Hard to Handle (29 page)

She was standing still in the middle of the room, just out of his reach, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes. Then her shoulders were shaking as her back curved forward in pain. The soft, whispering sobs followed. He immediately went to her and pulled her up against his chest. He could feel her pain deep in the pit of his stomach, and it hurt. Sam knew that if he could absorb it all for her, he would. He would do anything for her.

“Don't cry, lass,” he pled, trying to swallow the giant knot growing in his throat.

He continued to hold her tight, running soothing caresses down her back until the worst seemed to be over. She wiped her face, but wouldn't look into his eyes. Sam knew she needed patience and understanding. He coaxed her into bed and under the covers, and pulled her close after turning out the lights. She sighed deeply while wrapping her legs over his and burying her face against his chest. He stroked her arm lightly until they fell asleep.

Kaylee slept in on Tuesday morning, and Sam decided to work from the house in case she needed anything. He was sitting in the living room on a call when she came out of the bedroom. She paused when she saw him as though surprised, and her professional clothing suggested she had somewhere to go.

Sam approached her in the kitchen when his call ended. She was making toast and a fresh pot of coffee.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked politely, leaning casually against the counter across from her.

“Too well, I guess,” she replied. “You should have woken me.”

“No harm done. Unless you have somewhere you need to be.” His stomach tingled in warning.

She turned so her back was to him and poured a cup of coffee.

“I do, actually. I'm going back to New York today.”

CHAPTER 29

He shouldn't have been surprised. Everything that Sam knew about Mikayla Stone-Clement suggested this moment was inevitable. Yet, he stood there without a plan for how to deal with it.

Kaylee sipped her black coffee before turning to look back at him squarely.

“Why?” he asked. There was no point in beating around the bush. He had nothing to lose.

“I have some things for the building company that I need to do in person,” she explained.

“I mean why today? Why so quickly?” he insisted.

His tone was calm and even, despite the turmoil inside him. But it wasn't anger, just sharp disappointment.

“Today is as good a day as any,” she said. “Things with my dad are out in the open, and there's nothing more I can do about it. Whatever happens now is completely out of my control, and that's fine. But, I can't live in limbo, living with no objective or purpose. So, I had to make some decisions. I have to move on.”

She sounded firm in her stance, without any room for discussion. Like her decision had been made and he was not part of it.

“Move on from what exactly, Kaylee?”

“From everything,” she said simply. “Everything about my life in the last four years has been about living up to my obligations and supporting my family. I'm not complaining about it. It hasn't been a hardship or anything. It gave me a clear purpose. But now I don't have to do it anymore. There are no expectations from anyone that should dictate how I live my life. That was exciting, until I realized I have no idea who I am or what I really want to do with my life going forward. But I have to figure it out. So I had to draw a line in the sand. Pick a day when my life stops being all about my family and starts being more about me again. That day is today.”

“Does that mean that you're moving on from us, also?” he asked, needing to have complete clarity.

“I don't know how to answer that, Sam. I don't even know what ‘us' is,” she admitted.

“You could have asked. We could have talked about it,” he retorted. “But you've gone off and made your decisions on your own.”

Kaylee was about to respond but paused and looked away. Her defiant stance softened a bit.

“Then I'm asking now,” she told him. “But I don't think you have any answers for me.”

“You don't know that,” Sam countered.

“I know that you don't trust me.”

He couldn't respond truthfully because he didn't know what to say.

“I'm not leaving you, Sam. I'm leaving the situation,” she explained. “I think this ‘us' might be a part of the life I created to help my father. I'm not sure it can work once I move on.”

“So I've served my purpose, then? Played my part in your scheme, and now you have no further use for me?”

She took a deep breath.

“Yes, I think that's the truth. But not because I see it that way, but because you do.”

It took a moment for him to step back from his hurt and see what she was saying.

“I don't know what you want me to say, Sam. I know I created this situation between us. I accepted that a long time ago,” Kaylee continued. “But, I've spent so much time believing that if we had met in a different time and place, it would have worked. You would be the man that I could share everything with. Life, children, love. I had a bar to measure every other man on, and none ever came close. So now that I'm reevaluating everything, I wonder if this time together might be about closing that chapter.”

It took Sam some time after she had spoken to really understand her words. It was about that time in between now and when they had first met. A time that he preferred not to think about and had never considered discussing with Kaylee.

“Renee told me I was waiting for you,” he told her. “I think she was right.”

“See? We just needed to play it out. Now we can both move on without imagining some perfect relationship that really isn't realistic.”

“Nay, that's not what I meant,” countered Sam. “Some of what you said is true, for me also. I did find it hard to forget you, but I thought it was because you weren't real. The way I felt around you should not be possible so fast. That connection is supposed to build slowly over time, right? Love doesn't club you over the head one day. So, you could not be real.”

Kaylee listened quietly, with her arms wrapped around her waist. Her eyes were sad, but she stood tall, as though ready for the truth, whatever it was.

“I always knew that if I saw you again, I would know for sure,” Sam admitted. “But I didn't know which would be worse, finding out that love cannot happen that fast, or that it can. So I've been waiting to find out.”

“What are you saying?” she asked.

He walked forward to stand in front of her, close enough to touch her, but he didn't.

“I'm saying you're right, I needed to close that chapter, also,” he explained “You're real, Kaylee. More real than I ever imagined, and I knew it the moment I saw you again. It wasn't you that I didn't trust—it was my feelings. I just needed a little time to accept that I love you and I don't suspect it's going to change.”

Kaylee gasped in surprise, and her eyes filled up. Sam wanted badly to pull her close and savor this moment, but there was so much still unsaid between them and he needed to know exactly where he stood.

“So when you get on that plane today, are you leaving me also?” he asked.

She shook her head, laughing a little.

“No, never. I've tried that once, and it didn't work out too well,” she teased.

“For me either. So let's not do it again, lass.”

Finally, he wrapped his arms around her body pulling her tight against him.

“I love you so much, Sam,” she whispered into his ear. He swallowed around the large lump in his throat.

“You said you had to make decisions about your life,” Sam finally stated. “You don't have to make them alone anymore. We can make them together.”

He felt her sigh. “Well, the easy one is where to live. I want to come home, back to Virginia.”

“That's a good start. I approve,” he declared.

“The work thing is a little trickier, now that I've developed some new skills. There are lots of options to choose from.” She pulled back to smile up at him, flashing her dimples. “I'm thinking professional ninja or join the CIA. Or maybe become a ninja-spy? Then I don't have to choose, right?”

Sam just chuckled and squeezed her tighter.

EPILOGUE

“I thought Evan and Nia were stopping by,” Lucas said to Sam. It was Saturday afternoon over three weeks later, and the two men were standing by the barbecue in Sam's backyard keeping an eye on the baby-back ribs that were slowly grilling to tender perfection.

“Yeah, they should be here any minute,” Sam confirmed. “Evan says he has some news.”

“About what, a new case?”

“He didn't say,” Sam replied as he carefully turned each slab of pork, testing the readiness of the meat.

“Things seem cool between you guys, now,” Lucas added. “Right?”

Sam looked over at Kaylee, sitting by the pool talking to Lucas's girlfriend, Alex Cotts. Niko sat serenely in her lap, sleeping.

“Yeah, we're all good.”

The friends were silent for a few minutes, drinking cold beer and listening to the sounds of summer along the Potomac River.

“Any updates on the case against Patrick O'Toole?” Lucas eventually asked.

Sam nodded. “I spoke to the head of the FBI investigation late yesterday.”

He paused when Niko barked sharply, now with his head lifted and ears perked in alert. The small terrier then jumped off Kaylee's lap and ran to the back door of the house. A few moments later, Evan and Nia James stepped out into the backyard, holding hands. They said hello to the two other women. Then Evan left Nia with her new girlfriends to join his partners by the grill.

“Sam has a new update from the FBI on O'Toole,” Lucas explained, while handing Evan an icy-cold bottle of beer from the cooler nearby.

“What are they saying?” Evan asked.

“We'd given them plenty of evidence that O'Toole was the head of an operation that was involved in everything from fraud to tax evasion to extortion,” Sam reminded them. “Once George Clement told the feds everything he knew about O'Toole's business operations over the years, Anthony Fleming and Mark McMann quickly became very helpful, trading information for immunity on the most serious charges. But yesterday they finally got what they need to issue a warrant for O'Toole's arrest on two counts of murder.”

“Really?” Evan exclaimed. “For Jason Holt? And who else?”

“Yup, Holt and Nate Battleford,” confirmed Sam.

“What's the evidence?” asked Lucas. “Both Fleming and McMann were adamant that if Holt had in fact been murdered, they knew nothing about it.”

“Turns out they were telling the truth. It was Nigel Dobson that finally talked,” Sam told them, then clarified when both men looked unfamiliar with the name. “Dobson was the guy that shot Battleford at the Ross construction site, the former New Jersey State police detective. His former police chief finally gave the feds access to the archived data from Dobson's computer before he left the force, and they found an email exchange with Patrick O'Toole about a problem that needed to be taken care of in Maryland. It was dated one week before Holt died in the car explosion.

“That was enough to get Dobson to finally talk, and he stated on record that O'Toole hired him directly to take out Holt, then later to keep an eye on Battleford and eliminate him as a risk if needed.”

The three friends were silent in thought for several seconds.

“What about George?” Evan finally asked. “I spoke to him last week, and he seemed to be doing okay. Looked more relaxed than I'd seen him in years.”

“The worst is over for him,” Sam confirmed. “The FBI and State Department have been happy with his cooperation and transparency. There's enough evidence to support his claim that O'Toole had threatened his family. I also provided our case files on the annual Clement Media security reviews that prove George was diligent about ensuring his papers weren't used to bury stories about the various construction, cement, and research companies under the O'Toole Empire.”

“Kaylee must be relieved,” Lucas said.

Sam nodded with agreement as they all looked over at the three women, now sitting together at an outdoor dining table and drinking white wine. Suddenly, Alex screamed with surprise, and gripped Nia's hand to look more closely at one of her fingers. The women then jumped up from their seats, hugging and kissing each other on the cheek with shouts of congratulations.

Lucas and Sam looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then over to Evan, who was looking at Nia with intense pride and adoration.

“Is there something you want to tell us, Ice?” Lucas finally asked.

“Nia and I are getting married,” he confirmed, finally looking back at his best friends, beaming with a grin from ear to ear.

“That's fantastic!” shouted Lucas, slapping Evan on his back, enthusiastically.

“Well done, mate,” Sam added with an approving smile.

“Have you set a date?” added Lucas.

“Not specifically, but it will be soon. We're thinking early fall,” Evan explained while they looked back at the women they loved, who were chatting excitedly. “Nia wants to do something small, maybe a destination wedding.”

“Any idea where?” Sam inquired.

“Not specifically. We talked about somewhere in Europe, maybe at a villa in Italy or Portugal,” Evan explained.

“How about Scotland, at Seaforth Manor?” Lucas and Evan looked at Sam, and he shrugged. “My mum does weddings all the time and I'm sure she'd take care of everything, even on short notice.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Evan replied as they turned to watch the three women walk toward them, all smart, beautiful, and strong in their own unique ways. “It looks like we're going to Scotland.”