by Cara Carnes
Fuck.
Gage glanced at the two women, who paled further as they looked at him.
“He hasn’t seen what happened after the bastard got the clippers,” Vi whispered. “We cut the connection to the teams while it was happening.”
“Oh.” Doctor Sinclair’s eyes widened. “Gage should see all the footage. He’ll be there if she has an episode. He needs to see for himself what happened.”
Gage couldn’t agree more. He was still pissed the line had been cut, even though he understood why on an operational level. But he wasn’t an operative when it came to Zoey.
He had no clue how to help her.
Her hair.
His eyes burned as he remembered the ocean of purple and pink that’d coated the bathroom floor. Jesus. Those images from that bathroom would haunt him a thousand times harder than what’d gone down with his former team.
“What do I do?” He whispered the inquiry and prayed to hell someone within hearing distance had an answer. He had no fucking clue.
“Be there,” Mary said. “Talk to Dylan. He’s been a solid rock for me.”
“She’s right. Dylan can give you insight we can’t,” the doctor said. “Zoey’s a very expressive person. She’ll clue you into what she needs even if she doesn’t realize it.”
They’d get through this. He’d make sure they did.
“This will sound like a trap, but I promise it isn’t. Hear me out before you say no.” The doctor offered a hesitant smile as she licked her pink lips and moved her straight, brunette hair behind her ear. “Come to group therapy. I don’t know the full story, but I know something happened before you left the service. I’ve seen a redacted version of your record. There’s enough between the blanks for me to know you’d benefit from it. More importantly, Zoey would see that and feel safe doing the same.”
“Why wouldn’t she feel safe going to therapy?” Mary asked.
“You are very strong people who have been in the paramilitary arena a long time. I’ve never spoken with Zoey, but I’ve watched her progression from an overwhelmed outsider to a woman trying very hard to fit in.” The doctor looked at Vi and Mary.
“She doesn’t want them thinking she’s weak,” Gage said.
“Or you,” Jesse said. “You’re the big, strong, badass commando boyfriend who doesn’t do therapy.”
Gage grunted. The bastard had struck a low blow, but it impacted with precision. “Mission accomplished. If you’re done ganging up on me, I’m gonna go check on Zoey.”
22
The french toast was sprinkled with extra cinnamon and somehow crispy around the edges, even though it’d been in a warmer for a while. Zoey chewed the best-tasting breakfast she’d ever had and looked around at everyone gathered around the small cluster of tables.
The hospital administrator had found the Masons huddled in a hospital room and suggested a small cove of the hospital’s cafeteria they typically left closed off. It was perfect, yet the worst thing Zoey could imagine right now.
Because Momma Mason was still in recovery. The doctor had come in and spoken with Marshall and Nolan. Something about a complication from the sedative. Zoey’s hand trembled as she dutifully cut a wedge of toast and chewed.
Everyone was watching.
Waiting.
Worrying.
The least she could do was eat her danged food. The eggs were fluffy and tasty.
“Thank you for feeding us,” Zoey said across the narrow table to her friend.
Ellie blushed as everyone added their gratitude between shovels of food. To say people were inhaling the yumminess was an understatement. Somehow the normalcy of sharing a meal had washed away some of the ugliness coating Zoey’s thoughts.
Doctor Sinclair had waylaid her outside the showers and had finally left when Zoey promised she’d meet with the woman tomorrow. Persistence was clearly the woman’s chosen mode.
The rickety divider cordoning off the room opened. All attention moved to the area as Brant Burton entered. The man hadn’t appeared since Zoey had arrived. Even though he was Momma Mason’s primary care physician, a vascular surgeon and another one of some sort Zoey couldn’t remember had handled the first round of surgeries.
Translation—her injuries weren’t in his wheelhouse.
Everyone rose.
The doctor’s gaze swept them all. Though exhaustion plagued his face, he offered a smile. “She’s awake, alert, and bossing the nurses around for worrying over her. We’re leaving her in recovery another half an hour, and then she’ll be in a room.”
Riley was the first to laugh, followed by Cord, then Dallas and Kamren. The relief swept across the table in a wave Zoey felt when it impacted her. Gage leaned over and kissed her temple.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
“Yes. She’s awake.”
“She’ll be fine. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She had to be to raise those seven.”
Zoey couldn’t help but laugh.
“Remember when I said I wanted four or five?” Gage asked.
Zoey’s heart started the lambada. She remembered the conversation quite well. “Yeah.”
“Maybe we should stick with two or three,” he suggested. “Not sure I could handle big dinners like this every night. My luck we’d have all girls as beautiful as you and I’d spend most of my time in prison for beating up their punk-ass boyfriends.”
She laughed. The sound echoed around them as she wrapped her arms around Gage and laughed. He was a nut.
A nut who’d just made her the mother of his pretend kids.
“I think we need at least five. I like knowing my babies will always have a sibling at their six,” she whispered.
“Jesus, you’re starting to use the lingo. I’m doomed.”
She grinned up at him and drew his face down for a kiss. He hadn’t kissed her, but she needed his taste on her tonight. Maybe it’d be the magical elixir to help her mind move past what’d happened.
Gage tensed. She froze as if time had halted. Why had he tensed?
What if he didn’t want to kiss her?
She was hideous.
She’d looked in the mirror earlier. Deep gouges along her skull were red. Others were angry scratches that ran parallel in a mocking reenactment of a new-age Frankenstein.
Punches and slams to her face had resulted in ugly bruises already forming—bruises Logan had warned her would get much, much worse. Deep tissue injuries took a few days to show themselves.
She licked her lips and studied Gage’s confused face. Maybe kissing him right now wasn’t such a great idea after all. She blinked back the burn in her eyes and focused on the relief of those around her.
Momma Mason was awake and bossing nurses.
A bit of order had been restored.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she extricated herself from the table and made her way to the bathroom. The temporary reprieve from watchful eyes gave her a couple moments to study the damage once again.
The tears flowed freely.
Sealed within the small women’s bathroom of Nomad Memorial, she was free to let the dam release a bit more of the emotional upheaval she held back before she imploded. The tears became a sob. An angered, gasping cry.
Maybe the bastard had broken her after all.
A toilet flushed.
Zoey’s heart skidded to a halt as she realized she wasn’t alone. Someone was in the bathroom and had heard her emotional levee break. Through splotchy eyes, she watched Mary exit a stall.
The woman offered a smile as she made her way to the sink. “Sorry, the little monster’s slamming into my bladder today like it’s a football.”
Zoey couldn’t help but laugh. She and Dylan had opted not to find out the sex of the baby. That hadn’t stopped Momma Mason from finding out, though. A fresh stream of tears struck her as she realized the grandma almost hadn’t gotten a chance to see Dylan’s baby. Would she have recovered by the time Mary gave birth?
Likely not.
“This is the hardest part,” Mary whispered as she pumped soap into her hands and looked at Zoey through the mirror.
The faucet whined as it turned on, but Zoey’s mind was entering a thought trail created by the simple, yet profound statement. This was the hardest part. “Why?”
“Because you’re supposed to be relieved and thankful to be free and safe, but your mind’s still screaming because of what happened,” Mary said. “Then it loses its grip on the now and demands you go back and remember what it can’t forget. That sucks.”
“That happened to you?”
“Oh, yeah. Remind me to show you the tapes. A couple are real doozies. I had a meltdown when Dylan went on a mission shortly after. Right in the middle of the entryway to the command building.” Mary smiled. “Addy stopped it by opening a window and making me smell the countryside. I still get the smell of freshly cut grass and cow shit in my nose sometimes when I remember that day.”
Mary had flashbacks. Zoey had known, but she hadn’t put two and two together and made four. That fact hadn’t stored itself away as pertinent to what was happening. Yet it was. It totally was.
Because Mary was one of the strongest, most wonderful women Zoey had ever met. And she’d had trouble coping afterward.
“It’s okay if you have trouble. It’ll happen. Don’t try to go it alone,” the woman said.
“I-I’m hideous,” she whispered. “Gage tensed just now when I went to kiss him.”
Mary turned and wrapped her arms around Zoey. “Oh, Z, that’s ridiculous. That man is nuts about you. Do not dare stand in here and think he tensed because you tried to kiss him. He’s more protective of you than Dylan is of me.”
“But he tensed. And I look like a freak show.”
“He loves you. He declared that fact in front of every Arsenal operative.”
“He did.” Zoey couldn’t help but laugh. “I still can’t believe I whacked him on the ass.”
“That was the single most awesome thing I’ve seen all year. Straight up.” Mary smiled. “There’s no way in hell that man is seeing anything but what he saw before. The men who love us aren’t in it for the looks. We’re sexy in our own ways, but we aren’t supermodels. They love us for who we are. Geeks. They’re in love with our brains and our souls first and foremost.”
That sounded like Gage.
He found her cave gear sexy. He’d said so by saying he’d developed a fetish for leggings thanks to her. She smiled.
She couldn’t shower or bathe. She’d tried. Several times. So far getting anywhere beyond the toilet of the small bathroom she’d been escorted to earlier. She’d relegated herself to a washcloth bath via the sink. That’d have to do for now.
But it wasn’t normal.
“Promise me you’ll talk to Doctor Sinclair,” Mary said as she touched Zoey’s arm. “I know it’s hard to imagine spilling your guts to someone, but it’ll help. I swear. If you want, come to a group meeting first. You won’t have to talk. Just sit there and listen.”
“Wouldn’t everyone get pissed if I just showed up?”
“No. If they do, Jesse and I’ll kick their asses.”
“Jesse?”
“You’ll see quite a few people you know there. The Arsenal life gets intense. Group’s where we can go to offload everything. Heads up if you come, some will likely be talking about what went down the past few days. It’s a mind dump, Z. A way for operatives to debrief their worries and voice their thoughts on things.”
“I probably shouldn’t go then. I don’t want to make them uncomfortable.” Even though she liked the idea of offloading the things crawling around in her brain. It was like scrubbing a hard drive. A pain in the ass, but necessary.
“They’ll be glad you’re there because it means you aren’t going to try and go it alone.” Mary squeezed her arm. “If you get uncomfortable at any point, leave. It’s a judgment-free zone, and we never talk about what’s said there. Not even to each other.”
Zoey nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
“But talk to Gage. Tell him if something worries you. Don’t build houses of glass in your head. Ask him why he tensed.”
“I’m glad little D knocked your bladder around,” Zoey blurted.
Mary laughed. “I am, too, but I have to admit I’m ready for this particular mission to get green-lighted.”
The woman was going to be an excellent mom. “We’d better get back out there before they miss us.”
Bree quietly slid the door to the women’s bathroom shut and powered back to the table. The women didn’t need to know she’d heard more than she’d intended.
The pain of Zoey’s declaration struck Bree’s center mass, though.
Her best friend thought she was a hideous monster.
She sat, too overwhelmed by the emotional fallout of that statement. Zoey was one of the brightest, most wonderful lights in Bree’s tiny world. There hadn’t been many opportunities to grow new friendships since college graduation. She had Rhea, Vi, and Mary. She could add Addy to the list as long as she didn’t bug the redhead too much.
And Riley.
Okay, and Ellie.
And Kamren.
So the circle had more than tripled since Bree’d arrived at The Arsenal.
But that circle had blown wide open and formed a tighter one in the middle when Zoey arrived. A new dynamic had been created somehow, one she was finally getting to experience from the inside.
She’d always been on the outside of the friendship circles—relegated to the outer rung where everyone knew everyone else and hung out. But that rung didn’t have the extremely tight friendship like Vi and Mary shared. That’s how the Pentagon (the silly name they’d come up with for her, Rhea, Vi, Mary, and Addy) had been in the beginning. Then Riley and Kamren had been added. Then Zoey and, in a way, Ellie.
The latter was way shiftier and more mysterious than anyone Bree had ever met.
“Are they okay?” Gage growled from down the table.
“Yeah, they’re talking.”
Dylan sat back and relaxed. The man had sent her to check on his wife. Bree found the protectiveness from the commandos beyond cute. The two men watched the hallway leading to the bathroom.
Bree had to do something.
She hadn’t been able to help rescue Zoey, but she now realized her friend wasn’t out of the trenches yet. She’d entered a mine field no one realized existed, and even though Bree had no doubt Gage and everyone else gathered around the table would do anything to keep Zoey safe and happy, their hands would be full with Momma Mason’s recovery.
And baby Dylan.
Then baby Jud.
A plan formed in Bree’s mind. “I’m gonna go do something. I’ll see you all tonight. I’ll run the dots when I get to the compound, then check on Sara.”
Rhea nodded. No one gave her departure a second notice. For once Bree was thankful she was on the external fringes. She was in such a hurry to get to her downstairs cave-slash-laboratory that she slammed face first into a muscular wall of commando.
She peeked up. And up. And up.
Yeesh, he was a tall one. And big. Very big and bulgy.
“Erm, sorry. I can’t walk and deep-level think at once. That’s what Mary says.”
The man grinned. “You’re the weapons one.”
She gulped. Of course, tough-as-nails commandos focused on the weapons. “I’m kind of known for the energy thing first, but glad to see my sideline work is going viral. It’s better than being the crazy one. I’ve heard that bandied about.”
The grin turned to an outright smile that spotlighted his deep green eyes. A scar ran along his left temple and dipped into his light brown hair. “Some of us are okay with crazy. It keeps us on our toes. Name’s Ramon, but most call me Ram.”
Right. ’Cause Ramon was so hard to say. No doubt that one syllable they’d dropped was important in commando-world somehow. “Nice to meet you, Ram, but I’ve got to go.”
“I n
eed help.” He reached up and clasped her hair between his fingers. “I did something that’ll likely get me skinned by Sanderson.”
Oh boy. “He’s not one you wanna get on the bad side of. Then again, you know that, seeing how you’re one third of the Triple Threat who threw down to be on his team. That took balls of steel.”
The man chuckled. “I see my reputation is going viral, too.”
“Whether it’s a good thing is up for debate.” Bree crossed her arms. The movement shifted the man’s gaze down her body to her breasts. “What can I help you with?”
“This.” The man pulled a small black bag from under his shirt. “I thought maybe something could be done with it. Then I realized that might not have been a smart move on my part. Doug and Pierce wanna kick my ass.”
Surprise settled in Bree’s gut when the man held the small black bag out. Though she hadn’t opened the bag, she knew deep down what the man held. It was the sweetest thing she’d seen a burly commando do. She jumped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
“It’s a great idea, Ram. I’ll look into it and see what all’s involved.”
He chuckled. “Glad one of us agrees.”
“I’ll take it from here. This fits perfectly with what I was about to do. I’ve gotta get to work.”
Gage’s gut was churning a thousand revolutions a second as Zoey opened her door. For once he was thankful Dobby met them at the door. Kamren and the boys had dropped the cat off moments ago.
“Oh, Dobby, Mommy’s so glad to see you.”
Gage tensed as the cat did a spider walk sideways as if not recognizing her. Zoey froze. Her lower lip trembled.
Crap.
He reached down and scooped the cat up. “He’s just skittish. The boys dropped him off a few minutes ago. He was probably still reacclimatizing.”
Zoey reached over and scratched the cat’s ears. Dobby’s loud purring filled the room as Gage shifted the animal into her arms. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so much. I promise it’s all over now.”
Gage suspected the real war had just begun. He’d expected the women to surround her to the point he wouldn’t have a moment alone with her.
