Redeeming Justice (40 page)

“She looks horrible too. Like the light’s gone out of her eyes.”

“Now, come on honey. It’s only because you’re internet chatting. I’m sure her eyes
are just fine.”

“Cameron,” his wife replied tartly. “You know perfectly well what I’m getting at.
Plus Tori says Alex is being impossible at work. And by impossible you know I mean
a bunch of swear words I’d rather our child didn’t hear me say.”

Cam groaned at the reminder of Alex’s shitty attitude. Drae had been bitching up a
storm all morning about the very same thing. He even threatened to march into the
bat cave and knock Alex’s fucking teeth out if he kept on pissing Victoria off. Drae
was incredibly protective and territorial when it came to his pregnant wife, an impulse
he and his brother shared. Their fearless leader was going to get his ass kicked if
he didn’t watch it.

“I want her here when the baby comes.”

Cam gritted his teeth when he saw Lacey’s lower lip tremble.
Aw fuck.
Leave it to the pregnant water nymph nestled in his arms to land the most direct shot
possible, he thought wryly.

“I swear to Christ honey, if you start crying, somebody is gonna die, and it won’t
be pretty.”

Lacey snuggled into his chest and laid her head on his shoulder. Cam kept a protective
hand on her tummy as his mind worked overtime on the problem at hand. With their due
date just around the corner, there wasn’t a lot of time to maneuver.

“Talk to him again. You and Draegyn.” She put her hand on the side of his face so
he would look at her. “He made sure we had our happy ending. Tori and Drae too. It’s
his turn, okay?”

“Understood Ponytail,” he murmured, kissing her softly on the forehead.

Looks like he and Drae were up to bat at the bottom of the ninth inning. No time to
swing wildly or run around without some sort of strategy for bringing this ridiculous
situation home.

“Tori,” Alex muttered harshly. “I’m flying to Washington next week.”

His assistant looked up from the stack of papers she was working on with bewilderment
in her eyes. “Whatever for?” she questioned. “I thought you hated all that D.C. wonky
stuff.”

“Yeah, I do,” he replied with a dismissive shrug. “Command performance. One I can’t
ignore.”

“Oh,” she said with a grave look. “Um, I mean, what do you need from me?”

Alex was exhausted trying to act like everything was fine. It had been weeks since
he’d had his unseemly hissy fit and thrown away the only thing that had brought him
even a moment’s peace in a very long time. In short, he was in a living hell going
through the daily motions, pretending that he gave half a shit.

He didn’t need to go to Washington, and it wasn’t for a command performance. Like
the emotional pussy he was, Alex was filling the empty spaces in his life with random
bullshit he hoped would distract him from the truth. The awful truth that he missed
his Irish fuck goddess and didn’t know how long he could go on like this before he
went insane.

When the opportunity came up to do a bit of geek networking at a security symposium,
he gladly signed on even though the thought made him roll his eyes and shake his head.
He wasn’t in the fucking mood to play nice with others right now but he couldn’t stay
at the Villa much longer without driving everyone around him nuts. He knew Tori was
at the end of her rope with his surly attitude, and it was just a matter of time before
Drae, Cam, or both of them tried to rip his head off for being such an obstinate dick.
Retreat seemed like a viable option and maybe the change of scenery would help.

Yeah, right
. Who the fuck was he kidding? He could pretend all he wanted about symposiums and
changes of scenery but it was all a deflection for what was really going on. By taking
the agency jet to Washington, he’d be on the other side of the country and that much
closer to where Meghan was.

Things had in no way reset after she left. There had been no reboot. No return to
normal. He’d been a tremendous douche but was still so fucking conflicted and tormented
he didn’t know which way was up. At this point he needed fucking satellite imaging
to find his own ass.

“There won’t be much of anything for you to do while I’m gone. You’ll have a bit of
downtime. Give you a chance to work on the nursery.”
There. That sounded reasonable
, right? He was being Mister Magnanimous so why did he still feel like shit?

Leaning back in his swivel chair, Alex stared at the ceiling and didn’t notice his
assistant’s quiet approach until she was almost on top of him.

Wearing a concerned expression, Tori murmured gently, “How much longer are you going
to be the tortured victim, Boss?”

Alex fixed her with a blank stare as if doing so would magically make her back off.

“Oh. Nice try,” she snorted. “You honestly think that’s going to work on a St. John?
I have to put up with that crap from my husband but not from you.”

“I’m not a victim,” he grumbled.

“Oh fuck yeah, you are,” she snapped. Sometimes he forgot how quickly those pregnancy
hormones could take over a conversation.
Shit.

“I know you think you’re the master of your own fate, but honestly Alex – could your
head be any further up your own ass?”

He sighed and rolled his head on his neck to ease the tension. “Lady, something tells
me I’m going to be forced to hear you out so just go for it. Get the lecture over
with so I can get back to what I was doing.”

“That’s just it, Boss! You aren’t actually
doing
anything.” She was waving her arms in frustrated arcs that ended with a both hands
planted firmly at her waist while she tut-tutted and shook her head at him. “Did you
really think you could fool me? You haven’t done one damn thing in the weeks since
Meghan left.” He flinched hearing her name but Tori just kept on ranting.

“You’ve been engaging in classic nerd denial behavior. Yesterday, you spent the whole
damn day updating the calendar and contact list on your phone. The
entire
day, Alex. It was your stupid phone for heaven’s sake. And what was all that bullshit
about searching for productivity apps? You downloaded four games that I highly doubt
have anything to do with work.”

She was right but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it. “What the fuck do you want
me to do, Mrs. St. John?” he growled harshly.

Tori threw up her hands in disgust and glared at him like he was the dumbest fuck
on the planet. “Really?” she sneered. “If that’s how you’re going to play it I’ll
get right to the point. Grow a set of balls Major and fucking get over yourself. Get
up off your butt and go bring Meghan back here and do it before she figures out that
she’s better off without your tortured alpha shit.”

“Tortured alpha shit?” he barked. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Speaking to him like a four-year-old, she spelled it out in terms even he could understand.
Because she was a little thing to begin with, being handed one’s ass by an indignant
elf with a baby bump was actually kinda cute, but it didn’t diminish the impact of
her response.

In a tone that felt like ice slithering along his spine she gave it to him good. “
Alpha
, as in male; denoting the dominant role.
Tortured
as in conflicted and tormented by things over which one has no control.
Shit
as in unpleasant personal garbage. Questions?”

“Yeah, I have a question,” he snarled. “How’d you come up with that less than flattering
takedown of my character?”

“I didn’t,” she replied mockingly.

Gritting his teeth he sniped, “This better not be more of Drae’s bullshit.”

“It’s not. Come on Alex. You’re a smart guy. Do I really have to spell this out for
you?”

Oh fuck.
He walked right into that one. Really? That’s how Meghan saw him as some pitiful
tortured alpha?

The one thing he’d gotten really good at the last few weeks was being silent, and
that was what he stuck with now. Say nothing. He was fucked up in the head and with
every minute, more and more regret and confusion was added to what was going on inside
him.

“Boss. Ask me about her,” Tori begged. “Come on. Just ask. You
know
we’ve been talking. Please.
Just ask
. It’s a first step.”

Alex couldn’t look at Tori after that. He just hung his head and wallowed in his private
hell until she eventually gave up. Patting him on the shoulder before she left him
in peace, she offered a parting shot. “Why is it so hard for you to see the obvious?”

Why, indeed?

Later that afternoon, Carmen signed for a large package that came by ground delivery.
The huge box was tall and wide but not very deep, and had obviously piqued his housekeeper’s
curiosity. She was guarding it like a national treasure when he made his way right
before dinner from his tech room into the main part of the house.

“M
eee
ster Alex, something has arrived for you,” she announced just as Drae and Cam happened
to walk through the front door.

“Whatcha got there, bro?” Cam asked, eyeing the impressive box. “Flat screen TV?”

“I have no idea,” Alex grumbled. “Don’t remember ordering anything.”

Whatever the box contained, it was wrapped up like Fort Knox. “What the fuck,” Alex
mumbled, trying not to rip the packaging to shreds. “Need a damn chain saw to break
in to this thing.” When at last he was able to slide a wood stretcher from the box
he was annoyed and even grumpier. “This better be good,” he bit out to no one in particular.

Drae laughed and gestured at the mysterious object with a nod of his head. “Maybe
that’s your presidential award for being King of the Douches.”

Alex scowled at his audience when Carmen found Drae’s snarky comment funny. His brothers
managed to needle him every chance they got.
Fuckers.

Took but moments to remove the final layer of protective wrapping and what met his
eye when the task was completed, stopped Alex dead in his tracks.

There, in a beautiful wood frame was a huge southwestern photograph that he recognized
immediately. It was the shot Meghan had taken that first time he’d taken her into
the desert. He remembered complimenting her on the perspective with a cactus in the
foreground and the magnificent vista of red rocks and blue sky in the background.
The colors were so vibrant a casual viewer might question whether it had been enhanced
but Alex was there when the shot was taken and remembered with clarity the dazzling
colors and majestic panorama.

“Good lord,” Cam gasped. “That’s amazing.”

“I know where that was taken,” Carmen mumbled quietly as she stared at the huge framed
photo with awe on her face. When she looked back at him, Alex swore he saw censure
flash across her expression. She knew. How could she not, he admitted silently. Carmen
knew everything that went on at the Villa.

“Hey,” Drae added, “You’re onto something Carmen. Isn’t that out by the flats at red
rock?”

Alex stood numbly, nodding his head.
Meghan.
He’d asked her that day to send him the jpeg. Looked like she went a couple steps
further than that. The enormous frame would dominate whatever wall on which it hung.
Her photograph was meant to impress, and it most certainly did.

It was then that he saw a small white envelope attached to the back that he abruptly
grabbed and ripped open with all the finesse of a kid on Christmas morning. Inside
was a card with Meghan’s distinctive handwriting on which she’d written,
‘What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies
within us – Ralph Waldo Emerson’
.

He swallowed the tension constricting his throat as a deep frown etched his brow.
With one quote, just eighteen simple words, she’d driven home her belief that the
strength of a person’s character counted more than any demons from the past or future
worries. Her unyielding faith in him was staggering. And what had he done? Pushed
her away like a damn fool.