HeatedMatch (18 page)

“I meant the other one,” Adam growled.

Abruptly, Rowan started to chuckle, then gave a full-out
laugh. Loren then Adam joined in.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever joked about my arm,”
Rowan said.

With a jolt, Adam realized Rowan was right. Rowan’s lack of
limb had never been a source of humor, just pain and sorrow. He’d gained that
attitude from his mom, who was forever lamenting Rowan’s lack of wholeness. He
eyed his brother in a new light. Rowan had never seen his missing arm as a
handicap, and got along perfectly fine with his left. Respect for his brother
filled him as pity and overprotectiveness dimmed.

He slapped his brother’s right shoulder with a clap. “C’mon.
Let’s go meet Dad.”

Rowan rolled his shoulder in a quick move throwing off
Adam’s hand. “Still pissed at you. You lied to me and our dad for fifteen
years.”

He bit his lip and stayed silent. He knew no words, no
amount of apologies could ever make up for his lie keeping his brother from
their dad.

As the trio walked along the path, they grew quieter and
slowed the pace to something slower than a stroll. Rowan’s complexion grew pale
and for once, Adam felt taller than him. When they reached his dad’s office,
Adam rapped his knuckles on the door. Loren tried to yank her hand away, but he
held on tight. Her hand was an anchor in the maelstrom of the bomb he was about
to drop.

“Come in,” William’s voice rang through the door.

Adam swung it open and he and Loren entered.

His father swiveled in his seat and rose to greet them, a
rare smile on his face. “Son. Ms. Stanton, I’m happy to see you. Together.” He
gave their joined hands a pointed look. William’s smile faltered and he tripped
backward as he caught a glimpse of the third member of their party.

Adam yanked his hand free from Loren’s and caught his father
in a free fall down to the couch. When his father was settled, he opened his
mouth and searched for the words to confess his sin, a lifetime lie of omission.
But before he could speak, his father spoke to a point behind his head.

“Son?” At Rowan’s terse nod, tears fell down William’s
cheeks. “I…she…I…thought you were dead.” A stunned William looked to Adam to
explain.

Adam swallowed and forced words past the rock-hard lump in
his own throat. “I lied, Dad. When I got here, you thought…and Mom made me
swear…and…” He knew he was cocking up his explanation big-time, but it didn’t
matter. William and Rowan still hung on his every word.

Loren’s hand covered his in a warm, supportive gesture, and
Adam took a breath and tried again. “You welcomed me here, no questions asked
when I was fifteen. Mom had me promise to keep her and Rowan’s whereabouts a
secret. I lied, and then I didn’t know how to crack open the truth. I thought I
was protecting Mom.” When he’d told his mom he was setting out to find his
father, she’d been resigned, but emphasized that he was never to share Rowan
and she were alive.

He chanced a look at his father to see how his explanation
was received. He didn’t dare glance at Loren to see the condemnation and
disgust that was surely in her eyes. God knows he’d heaped enough of it on
himself for so long. How could she be interested in him now, knowing what a
cowardly liar he was?

“Rowan never knew about you either. I’ve wanted to tell you
both every day.” Adam found it hard to talk over the lump in his throat.
“Please believe me.” God, he was acting like such a wuss.

“Rowan? She named you Rowan?” Emotion poured from every
syllable in William’s question. He seemed to be staring at Rowan with each
fiber of his being as if he could soak in twenty-plus years of missing his son
in a few heated seconds.

Rowan nodded at his question. He couldn’t seem to speak and
swayed where he stood. Thank God for Loren. She jumped up, took Rowan by the
hand and led him down to the couch to sit next to William. Adam grabbed the
rolling desk chair for himself, and Loren sat cross-legged on the floor. The
four inhabitants of the room stared in turn at one another. No words spoken.
Silence.

Finally, William looked to Adam. “Diane? Is she here? Did
you lie about her death too?” The hope in his voice at possibly seeing Mom
again turned the lump in his throat from grape size to apple.

Adam swallowed over the lump and shook his head. “No, Mom
did die. When I was eighteen. Cancer.”

William stared, deep in thought, seemingly unaware that
tears rolled down his cheeks, catching on the afternoon’s beard growth. “And
that’s why you disappeared for a month with no explanation.” Ghosts from the
past swirled in undercurrents around the small, bare-bones office.

“Yeah.” Adam shrugged, tormented by memories of the past and
how he’d lived a lie for half his life.

“Why didn’t you come after us?” Rowan finally found his
voice and addressed Dad. “What happened? Didn’t you love Mom? Your sons? Why
didn’t you want us?”

The million-dollar question. The one Adam never had the guts
to ask, totally influenced by his mother’s version of events. He’d lived day by
day with his dad, grateful to have a home and not be in a juvenile facility.
Though, in some ways, the Program was a harsher existence than any state-run
juvenile lockup.

William cleared his throat then looked both his sons in the
eye. “I was an idiot. I was young, foolish, and, oh, I don’t know, just plain
stupid.”

It was revelatory, earth-shattering, really, to hear his
always-right, always-in-control father denigrate himself like this. Adam
glanced at Rowan to check his reaction, but Rowan had only known the man two
minutes and didn’t have fifteen years of experience to contradict William’s
words.

“I want to tell you that I loved your mother. She was the
light in my life to coin a bad phrase, and from the moment I met her, it was as
if every other woman paled in comparison. For me, she was it,” William
continued.

Adam ignored Loren’s heated, meaningful glance, keeping his
eyes on his father. One emotional eruption at a time was all he could handle.
It felt as if the whole world was spinning on its axis. Everything he thought
he knew about his parents and their match shifted.

“After you were born, Adam, life was wonderful. I went on
missions and came home to Diane and you, and we were a happy family. And then…”
Here, William broke off and focused on Rowan. “This is where my brains fell
out, and I’ll understand if you never forgive me, but I beg you for a chance.”

Rowan, the consummate poker player, gave his newly found
father nothing but a raised brow, indicating he should continue the tale.

“You were born when Adam was three years old. And, and you
were missing your… your…” William waved a hand toward Rowan’s chest area.

Rowan didn’t make it easy. “My what? My heart? A lung? Come
on, have the guts to say it. I am missing an arm.”

“Your arm,” William echoed in a whisper. “And I didn’t
handle it well. You have to understand that around here, perfection is prized.
We’re like the ancient Greeks seeking human flawlessness. Your missing limb
meant you couldn’t be part of us. I worried about your future, about my own
future. What did it say about my genes if my son wasn’t whole?”

Jesus, he was more like his father than he’d ever suspected.
William’s words kicked Adam in the butt, echoing every argument he’d given
himself against finding a mate or more recently, being with Loren. But he
opened his mouth to defend Rowan anyway. Out of habit, he guessed.

William held up a hand. “No, let me finish. Please.”

Adam shut his yap.

“Not that it’s an excuse, but I was young. Twenty-four, and
I saw Rowan’s defect as a reflection on me, rather than a statement about him.
Our commander warned me they were considering forcing us to put you up for
adoption. I never told Diane that, but I wonder now if she somehow learned it
was being considered.” He paused for a long moment to take some deep breaths.
“I can only imagine her rage at that. She would have gone full mama grizzly,
especially because she was very protective of you.” He let out a mirthless
chuckle at the memory.

Rowan smiled faintly. “I was Mom’s baby. She let me get away
with murder.” He turned to Adam for confirmation.

Adam snorted. “Yeah, I got blamed for everything. In her
eyes you were an angel.”

“That’s me, halo and all.”

Despite Rowan’s light words, he still wouldn’t meet Adam’s
eyes. Not that he’d blame him. Learning your brother had told one hell of a lie
for fifteen years had to be a kick in the groin. He’d taken a nosedive off the
ivory pedestal Rowan placed him on and was in a free fall.

“I missed it. I missed out on your childhoods,” William
suddenly lamented.

“Get back to after my birth,” said Rowan, ignoring his
father’s regrets.

A shudder passed through William, seeming to bring him back
to the present. “Right. I had to go on a mission two weeks after you were born.
I’d planned on sorting everything out when I returned, but when I got back, you
were gone. Diane took both of you and ran. Took my heart with her too.”

Adam took his mind off his own guilt for a minute and
digested the tale with a critical eye. That was it? Had his dad done something
more than express dissatisfaction over Rowan’s missing arm? Maybe his mom had
postpartum depression. Why else would she break the family apart? He searched
his extensive memory banks, stretching back to his early toddler days. He knew
from experience he only had shadows of memories from his first three years of
life on the Beltsville campus. His recollection of early days in downtown DC
was even murkier. Perhaps he’d blocked it out, a three-year-old boy would want
his dad, and after all, he had a near-photographic memory and could replay
history in his mind like a movie. From all accounts his father thought the sun
rose every time Adam had smiled. Why did his father have such different
memories than his mother of their marriage?

“Why didn’t you come after us?” he dared to ask for the
first time in his life.

“I did,” William said, shocking Adam and Rowan. “I took
leave from missions and looked. But you have to remember, there was no internet
back then. We rarely used credit cards. Limited video surveillance. Tracking
someone was a more hands-on personal project and it took much longer. I had the
whole country, the whole world to search. Diane could’ve taken you anywhere.”

His father’s tale made more sense, and it gave Adam a sense
of completion knowing his father hadn’t abandoned him as a child. Had loved
him, still did, in fact. “What made you give up and stop looking?” he asked.

Regret crossed his dad’s face. “Keel helped me search, and
he found you.”

“He did?” Adam was stunned by that revelation. Then
suspicion grew. “Well then, what happened? You never showed up, I’d remember.”

The remorse and grief on William’s face was a tangible,
living organism. Adam fought his desire to give a hug or a comforting touch to
his dad. They’d never been touchy-feely, and it somehow felt too late to start
now.

“I never came to get you, because according to Keel, Rowan
had died and Diane didn’t want me near her. I believed him because I stupidly
thought Rowan was a sickly baby. Why else would he have been born with only one
arm? She told him if I ever came looking, she’d run even farther. In exchange
for her sending pictures of Adam, I settled for opening a bank account in your
name and deposited money there monthly.”

“Couldn’t have been much. Not the way we lived.” Rowan’s
deep voice rolled with emotion.

“What do you mean?” William asked. “It was nearly all of my
monthly paycheck, enough to set you up nicely.” He turned to Adam, surprise
etched on his face. “You never said anything about living in poverty.”

Rowan and Adam shared a look, but Loren voiced her
suspicions. “Was your wife the custodian on the account?”

“No. It was Keel. I knew Diane would never accept money
directly from me, so I made him custodian and he promised to make sure she’d
accept it. Did you never…?” Both Adam and Rowan gained their feet in fluid,
identical moves. William sat frozen on the couch, shaking his head. “I
shouldn’t have listened. I should’ve gone myself,” he whispered.

“Is this Keel dude trustworthy?” Rowan asked, his single
fist white from clenching his jean’s belt loop.

“Yes.” Adam frowned. “He’s like a father figure to most of
the boys on campus.”

William and Loren stood too. “He’s one of my close friends,”
William said. “Let’s go find him and maybe he can shed some light on what Diane
did with the money.”

A sense of purpose imbued the older man’s demeanor, and for
the first time in a while, Adam saw the soldier in him. For too long, the elder
Blacker had sat behind his desk, running missions from his Beltsville computer.
Now William’s prowess and warrior genetics bled from every pore. Adam was proud
to stand with him as they searched for a hard-earned truth.

Chapter Nine

Dear Billy,

Rowan started crawling today. Of course with his missing
arm, it isn’t any traditional definition of a crawl. More of a scooch forward
on his butt. But he was determined to follow his hero, Adam, everywhere. You
should be his hero. He should be crawling to you.

A bitter Diane

The unexpected knock at Keel’s front door had him rocking
forward in his Eames chair, sloshing his iced tea on its way down to the modern
glass coffee table. Had they traced his earlier call? Were Shep and Gavin now
standing outside waiting to question him? Arrest him?

He opened the door with alacrity, hoping it was simply Loren
Stanton making good on her earlier promise to visit him to see pictures of the
past. His insides bottomed out when he opened the door and saw his visitors. An
inquisition all right, but from a totally unexpected source. Three faces he
knew, but the fourth, though a stranger, was instantly recognizable with his
similar looks to his brother. Plus, the missing arm was a dead giveaway. His
game was up, it was clear from the grim expressions on the Blacker men’s faces.

He shoved his apprehension down his gullet and pasted a
large sycophantic smile on his face. The same one he’d used to fool everyone
for the last forty years. It seemed to have no effect on the large men as they
pushed past him and entered his private domain.

William’s flawed son took in the interior in a sweeping
glance. “Nice digs you got here, Keel.” He nudged the silk Persian rug with a
sneakered toe. “The military’s paying a lot more than when I looked into doing
a tour.”

He let out a nervous chuckle as if he had no idea what the
boy was getting at. The truth was the Program paid crap wages. He’d managed to
find ways to supplement his income. This latest scheme was the most dangerous
but would pay off the biggest.

“William, it’s been a while since you’ve paid me a visit.
Come in. Sit, sit.” He swept his arm in a welcoming gesture.

No one sat.

He reached for his iced tea, hoping to hide his shaky
fingers. Rowan Blacker’s presence could only portend bad news. He had to play
it cool. Everything happened nearly thirty years ago, and Diane was dead. She
couldn’t counter anything he said.

But the look in William Blacker’s eyes reminded him how much
William had loved his wife and might prefer her word or memory over his. They
truly had been a perfect match. Which was why it was stunning when their
offspring came out with such a huge flaw. Two Blacker brothers in the Program
would’ve been a force to reckon with. But a missing limb was out of the
question. He’d done what was necessary.

Shep’s heart was too soft, especially when it came to his
buddy, Blacker. He would’ve allowed the son to enroll in the program. And how
was the boy supposed to compete with such a handicap? That’s what he’d wanted
to know. And he’d acted.

Ms. Stanton spoke up first. “Mr. Keel. We’ve been talking
about the past and we’d like your take or recollection of a few things. Do you
have some time?” Concern radiated from her eyes. Clearly her belief in his
status as her deceased father’s friend held weight with her. Good. He’d use
that to his advantage.

“Certainly.” He smiled. “Ask away.”

“Did our mom really tell you she never wanted to see our dad
again?” Rowan fired the first question off like a rocket.

“Why didn’t you ever tell Dad our location and let him make
up his own mind about visiting us?” Adam asked.

“Boys, boys. Slow down. Jonathan is my friend, stop acting
like you’re accusing him of something.” William scratched his chin and appeared
upset. Then he shrugged and looked over. “Actually, those are good questions,
and I’d like to know the answers.”

“Adam. William.” Keel held up his hands, palms outward.
“Please.” He gestured to the couch again. “Sit. I have some things to tell you
I’ve tried to hide for your protection, but I can see the time has arrived to
share.” He’d have to think fast on his feet. But his glib tongue had served him
well before and would do its job now.

The three men eyed him but sat. He tried not to wince at
Loren perched on the delicate armrest of the sofa, one leg balanced on the
coffee table.
Ignore it
,he told himself
. The ill-bred girl
doesn’t know what a Le Corbusier is.

“William, I never wanted to tell you this, but after Rowan’s
birth, Diane came to me. She was terribly upset at your reaction and begged me
to help. I was the one who sent you on that mission close to the birth.
According to protocol, you should’ve had at least a month off of missions, but
I put you on rotation.”

“I’d wondered at that,” William mused.

“Yes, well…Diane was desperate. She didn’t think the Program
or you would ever accept a seriously disabled son and thought her best option
was to escape. I helped her gather enough money and find a place to live. I
promised to keep her location a secret.”

“Hey, I’m not seriously disabled.”

Adam stayed Rowan’s protest with an arm gesture. “Why would
you do such a thing? Your loyalty should’ve been to my dad and the Program. By
sending her away, you potentially lost me, a future generation,” he said, a
harsh tone coloring his words.

“True, but I kept tabs on you. I knew you’d be welcomed back
here, and you were.”

Keel saw Adam, Rowan and William carry on a silent
conversation with their eyes. They could keep asking questions, but without
Diane’s presence, they could tag nothing on him directly. His version of past
events was the only one they’d be hearing today.

“What about the money?” Rowan asked.

“Money?” Keel repeated, then took a sip of the cold drink.

“We were always one step from living on the streets,” Adam
said. “Dad says he deposited money in a bank account for me and you were the
custodian. If that’s true, why were we poor?”

He lowered the glass to the coaster and took the time to
calm his nerves. “I don’t know. I promise you I forced Diane to take the money.
Even though she wanted a clean break from the Program, I told her to take it
for your sake.” At least that’s how he’d justified his decision to drain the
bank account monthly. He knew Diane wouldn’t have accepted the money from
William. It would’ve just sat in a bank account if he hadn’t reinvested it.

“Then where the hell did it go?” Rowan asked.

He shrugged. “I promise you I gave it to her monthly. What
she did with it, I don’t know. Maybe there are savings accounts you don’t know
about. Or maybe she hid it under her mattress. After all, she died when you
were both teenagers. Neither of you had the wherewithal to investigate her
finances.” He prayed his rational tone would soothe the Blackers’ ire. The look
on Adam’s face said he’d buy it for now, but he’d be investigating. It would do
him no good. Paulson’s money would come through and he’d be long gone, out of
reach of the Program.

“Did you pass on my letter?” William asked, a note of
desperation creeping into his tone. “I always felt if she only would read my
letter, she’d come home to me.”

Of course he hadn’t handed the letter over to Diane. The two
sentimental fools would’ve gone running back to each other if he hadn’t burned
William’s letter and sat on Diane’s request to meet her husband at a local
diner.

He injected a note of apology and empathy into his lie. “I’m
sorry. The note didn’t sway her. I never gave her location to you, because she
made me promise, and I couldn’t betray her trust.”

When William looked down on the floor to hide tears, Loren
stood. “I think we’ve bothered you enough for one afternoon. If we think of
anything else, we’ll call.” She tugged on Adam’s hand and the two other men
followed the couple to the door. All three Blacker men looked a little wounded
and sad thinking of the past. At the doorway, William stopped and said to Keel
in a choked voice, “Thank you, Jonathan for looking after my family.”

Keel shut the door behind them with a
snick
and
stared out the window until their figures disappeared over the hill. He
continued staring, lost in his memories of the past.
Diane had come to him,
desperate. She didn’t care about the baby’s flaw, but she worried what the
Program might make her do to the baby. He’d calmed her but told her the baby would
never fit in, never be part of the team. In truth, he wanted her to take the
baby off campus. Allowing one imperfection to join the ranks would have lowered
the standards for the entire unit.

He’d worked too long to build the Program into an elite
fighting machine. After Julia had left, his whole life was wrapped in the
formation of young boys into assassins, the military elite. A one-armed soldier
would’ve been an abomination and insult to the rest of the excellent boys.

He’d found Diane a home and helped her put a down payment
on it. He’d burned William’s notes and kept silent when Diane pleaded to meet
with William to settle things between them. It had been easy to lie and tell
her William wanted nothing to do with a runaway wife and a deformed son.

William’s monthly checks to his family had made his own
life more comfortable, and any guilt he harbored about his petty theft was
assuaged when Adam joined the Program at age fifteen and had seemed to hold no
ill effects of poverty.

What had happened today? Why had Adam brought Rowan to the
compound after all these years? Ms. Stanton must have something to do with it.
Like mother, like daughter, always believing the best in people and a fighter
for truth, justice and all that garbage. If Julia had really been the angel she
made herself out to be, she would have stayed with him and not run off with
Robert Stanton.

A sigh escaped him. The sooner he delivered a live soldier
to Paulson, the sooner he could leave Beltsville a half million dollars richer.
And life would be all the better.

* * * * *

“I’m sorry.” Loren slipped her hand into Adam’s as they
strolled away from Keel’s house. Rowan and William walked ahead to catch up on
twenty-seven years of history.

“About what?” Adam turned to her, bitterness and grief
written in the bracketed lines on his face. “I’m the one who should be sorry.
God, how can you stand there holding my hand now that you know what kind of
person I am?”

“Because people make mistakes and you were man enough today
to correct yours. It couldn’t have been easy,” Loren said.

“I’m a liar. And not a little lie, but a big, fucking lie. I
told my father his son was dead, for Christ’s sake.” Adam shook his head and
turned his face away from hers.

Oh no, Loren wasn’t letting him go all I-am-an-island on
her. She stepped around him until her nose was a scant five inches from his
chin. “Yeah, it was a shitty thing to do. How old were you again?”

“Fifteen,” Adam mumbled. “But…”

“And why did you lie?” Loren asked.

“I thought I was protecting my mom.”

“Right,” she said, satisfied.

“But that’s the easy out. That’s why I told the lie in the
beginning, but I kept it going for my own personal gain. I never told Rowan
about Dad or my job, because he’d want to be included. And how could he be?”

At that Loren frowned. “Why couldn’t he live on campus and
be part of the Program?” She quailed a bit at his heavy-handed stare but held
her ground. “Are you talking about his missing arm? Well, that’s
understandable, you were protecting him.”

“I wasn’t protecting him,” he said, and then in a quiet
voice, so soft Loren wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly, “I was ashamed of him.”

He yanked away from the hold she had on his arm and stalked
away a few feet.

Understanding and sympathy put tears in Loren’s eyes. Poor
Adam and poor Rowan, but most of all, poor William. He’d lost his wife and his
son over misunderstandings and bad communication.

She let Adam sulk for a minute more then stepped behind him
and gently rubbed his lower back with her right palm. She wrapped her left arm
around his waist and gave him a tight hug, feeding support and empathy into his
body from her heart.

For a minute he stood, still as a statue, but then his arms
wrapped around her and he pulled her in tighter. Despite the sexual heat they
usually invoked when they touched, this hug was acceptance, healing, and held
an element of a deeper, more elusive emotion. Loren pressed her cheek into
Adam’s chest and held on tight. When she turned to smile up at him, she found
him already looking down at her, a serious expression on his face.

Slowly, by inches, they leaned into each other and their
lips met in a benediction, a kiss so warm and tender it brought tears to her
eyes. The past was an inferno, quick to blaze. This kiss burned steady and
lasting as an eternal flame.

“Loren.” A whisper and a smile that warmed her soul.

Her natural response was to rise on tiptoes to nibble at his
lips, turning the gentle, loving kiss into much more. She’d never felt such a
connection to another person. Sexual attraction aside, Adam’s intelligence and
protective nature meshed with her. As if they were two halves of a zipper
finally matching up.

Scorching flames licked at the inside of Loren’s belly and
pooled lower, turning her lower body into a hotbed of desire as the kiss
deepened. Adam’s tall frame pressed up tightly against hers and every bit of
her ached for him. The earlier kiss in the car only whetted her appetite for
more. Determination fueled by passion had them clasping hands and strolling
back to his apartment. Their arms and hips brushed with every step they took,
ramping up her excitement and anticipation. After being apart for days, they
would finally make love out of desire and friendship and not because she was
high from some stupid bottle of water.

“Are we really going to do this?” she asked, glancing back
at him as he smiled down at her.