He rose. “That’s where you want to go, isn’t it?”
She grinned. “You know it. And when we get home, we’re going to decorate the house.”
“As long as it’s not with dancing pigs, I’m in.”
* * *
Got a second?
Wynn stared at the text, ignoring the sense of excitement that bubbled up inside her at the message. Garrick wasn’t texting her about sex—it was after eight on a school night. There was no way they could do anything. Not that it being a school night mattered for them, but it meant Hunter was home.
Maybe she should hint to Hunter to have a sleepover with one of his friends, then figure out a way to subtly tell Garrick that she was going to have the house to herself, she thought with a smile as she texted him back.
Yes and you can even have more than just the one second.
Very funny. I’ll be right over.
She stood and looked at her son. Hunter was stretched out on the family room sectional, his gaze glued on the television where one of his favorite sitcoms played.
“Garrick’s going to stop by to talk about something,” she said. “We’ll be in the living room.”
“Okay, Mom.” His attention never left the screen.
“Later we’re going to hunt parrots and sell them on eBay.”
This time Hunter turned to face her. “Just because I don’t look at you doesn’t mean I’m not listening.”
She laughed. “Just checking.”
“Where would you hunt parrots? Aren’t they from South America? That’s a long way to go.”
“Yes, it is, although I believe there is a flock of parrots living somewhere in Los Angeles. And it’s not really a flock. A group of parrots is called a pandemonium.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Not even a little.”
Hunter sighed. “Parents are weird.”
“And yet you love me anyway.”
She headed for the front door and pulled it open just as Garrick stepped onto her porch.
He looked good. Tall and lean, with a hard edge to his expression. She thought about the events that had dominated the local news.
“Hi,” she said, stepping into his embrace and hugging him tight. “You okay after today?”
For a second he looked confused. “You mean the shooting.” He swore. “That’s not even what I wanted to talk about. Damn, it was a day.”
She led him into the living room where they sat on the sofa, facing each other. She tucked her feet under her.
“What happened?”
“With the shooting? From what I heard, the local news got all the details right. My guys are going to be okay. They’ll both be released in the morning. The suspect is dead, and based on what I saw he did to his own kid, I’m okay with that.” He held up a hand. “That makes me a bad person, I know. I’ll live with it. Should he have been shot in cold blood? No. But he drew first and injured two of my men. He could have killed them and more, so he got what he deserved.”
It was a lot to take in. She stayed quiet so he would keep talking. She didn’t know much about what it took to work in law enforcement, but she was clear on the fact that even in Happily Inc, Garrick saw things she couldn’t imagine. When she added in his time in Phoenix and the DEA, he was dealing with more than most.
He gave her a few more details about what had happened at work, then sucked in a breath.
“I talked to Joylyn.”
“Good talk or bad talk?”
“Good. Tough, but good.” He looked at her. “I found out why she stopped wanting to see me.”
Wynn leaned toward him. “Tell me.”
“It was my ex-wife. She lied. She said I’d dumped her and that I couldn’t wait to get Joylyn out of my life. She said my own daughter was a burden and that I didn’t really want to spend time with her.” Pain filled his eyes. “It wasn’t like that. Sandy left because she didn’t want to be married to me anymore. She’d always resented how close I was to Joylyn and how I made her a priority. At the time I knew I was probably pushing things in my marriage. I made sure all the holidays revolved around Joylyn without letting Sandy have input. But to lie to my daughter, to make her feel I didn’t care about her.”
His jaw clenched. “I want to do something, but I don’t know what. Finding her and confronting her all these years later probably isn’t a good idea.”
“No, it isn’t. Especially when you’re angry.”
“I’d never hurt her.”
“No, but you might scare her and that doesn’t help anyone. What did you tell Joylyn?”
“That I loved her and always wanted to see her. I reminded her I showed up every weekend, hoping she would see me.”
He leaned forward and took Wynn’s hand in his. “I missed her so much. Being with her was the best, and one day it was just gone. I didn’t know how to deal with that.”
“Which you also told her, right?”
“I did. I offered to give her the phone numbers of my friends back in Phoenix so she could confirm the story with them. I wanted her to know I was telling the truth.”
Which was just like him, Wynn thought. No one could question his affection for Joylyn.
“I’m sorry Sandy did that. She must have been really upset to lash out the way she did, which is an observation, not an excuse. Even if she felt justified to hate you, hurting Joylyn like that crossed a line.”
He shifted so he was leaning back against the sofa, but kept hold of her hand. “When we got married, we talked about having kids, but we wanted to wait. After a couple of years, I started bringing it up, but she always had a reason why now wasn’t a good time. Eventually we started fighting about it. I accused her of changing her mind.”
He looked at Wynn. “I wonder if my relationship with Joylyn had something to do with that. I wonder if she thought I wouldn’t love our child the way I loved Joylyn.”
“Did she ever say that?”
“No. I would have denied it. Of course I would have loved our kid just as much. It’s not like I have a limited amount of parental love and Joylyn got it all.”
“That’s the rational argument.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I really was unreasonable with Sandy. She begged me to make changes in some of the holiday rituals Joylyn and I had. So the three of us could do them together. But I said what we did was important and I wanted everything to stay the same.”
“Like?”
“Like we spent every Christmas Day at Alisha’s house.”
“That’s very modern of you.”
“Yeah, well, Sandy had family in the area. She said we should at least alternate so she could sometimes see her family on Christmas.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“I know. I just...” He looked at her again. “I wanted to spend every second with my daughter. I wanted her to feel safe and loved.” He shifted his gaze to the front window. “When I got a job on the Phoenix police force, I talked to Alisha about joint custody. She didn’t want to do that. I even went so far as to talk to a lawyer. She said I had a good case—that I’d agreed to the parenting plan when I’d been a minor and my situation had completely changed. She thought I could get more time with Joylyn.”
“Why didn’t you pursue it?”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because your lawyer said you had a good case, so if you had, the parenting plan would have changed. If it changed, Joylyn wouldn’t have been a position to refuse to see you. So why didn’t you?”
“Joylyn didn’t want me to do it,” he said. “I talked to her about it. She would be testifying in court. She got upset and said she didn’t want to hurt her mom. That it would be hard for everyone. She liked how things were.”
“Which must have hurt to hear.”
“Some,” he admitted
. “In my head, I got her point. Joylyn had a routine she liked. She had brothers and a stepdad. Mitch is a good guy. Why upset everything? So I didn’t move forward, and then I met Sandy and you know the rest.”
“You’re a good dad. I’m sorry you lost so much time with Joylyn.”
“Me, too. I told her about Colombia. She was asking questions and it came out.”
“She’s twenty-one, married and pregnant. I think she’s mature enough to handle the information.”
He turned to her. “I told her I’d been captured because somebody who knew who I really was betrayed me, but I didn’t tell her the rest of it.”
Questions bubbled up, but she held them inside. She had a feeling Garrick needed to talk about what had happened, but that would go better if he went at his own pace, and not hers.
He rubbed his thumb against the back of her hand. “I was sent into Colombia as an American with a drug distribution connection. I had a good identity and a partner. Raine. She was a DEA agent—one of their best. We were supposed to be newly married and very happy together. Everywhere I went, she went. She played dumb, so eventually the men started ignoring her.”
Wynn felt a knot form in her stomach. Whoever Raine was, Wynn hated her. Pretend married? So they’d slept together.
“Was she beautiful?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He chuckled. “Yes, but that’s not the point.”
“Still, it’s interesting information.” She cleared her throat. “Go on.”
“We gathered information and sent it back home. It was a dangerous lifestyle.”
She thought of the scars on his torso. “I’ve, ah, seen you mowing the lawn without a shirt.” She made a vague motion with her hands.
His humor faded. “The guys in the cartel liked to prove themselves with knife fights. I trained before I went on assignment, but it took me a while to get good.”
She winced. “They could have killed you.”
He nodded. “But they didn’t. Once they trusted me, we started to set up the distribution chain. We were about to put it all in play when someone told them who I was, and Raine and I were taken prisoner.”
“That must have been hard.”
He didn’t meet her gaze. “It was. Harder on Raine, in some ways. We both knew we were on assignment and that our being married was just an act, but there were things we had to do and eventually it got real for her.” He looked at her. “She fell in love with me.”
The knot in her stomach tightened. “You didn’t share her feelings?”
He shook his head. “I knew it was a problem, but there was nothing I could do about it. Breaking up with her wasn’t an option, and neither of us wanted to end the assignment because her feelings had changed. We agreed to move forward and deal with it when we got back to the States.”
“She was hoping you would fall in love with her,” Wynn said.
“Yeah. That was the plan. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but like I said, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Then we were ratted out and stuck in a cage.” He drew in a breath. “Some of the scars I have are from that time. Like I said, they enjoyed playing with knives. I could handle it, but when they went after Raine, I nearly lost it.”
Wynn knew he wouldn’t tell her any details, which was fine with her. She could make up her own, and they were awful enough without her knowing the truth.
“How did she die?”
“I didn’t say she was dead.”
“But she is.”
He nodded. “Yes.” Darkness filled his eyes. “We came up with an escape plan. It was risky, but we knew it was just a matter of time until we were killed. The cartel wanted ransom, but even if the DEA paid it, there was no guarantee we would be released.”
He leaned back his head and closed his eyes. “During the escape, someone came after us with a gun. Raine threw herself in front of me, taking the bullets. She died and I got away.”
Wynn couldn’t process all her feelings, and she hadn’t even been there. What must Garrick be going through?
Instinctively she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. He shifted, pulling her close and hanging on so tightly, she could barely breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me, too. Everything happened so fast. One second we were running and the next that guy was there.”
She felt the tension in his body. Even as she tried not to imagine the scene, she could see it clearly in her head. He didn’t say what had happened to the man who tried to stop them, and she didn’t ask. She didn’t have to—she already knew. Garrick would have killed him, then escaped.
“I carried her out,” he said quietly. “I wanted to get her body back to her family. It was the least I could do.”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask her to do it.”
“She loved me and I didn’t love her back. She died knowing that.”
“She died saving the man she loved. She would do it again.”
“You don’t know that.”
She drew back enough to stare into his eyes. “Yes, I do. I’ve been in love. I know what it feels like. A woman in love will do almost anything for her man.”
Wynn had. She’d made incredibly stupid decisions in the name of love and had lived with the consequences. Fourteen years later, she was only just beginning to forgive herself.
“I didn’t put it in the report,” Garrick said. “Or mention it in the debrief. I figured no one had to know how she felt. It wasn’t their business.”
“You were right to do that.”
He loosened his hold on her but kept his arms around her. She felt him relax, as if in the telling, he was able to let the past go a little.
They sat in silence for a minute or so, then he said, “When I got home, I went to see Joylyn. I needed to see her and know that she was okay, but she refused to have anything to do with me. She was close to heading off to college. I was restless and didn’t know what to do next.”
“Did you go back to the Phoenix Police Department?”
“Sure, but my heart wasn’t in it. Then I got offered a job here.”
“So you moved back.”
“I went to see Joylyn, to tell her what was happening. She said she didn’t care and shut the door in my face.”
She put her head on his shoulder. “Does knowing why she acted like that help?”
“Some, but it doesn’t make up for everything we missed together.”
“The road ahead is going to be a little bumpy at times, but you two have made progress. Give her some time to let it all sink in. You’re going to be a grandpa. You can start new rituals together.”
He stared at her. “Holy crap. I’m going to be a grandfather. That makes me feel old.”
“If it helps, you still look good.”
“I’m thirty-eight and I’m going to be a grandfather. How could I not have figured that out before?”
“It is surprising. The big belly bump should have been a clue.”
“Smart-ass.”
She grinned. “Uh-huh. Pretty much all the time.”
“I’m not complaining. I like it. I have a list of things I like about you.”
Before she could do much more than get all tingly from the compliment, he leaned in and kissed her. The feel of his mouth—warm and just the tiniest bit demanding—made her melt into him. He put his hands on her hips and shifted her so she was straddling his lap. He broke the kiss and stared into her eyes.
“I’m very clear on the fact that your son is just down the hall and that he could walk in on us at any moment.”
He pushed down on her hips, settling the very center of her against his crotch. She was pleased to feel the hard ridge of an erection through his jeans.
“But,” he added, “a few minutes of making out m
ight be nice.”
“I agree,” she said, rocking slightly against him.
Instantly his eyes dilated and his breath caught. “That could be dangerous.”
“It could.”
She bent her head and brushed her mouth against his. At the same time, she pulled his hands to her breasts. His fingers immediately found her tight nipples and rubbed them.
Heat flared everywhere before settling between her legs. She couldn’t help rubbing against him again, a little more frantically this time. He inhaled sharply and claimed her with a hot, deep kiss that stole her breath.
She wanted to strip off her clothes and have him touch her everywhere. She wanted him parting her legs and filling her until she had no option but to lose herself in a powerful orgasm that made her scream. She wanted touching and kissing and claiming and—
He drew back and swore. “We have to stop.”
He was right, of course, but still she wanted to protest.
“I want you,” she whispered.
His jaw clenched. “Tell me about it. I want you, too.”
“I’ll talk to Hunter about spending the night with a friend. Maybe this weekend.”
“That would be great. Better than great.”
She smiled and shifted off him. He rose.
“I should be going.”
She stood as well, then glanced at his crotch.
“You’re, um, going to want to walk around a while before going home.”
He looked down at himself, then back at her. “Technically that’s your fault. At least it’s dark out. I wouldn’t want to scare the neighbors.”
“I don’t think they’d be scared. I think they’d be impressed.”
He chuckled, kissed her briefly and walked to the door. “Thanks, Wynn. For all of it.”
“Anytime.”
He left. She locked the front door, then leaned against it and smiled, thinking she felt like a teenager—counting the minutes until the weekend.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WYNN HAD TO admit she was having a good morning. Her sexy make-out session with Garrick had left her smiling, and Hunter had already made plans to spend Saturday night with a friend. She and Garrick would have the house to themselves and plenty of time to take things to the next level. All in all, a happy chain of events.
Happily This Christmas--A Novel Page 15