Taylor froze. He’d never seen this side of his father. Ever.
The General relaxed under the powerful calming influence that was Gracie Fox. His shoulders were not so taut, his stance less proud. He leaned into his dead wife’s loving face. “We were such kids back then. Such stupid kids. So much in love.” He traced his fingers along the painted arm of his first bride. He touched Martha again, and time stood still.
Taylor couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried.
Once more his arrogant, heartless, driven bastard of a father gazed into the smiling face of his first true love. It seemed Michael Armstrong forgot there were others in the room, as if he and Martha were locked in a moment from long ago, looking into each other’s eyes again. With love. Tenderness.
My mom and my—dad. They did love each other. Once.
Suddenly, the General corrected his posture and jerked back to reality. His hand dropped to his side. He turned abruptly toward the door. “Ancient history. I have a schedule to keep.”
“Don’t go.” Gracie held him in place, still in front of the telling portrait. She pulled another picture out of one of her many pockets and gave it to him. “Who do you think this is?”
What on earth is she up to?
“Is that you?”
“Ah, huh.” Gracie’s eyes filled with mischief. She nodded for Taylor to come join them.
The General took the photo from her hand. “I remember the day like it was yesterday. Your mother was so proud of you that day, and, why, that’s Taylor, isn’t it? That boy of mine was up to no good even way back then, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was.” Gracie scrunched her shoulders in playful agreement. Her warm eyes drew Taylor in. He peered over her shoulder at the picture in his father’s hand, the sandbox scene with him and Gracie all puckered up for their first kiss.
His father caught sight of him when he wrapped his arm around Gracie’s shoulder. The General’s hand snaked out, and instinctively, Taylor flinched. Instead of a slap, his father only ruffled his son’s uncut locks. “What’s this about?”
“It’s hair, Dad.” Taylor heard his mouth croak out the word he hadn’t spoken in years. It sounded right, so he used it again. “Gracie likes it long and so do I. Dad.”
The General glared, but Taylor saw the rebuke in his eyes soften at that single telling word. Martha had to be smiling down from heaven at this baby step taken by both of her men.
But right as rain, his father wasn’t about to make an about face any more than Taylor. “Looks like you’ve been busy, son, but I’ve got a meeting at the Pentagon. I can’t be late. Traffic’s busy this time of day.”
He strode purposefully toward the door, but in doing so, he had to pass Grandfather. Once again, Taylor held his breath. The General extended his hand, but Grandfather looked up hard and mean into Michael Armstrong’s eyes. He didn’t flinch or smile. Neither did he take the offered hand.
At last, his father spoke. “I loved her,” he said quietly as he lowered his hand to his side.
Grandfather closed his eyes, his chin tilted upward.
Michael bit his lip, once again just a foolish young man in front of his elder. “I am sorry, Peter. I made a mistake when I left Martha. I made another when I took Taylor from you. I was young, stupid and wrong. I wish I could change what happened, but I can’t.”
Grandfather nodded, his words defiantly possessive. “Taylor is my grandson.”
“Yes, Peter. He is. He always was.”
The two men stared at each other until the General barked over his shoulder, “Get a haircut. You look like a girl.”
Taylor brushed his hair off his forehead. He hadn’t cut it since what he’d thought was their final confrontation in the Sit Room. He wouldn’t cut it now. Gracie liked it, and he was all about pleasing her. Enough said. “It was good to see you, too, Dad.”
A tiny crooked thing tugged the corners of his father’s mouth. He almost smiled. Then he was gone. The tension in the room left with him, but Grandfather’s face reflected his anguish at this unfortunate meeting. He felt betrayed. Taylor could tell. He headed straightway to make amends.
Alex beat him to it. He wrapped one arm around Peter’s bowed shoulders. “You’ve got a helluva grandson. Is Taylor your only one?”
Grandfather wiped his eyes. “He is. Well, on second thought, no. Luke has a son, too. Ryder. I’m a lucky man. I have two grandsons I’m proud of.”
“Do you guys fish?” Alex asked while he and Kelsey steered Peter out of the library and back into the mayhem of family and friends. “Because I know a place where you can catch forty-pound Coho like you’re swatting flies. You ever been to Alaska?”
Grandfather’s eyes lit up. So did Taylor’s. Alex fished? Sweet.
“It sounds like you’re going fishing, Taylor.” Gracie snuggled under his arm.
He gazed down at her happy face. “I’m kinda wondering who the real fisherman in our family is. You snagged my old man and turned into—my old man. How’d you do that?”
She shrugged, but her eyes sparkled with their usual smiles. “It’s like the fireflies. I see ancestors. You see bugs.”
“And my old man? Firefly or bug?”
“You see the General, but I see a very sad man who’s afraid he’s lost everything. He doesn’t know how to talk with you, but I can see it in his eyes. He loves you very much. He just doesn’t know how to tell you.”
Taylor halted in the library’s doorway as that thought settled. “That’s what you see?”
She nodded. “Yes. He’s as unhappy as Peter once was. As angry as you used to be. And the saddest part is that he did it to himself the day he took you from the only family you knew. He did it to hurt Peter, but he hurt himself the worst. Look around, Taylor. You’ve had your share of trials, but now you have everything. All he has is his career.”
Taylor blew out a big sigh. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of thankful for that damned arrow.” He reeled Gracie in for another kiss.
Luke raised a bottle of beer in salute across the room. Ryder was snuggled under his stepfather’s arm, an unusual position for a kid verging on the teenage years, but he looked content. And he was a cute kid. He’d let his hair grow in the traditional style of the tribe: long, straight, and untrimmed. Just like Taylor’s would eventually be.
The kid was a genius with the bow, but Taylor planned to get damned good with his own bow. The White Hawks were going hunting. Together. All of them. And fishing too by the sounds of it.
Buford sprawled on his back at Luke’s feet, the dog’s tongue laying on the carpet beside his smiling whiskers while he chased squirrels in his dreams. The dog’s feet twitched and his tail, too.
Mark’s littlest daughter, Faith, stood watching with a one-year-old’s curiosity while Luke tickled Buford’s foot just enough to keep it twitching. She chortled in babyish glee, so Luke did it again.
The sounds of children laughing somewhere in the house and a sweet baby girl giggling filled Taylor’s heart. The wreck that was his house didn’t feel so empty. Better yet, he knew exactly who lived there: the son of the beautiful Martha Catherine White Hawk and the fierce Marine Corps warrior, General Michael Armstrong.
He was also the grandson of Magdalene and another great warrior, Peter White Hawk, chief of the proud Mattaponi tribe of the Commonwealth of Virginia, descendant of the mighty Powhatan Indians who’d ruled long and wisely before the white man ever came to change the world.
Uncle Luke was right. A man should never underestimate the wiles and will of a woman named Fox. Gracie’s devotion to a dying woman’s impossible deathbed request had brought Taylor full circle. She’d saved him. His heart, too.
He was now husband and humble protector of a spirited Indian Princess who lived to make a happy man of the warrior who’d once lost the joy of living. She’d turned his life around with one solid knock on his hard head, then smothered him with kindness to heal him from the inside out.
Her brand of to
ugh love must’ve worked. Where once had been only anger and grief, hope blossomed. Where distrust and hatred had strangled all good things, the glow of love. Where revenge stifled his heart, forgiveness ruled. The empty wreck that had once been nothing more than a project and a derelict was now...
Home.
THE END
Sneak Preview of GABE
Book 8
In the Company of Snipers
Pop! Pop! Bang!
Backfire? Gunfire? Could’ve been, either.
Junior Agent Gabe Cartwright jerked his gaze to the exit gate of the underground parking garage. He’d just parked his Land Rover in its assigned stall. Barely had his feet on the ground.
His boss, Alex Stewart, lingered at the gate in one of The TEAM’s black SUVs. Always in a hurry, the speed demon should’ve stomped on the accelerator and roared into traffic by now. Was the gate broken or—
Damn. Was that gunfire?
Gabe couldn’t get to his boss fast enough, but then couldn’t believe his eyes. Alex sat slumped forward at the wheel, his forehead tilted down and his mouth open in shock. Three crimson bull’s-eyes blossomed dead center of his white dress shirt.
“No! No! No!”
Where the hell had those shots come from? Gabe scanned the busy traffic on the street. The office building across the way. No glint of a scope. No shadowy figures skulking away. Just another sunny day in Alexandria, Virginia. Like hell.
Gabe grabbed his cell phone and stabbed 911, his heart roaring in his ears. Not Alex!
He barked address and details to the dispatch operator, then his teammates two stories up. “Shooting. Parking garage. Alex. Get down here now!”
There was no time to waste. Gabe braced the sole of his boot to the windshield and pushed it inward far enough to loosen the window seal, then jerked the entire sheet of safety glass out.
“I’m... shot?” Alex gasped.
Yes, damn it. Only he’d be surprised at that. And still talking. Had to be in shock.
Leaning over the dashboard, Gabe shoved the shifter into park and unlocked the doors.
“Gabe?”
“I heard you, Boss. Help’s coming. You’re gonna be okay.”
Please. Don’t let him die. Not Alex.
He didn’t need CPR. He was still conscious, still huffing shallow breath. A sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip. There just wasn’t enough blood. He had to be hemorrhaging internally. To death.
“Kelsey,” Alex whispered, his eyes glazed and his voice fading. “Tell… Kelsey—”
“No, Boss. You get to tell her yourself. Promise.”
Lies. All lies.
Alex didn’t curse. Not even once. He closed his eyes with a soft sigh, barely breathing.
Just that fast Gabe was inside the vehicle with him, releasing his seatbelt, easing him out of the SUV and onto the concrete. He locked his hands together and commenced first-aid, applying hard pressure to stop the bleeding.
The TEAM scrambled out from the stairwell. Gabe heard, but offered not one second of precious time to acknowledge them. All ex-military, they knew what the hell to do.
“Is he still breathing?” Harley asked, shoulder to shoulder with Gabe on the cold garage floor.
“Yeah. Three shots. Professional hit. Came out of nowhere.” Gabe kept pressure up.
Not Alex, damn it. I’m not losing another friend. Not today.
Mark knelt at his other side with a fistful of sterile packing. He covered Gabe’s hands with it and together they applied enough pressure to make a grown man cry.
Alex never even groaned.
What kind of man survives three mortal wounds? Superman, maybe. Ironman. Alex was close to invincible, but the harsh reality of ballistics sucked. Three rounds equaled shit.
Sirens shrieked. Maybe two. The paramedics barked orders for everyone to step back. They took over first-aid and had Alex off the ground and on the gurney in no time.
Gabe sucked in a lungful of stale concrete air. Damn. Could this be Alex’s lucky day? Could he bully Death as he’d bullied everyone and everything else?
God, I hope so.
The medics loaded the ambulance, the clock ticking. Gabe stepped forward, going with his boss every step of the way.
“No riders.” The driver secured the tailgate, his palm in Gabe’s face.
“But I—”
“Follow in your own vehicle. We need to move.”
They didn’t waste time. Sirens blared away as quickly as they’d come.
Every team member scrambled to his or her vehicles. Gabe found himself pulled into Junior Agent Zack Lennox’s family van. “Come on. He’ll need Kelsey.”
“You’re not going after the boss?
“No, Gabe. We’re not. We’re going to take him his reason to live.”
Good thinking. Gabe climbed into the van, wiping the blood off his fingers, needing the sticky stuff to stick somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Did anyone call her?”
Zack only growled. Obviously not. This kind of news had to be delivered in person. With tender care. He aimed the van toward the elementary school where Kelsey taught.
Gabe pushed a fist to his sternum as if that could stop the drum roll in his chest, the creeping suffocation of an imminent panic attack. Triggers. It was all about managing his response to the triggers that initiated that claustrophobic sensation of the world closing in.
Not now. Keep it together. Breathe in. Breathe out.
By the time Zack roared into the school’s loading zone and hit the school ground running, Gabe had it under control. He followed. Maybe Zack knew how to break this kind of news?
Yeah, right. Words always failed. How do you begin to tell a woman her husband had been mortally shot? How do you to tell her he may already be dead? That it’s too late?
Gabe flat didn’t want to know. KIA notification sucked.
The morning kindergarten class must’ve barely begun. Kelsey looked up, smiling from the two-foot high table where she sat surrounded by her teaching assistant and adoring five-year-olds. “Zack? Gabe? Why are you—? What’s wrong?”
“Alex needs you,” Zack replied calmly, his hand outstretched to take hers, his fingers urging her forward. “Come on, Kels. We’ve got to go. Now.”
The light left her eyes. She already knew. With barely any words of instruction to her assistant, she left the quiet morning behind and hurried with Zack and Gabe out the door and into the van.
“How is he?” she asked, her chin up, Zack’s van already ten miles over the speed limit to get her to the hospital in time.
“Not sure,” he replied evenly, squeezing her hand on the console between them.
“He’s been shot before, you know,” she offered quietly. Hopefully.
“Yes. He has,” Zack agreed.
Sitting behind her in the van, Gabe kept his mouth shut. Kelsey needed to believe her fierce warrior husband could survive this time because he’d survived others. Too bad life didn’t work that way. A man only had a certain number of chances before the bullet with his name caught up with him. The odds always decreased. Any dumb jarhead knew that.
The trip took too damned long.
Finally at the emergency room, Gabe joined his somber teammates with poor Kelsey sandwiched between him and Zack. Like that could stall the inevitable. Like anyone could protect her tender heart from what lay around the tiled corners.
She’d clutched Gabe’s hand when he’d helped her out of the car. She hadn’t let go. He couldn’t bear to.
Junior Agent Izza Maher wiped her face when she looked up and saw them. Ember Dennison turned away. Their husbands, Connor and Rory, stood tall and somber.
Newbies, Taylor Armstrong and Maverick Carson were ashen.
The office IT genius, Mother, bowed her head, her shoulders trembling.
Harley was nowhere to be seen.
Damn. We’re too late.
That should’ve been Kelsey’s first clue how bad it was this time, but she offer
ed small talk to her too quiet friends. “Mark. Connor. My goodness. You’re all here. Hi, Rory. Taylor. Any word yet?”
She made it sound as if this was simply another pickle Alex had gotten himself into. As if this too was all in a day’s work for a covert operator. But Gabe caught the tightened grip of her fingers. She needed a lifeline. Someone to hold onto. He let it be him.
“The doctor’s waiting,” Mark said, his voice tight.
She nodded.
Gabe steeled his heart as they followed, his heart screaming ‘Hit rewind. Replay. STOP!’
The corridors seemed to narrow with every step. Mark pressed the metal ‘Push’ pad to activate the wide emergency room doors. Once beyond, doctors and nurses in light blue scrubs hurried through the corridors as if Death didn’t stalk right along with them.
At last, another door. Not just a curtained-off examination room, though. More like one of those family-counseling rooms with solid walls. In case of crying. Cursing. Screaming.
A doctor had barely exited. “Mrs. Stewart?” he asked gently.
Kelsey’s hand lifted out of Gabe’s to her lips. “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry.” The doctor reopened the door, ushering her into the room where Harley stood somber and still over a sheet-draped body. Bloody packing splattered the floor. The stifling drift of alcohol and antiseptics filled the air.
“No,” she whispered. “Please, no.”
Gabe didn’t need to hear the words. He could read. Harley’s bleak teary face said it all.
The unthinkable had happened. Hell had come to The TEAM.
Alex Stewart was dead.
Thank you for reading Taylor.
Click on the links below if you’re interested in reading more about The TEAM
Alex
Mark
Zack
Harley
Connor
Rory
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