Make Mine a Marine

by Julie Miller

  The ache behind her eyes sharpened. She needed to call to him. Brodie. Help.

  She called with her mind, but he couldn't hear her.

  Pain spasmed behind her eyes, making her dizzy with its intensity. She gripped the butcher block in the center of the kitchen, riding the waves of nausea spinning the room around her.

  It's nothing.

  As soon as the words entered her mind, the world righted itself. The pain vanished. She could breathe again. Her eyes focused with a strange clarity that brought everything into sharper view.

  Brodie still stood with his back to her, too caught up in whatever was bothering him to hear her approach.

  Three steps away from him. Two. She had to do it.

  She reached upward. Metal flashed. She tightened her fist.

  Some little sound or sixth sense must have alerted Brodie. He straightened just as she brought the dagger down, shifting her target. The deadly edge glanced off his shoulder blade, ripping through cotton and skin, but missing the muscle and vulnerable organs beneath.

  Her yelp of furious determination drowned out Brodie's startled curse. The knife became a living, wicked thing in her hand. She raised it to strike again.

  But Brodie's reflexes were too swift for her. He twisted around, snatching her wrist and wrenching her clean off the floor with his other arm. Pinned near his waist, she thrashed against him, kicking and twisting.

  He has to be stopped!

  “BJ!” He snapped her wrist that held the knife, knocking the weapon to the floor. “Bridget! Look at me!”

  Somehow he contained her struggles with one arm cinched around her. He cupped the back of her neck and forced head back. “It’s Brodie. Look at me.”

  Bridget. Nobody called her Bridget unless she was in trouble.

  “I have to stop you.” Her protest faltered and her body weakened.

  Dimly, her mind rallied to try and place herself in her surroundings. She was floating in the air. No, she was trapped against a wall.

  “Bridget.”

  Someone called her name again. She felt herself falling. Her feet touched something solid. She grabbed on to whatever she could reach to steady herself.

  “That's it. Hold on to me'.”

  Her handhold shifted. Then she blinked. She could see already, couldn't she? Yet her vision was clearing. She blinked again and found herself staring at the handle of a dagger. Someone had ripped the leather wrapping to expose a jagged zigzag carving.

  “BJ? Sweetheart, are you with me?”

  The soothing deep rumble of Brodie's voice penetrated the fog in her head. Her fingers curled tightly into his soft cotton T-shirt. She lifted her gaze up the pulsing column of his throat, across the angle of his jaw, to find both tender reassurance and something downright predatory in his murky gray eyes.

  “What happened?” she croaked out on a whisper.

  “You had another episode.” His words were gentle, but the wildness in his eyes meant something else.

  “Obviously,” she said. She collapsed against him, feeling spent, grateful for his unyielding strength beneath her cheek. Her fingers loosened their grip, but cotton stuck to her right hand. Confused and curious, she tried to see the gummy stuff that made it sticky. But Brodie's hand fanned over hers, capturing it flat against his chest.

  “Don't worry about it,” he warned, brushing his lips to the crown of her head.

  “Don’t worry about what?” She tugged her hand within his grip, feeling a surge of panic rise in her throat. “What did I do?”

  She leaned away from him, suddenly fearful that he held her so tightly, suddenly mindful of the throbbing pain in her right wrist.

  Then she saw how his shirt sagged in front, how a large tear in the fabric exposed the skin of his right shoulder. Bile churned in her stomach. “What did I do to you?”

  “I'm all right.”

  With a quick twist of her hips, she freed herself from Brodie's hold and moved to his side. She glimpsed his back before he could turn it away from her.

  “Oh, God, no.” He let her look when she stopped him with her hand on his arm. The wound was already healing, but the bloodstains on the back of his shirt and her hand told her exactly what had happened. “I tried to kill you.”

  He silenced her apology with his lips. “Don't think about it,” he whispered.

  BJ had a hard time remembering what she shouldn't be thinking about. Brodie's kiss left her feeling bruised and feverish, soft and gooey inside.

  “Did Damon call you?”

  His question felt out of sync with the rhythmic heat pulsing through her. He released his hold on her, but didn't let her go far, taking her by the hand and leading her to one of the kitchen chairs. He sat, pulling her between his legs and onto his lap.

  For the first time, they faced each other on the same level, eye-to-eye. He caught both her hands in one of his, and she winced.

  “I hurt you.” His eyes shadowed with regret and harsh reprimand.

  “You were defending yourself.”

  His grip on her tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to reveal his frustration. “I don't understand why he'd want you to kill me. He knows it can't be done.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “Was it Damon?”

  What was his hang-up with Damon? “Why do you keep saying that? It was Rick on the phone.”

  He shook his head, looking as confused as he made her feel. “That's what you said earlier. It just doesn't make sense.”

  “You think Rick's call triggered the episode?”

  “I don't know. I'd have bet money something in that call was the cause, but I can't see Chambers knowing how to do this to you.”

  “How long was I out this time?” She paused to catch a ragged breath. “Before I tried to get rid of you.”

  His gentle fingers tipped her sagging chin back up. He wouldn't let her feel any remorse for what she had done to him. “Just a few minutes. You carried on a normal conversation. We talked about your dolls. You asked about my knife.”

  A vague memory flitted through her head. “I needed a weapon.”

  “You asked if I had a gun.”

  BJ felt the heat seep from her body. What was he implying? If he had given her a gun instead of the knife, would he now be lying dead in her kitchen?

  His grip tightened around her trembling fingers. “Don't worry about it. You can't kill me.”

  “I can if I'm out of my head. If I don't know what I'm doing.”

  “No. I mean I won't die.”

  BJ just stared at him for a moment, wondering if a man of considerable strength of will really could hold death at bay. Did he believe that strongly in his invincibility? Could she believe in it?

  No matter what Brodie said, she had done a terrible thing. She picked at the ripped material of his shirt, trying to cover his shoulder with the tattered ends. “Did I hurt you? Was there a lot of pain?”

  “At first. But it went away pretty fast. Once the adrenaline kicked in.”

  She appreciated that he didn't lie to her, but his honesty sparked the same compassionate concern she had felt earlier. “So with all the marks on you, you felt pain?”

  “I beat every last one.”

  So he had suffered. Her heart ached for him. “How did you beat them?”

  Brodie sat so silently and so still that she began to think he hadn't heard the question. His eyes darkened like shadowy steel. “Immortality.”

  BJ just stared at him, wondering if her hearing had been affected by the last episode.

  “Immortality?” she repeated, making sure she hadn't imagined his answer.

  “Yes. I'm an immortal.”

  The look in his eyes was just too serious. BJ burst out laughing. “Oh, really?” Her laughter softened to a nervous giggle. “So just how old are you, then, big guy?”

  “Forty. But I've been forty for almost eight hundred years.”

  Her laughter erupted again. She leaned
back against his arm at her waist, blinking away the moisture in her eyes. Gradually, she became aware of the darkening of his expression, of the rigid set of his powerful shoulders, of the fury in his eyes. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the laughter that wouldn't cease, the laughter tinged with a note of madness in it now.

  She hugged her arms around together, shielding herself from the man who shielded her. She forced the laughter down her throat. “Please, don't do this to me, Brodie. I have enough doubts about my own sanity. Don't make me think you're crazy, too.”

  Abruptly, Brodie stood, dumping her from his lap. She would have landed on her backside if she hadn't caught the edge of the table to steady herself. Brodie straightened to every intimidating inch of height in front of her.

  “I'm going to change and get some fresh air.”

  He strode past her, proud and aloof and distant once more.

  “Brodie?” Her outstretched hand touched nothing but air.

  He froze and turned, nailing her with such a look that she pulled her hand back. “You need to rest. Take some time to get that head of yours back in order. When you can think straight, and listen and reason, we'll talk. I need to know about Chambers’ phone call and anything else that might have triggered the episode, and specifically about how you can be programmed to carry out different functions.”

  His words sounded solicitous enough, but the unforgiving set of his shoulders and the glittering ice in his eyes informed her she had lost whatever ground she had made with Brodie. She was no longer of personal interest to him. When he strode out of her sight, he carried her distrust with him like another visible scar.

  Forget what she had done with the knife. She had laughed in his face and called him crazy.

  Some wounds even Brodie Maxwell couldn't heal.

  Chapter Seven

  BJ kept her distance from him the rest of the day. He made it easy for her, snapping whenever she tried to speak, even at something so simple as the announcement she had dinner ready.

  Brodie didn't know why her reaction to his immortality should upset him so. From the start, he had known she was a woman of facts and science. Her knowledge of abnormal things was limited to science fiction movies. She probably knew how the special effects were created. She could generate monsters and magical illusions on her computers.

  Brodie knew monsters and magic were real. He was living proof of concepts BJ couldn't possibly grasp unless she were willing to give in to the idea that not all things in this world had a rational explanation.

  She hadn't minced words with him. She felt as if she were fighting off insanity. He knew her initial response to him had been as a protector, someone to ward off the imminent threat of madness. Now she thought him unstable. She didn't trust him.

  He had seen such sorrow in her eyes, true remorse for stabbing him. Brodie could see that she cared about him on some level, but not to the terrible, dreaded degree that he was learning to care about her.

  He should be relieved that she doubted him. A little distrust and distance might keep her safe. But it hurt. It hurt him in his gut to know that she feared him. To know that the closeness that had sprung up so naturally between them had vanished the moment he’d told her the truth.

  He could hear her at the far end of the house, playing with the dog on the back porch. She had walked a wide path around him today, and avoided eye contact as though she might turn to stone should their gazes ever meet.

  Brodie tugged his shirt off over his head and tossed it onto his duffel bag. He rubbed his hand over his jaw, feeling the raspy stubble there. He needed a shave. Hell, it might actually do him some good to look in a mirror. The reflection of his own ugly visage always reinforced how different he was, how necessary it was for him to remain unattached.

  He walked into the guest bathroom and unpacked his shaving kit. He filled the sink with hot, steamy water and began softening up the mug of soap with his shaving brush. He took several minutes to prepare his skin before removing the safety cover from his straight-edged razor. He tilted his chin up and stretched his neck before carefully laying the sharply honed blade against his throat. He worked slowly and methodically. Not that he was afraid of a few nicks, it was just a challenge to find the undamaged skin among all the scars.

  A transformation in reverse unfolded each time he whisked away a bit of the cream. With half his face and neck covered in white, he looked almost normal. But gradually the monster revealed himself, showing the mirror and the man what he truly was.

  Then he saw her. She stood behind him in the doorway, her gaze locking on his in the mirror. She looked relaxed, leaning against the door frame, but the tension in her wide green eyes revealed the truth about how hard the day had been for her.

  “I knocked, but I guess you didn't hear me.”

  Her voice sounded even enough. But he heard her breath catch and saw that her gaze had gone from the mirror to his back. Not many men had gotten the drop on him to attack him from behind, but there were scars there too, including the new one on his shoulder blade that she had put there.

  Brodie automatically reached for his shirt, but came up empty. He'd left it in the bedroom, on the other side of BJ. He couldn't retrieve it without brushing past her, possibly touching her, putting the deformities he wanted to hide right in front of her eyes.

  He opted instead to drape a towel around his neck. It didn't cover much, but the ends of it in the front at least masked the scar over his heart. The brand that held subconscious meaning for her. He could hide that much from her.

  He spoke to her reflection. “You need something?”

  “Yes.” BJ stepped into the bathroom, hugging her arms protectively. “I need to apologize.”

  Coming to him took courage. Seeking him out, accepting blame for what was as much his fault as hers took some real guts. He had quickly grown to admire BJ's tenacity, but there was more involved here. This was taking a chance. This was making herself vulnerable so that he could take the same risk. Something hard and full of rage crumbled inside him.

  “I shouldn't have laughed,” she said. “There are things in this world I don't know about. But I'm pretty smart.” Her full lower lip curled into a timid smile at the understatement. “I want to understand.”

  He wiped the traces of soap from his face with the end of his towel. Before BJ had any chance of understanding, she had to believe in him. She had to trust that he would never lie to her.

  Brodie continued to face the mirror, afraid of what her tell-all eyes would say to him if he started speaking of curses and spells and punishment beyond imagining.

  “BJ. I don't lie. I've been around way too long to keep track of what I’ve said to whom, so I stick to the truth. And I'm not crazy. I've never been granted that kind of reprieve.”

  He could see she didn't like the preamble he had given her. She rubbed at her upper arms. He wanted to do that for her, chase away her chill with his own hands. But she had to want him to touch her again. He wouldn't force himself on her, even if it killed him a little more inside to stand by and watch her suffer when he could give her comfort.

  She decided to believe him, although he could tell the decision wasn't firm. “Okay. So you've been around for eight hundred and forty years.”

  “Eight hundred and thirty-five.”

  She did the math quickly. “You were born in 1176.”

  “You can quiz my history. I've seen a lot of it firsthand.”

  She backed up to the doorjamb and leaned against it. “No. I want to take this a little bit at a time. You really believe you've been alive since the twelfth century?”

  “I know I have.”

  She turned from him, stepping into the bedroom. “What I think doesn't matter. It's real for you, so I have to accept it.”

  Brodie suspected she was talking more to herself than to him, but he followed her as far as the door and responded anyway. “My dagger was forged in 1214. It's the only possession that's traveled with me through time. You could take it
to a lab and have the carvings carbon-dated for authenticity. I made one about every two hundred years. But artifacts and mortal wounds that heal themselves won't convince you. You have to take a leap of faith and just believe me.”

  BJ looked at him then. Those spruce-flecked eyes that told him more than he had a right to know looked at him and revealed that maybe, just maybe, she did believe him. She didn't want to, her eyes expressed that clearly, too, but on some level that her rational mind could live with, she believed.

  Her eyes also reflected guilt. “I shouldn't have laughed when you told me.”

  “You’d just come through a traumatic experience.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe I can't kill you. But I can hurt you. I seem to be pretty good at it, in fact. I'm sorry.”

  Brodie shifted his weight at her apology, caught off guard by the relief sweeping through him, uncomfortable admitting how much he’d needed to hear those words. He didn't want to be that vulnerable to her. His gaze darted to the rumpled T-shirt on his duffel bag. The need to cover himself grew stronger. She could see inside him. She could see his pain. He could at least hide the physical evidence of his torture from her eyes.

  BJ's gaze followed the same path. She looked at the shirt, then at him. What he read in her eyes shook him down to the core.

  He saw need. Raw physical need.

  To touch and be touched. To hold and be held.

  Her gaze on his torso, covered with nothing but scars and a bit of towel, sparked an echoing ache in his belly. Moments ago he had been self-conscious, fearful of showing her his ugliness. Now her bold gaze on his naked skin awakened a hunger in him, a powerful need that went beyond sexual tension. She made him think of the years he had denied himself any meaningful contact with a woman.

  Tonight, in the spacious guest room that suddenly seemed too confining, he wanted her. To touch. To hold. To fill.

  And damn his self-restraint all to hell, she wanted him, too.

  He cleared his throat in a strangled rush. “I'd better check the grounds before we turn in.”

  “You've done that already.”

  He glared at her, remembering how his cruel look had pushed her away from him in the kitchen, and strode over to his duffel bag to grab his shirt. This time she didn't frighten as easily. She beat him to the shirt and snatched it behind her back before he could reach it.