Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Marking Mariah (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

  Mariah swallowed, speechless in the face of the woman’s kindness.

  “You look done in, hon. Want some tea or something? Or something harder? It’s almost five o’clock and anyway it is still officially summer.”

  When Mariah remained dumbstruck, her mind racing to catch up to the woman’s words telling her that Cole was all right, that he was swimming and having fun and not pitching some kind of massive fit—or drowning in the tiny lake next to her—the woman patted her arm. “My name’s Lindee. What’s yours?”

  Mariah had the sense that the woman was humoring her, as if sensing that she was addled, or maybe some kind of a meth head, unable to take care of her own child. “Mariah,” she said, trying to gather her wits and shreds of dignity around her. “Mariah Bailey. We just moved in a week ago. Cole…that’s my son…he’s having a tough time adjusting.”

  “Mariah. What a beautiful name.” The woman—Lindee—narrowed her eyes at her, then widened them and put a hand over her mouth. “Now I know where I saw you,” she said, grinning widely now. “You’re Mariah from The Singer show. You won, didn’t you?”

  Mariah winced and nodded.

  “Well now, honey I’ll have to admit I’m a little surprised to see you here in Lucasville, Kentucky of all the places on earth. I figured you’d be out in California recording your first hit song. You were amazing. I guess you hear that a lot. Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said, running a trembling hand through her hair. “I couldn’t stay. You already met the reason why.”

  Lindee nodded. “I did indeed and I’d say it’s the best reason on earth.” Mariah tried not to hug Lindee to her, to thank her not only for saving her kid but also understanding why she couldn’t live the glamorous dream life of a pop star. It was too long of a shot anyway, and she knew that. This was her life. She’d wanted a child. She’d gotten one, but somehow as part of that deal, she’d lost her marriage. Which made Cole her sole responsibility.

  “Come on. Let’s go make some wine spritzers. We can pack them in plastic bottles and run back up to the pool.”

  Mariah hesitated. Lindee looked to be a few years older than she but “her Henry” must be much older than Cole. She was a tall woman, thick around the waist but otherwise fit looking with strong-looking arms and legs, a blonde with a short, practical haircut and bright orange nail polish on her fingers and toes. Her skin was tanned and a little leathery, as if she’d spent one too many summer days with spritzers by the pool.

  Cursing herself for being judgmental, Mariah smiled and nodded then followed her new friend back to their building. Lindee and Henry’s place was identical to hers and Cole’s, the mirror image on the opposite side of the hall. It was cluttered, teenager style, piled high with computer tablets, laptops, and video game paraphernalia. A stack of big textbooks sat on the corner of the small table, alongside an electronic keyboard. “You play?” she asked, unable to stop herself from trying a few chords on the cheap device.

  “Oh no, honey. Henry does though. He’s got some talent, but of course I’m biased.” She handed Mariah a water bottle. “Sip this, I made it kinda strong.”

  “Thanks,” Mariah said, taking it. “For everything.”

  “Don’t be silly. That little boy is just about the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while. And Henry’s bored. He even said the other day he was looking forward to school starting. Can you imagine?”

  “I can, actually,” she said, taking a sip of the overly sweet but refreshing spritzer.

  When Cole caught sight of her walking onto the pool deck with Lindee, he climbed out and ran to her, arms wide, smile even wider. She grinned back, so grateful to see a happy face she could hardly bring herself to berate him. But she forced her expression into stern lines and crouched down, gripping his arms tight.

  “Cole Bailey Jackson, you look me in the eyes right now and promise me you will never, ever, ever do that again. You can’t just leave the house like that and not tell Mama where you are. I was so worried.” Tears filled his eyes. But a point had to be made. “You don’t leave our home without me, understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.” He lowered his head, letting the tears plop onto the hot pavement, evaporating almost before they hit. “Sorry, Mama.”

  She caught Lindee’s eye over the boy’s shoulder. The woman was nodding and smiling sympathetically. Mariah sighed and tilted Cole’s face up. “Mama’s not mad anymore. But you promise me, okay? Promise me right now?”

  He held out his pinkie finger. She hooked hers solemnly to it. They shook, then he kissed her pinkie and she, his. “Now go on and play. And way to go not using floaties.”

  He grinned wide again, almost breaking her heart into a million pieces at the sight of it. “Henry’s teaching me to dog paddle.”

  “Hope that’s okay,” a tall, good-looking kid, probably about fourteen said to her. He had a mop of jet-black hair that flopped into his forehead, and a spray of adolescent acne across his nose and cheeks. He frowned as he looked at her, then his eyes widened like his mother’s had. “Oh shit! I mean, crap…um…I mean wow, you’re … her!”

  She smiled. His blush rose from his neck into his cheeks, making his zits flame even redder. “Yes, I’m Mariah Bailey. And it’s more than okay that you’re teaching him to swim. You’re Henry, right? I saw your keyboard.”

  He took Cole’s hand to keep the kid from poking his leg. “Yes ma’am. I play some.”

  “Do you go to Lucasville High?”

  “Yeah…um yes, ma’am. I sure do. It’ll be my second year there. I’m a sophomore.” He blushed a brighter red at his redundancy.

  “Great,” she said. “Then I’ll see you there next week—not that I won’t see you here, with this guy. You’re gonna have a heck of a time untangling yourself from him now I’m afraid.”

  “It’s cool. I like little kids. I’m a camp counselor, or I will be next summer. This summer I just trained. Are you a teacher or something?”

  “Yep, I’ll be the music teacher.”

  “Kick ass,” he yelped before slapping a hand over his lips.

  She chuckled. “It’s okay. He’s heard worse.”

  “Kick ass!” Cole piped up. She shot him a stern look. He grinned, shrugged and tugged on Henry’s hand. “Come on, show me more dog paddling.”

  A couple of hours later, Cole lay across her chest, snoring so loud the people around them chuckled. She felt drowsy, content to drift and listen to Lindee chatter with the woman on her other side, watching Henry watch a couple of teenaged girls in way-too-skimpy bikinis primp and preen and pretend not to notice him.

  Teenagers, she thought. Her life would be one big teenaged drama in a few short days. She’d always imagined herself teaching at the college level. Then, of course, she’d imaged herself as the next big pop star. Now, she was thrilled to have a real job, with real benefits, in a town far enough away from her mother to give her some breathing room. Plus, bonus, now she had a friend.

  “Hey, I was telling Patty that I’ll bet you’d be a real ringer at Karaoke Smackdown,” Lindee said, jarring her out of her half-doze.

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I would,” she said, shifting Cole so he lay beside her. “Never thought about that.”

  “Well, good, that’s settled,” Lindee said in what Mariah would come to know as her presumptive way.

  “What’s settled?” She sat and stretched her arms up and back, noting that the sun had disappeared behind one of the condo buildings. It must be almost seven by now. An hour before Cole’s usual bedtime, not that they had anything resembling a normal schedule anymore.

  “Henry can stay at your place while this little man catches some Zzz’s,” Lindee said, getting up and packing away her novel, a magazine and the now empty water bottle. “You grab a shower, get yourself prettied up and we’ll hit karaoke night over at Love’s.”

  “The… what?” She felt sluggish, and hungry, and not at all like getting prettied up and going out, karaoke or not.

  “The Love P
ub,” the other woman said. She was the opposite of Lindee—slim to the point of scrawny, with dark brown hair and eyes and the palest skin Mariah had ever seen. “It’s downtown. Used to be a brewery until they moved that to the outskirts. Now it’s the best BBQ and pizza in town. An on Thursdays,” she said, with a finger snap and a hip bump. “It’s the Karaoke Smackdown.” She high-fived Lindee. “And we are gonna kill it tonight. Just wait until Hallie and them get a load of our ringer!”

  Mariah tried to protest but no excuse sounded good enough to balance out what Lindee and Henry had done for her and Cole today. “Oh, right. Okay. Uh, give me about thirty minutes. I’ll be ready.”

  Lindee laughed and patted her shoulder. “I need at least an hour, hon. Perfection takes time.” She passed her hand down her front. “I’ll send Henry over—you’re okay with leaving him right?” She nodded down at Cole, still passed out on the lounge chair.

  “Sure,” Mariah said. “See you in an hour.”

  If she’d known how drastically her life would change with a simple decision to accompany her new friends out for karaoke, she might have refused the offer.

  But then again, maybe not.

  Chapter Nine

  “That guy is starin’ straight at you,” Lindee reminded her with a poke to her upper arm. “He’s hot.”

  Mariah’s face burned as she sipped her beer—something local, she’d been informed, from The Love Brothers Brewing Company. “That Love family,” Lindee had said with an eye roll as they were served. But she hadn’t clarified herself any further so Mariah hadn’t asked.

  In truth, she wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision to come here with these two women, to be on their “karaoke team” or whatever. But she was stuck now. So she sipped and snuck glances at the indeed very hot guy with the military short hair, broad shoulders and nice smile.

  “That’s Kieran Love he’s drinkin’ with,” Patty enlightened her.

  Mariah sucked in a breath at the wrong time, sending beer down her windpipe. As the two women smacked her back while she spluttered and choked, she couldn’t help but notice the guy, sitting, she now realized, with her new boss—whose back was to their table thank the Lord—studying her, his eyes in a half closed position. His “come hither” look, she figured, not liking him at all in that split second.

  Once she had control of herself again, she turned all the way around so her back was to the two men. “The principal, eh?” she asked, wondering how she might escape.

  “Yep, sure enough,” Lindee said, giving the two men a frank appraisal. “No idea who that is with him. I’m not from here, though, so I wouldn’t know. Patty is.” She elbowed the other woman at the table. “Who is that tall, dark, ‘n handsome over there eyeballing our karaoke ringer like she was a hot breakfast?”

  Patti dug glasses out of her purse, then leaned forward, staring so obviously it made Mariah want to jump up and run out the front door. “Oh, that’s just Terry O’Leary, one of the twins. His daddy’s the bank owner—or whatever he is now that the big Lexington bank bought him out.”

  “Rich as God,” Lindee surmised.

  “Oh, he was already that. His family had some money, but he married up, big time. His wife, she’s dead now, been that way for a while, she was from serious money—horse farm money that sold out, kinda like Lindsay Love’s did. I told you ‘bout her. She’s mama to that passel of rowdy kids, all of ‘em back around now, raising families and whatnot right here in this old town.”

  She squinted over at the men once more, then took off her glasses and picked up her glass of orange juice and vodka. “Yep. That’s Terry all right. He ‘n Kieran Love have been friends since God was a boy. We haven’t seen him around for ages. I heard he’d joined the army, after…” She hesitated and sipped her drink.

  “After what? Lord, woman don’t leave us hangin’,” Lindee insisted.

  “He was a twin, one a them not identical kinds. He and his brother Quentin were the cutest…my friend dated Quentin in high school. They were soccer players and got scholarships to play somewhere, Ohio maybe? Anyway, the O’Leary’s tried to keep it under wraps but this town is full of gossips so we heard about it.” She nodded and sipped. Lindee snorted and rolled her eyes. Mariah tried not to smile as she snuck another look at the man in question, who was, to her alarm, staring right at her.

  “We’re gettin’ old over here Patty,” Lindee said.

  Patty leaned forward. The other two women did the same. “He killed himself, up at that college. They found him hanging from something in his dorm room, or maybe the locker room? I don’t know but it sure was awful. Terry dropped out and took off for the Army, like I said. I haven’t seen or heard tell of him since. That was…” She counted on her fingers. “Had to be over eight years ago now.”

  “How old is he?” Mariah asked, honestly curious.

  “He’d be thirty-three or four I guess.”

  The women fell silent. Thankfully, the Karaoke Smackdown started, forcing her to think about what she might be singing, and almost forgetting the man sitting behind her. But it was as if she could feel his gaze boring into the back of her neck. It made her shivery, and horny in a way she thought she’d forgotten.

  Then, it was time for her to sing. “Hello,” she told the DJ. He raised an eyebrow, then did a double take when he realized who she was.

  “You got it,” he said, queuing up the Adele song.

  ***

  Terry and Kieran had done all the catching up they possibly could by the time he caught sight of her. As Kieran kept going on about his kids, about his brothers and sister and their lives, Terry tuned him out, unable to focus on a damn thing but the amazing, gorgeous creature sitting two tables away from him. He sipped his beer, nodding at what he hoped were the right places, and willing her to look at him again.

  She did, a few times. The last time her dark brown eyes had the sort of sparkle in them that sent a bolt of raw lust down his spine, making him shift in his seat to dispel it.

  Kieran probably knew her, he figured. He could ask and he’d hear all about her—her people, her story, her life. That was one thing he’d hated about small town life. But it was something that had come back to him like riding a bike, as he slipped into gossip mode almost immediately upon meeting up with his oldest friend.

  Yet, he didn’t ask. There was something about her—with her dusky, brownish bronze skin, long neck and slim arms exposed by her sleeveless top, that wild spill of corkscrewed dark hair—that made him want to study her, to take her in, to decide what he should do about her, if anything. When she stood and headed for the small stage at one end of the pub, took a microphone, and said something to the pimply faced kid operating the karaoke thing, Terry nearly fell off his chair.

  Her hips were full, her waist slim, and her legs long, ending in feet exposed by high wedge heel sandals. She held the mic with the ease of a pro as the pub filled with the opening sounds of some ballad or another, something he’d no doubt heard a million times but ignored. His entire body zinged to attention when she closed her eyes and opened her mouth to sing.

  The entire place, filled to the brim on a Thursday night, fell silent as her first notes floated out over them. Her rich, full voice filled his brain, swirling around inside it and making him feel like he was floating on a soft cloud. She gripped the microphone, caressing it with her lips in a way that brought on a startling and overwhelming urge to go to her, to hold her close, to let her continue singing but only to him. He glared around the room, taking in all the people—all the men—staring at her, mouths half open, probably thinking the same damn thing he’d been.

  When she finished, the pub stayed silent as if from shock before breaking out in a roar. People stood, whistled, hooted and hollered for her. She stood, her head leaning to one side, her gaze darting around, until it met his. Then she smiled.

  He stood up fast, knocking over his chair. Kieran shot him a strange look. “I need some air,” he said, heading for the door. He stood by hi
s bike, wishing he had a cigarette or a beer or something to do with his hands for a few minutes until Kieran joined him and clapped him on the back.

  “I gotta get home. The boys are making Cara nuts and she’ll take it out of my hide if I hang around here drinking beer with your sorry ass much longer. I’ll tell her you said hey. I’m sure she’ll have you over to the house soon for a meal.”

  Terry nodded, still stunned, still hearing and seeing her as if she’d been imprinted onto him like a hot branding iron. “Good to see you again,” he managed after a while, wiping the sweat beaded up on his face.

  “You too. Good timing. Since Lucasville High is in desperate need of a soccer coach.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said, giving himself a mental shake. “Yes. Very. Thanks for that. And for the use of the old apartment.” He pointed up, indicating the small, one-bedroom place over the pub.

  “Yeah, it’s been sitting empty since Dom left. Mama and Daddy never bothered to rent it out. They’ll be glad to see you too. I told Dom you’d be by tomorrow, to talk about the brewery job.”

  “I don’t deserve this,” he said. “Y’all are being too…”

  Kieran frowned at him and crossed his arms. “No, you really don’t, disappearing like that after…well, anyway. I missed you. So, welcome back. Here’s the key,” he said, tossing a ring that Terry caught. “Move on in whenever. I’ll have a lease for you to sign tomorrow when you come by the school. You’ve got your work cut out for you, my friend. Our soccer program went to shit after I had to fire that creepy asshole, Matt.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said, staring down at the key in his hand. His head felt as clear as it had in months. But he still had that weird, buzzy sensation running up and down his spine. He glanced at the pub door, knowing he should get his ass upstairs to the tiny apartment and try to sleep.

  “See ya tomorrow,” Kieran said as he put his phone to his ear. “I’m comin’ honey. I swear.” He waved. Terry waved back, happy for his friend, if a tad jealous at how well everything had worked out for him at the same time.