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But Brody couldn’t believe that included punishing his daughter with public humiliation.
Or maybe he just didn’t want to believe it.
But shock didn’t blunt his anger. He’d done a lot of shit in his life that probably deserved punishment. But not tonight. Not like this.
His gramma didn’t hold out a lot of hope that her family would meet any decent standards. But having her grandson branded a rapist would pretty much kill her.
Genna would be publicly humiliated, dragged through the drama of a court hearing. She’d have to face reporters and gossips and nastiness in the form of support. Brody had seen plenty of that over the years, the gleeful joy others took in their hypocritical sympathy.
Numb, as if the fury had pounded itself out against his temples, he met Reilly’s eyes. Brody wasn’t a poker player, but he was the product of violence. He knew absolute determination when it stared back at him.
If he didn’t fall in line, he’d pay.
And he was fine with that.
But Genna and Gramma Irene would pay, too.
Trapped, Brody quit struggling against the cuffs. His shoulders sank low and for the first time in his life, he felt defeated.
He vowed then and there that this was the last time he would ever let his dick get him in trouble.
3
The Present
“YOU BLOW MY MIND, DUDE. We’ve been on this aircraft carrier for what? All of a day and you’re already making trouble?”
“Trouble? Dude, that wasn’t trouble. Believe me, I know the difference.” Petty Officer First Class Brody Lane, call sign Bad Ass, dropped to his rack with a grin, folding his hands behind his head and crossing his booted ankles.
“Farm Boy said some wet-behind-the-ears recruit threatened to kick your ass.” Masters gestured to their teammate who’d returned from the poker game a few minutes before Brody.
Their SEAL team had hitched a ride on a navy aircraft carrier on their way back from a training mission. And while they weren’t treated as dignitaries as they crossed the Atlantic, they were given a ten-man berthing area to use instead of having to bunk with the rest of the sailors.
“What’d you do, tell everyone between mess deck and our berth?”
Carter just smiled. Gossiping like an old lady clearly didn’t faze him. With that fresh face of his, it was hard to believe he was a SEAL. Hell, it was hard to believe he was even old enough to serve, let alone two years older than Brody’s twenty-nine.
“It was getting interesting, with the recruit mouthing off. And Bad Ass just sitting there counting his winnings. I thought the kid was gonna dive across the table. Then Bad Ass stood up and the wuss realized he was in serious danger of getting his ass handed to him.”
“He was a NUB, Farm Boy. He didn’t know any better.” Brody had been a NUB, or new useless body, once. Fresh out of boot camp and on his first tour, thinking he was ready to take on anything. Anyone.
That kind of thinking had been forcefully adjusted pretty fast.
“Why are you playing with recruits?” Masters asked.
“I’d already cleaned out the officers,” Brody admitted with a grin.
“Trouble,” Masters muttered again, but he was laughing as he said it.
“We don’t reach port till morning. What was I supposed to do? Sit in here like a good boy reading a book?” And the crew was providing Brody with a fat wad of poker winnings.
Masters snickered, then angled the book to one side. “I wasn’t reading a book. I’m writing home.”
Brody gave a jerk of his shoulder to show it was all the same to him. Truth be told, in his ten years of service he’d read a lot more books than he’d written letters home.
“You settle it or are we gonna be getting company?”
“It’s done. He just didn’t like losing.” Too bad, since Brody liked winning. Not enough to cheat, though. He didn’t need to. He was damned good. Something he made a point of being, with anything he cared about. Thankfully, that list was pretty short, so he wasn’t spreading himself too thin.
“Mail call.”
“You get demoted to mailman?” Brody grinned at Lieutenant Blake Landon. As officers went, the guy was all G.I. As friends went, Blake was aces.
“Nah, I came to make sure you weren’t hiding a body.”
“Did you have to tell everybody?” Brody gave Carter an exasperated look.
“I heard one of the seamen talking about a hosing some booter got in a poker game and how he was schooled by some visiting badass.”
“And used mail delivery as an excuse to come by to make sure I didn’t do more than pull rank?” Brody guessed.
“Maybe I just wanted to see your pretty face,” Blake shot back, dumping a handful of letters on Brody’s cot. “Or find out if you’d lost a bet and had to find yourself some pen pals. You’re not known for your communication skills, pal.”
“Snipers don’t have to do a whole lot of socializing.”
“Good thing. ’Cause you suck at it.”
True. Probably another reason that Brody almost never got mail. He didn’t do relationships. Oh, the occasional weekend fling or a few dates, but no woman had been able to hold his interest longer than a leave lasted. Definitely not long enough to reach the letter-sending stage. Sure, his gramma sent a letter and cookies every month, something that still made him squirm a little. But nobody else wrote. Hell, everyone else he knew was navy. His team here on the ship, or his platoon back in Coronado.
He snatched up the letters, all four of them, and glanced at the package. Yep, cookies from Irene. He tossed her letter on top of the box to read later and thumbed through the others. His brow creased. They all had Bedford return addresses. Two he recognized.
“Letters from home?”
Brody lifted the two while frowning at the third. “Guys I used to run with. I didn’t know they could write.”
“And that one?” Blake asked, poking his finger toward the last, the one with the flowing feminine writing. “Girlfriend?”
“From Bedford?” Brody’s laugh held no humor. “Hardly.”
No need to say more than that. Once, on a drunken bender, Brody had shared the details of his first hitch in the navy with Blake. Since the lieutenant had about the same love for his hometown and the people there, he’d gotten it.
Blake, ever the Boy Scout, didn’t push the uncomfortable subject. Instead, he thumped his knuckles on the box he’d delivered.
“You bringing the cookies to Friday’s poker game?” he asked, referring to their monthly game whenever they were on base in Coronado.
“Without a doubt,” Brody confirmed. Irene’s snickerdoodles were worth a buck apiece; her macadamia white chocolate anted up for five. And her fudge brownies? Those babies were pure gold.
Blake handed the other guys their much bigger bundles of mail and, after warning Brody to stay out of trouble, left them to enjoy their letters from home.
And Brody to stare at his.
The only woman who’d ever written him was his grandmother.
Not because he avoided women. But letter writing was nowhere on the list of things he did with them. Nope, they were a sweeter treat than the box full of cookies sitting on Brody’s pillow. And they lasted about as long, too.
While Masters and Carter ripped through their mail, Brody looked at the envelope again.
Curiosity fought intuition. He wanted to know what woman’d be writing to him. But he had a strong feeling that opening that letter was gonna end up on his already-too-long list of things he regretted.
So he tossed it on his pillow, tearing open the one from Skeet Magee instead. It didn’t take long to skim the page. There were only a handful of sentences.
Shit.
He blew out a heavy breath, hoping it’d relieve some of the pressure suddenly pushing on his chest.
He hated death.
Brody stared at the wall, seeing nothing but a gray blur.
He’d served on dozens of missions in his five years as a SEAL. He’d killed, and he’d watched death. He’d lost buddies and he’d mourned. That was the name of the game. A simple fact every soldier, sailor and military personnel faced.
So why was this hitting him so hard?
Knowing who the third letter was from now, filled with even more reluctance than before, he lifted the slender envelope off his pillow. The soft scent of something flowery filled his senses. Whether it was the paper itself or just a memory, he didn’t know.
Sorta as though he was in a dream, Brody slid his nail under the flap, careful not to tear the writing. Wetting his lips, he took a breath and pulled out the letter.
Dear Brody,
I know it’s been a long time, and I’m sure I’m the last person you want to hear from. But I felt it was important that I write, that I let you know that we’ve lost Joe. He never quite made it out of that self-destructive cycle, and after you left town, he sank deeper into ugly gang activity. He was in San Quentin on robbery charges and got killed last month in a fight.
I know the two of you stayed in touch. I found your letters, a couple of photos, in Joe’s things.
Please, write me back.
It was like being sucked, unwillingly, into a pit of memories. None good, except the ones that involved tasting Genna. Brody didn’t deny his life before the navy. He wasn’t proud of it, but neither was he ashamed.
But Genna was more than just a specter from his past.
He didn’t think about her every day. He didn’t dream about her every night. He wasn’t that big of a sap. But he wasn’t a liar either.
He thought of her.
A lot.
Too much.
In the navy, he’d found his calling. He’d found his pride. He’d found himself.
And in a weird way, he had Genna Reilly to thank for it.
But he couldn’t.
It was easier to keep the door to the past closed. To try not to think about her, or everything that’d led up to his ignominious entry into the navy. Too much.
And now Joe was dead.
And Genna wanted him to write her back.
Why?
What the hell was there to say?
Why’d they have to kick that door open?
All of a sudden, fury like he hadn’t felt in years pounded through him.
“Genius, got something I can write with?”
Masters spun a pad of paper across the room, Frisbee-style. Brody caught the pen that followed, glaring at them both for a second before taking a breath.
He sketched out a short sentence. Then, still riding on a wave of anger he couldn’t explain, he shoved the paper into an envelope, used Genna’s as a reference to address it and licked it closed.
Then, ignoring his cookie ante and the other letters, he headed for the gym to beat the hell out of something. Anything. Sweat, hard work and pushing his physical limits had saved him before. Maybe it would again.
* * *
GENNA REILLY HATED DATING. Seriously hated it. She’d almost be willing to marry the next guy who asked just to never have to date again. Almost.
It wasn’t the interaction that bothered her―she loved people. And it wasn’t that she was anti-relationships. She’d had a few, she’d given them her all. But inevitably they’d left her wondering what was the point. Now, she was just holding out for a great relationship. Her dream relationship. Which didn’t include this “good-night at the door” awkwardness that made her want to scream.
“This was great. I’m glad we finally got to go out,” Stewart said in a hearty tone, one foot forward already prepared to follow her into the house. For what? Coffee? They’d had it with dessert. A second round of dessert on her couch? Ha. Genna didn’t think so.
“Thanks so much for the lovely evening.” Before he could lean in for a kiss, Genna offered her brightest smile and slipped through the screen door, keeping her expression cheerful and giving a little finger wave. After a long second and a flash of irritation, he nodded and turned to go. She waited only until he cleared the bottom step before shutting the door.
Leaning against it, she held her breath and listened for the sound of his car. Too many of the guys she dated seemed to choose this point in the evening to suddenly forget their cell phones and need to make a call, or have a bathroom emergency, or worse, think she needed convincing that the night was so awesome it couldn’t be over yet.
“Fun time?”
Genna pried her lids open to give her temporary roommate a dead-eyed stare.
“Fun? The guy collects troll dolls, Macy.”
The pretty brunette snickered once before plastering a proper look of conciliatory concern on her face. It was hard to hold it with all that newly engaged, soon-to-be-a-bride smugness she was wallowing in, though.
“Troll dolls? Those ugly little things with all the hair? He was probably just joking. C’mon, he’s an attorney with great prospects. I don’t think you’re giving him a chance.”
Genna wrinkled her nose. How much of a chance did a girl have to give? Either the guy made her heart go pitty-pat or he didn’t. And Stewart definitely didn’t. Genna wanted a guy who made her feel special with just a glance. A guy she could count on to be her own true hero. She shouldn’t have to work at it.
