JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) (12 page)

At the Compound

Ash was not a man who doubted himself. But he was doubting everything at the moment.

He stood at the windows at the front of his house and watched Joss load a child and a client into one of the SUVs. She was moving slowly despite her claim that she was good-to-go. He wanted to go out there and stop her; he wanted to take back every decision he’d made regarding her these last few months, but he didn’t. What had begun had to come to its conclusion. He couldn’t stop it now.

“She’ll be okay,” Emily said at his shoulder.

“Tell Kirkland that. He’ll knock my block off when he finds out what I’ve done.”

“He does have a bit of a crush on her, doesn’t he?”

“I’m not sure crush is the right word.”

“Do you think he loves her?”

“As much as a man like Kirkland can love another person.”

She nodded. “And she’s falling for this guy, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. And I’m not sure he’s the right choice for her. Her husband was a mild-mannered guy. A teacher, for Christ’s sake! What is she going to do with a man like him?”

“She’s a different person than she was a month ago. I’m sure she’s much different than the woman she was when she was married.”

That was true. She was a different person. Ash could remember how almost timid she was when he first met her in boot camp. He was drawn to her—but not because she was small and, therefore, something of an outcast like he’d become. His father’s career as a politician had caused him quite a bit of ribbing and other hazing, and her size had caused her the same thing. He was drawn to her because he sensed a strength deep inside of her that he had not yet found in himself. He wanted to find it. If he had known what she’d been through that created that strength, he might not have bothered.

She was strong. But losing her father, living on the streets, and then finding her mother as she had...Joss had seen enough pain to last two lifetimes. To have to live through the deaths of her husband and her child was just too much.

He didn’t hear about the accident until everything was said and done. But the moment he did, he flew to Illinois and started an investigation of his own. The police gave up before they’d even gotten started. Small town, they knew who’d been driving the other car. But, like Ash himself, he was the son of a state senator who had pull, even with small-town sheriffs. It took Ash beating the shit out of a couple of beat cops and shoving the evidence down their throats to get them to do anything. But, of course, the district attorney was in the senator’s pocket too. The man barely got prison time, let alone the sentence he deserved after getting behind the wheel drunk. That’s when it came in handy having a few connections on the inside.

There was no way in hell Ash was going to his friend without the ability to show her that the man who destroyed her family would pay for the rest of his life.

When he finally went to her, she was in bad shape. She hadn’t left the house in six months, hadn’t eaten in days. She wasn’t bathing; she wasn’t even getting out of bed. And she had this bottle of pills that she kept on her bedside table, just ticking off the days until she could take them and end all the pain once and for all.

Just like her mother.

“You’re too strong for this bullshit,” he’d said to her. “Too strong and too fucking stubborn.”

“What would you know about it? Have you ever lost your entire family?”

“I lost my parents. And Alexi. You aren’t alone, Joss.”

“But you still have David. You still have all the guys you served with over there.”

“So do you!”

“I have nothing!” she screamed sitting up in the bed, her dirty hair wild and tangled around her face. “Have you held your eighteen-month old child in your arms and watched him struggle to take a breath? His last breath? I did. I held my baby, my baby who once laughed and babbled, my baby who was once so full of life, and I watched him disappear right there in my arms. I felt his body grow cold. I watched everything that I fought for over there become nothing, become pointless. Why stop them from killing each other when all we have to come home to is more tragedy? More death?”

The thing was, it made so much sense to him. It did now just as it had then. Why keep fighting? But now, he watched her climb into the SUV and saw the way she looked at that man. Those were the only words she’d said since the funeral, the last words she spoke. Yet, he could see her lips moving now; he could see her saying something to the child in the backseat.

Life was full of circles. It was one never-ending moment that just turned into more never-ending moments. Life moved on whether people wanted it to or not. Joss’ life was moving on. She was better. She would likely never look another bottle of pills in the eye, never again consider oblivion to be preferable to this life.

He wondered if he would ever get to that place.

He closed his eyes, Alexi’s beautiful face filling the void where his love for her once lived and flourished. He missed her like he would miss a limb. She was a part of him. They were going to have a beautiful life together. But all that was gone now.

Would he ever get it back? Would he ever find her? Could he ever move past all that had happened?

He wasn’t sure, just like he knew he couldn’t protect Joss from what came next in her relationship. Just like he knew he couldn’t help his brother when the moment came when he proposed to the woman he loved. Just like he knew he couldn’t stop Donovan from committing his life to the unknown in this marriage to Kate. He couldn’t keep his family, his friends, and his comrade from making mistakes. They all had to live their own lives. They all had to make their own mistakes.

Good luck, Joss.

Let her make her mistake. He’d always be there to pick up the pieces.

Joss

We flew to Oregon in Ash’s private plane. McKelty was impressed with it, but I could tell Carrington wasn’t. He’d probably been flying in private planes since he was a small child. Ash’s client intel was always very thorough. I knew that the Matthews family made its fortune in shipping during World War II when moving supplies to our military in Europe and the Pacific was a priority. And his father had only expanded on that fortune, turning the family quietly into one of the richest in the world. Carrington could buy and sell most of our clients, even those who had impressive bottom lines on their own.

I found myself wondering what it was like to live in such a world.

“Can I sit with you?” McKelty asked, moving into the captain’s chair beside me before I could respond. She slid her hand into mine and smiled almost shyly up at me.

“Last night was pretty crazy, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. She was quiet for a moment, her big eyes never really leaving my face. “Did I fix you?” she finally asked, wonder in every syllable.

“Fix me?”

“You thought I’d fallen, and you started to talk.”

I nodded slowly, my eyes flashing to Carrington. He was watching, but his expression was unreadable.

“I thought I’d lost you, and I really didn’t want to lose you.”

“But you couldn’t talk, and then you did.”

“It wasn’t that I couldn’t talk. I simply chose not to.”

“Why?”

I could almost hear the beeping of the machines in the hospital NICU. Those beeps had filled my nightmares for years and years. It seemed like they were always there, always the background music to my pitiful life. What was worse was the silence that came as Isaac lay in my arms, his last breath gone from his tiny body. I told myself to be grateful it wasn’t the silence that filled my dreams. But it might as well have. It was the same effect.

“Sometimes bad things happen, McKelty,” I said softly.

“Like those men coming into our house?”

I nodded. “Like that. Like car accidents and fires. Like earthquakes.”

“Like hurricanes.”

“Yes.”

“Why do bad things happen?”

“Death is part of life.”

She thought about that for a long time, her eyes drawn to her clutched hands where they rested in her lap. I was beginning to think I was off the hook when she looked up at me again.

“My mommy died.”

“I know.”

“Your mommy died.”

For some reason—maybe it was the way she said it—that simple statement brought tears to my eyes. I could see my mother, the way she’d been that last day. I went to school even though I knew she was having a hard time. She sat behind the wheel of that car, her eyes downcast, tears no longer possible because she’d cried so many of them already. But I was tired of the drama, tired of being the one to lift her spirits. I was there with her, too. When was she going to lift me up, help me deal with the stark reality of our situation, too?

It was selfish and cruel and for the longest time I thought it was the reason why she’d done what she did. It took losing my family and having those same thoughts to realize that suicide wasn’t about those who were left behind. It was about feeling so much pain that living simply held no joy.

“Is that why you didn’t talk?”

“No,” I said. “It was my baby.”

“You had a baby?”

I nodded. I slipped my fingers inside my jeans pocket, tugging out the tiny picture I spontaneously grabbed from a box in my closet when I packed for this trip. It was a snapshot Esteban took of the baby a week before the accident, a picture that caught him just as he was about to burst into tired tears. He looked so bewildered, as though he didn’t understand why he’d been taken from the warmth of the womb to this big, cold world. It was the way I liked to remember him when I allowed myself the memories. I preferred not to look at photographs. I had some. Not many, but some. But I rarely ever got them down. I had no idea, until this moment, why I’d grabbed this one.

I handed it to McKelty, and she giggled. “He’s so cute! But he doesn’t look like you.”

“No. He looked just like his daddy.”

“What happened to him?”

“That’s enough, McKelty,” Carrington said, warning in his tone.

“No, it’s fine.” I leaned close to McKelty so that I could see the picture, too. My eyes moved slowly over those familiar dark eyes, the dark curls on his tiny scalp. His fat fingers that I used to love to kiss, his heavy thighs, and those perfect little feet that seemed to always be on the go when he was awake. “He liked to go for rides in his daddy’s truck. It was a big, old thing that made so much noise you could hear it a mile away. Isaac would get excited whenever he heard it, clapping his hands and saying, “Da Da!”

McKelty giggled. “That’s so cute!”

I nodded. “One night, I was tired and wanted to take a bath. His daddy had some things he needed to pick up from the school where he worked, so he offered to take Isaac with him. Isaac was so excited…he kept clapping his hands and laughing. I watched them drive away and waved when Isaac’s daddy honked the horn as they disappeared around the corner.”

McKelty eyes were big and filled with tears when she looked up at me. “They didn’t come home, did they?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t think I would talk much after something like that, either.”

Carrington leaned forward and touched my knee lightly.

“Sometimes life just hurts so much that you have to be quiet. I just…I didn’t want to talk about it, about them, and that’s all everyone else wanted to do. And then it just became a habit.”

McKelty took my hand again. “I’m sorry you were so sad.”

“I’m not sad anymore, sweetie.”

As I said the words, I realized it was true. I wasn’t sad anymore. I missed my baby, and I would probably always miss him. And I missed Esteban with an affection that would forever be there whenever I thought about him. But, as I held McKelty’s hand and looked at Carrington, I knew the worst of it had passed. And I would forever be grateful.

***

The house Carrington told me about in Oregon was more of a lodge nestled in the hills of a small resort town. There was a Jeep waiting for us at the airport that Carrington handled with precision, his long fingers wrapped around the thin wheel with confidence. I found myself watching him more than the gorgeous scenery, more enraptured by the strength strumming just under the surface of his silent façade. McKelty was asleep in the backseat before we’d gone just a mile, her pretty face relaxed in the dim light of the passing streetlights.

“You come here often?” I asked, as we pulled onto the long, narrow lane that led to the front door.

“We used to. But not so much anymore.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been trying to show McKelty more of the country. We go on long car trips, often to places of historic significance. Like civil war battlefields, museums dedicated to history, the Statue of Liberty.”

“You took a car ride all the way to New York?”

“Yeah. It was pretty fun.”

I could imagine.

Out of habit, I walked into the house ahead of Carrington, checking out the empty rooms. It was just that: empty. The heavy cloths covering the furniture were dusty, the glass streaked from disuse. But the house was beautiful, filled with cozy, comfortable couches and chairs, with family portraits and knickknacks that probably cost more than I made in a year. I found myself studying a picture of his brother in full Marine dress blues, a crooked smile on a face that should have been deadly serious. That picture seemed to tell volumes about a brother who’d lacked the substance McKelty’s mother has seen in Carrington.

“He was handsome,” I said, as I heard Carrington’s footsteps approach from behind. He’d put McKelty to bed and came back, his shoes squeaking on the stone floors.

“He was wild and angry and always looking for a fight.”

“He found one.”

“Yes, he did.”

He slipped the photo out of my hand and turned me around, his eyes moving slowly over my face. “I don’t know what to think of you, Ms. Grant Hernandez.”

“How can I help?”

He ran his hand slowly over the side of my face, his fingers tracing the sharp bones of my jaw. Then, in a move that was a sudden as it was surprising, he grabbed the bottom edge of my t-shirt and yanked it over my head. His hands forced their way under the bottom edge of my bra, his fingers scraping my nipples before he held them almost gently in his palms. All the while, he studied my face, his eyes locked to mine.

“I don’t know what to think of you. One minute you’re speaking so gently and knowledgably to my child, the next you’re teasing me with a look. You got shot last night, yet you stood up to Mr. Masculinity back at the compound. You’re so beautiful and tiny, but you could probably take out every one of those goons back there, couldn’t you?”

“Donovan gives me fits sometimes.”

He groaned, as though my confirmation of what he’d already known was just another straw on the slowly breaking camel’s back. He pushed his hands upward, tugging my bra up over my head, up over my arms. My shoulder ached, but the pleasure of his touch on my breasts was such a lovely counterbalance that it didn’t really matter.

“I want to protect you, but it’s really you who are here to protect me, aren’t you?”

“We can protect each other,” I said, sliding my hand over his jaw. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

“I don’t want to fail you.”

There was something in his voice, something that made my heart ache for him. But then we were kissing, his touch making other things ache. He picked me up and carried me to the couch, pulling me onto his lap as he took a seat, his mouth immediately seeking out my breast. I ran my fingers through his hair as he sucked my nipples, the pleasure rushing through me until my mind slowly became a blank.

I forgot about the last twenty-four hours, forgot about the concern I’d seen in Ash’s eyes, the anger flowing from Kirkland whenever Carrington came up. I forgot about the child down the hall, the cartel that was trying to hunt these people down. I forgot even about the wound on my shoulder that took ten stitches on one side and five on the other, a flesh wound that could have been so much worse.

I forgot about everything but Carrington’s hands on me, his mouth, the feel of his breath as he created a trail from my breasts to the center of my belly.

He lifted me, sitting me against the arm of the couch, my hips in the air as he tugged at my jeans. He slipped them down over my thighs, his mouth again on my flesh, his tongue tasting every tiny lump of my spine. He played with the dimples above my ass cheeks, nibbled at the rounded flesh of my ass. And then he was working his way further down, and I thought I would go dumb with the pleasure that shot through me. How was it possible that one person could create so much excitement, so much need? How could just the feel of his breath brushing against my moist skin make me want to scream until the little men in white came to take me to the padded room?

He was so talented with that damn tongue! And his teeth…he knew just how much pressure to apply. My clit was throbbing more when he was done rolling it around in his mouth than before. I don’t think I’d ever been so turned on in my life! I wanted him inside of me like I wanted my next meal, my next glass of water. His touch was quickly becoming a life sustaining necessity that I wasn’t sure I could survive without.

When he did come inside of me much, much later, I bit my bottom lip to stop the vocalizations that wanted to be allowed to live. All that time I went without speaking, I never struggled. It never even crossed my mind that I needed to speak. But now? It was a struggle to keep it all inside.

In just a little more than ten days, I’d gone from the silent, almost nun-like recluse, to this screaming, squirming, multi-orgasmic person. If anyone had told me this was going to happen, I would have shot them dead on the spot.

Life was crazy, wasn’t it?