Nobody's Hero (29 page)

Another club regular came up to order a
Guinness and Mistress Grant left Karla waiting. She wondered idly
what the woman’s first name was; Damián said he had no clue. She
was just Grant, one of the guys.

Yeah, right
.

Mistress Grant returned to stand in front of
her at the end of the bar.

Karla drew a deep breath. “I wonder if we
could have lunch or something tomorrow where we can talk more
privately, since we’re both pretty busy tonight.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about.
I won’t discuss our private relationship. Was there something else
you wanted to know?”

The acknowledgement she
had
a
relationship with Master Adam caused a pain in her chest. Karla
looked across the room to where Master Adam was teaching Master
Luke to use a Shibari technique on Angie. Master Marc was on an
overnight camping expedition tonight and had asked his
search-and-rescue partner to escort Angie to the club.

Adam’s strong, gentle fingers working the
ropes made Karla’s skin tingle and her nipples grow erect. She’d do
anything for that man, even talk with his former mistress—God, she
hoped Grant was a former one. But first she needed to reassure the
woman she wasn’t looking for her to kiss and tell.

Karla zeroed in on Mistress Grant again.
“Adam’s been having horrible nightmares.” The raised eyebrow told
her the Marine probably didn’t know Adam had been sleeping with
Karla. Would she be angry or jealous that Master Adam was
interested in a new woman?

Then Mistress Grant smiled briefly before
growing serious again and asking, “What kind of nightmares? The
war?”

“No, his childhood.”

“He never talked about his childhood with
me.”

No doubt.
“Me either. But I need your
help in tracking down his parents or finding out what happened back
then. I don’t want him to hang onto those images that keep haunting
him. He needs some closure.”

One of the subs serving drinks tonight laid a
tray of empty glasses on the bar and Mistress Grant stowed them in
the bins underneath for cleaning later. “What do you want me to
do?”

“Master Damián said you…had connections with
federal law enforcement.” He’d actually hinted at some connection
with the CIA or covert operations or something, but Karla thought
that sounded a little too cloak-and-dagger to be real. “I thought
maybe you could have someone run a background check.”

“Spy on Master Adam?” Karla thought she heard
Mistress Grant growl.

“No! Well, not really on
him
.” Karla
leaned forward, lowering her voice. “His parents were pretty
abusive from what I can tell and he’s buried all these feelings so
deep that I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to…”
love
me
. No, she wouldn’t bare her soul to this potential rival.
“…to get on with his life until he has some answers or confronts
the past in some way.”

Mistress Grant sized her up for a long
moment, then relaxed as much as Karla had ever seen the woman
relax. “I’ll help if I can.”

Karla let the air out of her lungs with a
whoosh and nodded. “Thanks.”

“I’m not doing this for you.” Mistress Grant
looked across the room toward Master Adam with what looked like
longing.

Mine
.

Karla felt the green-eyed monster flare up,
but tamped it down. She needed Mistress Grant’s help right now.

The bartender laid the towel on the bar and
leaned forward, tearing her gaze away from Karla’s man. “I’d go to
hell and back for him. He’s the finest master sergeant a Marine
could ever ask for.” She returned her gaze to Karla. “If what we
find would just cause him more pain, I don’t want him to know.
You’ll need to screen whoever we find before we let them anywhere
near Adam again.”

Karla smiled. Grant cared about Master Adam,
too, and wanted to protect him. As long as they both had his best
interests and welfare at heart—and Mistress Grant kept her hands
off him—they’d be able to work together just fine.

“Great. Do you want me to see what
information I can get on him for you? I don’t expect it will be
much.”

“That’s okay. My contacts can check into his
military files.”

Damián was right. The woman did have
connections. Karla wondered just what she’d done after her stint
with the Marines had ended, but that wasn’t any of her
business.

“Give me a few days.”

“Absolutely. Now, I’d better start my next
set.” She turned to go back toward the stage, then spun around
again. “Thanks, Mistress Grant.”

The woman winked at her, which confused
Karla. Maybe she wasn’t a threat to her and Adam, after all.

* * *

Adam parked the rental along the winding
roadway with two wheels in the grass so as not to impede others
visiting loved ones today. With a heavy sigh, he opened the door
and got out, not wanting to have this conversation. Most years, he
looked forward to his time here with Joni, telling her about what
he’d been doing and how much he wished she were with him to share
it.

But now he needed to tell her about Karla.
What the fuck was he going to say? He felt disloyal.

A crust on the top of the snow crunched under
his boots as he walked up the slight hill. At first, he avoided
looking at her tombstone while he busied himself with clearing snow
from the marble bench he’d had placed there for Joni’s mom to make
use of during her visits in better weather. Marge always left him
his privacy for his first visit to Joni’s grave, on their wedding
anniversary, but he’d bring her out here tomorrow before he headed
back to Denver. She probably wouldn’t get out here again for
awhile, now that she was moving to assisted living, and winter was
setting in with a vengeance.

He sat against the frigid stone and looked
down at his hands. Memories of his twenty years with Joni played
like a movie in his head. They’d been separated a lot by war, but
the times they’d had together had been good ones. For him, at
least. He knew he hadn’t ever been able to give Joni the things she
wanted most—a child.

Or his love.

The backs of his eyes burned as he looked up
at the cold, hard granite stone with the Montague named etched
across the surface and a lighthouse carved to the right of her
name.

Joni, beloved wife
.

“Joni, my beloved li’l subbie.”

She’d given him one-hundred percent of
herself. He’d only given about eighty percent back, at best. Would
he have been able to surrender the remainder if they’d been
together after he’d retired from the Marines? Could he open that
part of himself to any woman?

“I’m so sorry, baby.” His raspy words were
whipped away on the wind. “You deserved so much better than you got
with me.”

The guilt that had been eating at him ever
since he’d come home on hardship leave from Afghanistan to find her
in the last weeks of her life, hanging on through the pain just to
have him beside her, assaulted him once more. Toward the end, he’d
begged for God to take her. He couldn’t watch her suffer any more.
Her mom had told him she wouldn’t let go as long as she thought he
needed her, so he’d released her and promised they’d be together
again. Then he’d held her in his arms as the final breath left her
ravaged body.

Her body had begun to grow cold before her
mom had forced him to let go physically. Joni had been his anchor
for twenty years. She’d taught him a lot about love, honor, and
commitment, lessons he hadn’t learned growing up. That she’d stuck
by him all those years, half of them on her own while he was
deployed somewhere else in the world, was a testament to what a
strong woman she was. To how strongly she’d loved him.

He hadn’t been prepared to be set adrift
then. He’d lied to her on her death bed. He had still needed her.
She was the only person who had ever loved him unconditionally. He
had no fucking clue what he was going to do in a world without his
precious Joni. But he’d closed off that hurt and gone back to war,
this time in Iraq. He’d never opened himself up to thinking much
about Joni and their time together.

“Oh, baby. If you were here, I’d…”

You’d what?
Had he changed any over
the years? Fuck no. He knew he’d still be unable to say the words,
because he’d learned early on they didn’t mean anything. He didn’t
believe he’d ever be able to love anyone. That would require making
himself too vulnerable to another person, and he wouldn’t do that.
No, never again.

But even though he’d never been able to tell
Joni the words, surely she’d known he’d have gone to hell and back
for her. Hadn’t she? God, he didn’t know anymore. Joni had never
complained about his inability to say the words. She’d never begged
him.

She’d just made him feel like the most
perfect husband and Master in the world.

“L’il subbie, please forgive me. I never
meant to hurt you.”

How could he even think of replacing Joni
with Karla? He’d just wind up hurting her, too, because he could
never say what every woman needs to hear from the man she loves.
Besides, Joni could never be replaced in his heart.

The wind picked up and something slapped
against his cheek. He looked down at the ground to find a neon-pink
flower petal lying in sharp contrast against the snow. Who would
have a neon-pink flower arrangement on a grave in November? He
reached down to pick it up and his thoughts immediately went to
Karla and the first time he’d seen her and her garish hair color in
the bus station in Chicago.

She’d looked so scared. Lost. He’d been drawn
to her like a moth to a flame. There had been no sexual attraction
on his part. No, she’d just brought out every protective instinct
in him and forced him to play hero; to do the right thing, when all
he’d wanted to do was crawl in a hole somewhere and die. Karla had
pulled him back from the dead that night.

So, when had his thoughts for her turned
carnal?

At the club, during her audition this summer,
before he recognized her. Seemed like a lifetime ago, so much had
happened since then. He’d been drawn to her voice then, wresting
him from his office and into the great room. Dressed in that awful
Maid Marian dress, he’d still been captivated by her long black
curls. Even then, he’d imagined grabbing her hair in his fists as
he…

Jesus.

He looked up at the stone in front of
him.

Joni, beloved wife.

How could he desecrate Joni’s memory by
sitting at her grave thinking about having sex with another woman?
He looked back down at the flower petal in his hands, then glanced
around at the nearby tombstones. All he saw were decorations with
autumn colors. He had no clue where the neon-pink flower petal
could have come from. The wind must have carried it quite a
ways.

He stood up, tucked the petal in his pocket,
and breathed a heavy sigh.

“I’ll be back to say goodbye before I head
home, baby. I…”

Fuck
. He couldn’t even say the words
to her now, knowing she could never hurt him. What a sorry excuse
for a husband he’d been.

He wouldn’t entertain any more ridiculous
notions of being any better for Karla. She deserved better. Anyone
but him.

* * *

The next morning, Adam sat at the kitchen
table in his mother-in-law’s kitchen. The cheerful room with it
yellow walls and white curtains covered with strawberry didn’t do
anything to lift his somber mood. Visiting Joni’s grave always
played hell with his mood and he knew that it wouldn’t lift again
until after the New Year. God, he hated the holidays from
Thanksgiving to New Year’s. Too many memories of Joni.

“Quarter for your thoughts.”

He looked across the table at the
silver-haired woman who had been like a mother to him for thirty
years. More of a mother than his own had been. She’d shown him
acceptance and love, once she’d realized Joni was happy and the
wandering Marine wasn’t out to hurt her little girl. Not
intentionally, anyway.

Adam forced a grin. “Inflation?”

“Yeah, it’s popping up everywhere these days.
A penny doesn’t buy much of a thought anymore.” She took a sip of
her herbal tea and Adam stared into his coffee mug for a
moment.

“I still miss her, Mom.”

“So do I, hon.” She called everyone hon,
something Adam had picked up himself, well, when talking with
women, at least.

Marge reached out and squeezed the hand he
had wrapped around his mug and he looked up to see a tear slide
down her wrinkled cheek. “I’ve rattled around in this house of sad
memories too long. That’s one of the reasons I decided to move to
an apartment. Some friends from high school are in the same
complex, and we’ve decided it’s time to raise a little more hell
while we still can. Our last hurrah.”

Adam grinned at her. “What out, Twin
Cities.”

Marge grew series again. “But Adam, you have
so many years ahead of you. No one’s earned another chance at
happiness more than you. Don’t you think it’s time for you to find
someone else?”

Adam stalled, taking a sip of the lukewarm
coffee. He wasn’t going to talk to her about Karla. That
relationship couldn’t go anywhere. But he realized he had no
interest in looking for anyone else.

“Who is she?”

Stunned, Adam looked up at Joni’s mom and
quirked an eyebrow. “She?”

“You were just thinking of someone. The
half-smile on your face tells me it’s a woman and she might be
important to you.”

Adam waved her off the scent. “She’s
important, but it’s not like that. She’s a young singer at the
club. I first met her nine years ago when she needed rescuing.”
Only she rescued me instead.

“How young is young?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Pshaw. Joni’s dad was twenty-eight years
older than me.”