If Tomorrow Never Comes (Harper Falls Book 2)

by Williams, Mary J.

  Dani just held on, kissing him back with every emotion neither of them was ready to speak. Lord, she was grateful that she had followed her instincts and not let him walk away. She would have called him in the morning, contrite. In the meantime both of them would have spent the night angry, stewing over a stupid argument that never should have even happened.

  "Come back inside." Dani didn't let go. She whispered the words as she trailed a path of kisses along his firm jawline.

  It was tempting, Alex thought. The light touch of her lips would have shaken the strongest man's resolve, and where Dani was concerned, he had very little self-control. But she had been right. He needed to go to that poker game. Not to make friends, but to find a way out of the mess he was mired in. Walking away from Dani, not being able to hold her in his arms—or wake to her precious face sleeping on the pillow next to him? It was hell. He had to find a way out—for them both.

  "Tom is expecting me." And would understand if Alex canceled. He felt like a heel using the other man as an excuse, but desperate times, and all that. "Promise me you're just going to do what you said, veg out the rest of the night, and I'll go. Who knows, I might even win a few bucks."

  Just at that moment, Jack's black SUV pulled up to the curb. Alex gave him a wave before taking Dani's hand and leading her back to her open front door.

  "Now, go inside, lock the door, and I'll call you in the morning."

  Hesitating for just a moment, Dani's green eyes meet his.

  "We're good?'

  "We're good," Alex assured her. And hopefully, with some advice and a little time, they would be even better.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "SHE WASN'T INTERESTED in you, you stupid bastard, she was giving me the eye. I just let you have her 'cause if I'd had to hear one more time about how long it had been since you'd dipped you wick, I'd have taken out my gun and put us both out of our misery."

  The table of men burst out laughing, none louder than Jeff Finnegan, the butt of the joke.

  "I couldn't care less who she started out wanting, " Jeff said smugly. "By the end of the night she and her sister were crying out my name and thanking God for the honor of polishing my sheleighly."

  "Ha," Bryon West, scoffed. "I will never buy that there was a sister. That, my friend, you made up."

  "On my sainted mother's grave, I spent the night with Dally and Mally, the O'Roarke twins. They still send me a thank you, saying that was the day I ruined them for any other man. Joined the Church the very next week."

  Chuckling, Alex picked up his cards. Nothing but junk. He'd won a few hands, lost a few. But the last couple of hours hadn't been so much about poker, as finding camaraderie with a group of fellow vets. As the evening progressed, the stories became broader and harder to believe, the laughter louder and more raucous. He could remember times just like this when he and his Army buddies got together, good-natured ribbing, the more outrageous, the better.

  He threw his cards in, ready for a break. Standing, Alex gave his back a stretch.

  "I'm going to hit the head, can I get you guys something on the way back?

  He got two calls for beer, one coffee, and a club soda. Like Tom had told him, they played the game back in his office, the space plenty big enough for a table and six or seven grown men. But if you wanted a refill, you had to go out to the bar. Tom had learned the hard way about keeping excess beer around the sometimes volatile bunch. The first time he'd had to clean up the dried, sticky stuff from every corner had been the last time. Now it was one bottle at a time, and whoever took a break, replaced the empties. This time it was Alex's turn, and he was happy to oblige.

  "Hey, kid," Byron called out. It had been Alex's designated moniker from the moment Tom had introduced him. He supposed it fit. He was the youngest—the rest of the guys being in their forties, fifties, and sixties. "Bring another plate of sandwiches. The last ones disappeared so fast I was lucky to get a crumb and an edge of cheese."

  "Just doing you a favor, old buddy, Tina's doing too good a job at keeping you fed."

  Alex left, figuring he wouldn't miss much. The same argument, or ones similar, had been going on all evening. He'd just pick up the string when he got back.

  Five minutes later, he was behind the bar filling a tray with drinks and grabbing the food from the cooler. Feeling like something salty, Alex took a bowl and filled with peanuts from a nearby jar.

  "So, glad you came?"

  Alex popped the top on a long neck and handed it to Tom.

  "They're a great bunch," he said, taking a drink from his own bottle.

  "I know they tend to jabber on, but feel free to jump in any time." Tom gave him a considering look. "Unless you're the shy type."

  Alex shook his head. "Not shy, just feeling my way."

  "Fair enough." Tom took the plate of sandwiches and lead the way back to the office. "Just remember, it's all very informal. Joking aside, when somebody needs to bring up something heavier, these guys know how to listen."

  Alex wasn't sure. It was his first night, after all. But about an hour later, in between hands, there was a rare lull in the conversation and he found the words tumbling out.

  "I have dreams, nightmares."

  Tom put down the cards, his nod to the other men almost imperceptible. The signal was clear. It was time to shut up—Alex had the floor.

  "My last mission went south, I lost half my men and ended up in the hospital for almost a month. Every time the dream starts, I know I'm going to die, that no matter what I do the men I have left are not going home alive. And every time I fight, I fight in my dream, and I wake up fighting."

  "But you didn't die," Jeff pointed out. The observation might have been an obvious one, but it needed saying.

  "No." Not always much of a consolation.

  "Your men?"

  "Alive." That was what had kept him going when he'd woken up in Germany, a hole in his side.

  None of them asked the particulars; they understood better than anyone not to dig any deeper. They weren't there as investigative reporters, but sounding boards. The details of their stories might be different, but they all understood the war that a soldier brought home with him—the fight that never completely went away.

  "I have a lady."

  "Kid, if I looked like you I'd have more than one!" Perc Humbolt exclaimed. Happily married for forty years to the same woman, he still liked to live vicariously through the stories of his single friends.

  Alex chuckled along with the rest of the men. Taking out his phone he brought up the picture he'd taken of Dani just as they were leaving the Mariners game. Smiling, eyes sparkling, she was a sight to see. He passed the phone to his left, eliciting a whistle of appreciation from Jeff.

  "Dani Wilde, you lucky son of a bitch."

  "You all know her?" Alex asked, watching as five grown men grappled for the phone.

  "Harper Falls is the definition of a small town," Bryon reminded Alex. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and sighed. "Besides, all that blonde hair on top of being a looker? It would be surprising if we didn't know who she was. Man, her eyes are really, really green."

  "Can't pull one over on you, Bry." Tom snatched the phone away, giving it a good look before passing it back to Alex.

  "I mean, pure green. Not hazel, or that pale, washed out color you sometimes see. A man could get lost for days in eyes like those."

  "And that, my friends, was why he was dubbed the poet laureate of the 65th."

  "Fuck you, Finnegan."

  "She's even more beautiful on the inside," Alex said, almost to himself. "Funny, sweet, kind, and could take down every single one of you old men with one hand tied behind her back."

  "That little thing?" Perc scoffed.

  "Black belt in Karate."

  All eyes turned to Bryon.

  "What? I can read. There was quite an article on her in the Harper Express when she won the Pulitzer."

  "That's right," Jeff nodded. "I remember."

  And
that set the rest of them off, talking about knowing her parents, what a babe her mother was. All highly entertaining, but of absolutely no help to Alex. Bemused, he exchanged looks with Tom, whose crooked smile spoke of his own amusement. With a slight nod towards the office door, the older man got up and left the room. Alex waited a moment before joining him, wondering if anyone at the table would notice. The answer was no, or if they did, they couldn't be bothered to interrupt their bantering to comment.

  "Join me for a cup of coffee."

  Tom poured two cups and led the way to the same booth he'd occupied when Alex had first met him. Alex slid in, taking a sip of the hot liquid and grimacing.

  "I guess we're switching to the hard stuff."

  "House rules, the last hour is booze free and everyone drinks at least one cup of this sludge. Puts hair on your chest if you didn't have any, melts it off if you did. You can dress up the taste if you need to."

  Tom pointed to the packets of sugar and little containers of liquid cream that could sit out for years and somehow never go bad, but Alex declined.

  "So you're afraid of hurting your lady, even though she can take care of herself. You're words, " Tom reminded him.

  "In a fair fight, she could do some damage," Alex admitted. "But I'm trained in martial arts, and I outweigh her by almost a hundred pounds. How does she defend against that when she's asleep and completely vulnerable?"

  "You've hurt another woman?"

  "I—" Alex sighed. "I stopped myself, but she ran from the room screaming. How can I do that to Dani? How can I be sure that some night, I won't be able to stop?"

  "I'm guessing you haven't told her any of this."

  "Oh, sure," Alex scoffed. "What woman wouldn't rush full steam into a relationship with the potential of that on the table? Hey, baby, at best, I'll punch you in the face, at worst, they'll be fitting you for a body bag."

  "You really think you might kill her?"

  Alex sighed. "No, but I could do some real damage. I don't know if I could live with myself, Tom. Even one bruise, knowing she got it from me? I just can't take the chance." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "She wants to know why I won't spend the night. Hell, if the situation was reversed, I know she'd tell me. But I just can't seem to do it."

  Tom sat for a while, weighing his next words.

  "I'm going to say something to you that, if my wife ever heard about, would earn me a month in the spare bedroom."

  "That sound ominous."

  "Just the truth, but one, if we're smart, we keep from our women."

  "But I thought—"

  "Ya, ya," Tom said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Always tell the truth, don't keep secrets, the only way to a happy marriage is complete and full disclosure. That is bullshit. Oh, don't get me wrong, my wife and I share a lot. But some things, like what I'm about to tell you, should stay locked away. I mean, do you want to witness what she does behind closed doors every month?"

  Realizing what the other man meant, Alex shuddered.

  "Exactly. I mean she can send me to the store, I'll buy her whatever she needs, no hesitation. But we don't talk about the details, thank God."

  Tom took another mouthful of coffee, pushing the cup away.

  "That stuff is bad enough when it's hot. Now, for my bit of wisdom. You're too young to remember this, but around the late seventies men like Alan Alda and Phil Donahue started perpetuating the myth that we men had somehow evolved. We were now allowed to express our emotions, cry at the drop of a hat, and care whether or not the living room was painted eggshell or ecru."

  "There's a difference?"

  "Hell, if I know," Tom laughed. "But thanks to the sensitive man eighties we're supposed to at least show some interest. You know what? I don't care. Like most men, I am still one step away from a caveman, of eating my meat raw, knocking my woman over the head with a club and dragging her by the hair back to my cave."

  "Okay," Alex said, drawing out the word. "I can see why you'd keep that theory to yourself."

  "Damn straight. And I know it's a bit extreme. But what it comes down to is this. As men, our first instinct is to keep a problem to ourselves. We live by the idea that it will either work itself out or kill us. That's why women live longer. Instead of stewing in their own juices, they take action. To be honest, I don't know why they bother with us. Between artificial insemination and vibrators, we're lucky they let us breathe the same air, let alone share a bed."

  Alex's head was spinning. He knew there was some nugget of advice in Tom's roundabout speech, but he wasn't sure what it was.

  "So what you're saying is…?"

  "Tell her."

  "Jesus, really? I mean, no offense, Tom, but you could have saved us both a lot of time and just shared that gem forty-five minutes ago."

  "But would you have been as entertained?" Tom just smiled a bit and shook his head. "Like it or not, you only have two options. Walk away or tell her what's keeping you out of her bed."

  "I figured that out on my own."

  "Now, be honest. You didn't expect some magic fix. You're too smart for that. You needed a sounding board, we gave it to you. And you needed someone to tell you what you already knew." Tom gave a half bow. "You can thank me later."

  "Much later," Alex mumbled.

  He knew Tom was right—about everything. He'd been using the classified nature of that last mission as an excuse. He wouldn't have to tell Dani anything more than what he'd disclosed to a group of men he'd just met. She deserved an explanation; she deserved the chance to walk away.

  "I might lose her."

  "Yes."

  "Oh, come on," Alex protested. "Lie. Tell me everything is going to work out. Give me some hope even if it's false."

  "One last bit of wisdom, then I'm done for the night." Tom looked him straight in the eye, completely serious. "No matter what she says, neither of you will know how she will handle it until you try. The first time you wake up in a sweat, yelling at the demons in your head, that's when you'll find out if she can stick by you, no matter what. My wife didn't think she could handle it, but here we are, twenty-five years later, still together."

  "Your nightmares, do you still…?"

  "They fade, thank God," Tom reassured him. "Though it's different for everyone. Get some professional help, son. It really does help. Keep coming here. For all their joking around, those guys in there are solid—bedrock. You're one of us now and there isn't anything they wouldn't do for you from helping to fix your roof to babysitting, those are your men."

  "Babysitting?"

  "Hey, Bryon tells a mean bedtime story. Strictly Mother Goose, no Grimm. Now, come on. One more hand and we'll call it a night. My wife expects me home before midnight. It's a good thing," Tom said, giving Alex a friendly pat on the back. "Knowing someone's waiting for you, counting on you to walk through that door every night. There's no feeling like it."

  Alex had never thought he'd have that—one woman to come home to. But now he wanted it, wanted to fight for it. He wanted to fight for Dani.

  PAPERWORK WAS A necessary evil. Alex could have been doing a dozen different things. Something always needed repairing, he had a backlog of calls to return not to mention keeping his own body in shape so he could properly train the security guards under his supervision. When it came down to it, the world was run by making reports and filling out endless forms. No matter how you tried to get around it, you always found your ass in a chair, at a desk, pen in hand.

  For all that he couldn't complain. His morning had started out fine indeed. First thing, he'd called Dani and made arrangements to meet for breakfast. No heavy revelations on the menu, just coffee, and pastry. A Taste of Doug And Honey was another in a long line of strangely cute named businesses that littered the streets of Harper Falls. When he asked Dani about it, she just shrugged and told him nobody knew when or how it started. There was no law, no town ordinance. People liked it and new entrepreneurs tended to stick with the theme, trying to out do the last guy by thinking
up the cleverest name. Some worked, some were truly groan-worthy. Either way, the puns just kept on coming.

  Luckily Alex didn't have to like the name to enjoy the food. All bakeries smelled good, it was a given. Not all lived up to the aroma—this one did. Dani ordered a twisty, nut-covered confection that he couldn't pronounce and a cup of something that was so complicated he didn't know how the barista kept it straight. He opted for a flaky apricot filled croissant and Columbian coffee. Dani chided him for being unimaginative, then proceeded to eat most of his while ignoring her own.

  "I'd be happy to buy you one."

  Dani gave him a wide-eyed, innocent stare, then popped the last bite of his breakfast into her mouth.

  "I couldn't eat another bite." Her tongue slipped out to lick a crumb from her lower lip. Alex followed the movement, unable to decide if he wanted to be the crumb or the lip.

  She hadn't been trying to be provocative, but the end results were just as satisfying. Suppressing a smile, she reached for his coffee. Hers was too sweet.

  "So how did the poker game go?"

  Alex signaled the waitress, ordering another coffee and croissant.

  "Good. They're a great bunch of guys and I pretty much broke even."

  "And did you and your new pals swap stories about all the babes you conquered in your misspent youths?"

  "There was a bit of that." Alex slapped her hand away when she reached for his newly delivered pasty. "They were all impressed that I could get someone like you to even give my the time of day."

  "You talked about me?"

  "Some. Open." Alex fed her a bit of flaky goodness, the light lick of her tongue his ample reward.

  "Mmm." Dani sighed. It tasted even better from Alex's fingers. She leaned closer, lowering her voice, a teasing glint in her eyes. "I hope you bragged up my blowjob. A girl can never have too much oral skills cred."

  "Ya," Alex laughed, "not going to happen. But if you insist on running off that dirty little mouth of yours, I have a place where you can put it to better use. In fact—"

  "Alex. Hey, you in there?"

  It took him a few moments to realize where he was—in his office, no longer with Dani. The voice yelling for his attention? Jack. He'd gotten so wrapped up thinking about blowjobs and the mouth that so expertly gave them, that he hadn't even noticed that he was no longer alone. The fist knocking on the side of his head brought him back to reality very quickly.