by Jessica Ames
It’s not the smoothest ride I’ve been on, but the roads in this area are non-existent.
“As long as he gets us there in one piece, I couldn’t care less.”
Luke snorts and pats the webbing on his vest, checking his weapons. It’s a comfort thing he does when he’s on edge, making me think I’m not the only one.
The dust of this place practically coats the back of my throat. The taste of that shit will be embedded in my brain even after we’re done on this deployment—if we ever get done. Nearly twelve months of this tour, I’ve been stuck in this hellhole, fighting Taliban insurgents in a war that has been going on since two-thousand and one. It doesn’t feel like we’re any closer to winning.
A yell goes up a moment after a crack fires through the air. Then, all hell breaks loose.
The convoy comes to a stop and soldiers bail out of the vehicles, guns ready, returning the attack.
Instantly, I react, training taking over as more cracks follow and a cacophony of gunfire echoes around the canyon.
I return fire for a few moments before ducking back down behind the Humvee we’re gathered behind. I glance to my side and see Slider, my other team member, is out of the HEMTT A4 M984A4 wrecker recovery unit that was trailing us, and is also returning fire.
My mouth is dry, but my mind is clear. I might be a mechanic, but we train for this shit. I know how to fight.
“Fuck,” I mutter as the firing gets louder and louder. There must be hundreds of insurgents out there, all firing at us.
I sweep a look at Slider, who is fighting alone, checking he’s in one piece and then return my focus to the chaos taking place around us. Keeping my guys, myself and the rest of the convoy alive long enough to get home is all I give a shit about.
“It’s a goddamn ambush!” Luke yells over the bullets.
“No shit,” J-Dog hollers back.
I can hear radio messages going out to our home base, calling for back up. Soldiers yell orders to each other even as more powerful weapons are unpacked. I do a quick count of my team, making sure everyone is still standing and am relieved when I count them all.
An RPG boom rattles the ground beneath my feet and I crouch lower, protecting my head as a second follows behind it, landing somewhere ahead of the Humvee, although a little too close for comfort.
“Go to Slider,” I tell Luke.
Luke nods, but he barely moves out from behind the vehicle when an explosion goes off in front of him. That’s all I see before I’m eating dust.
My ears ringing, my head rolling, I push up from the dirt. My knee is throbbing, but I ignore it, because as the dust settles, I see Luke lying in the dirt.
Fuck, Luke…
I roll over to my knees and push up, ignoring the stab of pain. The left leg of my camos is shredded and I can see blood, but I test the limb. It barely holds my weight, but it’s enough for me to move.
I don’t think before I rush over to him, not caring that I’m in the line of fire. He’s lying on his front, but he looks intact. No limbs missing, no blood seeping through his clothes. I grab him under the arms and drag him behind the Humvee.
When I drop him back down onto his front, I realize he’s not moving.
Everything slows around me as I see liquid coming from his ear. What the fuck? I carefully turn him onto his back and expect his eyes to be glassy, but they are rolling in his head.
He’s still alive.
“Hang on, buddy. We’ll get you patched up,” I tell him.
J-Dog is on the other side of him, already in full medic mode. His kit is open and his hands are moving quickly.
“I think he got his bell rung,” I tell J.
I don’t need to, he’s already at Luke’s ear.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
I get on the radio and call in for a medevac before I meet J’s eyes and swallow bile.
“Just stay calm, buddy,” he says to Luke. “We’ve got you.”
It’s a lie. The guy is leaking brain fluid out of his ear. I’m not a doctor, but even I know this is bad.
My heart is pounding out of my chest. Did my command just get my friend brain damaged?
Fuck.
I glance down at Luke. Fuck, this is my fault.
2
April
Present…
* * *
“Keys…” I mutter to myself as I continue my frantic search of the kitchen. “Where the fudge are my damn keys?”
It would be easier to find anything if me and Bekah were tidier, but we live a life filled with chaos. I’m a nurse at a care center and Bekah is a police officer with the Daytona Beach PD, meaning we both work crazy shifts. Tidying comes way down the list of priorities.
“Are you looking for these?” Bekah holds up my keys, all the while grinning at me.
“Oh, thank you, Jesus. Where were they?” I ask, snagging them off her finger.
“On the coffee table in the other room. Girl, do we need to buy a rack to put your keys on? I swear you lose them once an hour.”
She’s not wrong, but I roll my eyes heavenward at her words. “I’m not that bad.”
Bekah drops a hand to her hip and gives me the patented “Barber stare”. She and several generations of Barbers have been perfecting this over the years. I’ve seen her mom use it on her dad more times than I can count over our nearly ten-year friendship. It’s weird because she looks more like her father with her blonde curls and hazel eyes, but she’s all her mom in personality. She’s a good three inches taller than my five-foot-eight and slim to my curvaceous figure—an advantage she uses to loom over bad guys, or so she tells me.
“You totally are that bad. Forget a rack, you need a GPS tracker on them.”
“I would love to stay and argue this with you,” I tell her grabbing my purse off the counter, “but I’m already late. Be safe out there.”
And I really do mean this. Her job is dangerous.
“Yeah, yeah, Mom. I’ll be fine.” She shakes her head at me, but I see the touch of a smile on her lips as I brush past her to the door.
Leaving the house, I walk the short distance to the care center, soaking up the Daytona heat, and getting my daily dose of vitamin D. I do have a car, but I tend to leave it at home when the weather is good. Commuting in the heat makes me cranky, and I like taking in the fresh air. It’s not summer yet, so the temperatures aren’t that high, but I can feel the change coming.
Pushing through the employee entrance, I head to the break room and quickly change into my scrub shirt and pants. Once I’ve pulled my ID badge over my head and settled the lanyard in place, I make my way out onto the main floor.
The care center is home to twenty-two fulltime residents—all with complicated health needs that mean they can’t take care of themselves. There’s a range of residents here—some with tetraplegia, some with brain injuries, some who’ve suffered strokes. Everyone requires around the clock care that they can’t get at home. I try not to get attached to people and remain professional, but these residents are like an extension of my family.
“Good morning,” Nolan says coming around the desk and leaning a hip against it. As usual, he stands closer to me than is appropriate, but we’ve been friends for so long now that I think he’s forgotten the whole “personal boundaries thing.” He yawns. “I can’t wait to be back on days. I hate working nights. I am not a night owl.”
This is the same thing he always says, so I stifle my giggle.
“Morning. Do you want to give me a full report so you can get yourself to bed?”
Nolan nods and pushes upright, coming to his full height of over six-feet. He’s built like a tank and looks a little terrifying, but he’s a gentle giant. He’s also great with the residents.
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
He quickly runs through all the residents, updating me on their care, and then leaves with a wave over his shoulder, yawning again.
I settle into my routine for a morning shift, checking on every residen
t and helping to ready them for the day. Then I wander back to the desk to start working through my paperwork.
I’ve barely made it through the first file when a shadow looms over the desk. When I glance up tingles race through me.
Over the past two years since I started my employment at the center this man has grown into a source of many late-night fantasies—some of which were not suitable for sharing with anyone, not even Bekah—although my best friend is more than aware of my secret lusting over him. Naturally, I had to tell her. She thinks I’m crazy for wanting a man who hasn’t shown a hint of interest in me in the whole time I’ve been working here, but I’m fine with being crazy, because Christopher Bannerman is a man worth lusting over.
For a start, he is huge. He’s maybe six foot four or five with broad shoulders and biceps that bust out of the tight fit of his shirt’s sleeves. He’s got a thick head of dark hair and a beard that covers his jaw and spans over his top lip. His eyes are what get me, though, every time. He has these mesmerizing, beautiful blue irises that are so bright, they almost look like he’s wearing contacts. I get lost in them whenever he speaks to me, and I’m pretty sure I’m lost now, because he waves his hand in front of my face, trying to get my attention.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked if the sign-in book is around. It’s not on the desk.”
I blink, then blink again and glance stupidly at the top of the counter. He’s right. It’s not there.
“Oh, let me look.” I turn away from the desk, so he won’t see the heat rising in my cheeks and scan the area for the damn book.
It takes me a couple of moments, during which he doesn’t say a word—then again, he never does—but I find it hiding under a stack of files. When I place it on the top of the reception area, he flicks his eyes up to me.
“Pen?”
“Right.” Flustered, I glance down and snag the pen I was just writing with and hand it to him.
As our fingers scrape over each other I feel electricity roll through me—at least until I see him flinch. Damn. That’s a kick in the teeth. Am I really that repulsive he literally shudders when I touch him?
Heat rises in my cheeks, and I’m sure I’m red to the roots of my hair. I want to run away and hide, but I hold my ground, standing tall until he’s finished writing his name.
“How’s he been?” he asks finally. He always asks the same question on arrival.
“The same,” I tell him, trying to keep my professional façade, even while I’m dying internally.
He looks disappointed. I don’t know why, because medically, his friend’s condition will never improve. How Luke is now is as good as it’s going to get, which Chris knows.
Some people hold on to any shred of hope, no matter how small.
As he starts to walk off, I shout after him, “Mr Bannerman?”
He stops and glances over his shoulder. “I told you before, April, it’s Chris.”
He has told me this before, but calling him by his first name implies a closeness, a relationship we don’t have.
“Chris,” I say slowly, testing the word on my tongue. “Sorry. You… um… you took my pen.”
He glances down at the pen, still clutched in his other hand, and comes back to the desk. He hands it to me, then gives me a look that I can’t decipher before he heads off toward Luke’s room. I let out a long huff of air.
Then, muttering under my breath, I say, “Holy fudge, April, what was that about?”
3
Chris
If April knows she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet, she doesn’t show it. Watching her like a creeper through the open door probably isn’t the best idea, but my eyes are magnetized to her as she tucks a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear before she turns away to grab something. I’m mesmerized by her movements and the way her curves shift in her scrubs.
I sound like a teenager with his first crush, but I can’t help it. She does things to me that I don’t understand, but I can’t go there—not with her, not with any other woman. I don’t deserve my chance at happily ever after, not after what I did.
I should be less rude to the woman, though. I’ve known her for around two years now, especially since I like her a lot more than the nurse she replaced. She’s owed more than my grunts when she talks to me, but I know if I open up to her and let her in, I won’t be able to walk away from her.
April is spring and summer rolled into one. She’s beautiful, kind, clever, and everything I would normally look for in a woman—if I was looking, which I’m not.
She’s also a permanent fixture at the care center, which seems like a cruel and unusual punishment the universe has thrown at me. I have to interact with her, even though I know I should stay away. I have to because she always seems to be here when I visit Luke. At first, I tried to ignore her, but that didn’t work. The more I ignored her, the more overly polite she was to me, and I hated seeing the flash of hurt in her eyes—even if she covered it fast. There’s no choice, though. I don’t want to give her hope that I’m a good catch. I’m not. I’m an asshole who ruined his best friend’s life.
So, I am a complete jerk to her. I can’t be nice. Nice will lead to flirting and that can’t happen. I know she wants me. I see it in the pretty flush that works up her neck to stain her cheeks when she’s talking to me, but I don’t get to live my life when Luke can’t.
Dragging my gaze from her, I force my eyes back to the bed and the man lying in it. Luke was once a hulking guy, his biceps as thick as my thighs, but he’s a shadow of the person he once was. He looks smaller, disheveled, his six-foot-three frame somehow tiny in the narrow hospital bed.
Guilt. It’s a disease that will eat you alive if you let it. I allowed mine to take hold and now I’m rooted in it. I’ll never be free of it, and I shouldn’t be. What I did can never be forgiven.
Luke stares at the ceiling, but doesn’t acknowledge my presence. He doesn’t acknowledge anything anymore.
The blast that knocked him on his ass left him with permanent damage to his brain. Sometimes, I swear he can almost remember who I am, but the doctors say it’s medically impossible. I don’t believe them. I think Luke is still in there somewhere, locked inside his own body and fighting to get out. I have to believe that.
I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat. I don’t have the wife or kid. It’d be tough on my mom and brother, Curt, but they have their own lives. Curt has Dana and a brood of kids to keep his mind busy, and my mom…
I blow out a breath, not wanting to go there—even in the depths of my mind. I know I shouldn’t feel bad. It was war. Things happen. Logically, I know this, but my brain doesn’t care about logic. It whispers evil thoughts to me when I least expect it.
Especially any time I see Luke’s wife and daughter. It’s been hard for them, and while I’ve done my best to take care of them over the years, I’m no substitute for the husband and father they lost. Mollie was only five when this happened. Now, she’s a teenager who has never known her daddy outside of this room.
All because of me.
My orders put my best friend in the line of that blast. If I’d told him to take the left flank instead of the right…
You’d be visiting J-Dog or Slider instead.
I can’t go there. I can’t think about the “what ifs”, not without leaving me spiraling for a week while I try to reclaim my battered self from the depths of my hellish past.
“So, um, the shop’s going well. Things are busy. I can barely keep up with the orders. I need a new detailer, though, which is proving a challenge. My last girl left after some trouble with her ex, but she was a good artist. There’s not many of those around, it seems.”
I don’t know why I talk to him. I guess so I’m not sitting here staring at the ceiling, too, but I have no clue if Luke can hear me or understand me. He doesn’t respond to my words or even acknowledge I’m speaking, so I guess not.
I continue on anyway.
“Curt’s talking a
bout visiting in a few months’ time with his rabble. It’d be good to see him and Dana again. It’s been a while.”
Still nothing.
“I saw Rachel and Mollie last week.” Nothing. “They’re doing okay. Mol is growing into a fast-talking sarcasm queen. You’d love her, Luke. She’s all—”
A light rapping on the door has my head spinning toward it. April is hovering in the doorway, looking uncertain. Damn, I hate that look on her face, and I suspect it’s one I’ve put there.
I can’t help but drink in the sight of her standing there, with her scrub shirt and pants, which are a little loose, but fitted enough that I can see the shape of her hips and tits. She’s beautiful, incredibly so, and I have to readjust myself discreetly as my dick begins to swell against the zipper of my jeans.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt your visit, Chris.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, trying to soften my voice, letting her know I mean it.
“I need to give him his morning meds.”
“Be my guest. I’m just leaving anyway.” I stand.
“You don’t have to go on my account,” she says, looking a little upset. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”
“I’m not. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Oh. It’s the bike shop, right?”
“Yeah, Halo Customs.” She’s never been—not while I’ve been there anyway. I would remember.
“I’ll have to remember you if I need my bike fixing up.”
Her answer surprises me. “You ride?”
She leans toward me and whispers, “Does a bicycle count?”
I snort. “Yeah, it counts.”
The smile she gives me makes coming here and facing my demons worth it.
“Well, I better give Luke his medication. Have a good day, Mr Bann—” She breaks off and corrects herself. “I mean, Chris.”
I give her a smile that isn’t altogether forced but isn’t natural either.
“You too, sweetheart.”
