“No pressure,” Shawn said immediately, shooting Ryder a sideways glace. “You okay, man? Usually you know when I’m just teasin’ you. I didn’t mean anything by it. Honest.”
“I know,” Ryder replied, frowning at himself. “I just…I don’t know, Shawn. I have this really weird feeling. Like…like right before we made that bust. The one that got us our detective shields. Like I’ve got ants under my skin or, hell, rattlesnakes in my boots. Something just doesn’t feel right.”
Shawn looked over sharply. “You want I should flip the lights? We can be at A.J.’s place in twenty minutes if we fudge the traffic lights. Might be an hour or more if we take the civilian route.”
Ryder started chewing his lower lip, but shook his head slowly. “No. But thanks for offering. My gut isn’t enough reason to make our captain question our antics. Especially not when I’d have to explain why I left my gun at a civilian’s apartment.”
“Your call, man. Just say the word.”
Ryder closed his eyes, searching for a reason his gut was churning right now. Certainly it wasn’t just because he’d made a dumb-shit move like leaving his gun at A.J.’s place. He’d be in for it if his captain found out, but right now that wasn’t a possibility. So why was he so revved up? Why did Shawn’s mentioning A.J. and their potential sexual escapades made him so jumpy?
“Just drive,” Ryder said finally. “We’ll get there when we get there.”
Shawn nodded, but still punched the gas to get them through a yellow light. When Ryder looked over at the man with a raised eyebrow, Shawn just shrugged.
“Your gut ain’t been wrong before. If you say somethin’s up, then somethin’s up. I won’t flip the lights, but I will try to make good time. Deal?”
“Deal,” Ryder said decisively—and hoped he wasn’t making a big mistake.
* * * *
A.J. hit the floor with a loud thud as all the starch went out of his legs. Then little arms were wrapped around his neck, and a warm, beloved body was pressed tightly against his chest.
“Daddy! Daddy! I got to fly on a airplane, Daddy!”
A.J. closed his eyes and buried his face in his son’s sleek black hair, inhaling Tyler’s little-boy scent. “An airplane,” he corrected automatically, wrapping his son up in a bear hug. “You use the word ‘an’ before words that start with a vowel.”
Tyler blew a raspberry, wiggling out of A.J.’s hold and pulling back enough to give him a foreboding five-year-old’s scowl. “Daddy! Don’t correct me!”
A.J. laughed, cupping Tyler’s cheek with a shaking hand and kissing him on the forehead. “Sorry, bug. Force of habit.”
Tyler’s scowl melted instantly, and he went back to strangling A.J. “I missed you!”
“We both did,” said Marian, walking into the apartment and closing the door softly.
A.J. looked up at her over Tyler’s head, staring in open disbelief. “Is…that right?” The question came out skeptical despite his best efforts to remain neutral.
Marian nodded, looking down at her hands, which she kept twisting back and forth. “We flew all this way to see you, A.J. Don’t we even get a ‘hello’?”
“Hello, Daddy!” Tyler answered for him, pulling back with a beaming smile.
A.J. looked back at his son, his own smile growing. “Hello yourself. I hope you were very good for Mommy on that airplane. Virginia to Texas is a long flight.”
Tyler nodded solemnly. “I was good. Mama said we couldn’t come and see you unless I was good. But here were are, so I was good. I promise.”
A.J. laughed. “I believe you.” He looked up at Marian. “But I am curious as to why you’re here. Especially given the judge’s order, Marian. The one you specifically requested.” The one that took my parental rights away and banned me from ever seeing my son again.
“But she told you!” Tyler insisted. “We missed you!”
Marian gave him a weak smile. “Could we…talk, A.J.?”
A.J. nodded uneasily, but managed a sincere smile when he looked back at Tyler. “I have some games set up on my computer. Would you like to see?”
Tyler’s little-boy nod was explicit enough to almost knock him over. “Yes! I missed your games!”
A.J. got to his feet and took one of Tyler’s little hands, reveling in the feel of having those small fingers curled within his own once again. God, he’d missed this. Just simple, loving contact with the child of his body, the boy who looked up to him and thought his father could do no wrong. Almost choking himself in his effort to stop tearing up, A.J. gave Marian a look over his shoulder and said, “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded. A.J. saw her look around and notice the moving boxes for the first time, her look of surprise genuine—and full of uncertainty. Good. She hadn’t known he was moving. Which meant she wasn’t here to berate him for his relationship with Ryder and Lyss.
That was the very last thing he needed right now.
A.J. got his son started playing Angry Birds on the computer, making sure to point out several other games the boy could play if he got tired of knocking over smirking green pigs. Tyler squealed his delight when his first shot destroyed the entire structure, making A.J. smile and have to choke back more tears. Clearing his throat, he kissed the boy’s head and promised to return as soon as he could so they could have a pig-bashing tournament. Tyler agreed happily, his attention now fully engaged in the game.
Shows me how much I matter, A.J. thought with a wry snort. Angry Birds trumps Daddy any day of the week when you’re five years old.
Ah, well. Time to get down to business—like finding out why Marian was here. Especially when she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she hoped he died and burned in hell, and sooner rather than later.
He found her standing on the welcome mat where he’d left her, still wringing her hands. She looked beautiful as ever, although painfully thin. Of course, A.J. had gotten used to Lyss’s voluptuous curves, so Marian’s boy-straight hips and A-cup breasts weren’t exactly appealing anymore. Then again, he’d never really been attracted to her, had he? The thought was sobering.
“Would you like something to drink?” A.J. asked, trying to be a good host. “I can make coffee, or there’s lemonade in the fridge.” He was not about to offer her one of Ryder’s beers, or the strawberry-kiwi juice he’d bought for Lyss.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.” Her eyes trailed around the room, taking in the towers of boxes, the empty shelves and bare furniture. “So…you’re moving?”
“Yeah, I’m moving. In fact, if you’d shown up tomorrow instead of today, you would have found the place empty.” He paused significantly. “Why are you here, Marian? Considering the way we parted, I figured you’d rather take poison than ever suffer my presence again.”
Marian winced, looking down again. “I…I know we parted on a sour note. And…I’m sorry for that, A.J. Truly, truly sorry.”
He laughed outright. Couldn’t’ help it. “A sour note? Seriously? Is that what you call screaming at me at the top of your lungs? Threatening to have me thrown in jail for the rest of my life if I dared to bring my tainted self near you or Tyler ever again? That qualifies as a ‘sour note’ in your book?”
Marian started picking at a loose thread on her jacket. “I was angry,” she whispered. “I was so, so very angry at you, A.J. I wanted you to hurt as much as I did. I said those awful things because…because I thought it would make me feel better.”
“And did it?” A.J. said flatly.
She stared at him, eyes tear-bright…and she shook her head. “No. And I am sorry. I know that doesn’t excuse my behavior…but, I wanted you to know that.”
“So you flew here all the way from Virginia just to tell me that?” he said derisively, not giving her an inch. “Well, thanks, I guess, though you could have saved yourself the plane ticket and just made a phone call. And as much as I appreciate you bringing Tyler with you, we both know you could call the cops right now and have me arrested for viola
ting a restraining order. Won’t matter to them that you’re the one who brought him here. I’m still the one that gets to go to jail. Was that your plan? Did you come all this way just to rip my heart out again?”
“No!” she nearly shouted, balling her fists at her sides. Tears were running down her cheeks, but for the first time since he met her, A.J. didn’t have any urge to comfort her. Well, would you look at that? I finally moved on.
“Then why are you here?” he demanded.
Marian wiped her face, smearing mascara down her cheek. “To talk to you. To…apologize. And to…to let you know that…I asked the judge to remove the order. You can see Tyler now, A.J. You can come home and see him any time you want.”
“Don’t fucking toy with me,” A.J. snarled. “Don’t fucking do it, Marian.”
She gave him a woeful, pleading look. “I’m not toying with you. I promise. I realized I made a mistake, and—”
“A mistake?” A.J. yelled incredulously. “You ruined my entire life, took my son away from me forever, and threatened to let me rot in prison if I ever came near you again, and now you’re saying it was just a mistake?”
“I was angry at you!” she cried, dashing yet more tears from her eyes. “God, A.J., I was so very angry. You have no idea what it was like for me. The first time I woke up in the middle of the night and saw you were moaning in your sleep, I thought maybe…maybe you were dreaming about me. But when I touched you, you woke up…and the disappointment on your face was devastating. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? To have my husband dream about…about having s-sex…and then immediately lose interest the moment I touched him? It went on for years, A.J.! Years where I tried to ignore it, tried to pretend it didn’t matter, it was just a dream.”
A.J. tried to calm himself, tried to see this from her perspective. “I’m sorry about that much,” he said grudgingly. “I told you that a year ago. I had no control over my dreams, Marian. And I had no control over how you felt about my dreams. What, exactly, did you expect me to do?”
She shook her head, not looking at him. “I don’t know what I expected you to do. I kept thinking if I tried hard enough, you’d stop…or, at least, stop dreaming about someone else. But…you didn’t. And I started to wonder…to believe…”
“That I was sleeping with someone else in reality instead of just my dreams,” A.J. finished for her, his voice back to flat and lifeless. “Yes, we went over this. In court, and outside of it.”
Marian sighed, looking up at him with lashes that were clumped together with tears, mascara dripping down her cheeks. She still wears too much makeup, came the inane thought.
“A.J.…I really am sorry I made all those accusations. I really am. But I was hurt. So damn hurt. And then…when you told me about…about Ryder…”
“You condemned me for an unclean pervert,” he said harshly. “You condemned me in open court, Marian.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know I did. And I’m sorry for that, too. But, like I said…”
“You were angry,” A.J. finished tiredly. “All right, fine. You were angry at me. And now you say you’re sorry. Fine, whatever, glad you got that off your chest. But all that doesn’t explain why you’re here. We’re divorced, Marian. That’s not going to change.”
She stared at him with her mouth hanging open, looking almost…stunned. As if she’d expected A.J. to come crawling back, beg her to take him home. Was the woman insane? After all she’d put him through? After everything she did to ruin his life, did she actually think he would want her back?
But if she’d shown up six months ago…hell, six weeks ago…he would have done it. A.J. pushed that knowledge away quickly.
Finally, after a tense silence, Marian whispered, “Did you ever love me?”
A.J. sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before letting his hands fall to his sides. “Does it matter now? It’s over, Marian. It was over the moment you kicked me out. I’ve moved on, okay? And while I am grateful that you decided to let me see my son again, that doesn’t mean that we’ll be getting back together, if that’s what you were hoping. I live here now. My life is here now. I’d be happy to work out a shared custody deal, so Tyler could spend six months out of the year with me, but…”
“You bastard!” Marian screamed, catching A.J. off-guard. “We come all this way to see you, and you act like it’s no big deal? How can you stand there and be so heartless? I still love you A.J.! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
A.J. opened his mouth to answer her, but Tyler’s high-pitched voice interrupted him. “No, Mommy!” The boy raced into the room and wrapped his little arms around A.J.’s knees, glaring at his mother. “Don’t yell at Daddy! You might make him leave, and I don’t want him to leave!”
A.J. loosened Tyler’s grip and picked the boy up, balancing him on one hip. “Oof!” he said playfully, giving his son a mock-scowl. “You’ve gotten so big. Have you been eating rocks again?”
Tyler giggled, throwing his arms around A.J.’s neck. “Just the little ones,” he said, grinning at his own joke.
A.J. snorted, kissing Tyler’s forehead. “Uh, huh. I think you were eating the big rocks again. You’ve gotten so big in the last year.” He glared at Marian as he passed her on his way back to his office. “Come on, bug. Let’s get you set up on another game. Mommy should go get a cup of coffee or something. I’ll be right back.”
Marian nodded, expression sour as A.J. whisked his son back into the office. This time he sat with Tyler in his lap, and the two of them spent a few minutes gleefully snuffing out the evil green pigs in a few of the harder Angry Birds levels. But A.J. didn’t feel comfortable leaving his ex-wife alone for long, so he found another game that might keep Tyler occupied for a few minutes and left the boy alone again, this time closing the office door. It wouldn’t help much, but maybe if he and Marian could keep the volume down on their arguments, the boy wouldn’t be tempted to intervene again.
The moment A.J. walked into his kitchen, he realized he’d made a huge mistake telling Marian to go in there. She stood next to the counter, holding A.J.’s phone in one hand—and his collar in the other.
“What…the fuck…is this?” Marian hissed the last word, her voice deadly like a snake. She glared at him, holding the collar up. “Is this what I think it is?”
A.J. sighed. “Look, that’s none of your business…”
“And what about this?” she shouted, ignoring him. Marian looked at the phone and read off, “Love you, A.J. Love you to the end of the earth and back. Love you forever. You are mine.” Her face was suffused with black rage. “From a person named Ryder. Ryder?”
“Marian…”
“The same Ryder you used to fuck in your sleep?” Marian screamed. “The same Ryder you fucked in college? The same man that tore our marriage apart?”
“Ryder didn’t tear our marriage apart,” he protested hotly. “You did that, Marian. All by yourself.”
But she wasn’t listening. “Are you telling me that you moved here to be with him? The moment I divorced you, you moved to Houston so you could be with your sick man-fucking boyfriend? Didn’t take you long, did it? Were you hoping I would divorce you, A.J.? Were you just waiting for an opportunity to abandon me and your son so you could be with your sicko freak lover again?”
“Abandon you?” A.J. yelled, taking an aggressive step into the kitchen. He yanked the collar out of her hand and tossed it aside. “You’re the one who kicked me out! How the fuck is that abandoning you?”
But she was off in her own delusional world. “You never loved me, did you? The whole time we were together, you were dreaming about that sick fuck. And now you’re here with him. Fucking him again. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” The last came out as shrieking howl loud enough to rattle the windows.
“Goddamn it, Marian, just listen to me for once in your life…”
“No! No! I will never listen to a sick pervert like you ever again!” She started pacing, gripping A.J.’s phone like
she wanted to break it in half. “God, to think I convinced myself I was wrong. That you weren’t a freak. That you did love me. We came all this way to bring you back home, and now I find that everything I once thought about you was true! You are a freak! You are a sick pervert! You disgust me!”
“Then leave,” A.J. said quietly. He waited for her wild eyes to meet his before continuing. “Leave, Marian. But you can leave Tyler here. I didn’t fight you before. I should have. Now that he’s here, though, I’m not letting you take him back. You’re unstable…”
“Unstable!” she shrieked. “Unstable? Oh, that’s rich, coming from a sick fuck like you!” And she marched past him, heading into the living room. For a split-second, A.J. thought she was headed for the door, that she was indeed going to leave without Tyler.
He should have known better.
Because right at that moment, he heard a sound that stopped his heart. Metal sliding over wood, then the click-thunk of a gun safety being removed. A.J. took a step toward the living room—
And came face-to-face with the muzzle of a gun.
Ryder’s gun. Ryder’s piece, which he’d left on the side table. Marian had seen it. She knew guns. She was an undercover security officer for the FBI, after all. A Glock fit perfectly in her small hand, and her aim was deadly.
And right now, she was aiming for A.J.’s head.
Chapter 22
“Let’s just…calm down,” A.J. said softly.
“You be calm,” Marian growled. She slowly, deliberately, cocked the hammer.
A.J. held his hands up and out in the universal sign of surrender. “All right, Marian. All right. You’re in charge, now. Let’s just try and talk this out, okay?”
“I’m done talking to you,” Marian said, her voice gone hushed and gravelly, filled with soul-deep pain. “I wasted my life on you, A.J. I wasted my love on you. You never loved me, did you? Never.”
Saints United [For Love of Authority 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 27
