Page 48 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
An address scrolled across the screen, making her catch her breath. “It’s the place we’ve been attending in Heart Lake! I didn’t realize they did livestreaming.”
“I only recently found out myself,” he admitted.
After a short pause, she asked, “Did you attend church while growing up?”
“Yep. Every Sunday.” His memories were filled with Sunday school events, church camp, and Christmas pageants; and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “My parents are good, old-fashioned Bible bangers. A bit on the straight-laced side, but you’ll enjoy meeting them.” A warm feeling spread through him at the realization that they were having the meet-the-parents conversation.
She twisted around in her chair to look at him. “I would love to meet them, but…”
He drank in her loveliness. “But what?”
“Before now, you’ve only mentioned them in passing. Why is that?”
It was a fair question. “Out of habit, I guess. When you’re in law enforcement, you tend to distance yourself from those you care about to protect them.”
“No. You don’t.” Her vehement outburst caught him off guard. “I get protecting their names and whereabouts, but not the distancing part. If I were fortunate enough to still have parents in my life, it’s the last thing I would want.”
The faint tremor in her voice tugged at his heart. He hadn’t meant to make her sad. “You’re right. It was a poor choice of words on my part. I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you.” A teasing note crept back into her voice as she faced the computer screen once again. “As long as you follow through with introducing me to your parents.”
“I will,” he promised huskily, leaning forward to press his cheek against hers. “You have my word.” It occurred to him that his parents would be every bit as thrilled about meeting her. They’d all but given up hope that he’d meet someone who’d make him happy again.
The announcement sequence on the screen faded, and the minister stepped in front of the camera. Though A.J. enjoyed the man’s opening remarks and the worship music that followed, he continued mulling over what Aurora had said.
It was insightful of her to notice how little he talked about his parents, and it wasn’t just because of his job. If he was being perfectly honest, it was mostly because he was a widower. After losing his wife, his parents had smothered him with sympathy, food, gifts, tears, and well-meaning advice that had hurt more than it had helped. Their tears had eventually faded into encouragement for him to date again, which hadn’t helped any more than their sympathy had.
His way of coping had been by distancing himself from them. It wasn’t necessarily right or fair. It was more of a survival mechanism, one that had allowed him to keep his head in the game as a military policeman. It had worked, too, for seventeen years; but it was no longer necessary. The realization burst over him like sunlight, making his heart feel lighter.
His parents weren’t just going to be happy when hebrought Aurora to Oklahoma to meet them. They were going to be over the moon with joy. He made a mental note to give them a call next week to arrange his next visit home. Aurora’s presence in his life would give them the assurance they’d been praying for—that he’d finally healed on the inside.
Aurora felta little guilty about popping off at A.J. the way she had. He’d probably written it off as part of her grieving process for her own parents, but he still hadn’t deserved such harshness from her.
The moment the online service ended, she apologized. “I’m sorry for being so mean to you.”
He snorted and spun her chair around to face him. “Mean? When were you mean to me?”
“I shouldn’t have crabbed at you like that about your relationship with your parents.” She glanced guiltily away from him. “It’s not as if my relationship with my parents was perfect either.”
He raised her fingers to kiss them. “Is it something you want to talk about?”
The warm understanding in his coffee-brew gaze gave her the courage to continue. “I think I told you that Aaron and I are adopted.”
He nodded.
“We came from different families, but we were adopted around the same time.” The details surrounding their adoptions were a little fuzzy, since their parents hadn’t talked much about it. There’d been no reason to. “I was seven-years-old. He was ten. To this day, I remember how excited I was to have an instant family, complete with an olderbrother. Instead of a crowded orphanage, my life became filled with normal things like birthday parties and sleepovers with friends.” But to her intense disappointment, her newnormalhadn’t included doting parents. Their adoptive parents had spent most of their time on the road, growing the bottom line for Diamondback Corporation, while leaving her and Aaron with various live-in nannies.
She described how her teen years had become a constant battle to gain the approval of her workaholic parents. “They were so focused on college and career planning,” she sighed. It hadn’t left much time for affection. “High test scores were celebrated. My hobby of mixing scents was not. The first time I mentioned my interest in becoming a perfumer, I thought my mom was going to pass out.”
A.J.’s look of surprise made her smile sadly. “My cover story wasn’t that far off after all, huh?”
He kissed her fingers again.
To make her parents happy, she’d attended Oxford and earned a degree in Computer Science instead. “Only then did they change their tune. They couldn’t offer me a job at Diamondback fast enough. It was fun at first.” She stared into the distance as she relived the first days, weeks, and months on the job as a security analyst. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I was completely part of something. Like I’d finally been accepted into our mix-and-match family.”
A.J. twined their hands together. “You were always part of their family.”
“Not really.” She knew he was only saying that to make her feel better. “Neither was Aaron. Believe me, they were a lot harder on him than they were on me. His decision to attend the police academy nearly sparked World War III inour household.” She would never forget how afraid she was that they would disinherit Aaron on the spot. She remembered jumping between them to remind them that they were family first…that it was the only thing that truly mattered. They’d disagreed, insisting it wasn’t the only thing that mattered. Oh, how it had hurt!
