#4--The Quiet Day--O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  * * *

  However, when circumstances change for Eva, whom they both love deeply, Marcus is forced to make some hard decisions to keep both Eva and Charlotte, and he questions his reasons for not wanting marriage. What will he need to do to keep the child he and Charlotte now consider theirs?

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  The Commitment, Chapter 1

  “You know my divorce is now final,” Charlotte said as Marcus tucked his revolver in the gun safe on the top shelf of their small closet, which was packed with clothes. Charlotte’s took up more than three quarters, so his meagre shirts were crammed in at one end.

  He turned the dial of the safe and put his duty belt on the dresser, taking in Charlotte, who was in faded blue jeans and one of his old T-shirts, lingering in the doorway with a dishtowel over her shoulder. Her hair was hanging long and loose, and something about the way she was looking at him told him there was more.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” he said as he unbuttoned his uniform shirt and pulled it from his trousers before sitting on the queen-size bed that filled the master bedroom in their small older two-bedroom house, where it seemed as if everything they had was squeezed in. As he pulled off his shirt, he realized she hadn’t responded from where she leaned in the doorway.

  There was something about Charlotte. He swore the woman could’ve made a grain sack look sexy, and yet, as he took her in, he could see she had something more on her mind.

  “Charlotte…” he finally prompted.

  She glanced over her shoulder into the narrow hallway before pulling in a breath and then giving him everything. “Well, of course, considering it took the full ninety days to clear a court even when my lawyer said it shouldn’t take that long.” She was holding up her bare hands now, fiddling with her fingers, as he leaned over and untied his tactical boots.

  He slipped them off as he glanced up, waiting for her to finish. “Well,” he said, “it’s done now, so how long it took is kind of a moot point. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

  She seemed to stiffen. The way she touched her ear, it was just one of the little things she did that told him she had something on her mind, something she was holding on to. He stood up and unbuckled his belt, and now she stepped into the bedroom and closed the door after glancing over her shoulder. He knew she was listening for Eva, who would likely be fast asleep, considering how late it was.

  “How long have we been together now, Marcus—four months?” She crossed her arms, and all that did was accentuate her remarkable bust.

  “About that.”

  She nodded, but it seemed he still hadn’t figured out where this was going. “Well, it has been that long, add in a day or two, since we got Eva. We’re a family, we’re settled, and I guess I expected you’d have made things more permanent, considering I’m no longer married to Jimmy Roy. I took back my maiden name. Had to, with the state law and all, which is bringing all sorts of complications, considering all my legal documents and licenses have my married name.”

  He pulled in another breath, wishing she’d just say everything she was thinking. He felt as if he were walking a tightrope. “I would say this is permanent,” he said. “We’re living together, looking after Eva. We’re a family…”

  She was nodding, and it was then that he realized what she was expecting. “In every way that matters,” she said, “but I kind of expected you to ask me to marry you, to make it official, you and me, Mr. and Mrs. O’Connell. I thought that’s where we were going. I mean, I’ve loved you for so long, I just never figured we wouldn’t already be married by now.”

  Marriage…so she wanted something official, on paper, a ring on her finger. Why was it that he was hesitating?

  “Is this what you want, Charlotte?”

  There it was, the way she could suddenly turn on a dime: the annoyance, the passion, the emotions that could have her becoming unreasonable. Every part of her seemed to stiffen as if she were getting ready to stand her ground on a topic he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about.

  “Seriously, Marcus? I want you to want it. Now I’m starting to think that maybe I’m the one who’s been misreading things. Of course I want it all, marriage, family, a life with you, but not if you don’t. Just forget I said anything.”

  He caught the edge of her temper as she rested her hand on the doorknob, ready to turn it and walk out. He pressed his hand over her head to the door, holding it shut.

  “Don’t walk away all pissed and angry,” he said. “I asked a simple question, Charlotte. I’m not a mind reader. It’s been a long day.”

  She turned and pressed her back against the door, and she was so close that he was touching her. Having her there, he couldn’t imagine going back to how he’d lived before, single and alone.

  “Maybe not, Marcus, but right now you’re making me feel as if this is it, that I shouldn’t want anything more, that living together is all the permanence you need or want. I guess I just feel that…” She shrugged and looked away, pressing her teeth into her lower lip.

  “You feel what? Come on, Charlotte. This works only if you share everything. It’s been a long day, I’m tired, and you think I’ve been ignoring you. Of course everything is good, and maybe I just never thought that getting married would make a difference. I love you, you know that, so what would be different if we were married? It’s just a piece of paper…”

  “One that would tie us together, Marcus. It would be official. I know everyone thinks and believes that because we’re living together and have Eva, we’re married, but the thing is that it matters. It matters to me, and I know it matters to you, considering that during all the years I stayed married to Jimmy Roy because neither of us was willing to give up the house, you wouldn’t allow yourself to become involved with me. As you said, separated is still married. Don’t bullshit me, Marcus, because I know marriage does mean something to you.”

  He pushed away from the door. “Of course it means something. While you were married to him, you and I couldn’t be together, because married is married. Now you’re not, so I guess you are right about that much. It does matter…”

  The fact was that Karen was the only one of his siblings who was married. What was it about his siblings, how they were different with each other than with everyone else? Something had bound their family together, yet when their father had walked out on all of them, it had destroyed Marcus’s idea of family and commitment.

  He stepped back, brushing the bed, wanting to strip out of his pants and climb into a hot shower and try to forget the pile of paperwork waiting for him at the sheriff’s office. Charlotte was silently waiting for him to make a move, to say something, when all he wanted was for her not to have brought it up.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Charlotte. I love you, and I love Eva and what we have, but at the same time, I’m not sure a piece of paper is going to make a difference for me. Maybe I’ll feel different down the road, but right now…”

  She pressed her hand over the flat of his chest, and he could see it in the way she looked at him and forced a smile to her lips. She gave her head a toss. There wasn’t a chance she could hide the hurt that he’d never wanted to put there.

  “It’s okay, Marcus. Forget I said anything,” she said. Then she stepped back and pulled open the door.

  “That’s the thing, Charlotte. You and I both know you can’t un-say something, and you and I can’t forget it.”

  She pressed her hand to the doorframe as she stepped out and glanced back to him. “You’re right, but I guess I have my answer. I’ll heat up the leftover dinner for you. You have to be hungry.”

  Instead of waiting for him to say something, she walked away, her footsteps squeaking on the floorboards of the old house. All Marcus could do as he pulled in another breath, wanting to kick his own ass, was realize that instead of resolving anything, their discussion had revealed something about his relationshi
p with Charlotte, which he’d thought was perfect. Now, it simmered with an underlying tension, all because she wanted to get married and he didn’t.

  Click here to download The Commitment and keep reading!

  What’s coming next in The O’Connells

  The O’Connell family collides with danger in this shocking new story from NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart.

  * * *

  Eighteen years ago, Luke O’Connell’s father was there one day, gone the next. His mother sat him and his siblings down and told them their father was gone, it was just them now, and they wouldn’t be seeing him again. But Luke never believed his father could just walk away from a family he’d said he loved. Now, from his role within a secretive military organization, he uses the intelligence he can access to follow leads on his father, but each is a dead end.

  * * *

  Luke finds himself endlessly embroiled in deadly missions from secret bases, posing as a civilian for front companies, and tracking national enemies to capture or kill. But now, his questions have brought trouble back with him onto US soil, all the way to his hometown—and ultimately, his quest might put his family in the line of fire.

  Click here to order your copy! Or scroll to the next section to read the first chapter.

  The Missing Father, Chapter 1

  “So what you’re saying is our target is a whistleblower?” said Master Sergeant Rex Barnes. “The man grew a pair and exposed a corrupt billion-dollar lab linked to our government, and our target isn’t the company itself but the employee, who has now been named an enemy of the state? Just want to be sure I’m one hundred percent clear, here. This lab has been committing crimes against the public, fabricating crime scenes using DNA of their choosing, all with the blessing of the CIA, and we’re saying this is okay? The operation was privately funded, yet now the technology is being sold to every rogue government and criminal, and we’re meant to target the whistleblower who exposed the scheme? A man we once would’ve called a hero is now our enemy? Like, good God, what the hell has become of this country? Have we really been reduced to this?”

  Master Sergeant Barnes was dark-haired and blue-eyed, hot-headed and ambitious, and at times he was confused for Luke, considering he had the same long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, the same broad shoulders, and the same height of six feet. Unlike Luke, though, Rex was grandstanding, as he usually did. He still hadn’t learned the art of shutting his damn trap and keeping it shut in front of anyone in charge.

  “It sounds to me as if you’re challenging an order, Master Sergeant,” said Colonel Raymond Powers. “Is there a problem here that I don’t know about? Because last I heard, how this works is the orders come down from the White House, and you don’t question them. It’s not up to you to be the judge and jury and decide which assholes you shoot. The order comes down for your mission, I outline it, and you shut the fuck up and follow it. We don’t get to question what falls under national security and what doesn’t. You’re a grunt. You pick up the gun and shoot who we tell you to.”

  Colonel Powers was the shortest member of the team, in his fifties, a retired operator on his third wife. He was standing at the end of the boardroom table in the command center where they were being briefed, wearing green fatigues and the same pissed-off, unsmiling expression he always had. “Sergeant Major, you need a minute with your team to see they have their heads screwed on straight?” he snapped at Jess Parker, the team leader.

  Jess was perched on the end of the table instead of sitting in a seat, and he still hadn’t shaved since arriving back stateside three days earlier. His bushy reddish hair was shoulder-length, but his beard and mustache gave him a hillbilly biker look that wouldn’t have made him seem out of place on America’s Most Wanted. Added to that was the tattoo on his forearm, a skull and crossbones emblazoned with the words “Death before dishonor”—something that would’ve been frowned on in the regular military but was good for their unit.

  The 77th Operational Delta, known as the Wardogs, were a special forces team that didn’t really exist, reporting directly to the White House, which was both good and bad. It had started because of the war on terror, but, as of late, they had been more focused on protecting the dirty side of business.

  “Nope, we’re good to go,” Jess said. “Seems Barnes has forgotten his manners and how he’s supposed to be seen and not heard, just like the child he is, in the presence of his commanding officers. Not to worry. He’s figuring it out now that we’re back stateside. Isn’t that right?”

  Jess gave everything to Rex, who only lifted his hands arrogantly and didn’t say another word. There was just something about Jess, who’d run their team for six years. He garnered all their respect unconditionally, and he knew how to shut each of them down, take the heat, and keep them all alive.

  “So you’ll be wheels up in two hours. That will be all,” the colonel said before striding out of the secure room on the base at Fort Bragg.

  Luke swiveled in the old black leather chair, taking in the now closed door, before turning back toward Sergeant First Class Matthew Newman, sitting across from him in a white T-shirt and khakis. The newbie, at twenty-five, was eager to impress. He was from Nebraska, with hazel eyes and nice, silky, long dirty blond hair and a smile that could sweet-talk the pants off any woman. He could’ve passed for a surfer, Luke thought, and he always had a different woman on his arm. His eyes could flash with teasing one minute and be filled with the kind of look that would have any sane man running the other way the next.

  “I’m with Rex on this one,” Matthew said. “This isn’t sitting too right, Jess, that someone could use my DNA to fabricate a crime scene while I’m on the other side of the world. Definitely leaves me with a cold chill.”

  “This is what you signed up for,” Jess said. “You’re a grunt. You’re not paid to think. You follow orders, end of story. The Harris Group is one of the leading genetics companies, responsible for cutting-edge medical research that saves lives.” He took in each one of them.

  From the other end of the table, Shaun Grant, Sergeant First Class, pitched in. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that we’re being asked to go in and shut down this situation before it becomes known to the public? Seems as if more and more, we’re becoming hired thugs.” His black hair was close cropped, and he had dark skin and dark eyes, the biggest member of the team, at six foot two and likely three hundred pounds of solid muscle. His conference room chair seemed too small for his big frame. To Luke, Shaun was the one they all looked to, who had their backs and was always first through the door.

  “So let me get this straight,” Rex started again. “We’re flying to Switzerland to capture a whistleblower, an executive at a private genetics lab funded by every government worldwide, which is stockpiling DNA from private citizens for all kinds of nefarious means in the name of research and development. He’s exposed them for working with the CIA and other countries to manipulate DNA evidence and engineer crime scenes, and he’s also exposed our government and the Harris Group for selling their technology to the highest bidder.

  “But because he’s stepped on the wrong toes and just because our government can, we’re supposed to be okay with capturing this poor schmuck? He’s the one being screwed here, in my opinion. We’re going to toss him away in a hole forever, no trial, no nothing, because he sounded the alarm? This technology could result in any one of us being locked up forever on charges for a crime we didn’t commit. Sounds to me like we’re on the wrong side of this one.”

  Luke had long past realized that an order was an order. He’d lost track of the number of missions that had strayed into the corporate world that the government had its hands in. The wrong side was the wrong side, but the lines had started to blur.

  “It’s not up to us to question it,” Jess said, looking around at them. “You know that. We take the order, and you do your job. You don’t get an opinion. Are we clear here, or does anyone else have something to get off his ches
t before we’re wheels up?”

  To Luke, the five-member team were like his brothers. His family back in Livingston would likely have a serious fit if they knew what really went on behind the scenes in their government, if they knew about the kinds of assholes he was protecting.

  “No, fine,” Shaun said in his deep voice. “My mama always raised me to believe that honesty is the best policy, but scheming and dishonesty seem to be what we’re defending now. Makes perfect sense to me.” He was dressed in fatigues and a tan T-shirt. When he swiveled around in his chair, Luke sensed he seemed moodier than usual.

  “Great, so now that we’re all clear, remember this isn’t a sanctioned military operation,” Jess said. “We’re going in as civilians. Know that this isn’t sitting right with me, either, but we don’t get to pick and choose our missions. We follow orders. That’s what we signed on for. You’ll need your suits for this one. Speaking of, Luke, how was your brother’s wedding? How’s your family?”

  Luke could just make out Jess’s blue eyes as the man lifted the shades he’d worn inside, something the colonel also never busted him for. But then, they were Jess’s team, and they operated under an anonymity that Luke had once appreciated. The things they did wouldn’t sit right with members of the regular army.

  “He’s married, but I’m not sure he buys into it, considering he’s still stuck on the fact that our dad ditched us as kids,” Luke said. “I didn’t know it still bothered him, even though it fucked us all around. But hey, he did it. He’s adopting the little girl, too, and I heard before leaving yesterday that he’s going to be a baby daddy. Charlotte’s preggers.”