by Grady, D. R.
Shadows and Spice
The Morrison Family Series
Book 5
D.R. Grady
Table of Contents
Other Works by D.R. Grady
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
About the Author
Other works by D.R. Grady
The Morrison Family Series:
The Nerd and the Marine
The Corpsman and the Nerd
The Nerd and the SEAL
The Nerd’s Pocket Pets
Shadows and Spice
Macy’s Parade
Bad Nerd Rising
The Me Series:
Treasure Me
Save Me
Trust Me
Heal Me
Love Me
The Abroad Series:
Home Song
Bearer of My Heart
Please visit my website for updates on all three series.
http://www.drgradybooks.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Known locales are also used fictitiously.
If you enjoy this book, please buy a copy for someone else to enjoy. Please do not download or buy this from anywhere except where the story is offered legitimately. All rights reserved - including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Copyright 2012 by D.R. Grady
Smashwords Edition
Please Note: While I had help with this story from several knowledgeable sources, there are still likely mistakes on my part. Authors also like to stretch and change things to make their story work. So this book does not necessarily reflect reality. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
Dedication
To you, my readers. Thank you so much for your support. I’m so excited and relieved these stories have touched you like they’ve touched me.
To Vicky Burkholder and Victoria Smith for all the great feedback. This wasn’t an easy book to write, so thanks for making it readable!
To all of CPRW for offering advice, and sharing their knowledge. I couldn’t have done this without you!
To my hubby, Roy, for acknowledging that writing isn’t just a hobby.
Shadows and Spice
Chapter 1
“I don’t repeat gossip, so listen close the first time.”
Greg Gilmore peered around the store shelf and gazed at the cluster of women circling a small silver haired lady. A woman he thought might be married to Rich O’Riley. His current ....former ....something boss.
Another woman, tall, elegant, cool, her mocha skin glowing in the sunlight from a nearby window stood within the inner circle. She was his former doctor. Thanks to her skill, many of the scars mapping his body were mere shadows now. Most of his wounds had been so skillfully stitched he couldn’t remember where they had been.
She had toiled hours in the OR, working tirelessly over him. His prognosis, he later learned from O’Riley, was grim. But Dr. Janine Morris kept piecing him back together. She refused to give up on him and he was alive today because of her stubbornness.
Dr. Morris was a top notch doctor with two tours in Kuwait to her name. Before that she completed a tough training course in Johannesburg. A woman with a brain that could have led her anywhere but that led her straight to him. She could have been a rocket scientist. Instead she joined the Navy and became a surgeon.
She shouldn’t even know who he was, and he shouldn’t know her, except that he lucked out and ended up on her operating table. The tattoo on his inner thigh had identified him, and she only recognized it because she also bore one. Most team members never met – except in extreme circumstances. Greg supposed him nearly dying was considered an extreme circumstance.
Now she bent over a little boy here in Hershey, P.A. His son. Greg’s heart clenched as he studied the boy. Ryan belonged to his sister now, not him. He gave up all rights to his son long ago, and even though that initial choice was still the right one, he could hardly bear to see the little boy. Inside, his heart wept for what he’d lost.
Janine straightened and Greg’s attention shifted to the blonde woman standing beside her. His sister, who cradled a small girl, and who many thought looked a lot like him. KC Gilmore Morrison, just like Janine Morris, was a part of the circle of women eagerly listening to the scoop from the small silver haired lady. They leaned into each other’s personal space, every one of them comfortable with herself and the women surrounding her.
A brunette with a little girl toddling around her legs bobbed a baby in her arms. Greg thought one of the others had called her Lainy. There was a beautiful strawberry blonde who pushed a double stroller filled with two children who had to be fathered by Ben Morrison. The babies were an impressive blend of their parents.
The other strawberry blonde reminded him of O’Riley, but looked an awful lot like the older woman who held the group enthralled with the current news. A small girl with big eyes clung to her hand.
These women were family, a tight group who obviously cared about each other. KC blended with the group as easily as a chameleon to a branch. Greg couldn’t fathom all those people in his personal space. The sensation of not sucking in enough air threatened his windpipe and he forced himself to breathe. The walls eventually stopped closing in on him.
“So what’s the scoop, General?” the dark haired woman asked.
General. A rumble of what could be laughter, but he wasn’t certain, tempted him, but Greg shoved it away from long experience. The woman had answered his question though. General Emma so yes the small silver haired lady was Admiral O’Riley’s wife. Definitely.
“On my way to work this morning I noticed a man driving through town. He looked a lot like our own KC.” His heart dropped. Oh no.
His sister’s eyes went wide. “You saw Greg?” A small catch in her voice made his heart spasm.
“Is that your brother’s name?”
KC’s nod was jerky. Her eyes sought Janine’s. The two women held an entire, silent conversation in that moment. Greg itched to know what they concluded. Were they glad he was here, or did this information come as an unpleasant surprise? He’d like to hear their answer, since it might go a long way to answering that same question for him.
“I think I saw him, too,” the woman who looked a lot like Emma said. He thought she was Shelby, O’Riley’s daughter. Had he heard the woman had married Sam Welby? Greg wondered why he suddenly felt so old.
The women all nodded and moved closer.
“I think Mom mentioned seeing him,” the brunette said.
These women were so tight they knew intimate details about each other’s lives. How had General Emma recognized him? Only KC and Janine knew him, but at least three women had identified him. Somehow. How was that for remaining undetected?
Greg forced himself to breathe again when he
noticed the walls trying to smash him. The exercise didn’t seem to be working. His lungs threatened to seizure.
“Where was he headed?”
“I assumed he was going to your place, KC.”
Another negative jerk of her head caused his chest to tighten. More breathing exercises helped him remain upright. “I haven’t heard from or seen him.” Her shoulders didn’t exactly shrink in on themselves, but they definitely drooped. His own tensed. Why would she want to see him? He had always shown her an irresponsible artist who couldn’t settle for the wind. Greg didn’t dwell on the pain that coursed through him, but stuffed it into that small dark box where he kept emotions. He had carefully cultivated his reputation with his family. It was rather too late to regret his decisions now. So why was he?
“Where else could he have been going out there?” O’Riley’s daughter asked.
“Harrisburg,” Janine supplied dryly.
General Emma’s eyes sought and located Janine’s. Greg knew she would read nothing in the amber depths, and wondered if Emma found Janine’s inability to show emotion frustrating. Sometimes he did, and he barely knew the woman.
“There are a few cottages on the outskirts of town, and they’re beyond Max and KC’s house and yours, Janine.” General Emma continued to stare at her niece.
Janine nodded. “I thought about those.”
“There’s one less than a mile from our house.” KC sounded a little breathless. He understood – that’s always how he felt in crowds.
A new thought caused a cold sweat to pool at his spine. Now that the Morrisons had recognized him, would they feel free to show up at his door? Anytime?
He shuddered. How did you handle so much family? Even individually they were hard to take, but en masse?
He must have been insane to come here.
Why had he come home again?
Ryan darted from around his mother and scampered by. This little boy was the reason. Greg’s heart tightened so much he feared a heart attack right there in the store. Ryan had meant more to him than he could have ever expressed, and apparently that feeling hadn’t altered, seven years later. He still loved the boy with the part of his being that remained pure. Staring after his son, Greg realized there didn’t seem to be much of his soul left that was uncontaminated.
Janine reached over and plucked the little girl, he thought he heard them call her Macy, from KC. His niece settled back into Janine’s embrace with familiarity and Greg had to swallow down an emotion he didn’t recognize. So this precious child who shared his blood already loved and cherished Janine Morris. So Macy didn’t know him from squat, just like Ryan. That shouldn’t bother him.
But it did.
Here these women were discussing him like today’s news, and he was worried about his nonexistent relationship with his niece and...son... Ryan.
But he had already given up so much – his eyes drifted to Ryan. A little boy he’d loved since before his birth. And a child he was forced to sever all ties with to keep safe. But every minute that passed he longed to know Ryan and his little sister, Macy.
Yet in doing so he would have to interact with the Morrison family. There was no doubt he would ever be able to breathe amid that many people. Ever. Too many people, too many faces, too many expectations he would fall short of. He couldn’t do it. Not even for the precious children and sister and doctor he’d come to protect.
He slipped quietly out the door and followed Janine, who left the store alone. Just in time Greg merged with the shadows and watched as Janine joined the group concealed in the trees. If he hadn’t seen her destination and realized she had one in mind, he would have never noticed the silent figures waiting patiently for her. He kept to the shadows and the darkness was so familiar none of them saw him. That was quite how he preferred things. A few deep breaths and his lung were happy again.
Without remorse, he eavesdropped on their conversation. The SEALs and Janine all kept their voices low and their presence quiet.
“Someone broke into O’Riley’s house?” Janine’s voice, as low as the men’s, still carried just enough that he heard her.
“Yeah,” one of the SEALs muttered. Greg couldn’t tell whether the man was Ben Morrison, Sam Welby, who he thought had retired, or Rex Beaumont because the man’s voice was pitched just low enough.
“Why would you be stupid enough to break into an Admiral’s house?”
“Because he wanted to find a certain secret operative.” This time Greg recognized Ben’s voice.
“Who?” Janine leaned forward, her movement so careful, only someone who knew she was there and was watching carefully, would notice. He had more difficulty not noticing her. She could be engulfed in a crowd of Morrisons and he would still pick her out of the mass confusion in seconds.
“That’s what we want to know,” Beaumont said. “O’Riley told us one of his best operatives had died. We all suspected it was Michael Lamont.”
“Why did you suspect him?” Her voice gave nothing away.
Ben raised a negligent shoulder. “Heard rumors.”
“But whoever snuck into O’Riley’s house asked for a secret operative.” Welby’s voice was pitched in such a way Greg could barely distinguish it. He must have been the original speaker then.
“By name?” Janine’s voice was sharp.
“We don’t know. Haven’t actually talked to O’Riley,” Ben admitted.
“I did briefly this morning,” Sam said.
“And?” Beaumont didn’t stir in the shadows.
“He didn’t say anything about the break-in.”
“Why do you believe the dead agent is Lamont?” Janine’s voice was without inflection. But he detected an intensity the other men apparently missed or ignored.
“We were supposed to pair up with an agent on our last assignment, a clean-up—” Beaumont started but trailed off.
Ben finished the statement. “In the past, Lamont’s had our backs. This time it was some guy we didn’t know.”
“So you assumed Lamont is dead based on that?” Janine sounded incredulous.
“We happen to know he took out those terrorists up in northern PA. We also know he sustained some nasty injuries.” Ben’s voice remained low, so low Greg had to concentrate to hear what he said.
Janine still gave nothing away. He wondered if it frustrated the SEALs. With an internal smile, he suspected it did.
“We cleaned up the traitor for him,” Welby said. “Lamont’s known for cleaning up his own messes.”
Ben frowned and stared at the men with him. “Should we be telling Janine this?”
From where Greg stood he could see her eyes, and they blanked. Her entire face went devoid of emotion. Good girl.
“Yeah, we can tell her,” Welby said.
She raised a brow. “How do you know that?”
“O’Riley let something drop the other day, so I know you know more about this than most.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact you’re a former member of a certain secret operative’s team.”
Ben’s blazing eyes whipped to Janine. “You’re a secret operative?”
“No, I’m a former member of a secret operative’s team.” She stared her brother down. “So, it’s okay to talk to me.”
Even these SEALs probably wouldn’t understand the extent of her training, much less what her duties had entailed or her skill set. In fact, he didn’t fully understand them.
“Just because you’re a former member doesn’t mean we should mention the agent in question.” Ben still seemed reluctant to trust this information to just anyone, even if she was his sister and a former Navy woman. Greg respected the wariness on the SEAL’s part. It was because of men like Morrison that helped keep operatives, former operative, he mentally corrected, like him alive.
“You should trust me because I signed Lamont’s death certificate.”
No emotion crossed either of the men’s faces he could see. Morrison had his back to Greg now, but
Welby stood beside Janine, and Beaumont’s face was in profile. Janine’s back stiffened, subtly, but he recognized the movement because his own spine reacted. Greg faded further into the shadows.
“Death certificate.” Beaumont bit off the statement, almost making it sound like a curse.
“So it was Lamont who died,” Ben said. He didn’t move but Greg thought he sensed some agitation from the SEAL.
“I was the attending surgeon. We tried to save him, but couldn’t.” Janine’s voice was low, without inflection again. Greg marveled at how easily she lied. Why these SEALs didn’t detect their own or similar training in her... But then why would they?
One of the men said something Greg didn’t catch, but it warmed him a little that they were angered by Lamont’s death. At least this team seemed to appreciate the man whose ticket got punched up there in Northern Pennsylvania.
Welby’s forehead pleated and his body went taut, like he didn’t quite believe what he heard.
Ben must have picked up on Welby’s unease because he asked a low question Greg didn’t catch.
Beaumont leaned forward, his movement easy and nearly undetectable. “Where did you hear Lamont isn’t dead? Janine said she signed the death certificate.”
“Michael Lamont’s death is filed with the state. His death was listed in the obituary section of the paper.” Janine’s voice didn’t waver. She sounded like she believed every word she said.
Welby shook his head. “I could have sworn...”
Janine’s face didn’t reveal anything, but he noticed she held her spine a little too erect. Tension glistened in the air around her.
“What?”