The Ranger's Destiny (Army Ranger Romance Book 6) Read online

  “Okay. What about tonight?”

  She shrugged again. “Sure. Tonight. We can go right now.”

  “Separately,” he pointed out as she started saying goodnight to the dogs.

  “Of course.” She sighed, turning back to the animals. “Fiona will be by to check on you guys later.”

  She found Mason smiling when they stepped outside. “What?” she asked, frowning.

  “The way you talk to them. It’s sweet.” He was still smiling as he slid into his car.

  Her heart pounded as she slid into her car. Had she left anything laying out in her house? Underwear maybe? Or something similarly embarrassing? There was nothing to do but pray as she sped home, hoping to get there before he did.

  As it turned out, the presence of errant underwear wasn’t the trouble.

  When Mason first entered and set down the box of materials he planned to install, his attention immediately shifted to a cluster of photos mounted just inside the front door.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, smiling as he went from one to the other.

  She gulped. Right. Jack hadn’t come up in conversation yet, but there he was. In her lap on the playground swing. In his highchair at her kitchen table. Wearing a little conductor hat while playing with a toy train.

  “That’s Jack.” She sighed, smiling at the dark curls and solemn eyes that always struck her as holding deep wisdom. “He’s my little boy.”

  Chapter 20

  “Your son?” Mason asked hesitantly.

  “That’s him.” She blinked, waiting for him to respond, but this newest bit of information seemed to have sealed his mouth shut. “Is that a problem?” she asked. Why was her heart in her throat?

  Because she knew this would happen, didn’t she? That once Mason learned how complicated her life was, he’d run for the hills. Somewhere along the way, she’d managed to forget this. Maybe around the time of their almost kiss. No, before then.

  Had there ever been a chance of guarding her heart against him? Or was she only kidding herself the whole time?

  She pulled her shoulders back, lifting her chin. Bracing herself.

  He finally found his tongue. “Of course it isn’t. I found out about him when I was briefed for the job, but you’ve never mentioned him, so I didn’t bring him up. Why don’t you talk about your son? Were you afraid to?”

  “Honestly? Maybe a little,” she admitted, blushing. But she wouldn’t back down. “There are a lot of men out there who balk at the barest mention of a child. I guess it’s understandable. I sure wasn’t ready when he came into my life.”

  “I guess no parent is.” He frowned, brows knitting together over the bridge of his nose. “And Jack’s father couldn’t be bothered to stick around, I guess? No, no, that’s none of my business.” He turned his attention to the items he’d been in the middle of preparing.

  Laying a gentle hand over his so he’d finally stop fidgeting long enough to listen, she asked, “Do you want to know the full story? Because it’s not what you think it is, I bet.”

  Curiosity sparked behind his green eyes. “Okay. You know you don’t owe me any explanation, right? Your life is your life.”

  “Just the same. It’s not like I’d be ashamed if Jack was my biological son, but he isn’t. He’s my nephew.”

  Mason’s mouth fell open. “Your nephew?”

  “I adopted him a year ago when my sister and her husband…died.” The words still stuck in her throat, even after all that time.

  With shaking hands, she opened the desk drawer and pulled out a small photo album. The names Holly and Hannah graced the front, spelled out in stickers. Some of them were peeling at the corners. “I’ll have to glue those,” she said quietly, smoothing them down.

  Flipping the album open was what she imagined cracking open her heart would feel like. Seeing her sister’s smile—so big, ear-to-ear, full of mischief and laughter—had the same effect as a hand gripping her heart and squeezing hard.

  “She looked just like you.” Mason’s voice was soft, heavy with sympathy.

  “She was much prettier somehow,” Holly whispered, looking over photos she knew by heart. The two of them at the pool, both of them practically blinding everyone around them thanks to their goofy smiles, braces, and the summer sun. Dressed up for Halloween, posing in front of the Christmas tree with their older brother, Bryan, towering over them. “She had that spark, you know? She lit up a room. She was friends with absolutely everyone, not a single enemy in the world. Everyone loved her. Eric adored her.”

  “Her husband?”

  “Mm-hmm. I always used to…never mind.” No sense sharing quite that much. Mason didn’t need to know how Holly had envied the love between her sister and brother-in-law, how she’d longed for a love like that in her life. “Anyway, a drunk driver took them both away. According to their will, they wanted me to be Jack’s guardian. He was two years old. I adopted him full-out since I want to be sure he’ll be taken care of should anything happen to me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll—” He cut himself off, probably because what he’d been about to say was nothing more than kind nonsense. She was young, yes, but so were Hannah and Eric.

  Not to mention the fact that Mason was in her life because of the threat against her. She wasn’t safe.

  She cleared her throat, moving past the awkwardness of the moment. “That’s why I call Jack my son. For the past year, I’ve raised him. He started calling me Mama, and no matter how many times we’ve corrected him—me, Mom, my brother Bryan—he refuses to change his ways.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “My parents divorced when I was little, and my mom never remarried. He lives in Canada now, teaching little league hockey.” Turning to Mason, she added, “I’ll never let him forget his mom and dad or how much they loved him. He’ll see all the photos of Hannah’s pregnancy, the videos she and Eric made with him, all of it. I want him to know them. But he’s my adopted son too.”

  “You don’t have to defend yourself.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  When he tipped his head to the side, eyes narrowing, she gave in. “Maybe I was a little. I don’t want you to think I’m selfish.”

  “Selfish?” He shook his head. “What you’re doing is the least selfish thing I’ve ever heard. I mean that,” he added when she rolled her eyes.

  “I’m doing what feels right.” She shrugged.

  “Which is what makes you an extraordinary person.” He lifted his arms a little like he wanted to reach out and put his arms around her but dropped them quickly, a sheepish little half-smile lifting his lips.

  Wasn’t that how she wanted it? Wasn’t she furious with him for violating her trust and treating her like a child? She didn’t want him to hold her or to touch her at all, right?

  Wrong. The last few days had taught her that was as far from the truth as she could get, and she’d been treating him like he’d committed a cardinal sin when all he was doing was his job—a job she’d made difficult.

  She stepped into him and flattened her palm against his chest. “I need to tell you I’m sorry for being so angry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for the way I treated you. You were doing what you were trained to do. I hadn’t given you any choice in putting the tracker on my car. If you’d have asked, I would have said no. If you’d listened to me…” The words trailed off as the lump in her throat grew. “Thank you for putting up with me.”

  His fingers brushed the side of her face as his hand came to rest on her cheek. When their eyes locked, one side of his lips tugged upward into a smile, and all she could do was think what it’d be like to kiss him. “I’ve dealt with worse.” For the briefest moment, his gaze dipped to her lips like he was reading her mind. “I just want you to be safe.”

  Right. Safe. Only, the last few days spent with him at arms-length made her realize she was less angry and more terrified of what could happen if she handed him her heart. Worse, what if she didn’t and she let him walk away? Neith
er were options she liked. Maybe once this was all over…maybe. For now, she’d enjoy his company and hope they were meant for more.

  “I guess you’d better get to work, then,” she offered, stepping back to give him space. “I’ll be in the kitchen fixing us something to eat if you need anything.”

  “Can I make a request?” he asked in such an uncertain tone that it stopped her in her tracks. “No rice, please?”

  She nodded. “Okay. No rice. That’s easy enough.”

  But unsettling somehow.

  * * *

  What was the matter with him?

  Mason grumbled to himself as he got to work, beginning with installing sensors on the windows. Here she was, the perfect woman. The sort who only turned out to be more perfect the more he knew about her.

  How many times had people let him down when the first impression they gave turned out to be nothing but a mask they wore to lure people in and make them seem likable? Enough that he’d learned to guard himself against it.

  Then there was Holly, only improving his opinion with everything she did. She was a woman who needed much more than he’d ever be able to give.

  He closed his eyes for a second, letting the acknowledgment of it wash over him. She deserved better than a man all broken up inside, who could barely get through a night’s sleep without at least one nightmare bad enough to leave him in a cold sweat. Who had no idea how to love the way she needed. The way he desperately wanted to love her.

  “Shoot!” he spat when the screwdriver missed its mark and skittered off, scraping against his knuckles. If he was alone, he might’ve thrown the thing on the floor and cursed it a little. As it was, he still considered throwing a little tantrum. Not that it would’ve helped his stinging knuckles.

  You’re no good. You worthless piece of— Mason flinched away from the memory, so many memories. Voices he hadn’t heard in years, repeating the same message. That he wasn’t worth anything, would never amount to anything.

  “Mason?”

  He whirled around, and Holly fell back with a soft cry at the sight of the screwdriver in his fist. He looked down at it, guilty. “Sorry. Don’t worry. I’m not going to attack.”

  She waved her hands. “I didn’t think that. It sounded like you hurt yourself, so I came to see if you needed help.”

  A laugh escaped before he could stop it. “Yeah. I think I could use some help, to be honest. But not the sort you meant.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Okay. What sort?”

  “I shouldn’t have said it. Don’t pay any attention to me. I scraped my hand is all.” He waved it off, turning back to the window. The best thing she could do now was leave him be. He knew how to be alone, didn’t he? It was his natural state.

  “You’re upset. I know I said I’d be in the kitchen, but I can’t be in there while you’re out here brooding.” She spoke gently, but it did nothing to soothe him.

  “I’m not brooding. I have work to do.”

  “What’s really wrong? Tell me the truth, please. I thought…”

  He placed another sensor next to the window lock so an alarm would go off if the window was raised even a hairsbreadth. “What did you think?”

  “I thought we were better than this. What changed? You’re sullen now. Is it because of Jack?”

  He shook his head, eyes on the sensor as he unscrewed the battery casing. If the darn things weren’t so tiny… “Of course not! I told you, what you’re doing is selfless and admirable. He’s lucky to have you, the way everyone in your life is lucky to have you.”

  Her hand covered his, bringing his work to a halt. “What is it, then? Does my having a child freak you out that much?”

  “That’s not it at all.” He gave up the pretense of working since there was no way of getting anything done with her hand over his anyway. “It’s much more complicated.”

  “Tell me about it,” she urged, taking the alarm from his hand and setting it aside. “I want to understand. I really do.”

  That wasn’t the problem, the wanting to understand. It was whether she’d want to know him anymore after he’d opened up. After his past was laid bare.

  “I’m not the man.” He spread his open arms in a shrug. “That’s the truth. I’m not the man who could ever provide what you deserve. I’ve never seen a decent loving family. All I’ve ever known is a parade of stepparents, fighting, and screaming. People too busy hating each other to pay attention to the kids in the house.”

  He pointed to the photo album Holly had left out on the desk. “Those happy family photos? They may as well have been taken on another planet since I have no idea how any such thing is possible. Warm memories, holidays, family meals? I’d microwave canned pasta for me and my stepsiblings, and we’d eat together at the kitchen table—if the kitchen hadn’t been torn apart by a fight or if one or the other of our parents wasn’t on the warpath. That was as good as it ever got.”

  “Oh, Mason…” Tears filled her eyes, and he instantly regretted opening up.

  “I shouldn’t have told you that.” He turned around, fingers laced behind his head. His chest was so tight, the weight of shame and regret making it tough to breathe.

  The touch of Holly’s hands on his shoulders with the pressure of her head against his back was a comfort he feared he didn’t deserve. “Just because that happened to you doesn’t mean you don’t have a tremendous amount of love to give. You deserve to know what it feels like to love and to be loved. You deserve that.”

  “I don’t have the first idea where to start,” he confessed. “I’d never know if I was doing a good job. If I was doing the right thing to if there was something else I could do better—”

  “Breathe.” He heard her take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly. “Just breathe. Get out of your head for a second, you know? Take it easy on yourself.”

  He did as he was told, and the tightness started to ease. He felt her nod against his back. “Good. You’re here, with me. You’re safe. Nothing that happened to you back then needs to have anything to do with the man you are now. You’ve got to have a little faith in yourself.”

  “That’s easy to say.”

  “I know it is.” She chuckled. “That doesn’t make it any less true. You’ve been fed all these lies about yourself and about what it takes to be a good man. You’re already a good man. Very good. The way you make it sound, you took care of the younger kids in your house. You’ve been taking care of others your entire life. How can you think you’re anything less than special?”

  He hardly dared to hope she was right. But he wanted to, so badly, more than he’d ever wanted anything in life. “It’s going to take a little time to believe that,” he admitted. “There’s more, too, a lot more. I’m a complicated person.”

  Her laughter was soft and held an understanding. “Aren’t we all, Mason? But I’m still standing here with you. Complicated isn’t scary.”

  Maybe it was the touch of her hands, or the certainty in her voice.

  Whatever it was, it was enough to give him hope for the first time in a very long time.

  Chapter 21

  By the time Holly finished washing up the dishes and clearing away any leftover bits of packaging from the new equipment Mason had finished installing, it was well past midnight. If she’d listened to Kennedy, they would have installed way more cameras from the very beginning. Holly rolled her head on her shoulders, tired and sore after helping him hold cameras and lights while he worked to fix them in place.

  It was a good sort of tired, though. The fact that she felt safer than she had in weeks went a long way toward giving her a sense of ease.

  She dried her hands on a dishtowel before slinging it over the handle to the oven. Now that Mason understood the full stakes involved in putting an end to the dogfighting ring—the fact that she’d sent Jack to live with her mother until things blew over, for one—he seemed more determined than ever to get things in order.

  When was the last time she’d fel
t hopeful?

  “No…no!” She wouldn’t have been able to hear Mason if the water was still running. Now, it sent her heart to her throat as she hurried out from the kitchen to where she’d left Mason sitting on the sofa. He was supposed to be testing the feed from the cameras mounted at all four corners of the house and over the front door.

  He must’ve fallen asleep at some point as his head was lolling back against the cushions, the remote still in his hand. “No…stop…don’t…” He turned his head from side to side, perspiration glistening on his forehead. The desperation in his voice and the twisting of his handsome features just about broke her.

  “Mason?” She kept her distance, hovering but far enough away that he wouldn’t feel threatened when he woke up. “Mason, you’re okay. It’s a nightmare. Wake up.” She nudged his knee as gently as she could and jumped back when he jerked awake.

  He blinked hard, rubbing a hand over his face as he came back to reality. It was clear when he understood where he was since the lines in his forehead smoothed out and he let out a long shaky breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What are you apologizing for? You had a nightmare. It happens to everyone.” She lifted the glass of water he’d left on the coffee table, holding it out. “Here. Drink. You’re okay now.”

  He nodded, but there was a look on his face that told her he didn’t agree. “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever had one in front of anyone before.”

  “Do you have them a lot?” She perched on the arm of a nearby chair, careful to give him his space even though the desire to hold him nearly overwhelmed her. After pushing him as far away as she knew how, he’d still offered her the same level of protection since he’d arrived.

  “Every night, or just about,” he said quietly, looking down at the glass he still held. “Certain things stick with a person.”