All I Need

by Christa Conan

  Empty.

  Bear began to topple, and Shannen grabbed for the worn stuffy. Choking back an all-consuming sob, she sank back on the edge of the bed, clutching the animal and watching as momentum continued to rock the barren cradle.

  She heard the door squeak. Without turning, she knew Rhone had joined her. She squeezed her eyes closed against the stinging sensation, against the very real possibility her son might never return to demand Bear.

  “Can I come in?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer.

  She didn’t expect him to.

  Despite everything, despite the anger, pain, frustration and blame, she didn’t want to be alone. Suddenly she couldn’t face the next few hours—not without help.

  Not without Rhone’s help.

  The door closed behind him with a nearly inaudible click. For a few seconds she didn’t know where he was, if he still stood near the door, or whether he’d crossed to her.

  A subtle scent of man and spice commingled in the air. Yet this time, she wasn’t threatened, wasn’t scared. The scent took her back to a time when everything had been okay, a time when love bloomed and the future waited, with promises and expectations.

  A feeling of guilt nearly overwhelmed her as she clung to the memory of a better time. Yet, a part of her mind—she assumed it was the part meant to block her from pain—wouldn’t let it go.

  A gust of fresh, pure mountain air assaulted her. She opened her eyes, then faced her husband. He stood near the window he’d just opened.

  He looked tired. Weary, as if the weight of the world’s problems rested solely on his shoulders.

  She couldn’t pinpoint the cause, but knew it was a combination of her lies of omission and the fact the investigation wasn’t moving fast enough for him.

  A serving of guilt sought her out and dove inside.

  Rhone had been right about a lot of things. If she’d ever had the courage to tell him about his son, he might have been able to prevent the gruesome events.

  As much as she admitted the truth to herself, she couldn’t say the words aloud.

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “The air’s cold.”

  “Would closing the window truly chase away the cold?”

  With honesty, with Bear pressed tightly against her chest, where she wished her child nestled, Shannen shook her head. “Nothing, except having Nicky back, would make me warm again.”

  Rhone rested his shoulders on the log-hewn wall, arms folded across his chest. A deceptively relaxed stance. Shannen knew better, knew the hard steel of a gun lay against his spine, knew his knees were flexed so he could move any direction if necessary.

  “Do you want me to leave?” he asked quietly, words carrying to her on the crisp air, the same air that brought his scent...and the vivid memory of him.

  He wasn’t talking about forever—he’d said he’d never give her that option again. With forced bravery she met his gaze.

  “Or do you want me to stay?”

  In the silence, she heard the ticking of the clock, the ragged intake and exhale of Rhone’s breaths. He would leave if she asked him to.

  Then she would have to face the ghoulish nightmare all by herself, no one at her side to slay the dragons.

  She wished she could see more clearly, needing to know what his eyes reflected that his voice didn’t. “I’m afraid, Rhone,” she whispered.

  Silence stretched.

  Then he nodded. “I am, too.”

  His admission squeezed past her resistance to let him stay, his honesty shaking her to her soul. “I can’t stop thinking about Nicholas, can’t conquer my fear that I’ll never hold him again or hear him call for me.” Her voice trembled. “The night is so long.” She was sure she echoed his own thoughts.

  “Shannen, I know how you feel about me, how much you blame me.”

  “And you blame me.”

  He inclined his head in unspoken agreement. “But I’m willing to try and put it aside—for right now—if you are.”

  She knew what he offered: comfort and companionship to get through the long, horrible hours until daybreak.

  Agreeing to let him stay wouldn’t change facts, wouldn’t return their relationship to the magic they once shared. If she accepted the offer of his company, she would have to accept the offer for what it was: simply a chance to share the burden.

  She blinked back a tear and whispered, “Stay. I want you to stay with me, Rhone.”

  She didn’t bother to hide her feelings, the dim light shrouded them in secrecy, anonymity. Not that it mattered. Her voice, when she spoke, laid them bare. “I need...you. Hold...” Her voice broke. “Hold me, Rhone. Make me warm.”

  In a fluid motion he shoved away from the wall. Bear fell to the floor unnoticed when Rhone swept her up and carried her to the head of the bed.

  Lightly she ran her fingertips over his features. Close up, she could see longing—stark and startling in its intensity, sketched across his taut face, searing her.

  After setting her down, he propped pillows, then sank down on the bed behind her, pulling her close. Her back rested against his chest, her head supported by his shoulder.

  It felt good, right, if only for a fleeting stoppage of time.

  Rhone wrapped constricting arms around her, just beneath her breasts, with a tension that communicated his own powerful need to experience a tendril of tenderness, of closeness.

  As minutes marched by, she stayed in the comfort of his arms, like she used to. The way they sat was intimate, yet not overly so. Situated this way, they’d once shared confidences and hopes for the future.

  Sadly, she remembered the time right after they were married that she’d told him she wanted his child. He’d pushed her away and turned her in order to read the unguarded expression in her eyes. She’d seen a responsive flicker of excitement in his own. In that instant, she knew the man she’d chosen as her life partner would be an excellent father.

  But the marriage slowly disintegrated, until she was only a shell of a person, worried he wouldn’t return, terrified of all the things that could happen. She’d known what he did for a living when she smiled and allowed him to slide the engagement ring on her finger. But through the years, the band of gold had become a band of bondage, tying her to a lifestyle she wasn’t strong enough to deal with.

  And then, when she had discovered her pregnancy, she knew life couldn’t continue the way it had. Hot tears of failure chasing down her cheeks, she’d slipped off her wedding set and locked it in a jewelry box, vowing to get on with her life.

  Without Rhone.

  The sense of success she thought she’d acquired in the past two years had been just that, a sense. Truth was, she wasn’t any better without him than she had been with him.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said against her ear, breath fanning through her hair and sending a little shiver through her.

  Strangely, she wanted to talk, needed to share, garner comfort. “Nighttime’s always the worst, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer, merely splayed his fingers across her flat abdomen.

  “Shadows play on the ceiling and walls. And in your heart.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Nighttime’s the worst.”

  Rhone held her still, waiting for her to continue, evidently sensing her need to talk. He was right, reading her with accuracy borne from years of experience.

  “I can’t stand not knowing if he’s still alive.” For a full minute, seconds ticked off by the uncaring clock, Rhone didn’t respond. She knew he wouldn’t lie. And offering reassurances would be tantamount to lying. “I hate sitting here wondering if he’s crying for me. Wondering if he’s hungry, hurt or worse. Wondering if they know how to tell if he needs medicine.” She shuddered. “Wondering if he’s struggling for every breath.”

  Rhone’s arms tightened around her. Shannen realized with a sinking sensation how thoughtless she’d been. Rhone was doing everything humanly possible to save Nicky, to bring him home. A m
ission he was risking his life for.

  Shannen struggled away, then turned to face him. “Oh, Rhone, I’m sorry.” Sorry for everything. She reached to touch his face.

  “Shh,” he said. “Tonight’s not about punishment. Or guilt. Right now, we just have to figure out a way to make it until dawn.” She crumpled like a rag doll carelessly tossed in the corner.

  With firm, unyielding pressure, he gathered her close and offered the solid support of his own body.

  Even if she’d never loved him before, she knew she would have fallen for him in that very instant. There were so many things he could say, so many accusations he could justly hurl at her. Yet he said nothing.

  His silence provided solace, comfort, if not healing. Rhone shifted and she experienced a sudden stab of fear that he might leave her alone to face the darkness.

  “Rhone?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone tonight.”

  “I’m right here, Shannen, for as long as you need me.”

  “Talk to me,” she said, wanting to listen to the soothing depth of his tone. But more, wanted him to share that darkest part of himself where secrets hid. “Tell me about the things that happened while we were apart. The things that took you away from me.”

  His shudder passed completely through her body. Though he didn’t immediately say anything, his tension wrapped around them both, cloying and frightening.

  “I’m not good at talking, Shannen. Never was.”

  “But if you truly mean to be a part of our son’s life if—when—we get him back...” She paused for a deep breath, reassuring herself things would be okay. “...we need to be able to communicate. For Nicky’s sake we have to talk.”

  He seemed to take in her statement. When she tried to turn again, he held her firm. “It’s easier this way,” he said.

  She nodded, settling back against his chest. Her hand lay next to his wrist and she felt the reassuring beat of his pulse.

  “I never wanted to leave, Shannen. A huge part of me recognized you were right, that the marriage wouldn’t work without one hundred percent commitment from both of us. I wanted to give it. But I couldn’t stay, hold you in my arms, make love to you every night and pretend that who I am isn’t who I was.”

  What shouldn’t have made sense did.

  “There was no way I could live with myself if I hadn’t finished what I started. I would’ve hated myself, learned to hate you, too.”

  She flinched.

  Because Rhone had never been one to open up, that alone had caused more fights than anything. Shannen had grown up in a household where no one spoke with excitement or shared the daily trials and thrills. Dinner with her parents had been deadly dull, her father barely glancing up from where he read the newspaper. She remembered no passion between her parents, nothing but cold looks and limp smiles. She’d longed for a brother or sister, cousin, anyone to break the monotony.

  It wasn’t until her teenage years when she joined friends and their families for meals that she saw how abnormal hers was. One night, she’d calmly announced to her parents that one of her female friends had joined the French foreign legion and that Shannen intended to join her in a few weeks. Her mother had muttered something along the lines of “That’s nice, dear.” Shannen’s father had grunted from behind the daily news, the paper not even rustling. Shannen had sworn then that her family life would be different, better.

  Then she’d married Rhone, a man every bit as closed and remote as her father. A therapist friend had given a fancy name to Shannen’s affliction. She preferred to call it blind love. This side of Rhone was different, maybe not better, but certainly a welcome change to the clam who’d only mouthed one word when questioned—”Security.”

  “I would have been back sooner. I intended to come looking for you—as soon as we iced Menendez.” He fell ominously silent. “It didn’t work out that way.”

  Her pulse roared in her ears. Or was that the thundering of his?

  “All your hurtled accusations, your worst fears came true. Maybe it was for the best you went on with your life, not knowing.”

  A new chill crept up her spine. She shivered. He reached for a comforter and pulled it across them.

  “You sure you want to hear this?”

  “Yes.”

  Without being told, she knew he was about to divulge information he probably shouldn’t. That he trusted her enough was a milestone.

  “We got him in the end, but I wasn’t so lucky. There was another minion in hiding.” Rhone shrugged. “It was a trap. We lost a couple of good men that day, men I’d known and worked with, men with families.”

  He dragged in a jagged breath, before going on. “I could have gotten out, but it would have meant Menendez skating.”

  Rhone pounded a fist on the mattress. She felt his tension, his frustration and rage.

  “I’d worked too damn long and hard, spent months—hell, years—in the jungle, and I wasn’t going to miss my chance.”

  “What happened, Rhone?” She dreaded the answer, as much as she needed to hear it.

  “I was taken captive.”

  She froze. Blood ran like ice through her veins. Captured? In Central America? She’d seen movies, read books. Suddenly, illness welled in her stomach.

  “Yeah,” he said, agreeing with her unspoken assessment. “It was all that, and worse.”

  “Your shoulder?” Tentatively, she turned on her side and reached a hand up, only to have him expertly ensnare it.

  “Will never be the same, nor will a lot of other things.”

  This time, when she fought for release, he gave it to her. She faced him, unable to comprehend the horrors he’d endured.

  Tears scalded their way down her face.

  “Don’t cry for me,” he commanded roughly, thumbing them away. His rough skin abraded her cheek. “I don’t deserve your tears. I never have.”

  She reached up, capturing his hand in hers. Bringing it to her lips, she placed a kiss in his palm, then glanced up at him.

  “And if it had been me in your place? Would I, too, not deserve your tears? Your empathy and compassion?”

  Watching her, his eyes narrowed, creating a furrow between his brows. With his mouth closed, lips in a tight line, she might’ve imagined his deep-throated groan.

  In a single motion, he drew her against him.

  Needing the man who had the power to destroy her, she inched closer, if that was possible. Heard the sound of sucked-in breath.

  “Shannen?” His voice was hoarse. “Don’t play with fire.”

  She looked at him through the distorting sheen of tears. She didn’t see a cold, heartless person, who’d turned away from his wife when she needed him most. Instead, she saw a man haunted by the agonies of trying to be everything to everyone. “I’m not playing.”

  His gaze seemed to stare straight into her.

  Her heartbeats increased. Slowly, inexorably, she moved her hand lower, until her fingers lay against his heart.

  “You’re worried about Nicholas,” he said roughly, grabbing her hand.

  She nodded. “I’m worried about you, as well.”

  “That’s not the right reason to make love.”

  “I’m cold, broken spirited and have a deep need to be held, to be intimate. I think you do, too. Is needing each other, being able to offer each other comfort, so terrible? I need you, Rhone. Right here, right now.”

  His nostrils flared with the effort of containing himself.

  “If these aren’t the right reasons to make love, I don’t know what the right ones might be,” she added.

  “I don’t want you to do something you’ll end up regretting.”

  She smiled wryly. “I’m willing to take the chance.”

  “Shann—”

  “Rhone, we shared a lot. Not once did I ever regret the fact we made love.”

  For a second, he squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s different now.”

  “How so?”
/>
  “A lot of things have changed.”

  “Do you—” she hesitated, looked at him “—want me?”

  He brushed her hair back from her face. “Oh, yes,” he breathed. “More than you can know.”

  “Show me, Rhone. Make the terror, the ugliness, go away, if only for a little while. Let me do the same for you.”

  Rhone asked no more questions.

  Cupping her face, he leaned forward. She moved to meet him halfway. Her hands skimmed along his arms to his shoulders as his lips settled over hers.

  She sighed into his mouth. It’d been too long. That Rhone felt it, too, was confirmed when, in the span of a pulse beat, what had begun as gentle and tender became a raging inferno of pure flaming need.

  Tilting her head, first to one side then the other, Shannen returned Rhone’s kisses with a hunger that took full possession of her mind and heart.

  Rhone shifted, somehow managing to bring them both to a sitting position in the center of the bed; all the while, their tongues met and withdrew in a bold, erotic dance of promise.

  Shannen was vaguely aware Rhone’s fingers shook like hers as they fumbled with buttons, snaps and zippers.

  She moaned when Rhone drew back. His voice, rough with the same raw intensity that consumed her, spoke words that made no sense. When he lifted the sweatshirt over her head, helped her out of her jeans and panties, tossing them aside, she understood. She returned the favor. Anxious for the feel of warm bare skin, she flung his clothes the same direction hers had gone.

  Incapable of thought, only feeling remained, almost more than she could stand. Every nerve responded to his questing touch, burning a trail of need so absolute, it left her trembling.

  Wanting.

  Begging.

  At his urging, she lay down, bringing Rhone with her. Beneath her roaming fingertips, she felt the ripple of scars on his back and shoulder. She gave a tiny gasp.

  His hands, positioned on either side of her head, rocked it gently, silently asking her to look at him. She blinked, trying to disguise, to contain, her anguish at the horrors and brutality he’d encountered. And failed.