by Hill, Teresa
But a man shouldn’t call himself a man if he ignored a woman in need. That’s what Mace had been taught by his father and grandfather in Texas, what he believed. Some women would say that made him sexist, but he didn’t think so.
He wasn’t saying women were incapable taking care of themselves. He knew most of them were, most of the time. But sometimes, people got down. They made bad decisions. They got fooled. People took advantage of them. People hurt them.
Everybody needed help sometimes.
It did something to him, seeing a woman in trouble, especially when it was a man who put her there. Some men were idiots. Some were selfish. Some were asshats. Some were liars. He figured he could even things out a little, so some women didn’t think all men were jerks.
He thought women were great. All kinds of women. Older women, short women, tall women, curvy women, women with blue eyes, brown ones, green ones, smart ones. He even liked bitchy ones sometimes. He liked to think of himself as an equal-opportunity connoisseur, a goodwill ambassador to women on behalf of mankind.
Women had called him a terrible flirt, but he knew he was good at it and figured, if you had a chance to make a woman feel good about herself, to make her smile, why not do it? He wasn’t obnoxious about it. He didn’t want to make any woman uncomfortable, just flattered, happy.
Dani was not happy, and he hated that.
He still felt terrible about what happened on the train, and he could never do anything to change that. But Lieutenant Carson’s girl was sitting here in front of him at an all-night diner down the block from the bar where she worked, and Mace wasn’t going to leave her alone until he’d figured out a way to make her life better. Like maybe by showing Harold Hopewell’s lawyer that Dani was entitled to the money from his will. That would help. She wouldn't have to work in the bar or live in that house with Randy.
She pulled up the timer on her phone and set it for ten minutes. “Okay. Go.”
“I did a little research today. It’s surprisingly hard to get married in Greece.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You have to have all sorts of official documents, all translated into Greek, and official stamps and published notices. I’m guessing, given the last-minute nature of your marriage, you and Aaron didn’t do all those things.”
“All of them? We didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t know anything about all those things until after he died and his mother told me that her son was most definitely not married to me or anyone else.”
Ouch. Shit.
“Dani, tell me what happened after you flew back home. How did you find out Aaron had been shot? How did you find out you weren’t married?”
“I found out he’d died by watching the news on TV. A few days later, I went to his mother’s house, and tried to tell her who I was. Aaron had never said a word to her about me or about us. When I tried to tell her we’d gotten married, she called me a liar and kicked me out of her house.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“She thought I was a lying gold-digger out to take advantage of a dead American soldier, a hero, and scam his family out of his life insurance. You cannot imagine how much that sucked.”
Mace reached across the table and covered her hand with his. Her breathing was agitated, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. This poor girl had been through hell. She glared at him and pulled her hand away from his.
“I wanted to mourn him with his family, with people who loved him. I wanted to tell them he was so happy for those three weeks we had together before he died. I thought we could try to help each other through losing him, but his mother wanted no part of that.”
“And then you looked for proof of the marriage?”
“I was a mess. My old roommate, Betsy, looked online for how marriages are registered in Greece, and found out about all the documentation and translations and waiting periods, like you did. We didn’t do any of that. Aaron lied to me.”
“I don’t believe that. I don’t — ” He held up his hand when she would have interrupted. “I know you’re skeptical. Let me move on with what I need to know. Tell me everything you know about the marriage.”
“Non-marriage.”
“Okay. Non-marriage.”
“We woke up on what was supposed to be our last day there and Aaron asked me to marry him. He said he loved me, and he needed to know I was his before he put me back on that plane to go home.He had a way of talking me into things, of making the craziest things sound reasonable. I finally agreed.”
“Then what?”
“He told me to go buy a dress and that he’d take care of everything else. By the time the sun was setting, we were standing on a rock overlooking the beach getting married, or so I thought. The ceremony was traditional Greek, and the man marrying us spoke only some English, so I don’t even know all that he said, except that we were married.”
“Did you sign anything? Fill out anything?”
“I signed something, but it was in Greek.”
“But Aaron never hinted that it was anything but legal?”
“Never. He kissed me like crazy. We had a traditional wedding supper that our sweet landlady made for us and our wedding night. By the time I got home, Aaron was dead.”
“God, that’s horrible,” Mace whispered.
“Are we done now? Do you see that it couldn’t be anything more than a sham of a marriage?”
“No. I’m not convinced of that.”
“Mason!”
“My name’s not Mason. Everybody just calls me Mace.”
“Okay, Mace. I told you what you wanted to know — ”
“No. You didn’t.” He picked up her phone and looked at the screen. “Who married you?”
“I don’t know. The mayor of the island, maybe. Do they have mayors in Greece? Greek names sounded like such a jumble to me. It started with an A and had about six vowels.”
“Okay. What island were you on?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“We visited five or six islands in the twenty days we were there. Aaron made all the travel arrangements. He’d been there before and wanted to show me the place he considered the most beautiful on earth.”
“Okay. Do you remember any of the names of the islands you visited?”
“We started in Santorini. That’s where the ferry we took arrived and where we left from for that last day.”
“Okay.” You could get to just about everywhere from Santorini, but he’d deal with that later. “Where else?”
She gave him three or four names, but a lot of them sounded alike. She remembered a few museums they’d visited, archaeological sites, a cove where they went diving, bits and pieces. He’d done trips like that — where he was with someone who knew that particular country well and let that person plan the whole thing. He knew how things could blur as you went from place to place, all of them new and different. If he wasn’t driving or arranging transportation or booking rooms, he sat back and enjoyed the time, the company and seeing new places.
Dani did give him what she thought was her landlady’s name and the name of the last place they stayed, the cave-house place, but it sounded too generic to narrow things down much.
“Okay, do you have any photos? Did you make any phone calls? Connect to the internet there?”
“No,” she whispered. “I know that seems suspicious. Believe me, I know. God, I’d love to have a photo. My phone didn’t work there. I let it die and didn’t bother to charge it. We used Aaron’s all the time. His had a much better camera than mine, anyway, so all the photos were on his phone or his iPad. He was going to send me all of the photo and video when he got somewhere with faster internet access, but I never received any. I never got any of his things afterward. If his mother did, she certainly didn’t share them with me.”
“What about the paper you signed? Let me guess — Aaron had it with him?”
She nodded.
Mac
e sighed. It would have been too easy if she had documentation. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“If that’s all the information we’ve got, that’s all we’ve got.”
“So, you’re giving up?”
“No, I’m not giving up. I don’t give up. I’ll use what you gave me and figure it out. I need to see your phone, to see a phone call or text message you sent to Aaron, to get the identifying information about the phone they came from. I need his phone number, too. If you know the names of any of his close friends in his unit, I want those. And I need your number, in case any questions come up.”
“What do you think you’re going to find?”
“That he loved you, and he wasn’t lying to you,” Mace said.
“We already know he lied!”
“Then you can start designing the shirt I have to wear, once I come back.”
Mace didn’t like things that made no sense, and he hated her living the way she was.
He’d talk to the lawyer to find out whether she was still entitled to the money from Harold’s estate, but mostly, she hadn’t been wrong to trust Aaron. Which seemed impossible, but Mace didn’t believe in impossibilities. Plus, Lieutenant Carson had had no reason to lie to a stranger about his wedding.
“I’ll see you when I have some information for you. Until then, be careful. Here at work and at your apartment. You have my number. Use it if you need anything, okay?”
She didn’t promise to do that. He didn’t really expect her to. He just had to say it.
* * *
Mace
He called the lawyer back on the way to the base and said something he should have days ago. “I found her.”
“Excellent. How can I get in contact with Ms. Carson?”
“It’s not quite that simple.”
“Of course not. Why would it be? I’m only trying to see that people get the millions of dollars they’re entitled to.”
“She says she and Lt. Carson were never legally married.”
The lawyer sighed like the real headache was his this morning, not Mace’s. “That would explain why the military has no record of the marriage and why I couldn’t find it registered anywhere in the U.S., but Mr. Hopewell was very clear. He said the lieutenant told my client they’d just gotten married before the three of you boarded the train that day.”
“Lieutenant Carson did. He even showed us photos of the ceremony on his phone. She’s angry, didn’t want to talk about Lieutenant Carson at all, except to say he’d tricked her. I think you need to consider what happens to her inheritance if she isn’t the lieutenant’s widow.”
“All right. I’ll check the exact wording of the will. I believe the bequest identified her as Lieutenant Carson’s widow — ”
“She’s the woman Lieutenant Carson told us he loved, the woman he left behind. I’m sure she’s the woman Harold and I promised to take care of. That has to count for something.”
“Intentions do matter legally, if they’re clearly spelled out, and in the case of a will, if no one contests it. As the executor of the estate, I might have some leeway.”
“She lost her teaching job after only a few months. It was too much for her to handle so soon after Lieutenant Carson’s death and finding out the marriage wasn’t legal. She’s working in a bar and living in a bad neighborhood in a crappy apartment with two other roommates, and one of them has a creepy boyfriend. Even if I could make him disappear — permanently — I still hate the idea of her living there.”
“You want her to have the money?”
“She sure could use it.”
“Or you could finally let me send you your inheritance, and you could take care of her yourself.”
“I’ll think about it. Once we get things settled for her.”
“Mr. Daughtry, let me remind you that finding and convincing Ms. Carson or Ms. Reed — whoever she is — to accept her bequest is not a condition of your inheritance.”
“I know, but your client and I promised she’d be taken care of, and neither one of us did that. I know Harold tried, but he didn’t live long enough. I’m the only one left. It’s not … Money won’t fix things for her. She’s angry, confused. I’m no expert on love, but I’m normally good at reading people. She believes what she told me about Lieutenant Carson, and I believed everything he told me about her, so something’s going on here that doesn’t add up. I have to figure out what it is.”
“All right. Do you know anyone in Greece?”
“Maybe. I’ve got some old friends who travel a lot. One of them might be there or close enough to go there, if I need a favor like that.”
“I could call someone, who I’m sure could get to someone at the U.S. Embassy there, but — ”
“No. I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, and I want to do it.”
He needed to prove to himself that he’d done everything he could to find the truth about this. He owed it to Lieutenant Carson. It was the least he could do the ease his guilt about not being able to save the man that awful day on the train.
* * *
Mace
Back at the base, Mace found his friend Will. “Remember that tech guy who was with us in Yemen two years ago? The hacker?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember his name? Or who he was with?”
“Mark something? Max something? No, Marx.”
“That’s it. Was that his nickname? Last name? First name?”
“I don't know. He didn’t give up a lot of information.”
No, but he could find information.
“Why do you need a hacker?” Will asked.
“I found the widow the other night.” Mace had thought about her that way for nearly a year, and to him, she was still the widow.
It didn’t take his friend long to put things together. “Wait. At the bar?”
“Yeah. She’s working there.”
“Why? He didn’t have life insurance? Everybody here has life insurance.”
“It’s so much more complicated than that. She said they were never legally married, and she never got a dime. She’s a mess. Something isn’t right about the whole thing.”
Will nodded. “And — let me guess — you’re going to figure out what that is for her?”
“Well, yeah. Somebody has to.”
“She’s not the one who pepper-sprayed you, is she?”
Mace stared at him.
“Unbelievable.” Will chuckled.
“What can I say? It’s a gift.”
“Marx and McCann.” It finally popped into his head. “That was the contractor’s company’s name. Our guy must have been one of the partners.”
“Your eyes still look awful. Did you get the stuff flushed out good? Want some saline?”
“No, I got it. And … I had some help. She … helped me.”
“After she sprayed that stuff in your eyes?”
“Yeah. She felt bad about it.”
“That makes no damned sense.”
“Like I said … It’s a gift.”
* * *
Chapter Nine
Dani
He kept coming back, night after night. He’d sit at the bar, drink two beers, have a couple of huge sandwiches and a piece of pie. The man must burn a ton of calories to eat the way he did and still look so good.
And he did.
Look. So. Good.
He’d catch her eye in the middle of her shift, stretching his shoulders, twisting his back, laughing. He had a great laugh. She’d stop whatever she was doing and stand there in the middle of the bar, frozen and staring at him.
It was embarrassing, especially when Jill or Nico caught her at it.
Even some of her regular customers noticed and laughed. Then they’d ask whether she had a man in her life, which made her flinch and think of Aaron. When she said there was no man, they wanted to know why she wasn’t over there flirting with Mace.
So many women were, night after night.
Dani couldn�
�t tell if he was flirting back or not. He always smiled at them. He was always polite and talked for a few minutes. Some took the seat next to him, uninvited as far as she could tell. Some touched him, even pawed at him. It was hard to hide how much that annoyed her.
Some shoved their boobs in his face, which not only annoyed her, but made her remember through a kind of fog that she’d done the same damned thing, right before she’d pepper-sprayed him.
Eventually, reluctantly, they all walked away. He must tell them he had a girlfriend or was waiting for someone or something. They’d often spend the rest of the night gazing longingly at him.
Much like Dani did.
Was it really with longing?
It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let it be.
He irritated her, and mostly she did her best to ignore him. Mostly, he let her, too, nodding his head instead of even saying hello, grinning at her only when he caught her staring. But sometimes he caught her eye over the shoulder of one of those women coming onto him and looked …
She couldn’t say exactly how he looked then. Patient? Confident? Sexy?
Well, he couldn’t help but look sexy. He oozed sexy, even at his most annoying. It was infuriating.
Was he waiting for her to talk to him? If he was, he was more patient than anyone she’d ever known.
Did he think she’d change her mind and want to talk about Aaron? No, she wouldn’t.
Had he found out something about Aaron that he wanted to tell her and was waiting until she came to him? He’d barge right over here and tell her anyway, whether she wanted to hear it or not.
Jill was careful but relentless in her smiles, flirting and showing off her cleavage, which even Dani would admit was very nice. She braced herself as one more time, Jill did her best.
Her smile was brilliant. She had on a pair of her tiniest shorts and undid an extra button on her shirt as she always did when Mace was around. As always, she gave him only a hint of what he’d get from her, though, talking to him and trying to make him laugh but not lingering.
As always, he turned back to his beer.
Jill walked over to Dani. “I think he’s taken a vow of celibacy or something like that, which would be a crime against woman-kind. He’s either not interested in me or he doesn’t do hook-ups. Is it possible a man that hot doesn’t do hook-ups?”
