The club employed a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several times a week as part of her job description, but Brash didnât like to explain his relentless craving for peanuts and he liked being teased about it even less. He didnât know whether it was the Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he couldnât imagine going a day without them.
Thatâs how he came to be standing statue still In the grocery checkout line, being prompted by some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was waiting, his eyes drifted over the magazine display and settled on the cover of âNOWâ, on the Most Eligible Bachelor edition no less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing Brashâs own face and body. He looked different with short hair and a four thousand dollar suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the similarity was inescapable.
On impulse he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with his weekâs stash of peanuts.
He stuffed the bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward home, nervously tapping his fingers on handlebars at red lights, riding on shoulders to keep from slowing down. He was anxious to get to the privacy of his own room and read about Branach St. Germaine.
Two beers, one jar of peanuts, and one âNOWâ article later, Brash was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at the wall, seeing nothing but his own heavy thoughts. He pulled out his phone, looked up a website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear the time of the next flight from Austin to New York.
There was a flight to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his watch and calculated the time it would take to drive from Dripping Springs at that time of day. As he booked the flight, he stood up, walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and began shoving stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and locked it, threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside the closed door and knocked.
âYeah?â Brash looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped in. âWhatâs up?â
âIâm takinâ personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.â
âWhat the hell is âpersonal timeâ?â
The gruffness made Brash smile. âIt means Iâm not gonna be here if you call and Iâm not tellinâ you why.â
The Sons of Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his readers, and narrowed his eyes. âYou got a secret?â
âEverybodyâs got secrets.â
Brandon Fornight studied his son for a minute. âTrue enough. Is it the kind of secret that could affect this club?â
Brash shook his head. âDonât see how.â
âWell, then. See you⦠When did you say youâd be back?â
âI didnât.â
âBeinâ purposefully vague, are you?â
Brash grinned. âThatâs why they call it personal time. But I expect to be back Friday.â
âYou gonna have your phone with you?â When Brash nodded, Bran looked back down at his ledger in a deliberately dismissive gesture. âWell, get outta here then.â
Brash parked his bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already been on the property when the club had bought it and turned it into a compound twenty years earlier. They used part of it for vehicle maintenance and repair and part for parking.
Some of the guys who were working looked over and shot curious glances his way when Brash threw his duffel into his pickup and started it up, but it wasnât their way to ask questions. The Sons figured that if somebody wanted you to know something, theyâd tell you.
Brash took a cab to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings would choose to live in such a place. As he slid his credit card across the hotel counter to the agent on duty, he glanced at the name, Brandon Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence that that the mysterious look-alikeâs first name began with the same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.
Getting intel on the guy didnât take advanced ops. Within an hour Brash knew where Brannach St. Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove, what kind of women he dated, who his tailor was, and where he liked to dine. There was no shortage of photos online, but the one that grabbed his attention wasnât one of the many with starlets or debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser. Brash had an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and touch her face on the screen in front of him.
The knock on the door signaled that room service had arrived. It cost a fortune, but looked and tasted like shit. So he closed the computer and went out for a walk to clear his head and find something edible.