Page 106 of Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs 2)

For all her makeup, girlie-girl habits, and social skills, Morganna had a core of pure steel. He would never get anything over on her, not that he would want to, but she would never allow it. No more than she had allowed his mother to.

"Of course she's pregnant." His mother laughed softly "You loathe the idea of marriage. You always have. She's obviously trapped you and thought she could cement it by appearing here and raging at me over motherhood and protection. It was an obvious ploy of some sort."

"No, Mother," he said gently. "There was no ploy, just as there is no pregnancy. Because I had a vasectomy years ago to ensure I never fucked up like you and that bastard you married did." He ignored the surprise in her gaze. "I'm sorry I bothered you today. I'll be leaving now."

"I would have liked grandchildren." The sudden regret in her eyes sickened him. Regret, from a woman who had never allowed her son an iota of hope that he could escape the next beating, that he would ever have a father.

"Then hope Raven never learns how cold you can be," he sighed. "Because God as my witness, I could never trust you with a child of mine."

He turned from her, stalking to the door and jerking it open as he felt the regret sinking into his bones. What had he expected after all this time? June Cleaver?

He pulled the door shut as he dug the keys from his pocket and moved to his truck. Hell, he had wasted enough time on this, enough time letting the past and his own fears ruin the one dream that had clung to his soul no matter how hard he had fought to be rid of it.

Morganna. And if there was one thing he was damned certain of, even if the monster of his father did lurk within him, Morganna would make sure it was kicked out fast, while she kicked his ass to hell and back. No one would ever threaten a child of hers.

He wiped his hand over his face before unlocking the truck and moving into the driver's seat. It was time to find his future, rather than fearing his past. And his future was with Morganna.

CLINT'S PICKUP REVERSED FROM the driveway and accelerated down the street, Raven stepped slowly down the stairs. She wasn't supposed to have been there. The cab had arrived on time, but she had forgotten some pictures she wanted upstairs. Pictures of her father. The man who had sung to her, laughed with her, who had treasured her. The monster who had beaten Clint. She had sent the cab back and re-entered the house, never thinking that her mother hadn't heard her.

As she had listened to the conversation downstairs, the past flashed before her eyes. Clint as a young teenager, no more than fifteen, claiming he was sick, pale and weak after his father returned home, every time his father returned home. How he would stay in bed for days, sometimes not even eating unless Raven badgered him. He had left when she was still a child. The night her brother had turned seventeen he had walked out of the house and joined the Army. He hadn't even finished high school.

She had been young, too young to understand, but the guilt ate at her anyway.

She stepped into the living room, watching as her mother turned from the large window, where she had watched Clint leave. Her cool gray eyes widened, darkened, then filled with wary fear.

The emotion Raven saw in her mother's eyes as she realized she had overheard every word should have made her feel better. Raven had been the princess. The treasured child-She had been spoiled and loved and had felt nothing more than a strong resentment to her mother for driving her father away. Raven had never known about the affairs or Clint's pain. And she hated herself for that. Hated the fact that she hadn't seen how Clint had suffered.

Raven laid the pictures on the table beside the door and stared back at the other woman as pain rose within her.

"I knew you were cold-hearted." She could barely force the words past her lips. "I knew that somewhere, somehow there was something missing in you that could have allowed you to love-"

"This isn't your business," her mother snapped, her eyes darkening in anger. "You weren't supposed to be here. And I have always loved you, Raven. Always."

Raven lowered her head and stared down at the picture that lay on top of the small stack she had chosen. Her father. He looked so much like Clint. He had been so gentle to her; he had loved her. Hadn't he? She shook her head. You can't love one child and nearly destroy another. It couldn't be possible.

"I can't see you for a while, Mother," she whispered painfully as she laid her hand on her stomach, resting her palm against the child she suspected grew there. Her child. Hers and Reno's. A child who would never, ever know the fear Clint had lived through.

"It's all his fault," her mother snarled as Raven lifted her eyes. "That damned Clinton's. He was always raining things. If he had learned to lie when he was a boy he wouldn't have been beaten near as often. All he had to do was lie to his father."

"He was your son."

Her mother's face was twisted into a grimace as her eyes narrowed with icy warning. "He has always been a thorn in my side. I won't allow him to rain what we're finally rebuilding."

Their relationship had deteriorated after Raven's father's death. She had believed the fights revolved around her father's career, the danger it represented, and many had. But the underlying reasons were suddenly clearer. It wasn't because he'd gone to war; it was because of her mother's own selfishness and her father's cold determination to punish someone for it. Anyone but the woman he had married.

"We were rebuilding nothing," Raven finally told her hoarsely. "Maybe, later, I'll be able to look at you without remembering all the years Clint suffered. One day, maybe. But I'll never forgive you for what you and Father did to him. I'll never forgive either of you."

She left the pictures where she had laid them, opened the door, and walked out. She ignored her mother's cry, the sound of her name echoing from inside the house as she pulled her cell phone from the fanny pack she wore and dialed her husband's number.

"Hey, baby, are you home yet?" His voice came over the line as she began walking down the sidewalk. "Reno-" Her breath caught as the tears began. "Raven? Baby, what's wrong?" She heard the alarm in his voice, the fear.

"I'm fine. I'm safe. I need you to come get me." "Where are you?"

She stared around her. There was a deli at the end of the street. She could wait there. She told him where she was, breathing in roughly, fighting to hold back her tears as she wiped her fingers over her damp cheeks.

"I need you," she whispered as she ducked her head, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. "I need you now."

"I'm heading your way." Of course he would be.. She could hear the squeal of his tires, the concern that radiated over the line. "Stay on the phone with me, baby. I'm twenty minutes away. I'm coming."

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