Here was the proof.
Again, his phone chimed, and he read it.
‘My parents both scheduled the night off to see me. I don’t get to be with them both at the same time. I made an excuse for you. I won’t lie about me. I have to work. Goodnight, Ivan.’
And there it was.
Blue was done with it.
In bed, he dropped his phone, rolled over, and tried to forget. All he kept seeing when he closed his eyes was her.
He saw her making cookies.
He saw her milking a cow for the first time.
He saw her cuddling his mangy dog in the guest room at his parent’s farmhouse.
She invaded his world, and there was no way to push her out of it and still survive. She was his all.
She was HIS Blue.
Deep down, Ivan knew she was the only woman he wanted, and now there was a skyscraper in front of him, and he didn’t think he was strong enough to climb it.
Ivan was tired.
He was tired of doing battle, he was tired of fighting for himself and others. All he wanted was someone to remind him that it was all worth fighting for in the first place.
That had been Blue, and now he’d lost her.
She was gone.
For the first time in his life, Ivan rolled over, put the pillow over his head and cried.
His wife’s death didn’t break him like this.
Losing Blue did.
That’s how he knew she’d been the one. His color had been the only thing that brought peace to the demons in his world.
He let the tears come, and eventually, he let them pull him under.
As he was drifting off, he knew one thing to be the truth in all of this.
Tomorrow, it would only be worse. He’d only have to face the truth, and that was a life without her.
Blue would be gone, and he would be forced to watch her every single day.
He’d watch her heal.
He’d watch her move on.
He’d watch someone else claim the color that was meant to be his and his alone.
Then he’d die alone.
It was going to be hell.
Again.
Why wasn’t he surprised?
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Mass Grave
One A.M.
Tony was standing over the grave and beside him was Blue Garrick. Together, they were watching the bodies being uncovered, one by one. Ground penetrating radar told them there were eight victims, and that matched up with the old FBI reports. The file said that Joey ‘The Thug’ and Carl ‘The Knife’ moved the bodies over a week, and that made sense.
It looked like they were going to be busy.
Time was of the essence.
Tony’s ability to study the bones told him there were two males and six females.
“This is so sad,” Blue said, from where she stood. This was her first time standing over a mass grave, and she was just grateful it was bones.
Honestly, she was accustomed to death, being a doctor, but this…
How did one ever get accustomed to this kind of killing?
Tony agreed with her. Every time he opened a grave, he thought the exact same thing.
It was senseless.
As the techs were in the hole, they began removing trace around them.
“Start with pictures. I want positions, I want everything graphed, charted, and marked. I will have to go back to these pictures later.”
The techs got down to work, heeding his instructions to the letter of the law. On this site, he was the boss.
This was his thing.
As they worked, Tony realized that the woman beside him wasn’t focused.
She was staring blankly into the hole.
It was time to figure out what was bothering her. So, he pulled a bag of beetles from his pocket.
“Bug?” he asked. “They are ranch flavored.”
She took one.
He was surprised.
“Really?” he asked.
“What?” Blue inquired, glancing over at him. “Wasn’t I supposed to take one? Was that a trick?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Well, no one has actually ever done that but my wife. I don’t know what to think.”
“Protein,” she stated.
He smiled.
Yeah, he liked this woman. She was a perfect fit for their team of misfits.
“Exactly. You can tell you were a doctor. Although, Chris doesn’t get it, so that shoots my theory down,” he admitted.
She chewed on the bug but said nothing.
“Want to talk about it?” Tony asked. He knew that Blue was just like them. She was struggling to acclimate. When he’d joined the team, Elizabeth and Chris took him under their wings. Now he was going to do the same.
“How do you know a guy really likes you?” she asked. “I mean like…really.”
He thought about it.
Elizabeth had mentioned that her security guy was sniffing around the pretty agent.
Tony was going to assume it was Ivan that she was talking about now.
“I think you just know.”
That didn’t work for her. She missed cues like this all the time. There had to be a definitive answer.
“I met his parents. I stayed there for two weeks. I was scared, but I went. Tomorrow, my parents are coming over for dinner to meet him.”
“But?”
“He’s not coming.”
Ah, that was a bad sign.
“I’m sorry, Blue.”
She got it.
Tony was telling her what she already knew. Ivan wasn’t focused on what she was focused on. She wanted a life with him. She wanted to be with him every day and every night. Blue wanted to start a life together.
Ivan didn’t.
“It’s okay. It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, right?”
He dropped his arm over her shoulders.
He’d been there.
“I guess.”
She hated this.
“Does that hurt ever stop?” she asked softly.
Tony thought about when Jaxon abandoned him after he’d been shot in the chest.
He hurt for weeks.
So, he lied to her.
“It does. I promise.”
That gave her hope.
Tony changed the subject.
FAST.
“Let’s focus on them. They needed us now. Tomorrow, I’m sure it will get better. You have to have hope, Blue. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and do the right thing.”
Blue wasn’t so sure.
Ivan was fairly simple to read.
This said everything she needed to know.
He didn’t want her.
Their journey was about to end.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Chris’s Brownstone
Friday Two A.M.
He was squished.
It felt like there were people on top of him in some pile.
Every time Chris tried to move, he couldn’t, and he couldn’t figure out why. When he went to bed, he was lying there beside Elizabeth, and now it felt like he was trapped between a wall and something softer.
Opening his eyes, he saw why he couldn’t move.
He and Elizabeth were pressed together, and behind her was Callen, covering half of her. Behind him, there was another body, and from the arm over his side, he could see Ethan’s watch.
Jesus.
They were all sleeping together in one big tangle of limbs and hair.
His first instinct was to freak out.
There was a man’s body firmly against his, and from the breathing on his neck, he knew they were aligned from torso to feet.
Chris didn’t know what to do.
Then he listened.
There was Elizabeth’s breathing.
Callen’s snoring.
Ethan’s heartbeat against his back.
The whole thing was weird, but it was comfortable in a ‘kids sleeping over’ kind of way. He thought back to the way the tribe behaved.
He’d once found CJ, EJ, and Cat all nestled up like this on a couch. They’d been watching a movie, and they’d fallen asleep and cuddled.
It was sweet for them.
So why did it bother him?
Beside him was a woman he’d had sex with, but the two men were his brothers. They were part of him, so this was exactly like CJ, EJ, and Cat.
It stopped freaking him out once he’d rationalized it. For the first time in a while, he’d been able to sleep without earbuds. There was no longer that need to punish himself.
He had her back.
Well, not like before, but better.
Now, he understood what happiness could feel like all over again. Gone was the need to find someone to fill the hole, and instead, he could simply just be calm in that safe place.
He wasn’t alone.
They had him.
Wrapped in the Blackhawk cocoon, Chris was beyond safe, loved, and protected. In that moment, he didn’t remember that he was sick and a time bomb.
All he thought about was the people beside him.
Moving closer to Elizabeth, she curled into his body, and immediately Callen and Ethan followed like one entity.
He took in the scent of her hair, the feel of Ethan’s weight against him, and he closed his eyes.
And for the first time in a while, without some Herculean battle, he drifted back to sleep.
Calmly.
Peacefully.
And with no fear.
They had him.
They wouldn’t let him fall.
And he believed in his family.
Chapter Five
Friday Morning
Six A.M.
O h, she was the first one up and escaping the bed was not easy. She had to slip away from Callen, extricate herself from Chris’s arms, and, finally, Ethan’s hand. It had been like sliding through a plethora of wires, booby traps, and a spider web.
One wrong move and the whole jumble of bodies would feel her trying to escape. It was a skill to slip away unnoticed.
It looked like her skill level was getting a workout.
When she finally did manage to extricate herself from them, of course, she took a picture of three men in one bed.
How the bloody hell could she not?
This was the thing pranks were made of in her book, especially since Ethan was spooning Chris, and now he was on Callen’s chest since she’d vacated her spot.
Oh, yes, this would be fun.
It was the funniest, and sweetest, damn thing that she ever saw.
While the world thought they were having some raunchy sex orgy, it simply wasn’t the truth.
Callen hardly touched Ethan.
Ethan RARELY touched Callen.
And Chris…
He was likely freaked out—or would be when he woke.
Yeah, this type of torment was in her wheelhouse, and she was going to enjoy it.
As to how long it would last, that was anyone’s guess at that point. Chris could leave when he was ready, and she was fine with that as long as the men were.
Heading out, she navigated the stairs like a pro. Elizabeth knew where each and every creaky stair was, and she avoided it. God knew she did it plenty when she’d be coming home after a rough case late in the night.
It was ingrained in her.
When she arrived in the kitchen, she pulled out four mugs, grabbed some tea bags from the items Ethan had left on the counter, and then heated up water.
Then she went to work on breakfast.
Normally, they ate a bagel and drank copious amounts of coffee to kick-start the morning. Chris was a cereal man. He had the same bran cereal since the day she met him.
Well, that was all changing.
Since Chris needed to be healthier, they were making a change.
Elizabeth had Ethan pick up a few things, and she was going to make them breakfast.
Because, clearly, she was freaking superwoman. Too bad their kids weren’t here because she was about to craft them up an awesome meal.
They would love it.
She made a mental note to call them later in the day to check in.
As she made pancakes, made with all kinds of things that no sane person should be eating—like chia seeds, ground flax, and something called kefir, she hoped they didn’t taste like what she suspected they would.
A freshly mowed lawn.
Chris would have to adjust, as would the rest of them. Then it hit her.
She knew this man.
She knew him like the back of her freaking hand. While he hadn’t stayed there in a while, he would always have a stash.
He was like a druggie—only his drug of choice was sugar, and there had to be some there.
Elizabeth flipped pancakes and then began her search. From the cookie jar, she found candy bars. In his freezer, she found kisses by the hundreds.
Then, the mother lode was found in his medical bag beneath some of his tools.
Yeah, these were going away.
It took everything in her not to eat them as fast as she could so she’d have some fuel instead of the seedy pancakes.
Instead, she cut up fruit, shoved some dried apricots in his medical bag, and then blended the hell out of some berries for a syrup made of nature’s goodness.
Christ.
Eating healthy was a lot of work.
When Ethan and Callen came down, they were both bleary-eyed and looked beat.
“Have some faux coffee.”
She poured water over their green tea bags.
“Please tell me that’s going to taste like coffee,” Ethan asked.
They both stared at it.
“Jesus. This is love,” Callen muttered. Then he saw the candy. “What are you doing with that?” he asked, watching as she opened each bar and shoved it down the disposal.
“Saying goodbye to Chris’s mistress, sugar.”
Ethan snorted.
“Callen’s mistress is his hand,” he teased.
“I learned it from you, Mr. Blistered Palm.”
Elizabeth found them funny.
That was until they took a sip of the tea. Their faces said it all. She found it hysterical.
They actually switched mugs.
“This might kill us all,” Ethan stated as he drank the green tea. “I love you, and I love Chris, but when he’s not around, I’m cheating on both of you with my slutty buddy, caffeine. It’s hot, easy to get, and gives me a jump.”
Callen choked on his tea.
She laughed.
“We can do this,” she stated.
“Speak for yourself,” Callen stated. “I’m weak. I need coffee. I’m no one’s hero. I have two jobs.”
Ethan knew his brother just walked right into it.
“Oh, is that so, Callen James?” she asked. “I am a Fed, a wife, and a mother. Then on the side, I make sure you two don’t get hurt.”
“I stand corrected. I have nothing on you, angel,” he teased. “If you loved me you’d let me have coffee.”
She rolled her eyes.
Who was she kidding?
In one hour, she’d have a raging headache and a morning rendezvous with coffee in some closet at the Hoover building.
Yeah, she knew herself.
“Well, then you have to at least eat healthily, and I’m not getting up this early to cook every day. We have someone to do that. When we are back home, let’s let the housekeeper handle this crazy.”
“Are we going back home?” Callen asked. “All of us?”
“I hope so.”
“Are we sleeping in one big bed, or are we doing something…?” Callen began, not sure what to say. This was new for them.
Well, as new as their foursome.
She wasn’t sure.
“We’re sleeping where we used to
sleep,” Chris said coming into the room. “Ethan was all over me last night. I pray that morning wood was NOT for me.”
He nearly dropped his mug.
She laughed so hard.
That was the best thing she’d heard, yet, today.
“You smelled like her. What’s a guy to do,” Ethan stated, wiggling his eyebrows at his wife.
“If I need you, I know where to find you,” Chris reassured. “If I feel like cuddling, I’ll head to your room. Sometimes, Bethe likes to sleep with me, and I know that won’t last forever.”
“You hope,” Callen stated, getting a slap to the back of the head by his brother.
“Thank you, Ethan,” Elizabeth stated.
“Sue me. I’m normally caffeinated by now,” he said.
Oh, she was aware.
“I love you all, now let’s start this journey to health,” she said, pointing at the pancakes as she handed Chris a mug of tea, so he could join them.
“What are they?” Chris asked. “I’m good with cereal.”
“No sugar, no grains, and no cow dairy.”
“Holy shit! Is this to speed up death?” Callen asked. “I’m ready to shoot myself.”
And then he realized what he’d just said.
The whole room went silent.
Callen felt like an asshole, so he apologized. He wasn’t accustomed to having someone around he could offend. Nothing he could say would upset Elizabeth.
She was generally the offender.
“Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
How did he fix this?
Chris understood, so he patted him on the arm. “It’s okay, Callen. I know that you didn’t mean it like that. I was stupid yesterday. I’m surprised I’m not on some list for a psych evaluation.”
“Your boss isn’t here. Your family is,” Ethan reassured. “I will say that if you look like you’re slipping, I’m going to have to up your therapy with Doctor Gaines.”
“About that,” Elizabeth stated. “I’m going to be busy…”
He pointed at her.
There was no way she was getting out of her appointment next week with Callista.
Dead are Forgotten Page 20
