Breaking Out (Military Romantic Suspense) (SEAL Team Heartbreakers Book 6)

by Teresa Reasor

  “I’ll check on him,” Doug said after a moment, and left the room.

  “I have chess pie for desert,” Sondra said with a strained smile.

  “I’m full as a tick, Mom. Why don’t you go rest and let Kathleen and me deal with the dishes? We can have some dessert later, after the rest of our food has settled.”

  “Kathleen’s a guest, Cal.” Stress had tightened the skin around Sondra’s eyes and mouth.

  “I didn’t come to be an added responsibility, Mrs. Crowes. I came to be of help.” And because she hadn’t wanted to be apart from Cal a day longer than she had to be. “Since Doug and Cal are busy during the day, I thought I might help you around the house, run errands, grocery shop, whatever you need done. I know you’ll need to do some work for the company while I’m here, and I can stay with Mr. Crowes so you won’t have to leave him alone. I did the same for my mother when my grandmother was ill.”

  A battle waged behind Sondra’s pleasant features. “I wasn’t expecting…”

  “Cal will be busy, and Jameson will require someone to be here. I knew that before I came. I don’t expect to be entertained.”

  Sondra’s shoulders dropped. “I appreciate it. Thanks so much for offering. Please call me Sondra.”

  Kathleen smiled. “Deal.”

  Doug wandered back in. “He’s already nodding off. You need me to do anything before I take off, Mom?”

  “No. You want to take some pie home with you?”

  “I’ll swing by at lunchtime tomorrow to check on Dad and get a piece then.” He brushed Sondra’s cheek with his lips. “Thanks for dinner. Good to see you again, Kathleen.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” She hadn’t yet decided how she felt about Doug, knowing what he had tried to do to Cal the week before. Had it truly only been a little over week? A cramp of hurt and outrage settled in the pit of her stomach every time she thought about it. Following through with the urge to slap him upside the head and demand, “What the fuck were you thinking?” might have helped resolve the issue for her. But she couldn’t do it with his mom standing there. And she doubted he or Cal had told Sondra about the confrontation.

  Cal shot Kathleen a smile, then drew his mother out of her chair “I’ll bring a glass of wine to your room. I noticed a book on the table in the family room. I can get it for you, if you’d like to read.”

  Kathleen stacked the dishes and carried them into the kitchen. She’d already begun to load the dishwasher when Cal swept in a few minutes later with the platter holding the remnants of the baked chicken and the bowl of potatoes. He caught her around the waist and snuggled in close against her from behind. “Have I told you lately how fantastic you are?” He nuzzled her neck.

  “I haven’t heard words to that effect in at least a week.”

  “After we’ve dealt with the dishes, maybe we can slip into your room and I can show you how fantastic you are.”

  Kathleen’s heart rate kicked into hyperdrive, and a tingling heat settled in deep to taunt her. “Sounds like a wonderful, idea and completely contrary to what your mother had in mind when she suggested separate rooms.”

  “What my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her. She’s stretched out in her room—on the other end of the house—with a glass of wine and her book, and Dad’s asleep in his chair in his den.”

  “You’d better finish clearing the table if we’re going to have a few minutes alone.”

  “I’m on it.” He slipped back into the dining room so quickly she stifled a chuckle.

  They had the pots and pans washed and the dishwasher loaded and set into action in record time.

  “Let me show you your room,” Cahan said snagging her hand and tugging her out the kitchen door, through the living room, and down the hall. “This is my room, in case you want to visit in the wee hours of the morning.” Kathleen took in the brown, black, and cream comforter covering the queen-size bed with its decidedly masculine look, and the open-weave brown curtains hung on either side of the sliding glass doors leading out to the pool. Throw rugs lay scattered on the dark hardwood floors.

  “The next room down on this side was Doug’s. And this is your room.” He drew her across the hall. The guest room was decorated in shades of aqua and had a relaxing coolness to the décor. A white over-stuffed comforter with matching pillows covered the queen-size bed. Rugs braided in a chevron design of different shades of blue from aqua to navy stretched next to the side of the bed and in front of the dresser, with a braided wall hanging made of different colors of jute hung behind the bed.

  Nightstands flanked each side of the headboard, and cylindrical glass table lamps glowed on each one. The overhead ceiling light matched.

  Her suitcase sat on a bench-like ottoman at the foot of the bed with her laptop case. Through an open doorway to the left gray tile gleamed on the floor and walls of a bathroom.

  “It’s a beautiful room. I know I’ll be comfortable.”

  He nudged the door closed, drew her in and kissed her with slow, lingering thoroughness. Kathleen leaned into him with a sigh of homecoming and wrapped her arms around him.

  When he raised his head she read tenderness and desire in his expression. He pulled the pins free holding her hair into the twist and tucked them into his shirt pocket. He ran his fingers through her hair. “Lie with me.”

  He flipped the comforter down. Kathleen slipped her shoes off and wiggled back onto the bed. Cal tugged his tennis shoes off and joined her.

  He drew her close, and his sigh said more than any action he could have taken or word he could have spoken.

  “When I asked you to come, I hadn’t thought past you just being here with me for a few days. I don’t think I considered what it would be like with my dad sick and mom worn down from it.”

  “My grandmother has diabetes. She had to go through heart surgery to repair a valve, and my mom cared for her the whole time. So I came knowing how it would be. It’s going to take him more than a year to recover, and then the damage to his heart might still slow him down.”

  “I figured as much.” He drew a deep breath. “We have five crews working on five projects right now. I just started a new one today. Doug can’t handle all of them alone, but he’s coming along. And Dad can still supervise some once he’s up to it.”

  Kathleen ran her palm back and forth over his T-shirt-covered chest. “I know you’re torn in two different directions right now. The life you have back in San Diego, and the responsibility to family here. This is what you expected to have five years ago, Cal. You’ve proven you can do it.”

  “All I ever wanted was for my Dad to acknowledge that I could still do the job. Now he’s seen that I can, but it’s been forced down his throat. God, he’s such a hard-headed son of a bitch. And the way he talks to Mom….”

  “Doug keeps his head down and avoids rocking the boat. Your Dad’s afraid to take you on right now, because he knows you can walk away again. And he’s smart enough to know he needs you more than you need him. Your mom is the only one he knows will take it and stay.”

  “I wish she wouldn’t. Maybe if he sat here alone, hurting and abandoned, for a few days, he’d wake up to what he has and appreciate it.”

  He’d stepped away from his family and experienced the same thing. Alone, hurting from the loss of his leg, and feeling abandoned by his family, he’d started a new life and come through it stronger.

  “Are you saying that because you want your father to experience just a little of what you went through, or because you’re worried about your mom?”

  Cal cast a narrow-eyed glance down at her and remained silent for a moment. “Maybe a little bit of both, but mostly it’s for my mom’s sake. If I ever talk to you the way he does her, smack me upside the head.”

  Kathleen laughed. “Trust me, I will.” She snuggled closer. “You’re so like your father. The way you gesture with your hands. The tone of your voice. The shape of your jaw.” She ran the backs of her fingers along his cheek and chin. “And you can be just
as hardheaded.”

  He shot her a look and she smiled.

  “You know you can. But you’re a better man, because you have an empathy for other people he may lack…which you learned because of everything you’ve been through.”

  “I’ve also had some distance from my family, and from him. It’s made me recognize how dictatorial he’s always been, and how we’re responsible for creating the monster by going along with what he wanted without ever bucking him.”

  “He’s not calling the shots now, though. Maybe the experience will encourage him to change.”

  “Maybe.” There was doubt in his expression.

  “We had a meeting at work before I left. It was a kind of intervention on my behalf.”

  His brows rose.

  “I’ve been having some adjustment issues at the office. Being over-careful with what I say and how I act. Tyler asked me to sit down and explain to them about…what had happened…so we could clear the air and bond a little. So I did.”

  Cal’s concern was palpable. “How did it go?”

  “It went well. I felt better afterward, and now they’re a little more relaxed around me. They’re trying very hard to make me more a part of the team. Show me I don’t have to always be on guard with everything I say and do.”

  “I’m glad.” His brushed her forehead with his lips and drew her against his body. “You were born to do what you do, Kathleen. I don’t want anything to hold you back from making your mark in your field.”

  “I’ve gone back on my meds, Cal. And I’ve started seeing Dr. Dowling again.”

  “Whatever it takes, Kathleen. Making a conscious choice to take control is a huge step.”

  She narrowed her eyes and studied him. “You knew, didn’t you? Why didn’t you say something to me?”

  “I learned, when I was going through it myself, that the more you push someone to do something, the more resistant they become, especially if it has to do with doctors and medication. You’re so take-charge where your work is concerned, I knew it would only take a little while for you to realize you needed to take charge of other things, too. But just because I didn’t say anything doesn’t mean I wasn’t keeping a close eye on you for the past couple of months.”

  Her feelings of anxiety had been worse for exactly that length of time. Just about the time Zach started mentioning another deployment. Cal had started spending nearly every night at her apartment about the same time, too. He’d been calling her during her lunch break every day. Why hadn’t she noticed? Because she’d been tied up in her head with the struggle. “I won’t resent you if you mention things like that to me. I’ll know you’re saying it out of love.”

  “I knew you’d turned a corner when I saw you dressed in red at the airport. You were strutting your stuff, and guys were turning around to follow your progress while you wove through the crowd. And I thought what a lucky guy I am. Want me to show you?”

  She slid her arms around his neck and drew him down to her. “Always.”

  His hand slid up her leg from knee to thigh, dragging up her skirt. His hand felt hot against her bare bottom he palmed, then kneaded it. His pupils expanded, darkening his pale blue-green eyes. “I love it when you wear a thong. It makes it so much easier for me to touch you. He slid a hand around to caress her through the thin scrap of fabric.

  Her body quickened to his touch, and she cupped him through his pants.

  Cal brushed his lips along her cheek to her ear. “You’re already wet for me.”

  “You’re already hard for me,” she replied, and unbuttoned the top of his jeans and unzipped his fly one-handed. She reached in to free him.

  “We’ll do a more thorough job of this later, but I need to be inside you right now, Kathleen.”

  “I need you to be inside me.” She wiggled free of the thong while he pulled his jeans down. When he moved between her legs, she was ready for him. He thrust inside her, and they both sighed in pleasure and relief. She cupped his buttocks and rolled her hips.

  “Jesus, Kathleen. You feel so good.”

  She was too breathless to say anything when he started moving inside her. With each thrust he hit the spot inside that drove her pleasure higher. She ran her hands up under his shirt to caress his back, the muscles working beneath her hands. He felt strong, solid, and everything she wanted, needed.

  She tightened around him, and his thrusts became intent, his expression focused, his features hardening as his orgasm approached.

  His movements became sharper, deeper, and shoved her over the edge into an intense, sweeping pleasure, leaving her fingers and toes tingling. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. He thrust twice more, and she felt the answering pulse of his release.

  As he rested between her thighs and braced himself up on his elbows, she looked up into his face and knew she’d do anything to stay with him, wherever he might be. She felt whole when she was with him.

  She pressed a kiss to his throat against the heavy pulse beating just there. “I love you, Callahan.”

  “Thank, God. I was worried you might be keeping me around just for sex.”

  His slow grin triggered her laughter.

  He withdrew from her gently and paused to give her a sweet kiss before climbing off the bed. “Let’s go for a swim, then we’ll chow down on the best chess pie in Texas.”

  “Is it really that good?”

  “Yeah. It’s Mom’s specialty desert, and she’s spent years perfecting it.”

  “I’ll need to work off dinner before I eat it, then. So a swim sounds like the perfect solution.”

  He tucked everything in, buttoned, and then zipped his pants. He offered her a hand up. She tugged her skirt down, then reached for the thong lying in the center of the bed. Callahan jerked it up and out of reach, then shoved it into his jeans pocket.

  Having his mother put them in separate rooms was a clue that Sondra cared about appearances. The discovery of her thong in Callahan’s room would breach the ‘don’t force me to acknowledge you’re having sex’ rule.

  Kathleen eyed him. “You aren’t serious.”

  “You can come collect it later, unless you want my mom to find it.” He brushed his lips against hers and sauntered out of the room.

  Chapter 30

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  Piper paced the short, narrow span behind her desk, and tried to take deep breaths to settle the nervous nausea threatening to overwhelm her. She could have just waited and asked her mother. It was a simple question.

  But anything to do with the trial upset her. The entire family avoided even mentioning it in front of her. She’d been through enough.

  She couldn’t ask her brothers or sister. They shut her down every time she brought it up.

  The trip to city hall to find out the name of David Henderlight’s lawyer during his trial had panned out. To avoid speaking to the man, she’d tried to get a transcript of her father’s trial, but it would be months before she would get it, and it would cost a lot of money.

  Her phone calls to the lawyer remained unreturned until her fifth and final try in the last three days. And now she had to answer the freaking phone.

  It wasn’t like she was talking directly to David. This was just the man who represented him after he was busted with a trunk full of drugs.

  “I can’t talk to you about David Henderlight’s case, Dr. Bertinelli. Even though I no longer represent him, I’m still bound by attorney-client privilege.”

  The impatience in the man’s voice did nothing to ease her discomfort. “I don’t want you to discuss the case, Mr. Brittain. I just need to know about something he told the police during questioning. He said he gave me twenty-five thousand dollars in a backpack in the back of my car, but he never specified what kind of car he put it in. I was driving my mother’s car at the time, and she was driving mine. I just need to know which car he put it in.”

  “Dr. Bertinelli, I’m not at liberty to share information about my past client.”

  “The transcript o
f my father’s trial is thousands of pages long, Mr. Brittain. I was only there at the trial part of the time. And I wasn’t there to witness David’s testimony. They wouldn’t allow me in the courtroom during that time. It will take me three months to get a copy. I just need to know what car he put the money in.”

  “He said it was in a small black backpack, and he put it in the back of your car, an Equinox. The back was open, and it was sitting in the driveway. He put the backpack in the car and shut the rear door. He was adamant about having given you the money.”

  “The police searched my car, Mr. Brittain. I hadn’t driven it during the two weeks before my father was killed because I was trying to avoid David. I was driving my mother’s Altima during that time, so he wouldn’t know when I was at my apartment.”

  “I don’t know about any of that. All I know is David testified that he put the backpack with the money in it into the back of your car, the car you usually drove.”

  Piper felt like she was going around and around in circles. “I never found the money. I never had it. I’ve told everyone who will listen. I’ve been investigated time after time about it.”

  “So why are you asking about it now?”

  “The detective who investigated my father’s death harassed me about the money, stalked me. I had to file a civil rights suit against him to get him to leave me alone. And now he’s back at it again. I’m trying to find out what happened to the money to so I can get him off my back for good.”

  “What’s this guy’s name?”

  “Detective Samuel Lester.”

  “You won the civil liberties suit?”

  “Yes. And he was investigated by internal affairs and suspended for four months without pay.”

  “If he’s stepped on your civil rights, Dr. Bertinelli, chances are he’s done it before. Maybe you should call a few more lawyers and spread the word. Turn up the heat on him.”

  “I don’t exactly run in the same circles he does, Mr. Brittain. I wouldn’t even know the names of the people he’s investigated, let alone their lawyers. And even if I did, I’m not sure I could approach them.”