Taking Liberty: The Next Generation

by Edwards, Riley

  “Be back.”

  “Okay, Drake.”

  I didn’t have to park around the corner but it was still a hike. So by the time I’d made it into the house, everyone had seen Liberty’s ring and they were all celebrating.

  Levi, Blake, Jasper, Clark, and Lenox all knew I was going to ask her. I talked to Levi privately, then to Blake and Levi together. After I told them, I talked to her uncles. The men who meant the world to her. I didn’t ask for permission but I did ask for their blessing. They’d given it without reservation and I had to admit, it felt fucking great being welcomed into the family.

  My parents knew and were happy. My mom had spent an hour on the phone with Liberty planning a trip out to Georgia.

  That meant when I walked in, I was assaulted with a round of congratulations from the women, and pounding slaps on the back from the men.

  I finally met Nick, Meadow, and their kids.

  There was something to be said about this big, loud family. They loved hard and they did it openly. Within minutes, Nick had accepted me and talked to me like we’d been lifelong friends.

  I was moving through the crush of people, trying to claim my woman, when I caught sight of someone outside.

  What the fuck?

  I changed direction and stepped out onto the McCoys’ big back patio, where Carter was lounging back in a chair, beer in hand and smiling like an idiot.

  “What the fuck?” I vocalized.

  “Surprise,” Liberty said from behind me and slid her arms around my middle.

  “Yeah, what she said,” Matt said.

  I looked away from Matt and saw Luke, Logan, and Trey, all smiling.

  Not at me, at Liberty holding up her left hand, wiggling her fingers.

  “Holy shit!” Logan shouted.

  “That’s cold, brother. You put a ring on your woman’s finger and didn’t even call to tell us,” Trey joked.

  “You didn’t tell them?” Liberty gasped.

  “Baby, I asked you to marry me two hours ago. After you said yes, we had—”

  “Don’t finish that.” She stopped showing off her ring because her hand was now over my mouth.

  The table erupted in laughter. Carter groaned and closed his eyes. “I do not need to know that shit.”

  “Can I borrow Liberty a second?” Blake asked from the doorway.

  My girl removed her hand and stepped in front of me. She rolled up on her toes but she didn’t kiss me. Instead she said, “You make me really happy, Drake Hayes.”

  “You make me happy, too, baby.”

  “I can’t wait to be your wife,” she whispered.

  When she was done giving me her sweet words, she pressed her lips to mine and I didn’t give the first fuck her whole family was there. I kissed the hell out of my woman. And it was thorough.

  Epilogue

  Levi McCoy saw his daughter’s fiancé fist her hair and lay one on her. It might have been forty years ago, but Levi remembered.

  He’d never forget—not the moment he fell in love with Blake at the Tastee-Freez. Not him losing her. Not reconnecting. Especially not what it was like living without her.

  So he got it. But that didn’t mean he wanted to watch that shit.

  He turned to find Lenox smiling at him.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Lenox asked, but his friend wasn’t looking at Liberty and her man.

  Lenox was looking at his son, Carter. Delaney had wandered outside and was sitting on her husband’s lap.

  Levi’s gaze moved through the rest of the room and took in his family. They were all there. A celebration. Though none of them knew what they were celebrating.

  “Damn good.”

  “You ready?” Jasper joined their huddle and asked.

  Neither Lenox nor Levi answered or they did, just not verbally as they made their way through Levi’s house out the back patio. They passed Delaney as she was coming back into the house. Clark, Jason, and Nick were waiting for them outside and Levi slid the sliding glass door shut.

  “Need to talk to you about something,” Clark started and didn’t make the guys wait for the rest. “Nick’s leaving the FBI and coming on board.” Clark waited as the group congratulated Nick. Handshakes and smiles all around. Once the commotion died down, he continued. “Jason’s giving the DEA six more months, then he’s on board.”

  More handshakes, more congratulations.

  “What about you?” Levi asked Trey.

  “Me?”

  “What’s happening with your medical board?”

  The man’s face went hard and Levi knew why. It’s hard facing life when something important to you has been stripped away.

  “I’m out,” Trey grunted.

  Matt, Logan, Luke, and Drake all sliced their gazes Trey’s way. He obviously hadn’t shared with the team.

  “We want you,” Lenox told him.

  “My leg’s—”

  “Don’t give a fuck. You can finish your rehab down here. When you’re done with PT, we’ll assess and you’ll tell us if you want field work or not. Either way, we want you.”

  “Don’t know what to say,” Trey mumbled and Levi smiled.

  “Say yes.”

  “Yes. ‘Preciate the offer.”

  “Excellent.” Lenox nodded and turned to Luke. “And you? Where are you at with your med board?”

  “No clue. They’re jacking me around,” Luke answered.

  “Good. Take your medical discharge and come work for us.”

  Luke jerked back, looked to Carter, then back to Lenox. “You serious?”

  “As a heart attack. The four of us understand the value of a team and keeping it together. Matt, Logan, we’d like you to come down when your contracts are up.”

  Carter Lenox, Nick Clark, Jason Walker, Drake Hayes, and Brady Hewitt would take over Triple Canopy. All that was left for the original four to do was stack the company with good men for the five principals to manage.

  “I’m in,” Logan immediately answered.

  “What’s the pay like?” Matt smiled.

  “Like you need money, rich boy.” Trey laughed and threw a wadded napkin at Matt.

  Good, light-hearted, and some not-so-light-hearted jabs were exchanged among the men.

  Levi turned from the group sitting around the table and looked at his brothers—not of blood, but of bond. They’d walked through hell together, their friendship forged from blood and honor. Men he’d been proud to serve with but prouder to have built a family with.

  “What’s on your mind, Luke?” Carter asked as the men stopped busting Matt’s balls.

  “You know I’m mostly fuckin’ blind in my left eye,” Luke returned.

  “Know that.”

  “I’m left-handed. Left eye dominant. I can’t—”

  “You can’t?” Drake growled. “Since when do you say I can’t? You have a problem with your eye, Luke. But you didn’t lose the use of your fucking brain.”

  Luke’s jaw set and Levi understood that, too. Something no one talks about, something that all men try to push from their minds when they’re in the field—what an injury will cost you. Not death, but injury. When you die in battle, you’re celebrated. When you’re injured, you get your walking papers. Some get metals and ribbons as if that’s a consolation prize.

  So, Levi knew exactly what Luke was thinking. The very organization he’d pledged his life to was going to turn its back on him. At least that’s how Luke saw it.

  “Luke,” Levi called. “We have a place for you. Hope like hell you accept our offer. You and Matt make an exceptional team. Add in Brady and no fucking joke, our sniper course will be booked out for years. But something else for you to consider—you’ll have your brothers with you. And something I’ve learned, my family’s learned, when that shit you got in your gut starts to eat away at you, you keep your brothers close.

  “Straight up, the five of you saved my daughter’s life. There’s nothing I can do to repay that debt. I could give you everything I o
wn and it still wouldn’t touch what I owe you. But I need the four of you to know, we’re not offering you jobs because of what you did for Liberty. We want you because you each bring something unique to Triple Canopy. We want you because you’ve proven yourselves. We want you because you all are the best and you’ll take Triple Canopy to the next level. We have to turn down contracts because we don’t have the manpower to take everything that comes our way. Plus, we pay a fuckton better than Uncle Sam.”

  “I’m in,” Luke agreed.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Logan cheered. “We stay together and get Church back. Only I guess he’s no longer living his life like a monk so maybe he needs a new name.”

  Jasper growled beside Levi. He didn’t like to be reminded his baby girl was no longer a girl but a woman sharing a bed with her husband. Though he was enjoying the hell out of his granddaughter.

  “Good, that’s settled.” Clark clapped his hands and wrung them together. “Let’s go inside. We have an announcement to make.”

  The men stood and each started to file into the house, but Levi hung back and waited.

  Levi’s future son-in-law stopped by his side, sensing he needed a word.

  “She happy?” Levi asked.

  “Very.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Told you before, tell you again, you don’t need to thank me for loving her.” Drake paused and a smile formed, then died when he looked back at Levi. “Don’t know if it was you who made her the way she is, if it was her mom, the influence of Jasper, Clark, and Lenox, or if she was born tough. However that came to be, her being who she is, you need to know I see her. Past the tough, strong, determination—under all of that to the woman she is. Her soft heart, her compassion, the abundant love she has to give. And I need you to know I’ll protect that. I’ll keep it safe. And until my last breath, she’ll know she is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Levi swallowed past the lump in his throat, and he did that thinking his daughter chose well. She’d found herself a man who would give her beauty. And there was nothing more a father could ask for.

  “Want you to have these.” Drake reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of dog tags. “She doesn’t know I have them. I found them in the dirt in Syria and I’ve carried them with me everyday since. For weeks they were all I had of her.”

  Drake extended his hand and Levi looked down at the offering, his chest burned thinking about why his daughter’s tags were in the dirt and not on her where they should’ve been. “These aren’t to remind you of what Liberty’s been through, or how she made it through and found new strength. These…” Drake shook the tags, “are to remind you that I will always have her back. I will carry her when I need to. But more importantly, I’ll proudly walk by her side.”

  Drake dropped the tags into Levi’s open palm and left him to his thoughts.

  These thoughts were no longer troubled.

  The burn in Levi’s chest turned to warmth, and he knew his daughter had chosen well.

  * * *

  Carter Lenox looked around the room filled with family.

  Twenty-eight people—not including kids—elbow-to-elbow in Levi’s living room and dining room, none of them caring they were crammed together, just happy to be together.

  Pride swelled and his throat started to tingle.

  They’d done it.

  They’d created beauty.

  “We got something to tell you all,” Jasper boomed.

  Now that they’d done the last thing they needed to do, it was time. The women were ecstatic. As they should be. They’d stood by their men as they finished their Army careers, started a business, put in long hours, worked hard, and grew that business so when they were ready they’d have something to pass to the next generation.

  The future of Triple Canopy was secured so it was time.

  “We’re retiring,” Clark announced.

  The room went utterly silent. No one had thought the old men would ever step aside. Lenox understood why, but it was time.

  “Nick’s quit the FBI. He starts next week. Jason will be six months behind him,” Levi started. “Carter, Quinn, Brady, and Drake are already there. Addy helps part-time. So we know the business is in good hands. Trey, Luke, Logan, and Matt will all start as their contracts are up. So we’re stepping down and handing over what’s always been yours to them. Of course, we hope the rest of you will follow and take your places when you’re ready. But until that happens, we’re confident we’re leaving Triple Canopy in very capable hands.”

  Carter Lenox watched, and he did this with his heart full as his family erupted into celebration.

  Hell, yes, they’d done it.

  And retirement was gonna be sweet.

  * * *

  Jasper Walker looked around the table.

  Brothers.

  Not of blood, but of bond.

  Once he was done with that, he glanced through the big windows into Levi’s house and saw his family. They were all excitedly talking, celebrating, bonding.

  His chest no longer warmed when he saw that, the burn had long ago settled into his soul. He’d done a lot in his life. But the best thing he’d ever done was marry Em. His black-haired beauty, whose musical voice and gorgeous blue eyes still hit him in the gut every time he saw her walk in a room or called his name. She’d freed him from the prison he’d locked himself in. It was because of her that he had all that he had—Jason, his girls, this big, loud family that loved hard and wasn’t afraid to show it.

  All of that because his wife gave it to him.

  “What now?” Clark asked and poured himself a healthy shot of whiskey.

  “Taking Lily to Hawaii,” Lenox announced. “We leave next week. We’ll be gone three weeks.”

  “Blake wants to go to Oregon. She’s planned a whitewater rafting trip,” Levi added.

  Clark’s gaze went to Jasper and he thought about his plans. Emily had already stocked their mammoth RV and wanted to take a few months traveling across the US. It would be a good trip, not because of the sights they’d see or the places they’d visit, but just the two of them together with nothing but miles in front of them.

  But Jasper knew something his wife didn’t know.

  There was a storm coming, one that had been brewing for a long time, circling them and gaining strength.

  Hurricane Hadley was gearing up to touch down and Jasper knew his baby girl well enough to know they all needed to brace for the F-5 that was going to take a bite out of Brady Hewitt.

  Jasper was far from stupid. He’d watched his daughter dance around Brady doing whatever she could to get his attention. He also knew Brady wouldn’t go there.

  His money was on his daughter. Brady didn’t stand a chance.

  Since Hadley was fed up with the dance and was preparing to move in, Jasper needed to stay close. Not because his daughter would need him, but Brady would. The man was wrought with demons.

  Demons his daughter could vanquish if Brady would allow it.

  “Em and I will be around for a few months, then we’ll head out West in the RV, take a few months and travel.”

  “Hadley and Brady,” Clark surmised.

  “Hadley and Brady,” Jasper confirmed.

  It didn’t surprise Jasper his brother knew what was going on. Further, he knew Lenox and Levi saw it, too.

  That was them.

  Brothers.

  The four of them loved their families, therefore they paid attention, and not just to the children who belonged to them by blood but all of them. Each man had vowed to always love and protect the brood.

  They were sheepdogs watching over the flock.

  “You got two left,” Clark joked. “The rest of us are done. Now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy the grandkids.”

  Lenox tossed back the rest of his whiskey and shook his head. “When did we become old men?”

  “Shit.” Levi laughed. “Don’t let this gray hair fool you, there’s not a damn thing old about me.�
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  Jasper Walker felt a lot of things, old was not one of them.

  Clark picked up the bottle of Jack, refilled the empty glasses, and held his up. “To growing old.”

  “A privilege denied to many.” The rest of the men finished the toast.

  Four shots were taken.

  Four glasses slammed onto the table.

  And four men grew silent.

  “We have it all,” Clark muttered.

  “That we do,” Lenox agreed.

  And they did.

  They had it all.

  Blessed beyond measure.

  Family.

  * * *

  Somewhere inside the house, four women huddled.

  Sisters.

  Not of blood but of bond.

  They were laughing as they watched their men commune. Something they’d seen millions of times. Something they’d been a part of and watched from a distance. Something they loved.

  “What do you think they’re talking about?” Blake asked.

  “Do you need to ask?” Reagan smiled.

  “Fighting, fucking, or killing,” Lily and Emily said in unison.

  Then the four women dissolved into a fit of laughter.

  They’d each struggled. Fought for their happily ever afters, for their families. They’d worked to help their marriages stay solid and happy.

  They each counted their blessings, for they were abundant.

  Four women, the foundation, the roots that had grown the next generation.

  Four amazing, strong women who had it all.

  THE END!

  Coming soon—Triple Canopy

  Book 1 Brady and Hadley

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