by Sybil Bartel
An insecurity I’d felt my entire life around her surfaced, and yet I still yearned to reach for her like a child reaches for her mother. But no one in the Amherst household embraced.
I couldn’t even remember a single hug I’d received from my father. Leo Amherst had hardly ever been around when I was growing up. And on the rare occasion he’d grace us with his presence, he was always in work mode, conniving or manipulating whoever was on the other end of his ever-present cell phone. When he’d finally set the phone down, he’d busy himself with Fallon behind closed doors.
I used to resent my stepmother when I was younger. I blamed her for taking my father’s attention away from me. Then I’d caught Leo groping a poor young caterer in the kitchen one Thanksgiving, and I realized he treated her worse than his only offspring. Leo’s general shittiness probably could’ve bonded us, and maybe if I’d told her about the incident in the kitchen that year, it would have. Or maybe it only would’ve made her divorce him sooner. Regardless, I’d never said anything because she’d always felt like an island to me. Hell, maybe I was too.
Turning to face me, but not sitting, Fallon glanced at my hair. “Your natural color looks lovely.”
That was the thing about Fallon. She was kind to a fault, which only made me feel a thousand times guiltier for everything I’d put her through. “Thanks.”
Her already quiet voice became quieter with compassion. “How are you?”
Covering embarrassment, I smirked. “I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her complexion perfect, her hair naturally blonde, she dipped her head as she nodded without comment.
Then we stood there in awkward silence for a moment before I blurted out what I should’ve said the second I opened the door. “I’m sorry.”
Remaining perfectly still, only her gaze met mine.
Not having any of the stillness or elegance that Fallon had, I waved a nervous hand between us. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. I know you never signed up to be an instant mother to a kid who was a breathing reminder of your husband’s infidelity. You didn’t deserve me being a horrible person to you. You deserved better. I’m just—” My voice broke and I tried to clear the sudden lump of regret in my throat as tears welled. “I’m really sorry.”
“I was practically a child myself. I didn’t know how to raise a baby. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better stand-in mother.”
My tears spilled over. “You were my only mother.” But I’d never called her that, not with any seriousness or respect. “You deserved better from me.”
“Maybe it was you who deserved better,” she quietly countered, her own eyes filling with tears.
Hearing the forgiveness from her I didn’t deserve, a sob broke free. Then I did what I should’ve done years ago. I hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Fallon.”
She hugged me back, tightly, and it was better than any words she could’ve said.
Falling apart but also feeling like I was finally coming together, I forced myself to step away. “I don’t want to mess up your dress.” I tried to laugh as I swiped at my face.
Tucking a strand of my hair back, blinking away her own emotions, her lips hinted at a smile. “I don’t mind.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” I let out a half laugh. “Remember when you made mud pies with me in your Chanel dress and I accidentally turned the hose on you?”
A fondness I’d always taken for granted softened her eyes. “I remember.”
“We didn’t make mud pies again after that.” I’d felt too guilty for getting her wet.
She smiled. “I didn’t wear that dress again.”
We both laughed.
“Thank you,” I whispered against the tears trying to come back.
Her expression turned wary. “Can we move past this?”
I knew she wasn’t just speaking about our past, but about me. About whether or not I was going to snort my way into an early grave or piss off another drug dealer, or do something equally stupid, and in that moment, I didn’t feel a few days shy of twenty. I felt a lifetime of insecurity, I felt the loss of my childhood to circumstances, and I felt both too old and too young.
But I did know one thing. “I want to be a better person.”
“Oh, Summer.” Her delicate hands grasped my shoulders and she held me tight in her version of an embrace before releasing me. “You will do just fine. Remember, you’re as good as—”
“Your acts,” I finished the sentiment she’d been drilling into me since I was little.
Her smile was reserved like it always was, but it brought me comfort.
Inhaling, she clasped her hands in front of her in a regal gesture I’d never managed to emulate. “I’m not sure what you’re thinking your next steps are, but I have a charity dinner for Children’s Hospital next week.”
I sucked in a sharp breath already knowing what was coming. “I’m not ready for that.” Dressing in couture, smiling for people who talked behind my back, free flowing alcohol in the ballroom and lines in the bathroom—no thanks.
“You can’t hide forever,” she quietly chided.
I turned toward the sweeping ocean view wishing it was mountains. “Why not?” Suddenly depressed, I looked out at the endless paradise that used to feel like home. “Trust me, none of your friends will want me there, and I don’t have any friends of my own in this town anymore.” I wasn’t sure I ever did.
Stepping next to me, she took in the same view. “I want you there.” Her green-eyed gaze turned toward me. “Your life doesn’t have to be defined by your past.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, tell that to a six-foot-five dark haired, dark eyed bodyguard. But Fallon didn’t know what had happened on that mountain, or that I’d exchanged one obsession for another, and I wasn’t going to burden her with any more of my shit.
“Please consider it.” She squeezed my shoulder once then dropped her hand. “I think you might have a new perspective if you attend.” Her slight smile came back. “And there’s an opening on the board.”
“Fallon—”
In an unusual display of emotion, her hand came up. “I know it’s not what an almost twenty-year-old wants to do with her free time. But I do really think you would enjoy it. I would not have suggested it otherwise.”
I laughed without humor. “And how old were you when you started your foundation?” It was a rhetorical question. She’d started her charity when she was about my age. Now she had a board of directors and was responsible for funding an entire hospital for kids with rare diseases, not to mention all the money she raised for medical research.
“Please just consider it. In the meantime, I’m going for a visit tomorrow.” She paused. “I would love for you to join me.”
My skin started to itch from the inside. I hated hospitals. Like, hated them. Doctors too for that matter. I’d only tolerated rehab because no one wore white coats and the place was decorated like a damn hotel. “Hospitals and I aren’t friends.” Not since Leo had taken me to county when I was fifteen.
Dragging me down endless corridors with open doors to rooms filled with unimaginable amounts of sickness, he’d stopped outside one particular room that was buzzing with the mechanical sound of machines. Then he told me to go in and say goodbye to my birth mother.
Crying, I begged him not to make me, but he’d shoved me in anyway and said to take a good hard look. I’d barely spared the woman with tubes coming out of her arms and nose and throat a glance. I didn’t even touch her hand. The next day they’d pulled the plug on her.
I’d cried that night as I smoked pot and did lines of coke.
I didn’t even know where my birth mother was buried. I’d never asked Leo, and I never mentioned the incident to Fallon because I wasn’t sure if Leo had told her he’d taken me to see my birth mother, and I didn’t want to upset her.
“It’s not the hospital we’re going to visit, it’s the children inside it,” Fallon gently explained.
I knew
what she meant, but I was already depressed, and I didn’t know if I could handle seeing those kids. Which I knew was selfish of me when I was standing in a twenty-million-dollar penthouse with nothing physically wrong.
Fallon simply stared at me.
Damn it. “Fine.” I crossed my arms against the suddenly cold air conditioning and sealed my fate. “What time?”
My stepmother smiled her real smile at me. “I’ll pick you up at ten.”
MY CELL PINGED WITH A text.
Pulling it out of my pocket, I glanced at the display and silently cursed.
Ronan: She’s home safe. Emotional state questionable.
Fucking bastard.
I didn’t reply. I hated him for both the text and the fact that he’d spent ten hours in a vehicle alone with her, but I didn’t have time to fixate on it because seconds later oversized tires crunched on the packed snow at the base of the driveway.
My breath showing in the cold, I tossed down my wrench and stood as my hand automatically went to my back. Palming my piece but not drawing, I eyed the late model extended cab truck as it pulled up to the cabin.
Glaring at the driver, I dropped my hand.
Harm killed the engine and shoved his door open. His gaze cutting a wide path from left to right in a maneuver I knew well, his boots hit the ground. “Figured you’d need help.” His hands went to his hips and the fingers on his right tapped for a piece that wasn’t there. “Power company show yet?”
“No.” He was the last fucker I wanted help from. Scratch that, Candle was. Harm was second. “I’ve got it under control.” I didn’t have it under control. The generator kept turning off, I hadn’t slept, and my cabin was a fucking mess of haphazardly nailed plywood, bloodstains and bitter regret.
Still not making eye contact, Harm’s gaze swept another path. “No lights on inside and I don’t hear the generator. You need help,” he said confidently.
The kind of help I needed, he couldn’t give. “You that hard up for something to do? Hauling off four bodies last night without comment wasn’t enough excitement for you?” Fucker was crazy.
“Nice piece of land you got,” he commented, ignoring my bullshit.
“I’m selling it.” It was useless to me now.
His eyes finally met mine. Distant and guarded, his gaze didn’t have the lethal edge the badass I knew downrange did, but he also wasn’t as checked out as I’d heard he was.
“Because it’s burned?” he asked knowingly.
“Yep.”
“Too bad.”
“It is what it is.” In a worse fucking mood than before he’d shown up, I picked up my wrench and squatted back down next to the generator. “What did you do with the bodies?”
“Wrong tools for that,” he said casually.
Throwing my best fuck you glare over my shoulder, I went back to what I was doing. Or not doing, which was getting this fucking piece of shit up and running so I could have a goddamn hot shower. “Fine, don’t tell me.” Christ, not only did I feel it, but now I even sounded like a pussy little bitch.
Metal clanked against metal behind me, then boots crunched across the snow. A second later his toolbox landed at my feet and he joined me in a squat. “Hadn’t seen Russian military outside deployment before the other night.” He fucked around in his toolbox.
“The beauty of what money can buy.” And what it couldn’t. The best snipers weren’t for sale.
“That little girl tied up in all of that?” Harm asked.
So Ronan hadn’t told him shit. Not surprising. “Not girl, woman,” I corrected, pissed off even more. “And no, that wasn’t her shit. It was mine.” And I was an asshole for how I’d sent her away.
“Never knew you to be a fuck up.” Harm took out a smaller wrench.
I snorted out a laugh. “You also didn’t know me to let my guard down on a mission.” Case in point, the fucking inconvenience on my neck.
He glanced at me. “What happened?”
Same shit that’d probably happened to him. “You play with fire long enough, you get burned.”
“Not spoken like a true Marine.”
I took offense. “You’re standing next to me in the same goddamn boat, asshole. If you weren’t, you’d still be wearing the uniform, so don’t throw down that bullshit like you didn’t fuck up, same as me.”
“I didn’t, and we’re not standing.”
“Fucking fantastic.” Asshole. “Why are you here?”
“Luna said you needed help.”
“Motherfucker.” I threw my wrench down and stood. “I don’t need any goddamn help.” Luna had called no less than five times and I’d told him no less than five fucking times shit was handled. Vincenzo had backed off. I didn’t give a fuck where Cara was or if Antonio and Massimo shot each other for sport.
Ignoring me, Harm fucked with my generator and ten seconds later the expensive piece of shit came to life.
“What the fuck did you do?” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation. I’d been out here for two goddamn hours, not to mention last night until my fucking fingers almost froze off.
“Used the right tool.” Harm stood. “The girl, she’s yours?”
“What?” I snapped.
“You handed her off to Conlon. If she were your client, you would’ve seen the job through. I remember what type of Marine you were.” His eyes briefly met mine. “What type of man you were.” Looking away, he scanned the property again. “You’re solid.”
Making a mental note to try not to be such a fucking dick, I exhaled. Then I evaded. “She’s Luna’s client. I only work for him. I had shit to do to secure the cabin. It didn’t matter who took her out of here.”
Harm’s sharp gaze cut to me. “You’re spun up.”
My resolution to try not to be a dick shit the bed, and I was two seconds away from shooting him. “You’re trespassing.”
Harm shrugged. “Luna cherry picked quite a crew.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “Your point?” He was a goddamn walking advertisement for staying the fuck off an isolated mountain by yourself.
“He offered me a job.”
Luna was out of his goddamn mind. “Who the fuck from our unit hasn’t he offered a job too?”
“Kansas, Delario and Smathers.”
I snorted. “They’re all still boots on the ground.”
“Exactly.”
I was out of patience. “If you want the job, take it. You don’t need my approval.”
Harm gave the view a cursory glance then scanned the road he’d come in on. “You usually have firefights working for Luna?”
I told him the truth. “This wasn’t Luna and Associates business, but yeah, sometimes.” Some men came out of the Corp never wanting to shoot a firearm again and some missed it. I didn’t know which side of the coin he fell on, but his actions last night proved he could still hold his own.
His gaze cut to mine. “You’ve got mafia after you as well as those Russians?”
Fucking hell. Sighing, I debriefed him. “No. Last assignment I was on for Luna, I made enemies with the wrong prick. Apparently, none of his mafia connections were too eager to come up a mountain in a blizzard to take me down so he outsourced, but it’s all handled now.”
Harm pointed out the obvious. “You didn’t kill the Italian in the suit.”
“No.” But I should have. The old me wouldn’t have hesitated pulling the trigger, truce or not. But a five-and-a-half-foot tall brunette had been standing in my line of vision and I didn’t want her to see me kill a man in cold blood. Go fucking figure.
“Because of the client,” Harm said knowingly.
Pulling my Glock out, I checked the magazine. Then I lied to a brother. “No, because it was the right thing to do.”
The fucker’s shrewd gaze locked on mine, and he stared a beat too long. “Don’t feed the beast and it won’t grow.”
I shoved my gun back in my waistband. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” I knew exactl
y what he meant, but I wasn’t having this conversation.
“Bloodlust.”
“I think you’ve been on the mountain too damn long, brother.”
“I think you need to be on the mountain,” he calmly countered.
I glared.
He stared.
I was the fucking pussy who broke first. “I don’t have a problem.” I had a big fucking problem. Since the day I held a weapon in the name of my country, I could kill without remorse. That wasn’t a man. That was a machine. I didn’t fit in the fucking civilian world, and I sure as fuck had no business lusting after a nineteen year old with a whole goddamn future in front of her, but here I was, firmly entrenched on both fronts.
Studying me like I was on the wrong end of his scope, Harm dumped a brand of wisdom only a Marine in the exact same position would be able to do. “I couldn’t relate to anything or anyone after I got out. I thought everyone else was the problem. I came up the mountain to get away from it all before I did something stupid, to myself or someone else. Turned out, I couldn’t get away from the one person I was avoiding by coming up here.” He glanced out at the view. “This corner of the world wasn’t a bad place to be to come to terms with who I was. I hunted. I built a cabin. I practiced my long-range accuracy on deer and rabbit. I learned how to sleep through the night.” He paused. “I survived.” His gaze cut back to mine. “Not everything about who I’d become was bad. I’m not a man without honor.” His voice turning solemn, he looked back at the mountains. “Neither are you.”
I swallowed down the same regret and bitterness I did every time I’d lost a brother downrange. Then I said the first real thing since I’d told a nineteen-year-old brunette she was mine. “I’m glad you’re still standing.”
“Same.” He picked his toolbox up and put it back in the truck before opening his door.
Fuck, I was an asshole. “You want a beer?”
“I don’t drink.”
I nodded. I got it. “Coffee?”
“Maybe another time. I promised Luna I’d follow up on something.”
“The bodies?”
“Something like that.” He got behind the wheel and cranked the engine. The old truck started right up and he looked pointedly at me. “Maybe that girl is your mountain.” He shut his door and put the truck in reverse.