Targeted (Firebrand Book 1) (7 page)

The absence of a male figure in the house had been difficult for Max, even more so now that he was getting older. He needed a father to play sports with him in the back yard, one who could guide him through the difficult teenage years and teach him how to grow into a man who accepted responsibility for the well-being of those he loved. A man like Richard. But Max had been too young when Richard died to remember much about him. Even his pictures hadn’t sparked any memory or any curiosity in the boy. The photographs of the larger-than-life uncle he’d never met had been another matter.

Now that he could ask the flesh and blood man about his daring exploits and his lifestyle Max had come to believe so glamorous, he was taking advantage of the situation. Max was too young to distinguish the fine line between military hero and paid mercenary. And he hadn’t yet learned how to gauge a man’s character by his commitment to care for those he loved. How would he react when he discovered Ash wasn’t the kind of man to follow through on promises he made?

Lainey picked up her coffee cup and was about to take a sip when she realized Max had just asked her a question. She glanced around, and he and Ash were both staring at her. “I’m sorry. Did you say something to me?”

Max nodded. “I was telling Uncle Ash about the solo I’m doing in the school musical tomorrow, and he said he wants to come. Isn’t that cool?”

She narrowed her eyes as she studied Ash over the rim of her coffee cup. The thought of going out in public, much less allowing Max to appear onstage in a school musical, frightened her. Although she knew Max would be upset, she had hoped for his safety they could come up with some excuse for him not to participate. “Are you sure?” she asked, hoping Ash would understand the hidden meaning in her question.

He smiled. “Of course I am. But I do have some friends I’d like to invite along.” He turned back to Max. “Would you mind some of my Firebrand buddies coming with us?”

Max’s eyes grew wide. “Are you kidding me? They’d really come?”

Ash laughed. “They’d love to. Especially when I tell them they need to see you now so that when you’re a famous rock star they can say they knew you when.”

Max was practically jumping up and down in his chair. “I can’t believe it. Isn’t that great, Mom?”

Lainey’s stomach clenched, and she gave a weak nod. “Yes, it is.”

Max took a drink of his orange juice and then looked back at Ash. “So, Uncle Ash, why haven’t you ever come home before?”

Her son’s question shocked Lainey, and she almost choked on the bite of muffin she’d just taken. She grabbed her coffee cup and gulped a mouthful of the hot liquid before she turned to Max. “It’s not our place to question why your uncle has stayed away. We just need to be glad he’s here now.”

Ash waved his hand in dismissal and shook his head. “No, it’s all right, Lainey.” He took a deep breath and turned his head to stare at Max. “After meeting you, I’m sorry I didn’t come home sooner. I suppose my only excuse is the fact that I never know from one day to the next where I’m going to be. I stay at my cabin in Colorado and wait for Reese to get in touch with me about our next mission.”

Max’s forehead wrinkled. “Who’s Reese?”

“Reese Alexander is my good friend and the man who founded Firebrand International. I met him when I was in the army. He and Colt Hanson asked me to join them in forming a new group that would contract our services to the government.”

Max scooted his plate out of the way and crossed his arms on the table as he leaned forward. “What kind of services?”

Ash shrugged. “Hostage recovery, fugitives on the run, missions where they need added military help. That sort of thing.”

“Wow. That’s got to be exciting.”

Lainey coughed, and Ash glanced over at her. She frowned and gave a slight shake of her head. His eyebrows arched, and he turned his head to look at Max whose mouth gaped open. Ash cleared his throat and gave his head a slight shake. “It may sound like some exciting adventure you’d see in the movies, Max, but it’s not. It can be boring and nerve wracking at the same time when you’re guarding a perimeter or when you’re waiting for the right moment to strike. You may go for days without bathing and live on MREs. And no matter how tired or hungry you get, you have to always be on alert because people’s lives depend on you.”

“What’re MREs?”

“Military rations that are designed as survival food.” He grinned and pointed to his empty plate. “They don’t taste anything like your mom’s cooking.”

Lainey pushed her chair back, rose, and reached for Max’s plate. She forced a smile to her face as she stacked the dish on top of hers. “I think you’ve monopolized your uncle’s time long enough. You’ll get a chance to talk to him a lot more while he’s here. Now if you’re finished eating, I think you should take the opportunity of being home today to work on that science project that’s due next week while I talk to your uncle.”

Max’s mouth drooped, and his forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Aw, Mom, do I have to?”

“Yes, you do.”

Max scooted his chair back from the table and stood. Even before he turned to her she knew what he was about to do, and he didn’t disappoint. His long lashes blinked once, and he stared at her in wide-eyed childish innocence. A half-smile pulled at his lips. She braced herself for the whining appeal he was about to voice.

“Can I ask Uncle Ash one more question?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Max, I said. . .”

“I know, Mom, but this is really important.” He clasped his hands under his chin as if he was begging. “Please.”

She knew he was stalling for time and she should ignore his request, but she hesitated. After all, this was the first time he’d ever been around the man he’d questioned her about for years. She nodded. “All right. One more question.”

He grinned and glanced back at Ash. “Can I see your tattoo?”

For an instant Lainey was transported back in time. She still remembered Ash standing in her living room, the newly-inked tattoo displayed on his arm and his determination to join Firebrand written on his face. A small gasp escaped her mouth. The plates slipped from her hands and rattled when they struck the table. “His tattoo?”

Max nodded. “Yeah the one that looks like a sword and a torch crossed in an X. I want to see it for real.”

Lainey gripped the edge of the table and stared at her son. “Max, how did you. . .”

“It’s okay, Lainey,” Ash interrupted before she could finish. His eyes clouded as if he, too, remembered that night when their world had come crashing down. Then slowly he grasped his shirt cuff and pulled the sleeve up to reveal the tattoo that had haunted her dreams for years.

Ash smiled down at Max and held his arm closer for him to see. “My friend Reese read a comic book when he was a kid about a Greek god named Heracles who killed the Hydra, a mythological serpent-like water beast with many heads. Every time he cut one head off, another grew back. He finally killed it by cutting off each head with the sword, then cauterizing the wound with a firebrand. That always stuck in Reese’s mind. When we formed Firebrand, he designed the tattoo to show that our brotherhood had the same fierceness.”

Max’s eye grew wide as he leaned forward and studied the mark. He glanced up at Ash as if asking silent permission. Ash gave a slight nod, and Max smiled as he reached up and traced the design with his index finger. “Wow, that’s a great tattoo.”

The hero-worship on Max’s face sucked the breath from Lainey. He had already come under Ash’s spell, just as she had the day she first met him on a mountain trail, and it had almost destroyed her. Suddenly she was afraid. Not of the men who’d invaded her home the night before, but of Ash. She couldn’t let him hurt her son like he had her. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “Max,” she said, “how did you know your uncle had a tattoo?”

Max’s face turned red. He jerked his hand away from the tattoo and glanced down at his feet. “I read about it on the internet.”

“The internet?” Lainey’s raised voice seemed to bounce off the dining room walls. “You’ve been on the internet without letting me know? I thought we had an understanding about that.”

“We do, but I couldn’t help it, Mom. You wouldn’t tell me about Firebrand when I asked you, so I decided to find out on my own. I’ve found out all kind of neat things about it. I even saw some pictures of Uncle Ash.”

Lainey placed her hands on Max’s shoulders, turned him around to face her and gave him a shake. His head bobbed back and then forward, instantly making her regret the decision. She pulled her hands away and curled her fingers into her palms as she let her arms drift to her side. “Max, what were you thinking? I explained to you that you were only to use the internet when you checked with me. There are all kinds of things on there you don’t need to see.”

A sullen look flashed on his face, and Lainey realized that for the first time in his life she was seeing defiance in his actions. His face contorted into an angry mask, and she took a step backward from him.

“There was only one thing I wanted to see, and you wouldn’t let me. So I had to look on my own.” The anger in his voice shocked her.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead to try and dismiss the thoughts running through her
head
—
two
men threatening her, Ash coming home, and now her son’s anger. One would have been enough to deal with. She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak in a calmer tone. “You didn’t have to do anything of the sort. I can’t believe you defied me like this. When I’ve had time to think, I’ll let you know what your punishment is. Now, I want you in your room and working on that science project.”

“Mom, please. . .”

“Max,” Ash interrupted, “I’m glad you wanted to know more about me, but you shouldn’t have broken the rules to do it. The first thing I learned in Firebrand is that the rules are there to help and protect me. I may disagree with a decision that Reese makes, but he’s the head of my unit. So I obey because I respect him, and I’d follow him anywhere. You have to learn to do the same with your mother’s orders. She’s put them in place for your own good. Do you understand?”

Max frowned and glanced back and forth between them. Then his shoulders slumped, and he dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet. “Yes, sir.”

“Then remember that in the future. You have your orders about what you’re to do now, and that’s to work on your science project. A good soldier always obeys orders.”

Max nodded and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He trudged toward the door to the hallway but stopped and turned to face Lainey. “I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t do it again.”

Lainey bit down on her lip and nodded. “I’ll talk to you later.”

She watched him go, his shoulders slumped and his feet shuffling on the floor. She glanced at Ash who stared after Max, and in his eyes she saw a flicker of something that frightened her. A memory maybe of past conflicts in this house? He blinked, and the moment was gone. The hooded veil she had come to know years ago settled over his eyes, and once again he was the Ash she’d known.

“Thanks for breakfast, Lainey. I think I’ll go outside and check with the team guarding the house.”

Not yet recovered from Max’s anger, she watched as he turned toward the back door. Before he could open it, she called out. “Thanks for helping me with Max.”

He hesitated and turned back to her. “He’s a great kid, Lainey. Don’t be too hard on him. He’s just beginning to try his wings and is testing how to gain his independence. He’ll be all right.”

“I hope so.” She picked up the dishes from the table and stalked to the sink. They rattled when she set them down. She gripped the edge of the counter for a moment before she turned around and saw that he had followed her. He stood only a few feet away, his hands in his pockets just as Max had done a few minutes earlier, and stared at her with a questioning look on his face.

“Do you have some concerns about Max?”

She crossed her arms and leaned with her back against the kitchen counter. “Max isn’t a soldier who has to follow orders, and I don’t want you filling his head full of nonsense about your so-called glamorous lifestyle.”

His eyebrows arched. “I told him it was anything but that.”

“You can tell me that, and I believe it. But a ten-year-old boy doesn’t.” She straightened and glared at him. “I’m thankful you came home to help us, but I don’t want Max hurt in any way—physically or emotionally.”

He blinked, and then his eyes widened in disbelief. “You think I’d hurt him?”

“I don’t know. But your exploits certainly appeal to an impressionable boy. When this danger we’re caught up in is over, I don’t want to have to deal with Max’s disappointment when you disappear from his life. I did it and survived, but I don’t want that for my son.”

Ash’s lip curled up in a sneer, and he let his gaze sweep around the room. “Yeah, you certainly did survive, and I have to say you didn’t do too badly. You ended up with everything my family worked for—the business, the house, and all the money. What more could you want?”

His words felt like a kick in the stomach, and she recoiled. “You left me to go off and play army with your friends. What was I supposed to do?”

He clenched his fists at his sides and took another step toward her. “You weren’t supposed to marry my brother!” he yelled.