Gray Wolf Security: Back Home

by Glenna Sinclair

  I ran to the bathroom and grabbed towels, rushing back to Carrington.

  “You’re going to be okay,” I said softly, over and over again. “You’re going to be okay.”

  There was so much blood. I couldn’t make it stop.

  I reached for the phone, unaware of my tears until I tried to speak. I told them, “Please, my husband’s been shot.” I don’t remember hanging up, I don’t even remember if I was talking to a man or a woman. I was aware when someone came up behind me and draped a blanket over my shoulders, tugging me out of the way while the paramedics moved in, working on him.

  Carrington’s eyes were open. I told myself that was a good sign, that he was conscious. But was it?

  Chapter 32

  Joss

  They led me down the dull, gray corridor. It seemed fitting in some, strange way. A sort of déjà vu. I’d visited Jack Mahoney in a similar prison. And it had all begun in prison, right? In the prison where Carl Runion served his pitiful amount of time for the deaths of Esteban and Isaac?

  “We finally meet face to face,” she said as I walked through the door. She was anchored to the floor, dressed in the bland, gray uniform of the prison system. Her hair that was so perfectly coifed on the night of her arrest was now dry and limp, her gray roots showing above the bottle blond. I might have felt sorry for her if she was any other woman.

  “Your son killed my family.”

  “You killed my son.”

  “You don’t believe he should pay for his crime?”

  “Drinking was his father’s vice. He came by it naturally. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “But he made the choice to drink and drive. Did your husband do that?”

  “No. He drank and beat. Me, my son, my daughter. He did much worse to my daughter if we’re being honest here.”

  “Then it sounds to me the one who deserved punishment was your husband.”

  Lilith smiled. “He did pay. For a long time, he paid.”

  I didn’t doubt it. There was something in her eyes…beyond her actions, there was a craziness I couldn’t ignore.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital with your husband? Or did he not make it?”

  Pain burst through me, but I didn’t rise to her bait.

  “I want it to stop. I want you to make it stop.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, her eyes dropping to my swollen belly. “When’s the new one due? I’d guess about four months, right?”

  Again, I refused to rise to her bait.

  “You’ve punished me enough for something that wasn’t even my fault.”

  Anger flashed in Lilith’s eyes. “If not for you, my son would not have been convicted. It was you people who found him, you people who pushed the district attorney to prosecute. Our lawyers did what they could to minimize the sentence, but it was you who pushed it all. And you who asked your friends to beat him in prison.”

  “I didn’t do that. But don’t you think he deserved it?”

  “He was my son!”

  She slammed her hands on the table and the chains rattled. A guard’s face appeared in the door’s window, but I waved him away.

  “My Isaac was only a baby. Eighteen months old. He’d only begun walking, only just started speaking. He called me Momma, called his father, Dada. He was an innocent.” I studied her face. “What was your son?”

  “He was a beautiful soul until you broke him.”

  I shook my head slowly. “We’ll never agree.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  “They found evidence in your compound. You realize that you’ll be going to prison for life, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Then what is the point in continuing this battle you’ve been waging against me and my family?”

  “Personal satisfaction.”

  I shook my head. “What do we have to do to end it?”

  “Kill me.” She smiled sweetly. “That’s the only way this thing will end. Over. My. Dead. Body.”

  “Okay. I understand.”

  I stood and reached over to stroke the back of her hand. And then I walked away, the door slamming on her terrorized scream behind me.

  I dropped the vial of poison at my feet and stepped on it quite discreetly. The guard never saw a thing.

  They’d report her death as a heart attack.

  I was okay with that.

  Chapter 33

  At the Compound

  Joss sat behind the desk she’d called her own for years, running her hand over its surface like it was the flesh of a lover. When she caught Ash looking, she blushed, standing like she’d been caught doing something inappropriate.

  “I just wanted to come by and thank you for everything.”

  “I didn’t do a thing you wouldn’t have done.”

  “Yeah, well, all the plane rides and the doctors and the medical supplies…” She sighed, running her hand slowly over the top of her swollen belly. “I grateful for you. You saved my life more than once.”

  “And you mine. If you hadn’t forced me to see that I needed to give up on Alexi…”

  “You would have come to the same conclusion yourself. Eventually.”

  She went to him and they hugged for a long time.

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of it?”

  “I’m sure. It’s time for me to get back to what really matters, you know?”

  He nodded. “Let us know when this one makes its appearance in the world.”

  She giggled. “Didn’t I tell you? It’s twins.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “I guess one was hiding behind the other when they did the initial sonogram. But, yeah, twins. Like I don’t have enough on my plate right now.”

  “It’ll be fine. Perfect, actually.”

  “Yeah. I guess it’s just nature’s way of making up for the struggles and the pain and the craziness.”

  “It’s over now.”

  “It’s over. For good, I hope.”

  Ash hugged her once more. “Keep in touch.”

  She nodded, wiping away a tear as she headed for the door. He watched her, remembering the day he’d gone to her home in Illinois and dragged her out of bed, the sight of that bottle of pills on her bedside scaring him more than anything he’d seen up to that point, including all the death and mayhem he’d survived in Afghanistan.

  “You’re too strong for this bullshit,” he’d said to her. “Too strong and too fucking stubborn.”

  “What would you know about it? Have you ever lost your entire family?”

  “I lost my parents. And Alexi. You aren’t alone, Joss.”

  “But you still have David. You still have all the guys you served with over there.”

  “So do you!”

  “I have nothing!” she screamed sitting up in the bed, her dirty hair wild and tangled around her face. “Have you held your eighteen-month old child in your arms and watched him struggle to take a breath? His last breath? I did! I held my baby, my baby who once laughed and babbled, my baby who was once so full of life, and I watched him disappear right there in my arms. I felt his body grow cold. I watched everything that I fought for over there become nothing, become pointless. Why stop them from killing each other when all we have to come home to is more tragedy? More death?”

  They’d both been in a bad place then. Her words had made so much sense to him that it took an iron will to keep from crawling into the bed with her and sharing that bottle of pills. His parents had just died, his brother was in a wheelchair. His fiancée had gone missing. He’d lost it all, too. What was there to live for other than more death, more pain?

  But they’d come a long way since then. We’d both found love and we’d both found a purpose.

  I just hoped…she was stronger now. She’d be okay.

  Chapter 34

  Joss

  One year later…

  The air was so fresh this early in the morning. I stood on the beach, my surfboard
by my side, watching the waves. McKelty was already out there, riding a mild wave that brought her safely back to my side.

  “Perfect.”

  “I finally did it!”

  I laughed. “You did.”

  We went out together a minute later, riding a high wave with a perfect crest. McKelty fell halfway through, but I rode it to the beach, loving the familiar feel of the air and the salt on my face. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this until McKelty brought it up a few months ago. I was grateful she had.

  Even Aidan was getting into it. But she’d chosen to stick to the boogie board today.

  I could see Carrington’s mother on the back deck of the house, one of the babies in her arms. Junior, I thought. Kirk must have been asleep still. It was pretty early in the morning.

  We headed up after a few more waves, dripping water from our hair and stamping sand from our feet. Carrington’s mother objected to the sand we were taking into the house, but it was all good natured. She knew we would clean up after ourselves.

  I went into the office and checked my email, wondering about the progress on a new contract we were on the verge of taking on. Moving the operation to Europe had actually been a good call. Rules of commerce were different here, as well as a whole host of business laws that I would never completely understand. But, somehow, it made things progress better, the bottom line straightening out perfectly.

  The rich just keep getting richer, my mom always said. Maybe there was some merit to that.

  “Ash called. He and Mina are coming out here on vacation next month and wondered if they could camp out on the couch.”

  I looked up, a slow smile moving over my lips as I studied the familiar red hair and green eyes of the man I loved. He moved carefully, coming around the desk with the patience of a man whose been forced into the slow lane. The crutches were new, but it was proof of his progress. David was constantly applauding him, reminding him of where he’d begun. Where they’d both been. It was a long road, but he was going to be okay.

  He was still alive, he reminded everyone. That was all that mattered.

  “They’re more than welcome.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  He dropped a kiss on my nose, coming back in for another, lingering kiss on my lips. And then he backed up.

  “I’m going to go get the girls in the shower so they can get to school on time for once. You going into the office today?”

  “Yeah, but only for a couple of hours. Jules set up some meeting with this new client…”

  “Sure. I know.”

  “Hold down the fort here and we’ll figure out what we have to do to get these clients off the sidelines.”

  I went upstairs and jumped into the shower, thinking about my day. Running Matthews Shipping had seemed like a daunting idea when we first began. Just a few months, I told myself, until Carrington was able to take the reins again. But the thing was, I liked it. And he was content to sit back and take control with the kids. It was a good situation, I think.

  And bringing Jules back…she’d been horrified by what her girlfriend had done. But after it was all said and done, I convinced her it wasn’t her fault. And that I trusted no one else the way I trusted her.

  It wasn’t a mistake bringing her back. This was how it was meant to be, a life filled with purpose and love and security.

  What more could anyone ask for?