by Cassia Leo
“Don’t be silly,” I insisted. “We built this place for you, and others like you.”
He stared at the surface of the table as if he was unsure how to respond. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure Ryan would have felt out of place here, too.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, no offense. He just always talked about how he didn’t feel like he belonged in Afghanistan, but he didn’t belong here either.”
I gritted my teeth to fight back tears. “Did you want to talk to someone? We’re opening up the center in a few hours, and we’ll have counselors available. In fact, they should be arriving within the hour if you want to just wait in the lobby.”
I wasn’t the person he needed to talk to. Talking about Ryan had never been easy for me. Luke had always been patient with me on this subject, but this guy probably didn’t even know I was there with my brother when he took his last breath.
“I actually came to talk to you, but I understand if you’re not up to it. I just wanted to talk to someone who knew him. I looked up to him a lot, and it really fucked me up when I found out what happened.”
His dark eyes scrunched at the corners, and I got the feeling he was holding something back. His skin was stretched taut over his cheekbones, and I could only imagine how familiar he’d become with the gnawing hunger I hear gurgling in his belly.
I heaved a deep sigh. “Listen, Brandon, I have a million things to do today, but I’d love it if you could join my family and me for dinner tonight. I’d love to talk some more.”
He smiled, and I force myself to smile back as I imagined what kind of grief I was going to get from Luke tonight.
Chapter 2
Luke
Even though I’d left the office two hours early, the drive home was a fucking traffic nightmare. By the time I pulled into the driveway of our new lake house, I was both surprised and excited to see Brina’s black Volvo parked in the driveway. I didn’t really expect her to come home from the banquet early. The foundation was so important to her; she seemed to have found her calling. I was already anticipating all the ways I was going to thank her for putting me first today—until I walked through the front door and saw her leading a man into the kitchen.
Brina would never cheat on me. Besides, this guy looked too shabby to be her type. But this didn’t stop me from following quietly behind them.
I passed the wall clock Brina had custom made a few months ago by a local craftsman. The clock had a different seashell—picked by Lucas, Jr.—where each of the numbers should be. She had her doubts when she was pregnant with Lucas, but I always knew Brina would make an excellent mother.
When I entered the great room, the guy was taking a seat behind the breakfast bar at the kitchen island. He appeared thin and disheveled, possibly homeless, but he was young. He spotted me in the doorway and his eyes widened with fright. What the fuck was she doing inviting strange men into our house? Where were the kids?
He didn’t say anything, and I kept my eyes locked on his as I spoke. “Brina?” I tried to dial down the anger building inside me, but something told me I wasn’t going to like what was going on here.
She turned on her heel in front of the open refrigerator. The expression on her face was both shocked and apologetic. I looked to the guy sitting on my barstool in my house and he had his head down, the bill of his baseball cap hiding his face.
“Luke, honey, this is Brandon Newell,” Brina said as she closed the refrigerator door and started toward me. “He served with Ryan. I invited him over for dinner. Is that okay?”
My nostrils are flared as I tried to keep myself calm. I nodded toward the hallway and she followed me out of the great room. When I turned around, her face was inches away, her eyebrows scrunched together over her beautiful brown eyes, and I shook my head at how easy it was for her to get her way with me.
“On my fucking birthday?” I said in a growling whisper.
“He’s homeless and obviously starving,” she replied, her eyes pleading my forgiveness. “He wanted to talk. I offered to get him an appointment with a counselor at the center, but he said he’d feel more comfortable talking to me, because he really looked up to Ryan.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Luke, please. I really think he just wants to talk about my brother. Can we please give him the benefit of the doubt? It’s one meal.”
She slid her hands over my chest and I gritted my teeth as the blood rushed to my crotch. I’ve been thinking about getting Brina into bed all fucking day, and now I have to put it off to have dinner and a heart-to-heart with a stranger, on my birthday.
I shook my head as I realized there was no resisting this woman whom I was irrevocably in love with. Not to mention the fact that I knew she was right. After all, it was my charitable contributions to veterans that brought us together. I couldn’t expect Brina, after everything she had been through with her brother, to not want to extend her hand to an ex-soldier in need.
I kissed her forehead and her smile eased my tension. “All right. But I’m calling him a cab right after dinner and you are going to pay for this tonight.”
She bit the corner of her lip and it took everything in me not to kick the guy out right then. “Oh, no. Sounds serious.”
“It’s very fucking serious, so don’t drag this out.”
She turned around and laughed as I grab her ass, the luscious ass that only got sexier with each pregnancy. When we entered the kitchen, the guy was resting his head on top of his arms on the breakfast bar. Something about him both infuriated me and made me pity him at the same time. I didn’t know what he’d been through, and I felt for the guy, but I knew absolutely nothing about him, and my job was to protect my family.
Brina looked over her shoulder at me and shrugged. “Should I wake him up?” she whispered.
I shook my head and nodded toward the hallway. “Where are the kids?” I asked as she followed me up the stairs to the bedroom.
“Myrna said she put them down for a nap about an hour ago.”
“What’s that guy’s name?” I asked as I slipped my phone out of my pocket and prepared to fire off a quick text message to Perry—Brina’s former full-time bodyguard who only worked on-call since Brina started spending most of her time working for the foundation.
“Brandon Newell.”
I sent Perry a text asking him to do a background check on Brandon Newell and get over here as soon as he could. “How long before the kids wake up?”
“Rhianne will probably be asleep for at least another hour. Lucas will probably wake up soon.”
We entered the bedroom and I closed the door behind her. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re wearing a dress.”
I grabbed her waist and pinned her against the door as I crushed my lips against hers. She tasted like champagne. They must have been drinking at the banquet. I yanked up the skirt of her dress and ground into her as her fingers clutched my hair.
“Take your panties off,” I whispered into her ear.
She shook her head and pushed my chest back. “No, it’s your birthday.”
Biting her lip, she looked up at me with that mischievous look that never failed to get her whatever she wanted. She grabbed the front of my shirt and pushed me backward toward the chaise next to the window overlooking the lake. I lay back and let her take charge as she unbuckled my belt and unfastened my pants. She smiled when my erection popped out of my boxers and I held my breath as I waited for it.
She laid a soft kiss on the tip and I clenched my jaw. She loved to tease me this way, because she knew it drove me crazy. She planted several delicate kisses around the head of my dick, drawing out the anticipation before she brought out her tongue. Licking a light, wet circle around the circumference, her eyes lit up with sheer delight. Then, without warning, she took me into her mouth, wholly and deeply, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth.
Her lips and tongue were warm as she drew me in farther, until I hit the back of her throat. I grabbed a ha
ndful of her hair and gently guided myself in and out of her, watching in awe at the way her eyes watered as she swallowed me.
The knock at the door startled us both and she let out a strangled choking sound before I pulled her head back.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I struggled to zip up my pants over my erection. “Who is it?!”
Brina swiped her thumb across her lips as she sprang to her feet, and I reached for her dress to smooth down the back.
“Mr. Maxwell!” Myrna sounded panicked. “There’s a man in the kitchen!”
I scuttled around Brina to get to the door and yanked it open. Myrna’s round face was pale and her black eyes were wide with fright as she handed Rhianne to me. Rhianne’s blue eyes were also wide as she absorbed Myrna’s terror through osmosis. I brushed her wispy, brown curls out of her face and kissed her forehead.
“Calm down, Myrna; it’s just a friend of Brina’s,” I said as I made my way down the stairs.
Rhianne grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it with her sticky little fingers. Like mother, like daughter. I pulled her hand away and gave her fingers a playful bite that made her giggle.
“Where’s Lucas?” I asked Myrna as I made it to the bottom of the curved staircase.
“Still sleeping. He was very tired from throwing a tantrum.”
I thought I’d have more trouble with a daughter, but last year Lucas gave new meaning to the terrible twos. This year, he created a new category of terror I like to refer to as the Tyrannical Threes. Brina spoiled him too much, and we all paid the price, because she refused to believe that giggling was an inappropriate reaction to a child’s tantrums. Rhianne, on the other hand, was my angel.
When we entered the kitchen, Brandon was sitting up straight on the barstool with his hands in his lap and a guilty look on his face. In other words, he looked like Lucas every time we entered a room.
I handed Rhianne to Myrna. “Can you please change her diaper and wake up Lucas before you get dinner started?”
She nodded as she took Rhianne and marched off toward the stairs.
I glared at Brandon for a second. He needed to know I didn’t appreciate the havoc he’d brought into my house in the span of fifteen minutes. He scared the shit out of my kids’ nanny and interrupted my blowjob. I was getting more pissed at him by the second.
Brina came up behind me and threaded her fingers through the hair on the back of my head. I knew she’s doing it so I’d relax, but it only pissed me off more, because my dick was still hard.
I twisted my head to get away from her hand and heard her tsk. “How long have you been on the streets?” I asked the guy.
I wasn’t not going to beat around the bush with him; he was in my home on account of my wife’s hospitality, not mine.
His eyes hardened as he looked me in the eye. “Three weeks. I was at Compass Center while the VA processed my disability claim, but they denied it a few weeks ago, so I left.”
Brina gasped at this news. “Why would you leave Compass Center? That is such a great place. I’ll call Tracy in the morning and ask her to take you back.”
“No, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem, really,” she insisted. “Tracy and I talk almost every day. She’s been such a huge help to me with setting up the counseling program.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t go back. They kicked me out.”
Brina and her big heart. It was this very quality that attracted me to her, and the same quality that nearly broke us up exactly four years ago. You’d think we’d both have learned something by now.
I nodded toward the hallway as I grabbed Brina’s arm and she followed me. “I know you want to help this guy, but I don’t think we want him here. I can see the wheels turning in your head, and I am not going to allow this guy to stay here. Understood?”
She frowned, and for a moment, she looked the way Lucas looked when he was being chastised.
“Brina? Tell me you understand and you’re not going to offer this guy anything more than a meal.”
She stared at my chest for a moment before she spoke. “Fine, but he’s somebody’s son. Would you do that if it were Ryan? Ryan could have ended up like that. They cleared him for another tour, even though he had PTSD. Guys like them just keep slipping through the cracks. You can pretend like you don’t care, but I know you do. That’s why you pulled me aside to tell me this instead of telling him outright.”
I looked her in the eye and she didn’t flinch. She was right, as usual. “Fine. He can spend the night, but you’re taking him with you to the center tomorrow and you’re letting them find him a place to go. One night. Got it?”
She smiled, and I could feel my resolve melting. This was not going to end well.
Chapter 3
Brina
After the kids ate their dinner, I decided to give them a bath while Myrna made her special pad Thai. I bathed Rhianne first, because she was a breeze. By the time I pulled Lucas out of the tub, the skin on my hands was covered in tiny, red bite marks and I had a splitting headache from the screaming. He finally calmed down once I had him dressed in his pajamas.
As always, I lay with him in ‘Mommy and Daddy’s bed’ for a while to calm him even further. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the dinosaur on the front of his shirt.
“Dinosaur!” he shouted proudly.
“Very good, but what kind of dinosaur is it?” He shrugged and smiled, because he knew. “Come on, honey, you can say it. What kind of dinosaur is this?”
He shook his head and I pulled him into a hug. He climbed on top of me and wrapped his arms around my neck as he laid his head on my chest. I breathed in the scent of his hair and squeezed him tighter. I never thought I could love anyone more than I loved Luke until this little monster came along.
Luke walked into the bedroom carrying Rhianne. Her chubby cheek rested on his shoulder and her curls were still a bit damp at the ends, but she was dead asleep. He nodded toward the hallway, and I sat up with Lucas so he was sitting in my lap facing me.
“It’s time to go to bed,” I whispered to him. “Can you make me a promise?”
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he whined softly because he was too tired to put his full effort into it.
We made the mistake of allowing Lucas to sleep in our bed until he was ten months old. When we came back from our honeymoon, we broke him of this habit, but he still climbed out of his bed and snuck into our room to join us once or twice a week. Tonight was not a good night for that.
“I know, sweetie, but I want you to promise me that you’re going to stay in your bed tonight, and if you need mommy or daddy, you’re going to press the button to call us. Can you promise me that?”
Luke had a call system installed in the house in addition to the intercom system. If Lucas needed us, all he had to do was press a button on the side of his nightstand, and an alarm would beep in our bedroom and a few other rooms in the house.
Lucas stared at my lips as he considered my question. I grabbed his soft little hands and kissed his fingers, then I rose from the bed with him in my arms.
“I promise,” he whispered in my ear as he laid his head on my shoulder.
I carried him into the hallway just in time to see Luke softly closing Rhianne’s bedroom door. He followed me into Lucas’s room, and Lucas smiled like a clown at the sight of his daddy. I never got tired of watching Luke with the kids. The pure adoration that lit up their faces when they saw him always melted my heart.
As we exited Lucas’s bedroom, a sense of dread perched inside me. It was time to face Brandon and whatever gut-wrenching memories of my brother he felt the need to discuss. Luke threaded his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand, but it didn’t do anything to ease my anxiety.
I squeezed his hand and he looked down at me. “I have your birthday gift, but I’ll give it to you tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Baby, I told you I don’t want anything but you for my birthday, and I meant i
t. So let’s make this dinner quick.”
When we were all seated at the dining table, with Luke and me at one end and Brandon at the other, Myrna brought Luke’s bourbon and I sipped white wine, but Brandon refused the alcohol.
“I don’t drink. Haven’t drunk anything since I heard about Ryan.”
I set down my wine glass and began twirling the fork in my plate of noodles. I could feel Luke staring at me, and that familiar uneasiness settled into my limbs.
“Ryan didn’t like to talk about Afghanistan,” I said before I took another sip of wine. “I always felt like there was a part of him I never knew…will never know. Do you think you could share some of your favorite memories of him?”
Luke reached under the table and squeezed my knee, a small gesture to show he was proud of me. I had to keep myself from looking at him, because I knew it would only make this more difficult.
Brandon finished the noodles he was chewing and put down his fork. It was evident he was trying really hard not to scarf down his food, and it broke my heart.
He took a sip of water before he spoke. “There’s the time we were doing a security check in this village, and this old guy kept following us around everywhere, shouting shit in Dari, like we could understand. The fucker didn’t care that Ryan was holding a fucking M249; he just kept getting in his face.”
My chest tightened as I imagine what my brother must have felt being verbally attacked by a stranger for doing his job. Brandon may have known my brother at a time when he had to be tough, but I knew my brother when he cried over a breakup. He wasn’t always so strong, and something like that would have killed him inside.
Brandon finished his story about how Ryan calmed the guy down, though neither of them understood a word the other was speaking. When he’s finished, a heavy silence fell over the table.
I set my napkin on the table and stood. “I’m going to bed. Myrna will show you to the guest room. There’s a shower in there. Thanks for your company, Brandon.”