Redeeming Justice (43 page)

Shit.
This crying business was getting old. “What did you tell him?”

“Are you kidding? I told him the damn truth. That you miss him. And since I might
as well spill all the friggin’ beans, he knows we’ve been talking and flat-out asked
if I’d tell you. About his asking how you are.”

“I’m not going to D.C., Tori,” Meghan interjected passionately. “No way. Fuck that
noise.”

Tori snorted with obvious delight. “Good! Don’t you dare make this easy for him. Just
hang tough a little longer, okay? He’ll reach out to you Irish. I know he will.” Meghan
cringed hearing the slight ring of hopeful wishing in her friend’s voice.

“Can I ask a question, Mrs. St. John?”

“Uh oh,” came the lighthearted reply. “What did I do?”

Meghan grinned. She’d come to really love the feisty, brilliantly intelligent little
woman with the vocabulary of a shit-kicking Marine. It felt like having a sister.
Tori was loyal to a fault where the Justice family was concerned. Knowing that she’d
take care of Alex once she’d left had helped ease some of her anguish about leaving
Arizona behind.

A squeaking embarrassed cough shot from her throat. “Were you, um… serious before?
About the spanking?” It might have been an off-hand comment but Meghan’s curiosity
was piqued. When she heard Tori hysterically giggling she couldn’t help but laugh
right back. “Don’t read anything into the question,” she shrieked with a hiccup of
giggles.

“Oh my God, Irish. Is Big Daddy a bad boy in the bedroom?” She could imagine Tori
practically falling over with glee. “I fucking love this! And the answer to your question
is most definitely, yes. My demanding, Alpha husband finds spanking to be a way of
handling my smart mouth.”

Meghan howled with laughter. Tori’s smart-ass mouth was practically a legend at the
Villa. “Oh, that’s clearly working out so well, huh?”

“
Pff.
These Justice men. Oversexed, naughty boys in my opinion. It’s the same for Lacey.
I say enjoy yourself and remember one thing sweetie…when it comes to who’s really
in control, it’s you wielding the real power when you allow him to be lord and master.”

Wow. She was good. Meghan had to choke back a sigh. Lord and master, indeed. “I love
you Mrs. St. John.”

“I love you too Irish. Now stop your sulking and tighten your laces sweetie because
your shit’s about to get real. And remember, when you finally see Alex, it’s tits
out, okay?”

What wasn’t to love about such a hilariously ribald and yet oh so true statement?
Especially when it came out of the naughty mouth of an adorably pregnant elf.

“Message received, Mrs. St. John. Tits out. The girls send their regards and promise
to make a statement as requested.”

They both giggled, then grew silent. It was time to hang up.

“Give the bump a pat for me.” Meghan sighed, and then pressed the end button on the
phone.

After the kids were excused from the table along with their mom following Sunday dinner
to go hang with Pop in his basement handy room where all manner of cool things were
always in store for visiting grandchildren, the remaining adult contingent of Meghan’s
immediate family closed in on her.

“So, let me get this straight. Some dickwad Lawrence of Arabia out in the desert is
begging for a Boston beat-down?” It was Deval scowling furiously and sounding like
a bully.
Fabulous
. Meghan felt the start of a stress headache bumping around inside her head.

Mike chimed in next. “This Special Forces asshole needs to get his butt kicked. And
Dev,” he continued, nodding in his brother’s direction, “I think it was Desert
Rat
not Lawrence of Arabia.”

The obvious slam at Alex’s honor made Meghan flinch. It pretty much went downhill
from there as she endured an endless barrage of smack talk from her siblings.

Finn waited until his older brothers were finished thumping their chests, then flashed
her a harsh look, dramatically cracking his knuckles for emphasis. “How do I find
this guy, sis?”

Meghan groaned and sat back in her chair taking in, one by one, the furious looks
on all the faces turned in her direction. Her mother’s pained expression didn’t help
things.

“Nobody’s getting a Boston beat down, and you can stop with the shitty character slurs.
Just let me handle my own life and back the hell up.”

Feeling her fury rising Meghan regarded this whole farce of a family meeting as nothing
more than an opportunity for her swaggering siblings to try and run her life.

“Meggie’s right,” her mother declared, bringing the entire discussion to a screeching
halt. “She’s a big girl and knows what’s best for her. You boys will have to learn
to play nice with others.” The look she gave each of her three boys meant business.

Knowing her mother was just as meddlesome as her brothers were controlling, Meghan
rolled her eyes behind her mother’s back. Crossing her arms defensively across her
chest she visibly sulked like a bratty teenager. At one point she got in a good shot
at Dev. Finding him staring at her, she wrinkled her nose and furiously stuck out
her tongue just like she did when they were kids.
Pfftt.
He infuriated her the most—always had and always will. Though he was the brother she
adored the most, his heavy-handed interference in her life had always made her crazy.
Maybe because he was the oldest, Deval thought it was his job to keep his siblings
safe and out of trouble. With her though, as the only girl, he’d taken it a bit too
far sometimes.

As if the matter of her meddling brothers wasn’t enough to stress her out, there was
the matter of Alex. The Major. She missed him so much it hurt. With Tori’s information
about an impending trip to the East Coast hanging in her mind, she was struggling
to keep calm.

After Tori’s call last night, when she finally went to bed, sleep eluded her once
again as her entire being churned with anxiety. Would he contact her?
Oh God.
What if he didn’t? What had happened to him in the weeks they’d been apart? All night
long that was how it went. An endless cascade of questions and fears chasing her.

By breakfast time, she was exhausted and emotionally ragged, felt like shit and about
as miserable as a person could be. In the end it all came down to one thing. She loved
him. The truth wouldn’t be denied, and she couldn’t hide from it if she hoped to survive
with her sanity intact.

It was all on the line. Her heart and soul, their future. She had to hope her Major
had found his way. It’d probably kill her if
….. if what
? If he didn’t love her? If he went away without seeing her? If he couldn’t find closure
for the past? There were so many ‘ifs’.

She continued to sulk for the remainder of the evening until, family dinner over,
the boys made moves to depart, calling the kids to clean up and say their good-byes.
She couldn’t let them leave without having the final word. It was her right dammit,
as their only sister and if ever there was a time to make that point, it was now.

“Ma, guys….c’mon back here a minute, will ya?” Four pairs of curious eyes met her
determined expression. Time to remind everyone who she was. Meghan O’Brien. Goddamn
gym teacher for heaven’s sake who could hold her own in a drinking game, kick some
serious ass if she had to, and of course the fact that hands down, she was a true
Boston bitch of the ball busting variety. Feeling mad irritated, she glared at them
with an uncompromising expression.

“Listen carefully, all of you. Ma, this includes you too.” Meghan’s eyebrow arched
high in clear warning. Only a fool wouldn’t see she was wicked serious.

“If anyone here so much as breathes on Alex Marquez, I will make you wish you hadn’t.”

“Ah. Stuff a sock in it, Meggie,” Mike chortled.

“No!” she demanded with a stern finger pointing in their direction. Everyone looked
shocked at her outburst. “He’s
mine
. Do I make myself clear? You know the rules - do
not
fuck with what’s mine.” Glancing at her mother, she murmured, “Sorry Ma, but the
f-word was necessary.”

“Oh, no, no,” her mother answered with a surprisingly smug expression on her face
as she waved her hands indicating she wanted no part of an unnecessary apology. “I
think everyone got the message. I certainly did. You did too, right boys?” she asked
innocently as she vigorously nodded her head.

Leveling Meghan with a meaningful mom stare she continued, “Thanks for clarifying
things, my dear. I’ll make sure to tell Da later that the Arizona Zorro is yours.
Special emphasis on the
yours
. He’ll be glad to hear it.” The mocking tone in her mother’s voice couldn’t be overlooked.
“Seriously daughter, it was him you needed to worry about, not these three,” she taunted
while waving at her brawny sons. “If this mysterious desert soldier knows what’s good
for him, he needs to man up with your father or you can kiss family peace on the ass.”

She couldn’t hide her grimace. Her parents used a tag team approach with their kids.
Generally, Ma did the talking, the negotiating, the interrogating. She’d then parse
whatever information Da needed and go from there. They rarely descended at the same
time on her or any of her siblings. The two-pronged approach was so much more effective.
Hearing her mother remind her that her other parent had yet to weigh in on the matter
got her stress levels percolating.

The anxiety headache pulled up a stool and sat down, determined to stick around for
a good long while. It occurred to her that she’d probably need a mouth guard soon,
as well; to protect her teeth from the constant grinding and clenching.

Alex felt like an old man and not because his injuries were acting up. Blaming his
current state of malaise on that old saw wasn’t going to cut it this time. There was
no way he could avoid what was going on. Every fiber and sinew in his entire body
seemed to have shut down until he was left with the sensation that his skin was too
heavy to hold up. Plus, he was twitchy and downright grumpy. Might as well plant his
miserable ass in a chair on the front lawn from where he could rail at the kids on
the street like a cantankerous old fuck. In short—he was a mess.

Glancing around the room with an admittedly cynical eye he grew even wearier at the
reminder of what he’d gotten himself into. Day three of a week-long event for him
and about forty others, an intense group of bad ass motherfuckers, almost exclusively
ex-military, who made up the cream-of-the-crop so to speak, in each of their areas
of expertise. Bunch of Terminator-type private security people not too unlike Team
Justice, some Men in Black spooks, black ops guys, mercenaries, someone he knew to
be one of the best hackers on the continent, and two black widow lipstick lesbians
who were pretty fucking scary. It was like a Who’s Who in in the civilian worlds of
counter-intel and security. A shudder of revulsion raced through him. He nodded slightly,
confirming that he really did hate all this shit, and let the honesty of how he felt
get some oxygen. He was done having his head up his ass.

While he hated being a part of anything that had the power to yank his Special Forces
chain, he’d also accepted that he brought all this on himself. Desperate for any crazy
plan or ploy to reconnect with Meghan, he’d grasped at straws and really bitten the
bullet when he accepted the request that he participate in the Washington D.C. event.

Pfft.
Not much of control junkie now, are we? Pondering the irony of his situation he knew
it wouldn’t take much for him to willingly don women’s clothes and walk a runway if
it meant he could see his beautiful Irish goddess just one more time. Even though
he’d need a figurative Silkwood Shower to wash away his jaded bitterness at having
to get involved in this crap, it was a small price to pay for what he thought would
be step one of Operation Meghan. As usual with pretty much anything involving the
fiery woman who consumed his every waking moment and dominated his dreams, he could
make all the plans he wanted but where she was involved, the outcome was never quite
what he’d envisioned.