Read ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) Online
Authors: Glenna Sinclair
ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)
Copyright © 2016
All Rights Reserved
. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Ash
I watched her sleep, loving the little sounds that came from her narrow, petite nose. I lifted a couple of ropes of hair out of her face and kissed her temple. My fingers slipped slowly down the length of her arm, brushing against the diamond ring I’d given her. She couldn’t wear it all the time, so it was something of a thrill when I saw it nestled there.
We would be married someday soon and nights like this would become the rule rather than the exception.
“I know what you’re doing,” she mumbled.
“What am I doing?”
“You’re fantasizing about the future.”
“Don’t you?”
“All the time.”
She rolled onto her back and looked up at me, her haunting brown eyes looking right through me. Alexi had always been able to see everything, my thoughts and my feelings. It was part of why I loved her so much.
“Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we left all this behind us?”
“All of what?”
“The military. The CIA. The operations, the secrets, the lies.”
“We will. When this war is over, or when we’re too old to be effective, whichever comes first.”
She ran her hands over my belly. “You really believe in this stuff, don’t you?”
“We’re protecting our country. What isn’t there to believe in?”
“What about a home, family? Don’t you want to have children?”
“Of course.” I brushed the hair away from her face and stole a little kiss. “But don’t you think we’ll get bored, living a conventional life after all of this?”
“Maybe.”
There was a thoughtfulness in her eyes that worried me a little.
“I want more nights like this,” I said, sliding my finger down between her breasts, pressing my palm against her belly. “I want to be with you every single night for the rest of my life. But I know you. I know you would get bored playing Susie Housewife.”
“I think you’re the one who would get bored.”
I shrugged. “My father has this whole political career outlined for me when I get out of the military. State senate. Congress. Maybe even the White House.”
“Ambitious.”
“He always was.”
“What does David think of all that?”
“Oh, David’s the backup plan.”
“Kind of like the Kennedys?”
“Exactly. The Texas version.”
“President Ash Grayson. Sounds pretty good, actually.”
I laughed. I could feel heat spreading over my face, so I pressed it against her chest. She ran her hands over my head, her fingers playing over my buzzed hair.
“I’m not sure I’d make a good First Lady though.”
“You’d be more popular as First Lady than Jackie O.”
“No.” She slid her hands down my back. “I love you, Ash, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t live in that world.”
“Not really my ambition, either.” I sat up a little and kissed her. “My idea is that we give this military thing another ten, fifteen years, and then we retire to a quiet little community somewhere and raise a family.”
“Ten years? How old do you think I am?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s harder to have kids after thirty-five. You know that, right?”
“Then we adopt.”
She groaned. “What if I don’t want to wait that long?”
“Then we figure something out.” I kissed her again. “I will do anything you want to do, babe.”
“Anything?”
“Of course.”
“So, if I decide that I want to leave the CIA now, move to Rhode Island, and become a teacher, you would support that?”
“Of course. Just like you’d be okay with me staying in the military and accepting another tour of duty in three months when my contract comes up.”
She nodded, but there was a shift in her eyes.
“Alexi…”
“We should get going,” she said. “We’re supposed to meet our handlers in an hour.”
“Okay.”
I watched her slip out of bed and walk naked toward the bathroom. We were in a house in a small village in Afghanistan, a house where we’d been waiting and watching for five days, gathering data on a corrupt politician. It would all be over tonight. There was a party being thrown at a house not far from where we were. We were to pose as guests so we could photograph the Taliban leaders the politician consorted with. It was supposed to be an easy, in and out, sort of thing. But things could always go wrong, and they often did.
That’s what made moments like this even more special.
I memorized her movement, loving the way her hips swayed just slightly with each step she took. I was pretty sure I’d never get tired of watching her, of touching her, of tasting her. My body ached whenever we were together, this need simmering just under the surface until we were alone together. And then it boiled, turning into something that I could barely control.
I loved her. And I was going to make her my wife.
She thought we were going to wait another year, but I’d been making plans. We were both returning stateside for leave in a little over nine weeks. I was going to take her to my house in Austin, invite a few close friends, my parents, my brother, and make it official.
She didn’t think I was serious about the engagement. But I was. She was mine, and I wanted to make it official as soon as possible.
But right now…
I could hear the water come on in the shower. I got up and joined her, pulling her back against me, my hands sliding over her belly. She sighed as she leaned back into me.
We stood there like that for a few long minutes. And then she turned and our lips brushed. I pushed her back against the wall, deepening the kiss as she touched me, drawing me closer into her. Her touch was gentle. Softer. There was something…I pulled back and studied her face.
“I love you,” I whispered.
She looked up at me. There were tears on her cheeks. Or was it the spray from the showerhead?
“Then love me,” she said.
I lifted her up, my lips on hers again. She knew just how to touch me, knew just what to do to drive me to the height of passion. And she did it now, touching me and whispering things in my ear that drove everything else away. She was the only thing that mattered, the only thing I wanted. And I took her, drove her over her own edge, and brought screams from between her lips.
If I had known it would be the last time…
Ash
I lifted the glass of bourbon to my lips and swallowed a healthy slug. The bar was fairly quiet, but that wasn’t surprising for a Tuesday night. The after-work crowd had gone, and the Friday night partiers were still recovering from last weekend. It was just a couple of old guys down on the other end of the bar and me.
Three years. It was three years today that Alexi disappeared.
I played it over in my mind, constantly. That night. The party. The people. The photographs. We were communicating the whole time, her voice in my ear.
Okay. I’ve got everything we need.
Let’s move out.
See you soon.
But I got back to the safe house, to our extraction point. She didn’t.
The CIA said she’d been caught, snatched by the corrupt politician we were following. Said he held her for a while, trying to figure out what she’d been up to. Then…they insisted that she was gone even though there was no body. Nothing to bury.
I went crazy. Searched everywhere. I took out targets the CIA was watching. I should have gone to jail, but they gave me a break because they decided I was temporarily insane by grief. However, they pushed me out and ended my career.
I didn’t stop. When I was stateside, I met with people we’d worked with, people who thought they knew what had happened. She was reassigned. She was being held captive. She was buried in her family plot. There were so many theories, so many possibilities that they kept me running for months. I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop.
And then there was the accident.
It was November, Election Day. My father was running for Congress, and I was supposed to be there, playing the dutiful son, the American hero. Instead, I was in Germany talking with a couple of wounded agents who’d been in Afghanistan, working security at the party where Alexi disappeared. I almost didn’t answer the phone when I saw David’s number, convinced he was only calling to chew me out again for not making it home.
Instead, it was a Department of Public Safety officer, informing me of the accident. In less than six months, I lost Alexi, my mom, and my dad. And David was in surgery, fighting for his life.
Needless to say, that became my priority. I flew home, talked to all the doctors. They recommended a specialist in Los Angeles, so that’s where I took him, sitting by his bed for hours every day even when he yelled at me, begged me to leave him alone. And when the doctors said he needed something to distract him, to keep his mind off of what happened, I started Gray Wolf Security to give him a job.
He was my only family now.
Most of the leads on Alexi had gone cold by the time life settled into a new sort of normal. But I still looked. A little less every year, but I still looked.
It seemed a little ironic that David was the one to finally find her.
I took another, long pull of the bourbon.
A couple of months ago, David handed me a file with pictures inside.
He insists it’s her. I don’t believe it. Alexi is still alive. I know it, deep in my heart. But this…this can’t be my Alexi. She wouldn’t just turn her back on me, on everything we had together, and build a new life somewhere else. She just…she wouldn’t.
I don’t believe it’s her. But I can’t bring myself to go check it out.
I finish my bourbon and called for another, watching the indifferent bartender fill the glass. I picked it up, watching the light reflect off the amber liquid that reminded me so much of Alexi’s eyes.
There were other things to think about right now. My operatives, for one. I handpicked the men and woman who work for me, operatives I knew either personally or by reputation.
Donovan Pritchard. He was the explosives expert in my unit. He and I worked dozens of ops together, and he saved my life on more than one occasion. Even saved Alexi once during a joint operation with the CIA. I trust him more than I trust my own instincts.
Joss Grant Hernandez. We met in basic training. We both struggled, her with the physical demands of the training and me with my first experience with bullies. Word got out the first week of training that my dad was a politician and that was fodder for the other recruits. I handled it, but Joss…she was a friend when I really needed one. After I learned about the accident that killed her husband and baby boy, I found her on the verge of suicide, hiding away in her house. She needed a reason to go on, so I gave her all that I had to offer. A job.
Kirkland Parrish. I’d never met Kirkland, but knew his reputation. When I heard he was looking for a job along the lines of Gray Wolf, I arranged a meeting and knew with the first handshake that he would fit with our team perfectly. He was charming and reckless, but he knew how to handle himself in a risky situation.
We’d worked together for just over three years now. We were a well-oiled machine now.
Except that Joss was due to give birth in a month.
Kirkland was so lost in his new relationship with his girlfriend, Mabel Watson, that he was losing a little of his charm with the clients.
And Donovan was in a damn foolish accident yesterday that would have him out of service for a week or so while the resulting concussion healed. Some guy t-boned him while he was leaving a client’s place of business. Stupid accident. Totally the other guy’s fault. And a nuisance.
We had three cases coming up and only one operative free to work. This was one of those situations where it really sucked to be the boss.
I drank the tumbler of bourbon in one gulp, then stood and headed for the door.
There was a girl, a pretty little thing who was too young to be so pregnant, leaning against the wall. She had striking blue eyes, a dark shade that was almost cobalt, and dark hair with streaks of gold and red through it. She was watching me as I strode toward her, a soft moan slipping from between her lips as I passed.
I didn’t need any more distractions, but I couldn’t just walk away and pretend I didn’t see that there was something wrong.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Could you just stay here with me for a second?”
Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.
She took my arm, sliding her hand through the crook of my elbow. She used me as leverage to pull herself away from the wall. As she did, she pressed her hand to her belly, a low moan slipping from between her lips.
“Are you okay?” I asked again, leaning close to her as though I could see something that would help me assess the situation. I didn’t know a lot about pregnant women, except not to speak to them when they’ve just stormed into the office after an argument with their significant other. The one time I did that with Joss, she nearly took my head off.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “This happens sometimes, but it’ll stop if I walk around a little.”
“Can I give you a ride home?”
She didn’t answer me. Instead, she stared at the ground—or more accurately, the swell of her belly—walking slowly over the cracked sidewalk outside the bar.
I had no idea who this woman was. I’d never seen her before in all my life—I think I would have remembered those incredible blue eyes. And it wasn’t really in my nature to be the knight in shining armor for a damsel in distress. That was what I paid Donovan and Kirkland to do. I didn’t know what to do now.
We walked to the end of the sidewalk and turned, taking a single step back the other direction when she suddenly bent over, that low moan slipping from her lips again. Instinctively, I pressed my hand to her lower back and rubbed it firmly. She reached back and pressed my hand against her, her breathing suddenly coming in quick, rough pants.
“Are you sure you’re not in labor?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know when you’re due?”
She moaned again, doubling over so far that her nose was less than a foot from the ground.
I may not know anything about women and this sort of situation, but I knew pain when I saw it. If she was in that much pain, she needed to be in a hospital whether she was in labor or not. I scooped her up in my arms and carried her to my SUV where it was parked just a few feet away. Carefully, I settled her in the backseat, taking off my jacket to shove under her head as a sort of pillow. There was fear in her eyes, as she grabbed my arm before I backed away.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
I nodded, then climbed behind the wheel, pulling out with a rain of rocks scattering behind us. The nearest hospital was only a few miles away. I was careful, aware that I probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel at all after the three bourbons I’d had. But the adrenaline of the situation seemed to have cleared my mind faster than a whole pot of strong coffee could ever do.
We weren’t even out of the parking lot before she began to scream.
“What?”
I glanced in the mirror, but I couldn’t see anything. But her screams grew louder.
“Please,” she whimpered, both hands on her belly as she sat up a little, pressing against the swelling. “I can’t…I can’t do this!”
She was having a baby. There was no doubt in my mind. She was going to deliver that baby right here, right now, and I had to do something or things could go very wrong.
Shit, shit, shit!
I swerved onto the side of the road and jumped out of the car, rushing to the back, praying I didn’t fuck this thing up.
I didn’t know what to do, but something told me it wouldn’t be as simple as catching a happy, smiling baby as it slid out of its mother’s body.