mountain roads leading to their home in Steele Ridge, the town he, along with his cousins on his mom’s side, grew up in and watched fall into bankruptcy before his billionaire cousin, Jonah Steele, bought it. Literally bought the damned town to save it from economic ruin.
Over the years, Phin hadn’t gotten to know the Steele bunch as well as he’d have liked. Probably his own fault because Mom and Dad had insisted on secrecy regarding Dad’s repo business. Those secrets led to assumptions by outsiders that criminal activity might be involved. Which seriously sucked. There wasn’t a ton Phin could do about it, other than keep his head up.
After the family had bought the Friary and the massive acreage around it, Zeke had gone nuts installing security. The security alone sent the Steele Ridge gossips to delirium.
Who could blame them? Without information, curious minds created alternate realities.
Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” blared from Phin’s phone just as he slid into his T-shirt.
He scooped the phone from the bedside table. A 9:00 meeting with Zeke. Phin checked his watch, an old Timex that had belonged to his dad.
An hour to kill.
He finished dressing, opting for a pair of drawstring cotton shorts to go with his T-shirt. He never minded wearing what his brothers called his James Bond suits, but after a night with limited sleep, he needed casual. It didn’t keep the guys from roasting him about his pressed T-shirts.
When did neat clothing become a crime?
Whatever. Phone in hand, he walked to his suite’s galley kitchen, keeping his steps light in case Cruz might still be asleep below him.
The aroma of the maple coffee Mom had picked up at the farmer’s market the weekend before ignited his senses. In the five days since she’d bought it, the stuff had become an all-out obsession. Maybe that’s what he’d do after the meeting with Zeke. Instead of the Audi, he’d take the jeep. Put the top down and go in search of the address on the coffee bag. He’d buy a case of the stuff. Maybe he’d even take Mom with him. Get her out of the office some.
He stuck his phone in the front pocket of his shorts, poured coffee, black no sugar, and headed to the French doors leading to the small balcony that overlooked the back end of the property. Morning sunshine and tweeting birds greeted him. He dropped into the cushioned chair and sat for a second, sucking in the thick, humid air. Summer in North Carolina. No joke.
Certain days, he didn’t mind giving up his political aspirations to work for BARS. That career meant an office job that prohibited lazy mornings on his balcony.
The bonus today was he hadn’t crawled out of a stranger’s bed in the middle of the night and schlepped home.
“Phinny, Phinny, Phinny,” he muttered. “What the hell are you doing?”
Thinking never served him. Made him get too far inside his mind and sent him spiraling down a hole he had no business going down. Like the one where he mourned the opportunity to effect positive change in the world. That would have been fun.
Sipping his coffee, he checked the headlines on his phone. Nothing about the Thompson Center heist.
A bird, an eastern phoebe, let out a call and he peered up, searching the trees while his thoughts tripped back to the night before and the fascinating Maddy Carmichael.
He liked her spunk, not to mention her curves. Her quick wit. Smart women did that to him. Fired his engines. Challenged him intellectually.
Hopefully, he’d be seeing more of her.
He checked the time. Forty more minutes.
While waiting, Phin could put a call in to Ash. Try to pry intel from big brother.
A second of thought nixed that idea. Wasn’t worth the ass-frying from Zeke for contacting Ash first. Lately, navigating the tension between those two made prison sound like a day spa. And Phin had found himself the target of both their wraths enough to have learned a lesson or two.
The first beingnotto speak to Ash before Zeke about BARS business. Even if, in the next—he checked his watch—thirty-seven minutes, his curiosity might drive him to madness.
Phin walkedinto Zeke’s office and found his brother at his desk, cursing his laptop screen.
He wore a loose gray T-shirt and a Charlotte Knights baseball cap. Probably a bad hair day, since big brother had complained the day before about needing a haircut.
“Hey,” Phin said, dropping into one of the guest chairs.
