Free Men-of-Action-Seres-04 -Saints and Sinners by Capri Montgomery

happiness, and a grandmother who loves her. I would have killed for that. Then Troy came into my life and I had a brief moment of love before he was taken away from me too. It’s not natural,” her voice seemed heavy with sorrow. He could tell she was trying to fight the quiver in her voice; he could tell that from the way she seemed to try to inhale air to push away the pain in her voice, as if she were seconds away from hysterical crying.
    “It’s not natural to survive when nobody else does.”
    “You’ll have to excuse my son. It’s been many months now, but I think the pain still eats at him. His wife left while he was on assignment.
    He had just gone undercover on some mission somewhere he couldn’t tell us about. He had been trying to stay closer to home, but you know the government and their trained warriors,” she laughed. “They call, and men like Sully feel compelled to take up arms.” He heard her chopping the vegetables for dinner. He heard the onions sautéing. Mostly, he heard his mother trying to excuse his behavior.

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    “Anyway, she left Teagan in a motel room alone, ran off with some man and overdosed on Heroin. It took us three days to find Teagan.
    She’s recovered. He hasn’t.”
    His mother was apologizing for his behavior. She shouldn’t have had to. He was pissed at Kathryn and he was taking it out on Alaina. He had stayed away from dating, from getting close to any woman, because he couldn’t stand them due to the actions of one woman. He respected his mother, loved his daughter, but he had hardened his heart to the female of the species outside of those two. Then his mission had taken him after Alaina. One look at her and he felt the threat. This woman could change things, change him, but like Kathryn she would probably hurt him, hurt Teagan. So he kept up his shell the only way he knew how. He pushed her away. He said things to drive the wedge between them deeper. He needed to keep his armor up, keep the hardened shell from breaking apart—because being honest with himself he knew the moment he saw her standing there with a knife at her throat, this woman could change everything.
    Slowly he felt the collapse of his shell, and each time he would remind himself women were the same, she was no different. Each time he tried to push her out of his thoughts. Each time he failed. He needed to find fault with her. When he couldn’t he sought to find fault with her relationships, and he, with his irrational beliefs, had found it. He had been wrong. She was hurting just as much, more even, than he was. At least he had a mother who loved him; she had no one after her father died. Then Capri Montgomery 75
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    she had found what she needed, what she craved, in her fiancé and then he was gone too. He had two people who loved him living right in the house with him. She had none. No child, no human, should ever have to live that way.
    He hadn’t helped. In his own need for distance he had hurt her more.
    “Nanna!” He heard Teagan jerk open the screen door letting it slam hard against the outside wall. He had told her a hundred times before not to do that, but whenever she was excited about something she did it anyway. “Can Alaina come out and play?”
    “She’s a grown woman you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
    “Well, can you?”
    “Sure; why not? It’s been a long time since I played any games.
    You’ll have to teach me.”
    Sully wondered if she had ever played any games. He saw Alaina with his blinders removed and now that he did he saw her life differently.
    She had probably always felt the need to be loved so much that she spent her childhood trying to gain the love of one parent while not losing the love of the other. He doubted that her father would have ever stopped loving her, but to a child, a child who felt that the lack of love from one parent was solely their fault, rational thinking on the matter wasn’t easily understood.
    He heard the screen