Redeeming Justice (41 page)

“I have work to do,” Carmen mumbled. Alex looked up when she spoke in time to see
her give Drae and Cam, a stern, forbidding look.

It was a meaningful exchange, but Alex couldn’t react to it. He could only stand,
numb and in awe of the
in your face
statement his Meghan had made. That day in the desert had changed his life. Hers
too. Their coming together opened floodgates of potential more meaningful than any
shadows from the past.
Oh God
. A raw, uncomfortable anxiety was growing in the pit of his stomach.

Alex had no idea how long he stood, immobile, glued to the same spot, arms weightless
and no strength to his body whatsoever, a deep misery claiming his senses. After a
bit, awareness started filtering into his brain. He felt Cam on one side of him and
Drae, the other. Standing close as brothers would, ready to catch him when he fell.
He straightened abruptly, his spine charged with heat as his emotions started coming
back online.

“What have I done?” he questioned anxiously, swinging back and forth between Cam and
Drae. “
Fuck
,” he groaned.

Drae put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it from one who knows. Getting there was half
the battle,” he told him solemnly.

“You ready to get honest, Major?” Cam asked.

Alex clutched his chest as a huge, overwhelming surge of emotion shot into his center.
Why hadn’t he seen it before? This was exactly what Drae and Cam had been through.
For each of them there came that moment when all the internal bullshit had to fade
away, when they faced the undeniable fact that the chance to claim their soul partner
was almost gone, due in no small part to their own foolish actions.

“I’m in love with her,” he proclaimed. When the two men by his side didn’t respond
to his declaration he said it again, with gravitas. “Did you fuckers hear me? I said,
I’m in love with her
!”

“Duh,” Cam snorted.

“Ah, so Captain Obvious has made an appearance,” Drae quipped.

Alex flipped them both off. Suddenly, he knew what he needed to do. Okay, so maybe
that wasn’t entirely true, but he knew he had to do something.
Anything
.

“Oh fuck, man,” Drae muttered good-naturedly. “I know that look.”

Cam laughed and smacked Alex hard on the back. “Hey man, I dig that expression. Always
means shit’s about to get real. Team Justice to the rescue?” he joked.

With a rueful grimace, Drae pulled his phone out and swiped at the screen. “If I’m
not mistaken, Team Justice will require the assistance of the Ladies League,” he chuckled.
“Get ready for the pregnancy brigade gentlemen. Things are about to get interesting.”

When Tori and Lacey arrived on the scene, they took in the enormous framed photograph
and the small hand-written card with its damning message and stood quietly. The silence
in the room was so thick you could hack at it with an axe.

“You’re an ass Alex Marquez,” Tori eventually bit out deridingly.

Lacey made that clucking noise, which spoke of something just this side of pity, and
shook her head. “Feel stupid now, do we?
Hmmm
?”

The irony of the situation did not escape Alex. For what seemed like forever he, Draegyn,
and Cameron have been a force to be reckoned with. When the three brothers banded
together, there was nothing that couldn’t be done. Along the way a female counterpoint
to their trio had been forming. Tori and Lacey, who forever after he would refer to
in his head as the Justice Sisters, were just as formidable a force, ready to fight
for their missing partner.

Clearing his throat, Alex felt like he’d hit a wall going about a thousand miles an
hour. Tori had taunted him, almost pleaded with him to just ask about Meghan. He wasn’t
stupid. Okay, maybe he was where the fairer sex was concerned. But he knew enough
to realize that opening a dialogue and asking was one of those tests that meant something
to women. All he had to do was stick a toe in the door and maybe it wouldn’t slam
shut forever. Was it really that simple?

There were a million things he could say or ask but only one question really mattered.
In the end, it wasn’t about him and his tired, old crybaby shit at all. What he really
cared about was Meghan and nothing else.

“What’s she up to?”
No, wait. That wasn’t enough.
“I mean, is she okay?”
Jesus.
He sounded like a mumbling twit.

Something about what he said must have been right because Tori beamed at him and put
her hand on his forearm. “She misses you, and that’s all that matters.”

Alex grabbed at his chest like he’d been shot. “Don’t fuck with me Mrs. St. John,”
he begged. “I need the truth.”

Lacey quickly spoke up with clear, calm eloquence. “That
is
the truth, Alex. Even after what you did—pushing her away and acting like a pig—she
misses you.”

And there it was. He’d been an insufferable dick. Clinging to things well past their
expiration date. It all made sense now. For years, he’d punished himself for stuff
he never really had control over no matter what bullshit he tried to believe. Alex
had always known that authority wasn’t the same thing as control but hadn’t fully
internalized what that meant. By going away when he practically demanded she leave,
Meghan had left him with his pathetic need intact to be the one with the power; but
without her in his life, the brutal truth was it was all so very empty, hollow, and
meaningless.

He also knew that missing him wasn’t the same as forgiving. Or needing. He‘d have
to bring something tangible and real to the table if he hoped to fix the mess he’d
made. Being someone with zero experience in these matters, he turned to his sisters-in-law
for guidance. “What should I do?”

Tori and Lacey smiled. Drae and Cam exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

“Um,” Alex mumbled before they could answer, anxiously, scraping his fingers through
his hair. He didn’t care who the fuck knew he was a total head case about this woman.
It was the truth. “When you talk to Meghan, will you….I mean, are you going to let
her know I asked?”

Suddenly he was the center of an affectionate pregnant sandwich as two bellies pressed
in on him from either side with both women hugging him tight. Feeling their approval
and unconditional love kept his feet on the ledge. Maybe he didn’t have to jump headfirst
into oblivion after all.

“Alright, alright,” Cam chuckled. “Jesus ladies. Let the man breathe,” he teased,
peeling his wife off Alex’s body.

Tori stayed close though, still hugging as hard as her little rounded body would let
her. “Don’t do anything, Boss. I mean it,” she chided. “You’ll put your foot in it
for sure. Let me talk to her and see which way the wind is blowing. It’s getting late
on the East Coast but I’m going to try calling her in a bit.”

Alex hugged her back. “Thanks babe. I’ll owe you one.”

“No, Dad. Not necessary.” Her sweet smile warmed his heart. When Drae came and slung
an arm about his wife’s shoulders, the husband and wife exchanged a meaningful look.

“We just want you to be happy, Alex. If anything, we’re paying
you
back for helping us when we lost our way.” Drae nodded at his wife’s well-spoken
sentiment.

Squeezing his hand for reassurance she promised to let him know after she’d reached
Meghan but reminded him not to expect too much at first. He knew he’d hurt her but
hearing the warning in Tori’s words made his blood run cold.
Please God,
he silently prayed. Don’t let it be too late.

“Mom,” Meghan groaned as she pressed her head into her hands. “Please stop with the
questions. I don’t want to talk about it, so drop the whole thing, okay?”

Snorting furiously, Maggie O’Brien bit back, “I most certainly will not, young lady.
And you’d do well to remember who you’re talking to, missy. I can get your father
up here in two minutes.” The tone in her voice and fire in her mother’s eyes were
intended to make a point. Yep.
Bull’s eye
, she thought.
Dammit.

Defeated by the old threat, Meghan gave in. Nothing was worse than seeing disappointment
in her father’s eyes so she braced herself for the onslaught of questions coming her
way. She wasn’t mad or even annoyed. It was just that she didn’t have any answers.
None that made sense, anyway.

“Meghan Elizabeth O’Brien. I’m surprised you would even try and keep anything from
me. When I left you in California, your plan was to wander around the southwest for
awhile before moving on to New Orleans.”

Meghan was uncomfortable being reminded of her original plans. So much had changed
since the spa retreat with her mom.

“And the next thing I know, you’re staying at some private hacienda in the desert.
No explanation. Nothing. Now here you are, back in Boston with your tail between your
legs and
no comment
plastered on your face.” Her mother wiped her hands on the apron she wore and sighed,
exasperated at Meghan.

“
Mo stoirín
,” Maggie O’Brien whispered the old Irish saying that meant ‘my little darling.’ As
the only girl in the family, the expression was a special endearment just for her.
“It’s been weeks, darling. You’re not eating or sleeping, and you walk around here
like a thousand pound weight is strapped to your back. This isn’t like you Meggie.”

She winced at her mother’s apt description.

In a gentle voice her mother prompted, “Tell me about this Major you’re trying so
hard not to speak about.”

Leave it to Ma to zero in on the substance right away. Meghan looked away and searched
for the best answer to the simple question. Everything about the room they were in
screamed comfortable. It was familiar and solid, just like her childhood. But the
matter of Alex Marquez was none of those things. Not comfortable. Certainly not solid
and completely
un
-familiar.

Collapsing in a soft overstuffed chair like a puppet whose strings were suddenly cut,
Meghan swung her legs over the arm and sat sideways, a brooding frown on her face.
Picking at imaginary lint on her clothes, she smoothed her top and heaved a deep sigh.
“His name is Alex. Alexander Valleja-Marquez.”

Her mother’s eyebrows shot up. “Well that sounds rather old worldly.”

Meghan snorted in amusement. Old worldly. Yeah, on the outside maybe. Inside however
beat the heart of a primal warrior. She couldn’t see herself explaining that to her
mom.

Shrugging, she tried acting like it was no big deal. “Yeah. He’s some sort of ancestral
Spanish Don. The hacienda dates back in his family to the early eighteen hundreds
and is more like an entire village on hundreds of acres than a simple home.”

“How is it you came to be staying with a Spanish Don in the middle of the desert?
You’re leaving an awful lot out, daughter.”

She looked into her mother’s face and dropped the bomb in the story. “He was David’s
commanding officer in Afghanistan.” Letting the facts sink in, Meghan gave it a minute
then kept talking.

“He wrote to me about David’s military service a couple of months after his funeral.
We exchanged some letters and still send a card during the holidays. I knew he lived
outside Sedona and decided to pay a visit. That’s the simplest way of explaining how
we know each other.”

“Why on God’s green earth would you decide to pay a visit?” her mother asked incredulously.

There was no way she was going to be able to keep anything secret from her mom now
that she was, more or less, letting the cat out of the bag.

“Mom, don’t freak out but…David was gay.”

Her mother’s shocked gasp filled the air.

Meghan hurried to fill in the blanks while she watched her mother grapple with that
bit of news. “I didn’t even realize it till after he went back overseas that last
time. And for the record, Mike knows. We talked about it. It’s way complicated and
to be honest, I’m not even sure David had admitted it to himself. But all the signs
were there.” She hurried out the rest of the story before she lost her nerve. “We
never did anything more than hold hands and a little kissing. He was never going to
marry me, and it’s important you know that. I’ve kept this a secret all these years
because I didn’t want to harm his memory.”