Page 21 of Embattled Ever After

Mrs. Fryman snorted. “He’s always having ‘issues’. I can’t walk through the house or read a book without him having something to say about what I do. I’m tired of it, damn it. Tired of him creating these things in his head. He thinks the Taliban are going to come get him—and us.”

Frowning, she looked at the woman incredulously. “Your husband has been diagnosed with PTSD, correct?”

“Who the hell are you, lady? Why are you questioning me like this?”

“My name is Dr. Alex Hartfield and your husband is apparently having a psychotic break because you walked out on him.”

The woman’s mouth opened in disbelief and she started to shake her head when the report of a shotgun blast echoed through the neighborhood. Fearing the worst, her heart in her throat, Alex took off running around the side of the house where she’d seen Duncan disappear several minutes before. She ran straight to the little barn in the back yard, then had the sense to take cover behind the wall. “Duncan?” she called.

No response.

“DUNCAN!”

There was some scrabbling inside the barn, and then she heard him call out that he was okay. Alex left her position hunkered in the snow and went around the corner. Duncan stood leaning heavily on his cane.

A bearded man stood shamefaced behind him in the doorway of the barn. “That was my fault. I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Fryman came barreling into the back yard, slack jawed. She saw the shotgun in the man’s hand and stormed up to him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing Hank? It’s Christmas Day.”

The man blinked at her and he looked down at the weapon in his hand. “I know. I was going to make your life easier today, but I just couldn’t do it.”

Alex heard the words fall like hammer blows, and apparently his wife did as well. Her face crumpled into horrified understanding and she reached out to him with shaking hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Hank took a deep breath and cupped her cheek. “Tanya, if I wasn’t here you could get on with your life and raising Alicia. And I could get away from all these ghosts that are after me.”

Her face clouded in confusion. “Is that really what you feel, like they’re after you? And that we would be better off without you?”

He blinked, then nodded firmly. She gave a keening cry. Great racking sobs began to shake her body and she collapsed to the ground. Hank followed her down and there was a lot of harshly whispered conversation, but then they both pulled back and looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Then, as if in perfect sync with each other, they kissed.

Alex blinked at the scene, wondering what the hell kind of world she’d stepped into. She looked at Duncan. He stared down at the couple as well for a moment, then looked up at her and gave her a tired smile. Slogging through the snow—just now beginning to feel the cold—she stepped in close to Duncan. “Are you all right?”

Sighing, he looked around the snowy back yard. “Yes. I’m fine.”

***

It was verystrange celebrating Christmas with Lora and Mercy.

Chad had come from a big family. And he’d enjoyed his fair share of wild Christmases, but he’d never had a kid so appreciative of everything she received.

There was no screaming, or wild ripping of the paper. No squeals of delight at what was revealed. No, Mercy contained her excitement much better than that. Carefully wedging a finger under the tape, she peeled the Christmas wrap away, sometimes even folding it over on itself. It took him a while, but he finally realized that Lora was taking the paper from her daughter and also carefully folding it away and saving the bows. Had money been so tight for them that they’d had to preserve all this stuff for later use?

No, surely not.

Lora glanced up and caught him watching her. She blushed prettily, one of the most amazing things she’d started doing, and shrugged lightly. “The less we went out the less chance he had of finding us.”

The ‘he’ was Derek Malone, the asshole who had made their lives hell for so many years by trying to abduct his daughter. Lora had done her best to keep them separated, but she’d been working against a lot of old money and smarts. It wasn’t until LNF had been hired to watch Lora that things had started to change for them.

No, he thought, it was when Lora decided to take back their lives that things had changed.

Chad ran his hand down Lora’s back, loving when she leaned into his touch. They were still a work in progress, but he believed she was a wonderful woman and mother, and that after the mess they’d dealt with in Texas, they could get through just about anything.

Reaching under the glittering tree, he drew out a slim, crookedly wrapped box and held it out to Lora. “There’s no saving the paper after I butchered it, so you need to just rip it.”

Her eyes shone as she took the present from him, but before she would open it, she had to get him his present. Her face glowed with excitement as she handed him the box. “I hope you love it,” she breathed.

Chad shook his head and leaned forward for a quick kiss. “Just seeing this excitement on your face is better than anything.”

With a shared glance they seemed to agree to open them at the same time. It was amazing how they did that. Though they’d only been together a short time they understood each other like a couple who had been together for decades.

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