CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

The cold air poured into Titan HQ’s war room. Rocco Savage, the second in command of all teams, Brock Gamble, who ran the Delta team, and Parker sat with Bishop O’Kane’s folder in front of them and the man across the table.

Parker had to give the guy credit. He didn’t flinch under scrutiny. They were an intimidating bunch, and this was an intimidating building. Bishop was there for the final interview of a much-sought-after job. Boss Man had already given his thumbs-up and was off the grid with Sugar. The final decision lay in their hands.

There was one question on the table: what would he have done differently about Sugar? This was where Bishop could lose the job. Everyone in the room knew it too.

Bishop’s eyes crinkled, and he almost smiled but must have thought better of it. “I’d have figured her out earlier and let her stir in the jump ropes a minute longer.”

Parker laughed. “Damn.” He’d expected something more along the lines of sucking up about Boss Man’s wife. But to let Sugar sit and wait? Parker laughed again.

Rocco and Brock did too.

“Careful,” Rocco cautioned. “That woman could string you up and hide the body where no one would find it.”

Bishop smiled. “Bet she could.”

Brock remained silent and ran a hand over his face. “Works for me.” He eyed Rocco, who gave Parker the go-ahead to excuse Bishop.

Parker stood and walked toward the door, the almost-new hire following in line, and he opened it and directed him to a small conference room nearby. “Good answer, bro.”

“She’s crazy, isn’t she?” Bishop laughed.

“In the best of ways,” Parker said.

They reconvened and agreed with Boss Man and Sugar’s assessment. The dude was spot-on. They liked him and wanted to work with him. Brock nodded. Parker did too. Rocco slapped the table. “Alright, then.”

They filed out, and Rocco stopped by the conference room where they’d left Bishop. “Welcome to Titan.”

 

***

“Knock-knock. We come bearing gifts.” Sugar’s sister, Jenny, and her husband, Asher, walked into the hospital room, eyes trained on the sleeping newborn bundled in Sugar’s arms.

Sugar grinned, exhausted and blissed out in a way that she couldn’t explain. Having her sister walk in made it that much better. Family had always been a four-letter word, with the exception of her sister, until Jared had crashed into her life. He’d just left for the cafeteria to grab Asal and him lunch while she rested in a hospital bed. Asal was tucked on one side of her. “Heya.”

Asal squirmed off the bed and jumped into Asher’s outstretched arms.

“What’s up, short stack?” Asher asked.

Her dark ponytail whipped Asher in the face as her excitement bubbled over, and she reached back for the bed. “I’m awesome at helping.”

“Bet you are.” He put her down, and they moved closer to Sugar. Jenny’s tearing eyes went wide, and her pearly whites beamed.

“I know where the diapers are,” Asal said. “I tell the nurses when they need to do things.”

Sugar couldn’t hide her amusement at the little boss lady in the making. Jenny and Asher had the same amused faces.

Asal turned for her diaper bag. “Plus, I have snacks. Do you want something?”

“I think we’re good. How about you, Mama?” Jenny asked. “Need anything?”

“Jared went for lunch. He’ll be back—”

As if on cue, he walked in with drinks in one hand and a to-go bag in another. “Hey, Jenny. Hey Mister Presidential Candidate.” He chuckled quietly, so as not to wake the baby, and deposited the food on a table.

“Not yet, not yet.” They shook hands. “If at all.”

“Not what the papers are murmuring.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Yeah, the press. Your favorite people. They always say the truth.”

“Just keeping him on his toes,” Jared said to Asher, and Jenny repositioned at the corner of the bed. Asal dug into the takeout and began distributing the meals.

“She’s beautiful.” Jenny sighed, scooting closer to Sugar.

“I know,” Sugar said.

“So?”

“So what?” Sugar asked.

“Come on. Don’t make me beg.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “You want a name.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Vi-vi!” Asal announced.

Jenny’s questioning glance left the newborn and went to Sugar. “That’s different.”

“Hello?” The deep, low baritone of Jared’s father announced his arrival before Sugar saw him.

“Hey, Pops.” Jared greeted his dad, but Asal was head greeter, repeating her arm-launching manner of saying hello.

“Grandpa.” She wrapped her arms around his neck but quickly wiggled away. “Grandma!”

Violet Westin barely had a foot in the room before Asal slingshot from one grandparent to the next. A round of hugs and kisses later, Asal dragged the older woman over to the baby. “Grandma, this is the other Violet.”

“Oh,” Jenny whispered.

Tingles ran down Sugar’s spine as she glanced up and watched her husband. The man could bark orders or speak volumes with his scary silences. At this moment, he crossed his thick arms over his impossibly broad chest and stood stoically.

“Hi, Violet. Meet your namesake.” Sugar gently tilted her elbow up, adjusting the sleeping baby, then relaxed her arm as Jared came up behind his mom.

“Mom.” He kissed the top of her head.

Asal crawled onto Sugar’s bed and snuggled in close. Jenny and Asher closed in too. This was family—everything Sugar had once thought a nightmare. The emotion and exhaustion hit her for a second as voices began to talk around her, and she let her eyelids slip. Maybe she tried to hide a tear. Maybe she was choked with emotion. Maybe taking it all in was too much. Or maybe this was just the perfect moment, and never did Sugar think that she’d be lucky enough to have a life like this.

She didn’t realize how hard she’d fought for the fairy tale or that she’d been going after it to begin with. But what a journey it had been, and they were only getting started.

 

***

Jared watched the two strongest women he knew—his wife and his mother—and then his chest pulled with a tightness that could only be explained as a surge of pride. Asal and Violet would be just as strong as the two women holding them.

His dad was a man of few words, and as he stepped over to Jared, slapping him on the back, Jared could sense the two of them felt the same satisfaction in how life had turned out. There were so many twists and turns along the way, so many ways that things could have been different, that Jared might never have met Sugar or experienced this level of gratification with Asal doting on Violet and his mother doting on Sugar.

For the moment, Jared swallowed away the tightness in his throat, and the memory of his sixteenth birthday surfaced. The range targets had been reset, and as sixteenth birthdays went, that one had kicked ass. Dad let him have full pick of all of his weapons. It was a dad-son day of ammo and target practice. Jared had played down how pumped he was, but between that and his mom offering to make his favorite dinner, that day couldn’t have been any better.

He loved the heavy weight of the .45 in his hand, the cold feel of the metal, and how it warmed to his touch. He’d caressed the side with his fingertip, and the target had been his. Jared hadn’t yet stepped to the line, and he knew that bull’s-eye would be hollowed out with his shots.

Dad had cleared his throat. “You given any thought to college?”

That was the one topic they didn’t talk much about. School had sent home letter after letter reminding his parents how he was a candidate for great things. He had grades and the leadership skills—qualities that colleges apparently recruited.

“No.” He’d stepped to the line, and the world disappeared. When his target was in sight, Jared had tunnel vision. There was an instinctual focus that he couldn’t describe. It was predatory—or perhaps evolutionary, further drilled into him by his father. There was no option other than completing his objective. A direct hit, no matter what distractions the world offered. Like college applications.

He emptied his clip, leaving a hollowed-out target, and turned to look at his dad’s approving profile. “I’m going to be a Ranger.”

Much like now, he knew with certainty that he was going to continue to excel in his job as family man.

Most people who said they wanted to be Army Rangers didn’t have a shot in hell. But even at sixteen, he wasn’t most people.

At the time, his Dad’s jaw flexed, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he took in the obliterated target. A minute passed by, and an unspoken conversation occurred between them. It wasn’t one of convincing or persuasion. It was not a mental mano a mano but a simple realization between two men cut from the same cloth.

Dad had nodded. “I’ll make sure to tell your mother.” Now, standing in the hospital room with his own family, he was sure that whatever his children came to him with, Jared would have that same conviction in them that his father had in his dreams.

“You’re an excellent father,” Dad said. “When you decide to do something well, you do just that.”

The way his father said things, his man-of-few-words, always-speak-the-truth approach to life, it meant a lot. “I had good role models.”

“Your mother more so than me.” Dad laughed.

Mom joined in with his laughter. “I’d agree with that.”

Jared remembered the day during Sugar’s pregnancy when she had dropped the baby-name book to the top of her protruding stomach. “We should call her Violet.”

“What—like my mom?”

“Exactly like your mom.”

“Why?” Jared asked.

“You surround yourself with strong women. She was the first.”

“True…” Violet Westin. There was already one of those, and she was a live wire. “But…”

“The woman practically tore down a burning building to save her son.” Sugar’s eyes had gone watery. “I want that name attached to our daughter.”

Damn. One of the scariest days of his life—he was man enough to admit that now—had been when his mom almost died because she loved him that much.

After his dad had gone back in to the burning house, his parents apparently walked out of it holding hands—holding each other up—but through the smoke and the fire, his mother had methodically searched for her son. A mother’s love.

As Jared had grown up, he’d watched her deal with his antics and rule with an iron fist—and love with a giant heart. She kept the troops—what she called their family, including anyone needing a shoulder to lean on—in line.

So accepting Sugar’s choice of names hadn’t been difficult. She’d tried the name out, slowly saying, “Violet Westin.”

“Violet Lilly Westin,” Jared had said. “For the two strongest women I know.”

Sugar’s decision reached her eyes, and the name had been agreed to before Sugar could even mouth the word “yes” and kiss him.

He took a deep breath, focusing back on the maternity room in front of him.

The baby stirred, and Sugar’s dark-blue eyes drifted open. “I’m going to give this nursing thing a try again.”

Asal, Jenny, and Jared’s mom helped her sit up and futz with pillows as Asher and Jared opened up the food bags. Dad took a food order from his wife and Jenny and Asher and went to grab more cafeteria grub. Asal, apparently done directing her mom on the idiosyncrasies of nursing a newborn, hopped down and grabbed her lunch, pulling a chair to the table and tucking her knees under her as she got comfortable.

“God, I’m talented.” Sugar squealed, and Jared looked over. She nursed the baby while drinking out of a large hospital mug. “Small victories. Don’t knock ’em.”

He tossed a fry into his mouth. “I can’t imagine the complexities happening over there. You just flag for a refill.”

She beamed, and when Violet let loose for a minute, Sugar gave her drink to Jenny, grumbling. “If anyone says this is a piece of cake at first, they can bite my booty.”

Jenny and his mother agreed, and a few minutes later they heard one serious baby belch that could rival a few of the guys on his team. His mom held his newborn, and Jenny snapped pictures. All was right in their world.

“So what else is happening?” Dad asked.

“I’ve hired a few new guys.”

“For the main team?”

Jared nodded. “And I’m expanding Delta. Brock’s taking the lead on that.”

“Good.” Dad turned to Asher. “How about you? Everything still stinks in Washington. Having fun with that? Or about done?”

“Jenny’s about to announce she’s headlining something on Broadway,” Asher replied.

“Ah, the politician deflects.” Dad elbowed Asher good-naturedly.

“I didn’t know that!” Sugar said. “Why didn’t I know?”

“You had things going on. Like a baby.”

“Oh, BS. Asher’s throwing you under the bus. What aren’t you telling us?” Sugar’s eyebrows went up. “You are going to announce your candidacy soon, aren’t you?”

He laughed and shook his head, a dead McIntyre giveaway. “Come on, Sugar. We’re here for you.”

“Yay! This is so exciting.”

Again, Asher shook his head, this time not doing a great job of hiding his pearly-white smile. “Nothing is official.”

“It never is,” Sugar squeaked. “Holy moley. My sister will be First Lady of the United States. Do you know how crazy that is to say out loud?”

“Could be.” Jenny bit her bottom lip. “We’ll see. Things happen.”

Sugar decided to torture her sister later with that. “But you’re headlining Broadway? That’s crazy cool.”

“Way cooler. And a certainty.” Asher threw his arm around Jenny. “She’s amazing.”

Jared backed up and stared at his family. This room was full of impossible dreamers, surpassing what once could have only been a hope and a wish.

A Broadway headliner and a presidential candidate? His wife and children? Behind his family and friends was a group of warriors that he’d brought together for a greater good. Damn. Life was pretty fuckin’ great.

Asal fidgeted in the corner now that her lunch was done and the baby and all of the room’s guests were old news.

Jenny took her hand. “Want to go explore?”

“Yes!”

Asher grabbed a couple things for Asal. “We actually told Mia we’d take Asal out for the afternoon.”

Jared shook his hand. “Thanks.” Then he gave his little girl a kiss and sent her packing. His mom had the baby, who had nestled back asleep in a corner in a chair. His dad grabbed another chair.

“What do you think, Boss Man? Think we can break out of here soon?” Sugar asked.

“You’re raring to go that fast?”

Her blue eyes danced. “I want to get back to our life.”

His heart swelled. “Soon as we get a stamp of approval, we’ll be on our way. I’m good with that.”

“Take as much help from the hospital and nurses as you can while you’re here.” His mom stood, kissed the baby, and gave her to him. “And rest while you can. We’ll come over and help.”

“Thanks.”

Jared repositioned Violet so that he could stare down and watch her sleep. She fit inside his forearm even with the blanket wrapped around her. She was no longer than a football and weighed less than a brick of ammo. Vi-vi was… vulnerable. Precious. She was dependent on Sugar for nutrition, but damn if he wouldn’t provide for everything else.

She opened her little mouth and yawned. Even at full stretch, everything about her was tiny. She had a smattering of dark hair, and when she did open her eyes, they were blue. Jared leaned his head closer. “Hey, Vi.”

More than one person had said newborns didn’t smile after he announced that his daughter smiled at him. But he swore to God that Violet just smiled again.

“Oh, one more thing.” His mom reached into her bag and pulled out a pink-wrapped box. “One more thing. I couldn’t resist.”

The you didn’t have tos were said, and Sugar opened the box. It was a pink-camo onesie with, in military block print, “Titan Princess in Training.”

“Wow, Mom.” He picked up the outfit, running his thumb over the words.

She gave him a knowing look. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to be ready for the next generation of Titan.”

He thought about his teams, the new recruits, the men who’d been with him since day one, the paternity-leave requests, the women who had joined their ranks, and the babies and kids who ran the halls of Titan HQ. “We already are.”

 

THE END

 

Stay in touch with Cristin Harber by signing up for her newsletter!