by Lori Ryan
“Thank you,” Jax said, grateful the guys hadn’t laughed in his face.
Chapter 11
The knock on the door was quiet enough that it might not wake anyone else, but Jax had been a light sleeper even before the military. Now, he could be awake and be on his feet in seconds at the slightest of sounds. It also helped that he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV in the den right off his front hall.
He didn’t expect to see Mia Kent on his doorstep at one in the morning. He sure as hell didn’t expect her to look like she did. He could only describe her as rumpled, but on her it was somehow sexy. Like her uptight, buttoned-up look had been pulled apart and she had that sexy librarian vibe going that all men fantasize about.
Well, at least, he did. He didn’t know about all men, but Mia had just walked out of one of his dreams with her hair pulled out of its ponytail, and her shoes dangling from two fingers. His body tightened just looking at her.
Christ. He brushed a hand down his face. He could not be having those thoughts about this woman. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t raised by Leo. She was Leo’s daughter, nonetheless.
He looked outside but saw no car, which was probably a good thing. He could smell something sweet on her, but the underlying scent was alcohol.
“How did you get here?”
“I walked,” she said, handing him her shoes and walking into his home. Her arm brushed across his chest as she walked by. She smelled like coconuts and he wondered if it was her shampoo or the drinks she’d clearly had. He wanted to pull her close and tangle his hands through her hair. Wanted to bury his face in it and see if that was where the light sweet scent was coming from. He wanted to know if she tasted like coconuts, too.
Christ, he was screwed.
Jax eyed her as he shut the door and leaned his back against it. This visit had bad news written all over it. The woman was his dead best friend’s daughter. She was drinking. And she’d just found, and then lost, the father she hadn’t had a chance to know.
Top it off with the fact that he was thinking all kinds of crap he shouldn’t be thinking about her, and the whole thing was a disaster in the making.
He wondered if he should tell her about the break-in at Leo’s place, then thought better of it. He’d tell her tomorrow. He took the two steps over to his side table where he kept his car keys and grabbed them and his wallet.
“Come on. I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”
Mia spun toward him, opening her mouth, but tipped to the side before she could say a word. “Whoa!”
Jax reached out and steadied her, taking a step closer to her as she gripped his forearms. Yeah. This is bad.
“I don’t want to go back to the hotel.” She looked up at him with those big brown eyes and they weren’t closed off to him like they usually were. There was an open vulnerability to her tonight. She was hurting.
Jax stepped backward, clamping his hands onto Mia’s arms and holding her away from him. Mostly to keep himself from doing something he’d regret. She was enticing as all hell, but she was also drunk. Her eyes were glassy with the effects of it, and if her daytime reaction to him was any indication, this wasn’t something she would want if she were able to think straight.
Leo’s daughter. Leo’s daughter. Leo’s daughter.
He kept the chant going in his head as he stepped backward, letting his hands fall to his sides.
“My boyfriend didn’t come to the funeral,” she said.
He took another step back.
He didn’t know why the news of a boyfriend was such a slap in the face. In fact, it was exactly what they needed. A big, giant wall between them. A wall with barbed wire and maybe some cut glass on top so he wouldn’t scale the fucker.
“I’m sorry,” she said, surprise on her face. “That made it sound like I was … like I wanted … Oh my gosh.” She put her hands over her mouth as if she could stop the verbal hemorrhaging she had going on and Jax laughed, breaking some of the tension that clouded the small room.
“Come sit down,” he said. “We can talk, okay?” He understood that she might be reeling. He’d felt like he was floating along in some nightmare he couldn’t wake up from all day. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on Leo to keep him feeling grounded lately.
She watched him for a minute with the guarded gaze he was used to seeing in her, then sat on the couch, drawing her feet up under her. It struck him that she treated him like women had treated him before he lost his leg. She treated him like any other man.
He’d had some women who seemed to be unusually drawn to him because of his leg. Others had babied him. He’d been talking to a woman in a bar on one of the rare occasions he’d gone out with people at work. Minutes into talking to her, she’d looked stricken.
“I should offer you my seat,” she said, sliding off the stool she’d been sitting on. He hadn’t stuck around. What man wants a woman to offer him her seat?
Mia never acted like he was different from anyone else. He shook off the thought and sat on the other end of the couch, then pushed the water bottle he’d been drinking before he passed out her way.
“Hydrate. You’ll regret this less in the morning.”
She lifted the bottle to her lips and sipped. “I don’t drink alcohol very often.” She said, a crinkle in her brows as she tried to focus on him.
It was only now he realized just how drunk she was. Her speech was slurred and her eyes were starting to close. She was lucky no one had picked her up on the mile walk from downtown to his place. Anything could have happened to her out there, especially in this condition.
“I can see that.” He grinned and she laughed back. It wasn’t one of those annoying school girl giggles. It was genuine.
Her smile went away, though, and she leaned her head on her arm. “What was he like?” Her question was quiet, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
Jax blew out a breath. He didn’t know what to say. Her dad was a different man to him than he was to Mia. In Mia’s mind, Leo was the villain who left her when she needed him.
Knowing Leo had walked away from his wife and child had been hard for Jax to stomach. He’d felt no small amount of anger toward his friend when he heard that. It had occurred to Jax that his friends Jack and Kelly had a daughter just about the age Mia had been when Leo left her. Their daughter was happy and laughing, so trusting in her parents at that age. The confusion Mia must have felt as a little girl when her father simply vanished must have been awful.
He couldn’t imagine leaving his wife and child. Couldn’t imagine what brought a man to that point. Even with all the shit he’d seen overseas. But every war was different, every soldier his own man. How Leo coped with what he saw and did was different than how Jax had coped.
“He was a good man.” Jax sat up a little trying to put into words what he was feeling and thinking. “I met Leo after he’d been clean and sober for years. He didn’t tell me about you, but he did talk about regrets. Regrets a person couldn’t get past. I think he was talking about you and your mom.”
He could see her struggling with something and knew she probably had a million questions about her dad. Sadly, they were questions he didn’t have answers to.
Despite that, he tried to offer her something. “I meant what I said at the funeral. His being there for me really helped pull me through. I don’t know why he couldn’t do the same for himself years before. Why he drank so much. What he was running from all this time.”
“Me neither,” she said, and he saw tears slip down her cheeks.
He moved closer and wiped at the tears, her sadness cutting through him. “Have you asked your mom what happened?”
“She said it was his story to tell me. Of course, that was before he died.”
“Will you ask her again now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to hear it, to be honest. Something tells me there’s a lot more to it than you or I could imagine.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“It’s just this sense I’ve always had. My mom would never talk about that with me when I was little. She would tell me what a good man he was, that he’d fought for his country. That he had to leave. But there was always something more there that she wasn’t saying. Like it was almost this big live thing. Like a secret that had a life of its own.”
He nodded.
“Can I tell you something horrible?” she whispered and he didn’t know if he should say yes or no. When she was sober, would she want him to know whatever it was she was about to divulge?
She didn’t wait for an answer, though. “Sometimes, I wish he’d had a great life. That I’d discovered he was living the good life, with plenty of money and a home and job. Maybe even a wife and children—a new family.”
Jax waited for her to explain what she meant.
She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, chin resting on them as she stared at the wall, eyes not appearing to see the room around her. “It would have been easy to hate him then. Easy to just walk away and not care about him.”
They sat quietly for a while longer before Jax saw more than a couple of yawns coming from her. Her eyes kept closing. She’d open them with a start and manage to keep them open for a minute or two before they closed again.
“Come on,” he stood and put a hand out, pulling her from the couch. “You take my bed. I was sleeping on the couch anyway when you got here.”
She tried a token protest but the argument didn’t last long. As Jax turned out the light to his room and shut the door, he noticed how small Mia looked, curled on her side in his bed. Small and hurting and needing answers. She might not want to know what demons chased her dad away all those years ago, but Jax had a feeling it was a story she needed to hear.
Chapter 12
It took Mia a few minutes to realize where she was. The pounding headache and whirling in her stomach didn’t help any. The confusion was probably multiplied by the fact that she expected to sleep in a hotel room the night before, so it wasn’t like she planned to wake in her own bed.
When she didn’t wake in either her bed or the hotel, it took a few minutes for her location to sink in.
Ugh. Jax’s house.
She couldn’t for the life of her remember why she’d thought it was a good idea to walk to his house.
Oh yeah. Nick.
She’d called Nick after the funeral. Talking to him hadn’t helped. She had no idea why. He’d said all the right things. He hadn’t said anything about her dad being a deadbeat or how she shouldn’t have let him back into her life. He’d been there for her despite the fact she knew he hadn’t agreed with her decision to go meet her dad.
But talking to Nick hadn’t helped her. She’d wanted to talk to Jax.
She sat up, then had to lean back against the headboard, trying to block out the sun with one hand. Her stomach bottomed out, followed by a little swirl to double up on the yuck factor she was feeling. She closed her eyes and waited a few minutes for the feeling to pass before opening them again.
Mia looked around on the floor but didn’t see her shoes. She still wore the black slacks and grey blouse she’d worn to her father’s memorial service, and later to the bar. Her jacket was nowhere to be found, so it must be with her shoes. She got herself up slowly and visited the bathroom in the master bedroom.
She expected more bare bones décor in the master bedroom and bathroom. Maybe because Jax was a guy, or maybe because of his military background. But his bedroom actually felt like someone had put some thought into decorating it. The walls were gray with white trim, and his sheets and comforter coordinated with the theme. He had an acoustic guitar in the corner and a basketball and one sneaker on the floor by the closet. The bathroom was a deep plum color, with gray towels and an abstract painting on the wall that featured complementary colors.
Tired bloodshot eyes met her in the mirror and her face was marked by the wrinkles of the sheet she’d had tucked under her cheek as she’d slept. Great. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to straighten the tangles a bit, then rinsed her mouth with water. She felt like she’d eaten a truckload of sawdust instead of the five or six Mai Tais she’d downed. She’d gone with them because fruity had seemed like a good idea. And who would have thought you could get so drunk on such a fruity concoction?
She went back into the bedroom and found her cell phone on the nightstand.
Where are you? Call me! I’m worried!
Wow. She should win daughter of the year. She’d pretty much forgotten that she and her mom were sharing a hotel room. Her poor mother had texted several times in the last hour.
I’m sorry mom! I’m fine. Be back in a few. She wondered if she could claim she’d gone out for an early morning walk, then looked down at her attire. Not likely. Her mother was no idiot.
Mia turned the knob to the bedroom door as quietly as she could. She held her cellphone in one hand as she tiptoed through the house. She’d need to find her shoes and get out before Jax woke up.
“Boo.”
Mia jumped forward and damned near out of her skin at the quiet voice behind her. Close behind her. How the hell had he snuck up on her without a sound?
She turned to glare at the man in question as she put a hand to her chest.
Wow. The man in question was drawing a tee-shirt over his own chest—his naked chest. Mia stared as he drew the fabric down. The cut torso and tanned skin was mouth-watering, to say the least. She’d caught a glimpse of the tribal tattoo that covered his left shoulder and came down his bicep.
Her gaze followed the tattoo up his neck, eventually resting back on his face, where he gave her one of those grins that said he’d caught her looking. She raised her eyebrows. Of course she’d looked. What did he think she was going to do?
“Want some breakfast?” He walked past her in the hallway and headed right toward what she guessed would be the kitchen.
“Um, no that’s all right. I’ll just head out.” She slowed as she walked through the den, looking around for her shoes. She vaguely recognized the room from the night before. Her shoes sat by the couch, her jacket was folded over the back of a chair.
Jax poked his head back out of the kitchen and gave her a look she imagined he’d used in the military. “Get your skinny ass in here and have a proper breakfast.”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
Skinny ass?
Mia left her stuff where it was and padded into the kitchen, finding him digging through the refrigerator. She had a perfect view of his backside, and it wasn’t going to be easy to turn away from that. The man looked like he was still in the military. All tight muscles and chiseled edges under the cargo shorts and tee.
She burst out laughing when her eyes wandered down to his legs. The left leg was the prosthesis she’d seen him wear most often. The top two thirds of it was glossy black with a subtle snake skin pattern. The bottom was matte black and looked like it was made of some sort of hard plastic that bent forward to make a kind of landing device for him to step on. What made her laugh was the tattoo on the other leg. Poser.
Jax turned and grinned. “That’s how your dad and I met. He spotted the tattoo and cracked up. We got to talking.” He shrugged like it was nothing, but to Mia each word was gold. Despite the warring emotions she felt whenever she thought of her dad, she wanted to know more about Leo.
“So, what, then you guys just started hanging out and you set him up in an apartment?” She hadn’t meant it to sound the way it did. Like an accusation of some kind. It had just struck her as odd for some time that he’d paid for her dad’s place.
He looked up from where he was scrambling eggs. “Yeah. That’s about the gist of it.” It was his turn to shrug.
She tilted her head and waited, but he didn’t say any more. He busied himself with popping a few pieces of bread into the toaster and moving the eggs around in the pan as they cooked before continuing.
“Th
e thing is, you just don’t leave a man behind, you know?”
He looked up at her but she shook her head just a little. She didn’t know. She couldn’t really understand the military experience. She would have been a military brat if her dad had stayed. But as it was, she and her mom had left that life when he’d taken off. It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered how different her life would have been if her dad hadn’t left. Not necessarily better. Not necessarily worse. Simply different.
Jax seemed to struggle for words for a minute. “When you’re over there and your world can fall apart in a heartbeat, and you’re seeing things, hearing things—hell, smelling things you’ll never get out of your head. Never. You just … what you have left is each other. What you have are the men around you. You have the Marines who have your back no matter the cost to themselves. And you’ve got theirs. You’d lay down your life for any one of them, because you know they’d do the same for you. So, you never leave a man behind.”
He pushed a plate of food in front of her and Mia was surprised to see he’d finished cooking while he talked. She’d been wholly caught up in his words and hadn’t realized he had kept his hands going with food prep the whole time.
“Your dad got left behind somehow. I don’t know how it happened. It was like his body had come out, but somehow the rest of him was left behind. He needed someone to go in and grab him and bring his ass out.” He shrugged. “So I did.”
Mia looked down at her plate as her eyes blurred at the thought of her dad being left behind. She got what Jax was saying. Her dad had come home from the war, but something had been broken in him and it was a lot more than his leg. All her life, she’d thought of herself as the one who’d been abandoned, left behind. It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe her dad had really been the one left behind.
She pushed the eggs around.
“Eat.” Jax didn’t wait for her to respond. He began eating his own food and didn’t seem to care if she talked to him or not.