Trusting Zane

by Casey Hagen

  As a survivor, she’d yearned to do so much more.

  It’s the reason why that discussion in the office with Tamara about promotions irritated her in the moment, but turned into nothing more than a fleeting memory the next. She didn’t really want the promotion. She just resented a snake in the grass—Tamara—thinking she could intimidate her.

  Kinsley had made this about her ego, not her goal.

  Her mission was to help heal families. That part of the process usually came after her involvement which told her she was working in the wrong part of the system.

  Drawn to him, to his pain so palpable it had almost permanently etched itself into his rugged features, she found a kindred spirit. She recognized the battle to contain the soaring emotions, to subdue them so they couldn’t take complete control, while holding on to the rush of them because they were familiar.

  It’s exactly what abuse victims did.

  That torment had been keeping them both company for a long time. Hell, hers for so long that she’d become an expert at hiding it.

  So much an expert that he had no clue when he’d encouraged her to touch him, to learn the raw edges that made him the man standing before her, he’d opened wounds she’d fooled herself into believing she’d overcome.

  “What’s keeping you so angry that you struggle to see any good in her? You see my heart. You accept it. But not hers…why is that?”

  A desperation to reach for him filled her. To explore his skin the way she had the night before and feel that torment gripping him ease out on a ragged breath.

  The sound of his cell vibrating echoed through the room, chasing the moment away, plunging them into the immediate crisis of getting Chloe back.

  And Zane putting himself in danger to do it.

  “I’m here,” Zane said by way of answering.

  She turned for the door, needing to hug the children who didn’t realize that their lives were going to pivot once again, with no guarantee of a good outcome.

  She needed their shy, reluctant smiles and bits of cautious laughter—gifts in the wake of what they’d been through and hope that they might just find their way despite all of it.

  His firm grip curled over her arm halting her. The heat seeping into her skin, the strong, yet almost desperate way he grasped her rooted her right to the floor.

  While he thrashed in void, adrift on a torrent of unaddressed emotions, he reached for warmth, understanding, human contact.

  For her.

  And God help her, she wanted him to. Not so she could fix him, not so she could prove that she cared about people and could do the right thing despite her series of missteps…

  Because somewhere in the midst of watching this fallen hero try to hold it all together and be what everyone needed, she lived that same pain of falling short. Maybe, just maybe they could find a way to heal if they held on to one another.

  But she couldn’t fix him. She wasn’t meant to. Her place had become to support him, to love him, while he worked toward finding peace.

  And she needed to find her own. For real this time.

  She tried to ignore his words, knowing she was only getting one side of the conversation, knowing that with the gaps in information, there was a huge chance she’d jump to conclusions or misunderstand.

  But infiltrate, weapons, covert, dangerous, no backup, sent the sharp sting of fear coursing up her spine. Her fingers turned to ice as cold dread filled her.

  People could get hurt or die trying to rescue Chloe…and what if Chloe never made it home to her kids?

  “If it’s as bad as you say, she may not go with you. She’ll need to see a face she can trust. It has to be me,” Zane said.

  The realization of his words pierced her chest, and she whirled on him. “No!”

  His gaze snapped to hers; scrutiny and irritation faded, and the harsh look in his eyes softened with regret.

  “I can handle it. I have to,” he said, turning away from her as though he could shut her out, shut the kids out, and commit to the ultimate risk.

  As though he hadn’t just reached for her, trying to keep her with him when he was so willing to walk away.

  “It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since I dived. Some things you don’t forget. How many men will we have to back me up?”

  Tears threatened and she furiously blinked them away.

  “Yeah, I’ll be here,” he said quietly.

  She held her breath at the sound of him laying his cell phone on the desk. The minute she closed her eyes, his arms encircled her, and a tear escaped, burning a hot trail down her cheek.

  He leaned his cheek against hers and sighed. “I’m coming back.”

  His word exposed her fears and a strangled sigh. “You’re going in alone,” she said past the lump filling her throat. It wasn’t a question. She’d gotten that much from what she heard.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked, holding on to his thick arms crossing her chest.

  “The DEA has agents undercover and close to breaking the case. We shouldn’t be going in at all. We can’t call attention to what we’re doing. She has a man guarding her at all times. Four six-hour shifts. The DEA guy covers until midnight. New guy comes in fresh then, but by four in the morning, he won’t be as vigilant, and that’s when I’ll take her,” he said, grazing her temple with his warm mouth.

  She tilted her head, needing him closer. She memorized the feel of his lips gliding over her skin and the way his breath whispered over the shell of his ear when he sighed and squeezed her tighter.

  “You better come back. Don’t let these children suffer that,” she whispered.

  “What about you?” he asked

  She turned her head just enough to study him from the corner of her eye, her lips just an inch from his. Her heart knocked against her chest at the awareness thrumming between them in the onslaught of his body heat, his scent, his low words rumbling from his throat. “What about me?”

  “What if I’m just as determined to come back for you?” He drifted toward her, that seductive mouth of his brushing over her.

  “You hated me two days ago,” she reminded him.

  He turned her in his arms, his hungry gaze touching every last inch of her face. His straight, white teeth sank into his bottom lip in a brief bite. “That wasn’t hate.”

  “No?” she asked, sliding her palms up his shoulders and wrapping them around his neck. Standing on her tiptoes, every last inch between her knees and breast nestled against him. A cruel clock ticked away, the ominous sound only for them.

  “Not directed at you, never you, but I sure as hell hated all the things you made me want again.”

  Words escaped her so she held on, knowing all too soon she’d have to let go, and the rest of it, their whole future, lay in the hands of a series of moments, decisions, and actions that at any turn could snuff out the kernel of a dream that had unwittingly formed between them.

  “When this is all over, Kinsley, I want this. I want you and me.” He kissed her then, the heat and longing pouring from him into her. Every last wish he hadn’t dared give a voice to, filled her up, raising the stakes for both of them.

  Chapter 13

  Zane poured over the layout where they held his sister. At least they’d narrowed it down so they wouldn’t have to send multiple teams in.

  Less lives to worry about.

  He’d bet his left nut her captors thought they were being clever keeping Chloe in a series of shipping crates that had been welded together and turned into an industrial holding tank of sorts right next to the water. After all, who would get to her there with the good old Long Beach Harbor protecting them on one side and a four-story empty mill surrounded by a ten-foot fence on the other?

  A SEAL.

  “Knock, knock.” The familiar southern drawl washed over him, and he found Tex standing there at his office door, grinning away, a black duffel hitched over his shoulder.

  Zane rounded his desk and shook Tex’s han

d and pulled him in for a hard hug. “Shit, no one told me you were coming.”

  “I told Dylan to zip it. Wanted it to be a surprise. I hopped a plane the minute Melody got back in port,” Tex said, sliding the bag off his shoulder and dropping it to the ground with a hard thud.

  “I’m surprised he allowed that, but damn, it’s good to see you. Hell, I didn’t even hear you come in. Either you’re on your A game, or I’m losing my edge,” Zane said, glancing out his door, wondering if Tex managed to make it past his security system, even as he knew it was all but impossible. Well, for most. If anyone had a shot, Tex did.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to see a familiar face until that shit-eating grin filled his office doorway.

  Dylan, Slyder, Cole, Evan, and Jake were great guys. Welcoming, smart, funny—he could see them becoming like family. But Tex? Tex had seen him at his absolute worst, when he’d lost all faith in humanity and his country.

  Tex understood the despair in Zane that had made him want to give up.

  “That pretty secret you’ve been hiding—Kinsley—she let me in.”

  Zane rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “There’s not a whole lot to tell where she’s concerned.”

  “Or there’s everything to tell. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. She looked like her heart fell out of her chest and I stomped on it when she spotted the gear in the bag. Felt so bad I apologized three times before I finally let her go back to the kids.”

  “If she had her way, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near that shipyard tonight.”

  Tex studied him, a slow grin splitting his face. “She loves you.”

  “We barely know each—”

  Zane’s words died on the heels of Tex’s deep laugh. “Shit, you think that matters?”

  “It should. I’m a surly son of a bitch.”

  “Well, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem,” Tex said with a hearty laugh.

  Zane’s grin slipped. “She hasn’t seen my scars yet.”

  “Like I said, she loves you. They won’t matter,” Tex said, clapping a hand on Zane’s shoulder.

  “You can’t be sure about that.”

  Tex’s eyes shot wide. “I’m about as sure as anyone can be about that since I’m missing a leg. They matter to you. That’s the problem. Question is, have you taken a good look at your scars?” he asked quietly.

  Zane went still, his jaw slack. Of course, he’d looked at his scars. He’d obsessed over them. Loathed them. Wished them to the pit of hell.

  When he’d first come home.

  He searched his memory, but he couldn’t remember a single time he’d looked at them in…shit, he didn’t know.

  Had he even looked at them while living in this house?

  No.

  Christ.

  “I, uh…”

  Tex laughed and dropped onto the easy chair in the corner and dragged the bag between his feet. “Uh-huh. I’ve been there. Give her some credit. You’re the problem,” Tex said.

  “I’m the asshole,” Zane said with a self-depreciating laugh.

  “Yup. Now come on; you can go flirt with yourself in the mirror later. Right now, we have plans to go over.”

  Zane crouched next to the bag, hooked a finger on the nylon, and peered inside. “I thought Dylan was bringing a team over?”

  “He scrapped that plan. They’ve got a contact at the police department that’s sharing information on the down-low about the DEA investigation. The DEA is keeping the locals in the loop so they don’t fuck up their case; that’s the only reason Dylan’s team knows Chloe is there. Right now, they’re putting everything into getting every detail possible before you go in.”

  Knowing undercover agents had their eye on her should have made him feel better, but instead he found himself wondering how high a price they’d pay to make sure they captured their target.

  He knew all too well in the military that loss of life was expected and accepted. One, two, ten, whatever it took to get the job done. So how expendable did they determine Chloe to be?

  “Did they mention her condition?”

  Tex hesitated just a fraction.

  Zane stiffened. “Just tell me.”

  Tex sighed. “They’ve had her drugged up. Heroin. She’ll need to detox and go into rehab.”

  A cold ball of rage swelled in his gut.

  They’d taken her and abused her with no regard for the two children who needed her. This shouldn’t surprise him; he knew just how much cruelty permeated the world they lived in, but he’d shut himself in this house and kept a distance from—well, just about everything that forced him to feel much of anything.

  And those kids did need her, something he struggled to admit before. But they needed her well. Not just detoxed from the shit they’d been pumping in her, but to thrive and learn how to love herself so down the road, she’d hopefully find a man who would cherish her instead of abuse her.

  Right now, she’d been reduced to little more than a bargaining chip to force her boyfriend to comply.

  How long before they realized the son of a bitch didn’t give a shit about Chloe? Because if he did, he never would have put a cigarette out on Tyler, not once, not twice, but three times.

  And likely many more times than Zane knew about.

  His hands curled into fists. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I want to blow the whole operation sky-high and watch it burn to the ground with every last bastard inside,” Zane said.

  “Agreed, and I know how much it sucks that we can’t do just that. For now though, let’s go through your equipment and the timeline so you can get her out of there before the DEA rains down on the whole lot of the bastards, and she becomes collateral damage,” Tex said, pulling out a wet suit.

  Life had just come full circle. The team and Tex, they’d all known he needed an integral piece of his past to get his head in the game, all the way in the game, when he hadn’t even known himself. “Tex, I’m glad they sent you. If something goes wrong—I just want you to know that,” Zane said.

  Tex nodded in agreement. “Now, just make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “It’s that easy, huh?” Zane said with a laugh.

  “Yup, and that fucking hard,” Tex replied.

  Kinsley knocked softly on Zane’s door, careful to be quiet enough to not disturb the kids. They’d spent a good portion of their morning outside with Grace before she had joined them, hauling out all the fixings for a picnic.

  Grace had outdone herself, and by early afternoon, they’d played Bocce ball, set up and played badminton, and had their way with finger paints and canvasses propped on easels on the patio.

  They laughed, played, made an ungodly mess, took baths, and filled their bellies, their eyelids sinking closed before they even cleaned their plates.

  She smiled, the images of their faces relaxed in sleep easing the anxiety that had been squeezing her chest for the past two days.

  They’d had their best day and hadn’t a single hint that everything was about to change—one way or another.

  Zane finally opened the door, his face ashen and tension lining his mouth.

  She pushed her way through the door and closed it behind her. “What’s wrong? Chloe?”

  He shook his head, the lamplight revealing a sheen of sweat dotting his hairline. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” she asked, looking him over.

  He smoothed his fingers through his hair. “It’s nothing. What did you need? Are the kids okay?”

  “The kids are just fine and would likely sleep through a tornado, they’re so exhausted. Now, stop changing the subject, and tell me what’s wrong.” She’d only ever seen him confident and sure. Okay, a bit testy and sometimes downright belligerent, but they’d both had their moments.

  He scrubbed his hands down his face before dropping them to his hips. “I haven’t looked at my scars.”

  “Umm, I’m not exactly sure what you���”

  “I haven’t looked at them in years,” he said quietly.

  “Oh,” she said on a rush of breath. “That’s, well—that’s a big deal.”

  He turned to the mirror and glared at himself. “Yeah, I thought my biggest problem was that I haven’t shown anyone else. Turns out I’m a whole lot more fucked up than I thought.”

  This was the moment. The moment she could help him, and help herself as well, maybe.

  She just needed to slice into her heart and let it bleed at his feet.

  Yeah, no problem that.

  “We’re all a little crooked. Some just a bit more crooked than others,” she said. She met his stormy, impossibly dark eyes in the mirror and smiled.

  Blunt and demanding, Zane stood there with the overhead light washing over him, a harsh spotlight on something that required patience and finesse.

  But that had been Zane all along. In your face. No excuses. No apologies. And absolutely no concept of self-care.

  Leaving him standing in front of the full-length mirror in silent judgment, she headed for his nightstand. The plush carpet brushed her feet like a lover. So much luxury in this room and he deprived himself of every last bit of it. He wore business casual as his armor from the time he crawled out of his king-sized bed to the time he crawled back in.

  One soft click and the lamp flared to life, the golden glow forgiving.

  Rounding the bed, she clicked on the other before heading back to the doorway.

  His gaze found hers in the mirror a second before she flicked the switch, casting the room into lamplight—twin beacons of hope and healing.

  “First, you need to realize, softening the sharp edges doesn’t make you weak. It’s just a way of being a little bit kinder to yourself,” she said.

  He tracked her as she wandered about the room, dragging her fingertips over the cool, smooth surface of his dresser. Even his furniture represented him, both dark and imposing.

  But timeless and enduring.

  “I lost my mother when I was six…” her voice grated, the admission rusty from disuse. “I’d never known my father so she was my everything.”

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