Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2) (31 page)

“Baby, I was telling the truth then, and I'm telling the truth now. Other than that vulgar scene on the beach, I have not been with another woman since the day we said ‘I do’ standing in Robert’s office.”

“Then why did you do what you did on the beach?”

She watched as he furrowed his brow. “I was angry and felt out of control and overreacted with her. Those actions resulted in her death. It hurt you, too. Listen, Barbara, I’ve had months to sort this out. I was trying to get my center and equilibrium back using the things most familiar to me.”

Barbara shook her head. She had learned years ago never to fight fate. Mason had learned, but at what cost to both of them?

“So you were using sex and gambling to try and prove you were still in control of your own destiny.”

He nodded. It was time to get it out and in the open. He would lay it all out there, and if she turned him away, then at least he would know that she understood where he was coming from.

“What I felt for you scared the shit out of me. It still does, but now it scares me for very different reasons. I love you.”

“No, Mason. Don’t.” She did not want to hear it. It would only hurt even more when she made him leave.

“I. Love. You.” he whispered only inches from her mouth.

“God, please. Don’t do this to me,” she whispered faintly.

She knew that he was going to kiss her and she could not resist because there was no fight left in her. Even after everything that he put her through, she still loved him, too.

She took a bullet for him.

And contrary to what he might think, it was not something she would do just for a stranger. She had taken that bullet in his place because she would rather die than have a world without him in it. His absence the last five months just proved her right. She had existed, but was not alive. She was resigned, but not content or happy.

He captured her mouth, kissing her softly just savoring her nearness. There was no seduction intended. Wrapping her in his arms, he never wanted to let go. She had been his life preserver in the Bering Sea. She was his life line still.

“Oh, Mason.” She sighed heavily, tired from the emotional rollercoaster this man put her through. “What am I going to do with you,” she asked placing her palm against his rough cheek. She did not know if she had enough left in her to take him back or to let him go. Hugging his neck,  she laid her forehead on his chest she inhaled. He smelled of fish, sweat, and travel. She did not care, for she was just grateful he was alive.

She could feel the difference in him.

“We have both changed,” she confessed.

Holding her away from him, he needed to look at her. After five months, both had changed from the hurt and the separation his actions created. He was fully prepared to take ownership. Some of that change was for the better. The rest, well, only time would tell, he reasoned.

He lifted her chin. “This change in me is for real, baby. I took on the most dangerous job in the world to see if Robert was right about me trying to fill the void in my life with danger and adrenaline. I was doing exactly that and it didn’t work. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“It didn’t work because the hole in my heart and the void in my soul are lacking you.”

She looked deeply into his eyes. She saw the truth there for what it was. She saw the knowledge, love, and resignation this new Mason felt. He was growing up and growing wise. However, it was just too little and a lot too late.

“Barbara, I won’t pressure you, and I’m not asking to move in here with you. All I’m asking is can you see a way to give me a month? Thirty days. That’s all I'm asking.”

How could he ask this of her?

She hesitated.

Either way that she answered that question, her life would take a drastic turn. He had torn her apart, leaving her bleeding and dying inside and out. And he would do so again and again. He was Mason and she would not ask him to change.

She weighed it out and answered carefully.

“No. No, I’m sorry, Mason. I’m just not sure I can let you tear me up again.” She shook her head.

Her soft words ripped through him like a torpedo through the hull of a ship. He was sinking fast, and he felt his world tilt as he squeezed her more tightly.

“All right, I deserve this.” He turned her loose and bent down to pick up his duffel.

He kissed her one more time on the crown of the head. “Lock the door behind me,” he said and walked out the door, almost wishing the Bering Sea had swallowed him whole. He felt himself sinking and suffocating from the pain in his heart. He had no one except himself to blame. He was seeing the fruit and consequences of his actions, and those actions had hurt not only him but all the people he loved as well.

Barbara heard the soft click of the door and her life, both past and future, flashed before her eyes. She could have years of safe, comfortable, and secure with Brian, or she could have Mason and whatever that would mean.

She jerked the door open. “Mason, wait. Stop!”

He turned looking longingly at her.

He loved her and she loved him. Life was short, and if he could change then so could she.

She threw caution to the wind.

She was jumping out of an airplane praying her chute would open, and if that chute didn’t open, then it would be one hell of a ride until the sudden stop.

“I won’t give you thirty days. I’ll give you a lifetime, however long or short that life might be.”

He met her halfway down the corridor. Pulling her to him, his world felt right as he crushed her to him and kissed her deeply and poured all the love he felt for her into that one kiss.

They were still mercenaries for hire and living a dangerous life all for the cause and safety of others. She understood this part of him and what would drive him to do this because she felt the same. He in turn accepted the fact she too would be going into danger. It was who and what they were, but they would always have each other's back.

“Till death do us part,” she whispered.

“As long as we both shall live,” he vowed just before kissing his bride.

“Mason? What are you doing?” Barbara asked, looking at her husband of more than four years and trying not to laugh as he chased after their daughter. He looked so serious, something he seldom was unless on a mission. She had to admit that life with him had been anything but dull. Just last week she had taken her first solo skydive. They were going again this next weekend.

“Well, she needs to learn that not everything is all fun and games. She needs to learn to be cautious,” Mason growled.

“I don’t totally disagree with you, Mase, but why now? She is only eighteen months old.”

“The girl has no fear.” Mason despaired that his daughter would ever learn to be careful.

“Wonder where she gets that from?”

Barbara asked looking at him with that smile she had which said, “This is entirely your  fault.” Mason could not disagree with her in this instance. He had never doubted Claire was his baby. If she did not look just like him then her actions would bear it out as the truth.

“Do you see these,” Mason asked, pointing to the gray hairs beginning to grace his temples. “These are from her. And no daughter of mine is going to grow up to be a hellion, tossing all caution to the wind.”

Barbara burst out laughing. “The hens have come home to roost. Face it, Love. She is her father’s daughter.”

Barbara felt the phone vibrate on her hip.

Both Mason and Barbara stilled in the conversation.

She looked at the caller I.D. It was Robert.

“I’ll take it. I’m up to bat,” she said, then turned to go back into the house.

Less than five minutes later, she returned with a bag slung over her shoulder. Kissing the baby on the head and Mason on the lips, she handed him the phone.

“I’ll call you if I need anything, but I’ve got to go.”

“Where to now?” Mason asked still not caring for the fact she had gone back to work after the baby was born. However, she had promised to leave the more dangerous assignments to him, Chase, and the rest of the McKinnon-Bride team. Mason was holding her feet to that fire.

She still did bodyguard duty and even that was really more than he was comfortable with considering she was his wife and the mother of his child.

“I’m headed for Lubbock. Josh has just hired us to do guard-duty for a woman he has taken under his wing. She is some kind of forensic anthropologist and from the sound of it, he has it bad for this woman.” She grinned.

Barbara loved Josh and wanted only the best for him. Yet, he had been very private since returning from the jungles of Panama with his daughter. The little girl was traumatized, but doing much better. Jesse was now fifteen and growing up. Josh had dated very little, focusing on Jesse and getting her back on even footing, psychologically speaking.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mason said softly. “It’s about time Josh let Panama go,” he said, gently tracing the scar on her arm. It was a daily reminder of what he gave up for this woman. More importantly, it was a reminder of what he gained and what he almost lost through his own foolish pride.

For Mason, Panama was a memory that he would never let go.

Prologue

1640 B.C.

The Isle of Crete

     “No, Lysander, no! I’ve changed my mind!” Melitta scrambled off the divan as another tremor rocked the villa, sending plaster falling and shattering as it hit the highly polished mosaic floor. “You will not take him!” She stood firm against the white-cloaked trio invading her most private chambers. “You cannot have my baby! Lysander, for the love of the goddess, please, do something!” Melitta cried frantically, looking to her husband and fighting the hands reaching for her child.

The boy, only hours old, still pink from the difficult birth, matched her cries piercing the blackness of the Mediterranean night. “You cannot take him from me!” she screamed as they ripped him from her embrace.

“We can. We will. As it is written, so it shall be done.”

The disembodied voices of the masked wizards ran cold through her veins. Melitta knew these figures were more than just flesh and bone; the wizard’s mystique was deeply embedded into the Minoan culture and psyche. They were mystic creatures from Atlantis who were rarely seen and dared only to venture out on extraordinary occasions. Their presence in her chambers confirmed how monumental this birth was to the Brotherhood of the Wizard Warriors.

Melitta wept as she collapsed back on the lush fabric of the pillows. She prayed this day would never come, as she felt the life grow within her. She had spent nine months in denial. She could deny it no more, and all the wealth they possessed would never change the present or the future.

Lysander stroked his beloved’s head, comforting his wife as she clung weakly to the front of his tunic.

He felt deep guilt for his part in his wife’s sorrow. It was all because of him that the boy was now out of their reach.

Helplessly they watched the child, created out of the love they felt for each other, disappear past the curtain of the sleeping chamber, each understanding they would never see their son again.

“Damn you to the bowels of Tartarus!” she yelled after the hooded priestesses, damning them to hell. “May you rot with that bastard Kronos!”

“Not likely,” the self-righteous reply faded into the distance.

They were simply faceless, heartless thieves in her mind, white-clad specters stealing into the night coming for the hearts and souls of the innocent, and all could be justified in the name of keeping mankind safe.

“It is fated, wife. He is my first born.” Lysander knew it was hollow comfort.

The boy would be their only child, making this even more painful. It was doubtful that Lysander would walk again from the injuries he sustained. He was lucky just to be alive from the falling debris that almost killed him during the last earthquake. Those quakes, coming with greater frequency and ferocity, were a warning he gladly would have heeded weeks past if Melitta’s condition had allowed them to travel. Now, he felt his own vigor weakening just as the volcano on Thira was strengthening. He was dying and he knew it. Without the child, Melitta would be alone once he was gone.

Lysander petitioned the Brotherhood to make an exception, allowing the child to remain. The wizard’s Council of Nine sympathized, but was unrelenting, understanding, but unmoving. This child would carry on the destiny meant for the line of the Brotherhood.

The child belonged to the wizards from this point forward. In truth, the boy was theirs from the moment of conception.

“Melitta, the boy is safer with the wizards, away from the sea,” he said with conviction.

The volcano was reawakening, angry at the waste and decadence the Minoans displayed. The vast and superior knowledge bestowed upon them was being squandered for their own decadent, self-indulgent pleasures, going unused for the betterment of all mankind.

This was a condition in the Treaty of the Sidhe Fae, a magic and mystical people. This treaty, mediated by the wizards on behalf of the human race and the Sidhe, was brokered more than a dozen millennium past.

The Sidhe Fae people, led by the Titan Kronos, wanted two things the wizards could give them: First was immortality.

The exchange conditions were very clear.

The Sidhe, in exchange for this long life, granted the Minoan ancestors untold wealth and superior talents, surrendering to them superior knowledge in science and engineering with abilities in music, math, and art greater then the world had never seen before or since.

The wizards, believing great knowledge and wealth demanded great responsibility, required the Minoan ancestors, as part of the bargain, to use the wealth and talents to better the world not just themselves. In exchange for these talents and worldly riches, the wizards granted to the Sidhe and their king long life, almost to the point of immortality.