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Chapter One
Ava
In the security check line at JFK Airport, faces were long. Tension loomed in the air as hordes of people were manipulated through a maze of nylon straps, snaking the corridor. Crowded lines had Ava Baxter tapping her foot, jaw locked tight. She should have driven the three and a half hours to Newport, Rhode Island instead of flying. If only her high-mileage car could have made the journey, she would have at least avoided these civilians. Also, she couldn’t pass up her passage being paid for by her soon-to-be married closest friend, Major Todd Patterson.
Ava adjusted the green military backpack on her shoulders, scanning the airport’s security team. Profanities at the TSA’s sluggish performance swam in her head, but other, more important problems crowded them out, though both left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Recently retired army helicopter pilot, Ava swallowed her guilt at leaving her son, Jack, again so soon for a long weekend away. Ten years of service meant ten years she wasn’t around to raise him like other full-time moms.
Motherhood had become a bomb-sized payload to figure out. It seemed no amount of rocket fuel could get her there fast enough. She’d been in Jack’s life for most of the important stuff like birthdays and holidays. And she’d served her country with confidence, knowing her parents took great care of him. But she couldn’t shake the feeling she’dsuddenlybecome a single parent. Hadn’t she been just that for ten years? Jack’s father certainly made it clear he had other life plans when he dropped her off at the abortion clinic eleven years ago.
At sixteen, Ava had departed her high school boyfriend’s car and watched the coward drive away. Without a glance at the utilitarian building she never intended to enter, she set her chin with determination and trekked home to disclose the pregnancy to her parents.
Master Sergeant Baxter, a.k.a. her controlling father, had decided the best way for her to “smarten up” and “make something of herself” was simply for her to enlist in the army. Follow in his footsteps. After she obtained her GED, and recovered from Jack’s birth, Master Sergeant Baxter signed thewaivers for seventeen-year-old applicants. She’d followed his orders.
Maybe she’d seen it as an easy out. What did she know about motherhood at seventeen? She’d never been the kind of girl to play with dolls. Instead, she’d been the ringleader of the neighborhood bicycle gang. Besides, Jack would be raised by her parents in a loving, albeit strict home. She couldn’t complain at how wonderfully he’d turned out, a kind and well-rounded boy. And her mom, Connie, had done a darn fine job after Dad died a few years ago, continuing to work and manage a grade-schooler. Ava honestly didn’t know how the woman did it. But that was over. Mom planned to move back to Italy to live with her recently widowed sister, leaving Ava and Jack alone.
This full-time motherhood gig fell all on her now.
Helicopter pilots had five basic movements and steering controls: Two hand levers, the collective and cyclic pitch. One throttle. Two foot pedals. Most maneuvers she executed involved a complex interplay between these different controls. Flying a helicopter required skill and concentration, taking years to hone. But motherhood?Challengingseemed like a weak word to describe it. Ava feared with her lack of skills and confidence she’d mess him up.
Jack didn’t come with an instruction manual or a simulator that would provide a realistic imitation of circumstances she could watch and learn from. This shit was by the seat of her pants.
Finding a job and a place for her and Jack to start a new life topped Ava’s to-do list. But primarily, she had to find her parental groove with her ten-year-old.
You got this, Baxter.
She habitually blurred her emotions, soldiering up and compartmentalizing issues. But Jack wasn’t anissue. This enthusiastic and sweet kid needed guidance, support, and a loving family.
With extensive special ops training, Ava knew threats, how to assess and defuse them, and when to execute commands. She owned her badass reputation, giving her the confidence to be who she needed to be in the army—besides, being an army pilot flowed in her blood. Master Sergeant Baxter had been one too. During her career, high-ranking officers proclaimed Ava Baxter had tenacity, self-confidence, and a future in the army. And yet some would argue that she proved to be dominating and combative.
No one had ever referred to her as gentle or maternal.
Don’t mess up your kid, Baxter.
Internal dialogue helped to keep her mouth shut, saving her some trouble, a technique she’d learned at an early age. It really came in handy today, especially when she wanted to spew profanity at civilians who annoyed her—or when a particular ten-year-old tested her patience. Profanity, seemingly encoded in her DNA, had become problematic in civilian life. So, she’d consciously addressed this hefty issue, but it proved beyond difficult to censor her potty mouth.
“The line moved up,” said a middle-aged man in a business suit behind her.
Pulled from her thoughts, Ava’s gaze targeted the guy six feet in front of her wearing urban gamer brand clothing, bulky headphones, and expensive kicks. She’d shuffled behind him for the past half hour and estimated at least another ten minutes waiting in this mind-numbingly slow line. But not even cute gamer guy could hold her attention once the weasel behind her implied she made an unforgivable mistake by not advancing the line.
She rounded on the unsuspecting soul, suddenly startled by her jerky movements. “Sir.” Assertive command sniped from her lips as her eyes glazed with clout. “You need to step back. Out of my personal space.”
In the past, raising her voice only made her sound shrill. So instead, she’d lowered it, enunciating, making it sound threatening and authoritative. But her eyes—never breaking contact—intimidated people. Smaller in stature, she held her own among her hulking military brothers.
Blanching, the man’s ears scrunched into his shoulders. He looked away and coughed.
Ava moved forward, mentally berating him as she took her time, above intimidation.
A badass with a rep.
At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
If this line didn’t speed up, she’d miss her flight. Not that lodging in a Rhode Island mansion for three days trumped national security. But darn it, she hated civilian transport.
And as far as pending life-altering decisions went, perhaps she’d figure them out by the time she returned home to Brooklyn. For now, she focused on the gamer’s backside sculpted in tapered black jeans. He stayed glued to his phone, like everyone else in line, allowing her to openly admire his thick, dark hair, angled jaw, and tattoos creeping from his T-shirt collar.
She scanned the lines for anyone hotter, but her gaze returned to him again and again. Now that she’d left the military, her unending supply of hot guys had dried up, and her libido sorely felt the effects.
