Courage To Live

By Morgan Q O'Reilly

She's living in fear. He's a born protector. There's a missing man holding them apart.

Candace Cutler intended to leave her abusive husband, until he vanished one snowy Alaska night. She lives in a limbo of dread, wanting only to care for her son. And now a cocky young pilot has moved in next door.

Cayden Shaughnessy's instinct is to protect. He doesn't like the rumors about the guy who left a single mom and cute kid next door—and who's he kidding? He finds the mom pretty adorable, too, in a hot, can't-resist sort of way.

But Candace doesn't have time for games. Too many loose ends leave her unsettled, and she can't help expecting violence to step once more from the shadows. . .

WARNING: Contains two brief descriptions of violence; however, justice is served. Also contains hot loving, a Top Gun-worthy fly-by, sex and more sizzling Shaughnessys.

30,000 Words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyrical Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781616503505

Book preview

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Prologue

Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. ~ Robert Cody

Mom!

A gentle hand patted my right cheek. The one that didn’t hurt. Although with the red haze enfolding me, I would have been hard pressed to pick a place that didn’t hurt or wasn’t covered in food that had been on our dinner plates. The hand barely touched me. The voice called to me, sweet and sobbing like it hadn’t in years. The cry of a hurting little boy.

I’m here, Robbie. My throat felt raw and a whisper was all I could manage. As much as I wanted to let the dark take me, I couldn’t. Rob was only eleven and while he might have been my height, he was far from being a man. Forcing myself to breathe through the pain coming from my left side, I managed to lift my right eyelid. The left one felt about ten times its normal size. Get me some ice, sweetheart. And a towel to cushion it, okay?

We have to get out of here! he protested, but scrambled for the kitchen anyway.

My heart rate spiked and a surge of adrenalin pushed me into a sitting position. My ribs complained and I bit back a howl of pain, one arm wrapped around my middle, the other braced to hold me up. Why? Is he coming back? I gasped. The food that had been dumped on me slid off in a sickening sludge. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I made note that the potato salad would be a bitch to clean out of the carpet where it had been trod in deeply.

Robbie came back from the kitchen, a wad of dishtowels and ice pack in hand. The big blue one I sometimes used for my back. Ah well, keeping Robbie busy was the important part. If he kept moving, his panic would fade. I hoped. He used another towel to try and wipe some of the mess off my face. The towel came away streaked in red and yellow. Ketchup and mustard, mostly. Maybe some of that red was blood.

He broke all the phones. We need to get out and call the police.

Did he leave? I winced as the ice touched my cheek.

Yeah, he drove away. Really fast.

Maybe Quint would skid on the ice building up on the roads. With the latest snowstorm moving in, it was possible. If God were really on my side, a DUI would put him in lockup for a night. Possibly longer. It would give me the time to do what I needed to do.

We need to call for help. You look awful, Mom. I’ll go next door and call an ambulance. He started to get up, but I grabbed his arm.

Here, let me get up. I just need to clean up and rest a bit. Robbie wanted to help, but he was afraid of hurting me more. Just as well, I didn’t know how bad my ribs were and didn’t want to risk breaking what might only be cracked. With luck, only bruised, but Quint had a big foot and strong legs. He also had a hundred pounds on me.

Mom!

Relax, honey. It’s your fight-or-flight reflex kicking in. He won’t come back tonight. Although this was the worst he’d ever beaten me, it’d been years since the last time. Years since he’d left a large bruise, but I knew the routine. After a big fight, physical or not, he’d go somewhere and sleep it off. Robbie and I were okay for the night. Light-headed and breathing shallowly, I used the corner of the table to climb to my feet. Help me clean up, then I’ll go rest in my chair.

I’ll clean up. You sit. Robbie carefully slipped an arm around my waist and helped me settle in my chair near the front window. He lifted my feet onto the ottoman and pushed my little computer table within my reach.

We should still have internet. He handed me more towels before returning to the kitchen. The house base phone is smashed and he destroyed your cellphone. Can you call the police on Skype?

First we’d better see if there’s an around-the-clock locksmith who answers emails after hours. Using the towels, I wiped up as much of the mess from myself as I could. Later, I’d shower and worry about the stains.

I wasn’t willing to call the police, they’d never helped much before, but the locks were getting changed and the garage door opener disengaged. It was time. Five months ahead of my carefully planned and scheduled exit from hell for Robbie and me, but time nonetheless.

Quint had finally punched my last button.

Chapter 1

Okay, kid. You know the drill. Groceries up to the kitchen.

My eleven-going-on-thirty son was already halfway out the car door. On it.

Rob and I had just come home from a particularly grueling day with a side trip to the grocery store. All I wanted was to go inside, crawl in bed and find oblivion. Too bad I’d have to wait a few hours.

The neighbor to the north, Jack, had pulled in as well, but hadn’t yet closed his garage door. Hoping he’d disappear into his house so I wouldn’t have to talk to him, I took a moment to stare into my garage and wonder how much I could get for the tools and wood making it impossible for me to park the car inside. Considering my run of luck, I merely sighed when I saw two men from the corner of my eye.

Since there was no point in sitting there longer, I opened the car door and climbed out, doing my best to look completely normal while letting my shoulder-length hair swing around my face. All the better to hide the spectacular swelling and bruise makeup and my sunglasses barely covered. As Rob and I gathered groceries, purse, gym bag and the usual daily detritus, Jack was giving his friend, a tall young man with red hair dressed in everyday Air Force blues, a verbal tour of the street.

Robbie slammed down the rear hatch of the ubiquitous white minivan the insurance company had provided while a shop tried to calculate the damages to my car sustained over the weekend. I was doing my best to extricate myself from the strange vehicle and not aggravate my new injuries. I straightened and turned so I could close the door with a hip swing, and made the mistake of glancing up. The redhead’s eyes were aimed at me and, as he leisurely gave me the once over, he also gave me a slow, sexy smile. Somewhere deep inside me, something twinged. I straightened my back hoping I hadn’t just added a pulled muscle to my list of pains.

That’s Candy, Jack said. As usual, he had a derisive tone in his voice when it came to talking to me, or about me. The introduction was grudging. My new housemate, Lieutenant Cayden Shaughnessy.

Jack directly addressing me was a rarity. Usually he avoided looking at me. He’d answered a brief hello a time or two, but mostly he ignored my existence. Pointedly.

I nodded.

Cayden, ma’am. Pleased to meet you. Lovely home you have. He nodded at my small balcony, where planter boxes held petunias, marigolds and spilling curtains of lobelia.

Mom? Can you handle those? Rob took a protective stance in front of me, his hands and arms loaded with twice as many grocery bags as mine. Even then, he only let me carry lettuce and chips.

I’m fine, honey. Go on in.

Lawn’s getting a little long, Jack said, frowning his disapproval at the grass a week overdue for mowing. During mid-summer, it meant twice as much work. If it wasn’t mowed every five to seven days, it got out of control. Twenty hours of sunlight did that.

I know. I turned toward the garage hoping to escape before Jack questioned me again about Quint’s continued absence. I’d run out of things to say and didn’t want to hear any jibes or questions about the switch in vehicles.

If you need some help, ma’am, just let me know.

I glanced at the eager young lieutenant. He seemed to mean it.

Tall and lean, military-short hair gleaming with golden highlights in the Alaskan summer sun still riding high in the early evening sky, the man was the very picture of young, cocky Air Force pilot. I pegged him at about twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven. A good six years younger than I was, at least. Hell, I might have been his babysitter at one point.

The woman’s married and has a kid. Leave her be, Jack growled before turning his cold glare on me. Where’s Quint? What’d you do to him after the Super Bowl? New car, Candy?

I ignored Jack, as I had the last six months when he asked the same questions about my missing husband, but stopped walking when the lieutenant winked at me.

Damn sorry to hear you’re married.

He wasn’t the only one.

However, six months earlier Quint had disappeared into a snowy night. Not that I really cared about where he was, but my situation was precarious. Over the weekend, a dumbass drunk had hit me head on, leaving me reeling from a whole new set of injuries, worries and anger. In short, I was no closer to letting myself be charmed by a handsome face and cocky grin than I ever had been. Didn’t mean I hadn’t noticed the sculpted hard body of the new resident next door. I just didn’t have time, or energy, to fence or flirt with him verbally or otherwise. The cocky youngster’s hit on me was like a match touched to tinder.

Without stopping to think, I lit into the younger man, who suddenly looked more like a Golden Retriever puppy than a pilot who flew multimillion dollar, armed jets.

Let me tell you, Mr. HotShot. This isn’t San Diego. There’s no Top Gun here.

In his pressed uniform, duffle slung over his shoulder, the man I directed my venom at stared back at me with laughter in his laser blue eyes. The amusement pissed me off even more.

Hey–

I appreciate what you guys do, I rushed over his rebuttal, trying to sound reasonable, and failing. But once you step off that base, you’re in the real world, and you’re expected to act like real people. That I’m-too-sexy-for-my-jet thing doesn’t work here. National Guard, Army and Coast Guard all have a presence in town, not just Air Force. And we know all about behavior unbecoming an officer. You’re not remotely special or unique and the sooner you figure that out, the better we’ll get along.

Bluer than blue eyes twinkled at me across the lawn separating our domiciles. I secretly bet he flew one of the F-22 Raptors stationed at the base just a few miles north. Extreme confidence fairly oozed from his pores. Even in the face of my ranting, the wide grin on his chiseled face didn’t fade one bit.

The grin unnerved me as much as the fact I’d blown up at him under far less provocation than I’d endured from Quint. Hell, I’d known Fly-boy mere heartbeats and had no insight into his intentions behind the flirting. I was running on nerves, caffeine, pain and little sleep. The compression around my chest that made my battered ribs bearable also limited my breathing to shallow, dizzying huffs and reminded me of the worst of it.

I trembled as the tirade flew from my mouth. But really. Although I’d just been introduced to him, the man standing ten feet away across the narrow strip of lawn and his all-too-obvious arrogant attitude was too much on top of the previous couple of days. As my husband had learned, I could only put up with so much and then the words formed and burst from me, almost of their own volition. Rather like frozen pipes at thirty below. Usually without a thought given to the consequences. And with Quint, there were always consequences. Sometimes big, mostly small, but always there. Six months hadn’t erased that lesson.

That thought should have been at the top of my head. Science says that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Not true. In some cases, the reaction is multiple times the force of the original action. As a result, the only thing holding me upright, my medical corset, a torture device marketed as a compression vest and posture aid, reminded me all too clearly of the last round of consequence. The barely healed ribs were newly injured, and came with more bruises, strains and aches from the car accident. At least it hadn’t been my estranged husband’s foot. Lord only knew where the foot, and the rest of his body, was right then. I had no clue, and neither did the police. They seemed to care only slightly more than I did, which wasn’t saying much.

In fact, I added, just mind your own business and leave me to mine. Then everyone will be happy.

Was I a glutton for punishment or what? I felt as if I breathed fire by the time I finished.

You do realize Top Gun is Navy, not Air Force, right?

In the face of his grin, I pulled back and hurried the best I could through the open garage, the plastic straps of the grocery bags cutting into my shaking fingers. My purse strap slid off my shoulder, unbalancing me that much more, jolting my already sore body. Just before I hit the garage door button with a carefully extended thumb, his laugh carried into my garage.

Hey Jack, he called to his host. Did you hear that? She thinks I’m sexy.

Fuck. Another conceited bastard living next door.

Chapter 2

I didn’t hear Jack’s reply, probably just as well. He’d almost certainly stated, yet again, that I was the bitch from hell.

By no means stupid, I knew how most of the neighborhood saw me. Kind of hard not to in a tiny insulated community of twenty-three narrow, gray vinyl-coated homes built over two-car garages separated by small yards. The neighborhood consisted of one street that bent ninety degrees with a handful of homes on the outside facing a semi-major residential thoroughfare. Few features identified individual homes. Mostly, a strip of faux rock facing on either side of the garage or a slight variation in color on the narrow trims kept our homes from being identical. A few had large, versus small, balconies overlooking the driveways and only a handful of us planted baskets and pots of bright summer flowers.

Because of these attempts at gardening during the short season of long summer days, we in the neighborhood tended to be in each others’ pockets a fair amount during the sunny half of the year. Which was why the neighbors all knew and adored my husband. And missed him far more than Rob or I did.