by Jaycee Clark
“You boys grew up on us. Faster than we ever imagined. Aiden went to the hotels and . . .”
Ian took a deep breath. “And I didn’t.” He grabbed the armrests, intent on standing.
“Sit down for a damn minute,” Jock barked, his eyes their old sharp self.
Ian leaned back.
“I know you’re busy. I know you haven’t been back here in years, and when you do come home we don’t have three words to say to each other.” Jock frowned, and twirled the gold band on his finger. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I never meant . . . That is . . .” He raked his hand through his hair and stood. “Hell.”
Ian waited.
“What made you come back now?” Jock asked, looking out the window Ian had vacated earlier.
Ian licked his lips and shifted. “I had to.”
“Because of your job?” Jock looked at him.
Ian shook his head. “Partly. Mostly to make certain everyone was all right.”
Jock nodded, looked down and ran his fingers along the windowsill. “Ryan said something the other day and I’ve heard him and Tori whispering.”
Damn.
Those eyes pierced him to the chair. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been back, is it?”
Ian thought about lying. He propped his elbow on the armchair and his temple on his fist. “No.”
Jock nodded then shook his head, and his shoulders rose on a deep breath. His voice so quiet Ian had to lean forward to hear him, Jock said, “Did you really think I meant what I said that day?”
Ian didn’t move, didn’t speak. Another lie rose easily to his mind, but he shook it off. “No.” He shrugged and sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’d hoped not, but I wasn’t about to test it.”
Jock walked back and leaned against the desk. “You said some things that day that pissed me off.”
Ian cocked a brow. “I remember it the other way around.”
Jock crossed his arms and glanced down, then back up. “But what you said that day was right. I was wrong.”
Ian blinked and stared at his father. Hell had frozen over and he’d missed it. Not because his father was wrong, but because the great Jock Kinncaid had admitted he was wrong. Ian took a deep breath and knew that was as close to an apology as it could get.
“None of the other boys ever knew, but your mother and I . . .” Jock shook his head and waved his hand, walking back around the desk.
“You and Mom what?” Ian asked.
“She figured out what happened and wheedled the rest out of me.”
Damn. Ian stared at him, then grinned, then started to laugh. “I bet that was fun.”
Jock didn’t grin, but narrowed his gaze at him. “I don’t remember it too fondly, as it’s the only time in all our years of marriage she made me sleep somewhere else.”
“Oh.” What else did he say?
“Where’d you go when you left here?”
Ian leaned back as Jock sat in the chair beside him. “Around. I dropped the car off, checked my bank accounts, and had Aiden put anything I made from then on into stocks, since he’s so good at that sort of thing.”
“You never touched those accounts after one large withdrawal that first afternoon,” Jock said.
Ian grinned. “Checked that, did you? Figured you would. I took out what I wanted to that first day and opened a Swiss account.” He shrugged. “Between interest and work, I made enough.”
“And after?”
“Joined the army. Became a Ranger.”
His father pulled back a bit. “You were a Ranger?”
Ian nodded. “Yeah. For a while.”
A slow smile started across his father’s face. Some part of him had hoped to see it again, and another part had always said he didn’t give a damn if he did or not—pride.
“And?” Jock asked, leaning closer. “I always wanted to do that. But your grandfather had no use for a soldier in the family.” He waved his hand. “Things were different then. So I took the road paved for me and found your mother and the rest is history.”
Ian had never known that. “You wanted to join the army?”
Jock shrugged. “I wanted to be a paratrooper like my father. Fought in World War Two. You’d have thought he wanted a son in the military. Grandfather was even against it. But to be fair to them, they’d both lost family members in both World Wars.”
Ian tilted his head. “Learn something new every day.”
“So you’re a Ranger?” Jock asked again, shaking his head.
“Retired. Went to work for a different . . . branch,” he supplied.
Jock frowned. “What does that mean?”
Ian chose his words carefully. “I do undercover work. That’s all you need to know. And this is my last assignment.”
“This?”
Ian waved the question away and sat up. He looked into Jock’s eyes and said, “I have to go somewhere over the weekend.”
“Rori and Darya going with you?”
Ian shook his head. “No.”
A moment passed, then another and another. “And?”
Looking into the eyes so like his own, he said, “If I don’t come back . . .”
Jock sat back, the lines of his mouth hardening, his eyes narrowing. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“If I don’t come back, I want you to look out for Darya and Rori. They really don’t have anyone else.”
Which was in and of itself true enough. There was some other man, Nikko, he’d heard Rori talk of occasionally, but he didn’t know who the man was, and he was looking.
A log popped in the fireplace and Ian knew he needed to go. The morning was growing.
“Where are you going?”
He really didn’t think his father wanted to know that he was basically going to his death. And he couldn’t explain a thing to Jock because it was all classified.
“I can’t tell you.”
“I guess I don’t need to tell you to be careful?” Jock said ruefully.
Ian smiled. “I’ve been through worse.”
Jock raised a brow. “It’s usually the things we expect to be easy that turn out to be the hardest.”
Ian frowned. “You’re starting to sound like Mom.”
Jock’s laughter rang out and boomed off the walls. When he quieted, he asked, “If I wanted to go into town today to find something for Darya, what would it take?”
Ian shook his head. “I don’t know. At least one guard. I’d really rather you wait until I had my meeting.” If he left in the next few minutes, he’d be done by this afternoon with all the tests Pete would undoubtedly have all lined out for him and then be back here by dinnertime.
Jock hadn’t answered him.
Ian looked from his watch to the man across from him in the other chair. “I need to get going. I am sorry this has disrupted all your lives. That wasn’t my intention on coming back.”
Jock nodded. “I do understand that much, even if I don’t really understand what the hell is going on.” Those eyes narrowed on him again. “You better be back in time for dinner, or you’ll have to explain to your mom why you’re not.”
He nodded and stood, wondering if he should shake his father’s hand or what, as Jock stood.
Ian turned away, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “I meant what I said earlier,” Jock said.
“About?”
“Being wrong all those years ago. Brice was . . .” Jock took a deep breath.
“A liar?” Ian suggested.
Jock nodded. “Woman wasn’t pregnant, or if she was it never came about.”
Ian waited then said, “So you think the baby, if she had one, still could have been mine?”
Jock shook his head. “No. No, I don’t. I didn’t after I had a chance to calm down.”
Why was it, when something was so long in coming, it was almost anticlimactic? He’d waited years to hear those words. And today, they seemed . . . not very important.
“Witch did abort Aide
n’s baby.”
“Yes, I know.” At his father’s questioning look, Ian said, “Who do you think got him all the proof he needed? Medical records are rather sticky issues, you know.”
Jock shook his head again. “Part of me wants to know every detail of your life for the last few years.” Without warning, he leaned in and wrapped Ian in a hug. “And the other part of me is too damn scared to find out.”
Ian stood awkwardly for a split second, then brought his arms up and wrapped them around . . .
His father.
When had the big man become so much older?
Ian took a deep breath and disengaged, smiling slightly. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll miss dinner.”
His father sniffed and nodded, his brows doing that damn V thing they did when he was trying not to cry.
Ian opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came to mind.
“Yeah, you better get going. With your mother worrying like she is, if anyone’s late, they’ll hear about it for weeks.”
Chapter 22
Dinner was as strained as he knew it would be. Ian rubbed the back of his neck as he stood alone at the windows. Probably stupid to be standing in front of one, but he really didn’t care at present. He hated debriefings with Pete. There was never enough.
More details, more info, more intel. Go over it all again and again and again.
Ian knew it was relevant, but he was just so damned tired. This weekend. This weekend was the last assignment he had.
Thank God.
His headache had been constant for two days. He just had to make it through this weekend.
Pete and the agency’s team of docs had been concerned, but he told them to give him some damn pills and he’d deal with it. He could crash when it was all over. And he knew he would. Crashing was simply a side effect of what he did. He knew it and accepted it.
A cell phone chirped. Rori’s new one he’d gotten her today. He glanced at her over his shoulder as she frowned and answered it.
Then a soft smile spread across those lips. Darya sat in the corner playing with a box of wooden blocks he’d decided to get her at the toy store before coming home. The glittering Barbie and accessories were opened, but sat untouched to the side. He watched as she stacked yet another block up, creating God only knew what. Other than her screams and that one time at the hotel, she still hadn’t spoken again.
Pain flashed through his head.
“You okay?” his mother asked, coming up to stand beside him.
He bit down and nodded.
She frowned. “You look like you have a headache.”
It felt that bad. No wonder people could see it. He took a deep breath and focused on his mother. Her green eyes were concerned and her hair was pulled back into some do. She wore brown woolen slacks and an off-white silk button-down.
“You look beautiful, Mom.”
As he hoped, it distracted her. “Thank you, sweetie.” She swept her hand over some imaginary spot on her shirtfront. “Did you eat enough? I noticed—”
“Yes, Mom,” he interrupted. He needed a quiet place. Just him.
“Kaitie, leave the man alone,” his father said.
“Nikko, luv, I’ve really got to go.” Rori’s laughter and words pulled his attention back to her. She stood over in the corner, talking softly.
His mother and father raised a brow.
Nikko.
“No,” her voice sharpened. “Things are fine. Just . . .” Her gaze rose to his and locked. “Complicated.” Then she shook her head. “No, Nikko, not like that. We’re fine. Yes, yes, we’re still looking for them.” She nodded. “I need to go, Nikko. Yes, luv you as well. Ciao!”
Ian cocked a brow.
Johnno said, “Nikko?”
Rori’s laughter was husky and deep as she flipped the phone shut. “You don’t want to know, John.” Her gaze rose to his. “You’d really rather be in ignorance on this one.”
They walked out of the room together, John asking, “Is this the same Nikko you mentioned in passing before?”
“No, I’ve several men I call Nikko, luv. Doesn’t everyone?”
Ian ignored that, he’d ask later. God, his head hurt.
“You let your wife call other men luv?” Jock asked him.
Ian only stared at him. “No one lets Rori do anything. She does whatever she wants to do.”
Pain shot through his brain and he hissed. The edges of his vision were blurred.
“Ian?” someone asked.
Without a word to anyone, he walked out of the room. In the hallway, Johnno raised his brow, then frowned, said something to Rori and followed him.
Ian didn’t care. He just needed to get somewhere and lie down. Chills danced over his skin.
Johnno’s arm slipped around his shoulder. “That bad, is it?”
He started to bite out at his friend, but again the pain clawed inside him and all he could do was stop and take a breath, hoping he wouldn’t be sick. “Fuck, Johnno.”
“I know. Let’s get you to bed.”
Ian could feel his vision wavering. “Bad,” he mumbled.
Johnno slung Ian’s arm over his own shoulder.
“Well, this ought to give all the family something else to talk about.”
Ian tried to smile. “They’re currently wondering about Nikko.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Right now, I don’t care.”
“Yes, well, hopefully you’ll still feel that way later.”
He should probably try and figure out what the hell that statement meant, but God’s truth. “I hate these.”
“I know.”
They were at Ian and Rori’s room. Johnno paused to open the door.
“I’ll get it,” a new voice said. Gavin. Damn.
The room was thankfully dark.
Someone grabbed his wrist and Ian flung them off.
“You really don’t want to be touching him, Gavin,” John said.
“He’s my brother.”
“That may be—”
God, why the hell wouldn’t they shut up?
He all but fell on the bed.
“Did you take anything?” Gavin asked.
Ian might have laughed if he’d had the energy or felt like it, but instead he didn’t. He just wished for quiet oblivion.
He started to push himself up and grab the pill bottle he’d tossed on the dresser from Pete’s doctor. But he hated pills.
“Stay the bloody hell there,” Johnno’s voice bounced off his eardrums. “This the bottle here on the dresser?”
He didn’t even want to nod, just mumbled a yes.
Closing his eyes, he hoped this wasn’t a trek into the dark realm, as he called it. A migraine was one thing. Even a prolonged migraine. A trek into the dark side wasn’t what he liked to experience. It was soul draining. It was judgment on past crimes and punishment paid in pain. He called those times simply the Attacks.
Ian wasn’t in the mood, even for his friend. He just wanted everyone out. Silence.
Rori looked at the man on the bed. She knew what he felt. The headaches that reached up and knifed through the skull so that all you wanted was to be left the hell alone.
She watched as Johnno gave him a glass of water and two white pills. Be lucky if he bloody kept it down and wasn’t sick off of it.
He leaned up and took a drink, swallowing the meds and laying back on the bed. His brother reached again for his wrist and Ian muttered, “Leave me the hell alone, Gav. You can’t fucking fix this.”
Gavin cocked a brow and grabbed his brother’s wrist anyway. “Be that as it may, you can either deal with me or you know Mom will be up here taking your vitals. So lay back and shut up.”
“Paybacks are hell,” Ian muttered, flinging his other arm up over his eyes. “My pulse is one thing, you try to look at my pupils and I’m liable to put a fucking bullet in you.”
Gavin chuckled.
Johnno shook his head. “I don’t know that he’s jokin
g.”
“You get these migraines a lot?” Gavin asked, straightening. “How bad is it?”
“Ever been stabbed in the brain?”
Gavin’s lips twitched. “No, and I’ll warrant neither have you, lest you wouldn’t be here.”
Rori went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Coming back to the bed, she said, “I’ve always likened them to some medieval torture of hot pokers in my bloody brain.”
Ian groaned. “Thank you, love.”
She gently laid the cloth on his forehead. “You need anything?” she whispered.
“For everyone to get the hell out. And leave me alone. Yeah.”
She asked John, “Has he always been such a compliant patient?”
“Rori,” Ian warned.
“Let’s go,” John said, taking Gavin’s arm. Gavin looked as if he wanted to ask more questions. She half-assed expected him to pull a stethoscope out at any minute.
Luckily John pulled him out of the room. At the doorway, John stopped and looked at her. He nodded to her and she mouthed “Darya.” He nodded and left, closing the door softly behind him.
She didn’t move. The silence became comfortable. Ian didn’t move. She almost wondered if he was breathing.
“You get these too?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.
She started to reach out and run her fingers through his hair, but decided against it, as she didn’t like anyone to touch her when her headaches were raging.
“Upon occasion.”
“With analogies of hot pokers, I don’t have to ask if they’re bad.”
Again, they lapsed into silence. She scooted up onto the bed, sitting beside his head. He lifted it and shifted so he lay on her lap.
“Our lives are screwed, Rori.”
She chuckled and gently grazed her nails along the back of his neck. “Does that hurt?”
With his eyes still closed, he said, “No.”
Barely touching him, she hoped she relieved some of his pain.
“You should be downstairs with Darya,” he mumbled.
“She’s fine. Safe and playing with the blocks you brought back for her. She noticed when you left and Jock went and sat on the floor with her, telling her he’d build her a house.”
