Trusting a Warrior

by Melanie Hansen

  “You approve?”

  “I do.” He paused. “You know I’ll always be here for you, Lee-Lee. No matter what.”

  Lani sighed to herself, knowing it’d take more than a mere declaration of intent to convince him otherwise—now she had to live it. This was her show now.

  Still, an enormous surge of tenderness made her reach up to cup his stubbly cheek. “Hey, you wanna know something?” When his eyes met hers, she whispered, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Peanut Butter.”

  At the sound of that old childhood nickname, his lashes grew spiky with unshed tears. “Back atcha, Lani-Bo-Bani.”

  “I’m gonna be fine,” she said, standing shakily on the foundation of Geo’s words. “So go on now. Be happy with Devon. Do awesome shit.”

  He turned his head and kissed her palm, his warm lips lingering on the sensitive skin, and then he stepped away. Holding her gaze, he backed toward the door, opened it, and when it closed behind him, the quiet snick carried with it such a sense of finality that Lani clapped a hand to her mouth to hold back her sob.

  Thank you, Rhys, for going down into that basement so I didn’t have to. For staying with me that day, and every day after that for the next ten years.

  No matter what the future held for her, she’d made the right decision in giving him his life back.

  One more thing had to be said, though.

  “Devon, girl, if you ever hurt him, you’d better watch the fuck out.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, the teakettle was empty and Lani was a knot of anxiety.

  Dropping her head onto her folded arms, she let out a loud groan. Budget, done. Medical coverage, verified. She’d talked to her boss, who told her the club didn’t offer paid maternity leave, but that as far as she was concerned, Lani’s job was safe.

  “You’re one of the best bartenders we’ve ever had,” she’d said. “The customers love you.”

  Prioritize. Assess.

  Okay, she’d done that, but unfortunately, no matter which way she ran the numbers, she wouldn’t be able to do it without the insurance money.

  “It’s for the baby,” she said out loud to the empty kitchen. “Not for you. Remember that.”

  Steeling herself, she got up from the table and went to the tiny hall closet, where she pulled out her lockbox of important papers. A few spins of the combination, a lift of the lid, and then the savings account book her father had given her after Tyler’s death was in her hand.

  The feel of the cheap vinyl immediately catapulted her back in time, to when she’d thrown the book at her dad’s feet and run from the room, crying that she didn’t want money, she wanted her brother back. A well-meaning family friend had followed her, had taken her aside to remind her that she needed to be strong for her parents because Tyler had been their only son.

  As if they didn’t still have a daughter, one whose grief was a physical pain carving her up from the inside out. One whose guilt was eating her alive because she’d been the last one to see Tyler. She’d had the chance to save him.

  Her parents’ suffering hammered it home each and every day—it was her fault. She should have been able to prevent it. She should have said something!

  Lani fought to hold them at bay, but all the “should haves” she waged constant, fierce battles against reared their ugly heads once again. They started screaming out everything she’d done wrong that day, their strident voices crumbling her earlier resolve into dust and sending the doubts flooding through her in a painful rush.

  So much for all that strength Geo saw in her. She wasn’t strong, she was one second away from texting Rhys and begging him to come back...

  Her jaw clenching, she jumped up and started to pace. “You got this,” she whispered fiercely. “Take it one day at a time. You don’t need the money yet, but it’s there if you do, okay? What you’re not going to do is call Rhys. There. Is. No. Rhys.”

  Still, she cast a longing glance toward the phone before turning her back on it. Ugh. No, goddammit. Too bad Geo wasn’t here to give her another SEAL pep talk, because she could really use one right now.

  So why don’t you call him?

  She froze. No, she couldn’t.

  He invited you to. It was his idea.

  But what if he doesn’t call back?

  Would that really be the end of the world? It’d be a little embarrassing, sure, but no real harm done.

  As she grabbed up her phone, Lani’s throat tightened, her skin growing prickly and hot. A giant fist squeezed her lungs and made her gasp for air. Oh, God, she needed to talk to someone. Needed to pour her heart out. Needed to fully articulate her anger, her heartache, her grief, her guilt.

  I couldn’t keep my brother alive, so how will I ever be able to raise this baby?

  Suddenly, a deep crack formed in the protective wall surrounding her heart and sent a wave of terror surging through her body. She doubled over, sob after sob exploding from her chest.

  I’m so scared. I need help. Please, somebody help me.

  With a shaking finger, Lani swiped open her phone and dialed.

  Chapter Four

  “Oh, hey, Geo. It’s Lani, the puking bartender from Mission Beach.”

  Geo tightened his grip on his phone, which he’d mashed hard against his ear.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled to the guys brawling in the back of the van. “I’m trying to listen to something!”

  In response a tennis shoe whizzed by his head and smashed into the windshield, narrowly missing the driver. Geo gritted his teeth and hunched over in the passenger seat, his finger jammed in his other ear to try to block out some of the noise.

  SEALs on a road trip—grown men or out-of-control middle schoolers? It was really hard to tell sometimes.

  “...calling to thank you,” Lani’s message was saying. “Not just for the hair-holding, as appreciated as that was, or the awesome life advice—which I’ve already taken some of, by the way—but for showing me how good it feels to, you know, just talk to someone.”

  He could hear her take in a gulp of air, then blow it out slowly.

  “So...here’s the thing. Ten years ago, my older brother died by suicide.”

  Geo’s own breath whooshed from his lungs. What?

  “I thought I was coping. I mean, it’s been ten years, right? But the truth is, I haven’t really gotten better, and now something’s made it so I can’t ignore it anymore. That ‘something’ is my baby, and believe it or not, talking to you the other night has given me the courage to take my first step toward getting help. I’m talking real help, not just the dump-on-the-people-who-love-you-the-most kind that I’m used to asking for.”

  Another pause, and behind Geo, the yelling escalated even more. He gripped the phone tighter and strained to hear, his heart threatening to pound its way out of his chest.

  Lani’s voice wobbled the tiniest bit. “I had a complete emotional breakdown a few days ago, and after I stopped crying, I called my OB’s office. They were able to recommend a therapist. Did you know there are some who specialize in suicide survivors? I didn’t either. But yep, there are, and I made an appointment for Thursday next week. I know myself, though, and I know when that day comes, I will not want to go through with it.”

  Geo could only sit frozen, his whole body numb with shock.

  “So what I’m going to do is I’m gonna remember our walk on the beach. I’m going to remember that I shared with you a tiny bit of my fear, and how darn good that felt afterward.”

  A long pause.

  “Anyway, I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for everything you did that night. I, uh, well, I guess that’s it. Bye.”

  The message ended.

  Holy. Christ.

  Memories that Geo was desperate to keep buried fought to rise to the surface and, his stomach roiling with na
usea, he jammed his finger on the window button and powered it down. Although it wasn’t refreshing, the blast of hot desert air hitting his face helped clear his head. It also distracted the other guys from their brawl.

  “Hey, Rocco, how ’bout a goddamn piss break?” a few strident voices yelled from the rear of the van.

  The driver shook his head. “I said no breaks, didn’t I? Use some of that shit rolling around on the floor.”

  “Aww, c’mon! Bastard.”

  A few more mutters of disgust, and then a blessed quiet fell as bruised and bloodied SEALs attempted to pee into the various cans and bottles they found littering the floor of the government van.

  “Hey,” the driver hissed at Geo. “Watch this.”

  Geo glanced over at Rocco, a tall Latino guy whose baby-faced good looks belied years of combat experience and a razor-sharp tactical mind. His brown eyes were full of mischief, the light in them telling Geo exactly what he was about to do. Gripping the door handle, Geo braced his feet, and sure enough, Rocco jerked the wheel to the side. The van rocked violently as it swerved onto the shoulder.

  Outraged yells from the back. “Son of a bitch! You made me piss myself!”

  Rocco roared with laughter as an acrid, unmistakable smell filled the air.

  “Fuck, I’m covered with it! You’re gonna pay, asshole!”

  Geo glanced over his shoulder, unable to keep from snickering at the sight of his teammates frantically blotting at the urine splashed on the seats and themselves.

  He fished some more napkins from the console and helpfully tossed them back.

  Next to him, Rocco pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand and shouted, “Gotcha, muhfuckahs!”

  The furious muttering behind him made Geo wince. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but in the near future Rocco was gonna find himself duct-taped to a tree somewhere, and if he was really, really lucky, they’d let him keep his clothes.

  Rocco met his eyes and shrugged. “Worth it,” he mouthed before directing his attention back to the road.

  Shaking his head in both disgust and amusement, Geo turned to stare out the window at the relentlessly brown landscape flashing past. Every SEAL, at one point or another in his career, found himself duct-taped to a fixed object. For him, it’d been—

  Geo struggled to keep it closed, but his mental box of Cade memories burst open.

  “Get ’em!”

  A vicious tackle, and Geo crashed to the floor of the hotel room. All around him came the crunch of fists on flesh, the sound of bodies slamming into furniture, into walls. Geo kicked, punched and fought, but soon found himself trussed hand and foot and tossed next to Cade, both of them stripped to the waist.

  Shouting, laughing team guys poured liquor down their throats, and drew on their chests with Sharpies. When the women finally burst in with outraged screams, they discovered Geo and Cade thoroughly shit-faced and covered with crude Sharpie penises.

  Cade’s fiancée, Renae, put her hands on her hips and glared around the room. “You fucking assholes,” she grated. “Cut them loose. Now.”

  Like chastened little boys, the SEALs obeyed, and Geo rubbed the blood flow back into his wrists as Renae yanked Cade to his feet.

  “Really, guys?” Her voice was furious, but controlled. “He’s getting married in less than twelve hours!”

  Shaking her head, Renae led Cade away to get him sobered and cleaned up.

  Geo’s date, Vanessa, crouched next to him, red-faced and teary-eyed as she scrubbed with a wet napkin at the pendulous “balls” drawn right between his pecs. “What were you thinking? You’re the best man! Cade and Renae’s wedding is ruined!”

  Geo didn’t reply, his energy consumed with trying not to hurl. How could he explain to her that this is what team guys did, how they showed affection for each other?

  Despite their antics, the wedding went off without a hitch. Geo had to enjoy the festivities dateless, since Vanessa had packed up and left.

  “Sorry, dude,” someone said, and Geo shrugged. It took an extremely strong-willed person to be with a SEAL and the close-knit, unique culture he brought with him. Renae both understood and accepted that. Vanessa didn’t.

  “Best wedding I’ve ever been to. God, I miss you, bud.” Geo squeezed his burning eyes shut.

  When the van finally pulled up at the transient quarters of the base, the SEALs dispersed, leaving the two FNGs—fucking new guys—to clean up the pee-soaked seats and flooring.

  Geo unloaded Bosch’s crate and gear himself, and after getting it all settled in his room, bent to ruffle the dog’s ears. “How ’bout a run?”

  He wrapped a reflective Velcro belt around his waist and clipped one end of Bosch’s three-foot lead to a ring attached to it. Geo tucked his phone into the pocket of his shorts, and they left their quarters at a slow jog to run along the nearby flight line.

  Fighter jets roared down the runway and rocketed up into the night sky, their afterburners glowing. Next to him, Bosch trotted along at a steady pace, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  “What a long-ass day, buddy,” Geo grunted, the endorphins warring with exhaustion. “I work with a bunch of pricks—”

  Understatement of the fucking year.

  “—and I got a phone call from this beautiful woman that I don’t know how to handle.”

  He paused, as if waiting for Bosch’s reply.

  “Yeah, you’re right, she does come with a lot of baggage. Not really sure if I’m interested in tangling myself up in that, you know?”

  A recent breakup. An unplanned pregnancy. A painful past, one that threatened to poke at Geo’s own wounds.

  He slowed to a walk and laced his fingers behind his head.

  “But am I overthinking this?” he asked Bosch, who ignored him to sniff along the base of a fire hydrant. “It’d just be talking, right? She’s an interesting person, and she knows what life in special operations is like.”

  A friend worth their weight in gold. Most people—like Vanessa and Drew—didn’t understand the demands of Geo’s life, or else they had unrealistic expectations of it. If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he knew a big part of his attraction for people was so they could tell their friends they were fucking a Navy SEAL.

  Maybe with Lani he could just be himself, not the video-game version.

  Before he could overthink it any more, he fished his phone from his pocket and dialed.

  Chapter Five

  “Hey, Lani. It’s Geo.”

  Closing her eyes, Lani let the sound of his voice wash over her again for the fifth time that day, and probably the twentieth time that week.

  “It’s 9:00 p.m., a balmy ninety-six degrees on the outskirts of Phoenix tonight, and Bosch and I have been out running in it, which is why I’m out of breath and wheezing like a freight train. Sorry.”

  He was sorry? The slightest bit of Southern drawl and breathlessness, along with Geo’s natural husky quality, all combined to make this voice mail one of the sexiest things she’d ever heard.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “just wanted to call you back, say hi. We’re going off the grid a bit tomorrow, so I won’t be around, but keep your therapy appointment, okay? I’ll be your accountability partner if you want. Next time we talk, I’ll expect to hear all about it.”

  “Lani?”

  A soft voice broke in to her concentration, and she glanced up to see a smiling, middle-aged Black woman wearing a dark-blue pantsuit, a silky patterned scarf elegantly draped around her neck, large gold hoops in her ears. “I’m Maura Grant.”

  “Hello.” Fumbling to put away her phone, she stood and extended her hand to her new therapist, surprised when, instead of shaking it, Maura took it between both her own.

  “So delighted to meet you. Please come in.”

  With a motherly pat to her fing
ers, Maura released her and led her into the office. Lani glanced around in awe, taking in the butter-yellow walls, polished wood laminate and colorful throw rugs. Instead of the stiff Naugahyde couch she’d been expecting, there was a well-worn leather loveseat across from an elegant wingback chair.

  The polished coffee table in between held a sterling silver tea service on it.

  “This is beautiful,” she mumbled. “Cozy.”

  “Thanks.” Maura chuckled. “It’s definitely my home away from home.” As she moved to her desk to pick up a legal pad, she asked, “Would you mind pouring us some tea while I get situated? Even if you don’t care for any, dear, I’ll still take some.”

  “Uh, sure.” Lani set her purse down next to the loveseat and sank down onto it before reaching for one of the delicate flowered teacups. “What kind of tea is it?”

  “Roiboos with organic hibiscus and lemongrass. One of my favorites.”

  The act of pouring the fragrant tea was soothing, and by the time Maura took her seat and murmured her thanks for the cup and saucer Lani placed in front of her, Lani’s anxiety had almost totally eased.

  Give me a small task to perform so that I feel like a guest making myself at home rather than a bug under a microscope. Oh, you’re good.

  As she sipped, she glanced around the room. In addition to the seating area, there was a large wooden desk and matching bookshelf, the latter holding an eye-pleasing mixture of books and a few framed photos. One in particular caught Lani’s attention, that of a young man dressed in crisp green/brown camouflage, his sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows.

  A Marine.

  “That’s my son, Vincent,” Maura said softly, following her gaze. “It’s the last picture I have of him. He completed suicide two weeks later.”

  Lani gripped her mug in suddenly cold fingers, unable to stop staring at Vincent’s bright, seemingly happy smile. “Why?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d whispered the word aloud until Maura said, “I wish I knew. That’s one of the things I’ve had to learn to accept, the fact I’ll never know why.”