CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER
ONE
Lana Pennington pulled into the driveway. A driveway she pulled out of fourteen years ago and never looked back at.
She wasn’t home to visit for pleasure. She was home to bury her father.
God her heart broke again at the realization that her dad was gone. Their relationship had been strained since she’d joined the Army right out of high school like her mother had.
The night she’d called and told her father she was now being stationed in Houston, Texas for the last two years of her enlistment and why it became even more strained. They would go months without speaking at times to speaking one or twice a month for the last six years.
He’d even flown to Texas to visit a few times as well. At first, he was upset when she wouldn’t move back to North Carolina, but when she explained her reasons, he seemed to have understood.
What broke her heart the most was that her father never told her he’d been sick. Not until the day he’d died.
Hours before he took his last breath, he had the hospice nurse dial her number. She’d been about to conduct a raid they’d been planning for weeks and didn’t have her phone on her when he had called.
The message he’d left her apologized for the distance he’d caused because of her joining the Army, and how he’d been so proud of her and all that she’d accomplished in her life. He’d also mentioned how proud he knew her mother would have been of her as well.
He’d paused for a few moments and apologized he’d never told her about the cancer and that he was dying. How he’d watch over her with her mother from Heaven.
Her heart had seized on that statement. She tried calling her father back, but the nurse answered, letting her know that her father had passed away an hour ago.
The nurse had relayed her father’s final requests and wishes. She had made arrangements to stop in and get her father’s personal items once she got into town.
She’d scared her teammates when she’d broken down into tears at the loss of her father and all they’d lost due to anger. Now, she was sitting in the dark, in a rental SUV with two of her teammates who were like sisters to her and her twins.
“You okay, Ice?” Karen “Rocky” Stallone asked as she turned toward her.
Lane looked over at her best friend of several years and nodded. Rocky was not only her best friend but the godmother to her two kids.
Rocky was the Italian hottie of their team. Her parents had been born and raised in Italy and came to the U.S. after her oldest brother had been born.
She was five feet seven inches tall with a model build, large breasts that always got everyone’s attention, and a toned ass Lana would die for. Her black hair, black as the abyss, made her sky-blue eyes stand out.
She was the team’s bad ass with her martial arts skills and her love of knives. Lana was the team’s interrogator and intelligence expert.
“Yeah, I’m good. It’s just hard to believe that when I leave this time, it’s for good. Despite the past, I actually loved this town. It would be a great place for Jay and Dani to grow up without the worry most parents have living in the big cities.”
“Then hold off selling your dad’s place. Rent it out until you’re ready to come back here.”
“We both know you wouldn’t let me, or the kids leave Texas for good.” Lana laughed as she turned her head toward Rocky.
“Shit, I may come with you.” Rocky laughed as she shook her head at Lana.
“Not without me. You two bitches aren’t going anywhere.” Sandy “Sunny” Goldsman grumbled from the back seat.
“Language,” Lana and Rocky said at the same time.
“Oh please! Like these two haven’t heard worse between all of us, especially you, Ice.” Sunny rolled her eyes at the two women. “Besides, they are both out like lights.”
Lana turned around in her seat to look at her twins. They were snuggled up together and fast asleep.
Her heart squeezed looking at them both. They were her world. Her everything.
“Alright. Let me go in and turn the porch light on so we don’t stumble over anything carrying them in.
” Lana said on a heavy sigh. “I’ll put them in my old room.
There’s a guest room and unless he’s changed out the furniture and didn’t tell me, the couch pulls out into a sleeper. You two can duke it out.”
“Sunny can have the guest room. I’ll take the sleeper sofa. Where are you sleeping?” Rocky asked, side-eyeing her.
“My room with the kids. It’s a queen size mattress.”
Lana didn’t wait for their responses. She wanted to get inside before anyone noticed she was here.
Rushing from the SUV, she went up the steps to the porch and unlocked the front door. She reached in to turn the porch light on and then ran back to the vehicle.
She hefted her son out of the back seat while Rocky reached in to grab her daughter. Both women working as if this was what they did all the time with the kids.
While they took care of the kids, Sunny grabbed their suitcases and brought them along with the kids’ pillows and blankets. Once the kids were in bed, she chanced a quick look around.
Her room looked exactly as she’d left it the day she’d shipped out fourteen years ago. Her bed had the same quilt and sheets, even the pillows were in the same spot.
Her dresser was in the same spot against the wall with her trophies for 4-H camp when she was a kid and a few of the ribbons she’d won years ago. Her vanity still had the pictures on in it that she’d taped there of her with the one man who had won her heart years ago.