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The Loner: Men Out of Uniform Book 4

Page 15

by Rhonda Russell


  McCann swore. “No shit?”

  He felt his lips twitch. “No shit.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” McCann breathed, seemingly as stunned as Huck had been. “Why?”

  Huck relayed everything he’d overheard, every poignant detail, and passed them on to his momentary colleague. At some point--probably in the next day or so--he’d have to confide the affair, but couldn’t muster the wherewithal at the moment. Furthermore, that was a conversation he intended to have with all three of them, in person. It was not the sort of fuck up one divulged over the phone. Respect demanded an audience and he wouldn’t shy away from owning what had happened between them.

  McCann paused. “Why do I feel like there is more to this story?” he asked. “Why would her father give a damn if she mentored unwed mothers or spent her so-called salary on charity work? The man is a total hard ass, but... It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’m going to get those answers before I leave.”

  “What are you going to do about her father? How do you think he’ll react to finding out the letters were from someone within the supposed scope of his control, in his very own camp? I’d hate to see him kick her out, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  Because he’d been so wrapped up in Sapphira--in what the discovery had meant for them--he hadn’t considered the ramifications for Ella. Surely Stravos wouldn’t kick an old woman to the curb, one who’d cared for his children for years? Huck thought.

  Remembering Sapphira’s fear, the lengths that she’d gone to keep her father from knowing about her activities, shed a different light on things though. All things considered, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Stravos would put Ella out.

  And he damned sure couldn’t let that happen.

  Huck sighed. “I gotta tell you, McCann, this is looking like a no-win situation.”

  “I agree.” He paused. “I’m thinking our official position needs to be that there is no threat, that she’s not in danger, and we’re pulling out. That we can’t, in good conscience, continue to take him money when we’re not making any headway.”

  Those had been his thoughts exactly. “How do you think the others will feel?”

  “The same,” he said. “Ranger mentality, remember?”

  Huck smiled. He was going to miss that.

  “You want to tell me what else is going on?” he asked.

  He respected him too much to shoot him a bullshit lie. “Later,” Huck said. He looked up and saw a beaming Sapphira coming down the hall toward him. “My target just walked in and she’s holding a baby.”

  “Is there a possibility that she’s carrying yours?” McCann asked, somehow managing to zero in on what he’d hoped to keep hidden until he could talk to them in person.

  She was on the pill and they’d used protection, but it was still possible. Besides, McCann didn’t want the split-haired answer--he wanted the truth. Huck sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said.

  Rather than the grim silence he’d expected to hear on the other end of the line, McCann whooped and crowed, “Yes! Payne owes me a hundred bucks.” But before Huck could make any sense out of what that meant, McCann had disconnected.

  Carrying his child? he thought again, as Sapphira drew ever closer. A sense of awe spread through him at the possibility and he felt an answering smile spread over his lips. Unbidden a vision of her holding a green-eyed chubby cheeked girl flashed in his mind’s eye. She’d have his fearlessness and her mother’s heart and, though it was completely irrational, he fell in love on the spot with that fictional baby.

  He wanted a child, Huck suddenly realized. With her.

  “Meet Melina Rhea Martinez,” Sapphira whispered proudly. Her gaze slid reverently over the child and her voice was thick with emotion. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “Rhea?” Sapphira’s middle name, Huck realized. He’d seen it in the file.

  Sapphira beamed at him. “Yep. She’s named after her god-mother.” Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Me.”

  Huck slid a finger down the infant’s pinkened cheek. “How’s Carmen?”

  “She’s doing beautifully. Recuperating at the moment. It went fast for a first baby, probably because she waited until the last possible moment to come to the hospital.” Sapphira paused and cleared her throat. “She’s asked me to spend the night. Ella’s going to bring my bag.”

  Huck stilled as the implications of that innocent comment surfaced. Here it comes, he thought. She was getting ready to cut him loose. He knew it, could feel it in the very air around him.

  “I can take you home to get that, Sapphira,” he said, knowing she’d refuse the offer.

  She shook her head, continued to hold the baby between them, almost like a shield of some sort. “That won’t be necessary. You know I’m not in any danger. You can leave, Huck,” she said. A slight crack in her voice betrayed only the slightest hint of emotion. “I’ve been thinking about that report you’ve got to give my father and--“

  “I’m not going to out Ella,” he said. “Or tell him about any of this.”

  She sagged with relief, the stress leaving her in wilting sigh. “Thank you. You don’t know how much that means.”

  He felt his lips twist with bitter humor. “You were going to tell me, remember?”

  She flushed guiltily and cleared her throat. “I don’t know that now is the time--“

  “You mean you’re planning on seeing me again?” He knew she wasn’t, knew the minute he walked down the hall and out of this building that she wouldn’t have anything else to do with him. How did he know it? Who knew? Intuition, a sixth sense, a bad vibe? But he could feel her freezing him out, putting up a barrier, pruning him from her life.

  And he wasn’t leaving here until he knew why.

  “Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

  Huck waited, refusing to it go.

  “Remember when I told you that my father blamed himself for Nicky’s death? That he thought he’d pushed him too hard?”

  He nodded.

  “My father, for all of his distance, is determined not to push me too hard either. I was all set to go to work for the company, had looked forward to it, and in an instant, that all vanished. Dad killed the job and promptly let everyone else in the greater Atlanta area know that hiring me would make him their enemy. He wields a lot of weight in the business world around here, Huck, and nobody wanted to thwart him.” A half-smile caught the corner of her mouth. “I thought he’d get past it, that the grief was clouding his judgment and that eventually he’d come around.” She paused. “Two years later, he still hadn’t and I had to accept the fact that he wasn’t going to. So I made a different life. I--“

  “--started Belle Charities,” he finished for her, “and have been funneling seventy-five percent of your salary into the foundation ever since.”

  She blinked, stunned and her mouth rounded in shock. “How did you-- When--“

  “This morning. Payne did a little poking around for me.”

  Her gaze softened and a single light brown curl brushed the gentle slope of her cheek. “I wanted to tell you, Huck. I really did. But I couldn’t risk you including it in your report to my father. If he finds out what I’ve been doing, he’ll cut me off.” She gestured to the baby. “I couldn’t risk her, risk all of them. Mentoring is a personal thing of mine,” she said haltingly. Her green eyes tangled with his and the hurt and the pain he saw there made his gut clench with dread. “I was a Carmen once, a long time ago--“

  Understanding dawned and he ached with her. “Oh, Sapphira. I--“

  “I lost my baby.” She smiled sadly. “You and Ella are the only two people on this planet who know that. I’m telling you because I need you to understand why I can’t walk away. I can’t leave because the moment I do, so does the money and I’ve got people who are dependent on it. It’s not just me. If he finds out, he’ll cut me off. He’ll--”

  “Sapphira--“

  She shook
her head. “He’ll cut me off,” she insisted. “And too many people are dependent on me--including this little girl,” she added, gesturing to the child in her arms “--to let that happen. He made himself perfectly clear, Huck. I’m not allowed to work. Period. That’s why I’m on salary, too keep me from getting a job. And I can’t say to hell with the money without screwing it up for the other people who count on it.” Another melancholy smile shaped her lips and her eyes were filled with hopeless resignation. “I’m trapped, you see? But it’s okay, because I’m making a difference. I’m helping people. I’m choosing to do this.”

  Over you, hung unspoken between them and a dry laugh broke up in his throat. “So, let me ask you something, Sapphira. Where does that leave us? Where do I fit in in all of this?”

  Her eyes welled with tears. “That’s just it,” she said. “You don’t. He’d never approve.”

  “Because I’m not rich?” he asked bitterly. “Because I’m a bastard who’s never met his father and I don’t have a trust fund to keep you in the style to which you’re accustomed?” He was unfairly lashing out and he knew it, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He was angry and hurt and wanted her to hurt with him. To be as miserable and as mad as he was at the moment.

  “If not that, then he’d find another reason,” she said. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t give up what I do.”

  And he couldn’t afford to keep financing it if she chose him over her father. He knew it, even on some level above the pain and anger roiling through him at the moment, understood it. She was sacrificing herself and him for the ability to do things for other people--heath care, scholarship programs, food and housing. Payne had been thorough in his search. She was doing a lot of good and he couldn’t blame her for being proud of that, of not being able to give it up. It was self-sacrificing and principled and...good, dammit.

  She was good.

  And if he was any sort of gentleman at all, he’d walk away and not make this any more difficult for her than it already was. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Ranger Security is ending our service agreement with your father based on the lack of evidence that you are truly in any danger. We can no longer continue to accept payment for a service we don’t believe is necessary. If you receive any more letters, then feel free to contact us at once and we’ll take the appropriate action. Until then, consider our agreement fulfilled.”

  A single tear slipped down her cheek and a hiccup of grief caught in her throat. “Thank you,” she said brokenly.

  Huck bent and kissed away the tear, sipped it up and squelched the burning behind his own eyes. Damned hospital antiseptic, he thought, refusing the label the moisture what it truly was.

  “I’m sorry, Huck,” she whispered and the agony and regret in that simple sentence made a him want to scream that he could fix this, that he would take care of it for her. Unfortunately, he knew better. He didn’t have that sort of money and never would.

  “Me, too, Princess,” he told her, then straightened like the soldier he’d once been and, careful not to limp, walked away.

  * * *

  Sapphira swallowed the sob that rose in her throat as she watched Huck proudly lift his head and walk away. She told herself that this was for the best. That it was the only way it could be. She told herself that eventually the heartache would ease--she’d learned that with Nicky, right?--and that, despite the fact that she didn’t seem to be able to put one foot in front of the other at the moment, that she seemed rooted to the spot and cemented with despair, she would recover.

  She would.

  And on some level that might be true, but she’d never be the same. What was left of her heart was putty in Lucas Finn’s big warm hands and he’d inadvertently, unwittingly, carted that part of her away from him. She held little Melina close, sniffed her downy head and hoped that passersby mistakenly assumed her tears were of joy rather than sheer, abject pain. She held that baby and thought about the baby she’d lost and the children she’d more than likely never have, the family she’d never celebrate with, the love she’d never make again with Huck and told herself that it was for the greater good, that she it couldn’t be any other way.

  She told herself that and prayed like hell that at some point she’d begin to believe it.

  A soft hand landed on her shoulder and Sapphira turned to find Ella standing there with her bag. Her face crumpled into a sympathetic frown and that one lone gesture of caring brought opened the floodgates to her misery more than anything else could.

  “Oh, child,” she tsked. “You’ve already sent him away, haven’t you?”

  Sapphira nodded. “There was no other way, Ella.”

  Ella wrapped her arms around her, snuggling her and the new baby. “There, there,” she soothed. “Everythin’s gonna be all right.”

  Sapphira had heard the same sage words from her dear old friend more times than she could even remember...but for the first time she didn’t quite believe them.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You owe me a hundred dollars,” Payne said, his gaze inscrutable, as Huck walked into the office the next afternoon.

  A prickle of unease slid down his spine. So McCann had told them already. Fabulous, Huck thought, shooting the man a look. McCann didn’t appear the least bit abashed. Merely shrugged. In any case, he’d really wanted to do tell them himself, but he supposed since he’d leveled with Guy the other’s realized he wouldn’t have lied about or omitted his involvement with Sapphira. Huck pulled a bill from his wallet and handed it to Payne. “So I guess this means I’m fired.”

  “That depends,” Flanagan said, walking into the room, a cup of coffee in hand. “Are you going to make a habit of sleeping with all of our female clients?”

  Huck rubbed the back of his neck and squashed an embarrassed smile. “No.”

  “Are you going to make a habit of continuing to sleep with this one?” Payne wanted to know.

  “Not according to her,” Huck said, aching for the soft slide of her skin beneath his, those quickened breaths, and sleepy, wanting green eyes.

  Flanagan quirked a brow. “What does that mean?”

  “It means she dumped him,” McCann supplied helpfully. He plopped down in a nearby chair and looked on expectantly, as though the mess of Huck’s life was going to double as his entertainment.

  He was having a hard time continuing to like McCann, Huck decided, scowling. “Let’s just say I don’t possess the necessary funds to keep up her charity work and her father’s a manipulative bastard who has her over a barrel.” He shot the three of them a look that he meant to quell any further annihilation of her character or future conversation. “I don’t blame her. I’m not angry with her. I want only the best for her.”

  “What about Tricky?” McCann asked. “Don’t tell me you want the best for her, too.”

  Flanagan’s eyes took on a shrewd gleam and he rocked back on his heels. “My God,” he breathed. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “You think the fool would risk this job for anything less than love?” McCann asked, displaying the first bit of true insight since he’d walked in. “Catch up, Flanagan,” he teased. “You’re losing your edge.”

  Payne regarded him with cool blue eyes, probing and assessing. “It’s true, then? You’re in love with her?”

  Huck crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “If love makes you miserably unhappily, altogether wretched and lonely, then--“ He blew out a harsh laugh. “--yeah, I guess I’m in love with her.”

  “I see.”

  Then that made one of them, because he’d lost all perspective.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Payne wanted to know.

  “Nothing,” Huck admitted, helpless and frustrated. Once again a man of action unable to act. “Because there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t help her. I can’t give her what she needs.”

  Furthermore, he’d tried calling both her home and her cell and she refused to speak with him. H
e had gotten a call from her father after the report had been delivered and, surprisingly, Stravos had thanked him for his candor and “honest business practices.” He’d also gotten a call from Ella, who’d thanked him for not outing her to Stravos. She’d gone on to say that Sapphira was hurting, too, and she’d asked Ella to pass along the request that he not call or come by, that a clean break would be best.

  Meaning that he wouldn’t be welcome and no doubt she’d left instruction not to let him through the gate.

  “Surely you’re not going to let a little thing like money stand in your way,” Payne said.

  Huck snorted. Only Payne, who was as wealthy--if not wealthier--than Sapphira’s father, would think money or the lack thereof was a “little thing.” He shrugged. “Knowing what she’s doing, the good she does for so many people, I can’t ask her to give that up for me. I won’t be that selfish and eventually she’d hate me for it.”

  “You don’t have to. Payne Industries could use a woman like Sapphira in charge of charitable contributions. In fact, I’d be willing to increase her salary twenty percent. That ought to cover Ella’s housing as expenses as well, right?” The first hint of a smile moved over his lips. “We wouldn’t want to leave Ella over that barrel, either, would we?”

  Huck paused, absolutely blown away. Was he really hearing Payne correctly? Did he really mean to offer Sapphira a job and increase her salary to accommodate Ella as well? Flanagan and McCann were grinning their faces off.

  “Look at him,” McCann said. “I told you he’d be speechless. Pay up, Jamie.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Jamie darted a look in Huck’s direction. “You’ve got to quit being so damned predictable,” he said, putting a twenty in McCann’s outstretched hand.

  Huck shook his head, felt the first stirring of hope push through the hopelessness which had been dogging his every step since last night. He’d been so distraught, he’d actually gone home to see his mother and grandmother. A quick call to his PI had confirmed that the man hadn’t uncovered a single thing about his father. It was time to take matters into his own hands, to ask the hard questions. Thankfully, the long-time-in-coming conversation with his mother had brought him a unique sense of peace.

 

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