H.A.L.O. Undone (Broken HALO Book 1): A Broken HALO Novel (Broken H.A.L.O.)

by Jillian Neal

  “Yeah, man, someone’s in trouble. You. We thought about having an intervention but we couldn’t decide between beer or tequila shots for a damned-and-determined-to-be-miserable party. It’s high time somebody stepped in to give you the one thing you’ve always needed but never really been able to have.” Half joke. Half honesty. I didn’t know what to do with this version of T. The one thing I’d always needed but couldn’t have is the one thing I’d kept from him, from the entire team. It was the one part of myself I refused to give up for the good of the brotherhood.

  My traitorous gaze shifted to the combat vest folded under my helmet on one of my bookshelves. When had my own eyes stopped taking orders from my brain? Damned good way to get yourself blown to hell in the field. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. My entire body took to doing whatever it wanted whenever I thought about her. The all too familiar ache slammed through me again, like a bullet but worse because there was no suture or any amount of painkiller that would mend the wound.

  Unable to believe what I was about to agree to, I let my eyes close for an extended blink, and there she was. Like someone had maliciously tattooed her gorgeous form and that smile that I knew sprung open the gates of heaven on my eyelids.

  The way she used to whisper my name echoed against the recesses of my skull. The way my touch could always make her tremble burned in my fingertips. Her hungry moans ricocheted through my mind. The way she laughed when I cracked a lame joke took station in my ears. The way she spread her legs for me. The slight shadow at the apex of her thighs she revealed at my instruction. The marks of my teeth I’d leave there. The spice of her creamy musk danced on my tongue. The tight, hot, silky channel where she took me in and made me certain she’d been formed just for me. The only place I ever belonged.

  The way she sank her teeth into her bottom lip when I got her close. The way she came for me, screaming my name, calling me a god, and begging for more. It was always right there. Right between my shoulder blades. Directly under my skin. On the highest cloud when my boots were soldered to the ground. Always just out of reach.

  2

  Hannah

  “Hey, Rach,” I called from my office again. By the time I got on the plane the next day she was probably going to have fired me from being her friend and her employer. Assuming you could actually fire your employer, which I was not sure you could. The point is she was going to hate me.

  Rachel’s fiery red curls bounced as she whisked into my office. She adjusted her glasses and then shook her head at me, forcing her to have to make a secondary correction of them as they slipped down her freckled nose. “You are not a horrible person. This is absolutely what you must do. It’s so freaking romantic I’m devastated I didn’t come up with it myself. Soulmates. Uh…” she checked the notepad she was carrying. “What he said to you in the hospital. The way you make each other feel. The fact that neither of you have gotten over the other and…oh, let’s check the combat vest picture T sent you again.”

  “You made notes on how to make me stop freaking out?” That was actually supremely logical.

  “Hannah, this is the fourth time I’ve been in here, and it’s barely ten o’clock. It was more efficient to make notes. Plus, I’ll be able to type them up and send them to you tomorrow when you text me another dozen times before you get on the plane. Now that I think of it, I should’ve booked you an earlier flight. We’re ripping off the bandage remember?”

  “What if he hates me for doing this to him? I’m basically forcing him to spend a week with me.” All of that was true and yet Rachel’s list was incomplete. There were so many memories, instances when he’d let his guard down in the last few years, that I would never share with anyone, not even the girl who helped me keep Palindrome Design running. I was never quite sure what to do with girlfriends anyway. When you move around every year and a half your entire childhood, friends are variable. Griff and I were not.

  Rachel pursed her lips. If you’ve never been on the receiving end of a glare by a redhead, you don’t know the power of those green eyes that are obviously telling you you’re being ridiculous. I sank my teeth into my tongue to keep from saying more.

  She jerked my cell phone off the massive desk I’d had Liam, my carpenter, construct from an old barn door we’d rescued for a job out in Boulder but hadn’t ended up using. She entered in my passcode, touched my texts app, scrolled for a second, and thrust the image of Griff’s old combat vest, the one I couldn’t stand to see due to the rips and the frays from bullets that thankfully hadn’t penetrated, toward my face. And there it was. A ragged photograph of me he’d methodically covered in clear packing tape to keep it from getting ruined no matter what he had to do, that he’d kept in a concealed pocket.

  The picture was pressed to his heart by a body armor plate, the very thing that had kept him alive. It was hidden from sight until T had revealed it on the med evac helicopter that had taken Griff to the hospital in Germany. The profound meaning of its location wasn’t lost on me. I pushed the phone back toward Rachel. “I can’t look at that anymore. It’s narcissistic to look at a picture of myself so often.”

  That wasn’t really it. Every single time I allowed myself to open my text messages and search for that image, my ribcage tore itself apart, my heart escaped and took up residence in my throat and compressed all of the air from my lungs. Much the same breathless reaction I had whenever I actually got to see Griff, only more painful. What if he hadn’t come home? Over half of their team hadn’t. I’d allowed my family to hurt him, to ultimately tear us apart. I was going to fix this. I owed it to him, to me, and to us.

  When I’d finally broken down and called T-Byrd a few months ago to ask if maybe he’d help me talk with Griff about everything that had happened, he’d told me about the photograph. It was the one thing that had kept me going in all of this planning for the auction.

  Rachel cleared her throat. “If he can’t have you, he’d rather go on and die. He doesn’t want to do life without you anymore. He can’t. Those were his words, Hannah. All his, while lying on a hospital bed. There is nothing more honest and raw than a man hovering between life and death saying things like that to you. He’s just being stubborn. Sometimes a woman has to get a guy to snap out of it. That is your Vegas mission, my friend. Go forth and conquer the Beret,” she commanded.

  Rachel’s words sent another wave of determination through me. I was going to do this. My stubborn Green Beret was going down. In fact, he was going down in every possible way I could possibly mean that. I tried to hide my smirk over the deliciously naughty thought.

  Suddenly, the phone in her hand was ringing. Rachel’s eyes rounded and panic sparked in their pine green depths like a warning flare in a forest. “It’s Smith!”

  “Under the pillow! Put it under the pillow!” I pointed to the settee near my office door. Ever reliable, she stuck it under one of my grain sack pillows and stacked two more on top of it. We stared at the ringing heap like we’d somehow pulled the pin out of a grenade and the pillows would protect us from the detonation. When the incessant ringing finally stopped we both slumped in relief.

  “Wait?” Rachel’s hands landed on her hips. “Why are we hiding from your brother’s phone calls? It’s not like he could have overheard what we were talking about. He’s not that good.”

  “Says the girl who did not grow up with a brother who’s a Green Beret and a father who’s a general. It’s like being raised by the entire CIA, NSA, and FBI all at the same time.”

  The phone blared again from its cushioned bunker.

  “He’s going to keep calling and eventually he’s going to call me to find out where you are,” Rachel reminded me.

  But it wasn’t the number of times Smith called that had me concerned at that moment. Flinging pillows off of the phone, I stupidly prayed I would see Griff’s name instead of my brother’s. He used to call me every few weeks, usually in the dead of night, and force small talk for a few minutes. Eventually he’d confess in a haggard choke that I
swore ripped my heart into a thousand delicate strands only he could weave back together, that he just needed to hear my voice and know that I was okay. He hadn’t called in two months. I was not okay, and we were not doing this anymore. My father and my brother could just get over it.

  But Smith’s name, not Griff’s, glowed infuriatingly on my screen. Another round of guilt tugged on those fragile glass strings comprising my heart. Smith was more than my big brother. He was my best friend. I had no right to keep avoiding him.

  No one else knew what it was like to grow up as army brats, the son and daughter of the General of the entire Fourth Infantry Division. Our father was a force. He was a theater commander during one of the two Iraqi wars. For the other one he was the commander of a brigade combat team. He was also a two-time commander of joint task forces in Kosovo and Korea, and an advising chairman to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oh, he was also a distinguished graduate of Army War College. Yes, that’s a thing. He had a dozen other impressive titles bestowed on him including the coveted Cadet Brigade Commander right out of West Point. In army lingo, all of that basically means no one, and I mean no one, defies my father, Four Star General Gerald T. Hagen. Until now.

  I rescued Smith just before he had to listen to my voice mail message again. “Hey, bro.” I cringed and tried to regulate my breathing. He’d been trained to pick up on the slightest note of hesitation in your tone, to study how easily you drew breath, to know precisely when someone was lying. They all had.

  “What the hell is Mom doing?” he growled in my ear.

  Mom. Of course. All of the air pent up in my lungs came out in a relieved hiss. I prayed he was distracted at that moment. I could definitely discuss our mother. Just so long as he didn’t want to know too much about my upcoming plans, I’d talk to him about Mom all freaking morning.

  I giggled. “Do you mean specifically at this moment or in a more general sense?”

  “Hannah-B,” he warned. I rolled my eyes at the shortened version of my childhood nickname. “I mean specifically right now why the hell does she keep calling me about hiking?”

  I bit my lips together trying to imagine the look on his face when I explain our mother’s latest endeavor. In that instant, I missed my big brother like crazy. “Well…” another giggle erupted, “…she read this book about the woman who apparently decided it would be a good idea to spend three months hiking some trail to find herself. So, now, Mom’s decided she’s going to hike some trail that leads to some kind of hot spring thing.”

  “Dear God.”

  “Yeah. According to her, skinny dipping in the hot spring is necessary for the self-discovery.”

  My brother sputtered profanity and what was probably coffee. I doubled over laughing. “Jesus, Hannah, I did not need to know that.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, you did because I will not be the only person on this planet that has to bear that knowledge. Also, you’re welcome.”

  “You are such a brat.”

  “But you love me.”

  “Only occasionally,” he goaded. “She asked me how long it took us to hike a mile when I was doing Pathfinder training.”

  “And you said?”

  “Not long.”

  My grin was now a permanent fixture on my face. I half-wished I’d been on the line to hear their conversation. “And she told her recent time and you said what?” I’d already had a similar discussion with our mother.

  “That if it took her an hour to go a mile and a half she needed to get it in gear. Then she asked how she could improve her time. I told her I often found that I really picked it up and put it down when I was being shot at.” Army life. You can either laugh or cry at the realism. I chose to laugh. I almost always did.

  “Wait ’til she sends you a picture of her pack.”

  “This isn’t funny. She’s gonna get out on some trail, remember that she really doesn’t enjoy sweating, figure out that no one on some hippie-loving, skinny-dipping hot spring trail gives a damn about who her husband is, get herself lost, and then I’m gonna have to come find her.”

  “She’s not completely helpless, bro. She’s quite good at most everything. But there is always the possibility she might not like hiking and might require your assistance in getting back. So, you know, have fun with that.”

  “Holy fuck, she just texted me to ask about the thread count of the sheets we used when we were in Chile. Sheets, Han. Sheets. Oh, and now she wants to know if a higher thread count will make her pack heavier.”

  I’d made the mistake of sucking down some water before he’d said that. I choked and half managed to swallow before another round of laughter burst from my lungs. “Mom never quite got how awful your living conditions were when you were serving.”

  “Clearly.”

  “She didn’t like to think about it. Neither did I for that matter.”

  And just like always my big brother sighed and his voice snagged on all of the memories he’d never share. “I’m home now. Hell, I even own more than one set of sheets.”

  “Yeah, I know, different sheets for different women who make their way to your bedroom.”

  His refusal to comment spoke volumes. To Smith, I would always be his baby sister, much too young to discuss things like sex, or love, or lust, or anything else he deemed inappropriate for my young ears. You’d think I was still twelve.

  “Why the hell does Mom need to find herself? I thought that’s what Dad took her to Paris to do last year.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess she wasn’t in Paris.” I kept up our banter. It was our thing.

  “I’m not sure she’s in her right mind.”

  And here was where we were going to argue and then agree to disagree. “Come on, Mom was the quintessential general’s wife. She gave up forty years of her life to follow Dad’s career and to raise us almost completely on her own, since he was always off fighting somewhere. She’s just feeling a little out of sorts. She’s not in charge of blood drives, or recommended reading lists, or post school supply drives, or support groups for service members’ families anymore since Dad retired. Give her some time to figure out life after the army. Besides, Dad’s home all the time now. I think he’s getting on her nerves.”

  “Dad didn’t want to be away as much as he was. No one ever said serving was easy,” he countered.

  “Cut her some slack. She sacrificed everything for us,” I demanded.

  “Then you do the same for Dad.”

  “Fine.” Slack was not exactly what my reunion with Griff would elicit but Dad was tough. He’d survive. “I mean, if Mom wants to go get naked in some hot spring, we should support her.”

  “I will pay you money never to use the word naked when you’re referring to the woman who gave us birth ever again. Seriously, name your price.”

  I glanced out my corner office windows to the Japanese lilacs set against the lush green grass of the Front Range. I’d worked hard to be right where I was. “Last time I checked, big brother, I made more money than you,” I teased.

  “Yeah, so I heard. I have your Country Living interview framed in my office right beside your Colorado Home feature, by the way. I’m really proud of you Hannah Banana.”

  Another round of emotion clogged my throat. “Thank you. You didn’t have to frame them. You could have just stuck them on a bulletin board or something.” Having my big brother’s approval and pride meant the whole world to me. The fact that I was about to disappoint him and piss him off made it even harder to swallow.

  “Says the girl who managed to keep us supplied in dip and Snickerdoodles even when we were imbedded in the field.”

  “I do make a kickass Snickerdoodle and still don’t tell Mom about the dip.”

  Smith chuckled. “My lips are sealed. Hey, I checked out that article on the suites you redid at The Obelisk Hotel. Impressive as hell, sis. Breaking into the industrial market.”

  “Thanks.” My heart triple timed its normal rate. Discussing Vegas with Smith was not a good idea. I had to orchestrate
my plans perfectly. If T had followed orders, and I’d never known a Green Beret that didn’t follow them to the letter, Griff had already been informed that he was going to spend a week in Vegas. I couldn’t afford for my nosy big brother to suspect anything. No associations. No lilt in my voice. Nothing. Smith remained quiet. He was waiting on me to fill in more detail. Ugh.

  “I actually didn’t really like the commercial aspects. I prefer making people’s homes a place they want to be, somewhere the world doesn’t have to exist for a little while. But that project was good for business.” I refused to refer to the name of the hotel or the city. It would henceforth be referred to as that project. That project I did in the past. Not the one I just finished two weeks ago. Not the one that landed me squarely in the sights of an Interior Design Firm of the year award. Not the one that would be the pinnacle of the career I’d thrown everything into. Not the final piece of the puzzle that had just scored me chatter amongst the Forbes Thirty Under Thirty crowd. Nope. Because none of those things mattered anymore.

  How incredibly stupid did Griff and I have to be to believe, even for one more moment, that something so incredibly magical, so right, was just a spectacularly orchestrated coincidence that meant nothing at all? That it was just all an illusion, a gut-wrenching trick of the universe. I was tired of being stupid. I’d fought hard to become one of the top designers in the Midwest. But that fight was nothing compared to the one I was willing to put forth to prove to Griff that all of the reasons we shouldn’t be together were nothing more than dust on something beautiful. They could be wiped away. We could reveal what needed to happen. We could wash away all we’d been through. He could stop pretending he doesn’t have a limp and scars both visible and invisible. I could stop pretending my heart had ever been whole without him. It was either going to be forever, somehow, or I was going down in flames. There would be no white flag this time. I refused to retreat. I refused to back down no matter what he said. I’m a four-star general’s daughter for crying out loud.