The Second Chance Hero (3 page)

As he walked into the backyard at Meg and Jason’s house, he felt almost normal. Looking to his right, Kim practically skipped off when she saw the kids, and Owen turned toward his friends while still keeping his eyes on her. She was so damned adorable.

“There’s our missing warrior!” Meg Rossi-Campbell, his friend Jason’s wife, greeted him with a warm, tight hug. Meg and Jason married to protect his niece from a custody suit, but stayed together because they were made for each other. Meg, a gorgeous bombshell blonde, had a big heart and an even bigger personality. It took Jason a while to realize how lucky he was to have her in his life, and he’d spent every day since that epiphany making her happy. She was now pregnant for the second time since they’d been married and adopted Molly. Child number three would arrive in a few months.

“You should have come over sooner.” She slapped his arm and he warmed at the affection. Owen hadn’t really seen anyone except his parents and his sister Melinda. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I needed some time to settle in.”

“Hmmpf,” she muttered. “That’s what they all say. I guess I have to cut you some slack.”

“Thanks.” He looped his arm around her shoulder and walked with her toward the larger group. He felt good, happy, as he approached. He loved his parents and sister, but these people had seen him through some very tough times. Owen, Jason Campbell, and their friend Nate Bayard had known each other over twenty years since they landed in the same prep school English class. They played hockey together, tried to figure out girls, and got into plenty of trouble. They went their separate ways with Jason going to MIT, Nate going to Duke, and Owen going to the Naval Academy, but their bond, their friendship, stayed strong.

They couldn’t have been more different, yet they were more alike than any of them wanted to admit. Driven almost to distraction, the three of them built Reliance into a security software giant that generated billions of dollars.

Billions
. He still couldn’t believe it. He also couldn’t believe when a profile of the three of them appeared in a popular magazine right before his deployment. Like days before he left. He’d caught a lot of shit from his troops for the piece, which detailed exactly how rich he’d become. They wanted to know why he didn’t buy his way out of Afghanistan.

But the fact was, it wasn’t until this very last tour that he considered resigning his commission.

He grabbed a beer and joined the conversation, but found he was stealing looks at Kim whenever he could. He really wanted to know her story. What had she been doing the past year? Why was she a nanny and not working as a nurse?

Jason nudged him with his elbow and nodded toward Kim. “She’s nice, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she has a lot of spirit.” He had to keep this general.

“Tough loss she suffered.”

Owen started to say something and then held back. He didn’t know how much anyone knew about Kim’s experience, and he wasn’t going to be the one to say anything. “How much did she tell you? She doesn’t seem to like talking about it.”

“She doesn’t. She told Harper that after her fiancé was killed and brought to the hospital where she was serving, she couldn’t go back to nursing. She’s a trauma nurse, I guess, and couldn’t face it. A secretary at the office knows her somehow and recommended her to Harper for the nanny position. She’s been a real asset. Kevin and Harper both love her. She’s great with all the kids.” Jason pointed at her in the play area he’d built behind their pool, surrounded by happy children.

Obviously, Kim didn’t tell them everything. Then he wouldn’t, either.

“I guess she needed a change,” Owen said. “Not a bad idea.”

“How are you doing?”

“Better. It took a lot out of me and I’ve been sleeping a lot more than I usually do. I guess I needed some downtime after I got home, but I’m ready to get back to work.”

Jason patted his back, glad for the news.

“So, Meg’s knocked up again?” Owen asked. “How many are you planning? Eight? Ten?”

Jason grinned. “That sounds about right. You need to find yourself a woman, my friend. You have some catching up to do.”

Right then, Kim walked over to the cooler and grabbed a soda. “Did you get your job back?”

Jason looked between Owen and Kim and back again, the look on his face telling Owen his friend wasn’t quite following.

“Ah, he’s thinking about it.” He really needed Jason to pick up on this scam with her or he was going to go down in flames.

“Thinking about what?” Shit. Jason was really confused. He wasn’t usually slow.

“Jason, really?” Kim chided. “A vet?”

“We employ a lot of vets. What are you talking about?”

“Owen,” she said sweetly.

Owen was standing behind her and he was really touched that she would try to go to bat for him, but he wasn’t going to let this joke go without having a little more fun. He got Jason’s attention, and finally his buddy seemed to grasp what was going on. He played it up.

“You know, Kim, I need people with a very specific skill set and our friend here was out of the country a long time. I do have a maintenance position that needs filling, though.”

“Are you kidding?” God, if looks could kill, Jason would be dead. This was awesome.

“Kidding about what?” Harper had arrived and Owen got a look at a completely different woman than the one he had known before he left. She looked softer, happier, and she had a baby settled comfortably on her hip. “Hiya, handsome,” she said, giving him a hug and a kiss. “So what’s the joke?”

Kim wasn’t shy, she jumped right in, and once again Owen was really taken by the fact that she wanted to help him, but she wasn’t going to be so happy in a minute. Not when she found out they were messing with her. “Jason is deciding if Owen can have his job back.”

Harper’s brows pulled together and her lips turned up at one side. “Is that so?”

“I can’t believe he has to think about it . . .”

“You two are such dirty liars,” Harper snapped.

“Liars?” Kim asked.

Harper turned to her and shook her head. “Owen doesn’t have to ask for his job back.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No.” Harper turned back to him, satisfied.
Damn.
She was going to throw him under the bus. “He owns a third of the company.”

A really big bus.

Kim turned to him with her arms folded, her body language screaming annoyance. She might have been small, but this little pixie was fierce.

“A third of the company?
You’re
the third partner?”

“Yeah.” There was nothing else to say. Nothing.

Harper didn’t let it end there. “The big baby hasn’t been to work for the last few weeks because he was decompressing on his boat.” She bounced Anna on her hip while she eviscerated him. The contradiction wasn’t lost on him. “Ready to get off your ass and earn your keep, big guy?”

He ignored Harper and kept his eyes on Kim, whose gaze was intense and unforgiving. He’d have to remember to get even with Harper.

“You poor thing, stuck on your boat,” Kim crooned. “How do you get by? Are the billions enough?”

He didn’t have a chance to reply because Kim turned on the heel of her little white Keds, flipped her hair, and walked away, back to the kids, while he was left standing there feeling like a shit.

Well, that was fucking perfect.

“You guys have got to stop this tag team teasing you do. Some people don’t think it’s funny.” Harper adjusted Anna on her hip, and Owen would have responded except the pretty little girl cooed and smiled and reached for him.

“Oh, she just saved you, Uncle Owen.”

He didn’t think twice and took the baby from Harper, holding her close and relishing the soft, sweet smell of her hair.

Owen wasn’t a guy who had a lot of experience with kids. He had a small family and his sister had just gotten engaged, so he hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to be around children. He liked them, but holding the baby was new for him. And as her weight settled in his arms, Owen decided it was kinda cool. The kid was looking at him with the most intense blue eyes; he could see the intelligence there. It was fascinating to him. This little life had just started and he’d get to watch her grow.

Without warning, Anna’s smile bloomed again, this time even bigger, and Uncle Owen was her slave.

***

Some men were such jerks. Kim supposed it was in the DNA and most of them couldn’t help it, but you would think that after a year in a war zone, Owen Kent would have had a little of the jerk kicked out of him. Of course she knew she was too sensitive, and what had happened wasn’t that big of a deal. It took years for her to forgive her brothers for teasing her so unmercifully. But part of what had her miffed was the flippin’ dishonesty. What harm would it have been to just tell her he was one of the partners? It’s not like being a billionaire is a bad thing.

She let it sink in.

Wow.

Owen Kent. Billionaire marine. It sounded like the title of a romance novel. What the hell was a guy worth billions doing leading grunts in a combat zone? Kim, still not sure what he was all about, became even more confused, because when she glanced over to where he stood, he was cuddling a baby.
A baby.

And he looked like a natural, too, which had her heart doing a little maternal happy dance. What was it about women and men with babies? Was it the contrast—the big man and the tiny child? Was it something in our DNA that said
reproduce with this one
? She didn’t know, but something inside her moved when she saw Owen babbling to Anna. Something softened, and she found her anger was fading. Damn him.

He turned, and caught her looking.
Of course he did
. And now he was walking toward her, still holding Anna. Once the baby saw Kim she wiggled in Owen’s arms and squealed. Yeah. So much for the mad she was hanging on to.

Taking care of the little girl had done more to bring her back from the dark place she was in than anything else. No psychiatrist, no medication could do for her what this baby had done. When Owen stopped in front of her, Anna lunged and Kim happily took the child off his hands.

“Come here, you beautiful creature,” she said. “You made a new friend?” She looked at Owen as the baby nuzzled. “Watch out for this one, Anna,” Kim whispered to her. “He lies.”

Owen stuffed his hands in his pockets. He deserved that. “Pictures don’t do this kid justice. She’s so pretty.” He reached out and Anna immediately wrapped her hand around one of his fingers. “I can’t believe how much I missed being away.”

“That’s what happens when you deploy. One of my brothers got engaged when I was on my last tour.”

“Are you done?” he asked. It was a common question between those who served. Some people were lifers. They’d stay in the military until they were told it was time to go.

“I’m out. My time was up. I was at the field hospital in Kandahar and saw more than enough to want to stay on this side of the world.”

Kim didn’t want to find Owen so attractive after he messed with her before, but she did. He had a confidence about him that made him so likable. He was easy to talk to, mostly because he actually listened, and Kim hadn’t found many men who fell into that category.

“You had a bad time?”

“I’m sure you know the story? My fiancé was brought into my hospital after he and another guy walked over an IED. He died right in front of me.”

She took a few steps and sat on a nearby bench, still holding Anna, who was quietly sucking her thumb and dozing off.

Owen kept his distance, gave her space, and that was nice—he didn’t overstep simply because they had a common history. But common history or not, he didn’t need to know everything. Kim stopped herself before she said too much. Yet she found she wanted to, and that simple fact, that she wanted to tell him more, made Owen different from everyone else. When he looked in her eyes, and she saw nothing but truth and goodness, Kim wanted to spill everything.

“I can’t imagine how that must have been,” he said quietly. “I’m so very sorry for what you went through.”

Kim’s heart clenched. It was hearing his words—so strong and so sincere, that for the first time in ages, she felt her eyes burn. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He paused, twisted his fingers. Something was on his mind. “I do apologize for not being more upfront about my job situation.”

“You were just teasing,” Kim said.

“Yeah, but I should wait until I get to know people better before I tease them.”

“That might be a good idea.” She laughed, feeling the tension that had swelled between them dissipate. “I’m too sensitive. I have three younger brothers, you’d think I’d be used to it.”

“I have one younger sister,” he shared. “So, I’m very good at it, and Jason and I have perfected the art of the scam.”

“Not Nate?” Nate was also a partner in Reliance, but he didn’t have the big personality of Jason or Owen.

“Nate? Nah. He wouldn’t know how to lie.”

Kim giggled and checked the sleeping baby in her arms. She could feel her blood pressure dropping with every soft puff of Anna’s breath. “So what do you do for the company?”

“I’m the chief information officer.”

“I’ll ask again, what do you do?”

He smiled. God, he was gorgeous when he smiled. “I deal with how the company uses technology and implements it. Basically, I make sure everything works and nobody notices.”

“So you make sure the technology is invisible?”

He chuckled and finally sat next to her, and a little thrill wound through her. “I look at technology to help the business run, using it strategically to support the internal workings of the company. But yes, it should be seamless.”

“Sounds complicated. Did you go to MIT, too?” She was starting to feel intimidated by these people. She went to a state university for nursing.

“No, I went to Navy.”

“Really? The academy? Wow.”

Now she was just flat-out impressed. No one got through any of the service academies without a lot of determination to go along with the brains.

“Yup. Opted into the marines and they put me to work in Intelligence.”