by J. M. Madden
Cat frowned. “I’m not sure. The packet is still in my purse. You can get it.”
It wasn’t until she was soaped up and completely lathered before she remembered what else was in her purse.
Oh, fuck!
Cat hurried through her shower, rinsing off in record time. She bundled the towel around her, fear making her movements uncoordinated. If he had found the other she needed to be there to explain.
She jerked a pair of sweats on and a T-shirt, her skin still beaded with moisture. She was running her fingers through her short hair when she entered the den. Harper sat in one of the padded chairs, looking out the window, the divorce papers unfolded on the table beside him.
Shit.
Harper had the pocketknife out and he was running his thumb back and forth over the blade.
Cat padded to the chair opposite him and folded herself into it but didn’t say anything. The sound of her heartbeat seemed to pound through the silence and she wondered if he could hear it as clearly as she did.
“When you said this was the last try,” he said finally, “I guess it didn’t really sink in. I mean, you’ve always been there for me. I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”
“I haven’t been in it for a year and a half. Time may have stopped for you, but it didn’t for us.”
Harper grimaced and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees, rubbing his face. Cat knew this was a shock, but it was one he needed. She hadn’t planned on showing him the papers unless things fell through, but now that he had she would see where the conversation took them.
“Are you set on this?” he asked finally.
Wincing, Cat shook her head. “Definitely not. But if I had shown up at that hospital room and you had tried to shut me down I would have made you sign them. Yes, I would have been one of those women I despised, serving her man divorce papers in the hospital. Women like that disgust me, but I can kind of understand why they do it. It seems like I only ever see you in the hospital after you’ve been injured.
“But things haven’t gone that way,” she continued, “and I’ve actually begun to hope a little that at the end of this two weeks we might be able to go home together. Am I wrong in thinking that?”
She held her breath as she let him digest that last. But he didn’t look up or say a word. The ridges of his thumb grated over the blade and every second that went by her hopes plummeted. After a solid minute she got up and walked out of the room before her bitter tears overflowed.
Harper looked up as Cat left and almost called her back, but he needed some space. He had known she was waiting for him to respond about going home with her, but he just couldn’t.
Maybe the divorce would be the best thing for all of them.
The thought of losing his family gutted him. They were his everything. He’d left because they meant the world to him.
Had he changed? Yes. Even he could see he wasn’t as paranoid as he used to be. A lot of that was thanks to the counselor, but the space from Cat and the kids had helped too, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
The thought of trying to go back into a house with all of them gave him cold sweats. But it also sent a thrill of excitement through him too. He had missed his kids terribly. So much so that Cat wanting him to come home didn’t freak him out as much as it used to. Harper had gone to Dr. Singh for months and he felt like he’d made a lot of progress with his paranoia, but how did he know for sure? What if he got into the house and they overwhelmed him again?
There would have to be limits and places he could retreat to be alone.
Damn. I’m actually considering this.
When he’d walked out the door in Virginia, he didn’t know if he would be able to go back. And he still didn’t now.
Maybe they could all start fresh in Colorado. But was it fair to the kids to pull them away from the life they knew?
He just didn’t know.
God, there was so much going on in his freaking life right now he didn’t know what to deal with first. Actually, he’d better go find Cat. He couldn’t let her think that their growing closeness didn’t mean anything to him.
Pushing up from the chair he went into the kitchen then down the hallway to her bedroom. Knocking on the door he pushed it open, but she wasn’t there. She hadn’t been on the deck. The last place he could think to look was downstairs.
The finished basement had a whole other kitchen/dining room/bedroom setup, as well as a pool table and a flat screen TV with a couple of video game consoles. Harper had checked it out that first day but hadn’t been down since. It was nice and dim, though and his eyes eased almost immediately.
Cat sat in a rocking recliner, her foot pushing the chair into motion steadily. She looked up when he came down the stairs but didn’t say anything. Harper felt like a royal ass when he saw her tear-stained cheeks and the tissues clutched in her hand. Cat was a strong woman. It took a lot to see her cry. The fact that she was crying now made him feel like the lowest kind of scum.
Crossing the room, he knelt down in front of her, stopping the chair. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you. I’m kind of in shock. When I fell in love with you I just always thought it was forever. Even though my lifestyle didn’t create stability, you did, Cat. You were always my stability. Walking away was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But I did it in the hopes that I could make myself better. It’s not like a damned driving test where if I mark a wrong answer I get to take the test over again. I’m a trained killer. If I had screwed up in our house you or the kids were going to pay for it, possibly with your lives. I couldn’t chance that.”
Fresh tears rolled down her face and her expression crumpled. “I know. I knew that was why you left. Or at least that was what I had hoped. But it’s been eighteen damn months—a year and a half—with you not letting us have any contact. If you had talked to us, or wrote…just something to let us know that we weren’t all alone.”
Cat sobbed and it broke his heart. Pulling her into his arms then down onto his lap, he held her as she let all her emotions out. Tears choked his own throat as he cradled her to him. “If I had called I would not have been able to stay away.”
And that was the gist of his angst. God, yes, he wanted to be with them, but he was willing to give up his own happiness if it kept them safe.
Cat’s arms wrapped around his neck and she looked up at him. “I have always had more faith in you than you have yourself. Always.”
Nuzzling his face into her damp hair, he nodded. “I know that. Without a doubt. And whether you were with me or not your faith kept me going.” Relaxing into his hold, Cat’s tears began to slow. “I love you, Cat.”
Her arms tightened around his neck till he thought something was going to pop.
“I love you too, damn it.” Pulling back she cupped his face, looked him in the eye and gave him a glorious kiss.
Something in Harper settled square. It was as if his chassis had been running crooked, a little out of alignment. Cat made him feel like he was running true again. Maybe with her at his side he could get back where they used to be in their relationship.
The emotion between them changed easily to desire and within seconds Cat had stripped off her t-shirt to his avid gaze. Harper paused long enough to tweak her nipples, loving the instant reaction.
They loved like they used to, when their love had been strongest, getting lost in the feel of each other’s bodies. As Cat rode him to completion, Harper was suddenly struck with the knowledge that he would do anything to stay with her.
Anything.
They shifted into a new gear in their relationship. There were still a lot of things up in the air that they didn’t know how to deal with yet, but they’d reestablished their love, the most important part of the equation. That night he moved into her bedroom. Cat mentioned at breakfast the next day that maybe they should bring the kids out.
That sent him into a bit of a funk again but Harper knew she was right. And maybe this was the best place
to do it, neutral ground, where there were no guns within reach. His little pocketknife had sufficed for the few stressful times he’d had. Would it be too much to hope that he could put the guns away permanently around the kids?
When he told Cat he thought bringing the kids out would be a good idea the joy on her face made his torment fade. Harper knew she’d been talking to the kids every night and he wondered what she had told them about him.
“I told them you had been injured and were recuperating,” she told him when he dared to ask. “No more than that.”
Somehow that didn’t make him feel much better about the situation.
Cat called to make arrangements to fly the kids out. Her mother would get them on the plane in Virginia and Cat and Harper would pick them up. They were scheduled to arrive in three days.
Harper suddenly felt like he was under the gun again. He called Dr. Singh and managed to catch her when she had some free time, so he talked with her for a while. When he hung up Harper had a better belief in himself that he could deal with whatever came up.
The day before the kids arrived they drove into Cańon City for a consult with a doctor recommended by the doctor from Amarillo. Harper’s skin had been itching around his eye and Dr. Fleck agreed that the stitches could come out of the sensitive area. Cat held his hand as each little filament was snipped, then tugged free. Dr. Fleck also removed all of the stitches from his chest wound. “It looks good, it looks good. Whoever did the initial surgery on it did an excellent job. You won’t have much of a scar here at all.”
Cat gave him a funny look. “Do you see a lot of gunshot wounds in here, Dr. Fleck?”
The gray haired man laughed and bumped his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You’d be surprised, young lady. Aftercare, yes. We’re surrounded by several correctional institutions, both federal and state. Don’t know if you’ve seen the signs warning you against picking up hitchhikers, but that’s why. We actually have a pretty good trauma center too, because we get a lot of fighting injuries, knife injuries, that type of thing. Your husband isn’t the first gunshot wound I’ve seen this year.”
Cat’s gaze connected to Harper’s, as if she knew he would not like the idea of prisons around them. She had seen the one on 50 on the way into town, but hadn’t thought much about it. Harper fought to keep his gaze steady and not reveal anything, but she was right to be worried. The thought of that many criminals around them made his protective instincts surge.
The doctor held up a hand mirror for Harper to look into and even he had to admit he didn’t look too bad. The skin around his right eye was pink and tight and a little splotchy from the stitches being pulled. It was still bruised under his eye but he’d been injured enough though to know that it would heal up fine.
“And what about the eye itself?”
The doctor looked at him, considering. “Well, you’ve gone this long without getting an infection, so that’s excellent. It looks like your injury was almost surgical in nature. A piece of shrapnel basically sliced through your cornea and the tissue around it. But if it doesn’t get infected, nothing may happen. Your eye still has all of the blood flow it needs so you may just heal like this, with two seemingly perfect eyes. It’s possible nobody may know you ever had an issue with it.”
Harper almost wished for the opposite. If he was going to lose his eye it needed to be a significant injury. Right now he just looked the same as he always did. It looked like he’d been in a bar fight and popped in the eye. Something so devastating to his life needed to leave serious scars.
They left the doctor’s office a few minutes later. Harper still needed the sunglasses, but the first chance he got to go shopping he’d be getting a set of Oakleys or something. The grandpa look had to go.
The doctor had given him one piece of incredible news.
Harper held his hand out for the keys and Cat tossed them to him with a grin. “No tickets,” she admonished.
They tooled around town, just exploring. It was nice being out of the house and for the first time Harper felt like he was back on the road to normality. But then he looked over at Cat. Air blew in from the passenger side window, lowered just a bit to let in the spring breeze. Her dark hair flew in the light wind and she pushed it back with her lean fingers. She was a gorgeous woman and he would love to get his life back on track with her and the kids.
They went back to the house and parked in the garage. Circling the hood, he pulled Cat’s door open and carried her into the house. As he dropped her to the bed in the bedroom, she laughed up at him. “Oh, really?”
He nodded once. “Yes, oh really. Get rid of those pants.”
Without the fear of pulling stitches or lingering infection, Harper felt like a completely different man. It was all psychological of course, but the change was significant. It released a ball of tension he had been carrying around for too long. That release made him almost giddy and Cat caught onto his playful mood.
He nibbled his way up her long legs, pausing only long enough to tug her panties away before spreading her knees wide. Cat’s breath caught as he kissed his way to the thatch of dark curls at the juncture of her thighs, then deeper. Sighing in pleasure she rested her hands on his head, giving him subtle directions. Her thighs tightened around his head as his tongue swirled around her clit, but he didn’t let her dislodge him. Reaching up, he burrowed his hand beneath her shirt and bra, cupping her breasts. “Ah,” she sighed, abdominals contracting as she rocked harder into his intimate kiss.
Harper relished feeling almost as vital as before he was wounded. The past two weeks had been a devastating blow, but now it was time to re-engage in life.
Cat rocked harder against his tongue and she began to gasp, twitching. Harper shifted, easing two fingers inside her slick channel. Cat groaned hard as he began to move his hand and within just a couple of minutes she climaxed. As Harper looked up the line of her undulating body and tasted her decadent release on his tongue, he thanked his stars that she had come to Amarillo for him.
Barely giving her time to catch her breath, Harper gripped her hips and flipped her over. Dragging a pillow from the head of the bed he wedged it beneath her hips. Crawling up her body, heavy thighs outside of hers, Harper fisted himself to guide into her. Cat arched up as he slid deep and began to move.
“Oh, yeah,” she sighed, face turned to the side. “This is what I was waiting for.”
Harper surged harder, trying to be gentle, but there was something compelling him to claim her. Cat was already his wife, technically, but he wanted to reestablish his place in her life. And today was the first day he almost felt like himself.
She arched her hips even more and something about the angle of his cock and that heavy vein gliding over her pubic bone sent him over the edge. With a shout Harper came, losing himself in the feel of her body undulating beneath his.
Panting, muscles quivering, he let himself drop to the mattress beside her. Cat panted as well, but her eyes glittered with satisfaction as she smiled at him. Harper grinned back but couldn’t muster enough energy to do anything more than that. His eyes drifted shut and he didn’t even notice when he drifted off to sleep.
Cat watched Harper’s face go slack.
Damn, he was gorgeous.
The skin around his right eye was a little inflamed, with a couple specks of blood where the stitches had been removed, but it would heal. Considering he’d been at death’s door a couple weeks ago he looked damn fine. His dark buzz cut needed a trim but she wasn’t going to remind him—she liked it a little longer. Maybe if she asked nicely he would let it grow a little more.
The beard was thickening as well, softening. She hadn’t even noticed it when he’d, well…her mind was on other things at the time.
Harper snuffled lightly in his sleep and she grinned at the sound. Definitely not that of a super-elite warrior.
He heaved out a breath, turning on his side. A frown crossed his face as though the movement pained him, then he relaxed again. The sca
rs on his chest were more angry, flushed red. But they were like all the other injuries he’d gotten. They would fade with time.
She stretched, luxuriating in the aches from her body. For the first time in a long time she felt like part of a team again.
Cat slid out of bed and headed to the shower. There were things she needed to do before they left to pick up the kids tomorrow afternoon.
Chapter Nine
Harper vacillated between overjoyed to see his kids and terrified. And until they walked off the landing he didn’t know how he was going to react.
Tate saw him first and bolted toward him, Iron Man backpack falling from his fingers to the concourse floor, gap-toothed grin wide. Harper leaned down and caught his son as he slammed into him, lifting him into his arms. Then Tate’s strong little arms were unyielding in their strength as they wrapped around his neck. Harper absorbed the unbridled joy and returned it tenfold. “You’ve grown so much,” he whispered, amazed at what a man his child was turning into.
Both kids were beautiful. Tate looked a little wild after sleeping on the plane. Dark hair stood on end and his fair skin was flushed, but his burnished golden eyes, the same as his mother, shone with happiness. Dillon had the dark hair but had inherited his own gray eyes. And right now they were as cold and unyielding as he knew his own could be.
The girl stood cradled in her mother’s arms. There were tears in her wounded eyes but she refused to let them fall. Still carrying Tate Harper walked forward, one hand held out. But Dillon turned her face into Cat’s chest.
He tried not to be hurt at the rebuff, but he was. And she had every right to treat him that way. Time after time he had let her down. Hell, if he boiled everything down he’d basically been a sperm donor. Other people had been there to welcome her into the world, cheer her on for all her milestones. As he thought about everything he had missed nausea turned his stomach. They may never be able to recover.
