The Power of Love_Happily Ever Menage

by Serena Akeroyd

  “Is that a word?” he asked, deadpan, as Graves started to tug down books like they were going to open a secret passageway.

  “No, but it’s the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Either way, it doesn’t look like he got away with much.”

  “No. Good.” Satisfaction laced his tone as Graves’s faintly shadowed face grew darker as he prowled around the room, eventually leaving with a small backward glance. “You checked the footage in here, didn’t you? Did he try to get into your computer?”

  “I checked. He wasn’t interested in my desk. At all.”

  “Foolish man,” Josh teased. “Burn the footage onto a disk drive, then lock this baby up.” He patted the laptop’s keyboard fondly. Not even Jarvis knew what was on here. He’d only seen some of what Dana had found and uploaded onto this computer, which only a handful of people were aware existed. That was thanks to the source of the information found on here.

  Drones would, in time, make foot soldiers obsolete. That would save countless lives as well as take away a lot of pay from good men, but what Dana had found in the drone’s system when she’d gone hunting for information made him grateful the army was slowly introducing them overseas.

  “Okay. You want me to do anything else?”

  “No. Leave it to me.” He nodded at her, took a final look at Graves as the other man left his office in the footage, and got to his feet. “Oh, where’s the information on this guy?”

  She reached for some printouts on the desk and handed them to him.

  “Thanks. Get on with whatever you’re doing. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”

  “Okay, Josh.”

  “What happened to sir?” he teased, pausing to grin at her before he retreated to his office.

  She waved a dismissive hand and grinned back. “I’ve had enough practice for today.”

  Josh chuckled and headed to his desk. After taking a seat, he studied the printouts, reading down the intruder’s file.

  Honorable discharge. Valued soldier, decorated, several times.

  When he glanced over the man’s education at West Point, he realized there was a year’s gap. The four-year course had taken five, close to eighteen months longer than it ought to have done.

  “Dana,” he hollered.

  Her chair squeaked, and a few seconds later, she asked, “You rang?”

  “What’s this here?” he demanded.

  “What’s what?”

  “At West Point. It takes four years to graduate. Not five and a half. Find out what happened in those eighteen months.”

  “Someone in his family might have died—they might have extended him compassionate leave.”

  Josh grunted at that. “Yeah, right. That place is as competitive as hell. They’re training leaders, not grief counselors. If they were so kind, it wouldn’t be for such a long time. Find out what happened. It might be nothing. See if Harrison has the same blip on his record.”

  She immediately disappeared, only to call out a few seconds later, “Yeah, he does.”

  Josh’s eyes narrowed into slits, but his grin was wider than the Cheshire cat’s.

  “Gotcha.”

  Chapter Six

  The sun beating down on his head was about ten degrees above average for this time of year.

  Out on the fields, it should have been windy and a little damp. Instead, it felt as hot as the sandbox he’d left nearly two months ago.

  Reaching for the bottle of water his ma had passed him a while back, he slugged down a mouthful before bending over and getting on with the sowing.

  Thanks to the area’s ambient temperatures, his parents took advantage of the mild weather to grow a few of the more hardy specimens on their books.

  They farmed a variety of crops, mostly because his father had always had a desire to play the gentleman farmer—not a one of his kids knew why, and if their mother did, she’d never let on—but also, they had a little side project of making essential oils.

  The process had always seemed arduous to Luke, but at the moment, that was what he loved about it.

  The sweat was honestly earned.

  Blood was honestly shed from sharp tools.

  It was a gentle process, a calming one, and he needed that.

  These last few weeks, the nightmares had been getting worse. Steadily increasing until every time he closed his eyes, he saw that kid being blasted into molecules.

  His gut wrenched at the memory, which never went away regardless of the repeated times he’d seen the dream.

  He wasn’t sure if that relieved him or saddened him. Seeing it meant he hadn’t forgotten, and he never really wanted to forget how bad it was over there.

  How grateful he was to be free to live here again.

  The anger and bitterness didn’t help. He knew that point-blank. Any guys under him, he’d have recommended some time with a shrink, but he wasn’t in the mood to be analyzed, to be studied like a bug under a microscope. Gia watching him like he was a bomb about to explode was about as much as he could handle at the minute.

  Something else that pissed him off.

  One of the loves of his life was scared for him. Not of him, for him. That meant he was worse to live with than he imagined.

  He’d seen Gia when Josh had opened that bottle of wine a few weeks back. It was crazy as all hell but when he’d uncorked it, that sound…the faint clutching noise as the vacuum broke, it had slingshot him back under the wire.

  He still didn’t know what had happened, but when he’d come around, Josh had been holding him, and Gia was standing looking at him like a nervous wreck surrounded by broken dishes, shattered bakeware, and cutlery on the floor.

  He’d figured that if he worked off this odd abundance of draining mental energy, he’d be able to sleep. And if he could sleep, then he’d stop reacting to the most basic stimuli imaginable.

  On top of that, Lexi’s new germophobe ways were concerning him. He’d been raised close to the earth, and he wanted that for his daughter. If working on the farm could kill two birds with one stone, then it was worth the time spent here under the baking rays of the winter sun.

  It wasn’t like the warmth was alien to him. It wasn’t called the sandbox for nothing.

  The name triggered memories he wanted to bank because going under the wire was more intense than most realized. He’d figured that this last deployment would be easier than most, in spite of his certainty he wouldn’t make it out alive.

  Too much dumb luck and too many trips overseas didn’t work in karma’s favor. He’d reckoned this deployment would be his last, and he’d been right, only he hadn’t come back in a coffin but on a hospital gurney.

  The shock of it was, that yeah, he was back, but he wasn’t the Luke of before. Some days, it felt like that Luke had never existed at all. That he was a figment of his imagination. It had been twenty-odd days since his return; Thanksgiving was approaching, and the man sitting at the table with his family wouldn’t be the man of old.

  The ache that grew in his chest as he crouched down low, tucking the lavender shoots into the ground, burned a hole there.

  He pushed it back, pushed the memories away and dived into the work as he’d been doing this last week or so. The mindlessness of it should have given him time to think, but the simple, repetitive process made him concentrate on the sensation of the soil against his palm, the smooth nub of the seed on his fingertips, and the heat burning fierily against the back of his neck.

  Five minutes, ten, fifty—he didn’t know how many passed until he heard Lexi’s giggle.

  At the moment, it was the most beautiful sound in the world. The one thing that perked up his mood.

  Before his deployment, Gia had accused Luke’s dad of treating Lexi differently because Josh was her biological father. She’d refused to bring Lexi to his parents’ house because of it, and if she knew that was what he was doing, she’d probably skin his balls.

  He’d deserve it, but Lexi, ever the watche
r, had taken to studying him. In a different way to Gia, but one that was unnerving. Being silently summed up and found wanting by a five-year-old was another reason for his being at the farm.

  He figured it was better for her to see him working off his internal anger than slumming around the house.

  He’d left her with his mom, and from the amount of giggling he heard coming from the greenhouse, they were having fun.

  It came as no real surprise that his father stayed out of it.

  His dad had always been intractable. Even where a cute little five-year-old sweetheart was concerned. It was Robert’s loss, Luke figured, deciding that he had enough to worry about without adding his father’s idiocy to the mix.

  When another giggle was carried by the wind, he smiled and decided to take a break.

  The fields were relatively barren. Winter crops were in the ground, but it wasn’t like the full bloom of summer, where you could see nature’s bounty.

  There were some late-blooming gourds that brightened the place some, but everything else was green.

  He’d always hated winter vegetables. No matter how hard his mother had tried, she’d never convinced him eating cauliflower was a good idea.

  Luke carefully passed down the tight lines of the herb garden he’d been working in. His feet crunched against the gravel when he hit the path and aimed for the greenhouse where his mother and daughter were working together.

  “Papa!” Lexi cried, nose smudged with dirt and on her new T-shirt no less, as she ran down the aisle of the greenhouse toward him.

  The stench of ripening tomatoes in the stuffy air filled his nose, making it crinkle when she ran into his legs. His bad knee was getting used to this regular assault so he absorbed the pain without even a grunt and hefted her up onto his shoulder. “Your mom’s going to go mad. That shirt was new this morning.”

  “I fell in the dirt,” Lexi mumbled sheepishly.

  “How did you do that?”

  “She was trying to lift a pot by herself,” his mom said wryly. “She failed. You think the shirt looks bad, you should see the butt you perched on your shoulder.”

  He tried to hide his grin and failed, but in his best grumbling voice said, “You got Papa dirty?”

  She peeked down, saw he was teasing and earnestly told him, “It’s honest dirt, Papa, isn’t it, Nanna Lou?”

  “It sure is that, Lexi,” his mother remarked with a smile of her own. “And never you mind your papa, he was dirty long before you hugged him.” She was tending some basil as she spoke.

  “Well, you've got me there.” In apology for his teasing, he patted Lexi’s knee. “That’s out late,” he commented, eying the basil.

  “I find it incredible that you’re the only one of my sons who remembers that.”

  “I listened.” He shrugged, making Lexi giggle as the motion shuffled her seat on his shoulders.

  “I know. That’s what’s incredible.” She rolled her eyes at his meathead brothers…or so Luke assumed. “It’s this last flush of heat. Done it wonders. This batch is almost ready to be dried.”

  “You drying the oregano too?” When she nodded, he asked, “Can you save some for us, please? Gia loves it.”

  “Of course I will.” She eyed Lexi, who was listening intently to the two adults talk. “Why don’t you let her go play in the dirt? She’s already filthy.”

  “No, Nanna Lou, this isn’t dirt. Remember, it’s honest dirt.”

  He blinked at the quiet reprimand in his daughter's voice, then chuckled at his mother. “You've worked a miracle. Good con, Ma.”

  She pinkened when Lexi said, “What’s a con?”

  “Never you mind, missy. Go play,” Luke retorted, lowering her to the ground and patting her butt to get her moving.

  Lexi squealed and sprinted out of the greenhouse.

  “Don’t worry, she’ll go to the swings.”

  “You take away her book?”

  Lou’s cheeks burned a little brighter this time. “Well, I had to do something.”

  “Honest dirt and no books, you’re corrupting her, Ma,” he teased.

  Lou scowled at him. “Simply making her see things you don’t learn out of a book. And pray to the Lord that’s the first and last time I ever discourage any of my kids or grandkids from reading.” She wrinkled her nose—an oft seen gesture he’d inherited from her. “Lexi is a little intense with her books. It took a while, but she likes helping me plant now.”

  “Gia will appreciate that. We bought Lexi a sandpit, but she wouldn’t use it. Said there were too many germs.”

  Lou snorted. “Tell her they’re honest germs.”

  “Honest is the key word, huh?” He laughed.

  “Apparently so.” She eyed him. “It’s good to see you laugh.”

  “Not much to laugh about at the minute.”

  “Maybe. Still good to see you do it.”

  He went to scrub the back of his neck, then saw his hands were filthy. “Crap, I got Lexi dirtier.”

  “Don’t worry, she’s not exactly tidied you up. Go and wash up. You want something to eat? Lexi probably will. She likes my pickled beets.”

  “She what?” He felt almost faint at that declaration.

  Lou’s pride was evident. “Yep. She ate a heap yesterday.”

  “My Lexi?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Lou smiled. “It’s good for her, coming here. Good for you too.”

  “You know why Gia doesn’t want her here.”

  “I do. I understand as well. That’s why he’s in his office, staying well away. He knows I’ll go crazy if he comes out.”

  “Thanks. I don’t feel so bad about breaking the unofficial house rule.”

  “Why can’t you tell Gia?”

  “Because…” He broke off with a grunt.

  “Because that would involve talking to her?” Lou shook her head. “I didn’t realize you’d be exactly like your father when the shinola hit the fan.”

  “Only you’d use shinola when little ears aren’t around. You can swear. I won’t be offended.”

  “You have as many kids and grandkids as I do, you get used to speaking like a nun,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him again. “And don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not changing anything.”

  “Yeah, that’s always been your father’s problem.” She studied him a second and murmured, “You know when you were fourteen and went to camp for the first time?”

  “Yeah, I remember. I didn’t want to go.”

  “I pushed you into going because your father and I almost divorced.”

  “What?” Luke half barked, astonished by that admission.

  “We’d come close a time or two before, but that summer was the closest. We scraped by with the skin of our teeth. Your brothers had gone off on their own vacations with friends, and we had ten days to get things back on track. Or, I told him, that was it. Do you remember that year?”

  “I remember you guys arguing a lot.”

  “He’d come back from Japan, and I don’t know what had happened over there, but he was a different man. He couldn’t snap out of it. I was sensible and sensitive to his needs. Tried to be whatever he wanted me to be. Nothing worked.” She shrugged. “He refused to go see anyone, not a doctor, never mind a psychologist. Not that that was the thing to do back then.”

  Luke frowned. “I remember the arguments but not a lot else.”

  “Well, we tried to hide it from you. I don’t know what you went through over there, son, I don’t want to know either if it’s hit you so hard. But I do know that you have two people who love you, never mind a little girl who adores you and a family at your back. Don’t lose them by being muleheaded like your father was.”

  Luke headed over to the soil his ma was tending and stood at her side. As a kid, he’d watched her do this often. Before they’d had the farm, they’d always had a yard filled with vegetables and all kinds of flowers.

  If they’d ever needed to find her, she was usually in h
er potting shed, and Luke had always appreciated watching his mother work her magic in her sanctum sanctorum. Those memories were what fed his own love of gardening and the dreams he’d never quite quashed of doing something similar to his parents.

  Lou was still a beautiful woman, far more loving and giving than his father truly deserved. In fact, Robert had treated every woman in Luke’s life like shit.

  Gia was beneath Robert’s contempt, and the way he had treated Lexi over the years appalled Luke. What pissed him off all the more was the fact the slights were so minute that not one adult had noticed, but his little girl had.

  Not by one inch did he want to resemble his father.

  Before, he’d respected the man. But distance, time, and what had happened to him made him see Robert for what he was: a bully.

  He reached over to kiss the gentle slope of her cheek. “Thanks, Ma.”

  “I’m telling you how it is, son. Nothing more, nothing less.” She jerked a shoulder. “I don’t want you to lose some of the best people that have ever happened to you. With what you’ve been through, I’m not claiming that you don’t deserve to be the way you are. I’m certainly not saying I don’t hate to see you like this. Because I do, but I know you. I know my son.

  “If he gets a hold of himself, if he shakes himself off and makes it work, then work it will.”

  Her faith had him choking on his words. “Oh, Ma. I wish things were like that.”

  “You have to make it so, Luke. You want to lose what you’ve spent a lifetime building? Josh and Gia aside, you’ve got Lexi to think about.

  “Ignore that bullshit your father told you. You’re as much her dad as Josh is.

  “Hell, I know how many hours he works. You’re there for her more than Josh is, and I’m not judging him.” She pursed her lips a second, then turned to look at him. “I don’t want you to be another statistic, son, and the way you’re acting, as justified as it may be, that’s how it looks to me. The only person who can stop that from happening is you.”

  With her clear eyes staring into his, eyes that matched his, features that were similar in shape and size but with a feminine softness to them, he saw her earnestness. A part of him was angry that she’d brought this topic up when he’d made it an unofficial rule that if these kinds of things were going to be talked about, then he’d start the discussion. But moms never listened, did they?