Special Forces Father

by Victoria Pade

  “I think he gets gold stars for that,” Bryan said tentatively, as if he was beginning to have trouble seeing the flaws that Dani’s tone implied were there.

  “Well, sure,” she agreed, as if that wasn’t the point. “But he came at me with this whole plan that made me think of Garrett—”

  “Controlling and demanding?”

  “Well, no, to be fair there wasn’t anything controlling or demanding in any of it. But there was stuff about how he thought I’d be sorry if I sold the restaurant, that I should keep it and get my kid fix with Evie and Grady and however many other kids I’d want us to have—”

  “So it was more of a suggestion? An observation that you might regret selling the restaurant?”

  “I suppose. But that’s my decision.”

  “A decision that you haven’t been able to make because you aren’t sure yourself if you’d regret it.”

  “But it’s not up to him!”

  “It doesn’t sound like he thought it was. Just that he was giving an opinion.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours. Always yours,” Bryan assured, sounding increasingly confused. “But it seems like he was thinking about you. Garrett would have pushed or ordered or demanded that you sell the restaurant, with himself in mind. And he wouldn’t have cared that it might be hard for you—the same way he didn’t care that Gramma needed your help sometimes.”

  Dani frowned. “All I know is, in the moment it made me think of Garrett—who I was engaged to until only three months ago, don’t forget that. I’m not ready for a new relationship, let alone to make a commitment this huge,” she contended so as not to lose her head of steam, piling on another of the reasons she’d said no.

  Bryan didn’t respond to that. “Was it more like a business deal than a proposal? Or like he was hiring you? I know he can be kind of stiff and formal.”

  Bryan was obviously trying to understand. And Dani was trying to make clear to him everything that had gone through her head when she’d been with Liam.

  “No, he wasn’t stiff or formal. He was...like he is with me—which he said, something about how I make him free to be himself—so he was actually kind of laid-back. Happy. And he said a lot of nice things about how I was the first person he wanted to tell everything to, to share everything with. That I was the most important person to him. How great we are together,” she said, her tone still finding fault somewhere in all of it.

  “Get him over here so I can shoot him!” Bryan said theatrically, facetiously. Then he frowned at her as if she wasn’t making sense and went back to his normal voice. “From what I’ve seen you are great together. And the four of you? It’s like a perfect little family—Adam and I talked about that after you left Saturday night. You and Liam seem good for each other. You both seem so good for the kids...”

  “Yeah, he said that, too.”

  “And that made you feel like he only wants you so he isn’t on his own with Evie and Grady?”

  “No, he only said he wanted us to raise Evie and Grady together after he said how great just the two of us are together...” She flashed back to all of Sunday night. To the very early hours of this morning before they’d had to go their separate ways. To hours of him making love to her until she was weak and spent and yet still craved more of him.

  But that certainly didn’t support her case so she said in an ominous tone, “He said that being a marine had hardened him but that I softened his edges and the way he saw things, his reaction to things. He said I had an effect on him that no one else ever had. He said stuff about how much he wanted and needed that now that he’s had it...”

  “And you thought of your dad,” Bryan said as if a light had just dawned on him.

  “That is what my mom tried to be for my dad. What she tried to do for my dad. I remember her telling him that she was his safe space.”

  “And that helped him but it wasn’t always enough. And it terrifies you to think that Liam might have some of the issues your dad did.”

  “And some of the same issues Garrett had from his high-pressure job, too,” she added. “Issues that just got bigger no matter how hard I tried to make them better,” she said, feeling as if her friend was finally beginning to grasp it all.

  “Drink your tea,” Bryan said, as if he was buying time to think.

  She did, certain that now he’d joined her point of view.

  But then he said, “I think we need to separate your dad and Garrett. Because I never saw Garrett the way you did.”

  “I know the two of you didn’t get to be friends. I hated that. He swore it wasn’t because you’re gay but—”

  “He wasn’t homophobic, Dani. And I’m gonna tell you what I never told you before—I don’t think all his issues really came from his job or that he was as freaked out about your safety as he pretended to be.”

  Apparently Bryan could tell just by her expression she was going to refute that because before she’d gotten a word out, he said, “Yeah, sure, there was some of that. Of course he’d seen bad things and that caused him to worry about you more than someone else might have. The fact that there was some truth in it is how it got you sucked in. You connected the high pressure of being a cop with your dad’s military stuff and were particularly accommodating when Garrett showed he was worried about you. You wanted to make it easier for him, to help him—”

  “I didn’t want him to get to the point Daddy got to.”

  “Right. But I think once he saw that you were willing to give a little to make him relax, he ran with it. By the end I think he mostly just used it as a way to keep you under his thumb. Every time he fed you the line? About how he could only really rest if you were with him and that was why he couldn’t be comfortable, even if you were with me or Gramma or at the restaurant? I think he was working you more than looking out for you.”

  “You really didn’t like him,” Dani said, seeing the extent of it for the first time.

  “I really didn’t like that he wanted you all for himself. I didn’t think it was healthy. And I really didn’t like that he used your dad’s problems to his own advantage—because that’s what it looked like to me.”

  Dani thought about everything that had gone on with Garrett from Bryan’s standpoint.

  She could see where there was some merit to it. Especially when she recalled how much she’d come to feel manipulated by Garrett. About how, just when that was happening, he’d played up the things that reminded her of her father so she would ultimately indulge him.

  “Okay,” she allowed. “Maybe you’re right. But what does that have to do with what’s going on with Liam now?”

  “You saw something in what Liam said to you this afternoon that reminded you of Garrett and I don’t think you could be more wrong. I don’t see in him what I saw in Garrett. Yes, Liam keeps himself under some tight control, but unless I’ve missed something, he hasn’t tried to control anything else. I even asked Adam how he was with the kids at the park the other night and Adam said he kept a close eye on them, but he let them play just fine.”

  She was glad to hear that.

  “So I don’t think Liam saying that he thinks you should keep the restaurant and get your kid fix through Grady and Evie and other kids you might have should count against him.”

  Putting Liam and Garrett side by side in her mind, Dani thought what Bryan was saying had some validity. She had to admit Liam had merely presented her with his suggestions today; he hadn’t been at all the way Garrett would have been about it.

  And while he’d said he would hate to lose the restaurant and the warm, family-like feelings he’d encountered there himself, while he’d offered to do whatever he could to help her in whatever way she might need—like more maintenance and small repairs—he’d also still admitted that whether she sold out or not was up to her.

  “Okay, maybe the whole restauran
t thing was just him giving his opinion,” she conceded. “He did say he knew selling the restaurant was my decision, just that he thought it was so much a part of my growing up, so much a part of my life with my grandparents, that I would feel as if I was cutting off my own arm if I sold it.”

  “A good point,” Bryan said. “And just as a side note—I have always thought that when you have kids of your own they’d be enough kid contact to satisfy you, so I can see where he’s coming from on that, too.”

  Dani sipped her tea but didn’t comment.

  “But that still leaves the other part of what got to you—Liam making you think he might have some of your dad’s problems. Have you seen signs of PTSD in Liam?” Bryan asked reasonably.

  Dani gave it serious consideration. “I thought that’s what I was seeing the day he was withdrawn and quiet—that made me think about my dad because it was the way Daddy acted when he was getting into a slump.”

  “But you said that was about Liam’s brother. The shock of seeing how injured he was for the first time.”

  “Right.”

  “And by that night Liam had talked it out with you and was okay again,” Bryan reminded.

  “Right.”

  “So that doesn’t really count. It would bum anybody out to have someone they’re close to injured, to see that for the first time. And he’s been doing what he can to help his brother—like what your family did to help your dad. Your dad was too messed up to be of help to anybody else.”

  “He was.”

  “But Liam is still a marine. Like your dad was,” Bryan said. “And he told you being with you makes him feel better.”

  “Right,” she said apprehensively.

  “But if he doesn’t seem to have PTSD, couldn’t it just be that he’s a normal guy who’s gotten to know you and like you and it feels good when he’s with you? If he wasn’t a marine and he’d said what he’d said about being with you, would you have heard it the way you heard it? Because Adam makes me feel everything Liam said you make him feel and I just see that as the reason our relationship works.”

  Dani stared into her tea.

  Liam had said more even than she’d told Bryan, and when she remembered it all and forced herself to look at it without the shadow of her parents’ problems cast over it, she could see where Bryan might have a point.

  Why exactly had it scared her? That being with her made him feel so good, so right, so at home, that he wanted to be with her all the time? That he wanted to marry her and have a life and a future with her? That together he wanted them to give Grady and Evie the kind of loving upbringing that she’d had from her grandparents?

  It had all just come at her so unexpectedly, and on top of so many other things in her own life that she was feeling pressure to sort out and make decisions about, maybe it had pushed her buttons.

  “And you know,” Bryan said after a minute, “that stuff about only being broken up with Garrett for three months? About not being ready for anything else yet? I don’t get either of those things, Dani. Sure, you might not have been out of things with Garrett for long, but so what? Who says you can’t meet the right person ten minutes after getting away from the wrong one?”

  “I’ve only known Liam for about a total of ten minutes,” she understated to make a point.

  “Yeah, it’s been quick.” Bryan didn’t dispute it. “But so what to that, too? From the minute you set eyes on that guy I’ve heard things out of you, seen things with you, seen the way you are when you’re with him, that have made me envious. It’s like from day one it just clicked. And call me silly, but I think that happened because you’re right for each other. Good for each other. Meant for each other. So I just kind of think you’re crazy for running from it.”

  “What if he does just want a nanny?” she said quietly, falling back on that initial concern.

  “Well then, that would be lousy. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, but if he gave you any indication that might be part of it, then yeah, I guess I’d say thank god he’s Evie and Grady’s biological dad and he wants them and they won’t have to go into the system. Take heart in that and put this whole thing behind you. But do you really think he was just sweet-talking you to get your nanny services? That he’s willing to marry you to get them?”

  Hearing that from Bryan did make it seem a little farfetched. And everything Liam had said seemed genuine and heartfelt. So much so that it had triggered her fear he might need her as a crutch the way her father had needed her mother.

  But she’d already discounted that idea and now she saw what he’d said in a much different light. A different light that allowed his words to actually reach her, to touch her, to make them mean so much more to her when they just came from the way he felt about her.

  And he’d said he would want her, want a life and a future with her, even if the kids weren’t in the picture.

  When she thought about the way things had been between them when they were alone, she knew just how big it was. How intense.

  He’d become important to her, too. He was the first person she wanted to talk through everything with, too, and she’d come to value what he had to say as much as she valued what Bryan said.

  As she thought about it, she realized having Liam around had made her feel better about any number of things this last week, so there hadn’t been any shortage of her needing him, too.

  She had to admit to herself that he’d become her oasis. Something about that big, strong presence of his being there by her side made everything—even running the restaurant—seem less daunting.

  And when it came to Evie and Grady...

  She was so grateful that they wouldn’t be left defenselessly in the hands of the court.

  But to have the chance not to lose them herself?

  She’d been with them through every stage so far, through illnesses, now through grief and loss—her own and theirs. She did love them. She didn’t want to lose them at all. And while they couldn’t be the reason she would say yes to Liam, getting to raise them, to continue seeing them grow, to go on caring for them and loving them was very appealing. Especially when the four of them together this last week really had come to seem like a family.

  “Am I crazy if I do this?” she whispered to Bryan.

  “It comes down to what you feel for him, Dani,” Bryan said wisely. “Everything aside, is he who you want to go to bed with every night and who you want to wake up with every morning, no matter what?”

  “He is,” she said without hesitation because, stripped down to that, it was the plain and simple truth. Especially after going to bed with him last night and waking up with him this morning—she didn’t want any day to end, any new day to begin that wasn’t with him.

  “Then go fix your face, run a brush through your hair, and I’ll drive you back so I can wrangle kids while you tell him you just panicked.”

  “You think he’ll let me in the door?” she said.

  Bryan stood up and held out his hand to her. “If he won’t I’ll just beat it down to get you in,” he said with a laugh.

  But Dani was more worried about it than that.

  She had said no—vehemently.

  And then she’d run away.

  What if it wasn’t so easy now to just call a do-over...?

  Chapter Ten

  “Dani! Where’d you go?”

  “We were s’posa go to the restaurant afer our movie was over but you were gone!”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Dani apologized to Evie and Grady when they ran to her the minute she went in the Freelander front door.

  “You din’t even tell us you were goin’ somewhere,” Grady accused.

  Under her breath, in a near whisper, Evie rolled her eyes toward Liam standing nearby and said, “Li’mum said we couldn’t do nothin’ wissout you.”

  Dani smiled slightly at the
four-year-old’s mispronunciations, especially Liam’s name.

  Before she could comment, Bryan came in behind her. Surprised to see him, they immediately forgot their peeves with Dani and went into their usual greeting of him—demanding to see his socks.

  “You guys are gonna love them,” he assured. “But let’s go down to your playroom before I show you. I really need to do some puzzles today.”

  “We got a new one!” Evie announced as she and her brother took off like a shot, leaving Bryan a moment to greet Liam with nothing more than a raise of his chin in acknowledgment before he followed them.

  And suddenly Dani was alone in the entryway with the big, broad-shouldered man standing like a sentry. He was expressionless but still looked fantastic in a short-sleeved, black T-shirt that stretched tight around the massive biceps that bulged from his arms crossed over his chest.

  Just being near him—even when the tension between them was palpable—was enough to make her pulse race. And for a moment the power of the feelings she had for him seemed almost overwhelming.

  But she didn’t know what to say, where to start.

  Liam took care of that by nodding in the direction Bryan had just gone and saying, “You needed backup? Is Bryan here to evict me or pack your bags?”

  “Neither,” she said. “I went to the apartment. I’ve been there talking to Bryan. He just came to occupy the kids so we could talk.”

  But she knew that Liam had said all he wanted to earlier today and, since her reaction hadn’t been good, it was up to her to talk now as she faced the man who stood like a big wall of steel.

  “I’m sorry for reacting the way I did and then disappearing,” she said with a sincerity that hadn’t been in her more casual apology to the kids.

  “I just don’t know what I said that scared you. Believe me, that wasn’t what I was going for.”