Damned (SOBs Book 4)

by Irish Winters

  His hands slipped up her sides until he took hold of her trembling head. Lord, that monster headache was back, crashing inside her skull. Bree closed her eyes at his gentleness. She needed a higher dose of her heart meds!

  Kruze forced her chin up with his thumbs. “No, ma’am, having sex with a beautiful woman is not wrong at all,” he breathed, his voice so damned sweet and gentle despite her bitchiness. They’d switched places. He was the calm one; she was the hardass. Bree wanted to cry.

  “Neither is there anything wrong with you wanting me or me wanting you,” he continued softly. “But that’s not what’s going on here tonight, is it, sugar? I scared you before. I know I did. You were nearly hysterical when I showed up beside your car. You were already upset. Is it stage fright? Are you one of the speakers tonight?”

  She could have sworn those beautiful green eyes were seeing into her soul. Past her defenses and lies. Straight to the lies in her mixed-up heart. “Are you a speaker?” she scoffed to throw him off track.

  “Yeah, I kind of am. Wayne’s a good buddy. I told him I’d help with the turnout tonight and…” Kruze shrugged those massive shoulders. “Here I am.”

  Well, damn. He was part of this dog and pony show. The wrong part. He came here to talk to everyone, not just to see her. She was just one of many, just part of the crowd to him. Nothing special.

  Bree deflated like a three-day-old party balloon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thank you, God. Wayne’s kidnap victim was Bree. Kruze wasn’t about to let her go. Leaning in, he wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders and turned her body until she was sitting sideways on his thighs. Not straddling him. Not that he hadn’t liked her in that position, but Bree was in no shape for play tonight. As if to prove the point, she’d turned to stiff, unfriendly wood. No longer making eye contact. He didn’t let that slow him down, just brushed his hair out of his eyes and rocked back and forth until she relaxed the tiniest bit.

  Her dirty blonde hair hung in a limp ponytail down her back. Poor thing didn’t look much different than the last time he’d seen her. Why not? With her hair pulled back on her skull as tight as it was, her face seemed thinner. Paler. There was plenty of defiance in her eyes, but there was a boat load of bleak misery there, too. Why hadn’t she filled out a little? It had been three months since he’d rescued her. Surely she had something to live for, now that she was home.

  He smoothed her long skirt down until it covered her bare legs, then straightened the thin, white sweater top she was wearing. The last time he’d seen Bree, she’d been inside the ambulance at Incirlik Air Base. She’d been sick and hurt. Tonight, she looked worse, not better. The spark in her eyes was completely gone. She was a deserted house with no bright, shining candles in the windows.

  Wayne had peered out the community center front door a few minutes ago. When he’d seen Kruze sitting with Bree, he signaled a thumbs-up and ducked back inside. Bree hadn’t seen the exchange behind her back, so she hadn’t reacted. Kruze understood why Wayne was worried about her. Her slender body was strung so tight with tension. She hadn’t healed at all. Bree was still gaunt and edgy, and Kruze was fairly sure the shadows around her eyes weren’t that smudgy make-up shit. When at last her breathing evened out, he tugged her cautiously forward until he could press the side of her head under his chin, putting her ear flat against his chest.

  Bree was skittish, like a filly in a burning barn. She didn’t know which way to run. That she’d been frantic to have sex with him, when they’d barely gotten along in Turkey, scared the shit out of Kruze. Yeah, he was a horn dog, and usually, he’d take advantage of any woman who threw herself at him. But Bree wasn’t most women. If anything, she’d come onto him like an addict going through withdrawal, desperate, and not thinking right when she’d attacked him. Because it was an attack, not that she could hurt a big guy like him. But that proved how fragile she was. How breakable. And he simply couldn’t hurt her.

  Kruze splayed one hand on her back and started humming the lullaby Suede sang to her baby boy. It was a cheery little tune, and he wasn’t sure he had the melody right. But bit by bit, the stiff wooden soldier in his arms melted. Her hard edges softened. She dropped her face into her hands and cried.

  “Is my singing that bad?” he teased.

  Bree didn’t look up, just ran a hand over her face, then wiped her tears on her skirt.

  “Want to hear a story?” he asked, keeping his palm on her back, his voice low and non-threatening.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Another clue of depression—indifference. It happened with men and women who’d seen combat, even those just stationed in or near combat zones, who’d never fired their weapon. Depression and hyper-vigilance were silent killers, and poor Bree was suffering from a wicked case of both. The rage she stored inside was tearing her apart.

  Kruze kept his voice mellow. “Well, here goes. Stop me if you’ve heard it before. I don’t want to bore you to sleep. Okay then. So…” He took a breath. “…once upon a time there was a little teapot. Man, she was a pretty thing. She was made from the purest white china, then sprinkled with tiny blue stars and golden stardust. But she’d never been needed or used. For months, she sat on her tidy shelf in the kitchen, above the stove where things were perfect.”

  “Did she have eyes?”

  “Well, of course,” Kruze replied with a twinge of indignation. “All imaginary teapots have eyes.”

  “You didn’t say. I was just wondering.”

  Kruze smiled. The big clunker in his chest seemed to like having Bree’s warm body pressed up against it.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, she had big, blue eyes and lovely, black velvet lashes. You would’ve liked her.” Because she’s you. “Anyway…” Kruze cleared his throat. “One day, the sweet older lady who owned the teapot filled her up with brisk, icy-cold well-water and plunked her on the stove. The teapot was excited. She was going to be used and appreciated. That’s all she’d ever wanted, to be useful and enjoyed.” And treasured and l-l-l…

  Kruze cleared his throat again, that darn L-word stuck there like a rock that wouldn’t go down and sure as hell shouldn’t come out. It couldn’t be the reason his heart felt so light tonight, could it? It couldn’t be because he was holding Bree again. L-l-love was a damned frightening word in his book. He’d never said it to anyone but his mother. Why had it popped into his head now?

  “And so…” Bree prompted quietly. She’d stopped wiping her eyes, but her head was still tucked under his chin.

  “And so…” Kruze licked his dry lips. “The pretty teapot was finally filled to the brim and happy. But the burner under her cute, little tush—”

  “Teapots don’t have tushes.”

  “Well, this one did, and it was cute as a button… Anywayyyyy…” He drew out that word to silence further criticism from Bree.

  At last! A tiny giggle escaped. It was magic, the sound of tinkling wind chimes. Kruze wanted to hear it again.

  “The burner under her cute, little tush warmed her up, and you know how teapots are. The water inside of them boils and boils until at last, they whistle a happy tune.” He was totally improvising. “Only the artist who’d crafted her and sold her to the little old lady, hadn’t gotten the teapot’s spout right. There was no hole in it, no way for all that hot steam to escape. She couldn’t whistle a happy tune, couldn’t whistle anything. She became so full of dangerous, hot steam that she—”

  “I broke,” Bree squeaked. The moment she did, she turned her face into his shirt and hooked one arm around his neck. Her shoulders shook.

  Kruze dropped his nose into her hair and whispered, “Yes, sugar, you kind of had a breakdown, but you’re not broken. You just need a better way to vent all that anger you’re keeping inside. It’s not good for you.”

  “A better way than sex?”

  Never in a million years had Kruze thought he’d say, “Yes. There are better ways
than sex to release anger.” Man, that felt a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.

  “N-n-nobody understands. Nobody knows. I can’t tell my mom and dad how awful it was in that hole. That would hurt them. I can’t do it.”

  “My buddy Wayne’s a real good listener. That’s why he wanted you here tonight. He’s worried about you. Do you think you’re ready to go in yet?”

  “Not now. I l-l-look like—”

  Kruze kissed the top of her head. “You look perfect to me. Think about it. That’s all I’m asking. No stress. One step at a time. Even a half-step is better than breaking apart. But if you’re not ready, that’s good enough, too. I’ll stay out here with you as long as you want.”

  Another sigh shuddered out of her. “So, what caused your PTSD? What are you afraid of?”

  And there it was. Time to come clean. Kruze drew in a bellyful of air and admitted, “Honesty, I guess. Facing the truth. That’s all.”

  Bree straightened on his lap, dabbing at her swollen eyelids with another tissue. “That’s about as cryptic as anything I’ve ever heard. Spill, Sinclair. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

  Any other time, Kruze would’ve come back with a smartass comment and a ton of bullshit about any woman showing him hers. But this was Bree. And tonight she needed something real to hang onto, not a glib comeback meant to distract her.

  Kruze nodded, took hold of her fingers and pressed them to his chest, more so he could get through this than because she needed something to hold onto. This was going to be hard. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his brothers, what happened in Panama. The only ones who knew were locked under the same confidentiality rules he was. His brother SEALs had never talked. They never would. But there were some things he could share.

  Taking another deep breath, Kruze looked Bree in the eye and said, “Her name was Juliana Mendez. She was sixteen. I was twenty. I was on a hunter/killer team, my first real SEAL action. Sorry, I can’t tell you where or when, only that the mission went bad. I was shot. In the ruckus, I was left behind. My guys had to leave. I’m glad they did or they’d be dead, too.”

  He had Bree’s full attention now. “Afterwards, Juliana found me in the jungle. She took me into her home and nursed me back to health. She lived there alone. It was only me and her—”

  “You loved her.”

  Kruze nodded. “Yeah. I did. She was sweet and beautiful, and I fell for her. But we didn’t stand a chance. The bad guys showed up one day, and they… they…” His jaw locked and his heart shut down. Storytelling came to a screeching full stop. He couldn’t tell Bree the name of the sadist who’d hunted him to make an example of an American Navy SEAL, then who’d turned on Juliana to break him.

  Remembering her screams took Kruze straight back to the jungle in some crazy, spinning, time-warp way. The sweet scents of flowering vines, rotting hardwoods. The smoky smell of sooty campfires. The gentle babbling of the nearby brook that dumped into the same river he’d entered Panama by. The bright color red when blood burst out of Juliana’s throat after they’d cut her… After they’d beaten and brutalized her slender, innocent body… When she’d cried and screamed for him to help…When Kruze couldn’t break the cuffs that kept him chained to the post in her yard… The post where they’d meant to burn him alive… When all he could do was scream and watch those sons of bitches defile and destroy the purest woman on earth…

  Kruze tried to swallow, but his throat failed. He had no spit, no way to make any. There was no need to continue this ugly truth, no need at all… Except for the tender woman sitting on his lap, her eyes full of tears and her arm wound around his neck, her hand now splayed over his heart. Bree more than anyone needed to know his truth. It might help her to understand that even the ugliest wounds could heal—someday. Maybe…

  Hell, he didn’t know that for sure because his hadn’t healed. Probably never would. He clutched her hands to his chest. Her fingers were cold, but they were his lifelines, holding him to the present, so those gawddamned memories didn’t suck him into the past. Damned if he wasn’t just another broken teapot.

  “They killed her,” he finally whispered, “right in front of me. They’d chained me to a stake. Couldn’t help, couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t stop those bastards. Then it was too late…” There was no sense telling Bree the gory details. She was smart. She’d figure it out.

  Kruze ended with, “In the middle of it all, my guys showed up. Shot every one of those fuckers. But it was too late for Juliana. Shit. They only saved me.”

  “You still love her,” Bree whispered sadly, her slender fingers knotted with his.

  All Kruze could do was nod like an idiot, the pain still as real as if Juliana had just died. He wished he’d kept his big, dumb mouth shut. Revealing this particular hole in his heart wasn’t one of his better ideas.

  Bree pulled his forehead down to the tops of her breasts and wrapped her arm around his head. “You poor thing. I am so sorry for your loss. For you, Kruze. For Juliana. She must’ve been beautiful and strong.”

  He nodded again, speechless and crying like a gawddamned baby. Tears! He had fuckin’—sorry Mom—tears dripping down his cheeks. Damn Wayne to hell. This was his fault.

  Bree stroked the back of Kruze’s hard head and ran her fingers through his hair. He could hear her heart pounding. He could smell her skin and the flowery scent of shampoo in her hair. A dangerous growl wrenched out of him, like a living beast. His heart cracked open, as Kruze wept for the loss of his first true love and the pain and—God, everything. The years he’d lost with Juliana. The heartbreak he’d endured by himself and had hidden from his brothers. The hole in his fuckin’ heart that never healed.

  Chance knew damned well something terrible had happened on Kruze’s first deployment. But Kruze had locked the pain up so tight and so deep in his heart, that to break it open and share it had seemed somehow sacrilegious and wrong. A dishonor to sweet Juliana’s memory. Yet another sin he could never break free from. But telling Bree was different. It helped. The pain didn’t seem quite so fresh nor so cutting. The longer he let her hold him, the easier it was to breath.

  “How long were you with Juliana, Kruze?”

  “A month and a couple days.” He wiped his face, wondering where the hell those tissues were now. This was what he’d been afraid of when he’d accepted Wayne’s treacherous invitation. That he wouldn’t know when to shut up. That something would trigger his heart to spill this particular poison. That he’d make a gawddamned fool of himself. Wouldn’t that be just what all these poor people needed? Yeah, right. Wayne was as big an idiot as he was.

  Bree slid the packet of tissues into his hand. Everything was backwards. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one strengthening her? Wiping her nose? Letting her lean on him instead of the other way around? Yet there she sat, cool, calm, and collected. Holding him, waiting for him to compose himself and man the hell up.

  Kruze shook his head and blew out a ragged sigh, not making eye contact. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. Please. I know how you feel. I saw what those rebels did to Mehmet, remember? The Turkish photographer I was traveling with?” A shudder roared through her.

  He pursed his lips and sighed again, tried to swallow. “I remember. You’ve been through some shit, too.”

  “Yeah, I have. I’ve told Dr. Packard bits and pieces, and I really do like him. He cares, and I know that.” She fingered the first button-hole on Kruze’s shirt. “It’s just hard to talk about.”

  “You’re telling me. Kee-rist, I’ve never told anyone what I just told you.” Lifting his arm, Kruze swiped his free hand over his forehead, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Not even my brothers know what happened. This is a gawddamned first, Bree. Shit. Sorry I dumped on you.”

  “Is that what you did, dump on me?” she asked, her voice so damned timid. “It felt more like you trusted me with a tiny broken part of you, Kruze. That you knew your truth would
be safe with me. That, maybe, you’re tired of keeping this awful pain locked up in your” —she tilted her head— “teapot.”

  That almost made him smile. Him, a teapot, really? Instead another tear slithered out of his eye. Kruze couldn’t understand why he’d opened up like he had, but Bree was spot on. He did trust her. He just hadn’t realized it until now. “You sure know how to cut through the chaff and get to the heart of things, don’t you?”

  “I don’t like to waste everyone’s time with big words and flowery bullshit.”

  He liked the way that word rolled of her lips. “You should cuss more. Not saying it’s right, but sometimes cussing’s a good way to blow off steam.”

  Dropping her lashes again, Bree shook her head. “Decent people wouldn’t read my articles if I used profanity.”

  “I’d like to read some of your articles,” Kruze admitted. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

  “I’d love that. Maybe then you’ll see that not all journalists are dirtbags.” Bree was still sitting on his lap. She was calm and teasing him. Sharing did help.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Kruze bumped foreheads with her. “Just your work for now. Later we’ll see about any others.” He inhaled a deep cleansing breath, then breathed it out, surprised he actually felt better. Maybe even a little lighter. There might be something to group therapy after all. “Seems to me you have a passion for journalism.”

  “I do. At least I did.” Her voice trailed away.

  Kruze took hold of Bree’s head, making her look into his eyes again. “I’ll tell you a secret my mom told us three boys years ago. Just working any old job for a buck creates stress in your life. But working your ass off for something you love and believe in, is different. It’s called passion, Bree. Always choose to live passionately. Once you understand the difference, everything else comes easy.”

  He stilled, not sure where to go from there. He’d shown her all of his. It was time for Bree to show hers.