Redeeming Justice (49 page)

Not bothering to properly dry her hair, Meghan gathered her unruly curls into a messy
tangle and secured it with a clip before pulling on a long sleeved tee that had seen
better days and a pair of sloppy sweats with the logo of her old school on one hip.
Both garments hung off her frame, a stark reminder of the weight she’d lost and her
less than robust appearance.

What-fucking-ever
. She didn’t care. The sad truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to care about
much of anything ever again. Missing Alex had become a full-time job. One that was
eating her alive from the inside out.

“Meggie. Can you come down here a moment?” she heard her mother holler from the first
floor.

“I’ll be right there, Ma. Just give me a minute,” she answered back hastily. “Will
you put the coffee pot on?”

“Not a problem,” came the answer that seemed a bit more chipper and happy than the
way her mother had seemed last night.

Well, thank God for that
, she thought. With her own emotions in turmoil, Meghan didn’t think she could handle
anyone else’s problems right now.

Drae felt a bit like a hostage negotiator as he slid from the cab and stood on the
sidewalk outside the O’Brien brownstone. Adjusting his tie and tugging on the cuffs
of the tailored dress shirt he wore with his Savile Row suit, he took a deep breath
and gathered his thoughts. With Victoria anxiously texting him every five minutes
and Alex acting like he was about to walk the green mile, he felt the weight of everyone’s
future bearing down on him. As Cam’s last minute back slap and gravely muttered, “Don’t
fuck up,” played over and over in his head, he climbed the short flight of steps and
silently prayed for strength.

He knocked and when Maggie O’Brien opened the door, smilingly sweetly and asked, “May
I help you?” Drae recalled Alex’s words the previous night describing the comely woman
as a shark in sheep’s clothing.

At first glance he could see where Meghan inherited her beauty. For a woman in her
mid-fifties she was extraordinarily attractive with a bombshell figure reminiscent
of a 1950’s Hollywood star, dark auburn hair showing not a bit of gray, a pleasing
smile, and the same intense green eyes her daughter shared, she was quite the sight.
Irish through and through, she reminded him of a young Maureen O’Hara – which was
by no means a bad thing.
Jesus.
If the woman before him was any indication of how Meghan would look in thirty years,
Alex was one lucky bastard.

Extending his hand he turned on the St. John charm – something his wife reassured
him was sure to get results – and smiled back.

“Mrs. O’Brien? My name is Draegyn St. John. I’m a friend of Meghan’s from Arizona.”
He thought it best to set out the facts from the start so she wouldn’t have to cross-examine
him. “Is she here?”

The minute his name hit her awareness, the smile changed from brilliant and welcoming
to conspiratorial and mischievous.

“Well, it took you long enough,” she remarked with a wry grin as she took his hand
and pulled him into the house.

Only his years of surveillance training kept the relief that swept through him from
showing on his face. Getting through the inevitable conversation he was about to have
with Meghan was one thing. Handling the mother who had threatened Alex with bodily
harm was another.

As she lead him into what at one time was probably considered the front parlor, she
remarked, “Why didn’t he come himself?”

Keeping to his charm offensive he smile and winked. “I don’t think we’re quite there
yet, Mrs. O’Brien. I’m here to lay the groundwork so your daughter hopefully won’t
rip a certain someone’s face off before he has a chance to plead his case. If I recall,
she had a certain ball busting way about her.”

Maggie O’Brien snorted in a not amused at all kind of way. “Yes, well that may have
been true before but your Major has done quite the number on her Mr. St. John. You
may be surprised by what you find.”

Oh, snap. Score one for the grizzly bear Mama protecting her own. She stepped back
into the foyer and yelled, “Meggie. Can you come down her a moment?”

When Meghan answered, “I’ll be right there, Ma. Just give me a minute. Will you put
the coffee pot on?” Drae straightened and thought,
Showtime.

It took two or three minutes until he detected the sound of someone moving about in
the hallway upstairs as all the while those knowing green eyes coolly assessed his
every breath and movement. Damn. This lady was good.

When he finally heard footsteps descending the stairs, Drae found that he was holding
his breath. Didn’t help that the phone he switched to silent chose that moment to
vibrate. There was not a doubt in his mind that it was his spunky wife trolling for
an update.

Just as Meghan’s feet hit the last step her mother announced, “You’ve got a visitor,
mo stoirín
.” When she moved aside so her daughter could find him with her searching eyes, Drae
almost fell over in shock at what he saw.

Fuck.
Her mother hadn’t been kidding. No words could do justice to the shock that raced
through him at Meghan’s appearance. In a word, she looked like shit. Being used to
seeing her vibrant, full of life, and always perfectly dressed, it was startling to
say the least to find her barefoot, looking like a homeless person in clothing that
seemed several sizes too big, hair a holy mess, and dark smudges under her normally
bright eyes.

“Meghan,” he choked out, forgetting to hide his reaction from his voice.

The expression on her face went from curious to gut-wrenching surprise in a nanosecond.
Part of him wanted to fucking kill Alex for putting that look in her eyes.

“Draegyn,” she whimpered a split second before she burst into tears and crumbled to
her butt on the last step as painful sobs filled the air.

“Holy Jesus,” Drae mumbled as he hurried to her side. “Don’t cry honey. Your tears
are gonna kill me.”

Pulling her to her feet, he wrapped her in a solid embrace as she melted in his arms
crying wretchedly. From the corner of his eye he saw her mother wipe away her own
tears before she quietly left them alone.

What else could he do except stand there and let her cry it out? The upset he felt
at her reaction to finding him in her parlor tore at his emotions. Remembering the
way Alex had cold cocked him with a hearty punch to the jaw after Victoria had left
him when he’d acted like an insufferable dick early in their relationship, he felt
the same impulse come over him. When he got the chance, he just might repay the action
with a jab of his own.

The woman shaking uncontrollably in his arms leaned away and looked at him for a second,
then threw herself back into his hug, wailing, “I…I never thought I’d see you again.”

Yep. He was going to smack the fucking shit out of Alex. If he didn’t, Victoria would
once he told her about Meghan’s emotional breakdown.

Steering her into the parlor, her feet stumbling every step of the way, he tried to
calm her down. “Please don’t cry anymore, honey. It’s not good for you.”

Getting her settled on a loveseat, he grabbed a box of tissues from a table and helped
dry the tears rolling down cheeks that had sunken in – a sad reminder of how much
she’d suffered in the weeks since Alex had sent her packing.

As the emotional storm calmed, she grabbed onto his hand and wouldn’t let go. Taking
a seat beside her, Drae reached deep inside and brought his reeling emotions under
control. Seeing her so distraught made him physically sick as only a man who’d come
perilously close to losing the love of his own life could. When he was finished here
he was going to call Victoria, profess his undying love over and over, and send her
the biggest, most outrageous floral arrangement he could find.
Just because.

“Sorry,” she murmured with a sobbed hiccup. “I haven’t been well and seeing you was
a shock.”

“No need to explain Meghan,” he muttered tersely as thoughts of pounding Big Daddy
into the dust flashed in his mind’s eye.
Fucking asshole.

“Is he okay?” she asked in a voice way too small for the vivacious woman he knew her
to be.

Drae could only shake his head in wonder.
Go figure
, he mused. Here she was, a shadow of her former self and all she could think of was
Alex. He sighed and squeezed her hand.

“He’s fine although seeing you like this makes me want to do his ass some serious
harm.”

“It’s not his fault,” she quickly tried to reassure him. “He can’t help how he feels.”
Her voice faded to a whisper on her words.

Clenching his jaw, Drae kept his immediate disagreement with what she said to himself.
She must love him very much to be so accepting of Alex’s emotional failings.

“We need to talk Meghan. You up for what I have to say, honey?”

She nodded as she bit her lip, releasing his hand and sitting back. “You sound so
serious Draegyn. Do I want to hear this?” she asked with a frightened little wobble
in her delivery.

“Probably not. But it needs to be said and you need to hear it.”

“Okay.”

Fuck, man. If she bit her lip any harder she was gonna draw blood.

“First of all, he wants to see you and yes, he knows I’m here. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t
dream of interfering in either of my brothers’ lives but before you and Alex come
face to face again, there’s something I want to say.”

“Tori told me that he…” she said before self-censoring the rest of her response and
lowering her eyes so he couldn’t guess at the rest of her answer.

Drae chuckled and nudged her with his shoulder. “It’s alright Irish,“ he said using
the affectionate nickname for her that his wife favored. “I’m well-aware of my wife’s
meddling ways.”

Meghan blushed and attempted a shaky smile. “I’d have been lost without her all these
weeks, Draegyn. Truly. Don’t be upset with her.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” he barked out laughing. “I’m in no way upset with her,
honey. In fact I’m glad, and so is Alex, that she kept the lines of communication
open.” Shaking his head he added, “You women know how to stick together.”

“So do you Justice men,” she reminded him somberly.

“Point well taken. Which brings me to the purpose of this visit.”

He let some silence wrap around them for a moment – each of them reluctant for what
came next. Clearing his throat, he leaned over and impulsively kissed her on the forehead.
When she searched his eyes to explain his unexpected action he tried to smile reassuringly.

“Here it is Meghan. In all it’s fucked up glory, I need to tell you a little bit about
the real Alex Marquez. Without a second’s hesitation you should know that in my estimation
a more honorable man has never existed. His sense of integrity and the things that
ground his morals make him a man amongst men. Understand?”

Her lip quivered but she held it together and nodded at him to go on.

“When we all met him, and Cam and I – we instantly bonded. Even though we each came
from distinctively different backgrounds, it was as if for each of us we could see
the best in the others. Cam and I with our fucked-up families, and Alex with his picture-perfect
childhood may seem like an unlikely trio but when shit gets real, I wouldn’t want
anyone else by my side. In the beginning we shared a boots on the ground existence.
Shit kicking boots at that, the kind we were trained for. Together we dealt with ambushes,
undercover assignments, body counts, getting shot at, and an epic crap ton of shit
that only happens in war. None of it was pretty. All of it was fucked up. Alex came
to the attention of those in power due to his insane tech background and natural leadership
abilities. People respected him and counted on his calm under fire. We were all slogging
through our third deployment when a maneuver near Kandahar went terribly wrong. After
the team leader was wounded it was Alex who stepped up and finished what had been
started. Got all of us to safety while also completing the mission. Fuck it if the
goddamn brass didn’t immediately promote his ass. That’s how he eventually becomes
a commanding officer. Believe me, he hated the promotion, hated what it meant. He’d
have gladly stayed in our team, putting his life on the line in some deadly situations
but that’s not how shit works in the military.”