Chapter Fifteen #2
“This is Sully and his fiancée, Jane,” Jude said.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty sought Ivy’s gaze, and offered a soft smile.
“And Red and his fiancée, Thalia.” The woman’s dark hair was swept up and away from her face, highlighting her striking green eyes.
“Red and Sully live in Coronado, and Iron and Vivienne just bought a vacation property there.”
“It’s so nice to meet all of you.” She smiled at the newcomers around her, the tension in her muscles loosening, as she looked around at the support Jude had.
He might not want to be close to anyone; to care about anyone, but these men and their significant others had rallied around him anyway.
Maybe that’s what Jude needed from her, as well.
“We heard about your teammate, Jude,” Sully said. “Cameron gave us a call, and we wanted to be here.”
Jude scrubbed his hands over his face, as though unsure how to accept this show of solidarity.
“Why don’t we go down to the cafeteria and bring back some coffee?” Vivienne bounced up on her toes and kissed Iron’s cheek. “Would that be okay?” She shot a bright smile at Ivy.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Ivy said, wanting to give Jude time to fill in his friends.
Vivienne strode across the carpet and put her arm around Ivy’s shoulder as they walked toward the door. Jane and Thalia followed right behind them.
The women took the elevator to the first floor and walked down the hallway lit by fluorescent lights. They passed the gift shop, now closed and dark, save for the light glowing from a refrigerator packed with glass vases of flowers.
“Was Jude on a SEAL team with your men?” Ivy asked as they followed the signs to the cafeteria.
“Many years ago,” Thalia began. “Red was shot multiple times on a mission. Jude led the SEAL team who got him out of Sudan.”
“Red was transferred to the same military hospital where Iron was recovering after losing his leg,” Vivienne added. “That was the mission that ended his career with the Navy.”
“Sully had been on Iron’s team at the time,” Jane said as they turned into the cafeteria. It was nearly abandoned except for a few nurses on their breaks. “When he went to visit Iron, he also met Red.”
Jane smiled at Ivy. “Sully told me he was shocked when years later he and Red were assigned to a two-man team. They were able to help Jude and another SEAL when their team was ambushed.”
“Oh my God.” Ivy’s words were totally inadequate for the complicated way the men’s lives had intertwined and how their paths continued to cross.
“How did you come to meet Iron, Vivienne?” Ivy asked.
Vivienne stepped up to the counter and quickly ordered eight to-go cups. The other women, including her, tried to pass her cash or credit cards, but Vivienne waved them away.
“Just because you have all that modeling money doesn’t mean you always have to pay,” Thalia said rolling her green eyes toward the ceiling.
Vivienne shrugged. “I do not always pay. About meeting Iron, it’s a long story.
” The sunny woman smiled, turning to take the cups from the woman behind the counter.
“He agreed to help my sister, Hannah, and her boyfriend, Branch, to get me out of an arranged marriage that I didn’t want.
Iron brought me to Virginia. For the first time, I felt free.
I grew up with wealth, but it had become a prison at the same time. ”
“It sure was,” Thalia said taking two of the empty cardboard to-go cups from Vivienne.
“I’d lived at the Day Estate with Vivienne in a forced labor situation and was abducted and taken over the boarder when I tried to help feed Hannah and Branch information about what was going on with the sham marriage.
” Thalia placed her two cups under the pre-made coffee carafe, filling each of them.
Ivy’s mouth had gone dry, and she knew it was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to shut it as the women’s stories became more convoluted than the men’s.
“Vivienne and I were friends, though,” Thalia said.
“Best friends,” Vivienne interjected.
“Yes.” Thalia grinned and gave the other woman a hip bump. “She sent Red and Sully after me.”
“Don’t forget that you already knew Red.” Jane took two of the cups from Vivienne, as well, filled them both, and began adding cream to one of them. “To me, that’s the most unbelievable part of the story.”
“It is very strange how fate threw us together twice.” Thalia mixed sugar from the self-serve station into her cups. “I met Red when his parents were on a concert tour in Colima. Red was just a boy at the time and wandered out of the resort area. He ran into some trouble.”
“And you saved his life,” Vivienne said with a dreamy expression, loading both her cups with flavored cream and copious amounts of sugar.
“And found Tiny,” Jane finished for her.
“That’s incredible. And what about you, Jane? How did you meet Sully?” Ivy was almost afraid to ask, but she desperately wanted to know these women’s stories.
“Well, Sully and Red had just gotten Thalia back onto U.S. soil when Sully was temporarily assigned to the Virginia SEAL Team. One of their teammate’s wives was having a baby.
Added to that, the SEAL’s sister, an anthropologist, joined the mission as a government contractor.
I was one of the hostages Sully was sent to rescue and he was shot in the process.
Long story short, he developed an infection and I just kind of stayed with him. ”
“There’s a lot more to that story,” Thalia said pushing a cover onto one of the coffee cups.
Ivy filled a cup for her and one for Jude, breathing in the bitter scent of ground coffee beans. She covered both, leaving them black the way they both liked.
“And both of yours, too,” Jane said staring at Vivienne and Thalia with disbelief.
“We’d be here for days if we really got into them though.” Vivienne laughed.
“And I thought the way I met Jude was strange,” Ivy mused, completely floored by the other women’s stories.
“How did you meet?” Thalia asked as they started out of the cafeteria, each holding two cups of coffee.
“I’m a home inspector and was called out to an estate under some uncommon circumstances.
Two men entered the estate before I finished.
They didn’t see me at first and something about the way they were talking made me start recording the conversation on my phone.
They were discussing their plans for the estate, which had nothing to do with family or a white picket fence.
I ran out the back door, but not before they started following me and shooting.
I fell down a steep ledge. I guess I got knocked out and Jude found me outside the cabin he was renting.
There was severe weather at the time, and a landslide took out the entire cabin Jude was staying in.
” Ivy turned her gaze to Thalia. “Thankfully, you and Red had already picked up my brother, Ash, to bring him to Jess’s condo, because our place was broken into. ”
The women walking beside her murmured their appreciation that both she and Jude got out of the situation unharmed.
Thalia sighed. “I loved meeting your brother and Jess. What a sweetheart. She invited us right in and was baking cupcakes. We agreed to meet up sometime for drinks. Now we can include you, too.”
“Are you still in danger, Ivy?” Jane said, hitting the elevator button with her elbow.
“Looks that way. Part of the reason Jude’s teammate was shot was because they found one of the men who was at the estate. It sounds like he was doing too much talking, and somebody wanted to silence him.”
“Where are you staying now?” Vivienne maneuvered her coffees to hit the button that would take them back to the waiting room floor.
“With Jude.”
“He’s…intense,” Thalia said.
“He is, but he also has a sweet side, too,” Ivy said. The elevator bounced slightly and came to a stop, and the women filtered out.
Jane and Thalia glanced at each other with their eyebrows raised.
“I don’t doubt that he’s a good man,” Jane said. “But I get the feeling the only way he knows how to show how much he cares is through protection.”
“If Jude is showing you anything but his intense side, that must mean you’re very special to him,” Thalia said.
“We bonded through a wild situation.” Ivy shook her head, letting the doubts creep in with this group of women who had been through so much. “I thought we were going to see where things went between us, but I can already feel him pulling away.”
“Don’t let him,” Vivienne exclaimed. “Iron tried to do the same thing with me. I had to be the aggressor. Otherwise, I don’t think he ever would have touched me.
All the reasons he thought we couldn’t be together simply didn’t matter to me.
It took me a long time to break down his walls, but it was so worth it.
I know it will be worth it for you, too. ”
“Red was going to let me go out of some misplaced chivalry. He said I deserved a chance to be free and out on my own. Said he wouldn’t be the person who held me back.
I had to show him that my freedom meant nothing if I couldn’t choose to stay with him,” Thalia said as they walked past the nurse’s station.
“It’s about time Jude found himself something good,” Jane added.
“We’ve been so worried about him.” Thalia lowered her voice as they got closer to the waiting area. “He’s been spiraling into a dark place, and he already seems lighter having you by his side.”
“Just don’t let him pull away from you.” Vivienne’s voice was just a whisper as they stood outside the door to the room where they’d left the men. “He’s going to try, but you’ve already caught his eye. Fight for him, Ivy. I promise these men are worth it.”
Ivy smiled at the other women, feeling incredibly lucky that they were bolstering her confidence when she needed it most. “I already know he is.”