by Lori Ryan
His friends at work weren’t the problem. In fact, he liked the team he worked with a lot. Many of them were former military, too. Others had married former military. It was the other people they’d meet when they went out that screwed with shit.
People who hadn’t served just didn’t get it. Didn’t get how lucky they were or how freaking ungrateful they can sound at times. Didn’t have the first clue what it meant to really hurt, to really need. To bleed with body, heart, and soul all at once.
Conversation stopped while Jax and Leo finished up their breakfast, each sipping from a cup of black coffee brewed thicker than mud. The silence wasn't a heavy or uneasy one. It just was. It was what they were used to and one of the reasons they were friends. No need for extra conversation or talk.
Leo stood and picked up the empty plates, taking them to the sink. Other people might have thought the man was a project to Jax. He was anything but that. Jax needed Leo as much as Leo needed him. When Jax separated from the Navy, he discovered he had a hard time finding people he was comfortable with. There were a few other veterans at work he got along with, but that was it. For the most part, he and civilians just didn’t mix. Until Leo, he’d been going to work and going home.
He shoved his chair back and went to the other side of the small room, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Leo was still busy at the sink. He stuck the forty or so bucks he'd taken out of the pile of cash on the table into the inside pocket of the fishing vest Leo wore most days. No way in hell he was taking money from the man.
“I have to get to work soon. You need anything before I head out?” Jax crossed back to the kitchen, glancing up to see Leo hunched over the counter, the color draining from his face. “Hey, you okay?”
“Shit.” He took Leo by the shoulders and steadied him as he lowered him back into the kitchen chair.
It'd been a couple of years since Jax had left his detail as a Navy Corpsman to the Marines—essentially a field medic—but his medical training still took over within an instant. He stopped the useless cursing as he checked Leo’s pulse.
His friend tried to bat his hand away, grumbling that he was fine, but needed to rest.
“You’re hardly fine. You look gray.”
“Forgot to put my makeup on today.” Leo pursed his lips and made kissing noises as he crossed his eyes at Jax. His color was coming back, but Jax still stayed close as he checked him over.
“Funny. I don’t know why you haven’t had a career in comedy all these years,” he muttered.
“You about done, Mom?” asked Leo. “I think I’ll lie down and rest now, if you’re done playing that Florence whatever-her-name is chick.”
Jax eyed him once more, before shoving back on his heels. “Yeah, I’m done.”
Jax busied himself with cleaning up the kitchen counter and putting the last evidence of the breakfast making away as Leo laid on his bed. The older man crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes before speaking again.
“Hey, when you take off, toss that letter in the mail for me, will you? On the counter there?”
Jax snorted. So Leo was going to ignore the issue of the name on the letter. “Sure. I’ll swing by tomorrow and see if you’re feeling better. Call if you need me, though, huh?”
Leo grunted a response and raised his hand. That was all the goodbye Jax was going to get.
He glanced at the envelope again, reaching for his car keys. No return address. As he grabbed a pen and scribbled Leo’s name and address in the upper left corner of the envelope, he wondered briefly who Michaela Kent was. Possibilities ran through his head.
Wife? Daughter? As close and he and Leo had become—as close as Jax was to his father—he’d never heard the man talk about family.
A loud snore came from the bed. Jax shook his head and left, locking the door behind him. Whoever she was, he wouldn’t be getting that story out of Leo today.
Mia Kent frowned at the envelope topping the stack of mail on her desk. Its face was down, but she knew it would be addressed to Michaela Kent. And that simple fact alone told her who it was from. There wasn’t a soul on the planet who called her that, except her father. In fact, the name didn’t even appear on her birth certificate. Her mother had changed it when she was only seven years old.
Leaning into her desk drawer, she tugged out one of the plain white envelopes she kept in a neat stack at the back. This had become a routine.
The money arrived from her father every week. No note or anything. Just a stack of cash. Why he thought it was safe to send cash through the mail, she would never know. Nor did she care.
Every week, she simply opened the envelope, moved the cash into an unmarked envelope, and dropped it into the church donation box on her way home.
“Who sends things unsolicited to someone at their place of business, anyway?” She had a habit of talking to herself, and that kicked into high gear when she received these letters. “Completely unprofessional,” she muttered.
Not that it mattered. She was the Office Manager at the medium sized law firm of Schuler and Koskoff. As long as she kept the office running smoothly—which she did—her bosses didn’t care if she received personal calls or mail. It was the principle of it that bothered her, though.
As Mia tossed the envelope in the trash, her hand froze. A return address. Today’s envelope contained a return address. And there in black and white, her father’s name. Leo Kent.
“New Haven,” she said aloud to the empty office, an odd tingling sensation running over her arms “Has he actually been in New Haven all this time?”
Not that she cared. She didn’t. She was simply shocked to discover how close he’d been to her own home in Hartford, just over an hour north.
Close enough that he could have come to see her.
Could have shown up at her soccer games or high school graduation, at the very least. Or her college graduation when she’d earned that coveted BA from Trinity. The one she and her mom had worked so hard to fund?
For the smallest of moments, Mia let heartache wash over her. Tears threatened to come but she blinked them away, swallowing down the ache in her throat.
Anger flashed in her gut and Mia shredded the envelope. Tossing the pieces in the trash. It didn’t take long for her to reach back in and pull the pieces out. She smoothed the crinkled paper and taped the return address back together.
“Better.” She let out a slow breath. Now she could handle this problem head on, just like she always did when faced with something that wasn’t working in her life. She’d go to New Haven this weekend and put an end to the letters. She’d tell Leo Kent she didn’t need his money, or him.
Nick Traber poked his head in her office. “You about ready?”
Mia nodded, shoving the envelope back in her desk drawer and straightening her skirt. She’d been dating Nick for six months. There was a stability to him she found comforting and his blue eyes were kind. She also liked that he was taller than her own five feet eight inches.
She stood and moved around the desk to him, annoyed that she was a little shaky as she did so.
Nick leaned in and kissed her cheek. She let her hands run up the sleeves of his suit jacket and closed her eyes, steadying herself.
When she’d been in college, Mia had dated a guy who began talking about a future with her almost immediately. He felt things so strongly, he began to scare her pretty early on in their relationship. Gary Schake had very quickly shown her what it was like to be with someone who cared too much. Who felt things too hard. And when she’d tried to break things off, it had gotten ugly and more than a little scary for a while.
Things with Nick weren’t like that. When she’d first seen him, her immediate thought was that he was nice looking. Brown hair, gentle brown eyes. A dimple when he smiled. He was a good looking man, but not so good looking that he’d be arrogant about it. She liked that.
Their feelings for each other had built slowly, and she liked that. They didn’t have to discuss wher
e to eat. They’d walk down to the diner on the corner while he told her about his caseload. It was what they did every time they met for lunch.
Nick was an independent lawyer who leased office space in the same building as her firm. He primarily handled trusts and estates, with some occasional real estate law thrown in.
They started down the hall to the elevator. She waved to the receptionist on her way out. Hailey would know where to reach Mia if she needed anything. Not that she was interrupted at lunch for emergencies often, but still.
Mia smiled as she and Nick exited the building.
When they got to the diner, he would order a BLT on wheat toast, hold the mayo. He’d drink unsweetened iced tea. Two of them. No more, no less.
Her smile grew as he started telling her about something he’d done with a trust he thought would save the client money in the long run. Something about how he set it up.
She could breathe again when she was with Nick. She slipped her hand into his and he glanced her way and smiled.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Starved,” she said, as he launched into details about remainders and living wills and all the things that bored her to tears, but reminded her how steady he was. She took a deep breath and left all thoughts of her father and his unwanted money behind.
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About the Author
Lori Ryan is a NY Times and USA Today bestselling author who writes romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and sports romance. She lives with an extremely understanding husband, three wonderful children, and two mostly-behaved dogs in Austin, Texas. It’s a bit of a zoo, but she wouldn’t change a thing.
Lori published her first novel in April of 2013 and hasn’t looked back since then. She loves to connect with her readers.
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