When she opened her eyes, he’d tucked her into his side. He was playing with a strand of her hair, looking into her face. His eyes were soft, melted-chocolate pools she could have drowned in. Leaning in, she pressed her mouth to his chest, feeling his heart still pumping hard as she reached up and touched the side of his face.
He rubbed his cheek across her palm. His thumb skimmed just beneath her eyes and came away wet.
She hadn’t even realized she was crying.
“Lexi.” His voice was husky, rough with emotion.
“I’m sorry. That was…and then this week…” She shook her head. “Did you know my heart hurts when I’m not with you?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Same goes. I missed you. I love you, Lexi.”
God. Oh, God, she thought maybe her heart was going to swell right out of her chest. “Then why did you shut me out?”
“You needed the time. But time’s up, Lexi. Stay with me.”
Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to do just that for as many nights as he’d give her. “You mean tonight?”
He came up on an elbow, and his hand stroked the hair from her damp face. “Tonight, yes.”
She let out a breath, telling herself she couldn’t be disappointed. Not when she’d dragged her feet over this very thing.
He kissed her jaw, the tip of her nose, each eye and then her mouth. “Tonight,” he repeated. “And tomorrow. And the next night.”
The knot deep inside her loosened. “I love you, Cord. So much.”
He took a moment to absorb her words, his eyes revealing exactly how much they meant to him. “Then stay, Lexi.”
“For as long as you’ll have me.” She looked at him and saw her future, her everything. “Do you have any thoughts on how long that might be?”
“As long as I have a breath in my body. Is that long enough?”
“I think it just might be.”
THE PRODIGAL
Rhonda Nelson
For Brady, who will someday make one very lucky girl a wonderful hero.
1
DYING was the kindest thing his father had ever done for him, Major Chase Harrison thought with a bitter chuckle as he tossed back another shot of Jack Daniel’s. The amber liquid had a smooth start and a fiery finish, one that settled warmly in his gut and burned away a bit more of the pain with every determined sip.
Sprawled into his father’s beloved leather recliner, more funeral food than he could ever hope to eat stashed away in the kitchen, Chase considered the day’s events and congratulated himself for getting through the service without literally cracking up at the hypocrisy of it all. He was here out of duty—not respect, not grief. Not any of the traditional feelings that came along with burying a parent. He took another pull directly from the bottle.
Galling as it was, he was here to get away from a career he wasn’t altogether certain he could handle anymore. Harsh though it might sound, his father’s heart attack and subsequent death had actually given him the reprieve that he’d needed, the break from the constant horrific images from that damned mission near Mosul. The terrified screams of children, the agonized cries of parents, bloodied little bodies and the pregnant mother… That was the one he couldn’t get out of his head. The one image he simply couldn’t erase no matter how hard he tried.
Little comfort, but fellow Rangers Will Forrester and Tanner Crawford hadn’t handled the incident any better than he had. Will had already made the decision to leave the military and he suspected Tanner wouldn’t be far behind.
Not that he could blame them.
The death of innocent children—whether his unit had been at fault or not—was just too damned hard to handle. One didn’t just simply walk away from something like that unscathed. Will had actually had a child die in his arms and Tanner had been near the school when it had been hit.
Though he knew the reason things had gone wrong—bad intel, conscienceless bastard insurgents with no regard for human life—and, logically, he could even accept that he wasn’t personally responsible, he couldn’t seem to shake the guilt, the horror of what he’d seen.
Did he want to end his career? He didn’t think so. He loved the military, the purpose, the way of life. He believed in the greater good. Frankly, his career had saved him from the very man he’d buried today—his father. And in dying, his father had saved him from his career—or at least this part of it.
Though he’d rather be getting his head on straight at an island resort with tanned, barely dressed women and an unlimited supply of alcohol, he had to admit when he’d driven into the city limits of Hickory Grove, Mississippi, he’d felt a pang of homecoming he’d never expected to feel. He’d thought this place would always remind him of his father. He’d expected the familiar trappings of inadequacy and disappointment to descend with a vengeance and had braced himself for them as soon as he’d spotted the town sign.
And yet…nothing.
In fact, the only time he’d felt inadequate or a source of disappointment had come when he’d handed the funeral arrangements off to his father’s secretary, Rorie Whitaker—mixed in with the most powerful sexual attraction he’d ever encountered in his life, of all things. Judging from the delicate Oh of surprise that had briefly shaped her ripe mouth and the flash of disapproving censure in her bright-blue eyes, she thought he was an ungrateful, callous, heartless bastard.
That description was more in keeping with his father’s character than his own, and he’d be damned before he would let her make him regret the decision. What did she know anyway? He chuckled darkly and tipped the bottle back once more. Other than what his father, the great Holland Harrison, had told her?
He’d heard her car power down the drive to the carriage house in the back where she lived a few minutes ago and sincerely hoped that she would keep her extremely attractive little ass back there. He was in no shape to deal with her tonight—he knew his limit when it came to alcohol and had purposely and purposefully passed it several shots ago.
Furthermore, something about the scrappy little brunette made him feel like he was walking across shifting sand—unsettled and off balance. Factor in the inappropriate astro-freaking-nomical attraction he felt for her and his potential to self-destruct escalated accordingly.
In short, though he’d like nothing better than to bend her backward over the couch and take her until one of them—or both—went blind, he needed to avoid her like the plague.
A soft knock sounded at the back door. “Chase?”
Shit. Because he was still a Southern gentleman—although a drunken one—Chase ignored the impulse to tell her to go away and stumbled to the back door, bottle in hand. He nodded at her. “Evening, Rorie. What can I do for you?” Or to you? Or with you?
Her gaze drifted from his eyes—heavy-lidded and bloodshot, he would imagine—to the bottle in his grasp and a mulish line replaced the tentative smile that had been on her face. “You’re drunk,” she said flatly.
His smile widened and he conjured a neglectful gasp. “Where are my manners?” he said, stepping back awkwardly. He gestured to the bottle in his hand. “Want me to pour you a glass?”
“No.” She didn’t come in, but seemed to be considering something. “This can wait until later. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Perversely, though he knew it was dangerous, he didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her company. Felt a weird pull toward her, as though he needed her to make himself feel better. “How do you know I won’t be drunk then, too?”
“Because that was the last bottle of Jack in your father’s liquor cabinet and I’m going to park my car behind yours so that you can’t make a run for another.” She frowned. “At least, not tonight, anyway.”
He studied her thoughtfully, let his gaze drift casually over her small, curvy frame. Lust licked through his veins. “I know that I should be annoyed by your high-handedness, but strangely enough I’m impressed by your fiendish wit.” And even more attracted. How bizarre.
Sh
e crossed her arms over her chest and the smile that slid over her mouth was distinctly chilly. A familiar emotion entered her gaze—disappointment was one he recognized well—and for the briefest second, he was ashamed of himself. “I’m not trying to impress you.”
He shrugged, laughed. “Doesn’t change the outcome.”
She nodded once. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I’ll be busy.”
“Being hungover?”
Chase grimaced. “Cleaning out this miserable mausoleum of a house. Why do you think I rented a truck? I’ve got to haul all this moldy old shit to the dump.”
And perversely, he was looking extremely forward to that. This house had never been a home—it had been a museum with his father as curator and himself the indentured servant. Stripping stain, painting trim, refinishing furniture. While other guys had been spending their weekends at the lake trying to get lucky, he’d been holed up here, working his ass off, listening to his father talk ad nauseum about the architecture of this old behemoth and bitch at him when he wasn’t appropriately reverent.
Hell, even his mother hadn’t been able to stand it. After eighteen years of marriage, she’d simply packed a single bag and walked away, leaving him in the process. He needs you, she’d said. He’d never been quite sure what she’d meant by that. Had she meant that his father needed his help to work? Or that she’d needed him in her life less?
Either way, the outcome was the same. Serena Harrison had left in the middle of his sophomore year in high school and had died of cervical cancer before the end of his senior year. Someone had mailed the obituary to his father. Holland hadn’t shed a tear, Chase remembered now. He’d just wadded the little piece of paper into a ball and tossed it in the trash, then resumed business as usual.
She looked horrified. “Haul everything to the dump? Are you insane? These are your father’s things. Things he’s spent a lifetime either collecting or restoring—or both—and you’re going to haul them to the dump?”
Interestingly enough, her voice had escalated while her eyes had narrowed into angry little slits. Strange the things you notice when you’re plastered, Chase thought. She had a tiny little freckle right next to her mouth and a lock of hair had accidentally gotten threaded through her gold hoop earrings. He briefly debated whether or not to untangle it, but given the atmosphere of hostility, he decided against it. He was going to need his hands to get rid of all this shit.
He felt his lips twist bitterly. “Oh, I am well aware of all the effort my father put into gathering and caring for his things,” he said, putting particular emphasis on the word. He smiled, baring his teeth. “That’s what’s going to make tossing it into the trash all the more sweet.”
Her expression was a fifty-fifty measure of outrage and disbelief. “You are genuinely horrible,” she said, seemingly mystified.
He took another pull from the bottle. “Then the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, now does it?”
“We obviously didn’t know the same man,” Rorie said, her eyes unexpectedly filling with tears. Of frustration? Or for his father? Either way it made him distinctly uncomfortable. He had very little experience with crying females and had every intention of keeping it that way.
Chase sighed. “Listen, Rorie—”
“No, you listen,” she said with a bracing breath. “I didn’t want to discuss this now—” she meaningfully eyed the bottle in his hand “—but I don’t see that I have any choice. Before you start throwing things out and dismantling a lifetime of your father’s hard work, you should read his will first.”
“His will?” He hadn’t given it the first thought. As Holland’s only heir he’d just assumed that everything that was his father’s was now his and he could do with it as he pleased. But from the firm angle of her chin and the determined line of her sexy jaw, that wasn’t the case. He felt a chill land in his belly and braced himself for it—the ultimate insult, the final fuck-you delivered from the grave. “What of it?” Chase asked her. “Clearly you are in possession of some key knowledge I am not.”
She swallowed, lifted her chin once again. “Holland left you the construction company and all of its assets.”
He’d hated that company and had never wanted to be a part of it, which had been another bone of contention between the two of them. While his father had been dreaming of adding “and Son” to Holland Harrison Construction, Chase had been dreaming of jump school and Special Forces training. He’d always wanted to be a soldier, and his father had always wanted him to stay home.
Chase had seen the military as a way to get out from underneath Holland’s disapproving, autocratic, manipulative thumb and had worked hard to earn an ROTC scholarship. Holland hadn’t so much as congratulated him when the news came through. Instead, he’d retreated to his shop, where he’d been painstakingly refurbishing the dining-room table.
Never good enough, Chase thought. Nothing he’d done had ever passed muster with Holland Harrison. Eighteen years under the same roof with the man and not once could he ever remember a single word of praise, an approving nod, any gesture that showed his father was pleased with him at all in any way.
He cast a glance around the kitchen—the antique trestle table, the gleaming woodwork and hardwood floors, the old wood cookstove which Holland had converted to gas himself, and he felt a bitter laugh break up in his throat. But he’d sure as hell been proud of this stuff, Chase thought. His things. His treasures. Inanimate objects.
And nothing for his son.
Fully aware that the other shoe was about to drop, Chase turned to Rorie and arched a brow. “What about the house?”
Her cheeks puffed out as she exhaled mightily and a nervous smile made its way across her lush mouth. “He left it to me.”
2
THERE. She’d told him. Aurora—Rorie to those who wanted to keep their teeth—Whitaker breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Surely it was bad form to tell a grieving survivor that the house they’d grown up in was no longer theirs, but with Chase it was easy to forget the rules of propriety.
In more ways than one, unfortunately.
In the first place, he wasn’t grieving. He was somber and silent and, at the moment, quite drunk. Furthermore, the gleeful, vindictive look in his coal-black eyes when he’d announced that he was loading everything up and hauling it to the dump was somehow simultaneously the saddest and most horrible thing she’d ever seen.
What on earth had Holland done to him to make him want to lash out this way, Rorie wondered. What could her kind, larger-than-life employer possibly have done to make his son—the one she’d spun romantic notions about in her head thanks to Holland’s constant praise—want to retaliate so heinously?
Honestly, Rorie didn’t understand it. Though Holland had never had anything but great things to say about his son and all of his accomplishments, Rorie had known things were strained between them simply by virtue of the fact that Chase never came home. Holland would ask, of course, and Chase would refuse, then her old friend would immerse himself in another project around the house in an effort to distract himself, she supposed.
It was hard to believe that this hard-hearted guy was the same boy she’d secretly adored from afar when they were in school. That he was the guy she’d spun princess and prom-dress dreams around, the one she’d yearned for with all the passion a teenager could possess. That he was the same one she’d semi-fallen-in-love-with as an adult through the stories Holland had told of him.
Though he’d never known it, Chase Harrison had been her hero…and she’d just discovered he had very tarnished armor.
It was wholly depressing.
But honestly, the fact that he hadn’t wanted to arrange a single thing for the funeral should have clued her in to the extent of his animosity toward his father. “You’re his secretary,” he’d said. “Surely you can handle this.”
She could and did, more out of respect than any sense of duty related to her job. Holland had essentially ta
ken her in when she’d come to work at the construction company eight years ago. He’d invented a scholarship program to send her to college, then doubled her salary when she’d gotten her degree.
Virtually orphaned by parents who were too caught up in their own day-to-day struggles to consider her, she had looked upon Holland Harrison as a fairy godfather, and she owed him a debt she knew that she’d never be able to repay.
But that wasn’t going to stop her from trying.
And she was starting right now.
The laugh that suddenly bubbled up Chase’s throat lacked the remotest hint of humor. “He left you the house?”
She nodded. “And everything in it, with the exception of the things in your room and in his,” Rorie clarified.
He tilted the bottle to his mouth and drained it, then grimaced. He laughed again and she wondered if he were on the verge of having some sort of psychotic break. “Come on in,” he said, making a grand, sweeping gesture. “It’s yours, after all.”
“Not until the will is officially probated,” she said, stepping cautiously inside.
“A minor detail,” he scoffed. He gestured to the table. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
Oh, hell. She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “My father leaves you the house that I spent the majority of my childhood and teenage years restoring to his exacting standards and you accuse me of being ridiculous?”
She knew that he’d worked on the house because Holland had proudly shown her all of the little things that his son had done. From refinished doors to bits of trim and tile, he would rhapsodize about Chase’s talent and lament the fact that, while Chase had the aptitude—a gift, even, according to Holland—he hadn’t had the desire.
Furthermore, she knew Holland had exacting standards. Considering she’d been born into a family that didn’t possess any standards, to her, it had always been one of the most wonderful things about him.
Born on the 4th of July Page 6
