Noah had said he’d handle Vivi so Mace could concentrate on helping Cael.
“Doc’s convinced his memories will return. Better that when they do, he’s someplace safe, with someone he trusts,” Noah had said. “You up for this?”
Of course he was. The team was on the verge of shattering if he walked away now. Putting his effort into helping Caleb made it easier to push down the pain of Gray.
But many of Caleb’s memories seemed to be returning. And when they did, it was as if he wasn’t quite aware that what he remembered was important.
Don’t push him. Just go along with what he says, Noah had told him.
Mace didn’t believe for a second that Cael could’ve hurt him or Gray. He had only that belief, nothing else, for proof, but for him that was enough. The rest was locked up tight in Cael’s mind, and only time would heal him enough to release that.
“How much would it take to alter a person’s mind once he’s been given hallucinogenics?” he remembered asking the doc, right before he was released from the hospital and given the okay to return home. His voice had been rough—more so than it was now—so rusty from misuse and damaged that he would never sound the same as before.
It seemed fitting.
“For some people, it happens the first time. Others can take them for years and experience only minimal effects. Caleb’s memories might never fully return … or he might see them as flashbacks, like they didn’t really happen to him,” Doc explained. “Either way, he’ll regain something. He’s already had intermittent flashes of memories in the three weeks you’ve been recovering.”
And Cael’s recovery was continuing.
“I figure maybe if I’m relaxed, the memories will come,” Caleb had explained when Mace questioned him about his partying, feeling like an old man, but hell, Cael’s plan was as good as any. And in some ways, it appeared to be working.
Mace wished he could throw himself into the crowd and lose himself in the people and the music, wanted to lose himself in booze and women until he was stupid with both.
Until now, he’d resisted. With Paige this close, he wasn’t sure he could resist any longer.
CHAPTER
3
Caleb had left her bags on the floor when he’d gone off to follow Mace. Alone, Paige stared out the window, wondering if she could even make it to her car in this weather. But really, there was nowhere for her to go and something inside told her this was the best place for her to be.
She stared across the scarred floor of the bar and could easily picture Gray here, laughing, drinking, having a good time in the rowdy crowd. Gray had been like that—able to fit in anyplace. It was why the secrecy of Delta Force had suited him so, why he hadn’t cared that his dad thought he was motorpool and kept complaining, asking, Why can’t you go any higher?
No, Paige had been the only one Gray had told what his job really entailed, and she’d been through an extensive background check by the Army for that privilege.
Just then, the door opened and Caleb came in, a small smile on his face. He picked up her bags and began walking across the room.
“By the way, I’m Cael,” he called over his shoulder. “Mace forgets his manners when he’s in a bad mood. Follow me.”
She did, through the bar and up narrow steps hidden behind a locked door.
It was larger upstairs than she would’ve thought—the main room boasted a fireplace and some large couches and there appeared to be four doors lining the hallway.
He stopped at the farthest one and opened the door, flicking on the light before stepping aside to let her in first. It was a cozy room, with a double bed and a large window that had an open shade, highlighting the fast-moving storm. He came in behind her with her bags, and dropped them in the corner.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You’ve got a really rough crowd to deal with,” she said.
“Didn’t used to be. We’ve been trying to clean house in the bar and in town,” Cael explained. “A lot of it is drugs—buying and selling. The police don’t have the manpower to keep it under control. It seemed to happen overnight. We were gone for six months and the town went nuts.”
“Why?”
“Auto plant closed down. People started looking for easy work.”
She nodded. In a downturned economy, the hospital saw an upsweep in violence as well.
Caleb stepped past her to close the shades and she noted a portable lantern on the floor by the bed. “I’ve never met you before, have I?”
The oddness of the question wasn’t lost on her, but she answered anyway. “No, we’ve never met, but I’ve seen pictures of you—from Gray.”
“Okay, yeah, I’ve probably seen pictures of you too, but …” He pointed a finger at his forehead. “I’ve got some transient traumatic amnesia.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “The doc says I should get my memory back.”
“Did that happen on the mission with Gray?” she asked, and he nodded. “I assumed Gray died in combat, but the Army’s pretty closemouthed.”
Caleb nodded. “Gray was a hero. I don’t remember much, but I know that for sure. I mean, Mace has told me what happened. In the beginning, I asked him to tell me every day, hoping to spark something. It was hard as hell on him, but he did it.” Caleb paused. “He was hurt too.”
“I saw the scar.” Her own hand went to her throat.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” He paused. “Gray stayed here sometimes. I mean, Mace told me he did.”
Even with no memory, Caleb was far less closed off than Mace was. She’d expect a man with no memory to be jumpy and unsure—unless he was really good at hiding it. But she didn’t get that sense from him.
She thought about asking him more, but didn’t.
“Nice tats.”
“What? Oh.” Her sweater sleeves were still pushed up, revealing the intricate swirls of the tattoos that encircled both wrists.
She’d had them done in a place in New York City, had taken the week off from work to allow them to fully heal. She hid them with her watch and her sleeves, although she really didn’t need to. Tattoos were ubiquitous these days, and hers weren’t offensive by any means. In fact, they often garnered her unwanted attention, but still, she would take protection in any way, shape or form she could get it.
Now she yanked her sleeves down quickly and held the ends of the sweater in her palms. “Are you sure this is all okay? I mean, Mace seems to want me to leave.”
“Mace is acting like an asshole,” Cael corrected. “You can’t go anywhere tonight without four-wheel drive. Even then, it’s a tough ride.”
The wind railed against the window as if to prove his point. “Thanks.”
“Mace says you know things. He doesn’t believe in all that crap—well, you know what I mean.” Caleb was leaning against the doorjamb now and of course he knew. Mace had no doubt warned him that she was a psychic freak. She’d heard the derogatory comments before.
Didn’t you know? At least your freak curse could’ve helped, her mother had practically spat.
She’d apologized a thousand times after that for her comment, but Paige knew she’d never meant it.
Mainly because Paige blamed herself for what Jeffrey had done more than anyone else ever could. “I know what you mean, Caleb. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Do you believe?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He shuffled a foot. “Do you, uh, did you ever help anyone get their memory back with that—”
“Crap?” She smiled. “No, that’s something I’ve never done.”
“Can you?”
She stared at him. “I’d have to know some background first. I’m a medical professional, and I wouldn’t want to trigger something—”
He was already holding up a hand. “Forget it.” And then, he muttered, “Same old bullshit I’ve heard before.”
“Caleb, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean to press you like that.
This just sucks, you know?” Cael looked frustrated. He was as handsome as Mace, but as different as summer from winter, light from dark, in terms of temperament.
She supposed having no baggage to carry around would do that to a person, and she wondered what that would be like. “Sometimes, I wish my memory was erased.”
Cael looked at her sharply. “Why?”
He didn’t know. One of the few people her age who wouldn’t recognize her brother’s name, didn’t know what had happened—and yet, she was going to tell him. “When I was fourteen, my brother opened fire in our high school cafeteria. He killed several of my friends and classmates before the police stopped him. He was sixteen. He’s in jail now.”
Cael was silent and she wondered if she’d upset him, as his brown eyes darkened as she spoke. But then he told her, “I can see why you’d want to forget. I’ve got a box of Gray’s things in the attic. I packed this room up, mostly because Mace kept getting upset when he’d come in here. I can get it down for you tomorrow—just don’t mention it to him, all right?”
“Thanks.”
“Get some sleep. We’re both right down the hall if you need anything,” he said, before shutting the door, leaving her alone with the ghosts of her past.
Caleb flexed his hands, stared down at them and thought about all the things he’d done for Delta Force … all the things he must’ve done and how instinctively those moves came back to him when necessary.
Not that he’d had to kill anyone at the bar, but he was amazed at how quickly he could restrain and escort out angry patrons, effortlessly, with no real thought—or fear—behind it. Pure instinct.
Mace had nodded his approval, but Cael could see his face hid something.
Cael might’ve lost his memories but he wasn’t an idiot. Going back to Delta Force wasn’t possible without his memories and a doctor’s clearance.
Was he supposed to work here forever? Not that it was a bad gig, but he was pretty sure he needed more.
It had been damned hard for him not to force Paige’s palms to his skin, to make her read him, whether she wanted to or not, Mace’s orders be damned.
Cael wondered if she would see anything inside his mind, or if she would only find the terrifyingly blank abyss he faced every morning, with only the barest of memories fading in and then out before he could grab them.
It had been like that for three long months.
Once his team had been rescued from the hellhole they’d been in for three weeks, they were brought to Germany to the military hospital facility—Gray, to the morgue, and he and Reid had been examined and questioned. He remembered their CO, Noah, asking him the same questions over and over, but it was all a fine mist he couldn’t penetrate.
The doctors did their best to reassure him that the amnesia was from the large doses of hallucinogenic drugs he’d been given by the enemy, combined with emotional trauma rather than physical, and although Cael liked to think of himself as strong-minded, not having to deal with any physical limitations on his brain was a relief.
Still, he waited for the memories to seep through—and they did, here and there. Since returning home with Mace, he’d found himself doing things he didn’t know he knew how to do, like driving a stick shift and hotwiring a car. The other night, Mace caught him jimmying the lock to the storeroom and had simply smiled.
It was both terrifying and liberating to have so few memories of the past, except Cael knew that Mace was holding something back. And so, in the beginning, he’d questioned Mace night after night about the mission they were captured on, taking careful notes and looking for inconsistencies.
But Mace was very good—his story never changed about the days they were held … about the night Gray was killed and Cael had come to holding a knife and helping staunch the blood from Mace’s throat.
And Reid, the other Delta operative who’d gone on the mission with them, had escaped mercifully unscathed because he’d been unconscious, thanks to a snake bite that nearly killed him.
Damned puff adder had saved his life.
Mace said Reid was away on another mission. But he’d get in touch as soon as he was back, the way he always did.
Cael remembered Reid and Mace and Gray most clearly—Cam too. Everything about Delta Force and his time in the Army, except that last mission. His family was a blank, though. It was odd that he could remember how to prepare for bailing out of a C-130 and not remember any family dinners or the fact that he might’ve had a fully functioning goddamned life before all of this.
“You have an older brother named Dylan—he was in Delta and now he owns a private security firm. And you have a younger brother named Zane. He’s Navy, a SEAL,” Mace told him, and he showed him pictures, entire albums.
Cael would stare at the young man who looked nothing like him and the older one who definitely resembled him, but—at least for that first month—he had no recollection of growing up with them.
It was as if his life began the moment he came to, standing over Mace with a bloody knife and then carrying him out of what he’d later learn was a makeshift, underground prison, courtesy of a terrorist group called DMH—Dead Man’s Hand. Try as he might, he didn’t know if it was the knife used on Mace. Who had wielded it? He should know … and no doubt did. He was as sure of that as he was, deep down in his soul, that Zane and Dylan were his brothers, that Mace and Gray were his best friends.
He found himself wanting to call Zane at the oddest times, had asked him once, “Do I fucking smother you all the time, or what?”
Zane had laughed at first and then grown serious. “You check in on me a lot.”
“That must annoy the shit out of you.”
There was a long pause and then Zane said, “S’not so bad.”
His brother had sounded choked up and Cael had written that down, made a note to ask why later. They wouldn’t tell him anything that would stress him out now, but he could smell a story there.
And so Caleb continued with the check-ins, getting to know his past, getting comfortable with his present and not sure at all about his future.
He wondered if Paige was a bigger part of Mace’s future than the man realized. Mace was worried as hell that Paige would discover something, and Cael was determined that he would discover it first.
There was something so vulnerable about Paige. She was tough, for sure, judging by the fierce way she’d taken down Big Harvey earlier that night—the guy’d had it coming. But she was scared, running from something, and even though he was doing the opposite—solidly running toward his memories rather than away from them—he could understand.
She’d be safe here, for as long as she needed the shelter.
——
After Caleb left, Paige stood in the center of the room for a long time without moving.
She’d upset him with her talk of memories, and she hadn’t meant to at all. But why he had none, that was something she needed to find out. Because true amnesia was rare and the circumstances surrounding it needed to be extremely traumatic.
Watching Gray get killed certainly qualified, she reminded herself, the dull ache returning with a vengeance. Whatever Mace knew, maybe it was better if she remained in the dark—but then, she’d learned her lesson long ago.
Secrets could kill.
She stared at the picture of the three men on the shelf closest to her—her brother, flanked by Mace on one side and Cael on the other. A good-looking group, despite the fact that they all wore their scary, grim soldier faces.
Gray’s dog tags hung outside his shirt, as did Caleb’s. Mace’s were hidden underneath his T-shirt, but the outline was visible.
She picked up the frame and ran a finger over his chest. Of all three, he was the most intimidating. Dark hair, blue-green eyes—the picture didn’t do them justice. No, in person, they were the color of the ocean and just as ever changing, depending on his mood. In the picture, his eyebrows were knitted together in a frown—it was the same look he’d given her when he’d first
seen her enter his bar.
The same one he’d given her when they’d first met.
He was all hard edges. And she liked it, found herself pulled toward the danger that seemed to radiate from him. Wanted to know what it was like to be joined with all that fury.
A noise outside made her jump, and she put the frame back and tried to look out the window, but the snow was coming down too fiercely to see anything but the fluffy white flakes.
It was probably beautiful outside. Crisp and quiet and she was in the middle of a storm with two elite, highly trained soldiers. Nothing could happen to her here.
As if mocking her, the lights immediately slammed off. She felt for the lantern, not realizing for the first few seconds that she was reaching under the table on the wrong side of the bed. She heard voices and she panicked, moved blindly toward where she thought the door was.
Instead, her hands met a body—a hard chest. When her palms made the connection, she caught a flash of something. Danger. Terror. Escape.
Murder.
Immediately, she was grabbed by the wrists. Her hands lost contact and everything faded.
“Scared of the dark, Paige?” Mace’s voice was low and gruff and impossibly sexy.
“I’m scared of you.”
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the words out loud until he said, “You should be.”
He let her go and turned on a portable lamp. He handed it to her and she held it by her side as he remained in front of her, his eyes flashing in the dim light. “Don’t touch Caleb,” he warned.
Yes, the man had secrets and her hands were more of a threat than any weapon. “Caleb told me about his memory loss.”
Mace cursed and then muttered something she didn’t catch under his breath. “You have no idea what you’re up against,” he told her finally.
“He asked me if I could read him, but I told him no. I wouldn’t, and not because you told me not to. His memory needs to come back on its own.”
In the Air Tonight Page 4
