Breaking Free

by Teresa Reasor

  “What will your commander do about what happened last night?”

  Probably ride his back like a forty-pound pack. “I don’t know.”

  A phone rang and Hawk turned and left the bathroom. Zoe followed.

  “I have to go out,” he said as he laid the receiver in its cradle.

  “Yes.” Her brows rose in question, her expression expectant.

  “I can’t tell you where I’m going,” he said. “You can take the car and go on to the hospital and I’ll meet you there later.”

  Her eyes searched his face then dropped away. The disappointment in her expression snagged his conscience and made him uncomfortable.

  By way of an apology, he felt compelled to say, “I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can.”

  She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I can handle whatever comes up at the hospital by myself. Take your time.”

  For the first time, he understood what the married members of the team went through. She viewed his not sharing as a lack of trust. He withheld information, not because he didn’t trust her, but because if she didn’t know about what he and Lang were up to, she couldn’t be compelled to testify against them.

  Damn this relationship stuff was hard.

  ****

  “If your brother doesn’t wake up within the next two weeks, we may have to think about transferring him to the long-term care facility for extra services, Ms. Weaver.”

  Dr. Connelly’s words hit Zoe with the force of a wrecking ball. For a moment, her legs threatened to give way. She gripped the end of the bed in an attempt to retain her balance.

  “You’re giving up on him,” her tone sounded hollow.

  “No. But we do need the bed on this floor for more critical patients. Had there been a bed available we would have already transferred him to the brain injury care facility, where he could get more intensive services than we can provide here.”

  Anger pushed through the shock she attempted to absorb. “Those facilities are just warehouses, Dr. Connelly, and you know it.”

  The doctor’s eyes focused on her face. “Not here, Zoe. We have a state of the art facility. They’ll provide him with more of the physical therapy you’ve been doing with him yourself, as well as other services.” He paused, then looked down at Brett’s chart. “There are some medications I want to try on your brother to stimulate him, and see if we can wake him up. Some do have a few side effects, but for the most part the benefits would out-weigh the risks.”

  She studied the doctor’s face searching for any kind of hope to hang onto, but his expression remained neutral. “When will you try them?”

  “I’ll get the paperwork started as soon as rounds end.” He paused. “This is not like a TV movie. We’ll begin with one medication, and may have to try several before one works.”

  “All right.” As the sudden rush of adrenaline eased off, she began to tremble. She folded her arms against her waist to hide her reaction.

  Connelly laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I have to warn you about all the possibilities, Zoe. To drop it on you later would be like dropping a bomb on you. You’ve thought about what it would be like--should things not progress as we’d like.”

  Despair threatened to smother her hope. “Brett is going to wake up.” When the words came out flat and without her normal positive exuberance, she cleared her throat and said it again with more conviction. “Brett is going to wake up.”

  Connelly nodded his gray head briefly. “A nurse will be in to administer the first round of medication within the hour.”

  As he and the nurse left, a wave of dizziness tackled Zoe and she had to brace her hands on her knees. Brett had to wake up. This had to work. She wouldn’t be able to bear it otherwise.

  ****

  “I appreciate your giving me a ride to the base, Greenback,” Hawk said as they stopped at a red light in traffic.

  “No problem, LT. I’ve been meaning to come by and hang out but I’ve been doing some bonding with my daughter. I missed her birth, and I’m trying to catch up.”

  “How’s that going?” Hawk asked as he studied the man. Oliver Shaker, “Greenback”, maintained a solid reputation for being a squared away soldier. Though slighter built than most SEALS at five foot eight inches tall and a hundred and forty-five pounds, Hawk had seen the man lift an unconscious guy nearly half again his weight. With his dark hair and eyes, there had to be some Italian ancestry in his background and his Godfatherish New Jersey accent fit that image.

  Greenback smiled. “Shelby’s a doll. She’s six months old and every time she sees me she smiles and laughs.”

  How was it a hardened warrior could look so sappy? An answering smile curved Hawk’s lips.

  Greenback ducked his head. “I know--I know.” He waved a hand dismissively.

  “It’s great, man. Katie Beth, Zoe’s niece, took up with me while she was here. She’s a real sweetheart. I can see how you could learn to love one of your own real quick.”

  “I was going to re-up when my enlistment was over, but I’m giving serious thought to going back to school and finishing my degree so I can move on to something else. I mean, if something happened to me, Shelby would never know me.”

  Hawk nodded. It happened sometimes. A guy got married, his wife had a baby, and suddenly he started worrying about the people he’d leave behind if something happened to him, and he lost his edge. Dwelling too much on home and family could be a distraction. One that could get him killed.

  “You think that’s a mistake?” he asked.

  Hawk shook his head. “No. I think you have to do what’s right for you and your family. It’s an easier decision when you have no ties and less---” he bit back the word baggage, “familial responsibilities.” And what did that slip say about him? He frowned.

  He dragged his attention back to Greenback. “I’ve asked all the guys to write down anything unusual they noticed about Cutter before we went on the mission. Can you think of anything that happened or was said that struck you as out of the ordinary?”

  Greenback remained silent for several minutes. “I mind my own business, Hawk. And I don’t repeat stuff that I hear.”

  He knew something. Hawk’s heart drummed in his ears for a moment as his blood pressure shot up. He remained silent giving him time.

  “Brett saved my bacon twice during the last few missions. I owe him.” Greenback shifted behind the wheel as though uncomfortable. “I know as a breed, we’re looked at as professionals, sure, but kind of wild-ass cowboys, too. You know Brett’s pretty squared away. I mean he likes to have fun, just like the rest of us, and he’s not above a prank or two, but he keeps his personal and professional life clean.” Greenback took his eyes off the road to glance at Hawk. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t see Brett being involved. I think he’s just collateral damage.”

  Hawk nodded. “That said--”

  “Derrick has had a couple of assault charges dropped in the last year. And Flash gambles quite a bit. I heard Brett trying to offer them both advice at different times just before the mission. Well, actually he was on Flash’s ass hot and heavy about something.”

  “You don’t know what it was about?”

  Greenback shook his head. “They shut down when I got close, but the tension was pretty thick.”

  Hawk narrowed his eyes against the sudden glare as they turned into the sun. He reached into his pocket for his sunglasses and shoved them on.

  “I know there’s something going down---”

  Hawk drew a deep breath. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it. There’s no way you could have taken out two tangos, snuck into the house, knocked Cutter unconscious, gotten out, and gotten back to your position in time. We’re talking minutes here. It had to be someone there.”

  “Fuck---”

  He couldn’t agree more. But the information didn’t clear any of them, just gave him more to look at. “I appreciate you hanging yourself out there.”

  Greenback shrugged. �
�Brett deserves better than he got.”

  “Yeah, he does.”

  ****

  Time seemed to pass at a turtle’s pace. With every glance at the clock, anxiety pulled at Zoe’s muscles like weights, tightening her shoulders and neck. As her anxiety rose, so did her anger. Damn the man responsible for Brett’s injuries. She wished every vile thing she could think of on him while stifling the urge to scream.

  She paced the floor more out of a need to burn off some of her emotion than an inherent restlessness.

  Hawk arrived bringing with him the scent of the ocean. Just seeing him brought every defense she had crashing down. Her fear for her brother spurred her toward him, and she pressed close.

  “What is it?” he asked, his arms tight around her. It was a moment before she could trust her composure and explain what Dr. Connelly was going to try.

  His features grew taut and his black brows fisted. “How dangerous is this?”

  “Connelly said he believed the benefits outweighed the risks. There could be a few side effects, but that’s all. Brett doesn’t have much to lose at this point, Hawk.”

  His jaw tightened. “I suppose not.”

  She started to tell him the rest, but held back. If she repeated Dr. Connelly’s words, it would give them credence. If she gave them credence, she’d begin to accept them. She wasn’t ready to do that yet, not as long as there were other things they could try. Not while there was still hope Brett would wake up.

  She moved to her brother’s side. They had removed the bandages from his head and pale bristle-like fuzz was beginning to cover his scalp. The liquid nutrition, fed into a tube through his nose and down the back of his throat, was keeping him from losing weight, but his muscle tone was growing less pronounced. They had begun to turn him more often to make certain he didn’t develop bedsores. She wanted to grab him and shake him. Her throat ached with her desire to scream at him to wake up.

  Hawk’s hands rested on her shoulders from behind offering comfort. The gesture brought her emotions close to the surface, and her eyes stung with tears. She wouldn’t give into them. To give into them was like giving up.

  “It’s going to be all right, Zo.”

  She nodded. She folded her arms and leaned back against him, drawing strength from his closeness.

  He slipped an arm around her waist. When Angela came in, he continued to hold Zoe. The nurse piggybacked a new IV onto the one Brett already had in his arm, and hung the bag of medication on the IV pole.

  Hope, excitement, and fear crashed together inside Zoe making it difficult for her to breathe. She squeezed Hawk’s arm. “How quickly will it work, if it’s going to?” she asked, her voice sounding husky as it worked around the knot of emotion in her throat.

  The nurse looked up as she adjusted the tubing. “It could be minutes, or a few hours, or even days. It just depends on him.”

  Zoe nodded, her eyes going to Brett’s face.

  Angela gave her arm an encouraging pat as she brushed by. “Call me if there’s any change.”

  Zoe gave her a brief nod.

  “If Cutter opens his eyes and sees me holding you like this, he’s likely to climb out of bed and kick my butt,” Hawk said as the door closed behind Angela.

  It took real work, but she managed a smile as she looked over her shoulder at him. “Don’t take this wrong, but I hope he tries.”

  He gave her a gentle squeeze and released her. “Try and relax, Zoe. Like Angela said, it may take a while.”

  She sat down beside Brett’s bed and picked up a book she had been attempting to read but didn’t open it.

  Hawk settled in the other chair and turned the TV onto a sports channel, but he looked at her instead of the screen.

  Brett took a deep breath and turned on his side. The book landed with a dull thud as Zoe leaped to her feet.

  CHAPTER 12

  Shit--shit--shit. The word kept going through Hawk’s head as he drove through the busy streets toward home. He flexed his shoulders to try and ease some of the tension settling right between his shoulder blades. Watching Brett’s every movement had kept them both on red-alert. Having to leave the hospital, with him still comatose, had been a crushing disappointment.

  Watching Zoe had been nearly as painful as watching Brett. With every passing hour, her hope had slowly dimmed. She had grown quieter and shut herself off from him. He had never seen her so low.

  “I think I’ll go lie down for a few minutes,” she said, as they entered the house.

  He nodded. He needed a stiff drink to drown his disappointment, and a good workout to burn off his frustration.

  “In case you need me, I’m going downstairs to work out,” he said.

  Laying a hand on his arm momentarily, she limped down the hall toward her room, but stopped midway to turn and look over her shoulder at him. “I appreciate your staying with me today.”

  He shrugged. “Where else would I be?”

  She looked away.

  He stifled the urge to go to her, something in her posture keeping him at a distance. “The doctor said they might have to try several meds, remember that.”

  She nodded, her eyes downcast.

  “He’s a SEAL, Zoe. Uncle Sam doesn’t want all those hours of training, and the money it cost, to be wasted. They’ll try everything to get Cutter back on his feet.”

  She started to say something, stopped, and nodding again, continued on to her room.

  Hawk rubbed a hand over his face. He needed to hit the weights and work off the emotional overload. He went to his room, changed into shorts, and went downstairs to the unfinished room beneath the back porch. Bare sheetrock covered two walls, the other two sported wooden two by fours and insulation.

  He needed to finish this job and doing something creative might be more beneficial than lifting weights. He closed the door, so as not to disturb Zoe. Positioning wood blocks along the bottom of the wall, he lifted a four by eight sheetrock panel onto the supports. Using a drill, he sank the screws to hold the board in place. He had just moved on to the next sheet when Zoe came down the stairs. She had changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt and was wearing her brace.

  “I thought you were going to lie down.”

  “I couldn’t. We’ve sat too long at the hospital and the inactivity is killing me. You can’t do this by yourself. Well, obviously you can, but I’d like to help.”

  He nodded. “Grab the end of this board and hold it steady while I sink the screws.”

  As Zoe worked beside him, he debated how much to tell her. Because of his job, so much of his life had to remain secret. Had that behavior grown to be such a part of him that he didn’t know how to share even the things he could? Was that why Veronica had walked away?

  Within an hour they had covered the lower half of two walls. “The upper half can wait until one of the guys comes over.”

  “If you have the sheetrock mud and tape, we can start applying it to the walls you have finished.”

  Surprised, his brows rose. “I didn’t know you’d worked construction.”

  “Every woman needs to know how to do basic repairs. Not all of us have a man around the house, and now-a-days, not all men go in for projects like this, even if they’re around.”

  After her earlier depression, he was relieved to see her smile. He lifted a ten-pound bucket of joint compound onto the center of the tarp they stood on, and opened it. “I had to learn. There aren’t many contractors around here interested in doing small jobs.” He looked around for a piece of molding with which to stir it. “Besides, I like the feeling of accomplishment I get when I’ve completed something and it’s just the way I want it.” He mixed the compound with a discarded strip of wood.

  Zoe gathered two paint trays and two trowels. “You’ve done a beautiful job upstairs. I especially like the back porch.”

  He looked up at her and smiled. “I’ve noticed.” He drew a deep breath. “Today when I left--I checked out some things. Flash paid for the car with money he wo
n in Vegas. Brett, Bowie, and Doc came up clean. And Derrick’s finances are clean, but I found out something else I want to check out more thoroughly before I share it.”

  Zoe straightened from her bent position. Her smile, soft and warm, shot straight to his groin. ”I’m not going to ask how you found out about this,” she said. “Thanks for trusting me.”

  The curve of her lips drew his attention. The only thing he could think about was getting her as close as possible. He reached for her and guided her against him. He brushed away a streak of sheetrock dust from her cheek. “How about we finish this another time? We can order something to eat and climb in the hot tub.”

  Her smile faltered and she focused on his chest. She bit her bottom lip. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded weak as though she couldn’t get her breath, “All right.”

  Hooyah!

  His heartbeat leaped into a faster rhythm. He knew he was grinning like a fool. It seemed it was a night for letting down barriers.

  The doorbell rang upstairs. He bit back an oath and glanced at his watch. “Maybe we can scare off whoever that is with the threat of work.” He brushed her lips with a soft kiss.

  ****

  While she waited for Hawk to return, Zoe spread a thin layer of compound along the seam where two boards of sheetrock met and applied the tape. Lord, don’t let me regret agreeing to get in the hot tub with him. Don’t let him regret it either. If he freaked out once he saw her leg, at least it wouldn’t be in a public place in front of a beach full of people.

  But Hawk wouldn’t freak out. He had too much control for that. If he went all stiff with control, she’d just back away before they got any more involved. They shouldn’t anyway. She knew they shouldn’t. As soon as the doctors declared him fit he’d be shipping out again. She pressed a hand to her stomach where a hollow feeling settled.

  “Strong Man and Marjorie have come by and brought Chinese,” Hawk said from the stairs. His expression appeared subdued. “He’s offered to help me hang the rest of the sheetrock as soon as we eat.”