Full Force Fatherhood

Chapter Three

Mark cracked his knuckles and swigged a gulp of his beer. Sitting behind the bar of a local dive, he kept his eyes glued to the television screen above him. An old football game was running, but he wasn’t paying much attention.

He’d had one heck of a day, if he said so himself.

The construction manager had come in early with a mood that matched the unexpected storm that would mean no work for the next two days to a week. Then the concrete pourer—who had never driven in rain, it seemed—had backed up into Mark’s Jeep, breaking a taillight and denting his bumper. The cherry on top was that when he decided to de-stress from an unproductive, unprofitable workday with a drink or two, he’d picked the bar from his past.

“Sorry, I had to take that call.” Nikki Waters, founder of the Orion Security Group and his former boss, sat back on her bar stool and reclaimed her drink.

Mark smiled but felt no mirth. He didn’t dislike Nikki. In fact, he had once considered her a great friend. However, the past two years had put a weight on the friendship. One that hadn’t affected just their relationship but his entire life.

“It’s fine,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. He remembered meeting Nikki for the first time when she’d been a secretary at Redstone Solutions and he’d been a low-ranking security agent. She’d been quiet, unobtrusive, yet clever and kind. The latter two traits she had held on to, but the first two? Well, he knew from experience that if she was quiet, it was only because she was finding the right words to tell you exactly what was on her mind. And unobtrusive? If she thought people she cared about were making a mistake, she’d tell them.

She’d had that talk with Mark several times already in the past year.

“So, how are you, Nik? It’s been a while.”

The 33-year-old looked surprised he’d made the first conversational move, but she recovered quickly. She straightened her short, dark red ponytail before answering.

“Good. Busy, but good.” She motioned to the bar around them. “I would actually still be at the office, but the storm knocked out our power. Jonathan told me it was a sign we needed to ‘capitalize on Friday night.’” Mark mentally winced at the mention of Jonathan. Along with Nikki and Oliver Quinn, Jonathan Carmichael rounded out friends with whom he had all but severed ties since he left Orion. “I’d heard him talk about this place on more than one occasion, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

“The service isn’t great, but I can’t complain about the price.”

Nikki laughed. “I’ll drink to that.” And she did.

“What about you? How’ve you been?”

“Good,” he lied. “Not as busy, but okay. Working with a decent construction crew on a neighborhood south of the hospital. Keeps my muscles working,” he joked. Nikki laughed again, but it was laced with concern.

“Listen, Mark,” she started, but he cut her off.

“I don’t want to come back, Nikki. I told you then that I was done with being a bodyguard, and I still mean it now.”

“But, Mark, you have also told me before how much you love it,” she pointed out. “You can’t let one incident deter you.”

“Incident?” he repeated. “A man died, Nik.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I don’t know how many times everyone has to tell you that.”

“My one job was to keep him safe, and instead I let some punk kid burn him alive.” His voice rose as he said it, and the bartender shot him a look that clearly asked him to settle down. Nikki didn’t flinch. This fight was an old one by now. He couldn’t help it, though. Every time he thought about Darwin McGregor—the firebug—and his floundering admission to the cops that he had set fire to the cabin for fun, Mark’s mood instantly turned heated. The nineteen-year-old had said that blowing up the large propane tank had been nothing more than an accident. He’d thought the tank was empty. He’d thought no one would be hurt, just scared. It didn’t change the fact that Victor had died.

Or that Mark didn’t believe him.

Images of the dark figure running away from the house flashed through his mind. He had been too tall and too wide to be Darwin. Though the cops, Nikki and everyone else had blamed this accusation on Mark’s overwhelming guilt.

It was another reason he had quit Orion six months later.

“Yes, it’s our job to protect people,” she said, lowering her voice in an attempt to get him to do the same. “But that doesn’t mean we can be everywhere at once.” She stretched her hand out as if to touch his but stopped. “It was a horrible accident, yet even Mrs. Crane agreed that her husband’s death wasn’t your fault. You saved a woman and her unborn child. That has to count for something.”

Mark took another swig of his beer.

“Don’t you think we’ve talked about this enough already, Nik?” he asked, adjusting his voice back to a tone he thought was pleasant.

Again she started to say something but caught herself before nodding. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an Orion business card. There was a number already written across its back in pen. She slid it over to him.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. This will be the last time I bring any of this up,” she promised.

“What’s this?” He nodded to the card. He didn’t recognize the number.

“Let me preface this. I didn’t want to tell you, considering everything you’ve been through, but she insisted she needed to talk to you.”

Mark was perplexed. “Who needs to talk to me?”

“Kelli Crane.”

Mark’s mouth dropped open slightly. “Why?” he asked. “And when did she call?”

“I’m not sure why—I didn’t ask and she didn’t offer the information up—but she called a few hours ago.” Nikki waved the bartender over. “All she said was that she found something you might be able to help her with.”

“I—I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Mark said more to himself than his former boss.

“Then you might want to call her back.” She smiled and handed her credit card over to clear out her tab. It sobered Mark.

“I find it hard to believe that you happened to take a message for me on the same day you just happened to run into me at a bar. Did you come here to give this to me?”

Her smile grew wide. “Let’s just say, I’m hitting two birds with one stone.” She gave the man a pat on the shoulder. “It was good to see you, Mark. I hope everything works out.”

“Thanks, Nik. You, too.”

Mark stared down at the number after she’d gone. It was amazing how ten digits could affect him so profoundly. He quickly looked around the bar, as if the patrons could hear his internal struggle. No one paid him any mind. He slipped the card into his jacket.

Less than an hour later, Mark was sitting in his apartment, staring at his phone. There was nothing to be afraid of about calling Kelli. She had, after all, wanted to talk to him. But Mark couldn’t get past the why of it all. Why call? Why now?

“Only one way to find out,” he announced to the empty room.

Mark dialed the number before realizing how late it was. He didn’t know her child’s name but knew she lived with Kelli. The last thing he needed was another reason for Kelli to be upset with him. Waking up her toddler was something he wanted to avoid if possible. He hung up on the third ring, deciding to call her the next day.

Again, he wondered why she wanted to talk to him.

Mark waited around for a few more minutes before deciding to take a shower. It was quick and refreshing, a great contrast to a not-so-great day. His new mood stuck as he got to his phone and saw he had a voice mail.

The number matched the one Nikki had given him. He put the message on speaker and listened as Kelli Crane’s voice echoed off the walls.

“Mark Tranton? Hi, this is Kelli Crane. There’s something I really need to talk to you about. Can we meet? Let me know.” She paused. Mark almost ended the recording before she said one last thing.

“I don’t think Victor’s death was an accident.”

* * *

THE NEXT WORKDAY was a washout, just as Mark had thought it would be. Thanks to a heavy rain in the middle of the night before, his construction site and crew were put on hold. That could have been a time to relax for Mark—they’d been working long hours before the storm came in—but he still wouldn’t entertain the idea of a vacation. He was the kind of man who not only appreciated hard work but also craved it. When that work stopped, for whatever reason, he was left with a world of thought he’d rather not visit. So instead of lounging around—or, heaven forbid, sleeping in—Mark changed into his sweats and hit the gym.

The workout room was sectioned off in the corner of the bottom floor of his apartment complex, which gave the place a solitude that Mark liked. Or maybe it was the feeling of improvement that working out brought him. Either way, it was a ritual he could do anywhere, whenever he wanted. He didn’t need permission. He didn’t need advice.

Whether or not he was a bodyguard didn’t matter.

“I don’t think Victor’s death was an accident.”

Mark brought his fist back from the speed bag. Kelli Crane’s admission had all but stopped him from breathing. Not because it was out of left field. No, because it was strange to hear his theory come out of the widow’s mouth.

A theory that had been thrown aside by everyone he’d cared about and thought cared about him. Even Nikki had tried to talk him out of it until she’d been blue in the face. She was trying to protect him from himself, she’d said. But all she’d done was shown him that at the end of the day maybe she didn’t believe in him as much as he’d once thought.

His fist connected with the bag again. He could feel the teeth of the past sinking back into him, and he had two options. Try to pry them off or ignore them until he couldn’t feel their sting.

The second option had treated him well the past year. He snorted, knowing that was a lie.

Mark went through his boxing routine, trying to drown out his thoughts, but each time his skin connected with the bag, he seemed to fall deeper down the hole. The image of the mystery culprit—not the nineteen-year-old firebug—flashed across his mind.

“Whoa, what did the bag ever do to you?” Mark spun around to find his neighbor Craig go for the weights. He was grinning, but his smile fell when he saw Mark’s face. “Everything okay?”

Mark realized his breathing had become rapid, his heart beating fast. His shirt clung to his chest, sweat keeping it flat against his torso. A dull ache in his hands began to register.

“Just blowing off some steam,” he said, changing his harsh tone to one that could pass as conversational. It worked well enough.

“You already have steam? The sun just came up!” Craig laughed. “Must be about a woman.”

Mark shrugged. “You could say that.”

They talked about the weather and their jobs for a while before doing their own things. Mark’s hands finally begged him to give it a rest, so he said bye to Craig and huffed back to his third-floor apartment.

It wasn’t a big space—a studio with a box of a balcony—but Mark didn’t need much. The only mementos he truly treasured were the pictures that hung on the walls. His parents and younger sister, Beth; friends from his hometown in Florida; and even one that had been taken the day Orion had officially opened. That one, though, he didn’t really look at anymore. The rest of his valuables consisted of his home media center and laptop—both of which he had seldom used since starting his construction job. A homey place it was not, but it sufficed.

Mark walked to the glass door that led to the balcony and looked out. It was a cloudy seventy degrees and was expected to get chilly. A cold front was supposedly blowing in that night, but he wasn’t about to put stock in anything the forecast projected. In his ten years of Dallas living, he had learned that if you didn’t like the weather in Texas, you should just wait an hour. It often changed.

The quiet of his apartment crept around him the longer he stood there. He hadn’t called Kelli back, and he didn’t know if he would. After Victor had died—and in the year that followed—he had almost gone crazy following his gut, trying to find the figure in the dark who had started the fire. Even after Darwin McGregor admitted that it had been him.

Determination had turned into obsession. Walls went up around him as each of his friends tried to tell him it was his guilt that fueled the pursuit. Nothing more and nothing less. Then, on the one-year anniversary of the fire, he had decided it was time to let it go.

This was the first time, however, that Kelli had ever mentioned it.

He eyed his phone on the coffee table. Didn’t he owe it to her to at least hear her out?

Chapter Four

The weatherman might not have been completely wrong. As Mark stepped out of his taxi, he wondered if he should have brought his jacket. His long sleeves might not cut it if the temperature dropped even further.

It was just after dinner, and he was back at the bar he’d been at the night before. He had a feeling the place would be seeing a lot of him in the next few weeks, especially if this meeting went south. He’d finally called Kelli back and was surprised when she’d asked to meet him somewhere later that night. Nothing more was said beyond that, and now here he was, showing up a half hour early. Nerves or anticipation? He couldn’t tell which, but he made his way to one of the booths tucked into the corner. It gave him a clear sightline to the front doors.

From habit, he took in his surroundings. Men and women of varying careers were all dressed down to some degree—one of the women at the table next to him had on flats, though a pair of heels could be seen sticking out of the bag at her feet, while the other had let her hair loose across her shoulders; an older man at the bar had his tie undone around his neck, beer in hand and eyes on the TV; a group of yuppies had their blazers draped over chair backs while they threw darts next to the front door; a man walked in and immediately went to the bar, hand up, ordering a beer.

A few more patrons came in and before he knew it, the half hour had passed. Mark hadn’t spent enough time with Kelli Crane to know if she was punctual or not.

No, he didn’t really know her at all.

The Orion Security Group had done its homework on the now twenty-nine-year-old woman before the contract had started. It was imperative to do the research to make the protection side of the job most effective. He’d learned that Kelli Crane—formally McKinnely—had a degree in art therapy and worked with the elderly at the community center. She came from a small family that all but disappeared after a car crash killed her parents when she was young. Socially she had kept out of the spotlight, staying close with a childhood friend named Lynn.

In that regard, she was quite the opposite of her late husband. Victor Crane had been a networker, thanks to his job. He had more connections than even Orion’s analyst had been able to uncover. Mark had tracked down as many as he could, trying to find a tie between the man’s death and the fire, but it was hard to find a link when you didn’t know what you were looking for in the first place.

Mark couldn’t help but focus on the blonde as she paused to survey the room before meeting his gaze. There was no hesitation in her bright eyes. She made a beeline for him.

Although he’d recognized her easily, he had to admit she looked different from the woman he’d known through the contract. Kelli walked with unmistakable purpose. Her once-long hair was shortened to her chin with bangs that cut straight over her eyebrows. The dirty blond had lightened as her skin had darkened—she’d been getting sun. He’d bet her kid had something to do with that. Instead of the almost prim outfits she had worn at the cabin, she was dressed more casually—a blue button-up with jeans and black flats. There was no flashy jewelry—he noticed no wedding ring, either—and even her purse seemed more practical than pretty.

Seeing her made him wonder what he looked like in turn. Had he changed in the past two years?

“Hi,” Kelli greeted him, sliding into the seat across from him without pause. Whatever was on her mind, it had her determined.

“Hi,” he responded. Mark didn’t know what to feel, seeing her so informally, as if they were old friends reconnecting. The only thing they shared was a tragedy. Did she feel the same self-loathing he did?

“Thanks for meeting me, by the way. I know it must be strange.”

“It’s the least I can do.” He cleared his throat. “So, how have you been?”

“Good. Busy, but good.”

Mark smiled. It was the same thing he’d said to Nikki the day before. He wondered if Kelli actually meant it.

In record time, the waitress popped over and took her drink order before they could dive in to their conversation. Kelli asked for beer and cracked a big smile. Mark couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow at her expression.

“Sorry. I haven’t gotten out much since Grace.” She tamped her grin down a fraction. “And I certainly haven’t been to a bar and ordered beer. I almost feel like this is a minivacation.” Her smile instantly vanished, like a candle blown out. Silence followed as she dropped her gaze.

“Kelli, why did you want to meet?”

The blonde quirked her lips to one side as she concentrated. She was choosing her words carefully. Finally she found them.

“After the fire, the cops came. You told them you’d seen a man running from the house,” she started. This time she didn’t shy away from his gaze. “When they picked up Darwin McGregor—” she paused, eyes momentarily glazing over with emotion “—you said it wasn’t the same person. At the time I didn’t even think to question it—he admitted to setting the fire—but now...”

“But now?” he pressed.

“Well, I think I should have listened to you.”