Teegan, page 1
Books in This Series:
Magnus, Book 1
Rogan, Book 2
Egan, Book 3
Barret, Book 4
Whalen, Book 5
Nikolai, Book 6
Teegan, Book 7
Mountain, Book 8
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Prologue
Day 1
Day 2 Breakfast
Day 2 Dinnertime
Day 3 Morning
Day 3 Dinnertime
Day 3 Evening
Day 4 Early Morning
Day 4 Midmorning
Day 4 Noonish
Day 5 Morning
Day 6 Early Morning
Day 6 Afternoon
Day 6 Dinnertime
Day 6 Bedtime
Day 7 Morning
Day 7 Breakfast
Day 7 Noon
Epilogue
About Mountain
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Deep in the permafrost of the Arctic, a joint task force, comprised of over one dozen countries, comes together to level up their winter skills. A mix of personalities, nationalities, and egos bring out the best—and the worst—as these globally elite men and women work and play together. They rub elbows with hardy locals and a group of scientists gathered close by …
One fatality is almost expected with this training. A second is tough but not a surprise. However, when a third goes missing? It’s hard to not be suspicious. When the missing man is connected to one of the elite Maverick team members and is a special friend of Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister? All hell breaks loose …
Battered and bruised, Teegan wakes up in the training camp struggling to remember the details of his last few weeks. But along with not knowing what happened to him, he also doesn’t recognize the woman caring for him back in the camp. According to this Sandrine, he’d once asked her to marry him. Yet, he has no idea who she is…He didn’t remember much about what happened, nor did he remember the woman looking after him. Sandrine that is. That information rolls through his confused brain along with the other disjointed bits of information he can’t place, leaving him distrustful of everyone around him.
Sandrine can’t believe the injured sick man in front of her is Teegan. They had a history together but she’d not in any way thought she’d see him like this. He’d always been so fit and strong. All she wants is to get him back on his feet and be the man she used to know. But someone isn’t done with him yet…
Teegan knows his brother is doing everything possible to solve these mysteries and to make sure no one gets a second chance to hurt him. But sometimes betrayal doesn’t come from the outside… sometimes it comes from the inside… inside… and not outside…
Prologue
Teegan opened his eyes, only to slam them shut against the bright light. He moaned ever-so-softly, as pain shivered through him. Gentle hands put a warm cloth against his forehead and gently wiped his face. “What happened?” he whispered.
“That’ll be one of the questions I ask of you,” a woman replied.
He opened his eyes to see a man standing there, looking ferocious, and a woman beside him, gently wiping his face. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“I’m Sydney. I’m the doctor here. I arrived not long after you disappeared.”
He blinked at her several times and asked, “Where?”
At that, Mountain stepped forward. “Teegan, do you know who I am?”
He nodded. “Yeah, you’re the guardian angel I’ve been praying for.”
“Yeah, I’m here, brother. I’m just so damn sorry it took me so long to find you.”
“I’m alive. That’s what counts,” he muttered, “but I sure as hell wish you could tell me what the hell happened.”
“We’ll get there. I’m not sure how much you remember or how much you’ll ever remember,” Mountain said, “but you’re here now, and we’ll protect you. You are the reason I came up here.”
“Thank you for that,” he added, as he opened his eyes. “Did you save the woman?”
“What woman?” Mountain asked, stepping forward.
“The one who was helping me.”
“Was it Amelia?”
“Yes, Amelia.”
“Why does she need saving?” Mountain asked, his voice choking up.
“She’s the one who kept me alive. She’s the one who kept moving me around to keep me alive,” he shared, and then he winced. “Damn, it’s really hard to keep a hold on the memories. Everything keeps shifting and mixing together.”
At Teegan’s side, Sydney turned to Mountain. “You’ll need to give him a chance to rest and to get his thoughts together,” she stated. “Everything’ll be hazy, and, once again, we’re dealing with the effects of that debilitating cold.”
Mountain nodded. “I’ll go get him a hot cup of tea.”
At that, Teegan opened his eyes and stared at his brother. With a groan and a note of amusement in his voice, he said, “Tea? Really, bro? I would kill for a coffee just now.”
Mountain looked over at Sydney, and she nodded. “Get him a coffee,” she replied. “The stimulant won’t hurt him at this point in time, and it might even help.”
At that, Teegan whispered, “Christ, if only I could get warm.”
“We’ll get you warm,” the doc declared, “I see a touch of frostbite on your toes. But that should heal in time.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I don’t remember how or where.”
Mountain glanced to the other bed. “And, Jesus Christ, somebody needs to fill me in on what the hell happened to Carl.”
Teegan looked over at Mountain. “You need to find Amelia.”
“I’ll find her,” Mountain promised, “but we need to sort you out first.”
Then a knock came on the clinic door, and another woman stepped in. She looked over at Sydney. “Doctor? I’m Sandrine,” she stated. “I’m a nurse and came in on the supply plane. I understand you’ve been a little overwhelmed.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Sydney admitted. “I had somebody helping, but she’s been quite sick.”
“I’m not, and I’m here and ready to help wherever I can.” She walked over to Teegan, then looked at him and winced. “Teegan?”
He raised heavy eyelids and stared at her in confusion. “Sorry, do I know you?”
Disappointment crossed her face, and then she shrugged. She looked over at Sydney and masked her features in an instant. “What can I do to help?”
Noticing the unmistakable hurt in her voice, Sydney smiled at her. “Teegan’s come back from an extremely rough ordeal, and we don’t know the details yet,” she explained. “Unfortunately neither does he. His memories aren’t there, and he doesn’t have any recollection of what’s happened to him. Please don’t take offense to anything he says right now.”
Sandrine looked at her in shock.
Teegan opened his eyes. “I still don’t remember you, but the doc’s right. Everything is hazy, and I’m far from 100 percent. Sorry, I’m not trying to insult you.”
“That’s fine,” she replied gently, as she looked at him. “I won’t take it personally then.”
“I gather I know you?”
“You could say so,” she stated. “At one point in time, you asked me to marry you.”
Day 1
Teegan Rode woke with a start, his gaze blurry and the room around him in shadows. His heart slammed against his chest, and his breath caught in the back of his throat. It was all he could do to manage to get a breath out, only to panic that somebody had heard him. He lay quietly, desperate to calm down his breathing, when he realized he was lying on something soft, and he was warm. For the first time in a very long time he was toasty warm. Something covered him, and that was an otherworldly sensation. It was the best news he’d had for … He couldn’t remember how long, and, on that matter, his mind went completely blank.
He shifted uneasily, hating the fear of not knowing what had happened, where he was, or placing anything in his memory banks where they belonged. He had recognized his brother, but he hadn’t recognized the doctor, and he certainly hadn’t recognized the one called Sandrine. Fear ate away at the back of his brain. Hating the thought, but it was there. That he might have imagined Mountain. Even then, he stared down at his fingers, realizing he was on a real bed, gripping real sheets. He clinched his fingers as hard as he could, trying to burn up some of his nervous energy, as he tried to reassess where and who he was.
A woman, her voice gentle in the darkness, whispered, “You’re fine, Teegan. This is Sandrine, and I’m sitting here beside you. You are not alone.” Then a hand gently covered his tight fists. “It’s okay to relax.”
He opened his eyes again, staring up at the woman. He whispered, “Where am I?” She didn’t say anything for a moment, and he looked at her, curious. Then he started to shiver, his actions belying what he previously thought was warmth. With a startled exclamation, she quickly switched out his blanket for something much warmer. He shuddered underneath it and groaned.
“It’s okay. This will pass too,” she replied in a soothing voice.
He kept his eyelids closed, as he shifted to his side, wincing at more pain.
“In case you don’t know,” she began, her voice calm in his ear, “you have sores on your side, as if you’d been lying on that side for too long. So any kind of movement will hurt them. You’re on painkillers, but we’r e trying to limit that because you’re so cold, and we can’t have your vitals dropping any further.”
He shifted and asked in a whisper, “Does anybody know what happened?”
“Nope, but everybody’s hoping you’ll tell us.” Leaning closer, she added, “That’s not a worry right now. You just focus on getting better. Close your eyes, and go back to sleep, if you can.”
That happened several times, despite how hard he tried, desperate to stay awake. He drifted off again, woke up, shifted, groaned in pain, but found her always there, comforting in a way. Then he rolled over and went to sleep again. When he woke up for the umpteenth time, Sandrine wasn’t there. He shifted anxiously, feeling something missing in his world.
Another woman arrived, the doctor, the one who called herself Sydney. She smiled at him. “Hey.”
“Sandrine?” he whispered.
“She’s gone to lie down.” The doc nodded in understanding. “She’s been here, looking after you all night. I told her to go get some rest.”
He gave a half nod, then closed his eyes, grateful that Sandrine was okay and still around, which was completely different from what his mind had jumped to, which had her in trouble. He didn’t know how long it would take for all these disjointed thoughts and nightmares to calm down, but, if this night was anything to go by, it would still be quite a while.
When he woke the next time, he shifted in bed and looked over at the doctor, who sat at a desk far off to the side.
As soon as she noticed his movements, she got up and stepped over to take a look at him. “Hey.” She automatically checked his vitals. “Glad to see you’re awake.”
“I think I’m awake this time,” he muttered, yawning.
“How are you feeling temperature-wise?” She checked his body temperature and frowned.
“Still chilled,” he replied, “but doing better.”
She nodded. “You are doing better, though you’re still colder than I would like, but, hey, that’s almost par for the course up here.” She smiled as she peered down at him. “A lot of people are waiting to talk to you.”
He nodded. “Any chance of food first?”
Her face lit up. “Wanting food is good. I’ll get someone to …”
Then the door opened, and Mountain walked in, and whatever the doc was getting at was left unsaid. Mountain had a big smile on his face, when Teegan turned to look at him.
“Hey, Mountain.” Teegan flashed him a smile. “I thought I might have imagined you at one point. Not sure what I ever did to deserve a brother like you, but trust me. … You’ll be on my Christmas list forever.”
Mountain burst out laughing. “That’ll be a change,” he teased affectionately.
He looked relieved, but Teegan recognized that look in his brother’s eyes—one of fear, pain, and, at the same time, joy. “It’s not your fault, bro.”
“You sure about that?” Mountain asked, as he reached for Teegan’s hand and picked it up gently. “Doc’s still not very happy with your condition.”
“Yeah, I got that.” Teegan shifted and then groaned in pain again.
Mountain glanced over at Sydney in concern. She walked over to face him. “He needs food, but I also need to change his dressings. We’ll do the food afterward because changing the dressings will hurt like shit,” she shared. “You’ll have to wait because he’ll need to sleep off the pain, and then you’ll have a chance to talk to him afterward.”
Mountain frowned at her, and she shook her head. “Dressings first, then he gets coffee and food, and we’ll see if he can hold it down and stay awake. I’ll give him something for pain after that,” she added. “It is what it is, so deal with it.”
“Or you can give him painkillers first, so the pain of the dressing change isn’t quite so bad.”
She gave him a quick glance and then snapped, “Listen. My job is in here. Your job is out there. So, you better leave, go do you, and leave me here to do my thing.”
When Mountain fisted his hands on his hips, she took one step forward and did the same, then cranked her head back so she could glare up at him. “Go. And don’t you dare try pulling any of those strong-arm tactics on me,” she snapped.
Teegan watched both of them in fascination because Mountain being schooled like that was quite a rare occurrence.
Looking as if he was teetering on the brink of explosion, Mountain finally groaned. “Jeez, you’re always so feisty.”
“Yeah? You haven’t seen half of it yet,” Sydney declared, as she held the door open for him. “Go get him a coffee, and knock before you come back in, so we can be sure I’ve got the dressings changed.”
Teegan wasn’t sure what the undercurrents were on that one, but he was getting the impression that changing the dressings wouldn’t be something he liked. Still, he lay here, as she checked him over from head to toe once again. “How bad is it?”
“You’ve got some bedsores. They cause you pain when you try to move. You’ve also got frostbite on a couple of toes, though your fingers are doing better than I expected. Overall, considering what you’ve been through, and the fact that you could be far worse, as in dead,” she stated bluntly, “you’re doing pretty well. Now the skin isn’t healing as it should because it hasn’t had any chance to,” she added. “As much as I’ve tried to keep you off those bedsores, you keep shifting in your sleep, so you end up lying on them.”
He looked at her in confusion. “How come I can’t feel them?”
She nodded. “I’ve been using a numbing cream to get you through the night, but, according to Sandrine, you woke up multiple times.”
And, for the last however many days, he had woken up multiple times in the night. “Yeah, I get it, but where are these sores?”
“Your feet, your butt, your back, and your belly. If I can get you to roll over, I’ll start changing dressings.”
“I did wake up often, but I don’t know if it was pain that kept waking me up or not.”
“It probably was, even if you didn’t recognize it as such,” she agreed.
Feeling his body burning from top to bottom, he was thankful when the doc used the cream again, and it started to help pretty quickly.
With a lot of effort and her assistance, he soon found himself lying on his belly, with his back exposed, and he felt the chill creeping up on him.
She gave him two hand warmers. “Hold on to these, but I’ve got to get these dressings changed. Hold on, and I’ll get it sorted as quickly as I can.”
And that started a marathon of pain, cleaning, and new bandages, and in between that was cold, shivers, and blankets covering him from time to time, so as not to exhaust him with all the shaking going on.
When she finally had him all cleaned up, she rolled him over once again and took care of the scrapes on his belly. “I’ll leave you on your back for a few minutes, while I check the front.”
He stared at her in horror. “You mean, there’s more?” He hated to think that this could be worse, but, dammit, it was way worse. She gave him something to bite down on for the next round, as she went to his hips, plus one knee was in rough shape. He could see enough of the red marks all over him, but she checked every inch of him thoroughly.
When she was finally satisfied, she noted, “Okay, let’s get you covered up and on the road to warm again. Then you can have coffee, and, if that goes well, we can get some food for you …”
By the time he was tucked in and seated more upright on the hospital bed, at least enough that he was reasonably comfortable and taking the pressure off the bedsores, he groaned. “I guess that’s why I kept flipping around overnight.”
“I’ve been trying to get you to stay face down. I don’t have any straps here. However, not knowing what you’ve been through, I didn’t want to strap you down in case you woke up with horrific nightmares or something and started to freak out,” she explained. “I’m hoping now that you’re more alert and aware of where all the pain is coming from and why, we can start shifting you constantly to let some of this heal up.” Motioning to her own back to point out where most of the sores were, she went on. “Honestly, I would love to have some of these wounds open to the air, so they could get a chance to dry out.”
When he looked at her in horror, she nodded. “Sorry, but it is a necessary evil, and I really do think it will help. However, I need to consider the process for that. In the meantime, we have to deal with the fact that your body temperature can’t stay regulated, and you’ll need a bit more time to warm up.” She frowned, deeply focused on some internal thoughts. “Food is important. Your brother is here with coffee, so I’ll let him in, if you’re okay to see him.”
