Dangerous Protector (Aegis Group Book 5) (28 page)

Her mother’s aching confession of a love that would never die.

I love you without reason,

For no reason I want you,

But I know you are the man I’m looking for.

Fiona stared at those lines and struggled to breathe around the knot in her chest.

Her mother had become a shadow of the woman she’d been after her husband died. Fiona’s father had rarely been a good man. He was too addicted to see beyond his immediate needs. And yet…he was the man her mother had needed. Right or wrong, and it wasn’t Fiona’s place to pass judgment on her mother.

Marco wasn’t an addict, but he had his own problems.

She shivered, her teeth chattering.

All those years, she hadn’t understood her mother’s pain. Now she did. Because she felt it.

Yes, Marco had used her. He’d fucked up. But he’d also said he loved her. And he’d saved her. If it wasn’t for him, she’d have died.

Marco loved her.

Was that the truth?

Had he been lying then, too?

She didn’t know if she could ever trust him, but didn’t she owe it to herself to find out?

Marco might simply be the turning point of her life, a marker to indicate where everything shifted. Or he could be the foundation of her future.

She’d never know if she didn’t jump.

27.

Marco pried the cap
off the beer bottle and slid into a chair at Travis’ dining table. Mason, Ian, Luke and Felix were already seated and ready for the poker game. They had a couple of hours before Bliss came home from Hannah’s and kicked them all out.

“Anyone heard from Zain?” Travis asked.

“Oh, he flew to Seattle early to get out before the snow settled in.” Mason tipped his beer back and took a long pull.

“Lucky bastard,” Travis muttered. He stood in front of the fridge, staring at the floor.

“Something wrong, man?” Marco asked. He didn’t really care, but he should. It was all part of making an effort. Life had to go on. Sitting back, letting it pass him by because he’d let the most amazing woman go wasn’t an excuse to stop living.

“Yeah, I guess I should just…say it.” Travis lifted his head, staring at them.

The whole table fell into silence.

Travis was one of the first guys to sign on with Aegis. He was a damn hard worker and a great guy to have in the field. But something had…changed. Ever since last Christmas when he showed up married, he’d been different. It was something Marco hadn’t understood. Until now.

“I’m moving to Seattle,” Travis announced.

“What?” Mason sat up straighter.

“Yeah. I’m retiring from active duty, and I will be working out of the Seattle office as a PI. Since my pardon was pushed through and all, it just made sense.”

“No shit?” Luke grinned.

Marco could only stare.

It was easy to see that Travis’ talents were wasted protecting the rich and pulling the stupid out of the fire. He had a solid head on his shoulders and a lot of skills.

“When?” Luke asked.

“After Christmas.” Travis sipped his beer. “Zain’s moving out before the holidays, you know?”

“Yeah, he said that much a few weeks ago,” Mason said. As Zain’s cousin, of course he would know.

They pushed the poker chips aside, opened a few more beers and started the speculation talk. With another office opening and Zain moving, there was room in management for more guys. Abigail, Luke’s girl, was a prime candidate for taking over much of Zain’s former duties. If she did that, it would leave another opening, and another, and another, as everyone was shuffled around and reorganized.

Marco…didn’t care. One way or another, he wanted to be in the field, with his guys, ready to patch them up if need be. It was who he was. What he wanted to do. Only…a lot of his guys would be gone. Moving on. Away. And he…was still here. Where he’d been.

He drank beer after beer, until he wasn’t sure how many he’d had.

A lot of the guys had wives, girlfriends, someone they cared about. Ian, Felix and Marco only had themselves.

The hours wore thin, and they didn’t once crack open the poker set.

Mason was the first to leave, beckoned home by his soon-to-be wife. Technically, he lived in their on-campus barracks but in reality, Mason had already moved in with his fiancée and her roommate downtown. It was a fact Hannah’s father, Mr. Stevens, liked to pretend he was unaware of.

One by one the others strolled out until it was just Travis and Marco.

“You’re drunk,” Travis said.

“Yup.”

“Should I toss you on the couch?”

“Nope.” Marco had heard the stories from the last time one of the guys passed out on Travis’ couch. There were aspects of his friend’s private life he didn’t want to know.

“You aren’t driving like this.”

“I’ll walk.” Marco stood and managed to get his coat on.

“You sure? It’s getting cold outside.” Travis eyed him.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“The woman who has you all tied up in knots.”

“There isn’t a woman.” Marco yanked the zipper up.

“Sure there isn’t. You’re just more of an asshole than usual. Whatever. Get out. I’ll put your bike in the garage.” Travis rolled his eyes. He might be playing at the grump he used to be, but he wasn’t. He’d changed.

Marco paused on the tile in front of the door and stared at a candid picture of Bliss and Travis together. They were making faces at the camera, something so unlike the man Marco had come to know over the years. Travis didn’t smile. He didn’t have a sense of humor. Until her.

“Bliss…”

“What about her?” Travis stopped next to him, staring at the same picture.

“Nothing.”

Marco pulled the door open and stepped over the threshold.

“Text me when you get home or I’ll call the cops on your ass,” Travis yelled after him.

Marco flipped Travis the bird and started toward the road.

It was a good jog back to Aegis from here. Since Marco never bothered with much besides the basics when he was here, he’d opted to live in the barracks attached to the main buildings. They were more like one bedroom apartments. Nicer than anything he’d stayed in while with the SEALs, that was for sure.

The cold sliced through his jacket, biting bone deep, but at least he felt something.

Lately all Marco could do was fuck up. First he’d busted Fiona’s cover, then he’d fallen in love with her, and ultimately, the biggest fuck-up of all, was leaving her. Doing what she told him to do. He should have stayed. Pushed for…something. Maybe she’d have dumped his ass and left, but anything was better than the absolute misery of nothing, even if that’s what she’d asked him to do to prove that he did, indeed, care for her.

Love sucked.

That’s what this whole thing boiled down to.

How Fiona did it, putting her heart out there and getting hurt time after time, it was beyond him. This? The endless days of deadness inside of him, was fucked up. He was ready to feel something, even if it was apathy for everything else. He just had to keep going on, because his parents depended on him, because there was nothing else to do. He couldn’t quit life. But something had to change.

It’d been three weeks since he’d seen Fiona. And there wasn’t a second of that time that he wished he couldn’t take back. He’d change it all in for the chance to be with her.

His phone vibrated deep in his pocket.

Fucking Travis.

Did he really think Marco was home already?

What the hell?

Marco squinted at the phone screen. It looked…wrong.

The lock screen should have date, time and weather.

Instead, there were two sets of numbers.

What…the…?

His alcohol addled brain took several more moments puzzling out the digit’s meaning, but it finally dawned on him why they looked familiar.

Longitude and latitude.

He copied the numbers with a press of his thumb and opened his map application.

Was Ghost trying to get in contact with him? Did he know something about Fiona?

It took the phone a moment to locate the exact spot.

For another couple of moments, Marco stared at the screen while snow swirled around him.

The dot was straight ahead and to the right.

In the parking lot of Aegis.

Why would Ghost send him there?

Only thing to do was show up and find out.

Marco shoved his hands into his pockets and pressed on, picking up the pace a little. The ground seemed to lurch and roll under him, which hampered his progress. Why had he thought that last beer was a good idea? Oh, because he hadn’t known Ghost was going to be an utter ass and summon him.

A good twenty minutes later Marco cut across the front lawn, under the trees and headed for the main parking lot.

One vehicle idled out front. It was an SUV, big, roomy and fairly common.

Marco hoped Ghost wasn’t there to cash in on a return favor. The timing would suck balls, but he’d do it. If there was one person on earth he owed besides Fiona, it was Ghost.

Marco approached the truck from the side.

The dark interior and lack of light made it difficult to see anything but the general shape of a person inside.

He reached out and pulled on the door, but the SUV was locked.

He waited for a moment.

What the hell was Ghost doing?

Fucking with him?

The locks disengaged with a click and he opened the passenger door.

Holy shit.

It wasn’t Ghost sitting in the driver’s seat.

Marco stared, blinking a few times in case his head was playing tricks on him.

“Will you get inside? It’s cold.” Fiona wrapped her coat around her.

He climbed in, memorizing everything about her in the short time the dome light illuminated her face, her body.

Her hair was darker, more of a…medium brown, with lighter strands down the middle. He had an impression of dark clothes and red lips before the door closed and they were in the dark once more.

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where were you?”

“Down the street at one of the guy’s houses.”

“Oh.” She relaxed against the door and turned a bit to face him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Not, ‘how’d you find me’?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m guessing Facebook.” He never had adjusted those security settings after she pointed them out.

She stared at him. Outside the wind whipped around the SUV, while inside the loudest thing he could hear was the beat of his own heart.

“Arm healing?” he asked.

“Yeah. How’s your leg?”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“You look…pretty.”

“You look like shit.”

“Yeah, I feel like shit.” He leaned his head back. How many times had he practiced the I’m-not-worthy-to-lick-the-soles-of-your-heels speech? And now, he had nothing.

“Fiona—”

“Marco—”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Ladies first.”

“Oh, um… Do you want to maybe talk tomorrow?” She fidgeted, picking at her coat and imaginary bits on her lap.

“No.” He swallowed, trying to get rid of the cotton-like feeling of dry mouth. “I’ve thought about what I want to say to you…a hundred times. More probably.”

“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” she asked.

“Why not?” He wasn’t that drunk. Was he?

“Because…” Fiona stared straight ahead. He studied her profile, the slight upturn of her nose, the shape of her lips. “My mother was never the same after dad died. His addiction… It changed us. Honestly? I was probably relieved when he was gone, but it broke mom. She had this, weird…rambling poem put on his tombstone that I never really got. I haven’t thought about it in years. I went back there last week, just to…see it. You know? See stuff I haven’t seen since all this began, and…that tombstone means something to me now.”

It was so quiet inside the cab he could hear her swallow. How was she? Had she healed? Was there any discomfort or pain? Did she think about him? It took all his restraint to not reach over and hold her.

“I always thought mom was wrong to not move on, to find someone else. Maybe someone she’d love more than dad. I get it now. She couldn’t because he was her one and only. I guess we find people in life we can love, if we want to, but there’s really only a few out there that…we’ll love despite ourselves. Mom and dad were like that. It didn’t matter what dad did, mom was going to love him, no matter what.”

Marco didn’t dare breathe.

“We’re like that.” Fiona’s voice was so quiet the wind nearly drowned her out.

Was this her goodbye? Her
I need to move on
speech?

“I don’t know if I can trust you, Marco.” She turned to face him now, her gaze boring into him. “Do you know what it’s like to love someone you can’t trust? To wonder if they’re telling you the truth? If they’re using you?”

“Fiona…” He reached for her, the crack in her voice, the watery sound of immanent tears breaking him all over again. He wrapped his arms around her, dragging her as close as the center console would allow, burying his face in her hair.

For a moment or two they sat there, holding onto each other. Two broken souls struggling with the same problem.

Could they love each other?

He wanted to try.

“I was a piece of shit to you. I put you in danger, even when I was trying to fix things. I…didn’t know what I had until it was too late. Until I’d already fucked things up too bad. I don’t deserve a second chance. I don’t deserve anything.”

Fiona chuckled, but was interrupted by a hiccup.

“How trashed are you?” she asked.

“A lot. I think I got lost and walked in a circle for a bit back there.”

“Oh, my God.” She snickered and squeezed him. “Can we go…I don’t know. Somewhere and talk? Or at least get you a shower so you don’t smell quite so bad. Did you swim in beer?”