ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) (9 page)

Mina

I cried myself to sleep. I was so convinced that he wouldn’t come back that I’d begun to pack up my clothes, sliding them into a couple of department bags I’d kept from our shopping excursions. I didn’t know where I’d go. I didn’t have a cell phone or a computer, so I couldn’t search Craigslist. I had money now, thanks to Ash, but I didn’t know how to access it. I was so bad at taking care of myself that I had no clue what to do now.

What did I do?

I was scared, and my fear made the baby fussy. He wouldn’t go to sleep until late, but then I couldn’t even imagine closing my eyes. When I did, all I saw was Ash. His kind eyes, the smile that transformed everything. The shadows in his eyes that I so wanted to make go away, the pain I knew he carried around like a shield. And I saw the lies I’d told him. I promised myself that if he came back, I would tell him everything right away.

Clean slate. That was the only way to go forward.

But then I fell asleep. And his hands were warm on my back, his lips soft on my shoulders. It was a dream. It had to be a dream. But then I turned, and he was there, dark shadows under his eyes and alcohol on his breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do. I should have taken care of this a long time ago. I should have been kinder to you. I should have…”

“Shh,” I said, pressing a finger to his lips. And then I replaced it with my lips.

I curled into his arms, and his hands were instantly under my shirt, his fingers digging into my panties. I guided him and cried out when he touched my clit. The baby made a noise, and he laughed against my lips, whispering in my ear to be a little quieter.

“I’m not sure I can.”

And with that…the laughter was gone. He pressed me back against the mattress and buried his tongue in my mouth, touching places that sent a sizzle down my nerve endings. We tugged at each other’s clothing, things tore, but then he was inside of me and it felt like he belonged there. Like there was no one else who would ever feel as good as he did.

I wrapped my legs around him and buried my fingers against the back of his head. I needed to hold him close. I needed to know he would never leave me again. I needed to know that he was mine now. And I did. I could feel it in his touch, in the desperation that drove his hands against my body, and that came across in his kiss.

He was mine now if I wanted him.

I wondered if he understood how dangerous that was.

***

When I woke in the morning, bright sunlight was streaming in through the windows. Ash was sitting on the end of the bed, whispering to the baby. Ford made noises at him, reaching up to touch his chin. It was a beautiful sight, this naked man cradling my son in his arms.

“He’s hungry,” Ash said, glancing at me. “But we had a deal that he’d let Mommy sleep a few minutes longer.”

“Well, that was quite considerate of him.”

Ash brought the baby to me, setting him in the pocket created by the curve of my body, and lifted my breast—just a little—to allow the baby to get a good latch. Then he climbed onto the bed behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and watched.

“He’s a good eater.”

“Very good,” I said, stroking my finger over Ford’s cheek. “I think he’s going through a growth spurt because he nurses nearly every two hours like he did when he was new.”

“Or maybe he just wants to be close to you. I can understand that.”

I turned my head, leaning back to kiss him. He groaned, catching my jaw to deepen the kiss.

We lay there quietly for a few minutes, the baby’s gulps the only sound. Ash ran his hand gently over my belly, his fingertip making circles around my navel. Then he tugged at my hip, pulling me back against him.

“I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

“I don’t want there to be any hard feelings between us. And I definitely don’t want this trip to become some sort of obstacle.”

“It won’t.”

“No, because I’m going to tell you everything.”

I pulled away from him, sitting up so that I could burp the baby. He lay back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes.

“I’m not even sure where to start.”

“There’s something I need to tell you, too,” I said, looking down at the baby so that I wouldn’t have to look Ash in the eye. “Something about my past.”

“We’ll just have to fight over who goes first.”

He smiled, but there was no humor in it.

He rolled into me and kissed my thigh. “She was my fiancée,” he said. “The woman in the picture. We were in Afghanistan together, and she decided she needed to get out, but the CIA wasn’t too keen on losing one of their best undercover operatives in the war on terror. So she roped her handler into helping her.”

“She disappeared on purpose?”

“She did. She never intended for me to find her, but she underestimated David.”

“And that’s who you went to see yesterday.”

“It is.” He looked up at me. “I had to make sure it was done. That there was no chance of her and me ever…” He looked almost ashamed as his eyes fell. “I didn’t think it was fair to you to not deal with it.”

The baby chose that moment to release a rather loud burp. I laughed, but it was more out of nervousness than anything else. Ash got up and took the baby from me to lay him back in his basinet. Then he came back to the bed and took my hands.

“You and Ford need to look to the future. And I…I didn’t want to give you false hope that I would be a part of that. But I also didn’t want you to move on without me. I just…I want to see where this might go. And I wanted to be free so that the potential would be there. Do you understand?”

“No pressure.”

“No pressure.”

“Okay.” I kissed his neck lightly. “I’m good with that.”

He wrapped his arms around me and sighed, blowing hard against my hair. We sat like that for a few minutes, then he pulled back and studied my face.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?”

I hesitated, not sure where to start, just like him. There was no easy jumping off spot, really. I mean, seriously, I couldn’t start with, so, my ex thinks you destroyed his business and killed his friends, so he’s out to get you…

Or could I?

I didn’t know what to say, and before I could decide, we heard someone pounding on the master bedroom door.

“Ash? I need to talk to you.”

He pressed his head against my shoulder and groaned.

“I should go see what he wants.”

He kissed me, lightly at first, then harder. When he finally pulled away, it was clear that it was with great reluctance. He tugged on his jeans as David knocked on his bedroom door again, unaware that Ash wasn’t in there. Then his shirt. He kissed me one more time, grabbing my hands as he pulled away, nearly tugging me out of the bed and dragging me along with him. And then he leaned down to kiss Ford’s head before he slipped out the door.

I’d dodged the bullet again. But I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do it again.

But he was mine now. He’d made that pretty clear.

I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.

Ash

David’s eyebrows rose as I stepped out of Mina’s room, but he didn’t say anything. He knew better than that.

“I got an email yesterday that you should take a look at.”

We went downstairs, and he showed me the email with just a few words on it. He’d traced it back to a coffee shop in Los Angeles. From there…there was no telling who was behind it.

“I called Emily, and she said she’d look into it, but she doubted there was much she could do about it.”

“We’ve gotten these kinds of emails before,” I said.

“Yeah, but with your little witch hunt to find whoever it was who shot Kirkland, I thought this might prove to be connected.”

“But you didn’t believe my theory.”

“Yeah, well…” David leaned back in his chair, trying to avoid my eyes.

“What?”

“It just…it creeped me out.”

I didn’t want to think about death threats and attempted murder and whatever else was going on around me today. I wanted to think about Mina and the baby, about a future free of guilt and grief and regret.

I’d had a lot of time to think on the flight home. Alexi…she was someone I thought I could trust. But now I realized that I never really knew her at all. She was a liar and a cheat and someone who was more concerned with how she felt than with how the people around her felt. That wasn’t the woman I thought I’d fallen in love and was definitely not the woman I wanted to be with.

Three years wasted. But if Mina was the one—my one—then maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.

“Let’s have a barbecue,” I said.

“What?”

“Let’s have a barbecue. We haven’t had one since last year.”

“When?”

“Today.”

David laughed. “Good luck getting anyone to come. Donovan and Kirkland are both on assignment and Joss has the baby.”

“I bet they’d be happy to come. Send the word.”

I walked away to the sound of David’s stuttered buts, ignoring each and every one of them. I felt like a party, and I was the boss, right?

***

Turned out, it wasn’t as hard to convince a bunch of stir-crazy people to come to a party. Donovan and Kirkland were a little late, and they showed up with their targets in tow, but they came. And Joss was more than happy to get out of the house, though she wasn’t able to do her usual margarita mix for obvious reasons. She and Mina sat together on the back porch of the house, the babies in their arms, talking about things I could never begin to guess at.

David was chasing down the potato salad with Rose while Donovan and Carrington fought over which of them was the biggest expert when it came to barbecuing hot dogs. I was in charge of the steaks, as always. Mabel was in charge of the music—something she was actually quite good at—and Ricki was helping her so that she could avoid standing too close to the food. I could see it in her face. She and David were going to have an announcement very soon.

When did my life stop being about the military and cleaning my gun and chasing down terrorists? When did it stop being about protecting Santa Monica’s rich and famous? When did it become about this domesticity?

“It started with you,” I said to Donovan.

“What did?”

“This whole love and marriage and children thing.”

“You can’t blame the children thing on me,” he said, holding up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Kate and I talked about it, but we don’t have any plans in the works. She wants to get a little further along in her career first.”

“What does she do?” Carrington asked.

“Banking.”

That sent them off into a conversation about the glass ceiling and Kate’s struggle to get another promotion. I’d thought she’d just gotten promoted.

See? Domesticity.

Mina was watching me when I glanced at her again. I found myself studying her mouth, wondering when we would be alone together again.

Maybe this party hadn’t been as great a decision as I’d thought it was.

Dinner was served a little later than expected thanks to Donovan burning half his hot dogs. But we managed to sit around the big table just as the sun was setting behind the trees.

“To family,” I said, standing with a wine glass in hand. “To traditional forms of family.” I nodded to David. “And untraditional forms,” I said, gesturing to everyone at the table.

A cheer went up and glasses clinked. I drank from my own, then set it down to scoop Ford from Mina’s arms. I caught David’s surprised glance, and Joss’s, too. They were acting as if I never held the baby. But he and I were buddies. I kissed the top of his head and smiled when he tried to push his head back to look at me.

Domesticity.

“Looking good, Ash,” Kirkland said, holding his glass up to me.

I inclined my head in acknowledgement.

There was laughter. I remember there being a lot of laughter around the table when I was a kid. I also remember my parents stealing kisses in the kitchen or behind the newspaper, inspiring David and I to make vomiting sounds. I kissed the top of Ford’s head, wondering if he’d be just as precocious as David and I were.

“Do you know he used to play with dolls?” David suddenly said.

Mina’s eyes brightened. “Yeah?”

David nodded. “He had this little redheaded doll that he called…what was it, Ash?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Connie,” David said. “You called it Connie.”

I remembered it all too well, but that was not something I wanted Mina to hear. How embarrassing was that? Childhood secrets should remain secrets.

“He used to rock her to sleep every night, and he’d insist on sitting her in one of the chairs in the dining room every night during dinner. Do you remember that dinner party Mom and Dad had, how they had to explain that raggedy doll sitting at the table with everyone?”

David started to laugh. I threw a dinner roll at him that he successfully dodged.

“You told everyone that she was your daughter and you had to treat her well.”

“I was five.”

“You were older than that if I can remember it.”

“You’re imagining things.”

David just laughed again.

“It’s okay,” Mina said, touching my knee. “I used to play with G.I. Joe dolls. My mom tried desperately to get me to play with Barbies, but I didn’t want anything to do with them. They didn’t have guns.”

“I knew there was a reason why I liked you,” I said, kissing her lightly.

You would think I’d just stripped naked and done a dance on the table the way everyone suddenly fell silent. Then Kirkland said, “I had a couple of Barbie dolls. Loved them. Used to strip them naked and play with them in the bath.”

“That explains a lot,” Donovan said.

***

“David said you went to New York yesterday.”

I’d been waiting for Joss to say something. I was in the kitchen, an apron around my waist, cleaning up the last of the dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. I reached for a pot near her elbow and smiled down at the baby nestled against her breast.

“She looks just like you, you know.”

Joss touched her daughter’s cheek. “She’s got her dad’s nose.”

“That’s not a bad thing, is it?”

“Of course not.” Then she focused on me, and her eyes narrowed. “Don’t change the subject, Ashford Grayson.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you see her?”

“I did.”

“What was that like?”

How was I supposed to put that into words? I dunked the pot in the hot water and began to scrub, my thoughts running and turning like a hamster on a wheel.

“She’s a teacher. Married with a six month old baby.”

“How do you know?”

I glanced at her. “David knows his stuff, Joss.”

She nodded, looking down at her own baby. “He tried to show me the file once. He wanted me to show it to you because he thought you would take it better from me.”

“I don’t think I would have taken it well from anyone. She ran away. She left me behind and ran away because she couldn’t handle that life anymore.” I shook my head. “It’s a betrayal. And I can’t do that sort of betrayal.”

“If you hadn’t met Mina before you went, do you think you’d feel the same?”

“Yes.” I glanced at her. “That’s probably why I didn’t go back when he first gave it to me.”

“You loved her.”

“I loved the woman I thought she was. But that woman? That wasn’t my Alexi. Maybe she never was.”

She was quiet for a minute. Then, “Sometimes I think we see what we need to see in the people we care about. And when we don’t need that anymore, we start to see what’s really there.”

“Is that how it was with you and Esteban?”

She looked at me, her eyes a little wide. “I always thought I married him because I loved him. But now? I think Esteban was the family I needed at the time. But, by the time everything happened, I already knew that things had changed. I didn’t want that as much as I thought I did.” She brushed the baby’s forehead with the back of her fingers. “Not that I didn’t love him. I’d probably still be with him if not for the accident. I just would have had to compromise a little more, you know?”

“And Carrington?”

A smile that lit up her entire face spread her lips.

“Carrington would never allow me to settle for anything. He sees me, sees what I need and what I want before I can figure out which is which. He knows when to take care of me and when to back off. He knows…he knows me in a way Esteban never would have.”

It was nice to see Joss so happy. Three and a half years ago, I’d found her dirty and uncommunicative, lying in a bed that hadn’t been made or washed in months, a bottle of pills in the nightstand just waiting until she hit the lowest point, until the moment she realized there was nothing left for her. I gave her something. And Carrington had given her more.

Life was worth living, even after the worst tragedy a person can imagine.

There was such a thing as second chances. Joss had found that in Carrington.

Would I find mine in Mina?