Absolution (The Protectors, Book 1) (7 page)

Mace didn’t say anything after that and I was kind of glad. Once we got closer to the city, I used my phone’s app to get us to the cemetery and I was glad to see the service hadn’t started, even though we were a couple of minutes late.

“Thanks,” I said to Mace as I climbed out of the van.

“I’ll be right here,” he said with a simple nod. I knew he meant that he’d be there to drive me to Cole’s house for the gathering afterwards and then ultimately to take me home, but I pretended he meant something else. Something that gave me enough strength to stiffen my back and walk up the small incline to where a handful of mourners stood, unaware that the reason Carrie was dead stood among them.

Cole

The attendance at Carrie’s funeral was even smaller than I’d expected and I felt another piece of my heart shear off as I realized how little of my sister’s memory still remained in this world. As I scanned the few faces gathered on one side of the flower-draped, silver coffin, I had the insane urge to tell everyone to leave because none of them really understood what we’d lost. None of them got that losing Carrie had set off a chain reaction of events that had destroyed the family we’d been.

As the priest took his position and opened his Bible, I saw Jonas hurrying up the side of the hill. I felt a strange sensation in my chest as his eyes caught on mine – like some kind of knot inside me was starting to unwind itself. I expected him to hover on the edge of the small group but instead, he came up right next to me and took my hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. He didn’t have to say anything because I got the message in the way he touched me, in the way his gaze held mine.

I’m here.

It was the same thing he’d given me when he’d hugged me in his studio last week. It was like he’d known I was broken and he was trying to help me hold together the pieces.

Jonas’s hand went lax in mine as he made a move to step away and while I released his hand, I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing his arm and holding him there next to me. It made no sense to me since I’d known him the least amount of time but I couldn’t let him go. And even though I had to physically release my hold on him so it wouldn’t look strange to everyone else, Jonas didn’t move after that.

Although I had asked the priest to keep the service quick, since I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep my father in check for, it still seemed to drag on. I didn’t really hear the actual words that were said but hadn’t really realized I’d tuned out completely until I felt Jonas’s hand at my back. I glanced at him and he motioned to the nearly empty container of red roses near the casket. The casket was draped in a handful of roses and most of the funeral goers were already picking their way down the hill towards their cars. I reached for my father’s arm and felt him sway as he stepped forward with me. To any other onlooker, he would have appeared overcome with grief. But I knew better.

I handed one of the roses to my father but he struggled to figure out what he was supposed to do with it so I took it from him and placed it on Carrie’s casket. Mine followed and then I was turning my father away from the site that would be his daughter’s final resting place. I saw Jonas look at me with concern, but I forced my eyes from his so I could focus on getting my father to the waiting car. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulder to watch Jonas place his rose. His hand lingered on the casket and then I saw him place a folded piece of paper on it. I couldn’t dwell on it though because my father chose that moment to come out of his stupor.

“Need a drink,” he grumbled as more of his weight pressed against me.

“We’ll be home soon,” I managed to say as we neared the car.

“I want a fucking drink!” he shouted as he wrenched away from me and then stumbled to his knees. My father was not a small man by any means so it took me a moment to get him righted and as I was in the process of pulling him to his feet, I saw Mace watching me from where he stood near what I presumed was his van.

“My little girl,” my dad suddenly whispered brokenly and I felt a rush of pain go through me. I hated my father’s drunken jags, but I hated his lucid moments even more because they teased me with glimpses of the man I’d lost. It was a painful reminder that the man who’d raised me, who’d made me into the man I was, was buried under the stench of alcohol…close enough to see but not enough to reach.

I wrestled my father into the back of the Town Car I’d rented for the occasion and just as I was getting into the car, I glimpsed Jonas reaching Mace’s side. I felt a pang of envy go through me when I saw Mace’s hand reach out to settle on Jonas’s upper arm. I felt my own skin tingle in the same place Jonas and Mace were connected, and it took everything I had left to force myself to tear my eyes from them and climb into the car next to my father.

By the time I got home, our neighbor, Mrs. Pellano, had already started greeting the mourners who’d arrived ahead of us. I’d been reluctant to give her the key to the house so she could start preparing all the food she’d spent most of the morning dropping off in various crockery dishes, but I hadn’t really had much of a choice since she’d insisted on handling the entire affair. In truth, I hadn’t wanted any of it – period - but I’d learned from an early age not to question my elders, and as my mother’s best friend, Mrs. Pellano was high on that list.

“Cole, your mother would have loved that service,” Mrs. Pellano announced as soon as I got my father through the kitchen door so the guests wouldn’t see him. Bringing up my mother in every conversation was something else Mrs. Pellano did a lot…and something I fucking hated.

At the mention of my mother, I felt my father flinch. “My Scotch,” my father grumbled.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pellano,” I murmured as I hurried past her, my father in tow. I didn’t miss her look of disapproval when I snagged a half empty bottle of Scotch from a cabinet on the way to the den.

As soon as my father was settled in his worn out leather recliner, I handed him the bottle and sat back on the coffee table and watched as he took a long drag on it. It may as well have been water for all the concern he showed about the quantity he was taking in. Under normal circumstances, I would have tried to limit his intake but today I needed him to be out so I wouldn’t have to try run interference with him and our guests. I didn’t have much left to give my father, but I could give him the dignity of keeping his need to drown himself in alcohol private.

It took just a couple of minutes for my father to start to nod off and I reached out and took the bottle from him before it slipped from his lax fingers. I took my time going back to the kitchen and managed to stow the bottle before anyone else saw it. I could only hope that Mrs. Pellano would have enough respect for my father, as well as the memory of my mother, to not share my father’s condition with everyone. It would likely make it around the neighborhood at some point but today maybe I could still pretend that that one part of my life was still normal.

I hadn’t even made it to the living room where the half dozen guests lingered when Mrs. Pellano appeared in front of me in the hallway and said, “He insisted,” and then motioned towards the doorway. Up until that point I figured I’d been holding it together pretty well but the sight of the man standing by the front door had something breaking apart inside of me, and I was on him before he could even get a word out. I slammed him hard into the door at his back and then yanked him forward, pulled the door open and pushed him backwards so that his ass hit the concrete walkway leading up to the front door.

“What the hell, Cole?” the man muttered, his hand coming up to push the strands of hair that had fallen in his face.

Jimmy Cortez was someone I’d considered a friend once, but just the sight of him had me wanting to go back into the house to get the gun I kept locked in a safe in my closet.

Jimmy climbed to his feet and brushed his hands over his slacks. “I have a right to be here,” he shouted. “I cared about her too!”

“Get the fuck off my property,” I snarled at him and then turned to go back into the house.

“She knew the score, Cole!”

“The score?” I asked. “The score?” I repeated in disbelief. “She went to Chicago looking for you, you fuck!”

“I told her to go home! When she called to say she was in town, I told her it wasn’t going to happen because I’d met someone else.”

My entire body went cold as Jimmy’s words filtered through me and then I was moving down the porch steps. “You broke up with a seventeen-year-old girl over the phone while she was alone and waiting for you in a bus station in downtown Chicago? You fucking left her there?”

I had the pleasure of watching Jimmy pale at my approach. “I-”

That was all Jimmy got out before I slammed my fist into his jaw. It felt so fucking good that I did it again. The warm spray of blood across my knuckles was like a balm to my soul, but before I could close my hands around Jimmy’s throat like I wanted to, big hands were wrapping around both my arms, dragging me back.

“Enough,” I heard a deep voice say and then Mace planted his big body between me and Jimmy. When I tried to shove past him, he grabbed me again, his fingers biting painfully into my upper arms. But I welcomed the pain and a feeling of elation went through me at the prospect of being able to do battle with a man who would fight back.

Mace must have sensed something in my gaze because he suddenly dragged me forward and whispered against my ear, “Not the time or place, Frogman.” The SEAL nickname shook me free of my rage and I stilled enough to notice how his warm breath fanned across my skin as he said, “Something tells me we’ll have our chance soon enough.”

With that, Mace pulled back a little and I felt something shimmer in my belly when his mouth fell to mine for the briefest of moments. And then he released me and stepped back. Jonas instantly took his place and grabbed my bruised hand. I let Jonas lead me back towards the house but when I gave Mace one final look, I saw him lean down, grab Jimmy by the collar and drag him to his feet. And just before I went into the house, I saw Mace murmur something to Jimmy that had him going even whiter than he already was, and then Mace escorted him from the property.

* * *

“Do you have anything to wrap this with?” Jonas asked me as he finished wiping the blood from my hand.

The first thing Jonas had done when he pulled me into the house was ask me where the kitchen was. After I’d told him, he snagged an ice pack out of the freezer and led me towards the kitchen sink. But one look at a few guests who were hovering near the entryway to the kitchen had him asking where my bathroom was. I’d followed him passively, my nerves still rattled from the fight with Jimmy and the strange encounter with Mace afterwards. Once he locked us away from prying eyes, he’d sat me down on the closed toilet and had placed the ice on my hand while he’d gotten a washcloth ready. Then he’d sat down on the rim of the tub and began the task of cleaning up the spattered blood.

“It’ll be fine,” I murmured. “Sorry you had to see that.”

Jonas withdrew the washcloth and gently placed the ice on my knuckles again as he supported my hand with his. I barely felt the cold from the ice but I sure as hell felt the heat from his skin touching mine. What the hell was going on with me?

“Did she tell you about him?” I asked. “About Jimmy?”

“Not specifically,” Jonas answered. “She mentioned she’d been in love with someone but it hadn’t ended well.”

“Love,” I huffed.

“Was he a friend of yours?” Jonas asked.

“Jimmy?”

Jonas nodded.

“Sort of. We hung out for a little while when we were freshmen but grew apart over time. His thing was drinking, drugs.”

“What was your thing?” Jonas suddenly asked, his eyes studying me. “Sorry,” he quickly said as if realizing the question was off topic.

“Athletics, mostly,” I answered just as quickly.

“You were a jock,” Jonas said with a smile.

I laughed and the feeling was so foreign that I was caught off guard by it. “I guess,” I said. “But I was focused on my grades too.”

“A jock and a nerd?” Jonas said softly. “You would have been my dream come true in school,” he said with a chuckle and then his eyes widened as color flooded his cheeks. Another apology fell from his mouth but I barely heard it because I was focused on the way his eyes kept shifting back to mine.

“Did you know Carrie went to Chicago for that guy?”

The reminder of Jimmy ripped me back to reality. “We figured she’d runaway to be with him but we didn’t know where to. After graduation, Jimmy left the state to go to college but got kicked out after a couple months. I don’t know how he and Carrie met but my parents were unhappy about their age difference. The guy was pretty bad news but the more my parents tried to stop her from seeing him, the more rebellious she became. Carrie had always been stubborn but I don’t think my parents ever thought she’d just take off like she did. Fucker showed up here last week when he heard her body had been identified – I guess he moved back to the area a couple of years ago, but was too much of a fucking coward to tell any of us Carrie had ended up in Chicago.”

“Was that your dad at the service?”

I nodded but couldn’t find the strength to say anything else. I knew Mace and Jonas had both seen my father’s condition and heard his words so they had probably already figured out what he was, but to have to say it out loud was a different story.

“Your mom?” Jonas asked gently.

“Died a couple years ago,” I managed to get out. “She had a heart condition and the doctors said the stress was just too much for her…”

I felt one of Jonas’s hands close gently around my wrist and I closed my eyes. How did this man know just when I needed his touch most? And why did I all of a sudden crave it more than I craved my next breath?

“How does this feel?” Jonas asked, as he shifted the ice pack to study my knuckles.

In truth, I hadn’t felt much since Jonas had first touched me so it was easy to say, “Feels okay.”