I let the door slam behind me. Still, she didn’t look up.
“Just a minute, babe. They were quite rambunctious today. It’s going to take me a few more minutes to put this place back together.”
“It’s only been three years. I suppose I can wait a few more minutes.”
She froze. I could hear the crackle of the paper she held in her hands, the sudden absence where her breathing had been. And then, slowly, she laid the papers carefully down on the desk, making the stack neat, as though I hadn’t spoken.
“The only thing I don’t understand is why. Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you try to contact me, to let me know you were alive? Why did you let me believe you were dead?”
“How did you find me?”
Her voice was low. Controlled. The kind of voice she used when interrogating terrorists.
“I didn’t. Not because I didn’t try, because I did. I spent the past three years chasing one lead after another. But it was David.”
She nodded. “David and his computers.”
“David and his loyalty to his family. That’s more than I can say about you.”
She turned then, hurt in her eyes. She studied me, her eyes moving slowly over my face, then sliding over my arms, the way they were held tight over my chest. Then back to my face, to my eyes, tears spilling over the edge of hers as she took in what was so familiar about me.
I did the same, making notes in the back of my mind on all the things that were the same and the things that had changed. Her hips seemed wider, but I supposed that came with having a child. And her middle was a little doughier. She hadn’t lost the weight as Mina had done. But her face…that was still the same. And I could still read her expressions like a page from a book.
“I tried,” she said. “I tried to tell you; I tried to ask you to come with me. But I knew…” She pressed her hands to the center of her chest as though she was in great pain, tears streaming down her face. “I knew you would never leave your family.”
“How could you know that if you never asked?”
“I couldn’t make you choose between them and me!”
“Why not? Were you afraid of the choice I’d make? Were you afraid I’d chose you?”
She shook her head, but I could see the truth in her eyes. She forgot how well I once knew her.
At least, I thought I’d known her.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Ash. You’ve got to know that.”
“How am I supposed to know that? You walked away without looking back!”
“I had to get out of that life!” Her voice rose, her tone almost hysterical. Again, she pressed her hands to her chest. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch innocent people die because we were a day late in identifying the bad people. I just…I couldn’t have that weight on my shoulders anymore.”
“You should have told me.”
She laughed, the sound filled with bitterness. “I went to the funeral, you know,” she said, scrubbing at her face with the back of her hand. “I saw you, saw how broken you were standing up there all alone. But you were still your father’s son, still Ashford Grayson the Second, the son of Senator and Mrs. Grayson. You were still that stuffy son of a bitch that you always told me was just a façade. But we both knew…when it was over, when there were no more terrorists to kill, we both knew you would follow your father’s footsteps.”
“Would that have been so bad?”
“Yes!”
She turned from me, covered her face in her hands, sobs wracking her body. It took her a minute, but she finally got control of herself.
“You never asked me. You never wanted to know what it was I wanted.”
“I thought you wanted me and that was enough.”
“I thought so, too,” she said softly. “For a while. But then I felt like I was drowning, and I had to get out of there, away from you and the CIA and everything…”
“Who were you when I met you, Alexi?”
She groaned softly. “I haven’t heard that name in so long.”
“Who were you?” I asked again, my voice low. Dangerously low.
She looked sharply at me, fear dancing through her eyes.
“I was a CIA agent. I was working with Colonel Cunningham.”
“What did you say to me the first time we spoke?”
She shook her head. “I know what you’re getting at, but I’m not that person anymore.”
That was it in a nutshell. She wasn’t that person anymore. Hadn’t been for much longer than I’d ever suspected. But when I looked at her, my blood boiled and my hands itched. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss her or strangle her.
“Three years. Three years I searched for you. They told me you were dead and I refused to believe it. I held your mother in my arms and promised her I would find you. What am I supposed to tell her now?” I let my arms fall to my sides, slapped my hands against my thighs. “Tell me, Alexi. What do I do now?”
She shook her head, the tears still flowing freely.
“I don’t know.”
“She thinks her only child is dead. She has no idea that she has a granddaughter.”
“Ash—”
“No.” I turned away. “Don’t give me any more excuses. No more lies. I can’t listen to them any longer.”
I had my hand on the doorknob when she caught me, tugged at my arm. For a brief second, it was as if nothing had happened, as if no time had passed. I turned and looked into those eyes I once loved so much, and I pushed her up against the wall, stealing a kiss I’d been aching to have for longer than either of us could appreciate. And, for a long second, it was everything I’d wanted it to be.
But then it wasn’t.
I stepped back, my hands stretched out at my sides.
“You aren’t my Alexi anymore.”
“No,” she said softly, the tears still flowing even as she touched her lips, her eyes filled with regret and hurt and need. “I’m Rachel Nelson. I’m a first grade teacher and a mother and a wife.”
I nodded. Maybe that was it. Maybe we’d both been lost, both struggling to figure out who we were outside the shadow of our parents, our friends, our schools. Maybe we thought we knew, but life had other plans for us.
She finally knew who she was.
Now it was time for me to figure out who I was.
Chapter 18
Mina
I cried myself to sleep. I was so convinced that he wouldn’t come back that I’d begun to pack up my clothes, sliding them into a couple of department bags I’d kept from our shopping excursions. I didn’t know where I’d go. I didn’t have a cell phone or a computer, so I couldn’t search Craigslist. I had money now, thanks to Ash, but I didn’t know how to access it. I was so bad at taking care of myself that I had no clue what to do now.
What did I do?
I was scared, and my fear made the baby fussy. He wouldn’t go to sleep until late, but then I couldn’t even imagine closing my eyes. When I did, all I saw was Ash. His kind eyes, the smile that transformed everything. The shadows in his eyes that I so wanted to make go away, the pain I knew he carried around like a shield. And I saw the lies I’d told him. I promised myself that if he came back, I would tell him everything right away.
Clean slate. That was the only way to go forward.
But then I fell asleep. And his hands were warm on my back, his lips soft on my shoulders. It was a dream. It had to be a dream. But then I turned, and he was there, dark shadows under his eyes and alcohol on his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I do. I should have taken care of this a long time ago. I should have been kinder to you. I should have…”
“Shh,” I said, pressing a finger to his lips. And then I replaced it with my lips.
I curled into his arms, and his hands were instantly under my shirt, his fingers digging into my panties. I guided him and cried out when he touched my clit. The baby made a
noise, and he laughed against my lips, whispering in my ear to be a little quieter.
“I’m not sure I can.”
And with that…the laughter was gone. He pressed me back against the mattress and buried his tongue in my mouth, touching places that sent a sizzle down my nerve endings. We tugged at each other’s clothing, things tore, but then he was inside of me and it felt like he belonged there. Like there was no one else who would ever feel as good as he did.
I wrapped my legs around him and buried my fingers against the back of his head. I needed to hold him close. I needed to know he would never leave me again. I needed to know that he was mine now. And I did. I could feel it in his touch, in the desperation that drove his hands against my body, and that came across in his kiss.
He was mine now if I wanted him.
I wondered if he understood how dangerous that was.
***
When I woke in the morning, bright sunlight was streaming in through the windows. Ash was sitting on the end of the bed, whispering to the baby. Ford made noises at him, reaching up to touch his chin. It was a beautiful sight, this naked man cradling my son in his arms.
“He’s hungry,” Ash said, glancing at me. “But we had a deal that he’d let Mommy sleep a few minutes longer.”
“Well, that was quite considerate of him.”
Ash brought the baby to me, setting him in the pocket created by the curve of my body, and lifted my breast—just a little—to allow the baby to get a good latch. Then he climbed onto the bed behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and watched.
“He’s a good eater.”
“Very good,” I said, stroking my finger over Ford’s cheek. “I think he’s going through a growth spurt because he nurses nearly every two hours like he did when he was new.”
“Or maybe he just wants to be close to you. I can understand that.”
I turned my head, leaning back to kiss him. He groaned, catching my jaw to deepen the kiss.
We lay there quietly for a few minutes, the baby’s gulps the only sound. Ash ran his hand gently over my belly, his fingertip making circles around my navel. Then he tugged at my hip, pulling me back against him.
“I feel like I owe you an explanation.”
I shook my head. “No. Not really.”
“I don’t want there to be any hard feelings between us. And I definitely don’t want this trip to become some sort of obstacle.”
“It won’t.”
“No, because I’m going to tell you everything.”
I pulled away from him, sitting up so that I could burp the baby. He lay back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes.
“I’m not even sure where to start.”
“There’s something I need to tell you, too,” I said, looking down at the baby so that I wouldn’t have to look Ash in the eye. “Something about my past.”
“We’ll just have to fight over who goes first.”
He smiled, but there was no humor in it.
He rolled into me and kissed my thigh. “She was my fiancée,” he said. “The woman in the picture. We were in Afghanistan together, and she decided she needed to get out, but the CIA wasn’t too keen on losing one of their best undercover operatives in the war on terror. So she roped her handler into helping her.”
“She disappeared on purpose?”
“She did. She never intended for me to find her, but she underestimated David.”
“And that’s who you went to see yesterday.”
“It is.” He looked up at me. “I had to make sure it was done. That there was no chance of her and me ever…” He looked almost ashamed as his eyes fell. “I didn’t think it was fair to you to not deal with it.”
The baby chose that moment to release a rather loud burp. I laughed, but it was more out of nervousness than anything else. Ash got up and took the baby from me to lay him back in his basinet. Then he came back to the bed and took my hands.
“You and Ford need to look to the future. And I…I didn’t want to give you false hope that I would be a part of that. But I also didn’t want you to move on without me. I just…I want to see where this might go. And I wanted to be free so that the potential would be there. Do you understand?”
“No pressure.”
“No pressure.”
“Okay.” I kissed his neck lightly. “I’m good with that.”
He wrapped his arms around me and sighed, blowing hard against my hair. We sat like that for a few minutes, then he pulled back and studied my face.
“What was it you wanted to tell me?”
I hesitated, not sure where to start, just like him. There was no easy jumping off spot, really. I mean, seriously, I couldn’t start with, so, my ex thinks you destroyed his business and killed his friends, so he’s out to get you…
Or could I?
I didn’t know what to say, and before I could decide, we heard someone pounding on the master bedroom door.
“Ash? I need to talk to you.”
He pressed his head against my shoulder and groaned.
“I should go see what he wants.”
He kissed me, lightly at first, then harder. When he finally pulled away, it was clear that it was with great reluctance. He tugged on his jeans as David knocked on his bedroom door again, unaware that Ash wasn’t in there. Then his shirt. He kissed me one more time, grabbing my hands as he pulled away, nearly tugging me out of the bed and dragging me along with him. And then he leaned down to kiss Ford’s head before he slipped out the door.
I’d dodged the bullet again. But I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do it again.
But he was mine now. He’d made that pretty clear.
I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.
Chapter 19
Ash
David’s eyebrows rose as I stepped out of Mina’s room, but he didn’t say anything. He knew better than that.
“I got an email yesterday that you should take a look at.”
We went downstairs, and he showed me the email with just a few words on it. He’d traced it back to a coffee shop in Los Angeles. From there…there was no telling who was behind it.
“I called Emily, and she said she’d look into it, but she doubted there was much she could do about it.”
“We’ve gotten these kinds of emails before,” I said.
“Yeah, but with your little witch hunt to find whoever it was who shot Kirkland, I thought this might prove to be connected.”
“But you didn’t believe my theory.”
“Yeah, well…” David leaned back in his chair, trying to avoid my eyes.
“What?”
“It just…it creeped me out.”
I didn’t want to think about death threats and attempted murder and whatever else was going on around me today. I wanted to think about Mina and the baby, about a future free of guilt and grief and regret.
I’d had a lot of time to think on the flight home. Alexi…she was someone I thought I could trust. But now I realized that I never really knew her at all. She was a liar and a cheat and someone who was more concerned with how she felt than with how the people around her felt. That wasn’t the woman I thought I’d fallen in love and was definitely not the woman I wanted to be with.
Three years wasted. But if Mina was the one—my one—then maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.
“Let’s have a barbecue,” I said.
“What?”
“Let’s have a barbecue. We haven’t had one since last year.”
“When?”
“Today.”
David laughed. “Good luck getting anyone to come. Donovan and Kirkland are both on assignment and Joss has the baby.”
“I bet they’d be happy to come. Send the word.”
I walked away to the sound of David’s stuttered buts, ignoring each and every one of them. I felt like a party, and I was the boss, right?
***
Turned out, it wasn’t as hard to convince a bunch of stir-crazy people
to come to a party. Donovan and Kirkland were a little late, and they showed up with their targets in tow, but they came. And Joss was more than happy to get out of the house, though she wasn’t able to do her usual margarita mix for obvious reasons. She and Mina sat together on the back porch of the house, the babies in their arms, talking about things I could never begin to guess at.
David was chasing down the potato salad with Rose while Donovan and Carrington fought over which of them was the biggest expert when it came to barbecuing hot dogs. I was in charge of the steaks, as always. Mabel was in charge of the music—something she was actually quite good at—and Ricki was helping her so that she could avoid standing too close to the food. I could see it in her face. She and David were going to have an announcement very soon.
When did my life stop being about the military and cleaning my gun and chasing down terrorists? When did it stop being about protecting Santa Monica’s rich and famous? When did it become about this domesticity?
“It started with you,” I said to Donovan.
“What did?”
“This whole love and marriage and children thing.”
“You can’t blame the children thing on me,” he said, holding up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Kate and I talked about it, but we don’t have any plans in the works. She wants to get a little further along in her career first.”
“What does she do?” Carrington asked.
“Banking.”
That sent them off into a conversation about the glass ceiling and Kate’s struggle to get another promotion. I’d thought she’d just gotten promoted.
See? Domesticity.
Mina was watching me when I glanced at her again. I found myself studying her mouth, wondering when we would be alone together again.
Maybe this party hadn’t been as great a decision as I’d thought it was.
Dinner was served a little later than expected thanks to Donovan burning half his hot dogs. But we managed to sit around the big table just as the sun was setting behind the trees.
“To family,” I said, standing with a wine glass in hand. “To traditional forms of family.” I nodded to David. “And untraditional forms,” I said, gesturing to everyone at the table.
ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) Page 8
