“He didn’t leave a note?” Lani’s voice was hushed. “There weren’t any warning signs?”
“Oh, in hindsight there were things, but they were things that never struck us as out of the ordinary or were easily explained away by puberty or teenage angst. When he died, he didn’t leave a note, no explanation at all.”
“How long ago?”
“Eleven years.”
With a bitter snort, Lani put her mug down with a muffled clink. “You seem so much farther along than I am, Maura, and he was your child, not just—”
“Not just a brother?” Maura said gently when she didn’t go on. “Like you’re not allowed to grieve because he’s not someone you gave birth to?”
Lani shrugged and twisted her fingers together. God, she wished she was anywhere but here.
“After Tyler died, my parents seemed to forget I existed,” she said. “All the focus was on them. Everyone kept telling me to be strong for them, to be there for them, since I was the only kid they had left.”
“The forgotten mourners.” Nodding, Maura sipped her tea. “I’ve heard that a lot from sibling survivors. I was guilty of it myself with my own surviving children.” A spasm of pain crossed her face. “It’s taken years to repair that damage.”
Maura’s openness chased away a little more of Lani’s tension. She picked up her tea again. “So how do we do this therapy thing?”
With a smile, Maura said, “Well, we just keep on doing what we’ve been doing. We can talk about stuff that’s bothering you, stuff you’d like to get off your chest. I’m here for you, Lani.”
A short silence fell, broken only by the clink of cup hitting saucer. Maura sat relaxed, one leg crossed over the other, her legal pad casually open on her lap.
Lani’s eyes went to Vincent in his uniform again, and she bit her lip.
“Lani?” Maura’s voice was soft, encouraging. “What are you thinking about?”
“My ex.”
“What about him?”
“He’s military, too. Air Force special ops.”
“A pararescueman?” When Lani nodded, Maura went on. “He must’ve been gone a lot.”
“He was. All the time.”
“Is that why you broke up?”
“No.” To her horror, Lani felt tears sting her eyes. “We broke up because all I did was let him down.”
“What do you mean? How did you let him down?” There was no judgment in Maura’s tone, only gentle inquiry.
“Because I couldn’t cope.”
“With what?”
“With everything,” Lani said harshly. “With his absences, the things he tried to share with me—”
She broke off, unable to go on. After a beat of silence, Maura said, “About what he saw on deployment?”
“That, and—and about my brother. Rhys is the one who found him.”
“Oh.” There was a wealth of understanding in that one breathed word. “Tell me.”
Lani did, about hearing the gunshot, about Rhys rushing downstairs and then back up, how he’d refused to let her go see, too.
“He called the cops, and when they got there, they handcuffed us and treated us like criminals.”
Maura winced. “That’s actually standard procedure. They need to ascertain it’s not a murder made to look like a suicide.”
“My parents fell apart. They blamed me—”
“Why do you think they blamed you?”
Lani grit her teeth as the memories clawed to the surface. “Because I’m the one who missed all the warning signs. Everything.”
“Like what?”
Plopping her cup down on the table again, she clasped her trembling hands between her knees. “He’d quit his job out of the blue. He said ‘Fuck Dad’ when I knew he idolized our father. His eyes were distant and sad.”
“And did the thought ever cross your mind, even for one minute, that he was going to kill himself?”
“No!” Lani gasped. “Oh, my God, no! If it had, I would have—”
“You would’ve done everything in your power to stop him,” Maura said softly. “But you didn’t know.”
“I should have—”
“You. Didn’t. Know. You cannot accept responsibility for that.”
The last of Lani’s tenuous control slipped away. “Yes, I can,” she shouted. “I was the last one to see him alive. I could have stopped him! Don’t tell me I couldn’t have.”
Leaping to her feet and grabbing up her purse, she strode toward the door, her whole body shaking with a combination of rage and confusion. Therapy was supposed to be helping, not ripping her skin off layer by layer.
“How do you know you didn’t?”
The quiet words stopped her in her tracks. “What?” She dashed the back of her hand over her cheeks. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“How do you know there weren’t other times you did stop him? Something you said, something you did?”
Lani could only stand frozen, her sobbing breaths loud in the room. She remembered coming into the living room once to find Tyler sitting in the dark, staring into space, and she’d cajoled him up and into the dining room where Rhys and Aaron were raiding the fridge. They’d all ended up playing cards for hours, and while Tyler was quieter than usual, he’d seemed to enjoy himself.
Had she stopped him that night? Had she bought him a little more time? Tears stung her eyes as the realization slammed into her: Even if she had, it didn’t change the ultimate outcome, because a week later he was gone. That meant...
“That’s right. There wasn’t anything you could have done.” Lani’s gaze snapped to Maura, who was looking at her steadily. “You, my friend, have taken the weight of the world on your shoulders, haven’t you?” She got up from her chair and walked toward her. “You’re supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing, a mind reader at fourteen years old.”
The hot tears overflowed and streamed down Lani’s cheeks.
“You’re supposed to be the perfect girlfriend to a man who has a dangerous, stressful job that takes him away from home for months at a time. You’re never, ever supposed to be human, not ever, because that’s letting him down.”
Slipping her arm around her shoulders, Maura led her back to the couch. “Because you failed to keep Tyler alive, you must be a failure at everything, right? Especially impending motherhood.”
Lani lost it then, and for long minutes she could only sob, tissues magically appearing in her hand.
“I can help you,” Maura said, her soft tone cutting through the roaring in Lani’s ears. “I can help you because I’ve been right where you are. I know everything you’re feeling, everything you tell yourself. It gets better. I promise you, it’ll get better.”
Mopping her eyes, Lani sucked deep breaths, in and out, as she fought for control. “I want to get better,” she croaked. “I want to let go of the anger. I want to stop blaming myself. I w-want to be a good mom.”
“You will be.” With one last pat to her shoulder, Maura moved over to sit in her chair again. “The only thing we’re going to focus on in here is you. Tyler is gone, and we’re not going to analyze his death anymore. We want to grieve his absence and celebrate who he was—a beloved brother to you for fourteen years.”
Lani picked up her teacup again, not to drink, but to hug the comforting warmth close. “He was so smart,” she croaked. “Funny, kind. He had goals, and dreams. He l-loved me...”
Maura leaned forward and waited for her to meet her eyes.
“Yes. A life worth remembering,” she said softly. “A life not defined by that moment in time, that choice he made in the midst of a pain you couldn’t have known about or understood. Assuming responsibility for his death invalidates that pain, and his desperate need for relief from it.”
Another sob welled up in Lani’s throat.
&
nbsp; “No amount of self-blame can change that outcome. No amount of analyzing it is going to help you understand it. You know the how, but you’re never going to know the why. You’re never going to know the why, Lani.”
Lani started to shake.
“Accepting that is the first step toward healing, and we’re going to take a thousand steps together, you and me. As many as it takes, okay?”
All Lani could do was nod, the tears dripping from her chin.
“You’re not alone, my dear. You’re not alone.”
* * *
God, she needed to pee.
Lani hurried up the walk toward her apartment building, the bags of Chinese food she juggled emitting the most mouthwatering smell.
And all the tea she’d drunk at Maura’s sloshing painfully around in her bladder.
Even the brush of the light sea breeze over her skin hurt, everything still raw from the emotional therapy session, and the only thing she wanted to do was curl up in her pj’s to watch reruns of Friends while she chowed down on some good, old-fashioned comfort food.
Ah, the sweet, sweet relief.
After washing her hands, she trudged toward her bedroom, her old friend—self-pity—doing its best to rear its ugly head. Forever alone. Maybe I need to get a damn dog.
The thought made her roll her eyes at herself. “Yeah, right,” she said aloud. “A dog and a baby to take care of. Good plan.”
Still...having a furry little body to snuggle up to at night and give her unconditional doggie love sounded infinitely appealing. Human love, after all, was vastly overrated.
She’d just settled down on the couch, the different cartons of food arrayed before her on the coffee table, remote in hand, when her phone buzzed. With a sigh, she muted the TV and grabbed it. Hopefully it was just a robocall that she could decline and move on, because that Kung Pao was really calling her name...
The screen said Geo.
Her breath caught.
“Hey, Geo,” she answered, praying that she sounded natural and breezy and not like her heart was threatening to pound its way out of her chest. Which it totally was.
“Hey, you.”
Oh, hello, sexy voice. Lani shivered.
“Did you go today?”
Surprised that he’d actually remembered the date of her appointment, she croaked, “Yep, I did.”
“Good for you. How, uh, was it?”
“Well, honestly, it sucked like you wouldn’t believe.”
He gave an audible wince. “Yikes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My therapist warned me I’d feel worse before I feel better.” Lani put her legs up on the coffee table and crossed them at the ankle. “There’s ten years’ worth of shit to unpack, you know.”
He didn’t reply, his sudden discomfort radiating through the phone, along with the awkwardness of two strangers separated by hundreds of miles being confronted with a difficult topic. Taking pity on him, she changed the subject. “What’re you doing in Arizona?”
“Desert training.” He grunted. “It’s about a bazillion degrees here, which is good practice for us since we’ll eventually be going, um—”
“To a galaxy far, far away?”
“Yeah.” His relief at not being pressed on exactly where rang in his voice. “You understand that I can’t say, right?”
“Of course I do. OPSEC, the subject of every pre-deployment family meeting ever.”
Geo’s chuckle this time sounded much more genuine, and the husky sound brushed along her skin, tightening her nipples and making her breasts ache. She cupped her hand over one and squeezed.
Ugh. Stupid hormones.
Clearing her throat, she asked, “How’s Bosch?”
“He’s good. Chilling in his crate.”
“Is he there right now?”
“Yep. Right next to my bed.”
She could hear rustling, as if Geo was moving around on crisp sheets. She shoved away the visual. “He doesn’t sleep with you?”
“Nah, he’s not my pet. When we’re home, he lives in the base kennels, not with me. On the road, he has a crate.”
“How long have you worked with him?”
“About three years.”
“Did you pick him or did he pick you? Or didn’t you have a choice?”
“I had a choice, and shit, that first day was insane.” He paused, and Lani heard what sounded like him punching up his pillows. “Sorry. Just getting comfortable.”
A frisson of warmth went through her at the thought of him settling down in bed to talk to her. Stretching up to turn the table lamp off, she curled up on her side on the couch, phone wedged between her shoulder and ear. The TV flickered silently in front of her, the Friends gang drinking their coffee and laughing.
“So I walked into this kennel,” Geo said, “and was immediately overwhelmed by what seemed like hundreds of barking, whirling, high-energy dogs. I, uh, was actually afraid of a few.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. Some of them are real snappish and aggressive. I remember this one, he had a crazy look in his eye like he wanted to kill me. At that point I was seriously wondering what the fuck I’d gotten myself into, and then I looked over and saw this other dog gazing around at all the chaos with what I swear was a sneer on his face, like, ‘You peasants.’ That was Bosch.”
She stifled a giggle, picturing Geo on that barstool, his own expression exactly what he was describing.
“So you picked him?”
“Yep. I asked to work with him, and after two days, I knew he was the dog for me. One of our final exercises was to clear this house. He found the explosive odor right away, and then we were supposed to run out a side door into the yard where a dude in a bite suit was waiting to fight with him. Instead of going out the door, though, Bosch went out a window that nobody realized was open and fuckin’ pile-drove this guy to the ground. Boom!”
The little-boy enthusiasm in his voice reminded her so much of Rhys that tears sprang to her eyes. It’d been so long since she’d lain in bed and talked to a man like this, and she’d forgotten how nice it was.
She wiped the tears on the neckline of her pajama top. “Wow,” she said hoarsely. “That sounds intense.”
“It was.” He fell silent, and after a moment asked, “You okay?”
“What? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine,” he said, then went on, his tone rueful, “I’m such a tool. You said you’d had a rough day, and here I am, just babbling on about myself.”
“Well, I like hearing you babble.” Her face burned. “I mean, I’m really interested in, you know, dogs. And stuff.”
Lani, you idiot.
“Have you ever had one? A dog, I mean.”
“No.” She sighed. “Rhys and I moved around so much, and we both worked, so it seemed unfair to have a pet.”
“That’s too bad,” Geo said softly. “Dogs are great.”
“Did you have dogs growing up?”
For a moment he didn’t answer, and then he said, “I had a fish once. But no, no dogs. My dad was too sick for us to have pets like that.”
“Oh. Did he—”
“He had MS. Died when I was eleven.”
Lani winced. “I’m so sorry, Geo. That’s rough.”
Her heart aching, she waited, knowing there was nothing she could say, no platitudes he’d want to hear.
He blew out a breath. “Anyway...”
She could tell he’d revealed way more than he’d meant to, and intending to distract him and hopefully put him at ease, she asked, “Do you think I could have a picture of Bosch sometime?”
He cleared his throat, then rasped, “Sure. He’s quite the ham when he wants to be.”
“Awesome. Text it to me?”
“I will.” His voice sounded st
ronger. “I’ll do it as soon as we hang up. And on that note...”
“Right. Guess we should probably get going.”
“Guess we should.”
Neither one of them said anything, or made any move to hang up, until Lani whispered, “Bye, Geo.”
“Bye.”
For a long time, she lay on the couch, staring unseeingly at the TV, her Chinese food ignored.
Geo’d lost someone, too. Not as suddenly as she had, but it’d certainly been traumatic. And he’d been a child, just like her.
A wave of pure empathy flooded her, which made the inevitable tears come. She sobbed until she had nothing left, until she was curled in a tight ball, her gasping breaths slowing to occasional sniffles. Finally she pushed to sitting, only to groan at the nausea now surging into her throat.
Trudging into the kitchen to make some ginger tea, she thought, “I don’t need this. I’ve got too much of my own shit going on to spend my energy crying over someone else’s past.”
Besides, Geo was a SEAL, one of the most mentally tough people on the face of the earth. He wouldn’t need her sympathy. He’d only followed up because he said he would, and if her baggage hadn’t scared him off before, it probably had now.
After her tea was brewed, she picked up her phone again. Yeah. No text, no pic of Bosch. In fact, it was highly unlikely she’d ever hear from him again.
Well, maybe it was for the best. For both their sakes.
Chapter Six
“Oh, God, I fucked that up.”
Groaning, Geo tossed his phone aside and slammed a pillow over his face.
Real smooth there, dumbass, bringing up your dad.
He hadn’t meant to. All of that was long into the past, when he’d been a different person with a different life. What in the hell possessed him to bring it up now? And why was it hurting so much all of a sudden?
Next to the bed, Bosch twitched his ears, his face impassive, although he cocked his head as if to say, “What was that?”
Geo groaned again. “Yeah. Here I am, talking to this great girl, and not only do I choke when she’s trying to tell me about something important, I dump my shit on top of all her shit.”
Trusting a Warrior Page 6
