AMIDST THE CATS' CRADLE - 10

C H A P T E R T E N - - - - G W E N

While she waited for Mitch to return with their beers, Gwen was fidgeting in her seat. Jordan was on her right, idly nibbling on a free dish of peanuts as a solemn quiet hung between them. She wanted to tell him so many things, but she couldn't seem to get the words out. Her stomach wrenched.

Ace had said there would be no way for you to see them, so how in the world did you get here, Gwen?

"So, you've just returned from a mission? " I eventually chose a subject that looked safe enough, she quietly questioned.

It was ironic that the least contentious topic of conversation while they were at a public bar was about the people Jordan, Mitch, and their team had been blowing up lately.

“Yup. I suppose it's Argentina. But eventually, they all start to sound same." Jordan looked up and chuckled, "You know how it goes."

She briefly struggled to breathe as their gazes locked, frantically wanting to shout out something she knew she shouldn't be saying.

How else would you explain to a man that she had his and his brother's children but hadn't bothered to inform them?

Just then, Mitch came back, holding a platter of onion rings in one hand and three beer bottles balanced on their necks in the other.

"This is what you consider dinner?" Jordan raised an eyebrow and questioned, but he had already started reaching for one of the onion rings before the platter had even touched the table.

"Hold your horses, Jordan."  Mitch passed the drinks around and snorted, "The burgers are coming."

Gwen took a swig of hers with a mental shrug after giving it a second glance. She'd quit nursing since the little bastards chose to develop teeth way too soon, and there was nothing keeping her from indulging in a little self-destructive drinking any more. Besides, given the circumstances, she need an immediate morale boost.

Jordan remarked, clinking his bottle against Gwen's, and Mitch joined in.

"To less nonsense," Mitch grinned.

"I can get behind that," Gwen murmured, half-sighing and taking another small drink.

It tasted great, for a beer. She preferred bourbon, but she would never have admitted it to her father. Nothing, save probably alcohol, could stand between an Irishman and his ale.

"So, since we're on the subject, do you want to tell us what was actually going on there?" Or are we just going to make small chat till Jordan loses his cool? " Mitch inquired, his tone becoming solemn.

Gwen smiled while biting her bottom lip. She was aware that the enjoyment couldn't endure forever. However, she was aware of it before deciding to go out with the boys, so it came as no surprise. How much information would she provide them, that was the question. Gwen grabbed an onion ring as well, putting it in some honey mustard sauce and biting. Or, more crucially, how much could she tell them. She nibbled, looking from one brother to the other as they both attempted to be very casual about the situation. However, she could tell how anxious they were to find out what had been happening with her. It wasn't unexpected. She was equally eager to learn more about them.

In search of signs of them, she had dialed or visited the internet a hundred times. The Firm maintained the identities of all of its operatives very closely a secret, but since their names hadn't changed, Gwen had discovered their family. However, she had never made contact. If she did, there would be hell to pay with Ace, she was aware of this.

If they had done the same for her, she pondered. Of course, there was no longer any way to locate her. Even if she was permitted to remain in Laguna, her parents and her whole extended family seemed to have vanished off the face of the planet, been moved, and been given new names. Ace never did anything he didn't want to do, and Gwen had to acknowledge that he had dealt with her family extremely carefully. Fortunately, she hadn't been separated from them. Even if the subject of the grandsons' dads or the kids' slightly... unusual characteristics occasionally came up, she had visited her parents at their new house in Las Pinas numerous times.

"I don't want Jordan to lose his composure once more."  The remainder of the onion ring was popped into Gwen's mouth as she replied, "I get the impression it's not a very typical event."

You're welcome to repeat that. Since he suffered that gunshot wound in his arm in Ilocos, I haven't seen him that angry," Mitch added, drawing another sneer from his brother.

“Okay. Long story short, I’ve been with The Firm since the airplane incident.”

"You have to provide us more. What are you doing? ”

"This and that," she answered, bracing herself to dodge the onion ring dish if it flew at her head for her evasive responses. "I'm not sure. I wasn't kidding when I said it's a special operations type of thing and I'm not permitted to reveal any information."

"What did Ace offer you to persuade you to leave the Corps?" Jordan inquired, clearly intrigued.

"You know how Ace is. If he wants something, he gets it," she murmured, fighting back the dejected moan that threatened to spill over her lips.

It was all true, too. Ace had a very particular way of bending people to his will. As little as she liked dwelling on the man, he had essentially been the sole controller of her life for nearly a year now, and it had been some of the most trying times she’d ever known.

But as much as Ace rubbed her the wrong way, she also had to admit that there had been good times. Though she was wrangled into getting out of the US Marine Corps—a shiny honorary discharge waiting for her when she got back to Laguna, taking both the life she’d known and many of the friends she’d had away from her—she’d had her two gorgeous baby boys as well.

Duncan and Dawson. Spitting images of their fathers, with spirit to match, as much as one could tell from toddlers, seeing as both a shifter pregnancy as well as a shifter child’s development were much faster than a regular kid’s. Especially with Gwen’s boys, though…

She shook her head lightly, clearing the cobwebs and putting her boys out of her mind for a moment. It was hard, seeing as it was the only thing she’d grown accustomed to talking about over the last few months, both for work as well as for pleasure. But she couldn’t slip. Not with the Allen twins around.

“So are you happy?” Jordan asked, and the question hit her like a ton of bricks right in the chest.

She looked up, startled, her gaze bouncing between the two men. They both looked honestly, genuinely curious. Like her answer meant the world to them. For a moment, she allowed herself to think that maybe it did.

“I’m… I’m okay,” she said, smiling, though she wasn’t sure if it reached her eyes. “It hasn’t been an easy year, but I’ve made it through. I’m fine with where I am. I mean, I feel bad about my team going to Afghanistan without me and I keep thinking I could have helped were I there, but… bygones, you know?”

She took a long swig, willing her tears away. How was it that these two men made her go through such a rollercoaster of emotions every damn time she met them, regardless of whether some odd chemicals were burning a hole in her veins or not? It was some kind of witchcraft, really.

“So you’re not happy,” Mitch concluded, scowling.

“I didn’t say that. How do you define happiness anyway? It’s such a ludicrous goal. No one can ever be ‘happy.’ Not really,” Gwen said, scrunching her nose.

“That’s bullshit,” Mitch argued. “And you know it.”

“Do I? Do I really? Name someone you know who’s truly happy then,” she scoffed, slouching back in the chair as their burgers arrived, big and sloppy and the kind you can’t eat with your hands.

“Sure. Jerome. Shaun,” Mitch said, raising his eyebrows, a slim smirk on his lips.

“Tim. Tom. Their wives. Their kids,” Jordan continued, shoving a fork into the meat patty like it’d done something to him personally.

“How do you figure that? How do you know they’re happy?” she asked, honestly curious now.

She’d met all of them, and though they all seemed to have their shit together, even in the most cataclysmic shit-show of a mission she couldn’t believe they could be that overjoyed with everything. Life simply didn’t work that way. No one got everything that they wanted. No way.

“We knew them before they were happy,” Mitch said, taking a bite out of his burger, though eating seemed not to really be on the forefront of anyone’s mind.

“And we know them now. You can tell the difference between a man who is just getting by and who has something to live for, who wants to live for it. They’re happy. We can tell,” Jordan finished, draining his beer.Neither of the Allens seemed particularly happy, though. Gwen wasn’t the right person to judge, admittedly, but they seemed pretty miserable. Herself? She couldn’t say she was unhappy, per se. Her boys were the lights of her life, but the fact that she was forced to share that light with The Firm… well, that made things a bit more difficult.

“And what about you two?” Gwen asked, wondering if she really wanted to hear the answer.

She’d spent so much time imagining how these men felt, what they thought, what was going on in their lives. It was excruciating, knowing that they even worked in the same company as she did, yet she felt like she was a million miles away from them. Being together with them now was bittersweet in a way. Sitting so close to men who she knew could change her life and yet not being allowed to do anything about it.

Mitch and Jordan looked at one another for a long moment, some unspoken truth hanging between them, undecipherable to her. At least for now.

“We’re okay,” Jordan said, speaking for both of them.

Gwen couldn’t help but chuckle. They were playing the game she had set up and she couldn’t fault them for it.

“So what? You’re saying that if you had a house full of kids and a doting wife then you’d suddenly find yourself happy?”

It felt a little bit ridiculous, but she was positively hanging off every word either of them spoke after that question.

“I don’t know,” Jordan said. “Maybe.”

“Hell yes,” Mitch answered, absolute certainty ringing in his voice. “We’re supposed to have a family. A clan, a pack, a whatever, something to belong to. Cougars are sort of lonely shifters, but I know as well as Jordan does that we’re not like that. We’re Alpha twins. That changes a whole fucking lot. Yes, I would be pretty damn happy with a family and it’s chewing me up that I don’t have one yet,” Mitch said, looking right at Gwen.

His expression was somber, but his eyes blazed. He was definitely telling the truth, and when she glanced at Jordan, she saw the same fire reflected in him. Her words gurgled in her throat, some sort of a whimper coming out as endless guilt and worry bubbled up all at once.

I can’t do this anymore! I have to tell them, she thought, desperation ringing in the back of her head. What can Ace do? He can’t keep them from their kids forever.

Or could he?

She put that out of her mind, grabbing for her beer and emptying it in one long gulp. Slamming it on the table, she stood up, full of determination and knowing exactly what she was doing for the first time that day. Maybe for the first time in a long time.

“Come on. Let’s go,” she said, putting as much authority into her voice as years of bossing around grunts had given her.

“What? Where? We’re not even done eating yet,” Mitch asked, though she was pleased to notice that both of them were getting up already, grabbing for their jackets.

“I need to show you two something. But you got to… never mind. You’ll see when we get there,” she sighed, choosing to let the situation speak for itself.

Jordan plucked two onion rings out of the basket and Mitch grabbed his half-eaten burger, devouring it with two bites. It looked like the only reason they’d been using a knife and a fork to begin with was to make her feel like she wasn’t in the company of two big men with the appetites of a pack of wolves. She chuckled at that, heading through the crowded bar toward the front door.

Everything will be okay, she chanted in her head, trying to make herself believe it through sheer force of will.

It had to be. In fact, it had to be better than okay. She needed it and she knew now that they did too.