by Maya Banks
Baby Charlotte was immediately pounced on and passed from relative to relative and the smooches and cooing filled the room.
Nathan’s palms grew slick again and his scars itched. He rubbed his hands down his pants but forced himself not to rub at his chest and belly or his arms.
His chest tightened painfully and suddenly he couldn’t sit still any longer. He pushed himself upward, as if he were standing to greet the rest of his family. He forced himself to endure the backslaps from his brothers, but their voices sort of mingled together until it all sounded like a dull roar.
Murmuring an excuse that he had to go to the bathroom, he escaped to the kitchen and then stood over the sink, running water over his scarred arms while he tried to calm his rapid pulse rate.
After several deep breaths, he went to the fridge, fished out a beer and then retreated out the back door onto the deck. Inside they were no doubt openly discussing his continued distance and wondering how to break past the wall. Or maybe not since Swanny was there. But they were thinking it and exchanging helpless looks from some, determined looks from others. And probably drawing straws to see who came to find him.
If Swanny wasn’t having such a good time and looking happier than he had since he’d arrived to see Nathan, Nathan would have already left.
He propped his beer on the porch railing and stared into the darkness, listening to the soothing sounds of tree frogs and crickets. When the door opened, he sighed. When he turned around, though, he was surprised to see Rachel standing a few feet away.
He turned fully, leaning back against the wood railing. “Hey, doll. I didn’t figure you would draw the short straw or that you’d even be in the running.”
She tilted her head in confusion, the outside light shining over her dark hair. “Oh,” she finally said. “You thought they sent me.”
“They didn’t?”
She took the few remaining steps that separated them and stood quietly next to him, her gaze directed to the woods behind his parents’ house.
“No.”
He turned back around so they were facing the same direction. “Sorry. I know I probably seem paranoid and touchy.”
She smiled. “Understandable if you were.”
“How are you? I mean really? You doing okay these days? I haven’t seen much of you.”
She glanced over at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking how you’re doing? And you haven’t seen many of us.”
He winced, although there was no accusation in her tone. His scars itched and he rubbed one hand up his arm before clasping it around his elbow.
“I understand how you feel,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe no one has said that. Maybe because they don’t understand. I know how overwhelmed you are and that sometimes you really just want everyone around you to pretend things are normal.”
He sighed again. “Yeah, I know you do.”
Because he’d been thinking earlier just how much he wanted to hug her, he pulled her into his arms and wrapped his arms around her much smaller frame. She laced her arms around his waist and hugged him back just as tightly.
“You amaze me.”
She pulled away so she could look up at him. Her brows knitted together and a slight frown rested on her mouth.
“I don’t know how you managed to survive for an entire year.”
She pulled her arms back and then folded them across her chest, her fingers making little marks on her arms.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you. I understand. Believe me.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s okay. Really. People don’t talk about it at all around me. It happened. I’m still dealing with it, but sometimes I wish that everyone would feel comfortable mentioning it.”
“I guess I’m not to that point yet. I just want everyone to stop looking at me…”
“With pity in their eyes? With so much sorrow that you feel like you’re going to drown in it? With a look that says they’re hurting with you and for you, and you just want to make it all go away so they won’t feel so bad and worry all the time?”
“Yeah, that.”
“They’re family. They love us. I actually understand them more now since you came back because I feel that way about you, and I stop myself at times and remind myself that the worry I feel is the same worry they felt for me.”
Nathan looped an arm around her again and hugged her close. “Thank you for that. It means a lot. I know I don’t act like it.”
She shook her head. “You can’t make yourself feel a certain way, Nathan. Believe me, I’ve tried. It takes…time.”
“You’re an amazing woman, Rachel Kelly. I just want you to know that. I was ready to give up and I was only gone for a few months. There were days when I thought it would just be easier to die. I wanted to die.”
“Why didn’t you then?” she asked softly.
His arm fell away and he turned to grip the railing with both hands. “Because someone saved me.”
She didn’t respond. Didn’t ask him who. She just stood there and waited. He liked that about her. She wasn’t pushy. She had such a quiet strength about her that wrapped around her. She calmed him like no one else in the family. Maybe that was why he was standing here waging a battle with himself over whether to confide in her. At least if she thought he was crazy, she wouldn’t go sound the alarm to the rest of the family.
He raised one arm, dragged a hand over his face and let out a disgusted sigh. “You’re going to think I’m nuts.”
She put one small hand on his shoulder. A simple touch. Still no response. And she waited. He liked that about her too. She didn’t lie and immediately deny that she wouldn’t think he was off his rocker.
“I was there. I mean I was thinking about death and the inevitability of death and wondered why I was fighting it. I told myself that I was fooling myself that I would ever see my family again. Why continue to be strong and endure when it was pointless?”
She let out a small sound of distress and leaned in closer.
“And then she spoke to me.”
Rachel tilted her head again. “Who did?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He wouldn’t say her name. She’d begged him not to tell anyone about her. He was breaking that promise here with Rachel, but he would at least not give her name. Even if she wasn’t real, it was important that he not betray her. “Maybe she was an angel. Maybe I imagined her. But she saved me.”
“Even after my memory grew so hazy with the drugs they gave me, I held on to Ethan. His name. His image. As time went on, I convinced myself he wasn’t real and that he was just my own personal warrior or angel. Take your pick. But he got me through my darkest days. I convinced myself that he would save me. Maybe it was all I had. It was either cling to that belief or just give up. I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“That’s not everything,” Nathan muttered. “We talked. I mean really talked. And the thing is…Boy, does this get crazier by the minute. The thing is, I couldn’t have imagined her because she emailed Van.”
Rachel pulled sharply away. “You mean the email he got telling him you were in Korengal Valley? The one telling him to talk to Joe?”
“That’s the one.”
Rachel pursed her lips and blew out her breath. “Okay, so when you say you talked to this woman, you mean like she was in the next cell? Or she was part of the group of people who kept you prisoner?”
It would be so easy to say yes. He should say yes and just forget this whole conversation. He’d refused to even discuss the email with his brothers. They were frustrated as hell because they wanted answers, but if they even brought it up, Nathan shut down.
“Nathan?” she prompted when the silence grew longer.
“Look, just forget it. It’s not important.”
She reached forward with surprising strength and pulled his hands toward her. She clasped them and stared up at him, her expression fierce.
“It is important. Talk to me, Nathan.”
He leaned forward a
nd kissed her forehead. “Thank you for listening, Rachel. Really. But this is something I’ve got to work out on my own.”
He saw the frustration in her eyes but also her understanding as he pulled away. Then she pushed forward and hugged him again.
“We love you, Nathan. We all do. Just remember that.”
The door to the patio opened and Ethan stepped out but then hesitated when he saw Nathan and Rachel.
“Hey, man, get your own woman. I should have known you’d be off sweet-talking mine.”
Nathan grinned and relaxed. This he could handle. Typical banter. He hadn’t realized how much he just wanted to revert back to old times where his brothers gave him shit instead of looking at him like he was a quarter off a full dollar.
But then he hadn’t helped in that area. If he wanted to be treated normally, he needed to stop putting up walls between him and his family.
“I can’t help if a pretty woman prefers my company,” Nathan drawled.
Ethan ambled forward and slid an arm around Rachel. “You two avoiding the family out here? I seem to remember Rachel slipping out here a time or two when things got overwhelming.”
“I was just telling her how amazing I think she is.”
Ethan smiled. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“Okay, you two, enough,” Rachel grumbled.
She slipped out of Ethan’s grasp, gave Nathan another quick hug and then headed inside, leaving Nathan alone with his brother.
“Everything okay, man?” Ethan asked when Rachel had shut the door.
“She’s pretty damn special,” Nathan said, ignoring the question.
“Yeah, I know. You two have a lot in common.”
Nathan’s lips quirked upward. “Oh? You think I look as good in a dress as she does?”
Relief flared in Ethan’s eyes at the comeback, but then his expression grew more serious. “No, I meant you’re both survivors.”
CHAPTER 11
NATHAN’S eyes flew open and the splash of stars in the inky midnight sky instantly swam in his vision. They loomed close then backed away, and the world spun crazily around him.
He tried to sit up in the sleeping bag and promptly fell over, weak and disoriented. His mind was clouded, and random images flashed, none making sense.
Strange men, yawning faces and a sense of overwhelming fear.
What the hell was happening to him? He hadn’t drunk that much beer. Certainly not enough to get a buzz, much less stupid drunk.
This wasn’t like his other panic attacks. He hadn’t been dreaming. It was one of the few nights that his mind had been blissfully free of the past.
There was such a sense of dread overwhelming him that his breaths puffed out and his stomach rebelled. His chest burned from the pressure. It was as if weight pressed down on him from every angle.
And then he felt her. Just one brief moment, as if she were desperately trying to reach out to him.
Shea.
Scared. Terrified.
It was her panic he felt. Her disorientation.
Shea!
He screamed her name in his mind. Then he yelled it hoarsely, the sound echoing through the night.
He tore away the sleeping bag that confined him, stumbling out onto the ground and to his knees. Beside him, Swanny shot upward.
“What the hell?”
Nathan shoved his hands into the grass, trying to push himself upward, but he was too weak, too disoriented to maintain his balance. He fell heavily to his side, cursing because he couldn’t wade through the fog in his mind to reach out to Shea. She was there. He knew it. Was she trying to reach him? Did she need help?
He curled his fingers into the soil, trying again to right himself, to get up and battle the confusion. Swanny scrambled over, his face close to Nathan’s.
“What’s wrong, man? Do I need to get help? What’s happening to you?”
Nathan snarled his frustration, grabbed on to Swanny and pulled. “Help me.”
Swanny pushed to his knees and then stood, Nathan still gripping his hands as he pulled upward. He staggered to his feet, wobbling like he’d been on a bender from hell.
The world kept moving around him, dipping and swaying until nausea rose sharp in his belly and into his throat, clenching and squeezing until he couldn’t breathe.
“What the fuck is wrong?” Swanny demanded. “Let me call a damn ambulance. Or at least drive you to the hospital.”
“Just let me get my feet under me,” he gritted out.
He put his hands to his head, sucked in breaths and then reached out again.
Shea, talk to me, damn it. Are you okay? What’s going on? Please, just talk to me.
He caught just a hint of his name, and suddenly the disorientation faded. The shadows drifted away, leaving him sharply aware of his surroundings. The smell of a late Tennessee spring, verging to summer. The lake. The trees, the pine.
A breeze cooled the sweat that dampened his body, and he shivered in reaction.
She was gone. Like she’d never been there. Again.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Nathan, talk to me, man. What the hell is going on?”
He pushed away from Swanny and stalked toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the lake. Below, the water was inky, reflecting only a sliver of moonlight.
Was he losing his mind? Was he crazy? Was she real or not?
How could he explain the emails, the very real emails, if she wasn’t real? He clung to that piece of evidence, the only thing he could point to with any assurance. If it weren’t for those emails, he’d have already surrendered the last threads of his sanity.
“She’s real, goddamn it.”
“Who’s real?” Swanny asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“She’s real and she’s in trouble and I have no idea how to help her.”
Helplessness and frustration swamped him. Overwhelmed him. What could he do?
He cupped his hand over his face and dug his fingers into the corners of his eyes. He squeezed the bridge of his nose as he concentrated on the mess he’d awakened to.
None of it made sense. He hadn’t seen anything. Only sensed it and had an experience so bizarre that he’d swear he’d taken some bad acid trip.
“Look, just calm down. We can talk about this.”
Nathan shook his head. “Just let it go, Swanny.”
There was a pronounced silence and then Swanny shoved in front of him, obscuring Nathan’s view of the lake. All he could see was the determination gleaming in his friend’s eyes.
“I won’t let it go,” Swanny said in a low voice. “I came here for answers. I haven’t pushed. But something happened in Afghanistan. Something I can’t explain. Now you’re talking crazy and mentioning this woman’s name, the same name you screamed when we were rescued. Whether you want to talk about it or not, you put your hands on me and something happened. I wasn’t going to make it out of there. I knew it. You knew it. But then you did something. I’ll never forget that feeling. Like sunshine warming me from the inside out. And the pain. Gone. I could breathe again. It was so damn peaceful that for a minute I thought it was the end.”
Nathan looked up at the sky, closed his eyes and breathed out as his shoulders sagged.
“You played it off, man. And I let you. But you know you fed me a line of bullshit. Angels, God. Yeah, maybe, but you know more than you’re letting on.”
“I don’t know! I wish to hell I did,” Nathan bit out.
He balled his fist in frustration and pressed it to his forehead.
“Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe we both are.”
“I’m perfectly okay with that explanation,” Swanny said calmly. “But we aren’t. Now stop holding out on me.”
Nathan stumbled back toward the sleeping bag, sat down and pulled his knees to his chest. Beside him, Swanny crawled into his and stretched out on his side. For a long time, Nathan just sat there, staring into the distance. The silence was brooding, but Swanny waited. He just
lay there and watched Nathan, waiting for him to speak.
“Her name is Shea,” he said quietly. He wasn’t betraying her because Swanny had already heard him calling her name on more than one occasion.
“Yeah, I gathered that much. The question is who is she and…well…who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Swanny sighed and rolled to his back to stare up at the sky. “Has anyone ever told you what a frustrating son of a bitch you are, Nate?”
“I thought I imagined her. Right up until the time she emailed my brothers to let them know where to find us.”
“How the hell did she do that? There weren’t any women that I saw in that hellhole.”
“That’s just it. She wasn’t…there. She was here,” Nathan said, tapping the side of his head. “She talked to me in my head. I don’t even know where she was.”
Swanny turned back to his side and stared at Nathan, mouth agape. “You mean like psychic shit?”
“Well, she wasn’t telling me my future,” Nathan said dryly. “She’s telepathic and she can…”
“She can what?”
“She took my pain away. Took it on herself. And when I was tortured, she took that too. She suffered. I hated it.”
“Holy fuck,” Swanny breathed. “You’re serious?”
Nathan nodded even though he wasn’t sure Swanny could see.
“That’s some freaky-ass shit, man. You didn’t imagine it? Like as a coping mechanism?”
Nathan made a dry sound of amusement. “I would have said absolutely yes except for the very real email that my brother received telling him exactly what I told Shea to tell him.”
Swanny went silent. For a long while he lay there motionless as if grappling with whether or not to believe Nathan.
“Where is she now?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Nathan muttered. “She was in trouble. She wouldn’t say much. She was too determined to shield me from pain and get me the hell out of there. She was afraid, though. I could feel her fear. I felt it tonight.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
