Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (7 page)

She lit up again and re-navigated them to a Cajun and Creole food booth.

Reminder number four ran through his brain then. With noticeably less conviction.

As they sat down on one of the many colored picnic blankets that were arranged under trees around the grassy courtyard—because picnic tables were so last century—Hudson asked again, “Okay, really. Why are there so many folks walking around town eating cereal from disposable bowls?”

The town was so
weird
.

He was starting to like it.

“We have a mix-your-own-cereal shop at the center of town. It’s kind of like an ice cream sundae bar, but with practically every variety of cereal out there. They have certain combinations they mix together with add-ins to make specific flavors like chocolate strawberry pie.”

“Out of cereal?”

“Yep. It’s a huge hit. And the parents love it because it’s cheap and a healthier alternative to ice cream and things like that for the kids.”

Lia handed him his plate and utensils while opening the take-out container of creamy creole-spiced grits with smoked Andouille and fried green tomatoes she’d ordered along with a heaping pile of Cajun
pain perdu
, which essentially looked like the thickest, fanciest stack of French toast he’d ever laid eyes on.

He settled his back against the tree and realized he’d never been on a picnic before. For that matter, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d sat under a tree just to sit under a tree either.

To try and get some much needed shade in the Afghan heat? All the time, yes.

As a base from which he’d taken point with a sniper rifle? Yep.

But never just for a meal with a pretty girl.

Less than twenty-four hours with Lia and he was getting hit with firsts from all sides.

This was starting to become a thing.

Lia made quick work dividing the food up in equal halves. “I have three brothers who have bottomless pits for stomachs,” she narrated as she scooped up half of her half into her paper plate. “I’ve found I can usually get a nice little bidding war of favors done for my extra food. Just laying that out there…just in case you find yourself still hungry later.”

At that, he chortled out loud. She was constantly surprising him. “Here I thought you were so quiet.” He took all of his half of food and dug right in.
Good lord, that was good.
Already, he found himself thinking up favors he could bid with to claim the rest of Lia’s half.

The idea of just buying more food from the booth on his way home, not even a blip on his radar.

“So are you going to tell me about you being a twenty-seven year old virgin widow now or should we start with some lighter breakfast conversation?”

“And leave you with all those gaping holes from the town debriefing of my marriage?” she teased after finishing her last forkful of
pain perdu
drenched in syrup. “It’s actually not all that interesting of a story. Leo was my first real friend at my new school. Since it had been so soon after my parents died, I didn’t talk much. But then came my sophomore year when Leo was determined to talk to me, determined to get me to talk to him. And I did. I liked him. We dated through junior and senior year, and then when he decided to join the Army, we kept up our relationship long distance.”

More fiddling with the rings.

“It wasn’t long after his One Station Unit Training out in Fort Benning that Leo got his deployment orders to relieve a unit in Afghanistan, just weeks after he got stationed at his first brigade.”

An infantry man. Hudson respected the hell out of that.

“But before he shipped out, he flew back here and asked me to marry him.” She smiled softly. “He said he just couldn’t go off to the war without being able to have and hold me as his wife—the one thing he knew for sure would bring his butt back home, and remind him exactly what it was he was fighting for out there if ever he began to doubt…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with me.”

That was one heck of a proposal.

“So at the ripe old age of nineteen, we both hopped on a plane to Vegas and got married that day. We spent exactly two days as a married couple before he had to leave.”

She met Hudson’s gaze and as if she could read his mind, she answered, “Leo didn’t want to rush our first time together, or link it to his leaving somehow in my mind. And he really didn’t want me to think that he’d married me just so he could ‘close the deal’ with me before he went off to fight for our country. So we didn’t. We spent our first and only two nights as husband and wife just sitting and dreaming up plans for our future together.” A faint wash of tears appeared before she blinked it away. “We were naïve, idealistic. We planned to have our perfect first time together the night he got home from the war, the night we could really start our future together.”

Pain abraded her voice as she finished, “He and four other men were the only ones unaccounted for when their chopper went down a few months later.”

“How long was he MIA before they found him?” asked Hudson gently, knowing far too well over the years what kinds of thoughts tortured the imagination when it came to reports of MIA soldiers.

“Leo’s remains were never recovered.”

He frowned. “But they found evidence—” There wasn’t really a kind way to say it…

“That he was presumed dead? No. None.” Lia closed her eyes and said softly, “His mother had him legally declared dead last year not long after the seven-year common law mark. And she did it behind my back.”

Hudson hissed in a breath—appalled for her, angered for her husband.

“Leo’s brother Drew and I found out after she got the death certificate. And while Drew actually had quite a bit of information that could have been used to overturn the ruling—existence of evidence to indicate the possibility of survival, Drew didn’t exactly obtain the information…legally.” She glanced around as if the trees might have ears. “Drew’s a hacker. And while he was willing to suffer the consequences the confession would have brought, I wasn’t willing to let him throw his future away.”

“I don’t get it,” Hudson pressed further. “Even without the evidence, couldn’t you get it overturned somehow as his wife?” Instantly, he wished he could call the question back when he saw frustration and anguish mar Lia’s expression.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry—”

“No, it’s okay. Leo’s mother’s lawyer informed me that if I fought the death certificate, they would fight back. Basically, they were prepared to drag in the fact that my marriage was never consummated, and since we’d never cohabitated or shown any other signs of a married couple to any witnesses, they were going to
introduce
the speculation that perhaps Leo had been
persuaded
under duress by me to make this rash decision just a few days pre-deployment. I’d only had a few months being married to him and they were prepared to tarnish every day of that short period completely. When Drew found out, he told the lawyers to stop. He vowed then and there he’d find another way. Then he told his mother to never speak to him again.”

Hudson was at a complete loss for words. His parents had never been in the running for any parental awards as far as he was concerned but Leo’s mom made them look like lifetime achievement winners in comparison. “Honey, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine why a mother would want to do something like that.”

“That’s the thing. She said she was doing it for Drew. Because he’d been so obsessed all these years with finding his brother that she couldn’t watch him continue to do this to himself. Horrifically misguided as her actions were, I had honestly believed her intentions were honorable, that she was trying to be a mother to him for once. Getting back at me, though probably satisfying, probably wasn’t a factor.”

“What do you mean?”

Lia sighed. “She blames me. For having Drew get taken away from her in the first place. Leo and Drew’s mother was—is—an alcoholic; she had been their entire lives. Leo basically raised Drew. For a while there, he was actually considering not enlisting for another four or five years, until after Drew was at least halfway through high school. But their mom had seemingly turned a new leaf Leo’s senior year. She’d been sober for over ten months, going to her meetings, holding down a job, making them meals every night—the whole nine yards. She knew how important this was to Leo so she told him not to worry about them. So Leo enlisted.”

“According to Drew, the day we found out Leo’s chopper went down was the day their mom started drinking again. It got pretty bad. And since Drew was only twelve at the time, I asked Caine to step in and within a month, Drew was officially the Spencer’s newest foster child, living in my old room all the way until last year, when he graduated from high school with honors.” She smiled. “He received his pick of cyber security undergraduate programs, and ended up in Texas on a full ride scholarship.”

Hudson marveled again at the power of a good family like the Spencers. Drew’s mom could’ve easily ruined Drew’s life with her downward spiral. “You said you ‘had’ believed her intentions were honorable. You don’t believe it anymore?”

“We—and by we, I mean Drew—found out later that she’d apparently had some sort of check-the-box-now-and-figure-it-out-later company life insurance benefit on Leo back when Leo had been an only child and she’d been sober with a good-paying desk job. Even after she’d left the job, this financial advisor guy she’d been dating at the time apparently helped her roll it over somehow. According to her emails—don’t ask—she thought she’d been paying for just her own life insurance this whole time. When she’d tried to cancel it to save some money, evidently, that’s when she found out she could get paid out if she declared Leo dead.”

A flash of bitterness mixed with supreme disappointment darkened her gaze. “She applied for the money the very day the death certificate was issued.”

Even though Lia seemed less than comfortable about Drew’s hacking abilities, Hudson knew how valuable an asset it was. “You mentioned Drew had some evidence that Leo might have possibly survived—did he report his findings to the military liaison in charge of Leo’s case?”

She shook her head sadly. “He tried a few years ago. But they didn’t follow-up and honestly, I can’t really blame them. He was a high school kid telling them that their intel from years prior had been wrong. That he had strong evidence suggesting some of those men’s remains are there waiting to come home. That at least two might have survived, if they hadn’t been captured and tortured afterward. And that he’d obtained his information by hacking into multiple government-secured sites along with sources in the Middle East that he couldn’t disclose. I actually think they specifically
didn’t
say anything to protect him from himself.”

Hudson slid his hand over hers. “Do
you
believe him?”

Glancing up to meet his gaze, she nodded. “Yes.”

“And I also believe that whether Leo’s alive or not, Drew is prepared to spend his entire life finding some way to bring him home one day.”

CHAPTER FIVE

HUDSON TOOK OUT his phone. “Give me Drew’s information. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll contact folks on my end and see what I can do. Back then, it was a lot tougher to follow-up on casualties but the climate of the war has changed. I’ll make some calls. You said it was only a few months after he deployed?” He typed some notes to himself on his phone, grimacing at his left hand’s inability to cooperate fully.

“Yes, but he entered with JROTC from high school.”

“So he was a Private First Class.”

She nodded.

He stopped screen-tapping for a bit. “I’ll do everything I can to help you and Drew bring him home, I promise.”

The fact that he’d just promised the most beautiful, enthralling woman he’d ever met that he’d help bring her husband home wasn’t lost on him.

Neither was the part about him just creating a tether between their lives for the unforeseeable future.

As if she could read his thoughts, she placed a hand atop his forearm and informed him, “I’m not pining, you know.”

“It’s completely understandable if you were.”

“I can say with certainty that absolutely everyone in my life disagrees. They all think eight years is way too long for me to still be in mourning.”

“Are you? Still in mourning?” He had to know. Not that he could stop this train wreck that was his growing attraction for the woman if she were…or act on it if she weren’t.

“No. I stopped mourning about four years ago. Around the point where Drew literally came to my shop, shoved one of his single teacher’s phone numbers in my hand, and told me that he was giving me permission to stop being sad about his brother.”

One day, Hudson really hoped he’d get a chance to meet this kid.

“Drew reminded me then that it had been over four years since Leo’s disappearance, which was exactly one year longer than the time I’d spent with him when he
had
been here. I hadn’t done the math on that, or even looked at it that way until then.” She smiled. “Then he proceeded to try and sell his eight grade biology teacher to me, saying he’d hacked into one of those dating sites to get the algorithm for a good match between couples, plugged in everything he knew about me and all the single, decent-looking teachers in his school.” A droll smile hit her lips. “Apparently, the biology teacher was the winner.”

He couldn’t picture her with a biology teacher.

Probably
because he couldn’t picture her with any other man but himself.

Dammit. No.

“So you’re saying you’ve dated other men.”

“Three. To be sadly exact.” She chuckled. “But yes. So no pining here.”

“So last night’s drinking extravaganza…”

“Was my celebrating Leo’s twenty-first birthday. For him.” She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “
With
him in a way, if he’s still alive.”

Surprised, he stepped back to see if she was telling the whole truth. “So yesterday wasn’t your wedding anniversary? Or the anniversary of Leo’s death? The town data seems to be split on that one.”