Unchained

by Suzanne Halliday

  They were charting their future based on a legacy of love at first sight. Knowing how close they came to losing everything made this new chapter in their story even more exciting.

  A page turned in their personal happy ever after, and they got dressed and went to get their son.

  “To Justice,” Parker said with a shot glass held high. “I’m proud to be part of something so … unique.”

  “Hear, hear,” the assembled group of men all drawled.

  Clustered in a half-drunk group of grown men who should know better, Cam, Alex, Drae, Parker, Brody, and Calder clinked glasses and downed the oversized shots of single malt.

  “Mmm. What is this again? Fucking fantastic finish. Sweet and peppery at the same time.

  “Lagavulin,” Alex replied. Snorting a drunken laugh, he looked around at each of them. “Me and the wife are trying to find a drink we can agree on.”

  “Glenfiddich will always be for pussies,” Parker chimed in.

  “Eat my dick, Counselor.”

  Calder started to chuckle. “Seems all kinds of wrong to be drinking with you twatsicles when my lady can’t likewise imbibe.”

  Cam still had a hard time wrapping his mind around Stephanie being pregnant.

  “That’s what you get for shtupping my mother-in-law.”

  Deep, hearty bellows of laughter rang out at Drae’s dry comment.

  “How’s the arm?” Brody slurred.

  “Can’t feel shit at the moment.” Cam smirked with a chuckle. “Couple more of these,” he said holding the empty shot glass up, “and you could pull my wisdom teeth with no anesthetic.”

  Brody’s amused bark bounced off the walls of the custom theater room. The one Drae had designed and built while he and Lacey were on their honeymoon. Cam had to grin. His life was pretty fucking awesome.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” the dog guru exclaimed as he walked up to the pole Lacey had installed at the rear of the room. “Since none of you fuckers ever had the balls to do musical theater, that leaves me to instruct y’all with some dance moves.”

  “Nothing that’ll put me on my face,” Drae sniped with a whiskey swagger as he moved next to Brody.

  Parker approached Drae and threw a fake punch. The two pretended to tussle as Alex and Calder laughed their asses off. He and Brody looked at each other and smirked.

  “Move out of the way,” Calder boomed. “I’m a fucking surfer. Got a good core and know where my center is.”

  “This oughta be good,” Brody drawled.

  Grabbing the pole after a little jump, it was hilarious when Calder was able to do nothing more than hang on as he slowly slid down the pole. So much for thinking this shit was easy.

  “Seriously?” mumbled Brody, who was knee-deep in an epic drunk. Cam had to laugh. He’d never seen the guy so loose. “You were supposed to pay attention to the video. Do I have to ask Cam to show it again?”

  “Nah, fuck that,” Drae said with Lagavulin-infused St. John cockiness. Hitching up his jeans like an eighty-year-old, he grabbed the pole and tried flinging himself around it only to land like a rock on the floor.

  Big Daddy stepped up and sneered at them all. “Move away, little boys. Let the monster dick have a try.”

  “Monster dick!” Parker and Brody bawled with delight almost at the same time.

  Took only a few seconds for the big guy to also make a fool of himself. Cam was enjoying this immensely.

  Only Brody remained, and he’d done so much trash talking that Cam couldn’t wait to see what he brought.

  “The trick, ladies,” he sneered at his inebriated cohorts, “is to keep moving. Like a hula hoop.”

  Okay, Cam thought as he watched the insanely limber canine master do a couple of impressive muscle moves. But using the pole as a glorified chin-up bar sorta missed the point.

  “You guys all suck,” he scolded with his best scowl after Brody hopped down and bowed to a smattering of applause.

  Walking on a slight tilt—shit, that single malt was deadly stuff—he went to a control panel and tapped away until the sound system fired up and the catchy beat of a classic disco song filled the room. It was his wife’s favorite get up and boogie tune, “You Should Be Dancing” by the Bee Gees. Whenever he heard the song, he knew what his wife was doing.

  His inner Tony Manero stepped up to entertain his grinning, laughing friends as Cam Saturday Night Fevered his way up to the pole. The next minute went by in a blur, despite his arm burning like the fires of hell as he swung and curled around the simple metal tube.

  Leaving everyone slack-jawed, he showed them everything his ponytailed wife had taught him, and when his arm couldn’t take anymore, he hopped down and immediately disco danced his way in a circle until everyone else raucously joined him.

  With the iconic disco song booming from the speakers, he and his band of brothers and friends drunkenly conga lined round and round, executing the best whiskey-soaked disco and country line dance moves of all time.

  “CAN WE TALK for a minute?”

  Tori turned, startled to find Draegyn standing in the archway to their dressing room. It had been a couple of days since Cam had returned and Lacey went home. Since then, she and her husband continued to cohabitate in the same house but with precious little interaction. Unless it involved Daniel, they didn’t seem to have much to say.

  Swiveling on her vanity stool, she faced him and consented with a brief nod. The solemn look on his face was the new normal, and she hated it.

  He stepped hesitantly toward her. Indicating the stack of brushes and makeup cluttering the vanity, he asked with a curious chuckle, “What’s with all that? You have a date or something?”

  He was just being cute, but the words hurt her heart because she also hated the distance between them.

  Playing with her hair as a way of acting like she was in control when nothing was further from the truth, she fiddled with an errant curl and half shrugged. “Just making sure I present well.”

  “Sweetness,” he drawled. “You shine when everyone else just twinkles.”

  God, this sucks, she thought. Wanting nothing more than for a chance to rewind back to the night she brought up the mysterious Carol, Tori wished do-overs were really possible. The words she spoke in anger and the way she reacted to her husband’s shocking admission that he’d taken more children off the table with an unbelievably selfish move haunted her day and night.

  Now that she was feeling better and wasn’t running around at Mach 2 hair-on-fire all the time, she was seeing things through less manic eyes.

  Not communicating was their marital Achilles’ heel. But how did she hit the reset button when so much churning water was still rushing beneath the bridge?

  “Thank you,” she said with a sudden blush. Lowering her head so he wouldn’t see how unnerved she was, Tori brushed invisible lint off her dress and tried not to let the anxiety overtake her.

  Draegyn moved closer and pulled up an ottoman that sat in the middle of the space. “Here,” he said as he sat down. “I have something for you.”

  A small red box dropped into her lap. “What is it?” she asked.

  He softly chuckled. “Well, you have to open it to find out.”

  Looking from him to the box and then back and forth, again and again, she took the surprise present and lifted the lid. Inside was a wooden nickel with the Justice logo burned onto one side. Slipping the odd round disk out of the box, she turned it over. On the back, the coin read: Good for one belated tropical honeymoon.

  Gasping, she clutched the wood coin and stared at her husband.

  “Draegyn, I don’t know what to say.”

  “You can start by saying you’ll keep the wooden nickel.”

  “Well, of course,” she mumbled. Emotion clogged her throat. Relying on a technique Meghan taught her, Tori breathed deeply several times and waited for the mad rush of overwhelming emotions to lessen. “But with the way things are,” she muttered miserably as she shrugged away the rest of her reply.r />
  “Let’s not dwell on that, okay? Things aren’t always how they appear.”

  She searched his face, confused by the words coming from his mouth.

  “In the interest of full disclosure, baby,” he added. “I ditched the Lamborghini and put the money from the sale into Daniel’s savings account.” He snickered and made a face. “He can use it to buy his first car, although anything with the word ‘sport’ in the description will earn a thumbs-down from dear old dad.”

  What was he saying? “Draegyn,” she whispered slowly in shocked wonder. “The Lambo? I thought you loved that thing.”

  He made a wry face. “You’re right about it being a thing. That’s all. Just”—he looked around and shrugged—“a thing.”

  There was a message in what he said, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

  She sat with the wooden nickel numbly clasped in her hands and stared at him.

  He touched her fingers with his then eased off. In a way, the simple touch felt like the first contact. Instead of pulling away, she wanted more.

  “I only need one thing, Victoria, and that’s you. And our family.”

  Continuing to search his face, she paused when he put such emphasis on the word ‘family.’

  Words shot from her mouth, shocking them both. “I want things back the way they were. Before all of this,” she stammered with a dismissive wave. “Before life got in the way.”

  “I want that too,” he answered gravely.

  “How do we get there?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

  She knew he was reacting to the fear in her question when he reached for her hand and this time held on. There was something about the way he looked at her.

  “I know you feel as though you can’t trust me, Victoria, but you can. There are things I need to say. Things you need to know.”

  She blinked, swallowed past the lump in her throat, and looked at the wooden nickel.

  “Okay.” That was all she had at the moment.

  “May I ask you a question?”

  Hmm. Put on the spot. She nodded jerkily and chewed on her lip.

  “Did you mean what you said about not wanting another baby?”

  She stifled a choked sob. “No, but it’s too late for that now.”

  He surprised the shit out of her yet again when he kissed her hand, let it go, and stood up.

  What? That was it? What the hell?

  At the archway into the bedroom, he turned around and smiled. “I won’t let you down, Victoria. Ever.”

  He turned around and left.

  What exactly did he mean by that?

  “LADIES, LADIES,” ANGIE yammered above the din of the crowd jammed into Whiskey Pete’s, as she tapped on her wine glass. “I don’t know about y’all, but I want at least one really good story about my asshat of a brother from this epic honeymoon we’re all so jealous of. Told from the perspective of one Meghan Marquez or as she will forever after be referred to as Double M.”

  Meghan looked around the table at the ladies of Family Justice and smiled broadly. She couldn’t imagine a more fiercely loyal or loving group than this one.

  Stephanie laughed merrily and patted her on the hand. “Shugah M,” she slyly smirked. “I demand you share that man’s most romantic moment. Give me something good, darlin’. Something I can hold over his uncle’s head.”

  “God, I love you. And my mom thinks you’re the bomb.” Angie chortled with glee as she winked at Stephanie.

  Lacey and Tori looked at her and raised their glasses in salute.

  Heather came back from a bar run with two glasses of wine. One for her and the other for Angie. With Stephanie and Lacey assigned to the non-alcohol zone, she and Tori opted to join them in solidarity. Of course, Meghan had a different reason for declining, but nobody knew yet. Not even her or Alex. They’d decided to wait until the weekend to take a test because they both felt if things went the way they hoped, they’d be able to enjoy the moment at their leisure and celebrate privately. And if it didn’t go their way, well …

  “What did I miss?” Heather asked.

  “We’re waiting for our fearless leader to tell us something sexy about the Major and their honeymoon.” Tori’s eyes sparkled with humor.

  “Excuse me,” Meghan cheerfully complained, “but I believe you said romantic not sexy.”

  “With Alex Marquez, is there any difference?” Stephanie said with a mocking swoon.

  Angie did a dramatic head-to-toe shudder, stuck her tongue out, and groaned, “Ew! Does my uncle know you have salacious feelings for his nephew?”

  Meghan, Lacey, and Tori almost lost it in unison. Tori screamed, “I’ll have you know my sainted mother does not do salacious … feelings or otherwise.”

  It was Heather and her dry wit that brought the house down. Twirling her wine glass, she stopped and took a sip then fixed all of them with a comical expression. “Are you guys always like this or are we rehearsing for the Real Housewives of Bendover and nobody told me?”

  They earned some curious looks from the other patrons when their table erupted in gales of laughter, accented by Angie and Tori pounding their hands on the wood table after the merriment got out of hand and Lacey almost toppled backward off her chair.

  She wiped away a tear from laughing so hard and sipped her lemonade cooler. The refreshing drink was new on the menu. Courtesy of Pete’s new resident foodie, none other than her brother Finn O’Brien. She recognized the light tasty brew. It had the tang of her ma’s summer lemonade and the smooth back end finish of sweet from ingredients Finn insisted were a secret recipe. Whatever he mixed up was fantastic, making it easier to offer him a tip of her hat.

  “Time to behave. We’re drawing attention.”

  Every single head at the table turned, and all their gazes swung to the line of men commandeering the entire end of the long bar. Of course, they were drawing attention!

  Calder grinned like an idiot at Stephanie. He raised his longneck bottle high when she giggled and twinkled her fingers at him.

  Parker was doing one of those ‘I have my eyes on you’ hand gestures at Angie who, of course, was snickering and doing everything she could to inflame him right down to popping open two buttons on her shirt. Enough that her cleavage came busting out.

  Brody. Oh, my! Meghan did a double take. The way his eyes devoured Heather was so, um … what was the word? Oh, yeah. Hot.

  Cameron, who finally shaved and got a haircut, did what could only be described as a Mick Jagger strut. Back and forth in front of the guys as they laughed, looked back at the girls, agreed with whatever Cam was saying, and nursed their beers.

  And Drae. Meghan smiled warmly. He looked terribly dapper tonight in a very sexy pair of tailored pants. Black, of course. And a dark gray shirt. Alex wouldn’t like her using the description ‘sexy,’ but it fit. In the sometimes-dim lighting, he had a smoky intensity about him, and she was sure he’d command quite a few desirous looks when he hit the spotlight.

  She caught Alex’s eye. He raised his glass in salute and winked. Then he made a funny face she called his ‘Yes, master’ expression. It was a total joke between them. A private reminder of something others would likely find a tad unusual about their relationship. Because she was feeling especially joyful and full of fun, she countered his hilarious attempt to remind her of his control with a saucy smirk, an almost imperceptible flipping of the bird, followed by a deliberate hair toss. He was roaring with laughter when she finally looked back.

  “Can NOT believe I’m saying this,” Heather joked, “but I find all that manly attention sort of …”

  “Hot!”

  “Sexy!”

  “Yummy!”

  “Lovely!”

  “Smoldering!”

  “Yeah”—she smirked after they had all commented—“that.”

  Stephanie waved her hands and said, “Shush, ladies. I for one am on pins and needles waiting for a glimpse into the Marquez honeymoon. How about we all zip it and stare at Shuga
h M until she gives up the goods.”

  So they did, and Meghan enjoyed the free and easy humor she’d missed so much while she was on another continent.

  “Well, guess what,” she told her rapt audience. “Y’all are in luck because I have the most romantic honeymoon tale of all time.”

  “Does it involve forgetting to wear panties and then leaning over a rock wall to stare at the ocean?” Angie. Of course.

  Raising an eyebrow, she gave a pithy answer. “I was assured by a certain Major Alpha that he Photoshopped that image.”

  Tori laughed. “Oh, you mean how he scribbled some random black lines over your ass to protect your dignity? Is that what you mean by Photoshopped?”

  “It’s so unfair,” she mumbled. “Him and that damn phone. Happily snapping pictures all day long while I had to lug a big thirty-five millimeter around ‘cause my phone was on lockdown.”

  “Well,” Heather chimed in, “don’t groan, but I find the whole taking your phone away thing pretty romantic.”

  She offered the newest face in their quirky ladies’ group a warm smile. Some sparks of tension still existed between them—normal female territorial stuff—but they were becoming fast friends.

  “To romance,” Lacey cooed in a toast. After everyone drank, she said, “Stop stalling, Mrs. Major. Oh, and ladies?” she burbled. “Get out a pen and grab one of these drink napkins. When she’s finished, score on a romance curve from one to ten.”

  Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, she took another sip and began. “Okay. Try this on for size. So the village near the finca was a picture-perfect quaint little town. Exactly what you’d expect. Every few days, we’d walk into town. Visit the shoppes. Have this yummy drink with coffee and milk that I’d sweeten to death.”

  “Café con Leche,” Angie murmured. “Mmm.”

  She nodded. “Right, right. Carmen makes a version of it. Anyway, so we’d walk to town, and of course, since I don’t speak enough Spanish to do more than order food, I kept Alex close as my interpreter. The townspeople were lovely. Friendly. Curious about the redhead who married into an important family.”