by Lori Ryan
“Hurry up and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait,” Ernie said.
“Yeah. So, we’re waiting and someone pulls up some article about an asshole somewhere burning the America flag in protest. We’re all feeling pretty pissed off about it because, you know, we’re deployed left and right, hardly a break between them. We’re dealing with sand in our damned underwear and heat like you’ve never felt in the summer or snow up to our freaking ears in the winter, getting shot at and blown to shit, and—”
Logan stopped then, swallowing as the memory hit him hard. “Well, you know,” he said, not wanting to mention the shit they had to see, the shit they had to do.
Not wanting to talk about what it was to take a life, even when you knew it was their life or yours. Even when that person would put a bullet through your skull with no qualms about it because of what you stood for. Who you stood for.
Ernie simply nodded. They’d stopped playing pool for a minute, but Logan bent back over the table, taking a shot to the corner pocket and sinking it with a satisfying shunk in the pocket.
He was quiet for a minute, eyeing the table and then lining up another shot before continuing.
“And, we’d all do it all over again in a heartbeat for our country. So, to see some guy burning the flag—” He shook his head. “Dopey. He just stops all of us. He tells us all we’re wrong. Of course, we look at him like he’s nuts, but he doesn’t care. He says, we’re all wrong. That burning the flag is a right and it’s a right we have to continue to protect no matter what.
“He says it’s a right that should never, ever be exercised, but if some asshat back in the states is dumb enough to exercise it, we need to protect his right to do it. Because that’s what makes us different, you know? That’s what makes the United States so great. It’s the fact that you can say and do those things, that you can say and do what you believe in and you can stand up for what you believe in. And, that’s what we’re over here fighting for, he says. We’re fighting so that asshat can burn the flag.”
“Do you think he was right?” Ernie’s tone had held no judgment. He had only been asking the question.
“I don’t know.” Logan stared out the window for a minute before continuing. “It still pissed me off to hear about some guy doing that, but I do think Dopey had it right that we have to stick up for all the rights we have here, you know? Even the ones that make me want to bash someone’s head in from time to time. It’s what makes America better than any other country on the planet.”
Ernie was quiet.
Logan took another shot, but missed miserably and he fell back onto a stool to watch Ernie clear the rest of the table. The guy sure didn’t pull his punches at the table just because you were paying him for his services.
“Dopey didn’t make it home with you?” Ernie’s question gutted Logan. Logan could still hear the sound of what seemed like a hundred tridents being pounded into Dopey’s casket as his fellow SEALs said goodbye to one of their own.
Logan shook his head. “Nah. Never made it. Carried his body out, carried him all the way back to the evac point, but—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Ernie got it. The pain of that moment when you realized there was no more you could do. No way to turn back the clock. A life was gone.
Ernie didn’t have some magic answer for that. They’d just kept playing pool and talked about little things after that. What his job was like at Sutton, who he thought would win in that weekend’s game, stuff like that.
But walking into work on Friday, Logan felt lighter somehow. Rather than head back to his office, he walked into Samantha’s office and shut the door. She had four windows open on her screen, fingers flying as she copied and pasted, and flipped from window to window.
She looked up, a startled expression on her face, like she hadn’t realized he was there until he shut the door. He felt his lips pull at the sides. If it wasn’t so dangerous for her, he’d laugh at the way she was so completely unaware of her surroundings. The computer sucked her in and she didn’t come up for air or food until someone came to pull her up.
Logan did just that now. He rounded her desk and hauled her up out of her chair, pulling her against him with one arm. His other hand found her hair and tangled in the mass of it, pulling her toward him as his mouth found hers. Hungry and greedy and not stopping to think about what he was doing any more.
“I’m doing something about it now,” he said when he’d dug up some sanity and pulled back from her.
She blinked at him. Once. Twice. Several more times, before she spoke. “Doing something about what?”
“About not being okay. I’m fixing it. I’m still not okay, but I’ll get there.”
“Oh. Okay.” She nodded.
“Will you be there when I get to okay?”
“When you get to okay?” she parroted back and he realized it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but before he could say anything else, she nodded. She must have understood his rambling well enough.
“Yeah. I’ll be here.”
“Good,” he said and walked out, walking with a hell of a lot more purpose to his step as he made his way to his office. It felt really good to be starting to get to the other side of “not okay.”
Chapter 10
The flashback took him completely off guard. One minute he and Ernie were playing pinball, and suddenly the stench Logan would give anything to erase from his body’s memory overwhelmed him.
It was the smell of fire and char and acrid smoke—of death. It was a smell he would never try to explain to anyone because he would never want anyone who hadn’t experienced it to have to live with it.
And it engulfed him now as images flashed before him. An explosion, the bodies of three of his teammates going down. Irreparably injured.
Then, the noises. The screaming, his commands and the commands of his team as they worked to save lives slipping away faster than they could grab and hold them, coupled with an underlying silence. The silence of what nobody wanted to say.
The feel of Dopey’s body hanging limp over Logan’s shoulder. The weight of him as Logan carried him out of harm’s way only to find no more harm could come to him. He was beyond reach now.
“Logan, you with me, buddy?” came Ernie’s soft, steady voice. The low lilt of it soothed as Ernie drew him out of the flashback.
“I want you to focus on the room we’re in, Logan. Notice the desk and the papers. The chairs and pool table. The pool balls. The refrigerator. Can you take a look at those things for me? The carpet under your feet? The feel of the chair arms in your hands. Focus on it all.”
Logan looked around at all the things Ernie named, but he knew his gaze was frantic, almost panicked, as he tried to find the items Ernie listed.
There was a vise grip on his chest, his lungs. There wasn’t any air getting in. Panic rose up and swallowed him whole.
“Let’s take a few deep breaths now, Logan. Breathe with me—in through your nose, out through your mouth.”
As Ernie spoke to him, Logan felt himself coming out of it, his heart still racing, but the sense of being in another time and place, a place he couldn’t control, eased.
“That hasn’t happened in a while,” he said, his eyes meeting Ernie’s as frustration and anger swamped him in the wake of the emotional beating of the flashback.
“They should come with less frequency over time, but one of the most important things will be for you to learn to pull yourself out of them if there isn’t someone there to do it for you. You’ll need to coach yourself to do the things we’ve done together. Focus on your surroundings. Deep breathing. Some people find it helpful to do some tactile exercises, such as touching your thumb to each finger slowly, as you take a breath.”
Logan nodded, but his jaw clenched in frustration. Over the past three weeks, he’d felt like his sessions with Ernie were helping, like he was getting better. He started driving to work at times that were slightly closer to typical commute times. Not peak, but clos
er.
Hell, he’d even thought about asking Samantha to go on a real date with him. He thought maybe he was ready to take a chance on them. On them being together, finally.
They spent every lunch hour together and he’d even hung out at her house with her after work a few times, but he hadn’t kissed her again because he knew he needed to do better by her before he let that happen.
And now this.
Ernie handed him a fresh bottle of water and took a seat across from Logan on the couch.
“Tell me again about Dopey’s flag burning speech,” Ernie said, in the start to what Logan was recognizing as a repeated pattern.
Ernie asked Logan to repeat that discussion again and again over the past few weeks, even having him describe things like the smell of the room, who was sitting where, who wore what clothes, and so on. Every detail he could remember over and over again.
Logan launched into the recital now and realized, again, that it got easier in the retelling of it. The ache at again hearing Dopey’s words in his head lessened each time.
When he finished this time, though, Ernie went on to ask him to do something much harder. “Now tell me about the memory you just lost yourself in a minute ago.”
Logan looked up at him in horror. He couldn’t go back there. No freaking way.
Ernie acted like he wasn’t asking for anything difficult. “Tell me where you were.”
Logan looked at him a long time before he eked out an answer, his voice tight and stiff with tension. “Classified.”
And it was. He wasn’t just using that as a bullshit excuse.
“No problem. Just paint the picture for me. Not a country or province. Just the setting. The woods? A dirt road? Jungle? Sweltering heat or dead cold of winter?”
Logan took a deep breath through his nose and held it in, only releasing it when he felt his lungs begin to burn. As a former SEAL, that was quite some time.
“Dirt road. Dust storm. Hoofing it out of—” He stopped. He couldn’t say.
“Tell me about the smells,” Ernie’s low voice prompted.
Hell.
Logan rubbed a hand down his face and braced himself. Then he took one more deep, cleansing breath, and pushed on. He knew with certainty that for the next few weeks Ernie would ask him to retell this story again and again. He stood and went to the pool table, racking the balls and began his story as he did.
“It’s a smell that never goes away,” he said as Ernie joined him. Ernie didn’t comment. He just picked up his cue and rounded the table, waiting for Logan to break.
Chapter 11
“You okay? You’ve been quiet the last few days,” Sam said as she hip-checked Logan.
They stood in the backyard at Jack and Kelly’s at another barbeque. The couple was famous for barbeques. Even at five months pregnant, Kelly seemed to bounce around the yard, loving her role as hostess and chasing after not only her own daughter, but the other kids at the gathering as well.
Logan nodded and smiled, but she didn’t buy it. She narrowed her eyes at him.
He wasn’t okay and she knew it. He’d seemed to be doing so much better but something was happening in the last few days and she was afraid he was sliding down hill.
“I don’t believe it, babe,” Sam said, knocking into him again.
“Babe?” He laughed as he raised a brow at her and hip-checked her back. The sound of the laughter coming from deep in his chest was genuine and it lightened Sam’s own chest in return. It felt good to hear that sound.
“Yeah, babe,” she said and smiled cheekily at him, happy she’d gotten a rise out of him. But, then he quieted and his gaze latched onto hers. Her breath caught in her chest as she waited to see what he would say.
“Shit’s just been getting, uh … a little more intense at the counselor. It’s just been a little tough lately.”
Sam slipped her hand in his and squeezed. “I think it’s pretty great that you’re doing that. That you’re putting yourself through something that has to be incredibly hard, to get better. It sucks that you need to, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” Sam brushed her hair back and looked at him with rounded eyes. “If you think about it, it sucks that you have to fight this battle here, now, after fighting so many battles for us overseas. You did your part, you know? You should be able to come home and live in peace. Instead, you’re having to fight all over again to get your life back. It’s not fair.”
Hell if something didn’t catch in his chest, his throat. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was fighting … tears? Oh, hell no.
“You know I might not ever be one hundred percent again, right? I might not ever be able to go out in crowds or sit in a crowded restaurant and be comfortable. You get that, right?”
She nodded. “I get it. I’m okay with that.” Sam looked across to where Chad and Jennie were and nodded toward them.
“You know, Chad still has problems every once in a while. He has nightmares, things Jennie has to pull him out of.” Sam grinned at Logan. “She told me if I ever have to wake you up from a nightmare, I need to stand way across the room and call to you. She said it’s safer than trying to wake you while we’re lying in bed.”
Her words had the desired effect as Logan’s eyes darkened and sparked to life in front of her, his look heating in a heartbeat.
He tugged her hand closer to him, using it to turn her and pull her body flush to his. They hadn’t stood like this since that kiss in her office weeks ago, but her body recognized his immediately and warmed to it. Heck, warmed was an understatement. It melted and she fell into him, leaning against the hard planes of his chest, her thighs pressed to his.
“Do you want that, Samantha?” he asked and the growl in his voice, the way he used her full name and let it fall off his tongue, sent heat and moisture between her legs. It felt as though he caressed her from head to toe. “Do you want to lie in bed with me?”
“Oh God, yes,” she said and then gasped at how desperately needy and downright horny she’d sounded. She laughed nervously but he dipped his head to hers and brushed his mouth to her lips. His kiss was soft and light, teasing and taunting her.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon, Samantha. I don’t think I can wait much longer for you.”
Sam couldn’t say a word as he watched her intently, and then he was kissing her again.
This time, he took her completely, controlling her every move with his mouth, his tongue, his hands on her body, molding her body to fit his. She’d all but forgotten where they were and gladly would have torn her clothes off and let him take her right there, but he pulled back and cleared his throat, looking around.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have let that get out of hand. Not here with everyone,” he said.
Sam wanted to suggest they could remedy that by going to her place, or his place, or the closet for that matter. But he’d said soon and she knew she needed to wait for him to be ready. He wasn’t ready yet and she needed to honor that. She shivered in anticipation as he bent to whisper against her ear.
“Soon, Sam. I promise.”
Chapter 12
He was right. Another couple of weeks and Sam could see Logan was getting better and better. He was still seeing his counselor twice a week and she could see the difference it was making. She thought just the fact that he told her about it meant something.
She had a feeling not many tough-as-dirt, former special operators would readily admit they needed help to just anyone.
Jack and Chad ended up having a lot harder time tracing the bugs than they’d thought they would. Whoever it was, they were using pretty advanced equipment, which made Sam more uneasy but also seemed, to her, to point toward a competitor.
Competitors of Sutton Capital would have the funding for the kind of technology that they planted on her.
Sam smiled at Logan as they walked into her favorite Mexican restaurant together. It was their first date outside the house and they’d waited
until after the dinner rush would be over to arrive.
The restaurant wasn’t overly full and Logan had called ahead and asked for a specific table for them. He was fairly confident he could handle a meal out if he sat with his back to the wall close to the rear entrance to the restaurant when there weren’t many people dining.
Sam told him if he ended up feeling panicked, they’d just get their food to go and head to her place to eat. She meant it, too. She didn’t have any problem making accommodations for him.
And, honestly, she would have been happy dining on takeout as they usually did at her house, but something seemed to shift in Logan recently. She had a feeling he needed to do this.
She’d read once that what made special ops guys so special was not just the determination never to give up, but the inability to give up no matter what they faced. One person had said they were too stupid to give up, but she knew Logan and the guys he’d served with were far from unintelligent.
In fact, she would bet their ability to think quickly and change things up in an op, based on any contingency, was part of what made them so special. Still, she thought she understood what that person had meant. Too stupid to give up in the sense that a special operator would go on, no matter what, no matter the odds.
She had a feeling that was what pushed Logan now. Not only did he want to get back some semblance of a life without panic attacks and the stress of living with a body that thought it constantly needed to be in fight-or-flight mode, but he simply didn’t have it in him to give up.
“Hungry?” he asked as they walked toward the entrance, one hand on her lower back as he reached to open the door for her.
“Starved,” she said with a grin, but she noted the way his eyes scanned their surroundings and she hoped he was right that he was ready for this. She had no way of knowing if his scanning was simply a habit he wouldn’t ever get rid of or if it was hypervigilance that was harmful and a sign he was still struggling.
