She went on, “We weren’t together long. It felt like a moment in time. Looking back at it through all the years, I wondered if I’d just imagined my time with him.”
The twins sat still and silent, in complete contrast to story time when they were younger.
“Then Oz disappeared from my life. But he left me with a piece of himself.”
They waited.
Oz squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back to say she would finish the tale. “I found out I was pregnant.”
Still, the boys didn’t register her meaning.
“With you,” she told them.
Alex blinked first, but Nick was only a heartbeat behind. Both of them met her stare, and her gaze bounced between both sets of eyes, which burned with intensity like she’d never seen before.
“You’re saying he’s our father.” Nick scooted to the edge of his seat.
“Yes. Oz is your father, boys.” A splash of relief accompanied the admission. After the adrenaline of the day and then the letdown with tears, she now rode a brand-new wave of emotion, one she couldn’t describe. “He never knew about you. I didn’t tell him, and I couldn’t find him anyway.”
“Where were you?” Alex shot out.
Oh no. She hadn’t prepared to be met with anger, but the twins of course deserved to voice whatever they were feeling.
Oz met his stare directly. “After leaving your mother, I got involved with a search and rescue.”
“What happened?” Nick asked.
“A young woman was kidnapped. In looking for her, I found a few other daughters of important men. That’s when I realized I had a talent for a different type of work.”
Rose listened, as intrigued as the twins.
Oz continued, “After that, the attacks of 9-11 happened, and I went to fight. They recruited me into the SEALS.”
Alex’s eyes widened in appreciation, and Nick bobbed his head.
“I spent many years fighting to end terrorism. But I came back to the States and started a new organization known as The Guard. We call it a Church, because all the members believe in one thing—protecting those who can’t save themselves.”
“What do you do? Is this a government agency?” Nick asked.
“No. A private operation, headed by me. And then I received a call from General Kilbourn, your grandfather, that your mother was kidnapped.”
Both boys’ faces drained of color. “Mom, is this true?” Nick asked.
“What the hell?” Alex spat.
“Yes, it’s true. I was out for a run and they took me off the street. I ended up in a van headed down the coast, and when we reached a dock, Oz swept in and rescued me.” She thought it best to leave out the gory details.
“Oh my God.” Alex rubbed his hand over his face, and Oz echoed the action, as if he relived the fear his son just now experienced over her being in danger.
“Shit, Mom. We didn’t know. What could have happened to you…” Nick got up and came to her. He hit his knees on the thick Persian carpet and put his arms around her. She squeezed him hard and buried her face in his thick hair. For a long minute, she held him.
He pushed back to look at Oz. “We owe you. Whatever it is we can do to repay you—”
Oz shook his head. “You don’t owe me, Nick. I’d do anything for your mother—and for both of you.” His words came out as a grating rasp.
* * * * *
Of course his sons didn’t look at him like a father figure. They looked at him as someone they owed a favor to. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all of two minutes had passed since they learned he was their father. Oz couldn’t blame them for distancing themselves, but Christ, how he hoped that would change, and fast.
Nick moved back to the sofa to sit next to his brother. The pair stared at him with open questions in their eyes.
“Ask me anything. I’ll try my best to answer your questions.”
“If you had known about us, would you have wanted us?”
“Oh, Alex,” Rose said softly.
Oz put a hand over hers again. “It’s a valid question. I’ll admit that in my younger days, I never wanted a family. But looking back, if I had known, I would have done my best by you all.”
Alex’s features relaxed minutely.
“Do you expect to be a father to us now? Do you think you can order us around and tell us how to live?” Nick’s tone took on a hard edge, one Oz heard reflected in his own tone many times in his life.
He turned his palm up. “Now that I know you exist, I can’t walk away. I won’t walk away. The minute your mom told me about you, I loved you. That was instant. So I can’t sit here and say that I don’t expect to be part of your lives. Will you accept me? I don’t know that yet. Will I tell you what to do? No. I will hope to guide you in decisions and in time, develop a relationship with you both.”
At his side, Rose gave a nod, but a tear trickled from the corner of her eye. She swiped it away.
Oz studied his sons. From the set of their shoulders, which would fill out in the next few years as they hit true manhood, they were prepared to go into battle for their mom. But he needed to make them see he didn’t expect to step into a father role right away.
“It will take time, for all of us to adjust. But I hope that you will accept me.”
Alex turned his attention to his mother. “Do you accept him? He wasn’t there for us. You had to raise us alone.”
Oz’s chest burned. Dammit, this kid was right, and he’d found just the stake to drive through Oz’s heart. He bled out with guilt and remorse. But his logical mind still spoke to him, telling him that he hadn’t had the decision to make back then. Now he did.
He waited to hear Rose’s response. He knew she loved him—he saw it in her face each time she looked at him. But loving someone and wanting them in her life were completely different things.
She gripped Oz’s hand. “I love Oz. I always have and I never stopped. I don’t want to lose him again.”
Nick gave a slow nod. “So you want this for yourself.”
“I do.”
Oz gulped back the lump in his throat.
“Well, we have been bugging you to date,” Alex said.
“We don’t know how things will work quite yet—we haven’t had time to discuss anything.” Her response must have roused the subject of her kidnapping, because Alex started firing questions at Oz and Rose both that told Oz that the boy had gotten the power of speech from his momma.
Both he and Rose answered everything as they could, but their discussion only led to the fact that Rose still had a case involving a man more submersed in a crime ring than she originally believed.
“I’ll speak with my superior about how to proceed. This case might have just moved to another level, outside my ability to represent Baynard,” she said. “We’ll know more soon. Which brings us all to what comes next.”
They looked at each other.
Oz eyed his sons. God, his chest couldn’t feel any fuller with love for them. “Let’s leave the answer to that up to Nick and Alex. How would you like to see things moving forward?”
They traded a look. A wry smile hit the corner of Nick’s lips when he said, “Can we go to Disneyworld?”