DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  Not that this even compared to that.

  “I’d like for you to come back to Dragon,” I said as I stood. “If you’re interested. I know it would be complicated, but—”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  I wanted to touch her again, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know how. My heart was so heavy as I walked out of that room. I turned into Luke and buried my face against his chest, sobbing like I hadn’t done in a very long time.

  Why had it worked out this way? Why couldn’t Hayden find a little happiness for once in his long, miserable life?

  Why couldn’t we all march off into that happily ever after that my daughter Samantha’s books promised her?

  Why couldn’t life be a fairy tale?

  ***

  Hayden

  I sat beside her in the darkness, holding her hand gently. Waverly looked peaceful in sleep, in spite of her battered face. I couldn’t keep myself from leaning over to kiss her eyes and lips and cheeks repeatedly, reassuring myself over and over that she was alive.

  Alive but not well.

  I’d failed her, just like I’d failed Sam.

  Every woman I loved eventually wound up broken. I just couldn’t do that to Waverly. It crushed my heart but walking away was the only thing I knew to do to make sure she stayed safe.

  As dawn began to lighten the clouds outside the hospital window, I leaned down and kissed Waverly’s pale face once more.

  “I love you,” I whispered for the first time. “Please don’t hate me. Stay safe, Waverly.”

  I slipped a short note onto the nightstand, explaining. Then I lifted her hand to my lips and stroked her limp fingers, pressing them to my damp cheek.

  When the threat of daylight was to imminent to ignore, I finally left Waverly’s room and walked far away. As far away as I knew how, to keep the woman I loved safe.

  Chapter 23

  Waverly

  I set the box with my things on the corner of the desk, looking around this room that had belonged to me for four years. It was mine again, for better or for worse.

  It’d taken a lot of soul searching for me to finally call Megan and take her up on her offer to come back to Dragon. The idea of seeing Hayden in a business setting every day again made my chest physically hurt. I’d thought I was having a heart attack the first time, but the doctor assured me it was only an anxiety attack. Understandable under the circumstances, he’d said.

  He had no idea.

  But working at Dragon had been the most interesting job I’d ever had. Nothing else challenged me the way Dragon did. And the alternative was sitting at home, creating the odd smart phone app, watching the money just fall into my bank account. As exciting as that might seem to other people, it bored the shit out of me. That was not how I saw my life unfolding.

  So I was back. This was where I’d been happy before Hayden. This was where I’d be happy despite Hayden.

  Besides the short note I’d woken up to in the hospital, I hadn’t heard from him in six weeks. Long enough for the breaks in my face to heal, for the swelling and bruising to recede. For my face to begin to look something like normal, with the exception of a new little bump on the bridge of my nose that the plastic surgeon had wanted to fix, but I had decided I liked. It was a badge of honor, proof that I’d survived the worst the world could throw at me. It was a reminder that I was strong.

  I moved around the back of the desk and took a seat in my office chair. The room looked too bare. It would take time to build back up the décor I’d perfected my first year here. I’d modify it a little, allowing it to reflect the changes that had taken place in me.

  I pulled the box toward me and began to empty it of its contents. A blotter I could jot notes on when working. A stack of pens and pencils in a coffee cup with a funny comment on the front, something about needing to have an IV of coffee administered every morning. More pens, more paper, a notebook ready to write down complicated passwords, another notebook already full of complicated passwords. I opened the center drawer of the desk and dropped the pens in there, opened the top right drawer and … stopped.

  There was a jeweler’s box sitting in the center of the drawer.

  I picked it up, wondering how my replacement had managed to forget something so important when he packed up his things to vacate to his new office on the second floor. But then I opened it and knew it wasn’t his.

  “I wrestled with the best way to give it to you and finally just took the chicken’s way out.”

  I pulled my eyes from beautiful gold band with a scattering of teeny sapphires and found Hayden leaning against the door jamb, watching me with caution in his eyes.

  I couldn’t hide the joy or the fury in my voice, anymore than I could keep myself from taking an automatic step toward him.

  “Why would you give this to me? This is a gift for someone you love. You don’t know how to love, Hayden. You proved that when you abandoned me.”

  He didn’t answer right away. His eyes fell to the floor and he visibly struggled before speaking. “You’re right. I don’t have the slightest idea how to love anymore, if I ever did in the first place. After Sam died, I decided to eliminate love from my life. I hated you for forcing it back in front of my eyes, Waverly. Seeing you every day made me crazy.”

  My voice shook. “If that’s your idea of an apology, you can go back to wherever you came from.”

  “I came from hell,” he said almost inaudibly. Then he raised his eyes to mine and I took back the step I’d moved forward, not daring to believe what I was seeing. “You brought me back, Waverly.”

  Hayden’s deep voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat and his fists balled slightly. “I can stand here and offer apologies for the next ten years. I owe you that many, for how I treated you initially and for walking out when you needed me most. I could say I’m sorry for not being the man I should have been, and I am.” His eyes closed briefly before reopening, the sheen of moisture that had taken my breath away now even more visible.

  “But words can only do so much. Let me show you instead how sorry I am, Waverly.” He nodded his head vaguely at the beautiful ring.

  I’ve bought plenty of jewelry in my time. Bracelets and necklaces. Megan still wears the little diamond pendant I gave her one birthday years ago. But I’ve only bought two rings.” He reached up to run his fingers through his hair. “The first was an amethyst ring because it was her birthstone. I carried it in my pocket for days. And then I wore it on a chain for years, keeping it close to my heart like some sort of talisman that kept my grief fresh and constant. I only took it off because of you.”

  He started across the room slowly, stopping just short of my arm’s reach.

  “This one I bought because I was afraid. I hate being afraid. I hate not being in control of my life and the people around me. I hate not knowing what the future holds. And I hate the knowledge that I am vulnerable, that I can’t control whether you will always love me, whether you will live longer than me, whether you’ll always want to be with me. I thought I couldn’t live in a world where I didn’t have that sort of control.”

  His voice broke a little there at the end of his sentence, cracking as he said that final word. Control. I set the ring on the desk and looked up at him, seeing a dance of emotion on his face I never thought I’d see there. He was stone, this man I loved. He was a pillar of strength. Nothing fazed him, not even the horrors that had made up his life.

  But suddenly I could see the cracks that made up his façade. Suddenly he was no longer a pillar of stone. He was just a man.

  The man I loved.

  “I couldn’t look at you lying on that hotel room bed. I couldn’t touch you and know that you were okay. This time. I couldn’t accept that there might be a next time and that next time you might not stir when I said your name. I had to get out of there. I had to protect myself from the pain I knew was coming.”

  “But Hayden—”

  He held up hi
s hand. “Please,” he said in a tortured voice. “Let me finish.”

  I lowered my head, gesturing for him to continue.

  “But what I realized in the weeks that I’ve been away is that it’s not all about me.”

  He came around the desk and knelt in front of me, taking both my hands in his.

  “It wasn’t about my pain when you got hurt, just like it wasn’t about my terror the night you were almost raped. I should have walked straight up to you that night and held you for the next year. Just like I should have climbed into your hospital bed and not budged until they discharged you.

  “It was about you needing your man there, Waverly. And I wasn’t. But I will be from here on out, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me just one more time. Can you forgive the man who loves you, Waverly?”

  I shook my head, unable to take in the words I’d given up on ever hearing. “I don’t believe that,” I said through the tears that were blocking my throat. “If Sam was here—”

  “But Sam isn’t here. Sam died five years ago. And it was horrible. But it’s a fact.” He rubbed my hands between his. “I loved Sam. I will always love Sam. But the feelings I have for her are miles apart from the ones I have for you.”

  I shook my head again, tears beginning to spill from my eyes. “I can’t be like her. I can’t be what she was to you.”

  “That’s not what I want. I want you.” He kissed my fingers. “I fought it. God knows I fought it! I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t want to need you. But I can’t help myself. I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you in it.”

  He kissed my fingers again. And then he looked up at me, reached up to brush the tears from my face.

  “I hurt you,” he said softly. “I know I have. I just … I want the rest of our lives to make it up to you. To show you how much I love you and always will.”

  Hearing the words again brought goosebumps to my skin. “And if things go badly? If I wake up one morning and realize you’re not who I want? If I die in childbirth or something …”

  “I’ll be broken. But I’ll have the memories we made to keep me glued together.”

  I liked that answer. Something about it really appealed to me.

  “I love you,” I said softly. “I never stopped. I don’t think I ever would have. But I would have gone on.”

  “I know.” He kissed my hands a third time. “I don’t deserve it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He laughed even as he reached for the ring and slipped it out of its box.

  “So, here’s the million dollar question: will you put up with my stupid, ignorant male ego for the rest of your life? Will you forgive my transgressions in the future? Will you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife?”

  I pretended to think about it for a second, pulling a groan from between his lips. And then I squealed and threw my arms around his neck.

  “Yes!”

  He groaned again, this time in relief. He took a second to slip the ring on my finger—and it fit, surprisingly enough—before stealing my lips with the most passionate kiss I’d ever experienced. We fell to the floor, tangled in each other’s arms as we continued to kiss, our hands digging desperately into one other’s flesh. I didn’t want to ever let go and I was pretty sure he felt the same way.

  Epilogue

  Hayden

  I stood against the wall and looked around the room to where they’d all gathered. There was laughter and bad jokes making the rounds. They were all there, the old guard and the new. Even a few faces that were still unfamiliar.

  This was Dragon. This was my family.

  Cole and his wife, Amber, were standing in the center of the room, holding court as they often did. Peter, his brother, and his wife, Heather, were beside him, the men rolling their eyes as the women tried to outdo each other with daddy stories. Luke was standing against the far wall, a look of amusement in his eyes as he quietly watched. Always watching.

  Dominic held Amy’s hand as he led the way through the room, probably remembering the day they came together in a room very much like this one. Vincent and Quinn had just arrived, their daughter, Olivia, as tall and beautiful as her mother. And Marcus. He’d snuck in at some point with Cadence, his beautiful, and perpetually pregnant, wife.

  Rhett was dressed uncharacteristically in a lovely black number, her lover, Xander, on constant vigil against anyone who might notice. Amelia was back from Ireland, suntanned and looking refreshed, Rowan at her side. Kasey and Karma seemed pleased as punch to meet everyone and even Kevin had come off the ranch for the occasion, clearly excited to introduce the world to his new bride, Kirstin.

  We were all paired off now, I supposed. All moving on to the next stage of our lives.

  “Sam would be so pleased to see everyone here.”

  I nodded, smiling at Megan. “That’s what I was just thinking.”

  She slipped her hand into mine. “She’d be happy for you.”

  “I know. Sam was … she was just that way.”

  “She was. She always looked out for everyone else’s happiness before her own. I think, sometimes, that’s why it took her so long to find you.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it was just my stupid ego.”

  “Maybe.”

  I laughed at her agreement.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  The music—a harpist had been hired because Waverly thought it would be romantic—began to play. And as it did, I turned toward the stairs and watched as my bride came slowly down from Megan’s guest bedroom.

  It had only seemed fitting to have the wedding in Megan’s house. She was our fearless leader, the woman who held us all together. I couldn’t imagine doing this anywhere else.

  And, as I watched Waverly walk toward me, I couldn’t imagine doing it with any other woman.

  “This is right,” I said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “It is right,” she said. “Absolutely perfect.”

  Megan took my hand, acting as my best man, and led the way to the altar and the rest of my life.

  ~ END ~