Turbulent Desires (Billionaire Aviators Book 2)

by Melody Anne

  “Our help,” Joseph said with a scowl.

  “Of course, my friend,” Sherman said, grinning.

  “No matter how it worked out, I’m just grateful it did. No one needs to get credit,” Evelyn said with a pointed look. “But with Cooper happily wed, I’ve been worried about my other boys.”

  “A little credit would be nice,” Joseph said, but the group ignored him as they focused on the latter half of Evelyn’s comment.

  “Even though those boys of yours have given us trouble through the years, they’ve also grown up more than I thought possible in the past five,” Sherman assured her.

  “They are as stubborn as their father, aren’t they?” Evelyn said with a smile of affection.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, that’s what makes them such fine men,” Joseph assured her.

  Sherman’s eyes focused across the yard, and the rest of the group looked over to see what had captured his attention. Lindsey was out in front of the cottage watering the flowers just starting to come into bloom.

  “That poor girl,” Sherman said with sadness.

  “It’s been a year since the attack, but it might as well be yesterday,” Evelyn said. “I’m very worried about her. Such a sweet girl. What she went through is too horrible to even fathom.”

  “I was at the hospital right after it happened. She was traumatized so badly,” Sherman told the group. “She tried going back to her life, but the nightmares were too much. Finally, Stormy and I talked her into moving into the cottage. She’s gone back to work, and she even gives that fake smile she thinks is fooling us all, but it doesn’t show in her eyes.”

  “You and Lindsey have grown quite close,” Joseph told his friend.

  “I had high hopes of her and Maverick making a go of it a couple years ago. I saw some definite interest from both of them at Cooper and Stormy’s wedding. But no matter how much poking and prodding I did, those two didn’t fall for it. And then that tragedy happened, and I didn’t want to push her anymore. But I’m worried because it seems she’s given up on life. I don’t want her to do that either,” Sherman fretted.

  “I agree with you, Sherman. She needs to move forward or she might never get back on her feet again. I know that Maverick sure asks about her a lot. I haven’t ever seen him so concerned about anyone other than family,” Evelyn said.

  “Maybe with her needing a shoulder to lean on and Maverick feeling the need to be a hero, the two might just come together and heal one another’s souls,” Martin said.

  “Yes, Maverick definitely loves being a hero,” Sherman said with a laugh. “That boy was pretending to be a cop or a knight from the time he was just a tot.”

  “That shows a man’s character—to be the one still helping others out when the world has turned its back on them,” Martin said.

  “I agree with you, my friend,” Sherman told him. “Maverick is one of the good guys.”

  “We’ve done pretty dang well so far in matching couples. I thought we might have been losing our touch,” Joseph said with a wrinkle between his brows. “But should we still be matchmaking with everything that’s going on?”

  It shocked everyone in the group to hear Joseph even ask such a thing.

  “Love is the best medicine of all, and what Lindsey needs right now is a strong dose or she might be too fearful to ever face the world again,” Evelyn said with a firm nod of her head.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself, dear,” Martin told her.

  “I guess we do have an ideal track record to date. Haven’t lost one yet,” Joseph said, sounding more like himself.

  “I’m at a loss for how to do this,” Evelyn admitted.

  They all sat there quietly for several minutes as they tried to put their collective brains together. Then Sherman looked at the group with a huge smile. The rest of them waited to hear what he had to say.

  “The fund-raiser!” Sherman told them with excitement.

  They looked at him with confusion.

  “Sherry got sick and called last week to tell me she had to step down from organizing the event this year,” Sherman said, barely able to contain his excitement. “Maverick’s raised hundreds of millions for injured vets since he started the foundation, and this is the biggest fund-raiser of the year. The money goes to veterans suffering from PTSD. If we got Lindsey to chair the event, she would meet so many people, and she’d be alongside Maverick for the entire journey. Maybe it will help heal her and show them both they are so much better together.”

  “That is a great idea, Sherman,” Joseph said, his voice echoing off the house as he sat up straight in his seat, practically giddy.

  “I’ll give Maverick a call right away.”

  Sherman pulled out his phone and dialed his nephew. It didn’t take long for Maverick to understand what Sherman was asking him. When he hung up the phone, he turned to the group who were all eyeing him expectantly.

  “It’s a go,” he said.

  “Then it’s time for a toast,” Evelyn announced.

  “We can now leave it in fate’s hands and get to other business. When are you coming to Montana?” Martin asked.

  The group leaned back as they made plans. When they all put their minds together, the world had better watch out because they were surely a force to be reckoned with. No one was able to withstand them when they were on a mission.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What call was so important you had to stop in the middle of our bout?” Cooper asked as Maverick put down his phone and grinned at his brother.

  “It was Uncle Sherman. Should I have ignored the call?” Mav said with a raised eyebrow.

  Cooper held up his hands in mock surrender as he grinned. “Oh, hell no. The old man would have shown up down here and taken far longer than a couple minutes of our time,” Cooper said.

  “Yeah, that’s why I have a special ringtone for him. I know better than to ignore the old man.”

  “Ha. Me too,” Cooper said. “What was the call about?”

  “Are you just trying to get out of the fight?” Mav asked.

  He was now incredibly distracted after the call with his uncle. Sometimes Uncle Sherman had the most amazing ideas ever. Mav refused to tell him that, though. The old guy’s head was full enough.

  “Hell no. I can kick your ass any day of the week. I am curious about the grin on your face, though,” Cooper said.

  Maverick danced across the ring as he gave his brother a look he knew would egg him on. Boxing wasn’t his favorite sport, but sometimes a decent brawl was good for the soul. And nothing was better than taunting one of his brothers. Okay, taunting all of them at the same time was actually better, but Nick was on duty and Ace . . . well, he just missed Ace like hell.

  “Ha. You became a new daddy, and all of a sudden you forgot how to move,” Mav said with a laugh as he got a right jab into his brother’s jaw.

  “I can still take you to town any day of the week,” Cooper assured him as he managed to get a hard hook to the left. That one actually hurt his hand.

  But Maverick could tell that taunting Cooper wasn’t such a great idea after all. Not when he was so distracted by that phone call and what Uncle Sherman had suggested he do for Lindsey. Nah, he couldn’t be that distracted by the beautiful brunette, could he? Maybe he just had to pick up his speed.

  “I don’t think so, old-timer. Matter of fact, I can see a few gray hairs beginning to appear at your temples,” Maverick said, trying to knock Cooper’s concentration off balance.

  It wasn’t working.

  Cooper managed to get a right hook followed by a quick triple jab to the left side. He was going to hate life in the morning. But he would make sure his brother was hurting too. Going on the offensive, he backed Cooper into the corner and got off a couple of good shots before Cooper came back swinging.

  That’s when it went downhill fast.

  Cooper threw a punch to his brother’s side and Maverick spun wrong, lost his footing, and slammed forward again
st the mat. The room went silent as a crunch louder than Cracker Jacks being eaten could be heard echoing through the gym. Cooper instantly paled as he looked at Maverick.

  “Shit, Mav!” Cooper shouted as he dropped to his knees beside his brother. “Did it break?”

  Breathing heavily through his nose, Mav didn’t need to look down to know. He’d broken plenty of bones in his day.

  “Yeah, my arm’s broken,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Cooper said.

  “Not your fault, bro. I was fighting like a girl,” Mav told him. Cooper smiled before he pulled out his phone and started to call 911. “I’m not riding in a damn ambulance. Help me up, and take me in,” he said as he began wobbling to his feet.

  Cooper dropped the phone and gave his brother a hand. He didn’t argue because he would have insisted on the same thing.

  Mav felt the world tilt as he, more shakily than he’d ever admit, climbed out of the ring. No way would he black out in front of his brother or the other patrons in the gym.

  His arm snagged in the rope, but Cooper grabbed him before he could go down. Leaning heavily on his brother, Mav let Cooper help him into his ridiculous sports car. Normally, Mav loved the fine piece of machinery, but at the moment, he could only curse at it as he ducked his throbbing head to sit down in the passenger seat.

  “Now, you gonna tell me what that call was all about that had you fighting so damn badly?” Cooper prodded, as he started the engine.

  Mav swore. “I’ve been trying to get Lindsey to talk to me all year, been trying to get her to get out of the house and go out with me—anything but sitting there in your guest cottage.”

  “She’s been back at work,” Cooper pointed out.

  “Yeah, she goes to work, school, and then back home.”

  Cooper frowned. “Stormy has been worried about her too,” Coop said. “To tell you the truth, I’m pretty dang attached to the girl as well. I know she hasn’t been doing too good, but I haven’t known what to do. It’s not something I’m familiar with.”

  “We don’t like to fail. It’s something in our blood,” Maverick told him. They hit a bump and Maverick winced. Cooper smiled at him. A curse word was uttered in his direction, but Cooper pretended not to hear it.

  “So what did Uncle Sherman say?”

  They were getting closer to the hospital, and Mav was grateful. He would swear on a bible that his brother was hitting every hole and bump on the damn road just to make the trip that much more unpleasant.

  “My chair dropped out for the fund-raiser. He suggested I ask Lindsey to step up,” Mav said with a real smile, ignoring his pain.

  Cooper was silent for a moment before he grinned back at his brother.

  “Damn! That old man is good,” Cooper finally said.

  “Just don’t tell him that,” Mav said.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Cooper assured him.

  “I’ve been where she’s at. When I was captured . . .” Mav stopped talking. He didn’t speak about those days or what had been done to him.

  He’d learned quickly, though, after watching a lot of his fellow soldiers, that if he allowed himself to wallow in it, then he might sink to a place he would never come back from. He didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Lindsey. He cared about this girl, though he didn’t want to admit to anyone just how much.

  Why she mattered to him, he wasn’t exactly sure. It wasn’t as if the two of them were close. Sure, they’d shared a night together—once—but he’d shared many nights with many women. Never before had he had a woman he couldn’t forget.

  “You are taking me to Mercy Hospital, right?” Mav said.

  “Of course,” Cooper told him with a wink.

  “Good. There’s a nurse there who I know can heal me all up.”

  The sad thing was that Mav knew her schedule. Whether she wanted an angel on her shoulder or not, she’d had one since the attack. But this angel wasn’t willing to sit in the shadows any longer.

  “Next time we’re in the ring, you better bring your game,” Cooper told him, changing the subject, which Mav was grateful for. He wasn’t a feeling-sharing kind of guy.

  “Sarge is gonna kick my ass,” Maverick muttered as they pulled into the ER parking lot, and Cooper turned to look at him.

  “Not worse than I already did,” Cooper told him with a wink.

  “Don’t be getting all cocky on me, brother. I didn’t have my head in the game,” Maverick growled.

  “Whatever. I’m going to be telling this story for years to come,” Cooper assured him.

  “You can start tonight ’cause it looks like I’ll be out of commission for at least a few weeks. Guess who gets to be doing all my meal prepping?” Mav taunted him.

  “I don’t want your ugly mug at my place,” Cooper said as he came around the side of the car just as a nurse came out with a wheelchair.

  “Tough. You broke me, and now you get to take care of me,” Mav said.

  Then he turned to the pretty young blonde, who looked like she couldn’t have been out of nursing school for more than a few days. “Howdy,” he said, pretending to tip an imaginary hat.

  Her pale cheeks blushed and she seemed to forget how to speak. Mav just winked at her as he smiled. He was used to having that effect on women. He loved women, loved them in all shapes, sizes, colors, and varieties. Women were his hobby.

  “She’s a little young even for you,” Cooper said with a roll of his eyes.

  “I’m just being polite,” Mav told his brother before looking back at the young nurse. She was too young for him, but that didn’t keep him from flirting. “What’s your name, darling?”

  She stammered something, but then they were in the ER and he was given paperwork and the pretty young nurse was hustled off somewhere else. His attending nurse ended up being old enough to be his grandma, but that didn’t stop Mav from giving her his winning smile and making her wrinkled cheeks turn pink.

  Yeah, he loved the ladies—ladies, plural, being the key word. Mav wasn’t the type to settle down with just one fish when the sea was full of a variety and bounty of them. He was happy for his brother Cooper, and absolutely adored Stormy, his brother’s wife. But matrimony wasn’t for everyone—certainly not for Maverick.

  He was young, able, and ready to sow a lot more oats. And if that were all true, he didn’t understand what in the world he was doing pursuing Lindsey with such single-minded absorption.

  “Can you get Lindsey for me? She usually attends to my wounds,” he told the sweet nurse named Alice.

  “She’s almost off shift, but I can see if she’s with a patient,” Alice responded.

  “I appreciate that,” Mav told her with a wink that had her cheeks blushing again.

  She practically ran from the room, and Mav sat back, trying to look as pathetic as humanly possible. He would milk the broken bone for all it was worth. Ten minutes passed and Mav began to get a bit nervous. He’d sent Cooper home, planning on getting a ride with Lindsey. He hoped she hadn’t ditched him.

  The door finally opened and Lindsey stepped through, her eyes on the chart in front of her. She shut the door before she looked up. Mav had to fight from smiling as he reminded himself he needed to appear weak and helpless.

  He wasn’t leaving without getting her to agree to either help him or go out with him. He could barely keep from smiling when she finally glanced up and her expressive eyes shone with shock.

  Yeah, he made her nervous. But it was in a very, very good way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sudden thundering of Lindsey’s heart had nothing to do with fear. Well, maybe some fear, but as she looked up and spotted Maverick sitting on the exam table, his shirt off, and a sling on his arm, her throat closed and she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away.

  Her first instinct was to rush up to him. Her second instinct was to run away as fast as she could. For nearly a year, she’d managed to avoid him as if he was infected. She knew he coul
d make her feel things she felt she had no right to feel anymore. She knew he wouldn’t ever give up on her.

  That last part was too much for her to handle. She’d given up on herself and didn’t feel anyone should believe her capable of being anything other than a blank face in a crowd. She didn’t want to stand out—didn’t want to face emotions.

  Blending into the background just wasn’t possible with Maverick around. The man drew attention to himself and anyone who happened to be within ten feet of him.

  “Morning, sugar,” he said when the silence between them had stretched on for far too long.

  The smooth, easy cadence of his voice made her throat tighten and her heart thunder even more than it already had been. She sucked in a breath of air, which was a mistake because then his scent infused her, making the desire to approach him that much stronger.

  Of all the hospitals he could have come to, why did he have to appear in her tiny one? Well, that was easy—to torture her.

  “You requested me,” she finally said, her eyes narrowing as she locked her emotions down tightly.

  “Of course. I wanted the best,” he said with a wince that immediately had her going into full-on nursing mode.

  She moved forward and tried her best not to look at his magnificent chest. Why in the world was he shirtless? There wasn’t a need, especially since he already had a cast on.

  “It looks like you’ve already been taken care of,” she pointed out.

  “I needed a second opinion,” he told her. “It really hurts.”

  At his last words, she looked at him with suspicion. She’d seen Maverick and his brothers brawl for fun, getting scrapes and bruises, and she’d never so much as seen him flinch. Was he snowballing her? She felt guilty at the thought. A bruise was a lot different than a broken bone.

  “Um, it’s pretty obvious you have a broken arm. I don’t see that a second opinion matters at this point,” she told him.

  Then he grinned at her, that perfect, lopsided Maverick grin that made her knees shake. The man was too damn lethal to be around.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, Coop had an appointment to get to and he dumped me off here. I need a ride home,” he said with a pout. An actual pout!