Ash had fought in two different wars. Accomplished countless missions. Engaged in more battles than any mortal man should be allowed. He’d survived it all. Some hadn’t, but for reasons he was sure would never be disclosed here on earth, much less justified, he had.
And he could say with utmost certainty, there was no war more eviscerating, no mission more complicated, and no battle bloodier, than the one he fought with his own father. And both men knew full well the exact day those enemy lines were drawn in the sand, and the first weapon was wielded.
It was the day his mother died. But more importantly, it was also the day Hope’s mother—and Marshall’s mistress—died.
Marshall didn’t give two shits about Claudia Coleson, his wife and the mother of his only son. And he probably didn’t even love Inez Arenada, his employee, his lover, and the mother of his only daughter. She was simply a hot piece of ass he kept at his beck and call, living in the apartment above the garage and earning a living by being on his payroll—and on her back.
And it was because of these facts that Ash didn’t have to dig too deep to figure out why his own wife, who was on the Coleson payroll long before he’d met her, ended up living at the vineyard and sleeping in the mansion, under the watchful eye of his enemy.
History repeating itself, some might say. Déjà vu, if a person believed in such a thing. Or more like the old saying about what comes around, goes around. But Ash knew in his bones it was none of those tricks. Marshall was too calculating for that. The universe had nothing on him.
It was payback, plain and simple. Revenge, served straight-up cold.
You take what is mine, so I take what is yours, and now we are even. Until that day comes, there is a vendetta yet to be settled.
It may have taken time for the right game piece to be found, but innocent Olivia Quinn was put into play the night she’d captivated the son with her sweet southern accent, a party taking place nearby. And just a few short years later, in the wake of terrible tragedy, the father had seen his opportunity and pounced.
To Ash, Olivia had been his world. His guiding light when he needed something clean and good and loving while fighting dirty, dehumanizing wars. She was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he loved her with a passion like no other.
To Marshall, Olivia had been bait. A device with which he could punish his son for acting as a defender of a defenseless child, and executioner to the woman who abused Marshall’s young daughter at random, all while screwing him without remorse.
This war between father and son began when Ash was the ripe old age of seventeen.
Before he ever knew a girl named Liv would steal his heart, take his name, and be the very air he breathed to survive. Then, with subtle, undetectable encouragement from his father, that same girl would break his heart and shatter his world into a million pieces, leaving him gasping for oxygen when the floor fell out from under him.
If Ash had half a brain, he’d sell his life story to a screenwriter and have them make it into a daytime soap opera. It’d be drama for days, if it wasn’t so goddamn tragic. There’d be cotton-topped old ladies grumbling at the TV every day at two o’clock, knitting afghans as they watched their story, wondering why the lousy excuse for a husband couldn’t swallow his pride and rescue his woman.
Instead, he’d gone the Teflon route and walked away, a little banged up but intact. You can’t scrape off what doesn’t stick, and if it doesn’t stick, then it can’t hurt when it’s taken away.
Macho words he’d soon realized he couldn’t back up.
“I killed her,” he repeated, waiting for revulsion to cross Liv’s face. “For Hope.”
Inez wasn’t the only person he’d killed for the greater good, just the first. And now the woman he loved knew his original sin, a mere fraction of the many he’d committed.
She knew the sanitized requirements to be in The Unit. She knew that, in his most basic form, he was a professional soldier who hated the Army and the regulations that came with it, and who belonged to an elite group the government wouldn’t acknowledge even existed. The Unit was an entity unto itself, made up of what insiders called mercenaries. She thought she knew what he did to get the job done. She didn’t.
No operator, former or current, wanted his wife to be terrified of him.
“You mean Hope’s mom?” Her question held no condemnation. “Okay, I’m confused. I thought it was Claudia who…”
“Shot her?” Ash supplied. “No. I did.”
Dubbed the Coleson Crime by The San Diego Union-Tribune, the story was old business now, but almost two decades ago, it was headline news. A housekeeper shot dead by her wealthy boss’s alcoholic wife after learning of their affair, leaving behind a young daughter who, while no father was listed on her birth certificate, looked suspiciously like the shooter’s husband.
The newspaper—and the police—got two vital facts incorrect.
One, the girl was starved and covered in bruises, inflicted by the housekeeper herself.
And two, the shooter wasn’t the boss’s wife, it was his son.
It was a clusterfuck for sure, the paper got that much dead right.
Eyes softening with something he hadn’t seen from her in far too long, Liv pulled him down to the sofa. All but nestling him to her bosom, she traced a finger over his brow, her expression full of love. And confusion.
“Tell me what happened,” she said, the shoe on the other foot.
“It’s a night for confessions, huh?”
“Rosa will be so proud of us.”
“After this story, even she doesn’t have the clout to save my soul.” Clutching her hand, he stared at their clasped fingers, her wedding ring in its rightful place. “Don’t look at me any differently than you are now. Look at me the same.”
Unashamed of his past, but protected by the anonymity of The Unit, his actions on the day Inez and Claudia died could change how she viewed him forever.
Turning his chin with delicate fingers, she pinned him with a level gaze. “I will never look at you differently. You’ll get no judgment from me. In fact, I’ll go first,” she added, her accent adorable. “I ate all the frozen Snickers today. I buried the empty bag in the trash so you wouldn’t see it. I planned to replace them before you noticed, but since we’re cleansing our souls and all…”
“Now, darlin’,” he chastised, playing along, “you know I share the Snickers. It’s my peanut butter cups that I lay down the law on. If you ate those, I’ll have to spank you.”
“Damn, why didn’t I eat them instead? Wait, I mean, whew! Lucky break.” She swiped her forehead, grinning. “Your turn.”
Staring at her, he savored the beauty before him. The way her eyes sparkled when she smiled. The crinkles that formed across the bridge of her nose when she laughed. The absolution he felt when she looked at him without indictment. Touched him without fear or hesitation.
Her acceptance humbled him. “I married you because I love you.”
Her head tilted at the abrupt change in subject. “I know.”
“My dad didn’t marry my mom because he loved her. He married her because she had money. Because her family owned land. It was just tumbleweeds and scrub oak before he developed it, before it became Coleson Creek. But that’s why he married her. It wasn’t for love.”
“That’s sad.”
“Sad, but true,” he agreed. “Marshall didn’t have a pot to piss in. Hooking up with the daughter of a wealthy land owner was a win-win. He got his hands on prime acreage, with built-in financial backing included in the deal.”
“That sounds primitive. Poor Claudia.”
“Yeah, poor Claudia. It wasn’t easy drowning herself in alcohol while her husband built a winery from the ground up. Eventually it made money. More money than her father had. More money than she could spend on pills and booze. She gave it her best shot, though.”
“Money isn’t everything. It can’t buy happiness. Or love.”
“Marshall wasn’t looking for love. Not sure she was, either.” He took a long pull from his beer. “The gist is, Marshall and Inez had a thing going since the day he hired her. They kept it on the down low because my mother wasn’t exactly stable. He’d been screwing around on her since I could remember.”
“I’ve heard the rumors,” she admitted. “That he was known for being a player. That he’d had an affair with an employee.”
“Affair sounds more sophisticated than what it really was. An entitled prick fucking the hired help. But that was the status quo, so everything was puppies and kittens.”
“Puppies and kittens? You were a boy with full knowledge of your mom’s addiction and your dad’s infidelity. How was that puppies and kittens?”
He dismissed her. “I got by.”
Some boys dreamed of becoming astronauts or race car drivers. Some wanted to be rich and famous and marry a model. Ash dreamed of two things. Becoming a soldier and marrying a woman he actually loved.
Somehow, he’d been lucky enough to go two for two.
“Then Hope happened,” he continued, “and shit got real. Claudia hired a lawyer. His illegitimate kid running around the vineyard was visual evidence her husband cheated. People in their social circle started talking, seeing their marriage for what it really was. Not a love match, but a business arrangement. She threatened to take him for everything and go public with the affair. She wanted the house, the cars, the bank accounts, the whole fucking winery.”
Liv frowned, her mouth opening, then closing. Ash didn’t need to hear her question to answer it.
“Yeah, I wasn’t on that list.” Stretching his legs, he settled back into the sofa. “It didn’t matter. I already knew where I stood. I hold Marshall accountable anyway. Hard to play the doting wife and mother when you were married to a serial cheater.”
“She could’ve been one without the other.”
“Apparently not. Marshall couldn’t lose his empire, of course, but he couldn’t let go of his convenient piece of ass, either. She and Hope lived above the garage, and he let her stay, but pumped the brakes on their fling. Dropped the daily tumbles down to a few times a week, tightened the purse strings on spending cash. Inez didn’t take kindly to that and used Hope as a bargaining chip, threatening to take her and run. Find a hiding spot in South America, maybe sell Hope into the sex trade if she needed some extra dough. She was a child, but there’d be buyers. Marshall was willing to do anything to keep that from happening.” He picked at the peeling label on his bottle. “Except give up his wine.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m well aware of his love for it.”
“Right. So to keep all parties happy, an agreement was made. Claudia kept quiet, Marshall and Inez kept fucking, and Hope was kept hidden. Out of sight, out of mind. No evidence of his indiscretion. Problem was, Hope would pop up in places she shouldn’t be, for all the workers and vineyard visitors to see. Marshall would cover for her, shooing her back to the garage, but once Claudia caught wind, she played her lawyer card again. Inez was warned, and it must’ve stuck, because from that point on, Hope wasn’t seen. It was a raw deal for a little kid.”
“Inez was abusing her, wasn’t she?”
He lifted his chin. “And I couldn’t allow that.”
“Of course, you couldn’t.” She gave him more credit than he deserved. “She was an innocent child.”
“For almost two years, Inez locked her in that room above the garage. Got a little heavy handed with her. Didn’t feed her all that much. Once I found out, it never happened again.” Clearing his throat, he looked at her without a hint of remorse. “Inez was dead the same day. And so was Claudia.”
“Hope was a teenager when I was hired,” she said, reading between the lines. “It wasn’t hidden that you had different mothers or that they died on the same day, but the story I heard was that Claudia—” She paused, softening her words. “That there was a murder-suicide.”
“I guess you could call it that. A murder-suicide.” Stopping to refill her wine glass and grab another beer from the refrigerator, he summed up his mother. “Claudia was indifferent on her best day and a bitch on her worst. Loving, she wasn’t. Nurturing was a four-letter word. Up until that point, she’d never put my needs ahead of hers. Rosa raised me.”
If he was hungry, he knew where the kitchen was. If he was dirty, they had bathtubs galore and his legs weren’t broken. If he was sick, hurt, or scared, that was his problem. Rosa was welcome to stay and clean his cut, wipe his nose, or powder his ass, but she was only getting paid for forty hours, regardless.
“Thank God for Rosa.” Liv sipped her wine, made from his family’s distasteful legacy.
“The polar opposite of my mother, which is why it came as a complete shock when Claudia put my welfare ahead of her own.”
“How?”
“She took the fall for me.” Her sacrifice still astounded him. “Traded her life for mine.”
“Because she loved you.”
“That’s debatable,” he countered, disagreeing. “The police report states that Claudia confronted Inez about the affair, learned the rumors were true, and in a jealous rage, grabbed a hunting rifle and put a hollow point in the center of Inez’s chest. Lucidity returned long enough for her to realize the consequences, and she took off in her Lincoln before the ambulance showed up. Ran that big boat right off the Coast Highway and onto the jagged cliffs below, just north of Santa Barbara. County medical examiner said she’d died on impact. A clear case of a scorned wife, the police said, and closed the investigation.” He held his beer bottle up in a celebratory toast. “Marshall kept his wine, and we lived happily ever after.”
“I know the car accident is true,” Liv pointed out. “But the happily ever after isn’t. Fill in the blanks.”
Everything on the table, he’d said to her earlier. So they could start fresh. As long as she didn’t look at him differently.
“I heard Hope screaming from the wrong side of a padlocked door. I used one shell to shoot the lock off and free her. She was filthy, skinny as fuck, and covered in bruises. Had second degree burns from a pan of boiling water, too. Inez said it wasn’t a big deal. I used a second shell because to me, it was.”
When he finally looked at Liv, he saw horror. Compassion. But no condemnation.
“Rosa had whisked Hope away, so they heard it, but didn’t see it. Claudia saw the whole thing, and it was the first time she ever put me before herself. Wiping down the rifle, she gripped it in her hands before placing it next to Inez’s body. Then she yanked on the front of my shirt, and with eyes clearer than they’d been in years, said, ‘When the cops show up, tell them I did this. When you get married, be a faithful husband.’ And then she took off in her Lincoln and was dead by sundown.”
Tears brimming, Liv laid a hand on his cheek. “See? She loved you.”
Denying it took too much energy.
“Marshall was away from the vineyard for the day. He came home in time to see them remove Inez’s body. Two detectives showed up shortly thereafter to tell us about Claudia’s accident. I’d already been questioned per standard protocol, but when they said she was dead, too, I almost cracked,” he murmured, staring into the distance. “Instead, I did what Claudia told me to. I didn’t wanna go to prison, so I lied. It was later that night, after they’d stamped the case closed and left, that I confessed. Told Marshall everything. I felt so goddamn guilty. Not about Inez, but about my mother. And after I came clean, he handed me an envelope with a thousand dollars and told me to hit the bricks. I had a half hour to pack and leave or he’d call the detectives and rat me out.”
“Maybe he really did love your mom?”
Ash snorted. “No. He loved Inez.”
“But… what about Hope’s injuries?”
He shrugged. “I guess false imprisonment and felony child abuse didn’t matter to him. I guess his daughter’s well-being didn’t matter. But Inez and her magic pussy? They mattered.”
Liv frowned. “So, he kicked you out? You were seventeen. And his son!”
“I was leaving to join the Army anyway. Enlisted a little sooner than planned, is all.” And he was done talking about Marshall. “Hope doesn’t know the truth. She never will.”
“I understand,” she whispered. “My humble hero.” Her acceptance lightened the darkness inside him. “Why did you keep this bottled up? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want your pity, Liv. I turned out just fine. So did Hope, which is a minor miracle. Now that Beck’s got her under safekeeping, I can breathe a little easier on that front.”
“Oh, his eyes,” she gushed, tapping her chest, “those things give me the shivers.” He growled his displeasure, and she laughed, hugging him. “You’re so easy to tease. I have more man than I could ever want right here in my arms.”
“Damn straight.”
“Plus, I kinda like you. I’m kinda glad I married you. And when I hear these stories about you dashing around saving people, well…” Leaning back, she winked. “That just makes me hot for you.”
“Good to know. Too bad I can’t tell you about the time I thwarted an assassination on the President.”
She laughed like he was joking. “I’ve always admired her. Hope has more guts than most people.”
“More guts than good sense. But she’s got Beck wrapped around her finger, and that’s a sight I never thought I’d see. He keeps her reeled in pretty tightly in return. I’m happy about that much.”
Liv’s smile was sappy. “They’re in love. The bright and shiny, this-is-gonna-last-forever-no-matter-what-happens kind of love.”
He searched her face. “I know that kind of love, Liv. We had it.”
“Then real life got in the way.”
“No, then tragedy got in the way. The Unit and the vineyard got in the way.” He laid a finger under her chin. “We got in the way.”
“Maybe this will help. Sharing our secrets.” Face softening, she threaded her fingers through his. “I think what you did was justified. I think it was commendable.”
“I think it could’ve gotten me a life sentence at San Quentin, and it’s not something I wanna talk about ever again. It’s not something Marshall’s gonna let go of anytime soon, either. There’s still mud to be slung over this.”
She shrugged, underestimating Marshall’s need for vengeance, but she straddled his lap and he let the topic drop.
Cupping his cheeks, she stared into his eyes. “I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I went to the vineyard. I’m sorry I hurt you.” Giving him a clinging kiss, she pulled back a fraction. “I will always choose you, Ash. Always. I’m gonna resign first thing tomorrow.”
“No, you’re not. I won’t be the overbearing husband who makes you give up your dreams.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just be aware, okay? I don’t trust him.”
“You trust me, though, don’t you?”
“You. Not him.”
“Well, I can handle anything he throws at me. Just today, I walked out of an important meeting with him because I got a very romantic text from my husband.” Walking her fingers down the center of his chest, she nibbled his ear. “I had to pop into his office and show my appreciation.”
“Jesus, was that just today? How long have we been sitting in this room?” He looked at the clock, surprised only a half dozen hours had passed since she’d blown both him and his mind.
“We’ve been through the wringer tonight, haven’t we? But look at us now. All clean and ready for our fresh start.”
“Are we? Is this what we’re doing? Putting everything behind us and starting over?”
“I think so. If you still want to?”
Like he wanted his next breath. “Yeah, Livvy. I want to.”
“I can’t believe we wasted so much time. I spent it hating, and you spent it—”
“Waiting,” he filled in, hugging her. “I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was either load my handgun and end it all or guzzle so much tequila I’d drink myself into an alcohol-induced coma. I knew you’d give the order to pull the plug, so it was all the same to me. Instead, I waited. In the beginning, after The Unit, I damn near went crazy waiting. I needed something to occupy my mind.”
“What’d you do?”
He pictured their imaginary table, with everything on it.
“I assembled my daughter’s crib.”
That took a moment to sink in, but once it did, her surprised gaze flew to the closed door leading to the second bedroom. If she’d laid a hand on that knob since returning home, he didn’t know it.
Not moving, her heartbeat visible in her neck, he saw the moment his brave, beautiful wife made up her mind.
No sound came from the room once she opened the door and entered, her bare feet quiet on the pink area rug—a rug that served as his bed for several nights after retirement.
He’d switched to the sofa in his office when a pink rug in an empty nursery became too harrowing for a former operator in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta to endure.
The Unit trained him to withstand all forms of torture while in captivity, including dry runs just to make sure. Still standing and not talking, those tests left him bloodied and bruised thanks to a CIA spook with mad skills. But no amount of torture in an abandoned warehouse in Bumfuck, Egypt had been as agonizing as what he’d experienced in that pink bedroom in San Diego, California.
Moving without thought, he joined her but didn’t enter. Leaning against the door jamb, he folded his arms and accepted a fate worse than death.
The inability to protect his wife from harm, be it mental or physical.
Her back to him, he saw her shudder with the force of her reaction, gaze zeroed in on the crib. She slid her hand along the railing, touching the polished wood with reverence, her fingertips tracing the slats down to velvety soft bedding, a blanket folded at one end.
When she turned to find him in the doorway, it wasn’t anguish that greeted him. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her hands trembled, but she was smiling.
“You did this?”
When he nodded, she made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry. Turning, she took in the nursery as if seeing it for the first time, even though she’d had it all but completed days before the baby died.
The walls, painted rose petal pink and buffed so smooth, they looked like fine suede. Felt like it, too. The matching dresser and changing table, small and delicate, making him feel like a giant inside a doll house. The cushioned rocking chair, buttery soft and so comfortable, it would put both baby and parent right to sleep.
And the crib. Found on the floor in a box so compact, it couldn’t possibly hold eighty pieces and parts that after forty-two simple steps, would be a safe, warm place for his baby to sleep. But sure enough, after a few hours of assembly—and several shots of tequila and choice curse words he’d learned from a thrice divorced Drill Sergeant—he’d stood before it.
Costing more than his first car, the Cadillac of cribs lived up to its hype.
She was a beauty, even though he’d been unable to get the sheets, printed a pink desert camouflage pattern, to fit the corners of the mattress just right. Or arrange the oddly shaped crib skirt with ruffles exactly how Liv would want it. Or place the stuffed teddy bear wearing a stupid yellow raincoat and a jaunty hat in the right spot.
“I can’t believe you did all this,” she murmured, rolling her lips.
“It’s silly, I know. Ridiculous,” he added, stuffing his hands into his pockets and stepping into the room. “I think I got the blankets wrong. There were a bunch stacked on the dresser. I wasn’t sure how many you wanted to use, but I thought she’d get too hot with more than one.” Choking on a nonsensical laugh, he stared at the ceiling, blowing out a deep breath. “God, this is fucking morbid. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe we should box everything up.”
“No,” she said sharply. “I mean, it’s morbid, yeah. But it’s perfect, too, and I—”
Swallowing, she cupped his cheek, a silent show of gratitude.
“Thank you,” she mouthed mutely.
He didn’t reply. He couldn’t.
“I don’t wanna box it up. Soon, but not yet.” Her touch gone before he was ready, she wandered the room. “This is amazing, Ash.” She stared at the crib again. “It’s perfect. And you were right. She would’ve been hot with more than one blanket.”
“And you were wrong when you said I didn’t want her. I wanted you, and her, and me. That family in the suburbs. I wanted to take my daughter to kindergarten next year.” Turning away, he picked up a picture book from the dresser, flipping through stiff pages depicting zoo animals, composing himself. “First, I’d planned to go in under the cover of darkness and install hidden surveillance throughout the school so I could monitor her treatment. But then again, I’d also planned for her to have a brown belt by the age of five, just in case some little asshole stole her pudding cup in the lunch room, and I was twenty minutes out.”
“What, no bodyguard?” She lifted her shoulders in question. “Every kindergarten girl needs one, in case a classmate shakes her down for crayons.”
“That’s what I hired Grady for. Had him sign a letter of intent when you hit your third trimester. He was still a Green Beret at the time, but I’d heard they make for great protection.”
She laughed, the lyrical sound filling a room that once held such promise, then abject sadness. And now, a shrine.
“Don’t mention that to him, though,” he continued, serious as a heart attack. “I might have left nanny off his list of duties. Planned on surprising him with a dual use diaper bag. Wipes in one pocket, weapons in all the others.”
Sharing a small grin, Liv looked around the room once more.
“I feel sad,” she finally whispered, hugging the raincoat-wearing bear to her chest.
“I know, darlin’. I’m sorry. I should’ve put all this in storage—”
“No, I mean, I feel sad, and that’s good. I don’t feel mad anymore. At least, not so much I wanna zap you with a cattle prod.”
“Thanks.” He tilted his head. “I think.”
She pointed at the tiny pink tutu and ballet shoes hanging from a hook on the closet door. “Where’d those come from?”
Glancing at them, he shrugged. “I ordered them online the day you told me you were pregnant. Rosa was holding them for me until I could give them to her.”
“Our little ballerina, huh?” Her grin was cheeky.
“Thought I’d save the AR-15 and face paint for her tenth birthday.”
She laughed in surprise. “Why wait until ten?”
“It’s a heavy rifle. She’d have to grow into it to position it accurately.”
“Now that’s responsible parenting,” she quipped, grabbing his hand and leading him back to the living room, closing the nursery door behind them.
Pushing him down on the sofa, she stood between his spread knees, uncertainty etching her tear-stained face. “Tell me what you’re doing here, Ash. With the fingernail polish on the table and the house key on the counter?”
“I’ve been waiting for you. Nothing has changed since you walked out. Same Jeep, same condo, same goddamn everything. The only thing that’s changed is my work address. I can’t move on. I won’t build a new life or start a new family. I won’t find peace until you come back to me. For good.”
“I’m here now,” she murmured, as if a temporary situation was acceptable. “What about the love messages and the baby’s room? Sharing your deepest secret?”
“Brutal honesty? I’m giving you a million reasons to stay.”
The wheels in her head turned, but for the life of him, he couldn’t read her.
When a genuine smile bloomed on her face, and she lifted her left hand, placing a soft kiss on her emerald-cut diamond, the four-year-old albatross pressing into his chest lifted.
He could finally breathe again.
“Brutal honesty?” she asked, skimming the hem of her shirt—his T-shirt—up her creamy bare thighs. “All I needed was one.”