Lettie felt her heart swell. There was an overwhelming need to jump up and race out the house. Run all the way back to Newport, find Lucas, and throw herself at his feet. Beg for forgiveness. And spend the rest of her life proving to him that they belonged together and that she was in it for the long haul.
“I have a favor to ask,” Mick said. She could see him wrestling with something under the blanket. He pulled out a white envelope and handed it to her. On the front, in messy handwriting she recognized as Mick’s, was Layla’s name. “If anything happens, I need for you to give this to Layla.”
Oh, God. Lettie shook her head. “No, you keep it. This is not your time, Mick.”
“I hope not,” he said, a smile on his face. “But it will make me feel better if I know—if the worst happens—it’s in the right hands.”
“You should give this to Lucas, not me,” she blurted out, a sense of despair and guilt mixed in a rancid sludge in her gut.
“Lucas is sitting in a tree, most likely killing bad guys. I can’t get to him at the moment. You’re all I got, Lettie.”
“He’s here?” Lettie asked, her voice a whisper. She knew he would be, but there was also a huge amount of doubt that shadowed her heart.
“Where else would he be?” Mick shoved the envelope at her again.
She took it, and placed it in the pocket of her coat. “Okay, but I’m giving this back to you at the first opportunity.”
“And I will gladly take it from you.” Mick squeezed her hand. “I know it’s a terrible burden to even have it in your possession, but you have no idea the feeling of relief it’s giving me to know it is safe with you, and that you will do what you can to make sure Layla gets it if—”
“Not going to happen,” Lettie said. “And I’m going to try to forgive you for not trusting in my abilities as your attending physician.” She smiled and kissed the back of his hand.
He closed his eyes, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Above, Lettie could hear the thwump, thwump of chopper blades cutting through the air. Either the Russians were getting back up.
Or she and Mick were about to be saved.
Chapter 10
Lucas’s boots were on the ground before the chopper had fully landed at the operations base in a remote area of Georgia that was not Russian occupied. It was one of those bases that was not listed anywhere, and the only people who knew about it were the unlucky bastards deployed there. And the farmers and villagers who were more than happy to keep their mouths shut for fear of bringing an all-out war on terrorism into their community.
The field hospital was across from the airfield where they had landed. The chopper carrying Mick and Lettie had already touched down well before Lucas’s chopper had even taken off. He, and a few of his teammates, had to stay behind to secure the three prisoners for transport out of the compound. He hadn’t waited around to see if they needed him to help with the escort of the prisoners into the holding cells. The need to make sure Mick was okay was too overwhelming.
And then there was Lettie.
When he had heard she was taking care of Mick, relief swamped him. When he had seen her helping Mick into the Medivac, he almost hadn’t recognized her. She had lost weight, looked pale, and so very tired. But the determined look on her face—he would’ve known that anywhere.
But his emotions were on a swinging pendulum at the moment. One minute, he felt as if his heart was going to burst with love and admiration for this woman. She had been kidnapped by the RRA, survived, and helped save Mick. Then everything just as quickly morphed into pain and anger for the woman who was slowly twisting a knife in his heart, who had unilaterally decided their marriage was over, but was too cowardly to just pull the fucking cord and end it.
It was a crap shoot as to where his emotions would be when he finally saw her.
Lance and Riley stood outside a curtained off area, their faces drawn and dark. Lucas glanced into the makeshift cubicle and saw a large man on the gurney, a slew of doctors and nurses checking every part of his body, and yelling out medical terminology that, if Lucas had been able to focus, he might have picked up on some key terms he knew by virtue of being married to a doctor.
“How’s he doing?” he asked Lance.
“He’s lost a lot of blood.” Lance’s gaze never left Mick.
Riley forced a tight smile, and offered, “He’d be dead already if Lettie hadn’t been there.”
Lucas looked around. “Where is she?”
Lance pointed at another curtained area. “One of her colleagues is pretty sick. Since it was nearly all-hands to get Mick stabilized, she pitched in to help with the other guy.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Pretty severe case of pneumonia,” Riley said. “But you’d have to ask her for specifics.” She nodded toward the room where Lettie was, indicating he should go see his wife, but Lucas wasn’t ready to see her just yet.
The pendulum wasn’t swinging in the right direction for a happy reunion with his wayward wife. And, truth be told, he wasn’t sure what her reaction to him would be. Would she be happy to see him? Or just grateful that he and his team of war-mongering killers, had saved her ass, and the asses of her colleagues?
From inside Mick’s room, the urgency of the doctors demands rose to a fever pitch. A flurry of activity in and out of the room swirled like a tornado picking up speed before it obliterated a farmhouse. For Lucas, it was as if he was standing miles from the disaster, watching it unfold, and not being able to do a damn thing to help save anyone.
Not just anyone—Mick. The man who had been there for him over the last year while his wife was off playing medical hero to the people who had put Mick in this position.
And then, just as fast as the storm had kicked up, it died, and silence ensued. An eerie silence. The kind that followed total and utter devastion.
The doctors and nurses exited the room, heads dropped, unable to look at any of them. Except for one. He pulled the medical cap from his head, ran his fingers through his hair and stopped in front of Lance an Riley.
“We did everything we could—there was just too much blood loss.”
Lucas didn’t hear anything the man said after that. Ringing filled his ears. The room swayed. He turned, not sure where he was going, and saw Lettie.
“Do something,” he said, his voice pleading with her. She was a doctor. She could do something. She could save him.
Lettie looked past him, and whatever she saw, it forced her eyes to drop, and her gaze to take on that sympathetic quality he hated. It made him feel weak. And small.
“Lucas,” she said, her soothing voice grating on his last nerve. She took a few steps toward him, her arms opening to take him in. “He’s gone.”
“Don’t.” His voice was low, his jaw clenched so tight he wouldn’t have been surprised if his molars cracked under the pressure.
She halted, arms still open, eyes wide, mouth agape. She dropped her arms, but still stared at him, neither seeming to know what to do. What the other needed.
Lucas’s emotions, a fiery rage hellbent on staying in the dark shadows of his heart, had no intention of swinging anywhere into the light to find the soft, warmth he had felt for Lettie earlier when he thought she had saved his best friend. Now, he couldn’t bear to be near her. Didn’t want to see the sorrow, or hurt, or any other emotion she hoped would sway him to forgive her. Instead, he turned away from her, headed toward the door, with no intention of ever looking back.
Chapter 11
The week since what Lettie was mentally dubbing The Rescue That Went Horribly Wrong, had been the worst of her life. Even being in captivity hadn’t been as hard as what she was now experiencing. Meeting all of Lucas’s new teammates had been uncomfortable, to say the least. Having to face Layla, Mick’s grieving pregnant widow was almost too much to bear. And then there was Lucas.
To say that he was cold and distant was the understatement of the century. They were together, but he would not really sp
eak more than a few words to her at a time, and those were mostly informational and directional. They did not speak about what had happened to Mick. What had happened to Lettie during her incarceration. He refused to look her in the eye, and hadn’t even touched her unless by accident. And then he acted as if she had burned him.
So, they had traveled with the team back to Mick’s hometown of Dayton, Ohio, so that he could be buried in the family plot. It looked to be a huge affair, with so many special operators from all four branches coming together from all fifty states, and a couple of people now stationed overseas. Apparently, in his role as a PJ, Mick had saved many lives and touched many souls.
And Lettie had failed to save him.
If Lucas was right, it was her fault Mick had been in a position to be shot. She was not only responsible for not saving him, but for getting him killed. If not for her being in Russia, she would not have been kidnapped, and Mick and the team would not have needed to rescue her. At least that was the gist of what she heard Lucas telling Ben while she was pretending to sleep on the plane. Lettie had rolled practically onto her side away from Lucas so he couldn’t see that she was crying.
Her heart was shattered into a million pieces, swimming in the guilt-laden sea in her chest. If this wasn’t the very definition of ironic—she decided Lucas was the man she loved and wanted to work on her marriage only to have Lucas give up—she didn’t know what was.
She pulled the black suit she had brought for the funeral out of the closet and laid it on the bed. She thought maybe she should wait to get dressed until Lucas got out of the shower, hoping he would walk in on her naked, but trying to seduce him felt skeezy on a day they were going to bury his best friend. So, she would hurry up and get dressed before he emerged from the bathroom, and maybe that would make it a little less awkward between them.
Ha!
Grabbing the black silk panties and bra from the drawer, her hand bumped against the sharp corner of an envelope. She retrieved the letter Mick had given her to give to Layla—which she obviously had also failed to do. This was on purpose, though. How was she supposed to meet the woman as her husband’s flag draped coffin was being brought off the cargo transport, offer condolences, and then hand her a letter from her dead husband?
And was Lettie the one who should give it to her? Wasn’t that something Lucas should do?
Probably. And the longer she hung onto the letter, the harder it was going to be to explain why she hadn’t given it to him earlier.
The door to the bathroom opened and Lucas stepped out, already dressed in his suit pants and a white dress shirt. Fumbling to get his tie knotted perfectly and mumbling expletives under his breath.
Lettie turned the envelope face down on the dresser and took tentative steps toward him. “Need some help?”
He gave her a side-eye glance. His lips flattened, irritated and upset. He nodded once, and dropped his hands. In the old days, back when he couldn’t not touch Lettie, he would have placed his hands on her hips and made some sexually inappropriate remark with a salacious grin on his face.
Not now. Now he looked past her, over her shoulder, stiff as a board, silent as a mute. She completed the task, and stepped out of the way so he could see her handiwork in the mirror.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, barely loud enough for her to hear.
“Sure,” she said, and smiled. “Anytime.”
Inhaling deeply, she decided there was no better time than the present, and picked up the envelope. Turning to face him, she held it out in front of her. “Mick gave me this before…before we got onto the helicopter. He wanted me to give it to Layla.”
Lucas reached for the envelope, but stopped short of actually taking it. He simply stared at it as if it was the last living part of his friend, and didn’t want to kill it. He raised his gaze to Lettie, anger simmering in them. “Why haven’t you given it to her?”
“There didn’t seem to be an appropriate time—”
“Appropriate time?” His voice was low and mostly controlled, much like the rage she could almost see coursing through his veins. “There is no appropriate time to receive a letter like this, Lettie. The man has died. His wife is alone and about to give birth to their child. You don’t think this might have provided some comfort to her?”
Lettie dropped her head. Nothing she did lately seemed to be right. She wondered briefly if that was actually true, or if it was just impossible to please Lucas. And was that just a temporary state of things, or was this going to be her life from now on?
“The only real opportunity to have given it to her was at the airfield when we returned, and she was already overwhelmed. I thought it best to wait to give it to her. I didn’t want to cause her anymore pain.”
He snorted out a disgusted guffaw. The anymore harm than you already have was implied.
She inhaled and released it slowly, trying to calm her nerves and get her emotions in check. Lucas was being an ass—perhaps deservedly so—but at some point he needed to give her some breathing room. “I figured it would be better coming from you.”
Silence filled the air like a heavy oppressive gas, making it impossible to draw breath. Finally, he snatched the envelope from her hand and put it into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He opened his mouth to speak, but the ring of his cell phone cut him off.
Lettie took another deep breath of relief at the reprieve.
“Yeah,” Lucas said by way of greeting, his narrowed eyes still on Lettie. Then his face paled and his eyes widened, and Lettie took a small step toward him. “When?”
He waited while the caller responded. “Text me the address. We’ll be right there.” He ended the call, slipped on his suit coat, and grabbed the keys off the table.
“What’s happened?” Lettie asked, slipping into her high heels.
“Where’s your medical bag?” was Lucas’s response.
“Closet.” She grabbed her purse and followed him. He grabbed the bag off the floor of the closet and turned to the door. She grabbed his arm and forced him to look at her. “What is going on, Lucas?”
“Lettie’s in labor.”
Chapter 12
“Detail, attention,” the deep voice of the Air Force Honor Guard was loud in contrast to the solemn quiet of the cemetery.
“Port arms.”
Ready.
Aim.
Fire.
The blasts from the guns made Lettie jolt in her seat. Lucas had forgotten what it was like to be surprised by gunfire. He figured it was as disconcerting for her as it was for him to have the shots being fired behind them. Albeit, for different reasons. Lettie wouldn’t know when the shots were coming, because she had no visual cues, and hadn’t been trained to trust what she could hear. Lucas didn’t like the idea of weapons behind him without having his own weapon readily available if circumstances warranted action.
Lettie closed her eyes, and he saw the death grip she had on Layla’s hand as they waited for the next round in the twenty-one-gun salute.
“Present arms.”
The command cued the bugle to begin the sorrowful notes of Taps. The flag was lifted from Mick’s casket and expertly folded. Lucas took a deep breath and held it, steadying himself. He could handle the eulogy, seeing the casket, the guns firing and the roar of the jets performing a missing man formation. What he couldn’t stomach was the flag being presented to the family.
It shredded him every single time. He couldn’t afford to lose it now. He had to be strong for Layla. Maybe even for Lettie.
Definitely for Mick.
The flag detail commander held the folded flag against his chest, and slowly walked toward them. As the end notes drifted on the soft breeze, the commander knelt before Layla with exact precision, let the flag drop from his chest. One hand on top, one on the bottom, he extended the flag until it was directly in front of her.
“On behalf of a grateful nation.”
Layla took the flag in her shaky hands, dropped her forehead onto the stars agai
nst the blue background, and wept. He dropped his head to his chest. The soft sobs were like a hand thrust into Lucas’s chest that squeezed his heart until he thought it might stop beating.
And in that moment, he wanted it to. If his heart stopped beating, the pain would be gone. Nothing would matter anymore. There would be peace. Quiet. No more heartache from a broken marriage. No more friends dying.
No more babies without fathers.
A hand slid against his, fingers intertwining with his. A gentle, reassuring squeeze from Lettie. He hadn’t realized how much he needed the physical comfort. How much he needed her.
Or how thankful he was that she was here. No one knew him better than her. And there was a certain amount of security that still remained in their relationship that was allowing him to soak up the comfort she was providing. He may not be able to trust her in other areas of their lives and relationship, but he knew he could count on her to take care of him while he grieved for his friend.
He pushed back the thoughts that had fueled his rage…the ones that said that it was her fault Mick was dead. Right now, he needed every ounce of her care.
A progression past the coffin started. Many members of the military were in attendance, along with civilians, and family. Lettie stood by Layla, walking beside her as she said a final farewell to her husband. His teammates followed Mick’s family, with Lucas bringing up the rear.
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, his fingers grazing the letter Mick had written to Layla, and grasped the Marine Raider Special Operations insignia. As he approached the casket, he took a moment to stare at the line of insignia left before him.
Lucas - Anne L Parks Page 4