Hard to Hold on To

by Laura Kaye

  “I’m sorry. I’m okay,” she said a few minutes later.

  “I know, but you don’t have to be,” Shane whispered.

  The urgent need to be alone suddenly hit Easy over the head.

  “Why don’t you all go downstairs and relax,” Becca said, rubbing Sara’s back. “I’ll hang here in case Jenna needs someone.”

  “No,” Easy said more gruffly than he intended. He just really needed them all to go. Now. “I’ll stay. You’ve been sitting up with Charlie every night. I’ll hang.”

  “I should stay in case she wakes up,” Sara said in a weak, exhausted voice.

  Cupping her face in his hand, Shane leaned down to look in her eyes. “You haven’t slept much in days. Jenna’s home and safe. Easy can text us if she needs us. Right, E?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, trying to breathe through his growing anxiety. Were the walls closing in?

  The debate was clear on her expression. “I don’t know . . .”

  “How ’bout this? Sleep while she’s sleeping. We’ll only be one floor down and can come up anytime you want,” Shane said. Easy’s jaw clenched while they waited for her answer. He had no right at all to want to be alone with Jenna, but that didn’t stop him from wanting it all the same.

  Rubbing her eyes, Sara let out a long sigh. “I guess . . . okay.”

  Shane nodded and threw Easy an appreciative glance. “Thanks. Text if you or Jenna needs anything.”

  “Yeah. Of course.” Go. Now. There’s not enough air for all of us. Easy’s heartbeat tripped into a sprint.

  “Jeremy, do you have a little lamp we can bring up here?” Shane asked him. “She’s gonna be disoriented when she wakes up, and a little less wattage than the overhead might be nice to leave on for her.”

  “Done,” Jeremy said, pushing off the wall. He and Charlie took off like they were only too glad to leave. It got incrementally easier to breathe.

  “I won’t leave her,” Easy said, meeting Sara’s searching gaze.

  “Thanks,” she said with a quick nod.

  And then, fucking finally, they were all walking away from him until they disappeared out the far door to the loft. The aloneness and stillness was like the barometric pressure rising after a storm, making it even easier to breathe and stand upright and push back the panic.

  Except, how the hell was he going to be of any use to Jenna if the sound and sight of her sister crying fucked him up like that?

  Noise at the front of the apartment drew his gaze again. Jeremy carried a small black lamp with a plain white shade. When he got close enough, he reached for the bedroom doorknob.

  Easy held out a hand. “I’ll take care of it. Uh, thanks,” he added, to cushion the edge on his tone.

  “Yeah, sure.” Jer turned away, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know exactly what happened out there, but I wanted to say you guys did good tonight.”

  Maybe. But Easy could never do good enough to make up for the past.

  For not having his best friend’s back when it mattered.

  For not getting to Marcus in time.

  For being helpless to do a damn thing as the life bled out of his teammate’s gut and eyes.

  Meeting the younger Rixey’s gaze, Easy forced himself to nod. “Overdue for a win,” he managed around the knot in his throat, gripping the lamp’s pole so hard he feared he might break the damn thing.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said, then left.

  Easy gasped for air and tried to see the beige wall in front of him instead of the goulash that had been what remained of his friend’s intestines. Abdominal wounds were fucking messy like that.

  “I’m done, E. Tell her I love . . .”

  Those last words were a brand on Easy’s soul. He turned his body toward the wall and banged his head against the surface. Once. Twice. Three times.

  When his lungs managed an in-out again, Easy figured that was as good as it was gonna get. Not waiting for the memories to replay once more, he pushed into Jenna’s room—louder than he should’ve, but she didn’t budge—and plugged the lamp into the outlet next to the bed.

  He turned away again, but his gaze got snagged on Jenna’s face, which lured him in. Stepping closer, Easy bent down, needing to see her chest rise and fall with his own eyes. Proof of life.

  Wake up. Wake up and give me a hard time. Anything. Just give me your eyes.

  She didn’t, of course.

  But Easy didn’t miss the fact that the tightness in his chest eased off when he was close to her like this. Not that he was gonna be a creeper and sit in here and watch her sleep.

  Stalking toward the door, he flicked off the overhead. From its position on the floor, the little lamp threw a much gentler glow over that corner of the room.

  Pulling the door most of the way shut, Easy slid down against the doorjamb, putting his ear at the opening in case she cried out and his body between Jenna and the rest of the world.

  Just in fucking case.

  Chapter 2

  EASY RIPPED OUT of the nightmare like the images in his subconscious were about to wrap their bony fingers around his throat. He was as disoriented as he was surprised he’d fallen asleep in the first place. Ass numb, back screaming, neck kinked, he shook his head in an effort to beat it all back.

  A distressed whimper. Then another.

  The sound worked where the physical motion hadn’t. Easy was immediately and clearly awake.

  Jenna.

  He was off the cement and beside her in an instant.

  Blue eyes flashed up to him with such fear and pain that it reached inside his chest and squeezed his heart.

  Easy crouched by the bedside and held up his hands. “Jenna, it’s Easy. Remember? You’re all right. My guys—the ones you met the other night—we got you back. You’re at a safe place. Sara’s here, and she’s okay, too,” he rushed out in a soft voice.

  Her eyes narrowed and darted from focusing on his face to a quick survey of her surroundings and back again. “E-E-Eas,” she rasped, her voice a dry scrape.

  Relief shot through his veins. “Yeah.”

  “Eas-y,” she whispered. And then she threw her upper body off the edge of the bed and caught him around the neck. “Th-thank you,” she said in a strangled tone.

  Moisture where her cheek pressed against his. Trembling shoulders. Thick swallows. Jenna’s crying both gutted Easy and built him up—because she didn’t fear him. Instead, she’d turned to him for comfort. Yet she cried so quietly that he might not have heard it had her mouth not been so close to his ear.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” he managed as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Slowly, he rose until his hip rested on the edge of the mattress.

  Jenna pulled herself closer until she was sitting in a ball in his lap, her arms so tight around his neck and shoulders it was like she was holding on to him for dear life.

  “Shh” he whispered as he stroked sweaty red hair off the side of her face. “You’re okay now.”

  “Okay,” she whispered against his throat. “Okay. Okay.”

  “Maybe I should go get Sara—”

  “No!” A quick shake of her head against his. “Don’t leave me.”

  No. He wouldn’t. He’d left a friend once and knew all the ways that could go wrong. “I won’t,” he whispered.

  Easy wasn’t sure how long he sat there holding her, he only knew that at some point the tremors in her body stopped, her hold loosened, and her breathing evened out. She’d fallen asleep. In his arms.

  That she’d found solace in him—a man who had no solace for himself—was the sweetest fucking thing he could ever remember experiencing. And it made him feel strong in a way he hadn’t in what seemed like forever.

  Knowing she needed rest above everything else, Easy slowly lowered them until Jenna lay on the edge of the bed. Half holding his breath, he gently slid his arms out from under her, his gaze on her face to see if his movements were disturbing her. But she stayed out cold.
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  And then he retreated to his place in the doorway. Only this time, he didn’t fall asleep. His body and ears were tuned in to every little noise Jenna made and kept him wide-awake. In case she needed him again.

  Needed.

  How long had it been since he’d really been needed?

  Actually, Easy didn’t have to ask that question. The day the Army had handed down the other-than-honorable discharge that had kept him and his teammates out of Leavenworth but tossed them out of the military had been the last time before this week he’d really felt needed, valuable, like he mattered in the least. And Easy had his commander, Colonel Frank Merritt, to thank for every single way that his life had gone down the drain over the past twelve months. Not that he should complain since he still had a life. Six of his teammates—including Easy’s own best friend, Marcus Rimes—hadn’t been so lucky that day out on a dirt road in the middle of bum-fuck Afghanistan when a checkpoint had gone bad.

  Though, if Easy was being honest, he often wondered who’d been the luckier parties that day. Those who’d lived or those who’d died?

  Either way, the shit pie all of them were now forced to eat had been Merritt’s doing since he’d betrayed the team, his own damn honor, and everything they’d all stood for by running a black op on the side for a coupla million in dead presidents.

  Which was why, when Nick Rixey had called over a week ago, Easy almost hadn’t come. What the fuck did he care if Merritt’s kids were up to their necks in danger?

  But the call—and especially Nick’s feeling that what was going on with the Merritts somehow tied back to what had happened to the team and therefore might give them a lead—had lured Easy in with the possibility of being needed again. Useful again. Present in the world again.

  None of which he had back home in Philadelphia, working for his father’s auto parts store. He liked cars as much as the next guy, but stocking, tracking down, and distributing new- and used-car parts wasn’t exactly a calling. It was a brainless, soulless activity that kept him functioning enough that no one looked too close or probed too deep. It was just a day-to-day, nine-to-fiver that gave him the bare minimum of a reason to open his eyes and get out of bed. And it contributed to the family business enough to keep his father from reminding him every five fucking seconds that Easy had ruined the good thing he’d had going.

  Nick’s call had rescued Easy from all that empty going through the motions that was his nonliving life. And maybe from acting on the dead-end thoughts that were becoming more and more intrusive and alluring.

  Easy scrubbed his hands over his face and peered over his shoulder at Jenna. His eyes couldn’t get enough of the contrast of her fiery hair against the pale cream of her skin. He sighed.

  The damn irony was that Easy hadn’t wanted to go into the Army. That had been his father’s solution to the trouble Easy had gotten into as a teenager. At first, he’d been resentful as hell. Initially, he’d hated the orders and the barking drill sergeants and pretty much everything else about boot camp. But by the end of that training, Easy had found the promise of brotherhood and acceptance in a way he never had before. And God how he’d wanted it. He’d excelled at every other school and training required to go SF, and eighteen months later, came out wearing the beret.

  The best of the best.

  All gone now.

  Jenna’s moan drew his gaze across the room again. She’d pushed her upper body off the sheets and all that pale cream had disappeared in favor of a sickly green.

  Easy scrabbled off the floor, grabbed the bucket, and lifted it just as Jenna threw up.

  There wasn’t much to catch.

  But that didn’t keep her body from dry-heaving over and over until Easy’s gut clenched in sympathy. Jenna clutched the edge of the bucket and curled around it the same way she had his body earlier. He scooped her hair into a ponytail and held it back from her face. The red was just as striking against the dark brown of his skin. He wouldn’t mind seeing it sprawled across his chest . . .

  Easy cut that line of thinking off before it went somewhere absofuckinglutely inappropriate. Especially given how sick Jenna was. And, well, to be completely fair, how sick in the head he was. And those two were just for starters.

  But, of course, his brain couldn’t stop there with all the reasons that the two of them turning into something more than protector-protectee wasn’t ever happening. Putting aside the fact that they barely knew each other, which wasn’t nothing, their age difference was another reason. Easy had to have seven or eight years on the younger Dean sister. And, no doubt, the older sister wouldn’t want some old, borderline criminal, definitely washed-out soldier for the sibling she’d fought so hard to protect. And honestly, having let Rimes die, how the fuck did Easy think he could do right by someone like Jenna? Which raised the fubar they found themselves in the middle of—couldn’t forget that as a reason why that solace Easy found in Jenna’s presence wouldn’t be leading anywhere anytime soon. Not to mention that he lived three hours away—some days he couldn’t get his ass out of bed let alone to try to have a long-distance relationship . . .

  Spiral. Spiral. Spiral.

  Easy excelled at the downward spiral of negative thoughts these days. Didn’t matter if the thing he was sitting and spinning on wasn’t even in the realm of the possible. Not really the point. The point was that everywhere he looked, he saw walls too damn high to climb even if he’d had the energy and the will to climb them, which he mostly didn’t.

  What a fucking prize he was.

  “Thank you,” she said on a raspy exhale. “Sorry.”

  “Not necessary,” he said, forcing himself out of the tangle of his head and focusing on what mattered. “I’d offer you water, but I don’t think you could keep it down.”

  The groan she unleashed was as much of an answer as he was gonna get. Jenna released the bucket and crumpled onto the bed.

  When he was sure she was out again, he made a trip to the latrine down the hall, cleaned the bucket, and wet a cloth for her. Then he splashed his face with ice-cold water just to try to jar a little of the bullshit out of his head. He tugged his cell from his pocket and woke it up to see that it was after two in the morning.

  “Easy!”

  The shriek had his feet moving before his brain even processed Jenna’s distress.

  Eyes wide and face pale, her upper body was propped up by her elbows. Her gaze clawed onto him the minute he skidded into the room.

  “I’m here. Right here.” He dropped the bucket to the floor and resumed his position on the edge of the bed.

  “I . . . I didn’t know . . . I was . . .” She shook her head and swallowed thickly. “Don’t leave me,” she finally managed. “Please.”

  Needed. She needed him. Her fear and panic gutted him, but if his presence could soothe that fear—if his presence could be a boon to another—that would . . . that would mean everything. “I’m not going anywhere. You need me, I’m here.”

  Jenna gave a quick nod and curled her whole body around Easy’s where he sat on the bed, her thighs tucking against his lower back, her belly against his hip, her chest and face against his thigh. She grasped his hand and pulled it against her heart like a child cuddling a teddy bear.

  And something about her trembling body and uncontrolled shudders and racing heart beat stilled all the shit in his mind.

  Be there for her.

  Purpose. Mission. Reason to be.

  “Not going anywhere,” he whispered around the knot suddenly lodged in his throat.

  For a man who’d been standing so far out on a ledge he’d been dangling one foot over the great white nothingness, these things represented a lifeline. The whole damn week of being reunited with his team had promised the existence of such a thing, but right here, in this moment with Jenna Dean, Easy actually found it.

  JENNA DEAN HAD thrown up so much she wasn’t sure if she had any internal organs left, but since she still drew breath, she figured at least her lungs remained intact.
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  As many seizures as she’d had in her life, she’d never gotten that sick for this long, which meant it hadn’t all been from yesterday’s seizure. It had been from what Bruno had given her.

  Forcing her eyelids open was the only way to keep the memories of her capture and imprisonment from playing against the insides of her eyes, especially when her gaze immediately settled on the head and shoulders of the man who’d saved and taken care of her.

  Easy.

  Through a warped, blurry memory, she could see him lifting her into his arms and pulling her in against his broad chest. When had that happened? Or maybe she’d dreamed it?

  No, she didn’t think so.

  How long had she been in this room? And where was this room anyway? She had no sense of time or place whatsoever.

  She only knew that, wherever she was and however long she’d been here, Easy had been right by her side the whole time. Now, he sat on the floor, his back against her bedside, his head hanging loose on his thick, broad shoulders as if he were asleep.

  The man barely knew her, and yet second to Sara, he’d been there for her more than any other person on the planet. He’d seen her at her absolute worst, likely an understatement given how much she’d puked and how she had to smell, and yet, here he still sat.

  Any man willing to handle the tears and vomit of a strange woman to whom he owed absolutely nothing was someone worth getting to know better. That had to be in a girls’ guide to guys somewhere.

  The thought might’ve made Jenna smile if her lips weren’t so dry and there wasn’t a stinging pull on the one side of her mouth. From backhand number two, as she recalled. Which she really didn’t want to do if she could help it.

  Curled in a ball facing him, Jenna pushed her hand across the blue bedding and laid her fingers on his shoulder. Wiggled them a little.

  Nothing.

  Poor guy. If she’d been up all night catching someone’s puke in a bucket, she’d be passed out right about now, too.

  Thinking about how Easy had cared for her made Jenna think about her older sister. Sara’s whole life the past four years had been about taking care of and keeping Jenna safe—no matter the cost. And, oh, God, the cost had been high. So high. Just thinking about everything Sara went through after their father’s death—imprisonment, rape, the forced labor to the Church Gang, the constant threat that had hung over their heads, unbeknownst to Jenna—all of it hurt Jenna’s heart so bad she was sure someone had reached inside her chest and squeezed the organ with all their might.