“What are you doing?” I laughed.
“I want to get this started for him,” he said. “I don’t want it to be something looming over him.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“I love you,” he said before turning and walking from the room.
“I love you, too,” I whispered.
I climbed back in the bed and laid there, staring at the ceiling and thinking about my future. I always knew I wanted a business, and now I had one with the man I loved. But even more exciting than building an empire, was the thought of building a family with the man I love. Having those loving arms wrapped around me and our children was a new dream for me, but something I craved to have with Nathan more than anything else. I knew he was going to be a phenomenal father as well as an amazing husband for the rest of my life. Just the vision of the beautiful babies we could have, made me want to get started right away on a family. If my parents could see us now, they would be so excited to know that they would be grandparents. Part of me was sad that I would never share that with them, but the other part of me knew they were there somewhere, guiding me, watching over me, and smiling down at the kind of woman I had turned into.
Bringing a new life into this world and forging an even stronger bond with Nathan was something that I just couldn’t help but smile about. I ran my hands over my belly, thinking about the last few days and thinking that for all I knew, there could be a life starting inside of me as we spoke. The spark of light that turned into a beautiful person could be happening already, and that child would be a child of love and laughter. The child would have been made from pure love of two people that happened to find each other in the strangest place. I knew right then that I had found my happily ever after, and I was never going to let it go.
*** Turn ahead to read “Passion” ***
Passion
Blurb
I am a single dad with needs.
I am also a DEA agent with a huge attitude and a very big…gun.
Four bullets into my body and I am reminded that my little girl needs her dad.
I gotta keep her safe, even if that means leaving this place and getting into my little hometown.
And while we are recovering from the stress of big city, Jenny happens to me.
Jenny, the girl I babysat.
Jenny, the skinny innocent girl that has turned into a voluptuous beauty.
Jenny, whose gorgeous eyes melt my heart…and soul.
And then, I realize Jenny needs my protection too.
I’ll destroy everything in my path to claim her, mark her as mine.
Yes, this DEA agent will do all it takes to keep the two women in his life safe, and happy.
May be, this could turn into our happily ever after.
Who knows?
Prologue
“Get the fuck down!”
I felt the heat of the bullet as it swished past my head and smashed the window behind me into pieces. Glass rained over me as I rolled for cover, my gun held tightly in my hand. I looked to my left where my partner, DEA Agent Raul Garcia, was crouching behind a crate marked FRAGILE. He quickly stood up, fired two shots, and returned to his cover. His efforts were rewarded with a flurry of gunshots that slammed into the crate and the wall above him, showering him in plaster.
Raul looked over at me, frowning in anger.
I’m never going to hear the end of this, I thought.
We had gotten the tip this morning, a major drug deal that was supposed to go down with some major players involved. We had staked the place out for hours, half knowing that nothing was going to happen. For the past few months, our luck had been complete crap. The bad guys were getting a lot more tips than we were, and the DEA was going crazy trying to find out where the leak was.
That’s why it had been a surprise when a van pulled into the warehouse, followed by three cars, all with headlights off. Raul had wanted to call for backup, but I knew exactly what that meant. By the time anyone showed up, the mole would have sent a warning out, and we’d miss our chance. I needed a win. We all did, and I wasn’t going to let these guys slip away.
The only problem was that we were two DEA agents against what had turned out to be a dozen armed, trigger happy assholes who didn’t understand that freeze meant fucking freeze.
At least we broke up the party, I thought, but from the look on Raul’s face, I knew he didn’t feel the same way. Lately, he had been on my case about how reckless I was becoming, and this was the perfect situation he’d call me on later.
A bullet slammed into the wall above my head, and I winced, crouching down lower behind my cover. There was the distinct screech of tires, and I cursed under my breath. The gang was on the run, and the longer we stayed hidden, the less our chances were of coming out of this with anything other than a hit to our egos.
I took a deep breath and dashed across the space between my cover and Raul’s, keeping my head low as more bullets flew past, one grazing the nape of my neck. Raul pulled me down to the ground, stood up and fired, then crouched down again.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” he said.
“Adrenaline, buddy,” I replied. “We live for it, right?”
“We could have waited for backup.”
“You know these assholes would have gotten a warning long before the cavalry got here,” I said.
“Yeah, we’re doing great on our own,” Raul said. “Tell you what? Remind me to rip you a new one when we get out of here.”
I smiled at him, trying my best to ignore the burning pain where the bullet had grazed my neck. I peeked out behind the crate. The van was still there, two men with guns on either side of it and a third lying on the ground dead. At least we had gotten a hit. A few feet away, three more men with guns were loading the trunk of one of the cars with what looked like cocaine packets, racing back and forth between the van and the car as they rushed to finish the deal we had interrupted.
“See that?” I gestured towards a metal staircase a few yards away. “You take the high ground. I’ll cover you.”
Raul looked at the staircase, then back at me. “This is a stupid idea,” he said.
“Come on, big boy,” I said. “You can do this.”
Raul grunted, moved to the edge of the crate and looked back at me, waiting. I nodded at him, and as soon as he broke cover, I was on my feet, firing. The combination took the two men by the van by surprise, and they fired aimlessly, not knowing who to concentrate on. I watched one of them slam into the van and fall in a heap as one of my bullets hit their target, and the other immediately turned to me, yelling as he returned my fire.
I crouched back down and watched Raul race up the stairs. The other men abandoned what they were doing and joined the fire fight, and I watched in horror as they aimed for Raul and fired. I broke cover, aiming my gun at the first of them and taking him down quickly. The others turned their attention back to me, and before I could get out of the way, I felt a sharp pain in my belly.
“Alex!”
I fell to my knees and rolled behind another crate, the pain in my stomach coursing through me like wildfire. It was as if my whole body had been set on fire and my guts were searing. Raul was calling my name over the sound of gunfire, and I quickly reloaded my gun. I looked down, blood spreading across my shirt from where the bullets had hit me. I felt the world around me swim in and out of focus.
There was more shouting, and I heard the sound of the car trunk being slammed shut.
They’re going to get away!
I pushed to my feet and looked around quickly for Raul, but he was nowhere to be found. The gunmen were firing at the walkway above my head, though, and I knew that although I couldn’t see him, Raul was definitely there. I used the distraction and broke cover again, firing at the two men, hitting one of them and sending the other scurrying away. Car tires screeched, and I hurried towards the van, feeling blood seep down the front of my legs as I struggled to keep my eyes from
glazing over.
I raised my gun and fired at the car as it raced out in front of the van, the back window shattering as the car swerved and crashed into a heap of crates, wood exploding around it as it raced out of the warehouse. I fired again, knowing that it was useless, but far too angry and in too much pain to think straight.
I heard the gunshot before I felt the exploding pain in my leg, and I fell to the ground, crying out in pain, my gun flying from my hand. A gunman came out from behind the van just as I was pushing myself up, and fired. The bullet hit my chest and the impact threw me back, my head connecting with the hard, concrete floor.
Another volley of gunfire and the gunman collapsed onto the ground next to me, his dead eyes staring into mine.
The last thing I heard as my eyes closed and darkness took over was the distant sound of Raul yelling my name over and over again.
I was pretty sure I’d never open my eyes again.
Chapter 1: Alex Logan
“Are we there yet?”
I glanced up at my twelve-year-old daughter Kelly in the rearview mirror, her eyes glued to her phone. The frown on her face reflected the frustration I felt at being asked the same question for maybe the tenth time in the last hour, and a part of me wondered if it ever got old.
Whine much, Kelly? I wanted to say, but held my tongue. If there was one thing I had learned over the years, it was that my daughter had a tongue as sharp as mine, and my sarcasm was only going to be returned ten-fold. So, I didn’t reply and returned my attention to the road.
I could hear Kelly shift in the seat, moving about loud enough to reflect her discomfort before she followed it with a deep and annoyingly loud sigh. The trip to Connecticut was taking its toll on the both of us, and between cheap motels and hours on the road, we were this close to snapping at each other.
She’s just a child, Alex.
My wife Janice’s soft voice whispered in my ear. It was so real I turned toward the passenger seat, almost believing I’d find her sitting there.
I let out my own sigh. No, she wasn’t there. She’d never be there again. It was a fact I was still trying to reconcile, her death, even after all these years. I glanced in the rearview mirror at Kelly, the physical clone of her mom. Twelve-year-olds were the new sixteen, and this early bloomer was quickly turning into a miniature copy of yours truly. She had her mom’s beauty and my bad attitude. It was turning out to be a scary combination.
“Dad?”
“We’re an hour away, sweetheart,” I replied, trying to smile as best as I could.
“You said that an hour ago!”
“Then I guess it’s obvious that asking me that question over and over again will get you the same reply,” I shot back.
I caught her in the rearview mirror, rolling her eyes and folding her arms across her chest. “Walking would probably be faster than this.”
“I can always pull over and put that to the test,” I said.
“Or you could step on it, grandpa,” Kelly said.
Whoever said that being a single dad was hard had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Hard didn’t even scratch the surface. No, it was not cute when random women came up to me in the street and oohed and aahed at me after I had spent a night cleaning up baby barf. It was never easy being called into the school because my daughter had punched a classmate, only to get that condescending nod of understanding when I told them that Kelly’s mother was no longer with us. Nothing about raising a little girl alone was easy. And with my job, it only made things more difficult.
You should stop blaming her. It’s not her fault that she had to grow up quickly.
I’d come to hear my wife’s voice more and more over the years, somewhere in the back of my mind, consoling me and telling me that everything was going to be just fine. Deep down, I knew it was only my subconscious trying to let me know that I wasn’t fucking this up too much. But it made it a lot more believable when I used Janice’s voice for these little pep talks. She was the voice of reason to my instinctual desire to shoot first and ask questions later.
You can’t shoot your daughter.
“I know,” I replied to no one in particular.
“What?”
I looked at Kelly and shrugged. “I know I can step on it,” I said. “My leg’s acting up again. Sorry.”
“I can take over if you want,” Kelly said enthusiastically, leaning in between the seats as if I wouldn’t object to her suggestion of letting a twelve-year-old drive.
“Nice try, chipmunk,” I said, giving her a quick look. “I’ll be fine.”
Kelly slumped back into her seat and huffed.
One hour. Just one hour.
I leaned back in my seat, feeling my muscles scream at me, wondering what Kelly would do to me if I stopped for a few minutes to stretch. My leg really was starting to give me hell, the right thigh clenching around my healing bullet wound. Most days I could go a good twenty-four hours without it giving me much stress, but driving for almost two days was not the kind of stress it would let me endure without protest.
I let go of the wheel and rubbed at my thigh, willing the pain to stay at a tolerable level without the need to reach for my pain killers or stop the car. The doctors had told me it would get easier, back when I would wake up screaming from the pain and Kelly would have to help me with the meds because I was in too much agony to do anything for myself.
I looked up at the freckled face of my daughter, her brown hair falling to her shoulders in waves, and her green eyes locked on the phone’s screen. She really had grown too fast. It always surprised me when I thought about it.
And she’s turning into you.
Stubborn, mischievous, and always ready for a fight.
Unfortunately, all true. And being a DEA agent, constantly in the line of fire, didn’t help. My partner, Raul, had always told me to take it easy, to cut back on the workload, to not take the risks I was prone to taking.
“You have a little girl at home, man,” he would always say. “I’m not ready to tell her that her father’s dead because he was being a reckless asshole.”
It was the only way I knew how to do my job, though. I would be lying if I said I didn’t care what happened to me. Being a father changes you, in more ways than one, and I would have gladly given my life for Kelly if I had to. Dammit, I’d kill for her. But sometimes, instinct just kicked in, and for a few seconds, a few stupid seconds, I’d forget that I had a little girl waiting in the neighbor’s apartment for me to come home safe.
Which was probably why the captain had asked me to take a leave.
Or the fact that you had survived four bullets and no one on the force wanted to be the bearer of bad news if things had gone south.
That, too.
I could still remember my conversation with the captain a week ago, when I was finally able to walk on my own two feet again and could trudge into the precinct. I had tried to assure him that I was fine enough to come back to work, maybe even take a desk job for a while. But I wasn’t very convincing, and I doubt the cane I was using to help me get around made it any better. He had literally kicked me out of the office, told me to take a break, stay with family, heal first, then talk about coming back to work.
“And for fuck’s sake, Alex, look after your goddamn daughter!”
It seemed like everyone was always chastising me to be a better dad, telling me what I was doing wrong and what I should be doing right. I appreciated their concern and tolerated their words. What they didn’t seem to understand was that no one chastised me more than myself. I started asking myself what would my dad do?
That’s when I started thinking about going home for a while.
Not home to the house Kelly and I shared on Beaker Street, but home to Connecticut, where I grew up. I had called my father a few days after I took leave and told him we were coming home to visit.
Kelly was great company, usually, but with the start of summer holidays and both of us in each other’s faces all day, the
house was quickly turning into a warzone. I blamed it on puberty, she blamed it on the fact that I wasn’t taking enough meds. Or that I was just being an asshole intent on ruining her life.
It’s like I’m married all over again.
“We could’ve taken a plane, you know,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t say,” I replied. “Jeez, I should’ve thought of that.”
Kelly leaned in again. “You know, sometimes I wonder which one of us is the adult in this relationship.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll pretend to be the father whose credit card pays for all the stuff you have, and you pretend to be the daughter who is always grateful that her father loves her so much to spoil her in every possible way.”
She huffed at me. “Spoils me so much that he’s trapped us in a car for two days?”
“So much that he hasn’t stopped two states back and told the closest trucker to drive you back to Miami,” I replied. “Do you know what happens to little girls whose parents don’t keep their eyes on them all the time?” I looked at her in the rearview and frowned. “Do you know?”
The Valentines Day Proposal Page 72
