No Perfect Hero, page 25
But our door is locked. His side is dark through the glass, though I can see the faint light of his laptop from the bedroom.
I sigh, closing my eyes, then make myself smile for Tara as I reach for the plate. “Go wash up for bed, kit. I need to chat with Warren before I send you right back to Ms. Wilma for the night.”
Tara wrinkles her nose. “Awww. Are you always gonna work nights?”
“Only while I’m here, munchkin. I’ll find a different job when I move.”
“I don’t want you to move all the way to Chicago.” She relinquishes the plate only to fold her arms over her chest. “It’s too far. I’ll never see you.”
I want to tell her that’s not true, promise her I’ll see her all the time...but then I’d be lying. I can only stare at her softly, hating this.
I’m not ready to deal with that extra little stab of hurt on top of my chaotic feelings about Warren, but it’s right there, staring me down.
Once I move, I might not see Tara for years.
Seattle and Chicago aren't neighbors, and the flights aren't always cheap.
We’re not the kind of family who meets up for Christmas and Thanksgiving. We do phone calls on the important holidays. Sometimes there’s a rough night on the anniversary of Dad’s drunk driving death, and we’ll call and make awkward noises at each other before we sit in silence, taking the comfort we need from just not being alone with so many conflicted emotions.
When did that stop being enough?
What the hell did this little small town do to me, where suddenly I’m wanting things I’ve never even thought about before?
Jesus. I’m standing out here on the porch clutching a plate for Warren, staring at my niece like she grew a second head. I don’t know why my emotions are everywhere like this. You’d almost think I was—
No. Don’t even think it.
Even if my birth control failed, it’s way too soon for my body to start reacting to pregnancy hormones. I don’t get an excuse that easy.
There's nothing but myself to blame for this mess.
“We’ll talk about Chicago later, munchkin,” I promise and put on my big girl britches to smile for her. “Go on in and wash up. Ms. Wilma promised you could stay up to watch TCM with her tonight.”
Her eyes widen. “The King and I? Oh, wow! The dresses are so pretty.”
God, I hope I’m not doing something terrible when I say “Yes.” I’ve never seen that movie. Ms. Wilma wouldn’t show my niece anything too risqué, right?
…right?
But at least it sends Tara scampering off, disappearing into our half of the duplex. I turn back toward Warren’s door.
A second later I yelp, stumbling back and nearly dropping the plate when I find him standing there, the door open, his bulk propped in it and his hard, forbidding gaze locked on me.
Shit. He’s pissed. Or something.
I don’t know what. I can’t read him all of a sudden. I guess I wasn’t supposed to know about Jenna because he’s completely closed off.
We both say nothing, each of us waiting for the other to speak. But right when I open my mouth to find the words, he says, “You need something?”
“Dinner,” I answer lamely, offering him the plate. “You missed it. Thought you’d want some while it was still nice and hot.”
He drops his gaze to the plate, then back to me. His arms stay folded over his chest, leaving me awkwardly standing there with a plate outstretched. “Not hungry.”
I frown, my temper snapping awake. “Jesus, Warren, what's your problem all of a sudden?”
“My problem is, people who won’t let the dead lie,” he throws back. “What did she tell you?”
“I...” Damn. I can’t stay mad at him when we’re talking about his dead sister and the pain he’s so clearly carrying around like a boulder, fresh as the day it happened. “She told me Jenna was your sister, and there was an accident on deployment. Friendly fire.”
“Nothing fucking friendly about it,” he snarls, and it takes me a minute to grasp what he means.
He’s not saying she was killed by an enemy combatant.
He’s saying she was murdered, and – oh, God.
My free hand claps over my mouth, and I suck in a gasp. “Warren, I’m sorry.”
“What else did she say?” he demands, his eyes flat azure chips, reflecting nothing, glassy and hard. “What else did she tell you?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head quickly. “But Stewart said you came home to grieve. And that you need someone to keep you out of trouble.”
“The only thing I need,” he says, low and seething, “is for everyone to mind their damn business and let me mind mine. Everyone.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I’m torn between calling him every name in the book and shoving this plate of turkey right in his face, but I’m not one to stay where I’m not wanted.
And no matter where I am, I’m not going to beat up on a grieving man.
I didn’t do anything wrong. Jenna was Ms. Wilma’s granddaughter.
She had just as much right to tell me about her as anyone else, but for once I’m going to check my temper and respect Warren’s space.
For once.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch him just to get a real reaction.
Instead, I set the plate on the broad deck railing with a loud thud, leaving it there. “Enjoy your dinner,” I whisper harshly. “Good night.”
Nothing comes back.
Not even an acerbic answering good night whipped at my back.
Just the sound of Warren’s door closing, while I bundle up my hurt and frustration and confusion and a guilt I shouldn’t even be feeling to flee into the safe confines of my space.
16
Nightmare Balm (Warren)
Almost every time I fall asleep, it’s the same.
Maybe that’s why I can’t let go.
Because every night my brain yanks me back to the day she died like it was yesterday, playing out every graphic detail. I wasn’t even there to see it, but my mind is happy to concoct scenes to make sure I know what suffering feels like whether I’m awake or I’m asleep.
Bright desert sunlight.
It’s a photograph – one I’ve seen tucked between the window and the dash in Bress’ car, but this time the photograph’s alive.
Jenna, Bress, and Stew, three musketeers geared up before deployment, grinning at the camera and holding up two fingers in peace signs like they were just heading out for a Sunday stroll.
They've been watching too many dark comedy flicks about Vietnam. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong war.
Every day in this place is a reminder how truly damn different the very meaning of the word can be.
They've been assigned to cover a mine removal crew doing clearance over an old dirt road. The Russians left a lot of presents behind in the eighties when they were here. We've had too many good people hurt twenty years later by old buried explosives from a war that's not even ours.
Stewart’s cheesing it up for the camera, but Bress and Jenna only have eyes for each other.
Two lovers. One true and innocent, the other preparing a fucking knife.
Bress tries to look stoically forward, but it’s not hard to see he’s watching her from the corner of his eye.
Jenna’s not even bothering to hide.
I’d teased her about it just that morning.
After a string of failed relationships with men who couldn’t handle a military woman, Jenna swore she'd finally found The One in our own ranks. And goddamn I wouldn’t be her big brother if I didn’t give her shit about daddy issues with Bress being almost twenty years older than the lot of us.
But he makes her feel safe, makes her happy, and while I was gonna ride her ass about it at first and threatened to kick him up one sand dune and down another, in the end I was just glad they made each other smile.
Maybe there's a frozen moment. Some last peace caught in the glint of sunlight cast off smiling teeth and blue-eyed laughter.
One final bit of happiness, the tease of wind through messy bound hair, the blue of the Afghan sky so clean and clear it makes it seem like all's right with the world.
Until suddenly the sky splits apart.
The whole world breaks open, and the ground churns with bursting debris and shrapnel flying everywhere.
Mortars. Snipers. The same sneaky shit the pricks in the mountains always pull.
There's nowhere to run but straight, into the dust cloud kicked up by the big armored minesweeper.
Jenna races desperately ahead, then trips a mine the sweeper didn't catch.
Hell pops off in her wake like she’s being chased by a thousand underground explosions.
Jenna keeps running, her eyes wide, her face determined, her fists clenched as she pumps her arms and races over the sand with no fear.
My Jenna, my sister, wouldn’t have died sobbing and afraid. She'd be brave to her last breath.
But there’s someone else there.
A familiar broad, heavy-set figure, familiar ash-blond hair, and the rifle in his hand is quick. He sees his chance to do something he's planned for too fucking long.
That rifle barks bullets after Jenna, masked by the hellish confusion and shrapnel the insurgents keep raining down.
A well-aimed hellfire strike from a drone in thirty seconds will take care of the assholes in the hills.
She doesn't last that long.
Jenna’s a moving target. I don't know if she ever realizes her betrayal until the very end, she just knows someone is shooting at her.
She's ducking, weaving, handling this the smart way, but suddenly there’s a thock of a bullet piercing fabric, Kevlar, flesh, and a bloom of red.
She windmills forward, her eyes huge with surprise.
The bright light leaves her eyes.
She’s gone.
All because she trusted the wrong man, saw the wrong things, knew too much.
He pretended to love her to get fucking rid of her.
The worst part? She didn't even understand.
She knew she'd seen wrong, got in the middle of something. Maybe that 'drama' she told me about the last time we met was some asshole from their unit who'd mouthed off too much about the side gig shipping heroin back to the States. And maybe – fuck maybe, of course – he answered to Dennis Bress.
I want to wake up.
Every night I want to wake the hell up, but the dream won’t let me. It's always relentless, forcing me to watch.
I'm the same helpless damn bystander who can’t move, can’t shout her name, can’t do anything to save her. I just watch as she goes tumbling forward, slumping to the sand.
She’s twitching, her mouth moving soundlessly, but I know the name she’s saying.
I know because Bress thinks they’re alone, but they’re not.
Stew is there, watching horrified from behind one edge of the sweeper, too paralyzed to act and pinned down by enemy fire while Bress strides forward boldly and stands over my sister’s gasping body.
Then I see what Stewart implied years later, the night we were drunk.
There’s just a moment where her eyes roll back toward him before Bress puts the rifle to her forehead. And even though this is a dream, across the field of battle, Stew catches my eye, stares at me wretchedly, mouthing I’m sorry, War.
Then the sound of a single gunshot rings out over the battlefield as the drones sweep in, dropping a halo of hellfire.
It reverberates louder than a nuclear warhead, shattering my sleep and shoving me awake with all the violence of my own flesh and blood lost too soon.
“Jenna, fuck!”
I snap awake with my heart pounding and wild, my body drenched in the cold sweat of fear and loss. It’s like every inch of me is crying to make up for my dry eyes, my parched throat.
It’s not real, I tell myself. It’s not real, goddammit.
What is real, though, is the woman lying in my bed, her soft fingers tracing my brow, bringing me back down to Earth.
Haley.
For a second, I'm confused. Then guilt swamps me.
I was a complete and utter shit to her tonight, so what's she doing here?
Why's she looking at me like she actually gives a damn, worry knitting her brow, instead of spitting at me for being a hulking jackass?
I just stare at her blankly, struggling to catch my ragged breath, that gentle touch of her fingertips seeming to mark rhythm and time until I can pace myself to her speed.
One breath at a time before I'm finally ready to speak.
“Hay? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
She smiles faintly, sadly. “Really? That’s the first thing you ask me?” Her touch stops, lingering at my temple. “I was worried about you. So I lied and said my car was still tanked and got someone to cover my shift.”
“You didn’t have to do that for me. Not after the way I lashed out.”
“Well, I'll admit I thought about punching you in the mouth.” Her smile strengthens, her fingers weaving into my hair. “But this time I understood what you were so upset about. Everyone gets a Mulligan in situations like this. Just don’t take advantage.”
Somehow, even with the awful chill of the nightmare still gripping me, she manages to make me smile anyway.
“Yes, ma’am,” I murmur, curling my hand against her wrist.
I have this nightmare so often you’d think I’d be used to coming down from it, but no. It still leaves me raw and torched. Only this time, it doesn’t hurt so much. I'm not so desolate, so alone.
Because for some unholy reason, this woman was willing to give me a little faith, and knew what I needed better than I knew myself.
Goddamn, I wish I’d met her in better circumstances. Without this obsession driving me, taking me over until I’m less of a man and more of a passion.
Not enough to make a woman like Hay happy forever.
I’m too broken. Too cold inside and out. Too many demons chasing for me to ever slow down.
There's no happy ending. Whoever leaves Heart’s Edge first pulls the plug on this messy, beautiful thing we've got.
One day I’ll have to let her go.
Tonight, though, I have her.
She’s warm and soft and everything I need as I gather her close, fitting her body into my arms and against my chest like she belongs there. Even through my miserable haze, my dick goes hard the second her soft, supple flesh touches mine.
The weight of her holds me down, makes me stable and solid until nothing feels quite so shaky anymore. I sigh, burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair, and let my body go loose, the tension easing out of me.
“Thanks, darlin',” I murmur.
“Mm? What for?”
“Not letting me run you off like a wolverine.” I close my eyes, still counting those slow, steadying breaths. “I’m sorry. When I saw you there, realized you knew about Jenna...I got too damn defensive for my own good.”
She’s silent. Then I feel those tender fingers on my arm.
I don’t have to look. I know what she’s tracing by the feel of her skin on mine, when I’ve followed those same lines over and over again.
Jenna’s name.
“Why does it scare you so much?” she asks. “I know it hurts, Warren, but why do you keep everything about her a secret?”
I need a good long second to think. “Guess I’m afraid it’ll happen again, Hay. If I tell other people the truth, they’ll get sucked in, and I’ll lose someone else.”
“The truth?”
Fuck.
I take the deepest breath of my life and tense.
“You figured it out, darlin'. Sort of. I think my sis was murdered,” I growl. “I know she was. Think she found out someone in her unit was into black market drug dealing with a little gunrunning on the side, and they killed her for it. I’m here to settle the score. Maybe I won’t kill them...maybe I won’t cross that line. But goddammit, they’re gonna confess and serve time if it’s the last thing I do.”
Her hands curl against my chest, resting against me warmly as she looks up at me.
“Bress. You think Mr. Bress killed your sister.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “I have a witness I trust who saw it, and I can’t let that asshole hurt Grandma, or you, or Tara. That’s why I’m so worried. That you’ll get caught up as collateral damage when he runs and tries to cover his tracks.”
I expect her to reject it, deny it. She’s becoming part of Heart’s Edge so quickly, and maybe she’s bought into that ‘fatherly local businessman’ act.
But she only frowns thoughtfully. “Mr. Bress owns a lot of businesses in town, doesn’t he? Are those part of the drugs?”
“As far as I can tell,” I answer, a little startled, numb that she’s taking this seriously. “I just need to actually connect him to it. He’s evasive. Good at covering his tracks with middlemen.”
“And then what?” she asks, bright green eyes searching mine.
“Then, I hope I’m the man my sis would want me to be,” I answer. “And that I can do this the right way.”
I cover her slender hand against my chest with my own, rubbing gently.
“I know what you probably think of me, Hay. But I’m not here to murder a man in cold blood. Just to make sure justice gets served and the evil fuck stands trial.”
“And what then?” she whispers. “When you’ve done that, what'll give your life meaning?”
I know she doesn’t mean to put those thoughts in my head. Those wonderings about her, about what might be if I wasn’t so wrecked.
But I can’t shake them any more than I can throw off the heavy, needy feeling rushing through me.
“Don’t know,” I whisper, dipping my head toward her, drawn in by that sweet, earnest way she’s watching me. “I haven’t thought ahead that far.”
She rises up to meet me halfway. What crashes between us barely resembles a kiss.
It's more like two rough forces colliding.
We’re a firestorm of all the things we can’t say, all the things that shouldn’t be, this wrenching inside me that makes me feel like she’ll destroy me from the inside out.
