by Dale Mayer
“You guys came better prepared than I expected,” she said in surprise. “This is definitely food, and it’s people food. But Amelia Rose’ll want kid food.”
Jax nodded as he studied Lorelei. “If we stay another night together, we’ll get whatever Amelia Rose wants. Just tell us what she likes.”
“In the meantime, this is what’s here,” Griffin said. “If she’s hungry, I’m sure she’ll find something to eat.”
Chapter 6
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s quite that easy,” Lorelei said with a smile as she walked over to see the possible choices for Amelia Rose. Eggs, cream, and cheese. Lorelei nodded. “She’ll have a cheese omelet with this.”
“Good,” Jax said. “I, on the other hand, will have a huge salad with lots of protein.” He looked over at Griffin. “You?”
“Absolutely.”
The men prepped a large salad while she watched. She frowned because she hadn’t been asked herself. When they had a load of salad mixed up with veggies in a large bowl, Griffin looked at her and said, “Are you having an omelet with her or a salad?”
“Just salad?”
“A whole roasted chicken is here,” he said. “I’ll chop up some on the side, like a Cobb salad or a chef salad.”
She smiled. “I’ll have some of that then, please.”
He nodded and got back to work.
She wandered the small living room, hating the sense of not knowing what to do next. “Does her father know?”
“By now, probably yes,” Jax said. “But we can’t get confirmation.”
“Why is that? You guys are just the leg men?”
“We’re the ones who go in and get the job down,” Griffin said, his voice harsh. “We leave the glory and kudos to everybody else.”
She stilled, studied his face, and smiled gently. “And that’s what your life’s been like? Rescuing people from situations in foreign countries, and nobody even knows who you are?”
“Yes. And I’m okay with that,” Griffin said. “If you do a job, you do it right. And, if you do it right, it doesn’t matter who else knows.”
“That’s a quote I haven’t heard before,” she said curiously. “Where’d you get that one from?”
“From myself,” he said. “It’s a motto I live by.”
“It’s a good way to live,” she said. “As somebody who’s involved in raising a young girl in this world and explaining to her how all this works, it’s not a bad one for her to understand.”
“If it works for you,” he said, “use it. But just keep in mind that a lot of people don’t understand the hardships in life. We’re never really challenged until life throws us some of the shittiest things. Then we have to pull up and out of it.”
“So, besides the fact that you’re very busy saving the world,” she said, “what personal challenges have you had to suffer through?”
He looked up at her, surprised. “Do I have to have had some?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so. Personal challenges ensure changes on a whole different level. It sounds like you’ve been through both.”
“Maybe,” he said noncommittally. He reached for the roasted chicken, cut it through the breastbone and through the back, and then deboned the breast, dissecting off the pieces. He placed everything on a plate as he worked.
She watched, realizing he was avoiding her question. “Have you ever been married?” He almost cut his finger. He swore softly, and she took that for a yes. “What happened?”
“What often happens when men are away at war,” he said.
“She hooked up with somebody else?”
He nodded, glanced at Jax, but he was happy being by himself as he continued to build up the salad. He was listening to the conversation but not getting involved.
She walked closer, not sure exactly why she felt like she needed to prod, but there was just something about this man, so capable and so strong, so determined to follow his own rules. It’s as if he was not looking at other parts of his life, the other areas where the rules might need to be bent slightly in order for him to have some peace inside. “So, did you just walk away then, not have any more relationships with women?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hell no.”
She chuckled. “Well, it’s good to know. But you can’t let one bad experience taint the rest of us. But I suspect something else in your past drives you to avoid marriage.”
“Of course,” he said. “But not my cheating wife. She’s not worth the effort, but I’ve seen the hardships war has wrought on the women and children left behind and the dangers from other military men. It’s not a pretty sight, and one I’ve seen way too often.” He cleaned his hands and the knife. “But you’d be wrong to think it’s made me avoid relationships. It’s helped me stay focused on my career, but I’ve dated lots.”
“True, but you didn’t let yourself get too involved, huh?”
“Yes, but don’t go thinking that I loved her dearly and was totally betrayed by it,” he said with a shake of his head. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
She frowned at him and said, “Then what was your marriage like?”
So he told her. She took a step back, shook her head. “Surely that doesn’t still happen in this day and age?”
“Her father felt very strongly about it all and made it clear what I would do to fix the problem,” Griffin said with a hard smile. “I have no idea how he feels about her now though.”
“That was kind of a bitchy move to send him the photo but understandable,” she said. “He forced you to live what—eight months of your life according to his will, so I guess it makes sense that you had a little retribution.”
“Exactly,” he said, “but I left that alone a long time ago.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said. “Otherwise you could laugh at it. Instead your mouth still tenses and your shoulders stiffen when you think about it.”
He stared at her with that same hard look again. “Doesn’t mean that I’m not over it.”
She shrugged. “But neither are you relaxed enough to go back into a relationship to that level again.”
“I don’t want to go into a relationship to that level,” he said. “That relationship was at the surface level. It wasn’t based on truth, faith, honesty, or loyalty. Why would I ever want to go back to that?”
“So, you should do something different,” she said. “Something better.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but that’s not quite so easy. One doesn’t just conjure up a good relationship that can withstand the test of time.”
She snagged a piece of cucumber from the salad bowl. “True enough. And you never will if you don’t put yourself out there.”
At this point, Jax laughed. “What are you doing? Matchmaking on the run?”
She shrugged. “No, not really, but it’s my attempt at a more lighthearted conversation that’s not related to what we’ve just been through. So I’m more than happy to keep going with this train of thought and leave off discussing all this ugliness around us.”
“Good answer,” Jax said. He picked up the large bowl of salad, carried it over to the small table, and quickly handed her plates and cutlery. As she set the table, he asked, “What about you? Have you been married?”
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t going to jump into anything too early after watching several friends married and divorced within a couple years. Most now with young children to look after on their own as single parents. I decided that wasn’t for me. However, when the time came, I fell in love hard and fast. I came close to marrying him, but I didn’t get to the altar.”
“Why? Did he fall in love with somebody else?” Griffin asked, his tone rough.
“He died in a rowing accident,” she said suddenly, a catch in her voice. “We were in England for a holiday. It would be an extended holiday, while he considered going to school there. He was offered to join a rowing team. Anyway, he went out early one morning and didn’t come home.”
“Do they know what happened?”
“He was diabetic,” she said, “and he got too cold, and they figured that he ended up without enough energy to make it back again, then fell into a coma and drowned.”
“And are you satisfied with that explanation?”
She shot him the briefest of smiles. “It’s an unhappy one but, yes, because I’ve seen him do it before. We used to hike a lot, and he was really crappy about looking after himself. If he didn’t have something sugary to get him through, I could see him definitely falling into a coma.”
“So then what did you do?”
“I stayed in England,” she said. “Very soon afterward, I ended up with this tutoring position, looking after Amelia Rose.”
“You could do something very different from that with your qualifications.”
He watched as she hesitated and looked at him, and then she said, “And, of course, you guys have investigated me, right?”
They shrugged and then nodded.
“Right, so you already know about my fiancé, and the gaping hole in my life that he left behind brought me here,” she said. “And, well, I could have done something different but was lost and needed something—someone—to love. By then, I’d already fallen in love with Amelia Rose. Back then I couldn’t see leaving her too. Besides the pay is way beyond what I’d make in the public or private education system. Sure I could go into the political arena as a translator or work for the UN possibly, but, as I said, Amelia Rose gives me more love and job satisfaction than any other option I’ve looked at. So, whether others agree or not, I’m happy.”
“What do you mean—leaving her too?”
“Her father had a relationship with the child’s maid,” she said, sitting down hard on one of the kitchen table chairs. “When the relationship was over, of course, the maid was gone. Plus that wasn’t the first time. But each and every time it’s another blow to Amelia Rose. She needed some stability in her life, somebody who could care for her and be there for her and not be her father’s latest paramour.”
“And you’re not in line for that position?”
She chuckled. “No. Let’s just say I prefer Amelia Rose over her father any day.”
Griffin smiled at her approvingly. “See? Being single isn’t so bad. And being faithful isn’t bad either.”
“No,” she said. “I’m both of those. But it was also hard to lose my partner before, so I haven’t exactly jumped back into the relationship setting too easily. I’m entitled to have a relationship, but it’s not something I really want to pursue, especially not while I have Amelia Rose to look after.”
“True,” Jax said, “but you can’t be single forever because of a child. She’s eleven, and she’s getting old enough to understand.”
“She’s getting old enough that she’s pushing me into dating,” Lorelei said with a groan. “She kept telling me which waiters and people at the hotel would be ideal partners for me.” Both men laughed. She stood and said, “Speaking of which, I should check on her.”
“I’ll do it. You’re tired. Just rest,” Griffin said. He walked down the hallway.
Soon enough, Lorelei heard voices and realized her charge was awake.
She was about to jump up when Jax placed a hand on hers and said, “Let him.”
She raised her brows at that but subsided. When she looked up again, Griffin carried Amelia Rose, the two of them smiling and laughing together. Wow. That was great to see Amelia Rose so comfortable with Griffin after the nightmare she had been through. “He’s good with her,” she murmured to Jax. When Amelia Rose was set gently on her feet, she raced over to Lorelei, and the two hugged.
Lorelei motioned to the chair beside her and said, “This one’s for you.”
She hopped up, looked at the food on the table, and frowned. “I don’t like veggies.”
“Don’t you like to run far and fast?” Griffin asked. “You need veggies for that.”
Lorelei looked up at him in surprise, wondering if he knew about how they had been recaptured.
“You need energy. You need food. You have to feed the body in order to keep the energy supplies running so that, when you need to run, you can run.”
Without another word, Amelia Rose reached for the salad and put some on her plate. Lorelei helped her pick out the rest of what she wanted, some sliced chicken breast and her choice of dressing, and then, before long, she was tucking into the salad like she was an old veggie champ.
Lorelei shook her head in a slight way and told Griffin, “That’s not the tact I would have used, but it was effective.”
“It’s also the truth,” he said, “and I am a believer in being truthful whenever we can. Surely it’s better for kids too.”
She wasn’t sure if that was a criticism or not, and, of course, he didn’t know enough about Lorelei to understand the problems they had getting Amelia Rose to eat healthily. But, if Amelia Rose was finally understanding that she needed to eat better, then that was all good.
Lorelei thoroughly enjoyed her meal, but she caught herself yawning now that all the adrenaline had worn off and that they were more or less safe at the moment. She needed a good night’s sleep tonight, but she didn’t know how long they were staying. So far the men hadn’t said anything to her about their plans. Whether that was on purpose or not, she didn’t know.
Amelia Rose piped up and said, “I want to talk to my daddy.”
“When we’re in a safe place,” Griffin said, “then you can.”
“Are we not safe?” the little girl stared up at him, her bottom lip trembling.
He gripped her hand gently and said, “This is step one. We can’t take a chance that somebody may have followed us here or that they’re tracking our transmissions. So, when we do get to a place where we can be sure that we have a safe line, then you can talk to your father.”
She nodded slowly and went back to eating.
Griffin turned to Lorelei and asked, “Is there anybody we should contact about your disappearance?”
She shook her head. “My parents would just worry, and they don’t know even what I do on a day-to-day basis, so it’s not an issue.”
“Did they disapprove of your job?”
“Not so much disapprove as just thought it was below me,” she said with a half smile. “Like you, they thought I was destined for bigger and better things.”
Immediately Amelia Rose gripped Lorelei’s fingers. “You’re not leaving me, are you?”
“No,” Lorelei said. “I’ve told you that before.”
Amelia Rose sank back and smiled. “Good. Then I don’t have to worry about waking up one day to find out you’re gone too.”
That too broke her heart. “I know,” Lorelei whispered. “I’ve told you before that I won’t leave without giving you lots of notice, and probably, at that point in time, you’ll be ready for me to go, to give you some freedom.”
Amelia Rose shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine that.”
“Well, you might want to go to another school and have friends your own age,” Lorelei murmured. “But you never really know what opportunities may arise, what surprises your dad may have for you. Who knows? Your family might move to France or Greece. Or maybe you want to be a travel writer for your dad’s newspaper someday, living in other cultures, or maybe a political writer, understanding what’s going on in the world as things happen.”
“Like what happened to Nurse?” Amelia Rose whispered.
“Kind of,” Lorelei said, wishing she hadn’t brought it up. “But there are good things in life too.”
“Like what?” Amelia Rose demanded.
“Griffin and Jax, for one,” Lorelei reminded her. “They saved us. We’re not in the back of a car being carted off to some odd location to be watched by guards.”
“That’s true,” Amelia Rose said as she turned her solemn and direct gaze to both men. “Thank you for that.”
Both men nodded. Jax smiled and said, “No problem. Now let’s make sure
that they can’t come after you again.”
“That wouldn’t be good,” Amelia Rose said. “I don’t know how many times anybody can escape before the odds are against you.”
Lorelei watched as Griffin studied the young girl. Every once in a while, she said things that were almost too adult. She was caught up between a child and a young teen. Sometimes she could figure things out well beyond the ability of most adults, and, at other times, it was as if she were a two-year-old. They continued to eat until Griffin’s phone went off. Everybody stilled in that instant.
Griffin placed his fork down, picked up his phone, and checked it. “We’re here for the night,” he said and placed his phone on the table, then went back to eating.
Lorelei resumed eating too. “But we don’t know beyond that?”
“No,” he said with a smile, “we don’t know beyond that.”
“We should know beyond that,” Amelia Rose said. “How come you don’t know what happens later? Aren’t you in charge?”
“Plans are happening, and people are being contacted,” Griffin said. “For all you know, they’re contacting your dad.”
She frowned but still nodded. “My dad’s not easy to get a hold of.”
“Except for the red phone,” Lorelei mentioned.
Griffin immediately turned toward her. “What red phone?”
“It’s the phone that my dad only takes those calls directly,” Amelia Rose said. “It’s the one that he knows I can contact him on and not have to go through all his secretaries.”
“That’s a good phone number to have,” he said as he stared at her. “Do you know what that number is?”
She rattled off the number before anybody had a chance to consider whether she should or not. “Don’t worry. Poppy told me to only give that number to people I trust. So it’s okay that I gave it to you.”
Griffin immediately asked, “Did your kidnappers ask for that number or any number for your father or mother?”
“No.” Amelia Rose shook her head, then smiled.