Master of the Game (Rush Series Book 3) (2 page)

Yes,
definitely better if she went to her parent’s for a few days… at least until he
finished up his current assignment in Mexico. At least that’s what he told
himself until he actually saw her standing in the doorway with a suitcase in
hand and tears on her face.

“I’ll
always love you, Alex,” she said with such finality, it caused him to move from
his stool, as what he was about to lose nearly broke him apart.

Trying
to stop the gaping hole in his chest from expanding, he moved quickly to her
side and wrapped her in his arms and crushed her once again against his chest.
He buried his face in her hair. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to
go.”

Addison
allowed the suitcase to slip from unresisting fingers as she clutched his shirt
within them instead. “I don’t want to go either. But I can’t go on like this,
Alex. Can’t you see? I wasn’t made to go it alone.”

Closing
his eyes against his no-win situation, he rocked her side to side. “I’ll do it.
I’ll quit. It’ll take a while, but I’ll do it,” he said tonelessly.

On a
heaving sob, she wrapped her arms around his trim waist and clung to him as
relief flooded her body. “Thank you,” she cried into his chest.

Alex
gripped her tear-streaked face within his hands and kissed her as if his life
depended on it. “I love you, Addie,” he murmured against her lips. “You are my
life. I swear it.”

“I love
you, Alex,” she returned.

He
pressed his lips against her head as he held her tight. They stood wrapped in
each other’s arms, rocking back and forth for a long while, each of them
drawing strength and comfort from the other.

“I need
to call my parents and let them know I won’t be coming,” she said with a smile.

Alex
tucked her blonde hair behind her ears and smiled down at her. “Okay,” he said.

As she
headed off to make her call, Alex returned to the kitchen and stood with his
hands braced on the counter, his lips grim. While he knew he’d made the right
decision, a part of him was filled with regret. He loved his job. He loved the
excitement and danger. He’d worked damned hard to get where he was – to build a
career where others floundered. Now what was he going to do? There was no way
in hell he was working for Addison’s father.

“Hey,
babe, Dad has invited us over for dinner. Is that okay?” he heard Addie call
from the living room.

Inhaling
deeply, he moved to the living room and shook his head in answer. She gave him
a perplexed look. “I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone. “What
is it?” she asked at his pensive face.

Opening
his hands wide, he said in explanation, “Addie, I… I have to go back… tonight.”

“What?”
she asked, her face falling at his words. “I thought… I mean… I thought you
were going to stay…” she drifted off.

“I have
to finish my mission. I’ll resign once it’s completed. I can’t quit right in
the middle. I told you it’d take some time,” he said quietly.

“Oh,”
she muttered as she bowed her head. Lifting her eyes once more to his, she
whispered, “I don’t want you to go.”

“I have
to, but this will be the last time,” he replied.

“You
promise?” she asked.

With a
wry twist of his lips, he replied, “Scout’s honor.”

While
she gave a halting nod of her head, the pain within twisted her face.

~*M*~

He’d
been gone almost a month, during which time he’d only been able to talk to
Addison twice. Her emotional state had seemed to steadily decline once he’d
left. During the first call he’d been as sympathetic as he could, but during
the second, when she still seemed to want to wallow in her misery, and
threatening to leave him again, he’d been a little abrupt. It wasn’t that he
didn’t feel the loss of their
child,
it was just that
he didn’t see the sense in dwelling on things you couldn’t change. It also frustrated
him that they were hundreds of miles apart and there was no way for him to help
her, so he mistakenly took his frustration out on her.

In
hindsight, he wished he’d paid more attention… wished he’d turned down the
assignment… wished he’d never left Savannah. A few weeks after his last call to
her, he was summoned back to the States. His beautiful, golden-haired girl was
gone. She’d overdosed and was no more. His hands had trembled when he’d read
her last words to him.

Alex: I
wish I could be strong like you and move on with my life, but I just can’t. I’m
just so tired. I can’t seem to please you… I can’t please my father. You want
me to stay and he wants me to leave. It seems everyone expects me to be what
they want me to be. Everyone thinks I should just get over the loss of our son…
like you did. But I guess I’m just weak because I don’t want to get over it. I
wanted him so much. Please don’t hate me, Alex.

Alex
stood on the opposite side of her coffin at the gravesite from her parents. Why
shouldn’t her death be as her life had been, with her in between him and her
parents? They refused to meet his eyes. They blamed him for her death… he
understood, he blamed himself.

As he
placed a single red rose on her coffin, he rested his hand against the smooth
grain of the wood.
His beautiful, sweet Addie.
He
closed his eyes as he thought of her tear-streaked face when she’d dropped him
off at the airport the night he’d departed back to Mexico.

“I
don’t want you to go, Alex. I really need you here. This is so hard. I don’t
think I can do it alone,” she’d told him.

He’d
cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “You are much stronger than you
think. I’ll be home soon,
then
we can begin again.
Okay?”

He’d
seen the doubt in her eyes then. He itself than life that he’d paid attention.
It was his job to pay attention and he’d blown it big time. He glanced at the
crowd of people across from him, all friends and family of Addie’s. As the only
child of deceased parents, he was well and truly alone now. Behind him, he
could feel the presence of the only three people on his side of the gaping hole
waiting to claim his Addie. He turned abruptly away from the coffin.
Immediately the three men behind him closed ranks in a sign of comfort and
protection. He felt a hand placed on his shoulder and knew of the three men, it
had to be Father Tucker Vance. The other men were military like him, and
wouldn’t give such a public display of comfort.

They’d
deposited the coffin into the ground and the crowd had dispersed, yet Alex
continued to stand in silence with his entourage of three. Finally, he turned
and inhaled deeply. It was over. The life he’d envisioned with Addie was over.
What a difference a couple of months could make.

The
first person to reach for him was, of course, the Father. Tucker wrapped his
arms around Alex and held him tight for a moment. Not being Catholic, Alex
didn’t recognize the words whispered in Latin against his ear.

As the
Father pulled back, he said, “Alex, I’m so sorry. Please don’t hesitate to call
if there’s anything I can do.”

“Thanks,
Tuck,” he responded automatically.

Alex
glanced at the other two men. On one side was Slater Vance, a man he’d served
with in the Marine Corps, the brother of Father Tucker Vance. Alex had spent
many a holiday with Slater and the Father. Slater grasped his shoulders, but
didn’t pull him in for a hug as his brother had done.

“It
gets easier with time, I promise,” Slater said. A little rougher he said, “But
it’s a bitch until then.” As Slater’s wife had been killed by terrorists, he
knew the pain of losing a spouse.

Alex
swallowed and nodded. “Thanks for coming, Slate.”

The
person next to Slater was Jacob Roundtree, his CIA handler. He stepped forward
and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Alex, what a terrible tragedy.
Please take as much time as you need. We’ll make do until you’re ready.”

Alex
shook his head. “I don’t need time. I need… to work.”

Tucker
stepped forward. “Alex, why don’t you come back to Charleston with Slate and
me? We can all go up to our lake house for a few days. It will give you time to
sort things out… maybe regroup.”

“I
appreciate that, Tuck. But I really need to be busy. I can’t… I can’t be here.
I need my mind on other things,” Alex said dully.

“I
understand that,” Slater replied. “But you know you can always come and we’ll
go throw a trout-line in the lake. It’ll only take one phone call.”

“Thanks.
But I want to get back to Mexico and put all this behind me,” Alex said evenly.

After
another hug from the Father and a promise to keep in touch, the Vance brothers
turned and headed back to their car, leaving only Alex and Jacob Roundtree.

“When
do you think you’ll want to fly out?” Jacob asked.

“I need
to make arrangements for my mail to be forwarded and finalize Addison’s
arrangements, so by the end of the week. Are you staying or heading back?” Alex
asked.

“I’m
going to go home for a few days,
then
I’ll meet you
back in Mexico.

~*M*~

Devon
Montanez sat stunned as the silence in the phone line between her mother and
herself
became like a living thing. It seemed to expand and
grow until her ears rang with the white noise of it. She swallowed hard as she
thought about what she considered a betrayal of her father’s memory. He’d only
been dead a few months and yet her mother had already married someone else. Did
her father, the most wonderful man Devon had ever known, mean so very little to
her mother that she could disrespect his memory in this way?

Devon’s
near black eyes blinked when she heard her mother’s voice breaking through the
white noise of the silence.
“Devon?
Are you still
there?”

Devon
cleared her throat which suddenly felt as if someone had wrapped their hands
around it and squeezed. Tears sprang hot and quick into her eyes. “I’m here,”
she replied raggedly.

“Mi
hijo
, please try to understand. It… just has to be this
way. Your father’s not coming back and I’m not getting any younger,” her
mother, the now Sharon Munoz, said softly. That she was begging for
understanding was evident in her voice.

“I
don’t understand your haste,” Devon finally said.

The
silence of a few moments ago returned. “Things… have been difficult since your
father died. I’m doing this for the both of us,” her mother said.

Devon
contemplated her mother’s words. “Is it about money? I thought Papa had life
insurance?”

“No…
it’s not about the money,” her mother finally said.

“Then I
don’t understand.”

In a
sharp tone she’d never heard from her mother, Sharon Munoz replied, “Well
fortunately for me, I don’t answer to you, my darling daughter. I don’t want
you to worry about this. I want you to concentrate on your studies. I’ll fly
out in time for your graduation.” Oh a softer note, her mother said, “I love
you, little Arabella.”

Devon
cringed at the use of the nickname her father had given her when she was a
young girl.
My little Arabella – my
answered prayer
, he’d told her over and over throughout her life. Pained,
she said, “Please don’t call me that. You have no right to use that name… not
now.”

Devon
thought she might have heard a sob break through the tense phone line but she
refused to feel guilty about her harsh words. Her father mattered to her and
she felt her mother had somehow tainted him with her quickie marriage.

After a
short silence, her mother concluded their pain-filled, long-distance phone
call, “I’ll see you in a few weeks, Mi
hijo
.”

Devon
clicked her cellphone off and threw it on the bed before sitting down heavily
on the bed’s edge. Glancing up, she caught her reflection in the mirror glued
to the wall of the University of Florida dorm room. She’d inherited her
father’s Spanish looks: dark, nearly black eyes; long, wavy, dark hair, and
lush curves. She’d been called beautiful, but didn’t put a lot of stock in
appearances… just look at her mother. Even now, her mother was considered an
amazingly beautiful woman. Her father used to find amusement in the fact that
other men had swarmed around his wife.

Her
mother was white, with no Hispanic traits at all. Her hair was a honey-brown
and her eyes an amazing blue. Her parents had met while both were attending the
University of Florida – hence the reason she was there now.
It’s our family’s tradition
, her father
had told her when she begged not to be sent so far away from home. What
tradition did they have now? He was dead – killed by a robber in the streets,
for a mere few
dollars,
and her mother now married to
someone Devon didn’t even know.

She
rose from the bed and plucked the last picture she had of the three of them
together which she’d stuck to the mirror’s edge. It was a picture from the last
time she’d gone home. She was in the center of the photo and her parents
flanked her on either side. They were smiling into the camera, happy… together.
She lightly traced the contoured lines of her father’s face. She missed him
every day. If she was honest, Devon would admit she’d been angry at her mother,
ever since she’d not been allowed to go home for the funeral.
Screw finals
, she’d thought at the time.
Her mother had been adamant, however. Had her mother been with her new husband
even at the funeral of her father? No, she didn’t really believe that.