Authors: Kathleen Brooks
The Perfect Gift
The Perfect Gift
Bluegrass Single #3
Kathleen Brooks
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
An original
work of Kathleen Brooks.
The Perfect Gift
copyright @ 2015 by Kathleen Brooks
Cover art by Calista Taylor
http://www.coversbycali.com
The small island country of Rahmi, seventeen years ago…
Nabi Ulmalhamash Mosteghanemi stood motionless in front of his father and King Ali Rahman. His hands were clasped behind his back and his short, slightly wavy black hair was slicked back from his face. His father stared emotionlessly at him while the king congratulated him on his twenty-first birthday.
For twenty-one years, Nabi Ulmalhamash Mosteghanemi had been groomed by his father, the head of intelligence for the king. The trouble was he wasn’t anything like his father. His father was imposing, strong, and fearless. He was the best decoder, the best tracker, and the best intelligence gatherer. Nabi was five-foot-eight inches tall and weighed one hundred twenty pounds. What he lacked in physical stature, he made up for in brains. He could hack a computer system faster than his father. As his mother liked to tell him, he held promise.
Upon graduating from the military academy in the summer, he was determined not to let any physical inequities hinder him from becoming the best soldier in all of Rahmi. At school, he’d focused on his studies and took hope from his idol, Ahmed Mueez. Ahmed hadn’t been very well known before he left Rahmi at the age of eighteen. But now he was perhaps the most notorious living legend in the world. He made black market dealers shake in their boots. He made foreign governments surrender before they were even attacked. He was simply the coolest badass on the planet, and Nabi was determined to be just like him.
“As a favor to your father, I have reviewed your records from the academy,” King Ali Rahman said, drawing Nabi’s attention. This was it. This was when he was going to be assigned to the king’s personal staff just as his father had planned.
“While your test scores are the highest in your class, your physical scores are mediocre at best. I know you and your father were hoping for a palace position, but I do not believe you are ready.”
Nabi didn’t move as his heart plummeted. He saw the look of disappointment on his father’s face and wanted to run from the palace in shame. But he did not. He stared straight ahead and refused to react to the news.
“As you know, one of our best soldiers was just like you. That is why I am sending you to Prince Mohtadi’s farm in the United States.” Nabi held his breath. Ahmed was there—his idol. “You will train with Ahmed until he has deemed you ready to become a member of the palace guard with your father. You leave tomorrow. Happy birthday, Nabi Ulmalhamash Mosteghanemi.”
The king gave a slight bow of his head to indicate he was finished, and Nabi bowed quickly before walking calmly from the chambers. The thick, ornately carved doors closed behind him as he punched the air with his fist and excitedly whispered, “Yes!”
Nabi hurried through the gardens and out the main entrance of the palace. He jogged down the road to a row of houses reserved for palace staff. His mother would be making his birthday cake right about now. He ran up the path and pushed open the door.
“Mother! I just got the best birthday gift!” Nabi hurried into the kitchen where his mother was icing his favorite cake. “I’m going to the United States to train under Ahmed!” Nabi grabbed her up in a hug and lifted her off the ground. He saw his mother’s eyes tear at the thought of him leaving. “Don’t worry, Mother.”
She reached up and patted his cheek. “I’m not worried. I’ll just miss my boy. You’d better start packing. Remember, Nabi Ulmalhamash Mosteghanemi, you need to be strong and serious. Don’t let anyone push you around.”
“Yes, Mother!” Nabi called as he raced to pack.
* * *
Nabi stood in front of the double doors leading to the hospital’s labor and delivery wing and cringed. He’d been in Keeneston, Kentucky, for several months, and he still didn’t know what to think. It was as if he were living in an alternate universe. Keeneston was a small town outside of Lexington. Most of the residents worked for the town, owned farms, or had shops on Main Street.
He was working and learning from his idol, but nothing else was going according to plan. The more he tried to be in charge and the more serious he acted, the more people rolled their eyes at him and said something he didn’t understand, like “Bless your heart.” But the prince and princess were the worst. They insisted he call them Mo and Dani. Twenty-one years of training had taught him to bow in their presence, yet
Dani
would get mad at him for doing so.
Nabi looked back through the doors as he heard a scream coming from Her Royal Highness. She was about to give birth to a royal heir of Rahmi. He was charged with protecting the door, although he didn’t know from whom. No one in this strange town seemed to care about members of the royal family living among them. They were treated like everyone else. No one bowed; no one called them by their titles . . . he was absolutely baffled.
The only good thing was that Ahmed’s training had put twenty pounds on Nabi. He had also begun a late growth spurt. Ahmed said the same happened to him when he was in his early twenties. Nabi puffed up with pride as he stood against the doors. He was going to be a strong soldier like Ahmed. He was off to a good start; after all, he was guarding the royal heir!
The sound of running feet caught his attention. He leaned forward to determine if they were running toward or away from the doors he was guarding.
Toward, definitely toward
. Nabi put his hand on the gun he had hidden underneath his black suit jacket but relaxed when he saw it was only four old women who ran toward him.
“Get out of the way, Nabi!” Miss Daisy Mae Rose ordered.
He narrowed his eyes. No one called him by his full name here.
Miss Lily Rae Rose slid to a stop in her orthopedic shoes. “Come on, you heard my sister. Scoot!”
“Yeah, we have a new citizen of Keeneston to welcome,” Violet Fae Rose, the third of the Rose sisters, said with her hands on her generous hips.
“I have the gift basket,” Edna, Miss Lily’s neighbor, huffed as she lifted up a basket filled with homemade goodies.
Nabi held up his hands. “I am sorry. I cannot let anyone through.”
“Hmph. Well, bless your heart, I know you’re just trying to do your job, but you need to move.” Miss Lily and her white-haired horde pushed forward.
Nabi took a step backward. His heels pushed up against the door as he heard the sound of more feet running toward them. John Wolfe—the town’s king of gossip— Kenna Mason Ashton and her new husband Will, and Will’s mother, Betsy Ashton, hurried up to join the others.
“Move, Nabi,” Kenna ordered.
“I cannot.”
“Bless your heart, you will. You just don’t know it yet,” she said sweetly. Someone was going to have to explain to him what this saying meant.
“Are we too late?” Paige Davies Parker asked as she approached with her mother, Marcy Davies, and her sisters-in-law: Katelyn, Annie, Morgan, and Tammy.
Nabi felt himself being pushed backward. The handle of the door dug into his back as he held on for dear life. No training could prepare him for this. The mob was armed with cakes, casseroles, and baby booties. They were relentless as he locked his hands on the bar of the door and prayed he’d live to make it home. He was going to ask for a transfer tomorrow. Anything to get out of this crazy town!
Keeneston, Kentucky, current day . . .
Nabi woke with a start. Someone was in his room. Over the seventeen years he had lived on Mo and Dani’s farm as their head of security, he had been woken up numerous times by people sneaking in. At first he thought it was strange, but now he was used to it.
He had locked his doors and windows, installed security, activated motion detectors . . . but that hadn’t stopped her. It had barely slowed her down. And now he could tell by the breathing she was the one slowly creeping toward his bed in his small house on the farm.
He listened closely—five intruders in total. He kept his breathing normal and waited until exactly the right moment to attack. It might be dangerous letting them get this close, but Ahmed had trained him well. One, two, three . . .
“Argh!” Nabi yelled as he leapt from his bed with his arms outstretched. Ahmed had been right about the growth spurt. By the time Nabi was twenty-three, he stood just shy of six feet and was one hundred eighty-five pounds of pure muscle. He used every inch and every pound to his advantage as he tackled the intruders.
He took three of them down to the ground at once. As he looked up, he spotted his fourth target. He reached behind the curtain and pulled the intruder into his arms. But where was their leader? Nabi scanned the room as he held the four prisoners against him. He listened, but not a sound was made. He felt it, but it was too late for him to stop it. Arms shot out from under the bed. They grabbed his ankles and yanked. He and the four trapped intruders fell in a heap to the ground. Or more accurately, he fell to the ground with the four intruders landing on top of him.
A slightly tanned face with blue eyes and dark brown, almost black, hair looked down at him as she stood up from under the bed.
“Happy birthday, Uncle Nabi!” Fifteen-year-old Abigail Mueez smiled before reaching back under the bed for the birthday cake she had hidden there. Her eleven-year-old brother, Kale, scrambled up from where he sat on Nabi’s stomach. His mentor, Ahmed, and wife, Bridget, had kids that made breaking and entering look like an art form.
“I thought you men would be too old for this,” Nabi grunted as Mo and Dani’s nineteen-year-old twin boys, Zain and Gabriel, stood up.
“We’re never too old to try to scare you, Uncle Nabi,” Zain, the older twin, said.
“Besides, Ariana is only twelve. We have more tricks to show her,” Gabe teased.
Mo and Dani’s little girl, well, not so little anymore, flung her arms around his neck. “Happy birthday!” she said before kissing his cheek. She was quieter than her rambunctious older brothers. She had inherited her mother’s shocking blue eyes and interesting shade of dark auburn hair. Her maternal grandmother was blond and it seemed to have mixed with Mo’s dark hair. The result was stunning.
“Blow out your candle and make a wish.” Abigail grinned as she lit the candle and held out the cake.
Thirty-eight years old. Nabi closed his eyes and blew out the candle. For seventeen years, he’d watched as people he originally thought were crazy turned into friends, got married, and had children. Everyone except him. He was the last man standing, and he hated it. He’d even seen kids who were just teenagers when he moved to town get married. He was close to asking his father to arrange a marriage just so he wouldn’t be alone anymore. In fact, he had the email drafted, and all he had to do was hit Send.
Alone
wasn’t the right word. He was Uncle Nabi. He was the one the kids all gravitated to because they knew he wouldn’t tell their parents what they told him. He knew about every party, every boy Abigail wanted to date, when Zain and Gabe had snuck out to meet girls. It made him feel old. No matter how much he loved teaching Kale how to hack a government computer system or sneaking Ariana out of boring social functions, he wanted his own child to hold, his own child to love.
“What did you wish for?” Ariana asked.
Nabi wrapped her in his arms and tossed her onto the bed as she giggled. Zain and Gabe did that weird twin thing where they didn’t need to say a word yet had a whole conversation and were soon up on the bed jumping as Ariana got bounced around.
“You know I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true. I told my computer, though. I hope he doesn’t spill the secret,” Nabi teased as he slid a T-shirt on.
“Hurry up and get your shoes. Mom, Dad, Mo, and Dani have breakfast waiting at the main house,” Kale told him as he pulled at Nabi’s arm.
“I’m coming. Let me just send my birthday wish off, and then I’ll be there.”
“You can do that later,” Zain groaned. “I’m hungry!”
“Me, too. We’re growing boys after all,” Gabe teased. And they were. Both were over six feet tall already and were causing Mo and Dani’s chef heart palpitations with the amount of food they ate.
“Maybe we got your birthday wish,” Ariana said quietly.
“Fine.” Nabi gave in as he slid on a pair of running shoes. Today was his day off, and he found athletic shorts and a T-shirt to be his favorite off-duty attire.
Nabi let Ariana and Kale each take a hand and drag him from the house. It was only a quarter mile to the main house. The kids ran with him, each singing different variations of “Happy Birthday.”
As they approached the main house, he saw Ahmed and Bridget walking hand in hand. Bridget still looked lovely with her strawberry blond hair pulled back into a ponytail—and still very deadly. Nabi had never forgotten what Bridget did to save Ahmed from his archenemy all those years ago. His mentor waved, but Bridget just shook her head at the sight of him being led around by five kids.
“Happy birthday, Nabi!” Bridget called out. He was surprised she didn’t have one of the police dogs with her. Her kennel was an elite training base for police and military dogs. It had grown over the years, and now they employed an entire specialized staff to care for and train the dogs in everything from bomb detection, to drug detection, to cell phone detection.
“Thank you,” Nabi laughed as Kale jumped on his back, and he raced the rest of the way to the house.
“I assume Abigail beat your new alarm system?” Ahmed asked proudly as they walked up the front stairs.
“She sure did. Then put me on the ground. I can’t believe she’s only fifteen,” Nabi said as he shook his head. He was feeling old again.
The butler opened the door to the mansion, and Dani and Mo hurried to meet them in the entranceway. Mo was in a suit, even this early in the morning. He knew Dani was still desperately trying to convince him, after almost twenty years of marriage, that jeans were acceptable to wear on a horse farm. Nabi understood, though. It was hard to grow accustomed to a new way of life after the strict upbringing they all had in Rahmi. And Mo was still a prince even if Dani was a paralegal and an active outdoorswoman. However, since Zain and Gabe were in college at Yale, and Ariana was old enough not to need or want her parents around all the time, they had started attending more political functions on behalf of Mo’s brother, King Dirar.
“Happy birthday!” Mo said as he shook his hand.
Dani kissed his cheek. “We have your favorite: biscuits and sausage gravy.”
“Did the cook make it?” Nabi asked hesitantly.
“No,” Dani grinned. “Miss Violet brought it over just a little while ago. And Miss Daisy brought you some fresh-baked cookies. Miss Lily brought you some banana nut bread. It’s all in the dining room.”
Nabi rubbed his hands together. After seventeen years, Mo still couldn’t get his French cook to make any of the Blossom Café’s best Southern cooking. At least the Rose sisters didn’t mind making it for him, bless their hearts. He had surprised his parents when they last came to visit by sharing his favorite foods and even accidently said “y’all.” What could he say? He had fallen in love with Keeneston and, as he took a bite of his breakfast, it was no secret why.