by D. D. Ayres
“I was there, if you recall.”
Luke’s expression turned grim. “I recall a lot of things.”
Erin popped up from her seat. “Oops. Almost forgot my meds. Pour me another glass of champagne while I get them. I ordered room service to bring more up.”
Luke followed her. “You shouldn’t mix alcohol with your medication. You know you’re vulnerable.”
“I know. And I don’t, usually.” She avoided his gaze. “It’s just that my knee hurts like hell. My orthopedist says I tore something in that last race and may need surgery. Still, I had to look beautiful for you tonight, didn’t I?”
She kicked up a leg sporting a five-inch heel held in place by a tiny rhinestone strap. “I do this for you, sugar.”
Luke grabbed her foot and kissed it just above the strap. “Did I ever tell you you’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw?”
“Every day, baby. That’s why I married you. Now let me take the edge off and show you just how much I appreciate you.”
* * *
“That’s right, Dad. A state trooper named Battise wants a private meeting with me. He was here with Jori Garrison. How the hell should I know? They just showed up at the wedding together.”
Luke moved his cell phone from one hand to the other as he pushed open the door. “Nobody ever heard of him until he made the papers this week as a one-legged hero. Now everyone’s talking about him. What I want to know is who the hell this Battise guy really is.”
Luke moved out onto the balcony just outside his suite, not wanting Erin, who appeared to be asleep, to overhear his conversation. The air was frigid, smelling of snow, but he couldn’t wait until morning to get a few answers from his father. He didn’t rattle easily. But the mention of Brody had unnerved Erin. Now he was worried, too.
So far, however, his father sounded like an adult dealing with an overwrought child.
“So, you do know him? How? No, I’m not overreacting.” He hated that soothing let-me-take-care-of-this tone. “Oh, really? Then did you know he’s asking questions about Brody?”
Luke smiled as he held the phone away from his ear. That had gotten a rise out of his old man. Brody continued to be a sore spot for his father.
When the expletives on the other end of the phone subsided, Luke was more calm. “Like I said, Jori must be thinking of protesting her verdict. That’s the only thing that makes sense. If that’s it, maybe I should talk directly with her. No, I know I can’t appear to be backing down on a verdict that’s part of my tough stand on crime.”
Luke began to regret making the call.
“You say that, Dad, but you don’t mind me owing favors across half the state for other considerations. How is this different?”
More political advice he didn’t have time for.
“No. Of course, there’s nothing more for the state police to learn about Brody’s death. Why would I try to hide anything from you after all this time?”
For the first time his father paused to think. Good. He’d called him for some of his bedrock cut-your-losses advice. What he’d gotten so far was nothing close to that.
“No. I don’t want you anywhere near this, you hear me, Dad? Handle it wrong and it could blow up in my face.”
Luke ducked back into the main room of the suite, his ears, nose, and fingers tingling from the cold. “I was hoping you could fill in a few blanks for me. But since you can’t, I’ll take care of this. I have resources, too. I am your son. Right. Right. I just thought you should know. Yes, I’ll keep you informed. Good night.”
Luke punched END and tossed his phone on the sofa. He might just have made a mistake.
* * *
“Goddammit all to hell!”
Harold Tice tossed the Waterford crystal sniffer of Tennessee whiskey at his fireplace, where it shattered into a hundred tiny prisms. Luckily, his wife was away visiting her sister in Bentonville and wouldn’t be home until morning. By then the maid would have cleaned up. Meanwhile, he was going to have to do some cleaning up of his own. For Luke’s sake.
He should have followed his instinct when he’d first learned that Battise was looking into his military records. He’d had all the pieces. Wounded jobless veteran. Angry and antisocial. Suffering PTSD. Easy enough to stage something. People would have done no more than wag their heads and say What a waste. But now Battise had gone and made himself a front-page news hero right in Tice Industries’ backyard.
Worse still, he’d joined up with Jori Garrison.
“What the hell is going on?” Harold looked about to reassure himself that he was, really, alone. The maid might have heard that crash and come running. No one.
He subsided into his favorite wingback chair, but there was no peace of mind to be had tonight from staring at the mounted twelve-point buck he’d killed at age sixteen.
Becker’s phone call a few days earlier had caused him to look into what Jori Garrison was up to. What he’d learned had soothed his concerns. She was now a service dog trainer at Warriors Wolf Pack. That’s where Battise had gone to get a service dog to help him deal with his PTSD. Pure coincidence the two should meet. But nothing to worry about, until now.
Harold looked around for the whiskey he’d poured. Right. Smashed. He sighed, too preoccupied to pour another.
Maybe Jori had convinced Battise to look into her case. But that had nothing to do with Brody’s death. Or had he missed something?
Harold thought about Becker. Becker hadn’t been on his private payroll for four years out of charity. The dickwad had extorted enough money from him. It was time he earned his keep.
A man couldn’t control every eventuality. But he could prepare to avoid disaster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sam didn’t pay any attention to the sights and sounds until she heard Alpha moan. She turned to him. He was suddenly awash in hormones. His heart rate was accelerating. His breath coming in short staccato rhythm. His fear flowed into her, stunning her with its intensity. This was bad.
She realigned her big body in front of Alpha’s, whimpering and shaking as she balanced her paws against his hips and butted his chest with her big head, trying to draw his attention. This was her job, what she was trained for. Pull her Alpha out of his nightmare. Make the fear and anxiety stop.
On autopilot, Law reached out to stroke his dog as he had every other dog in his life who had done a good job. “Gute Hund. So ist Brav, Scud. Gute Hund. We’re going to make it this time.”
Getting no response, Sam jumped up with paws against Alpha’s chest, making soft nasal sounds as she pushed her muzzle forward, her nose taking in short quick sniffs of his scent. He didn’t smell right. There were odors of fear and the rank sweat of a body pushed to its limits. She could smell in his sweat traces of blood from his scrapes, a hint of pus, and the white blood cells making scabs to heal over the raw places. Even the bruises inside the metal and plastic leg he wore had a ripe flavor. He was sick, very sick.
Her Alpha’s body jerked. More sweat poured from him, vinegary with a cocktail of full panic.
She pushed in closer, leaning her warmth against him, and nuzzled his neck. She’d been taught to be pushy, force her body and presence on her Alpha until he focused on her. It wasn’t working this time.
Sam pressed on, licking his face in long hard strokes that insisted he give her even more of his attention. Happy Alpha. Happy pack. Alpha needed to be okay. She would make Alpha okay. Then she would be okay.
Law stroked his canine partner, the automatic physical motion somehow soothing as he struggled with the vivid sights and sounds and smells overlaying his reality.
After a few seconds, the attack ceased. There were voices now, shouts and cries. And pain. Always pain.
It didn’t matter.
Law wrapped his arms around his K-9 and breathed deep. Scud was alive! Everything was going to be all right.
The room came into focus. Not any room Law had seen before. It was dark but for a fire blazing from the hearth in f
ront of him. Someone was sitting beside him. Talking. A woman’s voice. Talking about … blueberry muffins. How to make them.
“Two cups of all-purpose flour. I never sift. Aunt Suze says you should but I don’t…”
He blinked against the dimness, as if there were a shade over his eyes. A living room appeared with a two-story bank of windows open to the night. He could just make out the pale planks of a deck beyond. He sat on a small sofa that he shared with—he turned his head toward the voice—Jori.
She smiled tentatively. “Are you back with me?”
“What happened?” His throat felt as dry as if he’d been licking asphalt.
“Nothing. Much.” Jori glanced at the front door as she heard footsteps crunch past the cottage. “You, ah, had an episode. Water?”
She offered him a cold bottle of water, which he gulped in big slugs that splashed around his mouth and onto his shirtfront.
Jori was ready, mopping up the water with a napkin and then adjusting the blanket she must have thrown around his shoulders sometime earlier.
“How did you find me?”
“I was looking for you. One of the bellboys told me he’d seen a man with a service dog out on the front veranda. I couldn’t find you at first. There was a lot of confusion out on the drive. One of the hotel guests, not a wedding guest thank goodness, had a medical emergency. The EMTs had been called. Finally I saw Samantha. She was jumping on you and barking. As I got close I could see something was wrong. You had that thousand-yard stare I’ve heard about.”
Law absorbed this information without responding.
“I didn’t know what else to do so I brought you here.”
Law’s gaze did a jerky hyperalert perimeter check. “Where is here?”
“It’s one of the private cottages on the grounds of the hotel. Mom and Dad rented it for the newlyweds but they had other secret plans. Mom gave me the key so we’d have a place to stay for the night.”
“She saw me like that?”
“No, Law. I got the key at the reception. No one saw you. I doubt anyone would have noticed anything wrong but me.”
Law looked away. He could just imagine everyone staring as she’d led the zombie away from the front of the hotel. At least he hadn’t passed out.
Cold shame washed through him. He was soaked in his own sweat. He smelled of Scud—no.
He looked down. Sam lay by his side opposite Jori, her big warm body pressed along his flank. She was sprawled as if half asleep. But even in the gloom he could see her big soft eyes gleaming as she watched him.
Not Scud. Sa—Samantha. His heart constricted. Fuck! He’d really gone in deep this time.
He tried to swallow but his throat was still as dry as the desert he’d just left behind.
“This one’s not cold.” Jori held out a second plastic water bottle.
He took it and drained the contents in one long series of gulps. “Why did you stay?”
“I thought you might want company.” She didn’t touch him but he could feel the penetrating force of her gaze through the darkness.
“I don’t ever want company when this happens.”
She nodded and moved to get up.
He grabbed her arm. He didn’t ask her to stay, couldn’t, but after a second of tension against his hold, she relaxed back onto the sofa.
They sat in silence for several minutes before he took a deep breath. Images still slid in and out from the edges of his vision, but reality held. “Did I ask you about baking products?”
She frowned then smiled. “Oh. You mean the muffin recipe I was reciting.” He sensed embarrassment in her voice and in her shrug that rubbed her slender shoulder against his arm. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought the sound of a voice going on about something ordinary would help ground you.”
“I don’t need help. I can handle it.”
“Okay.” She sounded matter-of-fact, as if they were talking about a sneezing fit instead of a full-blown flashback that even now kept his heart beating too quickly.
“Still, you’ve got to admit that fresh blueberry muffins is a pretty good lure away from the blue devils. That’s what my grandmother calls sadness.”
He scrubbed both hands down his face and noticed they shook. “You think I’m sad?”
“Not exactly.” He felt her sigh, the little up–down movement of her arm along his. She felt warm. Or maybe it was just that he was freezing.
“I don’t know much about PTSD. Can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But I know about wanting to be somewhere else, anywhere else, and knowing you can’t get there.”
She took a longer shuddery breath this time. “The first weeks I was in prison, I’d forget to breathe sometimes. I passed out once. And I was always holding my breath. I was afraid that when I closed my eyes at night the walls would fold in and swallow me. The counselor said I needed to find a safe place to go to in my head when that happened. A happy place. It took a few tries but I found that when the walls closed in I could go into my head to my grandmother’s recipe box. Blueberry muffins is the recipe I remembered best. By the time I’d mentally collected all the ingredients, stirred them up, and they were done baking, I’d moved away from the worst moments.”
Law thought about that. He’d had so many worst days he could mentally bake a bakery shop full of muffins each day probably for the rest of his life.
“Who’s Scud?”
He jerked. “What?”
“You were talking about Scud. Was he your last military K-9?”
“Yes.” Law gritted out the word.
“He died protecting you?”
“I don’t—won’t talk about that.”
“Okay.” But she didn’t move away, only rested her head on his shoulder.
After more long moments of silence where there was only her warmth to hold him there, he began talking.
He told her everything he remembered about that day. How bright the sun had been. But not too hot. Afghan winters could be as cold and bright as those in Colorado. But everything remained brown. He told her about the run that morning, how clean and fresh and powerful he’d felt. Those things were as lucid and bright in his mind as if they were today’s memory. But he was there with her. He could feel her fingers wrap halfway on his biceps when he began to tremble.
He stuttered now. The story coming in more fragments. Bits and pieces blown fresh of the mooring of sequence.
“Scud died protecting me from my own unit.” Law sucked in a breath, pushing against the pain that threatened him. “I should have protected him better.”
“I’m so sorry, Law.”
Jori reached up to touch his face but he jerked away from her. He could feel it coming. Needed to get away from her, away from the shame of what was exploding inside him.
He tried to stand. But his legs didn’t work. His body wasn’t under his command. He began to shake with the effort to override whatever had him rooted to the spot.
In panic he felt the eruption within and he couldn’t stop it. Anger, fear, grief, and agony were all elements of the wall he’d built to hold it all in. But comfort, as alien to him as love, did him in.
Jori put her hand on his shoulder and leaned her head against his.
His eyes filled. “Fuck.”
He held himself rigid, refusing to accept what was happening, a fist pressed to his belly to hold it in. But it came anyway, pain that made a lie of all his years of carefully constructed isolation. A moan escaped him as it gave way like a physical tearing inside. Then the place where he didn’t need anything or anyone burst open like a dynamited dam.
Tears spilled over the seam of his closed lids.
He felt Jori’s arms go around him, trying to cradle his larger frame to hers. He could so easily have broken her embrace and escaped. But he didn’t even try. At least she didn’t promise that it was okay. And that everything would soon be fine again. He knew better.
Sam came forward, shaking and whining, ears flat in confusion of the
moment. Both members of her pack were hurting. She licked at Jori’s face, slick with salty wetness, then lay her head behind Alpha’s head in the cradle of his neck and waited for the emotional hurricane to die down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“This isn’t going to work.” It was just after dawn and Law was slamming into his clothes, at least the tux pants and shoes. Samantha watched from a prone position a few feet away. Her body was taut and ready for action.
“What are you talking about?”
“I lost it. Showed weakness.”
“A few tears?” Jori sat up in bed, covers pulled close to protect her nakedness from the cold. “That didn’t bother me. I’m a woman. We deal in tears.”
He shot her a hostile glance from beautiful bruised eyes. “I don’t.”
“Yeah, well, get over it. You needed to let the grief out. It will be better now. You’ll see.”
She saw on his face that she’d said the wrong thing. Offering platitudes to a man who knew better.
He hunched back toward the corner of the room, his chin tucked. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His mouth was pinched and his eyes hooded. All that was lacking was raised fists to make him look like a cage fighter at the end of his options. Nothing to do but slug it out. She had no doubt he thought he was fighting for his life.
“I’m too messed up to be with you. To be with anybody.” He seemed to wrestle every word out of himself. “I was flashing back half the night. What happened took more than my leg. I’m fucked up.”
“Okay.” Jori took a deep breath. Maybe she didn’t know enough to know if it would get better. He’d probably had counseling that revealed things she might never know. They had been through a lot in just a few days of knowing each other. But there was another side to Law. A side she didn’t know at all. She’d seen signs of it twice last night. And both of them worried her.
They had sex in the middle of the night. Long after they’d climbed into bed, too exhausted to even talk anymore. The wind had come up, slamming into the house with a force that was a perfect reflection of the conflict raging inside the cottage as two bodies locked in physical embrace struggled for emotional survival.
