Chapter 4

FOUR

Aidan woke to the same soft sensations he'd fallen asleep to, Jamie's fingers carding through his hair, his chest rising and falling gently beneath the arm Aidan had thrown over it. The room was also still dark, Aidan's eyes taking longer to adjust in the near pitch-black, only the faint glow of the bedside clock casting any light in the room.

Five thirty, according to said clock.

Aidan snuggled closer to the warm body beside his. "I didn't wear you out enough to sleep to the alarm?"

Jamie's chuckle rumbled beneath his ear. "Watched too much tape. So many plays running through my head."

"You were great out there yesterday. Not just the plays we practiced but with the team too." He absently traced the interlocking N and C inked on Jamie's chest, debating whether to disturb the peace and quiet with the last thought he'd fallen asleep to. And the one that had woken him. But if there was one person in the world who he was completely safe with, who would listen and not judge, it was the man beside him. "Marsh noticed too," he said. "That you're good with the kids."

"I'm good at teaching them basketball. Otherwise, all the credit goes to my mom and sister, my niblings, and you."

"Me?" Aidan glanced up and met baby blue eyes smiling down at him.

"Yes, you." Jamie ducked his chin and dropped a kiss on his forehead. "Seeing how you are with Katie and the next-gen Talleys."

"Katie took to you right away."

"Katie also took to Nic. What does that tell you?"

Aidan laughed, remembering how his now ten-year-old niece had once been a tiny tyke who'd been his gruff best friend's "date" at his and Jamie's wedding. She'd been attached to "Uncle Nic" ever since, spending way more time at his brewery than was strictly legal for someone underage. Good thing said uncle was also the US Attorney for Northern California.

Jamie's hand drifted out of his hair to Aidan's arm over his chest, squeezing gently. "Talk to me, Irish."

Just as Jamie was the one person who he was completely safe with, he was also the one person Aidan could never hide from. He scooted closer, tightening his hold on Jamie's middle, unable to shake the sense his world was about to be upended. He'd had it all once before, then he'd lost it when Gabe had been killed. All these years later, reaching for more still felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. Like one wrong step, and he'd lose it all again. But in Jamie's arms—arms that had held him close for seven years, even when Aidan had pushed him away—maybe he could take that step. Maybe he could finally be brave enough to reach for more.

He swallowed. And stepped forward. "Marsh also asked if we'd thought about having any."

Jamie's breath caught and stiffness rippled through his frame. "Any?"

Aidan held tighter. "Kids," he said before he could chicken out. "Of our own."

"I think about it every time we step on a court together."

Aidan whipped his gaze back to his husband, Jamie's words the last thing he expected. "You do?"

"Of course," he said, as simply as he had last night about watching tape. "I wonder what it would be like to coach our own kids, to laugh and play and learn together." The tension ebbed from his frame, a smile touching the corners of his lips, reflecting the same one Aidan could feel turning up his own. "Assuming they like basketball. Or sports at all. And if not, we'll get one of our other friends to teach them to play chess. And we'll learn with them."

The image was so clear in Aidan's mind that he couldn't help but smile wider, but the next instant, his smile dimmed as he wondered how long Jamie had kept this to himself. "You should have?—"

Jamie silenced him with a quick, soft kiss. "We have talked about it, and let me be clear, I don't need to have kids to feel whole. That burning need some folks talk about isn't there for me. Probably because we're surrounded by so many kids already. But it is something I think we'd be good at together. That I'd want to do with you, if you want that too."

"I do." The earth shifted with the truth, but rather than sinking, the sense of flying propelled Aidan up. He stretched and claimed the lips of the man who gave him courage this day and every day. "Maybe it's time we did something more than just talk."

Jamie's smile tasted like flying too.

Aidan would have liked to enjoy more of it, but a familiar knock on the hotel room door had him drawing back.

Jamie recognized it too. "Danny?"

"Sounded like it." Aidan unwound from Jamie and the sheets, flipped on the bedside light, and stood. He crossed to the dresser and checked his phone. "Yep, Daniel." His brother had texted twenty minutes ago asking if he was awake, and again five minutes ago to say he was headed over from the next-door luxury hotel where he and Mel were staying. "Just a second, baby bro," he called toward the door, then grabbed one of Jamie's tees from the drawer before snatching his jeans and boxers off the floor. When he turned back around, Jamie had also swung his legs off the bed and was halfway to standing. Hand to his shoulder, Aidan urged him back down. "I'll slip out and you can go back to sleep. Or keep running plays in your head. I can handle whatever this is."

"If he's here and it's still dark out, it's all hands on deck." Using his heft and extra inches, Jamie stood and forced Aidan back a step. "I'm gonna grab clothes and hit the bathroom right quick."

"Your top priority has to be the team, Jamie. You've got a game today."

"My top priority is you, always ." Hand around his neck, Jamie swallowed any further objection with a kiss that made Aidan wobble on his feet. His next words only worsened the swooning. "And we're not done with this convo. When the dust settles, we're gonna talk about more than maybes." Another quick kiss, then he slipped out from between Aidan and the bed, grabbed last night's no doubt crusty sweatshirt off the floor, and headed for the bathroom.

Following in his wake, Aidan flipped on more lights, grabbed Jamie the clean clothes he'd forgotten, and, once he'd handed them through the bathroom door to his husband, shut that door and opened the main one to the room.

In the hallway, his typically stylish brother looked uncharacteristically rumpled. "At least you knocked this time," Aidan said, referencing that early morning when Danny had used his lock-picking skills to break into the condo Aidan and Jamie had stayed at on their first assignment.

"At least you put on your own pants this time," Danny countered, reminding Aidan too of the state he and Mel had found them in, having hastily dressed in the dark to defend themselves against would-be intruders.

One of those "intruders," however, was missing this morning. "Where's Mel?"

"Got a call about a bounty," Danny said as he bustled into the room. "Sometime around two." Mel had recently gone full-time with Redemption Inc., the bounty hunter enterprise she ran with another of their family friends.

"Have you slept at all?" Aidan asked his brother, who was rolling his head around on his neck like a bobblehead doll.

Righting his gaze, he spread his arms wide. "Do I look like it?"

Jamie appeared out the bathroom and, clearly having heard the exchange, made a beeline to the in-room beverage nook. "I'll get the coffee going."

Aidan leaned against the nearest wall and kept his attention on Danny. "Given the hour, I assume you're not here out of boredom or loneliness or to bring us a holiday surprise."

"Not the good kind. Owner of the stolen cargo had a tracker on it, but something or someone is blocking the signal."

Ah, now Aidan knew why Daniel was here. And so did Jamie, who stepped around Aidan and lightly squeezed his hip. "You finish the coffee. I'll wake the laptop."

Aidan lined up three cups as the cheap in-room coffeemaker gurgled to life. "You said the owner had shipped the diamonds with other luxury goods. Is he a collector or a reseller?"

"Bit of both."

"Since when is Talley Enterprises shipping for individuals?"

"We do it for Rafael Parsons, whose business also ships a quarter million tons of cargo with us per year."

A significant client whose trust Danny had to gain back.

"Anything else of his been stolen before?" Jamie asked.

"No, their cargo tends to be high-end luxury goods." Danny lowered himself on one end of the couch and rubbed a hand over his way-past-five-o'clock scruff, as visible a sign as any of the hours he'd been awake. He graciously accepted the mug of caffeine Aidan handed him. "Cargo theft is skyrocketing, especially as the holidays approach, but it's usually items the average person can afford. Handheld electronics and basic commodities like food and drinks. "

"The price of everything's skyrocketing," Aidan said as he finished fixing his and Jamie's coffees.

"And everyone's willing to look the other way for a deal. This is the first one on us, at least partially."

"All right," Jamie said from where he'd set up at the table with his laptop. "I need specs on the tracking."

Danny pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Jamie. Two sips of coffee later, he was deep into whatever it was hackers did. Aidan settled between them and turned his attention back to his brother.

"Did you check in yet with Rick or Matt?"

"Haven't had time. Aside from taking Mel to the airport, I've been on the phone with Siobhan and the owner's insurer all night, until I got a call from Parsons this morning, just before I texted you."

"Is that the first time you've spoken with Parsons since the goods were stolen?" At Danny's nod, Aidan asked, "So who were you talking to yesterday?"

"His executive assistant and the insurer. Parsons was traveling. They knew he had a tracker on the diamonds, but we couldn't get the details until Parsons made contact. Only he had that information."

Aidan glanced over his shoulder at Jamie. Brows pinched, fingers flying, he was fully absorbed in whatever was going on in that little black box on his screen. Aidan withdrew his phone and bought him some more time.

Rick answered after two rings. "This is Lorton." He sounded as tired as Danny looked, his Midwestern drawl more pronounced.

"Hey, Rick. It's Aidan. I'm here with Jamie and Danny." He flipped the phone to speaker. "Any leads on the truck? "

"I've got Matt here too," Rick answered. "We've been going through the surveillance video from the yard."

"Streaming it to you now," Matt said.

Aidan logged into his work server on his phone and scooted closer to Danny while the video loaded.

"That's the transfer," Rick narrated once the video started playing.

Two crates were being moved via forklift from a shipping container to a cargo van. As the forklift began to reverse, a commotion erupted, the group of kids—teenagers—Matt had mentioned yesterday crossing behind the lift.

"Hey, watch it!" one chided.

"Tonto del culo!" a different student called.

"Bruh!" a third shouted.

"Did you know about the students visiting?" Rick was asking Danny, but Aidan was stuck on the Spanish shout amidst the English ones, something about the voice vaguely familiar. He slid the cursor back and watched it again.

"You see something?" Danny asked.

He zoomed in but couldn't see any of the students' faces. And then they were gone, another truck pulling into frame and another forklift approaching with someone else's cargo.

"No. I thought maybe I could catch one of their faces." Aidan refocused on the certainty they did have. "What've you got on the truck?"

"Gate cams show one man behind the wheel," Rick said. "Darien White, according to facial recognition."

"Rap sheet?"

"Petty thefts, bar fights, meth bust that landed him in jail. He's currently out on parole. "

"Which he's violating," Matt said, "given the last sighting of that truck was on the 125 in San Diego County."

"He's headed for the Otay border crossing," Danny said.

Aidan tended to agree. Truck full of goods, probably with forged papers, given the targeted nature of the theft. "Intercept?"

"San Diego field office has teams on the way."

"They're not going to find the diamonds."

Aidan spun toward Jamie. "You cracked the tracker?"

"Of course." Those words again, along with Jamie's sly smile, made Aidan want to laugh, but that was the last thing Danny needed right then. He internalized the admiration for his husband, who delivered exactly the information Danny did need. "The tracker is in LA." He rotated his laptop so they could see the blinking red light near the coast. "In a parking lot at El Segundo Beach."

"Someone's catching a nap," Rick said.

"Or found the tracker and pitched it there," Matt countered.

"Or is waiting to make a handoff at LAX," Aidan finished with the theories.

"I think Aidan's right," Jamie said. "Tracker's on the move, headed inland."