“You’ll pay for that, bitch,” he snarled in her face.
Instinctively, Avery brought her knee up. She didn’t hit the spot she hoped for, but her knee jabbed into his thigh. Using every bit of strength she could, Avery rolled, shoving Mike off to the side. She tried to scramble away, but he gripped her ankle.
“Let her go,” Ridge growled.
Avery turned in time to see Ridge yank the spike from Mike’s shoulder. Another horrid scream of pain and he released her as Ridge plunged the spike into Mike’s thigh.
“You don’t touch what’s mine,” Ridge shouted.
Mike kicked Ridge in the leg, knocking him off balance. Avery had a brief moment of relief realizing the blow landed on his good leg instead of his wounded one. Mike got to his feet but was helpless against a raging, out-of-control Ridge. Blow after blow landed in Mike’s face, the impact pushing him back against the wall.
“I told you you’d die a horrible death for touching her,” Ridge snarled like an angry beast.
Avery grabbed the gun off the floor and ran to Ridge’s side. He took it, pointed the barrel right at Mikes head and took a step back.
“Her brother killed mine,” Mike growled right back. “Blood for blood.”
Everything came to a stop, at least mentally. Pictures flashed in Avery’s head. Horrible images of dismembered bodies, smoke and a man handcuffed standing beside a military vehicle. The man looked just like Mike.
Ridge was remembering. Avery swallowed the sobs she wanted to let free from the insanity Ridge had witnessed. She held her breath and watched his face as everything fell into place.
“Cale didn’t kill your brother,” Ridge ground out between his clenched teeth. “I did.”
Avery gasped as that memory flooded her brain, Ridge lying on the ground next to Cale, Taliban trying to free the traitor. Anger so pure and white hot it almost hurt and Ridge unloading his gun into the American until he fell to the ground riddled with bullets. These people were responsible for Cale’s death.
Mike’s face went pale.
“I filled him with hot fucking lead until he was cut in half,” Ridge told Mike. “And I’ll do the same to you.”
“Gates!”
Avery turned to see Stone and four other officers coming through the door. She looked back at Ridge, who hadn’t moved. His muscles rippled with tension. His jaw ticked from the force of clenching and she knew by the look in his eyes he would kill Mike.
“Back away, Gates,” Stone ordered.
“He hurt her,” Ridge shouted back.
“You okay, Avery?”
She nodded to Stone, but never took her gaze off Ridge.
“He won’t be able to hurt her anymore, Gates. Put the gun down and back away.”
Stone and his officers circled them. One grabbed Avery by the arm and pulled her away. She gasped, Ridge flinched, and all hell broke loose.
Mike grabbed Ridge’s wrist and twisted until the gun pointed toward Avery. Stone shouted orders, the other officers jockeyed for a better position and Avery knew someone would die. Mike head-butted Ridge. Dizziness swamped Avery as she cried out and tore away from the officer’s hold.
Ridge swung, connected with Mike’s face and the gun dropped to the floor.
“That’s enough!” Stone shouted. “One more move, Gifford, and I’ll drop you where you stand. Gates, back away from him, now!”
Ridge took a few steps backward and then turned. Mike made one last-ditch effort and lunged, catching Ridge around the throat with his arm. He squeezed until Avery sensed Ridge losing consciousness.
No more. Everything Avery suffered over the last few months came to a head. The pain, the heartache, the loss, it festered and now it was oozing free like a boil on her soul. Too much death and all because of this one man. She picked up the gun.
“Let him go, Gifford,” Stone shouted as Ridge turned blue.
Avery wrapped her hands around the grip and eased her finger on the trigger. So much devastation from one man.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” Stone hollered.
Avery pointed the barrel at the side of his head. How many people had died because of his lack of morals?
“No one beats me,” Mike Gifford laughed as Ridge’s body went limp.
“Guess again,” she said in an all-too-calm voice.
Mike turned his head a split second before she squeezed the trigger. Avery wanted to believe that in that brief moment after the bullet pierced his skull and drove into his brain that he knew he’d been beaten. That she’d been the one to end his twisted, insane life on this planet. She wanted to believe that as he dropped to the floor with that blank look in his eyes he knew he’d burn in hell a thousand times over for every death he’d been responsible for.
More importantly she wanted to walk over there and kick his dead, empty, worthless head until it splattered like a rotten pumpkin because then, and only then, would she believe he wouldn’t terrorize any more people. Like most fantasies, though, it wouldn’t happen. The gun was knocked from her hand and she was pulled away.
Her attention turned to Ridge’s lifeless body on the floor. “Ridge,” she cried out as Stone knelt and checked for a pulse. “No!”
Stone began artificial breathing and Avery ran to him. “Don’t you die,” she sobbed, taking his hand in hers. “Stay with me.”
Avery reached for the link that Ridge had brought back to life between them. She entered his dark, cold mind and filled it with warmth, praying it would be enough. “Don’t leave me, Ridge. I love you. I don’t care if you don’t love me. I just want you to live, please.”
His mind exploded with life in an instant. He sucked in a deep breath and Stone fell back onto his haunches. The force of his awakening pushed her from his head, but she didn’t care. He was breathing and alive.
Paramedics rushed the room and somehow she’d gotten pushed aside again. They tended to Ridge, slipping an oxygen mask over his face and checking his wounds. She wanted to go to him, but Stone squatted down next to her.
“Avery, let the medics check you out,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked, searching his eyes.
“He’ll be fine. He’s too damned stubborn not to be.”
Stone murmured to her as the paramedics rushed Ridge from the house. She got a quick going-over and then was loaded on a gurney and taken to a waiting ambulance. Cold chills spread through her body and she began to shake uncontrollably. The paramedics spoke back and forth as they took her vitals and wrapped her in a blanket, but nothing would warm her. Stone sat by her side and held her hand. He stayed with her until the nurses at the hospital shooed him into the waiting room.
Avery floated in a daze through the head X-rays and cleaning of the burns from the Taser. Everything seemed hazy, like a dream. Sleep tugged at her, a welcoming escape from the hell she’d lived through. Ready for it to be over, Avery let go and drifted into the darkness.
“Avery.”
She fluttered her eyes open and blinked a few times until Stone’s face came into view.
“There you are,” he said with a smile. “The doctors say you have a concussion. They want to keep you here overnight.”
“Ridge.” She didn’t care about herself. She needed to know Ridge was okay.
“They’re working on him. But it looks like he’ll be up and making you miserable again in no time.”
Avery closed her eyes and said a small prayer of thanks before drifting back into sleep. Every once in a while someone would come in and wake her up. Each time Stone was by her bed, holding her hand or stroking her hair. At one point she saw Cindy, heard her say something and then fell back into a peaceful slumber.
Two days passed and once she proved she could stand up and sit down without getting nauseous, they released her. Before she left the hospital she made a stop at Ridge’s room, hovering at the door, unable to take that one step inside. He looked so damned small in that bed, pale and help
less with his head and gunshot wound bandaged up.
Even through the bandages and the tubes connected to his body, Avery only saw her strong Ridge. She wanted desperately to reach out to him mentally, but the one time she did this morning, her stomach knotted and her head throbbed painfully. She couldn’t do it, or Ridge didn’t allow it. Either way, Avery knew her days of being connected to anyone were long gone. Honestly, she didn’t know if that came as a relief or not.
“He had some severe head wounds,” Stone whispered behind her. “They want to keep him here for a while.”
“That would be the best,” she muttered. “There are good doctors here. They’ll take good care of him.” Avery hugged herself because she needed it, needed some sort of human contact at that moment even if it was her own arms. Tears welled in her eyes as that black blanket of loneliness draped over her again.
“Have you, ah—” Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “Have you had any contact with him, you know—” Stone pointed to his head.
Avery looked at him in surprise. She didn’t know how to respond. She’d only ever discussed this with two people. Cale and Ridge. She could lie, say she didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but this was Trooper Kevin Stone, the only other man in her life who’d been there for her when she needed someone whether she realized it or not. Kevin Stone, her friend. Avery hugged herself tighter. “You know about that?”
“Yeah, well, he got chatty while he was on some good pain meds. I thought he was talking crap, you know, out of his mind high, but then I remembered how he knew where you were. I mean, knew exactly where you were, Avery. I put that together with some other things he’d said over the last few weeks and bizarre as it sounds, it made sense.”
Avery could only stare at him in silence. Kevin didn’t look at her differently, didn’t speak to her as if she’d gone off the deep end into crazy-land, he only waited patiently for her to respond. She slowly turned her head and gazed at Ridge lying so weak and fragile in his bed.
“No, I can’t seem to reach him.” Her body trembled uncontrollably as hot, fat tears tumbled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. As soon as Ridge took that life-giving breath he’d shoved her out of his mind so fast she could still feel the whiplash. Apparently, he’d severed the connection completely. This was what they both wanted, right? Ridge wanted her out of his head and she wanted to live a normal, average life. So, why the tears?
Kevin slipped his arm around her and pulled her close to him. Avery let him, allowed herself a few moments of comfort from a friend. She laid her head against his chest and let the tears fall at will.
“I saw some of what he went through that day,” she whispered to Kevin. “Hell—it’s the only word to describe what he lived through.”
Kevin sighed.
“He lost so much that day. Cale, the little girl, his men. How does a person live through that? How do they wake up every day and go on?”
They stood there a brief moment before Kevin gently pulled her down the hall toward a small visiting room. He guided her into a chair, grabbed a few tissues and dabbed the tears from her face before slipping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her back against his chest. Avery cuddled in. A few more moments of comfort, what could it hurt?
“Some don’t go on, Avery.” Kevin’s voice filled with sadness. “Some of those men come home and realize life as they knew it is gone and they can’t handle it. Those men do what they think is the last resort for them and end their lives.”
Avery flinched. All those nightmares and panic attacks Ridge had, would he have taken that route if she hadn’t been there to help him through?
“Gates, well, he had you, sweetie. He had this presence to keep him sane when his mind would have turned on him. He was given a gift.”
Avery fisted her hand into Kevin’s uniform shirt. “He told me to stay out of his head,” she said for some reason.
“I imagine he did.”
Kevin’s fingers caressed up and down her arm. “You sound like you understand.”
“I believe I do. I’m not entirely sure of your relationship with him, but I’m going out on a wild limb here and guessing you always saw him as the indestructible, larger-than-life soldier that nothing could touch. He knew that, maybe even began to believe it himself, I don’t know, but when hell rained down around him and he couldn’t stop it, well, Gates became human again.”
Avery listened intently.
“I don’t care who you are, you don’t live through what he did and go on like nothing ever happened. Knowing Gates, he’s suffering a good dose of survivor’s guilt. Then he comes home to you, the woman I truly believe he loves more than anything in this world and knows she’s not going to see him as the indestructible man he was. That’s hard enough, but you can get in his head, feel what he feels when he has a panic attack and, baby, that emasculates him even more.”
Pieces fell together. Of course. That night he’d stormed out of her bed and into the night had been one of the worst nightmares he’d ever had. She’d seen and sensed snippets of images, felt his helplessness, his debilitating fear and weakness. Avery rolled her eyes and silently cursed to herself. Kevin was right. Instead of helping, she’d made matters worse by invading without permission.
“God, I’m so stupid.”
Kevin smoothed his hand down her hair. “No, you aren’t. You didn’t understand his side. Big difference. Here’s my philosophy on the matter. Gates thinks he let you down.”
“Why?” He’d never let her down, ever—well, except maybe that night he’d screamed and shouted at her before leaving her bed like a mad man.
“Cale and him were buddies, close as brothers, and he probably made a promise to himself to keep your brother alive. It didn’t work out that way and he believes he can’t take care of you because of his wounds and the panic attacks. He thinks he’s less of a man now and you deserve better.”
Avery pushed away from Kevin’s chest, sat up straight and looked at him. “That’s some philosophy.”
Kevin winced. “Yeah, well, I told you he got chatty and he told me most of that stuff while under heavy medication.” Kevin shrugged. “It still made sense to me.”
Avery frowned. “He thought he had to take care of me,” she whispered as anger simmered in her blood. “Take care of me.” She got to her feet and paced the small room as her anger grew. “I never asked anyone to take care of me. I don’t need taken care of,” she snapped, jamming her fists onto her hips. “Of all the egotistical crap I’ve heard spewed. Let me tell you something,” she said, pointing at Kevin. “I don’t want to be taken care of. I want someone by my side, not in front of or behind me, but right here.” Avery pointed to the floor next to her.
Kevin crossed his arms over his chest and tried to hide a snicker that only served to piss her off more. Did he honestly think this was a funny? “Oh, forget it!” she shouted, tossing her arms up in the air. “Apparently the male mind is too simple to understand that. I’m going home.”
“Hold on a minute,” Kevin said, jumping to his feet. “I take offense to that simple-minded statement. I get it,” he said, strolling toward her with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. “I understand what you’re after so don’t go taking it out on me, you little hellion. That’s something you have to take up with him.”
Avery crossed her arms over her chest and seethed with anger. Hellion, she’d show him how much of a hellion she could be. How come she’d never noticed how much of a pain in the ass men could be?
“I’ll take you home and don’t be shocked if Cindy calls you every five minutes until you answer. She’s worried sick.”
Oh, hell. She never thought about Cindy. God, she didn’t want to deal with her right now. “I need a vacation,” she muttered to herself.
“I might be able to help you out with that,” Kevin said, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close as they headed down the hall.
Chapter Eighteen
Two weeks later
&n
bsp; Ridge stood in the late morning sunlight absorbing the peace and letting it sink as far into his soul as he could. He’d checked himself out of the hospital first thing with a promise to the doctors that he’d return for a checkup. He’d been poked and prodded so much over the last two weeks he didn’t think he could stay one more day. Besides, he needed to see Avery, but first he had something to take care of.
Taking a deep and steady breath, Ridge reached out and ran his hand over the cool marble headstone that marked his best friend, his brother’s, grave. He wasn’t sure how it got placed so quickly, but in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter. Whoever had engraved it did a magnificent job. Ridge traced Cale’s name with his finger and then placed his palm over the American flag emblazoned beneath it.
“Things didn’t work out like we thought,” he whispered to his friend. “But I sure am grateful for the time we had.” A lump balled up in his throat. He wondered if there’d ever be a day he could think of his friend without tearing up. “Christ, I miss you, buddy.”
A tear escaped his eye and trickled down his cheek, but he didn’t care. The nice little shrink that had come to visit him daily in the hospital said letting those emotions out once in a while would do wonders for helping him move on. Now seemed as good a time as any to let a few free.
“I’m pissed at ya, too,” he choked, fisting his hand against the stone. “He came after her. The bastard’s brother came after her. I knew something bad would come from that deal in Afghanistan. Damn it, I couldn’t remember all of it and by the time I did, he almost killed her. I could kick your ass for putting her through that.”
Ridge pounded his fist against the stone as anger swelled in his chest. “You put your faith in a damaged man,” he growled, taking his frustrations out on the marker. “What if I couldn’t have saved her? I would have lost you both.” The flesh of his hand turned red and stung, but he continued to hammer against the hard surface. “He hurt her, Easton. He fucking hurt her, bad. I wanted to rip him to pieces. I almost didn’t make it in time.”
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