Really drunk to the point that if his father hadn’t found him passed out on the bathroom floor that he probably would have died of alcohol poisoning. After he was rushed to the hospital and had his stomach pumped, his father, angrier than he’d ever seen him before, dragged him to school and forced him to take the SAT exam when all he wanted to do was to curl up next to a toilet and die.
One month later he’d received his test scores and learned that he scored a pathetic 490, total. He could have taken the test over again, but that would have meant a delayed acceptance to college and starting school in the spring instead of in the fall with all his friends. His pride had taken a hit with that score. Unable to handle the embarrassment of that fuck up, he’d begged his father to sign a release so that he could join the Marines, but his father had refused. His father didn’t believe in fixing one mistake with another.
Pissed that the plans that he’d had for his life were ruined and foolishly blaming his father, Danny had stopped trying in school. He’d no longer cared about his grades, his family, friends or anything for that matter and had started focusing on getting the hell away from his father. The morning that he was supposed to graduate, he grabbed a duffle bag, filled it with clothes, emptied his meager savings account and hitched a ride out of town.
A week later with a fake ID in his hand, he walked into a Marine recruitment center and enlisted. It had taken the Marines less than a month to knock him on his arrogant ass and strip away every cocky assumption that he’d ever had about himself. They tore him down and kept him there until he was ready to grow up and be a man.
Joining the Marines had been the most foolish decision of his life, but it had also turned out to be the best thing for him. Once he’d managed to get his head out of his ass, he’d worked hard to become the soldier that the Marines wanted him to be. They’d also turned him into the man that he never would have been if he’d continued acting like a spoiled brat. He’d worked hard, earning rank after rank until he found himself leading a Special Forces team. He would still be there if he hadn’t caught a bullet a little too close to his spine for the Marine’s liking and one through his right palm, destroying his ability to pull the trigger quick enough to make him anything more than a liability.
So after ten years of serving his country, twelve surgeries to save his life and to make sure that he wouldn’t end up in a wheelchair for the rest of it, he’d come home to a father that wanted nothing to do with him, no education to open doors for him and no hirable skills. If it hadn’t been for his family, he would have been truly good and fucked.
His mother, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins had pulled together and made sure that he’d had whatever he needed to get through the last of the surgeries. They’d brought him to physical therapy when he needed a ride and there had always been someone to hold his hand when the pain became too much. They’d been there for him every step of the way, making the transition from damaged soldier to civilian easier for him and for that alone he was eternally grateful.
He always had an invitation to dinner, someone willing to drop everything to help him out and the reminder that he wasn’t alone. It made things a hell of a lot more tolerable for him, but some days…
It wasn’t enough.
Some days he longed for a home of his own and not just an apartment that his cousin rented to him for practically nothing. He wanted a wife that looked at him the way that Haley and Zoe looked at his cousins. He wanted children that ate him out of house and home and made him smile even when they were going out of their way to piss him off.
He should be happy that he was alive and had a good job, and he was. He just wished that there was more to his life than work, his books, eating dinner every other night at one of his uncle’s or cousin’s homes and looking forward to pissing off his cute little neighbor. He needed to get off his ass and start dating again, but he just couldn’t seem to force himself to get interested in any woman long enough to ask her out.
Like most Bradfords, he’d never had a problem finding a woman to warm his bed. Sex was easy, uncomplicated and could be used to scratch an itch. Finding a woman that he genuinely liked and wanted to spend time with outside the bedroom was a bit difficult for him. He just wished-
“I think we should focus back on Danny and his wife,” Trevor announced, completely screwing him over.
Bastard!
“She’s not my wife,” he said evenly, forcing himself to eat another bite of the mushy rice.
“Not yet,” Jason pointed out.
“For Christ’s sake, she’s not even my type!” he snapped, not bothering to point out that he liked taller woman with a hell of a lot more curves than Tinkerbelle had.
Tinkerbelle was pretty, he’d give her that, but she was also too short, probably five-one if that. She was petite, even smaller than Haley. She had blonde hair when he preferred black. Her breasts were small, probably C cups when he preferred large breasts that he could spend hours devoting his attention to and to be honest, she had this kid sister aura about her that just made him want to torment her.
“Doesn’t matter if she’s your type of not. You know how this works,” Trevor said, taking a bite of his meatloaf and noticeably trying not to cringe.
“Because she’s my neighbor?” he asked, not bothering to hide his snort of disgust. When his cousins sent him a “duh” look, he explained, “I’ve had plenty of neighbors that I enjoyed pissing off and I didn’t marry any of them so clearly Great Grandpa’s theory on Bradford men is bullshit.”
“You’ve had neighbors before,” Jason agreed, before he added, “but you’ve never gone out of your way to make any of their lives a living hell.”
“That makes her special,” Trevor added with a wink before Zoe said something that sent them all running from the table in search of a trashcan.
“That’s not rice,” she said, worrying her bottom lip. “That was baked macaroni and cheese.”
Chapter 3
“You can’t be serious,” Greg, a man that she’d gone out with a total of three times before he’d finally announced that he couldn’t date her because she reminded him of his kid sister, said as he carefully placed his coffee back on the coaster, well aware that she’d kick his ass if he stained her great-grandmother’s table.
“Oh, no I’m completely serious,” she said, looking over the notes that Mr. Tate had provided her with so that she could “improve the proposal.” She shook her head, refusing to compare their small library to the Louvre. Honestly, Mr. Tate was such a sweet man, but he had a romantic streak a mile wide, always seeing things as he thought they should be.
“You do realize that you’re telling a police officer, one on duty,” he clarified before continuing, “about your plans to murder your neighbor, right?”
She blinked at him before asking, “And your point is?”
With a frustrated growl, he reached over and grabbed another sandwich off the small platter that she’d made when he’d called to tell her that he’d be swinging by on his dinner break. They both knew that he was really making sure that she hadn’t snapped and killed the bastard living across the hallway and to grab a quick bite.