Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (40 page)

“He didn’t believe you belonged to him.” There was a curious light in her eyes, almost one of interest, as though she wondered how he would react.

He didn’t react at all. He didn’t give a shit one way or the other what the bastard thought of him, but he was curious as to whether or not he shared blood with the man he had known as his biological father.

“Did I?”

“Of course you did. I may have been a whore, Clinton, but I was a careful one. You were his.”

The mocking quirk at the corner of her lips no longer had the power to hurt him or to make him angry. It served instead to emphasize the fact that she really didn’t give a damn.

“So why did he believe otherwise?”

She sighed as though tired, turning away from him and pacing to a tall shelf on the other side of the room. There, numerous picture frames graced the shelves. There were a few family pictures, but most of them were of Raven, Raven and their father, Raven and their mother. There were very few of Clint.

“I never claimed to be a good mother.” Her lips flattened as she stared back at him. “But lately, as I’ve realized how quickly age is creeping up on me, I’ve regretted many things. I let him believe it, because it hurt him. It hurt him the way it hurt me each time he went to another woman. Each time he came home and spent his nights away from the house. So I let him believe it.”

“You let him beat the hell out of me.”

“You survived.”

He had the impression she would have rolled her eyes if she weren’t too scared to.

“I survived?” he snapped. “I could barely move for days, damn you. He took that fucking belt of his and beat the shit
out of me and you didn’t even care enough to keep him from catching you whenever you screwed around. I was a child.”

“And you’re a man now,” she shot back, as cold and unfeeling as she had ever been. “Your father was raised to believe the strap was the only answer to anything. He never broke your bones; he didn’t leave scars. It wasn’t my fault he blamed my infidelities on you.”

“It was your place to protect your children.” His fists clenched at his sides, not because he wanted to strike her, but because in that moment he realized how much of his life he had wasted caring one way or the other why his parents had done anything.

“He was a hard man, but he provided for you.” She finally shrugged. “You and I, we were never close. Even when you were a baby, you didn’t care much for me.” Her lips twisted bitterly, accusingly. “You didn’t want to be held and cuddled like Raven did. You were always content to be alone, unless you needed to be fed or changed. You didn’t want a mother; you wanted a caretaker.”

He blinked back at her in surprise.

“You’re as crazy as he was,” he finally said softly, not really surprised or shocked.

“I’m not crazy, Clinton.” Her smile was mocking. “I didn’t want children; your father did. He forced me to conceive you, and then he convinced himself you didn’t belong to him. I didn’t claim I was right or wrong, but I knew he would never kill you, nor maim you. You grew up fine.”

He grew up to hate his parents; he grew up with a cynicism and distrust that had shadowed his every move, his every relationship.

“You’re more like him than you know.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and watched him with calculated interest. “A Navy SEAL. He lived for the service, for his men. You even look like him now. He would have been proud of you had he lived.”

Joy-joy. The distaste Clint felt as he watched her filled
his mouth with a sour taste. This woman had borne him, nothing more. She hadn’t been a mother then, and she wasn’t a mother now.

“So, are you marrying the Chavez girl?” she asked curiously. “She’s been flipping her tail around you for years. Did you know she came to see me the other day?”

He watched Linda closely. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yes.” She smiled coolly. “She was upset. She tore into me quite furiously, actually. I’m surprised you told her about the beatings. You were always very aware of family loyalty, even as a child. You’ve changed over the years.”

“Family loyalty,” he murmured mockingly. “There would have to be a family first, Mother.”

Her lips tightened in irritation. “As I said, she was upset. Very protective.” Rather than the sneer he expected, there was a slight softening to her lips, a glimmer of respect in her eyes. But her next words came close to pissing him off. “Did she finally manage to get you to knock her up? Is that why you’re getting married?”

He shook his head, admitting that maybe he
was
in shock. His mother had more nerve than he gave her credit for.

“She isn’t pregnant,” he said, dazed when he knew he shouldn’t be.

The knowledge that Morganna had been there shouldn’t have surprised him. He should have expected it. She was like a tigress. It didn’t matter that in this, he needed no protection; he had been defending himself against his family most of his life.

For all her makeup, girlie-girl habits, and social skills, Morganna had a core of pure steel. He would never get anything over on her, not that he would want to, but she would never allow it. No more than she had allowed his mother to.

“Of course she’s pregnant.” His mother laughed softly. “You loathe the idea of marriage. You always have. She’s obviously trapped you and thought she could cement it by
appearing here and raging at me over motherhood and protection. It was an obvious ploy of some sort.”

“No, Mother,” he said gently. “There was no ploy, just as there is no pregnancy. Because I had a vasectomy years ago to ensure I never fucked up like you and that bastard you married did.” He ignored the surprise in her gaze. “I’m sorry I bothered you today. I’ll be leaving now.”

“I would have liked grandchildren.” The sudden regret in her eyes sickened him. Regret, from a woman who had never allowed her son an iota of hope that he could escape the next beating, that he would ever have a father.

“Then hope Raven never learns how cold you can be,” he sighed. “Because God as my witness, I could never trust you with a child of mine.”

He turned from her, stalking to the door and jerking it open as he felt the regret sinking into his bones. What had he expected after all this time? June Cleaver?

He pulled the door shut as he dug the keys from his pocket and moved to his truck. Hell, he had wasted enough time on this, enough time letting the past and his own fears ruin the one dream that had clung to his soul no matter how hard he had fought to be rid of it.

Morganna. And if there was one thing he was damned certain of, even if the monster of his father did lurk within him, Morganna would make sure it was kicked out fast, while she kicked his ass to hell and back. No one would ever threaten a child of hers.

He wiped his hand over his face before unlocking the truck and moving into the driver’s seat. It was time to find his future, rather than fearing his past. And his future was with Morganna.

As Clint’s pickup reversed from the driveway and accelerated down the street, Raven stepped slowly down the stairs. She wasn’t supposed to have been there. The cab had arrived on time, but she had forgotten some pictures she
wanted upstairs. Pictures of her father. The man who had sung to her, laughed with her, who had treasured her. The monster who had beaten Clint. She had sent the cab back and re-entered the house, never thinking that her mother hadn’t heard her.

As she had listened to the conversation downstairs, the past flashed before her eyes. Clint as a young teenager, no more than fifteen, claiming he was sick, pale and weak after his father returned home, every time his father returned home. How he would stay in bed for days, sometimes not even eating unless Raven badgered him. He had left when she was still a child. The night her brother had turned seventeen he had walked out of the house and joined the Army. He hadn’t even finished high school.

She had been young, too young to understand, but the guilt ate at her anyway.

She stepped into the living room, watching as her mother turned from the large window, where she had watched Clint leave. Her cool gray eyes widened, darkened, then filled with wary fear.

The emotion Raven saw in her mother’s eyes as she realized she had overheard every word should have made her feel better. Raven had been the princess. The treasured child. She had been spoiled and loved and had felt nothing more than a strong resentment to her mother for driving her father away. Raven had never known about the affairs or Clint’s pain. And she hated herself for that. Hated the fact that she hadn’t seen how Clint had suffered.

Raven laid the pictures on the table beside the door and stared back at the other woman as pain rose within her.

“I knew you were cold-hearted.” She could barely force the words past her lips. “I knew that somewhere, somehow, there was something missing in you that could have allowed you to love—”

“This isn’t your business,” her mother snapped, her gray
eyes darkening in anger. “You weren’t supposed to be here. And I have always loved you, Raven. Always.”

Raven lowered her head and stared down at the picture that lay on top of the small stack she had chosen. Her father. He looked so much like Clint. He had been so gentle to her; he had loved her. Hadn’t he? She shook her head. You can’t love one child and nearly destroy another. It couldn’t be possible.

“I can’t see you for a while, Mother,” she whispered painfully as she laid her hand on her stomach, resting her palm against the child she suspected grew there. Her child. Hers and Reno’s. A child who would never, ever know the fear Clint had lived through.

“It’s all his fault,” her mother snarled as Raven lifted her eyes. “That damned Clinton’s. He was always ruining things. If he had learned to lie when he was a boy he wouldn’t have been beaten near as often. All he had to do was lie to his father.”

“He was your son.”

Her mother’s face was twisted into a grimace as her eyes narrowed with icy warning. “He has always been a thorn in my side. I won’t allow him to ruin what we’re finally rebuilding.”

Their relationship had deteriorated after Raven’s father’s death. She had believed the fights revolved around her father’s career, the danger it represented, and many had. But the underlying reasons were suddenly clearer. It wasn’t because he’d gone to war; it was because of her mother’s own selfishness and her father’s cold determination to punish someone for it. Anyone but the woman he had married.

“We were rebuilding nothing,” Raven finally told her hoarsely. “Maybe, later, I’ll be able to look at you without remembering all the years Clint suffered. One day, maybe. But I’ll never forgive you for what you and Father did to him. I’ll never forgive either of you.”

She left the pictures where she had laid them, opened the door, and walked out. She ignored her mother’s cry, the sound of her name echoing from inside the house as she pulled her cell phone from the fanny pack she wore and dialed her husband’s number.

“Hey, baby, are you home yet?” His voice came over the line as she began walking down the sidewalk.

“Reno—” Her breath caught as the tears began.

“Raven? Baby, what’s wrong?” She heard the alarm in his voice, the fear.

“I’m fine. I’m safe. I need you to come get me.”

“Where are you?”

She stared around her. There was a deli at the end of the street. She could wait there. She told him where she was, breathing in roughly, fighting to hold back her tears as she wiped her fingers over her damp cheeks.

“I need you,” she whispered as she ducked her head, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. “I need you now.”

“I’m heading your way.” Of course he would be. She could hear the squeal of his tires, the concern that radiated over the line. “Stay on the phone with me, baby. I’m twenty minutes away. I’m coming.”

“Do you know I love you?” She had to tell him. “How sorry I am that I ran from you for so long?”

“I’ll spank you again for that later. How does that sound?” The forced teasing in his tone had a smile trembling on her lips.

“Promise?”

“Always, baby. Forever. You sure you’re okay, Raven? You’re crying.” His voice was tight, and though he was holding back, she could hear the dread in his tone.

“I’ve been at Mother’s.” Not “Mom’s.” Never “Mom” again.

“Yeah. I knew that. Did you argue?”

“No.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Not physically.”

His muttered curse was filled with regret.

“Just come get me, Reno.” Her breathing hitched as she entered the thankfully nearly deserted deli. “I just want to go home.”

She wanted to lie beside him, feel the warmth of his arms holding her, and let her tears fall. She needed to cry, not just for herself or the shattered image of the father she had loved, but for Clint.

At least she had known the fantasy of a loving parent. Her mother had always been cool, disinterested, but her father—She breathed in jerkily. She had thought he was a hero. Clint had never been given the chance to know the love of either parent, and it was breaking her heart.

She just wanted to go home, find solace in her husband’s arms, then kick her brother’s ass for keeping such secrets from her. That was, if Morganna didn’t kick his ass first just for being a stubborn male.

Clint slipped into Morganna’s house several days later using the spare key that had been kept hidden at the bottom of the mailbox. She was mad, steaming mad, but clearing up the mess of the date rape drug hadn’t been easy. He had no more left his mother’s home than Joe Merino called. Jenna had talked, and they had the location of the lab.

Clint had been damned surprised to learn that Morganna wasn’t a part of breaking down the lab. Even more surprised to find out that she had accepted a position training to work in the local intelligence-gathering office.

Yeah, she would be good at that. She was as nosy as a damned cat. And it would keep her out of the line of fire for the next two years at least. Until he could retire. Until he could devote himself to her and maybe raising a kid or two.

The sound of the shower running upstairs caught his attention as he closed the door carefully and relocked it. He had been five days returning to her. Five days of hell. Sleeping wasn’t an option; all he thought of was Morganna. He missed the warmth of her, missed the sound of her laughter, her smart-assed comments. Hell, he craved the sound of her whispered moans, the feel of her lips beneath his. Her presence.