Chapter 34: Chapter 34

CANNON

“FUCK! ELIMINATE HIM, do whatever the fuck it takes because I get to the motherfucker before you guys do, believe me I’ll take him down. Permanently”

With one arm or not.

I heard Holy groan at the end of the line and the urge to thunder at him at what he was mad about crossed my mind.

Ooh you were mad? I’m the one who ate a fucking bullet because I didn’t see the asshole coming.

“Okay, maybe it was my fault but how the fuck was I supposed to know his brother-in-law Neil Reynolds smuggles contraband overseas. Contraband that might have nothing to do with him in the first place”

I laughed, not that the fucker had ever had a single funny bone in his body but at his mocking tone.

“Leonard Arkinson shot me; I know the fucker doesn’t like me but he wouldn’t shoot me out of nowhere without someone giving the orders. There’s two ways this will play out and at the end of the day I’ll be the one with a busted shoulder and he’ll be the one dead cold on the morgue. I don’t need proof to kill him, you do it or I will”

“Jesus Christ Cannon, Berkely’s handling this”

Fuck that, handling things in Berkely’s dictionary meant jail terms or interrogating the man for a fucking year.

Keeping me out of the loop from this whole situation was Berkely’s way of saying that he had no plans to shoot Leonard between his damn brows.

“Does he have an accomplice? Why the fuck am I even asking that, he’s the damn mayor, he’s got spies everywhere”

Reason number one why as soon as I came to, I was out of the damn hospital. I didn’t trust hospital food and I sure as hell didn’t need any sus doctor looking after me.

This. This was nothing.

Shit that happened in the Marines was way worse than this. Getting shot in the leg you couldn’t fucking walk in the middle of grenades raining down on you like rain drops, getting shot in the torso you barely thought your spleen would make it, how about a Humvee exploding right in front of you till you couldn’t hear any shit for two fucking days?

It was way worse except this time…getting shot by some loser hiding in the bushes scared me.

And that was never me. Death happened to most of us, to some of who deserved it and others who didn’t. I was fully aware I fell in the lot that deserved death but when that bullet hit me square in the chest and the bastard who’d fired at me sprung from the bushes trying to pretend, he was calling for help, that moment right there, my heart stopped, my whole world came to a still, my lungs gave out.

Fucking irony.

There were far more scarier things that had happened to me over the course of the years and this wasn’t it but I was scared.

Even as Billy Duncan and the rest of the men circled me, I had a fucking panic attack.

For once in my life, I was scared of dying because dying meant leaving people who depended on me behind.

As life flashed before my eyes all I saw was Nicole in her night gown laughing, having the best night of her life together with my kids on her lap. And I knew when I was gone, they would never get to laugh again, they would never get to smile like they used to and worst of all I would never be there for them, with them.

“No, surprisingly for a man who snuck behind you and shot you, he worked solo. Blaze found the gun Leonard Arkinson used at his house, matched the bullet we confiscated from the cops. And still—everything points to him I’m not gonna lie but my gut doesn’t feel right about this one”

Well, my gut did and it had never been wrong about the shitty mayor.

“He didn’t sneak behind me—”

“You got shot, Cannon. The best of us shot by an untrained—”

“Just kill him, okay? Once Berkely brings him in do what you have to do and make sure Leonard Arkinson doesn’t leave…at least alive anyway”

“We’ll see, Hotshot. We’ll see”

He hung up.

I threw the phone somewhere in the forsaken room, the pain trailing from my clavicle to the left side of my shoulder, to the damn bandaged left arm.

“You are supposed to be in bed”

Nicole’s voice sounded behind me and I turned around, surprised.

We never spoke since I came to back in the hospital. Part of me was still licking the wounds she’d inflicted on me when she told me to go to the fucking camp and the other part of me just felt like being an asshole.

An asshole for being jealous. An asshole for wanting to bark at her face that I was fucking right about her boss. That the man was up to no good and she straight up hadn’t said anything about Leonard since I told her.

“I’m fucking fine”, I seethed, her hands moved slightly against the huge tray in front of her.

Filling my door way, her hair up in a ponytail, a flimsy pink shirt and high waist jeans, she looked gorgeous as always.

Only she had the power to rock jeans like that. To manage to take my breath in a single fucking glance.

Damn even her toes looked sexy against the floor boards. Getting turned on by bare feet? God, those doctors must have patched me up the wrong way or something.

“I just came to bring you this, the doctors t—they said you need a lot of this and meds—and good rest and I hope this—“,her voice squeaked and broke a few times.

The type of broke voice that told me she couldn’t breathe because the emotions, well tears, jamming her throat were a bitch.

“Nicole, look at me”

She didn’t. Instead, her fingers dug into the wooden tray trying her best to stop herself from crying. Her eyes lingered at some book shelf next to the wall but it only took a minute for the waterworks to spew from her eyes in fat drops.

Fuck no.

Don’t do that…

Don’t fucking cry.

“I—I should have never…this is all my fault, again! Leo, you tried to warn me about him…and i-“

“It wasn’t your fault”, I cut her off.

Seeing her cry was way fucking worse than her rejection.

“It wasn’t? Then w—why why is your hand in a sling? Why do you have a bullet hole in your shoulder?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been shot on the fucking shoulder multiple times”

Her cerulean eyes might have shone a bit but the tears stained her cheeks make the red tint in them even more visible.

“Don’t do this to me right now Montenegro. My shoulder fucking stings, last thing I want is to lose my mind because I can’t bear the thought of seeing you cry. My food?”

I gazed at the food on the tray. All fucking greens! Kill me now.

“Right”, she gazed at the food, took steps into the room until all I could smell was her fucking perfume.

She placed the tray on the bed and I was the pervert checking her ass as she placed the damn thing down.

“Thanks”, I said tramping around her and settling at the edge of the bed.

“Well? Dig in”

Broccoli? Some weird salad seating on a small bowl, even the eggs had some sort of—what the fuck was that?

I raised my head giving the woman a glance. She barely took the hint.

“I can help. It must hurt moving that arm”

She sat next to me before I could object to anything. Well, this was fucking awkward and hard. Had she left the room I would have tossed everything on the tray in the nearest bin but she was here and she had made this.

And she was looking at me with those big brown eyes that begged me to consume every last morsel of the shit in front of me.

She grabbed a forkful of that purple cabbage salad projecting it in my direction, to my mouth.

“Open up”

“This is unnecessary”

“I know our boys and they take most of their qualities from you. If I leave, you’ll not eat this, will you Callan?”

“it looks like dog shit Nicole!” I exhaled.

She gasped dropping the fork. Her lips quivered; her eyes lost their glow.

“I spent all my morning making this. I tried my best to make everything the doctor advised and you are being very ungrateful right now. You don’t want my food is that what you are saying?”

Don’t fucking cave.

She was looking at you like that because it was a trick.

It’s a fucking trick, Callan.

“Your food…”, I paused she gave me those fucking eyes that screamed ‘if you don’t eat this, I’ll be mad and you don’t want me to be mad, do you?’ and my heart couldn’t take it if she shed tears let alone became mad, “looks great. Yummy even”

I lied through my God damn teeth.

She smiled. At me.

“Thank you. I made it with love”, she picked her fork again and I vowed to get revenge on the doctor that advised her to cook such fucking meals.

One bite, she stared.

Watching me eat, giving me that sympathetic look that paved way for me to read her mind.

She was right, I should have never gone to that camping trip. I should have stayed and I should have let the events that happened that night happen.

Forgiven her, trusted her, made love to her.

Four bites, my eyes grazed her cute nose.

Five bites, my eyes grazed every inch of her eyes, took in every smile she threw me every time I chewed on the abomination, she was feeding me.

Man, I was lucky to nail a woman like her.

A wisp of hair went loose against her cheek and he urge to tuck it behind her ear was great.

“When was the last time anyone ever fed you?”

She asked breaking the spell.

I would have loved to stay like this forever. Watch her forever.

“No one ever fed me”, I answered her question, she seemed a little bit surprised.

If my mother ever fed me then the memory might have been from the wee days of me being a toddler.

She was always busy pleasing er husband to actually take care of her kids. As for my sister, Nance, I was her protector when our dad died. If I feel sick then I wouldn’t let her see me sick.

That was the thing about being someone’s Superman. Superman never got sick. Superman was never vulnerable and Superman certainly never needed anyone to feed him when he couldn’t.

“Your mother? Your sister? They never took care of you?”

“My mother was more concerned with her husband to think about her kids and Nance was young when they both died. I’d never let her take care of me because I did the taking care of”

“Ooh”

“Ooh as a bad thing or ooh as a good thing?”

“That’s the reason you were hostile to the doctor? To the nurses? To me?”

Maybe.

“Define hostile”

“I don’t know that insane look you give people you don’t like. Like you want to chop their heads off or something”

“I would never chop your head off”, I deadpanned.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. You wanted to shoot my head off when we got reunited”, she joked, I cringed at the memory.

“I wanted to but I wasn’t going to”

She lifted her fork again pointing the food to my mouth before my functional hand caught her wrist in midair.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?”

Ask me woman and I would tell you every damn thing in my mind without holding back. A bullet to my shoulder might as well have helped me sober up.

Licking her bottom lip, eyes glued to mine, only thing separating us being a tray of nearly empty plates, she opened her mouth to ask,

“Why?”

Right fucking question.

“Because when I saw you there again, I realized one fucking thing, we were meant to be Nicole. I let you go once upon a time believing that was the right call, that you were never mine to begin with then there you were and I was raging mad that my heart reacted like that seeing you after so many years.

Connor and Jr’s existence only elevated my belief. We. Us. This thing between us. You might not have wanted me. Not have even loved me but I loved you since you whacked me on the head with a fucking pan. The reason why I pointed a gun at you that day was because you tormented my every damn thought and flogged my mind with your scent, your sassiness, your bratty ness and I hated it because I had never felt this way. It’s always been you Nicole”

Her hand landed on my cheek and I braced myself.

If she didn’t love me then I would accept like a champ but I wouldn’t give up on her. This woman was my world.

This woman was the reason I had fought hard to be here. My reason for living. The mother of my kids.

“I love you too, Callan Asher”

“No, you go first!”

“No! You go”

I was still riding my high after she had confessed and if it wasn’t for the damn arm and the boys spying by the door, I would have been kissing those plump lips till her lips went numb.

Nicole’s eyes turned glossy and she raised a fist to her mouth to contain her excitement.

“Boys? We can hear you”, I shouted, my eyes still on Nicole.

Is this what happiness felt like? Like fucking nirvana?

Jr and Connor crushed into the room like they had been waiting all their lives to see me.

I didn’t get a minute to acknowledge their existence before they ran to me trampling me with both their weights.

“Callan!” Jr shouted his little legs crushing my torso.

Connor hugged my foot.

I winced in pain.

Nicole’s laugh soared through the room.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“That’s cheating”, I groaned, she rubbed her ass against my dick even more.

“You said I have to win by any means necessary”, she mocked leaning into me even more.

Her hair tickled my chin and I didn’t have to be standing in front of her to see that mocking smile.

“Not by wearing those leggings and damn, not by making me lose focus like this”

“Nobody likes a sore loser, honey”

“Say that again”, I growled in her ear.

I got closer, so closer she could feel my erection against her supple ass.

“Sore loser”, she drawled.

“No, the other thing”

“Honey”

“I like it. But you know what’s better?”

“What?”

“Daddy”

“Are you guys going to kiss?”

Nicole took a step away from me and I turned to face the kid looking at us with no clue how bad I wanted to pin his mother against the bed tonight and…

“Aunt Tina is at the door”, Jr announced.