“I’d like to see Gran first,” I say, looking at Dad.
Beside him, Mother’s mouth tightens. “Grandmother and Grandfather are staying with us for the … duration,” she says. “You may request a visit at any time. I feel quite certain her nurses will oblige.”
I nod because I don’t trust myself to open my mouth.
My brother, Charles Junior—who is actually Charles Jacob Samuel Duffy, IV—is the last to greet me and he’s wearing a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. We shake hands, exchange pleasantries and in less than twenty seconds, we’re both at a loss for words.
Cami saves us, of course, by grabbing my arm and steering us all to the door. I step out into the warm California sun and Cam leads me toward the long car. George, my father’s driver from before I can remember, opens the door and greets me, “Welcome home, master Lincoln.”
His face doesn’t even twitch, but there’s a sparkle in his eye when I give him a wink and say, “So good to see you again, George.” I know he’s remembering all the antics he covered up for me as a boy. Like the time he was teaching me how to drive and I took a curve too fast and we ended up in a ditch. He covered for me then, and many times before and after that. He was also the man who took me to the store to buy condoms when I first started to think about having sex.
He’d sat me down and gave me the ‘birds and bees’ lecture and asked me point blank if I’d had sex yet. I’d been honest with him and told him I’d fooled around, but hadn’t gone all the way. He’d jerked me up and drove me an hour away. Then made me walk into a pharmacy by myself and buy a box. “If you are old enough to swing it around, you’re old enough to cover it up.” I can’t help but laugh every time I remember him spouting that line.
As George navigates LA traffic, I try to find something to say. I’m at a loss. I have nothing in common with these people, aside from Cami. They don’t want me to talk politics. The weather is out. I can’t talk about my missions or even what I do in the Army. Secrecy is security and my billionaire playboy notoriety nearly cost me the ability to move up to Delta a year or so ago.
That’s why I ‘officially’ work for Allied Construction and Restoration. I’m a ‘consultant’ and travel to support the United States’ efforts to assist and rebuild war torn areas around the world. I wear civilian clothes. Have a civilian haircut. I just travel a lot. And I’m adept at steering conversation away from my work. I’m also a damn fine liar.
“We’ve opened guest cottage two,” my mother is saying. “I thought you’d be most comfortable with a private pool, and it’s closest to the gym.”
I look at Cam. “Where are you staying?”
She looks hopeful. “I’ll stay with you if that’s…” her mouth twists, “…agreeable.”
Mother gives my sister a withering look. “Camille, you and I have had this discussion and I prefer—”
“Mother, I’d prefer Cam stay with me. There’s plenty of room.”
Her mouth tightens and she lifts her nose, turning her head to look out the window. Gwendolyn and Victoria follow suit, younger versions of my mother. I sigh, feeling sorry for my nieces and nephews. I hope they have more personality than my oldest siblings.
I look at my dad. “It was quite the surprise to see you at the airport. Light day at the office?”
I ignore my brother’s ‘hmph’ and continue looking at Dad. “Never a light day, son…” he begins.
“Which you would know if you ever stepped foot inside the door,” Charles Junior finishes for him.
Here we go again.
“Charles!” My eyes snap to my father when he raises his voice to the favored son.
My brother says nothing, just crosses his arms over his chest, the muscle in his jaw clenching and releasing. I don’t need special military training to read the physical signs of his emotional stress. I can almost hear the thump of his heart against his ribs.
What the fuck is going on?
After Cam and I get our bags settled into the cottage, which is actually bigger than most people’s homes, we walk through to the gardens to the main house, her fingers still snuggly entwined with mine.
“And you’re sure you don’t know what’s going on,” I ask her for the third time as we stop and she feeds the Koi in the pond.
“I swear I don’t. Maybe with Gran dying, Dad’s feeling a bit sentimental. Imminent death can do that to a person.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I just hope he isn’t setting me up for a trip down guilt lane, trying to get me to take over one of the companies.”
She looks at me, considering. “I don’t know, Link. He seems to have softened some lately. He even asked me if I was seeing anyone and if I was happy.”
I take a piece of fish food from her hand and toss it into the pond, watching the graceful orange and yellow bodies torpedo it its direction. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Nope, not even pissing you,” she jokes, grinning up at me. “And he seemed genuine about it. And get this … he asked me to enlarge the photo I took of the sun setting behind the pyramids last summer. He wants it for his office. And he asked me to sign it.”
A small tremor of something unfamiliar passes through me. Affection with a small dose of worry. “Do you think he’s sick and maybe…”
I pause because she’s shaking her blonde head and looking at me with blue eyes the exact same color as my own. “I was so surprised that I asked him if he was ill. He assured me that he wasn’t, and that he was finally taking a little time to smell a rose or two. I think that’s a direct quote.”
“Well, maybe this trip won’t be the soul sucking experience I was expecting it to be.”
She smiles and stands, grabbing my arm and stepping on the path that will lead us to the second guest cottage. To Gran.
“I need to warn you, she doesn’t look very good, and you better not mention a word about her weight. She’s still very … particular … about how she looks. I guarantee she’s making the nurses put her lipstick on right now.”
Gran and her red lipstick. I don’t think I’ve ever, not even once, seen her without it. She purchases all of her clothes to coordinate with her lipstick, not the other way around like most women would. And she’s always colored her hair, refusing to admit she had a single grey one in the bunch.
Gran is awesome. So amazing that I’m not quite sure how she bore a child as rigid as my father. Then again, she also produced my Uncle Christian who is as free spirited as they come. My father often grumbled that I must be Christian’s child instead of his.
On the front stoop of the three-bedroom cottage, I take a deep breath to prepare myself for seeing my grandmother again. It had been a year since I’d seen her or my grandfather. They’d visited me in North Carolina, stayed at my house a couple days. I’d taken her to the shooting range and let her shoot the Sig Sauer MPX she’d seen in my case.
It had been hysterical. Then impressive. Once she’d gotten the hang—and control—of the machine gun, she’d turned out to have a very good aim. My granddad had tried it too, stating that I’d gotten my love of weapons from him. Between the two, they’d gone through hundreds of dollars of ammunition, but I didn’t care. I could have watched them rat-a-tat all day.
A nurse in a starched white uniform opens the door and her eyes widen in surprise when she sees me. She’s cute. Very cute. Especially with the rosy flush that’s now staining her cheeks.
Cami quickly does the introductions, sticking her elbow in my ribs when I hold the nurse’s hand a little longer than necessary. It doesn’t matter how old I get, I love flirting with women. I love the way their eyes dilate when they flirt back. I love knowing I cause that physical reaction.
“Brooke, is now still a good time to see Gran?” Cam cuts in, elbowing me again, really digging into my ribs this time.
Brooke pulls her eyes away from me and swallows, “Yes, of course. She’s been looking forward to seeing you both.” Her eyes flick back to me and I grin at her, taking great
satisfaction in watching the pulse in her neck speed up.
Cam pulls me in the direction of the bedroom. “Manwhore,” she mutters at me good-naturedly.
“You’re just jealous she likes me better than you.”
She grins up at me. “Maybe.”
Then we’re at the door of the master suite and I see her. Gran, in a hospital bed that looks completely out of place in the otherwise luxurious room.
“Hi Gran,” Cam says, and the frail woman in the bed opens her eyes. Then she smiles and my real grandmother appears. She’s always smiled with her entire face.
“Oh, Link-a-dink. Come here my precious boy.”
I can’t help but smile at the nickname she’s called me since forever. I go to her, take her hands in mine, and lean down to press my lips on her forehead. She smiles, the ruby red lips parting so wide they almost consume her cheeks.
“Gran, I’m going to leave you and Link alone for a while,” Cam says. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“No, thank you Cam-a-lamb,” Gran says, patting her hand. “Just check on your granddaddy. He went for a walk a little while ago. You know how I worry about him.”
I blow out a breath as the back of my eyes grow hot. Losing Gran is going to be torture for my granddad. They’re the happiest couple I’ve ever known. You never saw them together when they weren’t holding hands or touching each other in some way. I’d had that for a while, with Mattie.
No. I refuse to think about her.
Pulling her attention back to me after Cami softly closes the door, Gran smiles her big, wide red grin again. “You are even more handsome than when I last saw you, and I didn’t even think that could be possible. How many hearts have you broken since last week?”
No hearts, I think. Nearly a broken neck. I shudder at the memory of waking to find myself strangling Erin. I try to shake the memory away.
I force a smile. “You know I’m not interested in hearts, Gran.”
She clicks her tongue at me. “Still such a scoundrel. Just like your granddad when I met him. Such the ladies’ man, bedding every little tart he saw.”
I nearly choke and her eyes shine with amusement. “Now don’t go looking embarrassed. You got your randy streak honest.” Then she shakes her head. “Of course, it skipped a generation.” I nearly choke again at her reference to my tight-laced father.
She winces in pain and I’m immediately concerned. “What can I do for you?”
Patting my hand, she forces another smile. “Just one thing, my lovely boy.”
“Anything.” And I would do anything for her, I realized. She’d always been a bright light in my life, even when we were thousands of miles apart.
“Open your heart.”
I nearly groan. I’d do anything but that. I’d open my zipper. I’d open my wallet. My heart … no fucking way.
“Are you really going to decline the dying wish of your favorite grandmother?” she asks, a little smile playing on her lips.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Now that isn’t playing fair.”
She narrows her eyes right back. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“Love is war, Gran. I thought you knew that.”
She laughs softly. “It can be, that’s for sure, but it can also be the greatest peace you’ve ever known.”
I snort.
“Lincoln Charles, don’t you snort at me. I’m serious. When you find that right person, you’ll know.”
I look into her wise eyes. “I already thought I found that person and I was wrong. Totally wrong. I’m not interested in being that wrong again.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, lowering her voice.
“Of course.” I lower my voice too.
“Your granddaddy wasn’t my first love. Or my second. I had my heart broken to pieces three times before I met your grandfather and realized what love truly was.”
“What was different?”
She looks up at the ceiling and I find the need to look away from her face. It was like I was getting a glimpse of something too personal to share.
“First, there wasn’t that wild sexual attraction at first.” Oh God, please don’t let her go there. She giggles. Giggles like the schoolgirl I know she once was. “I wasn’t a virgin when I married your grandfather.”
I drop my face into my hands.
“Oh stop it, did you think I’d only had sex enough to conceive your daddy and uncle? I’ll have you know, I was quite the tiger in bed.”
I moan and lean back in my chair, scrubbing my fingers up and down the scruff of my beard. She giggles again, clearly enjoying herself.
“The point is, be open to love. Guard your heart, for certain. But don’t chain it up and throw away the key. You’re a good boy, Link. And you’ve turned into a fine man. There is someone out there just waiting for you to find her. And you know what, you’ll know it’s her because it will take some work to get her to unlock her heart too.”
I nod, more to appease her than in any real agreement. She isn’t fooled.
“Mark my words, Link. She’s out there and I have a feeling she’s on a collision course with you.”
The next twelve days pass in a blur of dinner parties and quiet evenings sitting with Gran, Granddad and Cam. Actually, I’ll add Dad to that list. I spent more time with him in that time period than I had my entire growing up years. We laughed at my childhood exploits, talked about the future and he never, not once, asked me to join the family business.
When he told me he was proud of me, it was one of the greatest moments of my life.
I wish things could have been as drastically different with my mother and other siblings. But they weren’t. Not that they were bad; just stilted and formal. Uptight.
I did start to grow close with one of my nieces, Esmerelda, Charles’ oldest daughter, who will be seven next month. She’s a beauty and as tom-boy as they come. While my nephews sat around and played video games, Essie and I were outside, doing something that often resulted in a skinned knee.
Then the day I’d been dreading came upon us—the day Gran took her last breath. She went peacefully with all of us surrounding her. I don’t know which was harder. Losing her or watching my granddad lose his wife of sixty years.
Two days after her funeral, I find myself at the airport again, saying goodbye to my family and heading back to North Carolina and my life at Ft. Bragg.
“I love you, son,” Dad told me, holding me tight.
“I love you too.”
I made it to the plane and in the little bathroom before I let the hot tears stinging my eyes begin to fall.
I have the feeling Gran would approve.
Opening the door to my home near Ft. Bragg, I dump my bag in the foyer and head straight to the kitchen. There’s a pile of mail on the sparkling counter, thanks to the housekeeper I employ and who lives in the apartment I’d had built over the garage.
I’d found her on the side of the road, holding up a sign ‘will work for food’. Something about the tilt of her chin, the way she connected with me eye to eye made me pull over. I’d spoken to her for two minutes before offering her the job. She and her two sons moved in the next week.
Thumbing through the mail, I came upon a pink envelope with loopy cursive writing that was a little more raggedy than I remembered.
I rip the envelope open and inside is a card…
Open your heart, sweet Link-a-dink.
No regrets.
Love, Gran
Chapter 9 – Grace
Four Months Later…
“I thought I’d find you out here.”
I smile at the sound of my sister’s voice and look down from the barn loft where we’d played so much as children. “You didn’t come out here to roll one, did ya?” I ask her, laughing at the memory.
Faith laughs too, already halfway up the ladder. She gets to the top and sits down beside me, hanging her legs off the side.
When we were much younger—I was about twelve and she
was ten or so—our family grew tobacco and hung it in this barn to cure. One day, bored and with nothing new and exciting to do, Faith and I got the bright idea that we wanted to smoke. So we got a paper bag—the kind you get from the grocery store—and a book of matches and headed straight to the barn.
We pulled several leaves off the stalks, the driest and brittlest we could find. Then we rolled one—a freakin’ big one. Cigar size at least. The perfect size if you were the Jolly Green Giant.
Long story short, Faith went first, just like she always did. I struck the match and lit the end, and POOF! The dang thing went up like a torch. The next thing we know we’re trying to stomp the inferno out before the entire barn goes up in flames. That’s when I noticed my sister’s bangs were mostly gone along with a good percentage of her eyebrows.
“We were so dumb,” she says and shivers in the chilly January air. “We could have been killed a dozen times a year back then.”
I look up at the beams crisscrossing the structure. “Remember when we set up the ropes and tried to have a circus? We hooked up that bar for a trapeze and…” I can’t go on, I’m laughing too hard.
She plasters a hand across her face and groans. “Yes. I still remember falling flat on my back after I didn’t quite make it to you. I seriously thought I was going to d—” she breaks off, her face twisting in self-reproach. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinkin’.”
It’s been like that for the past four months. People walking on tiptoes, afraid that if they say something wrong, I’ll fall apart. I hate appearing that fragile. I’m not.
“Stop it,” I say gently. “Those are good memories. We had a lot of fun in this old barn. Nothing can take that away.”
“I know. It’s just…” She reaches over to squeeze my hand. “You okay?”
Today is my due date. The date little Ryland was supposed to be born. I’d watched the dates tick off on the calendar … one by one by one … knowing this day would come and not knowing how much pain it would bring.
Badass - The Complete Series: A Billionaire Military Romance Page 12
