I moved closer to him, not just because I knew it was what should naturally happen in the role I was playing, but because I really did want to comfort him. There was something about the guilt he was carrying, about the excuses he kept trying to make, the real fear I saw in his eyes and heard in his voice, that neutralized all the anger and the outrage that lived inside of me every time I thought about the men who were behind his fear. I wanted to believe that, but I wasn’t ready to ask myself why.

  “I adore you for wanting to protect me,” I said, pressing a hand under his t-shirt and letting my palm slide along the front of his abdomen, feeling those ridges that marked his impressive six-pack. “I admire you for seeing the lack of morality in all this and wanting to protect me from it.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I don’t want you hurt, either.”

  He sighed, heavily, his hands coming around me, his hands dancing along my back. “When this started, I never anticipated finding someone I would care this much for. I never would have done it if I’d known.”

  “You would have. You had your reasons for doing what you did.”

  He was quiet for a moment, his hands hesitating on my back. “You’re right,” he finally said. “But for the wrong reasons. I did it because I wanted to show my parents I could do it on my own. And because I let my buddies convince me.” He pulled me closer. “If this guy hadn’t gotten hurt on my watch…”

  “What guy and what would that have to do with anything?”

  “A guy called Roman Pierce.” He kissed the top of my head, missing the complete shock on my face. “He was in my unit when I was in Afghanistan. My final patrol before getting shipped home; we came under enemy fire and ducked into this abandoned building. I told him not to stand under the damn stairwell, but he wouldn’t listen. The man never listened. The whole thing collapsed, crushed him underneath. Head injury. Sent him home in a coma.”

  “So what does that have to do with what’s going on now?”

  He tugged at my T-shirt, pulling it from my jeans and slid his hands over my back as I was doing to his chest. “Apparently he had a girl back home. She was pregnant when he left, and the baby was nearly a year old when they came to see me. Told me some of the money would go to the two of them.”

  “Did it?”

  “Don’t know. But I heard he married her.” He brushed my hair back, kissing my forehead lightly. “But it’s all gotten much bigger than that now.”

  I nodded, but my thoughts were spinning. They were in the same unit. That had to be useful information for Kai. Maybe this Abraham Black had been in their unit, too. That would explain the connection, but would it prove that Black was involved in all this illegal stuff? Maybe not, but a picture was beginning to form.

  “He wasn’t even supposed to be with us that night,” Ayden sighed. “He was assigned to the MPs, but I was down one and the Captain thought it might be good for him to get out and remember what we were there to do.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Damn bad luck is what it was.”

  “He worked for the MPs?”

  “Yeah. Base security.”

  An idea began to form in the back of my mind, a connection forming. But then Ayden’s hands moved further up my back, his fingers playing with the clasp on my bra. I pressed my forehead to his shoulder, sighing as he found a sensitive spot there on my back. I knew I should be concentrating on the information he had to give me, but that spot…every nerve in my body seemed to come alive with just that simple touch.

  “We should go check on dinner,” I mumbled against his chest.

  “It’s fine. It needs to simmer for about an hour.”

  I groaned. “Then maybe we should go for a walk.”

  “Hmm…” He brushed my hair from my temple and kissed me there before putting his lips close to my ear. “I think I found an erotic zone.”

  “I think you’d better stop.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  I moaned softly, my hands exploring under his shirt until it was rolled nearly to his mid chest. Why was it so hard for me to walk away from this man?

  He pressed his fingers in my hair, tugging my head back. I looked up at him, trying for a moment to avoid his eyes, but finding it impossible. This man was helping an organization to undermine the good the American military was doing in Afghanistan. He was helping this organization buy and sell weapons to the very people our military was fighting in Afghanistan. This man represented everything I hated about those who gave American soldiers a bad name and defiled honor. .

  And yet…I still wanted to believe he was as much a victim in all of this as Briar and her child. I wanted to believe that he wasn’t the target Kai was looking to take out, but just a cog in a wheel. And his touch made me want to believe it even more. But there was still this voice in the back of mind that reminded me that it was men like him, who were responsible for my brother’s death in Iraq; men like him who inspired hatred and terrorist acts like the boy who killed my friend in Afghanistan.

  He touched my back and I ran my hands over his chest, but I couldn’t shut the voices off inside my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, pulling away. I left the room, rushing down the hall to the small powder room under the back stairs. I locked the door and sat on the edge of the tub, my head spinning. I needed out of here! I knew how important it was to get this information from Ayden, but every time he touched me, the strength to push him away dwindled a little more, and a little more. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep him at arm’s length.

  “Paxton?”

  I bit my bottom lip so hard that I could taste blood for a second.

  “I’ll be out in a second.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket again, pulled up the pictures of Robby and his father. I knew he was happy in Colorado, that he laughed and played as much as a child should. I knew his father took good care of him, knew that he adored his stepmother. I knew they were both good people. I wished I had been strong enough to be the mother to him that I should have been.

  I’d really messed up when I got pregnant with Robby. I didn’t want to repeat the mistakes I’d made back then. I wanted to make Kai proud. But I was so afraid I was on the cusp of doing something I couldn’t walk back from. I needed to be smart. I needed to do what Kai would want me to do.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door. Ayden was standing there, concern written all over his face.

  “You okay?”

  I tugged at his shirt, moving close to him. “I couldn’t be better.”

  Chapter 12

  Ayden

  “Tell me about your brother,” I demanded, studying Paxton in the dim light of the fire burning in my fireplace. She was curled up on one end of the couch, a glass of wine dangling between her fingers. I was on the opposite of the couch, a tumbler of whiskey in my hands. “Tell me what your relationship was like.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, studying the fluid in her glass. “He was older than me. Five years older. So, he was my big brother whom I looked up to, my role model I suppose, until it all went sour.”

  “Were there other siblings?”

  She shook her head. “My mother had trouble staying pregnant. She had a bunch of miscarriages before I came along. In fact, I think I was something of an accident, not that they ever said that.” She brushed a piece of hair from her face. “My brother was that much older and had his own set of friends. By the time I was a freshman he was already out of the house. But my strongest memory of him was when he brought a couple of guys home from school one day to work on some project, and they were teasing me, being really cruel, like teenagers can be. He pulled them aside and told them to cool it or he’d quit the project, cause them all to fail. I was about ten.” She smiled softly. “It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.”

  “Up to that point.”

  “Yeah.” She sipped her wine. “What about you? You don’t have any siblings?”

  “Nope. My parents decided one was more than enough.”

  “You were more than enough.”

  I laughed, thinking about some of the trouble I got into as a teen. “Probably.”

  “Have you ever thought about having kids?”

  I tilted my head looking at her. “Not until recently.”

  “Old age catching up with you?”

  “No. I just hadn’t met a woman I would consider having a child with until recently.”

  She sat up a little straighter, tension clearly stiffening her shoulders. She stared down at her glass before swallowing the last little bit in it. Then she got up, padding over to the minibar to pour herself some more.

  “What about you?” I asked. “You ever think about having kids?”

  She hesitated. “It’s complicated,” she finally said.

  “Because of your brother?”

  She glanced at me. “My brother?”

  “The drug addiction.”

  She gasped a little, almost like she’d forgotten about it. “Yeah, that’s part of it,” she finally said.

  “Or is it more about your mom’s experiences? It must have been hard, growing up with that knowledge.”

  She sat back on the couch. “My mom died of ovarian cancer. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “You told me she died of cancer.”

  “Yeah. I was fifteen when she was diagnosed. My dad…he wasn’t around much. I was the one who took care of her, made sure she had all her meds, made sure she was comfortable. And, later, I was the one who changed her diapers and gave her sponge baths.”

  My heart filled with pity for the child Paxton once was.. But it seemed to explain a lot about her, too. Her experiences at such a young age had made her tough, but they also made her distrusting. It explained a bit why she kept me at arm’s length.

  She took a big gulp from her glass, her lips in a twisted smile. . “My father hadn’t meant for it to go that way, but it did. I don’t know what was harder to deal with at the time, his apologies or her tears. They both wanted things to be different, but neither knew how to make that happen. My father wouldn’t let himself believe she was dying, and my mother didn’t have the strength to convince him. I had to take charge, had to do the hard stuff for us all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “She died, and my father fell into a depression that ended his career. We moved to New Orleans, and he slowly put his life together. Then, one day, he’s moving to California, married to the woman down the street, and expecting a son.” She sipped from her glass again. “Replaced my brother in one, quick moment.”

  “But your brother was still around.”

  She looked up, a frown marring her brow. “Oh,” she finally said, like she was remembering a thread of a story she’d forgotten. “He was already in Colorado by then. It was mostly just me and dad.”

  “Your father washed his hands of him? Because of the drugs?”

  It seemed outrageous to me, but Paxton didn’t seem to agree. “It was complicated,” she said softly, finishing a glass of wine that was full just a moment or two ago.

  “Family can be complicated.”

  She snorted. “You have no idea.” She got up, but instead of going to pour herself more wine, she wandered to the piano my mother purchased for me, picking up one of the framed photographs that sat there. “Are you close to your mother?”

  “She thinks we are.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I got up and went to her, leaning against the piano so that I could see the picture she held. “We talk at least twice a week and she comes over every Sunday night to drop off casseroles for me to eat during the week.”

  “Has she been here tonight?”

  I smiled, leaning close to slip the picture out of her hand and put it back where she found it. “She and my father are in Chicago tonight attending some conference for finance. My dad likes to keep on top of the market even though he’s technically retired.”

  “Is she the first number on your speed dial option?”

  I chuckled softly, but nodded. “She is.”

  “You know what they say about Momma’s boys.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it makes me more sensitive to issues that impact women.”

  “Does it now?”

  “Sure it does.”

  “What would you think of me if I told you I was a Marine? That I could probably kill you with one move?”

  I laughed. “Well…I’ve never dated a woman who served in the military, but I don’t have anything against it. I served with several impressive women.”

  “Would you have dated them?”

  “Three of them were married and the fourth was a lesbian with a big girlfriend back home.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Honestly? No. But that’s not because they were in the Army. It’s because I didn’t find any of them attractive.”

  “So, looks are important when you seek a romantic partner.”

  “Of course. Men are visual, right? It’s important to every man.”

  “What was it that turned you off? The muscles?”

  I groaned, pushing away from the piano and swallowing the last of my whiskey. I set the tumbler down on a low table and crossed the room, turning to face her with my arms crossed over my chest.

  “Why do I feel like I’m being interrogated here?”

  “I just…I’m curious. Why do some men see a woman in the military as being undesirable? What’s wrong with a woman fighting alongside men?”

  “We’ve been conditioned over millennia that women are the weaker sex and we’re supposed to protect them. It takes a hot minute to get past that sort of thinking.”

  “So, I should feel sorry for you?”

  I groaned. “How did we get on this subject?”

  She shrugged, picking up another of the pictures my mother had placed on display there. “How close are you to your father?”

  “Not very. He was kind of a standoffish sort of guy all my childhood. He had his work and he had my mom. That was all he really wanted.”

  “That sort of guy.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. Not the kind of guy who should have had kids.”

  She set the picture down and straightened again, pressing her fingers into the front pockets of her jeans. “What would you think of a woman who wasn’t sure she wanted to have children?”

  “I’d say she has a right to make that choice.”

  “You’re a southern gentleman. Wouldn’t you see that as unfeminine?”

  I snorted. “That’s a little old fashioned, isn’t it? I might be a southern gentleman, but I’m not a cave man. I don’t have racist ideals and I don’t think that every woman was made to be chained to the stove, barefoot and pregnant.”

  “But you don’t like a woman with muscles?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. She smiled, as if she’d caught me in a lie, or something.

  “I like a woman with curves. Is that a sin?”

  She looked down at herself. “Then why are you attracted to me?”

  “Because you’re fucking beautiful!” I shook my head, my eyes cutting over her like a knife with a razor edge, but then coming back much slower, taking their time over every inch of her gorgeous body. “You have a body that’s fit, the legs that belong to a runner, abs that belong to a woman who takes care of herself, and the curves of a woman who was made in the image of perfection.”

  She snorted. “You’re biased.”

  “No. I’m trying to be honest.”

  “If I had on a Marines’ uniform, you wouldn’t see me the same way.”

  “Maybe not. I don’t know. But I find you damn attractive now.”

  She grabbed her wine glass and went back to the bar, pouring the last glass from the oversized bottle. Something was bothering her, that much was clear. I’d noticed it over dinner, too, the way she clipped her words, the way she looked at me as though she was struggling with something, but wasn’t willing to discuss it. I knew it must have something to do with the confession I’d made back at the office. She was trying to pick a fight with me now so that she could find an excuse to go.

  “You don’t want to be here with me, do you?” I asked.

  She glanced at me as she sipped from her glass. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re angry.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “About what? Talk to me, and maybe we can figure it out together.”

  She shook her head, setting the glass down carefully on the top of the bar. “I don’t think so.”

  “What is bothering you? Is it what I said, back at the office?”

  “Yes.” She ran her finger along the rim of the glass, staring thoughtfully at it. “I can’t seem to reconcile the man I’ve gotten to know with a man who would get himself involved in something like that.”

  “It was a stupid mistake.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” She stopped, and looked up at me again. “You made a conscious choice. That’s what I don’t understand.” She was quiet for a moment. “You were a soldier. You fought for this country, but now you’re stealing from people that we are meant to be protecting. You’re breaking laws that you offered your life to uphold.”

  She was right. There was no argument against it. But the truth was more complicated than she’d ever begin to understand. I wanted to explain it to her, but found it hard to explain it to myself, let alone anyone else.

  “I made the wrong choice.”

  “And now they’re planning a heist of a military base? Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Of course it bothers me! But what can I do about it? They’re holding my business to ransom.”

  “Are they? Or is it just easier to lie down and allow them to walk all over you?”

  “Are you suggesting I’m a coward?”

  She studied my face for a moment, then lifted her glass and gulped down her wine. “I should go,” she said, taking a few steps toward the door.

  I blocked her path, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You can’t go anywhere. You don’t have a car.”

 

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