Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,82

this abrupt change of plans wasn’t a hot round to his temporal lobe. Yet it would end him just the same. As fast as things were unraveling with Mel, ending The TEAM this way might be easier in the long run. This time around, his old man really was killing him.

The time for service to country had finally come to an end. From here until who knew when, his life as CEO of one of America’s greatest teams was finished. A man couldn’t run a successful enterprise without pumping most of his time into it. Entrepreneurship took dedication, sweat, and long hours in the office, on Capitol Hill, and networking. No more. Taking care of his sickly, aging parent would take everything. The TEAM was done. Over. God, it was hard, letting go and moving on. All those upcoming goodbyes…

Mel now lay sound asleep in the guest bedroom below in Alex’s basement. He’d installed his father there after they’d come home from visiting Doc Denton, after Mel took what had to be his first hot shower in days, maybe weeks. After Alex insisted he take the prescription the local drugstore had delivered while they’d been en route. Even that had been weird, more proof that Mel’s mental faculties were declining.

He’d stoutly refused to do anything Alex requested, yet then he’d showered and, as docile as a lamb, he’d taken the two white pills Alex offered. Mel tossed them back with a tall glass of orange juice. But after he’d finished, just when Alex thought maybe this cohabitation might be doable, he’d swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, sneered, and spat, “You can’t make me do anything, shithead.”

Ordinarily, those would’ve been fighting words. But now, they were just more proof of how quickly Mel was slipping into dementia, and how bad things were going to be for Alex and his family. If Mel’s reaction was just the middle stage of Alzheimer’s... Shit, Alex didn’t want to face the final stage. But he refused to push this familial responsibility, as distasteful as it was going to be, off on Kelsey. Yes, she’d surely take an active part in caring for Mel, but Alex wouldn’t expose her to his father’s twisted concept of civility.

What an awful thing to watch someone lose their mind, even someone as irresponsible and thoughtless as Mel had always been. Seemed like things were only going to get worse, and damn it. Mel would not treat Alex’s family the way he’d been treated growing up. He had to stand between them and the abuse Mel was sure to dish out. Shifting from active operations to the more passive, laid back battle at home…

Son of a bitch. It was like watching The TEAM die, only at a distance. Too far away to be actively engaged. Too far away to run into battle and save anyone. Anyone except his deadbeat father.

Alex still held his cell in his hand, fighting the compulsion to run, to be with his TEAM. Wishing he could. Didn’t that make him the biggest chicken shit? To want to run into a war he knew he could win, but run away from the one he didn’t want to face. What made one battle better or greater than another? He honestly didn’t know. Alex only knew he adored Kelsey, and that she’d stuck by him through an awful lot of shitty times. He couldn’t dump his old man on her. Wouldn’t. It wasn’t her war.

“Did you say Pops Delaney?” Mel murmured quietly behind Alex.

Startled, he glared over his shoulder and quickly closed his bedroom door, denying his father a look at the treasures that lay within. “What are you doing prowling around? What do you want now?”

Mel’s red, bulbous nose twitched as he scratched, then thumbed the end of it with his thumb, like he thought he was a prizefighter entering the ring. Which in a way, he was.

Alex’s entire body stiffened. He’d been on the receiving end of that hand more times than he cared to recall. But if Mel tried any of that shit now, he’d be in a damned nursing home by sunset. Just try me.

“Well, err, the thing is, err…Pops and me go way back. Maybe I can help, son.”

“Like hell you can help, and stop calling me son. You burned that bridge a long time ago.”

Mel blinked like he didn’t understand, and honestly, Alex didn’t expect him to. What could he possibly understand now? It was too damned late in so