Redeeming Justice (6 page)

“Hola Carmen,” Lacey trilled sweetly. “Cómo estás?”

Carmen hugged both women and gave each of their tummies a little pat. At nearly seven
months pregnant, Lacey Cameron glowed the way every happily expecting mother-to-be
should. Not to be outdone though was Tori St. John. For being such a tiny thing, she
was carrying her pregnancy like a champ but not without some difficulties. A few months
behind Lacey, soon there would be two babies in the Justice Brothers family and no
one could have been more delighted by the prospect than Carmen.

Tori noticed that Alex wasn’t alone on the patio and asked what was up. Carmen grinned
like a schoolgirl when she announced, “He’s got a guest. A
woman
.” The emphasis she placed on the word
woman
got the pregnant ladies dashing for the archway leading to the patio so they could
check out what was going on.

“Holy shit!” Tori giggled, peeking from behind a large antique pantry next to the
doorway. “Quick, Lacey! Look. I think he’s smiling.”

“Ehrmygawd!” Lacey laughed aloud. “Who is she?”

Both sets of eyes turned on Carmen expecting an explanation of the situation.

“Well, I’m not sure where she comes from but I do know her visit rattled the M
eee
ster’s cage. She’s been here for a while. They had lunch together and talked. Next
thing I know, he’s telling me she’s staying.”

“Really?” Lacey asked. “Is she going to be in the Casita? I loved that little house,”
she added dreamily as an afterthought.

“Actually, no.” Carmen replied.

“No?” the ladies chimed in unison.

“What does that mean exactly?” Tori questioned. She’d been working as Alex’s assistant
for months and anything outside his normal mode was going to pique her curiosity.

“What that means ladies is this. Alexander Valleja-Marquez just instructed me to put
her in a guest room in the hacienda. So what do you think about them oranges?”

“It’s apples and I think flabbergasted covers it nicely, thanks,” Lacey mumbled looking
at Tori with a sly smile. Suddenly, both women had a burning need to run home and
see what their husbands were up to. Carmen laughed knowing the earful the other two
Justice Brothers were about to get. Poor Alex.

With Cam and Drae joyfully married and babies on the way, only Alex was still clinging
to the ridiculous notion that he didn’t deserve to be happy. Carmen would never understand
why any of them felt that way but she knew enough about their Special Forces experience
to accept that dark shadows from the past sometimes made it hard to see the light.

Meghan was astonished how quickly and easily Alex had maneuvered her into staying
at the Villa. Truth was, she hadn’t been all that difficult to convince. At some point
during their time on the patio she’d started feeling more than just a little bit drawn
to the handsome man with the mussed hair and broad shoulders.

She didn’t have a type, the way most women did. Maybe it was because she came from
a family dominated by men that she had simple tastes when it came to the opposite
sex. Alex Marquez hit so many high marks she didn’t know where to start.

He was large which was a plus. As a healthy Irish girl with more curves than straight
edges, she felt like a hippo next to men of average height who wore skinny suits and
looked like they got the occasional facial. His athletic build turned her on, plain
and simple. He was also well mannered and didn’t take himself all that seriously.
More big pluses in the win column.

And then there was the subtle undercurrent coming off him that made her think all
kinds of wicked thoughts. He was what the girls referred to as a dominant. She could
feel it in her bones. It wasn’t overt – more like an aura of control that really got
to her. She bet he was the type of man who would simply say,
get in my bed
and a woman would eagerly crawl on hands and knees to comply.

The room she’d been given was tucked behind the master suite in a section of the hacienda
that retained it’s original rustic colonial character and was so far beyond charming
that it needed its own descriptive word. When he’d walked her through the enormous
house and up the wide stairway to the second floor, Alex had kept a light hand on
her, just above the swell of her backside. The gesture made her senses tingle.

As a card carrying
Ball Busting Boston Bitch,
she would be the last woman to get weak kneed over some big muscles and aristocratic
manners. Right? Suddenly she didn’t know. He made her feel ridiculously female and
that was saying a lot. Despite being a curvy girl and a gym teacher to boot, Meghan
had always been über feminine, the result of being the only girl in a large family
dominated by men. As a little girl most of her silly whims had been indulged. All
outward appearances suggested she was a girly-girl. But it was that
BBBB
upbringing that made feeling small and female all the more surprising.

“What do you think?” she heard him ask softly. They were standing across from the
bed where Meghan was peering out a window aware that when she leaned forward, her
derrière would be making a statement. A big one.

What did she think? Wow. That was a loaded question. Think about what? How friggin’
good he smelled? Or maybe how she felt about the romantic room with beams across the
ceiling, a corner fireplace surrounded by ancient stone, and a platform bed draped
with rich-hued linens? Better yet- what did she think of her well laid plans to finally
find some closure on the David chapter of her life? The Major exuded a fierce masculinity
that made her forget why she was there in the first place.
What in the hell was she doing
?

Turning to look at him she wasn’t in the least surprised to find him admiring her
ass. And he didn’t flinch or pretend that wasn’t exactly what he’d been doing. It
felt like a challenge in some way.
Oh my God! Why was the thought so exciting?

Coughing to clear away the sudden constriction in her throat, Meghan smiled unsteadily.
“It’s so cool,” she gushed like a teenager.
Oh for crap’s sake,
she screamed in her head.
Really
?

“Um, it’s really something is what I meant to say.” Okay, good. That sounded better.
Maybe she could actually pull off pretending his presence didn’t turn her into a giggly
twit.

“The door to the bath is behind the fireplace in that corner,” he nodded with his
head. “I know it’s small but I thought you might like the rustic feel.”

“Are you kidding?” she joked. “You call this small? I think my childhood bedroom would
fit in the closet! It’s perfect, Alex. Really. Thank you again for opening your home
to me. I’m touched.”

He smiled at her, and she saw the wicked glint come back into his eyes. Unless she
was losing it, he was attracted to her. But she knew without question that he wouldn’t
act on it. No. There was an ocean of water between where they were now and the end
of that particular bridge, but it was reassuring to know she wasn’t alone in the unexpected
attraction.

“My guys will bring in the stuff you need from your car. If you want to get anything
else, let me know. I don’t want you trying to lug anything up here.”

He looked around and seemed a bit uncomfortable like he didn’t know what to say or
do. God, he was so adorable. She knew what he was feeling and wondered how she should
respond.

Yep. This was certainly an interesting position to find herself in. When the day started,
she had plans to settle an old debt with an afternoon visit that would once and for
all let her close a chapter in her life. Period. End of story. She expected to wake
up tomorrow, and be ready to charge ahead.

What she hadn’t expected was to not even get through the afternoon before life started
throwing shit her way. And by throwing shit her way she meant putting one gorgeous
hunk of a man in her line of sight. Unfortunately, she was her own worst enemy when
it came to being careful—another by-product of keeping up with her brothers. Besides,
careful
didn’t seem to feel quite right in this situation. There was nothing common sensible
or careful about what she was feeling.

“Thanks again,” she told him as she leaned in to press a kiss on his cheek. It probably
wasn’t necessary to lay a hand on his chest for balance, but she did it anyway. The
heat coming off him was incredible. She bet he’d work up quite a sweat in bed. Something
she wouldn’t mind licking off his body.
Yum
.

When she touched her lips to his face he grabbed her other hand, holding it firm at
her side. He was either going to pull her away and put some distance between them
or he was holding her in place. A flood of heated moisture drenched her core when
he held still, keeping her hand upon his chest and her body close to his for long
seconds after the kiss ended. She swore he could hear her heart thumping—that was
how loud it seemed in her head.

Before releasing her he turned his face into her curls and breathed deep. She held
her breath at the intimacy of the action.

“I’m very glad you’re here Meghan O’Brien.”

When she pulled back and looked at him, they were close enough to touch. She sensed
his reluctance when he ran a trembling finger across her bottom lip. Disappointed
that he hadn’t kissed her, Meghan thrilled when he dropped a quick smooch on her nose,
squeezed the hand he still held and told her in a husky voice, “Very glad.”

The minute Alex left his unexpected houseguest to get settled in, he headed for the
tech cave where he could pretend to be busy while working out his thoughts about what
was happening. There was no denying he was wildly attracted to the Irish beauty. Hell.
When she bent over to look out the window he had to hold back from stepping up to
rub his growing erection against her magnificent ass.

But he also knew that acting on the lusty feelings she evoked was just not going to
happen. Not in this lifetime, anyway. He didn’t do relationships. Even if once upon
a time he’d envisioned finding a wife and starting a family, those days were long
gone. Gone and buried many times over in the stench-filled, putrid remains of that
motherfucking war. It would take all of this and possibly many more lifetimes to atone
for the part he played during that time. Redemption was not certain, was in fact highly
in doubt. Some things are just so fucked up that trying to make any sense is a waste
of time.

There was no good use in pretending that Meghan O’Brien wasn’t just about the most
gorgeously sexy and desirable woman he’d known in his entire lifetime. He’d been without
a woman for a while, but he knew without question his response to her wasn’t a case
of simple horniness. It didn’t mean that he had to act on that desire though. Wanting
to sink his dick into the fiancée of one of his dead soldiers was a step so far beyond
what his conscience could take that it wasn’t funny. She was seriously off-limits.
There was no fucking way he could handle anything less. He might be a bastard, but
he wasn’t that messed up.

Dammit. A drink was what he needed. Maybe a bunch of ‘em. Anesthetizing his brain
was a priority if he hoped to avoid taking a long, slow trudge down memory lane. Somehow
though he doubted he’d be lucky enough to keep all that shit at bay while she stayed
at the Villa.
Fuck
. Even right this second he was blocking the visual memory of her fiancé, the guy
his old squad nicknamed The Kid. It wouldn’t help to resurrect that particular ghost.
Besides, there were plenty more where that one came from.

A little while later his trusted assistant Tori, who was also conveniently the wife
of one of his Justice Brother partners, wandered into the tech cave.

“Hey Boss,” she hollered across the room. “Did you see the paint chips Lacey and I
brought you or did you ignore them?”

Alex eyed her as she scooted around stacks of hi-tech equipment making her way to
his cluttered corner. Watching the little whirlwind, he had to admit that there was
no mystery why Drae had fallen so hard and so fast for the feisty little woman. She
was a piece of work, this one. Even though the two of them snarked at each other from
time to time, her unabashed love for Draegyn St. John was apparent to everyone. His
friend was one lucky son of a bitch.