It had been a so fucking long since he’d cried. As tears rolled down her cheeks, they rolled down his too. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Oh my God, Josh. No. No, no, no. None of this is your fault. My fault. All mine.”
It might have been the wrong thing to do, but he slid his arms around her waist and rolled her on top of him. “I’m here, Dix. You’re in my arms, not his. You should have always been in my arms.”
****
The next morning, Josh woke before Dixie. He rolled his head to the left and smiled. Her hair a tussled mess on the pillow and a peaceful expression of sleep on her features were the first thing he always wanted to see. The urge to wrap her in his embrace and fall asleep for the next ten years crossed his mind.
They could pretend that the past never existed, if that’s what she wanted.
Quietly, he got up, changed his clothes because he’d slept in the ones from yesterday, and headed to the kitchen to make Dixie coffee. He imagined no one had ever done that for her. As he filled the hopper with dark-roast beans, he saw a future where he did this every morning for her.
He paused and stared out the back window of her kitchen. Another beautiful sunrise in San Diego.
Ghost told him he’d stopped deploying with his men when he’d found a reason to stay home. If Josh didn’t put Kallis behind bars, he couldn’t leave in August. The bigger question was whether he wanted to leave at all.
He heard Dixie’s footsteps on the floorboards and braced himself, unsure if the kitchen would suffocate with awkward silence when she walked in.
“Morning,” she said, pausing in the doorway, bracing her hands on either side of the entry.
He couldn’t help grinning. Dixie’s hair was pulled up in a messy bundle, her cheeks rosy, and her eyes sparkled. She wore a thigh-length, white, button-up shirt that revealed the swell of her ample breasts.
The words just fell from his mouth. “You are the most beautiful creature on this entire planet.”
Her jaw slackened and her bottom lip dropped open. She quickly composed herself and marched through the kitchen, stopping inches from his chest. When her head tilted ever so slightly to the right, like she always did when they were teenagers, his heart pumped madly.
Dix slid her hands up his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you saying that because you know all my secrets now?”
He chuckled. “No, it’s because I count the blessings in my life, but you’re the only one that matters.”
“That’s pretty gushy talk from a hard-assed SEAL,” she teased. Dix paused when the coffee machine automatically ground the beans. “You made me coffee?”
Josh grinned. “Maybe.”
“Do you have to work today?”
He gnawed on the inside of his cheek for a second. “Not necessarily.” What he really wanted, he couldn’t voice out loud. At least not yet. But he could toss a couple hints in front of her. “I’ll play hooky, if you will.”
He grinned, wondering whether she’d remember their first kiss, which happened the one and only day they’d decided to skip school.
Her long eyelashes fluttered. “Josh Hunter, do you still love me?”
For the first time in too many years, he felt like a kid again. His responsibilities lifted, although he was going to bring Kallis to his knees. “Yes, Miss Hammond, I do.”
Dixie’s beautiful eyes filled with tears. “Me, too,” she whispered.
The promise of a long, meaningful kiss was interrupted with someone pounding on her front door.
They shared a look before Josh led the way into the living room. “The team guys know I’m here. Hopefully, one of them has a SITREP.”
When he opened the door, he didn’t expect to see two uniformed police officers. The larger of the two stepped forward. “Dixie Hammond?”
She shimmied from behind Josh. “Yes.”
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Chandler Kallis. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
A look of utter shock and horror coated her expression as the cop muscled his way past Josh, handcuffs dangling from his hand.
“Touch her and you’ll be wearing that door as a neck brace,” Josh growled.
“Step aside or you’ll be arrested for obstruction of justice,” the burly cop warned.
Detective Dean walked into the already cramped entrance.
Like standing next to an exploding IED, shock left Josh numb and the cop’s words ringing in his ears. “What in the name of holy fuck is going on, Dean?”
Chapter Twenty
Tony “Tinman” Bale sat behind the wheel of his minivan. The fact he didn’t have a crotch rocket between his thighs or wasn’t cramped in the confines of a Dodge Charger with seven hundred horsepower didn’t bother him a bit, because his twins were asleep in the back seat.
“Babe, think the babysitter can put herself on short notice call-out for a week?”
Lumin’s sweet features lifted with a smile. “Anticipating some action, SEAL?”
They’d stayed a couple more hours at Marg’s after CDR Hunter left, to hang with the guys and let the kids overdose on the swimming pool.
“Just want to be there for the commander if he needs us.”
“Dixie’s coming to my office tomorrow to file for a restraining order,” she said.
“A guy like Kallis must have a string of lawyers on speed dial. Think your firm will shy away when they find out his family name?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not shying away. We’ll get a judge to sign off.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand. Lumin had switched firms last year. Initially she’d worked at a pro bono legal aid office after passing the bar. Her success rate had caught the eye of a firm in San Diego and they’d offered a contract she couldn’t refuse. Lundgrin and Associates dealt with everything from business to criminal law.
“I’m proud of you, Lumin.”
She winked at him. “You tell me that all the time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s the truth. I’m a pretty lucky guy, considering my roots.”
She turned a look toward the back seat and the boys were still fast asleep. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have two beautiful sons.”
He laughed. “Sweets, you did all the hard work.”
Cash and Troy were four years old. Two rambunctious boys with whiskey-colored eyes like him and platinum blond hair like their mother. When Lumin had brought their sons into the world, Tony was there, holding her hand, coaching her while she went through natural childbirth. He thought for sure she’d have to have a caesarean with her delicately built frame, but nope. Not his Lumin. She’d bore down and brought those boys into the world and had nearly broken his hand doing it.
Tony had kept his promise to the young woman he tried to resist when she came to him for help. Lumin had gotten herself embroiled in a terrorist’s plan to release a plague on United States soil. By the time it was all over, his heart belonged to her.
Then he’d deployed for the last time.
Only Mace, his best friend, knew how shit-scared he’d been throughout those seven months in the Middle East, worried that Lumin might come to her senses and not want to get hitched. She’d still been in law school at the time. He remembered thinking one of the guys in her class with a bright future would talk her out of marrying a guy in the Forces. Yet, when he’d stepped off the plane, she’d been there waiting for him. He’d kissed the ground, kissed her, and had her mind-blowing ass at the altar within a couple weeks.
Steven and Moira Porter, who acted as Lumin’s guardians while her parents were performing in Europe, had willingly paid for Lumin’s education. They loved her like a daughter. In fact…
“You don’t think Steven could lend a hand in any way, do you?” he asked.
Lumin’s smile disintegrated. “I can handle this, Tony.”
Whoops. Never wise to piss off the wife. “Sweetheart, I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying Senator Kallis is a polit
ician, but he’s nowhere near as wealthy or carries the clout that Steven Porter does. The guy’s so damn wealthy, he shits gold when he takes a crap.”
Lumin crossed her arms and narrowed a look of disapproval at him.
He shrugged. “What I mean is, if Senator Kallis gets involved, the Navy can’t. We’re helping CDR Hunter as civilians. Guys like the senator are dangerous. I’m worried about you, too. Helping Dixie file a restraining order is one thing. But attracting a psychopath’s attention is where I draw the line.”
His wife patted his thigh. “You worry too much about me, Tony.”
“Almost dying from a virus and hunting terrorist rebels with Kayla and the rest of the wives tells me I need to be worried.”
“Mr. Bale!”
Shit. Any time she called him that, he was about to be dragged into the matrimonial courtroom by his dainty wife, with killer points and slam-dunk closing arguments, where he rarely won a debate.
Only one way to get a pardon.
“Sweetheart, I love you and our boys more than anything in this world. I couldn’t breathe if I lost you. All I’m asking is be careful.”
Lumin was smarter than him by a long shot, but she grinned, knowing full well he’d used the I love you card to get himself out of a tight corner.
“I will.”
When he’d first met Lumin, she was a sweet, young virgin who performed in a death-defying, high wire act in Las Vegas. Raised in a religious family who moved from city to city entertaining people with their act, she’d had little fear of death because of her faith. He feared plenty because of his profession. Especially when he fell madly in love with her. That’s why he’d pulled out of active duty.
He missed the high of deploying with Alpha Squad or completing a successful mission. The promise he and Mace had made to Nina and Lumin was non-negotiable. Teaching at the BUD/S school still called for shiftwork, depending on which phase the recruits were in, but he was never far away from home.
Tony took the exit ramp off the highway. Mace lived close by. Lt. Bach’s place wasn’t that far either. The neighborhood had a family-friendly vibe, but he wanted more for his wife and boys.
He and Mace had been talking about branching off on their own. Starting a company staffed with Special Operators that provided protection for people, agencies or countries who needed their types of skills and didn’t want to piss around with government red tape.
Lumin and Nina liked the idea. This summer, he and Mace were putting out feelers for former Special Forces men and women who might be interested.
The venture needed plenty of capital to purchase the most enhanced equipment they could find—weapons, clothing, safety equipment, tech equipment, a place to train, an office, and a marketing plan. None of it would be cheap.
The last time the Porters had come to visit, he’d mentioned the idea to Steven. Without a second of delay, Lumin’s godfather, for a lack of a better term, said he’d back the initial start-up costs and the first two years of operation. The reason Tony floated the idea by the billionaire wasn’t because he wanted funding. He’d broached the subject because Steven understood the business world and owned an empire. Have a draft of your plan drawn up by the end of the summer, Porter had said. I’ll look at it and we’ll have you up and running by the fall.
The speed at which Steven operated made even his head spin. For a guy like Tony, who’d been raised in a trailer park, avoided prison, earned a Trident, dodged several bullets, married the sexiest, smartest woman on the planet, and had two incredible sons of his own, he counted every day as a blessing, still uncertain if one day he’d wake up to see it had all been a dream.
Tony parked in their garage. They each picked up one of the boys and carried them to bed.
Thirty minutes later when Lumin shut off the bathroom light and strolled across the carpet bare-assed naked and crept across their king-sized bed with that sizzling look in her eyes, he knew he’d be shouting God’s name and oh-so-fucking-thankful that he’d married a younger woman with the skills of an aerialist.
****
“Tony, wake up!”
His eyes flashed open with Lumin’s clipped tone. “What’s wrong?”
He vaulted out of bed, staggered, and cleared his eyes. The boys?
“I have to go,” Lumin said as she quickly dove into a pair of slacks she snatched from the bench at the foot of their bed.
“Go where?” He looked out the bedroom window and blinked at the bright sun. With a quick glance at the clock on his night table, he saw it was seven o’clock.
Lumin disappeared into their walk-in closet. A second later she appeared again with a blue silk shirt, buttoning the front. “I have to go down to the police department.” She shoved her feet in her red pumps and swept her hair up into a bun.
“Why?”
“Daddeeee!” Cash appeared at the doorway wearing his Superman PJ’s and his usual grumpy scowl when he first woke up, unlike Troy, who always woke with a smile. Tony picked up his son and strode to the bathroom.
“Can you stay home with the boys until the sitter comes?” She quickly pinned her hair into place.
Usually Lumin went to work after him. “What is the damn rush?”
“I’m hungry,” Cash whimpered.
“Okay, buddy. Yeah, we’ll have breakfast.”
Lumin finished fixing her hair and turned to him. “It’s Dixie. She’s been held under suspicion of murder.”
“What the f—rig. How? Why? Who’s dead?”
Lumin took one last look at herself. “Chandler Kallis.”
Tony’s mouth dropped open. “Did she do it?”
“For God’s sake, Tony. Of course not. I just got a call from CDR Hunter. They won’t allow him to speak with her. I told him I’ll be down there in under thirty minutes. I have to go.”
“Yeah.” He saw himself in the bathroom mirror that ran from wall to wall. “Once the sitter’s here, I’ll be right behind you.”
She pecked his cheek. “There’s nothing you can do except keep CDR Hunter calm. He sounded pretty shaken up.”
“Go.”
Troy wandered into their bathroom. “Momma?”
Lumin knelt and kissed her son. “I gotta go, sweetie. Daddy’s gonna make you breakfast today. Okay?”
Troy tilted his head and stared up at him, as if uncertain whether that was a good idea or not.
“How about scrambled eggs, buddy?”
Troy still didn’t look convinced. “With cheeeese?”
He swept up his other son with his free arm. Locked and loaded with kidlets, he had the situation under control. “Of course with cheese.” They followed Lumin to the front door. “Give me a SITREP when you can, okay?”
“I will.” She plucked her purse from the wicker table in the entry hall and dug for her car keys.
“Hey.” She quickly turned in the doorway. “Go get ‘em, baby. I love you.”
She blew him a kiss before leaving.
Plunking the boys down at the kitchen table and giving them a cup of orange juice to keep them busy, he had a few seconds to figure out his plan. His first text was to the commander.
Lumin is on her way. What can I do?
Tony and Mace had a mandatory, must-attend, bullshit course this morning. Some touchy-feely-flavor-of-the-day crap. Every six months the DOD’s nuts were lassoed by someone higher-up the food chain, convinced it was imperative that every Tom, Dick and Jane serving in the Forces needed enlightenment. Today’s load of bullshit was no doubt served by some fucktard wanting to earn his stripes into a higher managerial position. The course title: Best Tools and Strategies to Deal with Conflict.
He chuckled. Tony imagined the impending train wreck, teaching a room full of veteran Navy SEALs how to politely deal with conflict.
CDR Hunter responded.
Nothing. Time you men backed away.
Was he serious?
“Daddy. More juice, please.” Troy tipped his empty cup to prove he needed a refill.
Topping up Cash’s OJ and filling Troy’s only half full, because he wouldn’t eat his breakfast with a belly full of fluid. Tony rustled the frying pan out of the cabinet and the eggs from the fridge. Before he started cracking shells, he texted Mace.
Kallis is dead. Dixie on the hook for it.
His cell rang and he answered, putting it on speaker, then retrieving the butter from the fridge.
“T-man, I’m on my way to the police station. Ghost and Lt. Bach are on their way as well. Nina isn’t working today. You got a sitter?”
Crap, the sitter! He should have called her first and asked her to get here early. “Yeah, but she’s not due till eight-thirty. You have any more details? Lumin rushed out of here this morning. I didn’t get much.”
“Someone shot the sonofabitch. An Ardon employee found him early this morning. It’s already splattered over the news and some piece of shit reporter got a hold of Dixie’s name. The lies are already churning from the belly of the journalistic beast, saying she’s a thwarted, jealous lover.”
Was he surprised at the lies mainstream media puked out on a regular basis? Hell, no. They vomited their garbage, then quietly rescinded their mistakes later, or never.
The scratch of wood on tiles made him turn his head to see Cash shoving his chair up to the kitchen counter. “I’ll help, Dad. I can set the table.”
“Standby, Mace.” His son was already standing on the chair across the kitchen, with the cabinet open. One thing he’d learned, kids got themselves into shit faster than a virgin walking into a sailor’s bar. “Thanks, buddy.” He wrapped his son around the middle of his little stomach and swept him off the chair, picking up the boy and the seat and putting them both back at the table. “I’ll handle the plates, okay?”
“But I want to help,” Cash said with a deep furrow on his brow.
His son had the Bale glare down pat at the ripe old age of four. Kids were like little sponges and his two boys emulated him every chance they got.
Tony ripped a handful of paper towels off the roll. “Here, you fold these.”
Cash was happy with a task but his twin didn’t want to be left out. Troy snatched all the towels.
Dixie Under Siege (A Warrior's Passion Book 2) Page 23
