Page 36 of Lost (Powertools: The Shields 2)

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while.” James clapped and pulled out his infamous planner from beneath the table. He started flipping pages and extracted an entire rainbow’s worth of colored pens from a pouch in the back. “When are you thinking? Maybe in June. That will give us time to talk to a florist, and taste-test catering, and arrange for a photographer, and—”

“I promised you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing, didn’t I?” Levi laughed when Sevan hopped up and jogged over to James.

“Bless you.” She hugged him. “That’s one reason we slipped away to get it over with. Planning and everyone watching me after years of fading into the shadows. It was overwhelming. But I see now that we hurt Joy by not including her, which was never my intent. Can you help me make it right?”

“Oh, honey, let’s bring Joy in on this. We’ll put her in charge of a bunch of stuff. Together we’ll figure out your vision. Then I’ll create an inspiration board, and once we have your style nailed down, I’ll buddy up with Joy and we’ll arrange everything. The only thing you’ll have to do is show up and have a magical night with those two hunks of yours while your sister preens and shows everyone how proud of you and happy for you she is. It will be a kick ass party and stress-free for you, I swear.” James gave her a loud, smacking kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks.” Sevan turned away and knuckled something from the corner of her eye. She’d grown up alone, then hidden in plain sight pretending to be a young man in order to take down the president of a motorcycle club. Being able to rely on people who knew and loved her for her true self was still new and kind of scary, Kennedy assumed.

Before they could get too far into the details, Jordan strode into the dining hall. He didn’t have his husband, music legend Kason Cox, or his wife, Wren, a welder who worked at Hot Rides, with him. That was unusual, unless…his popping in had more to do with work than pleasure.

Sure enough, a couple of strangers followed close behind him. Both, all business. The taller of the two had close-cropped dark hair with an especially neat beard that was offset by his partner’s shaggy reddish facial hair and messy topknot.

“You hungry?” Liam held the open pizza box toward their boss, who snagged a slice of pepperoni.

“Sorry to interrupt dinner.” Jordan leaned against the counter and bit off damn near half of the piece of pizza at once. Had he not even taken time to eat that day yet? When Liam swung the leftovers toward the newcomers, both shook their head no in unison.

“Since Ace is going to be sitting on the sidelines for a while and some of us have family with us here…” Jordan motioned toward Nolan, who was perched between his girlfriend, Laurel, and his boyfriend, Jace. “I figured we could use a few extra set of eyes around at least until we’ve figured out this situation with Knox and the Vipers.”

“Never hurts.” Marcus took a deep breath, as if he’d been worried too.

“Everybody, this is Legend.” Jordan pointed to the man who seemed like he could have been part black bear given his size and the thick, dark fur that coated his arms and peeked from the three open buttons at the top of his light gray, ribbed shirt. “And that’s Tavish. Don’t ask where they came from because they can’t tell you. Know that they were highly recommended by people I trust and I’m happy to have them onboard, especially right now.”

Knox blew out a breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sorry to be bringing shit to your door.”

“You haven’t yet,” Jordan pointed out. “I’d rather be over prepared in case trouble finds us. Either way, we’re glad to have you so that we have a shot at shutting some of this down for good.”

When Kennedy looked around the room, she saw respect in her fellow Shields’ gazes, which wasn’t always easy to earn.

Knox swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Let’s move this party into the command center.” Jordan jerked his head in that direction.

“Damn it. I’m starving,” Nolan grumbled as he eyed his pizza as if debating whether to stuff the remainder in his mouth at once.

“Bring your dinner with you. Just move.” Jordan pointed.

“You trust him with red sauce on our new carpet?” James seemed horrified.

“Absolutely not. How’s this? Bring your dinner and don’t spill any or James will dock your pay to clean the carpet.” Jordan grinned, knowing full well they made enough to buy a whole new one for every meeting if necessary.

“Worth it.” Nolan swiped a napkin over his mouth, then swooped in to kiss first Laurel and then Jace, both of whom were laughing. He lowered his voice then. “If this goes late, don’t wait up. At least I’ll have thoughts of what the two of you are doing in bed to keep me occupied.”

“Or…you could concentrate so you don’t get someone killed by being a horndog.” Sola flicked a garlic knot at Nolan.

He caught it and popped the whole thing into his mouth before mumbling around it, “I’m great at multitasking.”

“I can attest to that.” Laurel wiggled her brows, giggling.

But as she and the rest of the family members huddled up and the Shields filed out into the boardroom, the atmosphere in the room chilled considerably. Unfortunately, Kennedy didn’t think it had anything to do with the state-of-the-art HVAC system James and the Powertools had installed for them.

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