by Sandra Owens
“Thanks.” She walked him out. At the front door, he paused.
“Are you married, Riley?”
“No. Are you?”
“Came close once, but no dice.” And there was that killer smile again. “Now that we’ve established neither of us is married, would you like to go out tomorrow night? Dinner and dancing, maybe? Or a movie . . . or just drinks if that makes you more comfortable.”
She pushed away the image of brooding caramel-colored eyes. Cody had made it clear that he wasn’t interested, and the truth was, she was ready for a life outside of work. “I’d be good with dinner and a movie. I’ll text you my address, and you can let me know what time.”
“So I get the dangerous one?” Brooke asked when Riley turned back to the counter.
In your dreams. “Don’t you two have something to do?” Her employees were too nosy by far, and the thought of either one of them going after Cody made her want to say something snide.
As she headed for the exam room where her next patient waited, it occurred to her that it was Cody she wished she had a date with, not Mike. Go figure. She was smart, though, so she would put Cody out of her mind. Mike was the perfect choice to begin her foray back into the dating game, and if things went well, who knew? To be on the safe side, she’d stop at the mall on the way home and do some sexy underwear shopping.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ashamed, Cody kept his gaze on the trees when Ryan sat on the steps next to him. What if the situation had gone south in a really bad way? He couldn’t be trusted, and that was the cruel truth. Hell, he wouldn’t want himself on an operation, so he couldn’t expect his teammates to think any differently.
If Ryan was sitting here, though, that meant he’d talked some sense into the two inside. Cody exhaled a relieved breath. At least he wouldn’t have the guilt of his teammate or one of the kids being hurt on his conscience. He should say something, but he had no words to explain what had just gone down.
“Have you had flashbacks before?” Ryan finally asked.
“I don’t know what happened in there.” His greatest wish was to be able to dig a hole and disappear from sight.
“I think you do.”
The words were said so softly that Cody wasn’t sure he could bear it. A team that ate, slept, and fought side by side bonded together tighter than glue on glue, and although they never said the words, they loved each other. They were often closer than blood brothers, and he owed Ryan an explanation. As much as Cody wanted to get up and walk away, it was time to own his problem, whatever that might be. He still wasn’t sure.
“That was the first flashback . . . if that’s what it was, but I’ve been having nightmares about a girl back in Afghanistan. I don’t recognize her. Don’t have a clue who she is. She just keeps showing up in my dreams.” Elbows on his knees, he stared down at his hands where they dangled between his legs. “Pretty fucked up, right?”
Ryan reached down and retied the laces on one of his boots. “Is it the same dream all the time?”
The door to the cabin opened, and Justin poked his head out. “Hey, man, we leaving or what?”
“Yeah, we’re leaving,” Ryan said, standing. “Give us a minute.” When the kid closed the door, Ryan squatted and put his hand on Cody’s knee. “We need to talk, but let’s get these two taken care of. Justin’s agreed to let us drive him to the police station where he’ll turn himself in. Megan used my phone to call her parents, and they’re coming to get her. We’re to meet them at the Des Moines airport in a few hours.”
Cody stared at the hand on his knee, willing away the tears stinging his eyes. He hadn’t cried since the day Evan Prescott, one of their SEAL team members, had been killed on an operation, and he’d be damned if he’d cry now. But, fuck, with his touch, Ryan was telling him that he had Cody’s six, whether he deserved it or not.
“Let’s get this over with.” He pushed himself up. “You need help with the kids?”
“Nah. Truth is, they’re scared of you. Why don’t you go on to the car and we’ll be right behind you.” Ryan tossed him the keys.
That hurt, but he had it coming. Not that he wanted to stick around and have the couple stare at him like he was the big bad bogeyman, so he gladly headed to the Range Rover. When he reached the vehicle, he slid into the driver’s seat, started the ignition, and turned on the heater to warm up the interior. He figured it was better if he drove. That way, he could ignore everyone and they could ignore him.
He scrubbed at his face. What the hell was wrong with him? The dream had haunted him for months now, but he had no memory of meeting a young woman named Asra. Inside that cabin, though, when Justin put the knife to Megan’s throat, Cody had been transported back to a dusty room in Afghanistan and had seen Asra’s face clear as day.
There was no way he could hide this from Kincaid. If he didn’t tell the boss, Ryan would, and rightly so. He didn’t want to believe it had been a flashback, but what else could it have been? And why couldn’t he remember?
The front passenger door opened and Justin slid in, giving him a wary glance before putting on his seatbelt. Ryan got in the back with the girl so that the couple wasn’t sitting behind him and Ryan where they could get up to no good.
“Glad that’s over,” Ryan said as they watched Megan hugging her parents.
“Yeah, me, too.” Justin’s parents were on their way to bail him out of jail. The charges against him were going to be tough for the kid to beat, but Cody hoped he’d been scared straight. As they walked out of the Des Moines airport, he tried to get a handle on the bugs crawling under his skin. Ryan had decided they’d spend the night here, have dinner and a long talk. It was the last thing Cody wanted to do.
“Anything particular you want to eat?”
“No.” He wasn’t even sure he could eat. His head felt like spiders had woven thick webs around his brain, keeping him from being able to think straight. His legs and feet were a hundred pounds heavier, making it hard to put one step in front of the other. His heart had shriveled to the size of a prune. And he was tired, so damn tired.
It was getting harder to deny that something had occurred on his last deployment that he couldn’t remember. Ryan probably expected him to try to explain away what had happened in that cabin today, but he wasn’t going to do that. It was time to man up and admit something was wrong, letting the chips fall where they may.
They ended up at a diner near the hotel where they’d made a brief stop to book rooms. There hadn’t been many cars in the parking lot, and Cody guessed that was why his teammate had chosen it. Easier to talk with no one around. Another reason might be that there was no alcohol available, which Cody would almost kill for.
They took a booth in the far corner, and without looking at the menu Cody ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of milk. His stomach wasn’t feeling so well, and he hoped he could keep the bland meal down.
“You call Kincaid?” he asked after the waitress left.
Ryan leaned back against the booth with one arm stretched across the top. “No. Texted him. Told him we’d be back in the morning.”
That surprised Cody. His friend should have called the boss, giving him an update on the operation and Cody’s screwup. The waitress returned with Cody’s milk and a cup of coffee for Ryan.
“I never told you what went down with my wife.”
“You mean besides the robbery?” Ryan’s wife had been killed when a druggie had shot her after burglarizing her jewelry shop. Where he was going with this, Cody hadn’t a clue.
“Yeah, besides the robbery.” He put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands, reminding Cody of someone praying. “She was two months pregnant when she was killed. Do the math.”
Cody blinked. They’d been deployed for six or seven months when Ryan had been notified that she was dead. “Fuck, man. You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish. The thing is, every one of us on the team has been screwed up in one way or the other. From what I understand
, Kincaid couldn’t get past the guilt of losing Evan on his watch. Jake lost a man on a K2 operation and went off the deep end for a time. Jamie blamed himself for his parents’ deaths, which messed with his mind for years.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I just pick up on things here and there mostly. As for me, I spent a year trying to deal with the fact that my wife cheated on me. My point is, you’re not the only one on the team who’s walked ass deep through shit. We’ve all been there. You need to trust that not only do we understand better than most, but we’ll always have your six. You’ll always be our brother. Now tell me about these nightmares you’re having.”
The reassurance that his team would have his back was fractionally calming, but his craving for a bottle of scotch and a dark room hadn’t abated. Problem was, if he started down that road, he might never come back.
Their meal arrived, and Cody tried not to gag at the greasy smell coming from Ryan’s burger. Man, his stomach was messed up. He forced a bite of eggs down his throat, following it up with a long drink of milk.
He ate one slice of toast before setting down his fork. No way he could eat and talk about his nightmare at the same time. “So, that dream I keep having. It’s always the same. I think what happened in the cabin was triggered by hearing the guns going off at the same time the kid put the knife to Megan’s throat. It was like I was back there again.”
“I’m guessing those were the deer hunters we were warned about. Go on.”
“I’m . . . I’m about to go up on a roof with my spotter when this young girl calls to me. I know her because she’s given me intel previously. I tell my spotter to go on up to the rooftop, and then cross the alley and follow her into the house, thinking she’s got some new info. It’s not until then that I see she’s hurt. Then I sense someone behind me. That’s it. That’s where I wake up drenched in sweat every fucking time.”
Ryan pushed his empty plate to the end of the table. “And the flashback was the same as that?”
Cody slid his half-empty plate aside. “Yeah, I saw her clear as day. It wasn’t Megan in that room, it was Asra. I swear I don’t know anyone named Asra.”
“You know this happened for real, right?”
“If so, you’d think I’d remember.”
Ryan nodded when the waitress appeared to fill his coffee cup. Alone again, he said, “You were with a new team, but I heard they found you facedown on the street, out cold. A concussion can cause memory loss, especially if you saw something you don’t want to remember.” He poured a dab of cream into his refreshed coffee. “You have to tell the boss all this.” His gaze lifted to Cody’s, sympathy in his eyes. “If you don’t, I’ll have to.”
“I’ll tell him.” And he would, but if he didn’t get out of the diner right now, he was going to lose it. How long could he go on denying to himself that Asra was real? He didn’t want her to be, because if so, that meant she’d been killed because of him. He slid out of the booth and walked out, sucking in the ice-cold air like a drowning man.
Riley missed her guitar guy. Tomorrow night she had a date with Mike, and she regretted agreeing to go out with him. Well, the side of her that got all hot and bothered by her bad boy neighbor did. The other side, the one lecturing her on finding a nice guy, hadn’t shut up about doing the smart thing and swearing off a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or so he claimed.
On the way home, she’d gone shopping for sexy bras and panties. After she’d had dinner and the cats had been fed, she’d streamed American Sniper. As she watched the ending of the movie, she reached for another tissue to wipe away the tears flowing down her cheeks.
God, Cody, was it like that for you? It was a useless question as he wasn’t here to answer. Arthur jumped onto her lap, nuzzling his face against hers. “I know, sweetie.” He hated when she cried, had from the beginning when she’d been a wounded young girl telling him her deepest, darkest secrets. “It’s just that I think he’s hurting really bad, and I want to help him.”
She thought he needed a friend but didn’t know how to ask for one, much less how to let her or anyone else in. It was late, but she was restless after watching the movie. Cody hadn’t called, which surprised her as he’d been keeping in touch since he left. Before she could talk herself out of it, she texted him.
Are you awake?
When several minutes passed with no answer, she turned out the light and tried to go to sleep. Scenes from the movie kept running through her head with Cody’s face instead of Bradley Cooper’s. If Cody was in a bad place like she thought, she could relate to that better than he would ever know.
She didn’t often allow herself to think of that time in her life. When she did, it was like her heart was ripped open all over again. Don’t go there, Riley. She wrapped her pillow around her head and squeezed her eyes shut, but that was a mistake. Reed Decker hovered there in the dark, his hand reaching for her as if begging for help.
Suddenly, she couldn’t get air into her lungs, and she shot up, toppling Arthur off her stomach. Lights. She needed the lights on. As she reached for the lamp, her phone buzzed. Grabbing her cell as if she’d been thrown a lifeline, she read the text.
Yes.
She stared at the message, trying to decipher that one word. Did he want to talk? Not talk? She waited a few minutes to see if he’d say more, but nothing came through. Kind of weird. Curiosity won out, and she pushed Call. Besides, she needed to hear his voice so she could replace it with the one in her head belonging to Reed. The phone rang so many times that she was about to hang up when he finally answered.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No.”
“Good. I guess I got used to you checking in and was worried when I didn’t hear from you.”
“I’m fine.”
Funny, he didn’t come across as fine. His tone was clipped, and he sounded nothing like the man who’d called her darlin’ during their last phone conversation. “Okay. Good.” When he didn’t respond, she took a deep breath, wishing she hadn’t called him.
“The dogs behaving?”
She nodded before realizing he couldn’t see her. “You know they are. You’ve trained them well.” Again, nothing back from him. “Well, I’ll let you go. You know when you’ll be home?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s good. They’ll be happy to see you. Nite.” As much as she wanted to ask him what was wrong—because she was certain something was—she didn’t. Maybe he was just tired. Who knew? He sure wasn’t giving her any hints.
“Riley?”
Her heart stuttered. She knew what pain sounded like, and she heard it in the way he said her name. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Sure. See you tomorrow.” He hung up without answering, and she stared at the phone’s screen. Maybe she should have said more, but not having any idea what the deal was with him, she hadn’t a clue how to offer comfort . . . or whatever he needed.
Didn’t mean she wouldn’t worry about him.
Riley was going over the instructions for care after spaying with a cat’s owner when Michelle opened the door and crooked her finger. Her receptionist wouldn’t interrupt if it weren’t an emergency.
“That’s it,” Riley said, handing the woman a sheet that detailed everything she’d just explained. “Call me if you see any of the symptoms on this list.”
Michelle rushed into the exam room as soon as Riley was alone. “We have another poisoned pet. Mr. Hatchel’s dog. Brooke’s in two with him. Doesn’t look good.”
“Dammit.” Riley went to the sink, and as she washed her hands, she scanned the day’s appointments pinned to the corkboard. “Tell Lisa that we might be running late. She can either wait or bring Barney back at five, unless she wants to reschedule him for another day.” The cockatiel just needed his wings clipped, so it wasn’t critical that she see him right away.
“Okay.”
Riley followe
d Michelle out, turning right to go to room two. “How is he?” She could hear the medium-sized mixed-breed dog’s labored breathing as soon as she entered. She pressed her stethoscope to his chest, alarmed at the rapid beat of his heart.
“I’ve got everything ready to flush him,” Brooke said.
“It’s okay, Sam,” Riley said when he convulsed. She kept talking to him, hoping to calm him as they rid the poison from his stomach. Anger that anyone would intentionally harm an animal simmered, but she would get mad later. Right now she had a dog to save.
When his stomach was empty, she washed her hands. “All we can do is wait. Stay with him, and I’ll go talk to Mr. Hatchel.” Before she went to the waiting room, she made a stop in her office and called Mike.
“Kilpatrick.”
“Hi, Mike. This is Riley. You have a minute?”
“For you? Always.”
Laying it on a bit too heavy, Mike. “Yeah, okay. Ah . . . listen, I have another poisoned animal. A dog this time. I’m about to go talk to the owner, see what he knows.”
“I’m finishing up a late lunch. I’ll swing by in a bit.”
“Thanks. See you soon.”
“Hey, Riley?”
“Yeah?”
“Looking forward to it.”
She disconnected, uncomfortable with how personal he’d made the call. Nor did her stomach flutter the same way it did when Cody said her name. Her focus was on finding the person responsible for harming the animals, and maybe she didn’t need the complication of a man in her life right now.
“Mr. Hatchel,” she said, walking up to the man.
He stood. “How’s Sam?”
“He’s not out of the woods, but we’re doing everything we can.” She hated this part of her job. He was a widower, a retired department store buyer, and a nice man. His dog was all he had.
