by Anthology
I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. “Jesus Christ, why are you being so stubborn? If you are having problems I’d like to help.”
“The only problem I have is I can’t keep things organized worth shit. Aha!” She grabbed something and tucked it into her tote. She smiled. “I found the right checkbook. Crisis averted. You can stand down, Dillon.”
I rolled my eyes. Out of nowhere, it was suddenly very important not to let her brush me off about this. “Nope, not standing down. It’s time I started helping you out around here. I am sort of living with you, Rachel. It makes me feel like a first-class shit not to contribute.”
Rachel’s brows hitched up as her head tilted to one side to give me a look. Fuck, I’d pissed her off with that.
“Sort of?” She repeated heavily and then paused for emphasis. “You do live here, Dillon, no matter how you rationalize it in your head. Every tour break, exactly the same drill. You come to Sacramento. Your things stay in your loft, but that sweet ass of yours pretty much stays in my bed until it’s time for you to hop your next plane out of here. It would probably really bug me, only the last five years are not that different than when you were on active duty. Except for the parties and the drinking and the women. Yep, that’s different, but the rest of it, pretty much SOP.”
I made a little shake of my head, a slight rebuke for the jibe since I could have done without those last sentences, and she was right in eye-opening and unpleasant ways. I was living with her, no matter what I labeled it in my head and, after quickly banking the sudden internal disarray over that realization, I felt a sharp kick in the ass for not having helped her more.
The best course seemed to be to blow past the parts that unnerved me. “How much money do you need?”
She lifted her chin, obstinate. “Money is the last thing on my list I need from you.”
That pissed me off—she’d trivialized my role in her life which wasn’t like her—though it probably shouldn’t have angered me since we were pretty much exactly what I forced us to be.
“Stop being stubborn and proud. It’s me. Dillon. High school boyfriend. Guy who took your cherry. Long-term friend who loves and cares about you. If you need, I help. That’s how it works.”
She exhaled loudly and ran her hands through her hair, frustrated. “This isn’t a problem I can’t fix on my own. A mix-up. Wrong bank account. Nothing more.”
I pulled her up against me, between my legs, and drew her face down to kiss her. “Fine, but if you ever do need me to help, I’m here and you’re going to tell and let me. Agreed?”
“It’s resolved,” she said, anxiously. “I just need to pay it from the right checkbook.”
She stepped back before I could continue the discussion. At the bedroom door, she whirled back to face me. “Are you hanging out here today or going back to the loft?”
Frowning, I shrugged. “Here, probably. Why? You want me out of your way for a while or something?”
Her expression changed into the one that screamed, Dillon, you’re annoying me. “No, just want to know if you’re going to be here when I get back.” Her eyes started to glimmer. “I might get done early, before I have to pick up Cody, and you definitely owe me after this morning.”
Ah, that’s my girl. “I do, do I?”
She took hold of her lower lip with her teeth then slowly released it. “What do you think, soldier?”
“I’m thinking someone is having nasty thoughts and wants me to stay.”
Her bright green eyes grew lush. “Like I said, Dillon, it would be fine with me if you stayed forever.”
*`~`*
It was probably all kinds of wrong to do this. I grabbed Rachel’s private records from the small case she kept in the cabinet, dumped them on the bed, and started going through them. I figured I had a right and an obligation.
Her earlier comment had bugged the shit out of me, but she was right. I was unofficially living with Rachel—that was the true status of us each time I came home to Sacramento—and it was time to get a clear picture of where her financial problems stood.
I was living with her, even if I wasn’t ready to take the next step and move my junk in here. And I was right, too. She should let me help her. I wasn’t doing my part. And that made me feel like a heel twelve ways from Sunday.
This would have pleased Graham to no end, if he knew. Provincial Nor Cal Dillon rearing his head over a woman he was on fuck-buddy status with in that God, country, family way, determined to rescue Rachel—when we both knew she wasn’t the kind of girl who needed rescuing—but she was my girl when I was home so it was time to start doing my part.
For some reason, having that neatly organized in my head made me feel better than I had for years. Fucking fantastic, in fact.
I was still lying in bed, flipping through documents and bank statements when my phone rang.
I grabbed my cell and checked the caller ID.
Graham.
Again.
How many calls did this one make? More than I cared to count. Fuck, why was Graham such a worrier? Sure, I’d been MIA for two months, but he knew I was with Rachel so did he have to get up in my shit with the daily phone calls? I was staying clear of the loft as much for him as I was for me, so why the hell couldn’t he just roll with alone time with Zac and enjoy it?
We were in Sacramento, not on the road.
Whatever stumbles I had didn’t matter here.
Why couldn’t he let up, just for once?
Things were going really good with Rachel this time around. I had no intention of blowing it or leaving a moment sooner than I had to. Especially not to return to my lonely bed and the nightly gay love connection in my guest room.
Crap, why were men so loud when they fucked men?
Another ring.
I hit the answer button. “What do you want now, Graham?”
He laughed. “Sounds like you’ve got something going on.”
“Nope. Rachel’s working all day. What’s up?”
“Thought you might want to grab lunch. Touch base.”
Touch base?
Fuck me.
Still—
“When? Where?”
My gaze narrowed on an account statement and I lifted it from the stack.
“How about Fat’s? 1200. We can meet in the lobby of Zac’s hospital.”
Zac’s hospital. Blow me. It was also where he kept his office. Nope, don’t need to touch base with my shrink. Nice try, Graham. Lunch is enough for today.
I grabbed another bank statement.
Fuck, what is this?
“See you 1200. Lobby,” I said absently then clicked off the phone and tossed it on the bed.
I stared at the bank balance, eyes wide. There were no surprises on her business account records. PayPal deposits. Same amounts, more or less, every month from her authors. Standard array of shit outlays for living: mortgage, credit cards, insurance, and utilities. Nothing extravagant.
Could be this be right?
One hundred twelve thousand dollars. How was it possible she had been able to save this much on what she earned? And why did she live like this? Wrote the tuition from the wrong account; fucking understatement.
I started to feel anxious, pissed off, suspicious, and a whole bunch of other things that didn’t make sense as I continued to sort through the records, noting the same amount deposited every month and that the withdrawals were exclusively for Cody.
We never talked about Cody’s dad, that was off-limit territory with Rachel, but fuck, I’d thought he wasn’t in the picture. But maybe he was—this money said he was. I fucking didn’t like it, thinking of some guy here with her when I was on the road, and though Cody wasn’t my son, the little guy mattered a lot to me. I sure as hell didn’t want some prick who’d knocked up his mother, only to disappear, doing the same to him eventually.
What the fuck is AM Global Fund? Every first of the month, like clockwork, a deposit was posted from there. Five thousand. Five thousand, fi
ve thousand—
My fists clenched. AM Global Fund, my ass. Deadbeat dad was fucking trying to buy off his guilt for having abandoned his son. Finding out the prick paid child support didn’t improve him in my standing. Rachel wouldn’t talk about him, and that was all I needed to know he was a piece of shit.
I tossed the sheets down. It probably made Rachel sick to use his money for Cody—no wonder she’d bounced a check—but this shit I was going to fix real soon.
Scooping up the papers, I shoved them back in the cabinet and then grabbed her laptop. I made several Google searches, but nothing. Blank. No AM Global Fund. Dead end. What the fuck was up with that?
Who the hell was giving Rachel money?
I went back, examining the statement again to see if I’d gotten it wrong—no, AM Global Fund—and noted a phone number beneath the transaction number. I punched it into my cell.
“AM Global Fund. Can I help you?” a woman said in a clipped, professional way.
I tensed. Shit, I didn’t know how to make it not sound stupid. “Yes. I’m hoping you can. What exactly is AM Global Fund?”
Her lengthy pause made me grimace. “We are the philanthropic arm of AM Global Corporation.”
Philanthropic?
Charity?
Not the answer I expected.
Rachel wasn’t an accept a handout kind of girl. “What kind of charity?”
“We provide support in a wide variety of ways to servicemen and their families, sir.”
“Such as?”
An exasperated exhale. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“If I gave you the transaction number for a wire transfer could you tell me what it’s for?”
“No, sir. Really I couldn’t. That information is confidential.”
Confidential? What the fuck did that mean? I wasn’t sure what direction to go now.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“No.” I clicked off the phone. My internal alarms were ringing full blast. Something wasn’t right about this and definitely didn’t make sense.
Why all the money?
Why didn’t Rachel spend it?
Who was her anonymous benefactor?
It had something to do with Cody, but I couldn’t make the pieces work together logically. My discoveries were still turning in my head, unwilling to let go, as I showered, dressed, and headed out to meet Graham for lunch. I wasn’t sure why it was bothering me so much and it was definitely unlike me not to let it go.
It was none of my business. Prying in Rachel’s life was wrong, but I was feeling male-territorial and suspicious. The fucking questions wouldn’t let go of me. Worse, they had sent me from feeling clear and steady to too tightly wound and on edge.
Graham was sitting on a couch in the giant lobby on the ground floor of the hospital where Zac’s office was. Something on my face made his brows lower as he watched me push through the main doors.
He stood up. “You doing all right, buddy?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Great. Why would you ask?”
He made a guarded inspection of me. “Zac has time for you if you want to go up. I’ll wait. We can eat later.”
“I don’t need a shrink. I’ve already told you I’m good.” Then, I don’t even know why I asked it because it was definitely random and probably futile, but I said, “Have you ever heard of AM Global Fund or AM Global Corporation?”
I hardly got the question out before Graham threw back his head, laughing. “Fuck. Really, Dillon? Don’t you ever notice anything? When we’re on tour you should probably keep your eyes and ears open more and your cock out playing less.”
Everything between my ears turned into a howling storm and the panic started to push upward from my center out of nowhere.
“What do you mean by notice?” I asked apprehensively.
Graham’s laughter had only quieted a little. “AM Global Corporation. Alan Manzone. It’s on the fucking check deposited into your account every month and the global fund is his charity.”
Goddamn him.
Alan Manzone provided support to Rachel and that could only mean one thing from a manwhore like him—Jesus Christ, Cody was his son, but when the fuck did they meet? I started walking in circles, raking my hair in agitated strokes as I tried to get my head around this bombshell.
Graham’s eyes fixed on me, alarmed. “What’s going on, Dillon? Should I call Zac? What’s got you so shaken?”
I turned to look at him. “Shaken? I’m not shaken. I’d fucking like to kill Alan Manzone. But shaken? Nope, not that.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“He’s sending money to Rachel. He’s supporting her, and you and I both know what that means. The fucking bastard—”
The firm clutch of Graham’s hands on my shoulders silenced me and it was then I felt the pressure of anxious eyes from all around and noted I was creating a scene.
Graham grabbed my chin roughly and turned my face to make eye contact with him. “Settle down. You’ve read the terrain wrong. Alan Manzone isn’t sending money to Rachel. You are. I set it up myself your first day of work.”
“You? What are you talking about?”
Graham lifted his chin. “I wasn’t going to leave that girl with nothing to try to fend for herself. Not with everything she’d been through.”
It felt as if another heavy weight dropped on me. I stared at the giant open space we were in, unable to comprehend, and out of nowhere more revelations started pushing in on me.
My heartbeat went through the roof.
My body was quickly coated with clammy sweat.
I was trembling, like in that way of first warning the seconds before a bomb or an attack is launched.
“This hospital,” I mumbled not comprehending my words at first. “I was here. This is where you discharged me from five years ago.” The world started to twirl around me, pictures and flashes suddenly making sense in my head. My gaze locked on Graham. “This isn’t a military hospital. This is where I was. Why the fuck was I here?”
But I already had memories flying back, taking clear form, before Graham said, “You never went on your last deployment, Dillon. The battle that nearly killed you was here. Sacramento.”
My heart stopped.
Too many things rushed at me too quickly.
I was sucked out of my body and transported back in time to five years ago. Everything that had been mercifully hidden in the vault of my subconscious was tumbling out and all around me.
Chapter Eight
Sacramento, five years earlier…
MY DEPLOYMENT DATE was closing in so Rachel and I headed off to Reno for one last mini-cation before I shipped out, and somehow we ended up married.
I’d been popping the question for years and she’d always turned me down. She wanted to wait until I was no longer on active duty, then out of the blue, walking down the street in Nevada, she said, “Let’s get married before we head home.”
I gaped at her—shock, happiness, and a lot of other shit racing through me—before I said, “Did I hear you right? Are you finally saying yes?”
“No, I’m telling you to marry me. Right here and now. That’s the only offer on the table, soldier. Yea or nay?”
She gnawed on her lip, eyes fixed on me, as she waited for an answer—as if there were something for me to consider here. I loved her more in that moment than any other moment before, and an hour later we were saying ‘I do’ before a justice of the peace.
Everything about the Heart of Reno Wedding Chapel was tacky and it made me feel a little bad getting married this way, but Rachel loved every second of our wedding from start to finish. The quirkiness and joy-drunk spontaneity—hell, even the dreadful reverend and the rented bridal gown with no back—made her blissfully laugh and glow more than a flawless two-carat diamond and a church ceremony would have. She was happy in that shimmering way that reminded me what a lucky man I was to have been loved by her all these years.
Whatever Ra
chel wanted, I was hell-bent on delivering. Crap, the woman waited for me deployment after deployment; when I was home I was all hers.
We were both still laughing over the ceremony when we hit Sacramento three hours later. For some reason Rachel wanted to have our wedding night in the small California bungalow we purchased from her mother. I was too elated about how things were turning out to argue with her about anything, though my cock would have preferred finding a room in Reno.
Our street was quiet as we pulled into the driveway. Not wasting any time, I hopped from the car and scooped her from the passenger seat.
“Dillon, what are you doing?” She laughed, her head falling against my chest as I all but sprinted up the steps to the door.
“Carrying you across the threshold,” I said, kissing her while trying to work the key into the lock. I pulled back my face and hurried into the house. “We didn’t have much of a wedding, but we can have a proper wedding night.”
Rachel’s eyes went wide as if offended, but I could tell she was amused and loving this. “I thought our wedding was perfect. You didn’t like the Reverend Dell?” she queried between lusty kisses.
I kicked the door shut behind me. “I loved the Reverend Dell.” I went double time toward the bedroom.
“How about our lovely white plastic flowers, and the recorded music?”
“Definitely memorable.”
“I’m particularly fond of the Paiute Indian poem and the part of the ceremony ordering us to go forth into the teepee.”
I laid her on the bed and quickly stripped off my shirt. “Oh, that part”—I kissed her stomach and started crawling my way up her body—“definitely had possibilities.”
“See, it was perfect,” she murmured, stroking my face as she smiled up at me.
Staring into her eyes now, it was perfect.
“I love you, Mrs. Warrick.”
“I love you, too.”
I eased toward her, my mouth finding hers. I kissed her softly, then slowly slipped my tongue past her lips to tantalizing tease hers. By how quickly my cock rose in my pants, I could tell I wasn’t going to last long. I was consumed by the smell of her, the taste of her, my want of her, and our happiness. She was now mine, always and forever.
