He couldn’t tell whether the idea of him leaving made her happy or sad.
“Fine.”
“You know how to reach me if you need anything.”
“Right.”
Mantis leaned down, put his arm around her shoulders so she couldn’t jerk away from him again, and kissed the top of her head.
“Happy New Year,” he whispered in her ear.
—:—
Once she was certain Mantis was gone, Alegria turned the upper half of her body toward the window, clutched the pillow to her chest, and let the tears flow that she’d held in since she overheard Mantis’ conversation with his mother.
She hadn’t realized what day it was, but then, Alegria had no reason to celebrate.
This New Year’s Eve wasn’t going to be much different than the two before it. Last year she didn’t have any idea where in the world Mantis was, or even if he was still alive. The year before, they’d had a terrible fight, and he’d left, much like he did today.
She’d done a lot of thinking while she lay in yet another hospital bed with her body broken.
Her life as she’d known it was over, and it was time to make some drastic changes. Once her parents arrived, they’d help her figure out her next best course of action. Whatever that turned out to be, her new life had to be vastly different than the one she’d been trying so hard to get back to.
Only yesterday she’d begged Mantis not to leave her. Then, she’d still believed the paralysis in her legs would go away when the epidural wore off. The fact that it hadn’t, was what made her decide it was time to move forward and leave the past behind, particularly the part with Mantis and Dutch in it. A new year meant a new life.
She closed her eyes against the other memories she had of New Year’s Eves, the ones that had been good between her and Mantis.
“Where are we going?” Alegria asked for the countless time.
“Be patient and have faith.”
“You know I don’t like surprises.”
Mantis laughed. “You don’t like feeling out of control. You love surprises.”
Was that true? She thought back on all the times he’d insisted, like he was now, that she be patient and have faith in him.
“It’s good for you to let go every now and then.”
Alegria rested her head against the seat and fought the anxiety that came along with not knowing where they were going or what they were doing. Within minutes she found herself dozing off. Each time her head bobbed to her chest, she’d wake herself up.
“You can’t even let go and sleep,” he laughed.
“Shut up,” she muttered, irritated he was finding so much humor in her shortcomings.
Mantis put his hand on her thigh and squeezed her bare flesh. “I promise you’re gonna love this.”
His fingers made their way closer to her sex, and she felt the muscles in her body, one by one, releasing tension. Her eyes half-closed, but not because she was sleepy. Instead, her nerve-endings were on high alert, willing his fingers to dip below the edge of her skirt. She pouted when he pulled his hand away entirely.
“Make no mistake, I plan to pick up where we left off very soon,” he said when she groaned at his fingers’ absence.
“How soon?”
He turned his head and smiled. He was right about her inability to give up control. The only time she did it willingly was when Mantis had his hands on her naked body. Then she gave in enthusiastically.
“I can’t keep my hands off of you,” he murmured, running his fingers up her thigh like she’d wanted him to moments ago. “Lift your skirt.”
Rather than telling him he should concentrate on driving, Alegria did as he asked.
“Show me what you want me to do to you.”
His hand moved from her thigh to her breast.
“Show me,” he said again, this time pinching her left nipple with his deft fingers, the ones that made her beg, and plead, and even scream.
“Please, Alegria,” he murmured.
When his grasp tightened on her nipple, she put her hand on her own flesh. In seconds, he grabbed her wrist and brought her fingers to his mouth, licking away every trace of her essence.
“Do you know how much I want you?” he asked.
With her skin flushed and a terrible ache between her legs, she wanted him just as much.
Alegria shuddered, remembering the magical hold he had on her body then, and every other time they’d made love.
It wasn’t a surprise that Dutch had never been able to bring her to the heights of pleasure that Mantis did. He was far too tentative, waiting for her to control the situation like she did with everything else. There were a handful of times when he showed signs of taking over, but when he’d backed off, she’d been left disappointed to the point of no longer being interested.
She tried to squeeze her thighs together to assuage the ache that came whenever she thought about Mantis’ hands or mouth on her, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
If only they’d made love one last time, she could’ve held the memory of it forever.
As it was, she had to reach much further back to relive the last time he’d brought her to the precipice and then sent her hurling into the abyss of ecstasy.
—:—
Mantis didn’t feel like talking when his father picked him up at the hospital, and thankfully it was something the man who’d raised him had always recognized easily.
“Your mother went shopping,” he told him when they pulled into the driveway.
“I’m going to need to rent a car.”
His father nodded. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
Mantis looked at him.
“You know, like drive you to the rental place.”
“Right,” he said, shaking his head at his stupidity.
His father squeezed his shoulder. “How about a beer?”
“Isn’t it the middle of the morning?”
“Sure is, but by the look of you, you need one.”
“I’m thinking something stronger is in order.”
“Done.”
His dad motioned for him to follow him into the house.
“Maybe I should go get the car before we open any bottles.”
“Good thinking,” said his father.
“What’s up with you?” Mantis asked. As much as he didn’t want to talk about Alegria or Dutch or even K19, his father’s behavior warranted a conversation.
“I’ve decided to retire.”
“Oh. Uh, do you still work?”
His father had run a successful manufacturing consultancy for many years, and for the most part, worked from home.
“Maybe not as much as I used to, but enough that I think about it, and I don’t want to think about work anymore.”
“You’d rather start drinking first thing in the morning?”
His father smiled. “I don’t intend to drink any more often than I do now. However, today, you look like you need to tie one on tight.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Who said anything about talking?”
An hour later, they hadn’t gone to get a rental car; Mantis hadn’t even reserved one. What he had done, though, was tell his father every detail about what had gone down between him and Alegria, and Alegria and Dutch. He couldn’t talk about the latter in detail, but he could convey his anger at what his supposed best friend had done.
His father hadn’t said much, nor had he had much to drink. When Mantis stopped after the first round of whiskey, his dad had too.
“She did cut you loose,” his father said when Mantis finally shut up enough that the man could get a word in.
He shrugged. “I like to think of it as a mutually-agreed-upon decision.”
His father laughed out loud. “What a load of bullshit. You refused to do as she asked, and she dumped you.”
“You’re right.”
Mantis was six feet three inches tall and weighed two hundred and
thirty pounds, yet his father still bested him in both. When Kip Cassman rested his hand on a man’s shoulder and squeezed, like he’d just done to Mantis, whoever it was would feel it down to their toes.
“How’s Jonas?” Mantis asked, pushing the memory of how he and his oldest brother had always worked out with their father, but their younger brother never joined them.
“He’s good. Theresa just had that sweet baby girl, Alana. I always wanted a girl, but I guess I was just meant to be a grandpa to a couple. No offense to you or your brothers.”
Mantis cringed at his father’s use of the plural word. He no longer had brothers; now he only had one. “None taken.”
“What in the world?” said his mother, coming in from the garage to find them both with their feet up on her coffee table.
“Just a little father-son bonding, Minnie.”
She walked over and picked up his father’s glass. “Whiskey? At ten in the morning?”
“I think we started closer to nine.”
She threw her hands up in the air and stomped off to the kitchen. “Is this your second bottle?” she hollered to them.
“No. Why?” Mantis asked.
She came back in, gripping the bottle’s neck. “You’ve hardly had any.”
Mantis watched as his father stood, walked over to his mother, took the whiskey from her hand, and then leaned down and kissed her.
“You used to like the taste of whiskey on my lips,” he said when she pulled away.
That was Mantis’ cue to leave. It was bad enough that he’d just had his heart stomped on, he didn’t need to see evidence of how a relationship was supposed to work from his parents.
He went out the back door instead of the front. He hadn’t been in the yard behind his parents’ house yet, and he knew that, sooner or later, he’d have to.
The tree they’d planted seventeen years ago, in Ian’s memory, was easily over forty feet tall. Two Adirondack chairs sat beneath it, where he knew his parents would sit and talk about their firstborn.
Even right after it happened, his parents hadn’t shied away from talking about their feelings. At the time, Mantis was thirteen years old, Jonas only ten.
“It’s okay to cry,” his father had told them. “We miss him, and we’re sad that he’s gone.”
Mantis hadn’t cried then, he’d gotten angry. He was still angry, and probably would be for the rest of his life.
It didn’t matter that he’d personally snuffed the life out of Bagish Safi’s body. Nothing would ever bring his brother back or assuage the rage inside of him whenever he thought about the day the two planes hit the World Trade Center.
The rage drove him then, and it still did. He’d vowed that day to become a fighter pilot so he could shoot any plane out of the sky that threatened to bring harm to the United States and to families like his.
He stood beneath the tree, rubbing his chest. It wasn’t that the ache of missing his brother was so strong he needed to rub it away; it was that the rage wasn’t as strong as it used to be, and that worried him.
He couldn’t allow his anger or determination to avenge his brother’s death to diminish. If he did, he’d no longer be honoring Ian’s memory.
He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. This time he didn’t squeeze, he just rested it there.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to one of the snow-covered chairs. Mantis brushed the snow away like his father did and sat down.
“I see the war waging inside of you, Son,” his father began. “Maybe it’s time to surrender your arms.”
Mantis shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Nothing you do, no one you kill, will bring him back.”
Mantis looked into his father’s eyes. He hadn’t told him about the last time he was in Afghanistan, about the mission, or its outcome. He understood what he was saying, though.
When Mantis had watched the last man die who he held responsible for his brother’s death, he didn’t feel avenged; he felt empty.
While he’d put one foot in front of the other, he did so without the same sense of purpose he had only hours before. He’d struggled to bring that feeling back—the one of certainty in the mission, certainty in his life’s work—but it wasn’t there anymore.
He navigated his way through the days that followed, unable to decide what he should do next. Finally, he’d returned to the States.
All he’d thought about on his way back was Alegria, and how maybe, just maybe, he’d reached the place in his life where he could let go of revenge and just live. But it had been too late. Not only was she with Dutch, she was done with him. She’d made that perfectly clear then and earlier today when she’d dismissed him.
The glimmer of hope he’d had twenty-four hours ago was gone, and in its wake, he found himself a man without a mission and without love in his life.
“Don’t give up on her,” his father murmured.
“How did you know I was thinking about Alegria?”
His dad shrugged. “What else would you be thinking about?”
“She doesn’t want me anymore.”
His father shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“You weren’t there this morning. She went from begging me not to leave her side to practically booting me out of the room.”
It was a long time before his father spoke again. “Put yourself in her position,” he said finally. “Would you allow yourself to lean on her?”
“I did. I was in her position. She helped me get my medical clearance.”
“And what if you hadn’t been able to get it, no matter how hard you worked? What then?”
“It wouldn’t have changed things between us.”
His father’s gaze was penetrating. “Don’t lie to yourself.”
“What are you saying, that I would’ve ended our relationship because I couldn’t fly?”
Mantis waited, but his father didn’t answer. The longer he remained silent, the more he knew his dad was right. If he’d never been able to fly again, he couldn’t have stayed with her. He wasn’t sure he could’ve stayed in the Air Force.
“You’re running on empty. Get some rest and then go back and see her.”
Mantis nodded. He hadn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time last night, and not at all the night before. Maybe after he got some sleep he’d be able to figure out how to convince her he wanted back in her life, and this time, for good.
Of course that meant she’d have to end things with Dutch. Mantis scrubbed his face with his hand. Was that something he could ask of her? Could he do that to Dutch?
—:—
“I don’t recommend moving her yet,” Alegria heard the doctor tell her parents, but they refused to compromise.
“Before she entered this hospital she could walk,” her father bellowed. “Now she cannot.”
They were proposing she be moved from Stamford Hospital to the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. The doctors there specialized in neuromuscular disorders and were purported to be the best in treating those who had suffered brain or spinal injuries resulting in paralysis.
“Boston is over three hours from Stamford. Your daughter is not stable enough to make that long of a trip.”
Alegria’s father waved his hand in the air. “I have arranged for medical transport via helicopter.”
The doctor shook his head. “I still advise against this.”
Her father was relentless in his determination, not just in this case, in all things. Alegria knew there would be no talking him out of it, regardless of whether she was well enough to fly or not.
“I don’t want to transfer to a different hospital.”
“Manon,” her mother began. “Please do as your father asks.”
She closed her eyes and wished Mantis was here to take her side against her parents. Why had she pushed him away yet again when all she really wanted was for him to be with her?
Chapter 19
Dutch
He nuzzled the n
eck of the sweet-smelling body he spooned, grounding his hardness between the soft cheeks of her bottom—and his eyes flew open.
He moved away from the sleeping form and sat up, looking around him. He had no idea where he was or who the naked woman in bed next to him was.
She groaned and rolled over in her sleep.
“What’s your name?” he asked, trying not to frighten the doe-eyed woman.
“Gretchen,” she answered, clutching the sheet to her naked body.
“No offense, Gretchen, but what happened last night?”
“Last night?”
“Did I have a lot to drink?”
She shook her head, but he sensed she wasn’t answering him; she didn’t understand what he was asking.
“Drunk. Was I drunk?” He didn’t feel hungover, he felt like he’d entered an alternate universe—one in which he couldn’t remember where he was or even his own name.
Before she could respond, he heard the hotel room door open. He spun around to give housekeeping a piece of his mind for entering without knocking, but instead of a hotel maid, someone else he didn’t recognize stood in the doorway.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Your worst fucking nightmare,” answered the man dressed like a damn al-Qaeda terrorist.
Chapter 20
Mantis and Alegria
“I don’t understand,” Mantis said for the third time to the nurse who continued to insist Manon Mondreau was no longer a patient in their hospital. “She couldn’t have just gotten up and walked out.” He cringed at the flippant remark. No, she couldn’t have, because she was paralyzed from the waist down, but that wasn’t what he meant.
“Mr. Cassman,” said a familiar voice.
Mantis spun around to face the doctor he’d seen several hours earlier.
“Where is she?”
“HIPPA prevents me from divulging that information.”
“No. It doesn’t. I’m her medical power of attorney. Check her chart.”
Mantis (K19 Security Solutions Book 4) Page 9