Honey Red (14 page)

“No, silly. I’m Jamie.”

“Huh, well I’m supposed to be picking up some kid named Bob so I think I’m at the wrong house.”

The boys laughed. Jamie cocked his head and looked so much like his father at that second Hannah blinked. He reached out and touched her hair. “What color is this?”

“Burnt Amber. I’ll show you, once I find this Bob kid,” she stood up and pretended to look around.

By the time she had Jamie home, eating fruit she found rooting around in Ian’s kitchen, she had him convinced they could color his hair like hers with a crayon. He munched on carefully cut-up grapes and apples and kept pulling strands of her hair out from under her hat, rubbing them between his fingers in awe, babbling a mile a minute.

While he ambled into the family room, she looked at all the pictures taped to the refrigerator’s grubby stainless surface. Running a finger across the ones that featured Ian, noting how good the man looked in pretty much every single one of them, she smiled when she felt a hand on her leg.

“So, are you ready to read now? Or do we need to use the burnt amber on your hair?” She picked the boy up and tossed him over her shoulder. He felt small for a five year old, but that just made him easy to carry around. He giggled his way down the hall, pointing to his bedroom—a breathtaking mess of army men, matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, clothes and books.  “Wow. Too bad we don’t have magic wands to clean this place up.” She tossed him on his unmade bed and tickled him a minute before standing and succumbing to her inner neat freak. “Okay let’s play a game. I’m going to race you to see which one of us can pick up the most toys…ready…set…go!”

The kid was full of energy, and the room was tidy in no time. He talked non-stop, and once she’d helped him spread up his Lego-land sheets he fell over on the floor. She sat, anticipating a tantrum, but he just stopped, looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes and fell sound asleep. She gave him a few minutes, then tucked him under a blanket on the bed and left the room.

She sent a quick text to Ian letting him know Jamie was settled. Convincing herself that it was a really bad idea the entire time she was doing it, she eased into the big, dark room across the hall from Jamie’s. She tiptoed around the giant bed, touched the soft sheets, noted that the father was as bad a slob as the son, and ran her hand over the smooth, black surface of the dresser. An amalgam of junk littered the top—dollar bills, coins, various receipts, Chapstick, an expensive looking watch, a couple of dirty T-shirts and books about brewing. She smiled at a picture tucked into the mirror. Two small boys stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders, one dark, one light, obviously Ian and Gavin Donovan. She plucked it out, held it close to her eyes. Then when her phone buzzed with a text she jumped and put the photo back, backing out of the forbidden room berating herself the whole time.

“Hey,” she answered, hoping Ian didn’t know she’d been snooping and realizing how stupid that was. She dropped into a dining room chair. “All is well.”

“Okay. Cool. Thanks, a lot.” He was quiet. Hannah heard people talking in the background.

“Is everything okay… you know…with…?” She trailed off, unsure what to say. This day had taken such a bizarre turn. His words about seducing her still rolled around in her brain as if she’d imagined them.

“His name is Nick and he is resting now. Stomach pumped, the usual shit, I guess. When you try to OD on Vicodin and bourbon.”

“Wow.” She let the unasked question hover, suddenly so nervous she had to get up and pace. Ian’s presence permeated his house. She could smell him, sense him in every corner. She opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the brick patio.

“Yeah, sucks. Sorry you got dragged into this mess today. Seriously. Not my intention.”

“Huh, well, maybe better considering your actual intention for today if that was indeed the truth.”

He chuckled, making her shiver.  “Touché, my dear.”

She sighed, pacing around his back yard. “Well, take your time. I’m good, Jamie’s fine, but I may impose some cleanliness on this nasty pit you call a house.”

“No, no, please, don’t make me feel even more guilty by cleaning up. Jesus.”

“Too late,
my dear,”
she emphasized the words, mocking him just enough.

“Fine. Whatever. You are turning out to be too good to be true, but fine.”

“Just take care of …. “

“Nick.”

“Yeah, Nick. I’ll be here. Oh, bring some beer home,” she hung up before realizing that calling it “home” might be a tad forward.

Ian stared at his phone, unsure quite how to take Hannah’s last request until he realized that the thought of going ‘home’ to her didn’t sound that bad, and not for his typical reasons. He leaned forward on the ugly blue hospital waiting room chair, resting elbows on knees. The stress and lack of sleep headache he’d been nursing was a real temple crusher right now. His vision was even getting a little blurry. He gripped his phone and willed last night back. Wishing he’d done more than just jump the poor kid’s bones as pleasant as that had been, he leaned back and tried to relax the knot of muscle in his neck. Guilt flooded every corner of his psyche. He should never have pushed Nick into bed again. He obviously wasn’t ready for it.

Now, something about his perception of Hannah had shifted or perhaps it was him, but whatever it was he looked forward to seeing her. If for no other reason than he could drink some beer and finally relax after the barn burner bullshit he’d been through these last twenty-four hours.

Alyssa dropped into a chair next to him.

“Listen, Alyssa,” he turned to the lovely blonde woman who was going to marry his brother, “I am really sorry. I mean, I don’t know what got into me, but….”

She stared straight ahead. Ian recalled Gavin’s words about his fiancé—that the woman was eight-thousand layers of stubborn, wrapped in intransigence, all tied up with an ornery string. She’d have to be, having built the most successful wine and beer distribution operation in the state out of her father’s one time disaster of a company. He sighed and looked out onto a sea of faces in the VA hospital waiting room.

“Okay. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I did not do anything to him. We, he…well, this is the second time we, you know,” he blew out a breath, but she held onto her silence. “I have no excuse or reason why I bolted. It was wrong, lame, and everything in between. And I’m sorry. That’s all I have. Take it or leave it. But I’m here now and really want to help him, if I can. I…care about your brother, Alyssa…a lot.”

He saw Gavin come around the corner carrying cardboard cups of so-called coffee. His stomach churned at the thought of it. When Alyssa started talking her voice was monotone, as if she were reciting her times tables. But they were all wrung out and exhausted so Ian listened and tried to find some unthawing towards him in the words. “Nick was the star of the football and the track team in high school but had no really close friends. He went on dates, but no girl was around more than once or twice. When he graduated, we had half the class at our house for his party, but we never really knew him, I guess. By the time he was halfway through his junior year of college he decided to come out to our parents. And they told him to get out of their house.”

Ian leaned back wanting to know more but not really. And hating himself for thinking that. He took a cup of the swill from his brother, and they sat, listening to Alyssa give her flat-voiced monologue. “We were not that close growing up. But when he told my parents, I discovered that he needed me. There was no big fight or anything. Our father just stood up, opened the door, and told his only son to leave and never come back.” She sighed and put her face in her hands. Gavin reached out to touch her but she jerked away. “No, don’t.” Gavin shot Ian a what-did-I-tell-you look. “He was at loose ends since our parents stopped funding his college tuition and somehow ended up at a Marine recruiting center. They figured out quick he was a math and computer savant and sent him to officer training after basic. When my parents were killed in a car accident two years after my father disowned him, he didn’t come home for the funeral. It was…shitty. After that, we started talking more regularly. Then he ended up in Iraq, met Dan and….”

She turned to fix Ian with an angry look. “Nick falls in love fast and hard. And I will not let you fuck around with his head; do you get me, Donovan? I don’t care whose brother you are.” She stood, shrugging Gavin off when he tried to join her. She held on to her arms, shivered in the too-cold room. “He is all I have. My blood. My family. And you can’t just…walk out like that and then claim that you care about him.”

“Hang on a second,” Gavin started to protest, but Ian put a hand on his brother’s knee. Gavin glared at him.

“Let her finish.” Ian said, quietly.

“I won’t let you hurt us.” She spit out and then turned and walked to Nick’s room shutting the door behind her.

“Nice. Now I’m in trouble, too? Fuck.” Gavin sipped and checked his phone. “Tracy says Jamie went home with Hannah? Is that my firebrand marketing director?”

Ian nodded, words frozen on his lips.

“I don’t know what in the hell you are getting yourself into with her or with my future brother-in-law, but so help me Ian James I will fucking strangle you with your own shoestring if you screw this up for me. I love that woman with everything I have and I’ve worked too hard to lose her because you can’t decide which god damn team you bat for.”

Ian stood and started for the elevator. He was shutting down, could barely see, or hear and Alyssa’s words had cut a hole in his gut he couldn’t justify. Nick. He wanted to see him so badly, but Alyssa had said no. So, he’d sat for hours in the ice cold waiting room, tried to be supportive, and now was going to leave without even laying eyes on him. A hand on his arm made him turn around. His brother’s gaze was icy with fury. “Stop walking away.”

Ian jerked his arm out of Gavin’s grip. “Stop lecturing me. She won’t even let me near his room. What the fuck am I supposed to do here? My son is at home with a woman who was kind enough to volunteer to help me out. I want a shower, a beer, and a nap. I don’t need to hear any more from either of you. I’m a shithead. I get it. Let go of my arm, Gavin. Now.”

Gavin blinked and stepped away. Ian turned to push the ground floor button on the elevator and got a glimpse of Alyssa guarding her brother’s hospital room like a mama bear over a nest of cubs. He sighed. All he wanted was sleep so he could think straight and maybe fix this or at least make it less shitty.

He drove home in a daze barely remembering the journey. Jamie was tucked into Hannah’s side poring over a stack of books on the couch when he opened the front door. “Daddy!” The boy jumped into his arms. Ian held him, smelled his fresh bathed little boy and let tears slip from his eyes. Hannah rose gracefully from the couch, patted Jamie’s back, and put her lips to Ian’s cheek.

“I’ll go. You guys rest.”

“No!” Jamie yelped and tried to reach for her. “Hannah, stay.”

Ian put a hand on her arm. “Yes, please, Hannah. Stay.”

Chapter Fifteen

Nick put out his hand and was soothed by his dog’s presence. He scratched Brutus between the ears and listened to the emails being read to him from the computer. Leaning back, he contemplated the latest dilemma presented by this new client.

“Jake!” he barked out, grabbing the water bottle never far from his reach. “I need the Trillium report.”

“Got it,” his new business partner said, just over his left shoulder.

Sounds still assaulted him but he’d learned to filter them, thanks to a different drug regimen and a better therapist.  The ten days he had spent essentially a prisoner in the crappy VA hospital had taught him a lot –
mainly that the self-pity bullshit needed to stop. So, he tried. And, now, a month later, he sat in the house that his sister was slowly vacating as she moved her life into a new phase –
one married to the brother of the man he still obsessed about. And he had taken his best clients and opened his own internet security consulting firm that consisted of him and Jake Lowery, a fellow Counter Intel vet.

“Here, Nick, listen to this,” Jake leaned over his arm, hit something on his keyboard and a fresh report poured into his ears. He tried to absorb it, but he was having one of those days. The days he dreaded when the memories of Dan, of the time they’d shared and then the horrific carnage that had taken the man from him rippled through him like an undulating serpent. His head was pounding, reminiscent of his early days post-surgery. The dog whined, pushed his huge head onto Nick’s leg. “You okay?” Jake put a hand on his shoulder.