Playing Dirty

by Jamie Ann Denton

  “No.”

  “Ford, protocol demands—”

  “Fuck protocol,” he roared. “She’s my wife. Mine.”

  “Was,” Paul said, his gravelly voice hard. He came out of the chair, his brows pulled into a disapproving frown.

  “Like hell.” Ford crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet apart. “Mattie is my wife.”

  “Think about what you’re doing, Ford,” Ravelli continued in a more placating tone. “I’ve known you for a long time, buddy. People change. After what she went through when she heard you were dead, she can’t possibly be the same woman you left behind five years ago.”

  “She’s still my wife. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let her go without a fight.”

  * * *

  All Mattie Avery could think of as the driver of the rented town car pulled up in front of her modest ranch house, was how she’d never been so utterly exhausted in her entire life. The two week, whirlwind honeymoon trip across Europe was one she’d never forget, and had been everything her shiny new husband had promised. The crazy schedule, not to mention a serious case of jetlag after a full day of travel, had apparently caught up with her and she was beat. She didn’t care that it was nearing dawn and the blistering Texas sun would be riding high in the sky shortly. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

  “You go in,” Trenton told her as the car pulled to a stop. “I’ll see to the bags.”

  Mattie looked over at her husband and offered him a half-hearted smile. “Thank you. It’s been a day,” she said, then leaned toward him for a quick kiss.

  He obliged, which made her smile widen. Eighteen months ago, when they’d first started dating, she quickly learned Trenton didn’t go in for public displays of affection. After time, he’d loosened up, a little. While her groom wasn’t exactly a stuffed shirt, appearances were important to Trenton, something she tried to keep in mind.

  She pulled her keys from her purse before she left the car, then headed up the walk to the front door. Heavy humidity already hung in the air, stifling and adding to her exhaustion. As she slipped her key into the lock and turned the knob, she was hit by a blast of cool air and silently thanked her sister, Griffen, for taking the time to come by and fire up the air conditioning for them. Her sister and brother-in-law, Jed Maitland, the former star quarterback of the Texas Wranglers, would be over later in the afternoon to bring her daughter, Phoebe, home. Until then, she planned to shower and sleep for the next eight hours.

  She flipped the switch to light the small foyer, then headed to the kitchen for a cool drink. As she rounded the corner into the family room, she caught a movement in her peripheral vision and stopped cold.

  Her heart pounded so hard all she could hear was the blood thrumming in her veins. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream as a tall, imposing figure slowly moved toward her.

  “Hello, Mattie.”

  Instantly, she recognized the deep, smooth voice, a voice she’d heard only in her dreams for the past five years. Reaching behind her, she smacked the wall as she frantically searched for the switch. Light from the kitchen flickered to life and spilled into the family room. She stared in disbelief at what could only be a figment of her imagination.

  This wasn’t real. She was overly tired. She’d fallen asleep on the plane and would wake up any minute now when they landed in Dallas.

  She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

  He was still there. Standing less than three feet away—and he was alive.

  “Ford?” she managed on a strangled whisper. Shock, surprise and an uncontrollable sense of joy raced through her as she drank in the sight of him. “My God, is it really you?”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she was amazed that her legs still held her. He was thinner than she remembered, his thick and wavy sable hair was still cut in the same, standard- military style, but now a hint of gray peppered his temples. He wore his khaki uniform, pressed to perfection, the breast pocket laden with medals and brightly colored striped bars, evidence of his valor in service to his country. The two silver bars on his collar had been replaced with a gold leaf, indicating he’d also received a promotion in rank from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander.

  Her throat clogged with hundreds of emotions, making breathing difficult. Her mind swam with even more questions. Tears of joy filled her eyes. The man she’d loved heart, body and soul had been returned to her. By some crazy miracle of fate, Ford was still alive.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. With tears flooding her vision, she lifted her hand toward him, afraid if she blinked, he’d be gone.

  “I’m home, baby,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. Closing the small space between them, he pulled her into his arms.

  Mattie clung to him, finding comfort in the strong, vital rhythm of his heart. If she let go, she feared he’d disappear and she’d wake up crying from another dream. For too long she’d hoped and prayed that the news of Ford’s death had been a mistake, that someone had lied to her, but after years of wishful thinking, she’d finally come to terms with the fact that he’d never come back to her. He was gone. Dead. He’d been killed when his plane had been shot down over the Mediterranean Sea, forcing her to deal with the reality that she’d never be held by him again, never hear his smooth, deep voice whisper hot against her skin as they made love. Never see his laughing eyes simmering with desire whenever he looked at her.

  Somehow that had changed—Ford was alive.

  He was alive, he was holding her, his scent, his hardness wrapping around her, his arms holding her as fiercely as she held him. She pulled back to look at him, slowly lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “How is this possible?”

  He turned his face against her hand and kissed her palm. “Later,” he whispered. “First, there’s something I’ve been dreaming of doing for five long years.”

  He dipped his head, capturing her lips in a hot, open-mouthed kiss. Without hesitation, she opened to him and his tongue swept inside, demanding, savoring, as if to seal his homecoming in reality. The sweet rush of desire instantly flooded her body. She drank, quenching a thirst that had been unfulfilled for far too long, then greedily drank some more as she pressed her body against his. Time defied existence, only Ford and the feel of his rock hard body registered in her mind.

  Until she heard the click of the front door, followed by the sound of Trenton’s footsteps crossing the tiled foyer.

  Trenton. Her new husband.

  Two

  MATTIE STIFFENED AS reality came crashing down around her. Those few sweet moments when her world had been miraculously righted after five long, heartbreaking years, shattered. Reluctantly, she pushed at Ford’s shoulders and eased out of the warmth of his familiar embrace, all the while sensing his own unwillingness to let her go.

  Hadn’t it always been like that between them? Hadn’t they always been able to read the other so well? Almost from the moment they’d met, they’d shared a deep connection, a special rhythm all their own. Apparently the years apart hadn’t affected that aspect of their relationship. She really shouldn’t be surprised that for those first few minutes, nothing had changed.

  But everything else had changed.

  Drastically.

  How was it even possible? Her husband, her new husband stood less than six feet away from her. She looked from Trenton to Ford and back again, guilt slicing through her heart. Guilt that she’d betrayed Ford by marrying Trenton. Guilt that she’d just betrayed Trenton by kissing Ford.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  This simply could not be real. She was dreaming. They were on a flight from Paris to New York, somewhere over the Atlantic, and she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep. She had to be dreaming, otherwise she was hallucinating, and that meant she’d gone and lost her ever lovin’ mind again. Any second now, they’d hit an air pocket and she’d be jolted awake.

  Wishful thinking. She knew better. This was real, all right. She still had the moist lips to pr
ove it.

  Ford was alive and she was married to another man.

  Ford reached for her before she could slip completely away. “Babe.” His hand manacled her wrist.

  She attempted to tug free, but his grip was iron tight. Shame rippled through her as she looked at Trenton. His expression went from curious to furious in two seconds flat.

  He took a threatening step toward them, his hands fisted, fury registered in his golden brown eyes. “Get your goddamned hands off my wife.”

  She shook her head. “No, Trenton. Wait.”

  “Your wife?” Ford moved in front of her, pushing her behind him as if he were protecting her from...her husband? “Think again, asshole.”

  Before she could extricate herself, Trenton hauled off and clocked Ford in the jaw. Ford stumbled against her, then came back up and charged Trenton. He slammed his shoulder into Trenton’s midsection, driving him into the island that separated the kitchen from the family room.

  She rushed toward them. “Stop it,” she said, but they were intent on maiming each other and ignored her. She reached Ford, but only managed to grab a handful of shirt before he slipped out of her grasp when Trenton landed another blow that sent Ford staggering two steps to the side.

  “Enough,” she shouted, but it did no good. As if she weren’t screeching her fool head off, Ford charged forward again and shoved Trenton up against the wall of cabinets. Before Trenton could catch his balance, Ford drew back and punched Trenton’s face. Trenton attempted to return the favor, but his fist glanced off Ford’s shoulder when Ford dodged the hit by slamming his body into Trenton.

  They crashed into the family room, knocking over the end table, then landing on the floor with a bone-crushing thud. Trenton rolled, taking out the lamp, where it sparked and shattered against the hardwood.

  She needed to find a way to shut this down before one of them was seriously injured, or the neighbors called the police. That’s all she needed. She could see the headlines now...

  LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER ARRESTED,

  CHARGED WITH BIGAMY.

  HUSBANDS JAILED FOR ASSAULT.

  With an agility that never failed to amaze her considering his size, Ford moved, avoiding a fist to the face. He leaped to his feet, and reached for Trenton. She attempted to shove him away, but he like a bull who’d seen red, there was little she could do to stop him.

  “Dammit, Ford,” she shoved at him again, harder this time. “Don’t do this. You’re going to hurt him.” Which wasn’t exactly true, because Trenton was essentially holding his own. But Ford was a Navy SEAL. He possessed a certain skill set which gave him a distinct advantage.

  Trenton held up his hands to stop Ford’s approach. He turned his hard flinted gaze in her direction. “What did you call him?”

  She moved next to Ford and faced Trenton. “It’s Ford, Trenton.” She pulled in a quick breath. The pain and confusion in his eyes clawed at her conscience. “He’s my husband.”

  “But he’s—”

  “Not dead?” Ford flexed the fingers of his right hand and winced.

  “So it would seem.” Despite the quaking of her insides and the trembling in her limbs, she walked into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator where she pulled a couple bags of frozen vegetables from the freezer. She returned to the family room in time to see Ford snagging a bottle of Jack Daniels and a glass from the bar. The determination in his eyes when he looked at her nearly stole her breath. Ford had always been a little possessive. The fact that she’d gone and married another man no doubt hurt him deeply.

  Join the club.

  The fact that he’d “died” had nearly killed her.

  She walked toward him as he sat in one of the two, turquoise club chairs situated near the fireplace, then gently placed the bag of frozen peas against his jaw before she handed one off to Trenton to do the same. “You both need to cut the macho bullshit.” She wasn’t any man’s territory and she sure as hell didn’t appreciate them destroying her home.

  Trenton went to the bar and opened a fresh bottle of scotch. “I’d like to know, exactly what the fuck is going on?” he asked as he poured a liberal portion into a short glass. “How is this even possible?”

  She barely recognized the man she’d been married to for a mere two weeks. His golf shirt untucked, his khakis a wrinkled mess and his neatly trimmed, warm-brown hair was mussed. He looked unkempt, a bit rough around the edges and so unlike the man she’d promised to love, honor and cherish in a ceremony before three hundred of their friends, family and Trenton’s important business associates. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I don’t know how it’s possible.”

  She looked at Ford. Far too many emotions to catalogue crashed into her. Confusion. Elation. Devastation. They all jockeyed for position, yet she failed to settle on one to help her survive the next few hours let alone the next two minutes. “But it is,” she added, her voice catching with emotion.

  Trenton tossed back the scotch, then poured himself another. Almost as an afterthought, he poured a splash into another glass, which he handed to her as he made his way to the black leather sofa. He sat and looked at Ford. “Where the fuck have you been for the past five years?”

  Mattie sipped the scotch, grateful for the numbing effects of the alcohol. Numbness she prayed would stop the agonizing pain from tearing her in two. My God, she had no clue what she was supposed to do or say. For that matter, what on earth was she supposed to say to her daughter? How did she tell Phoebe that her daddy was alive?

  She went to the bar and poured herself another drink. There wasn’t enough scotch in the entire state of Texas to quiet the demons inside, throwing questions at her she had no hope of answering.

  “Since when did you start drinking scotch?”

  She turned and looked at Ford. All of a sudden she had an almost uncontrollable urge to throw her glass at his head. Instead, she downed the scotch like a professional barfly. “I think the question currently on the table is where have you been for the past five years?”

  When he nailed her with those bluer than blue eyes she’d seen only in her dreams, more guilt piled on top of her and it ticked her off. She had done nothing wrong. She had no reason to feel guilty. It wasn’t as if she’d committed adultery. She hadn’t been unfaithful to Ford, she’d been his widow, dammit. But not even the truth of the matter could ease her shame.

  He shot a pointed glance in Trenton’s direction. “We can talk about it later.”

  “No.” She her glass on the bar with enough force she thought it might shatter. “We’ll talk about it now.”

  “Mattie—”

  “Don’t you dare feed me that ‘it’s classified’ crap,” she snapped. She took a step in his direction. “Not this time. I think I’ve earned the right to the truth.”

  His jaw hardened. For the space of a heartbeat, she thought he’d feed her the tired old line about national security. Until he said, “I was captured.”

  Tears immediately blurred her vision. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Her knees went weak, then gave out on her so she sank into the other club chair. When Paul Ravelli and the chaplain, Father Stevens, had come to see her, she’d known before they’d stepped from the government-issue sedan what they’d come to tell her—that Ford had been killed in action. If he’d been wounded or captured, she’d have received a phone call, or maybe a visit from some low-level Navy official. Still, she’d prayed like crazy that Ford’s commanding officer had personally come to tell her that her husband had been injured. She’d begged, pleaded with a God who’d ignored her.

  Until now.

  “That’s bullshit,” Trenton said. “No Navy SEAL has ever been captured. It’s common knowledge.”

  “You’re right,” Ford answered. “But the official record will reflect otherwise. The story will be that I was behind enemy lines and had infiltrated a band of Taliban rebels. My mission will be labeled a success.”

  “Okay, so then what’s the truth?” Trenton asked, his tone bell
igerent.

  This was a side of Trenton she hadn’t seen until now. She really shouldn’t be surprised. He was a lawyer, after all. And a damned good one, on the fast track to making partner at his Dallas law firm. She’d seen him in action in the courtroom on a couple of occasions. He was a relentless interrogator on cross-examination, but he was never like this. Challenging. Dark.

  How was it she had married a man without knowing the full extent of his personality? In the time she’d known him, she’d witnessed Trenton’s frustration, she’d even been given a brief glimpse of his temper once when they’d argued and she’d pushed a few of his buttons, but he was nothing like the man before her now who was practically a stranger.

  But was it Trenton’s character she was questioning, or her own? How was it that she and Ford had been together for ten years prior to his “death” and yet she knew next to nothing about the places he’d been, the things he’d done, or what he’d seen during his career as a SEAL? And why on earth had she always accepted his silence on the subject as the norm?

  Ford’s jaw tightened. “It’s classified,” he said.

  The tension in the room thickened several more degrees, if that were even possible. She needed air. She didn’t care that they might pound each other into intensive care without her to referee, she needed a minute alone to absorb the insanity that had become her reality—that Ford was alive.

  “Excuse me for a minute,” she said as she headed for the newly installed French doors leading out to the back deck.

  “Babe, wait.”

  Ford reached for her, but she side-stepped him. “Don’t.” If he touched her right now, she’d fall apart.

  “Mattie?” Trenton called out to her.

  She shook her head. “Not now. Please.” The stunned expressions of both men as she unlatched the door would’ve been comical if the situation weren’t so incredibly insane. “I just need a minute.”