by Lisa Childs
Nikki was a little busy at the moment; she and Dane had taken Lars to the hospital for a CT scan. Once he’d regained consciousness, he’d insisted he was fine, but Nikki had wanted to make certain.
“Her fiancé might take exception to that,” Cooper warned him.
Xavier expelled a regretful sigh. “That’s too bad.”
“We both know she’s not the bodyguard you really want to stick around,” Cooper said.
Xavier sighed again.
“I understand what you’re trying to do here,” Cooper said. “That you want your grandson back—”
“You’ve met the rest of my family,” Xavier said again. “He and Shawna and their little girl… They’re the family I want with me.”
Pity for the old man overwhelmed Cooper. Despite all his money, Xavier Bentler couldn’t buy what he really wanted. Family. Cooper felt a flash of guilt for all the years he’d taken his own family for granted. As a Marine, he’d spent so many years away from them. He wanted to get home more than ever now.
But he couldn’t leave in good conscience without warning the old timer. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give you what you want. And I’m not sure Cole will either. He’s made a home for himself in River City. He has a career that I think he enjoys and he has friends who are like family to him. I don’t think you’ll be able to get him to stay here.”
“Not even for Shawna and his daughter?”
Now Cooper was concerned. Cole obviously didn’t need the job.
Was he about to lose one of his best employees and friends?
Chapter 24
He’d made a hell of a mess of things with Shawna. Twice. It was his fault she’d married Emery. At least according to his mother.
But Tiffani only knew what Emery had told her. He could have lied to spare her feelings. Cole hoped that he’d told the truth, that he’d been as honest and good a man as everyone believed him to be.
Cole was still in the den where he’d found his mother beside the urn of Emery Little’s ashes. He stared at it as if searching for answers. He wished now that he hadn’t blown off the man when he’d tried to talk to him.
What had Emery wanted to tell him? The same things he’d told Cole’s mom about his relationship with Shawna? Cole would never know. But he could get the answers he sought from Shawna if she would talk to him.
She’d looked so devastated when she ran out of the dining room earlier that day. He’d wanted her reaction to look genuine, but he should have found a way to protect her that wouldn’t have hurt her—six years ago and now. Maybe he wasn’t as good a protector as he’d thought he was—as the medals of valor the Corps had awarded him had led him to believe.
But he was a good bodyguard. Even before he heard footsteps against the hardwood floor, he sensed the person’s presence. It had always been that way with Shawna, though. His body was so connected to hers that it reacted whenever she was close; his pulse began to beat faster, his blood heated and his skin tingled.
She must have known that he would know she was there because she softly asked, “Do you think I should give her the urn?”
“Do you think that’s what he would have wanted?” he asked in return.
“He loved her.”
“You know that?”
“I didn’t know she was the one,” she said. “But I knew he was in love with someone.”
“And you married him anyway?”
“He couldn’t be with her,” she said. “I didn’t know why.” She sighed. “I didn’t even know the love of his life was a woman. I had no idea what the situation was.” Her voice cracked. “I should have been a better friend to him.”
“He was protecting her,” Cole surmised. So Emery Little really had been a good guy. “Just like I was trying to protect you.”
“When?” she asked.
“Six years ago,” he admitted. “That was why I broke our engagement. I didn’t think I was going to make it back from that mission. And I didn’t want you to mourn me like you’d mourned for your parents.”
She’d been so devastated after losing them, and he’d felt so helpless to comfort her. Of course, he’d just been a kid then.
Her breath caught. “How was that protecting me?”
“I figured it would be easier for you if, when I died, you hated me,” he explained.
Tears glistened in her dark eyes. “I did,” she murmured. “I did hate you for breaking up with me. For breaking my heart. But I still mourned you.”
“I didn’t die.” He’d almost wished he had. Then his plan would have made sense. Breaking up with her would have been the right thing to do. But he saw now how wrong he had been, how horribly wrong.
“I mourned the boy I loved,” she said. “I mourned the man who would have never hurt me because it seemed like he had died.”
Cole flinched. He had always promised that he would never hurt her, that he would always take care of her.
“When you joined the Marines, I was warned that you might change,” she said. “That you might not be the man I’d fallen in love with when you came back. I hadn’t believed that was possible…until that day.”
Cole’s heart broke with regret. He had been so wrong. He could not have been more wrong.
“But then you came to the funeral and I saw you with your friends and with your grandfather and…” her voice cracked again “…with our daughter. And I saw that man—the good man—who I thought would never hurt me.”
That was probably why she had made love with him. He’d thought she’d been scared and vulnerable and he’d felt guilty for taking advantage of her.
“I wish I could tell you that I am that man,” Cole said. “But I’m not. Whoever told you that I would change was right.”
“Your mother…” she said. “She said that the things you would see, the things you would have to do would change you.”
Like Natalie dying in that car crash had changed his father. It wasn’t quite the same. But it was close.
“I did a lot, saw a lot,” he conceded. “And it did change me. It taught me to know what really matters.”
She nodded as if she understood. He knew that she didn’t, that she couldn’t. She hadn’t been where he’d been, hadn’t done what he’d done. And he was grateful for that. But she’d been through some of her own tragedies recently.
“You matter,” he said. “That never changed. I did what I did six years ago to protect you. And you still matter, that’s why I did what I did in the dining room today. I was trying again to protect you.”
She stared at him, her dark eyes wide. She’d washed off his stepfather’s blood, but he could see it yet, could see how she’d looked. He remembered how he’d thought for just a minute that a bullet had struck her despite his attempt to save her.
He didn’t need her to say it. He said it for her. “I failed. I failed you twice. So I can understand if you don’t want to give me another chance.”
“Chance?” Her brow furrowed with confusion.
“When I talked to my mother, she gave me something,” he said. “Something you gave her six years ago.”
All the color drained from her face. “She was supposed to give that back to you.”
He pulled the ring from his pocket and held it out to her. “It never should have left your finger,” he said. “I was a fool to break our engagement.” And her heart. He’d been such an idiot. Could she forgive him?
She stared at him, and that ring, as if she were horrified to see it again. If she hated it, hated the bad memories associated with it, he would buy her another. Hell, he’d buy her anything she wanted.
“Please, Shawna, give me another chance,” he implored her. “Give us another chance.”
She pressed her hand over her mouth as if holding back a cry, then turned and ran from the room with no answer.
But then, after what he’d done to her—twice—he didn’t deserve one. He didn’t deserve another chance.
*
Shawna closed her bedroom d
oor and leaned against it, her heart beating wildly. She shouldn’t have run. But she’d never been as afraid as she’d been when Cole had proposed for the second time. Not even when Jeff had held that gun on her. Or when the bomb had exploded…
Cole’s proposal terrified her in a way that she’d never been afraid before. It shook her to her core—she’d wanted to accept. She’d wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hang on so tightly that he would never leave her again.
And that terrified her.
She’d been devastated when he broke up with her before. She didn’t want to go through that again. She worried that he would leave her again because she wasn’t convinced that he loved her.
Knuckles brushed softly against the door at her back. A deep voice called out, “Shawna…”
He’d followed her. She hadn’t been certain that he would, and she’d needed a moment to calm her wildly pounding heart. But before she could lock the door and send him away, the knob turned, and the door opened.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. He didn’t look like he was; his handsome face was tense, his jaw clenched, his blue eyes dark with concern.
Before she could answer him, he said, “Of course you’re not all right. You’ve been through so much this past week. And I—I was an idiot to ask you for another chance.”
“Why did you ask me?” she asked.
“Because I want you to marry me,” he said. “I want us to be a family for Maisy.”
She flinched. “So you’re doing this for Maisy.”
“Shawna—”
Anger swept her pain aside, and she lashed out at him. “Why would you do that to her?”
“Do what?” he asked, his brow furrowed with confusion. “Give her a family? A father and a mother?”
“Give her the life you lived, with a husband resenting his wife for getting pregnant?” she asked.
“That’s why you didn’t tell me when you found out you were pregnant?” he asked. “You thought I would act like my father did…that I would treat you like he treated her. With contempt.”
She nodded. She wouldn’t have been able to bear his resentment. His mother was a far stronger woman than she was. But then Tiffani hadn’t loved Cole’s father, not like Shawna loved Cole.
His resentment would destroy her.
“This situation is entirely different,” he said. “My father and mother never loved each other. I loved you.”
“Loved?” That was why she’d run away—because she was afraid his love was only in the past. How could she expect him to still love her after what she’d done? After she’d married another man and kept his child from him?
He stepped closer, his arms reaching for her. “Shawna—”
She pressed her hands against his chest, holding him back. “I understand,” she told him as emotion rushed up, choking her. “You feel betrayed…because I married Emery…because I didn’t tell you about Maisy…” He couldn’t trust her any more than she could trust him. Maybe they’d just hurt each other too much to recover what they’d once had.
Cole said nothing, and his arms dropped back to his sides.
“We can’t build a marriage on mistrust and resentment,” she told him.
“I don’t resent or mistrust you,” he said. “But it’s clear that you do me.”
“I’m not sure why you want to marry me,” she said. “If it’s just for Maisy.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I love you,” he said.
“You loved me,” she reminded him of his words.
“I never stopped,” he said. “Sure, I was hurt when you married another man so quickly—”
She stepped forward and pressed her fingers over his lips. “I didn’t love Emery,” she said, “not like I loved you.”
He flinched at her use of the past tense.
But she continued, “He and I never had a real marriage. We were only ever friends. There was nothing romantic between us. Nothing passionate. He married me only to help me protect Maisy.”
And maybe to be close to Cole’s mother. Shawna hoped he’d gotten something out of their arrangement because he’d given everything for it. His life.
“He helped protect her from my family,” Cole murmured. “That’s why you didn’t want anyone to know she’s my child.”
She nodded. “I’ve seen how they treated you. And I didn’t want her to go through any of that. I didn’t want her to be involved with them at all.” She sighed. “But I couldn’t sever all ties—not with your grandfather or your mother. We were all there for each other when you left for boot camp and through your deployments.”
“I know that was hard for you,” he said. “That’s why, as my missions got more and more dangerous, that I thought it would be better for you if we broke up. Then you wouldn’t care if I was in danger or if I didn’t return at all.”
She drew in a shaky breath at the thought. “I would have cared.”
“I know it was a bad idea,” he said. “And I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for hurting you. So I understand that you can’t forgive me either.”
She stared into his eyes, and she saw the regret he felt. And she saw even more than that; she saw the love. The same love she felt for him. Never-ending…
No matter how long they’d known each other or what they’d been through, they would always love each other.
“Yes,” she said.
He flinched as if she’d struck him and pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t bother you anymore.” He turned toward the door.
“No,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. I can forgive you. I already have.” Because she understood why he’d done what he had.
He turned back, but he looked as though he was holding his breath. His body was tense, his jaw rigid. “You have?” he asked. “Why?”
“Because I love you,” she said. “I’ve always loved you.”
He arched a brow as if doubting her.
She smiled and conceded, “Even when I hated you, I loved you. And I love you still.”
“I love you,” he said. “That’s the only reason I proposed. Because I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for hurting you.”
“You already have,” she said. “You gave me Maisy, who is my life. And then you saved my life—a few times.”
He shook his head. “You’re no damsel in distress, Shawna Rolfe. You would have saved yourself if I wasn’t here.”
She wasn’t so certain about that. But she smiled and admitted, “I am tougher than I realized.”
And maybe she would have never realized that if he hadn’t broken up with her, if she hadn’t spent the past six years essentially on her own. Emery had been her friend, but he’d never been her mate, the way Cole had been her soul mate.
“You were always tough,” he assured her. “You experienced a lot of loss at a young age, and you survived it. I didn’t want to put you through that again, but I should have realized that you could handle it, if you’d had to. That you could handle anything.”
He was right. She could. Even though his current job as bodyguard put him in danger, she could handle that. She was tough. Tough enough to risk her heart on a man who’d already broken it once.
And smart enough to know that he would never willfully break it again.
Rising up on tiptoe, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him, nibbling at his lips until he parted them. Then she slid her tongue inside his mouth.
He groaned.
She giggled as a sense of power rushed through her. She’d forgotten how she used to be able to affect him. When she’d thought he no longer loved her, she’d lost that power. But now she knew he loved her—that he had always loved her.
She flicked her tongue over his bottom lip, teasing him as she pulled back. Then she skimmed her lips over the slight stubble on his cheek to the edge of his jaw, and she nibbled again. As she kissed her
way down his throat, she unbuttoned his shirt and skimmed her hands over his chest, over the sculpted muscles.
He was perfect, so damn perfect. She had never wanted him more than she did now.
When she trailed her fingers over his washboard abs to the buckle of his belt, he sucked in a deep breath. When she skimmed her fingers over the erection straining against the fly of his jeans, he expelled a ragged sigh.
And his control snapped. He pushed her hand aside to strip off his own clothes. Then he stripped off hers, pulling her shirt over her head and pushing down her pants. He lifted her from the pile of their clothes and laid her on the bed.
She reached out and closed her fingers around his erection, stroking her palm up and down the length of him.
“Shawna,” he said between gritted teeth. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Good,” she said with a smile. She loved being able to affect him the way he affected her. She loved him.
He narrowed his eyes, then he returned the favor, kissing and caressing her into madness. She squirmed against the mattress as his mouth moved over her body. He nibbled at her breasts, gently tugging at each nipple before moving farther down her body.
He’d barely flicked his tongue across her core before she came, crying out his name. She clasped his shoulders and tugged, pulling him up. Then she pushed him onto his back and she straddled him. He clenched her hips in his hands and lifted her so that he could ease inside her.
She arched and thrust and finally he filled her as only he could. On top, she set the rhythm, and she set it slow, teasing them both.
“Shawna…” He uttered her name on a groan. The cords in his neck and his shoulders strained as he struggled to regain control.
She leaned forward and kissed his neck and his chest. He cupped her breasts and stroked his thumbs over her nipples. The sensation shot to her core, which pulsed and throbbed with the need for release. She increased the rhythm to a frenzy, and he moved his hands to her hips again, helping her move as fast as he thrust.
“Yes, yes,” she told him as she began to peak. Finally the tension broke, and an orgasm overwhelmed her. He swallowed her cry of pleasure with his mouth as he kissed her. Then his body tensed and shuddered as he found his own release.
