Love Another Day

by Lexi Blake

  “You are,” Alfi said, his voice dark. “What on earth makes you think you’re good enough for that woman? She’s practically a saint. She’s gorgeous and she’s smart and she’s capable. You don’t think she needs someone better than you?”

  He let out a deep breath. Something was going on with Alfi, but it didn’t have to enrage him. He knew the answer to all of Alfi’s nasty questions, and now he got why his old friend was asking them. “I think she needs me because no one on this planet is going to love her more than me, is going to see her the way I can. I love her. I thought that wasn’t enough, but it is. And she deserves me because she picked me. She wanted me and I was a fool to question it. I should have gotten down on my knees and thanked god that she had bad taste in men.”

  “Not bad enough.”

  Yes, there it was. “You fell for her.”

  “Not that it did me any good,” Alfi admitted. “It was always you. She didn’t say your name to me, but I stood outside surgery when she was giving birth. She cried out for you. I was planning on going in and offering her my hand. I thought maybe if I was there when her boy was born, she would see me differently. But all she could do was cry out for you.”

  A sick feeling hit the pit of his stomach. “I would have been there with her if you hadn’t been such a selfish git.”

  He would have been standing there, lending her his strength. He would have been there to hold Nate when he was born, to help her, to make sure she didn’t find that trouble that always seemed to be looking for her.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Alfi sounded weary. “I was selfish and it didn’t matter. Once again the great Brody Carter wins.”

  “Wins? There’s no win here. I missed the birth of my child, Al. I might never win that woman back.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll do it. You always do.”

  “What the hell is behind all this? Why on earth did you agree to look after her if you hate me the way you do? Never thought you would hate me. Damn, mate, we were like brothers.”

  “Brothers don’t leave each other behind. Brothers don’t walk away from each other.”

  What did he mean? “I didn’t leave you. I…after Harry died, I couldn’t stay in the Army. I tried to go home, but I was lost.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have been lost if you hadn’t chucked me out with the rubbish.”

  He groaned, trying to find a way to make Alfi understand. “I didn’t. I needed to be alone. I needed to deal with what had happened to Harry.”

  “I loved him, too, you know. Your family was like mine. Your mum…well, she was better than mine. At least she was around. She cooked dinners and made sure you had everything you needed. Mine, if she showed up, was drunk half the time.” He shook his head. “Not that it matters. I missed Harry, too, but I didn’t stop caring about everyone else.”

  He softened a bit, their shared childhood sitting between them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you behind. Like I said, I needed to figure a few things out. I drifted for a while.”

  “You played around for a couple of years and then the best job in the world dropped in your bloody lap. You moved to London, found a new best friend, and didn’t call again until you needed old Alfi to help you out, check in on a girl.”

  “So this was payback.” He could believe that of Alfi. If he thought he’d been betrayed, he would look for revenge.

  “No. It was desperation. It was… I’m not a good man, but I wanted to be around her. I liked her. I liked how selfless she was. She cared about the people around her. She gave them everything she had. And she could use me,” he pointed out. “She needed security, especially when she leaves the clinic and goes out into rural areas. She needs someone looking out for her, making sure she don’t get hurt. I didn’t see why that couldn’t be me.”

  “Because she loves me. Alfi, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you alone like that. I got caught up in a new life and London was far away. I think I needed it at the time.” Was he going to be happy leaving London? Could he live the rest of his life running around Africa? Never having a real home? How would they raise Nate? Would they be able to have other kids?

  If he had his way, he would raise them in Chelsea. Close to his friends, who’d somehow become his family. He would buy a townhouse, one close to his work and a park. He would take his kids to museums and historical sites. He would take them with him sometimes when he traveled so they could see the world.

  He would take them home to visit his mum and stepdad.

  He wanted roots. He craved them, but he would give it all up if she would say yes. He would find a way to make it work.

  “Well, she didn’t want me. Never did. I tried everything I could, but none of it worked. Like I said, she wanted you.”

  Did she still? Oh, he knew she wanted him in bed, and that was what he had to build on. “You had no right to keep Nate from me. I would never have done that to you. Not for anything.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not the perfect one, am I?” The kettle started to squeal and he turned again, pouring out the boiling water. “If the shoe had been on the other foot, I’m sure you would be married to the lady by now.”

  “Why did you come here? You seemed to be having fun the other night when we talked.”

  Alfi shook his head. “I wasn’t. I was in Berlin. I was a bit pissed that night. I’m afraid I indulged in wine, women, and song after my meeting with those bastards. You know when you think of big, bad mercenaries, you don’t think of bloody Belgians. Shouldn’t they have been picking tulips or some shit?”

  “You knew who they were? Where they’re from? You didn’t bother to tell me?”

  Alfi set a mug in front of him, shaking his head. “Like I said, I was a bit on the drunk side, and I still couldn’t believe it had happened. One minute I was talking to Steph, the next I had a gun at my head and they were going to shoot her. Why couldn’t she have told the arseholes that the doc was out of town? Why couldn’t she play dumb? We might have gotten out of it.”

  “She would never do that. She certainly wouldn’t do it if she thought for a second someone’s life was on the line. That’s not who she is.”

  Alfi popped two tea bags in the hot water and placed one in front of Brody. This was the civility they’d been taught. Tea cured all ills. “She has to think of the boy now. She has to have a sense of self-preservation. I damn near had a heart attack when she stepped up, pretty as you please, and said ‘I’m the doctor.’”

  A bit of unwelcome sympathy reared its head. He could see Alfi falling for her, maybe should have expected it. He’d also thought that their friendship would let Alfi know Steph was off limits, but then Alfi didn’t believe in things like rules. Perhaps his chaotic childhood had taught him something different. “I can see that. I watched her run into the middle of a skirmish between government and rebel forces once. I was sure she was going to die. She doesn’t value her own life.”

  “Because of what happened when she was a kid?” Alfi asked.

  Brody nodded and hated the way his spine was easing. It felt good to be with Alfi. They’d known each other so long that it felt right to be sitting here with him and discussing Steph.

  Had he left his friend behind? He hadn’t meant to. He’d been utterly lost after he’d gotten the news that Harry had died. He hadn’t thought about the fact that Alfi would miss him, too.

  Was he always this selfish? Again, not something he tried to achieve, but something a man had to look at and examine as he grew older.

  “I don’t think she’s ever forgiven herself.”

  “I looked into her after I met her,” Alfi admitted. “I ran a pretty thorough trace. She killed two people in that accident. Do you think anyone gets over that?”

  “I think she didn’t mean to do it, and it solves nothing and serves no one at all if she throws her life away.”

  “But she’s not. She’s trying to save lives.”

  “At the expense of her own,” Brody shot back. “It’s why I
walked away. I can say I was trying to spare her all I like, but it was a selfish act because I was in love with her and I couldn’t watch her die. But she gave that up the minute she chose to bring Nate into this world. She can’t not care about herself anymore. She’s his mum. She’s everything to him.”

  Silence descended while Alfi added two packets of sugar to his tea. “You can get by without a mum. God knows I did.”

  “Nate’s not doing that. Nate’s growing up with two parents, and if I have my way, he’ll have brothers and sisters.”

  Alfi huffed. “You want him to go through what you did? Brothers can die. It might be better to teach him to rely on himself.”

  Brody shook his head. “Been thinking about that too. I hated how I felt after Harry died, but I wouldn’t take back a single second. I loved my brother. That’s what I was trying to do with Steph. I was trying to protect my own selfish arse.”

  “Yeah, you were, and you were doing the same thing when you walked away from me, you arsehole.” He sighed and slumped back in his chair. “And I decided to punish you by keeping Nate a secret and trying to take your girl. Though I do care about her. Hell, man, I started out thinking you deserved not knowing since you wouldn’t even accept her calls and then time moved on and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “Phone call would have worked.” He took a sip, breathing in the smell. P&G. Not the brand he expected to find here in the States, but it was familiar and soothing.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Brody. I can’t say more than that. You know I’m a selfish bastard, but I did get her out of there. I didn’t fail you when it came to that.”

  “Why didn’t you fly back with her? Or call me?” He was calm, but his anger was simmering. He could understand that he had some culpability, but Alfi had taken it too far. “Anything could have happened to her.”

  “I thought it best we split up. I was worried they might have recognized me. I was hoping if they were going to follow, they would come after me.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he wasn’t going to argue. He needed information. “What do you know about them? And how could you have left that poor nurse behind to die?”

  Alfi went white and his body stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking about the nurse. Anya. We sent a couple of drones to get footage of the clinic and it looks like she’s dead.”

  “You saw her body?”

  “We saw what looked like a shoe in her doorway. Can’t tell much more but the way it’s sitting, it seems like it’s attached to something. Probably a body.”

  Alfi shook his head. “Anya was supposed to run. She promised me she could make the machines look like they were working. That fucker wasn’t supposed to be back until morning, but he had a couple of men working the perimeter, keeping the locals out and us in. She can’t be dead. I left her there because she had the keys to a Jeep and she was going to sneak out and get to the village where we’d sent Keniyah. Hell, I was sure Keniyah would have sent the local police by morning. Damn it, she can’t be dead.”

  His head fell forward and Brody sighed. Alfi was a bastard, but he did have a heart.

  “I’m so sorry. God, I’m sorry,” he said.

  Brody got up. They were going to need something far stronger than tea. “Come on, let’s get you back to the house. We’ll settle you in for the day and we’ll talk more.”

  And he would wait for Steph to see how his night would go.

  * * * *

  Steph stared at her former head of security. She’d been a bit surprised to find him sitting in the kitchen of their safe house when Shane had driven her back. Actually, she’d been completely surprised because she’d expected Brody to wait for her, but he hadn’t been in the car that picked her up.

  Now she knew why. He’d been here spending time with his bestie. His lying, sneaky, asshole of a bestie.

  “You’re an asshole.” It was all the welcome Alfi Dauterre was going to get from her.

  Alfi grinned, his eyes a bit on the cloudy side. “Yeah, but I’m also a charmer. It’s how I get through life, lovie. And I’m quite an attentive lover.”

  She frowned Brody’s way. It looked like they’d been doing more than sitting around talking. “You had to get him drunk?”

  Brody shrugged. “He’s impossible when he’s sober. Actually, now that I think about it, he’s spent most of his adult life drunk. A lot of our adolescence, too. Not a lot to do in Wanga Woo.”

  Alfi slapped the table and held up his now empty glass. “To Wanga Woo. Damn but I miss that piece of shit town.”

  “Did you get anything out of him?” Steph asked. She’d been with Kai for hours, patiently looking through European news sites, trying to find out if one was missing a reporter. They’d gotten someone named Penelope Knight to call around and see if she could find out any information from the big media outlets in Europe. And Liam had come to the office and set up a video meeting with Tennessee Smith, the former CIA agent who now worked odd jobs for several agencies, including McKay-Taggart. She’d met Ten and his wife, Faith, whom she’d worked with on occasion. Faith Smith was a doctor who’d worked on various charities over the years, several in Africa. It was a small world. Ten was trying to find the name of any Dutch mercenary groups working in the region.

  And Brody had spent the afternoon watching Alfi get his drink on.

  “I actually found out quite a lot,” Brody replied, bringing her out of her dark thoughts. “I found out Alfi here kept the secret about Nate’s birth because he fancies himself in love with you.”

  She had to shake her head. “What?”

  “Totally in love, luv,” Alfi affirmed with a brilliant smile. “Marry me. You don’t want that big bastard. He takes up all the space. Can you imagine what doing his laundry is going to do to you for the rest of your life? I’m much more reasonably sized, and honestly I don’t change clothes all that often.”

  What the hell? “That is not a point in your favor.” She turned back to Brody, who looked so deliciously large and muscular that she really was trying to think of a way to get his arms around her without having to ask for it. If she didn’t ask for it, then she wasn’t leading him on. She was simply taking what he offered. It had been a long day and she wanted nothing more than to sink into him, to let him take over and take care of her. But she had to remember that she was alone and she had to maintain control. “And don’t play innocent here, Brody. Alfi didn’t keep the secret from you. It wasn’t a secret at all. A secret is something no one talks about. I told you on several occasions that I was pregnant. Alfi isn’t the reason you didn’t know about Nate. You are.”

  Alfi nodded. “There. What the girl said. Another reason to marry me. I answer my mobile. Well, when I’ve paid the bill and it’s on, I answer it. Mostly.”

  Brody sent his friend a look that should have had him running scared. Maybe it would have if the man could move. “You stay out of this.” He looked down at her. “Yes, that part was my fault. I was stubborn and selfish. I figured out a lot about myself sitting here and talking to Alfi this afternoon. I didn’t run away from you because I was trying to protect you. I did it to protect myself.”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t deal with this right now. The last thing she wanted from him was a well-rehearsed speech meant to get her to forget that he hadn’t wanted her before she’d shown up with his spawn. “Doesn’t matter. That’s all in the past.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it is,” he said, suspicion plain in his voice.

  Alfi was shaking his head. “Women are like elephants, Brody. They never forget. One misstep and you’ll get hounded with it for the rest of your life. Like that little thing in Melbourne. You remember her. One mistake and she broke my heart.”

  “You slept with her sister,” Brody shot back.

  Alfi put a hand to his heart. “They looked a lot alike in the dark. Her mum did, too. Glad she didn’t find out about that until we were gone. Good times, mate. Such good
times.”

  Brody’s hands came up. “I had nothing to do with that. I was in town to see my aunt and my mum thought it would be smart to take that arsehole with me. I spent all my time taking my elderly Aunt Rose to various bingo parlors.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Brody. I’m focused on the now not the past. So you got nothing at all out of him about why a crazy Dutch dude is trying to murder me?”

  He grinned and pointed her way. “I did find something out. Dutch was the language he was speaking. Alfi knew that.”

  “My brain did, too,” she shot back, frustrated as hell. “I spent all day staring at a candle with a shrink tromping through my head and Alfi knew all along. He’s a giver.”

  “I do try, luv,” he said solemnly. “But they weren’t Dutch, you know. I was with ’em while you were working on the patient and I heard them talking about going home to Antwerp. That ain’t in the Netherlands. Those boys were from Belgium.”

  She sort of growled his way. “Thanks for that because I’ve been working on the theory that we’re looking for Dutch dudes.”

  Alfi didn’t seem at all deterred by her show of rage. “Not a problem. Anything for a pretty lady.”

  Brody ignored him, his big hands coming out, cupping her shoulders. “Was Kai hard on you? Come here. I bet it was rough to have to go through all of that again. I wish I could have stayed there with you.”

  There it was. She sighed as she let him pull her close. His big arms wrapped around her and she felt safe and warm for the first time in hours and hours. He’d started it. She hadn’t promised him anything. It was perfectly all right to revel in it. She let her arms drift up and around him. He was incredibly big, but she could clutch him and hold on. She felt him kiss her hair.

  “Kai wasn’t bad,” she admitted. “He’s just a normal pushy shrink. They kind of have to be. At least I figured out a few things. We know the patient was a journalist. They called him that in Dutch. We have someone from the London office calling around the big European news agencies trying to see if they had any male reporters working on a story in Sierra Leone. We don’t know if the journalist was Belgian or from the Netherlands, so we’ll look all over Europe.”