“They left?”
“Yeah. Nori asked me to give you her number.” Jangles dug into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Hope.
Assuming it was a phone number she’d never use, Hope fisted the paper, uncaring it crumpled. Jangles’ gaze dipped to her hand, then his eyes came back to hers, wearing a mask of indifference.
Oh, yeah, she’d now officially met Jangles. Badass soldier.
“Check-in,” the commander instructed and left without sparing Hope another glance. He also looked unhappy, as in un-freaking-happy. Then again, Hope figured there was a lot to be unhappy about. Or maybe there wasn’t and the man just had a bad attitude.
Hope didn’t know, didn’t care, and would never know because she’d never see him again.
Numb.
“You don’t have to—”
“Let’s go, Hope.”
Hope. Not babe, baby, honey.
Just Hope and just Jangles. That was who they were.
So noted.
Once again, Jangles did the right thing, the nice thing, and held her hand through the building, the parking lot, and even helped her into his truck, though it was completely unnecessary.
The drive was quiet. Hope didn’t ask where they were going and Jangles didn’t offer the information. Though she didn’t need him to—without looking, she knew he wasn’t taking her back to his place. He’d said he was taking her home and home meant her RV at BF’s.
Jangles rolled to a stop in front of her place and killed the engine.
“You don’t have to get out,” Hope said as she unbuckled her belt.
“Gonna get you inside.”
“Really, you don’t—”
“Baby, I’m gonna get you in and get you settled.”
Hope’s eyes slowly closed and pain scored through her.
Baby.
Good Lord, that hurt so damn bad.
Before the pain of that receded, Jangles had rounded the hood and opened her door. She took his offered hand and did it only because she wanted one last touch. And she knew it was the last she’d get—once she was steady on her feet, he pulled his hand free from hers.
When Jangles opened the door to the RV, she waited for him to complain that she didn’t lock her door. She never had. As a matter of fact, she didn’t think BF even had keys to the RV. She was far enough off the road but close enough to BF’s house she’d always felt safe. And if that wasn’t enough, she slept with a nine under her pillow and had multiple weapons hidden around the house—she wasn’t a complete moron. She was, however, stupid enough to believe Jangles.
But the complaint never came. More evidence she didn’t need to prove Jangles was done with her.
They entered and she became acutely aware of how small her RV was. But she loved it, she’d made it hers, and it was plenty big enough for what she needed, and that was a bed and a shower.
Jangles finished taking in the space and his eyes came back to her—tortured and stormy—blue and gray swirled together. She hated this new look worse than the angry one he’d given her yesterday in the hotel.
She hated it so bad, she wanted it gone. And there was no reason to prolong the pain.
“I get it,” she told him.
“Get it?”
“Yeah. We both know what this is, there’s no reason to make it ugly. You’re a good guy so you’re gonna want to let me down easy.”
There it was, all the proof in the world she was right. With fascination, she watched the shutters lower and his brows crease, but the rest of his features remained impassive.
“What I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to. I get it. Which also means you don’t have to say anything.”
“Hope, honey, this is about me doing the right thing,” he voiced softly.
Translation: I don’t want you.
“Okay.”
“I never should’ve asked you to go there with me.”
But you did. Then you promised not to let me go.
“What I do, my job.” He shook his head. “You deserve better.”
“Right.”
No, I don’t. I don’t deserve anything.
But she wasn’t going to argue.
“What happened was extreme. If that starts fuckin’ with you, promise me you’ll reach out.”
“Sure.”
“Hope, I’m serious. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she lied.
“Baby—”
“Jangles, stop.” His back snapped straight and his eyes narrowed, but before he could attempt to correct her—because hearing him demand she call him Beau would make her lose what was left of her mind—she continued. “What we had was good. It was fun. Let’s not ruin it by saying anything else.”
“At least let me stay awhile. I need to know you’re okay.”
Is he serious? Fuck no, she wasn’t okay, and she didn’t think she ever would be again.
“I’m fine, Jangles, please leave.”
“Will you call Nori then?”
She could’ve lied and told him she would but there was no point.
“You know I’m not going to call her. I’m glad that everyone’s all right, and home safe and sound. But I’m gonna leave it at that.”
“Hope—”
“Seriously,” she snapped. “Just stop.”
The numb started to slip and she needed him to leave before she broke down.
“I know, Jangles,” she whispered because that was all she had left in her. “You know. It was good. Leave it at that and please just go.”
Jangles clenched his jaw, fisted his hands, and woodenly left.
And that was it.
It was done.
Hope remained rooted staring at the door, praying for numb.
Chapter 22
Jangles wasn’t certain how long his ass had been planted on his couch, but if the two empty bottles of Jack at his feet were anything to go by, he’d guess three, maybe four days. He lifted the third half-full bottle to his lips and took a healthy pull.
The whiskey had long since lost its burn, but it was still doing a good job keeping him in a dazed, emotionless state.
There was an ugly war waging.
A war he was determined to win.
That was why he’d drunk himself into a stupor then worked hard to keep himself there. Drunk meant he wouldn’t leave his house. Drunk meant he wouldn’t go to Hope, fall to his knees, and beg her to forgive him.
He knew better than to want more. He fucking knew not to pull her into his life, into the shit that constantly surrounded him.
Dumb fuck.
His head pounded and his eyes screwed shut as pain ricocheted around his brain.
“Open the fucking door!”
It took a moment for Jangles’ liquor-drenched mind to understand it wasn’t his head pounding—though it sure as hell felt like it—it was someone banging on the door.
“You got two seconds before I’m coming in.”
Merlin?
What the fuck?
Jangles didn’t bother trying to get up, Merlin could let himself in if he wanted in.
A minute later, Jangles craned his neck and watched his team prowl through his house.
Fuckin’ perfect.
“You’re shitting me,” Duff growled.
Now, that was surprising. He didn’t think Duff would be the one to open…whatever this was.
“Jesus, when was the last time you fed your cat?” Zip asked. “Only way I know you still have her is the ammonia smell from the litterbox.”
My cat? He’d fed her that morning, fuck you very much. Yeah, he had Buster back. She got out during the kidnapping but came scratching at the door after he returned from taking Hope to her RV. Probably should have let the cat go, too.
“Talked to Hope,” Merlin announced.
There it was.
Jangles remained silent.
“She’s shattered.”
His body tensed but he made no move.
“Locked out Gwen totally, took one call from Nori, now it’s radio silence. She won’t take any calls. Not going into work, BF said she won’t leave her RV, and when he tried to get in, she refused him, too. I went out there, she opened the door, and Christ, Jangles, she’s fuckin’ demolished.”
Direct hit—straight through his chest.
With his jaw clenched, his hand tightened around the neck of the bottle, he fought the urge to throw it across the room.
“What the fuck?” Merlin shouted. “Just like that, you don’t care?”
Oh, he cared, he fucking cared so much his insides bled.
“Why’d you do it?” Zip asked.
Because I love her.
“You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re not gonna sit there drinking yourself stupid while your woman is ten miles away, destroyed.”
“She’s not my woman,” he lamely rasped.
“He speaks,” Woof said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “And when he does, he spews bullshit.”
“Why, asshole? Tell us why you dumped her ass,” Zip pressed. “And less than twenty-four hours after she risked her life to protect ours. You’ve always been a cold motherfucker. On the job—emotionless. But this? This is a whole new level of extreme.”
“Jangles—” Merlin started but wisely closed his mouth when Jangles’ dead gaze slid to him.
“You know why.”
“I do?” Merlin’s shoulders jerked. “I don’t have the first clue—”
“You do,” Jangles argued. “You saw her.”
“Yeah, brother, and I saw you. I saw you when we heard those shots. I was right behind you as you were running so fast I could barely keep up so you could get to your woman. I watched you pick her up and carry her three miles. I saw it all. Fuck, Jangles, I felt the relief rolling off you when you found out she was the one who unloaded that magazine. I’m also the one who walked in here on a Sunday morning and saw her in your tee and you looking like you’d won the lottery. So, no, with everything I saw, I do not get why you’d send her away.”
Jangles surged to his feet, his stomach pitched, and he needed more than a moment for the wave of nausea to roll through him.
“Head to toe in fucking blood!” Jangles roared. “Stained with it. And I did that to her. Me. I can’t have her…Fuck.”
His head spun, whiskey and guilt churned in his gut and burned as it threatened to knock him on his ass.
“It wasn’t hers,” Merlin reminded him. The softness in his friend’s tone infuriated him.
“So?”
“It wasn’t hers,” he repeated, and Jangles side-armed the bottle and sent it sailing across the room. With a bang, the drywall dented, the bottle shattered, and whiskey exploded everywhere.
“Head to toe in fucking blood. She begged me to get it off her. And you don’t know. You don’t know her. You have no idea what she’s been through. I can’t do it to her. I have to let her go.”
“Do what?”
“Put her in danger.”
If Jangles hadn’t been nearing blackout, he might’ve felt the air in his living room change. He might’ve felt the hostility rolling off his teammates. But his mind was clogged with Jack and his heart was in pieces, so he missed it.
“What happened wasn’t your fault,” Woof rejoined.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“What the fuck?”
“None of them would’ve been in that fucking bunker if it wasn’t for us. My woman wouldn’t have been in a position to give herself up and she wouldn’t have had to kill Demir. I’m not doing that to Hope. I let her go. She’ll get over me.”
“You think I’d put Ivy in danger?” Duff growled, and Jangles’ gaze slowly went to his. “You don’t think all of us weren’t scared? You don’t think all of us aren’t feeling this? The difference is, the rest of us have the balls to admit it. The rest of us know the risk is there but it’s small. We also know what we found and none of us are going to live in fear and let it go. Wake up, Jangles, before it’s too late and you lose her. Just because I never said anything doesn’t mean I’m blind. We’ve all seen how you look at her, we’ve all watched the two of you for months. You’re acting like a pussy. Wake. Up.”
“You have no idea—”
“Jesus, grow a pair. And take a fucking shower, you stink worse than the litterbox.” And with that, Duff turned and stalked to the door.
“He’s right,” Merlin told him. “We were all scared and I’m man enough to admit it. Just to add, if you think Hope’s just gonna get over you and move on, you’re fucking blind. That woman is in deep. She loves you and you’re hurting her.”
With a lift of his chin, Merlin stomped through his living room, Zip and Woof on his heels. The front door slammed and Jangles fell back on his couch.
“Fuck!”
Fucking hell.
His elbows went to his knees and his head bowed.
Christ. Such a coward.
Two days later, Jangles rolled off his couch. His head was throbbing with the worst hangover he’d ever had. He looked around his living room and was disgusted with what he saw and smelled.
The moment he stood, shards of pain engulfed his entire body. After what he’d done, he deserved nothing less. On shaky, weak legs he made his way through his house, down the hall, and into the bedroom he’d yet to have the courage to enter. Everything was exactly the way it had been the morning Hope was taken.
He glanced around the room and fear flooded him. His stomach roiled and he barely made it to the bathroom before he lost the contents of his stomach.
Don’t ever do that again.
Hope’s beautiful brown eyes and pretty smile flitted through his mind. The vision morphed and he saw her lying on the ground in the tunnel covered in blood. Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t smiling. Red dotted her face, coated her arms, torso, bare legs.
His tee and her panties.
Fuck.
He retched again and willed all memories of Hope to vanish.
Chapter 23
“You look miserable.”
Hope turned to look at Jake, one of the other bartenders at the Ugly Mug, and flipped him off.
“And you’re in a mood.”
“Good of you to notice,” Hope snapped. “You should go back to your end of the bar.”
It had been almost two weeks since she’d been kidnapped. Ten days since the calls had stopped from Gwen, Ivy, Destiny, and Nori. She’d ignored every call but one. It was a bitchy thing to do and she knew it. But she couldn’t be friends with Jangles’ teammates’ women. No way, no how. It would hurt too much.
This was exactly why she’d never been overly friendly with them, and other than the one outing with Gwen, she’d never seen them outside of the bar. They were good women, sweet, kind, funny, and Hope knew she’d become attached. And after spending time with them locked in a prison, she knew she’d been right to keep her distance. She liked them all, too much. And now she couldn’t have them.
Jangles was gone.
And Hope was back to square one, picking up the pieces of her broken life. Only this time, she had BF and he wasn’t allowing her to wallow in her misery any longer. She was actually surprised he’d given her as much time as he had. But yesterday, he’d gone to her RV, banged on the door, and didn’t stop until she showed her face. Whereupon he promptly, mercilessly, and very dramatically told her to get her shit together. That was BF’s way. He knew she was hurting, he didn’t like it, but he was a man without a woman in his life, therefore he didn’t have the first clue how to be gentle. But Hope knew he cared and was worried about her.
After he delivered his speech about pulling herself together, he told her she was going back to work. Hope argued until she lost, then she asked if she could work at the shooting range instead of the bar for the foreseeable future.
His reply was, “Girl, you think I’m letting you loose around guns, you are crazy.”
Then he rolled away.
S
o there Hope was, behind the bar of the Ugly Mug. She was there under extreme protest, but after everything BF had done for her, she couldn’t deny him. So, she had spent the rest of yesterday looking at apartments in El Paso. The six hundred and thirty miles felt necessary. She loved BF, loved Killeen, loved working at the bar and range, and even loved her little RV. She’d felt safe there, it was home. But now she needed to get away.
The mere thought of seeing Jangles and his team made her cry herself to sleep. Of course, Jangles would wait, he wouldn’t come in for a good long while, he’d make sure the sting of their breakup had waned. Then he’d start coming back in to hang with his buds, and eventually he’d pick up a woman or he’d bring one in. That thought had driven Hope into hysterics.
The sting would never wane.
She’d never forget what he promised her, then took back.
No length of time would heal what Jangles had broken. Her only option was to leave. Everything she owned would fit in her car, and since BF had refused rent on the RV, she had a good amount of money saved. She’d barely feel the hit the move would cost.
“You’re finally back.”
Hope lifted her eyes from the glasses she was stacking and took in Nori’s smile.
Yep, she needed to move.
Seeing the other woman hurt worse than she thought it would.
“And you’re still in Killeen.” Hope returned her smile but she knew it fell flat. “Bet Woof’s happy about that.”
“Yeah. I had to go back to D.C. for a couple of days but now I’m back. Lots of changes going on.”
“All good, I hope.”
“Definitely.” Nori’s smile widened.
“You look happy.”
Hope immediately regretted her words when Nori’s smile faded into a frown and her eyes went soft.
Yep, she was moving. Maybe even out of Texas—suddenly six-hundred-plus miles didn’t seem far enough. She needed six hundred million miles between her and Jangles’ team.
“We need to talk, Hope.”
Shit.
No, we don’t.
Hope grabbed a towel, dried her hands, and nodded to the far side of the bar. Nori caught her hint and met up with Hope as she moved from behind the bar to the empty back room. Hope looked at the pool tables, the dartboards, and her stomach clenched. She’d snuck many glances of Jangles bent over the pool table lining up a shot. She’d watched from her spot at the bar admiring his ass, at the way the material of his T-shirt stretched over his muscular back. She’d watched him laugh with his buds, throw darts, seen him smile.
Hope's Delta (Special Forces: Operation Alpha) (Delta Team Three Book 5) Page 13
