Chapter 5
Ethan put the kickstand down on his motorcycle, pulled off his helmet, and wiped the sweat from his face before grabbing his saddlebags and walking up the grass-lined gravel driveway to the two-story white house in front of him.
Not exactly what he'd envisioned for a private security firm's headquarters, but maybe that was the point.
He climbed the steps up to the porch and slung his bag over his shoulder. Before he could knock on the door, Aaron pulled it open. “You made it just in time. We got a big pot of soup almost ready.”
“Great.” Ethan ground out and followed Aaron inside. Immediately the delicious smell hit him. “Didn't know you were such a chef.”
“I'm not. Stash your saddlebags over there for now.” Aaron gestured to the floor right next to a blue flowery couch. “After we eat I'll show you where you're bunking down.”
Ethan put his bag down, uneasy about the location.
The small living room looked exactly like what a grandmother's house would look like, complete with lace curtains and a hundred different pictures hanging on the walls.
Most of the photographs were of children in some state of play: fishing, swimming, birthday parties.
As he followed the pictures, the kids grew older: graduation caps, basic training, girls in pantsuits and guys in military dress blues.
Ethan paused at the next to last one, surprise tinging his voice. “Hey, this is you.”
Aaron came and stood beside him, “Damn, I look like a baby. Can't believe I've been in the military for ten years now.”
“Who are these two?” Ethan gestured to the pictures flanking Aaron proudly on the wall.
“The one on the left is my dad after he got back from Vietnam. The one on the right is my grandpa. He was a World War II fighter pilot.”
That sense of unease returned full force as Ethan felt the cloying grips of claustrophobia snake its way around his lungs. “This is your family's house. Why the hell am I here?”
“Grey needed somewhere for us to bunk close to the plantation. Noni's house was the closest so I volunteered.”
“This is your grandma's house?”
“Sure is. Got a problem with it?” A strong female voice came through loud and clear from behind Aaron and both men turned to see a very petite woman standing in the room. Her snow white hair and colorful apron clearly stated this was the famous Noni.
“No, ma'am, your house is very nice, but I can't say here. I'll find a motel.” Ethan grabbed his bags off the floor and slung them over his shoulder. He couldn’t stay at a place that embodied family life. He didn’t even have a family, he’d grown up on the streets, an orphan.
Everything about this place was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
He might be one of the few men on the planet who preferred solitary bunk beds in the barracks, but at least there Ethan knew his place. Family homes that smelled like a Betty Crocker commercial were out of his league.
“Not before you eat some of the soup I've been slaving over all day.” Noni crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. Ethan realized he must have offended her, not that he had enough practice with family interaction to be sure.
“I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to offend you, but I'm here for work not a vacation.”
“I realize that young man, which is why I cooked my famous homemade soup. You'll need it for what you've got to do. Whether you stay here or not is your business, but you would highly offend me if you left before eating.”
Ethan's gaze cut to Aaron, who offered absolutely no help whatsoever. “Man, you got to try it. I promise you won't regret it. Besides, there is nowhere else within thirty miles to eat.”
Ethan sensed a trap, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it might be. Reluctantly, he eased his bag to the ground.
“Great, glad you decided to join us. The food’s ready.” Noni disappeared around the corner.
A few minutes later Ethan polished off the second helping of vegetable beef soup with homemade cornbread and then leaned back in the kitchen chair to groan.
Noni’s cooking made military food taste like shit.
No, worse than that, the shit that grew on shit.
He'd just had the most heavenly meal ever created on planet earth.
“Ma'am, I'm going to have dreams about this food every night for the next month. It's the best thing I've ever eaten.”
Aaron went to the stove for a second bowl. “You think Noni's soup is the best? You have no idea what’s next.”
“I can't imagine, ma'am.”
“While I appreciate your good manners, please stop calling me ma'am. Just Noni will do.” Noni turned back to the sink and slipped another plate into the water.
Ethan recoiled. “Noni” was for the people in her family and he sure as hell wasn't part of this family, let alone any family. But he didn't want to offend her or her hospitality, so he kept his mouth shut.
Aaron shoveled down another bite and then said, “Col. Grey is in the shower and the rest of the team should be arriving throughout the day. You're the first one here. Ranger's coming, and I asked Celine if she was interested.”
“Celine Latimer? The salon girl from Mercy?”
Aaron shrugged. “Yeah, Grey needed a stylist for Kate and the senator's daughter so I kind of volunteered her.”
“And this would have nothing to do with the fact you can't stay away from her?”
“Didn't say that.” Aaron took another bite. “It's all part of the master plan. Got it stored up here.” He tapped his head and nodded.
“My grandson is finally deciding to settle down? I don't believe it,” Noni said.
“I am nowhere near settling. This is just a girl I kind of like.”
Ethan crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “Tell the truth, you really like her or you wouldn't hang around her so much on your off time.”
Noni clapped and came over to squeeze her grandson's shoulders. “It's about time. When will she be here? What does she like to eat? I'll make her something special.”
Aaron glared across the table and Ethan's grin grew. “Celine's gonna be so excited to meet your grandma.”
“Well? What's her favorite food?”
“I don't know, Noni.”
“How can you not know your girlfriend's favorite food? I'm disappointed.” Noni wiped her hands on her apron. “I taught you better than that.”
“She's coming for the mission more than for me, Noni.”
Ethan snorted. “I doubt that. The girl stares at you every time you're in the same room. It’s kind of sickening, to be honest.”
“I knew it! I'm making my fudge.” Noni yanked the half-eaten bowl of soup from Aaron. “Out of the kitchen, now, I need space.”
Noni executed an about face and started gathering supplies from various cabinets.
The whole kitchen was a picture perfect image of what Ethan imagined a real family home looked like.
Painted cabinets, various ceramic roosters and chickens along the countertops and decorating the windowsill over the sink and a refrigerator covered top to bottom in pictures.
“We better get out of her way. Go grab your bag and I'll show you your room.”
“Woah, I didn’t say I was staying. I’ll find somewhere, give you more room for everyone else.” Ethan rose from the table. He’d find a hotel somewhere.
“Nope. I wasn’t joking earlier, there is nowhere else. The closest hotel is over an hour away, plus Kate’s coming here. I’ve already got your training area set up out back.”
Ethan glanced through the window into the back yard and the large blue mat spread out on the ground.
Shit. He didn’t want to be here. Bad enough he was on this babysitting mission in the first place while TF-S was gearing up to go after Mr. J.
Now he’d be forced to stay around all this… family stuff.
“Fine. Show me my room.” He turned back to Noni, “Thank you, ma'am, for the soup.”
Noni pursed her lips, adding even more wrinkles to her weathered face. “You’re welcome.”
Ethan went to the living room and stopped in the middle to turn a slow circle. Every spare inch of wall space and table top was blanketed in family photos. “When you told me you have a big family, I had no idea.”
Aaron walked over to a cluster on the wall above a small antique side table and scratched his beard. “Yeah, four sisters, three brothers, about forty cousins. I think, unless Uncle Vince has found another younger newer wife, that could be off by a few.”
The number sent Ethan's mind whirling, surrounded by a foreign vortex of love and happiness. He'd grown up on the streets, never knowing his own parents. He'd fought for himself since youth, picking up odd jobs where he could, learning how to survive by relying on his own skill.
Aaron stepped forward and tapped an old black and white photo.
“That's Pop, Noni's husband, in front of his F4U Corsair in WWII. He flew over one hundred missions and still made it home to her.” Aaron pointed to the next photo, a soldier in solid green, framed by jungle.
“That's Dad when he was in Vietnam. And then that handsome strapping man in the next picture is me. I tell you, they should have put me on the cover of Military Magazine.”
Ethan snorted. “Yeah, I think you may be waiting a long time on that call.”
Aaron continued, completely unfazed. “That is from about twenty years ago, when we were all young. The last picture we have of Noni and Pop together with all the grandkids.”
A younger Noni and Aaron’s grandfather sat on chairs in the yard, children in their laps, standing beside them, on the ground sitting in front.
Ethan rubbed the dull ache in his chest. He'd never have that, wasn't meant to.
He'd resigned himself to the life of a nomad years ago and knew he'd walk this earth alone.
So why did his damn heart feel like Aaron had just hollowed it out with a dull spoon?
“Got to hit the head. I'll be back in a few minutes and show you to your room. You can just chill here.” Aaron nodded and strode past Ethan down a long hallway off to the right of the living room.
Ethan stared at that last picture, the one of the couple obviously in love surrounded by their offspring, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't place himself there.
That life wasn't for him. He knew exactly how his own life would play out.
He'd stay in the Special Forces until he was either too injured to stay active or he'd die on a mission. He told himself that was his only choice. Besides, he didn’t know how to live any differently.
The picture of Pop in front of the fighter plane, that he could put himself in easily. Ethan sensed a presence and glanced down at Noni, her weathered gaze fixed with longing on that photo.
“They called him the Eagle. He flew on more missions in that one tour of duty than most men do in an entire lifetime. He said he couldn't stand staying on the ground and leaving his men unprotected.” She sniffed and traced a bony finger over her husband’s face.
The dull ache in Ethan's chest grew. No one would ever stare at his photo with longing.
“When they recruited him for the Kamikaze Brigade, I cried for a month straight. Out of the fifty volunteers who flew into the heart of Germany, only my husband and two others survived.”
“I learned about the Kamikazes in Air Born School. They were hands down the most famous and badass pilots in history.” He didn't tell her the part about the survivors being rumored as mad men.
They'd had a mortality rate of over ninety percent, making them not only the most famous, but the deadliest.
But the proud grin and glint in Pop's eye was the same wild look Ethan saw every time he looked into a mirror. “No offense, ma'am, but why did he settle down? I mean, that kind of adrenaline rush...” was for legends.
Not fathers and husbands.
“You know Johnny always told me he planned to die in the war.
Didn't think he’d live to see his twenty-fifth birthday, but he had something to live for.
Me. I never understood and never tried to really figure him out.
I never asked him to give up the service either if that's what you're thinking.
After Aaron's father was born I asked Johnny why he'd chosen me and he said, ‘When I saw you, I knew. I knew the rush of being a fighter pilot could never measure up to holding the love of the greatest woman I know.’” She sniffed and wiped away a tear.
“I still miss him every single day, and I know when my time’s over, I'll be joining him again.
He was the greatest man I've ever known.”
Noni’s eyes were red and watery, and Ethan had to fight not to cringe away from her emotions.
“You've got that same rangy lone wolf look Johnny used to have, the way you're staring at all my pictures. Feeling trapped, are you?”
Ethan's throat closed off completely and he couldn't answer her question or argue with her intuitiveness.
“Well there's hope. I promise you that. And you'll know it when you meet her.”