by J. M. Madden
Harper frowned at her description of how he used to be. “I think I’m still recovering.”
She lifted a brow at the sidestep. “So, you’re telling me you’re just as bad as you used to be?”
He looked up at the ceiling. “No, I’m not as bad as when I first left the Team, but I still have the nagging worries and dreams.”
“Night terrors or dreams?”
Rolling up in bed he swung his legs to the side, planting his feet. “I still have occasional night terrors but not like I used to. Duncan makes a counselor available to us and I’ve gone to her several times,” he admitted. “For the past year, actually.”
Cat didn’t say anything so he glanced over his shoulder at her. She sat naked and open with tears glittering in her eyes. “I wanted you to go to counseling when you left the house but you said you didn’t need it.”
Harper hated to see the hurt in her expression. She had urged him to go to the counselors but it hadn’t been until his life had fallen apart and he’d had to leave his family that he’d realized how critical it was. “I know.” Reaching out with his good arm, he tugged her around to face him. “But it wasn’t until I was faced with the possibility of never seeing you again that I realized I had to make some changes. And it’s not something a guy like me wanted to admit, you know?”
She swiped her fingers under her eyes, catching tears before they fell. “I’m very happy that you stepped up like that.”
“Once I got to hanging with the rest of the guys at LNF and they started to talk about their own counseling it became easier for me to think about doing it.”
“You’re not less of a man because of it,” she told him firmly. “The exact opposite, actually. I think you’re more of a man for doing it.”
Harper didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her head.
After a few minutes Cat pulled back enough to look up at him. “I’m going to go shower again. Would you like to join me?”
Nodding, he helped her untangle herself from the sheets and followed along as she walked into the bathroom.
“I want to go for a hike.”
Harper gave her a frown but didn’t try to argue with her. “Where to?”
Cat motioned toward the back yard. “There’s a path that climbs the ridge. I’d like to head in that direction. Do you feel up to it?”
Harper nodded and Cat knew he wouldn’t have dared give her any other answer. He was too hard-headed to tell her he wasn’t up to it.
She had to admit, though, he was getting stronger. Out of the hospital for four days now his strength had definitely begun to return. He ate everything she cooked and snacked in between if he wanted to. The dizzy spell he’d had the second day hadn’t bothered him again.
Cat grabbed a light jacket to stave off the chill of the morning and let herself out the door to the back deck. Harper followed right behind her, latching the door closed behind him. The house was now locked up tight and she had the key in her pocket.
As she stepped down onto the frosty ground she tried not to watch Harper too closely. If he wavered or stumbled she could slip in beside him and wrap her arm around his waist.
“Quit worrying, Cat.”
Clenching her jaw, she marched forward and up through the slight border of brush around the yard. Little scrub trees crowded around her legs, but she aimed for the trail she could see winding up the incline. A rabbit darted a little ways away and she felt Harper jerk behind her. “Just a rabbit.”
“I know,” he grumbled. “It was on my right though and I didn’t see it right away.”
Frowning, she didn’t say anything, but she felt like crap. If she could help him get used to being sightless on that side she absolutely would.
They tromped up the hill for the better part of thirty minutes and finally drew up on the crest of the ridge. Sighing, Cat found a rocky outcropping to sit on to gaze at the view. “Wow,” she sighed. Shifting over, she made sure Harper had a place to sit as well.
The ridge they had just climbed was small compared to the one in front of them. If they continued east the trail snaked its way to the top of that ridge as well, with the Rocky Mountains beyond, but Cat had no intentions of going any farther. Though he hadn’t said a word she knew Harper had to be worn out. She handed him a bottle of water from the little shoulder sack she wore. Twisting off the cap, he chugged most of it down.
They were in a bit of a strange place emotionally. Though they’d made love—or was it sex?—they were each still too protected to reach out and be like they used to be. Cat knew she didn’t want her heart broken again, so she was a little scared to hope. They hadn’t talked about what was going to happen when their two weeks were up. That was another cliff they were dancing the edge of, unsure which way to go. Cat loved her husband but they needed to get some things settled.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, leaving you alone in Virginia.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering why he had brought that subject up. “For a while it just felt like another deployment. The hardest part was not talking to you. I mean, even when you were in the field you were able to get to a phone occasionally. The complete shutdown was hard. You sent me that note a couple months after you left and I read that damn thing over and over again, trying to get some idea of what was going through your mind. I was so worried that you were going to hurt yourself. And the return address was a total dead-end. I tried to track you through that.”
He shook his head. “It was just a post office I stopped at on the way to Colorado for the job with Duncan. I didn’t plan on staying.”
Something occurred to her then. “When did you apply for the job with Duncan?”
He heaved a heavy sigh and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer. “I had started putting out feelers about a few months after I left the Teams, but I didn’t hear anything for a good while. When he called for an interview I jumped at the chance.”
Cat frowned at the flat words. He’d jumped at the chance to get away from them.
“You couldn’t even acknowledge the fact that you needed counseling but you applied to his company, which seems to only hire disabled vets.”
Harper winced. “Yeah. I know. This sounds a little crazy but I think in the back of my mind I knew I needed counseling. I just didn’t want to admit it. And being with the Teams it’s hard to admit to that stuff. Going to work for a company that requires it kind of gave me a pass. Hell, I don’t know.”
Cat could see that. Harper was one of the most stubborn men she knew. Incredibly masculine, borderline overbearing. She could see where admitting he needed help would chafe.
“And I knew Wilde from years ago,” he continued. “He’d given us support on an op that went to hell. We weren’t under his command but we’d worked together. I think it helped that he’d remembered my Team.”
“Well,” she said softly. “Regardless of why you got counseling, at least you got it. Are you still going?”
He nodded, crossing his long legs in front of him. “I have a standing appointment with Dr. Singh every other week.”
“And have you talked to him about us?” she asked, breath held.
“Dr. Singh is a her, and yes, I’ve told her about you.”
When he stopped there Cat could have screamed in frustration. “And?”
He turned his head to look at her with his good eye. “And she doesn’t agree with the fact that I left you behind. But she’s too nice of a lady to call me an outright bastard.” He heaved a great sigh and pivoted toward her a little on the rock. “I know you don’t agree with my decision to leave, but it made me feel better about the safety of my family. All of the things I was paranoid about I could control if I was away from you guys. I didn’t have to worry about somebody trying to attack me and you becoming collateral damage. Or the kids. God. I had a huge bounty on my head and it literally felt like a target on my back. And then there was that fucki
ng day when I woke up and Tate had my gun. It would have gutted me if he had pulled the trigger that morning. You know? I would have taken that bullet happily, because it was my fault. If anything had happened to you, my world would have ended.”
She saw the glitter of tears in his eyes before he turned to look out over the vista.
Cat wiped her own eyes, but felt like there was some softening in his stance to stay away. “I feel the same way, Harper. That morning was one of the worst of my life. Luckily Tate doesn’t even remember the incident.” She reached out and rubbed a hand over his broad back. “But when I married you I knew there was a chance that something could happen. Did I expect a normal life? Hell, no. You were a Navy SEAL, one of the most elite fighting machines in the country. I knew when the government called you were gone.” She choked out a laugh. “What woman would sign up for that craziness?” She heaved a great sigh and leaned against his back. “A woman who loved her fierce, dedicated warrior and knew his country would always take precedence over his family.”
He shifted as if to argue but she rocked her head against him. “But the problem is, even after you left it was still taking precedence. I know you were worried about retribution because of what you had done over there, but the chances of that actually happening are so slim. And I realize that going from running a million miles a minute, saving people, shooting guns to suburban home life is a devastating change. I had hoped that the training job would be a good transition between the two, but it didn’t seem to even have a bearing.”
“It did have a bearing,” he disagreed. “I had started to slow down. But you’re right. It’s so hard turning off the war machine. Over there you expect to be shot at. You expect to lose your best friends. When you sit in the dirt to talk to a guy and watch his head explode in front of you, it’s hard not to be that way.”
Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks at the harsh visual, but Harper just breathed through it. Cat tightened her arms around his back, hoping her presence could help him in some small way. “I’m sorry.”
He turned to look at her. “I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I just wanted you to understand how drastically different our lives were. I had to find a way to adapt to all those changes. Dr. Singh is helping me do that. And I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m amazed at all you’ve had to put up with and humbled that you’re willing to put up with more. For a while there I wondered if just letting you go wouldn’t be better for everyone.”
“It wouldn’t,” she murmured, resting her head against his chest. “You are a part of us. We can’t let you go like that.”
His heart thudded beneath her ear and his arms tightened around her but he didn’t say anything more. She didn’t need him to. Just the fact that he’d opened up to her so much was incredible. He’d never done that before. At least not without the situation falling into a screaming match.
Harper jostled her a little. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”
He pushed up from the rock then gave her a hand up. Cat picked up her sack and began to follow as he started down the trail, away from the house. “Wait a minute. What do you mean you have something to show me? How do you know where you’re going, Harper?”
Grinning at her over his shoulder, he didn’t pause. “I may have reconnoitered a little.”
Cat felt her mouth drop open in shock and she stopped dead on the trail. “You did what? You just got out of the hospital. You went hiking? When?”
Harper kept moving but she jogged ahead of him, holding a hand out to stop him. “Answer me, damn it!”
Harper paused, jaw clenched. “I went out the second day. Not too far. And I’ve been solid on my feet for a while now.”
Cat looked at him, aghast. “You weren’t solid the second day we were here. That was the day you fell on your ass in the kitchen. What would have happened if you’d tripped on a damn rock out here or something? I never would have found you.”
Anger sparked in his eyes. “That was a chance I was willing to take,” he snapped. “I had to make sure we were safe here.”
Cat rocked back on her heels, surprised that he’d snapped at her, as if she were the one in the wrong. But when she looked at his expression, he seemed to realize that he’d been in the wrong.
He just hadn’t been able to help himself.
Her anger cooled. As a SEAL he was used to pushing himself beyond everything. If she were honest with herself she was a little surprised he hadn’t gone out the first night after she had gone to bed. That was just the kind of guy he was.
Anytime they went on a family trip he would scout out the area. And as a sniper he always went for the high ground—rooftops, fire towers. He had taken her word for their surroundings at the hospital, but she should have known he wouldn’t be content with that forever.
It was why he’d had to mount the little cameras and motion detectors that had arrived this morning from his boss in Denver. There were wires running along the floor of the house and into the den because she wouldn’t let him drill holes in the walls. It’s a damn rental house, for shit’s sake, she’d told him.
Suddenly the anger just drained out of her. If they were going to put this marriage back together they needed to let all this little stuff go. Harper was fine—that was the main thing. “If you go out again, at least tell me. That way I’m not looking for you in places you aren’t. Okay?”
Harper nodded and seemed a little surprised she was letting it go. “I will. I promise. And I didn’t do it to piss you off. I just…” his voice trailed away. He looked out over the ridge as if he could see insurgents sweeping over it, then back to her. “I need to know we are secure.”
She nodded and walked forward to hook her elbow through his arm. “Okay, Harper. So what did you find?”
Chapter Eight
He started walking again, navigating around larger rocks. They walked down a short slope then had to go single file. Cat couldn’t tell what he was following, but she made sure to step where he did. They walked like that, kind of sideways on the hill, for about ten minutes before he finally slowed. There were bigger rocks here, reddish, that they had to weave around. Suddenly he paused and stepped to the side so she could see around him.
Cat gasped and walked forward, fascinated. The little spring seeping up from the rocky ground was an oasis. It was no bigger than a puddle really, but grass and bushes had crowded around it. “How on earth did you find this?” she whispered.
Harper grinned at her. “I followed the trail we were just on and it led me here.”
She frowned at him, not understanding. “What trail? I thought we were just walking.”
He shook his head, then suddenly reached out for a rock to steady himself. But he didn’t go down this time. After a few deep breaths he blinked at her. “We’ve been following small animal trails for the past fifteen minutes. I noticed them when I was scouting the area the other night. There were so many heading in this direction I knew there had to be something close.”
Cat shook her head, amazed and exasperated. There had been no trail that she’d seen, just rocky, sandy ground. She snorted. Leave it to the SEAL to find the only movement in the area. And the only water.
Circling the spring she tried to see the trails. There were a few faint lines through the underbrush, but that was it. She never would have seen them if he hadn’t pointed them out.
Harper knelt down, swirling his fingers through the clear water. Cupping his hand, he raised a handful to his mouth and swallowed. Then, groaning, he drank more.
Frowning, she shook her head. “Aren’t you worried about getting a nasty belly bug from that?”
Laughing, he looked up at her, water dripping off his chin. “If you had ever seen some of the places we’ve drunk from before, you wouldn’t worry about this little spring.”
Though his words didn’t relax her completely they did take some sta
rch out of her spine. The chances of getting something nasty were probably infinitesimal, but that didn’t mean she was going to do that.
Cat took a swig of water from her bottle, then found a patch of dirt to sit on that wasn’t too rocky. Harper finished drinking and swiped some water up over his head. It wasn’t particularly hot, but he was sweating a bit. He plopped down beside her in the dirt.
“Thanks for not freaking out too bad.”
Cat sighed, knowing she’d always been a little tight around him. “I never meant to make you feel defensive about what you did. I’ve just always been used to being the one in charge. The kids listen to me.”
“I’m not the kids.”
She snorted. “I know that. But it’s a control thing. When you weren’t there I kept control. Sometimes even when you were there I kept control.”
Harper picked up a rock, turning it in his hand. “When I came back a lot of the time I didn’t want anything to do with being in charge. I’d been in charge of a lot of lives over there. When I came home it was nice not to be responsible for all that. Not to be responsible for anything.”
Cat could understand that. Maybe someday she’d be able to relinquish a little control.
“Look there.”
Cat followed the line of Harper’s broad finger pointing down at the climbing slope across from them. She didn’t see anything at first, then something moved. It took her eyes several seconds to focus on the rabbit hopping through the underbrush. The thing was a long ways away and she was amazed Harper had seen it. “I can’t believe you spotted that. It has to be the better part of a half-mile away.”
Looking down at her, he grinned, and she knew he had just realized how far away it was as well. “Come on. I’m getting hungry.”
They hiked back to the house. Cat was tired, energized, but felt a little grungy. “I may go take a shower.”
Harper nodded, crossing to dig in the refrigerator. He dug out a couple of packages, then grabbed the bread from the counter. “PT gave you paperwork, right? Anything in there about strengthening this eye?”
