Page 92 of Her Reluctant Hero
She might never be sure if Hector was her ticket home. If her parents would be just as happy to see her, alone.
She turned and turned and turned again, her body remembering the way home. There it was, the little ranch house where she’d grown up, restless and unappreciative. It had never looked so beautiful, with its new coat of sand-colored paint, neatly trimmed grass, flowers on the porch.
Everything blurred and she pried her fingers from the steering wheel and turned to look at Hector with a smile. “Do you want to go meet your grandparents?”
Then they were there, running out to the car, pulling her out, hugging her, pulling Hector out, staring at him, stroking him, laughing, crying, never letting go of Isabella.
She knew she’d have to talk to them, knew she’d have to make up for disappearing six years ago. But for now, she was home.
***
Alex set the bottle of beer on the table in front of his father, drank from his own before sitting.
“Don’t tell your mother,” Tim Shepard said, opening the bottle.
“Why does she keep it if you can’t drink it?”
“Hoping you’ll come home.” He took a long drink, one eye on the door.
“I come home enough.”
His father nodded. “More than most men your age. Something different, this time, though.”
Alex kept his gaze on the beer. “What do you mean?”
“You’re tense, restless. Like you were when you came to us. Something go wrong on this last mission?”
Alex’s heart jumped just a little. He didn’t lie to his father. “No, sir. Not this one.”
His father leaned back. “The one before. The one with the girl and her child.”
“Yeah.” Alex shoved the beer away, watched it slide in the condensation, then scraped one hand down his face. “I can’t get her out of my head. Even on the last mission, Cervantes had to call me on it.”
“You love her?”
Alex snorted. “I thought I loved Rebecca, look how that ended up.”
“So how is this different?”
Alex studied the label of his beer, saw Bella’s face. “Isabella is strong, so fucking strong—”
“Alex.”
His face heated when his father chided him for his language, and he apologized for the slip. “I started off thinking she was like my—real mother, you know, that she was only after money and pleasure, no matter what the cost. I kept telling myself that even after I knew it wasn’t true, because I wanted her so bad, and I thought—” He shook his head. “I thought that could hold me off. But she’s amazing and tough and there’s this light in her, especially when she’s with her son, Hector. I start thinking about it—can I be a good dad to someone that little? I mean, I didn’t have a dad till I was older. But he’d have good schools on base. Living on base might be hard for Bella, she can be a little hellion, but I think she’ll adjust.”
“Son.” His father leaned close, eyebrows lifted. “You sound like—”
“Yes, sir, but how do I know it’s real?” He pushed to his feet. “How can I tell it’s love and not lust and not obsession? If I go to her and tell her that I love her, what guarantee do I have that it will last? I mean, she won’t tell me no, she said she loved me, but how can I be sure she knows what it means? Neither of us have had the best judgment when it comes to that.”
His father sat back with a sigh and tasted his beer. “The fact that you’re worried about it assures me a little. The idea that you’re planning for a future.”
Alex looked over. “Yeah?”
“If it was lust, you’d be thinking about how long before you got tired of her. If it was obsession, you wouldn’t be here asking me if it was the right thing. You already have the answer, Alex. I know it’s hard for you to trust your feelings, but you need to.”
“I love her?”
His father chuckled. “Way to sound convinced, my boy.”
