Assignment: Second Chances

by Honor James

  “That sounds fabulous.” She looked at Lee and then Nathan and nodded. “We will figure it out later.” She had been alone every Christmas for ten years. She would love to be able to be surrounded by people and a loving family once more. She wanted that, but that was her. She wouldn’t make the choice for Lee as well, so they would all talk about it another time.

  “Plenty of time,” Nathan said. “All I need is a couple weeks for notice so that Mom can clean the house twelve times before we get there. Otherwise it won’t be clean enough for guests. Even though she’ll still be running around with a dust rag when we get through the front door.”

  “I think that all moms are like that though. I think that it’s part of genetics. God only knew when I was pregnant I couldn’t seem to be able to get myself to let go of cleaning. Nothing was clean enough.” Then again her heart had been shattered.

  A hand landed on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Turning to look over her shoulder, she saw Lee giving her a soft smile. When the elevator came to a stop in the lobby the men stayed one in front of her, and one behind her.

  She rested her hand on Lee’s back, smiled when she felt Nathan’s hand moved to her back and then slide down and pat her ass. She shot him a look over her shoulder, couldn’t help herself. “Oh you are a naughty boy.” She teased the man.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said with a wink. Then he went back to watching around them as they walked. With her hand on Lee’s back, she moved with him instinctively as he wove around people, and then out to the front of the hotel where the valet was pulling their rental up. Lee took the keys once more while Nathan helped her into the passenger seat before sliding into the back of the car once again.

  “Why do you boys keep putting me in the front?” Not that she minded sitting up front with Lee, she just hated that Nathan was relegated to the back so much. She turned in her seat once more so that she was facing both men, her back to the car door. “Okay, so my mom’s place first?” she asked Lee.

  “Because it gives me all this legroom,” Nathan told her. He was sitting dead center with a leg behind each seat in a reclined position with his head back.

  Lee shook his head. “He’s trying to get in a few extra Zs while he has the time. Yes, we’re going to your mother’s place first. I’m assuming she’s still in the same house?” he asked, throwing her a quick look, during which she nodded. “Good to know.”

  “Did he not sleep well last night either?” Olivia asked with a frown, moving as close to Lee as the seatbelt would allow and dropped her voice an octave so she wasn’t that loud. “I wish I would have known, I would have snuggled up with both of you last night.”

  “I sleep like the dead at night,” Nathan told her. “But if I have downtime, I’m more likely to catch a nap than do anything else. I will on occasion read a book or watch a movie, but the military is pretty ingrained. Sleep, and eat when you can. But if you ever want to snuggle up with me, definitely don’t hesitate to come and cuddle,” he said. Popping open an eye, he grinned at her.

  “Yeah?” They hadn’t spoken about anything between them, for the three of them, and asked, “What do you think about that, Lee? Would you mind me cuddling with Nathan from time to time as well?”

  “Of course you should,” he said. “He’s obviously not been cuddled enough in his life. He’s been missing out on something, so absolutely you should. You are probably the best cuddler around.”

  “Coming from you that means a great deal,” Olivia told Lee and reached out to touch him once again. “And I’m sure that he’s been cuddled from time to time, right?” She looked back at Nathan. “With a family as large as yours, I’m sure you had lots of cuddling.”

  “I was the baby of the family. There is cuddling, and then there are the suffocation techniques that older siblings call affection. Nanna always gave me a cuddle though, but I did tend to hang out with her more than my brothers. Norma was closest to my age, but she was a girl, so—” Nathan made a face, and shuddered. “She kept trying to dress me up in dresses and do my hair. It was bloody humiliating.”

  Lee had a hand up over his mouth as he shook with laughter he was stifling.

  Olivia shot Lee a look and then shook her head. She had to stifle her own grin as well. “It sounds like a fabulous way to grow up. I was an only child. My family was pretty much Lee growing up. The poor guy didn’t know what to think when I pretty much latched on to him. I grew on him though, much like a fungus. Didn’t I, Lee?”

  “That you did, little one,” he said. Reaching over, he took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “You were always determined and never let anything get you down. I definitely didn’t know what to think of you for the first while. You totally baffled me. Then I came to rely on you always being there, when I needed you, and even when I didn’t think I did.”

  “And the rest is history.” She didn’t want to think about the time that they missed together, they both had grown since then and that was then and this was now. “Now it’s all about making more history, don’t you think?”

  “It’s all about making a future,” he said. Squeezing her hand, he gave her a wink. “All of us, together,” he said a little softer. Letting her hand go, he switched lanes and then made the turn onto a road all too familiar to her, and Lee both. They were only four minutes away from her mother’s house.

  Olivia began to feel a little queasy at the thought that they were close to her mother’s home. “I can’t wait to get these answers. It’s time that we learned just why they lied. The people who told us all the freaking time never to lie.”

  Lee shot her a look, his face a hard mask. “They’d better damn well tell us the truth this time around, is all I have to say. I can’t wait to hear why they actually thought lying to any of us was worth it.” Slowing the car, he pulled up in front of her mother’s house and threw it into park. Taking a breath, he rolled his head around on his neck to crack it. “Well, let’s go get this over with.”

  “She’s home too. Her car is here in the drive and I just saw the curtains move. Come on.” She climbed out of the SUV before they could stop her and headed toward the house with a determined stride.

  She felt Nathan and Lee at her back when she rang the doorbell. She had been invited in by her mother when she opened the door, the guys as well. Once they were all seated and drinks were rejected, Olivia took a deep breath and asked quite simply, “Mom, I need to know why you refused to take Lee’s calls when he tried to talk to me. Why did you tell him that I was over him when I clearly was not?”

  Her mother stared at her, then shot a nervous look at Nathan, but her eyes skated right over Lee. “Because I was there to see you fall apart. I was there to watch you crying more hours a day than not. I was the one to dry those tears, hold you as you sobbed, and to grab you when you woke yelling his name in the night. I could see you shriveling up, and I knew him for the poison he was.”

  “Mom, he wasn’t poison though,” she whispered sadly. “If not for that lie, for the refusal of the calls, we might have been able to work things out together a great long while ago. He’s now having to live through what it took me ten years to get over—the loss of our child—all because you lied. All of my life you said never lie, it complicates things and you did, Mom. I love you, I really do, but this hurts so much that you did that and then when you add on what his parents did too.” She sighed and took a deep breath. “I’m just so upset with you right now, Momma.”

  “I did it to protect you. That is a parent’s job, first and foremost, to protect their children. You were all I had, Olivia. My baby girl. I had to do what was right in that moment, and I thought it was right. I won’t apologize for protecting you as I saw fit,” her mother said, lifting her chin.

  Olivia moved and she hugged her mother. “I love you, Momma, but it still hurt,” she whispered. “I understand why you did it but it wasn’t right. You never should have done that without talking to me. It caused too much pain. Right now I need to get over this pain.” It
had hurt her, a lot, that her mother had effectively kept her from the man she loved.

  “I only hope you never have to make a choice like that, Olivia,” her mother said.

  A hand on her back had her looking to see Nathan there. He passed her a tissue, which made her realize she was crying. Lee was off to the side, and looked like he was made of stone. She couldn’t see him breathing, let alone any reaction on his face. When his gaze locked with hers a moment later, she saw the smoldering rage he was keeping tightly locked down.

  Olivia moved away from her mother and to Lee’s side. She slipped her hand into his and took a deep breath. “Mom, you have no idea the choices that I’ve had to make. I needed him in my life. Yes I cried more often than I smiled after he left me, but if not for what you said and what his parents said, then that pain could have been averted. We could have discussed our issues like people should do but didn’t have that chance. Please never make that choice for me again?” It hurt her to say something so harsh to her mother, but it was true. If not for her mother and his parents, she and Lee would have been together for the last ten years. Then again, Lee likely wouldn’t be the man he was today and she wouldn’t be the woman she was. They were both stronger and understood loss far more than likely anyone else did.

  “I would make that choice every single time, Olivia,” she said. “Every time, without fail. If I could have kept you from ever knowing him, I would have to have spared you that agony. Unfortunately I wavered when I shouldn’t have when you were a little girl.”

  Lee slid his hand out of her hold, and for a moment she thought he was going to actually go at her mother. Relief hit her hard when he slipped his arm around her shoulders to pull her in for a hug. Even Nathan moved to a more protective position slightly in front, but to the side of her.

  “I think that it’s time for us to go.” She took a deep breath and watched her mother. “You made the wrong choice. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Regardless of anything that you say, he’s mine. Now and always. It’s a good thing that I will never have to worry about you doing that to me again. He and I both know that talking is one of our biggest assets that we have, now and always. Good-bye, Mother. I won’t be seeing you again before we leave.” She looked up at Lee and took a deep breath. “It’s time to leave before I do something that I shouldn’t.”

  He gave a nod, and turned with her to the door. As they left she fully expected her mother to say something, anything, but there wasn’t anything but silence behind them.

  “Holy shit,” Nathan said, adding on a whistle. “Was she for real? God,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair.

  “She was for real,” Lee said. He backed her up to the car, and put his hands on her shoulders to squeeze the muscles there. “Are you okay?” he asked softly. His mask was gone and replaced by concern.

  “No. I can’t believe she felt that it was her right to choose what was and wasn’t right for me.” She leaned into Lee and put her forehead on his chest. “I just want to leave please. I don’t know when, or if, I will ever be back here. I will still see my brother, but not her. I’m so angry with her that it’s not even funny. I’ve never been so angry in all of my life.”

  Squeezing the nape of her neck gently, she felt him press a kiss to her hair. “I know, little one. Trust me on this, I definitely know. We have one more house to visit though. Are you ready for that?”

  She took a deep breath and nodded finally. “Yes. I’m ready. We need our answers and then we will go back by the stone mason’s so that we can check on little Lee’s stone and make sure that they are well on their way for the repairs for it.” If she could survive the next stop, that was. “Or maybe drinks after the next house?”

  “I’m thinking we need drinks before our next visit,” Nathan muttered.

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Lee said. “But I want to be stone-cold sober for this. We might as well walk, it’s only a couple of houses up the street. It’ll be faster than driving, and maybe give us a moment or two to calm down too.”

  “Agreed.” She moved into step along with both of the men, moving up along so that she was between them. Without thought, she reached out and slipped her hands into theirs and squeezed them as they walked along.

  “Should we expect more at your parents’ home?” Nathan asked.

  “At this point I have no idea what to expect,” Lee told him. Squeezing her hand, he let out a heavy breath. “I only hope it’s not as bad as with her mother. But at this point I can’t even begin to guess.”

  “I never knew she hated you,” Olivia said finally. “She always seemed so happy that we were together, had often stated that you were good for me and I was good for you. It’s like she was someone else in that living room.”

  “I didn’t realize she hated me until this very moment. But now I see it was right from the moment I walked out of that house.” Sighing, he rubbed a hand down his face. They all came to a stop before the house he’d grown up in. “Here we go again,” he muttered.

  Olive looked up at the house and squeezed his hand and took a deep breath as well. “Let’s do this then,” she whispered and moved with Lee toward the house. “Well let’s all see how this works out then and why they felt to tell you that I had married.”

  “Married?” Nathan asked. “Since when were you married?” He was looking at her stunned.

  “She wasn’t ever married. That was part of the lie they fed to me. To get me to stop asking about her, to stop calling her, to give up on her fully,” Lee said. “It worked too.”

  “Which was part of why he was likely so angry with me when he was forced to watch over me as well. That’s the past though. Right now it’s time for us to get answers and move on. As Lee said, it’s time for us to focus on our future, together.”

  She then rang the bell and waited for his parents to answer.

  It was his mother that pulled the door open, the shock was clear on her face. “Ulysses, Olivia,” There was an obvious downturn and disapproval in her voice when she said Olivia’s name. “And who are you?” she asked Nathan. She then shook her head and asked them to come in, closing the door behind them.

  “We didn’t know that you were in town,” she said and then yelled for Lee’s dad to come and join them in the living room.

  “Just came back to attend to some business,” Lee said taking the lead. “This is Nathan by the way, a teammate and co-worker. Well, if I still have a job when I get back, that is. What was the business we had to attend to? Well I’m sure you’ll find it amusing given you knew all about it, but felt that lying to me and keeping secrets was the way to go.”

  “Oh shit,” Nathan muttered from her other side. “This is going to go well, I can see. And you said not to bring the water bottle. I told you we’d need it.”

  “No we won’t.” Olivia placed her hand back on Lee’s forearm and squeezed.

  “That’s no way to talk to your parents,” his father said with a low voice. “You have no right to walk into our home and speak like that to your mother and me. Now, what is your issue, son, and why are you holding that woman’s hand? She’s a liar and a cheater.”

  “He’s right, Ulysses. She tried to pass off some malformed child as yours, as if a Jacob’s would ever be born deformed,” his mother said quickly.

  “Oh, you bloody bitch.” Olivia growled from Lee’s side, moving to go for his mother but was stopped with his hand in hers.

  “Olivia Green is the only one who has never lied to me. I don’t even know who you people are anymore,” he said in disgust. Pulling her back into his side, Lee held her tight with an arm around her waist. “I had the right to know I had a son, and he was my son. I had the right to know she was pregnant, and alone going through it all. She had to do all of that because of you, and that bitch of a mother of hers. Sorry,” he said in an aside to her. Amazingly enough, he was holding his temper. His tone, while filled with disgust, and anger was a low tone that was so much more effective than had he been ye
lling.

  “I would have been there for her, through it all. Even the loss of our son, my son,” he said, his voice getting quieter. “I came here to find out why you lied to me, but now I don’t even care. I don’t know who you people are. You are definitely not the loving, generous, and warm people who raised me. All I see before me are bitter, vile people tainted by their own lies and the filth they think. We’re leaving, and I won’t ever be back. Don’t ever contact me. In fact lose my number. I won’t put myself, Olivia, or anyone else I know within your disgusting sphere of influence. I’m done. Let’s go,” he said to her and Nathan.

  “She was sleeping with Brian Byrd,” his mother spat. “He’s the child’s father, not you. One day you will see the truth and come running back. Look at how she’s looking at your friend. If you think she’s not sleeping with him when you aren’t around, you are wrong. She’s a slut just like her mother.”

  Lee stilled, completely. “She never slept with Brian. She hated his guts and wouldn’t give him the time of day.” Shaking his head, he urged her toward the door. “Lose my number,” he repeated as they left the house. “Un-fucking-believable. I’m sorry, little one. I knew this was a bad idea, especially after that visit with your mother.”

  Olivia was shaking but she ignored it. “It’s okay.” She took many deep and controlling breaths. “There’s something that we’ve missed, but that’s neither here or there.” She looked up at Lee and smiled. “He wasn’t malformed. He had a clubfoot which I was told would easily be fixed with surgery. His little heart was defective, which was what took him from us.” She was leaning heavily against Lee by this time. “God I could just punch her for saying that about him.” She was angry at the moment because of what she said about their son, mostly because she couldn’t think about the venom and hate that the mother had spewed her way during the very brief conversation. “Are you okay? That’s the question,” she asked and looked up at him, her hands now on his cheeks when they stopped beside the SUV.