by Pamela Clare
“Oh, Quinn. I’m so sorry.” Tears shimmered in Paige’s blue eyes, so much like her brother’s. “I thought of you often. I kept you in my prayers at night. We moved first to Aberdeen and then here to Inverness. Ma changed our names so Da couldnae find us. How did you find me?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I used to work for the CIA.”
Paige and David’s eyes went wide.
“I thought of you, too.” Then Quinn told Paige about the night he’d left and joined the army. “I beat Da bloody, so I did.”
“He was a beast when he drank. He deserved it for all the pain he put us through. I’m glad you got away.”
Quinn took a sip of his beer. He’d stopped drinking whisky. “He threw me out, so I joined the army just to have a meal and a place to sleep.”
Paige and David had so many questions. How was SAS selection? Where had he gone? Had he ever been injured in combat? What was it like to work in private security? Did he like Colorado? Had he learned to ski?
Elizabeth listened, relieved that this was going so well, her fingers threaded through Quinn’s. It had been such a long journey for him to this moment. Since the terrible days of last November, she’d watched Quinn learn to trust himself more as a man, not just a fighter. He was so much more at peace with himself, and she hoped that this reunion would help to fill that tender, broken place inside him—the one created by his father’s fists and his mother’s rejection.
As for Paige, she was a delight, a living ray of sunshine.
“No, that scar isnae from combat.” He showed them his arm. “I got that when Jack’s killer—that bastard Lewis—chibbed me last November.”
Whitehall had been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison and would probably never walk free again. Nicola and her father had helped to put him there, giving depositions against him that were used to get a confession with regards to trafficking girls, pornography, and giving drugs to minors. Nicola had also been able to give a deposition about Katie Cameron’s overdose. A jury hadn’t believed Whitehall when he’d claimed not to know about Katie or that Lewis had murdered Jack, especially not after seeing evidence of communications between him and Lewis that discussed both.
The long prison sentence—by Scottish standards, anyway—couldn’t bring Jack back, but it was hard-earned justice.
“Have you ever jumped out of a plane?” Paige asked Quinn.
It was then Elizabeth spotted her—an older woman with a care-worn expression who stood inside the entrance staring straight at Quinn.
Quinn followed her gaze. “Paige, is that Ma over there?”
Paige glanced over her shoulder, her eyes going wide. “I’m so sorry. I dinnae know what she’s doin’ here. I didnae bring her or invite her to come. I’m no’ even sure how she knew where to find us.”
David looked sheepish. “That might be my fault. I told her where we’d be today. I didnae think that she’d decide on her own to show up.”
Elizabeth leaned closer, spoke for Quinn’s ears alone. “You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to.”
But Quinn stood, motioned to her to join them, then sat again. “I know what it feels like to be rejected and left out.”
God, Elizabeth loved him.
Some part of Quinn wanted to get in his mother’s face and tell her exactly what she’d done to him by cutting him out of her life and leaving him with an alcoholic abuser. But the moment he got a good look at her, he felt nothing but pity.
The woman he remembered was gone.
At fifty-three, she looked seventy—and not a healthy seventy, but worn down, weary, broken. She had no teeth, her skin lackluster and sallow, her red hair thinning and streaked with gray.
Paige stood. “You sit here, Ma.”
Quinn didn’t stand but took Elizabeth’s hand, her presence steadying him. “Mother.”
She looked at him, a bit breathless, tears filling her eyes.
Och, he didn’t want her tears.
She ducked her head in a mousy gesture that he recognized as fear. “Yer all grown, a big man now.”
That’s what happens to a boy in twenty-two fuckin’ years.
He thought it but didn’t say it. “This is my fiancée, Elizabeth Shields. Elizabeth, this is my mother, Margaret.”
God, it felt strange to say his mother’s name after all this time.
Elizabeth had sworn she’d cuss his mother out if she ever met her. Instead, she gave her the smile Quinn loved. “Hello, Margaret.”
“Fiancée? So, yer gettin’ wed, are ye? And to an American by her speech.”
“I told you she was American, Ma,” Paige said.
“Och, well, aye, I remember you sayin’ somethin’ aboot it.”
“She used to work for the CIA,” Paige said.
Quinn’s mother gaped at Elizabeth. “Is that no’ too dangerous for a woman?”
Elizabeth laughed, gave Quinn’s hand a squeeze. “No more dangerous than it is for a man, and I enjoy risk.”
His ma looked like she didn’t know what to say to that.
“Quinn was answerin’ all of my questions about his time with the SAS. My big brother is a hero.” Paige filled her mother in on some of the stories Quinn had shared.
But it was clear to Quinn that his mother wasn’t really listening. She seemed agitated, uneasy, her gaze moving over Quinn.
She cut Paige off mid-sentence. “It broke my heart to leave you.”
Sweet sufferin’ shite!
“Ma, I dinnae want to hear it. You—”
“I loved you, but you scared me. You’d come hame and talk aboot the boys in the gang and the fights you’d been in and whose heid you’d busted and who you wanted tae stab. I wanted peace, and you were all fists.”
Her words opened the door to a dark, wounded place inside him. A surge of rage flowed through him—but ebbed as he saw things from her point of view for the first time.
“Ma, please go now.” Paige stood. “You werenae supposed to be here.”
His mother started to stand, her chin quivering, tears in her eyes. “I’ll go. I only wanted tae see you.”
“It’s okay, Paige. Ma, sit.” He waited until she was settled again. “I did talk tough. You’re right. But it was all shite. Mostly, we got drunk. But I talked like that at home because I wanted Da to quit hittin’ us. I wanted him to be afraid for once. I never meant to scare you. I tried to protect you from him, so I did.”
She ducked her head again, nodded. “Aye, I remember that. I tried tae stop you because I knew he’d only take it oot on you. You didnae listen.”
“After you left, I was the only person he could hit. That’s when it really got bad.”
Her face crumpled. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
He heard the apology, some part of him rejecting it. He’d been the child, and she’d been the adult. She ought to have protected him, not left him crying and alone. His tears hadn’t moved her. Why should he feel any sympathy for her now?
“It disnae matter. I got my licks in afore the bastard died. I beat the shite out of him the night I left home. I left him bleedin’, and then I joined the army. I built a new life for myself.”
“Can you forgive me, son?”
Quinn closed his eyes, saw his mother in the doorway, telling him she was leaving him behind. He felt his fourteen-year-old heart break. But that was so long ago.
He opened his eyes. “Aye, Ma. I forgive you.”
His mother closed her eyes, clutched his free hand, relief washing over her face, tears spilling down her cheeks.
When she opened her eyes again, he saw new light shining there, and a weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying lifted from his shoulders.
“You amaze me, Quinn McManus.” Elizabeth lay beside him, the two of them sweaty and spent, the bliss of orgasm fading into a glow.
“Och, well.” He grinned. “It’s my tongue game, aye?”
She laughed, levered herself up so she could see his face. “I’m not talking about your tal
ent for oral sex—though it’s incredible. I’m talking about what you did today. I’m not sure I’d have had the strength to forgive Margaret if she’d been my mother. Then you invited her to our wedding.”
He frowned. “It wisnae easy.”
He told her how angry he’d gotten when Margaret had described how she’d been afraid of him. “A part of me wanted to shout at her, to tell her to get the fuck out, to remind her that I’d been the child and she’d been the adult. But what she said was true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I came home every night after hangin’ with the other South Bank Boys, my pride held together by pure rage. If I could hammer some bastard or threaten him or even pretend that I had, I wisnae the weak one, the boy who got beaten up at home. I would never have hit her or Paige, but how could she have known that for certain?”
Elizabeth’s throat went tight. “The look on her face when you said you’d forgiven her—she came alive, Quinn. I think leaving you haunted her. What you gave her today was nothing less than redemption.”
“That’s what you’ve given me.” Quinn gave her a sleepy smile. “I’m no’ the man I was, and that’s your doin’. You changed me, Lilibet.”
“You did that yourself. It’s that big heart of yours.” She pressed a kiss to his breastbone, tasted the salt of his skin. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve let it guide you, even when it got you into trouble. You’ve become the man you were always meant to be. I love you, Quinn. You’re everything to me.”
His eyes were closed now, afterglow cooling into sleep. He had, after all, outdone himself. “I love you, Lilibet, and I always will.”
Thank You
Thanks for reading Hard Justice. I hope you enjoyed this Cobra Elite story. Follow me on Facebook or on Twitter @Pamela_Clare. Join my romantic suspense reader’s group on Facebook to be a part of a never-ending conversation with other Cobra fans and get inside information on the series and on life in Colorado’s mountains. You can also sign up to my mailing list at my website to keep current with all my releases and to be a part of special newsletter giveaways.
Also by Pamela Clare
Romantic Suspense:
Cobra Elite Series
Hard Target (Book 1)
Hard Asset (Book 2)
Hard Justice (Book 3)
I-Team Series
Extreme Exposure (Book 1)
Heaven Can’t Wait (Book 1.5)
Hard Evidence (Book 2)
Unlawful Contact (Book 3)
Naked Edge (Book 4)
Breaking Point (Book 5)
Skin Deep: An I-Team After Hours Novella (Book 5.5)
First Strike: The Prequel to Striking Distance (Book 5.9)
Striking Distance (Book 6)
Soul Deep: An I-Team After Hours Novella (Book 6.5)
Seduction Game (Book 7)
Dead by Midnight: An I-Team Christmas (Book 7.5)
Deadly Intent (Book 8)
Contemporary Romance:
Colorado High Country Series
Barely Breathing (Book 1)
Slow Burn (Book 2)
Falling Hard (Book 3)
Tempting Fate (Book 4)
Close to Heaven (Book 5)
Holding On (Book 6)
Chasing Fire (Book 7)
Historical Romance:
Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga
Sweet Release (Book 1)
Carnal Gift (Book 2)
Ride the Fire (Book 3)
MacKinnon’s Rangers series
Surrender (Book I)
Untamed (Book 2)
Defiant (Book 3)
Upon A Winter’s Night: A MacKinnon’s Rangers Christmas (Book 3.5)
About the Author
USA Today best-selling author Pamela Clare began her writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor-in-chief of two different newspapers. Along the way, she and her team won numerous state and national honors, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, Clare was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. A single mother with two sons, she writes historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense at the foot of the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Visit her website and join her mailing list to never miss a new release!
Pamela Clare Romantic Suspense Reader’s Group
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