H.A.L.O. Undone (Broken HALO Book 1): A Broken HALO Novel (Broken H.A.L.O.)

by Jillian Neal

  Three other men all in suits approached. We participated in the ridiculous male practice of sizing each other up. Ridiculous only because I could take them all on with one fist. They seemed to come to the same conclusion.

  Mathis offered them nods. “This is Seth Seeger, Mike Watson, and Drew Morris. We met at the pool a little while ago. Guys, this is Griff Haywood. SF Team Seven.” He added a great deal of weight to the words team and seven.

  “Do you think they at least got women our age?” the Watson guy asked.

  “No idea.” For Watson’s sake, I hoped he got someone he could have fun with.

  “They had to make a donation to even get to bid so that’s something I guess,” he continued to rattle off information.

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” If his point was that at least the women making bids had money, so that somehow made them better, they were all about to find me extremely unapproachable. So unapproachable that I knocked his ass through the back wall to get him away from me. I crossed my arms over my chest to keep from strangling him just yet.

  His eyes made it to the approximate size of a half-dollar. “Nothing really. Just that at least they’re familiar with the organization. I’m doing this for a buddy of mine. Homefront Heroes is helping him pay his chemo bills.”

  Okay, so Watson was one of the many, many people on the planet who didn’t think before he spoke. That didn’t make him a bad guy just an idiot. “Give your friend my best.”

  He nodded and then lifted a glass of wine off of a tray as it was shoved under his nose.

  “That’ll be seventeen-fifty,” the tray-wielder informed him.

  Watson spit back the sip he’d taken. “For one glass? I thought drinks were compliments of Homefront Heroes.”

  “Some drinks are but not this wine.” He gestured to the credit card reader on his hip and held out his hand. “This is a new plum wine out of California. It’s rather expensive.” The waiter waved his fingers back and forth like Watson was just going to hand over a credit card due to his summoning. “The terroir is evident in the taste.”

  “It’s kinda…weird.” Watson scowled at his glass. “I don’t want to pay for it.”

  “You’re probably just getting the flavor of dog.” I rolled my eyes.

  Wine guy scowled. “For your information terroir is the environment in which the fruit is grown not something a consumer of hops would ever understand I suppose. And it’s terroir not terrier.”

  “To-may-to, to-mah-to. All I’m hearing is dog,” I countered.

  At that moment another dude in a tux exited the kitchen area with a tray of what appeared to be glasses of Jack. My own personal hero. I waved him over. The waiters shared a quick glare. I lifted a glass of whiskey from the tray. Every male nearby followed suit. “I told you they weren’t gonna drink that much less pay for it,” whiskey guy reminded wine guy. Oddly, he had no credit card reader on his apron. The all too familiar tightening in my gut and twinge in my bad hip said something wasn’t right. Dammit. What was this wine idiot up to, and why did I always have to notice everything?

  “A refined pallet is something that has to be cultured, not that members of the armed services would understand that.” The wine guy puffed up like he’d invented the yo’ mama jokes and someone had given him the Nobel Prize of comebacks.

  “Oh, dude, leave the sarcasm to the professionals. You’re gonna choke on the shit and hurt yourself,” I ordered.

  Ryder’s cohorts all chuckled as wine guy slunk to another group of soldiers.

  Suddenly, Ms. Mallory was upon us. “Sergeant Haywood.” She gave me a quick nod. “Lovely to see you this evening. I am sorry I woke you earlier.”

  “No problem.” I downed a sip of Jack and reveled in the burn as it centered in my chest.

  Another woman who appeared old enough to have seen the turn of two centuries butted her way into our group.

  “Oh, Ms. Rutherford, welcome.” Ms. Mallory straightened like someone had shoved a yard stick up her ass to perform a tonsillectomy. “Gentlemen, this is Victoria Rutherford. This is her first Homefront event, but I know she’s going to be... generous this evening.”

  “Boys,” Ms. Rutherford traced her index finger down Watson’s arm. The clogged scrape of her voice sounded like she’d either been smoking ten packs a day for the last seven decades or she’d swallowed the motor off of a lawn mower.

  Watson cringed and managed to step back discreetly.

  Two other women of equal age flanked Ms. Rutherford. They were all dressed in red, white, and blue sequined gowns. “These are my gals, Gladys and Edith,” she whirred. We all smiled at the original Golden Girls in our midst. And no one was shocked when Ms. Rutherford whipped out a pack of Pall Mall’s and lit one up.

  Still unable to remove that yard stick, Ms. Mallory gripped Ms. Rutherford’s wrist. “You can’t smoke in the hotel, ma’am. You’ll have to go outside.”

  Ms. Rutherford rolled her eyes and took a long drag. “Honey, if I’d lived my whole life fussing over rules, I never would’ve spent the last fifty years being happily married to seven of my husbands. The eighth was a center ring shitshow.” She paused to drown her lungs in another round of nicotine and bury the rest of us in a smokestack. “I married him for kicks, but that wearing a red clown nose and cape to bed got old faster than I’d planned. With him we were able to use the same cake we’d had at the wedding for his funeral.” She laughed at her own joke. “Normally, I let them hang around longer than that.”

  I chugged the rest of my Jack. Ms. Mallory’s eyes goggled. “She wasn’t married to all eight of them at once. They, uh…all passed…in their own time…I mean.”

  One of the women, rasped her index finger along my jawline. My stubble caught in the knit gloves she was sporting.

  When she coughed and then batted away the smoky haze, I used the slight veil of emphysema to escape. Mathis had the same idea and followed me out.

  Turning back toward the door, my mouth dropped open of its own accord. Holy mother of God she was stunning. At some point in my life I’d clearly done something right because damn… just damn.

  The skin tight dress in black and white should’ve been illegal. The sky high heels she was wearing framed her ass in an offering I intended to own. Her tits spilled over the low neckline. She’d pulled her hair up in one of those loose twist things, showing off her delicate neckline. Those legs went on for several miles. Savage possession twisted hard in my gut. Mine was the only word my mind was capable of understanding. All fucking mine. All for me.

  “Holy fuck, look at her,” Mathis all but purred.

  Utter hatred took up residence in the marrow of my bones.

  Hannah’s eyes met mine. I was fairly certain music swelled from somewhere. Surely that shit wasn’t all in my head. Her sweet grin melted a little of the hatred I’d acquired recently. She headed my way.

  “Damn, why do they always go for Special Forces?” he whined.

  “It’s the scars, man. You gotta have the scars.”

  17

  Hannah

  Mine. I didn’t have to hear him say the word to see the warning flare in his eyes as he stared me down. I wanted nothing more than to sink into the possessiveness armored in his battle-ready stance. As soon as I laid eyes on him, my body required that I be near him at all times. I shouldn’t have been so obvious. I should have mingled with all of the men up for auction, but when it came to him all bets were off. Rules were made to be shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces. If Ms. Mallory figured out that I’d arranged for him to be here, so be it. I’d deal with the fallout later.

  He handed his glass to a guy standing beside him. His laser-sight radar locked onto me and he edged two other men out of his way to get to me in the fewest number of steps. “My God, sweetheart, heaven couldn’t possibly be more beautiful than you are.” Okay, so he was making my moment every possible clichéd thing I could ever have dreamed it would be. What can I say? When I pick out the gu
y I want to spend the rest of my life with, no matter what it might cost me, I do it right. “Isn’t there someone I can fucking pay so I can get you out of here now?”

  “I don’t think that’s how this works,” I reminded him.

  “Then we need to fix it because I’m gonna need a metal fucking baseball bat to beat back the assholes staring at my baby.”

  “There are a lot of women here. Besides, I only want you. No one else could ever keep me satisfied.” I prayed he’d take that in the dirtiest possible way. The craving grunt my flirtation elicited said he’d gotten the message loud and clear.

  “You keep tempting me like that I’ll throw you over my shoulder, fly you back to my suite, tear that dress off of you, and take you so hard you feel it for the next week, and that’ll just be the appetizer.”

  Another two quick steps and I was fully in his space, close enough to catch his scent and to be enveloped in his heat. Sergeant Griff Haywood in a charcoal gray suit, ladies and gentlemen, it was a sight to behold. “That’s definitely on the agenda.”

  A tray of wine glasses slammed into my arm. “Ouch!” I winced and instinctively gripped my bicep trying to rub away the ache. The glasses rocked back and forth ominously, and the carrier of said glasses looked embarrassed but managed to stabilize the tray enough to keep them from toppling.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you there.”

  “How the hell did you miss her standing here?” Griff shot angrily. Here was the thing about soldiers—they were bred to protect the people they loved at all cost. Occasionally, that meant they overreacted ever so slightly. “She’s the fucking sun, asswipe. You can’t miss her. The whole universe should revolve around her.”

  My heart turned to the consistency of a warm puddle. “Griff, I’m fine.” I let my eyes plead on my behalf because he wasn’t listening. Instead of noting my insistent gaze, his eyes zeroed in on the red mark on my arm. Then, in an epic bout of stupidity, the wine guy shoved his tray under my nose. “Wine, ma’am?”

  “I don’t care for wine, thank you.” I never liked the taste. I’d do champagne on occasion, but I was perfectly happy with a good beer, a Cubs game, and my man.

  “Are you certain, Miss? This is plum wine from California. Quite delicious for the refined palate.”

  Griff’s eyes narrowed. “When she said, ‘I wouldn’t care for any,’ what exactly did you hear her say, fucker? Was that too many words for you?”

  “That she was almost as uncouth as you clearly are,” wine guy retorted.

  My mouth hung open. He clearly had no idea whom he’d just pissed off. This wasn’t going to end well for him. If Griff had his druthers, the guy was likely to be chewing both the wine and the glasses that contained it.

  Apparently, his brain cells were involved in some kind of argument rendering him completely insane because wine guy pushed the tray into me again. I stumbled forward this time. Griff steadied me. Rage was locked in his features. That suit couldn’t quite conceal the flex of his biceps. “If I were you, fuckstick, I’d take a very long walk the opposite direction,” Griff snarled.

  “I promise. I’m fine.” I leapt in. “Let’s go…speak to Ms. Mallory.”

  “No witty comeback for that, soldier?” the waiter spat. Oh, this was bad. Very, very, very bad.

  “You got something you want to take up with me, you take it up with me. You leave her the hell out of it.”

  “It’s only seventeen-fifty a glass.” He explained to me like Griff hadn’t said a word and gestured to a credit card reader on his hip.

  “I do not like wine,” I emphasized every syllable. “And drinks are supposed to be provided by Homefront.”

  “Then I suppose you two deserve each other,” the waiter spat. “No class at all between the two of you.”

  “Oh, let me see if I can get a slow clap going for another one of your brilliant comebacks. Seriously, go back to your village. I’m sure they’re missing their idiot. What is your deal anyway?” Griff demanded.

  “What is my deal?” the waiter turned on Griff and actually shook a finger in his face.

  “Dear God,” I whispered, “please do not make me have to call my brother to help hide this guy’s body.”

  “My deal is that I’m here delivering wine to unappreciative servicemen when my father should have chosen me as the sommelier at the winery instead of my ridiculous brother. Oh, he went off and joined the National Guard,” the waiter shrieked. “Well, what about all of the years I spent tending the plums? Tell me that. What was all of that for? Oh, he went off to Iraq and is a hero.”

  Griff’s lips folded under his teeth to keep from laughing. The wine nutjob would live to see another day. Several curious onlookers moved closer.

  “That’s rough, man.” Griff nodded. “Really. That’s just shitty. I’m sorry for your self-indulgent insanity. Narcissism is a real bitch.”

  “Is there a problem here?” An older man with an Obelisk Hotel name tag on his suit approached. His gaze moved from me, to Griff, to wine guy. “I’m sorry. Who exactly are you?” he relieved wine guy of his tray. “Why aren’t you wearing a uniform?”

  “Plum wine is the way of the future,” the idiot seethed.

  “Let’s go.” The man escorted wine guy out.

  As soon as he was out of the ballroom, Griff and I both started laughing. Our laughter together was one of my favorite sounds. The others included the guttural groan he gave when he came deep inside me and the sleepy way he said my name first thing in the morning.

  “I’m losing my edge.” Griff sighed. “I kinda feel for the guy.”

  “You’re not losing your edge. He is clearly losing his mind in plum wine.”

  “Rough way to go down, that’s for damn sure.” He winked at me and I fought not to propel myself into his arms. This stupid auction needed to hurry up and be over with, but the events of the evening were ripe with opportunity so I took them up on their offer.

  “Guess we can both empathize with a dad who does something crappy to his kids.”

  I watched Griff’s brow furrow as he grabbed two bottles of craft beer as they went by on another tray. The tops were already popped. He handed me one. “What did the general do, sweetheart?” Molten fury popped and oozed behind the practiced calm he tried to portray.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me,” I came right back determined to figure this out one way or another. Whatever my father had said to him before he’d deployed that first time with Team Seven held the key to why Griff was so determined to keep us a secret.

  “You want to dance?” he gestured to a few other couples who were getting to know each other on the dance floor as the lights lowered. So that’s how we were going to play this. Disappointment crashed through me, but I was nothing if not stubborn.

  “I think I’ll go place my bid first.” I let him off the hook for the moment.

  He smirked and my heart fluttered. That smirk would always be my undoing. He knew it and was using it against me. I’d get him for that later.

  “Bidding on anyone special?” He shook his head at me.

  “Very special.”

  18

  Griff

  So, Hannah had figured out that her father played a huge part in the reason we couldn’t really be together for any length of time. My girl was cut from the same cloth as her brother. Steady determination, dogged stubbornness when they wanted something done, and a head full of smarts. She knew perfectly well that one of us would have to give something away to get the other to make a confession. Dammit. I didn’t want to keep shit from her, but her father’s actions would infuriate her and then devastate her. I refused to play a part in that.

  “Hi, I’m Savannah,” a brunette stepped in front of me and presented her hand, presumably for me to shake.

  “Nice to meet you,” I supplied out of forced habit. I’d momentarily forgotten that I was one of the pieces of meat up on the hook for this event.

  “What happened to your eye? It’s weird looking.�
� She pointed to the jagged white brand from shrapnel that had flown between my goggles and helmet one night in Djibouti. I didn’t tell people that actually cared about me how I’d earned all of my many scars much less some chick trying to decide if I was worthy of bidding on based on the markings I’d collected.

  “What happened to your manners?”

  “I was just curious,” she smarted.

  “Me, too.”

  She spun on her heels and found some other victim. Two other ladies about my age made their approach. If this was how most women felt when they went in bars, I needed to apologize to all women everywhere on behalf of my kind.

  “Hi, I’m Trina and this is my sister Becca. Our big brother’s a marine. He’s in Kuwait.”

  Unable to keep my eyes off of Hannah’s delectable little ass as she bent to slip a piece of paper in the box with my picture, name, and rank, I managed a nod. “Name’s Griff Haywood. Give your brother my best and send him some baby wipes, some eye drops, and some Copenhagen. He’ll appreciate it.” I stepped around the ladies and headed toward Hannah. I ran into another red, white, and blue sequined roadblock in the form of one of the Golden Girls I’d met earlier.

  “You are a piece of Grade A prime rib, honey, and I am up for a meal,” she drawled. “Most gals my age are looking for someone with a pension and an unsigned power of attorney to play doctor with, but not me. I want a hunk of man who’ll make me look like I’ve been run over by a mayonnaise truck when he’s finished with me. I got money when my first two husbands kicked the can. Now, I need a stud.”

  Making a return trip back to me, Hannah was close enough to hear her proclamation. Her right hand flew over her open mouth as she stopped in her tracks. Meanwhile, I tried to remember how to make my own lower jaw join with its top half and how to keep the beer I was drinking from making a rapid return.

  “I’m one hell of a knitter, too. When your hotdog gun gets cold after I’ve left, I could knit it a sock to remember me by. I made a few for some of Gladys’s boyfriends. Just keep that in mind.” The woman winked at me and then went on her way before I recalled how to blink.