by Susan Stoker
She felt Colt’s thigh muscles tense under her butt, and it seemed as if the air in the room thickened with emotion.
Oh shit. Why had she told him? She should’ve made something up. She was such an idiot! Now he was going to tell her she couldn’t stay at his house anymore, that he couldn’t help her. She should’ve kept her big mouth shut!
Chapter Five
Colt felt Macie begin to tremble in his lap and did his best to relax his own muscles. But it was too late. He could tell by the way she’d hunched in on herself and the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He hated doing anything to make her anxiety flare, so he quickly tried to fix it. Her words had surprised him and brought back the memories of that awful day, the day that had changed his life forever.
Tightening his arms around her so she couldn’t flee, he began speaking.
“I’m forty-three years old. I’ve been in the military almost my entire adult life. I have no idea what I’ll do when they finally force me to retire. I’ve never been married. Don’t have any children. I’ve made my share of mistakes in my life, and I won’t lie to you, Macie. I’ve killed people. Lots of them. But if I had to do it again, I would. Every time.”
He paused and took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure he could relive what had happened at the end of his Delta Force career.
Then he felt Macie relax slightly against him. She put her head on his shoulder and tentatively put her arms around his neck. That was all it took to give him the courage to open up to her. She wasn’t rejecting him. She knew the basics, and still she put her arms around him.
“My team was sent into a hostile town to meet with who we thought were loyal supporters. Our intel said they wanted to assist us in taking down the Taliban that had a toehold in that region. Honestly, we were losing the fight there and needed all the help we could get. The bigwigs thought it would be a good idea to use local strength to fight. So we went in. We were cautious and uneasy, but we were given a direct order, so in we went. I was in charge of my team, and so I was in the lead when an RPG—rocket-propelled grenade—came out of nowhere and decimated the building behind where we were standing. It collapsed right on top of us.”
Macie inhaled harshly, but didn’t speak. Colt could feel her fingers at the nape of his neck, caressing the short hairs there. He closed his eyes and took a minute to appreciate the feel of her body on his. How good her fingers felt.
“I woke up some time later. I’m not sure how much time had passed. I was completely buried under the stones and concrete of the building, but somehow hadn’t been crushed because of the way the walls fell. I don’t know if you remember after 9/11 that some people were found alive in one of the stairwells of the collapsed buildings?”
Macie nodded, so Colt continued.
“Yeah, well, that happened to me too. I was relatively unhurt, just sore, confused, and had a raging headache. I pushed the rubble off myself and crawled out. It was almost dark but I could still see all around me. Two of my teammates were lying dead, their heads crushed under rocks from the building. Another had been dragged out of the debris and stripped. Bud was naked, and he had bullet holes throughout his body and a huge puddle of blood around him. Back home, he had two kids and another on the way. I turned my head to puke, and met the eyes of another teammate, Randy. He was alive. Lying in the debris of the building, but his legs and pelvis were crushed and he was pinned under a huge block of concrete.
“I went to his side, and he told me what had happened to our last teammate I hadn’t found yet. Randy had witnessed what had happened to everyone, but couldn’t do a damn thing to help. He knew he was dying. Could feel it. He said that Sergeant Griswald had fought off the insurgents at first, trying to keep them at bay. He’d used all his bullets and was trying to reload when they overwhelmed him. Bud had shot at them from where he was also trapped under the rubble, but they dragged him out and beat the hell out of him. When he was almost unconscious, they stripped him and began shooting…just for fun. Randy said it seemed like the entire town was there, watching, laughing, participating. Women, kids, men, old and young alike. When Bud was dead, they turned back to Gris. He’d been detained by five insurgents.”
Colt huffed out a breath. “Took five of those fuckers to contain him. He was strong as an ox, and I can imagine that he was pissed way the hell off. Anyway, they tied a piece of rope around his neck and dragged him away. Randy said Gris had managed to get his hands under the rope, so he wasn’t strangled as they dragged him in the dirt, but he didn’t know where they’d taken Gris or what had happened to him.
“The last words Randy said to me were to tell his wife that he loved her, and that he was proud as hell to be hers. He died in the middle of that fucking miserable town and there was nothing I could do about it. No amount of first aid would put his legs back together or stop the bleeding. Looking around at the four dead men surrounding me, something snapped. I was so enraged that these men—my friends…husbands and fathers, brothers and sons—were dead.
“By now it was fully dark, and I searched through the rubble and found what weapons I could and went on the hunt for Gris. We’d all been trained how to withstand torture, and I hoped like hell the assholes hadn’t just killed him outright as they had Bud.
“Every single person I came into contact with on my hunt for Gris, I killed. Some with my bare hands, so I didn’t draw attention to myself. I didn’t give them a chance to identify themselves, either. Randy said the entire town had participated in the death of my teammates—and they’d laughed while doing it. I showed no mercy for any of them.
“By the time I found Gris, I almost didn’t recognize him. They’d stripped him naked like they had Bud, and had tied him to a stake on the back side of the town. He was barely conscious, but I could tell even from my hiding spot that he was still fighting to live. I’d collected various firearms from the people I’d killed on my way through the town and had quite the arsenal set up…including an RPG.
“I didn’t hesitate. I aimed that thing at a group standing near Gris and fired. It was stupid. I could’ve killed Gris.”
“But you didn’t,” Macie said with complete certainty.
Colt jolted under her. He’d been so lost in the memories in his head that he’d forgotten where he was. Forgotten that Macie was even there.
“To confirm what you heard, hon…yeah, I killed a lot of people. Old women, teenagers, adults. I don’t regret it, and I’d do it again if I was in the same situation.”
“What about Gris?” she asked softly.
“What about him?”
“Did he live?”
“Yeah, he lived. When the air cleared and after I picked off the remaining insurgents who hadn’t fled after I’d fired the RPG, I got Gris off that fucking stake and got us the hell out of there.”
“You have to be proud of that,” she said.
“I might’ve gotten Gris home, but I left Randy, Bud, and the others there. The one rule we take very seriously is that we never leave anyone behind.”
Macie sat up on his lap and turned toward him. She took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. “You couldn’t get Gris and yourself to safety and take their bodies too. They’d have understood, Colt. And I have a feeling, if they were anything like you or my brother, they’d kick your ass for even thinking about coming back for their bodies after you’d rescued Gris.”
She was right. Randy had been very vocal when it came to safety. About not taking stupid risks. And Bud was completely laid-back. He got his nickname because in boot camp, the drill sergeant accused him of being high because he wasn’t fazed by anything. Bud would simply shrug and say that Colt had done what he’d had to do to get Gris home.
Even though he knew she was right, it didn’t ease the feelings of guilt he still carried.
“I understand feeling guilty about something,” Macie said after she’d put her head back on his shoulder.
Colt immediately snapped out of his own head and focused on
“There are so many things I feel guilty about in my life. I’ve made so many mistakes it’s not even funny. Starting with arguing with my brother before he left.”
“You guys were kids. You can’t blame yourself for that,” Colt said. He moved a hand to rub the small of her back and the other rested on her thigh and kneaded her flesh there lightly.
“I guess I don’t blame myself, but I wish I’d listened to him.”
Colt stilled.
“The boy I was dating was bad news. Ford knew it, but I thought the guy loved me. I guess I latched on to him as a replacement for the affection I knew I’d lose when Ford left. But he wasn’t a good guy. He convinced me that he loved me, and we’d be together forever. I was so young…I thought we were going to get married. I let him convince me to sleep with him. And I…I got pregnant when I was fifteen.”
Colt forced himself to breathe, but didn’t interrupt.
“I wanted that baby so much,” Macie said softly. “We began fighting more and I suspected he was seeing other girls behind my back, but I wanted to make things work so bad. I told him about the baby, and of course he broke up with me. Said he wasn’t ready to be a father. Just up and left. I was heartbroken, but determined to raise my baby on my own.”
She stopped speaking, and Colt gave her several minutes to continue, but when she didn’t, he brought his hand to the back of her neck and massaged her. “What happened?” He was pretty sure she didn’t have a child hidden somewhere. He did the math in his head and figured that her child would be somewhere around eighteen.
“My parents made me have an abortion.”
Her words were flat, and all the more heartbreaking because of the lack of emotion in them.
“I’m so sorry, hon.”
She curled farther into him, bringing her knees up. Colt tightened his embrace, trying to cocoon her with support.
“They said I’d make a horrible mother. Convinced me I had no way of supporting myself, never mind a baby. Said they wouldn’t babysit and I’d have to drop out of school. They told me I was a slut and it was no wonder my brother left and hadn’t spoken to me since. They said I had no common sense and my baby would probably be deformed or handicapped.”
“Assholes!” The word burst from Colt before he could stop it. “Macie, how old you are has nothing to do with whether or not your baby will be born healthy. And I can guarantee that Truck didn’t leave because of you.”
“I know that…now. But I didn’t then. I let them convince me it was for the best. They drove me to the clinic and refused to come back to see the doctor with me. When she was aborted…it hurt, Colt. Not physically, the doctor numbed me for that part of the procedure, but it felt as if a part of me was being torn away. The doctor said I was imagining it, that the fetus was small enough that I couldn’t feel anything, but it was as if we were spiritually connected. I knew the second she died.”
“She?” Colt asked, tears forming in his eyes as he imagined the mental anguish she’d gone through as a vulnerable teenager.
“Yeah. A daughter. She’d be eighteen. Graduating from high school and getting ready for college. I often wonder what kind of person she’d be today. Would she be a pain in the ass and sneaking out every night? Or would she be into math and science? Maybe she’d be an athlete or a singer. I feel guilty for giving in to my parents so easily. I should’ve stood up to them. Maybe today my daughter would be alive and getting ready to change the world.”
“Listen to me,” Colt said, turning her chin so she had to face him. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing. Your parents are the ones who should feel guilty. They treated you and Truck like shit for years. The fact that they did what they could to make you feel as if his leaving was your fault was already enough for me to hate them. But the fact that they made you abort your baby when you didn’t want to is unforgivable.
“If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that we can’t go back. We can’t change the past. We can only go forward. It sucks, and it’s not fair, but it is what it is. You have your brother back now. You have me. You never have to speak to your sperm donors again. You have a whole group of men and women who are more than happy to be your friends.
“I won’t say that I’ll never look back at what happened to my friends and wish things could be different, but I’m doing my best to move on. To be the kind of man they’d want at their backs. To be the kind of commander who would never send his men into battle without knowing all the facts. Your brother and his team, and the other team I command, will never have to worry about whether they have all the facts before putting their lives on the line. I will not deploy them if I’m not sure I know everything there is to know about what I’m sending them into. Randy and Bud didn’t die in vain. They live on in your brother, and in every single Delta Force team member I’m responsible for.”
“What happened to Gris?” Macie asked.
Colt smiled for the first time in what seemed like hours. “He was medically retired. Lives in this tiny town called Stehekin in Washington state. The only way you can get there is by a four-hour ferry boat ride up Lake Chelan. They don’t have any big-box stores, there are only about a hundred year-round residents, and it’s buried under snow seven months of the year.”
“Sounds like heaven,” Macie said with a smile.
“I’ve been there several times. And it is,” Colt agreed. “He and his wife have three kids. His oldest son is named Colt.”
Her smile grew even bigger. “I’d love to meet him sometime.”
“Done. I’ll gladly take you up to Stehekin. In the summer though. I don’t like all that snow.”
She giggled, and Colt could only stare at her. He’d done that. She’d just finished talking about her baby being killed and he’d made her giggle.
Colt had never been a believer in fate. There was no way Randy, Bud, and the others were meant to die how they did. No way that Gris was fated to be tortured like he was.
But sitting on his couch, with Macie relaxed and warm in his arms, he had to reconsider.
He’d done some shitty things in his life. He definitely didn’t deserve someone like Macie. And yet, here she was. There were so many decisions the two of them had made over the years, and even one might have meant they never would’ve crossed paths. But they had.
Colt rearranged them on the couch so his back was against the arm and she was half-sitting, half-lying between his legs, and clicked on the television. They’d disclosed some pretty heavy things to each other today. It was time to rest and simply enjoy being with each other.
He felt Macie relax farther into him and eventually fall asleep. He nuzzled her hair and inhaled its floral scent. He vowed three things, right then and there.
One, if her parents ever tried to contact her, he’d make sure they understood that they were dead to her, and if they ever spoke to her again, they’d regret it. Second, he would not let her ex-boyfriend and his thugs lay one hand on her. She’d been through too much.
And three, he loved her and would do whatever it took to make her happy for the rest of her life. She was meant to be his. She hadn’t blinked at his recounting of the way he’d slaughtered so many people to save one man. Hadn’t been horrified, hadn’t come up with excuses for his behavior.
“Love you, Mace,” he said in a barely audible whisper.
“Mmmm,” she murmured, and tightened her hold on his arm that was around her chest.
Colt smiled, and finally felt the guilt lift that he’d carried around with him for so long. Raising his eyes to the ceiling, he mouthed, Thanks, guys.
Chapter Six
Macie looked up from her computer in surprise when she heard the garage door open. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was only two in the afternoon. She wasn’t expecting Colt home for another hour and a half or so. She wasn’t panicked though, because it wasn’t as if the thugs who’d broken into her apartment would open the garage door if they’d tracked her to Colt’s house.
Thankful for the break—she’d been rebuilding an author’s website after her old one had been infected with malware, and her eyes felt like they were crossed—Macie saved her work on the computer and stood to greet Colt. It was Friday afternoon, and she was looking forward to him being home for two full days. She felt grounded when he was there. As if he had some sort of magical force field around him that prevented her anxiety from flaring up.
She heard the door to the garage shut and then he was there.
“Hi.”
“Hey, hon. How’s your day been?”
“Good. Yours? You’re home early.”
“I am. I thought we could go on a trip this weekend, if you wanted to.”
Macie froze. A trip? Together? Would they stay in the same hotel room?
It was a stupid thought. They’d been sleeping in Colt’s bed together since she’d moved in. It wasn’t sexual, and as the days passed, she got more and more unsatisfied with the status quo. She had no idea how to let Colt know she was ready for more. Didn’t want to do anything that might change the comfortable relationship they had. And if she initiated sex, and he didn’t want it, she’d be embarrassed and have to move back to her apartment.
As if he could sense her inner turmoil, Colt strode toward her. Macie loved seeing him in his uniform. He looked confident and strong, things that were the complete opposite of how she felt most of the time.
“If you’d rather, we can stay here like we did last weekend,” he reassured her as he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear gently. “I just thought you could use a change of pace. You’ve been cooped up in my house almost since you moved in.”
“I like your house,” she blurted.
“I know you do, hon. And I like you in my house, but I’d like to take us both away for a weekend. The detective in Lampasas hasn’t found Teddy yet, though after your place was broken into again, they’ve really stepped up their searches. I reserved a room at the Four Seasons in Austin. I requested a view of Lady Bird Lake and the Congress Avenue Bridge so we could watch the bats leave at dusk to go feed.”
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