Love Me

by Olivia Cunning

  Owen stared at Lindsey for a long moment, then licked his lips and asked, “Is it okay if I tell him?”

  Her pretty cheeks flushed, and she dropped her chin, nodding almost imperceptivity.

  “We just found out that the baby isn’t mine,” Owen said.

  “You cheated on my brother?”

  “We were never together for her to cheat. It was just a one-night stand. A groupie thing.”

  “So you tried to pin this on my brother because you know he has money.” Chad’s heart was thundering again. He had the inexplicable urge to stand and could even feel his missing foot tense in preparation.

  “No. I—” Lindsey covered her face with both hands.

  “Take it easy on her,” Owen said. He moved behind Lindsey, rubbing her shoulder as she tried to hold it together.

  What a gullible imbecile. Didn’t he see what she was doing?

  “She thought it was mine because I did something stupid that night that could have gotten her pregnant,” Owen said. “She’s not trying to trap me.”

  Right. Chad wasn’t buying it, and he happened to be very protective of his little brother. Mostly because Owen was too softhearted to see the bad in anyone and therefore easily manipulated. Chad didn’t suffer from the same affliction.

  “I still don’t know who the father is,” she said.

  “You don’t?” Owen asked, his eyes wide. “Is it possible that the test is wrong, then?”

  “No, we still need samples from . . .” She stared at the wall and quietly said, “Shade and Adam.”

  “Shade and Adam and Owen?” Chad sputtered. Just how many members of Sole Regret had she fucked?

  “So, it’s not Kellen’s?” Owen asked.

  Lindsey shook her head.

  “Kellen?” Chad echoed quietly. She’d slept with Kellen too? What the fuck? Had she participated in some Sole Regret orgy? Rock stars had all the fun.

  “He would have been a good dad,” Owen said, as if they’d interviewed job candidates for the lifelong position of father. “Jacob’s really good with kids too. He loves his daughter to pieces.”

  “Yeah,” Lindsey said. “Shade would be okay. Not as good as you, though.”

  “No one knows my results but the two of us,” Owen said. “If you want, I can tell them it’s mine and—”

  Chad wanted to smack him. How could he offer some . . . some . . . groupie a solution so life altering?

  Lindsey lifted her head, and a look of relief crossed her beautiful face, but then she said, “I can’t let you do that. It’s not fair to you or to Caitlyn.”

  “But I was kind of growing attached to the idea.”

  Chad threw a pillow at him. “She’s letting you off the hook, moron. Don’t keep trying to bite it.”

  “But I want to help her.”

  Lindsey pressed the back of her hand to one eye. Her entire body was trembling. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Since when?” Owen said. He squatted in front of her and took her hands in his, staring up at her face until she finally met his eyes. “We’ll just go on like before. No one has to know that the kid isn’t mine. And Chad can keep a secret, can’t you?”

  “That’s a pretty big secret.” One Chad wasn’t comfortable with for a multitude of reasons.

  Lindsey looked at Chad, as if seeking his approval, and when he didn’t offer it, she ducked her head.

  “We can pretend for a little while longer,” she said. “Just until I figure out how to get my life back on track.”

  “Good. I won’t tell anyone the truth,” Owen said. “Except Caitlyn. I can’t keep this from her.”

  Lindsey snorted. “She’s not going to go for this plan. She already hates that I live with you.”

  “She lives with you?” Chad sputtered. Dear lord, was his brother that stupid? Chad was going to have to keep a close eye on this woman to make sure she didn’t take advantage of his gullible brother and worm her way any deeper into his life. Unless . . . Maybe Owen wanted her to be his as much as he seemed to want her baby. Chad couldn’t blame Owen if he did want her. She was the most beautiful woman Chad had ever spoken to. He just wasn’t sure if that angel face hid a manipulative devil. She seemed sincere enough.

  “Just while the apartment over Mom and Dad’s garage is being remodeled,” Owen said.

  Chad threw his hands in the air. “Our parents got suckered by her too?”

  “I’m not trying to sucker anyone,” Lindsey snapped. “I had nowhere to go. Your family is really nice.”

  “But I’m not,” Chad said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I just . . .” She massaged the center of her forehead. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  How could he rest when a scam artist was manipulating his family into supporting her? And not just financially but emotionally as well. He’d been enamored with her at first—he still thought she was gorgeous—but that angelic face and sweet voice were obviously a cover for a corrupt core.

  Chad shifted in the hard bed. When had he become so fucking cynical? His mother hadn’t raised him to look for the worst in a person. Maybe he was wrong about Lindsey’s intentions. Maybe she wasn’t trying to trap his brother and use his mother. But he wasn’t going to automatically give her a free pass. She’d have to earn his confidence. Chad wasn’t like Owen who blindly offered his trust to anyone. Chad wanted to believe she wasn’t a bad person—a user, a manipulator, a liar—but he’d seen too much of the dark side of human nature to automatically assume everybody was inherently good. He envied Owen’s naiveté at times, but also felt the need to protect his brother from his blind compassion.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had company,” a soft and familiar voice said from the doorway.

  “Josie?” Chad’s voice cracked on her name. She’d come. He hadn’t been sure that she’d make it, that she’d give their once all-encompassing love another chance to flourish, but she’d come.

  “I’ll check back later,” Josie said, her gaze trained on the floor. She turned to leave.

  “No!” Chad said, trying to sit up. To reach for her. His body didn’t cooperate. He slid sideways in the bed. Grasping the railing, he pulled himself into a semi-upright position.

  “We need to go now,” Owen said, taking Lindsey by the elbow and hauling her to her feet. “You stay, Josie. I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Josie inhaled a deep, shaky breath and nodded. “Yeah.” She glanced at Chad, and her face contorted in pain as if she were the one who’d been blown out the side of a Humvee and pinned beneath the rolling vehicle.

  When they were alone, she approached the bed, her familiar brown eyes scanning his injuries and settling on the empty space beneath the covers where his right leg should have been.

  “You look good,” he said. “I know I look like hell, but you? You look good, Jo baby.”

  Her gaze flicked to his for a scant second before drifting into the distance. She looked straight through him, as if he was a ghost. He reached for her hand, but she stepped backwards.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I thought I could do this . . . I thought if I saw you, I could do this . . .”

  “Do what?”

  “Be with you. Try. Accept this.” She flipped an emphatic hand toward his missing leg. “But I can’t. I’m sorry, Chad, but I can’t. I can’t be with you anymore.” She tugged off the small engagement ring he’d given her before he’d been deployed to Afghanistan and released it into his inexplicably numb hand. “I’m sorry, but I told you I couldn’t be the wife of a Marine when you enlisted, and this is why. This is exactly what I feared would happen.”

  “I didn’t reenlist,” he blurted. He’d wanted to surprise her with the news. Had been sitting on that bit of information for weeks so he could tell her in person. He’d sacrificed the career he loved—fighting shoulder to shoulder with men he considered brothers for the country he’d die for, the country that that fresh-ou
t-of-boot camp Emerson had died for—for her. He’d watched the kid he was supposed to protect bleed out only feet from where he’d been trapped beneath that fucking Humvee. Surely giving up such a huge part of his life and surviving that horror was enough. It had to be enough.

  She hesitated for just a moment and hope bloomed in his chest, but she didn’t meet his pleading stare.

  “Josie?”

  She shook her head. “You’re not the same man I fell in love with.”

  Of course, he wasn’t. He was better. Miles above the twit he’d been when they were teens. And if she didn’t recognize that . . .

  Before he could say another word, she turned and dashed from the room. His hand tightened into a fist around the still-warm engagement ring she’d dropped into his palm. She hadn’t even been able to touch him, and that hurt far more than any physical injury he’d suffered.

  Chapter Five

  Lindsey understood why Chad hated her. She knew how her situation must look to him, but his disdain tore at her chest like a clawing vulture as she walked beside Owen to the elevator. She didn’t want to cause Chad upset; the man had been through enough already. Maybe she could find a women’s shelter that would take her in, or become a nun and join a convent. Did the church still take unwed mothers in this day and age? She wasn’t even Catholic, but she couldn’t take advantage of Owen’s generosity if it made Chad uneasy. Chad needed to concentrate on healing, and he couldn’t do that if he thought his family needed his protection.

  Lindsey snorted at the direction of her thoughts. Did she really think a big, tough war hero like Sergeant Chad Mitchell considered her a threat? Yep. So, either she had to assuage his fears about her intentions, or she had to find somewhere else to live.

  “Do you want to eat in the cafeteria or pick up something on the way to the hotel?” Owen asked.

  “What’s the cheapest?” Her running tally for the amount of money she owed him grew more overwhelming each day.

  “Stop calculating what you owe me in your head,” he said.

  How had he known she was doing exactly that?

  “I want you to tell me what sounds good,” Owen said, “not worry about how much it costs. It’s my treat, okay?”

  Lindsey nodded, but she couldn’t help feeling indebted to the man. She was indebted to him. “I have to pee again, so I’m most interested in finding the nearest bathroom. I can’t think about food until my eyeballs stop floating.”

  Owen chuckled. “I’ll wait.”

  “You think of where you want to eat while I’m gone. I’m not picky.”

  “Fine. I’ll search what’s nearby on my phone.”

  “And maybe you should call Caitlyn and tell her the news about the baby,” Lindsey suggested. “I’m sure she’ll be happy.” Even though part of her still hoped that Owen and Caitlyn’s relationship didn’t work out, Lindsey didn’t want to be the cause of their split. She carried enough guilt.

  “I’ll tell her.”

  Lindsey turned, looking for signs to point her to a bathroom, and spotted one halfway back up the hall they’d just walked. She must have been too distracted to notice it when they’d passed. In the bathroom she hurried into an open stall, not hearing the sounds of sniffling coming from the next stall until after she’d flushed the toilet. Her heart went out to the hidden woman. Lindsey knew what it was like to cry in a bathroom alone. And in a place like this? Bad news tended to be devastating news.

  “Are you okay?” she asked the stranger.

  The sniffling stopped, but the woman didn’t answer.

  Lindsey dug through her purse and found the small packet of tissues she carried with her. She slid them under the side wall of the stall. “Here. Try these. That commercial toilet paper will chafe your nose.”

  “Th-thank you.” A hand took the packet of tissues and a moment later a nose was blown daintily.

  “No problem.” Lindsey suspected a lot of crying happened in hospital bathrooms. Especially when that hospital was one of the largest military hospitals in the United States. She unlocked her stall and went to the sink to wash her hands. The crying lady emerged from the stall next to Lindsey’s and Lindsey tried to give her the courtesy of privacy, but when she turned to grab a paper towel from the dispenser, there was no mistaking who the woman was.

  “Oh,” Lindsey said to Josie, “hello again.”

  Josie held out the packet of tissues—minus the couple she’d used. “Thanks for the Kleenex. I’m okay now.”

  “No problem. I think Chad has tissues in his room if you need more.” Lindsey couldn’t help but wonder why she was in here crying. Maybe she didn’t want Chad to know she was upset, but of course she was upset. The man she loved and was going to marry had almost died. “I can’t imagine how relieved you must be.”

  “Relieved?”

  “That he’s alive. He’s here. That you can take him home and care for him and give him all the love and attention he needs while he heals.”

  Josie lowered her gaze. “Yeah. Relieved. There’s a word. Excuse me.” She left the bathroom—without washing her hands, Lindsey couldn’t help but notice. Didn’t she realize that Chad was at risk for infection? She shouldn’t be touching him with dirty hands. Even if she hadn’t used the bathroom, she had touched the stall lock and the exit door. Maybe it wasn’t her place to tell Josie to wash her hands or at the very least use some hand sanitizer, but she was going to do it anyway. Josie was probably too upset to recognize the potential danger she posed to her wounded fiancé.

  After using her elbow to push open the door so she didn’t dirty her own recently scrubbed hands—she might be a lot of things, but hypocrite wasn’t one of them—Lindsey looked down the hall toward Chad’s room. There was no sign of Josie. Had she sprinted? She glanced the other way and saw her walking in the wrong direction as fast as she could.

  “Hey, Josie,” Lindsey called. “Chad’s room is that way!”

  She must have not heard Lindsey because she only walked faster toward the elevator. Josie stopped short when she saw Owen standing near the elevator doors still waiting for Lindsey. He was oblivious to her presence as he was completely occupied by something on his phone screen. Josie clutched her dark, curly hair with both hands and after a quick look for an escape route, she rushed toward the stairwell, pushing through the door and disappearing. That had been weird. Where had Josie been going in such a hurry, and why had she freaked out when she’d seen Owen?

  “I’m going to go check on Chad,” Lindsey called to Owen. “Be right back.”

  She hurried to Chad’s room, knocking on the door even though it was wide open. “Sorry to bother you, but I just saw—” The look on his face stalled the words in her suddenly constricted throat.

  He was staring down at something in the palm of his hand and his unbandaged cheek was wet. Was he crying?

  “Chad?”

  He lifted his head but didn’t acknowledge her. He swallowed hard and looked back down into his hand.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, taking a step closer and trying to see what in his hand had him looking so stunned. “Chad?”

  “She . . .” He licked his lips and closed his hand into a fist before Lindsey could see what he was holding. “Left.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be right back.” Lindsey stopped next to the bed and touched his shoulder.

  He shook his head. “She left . . .” He squeezed his fist until his knuckles went white. “Me.”

  “She must have had an important reason to—”

  “Oh, she had a great reason.” Chad punched himself in what remained of his right leg so hard that Lindsey’s eyes watered. “This is her reason.”

  That couldn’t possibly be right. What kind of horrible person would dump a war veteran for losing a leg? He hadn’t even been discharged from the hospital yet.

  “This useless . . .” He punched his thigh again. “Worthless . . .” He lifted his fist to punch himself again, but Lindsey caught his wrist.

  “P
lease don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “I’ll hurt myself?” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. He turned his gaze to the ceiling and said to the fluorescent light overhead, “She’s worried that I’ll hurt myself.”

  She reached out to touch his shoulder. “I am worried.” And not just about his physical pain, but his emotional pain as well.

  She expected him to push her hand away, but instead he leaned into her touch. She moved closer, her belly pressed against the side of the bed, and slid her hand along the top of his back. He curled into her, a great ragged breath sucking into his lungs and tugging at her heart. She stroked his shorn hair, the short strands like soft down beneath her fingertips. His arms slid around her back, and he hugged her so tight she could scarcely breathe, but she didn’t complain. She squeezed him tighter too. When his palm flattened against her lower spine, something slipped from his grasp and bounced off the floor with a quiet ping.

  “I need to pull myself together,” he said, his breathing irregular and hot against her chest.

  “When you’re ready,” she said, still smoothing his hair. She knew he didn’t like her and thought she was taking advantage of his family, so was surprised that he was clinging to her so tightly. She was happy to be there for him, though, even if she didn’t have much to offer. The baby, however, protested being squished between them by kicking a foot outward repeatedly.

  Chad laughed—this time there was joy in the sound—and slid his hand from her back to her belly directly over the foot that was trying to kick him aside. “Someone else doesn’t like me much.”

  At the sound of his deep voice, the kicking stopped. Chad looked up, his hand still on Lindsey’s stomach. Her heart thudded rapidly as she lifted a hand to his cheek. She knew she shouldn’t take advantage of the situation to touch him, but she couldn’t help herself. The tenderness she felt as her fingers glided over his stubble-roughened skin caught her off guard. Maybe because he looked a lot like Owen and his wonderful mother, it was easy to care about him. Or maybe it was because she could only marvel at how quickly he shoved devastation aside and found a way to smile again. But whatever it was about him that drew her, she couldn’t deny she felt something powerful for this man she’d just met. It wasn’t pity. Admiration? Was that what she was feeling as he held her gaze?