Rescuing Emily (Delta Force Heroes Book 2) (2 page)

Her daughter was beautiful. Yes, she was only six, but she was tall for her age and slender. She had long, beautiful blonde hair that she’d inherited from her father. She had blue eyes and never met a stranger. Annie was friendly and bubbly and Emily knew the landlord, damn him, had a sick interest in her daughter.

Money was always an issue. Ever since Annie’s father had left while Emily had still been pregnant, she’d fought to provide Annie with a safe and happy life. She worked at Fort Hood in the PX, the Post Exchange. It was the general store on base. She wasn’t able to work full time, because she didn’t have the money to pay for childcare for Annie. She’d relied on neighbors to look after her daughter before she’d started kindergarten full time, but now that Annie was in the first grade, and in class all day, Emily could work a full six hours every day. She dropped Annie off at the elementary school at seven-thirty, and was able to get to work by eight. She worked until two, without a lunch break, then picked Annie up around two-thirty.

Emily had no health insurance and no retirement plan, but Annie was loved and happy. It was worth it. But to be offered a reliable, secure, and quiet place to live for only five hundred dollars a month? It was as if Emily had hit the lottery.

Even before seeing the ad in the paper for this apartment, she’d planned on leaving the scummy place she lived in before the month was up, even if she had to live in her car. She’d done that when she’d been pregnant, and had sworn to herself that Annie would never know that kind of life. But Emily had been losing hope of finding anything appropriate.

The cheapest apartment she’d been able to find had been eight hundred a month, and it looked scarier than where she was now. Since the building was close to the Army base, Emily had thought she’d feel safe living with other soldiers, as the landlord had told her most of the other occupants were single men and women who worked at Fort Hood, but unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case.

Annie’s father had taught her in more ways than one that just because someone was a soldier, it didn’t mean they were a good person. While
she’d
thought they were starting their lives together,
he’d
apparently just been in it to get laid. Somehow he’d arranged to get transferred to another base not too long after she’d happily told him she was pregnant with his baby, and informed her that he didn’t want her following him.

Emily knew she could probably go to the Army and do a paternity test and force him to pay child support, but she didn’t want that for Annie, or herself. Years of relying on someone else to send her money made her stomach churn.

She and Annie had been okay so far, and Emily knew she’d continue to do whatever it took to keep her daughter safe and happy…without help.

Nodding at Emily, Fletch stood up. “All right, let’s go and check it out, then if you like it, we can come back here and do the paperwork, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ten short minutes later they were back at the dining room table in Fletch’s house. Emily had immediately said the small space was perfect, even though Fletch told her there were all sorts of things he should probably do to upgrade it.

“I’ll need to make a copy of your ID,” Fletch told Emily, being as nonchalant as he could. He didn’t really need it for her to sign the lease, but there was no way he’d let anyone live on his property, no matter how fragile and lovely she seemed, without doing a background check. It wasn’t completely legal, but his friend, Tex, was discrete and could have it done within an hour.

Tex was a medically retired SEAL living out in Pennsylvania. He used to live in Virginia, but had moved his entire operation after meeting a beautiful woman named Melody on the Internet. Tex was the eyes and ears behind the scenes for their Delta Force team, and several other Special Forces groups. The man was pure genius with a computer and could find information that someone would swear was locked up tighter than the money at Fort Knox. No one ever questioned how he was able to pull off some of the things he did, they were just grateful he was on their side.

Fletch watched as Emily bent her head and pulled her wallet out of her purse. She handed her license over to him, saying, “If you laugh at my first name, I’ll have to hurt you.”

Emily watched as Fletch looked down at the small plastic card she’d handed him and he tried to hold back his smile. His lips twitched, but he looked up and said with a mostly straight face, “Miracle?”

Emily sighed, obviously used to telling the story about her given name. “Yeah. My parents were older. They’d always wanted kids and when I was born, they called me their little miracle.”

“But you go by Emily?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.”

“Miracle is a pretty name.”

Emily made a face. “Maybe, but memories of being made fun of throughout my elementary and middle school years made it not so pretty after a while.”

“Kids are cruel.”

“Yup.”

“Your parents still around?”

Emily didn’t really want to get into this with Fletch. He was still a stranger after all—but she didn’t want to be rude either. “Unfortunately, no. They died when I was in college.”

“Tough.”

That was the understatement of the year, but she merely said, “Yeah.”

Fletch carried Emily’s driver’s license to the small printer he had off to the side of the living room and made a copy.

“So, you’re not married?” Emily asked, deciding if he could be nosy, so could she.

“Nope.”

Emily waited and when he didn’t elaborate, she pushed. “This place looks like you’re married.”

Fletch barked out a laugh. “It does, doesn’t it? I actually hired someone to decorate it. I didn’t give her much assistance, and this is what I got when she was done.”

“She did a good job,” Emily observed, looking around.

“Yeah. Apparently it’s fun to spend someone else’s money.”

Emily didn’t smile, but continued to run her eyes over every inch of the room she could see. “I bet it is.”

Fletch leaned against the wall next to the printer and watched Emily check out his house. He wondered what she saw. He looked around to try to see it from her eyes. He had two leather couches that looked stiff and formal, but when you sat in them, you melted into the cushions. He had a large flat-screen television on the wall and a coffee table that looked perfectly normal, but had a secret compartment under it that currently held a Sig Sauer 40 caliber handgun. He was always prepared for the unknown. But thinking about the various weapons lying around the house made him realize that he needed to make certain they were all secure. If there was going to be a child in his house he wanted to be sure to protect her.

Not that her daughter would be hanging out with him, but if she came over with her mom to bring in the mail, the last thing he wanted was for her to find one of his weapons and accidentally set it off. He shuddered at the thought, and vowed to move them all way above kid level as soon as Emily left.

There was a pair of boots lying on the floor next to one of the couches; he’d left them there the day before when he’d gotten back from the base. Other than that, everything else was in its place and there were no stray papers or magazines or any kind of “stuff” that could be seen.

“I’m a bit of a neat freak,” Fletch told Emily unnecessarily as he came back to the table to sit next to her.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she laughed, turning her eyes back to him. “But it’s nice. She did a good job. It’s formal without being fancy. Comfortable without being stuffy. I hope you don’t expect mine to look like this,” she teased. “Annie and I are
not
neat freaks.”

Fletch laughed and handed her license back to her. “No, I don’t give a shit what your place looks like, as long as there aren’t mice and cockroaches.”

Emily shuddered. “Oh no. We might not be neat, but we’re clean.”

“Then we’re good.”

They smiled at each other. Fletch pushed the lease papers over to her. “Take these home. Read them over, get them looked at by a lawyer if you want, but I want to make sure you completely understand everything and agree before you sign.”

Emily looked at him in confusion. “Did you hide anything weird in here?”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, weird.”

“Weird how?” Fletch asked.

“I don’t know. Like my car only gets four-point-two feet of space in the garage and if I violate it, I’m out. Or weird like if you see Annie after four in the afternoon, I owe more on the rent, or weird like if I’m late one day on giving you the rent money, I’m gone.”

Fletch started out smiling at her, but was frowning by the end of her comments. “Fuck no. Look, Emily, I’m a lot of things, but I’m not an asshole. If you’re having issues paying the rent, just talk to me and we’ll figure something out. I already told you that I don’t care if your daughter is around. I might get upset if she plays with something inappropriate in the garage, but only because it could hurt her, not because I care about anything out there. It’s all just stuff. Stuff that can be replaced. The lease is a simple one, I printed it off the Internet. There’s nothing weird in there.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Emily’s voice was low, but she didn’t break eye contact. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Good. Look it over, make sure it’s amenable to you. Bring it back and you can move in whenever you’re ready. Today’s the twentieth, if you want to move in before the first, feel free. I won’t charge you for this month, consider it a gift.” Fletch narrowed his eyes. “If someone is giving Annie a hard time for asking questions, I’m okay with you getting out of there and moving in here now. No kid should have to feel bad for being herself.”

“Again, thank you.” Emily had no idea how she’d gotten so lucky, but she’d never been so glad in all her life that she’d seen the ad in the paper about the apartment. She’d been actively looking, and had found the Sunday paper in the recycle bin behind her current apartment. She usually looked over the paper when she was at the PX, but since she wasn’t working that Sunday, she’d grabbed it from the recycleables.

“Can I drop this by after work tomorrow?” Emily wanted to have her boss look it over. She couldn’t afford to take it to a lawyer, but Jimmy liked her and he’d be able to tell her if she’d missed anything.

“Of course. I’ll leave a key under the mat by the stairs that go up to the apartment.”

“Uh, you know that’s the first place burglars would look for a spare key, don’t you?”

Fletch barked out a laugh. If someone
did
manage to somehow get on to his property undetected, his face would be recorded from so many different angles, he’d be caught before he could get too far away. “I think it’ll be okay for a day or so, Em.”

Emily smiled shyly at Fletch, teasing him. “Okay, but if I come back and someone has stolen the couch up there, I’ll expect you to replace it.”

“Deal.” Fletch smiled back. Maybe having another renter wouldn’t be so bad after all. After the last one he’d thought long and hard about trying again. Fletch would make sure Tex got the background check done on one Miracle Emily Grant before she returned the signed lease the next day. It’d be child’s play for the man.

Fletch would sign it after making sure she was everything she seemed to be. He didn’t think he had anything to worry about. The woman seemed open and honest, and relieved to have a place for her and her daughter to live, even if it was a small, barely furnished hole in the wall.

Being safe trumped material things, and he understood that in a way not a lot of other men would. He’d seen too much in his ten years in the Army, and five years in Delta Force. People would lie, cheat, steal, and kill to feel safe. He’d seen it over and over. Mothers who did whatever the local terrorists and bullies ordered them to, simply to protect their children. Kids who joined gangs, just to feed their families. The horrors of the world went on and on.

But Fletch could tell that the woman sitting in front of him now was a completely different person than the one he’d invited into his home thirty minutes ago. She was more relaxed and at ease, whereas before she was tense, cautious, and suspicious. Simply because she’d been offered a safe place to live for her and her daughter.

Fletch liked that he could give that to her. It felt good. He’d helped too many people to count in his lifetime, but he could feel the relief emanating from the woman all the way to his gut. “Go tell Annie she has a new home and I’ll see you when I see you. Yeah?”

Emily nodded. “Yeah.”

They stood up and Fletch walked her to his door. He stood in the entryway with one arm braced on the doorjamb and watched as Emily walked toward her car. She stopped when she was halfway there and turned to him. “Thank you, Fletch. I know you’re totally giving me a break on the security deposit and rent, and I appreciate it. I’ll do what I can to help around here, you just need to let me know what you want me to do. I can rake, mow, sweep and—not that it looks like you need any help—I can even clean your house if you wanted me to.”

“You’re welcome, Emily. But I didn’t hire you to be my maid or groundskeeper. I’m actually getting as much out of this arrangement as you are. I have a responsible tenant living on my property who isn’t interested in robbing me blind or throwing crazy parties. It’s a win-win situation. I’ll see you later.”

Fletch mentally rolled his eyes at her offer. It was sweet, but there was no way he’d ask her to do manual labor. She could look after his house when he was on a mission, but other than that, there wasn’t much needing to be done that he couldn’t do himself.

“Okay. See you later.”

Fletch closed his front door and heard her car start up, complete with the muffler backfiring. After turning on the security monitor, he watched as her car backed out of his driveway and disappeared onto the road next to his house. He picked up the piece of paper with Emily’s information on it and called Tex. He was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure Emily was just who she said she was, and what she looked like—a woman who was down on her luck and wanted a quiet place for her and her daughter to live.

Suddenly, he was looking forward to meeting her daughter. From the little bit Emily had said, she sounded precocious and fun. Fletch hadn’t ever really thought about having children, or even been around many, but it occurred to him that it might be fun to teach a child things like how a garage door opener worked.