“Because…” She sniffed back her tears, struggling not to cry. This was what she needed, her TEAM, the men and women she’d protected for years, standing up for her. Getting in her face and reminding her where she belonged. That she was part of them. That they needed her as much as she needed them. Alex couldn’t have asked for more if he’d scripted this display of loyalty himself.
Jameson turned his dark glasses to Mother and gingerly cupped his left hand over her wrist again. “Beau’s right. We call you Mom because we love you, Mom,” he whispered, “and we know you love us. You’re just having a hard time right now. We understand. All of us have lost people we love. It takes a long time to get straight.”
“But you’re… But I…” She was having a hard time swallowing. “I’m not your mom, damn it. I was Dempsey’s, but now she’s gone, and so’s Justice, and… and…”
“So are Gorgeous and Crystal Love,” Maverick breathed. Gorgeous and Crystal Love were the pure white Percheron horses, the mother and foal, that perished the night an arsonist torched China’s barn in Wyoming. “So’s my baby brother, Darrin, Mom,” he said softly. “Think I don’t miss them? I’ll never get any of them back, but I’ve still got China and Kiri. I hope I’ve still got you.”
Alex was the one swallowing hard then. He’d never known until much later how close Maverick had been to committing suicide after his baby brother was killed in Afghanistan. That was when Maverick quit The TEAM and walked from Alexandria, Virginia, to the center of Wyoming. There he’d finally found the peace he’d been looking for, at China Wolf’s Wild Wolf Ranch.
It was Beau who’d finally cracked Maverick’s hard shell during The TEAM’s failed operation to stop Catalina Montego. Beau had been just as lost, just as broken and angry at the world, as Maverick then. They were brothers by different mothers, bound together by the twin demons of loss and heartache. In a convoluted way, during that op, Maverick became the big brother Beau never had during his miserable childhood. And Beau, the agent Alex had come damned close to firing, filled in for the younger brother Maverick desperately still needed in his life.
“Doesn’t matter how or when it comes,” Tripp muttered darkly. “Death is the greatest equalizer of mankind. It ruins us all.”
Alex nodded his head at Tripp, thankful he now knew about Abdul Ikram. Tripp would always carry that guilt, but he’d found Ashley Cox now, and Alex knew damned well how quickly the right woman could change a hard man’s heart.
“It’s a cheating, lying bitch with no heart,” Jameson murmured. He was still facing Sasha, his voice soft and low, his arm resting on the back of her chair now. “It doesn’t ask permission, Mom, and it doesn’t care who it takes from us, how or when. It just takes and takes until…” A tremendous sigh shuddered out of him. “…it feels like it sucks the life out of you. I know you miss Dempsey. We know you’re hurting. We’ve all lost someone we’ll never get back. But it sounds like you’ve been holding us together for a long, long time. That’s why I’ve always called you Mom. How about you let us hold onto you for a while?”
Her lashes fell. She clenched her jaw, pursed her lips, and blinked down at the table. Those fingernails of hers were oddly quiet.
“You’ve been with me since I lost Sara and Abby,” Alex reminded her gently.
Her chest heaved with another deep intake of air. Mother was suffering. How well Alex knew precisely what she was going through. After he’d lost his first wife and child, he’d been a royal pain in everyone’s ass, pissed at anyone who got in his way, suicidal, too. But oftentimes, it was the biggest assholes who were hurting the most; who needed the most understanding and patience. The most love. Kelsey had given him all that, and more.
“It’s different,” Mother whispered to the table. “Helping you people is what I do. It’s my job, not yours. Just like it was my job to take care of Dempsey, only I failed at that, didn’t I?”
“No more than I failed Sara and Abby,” Alex replied.
“But you were deployed. You weren’t here when it happened, when they died. I was right there with her, and I… I…” Mother gulped so hard, Alex heard it across the table. “Me, of all people, I should’ve been able to save her… I’m a—”
“You’re a millionaire,” Beau said. “So what if you own a high-rise, a pharmaceutical research company, a hotel, and…?” He cocked his head at her. “What else?”
“ICan,” Jameson replied, then added, “Her flagship gaming business. Clever name, Mom.”
“And DoDCore,” Mark said. “Her Department of Defense website, available only to government entities in need of a technological assist.”
“It’s called a bump,” she said civilly, still studying the tabletop. Still drowning. Still so damned lost. But still one hundred percent the genius she’d always been.
Alex skirted the far end of the table, jerked one of the extra chairs away from the wall, planted his rear, pointed his elbows into his thighs, and leaned into the woman who’d once been a trusted friend. He held his hand out to her. Mother turned in her seat, looked at it, and finally took hold. Her fingers were ice. Alex cupped that cold hand
