Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1)

by Marysol James

  “You didn’t what?”

  “How’s that white wine, Kel?”

  “Terrible, of course. Now – you didn’t what?”

  “OK, lemme explain.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. Let’s hear it.”

  “So you ever seen that movie ‘Before Sunrise’?”

  “So – what?”

  “Humor me, OK?”

  “I will. Barely and for one minute.” Kelly sighed, swigged some more bad wine. “Yes, I’ve seen ‘Before Sunrise’. I’m surprised that you have.”

  “Oh, I ain’t seen it, Trish told about it. But she got this crazy idea that we agree to show up at The Web and just trust that we’ll both be there. She said that it was like a date that we couldn’t call and get out of, and no textin’ and talkin’ before. It’ll build up the anticipation and leave a bit of mystery, see?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I like it,” Keegan said. “I think it’s a cute idea and frankly, I like that we’re kinda denyin’ ourselves all that annoyin’ textin’ and emoji shit. Keepin’ it real and in person only. So nineteen-nineties datin’, like back in high school. I’ll skip the meetin’ this week and show up for Trish instead, like how we used to just show up before texts and all that crap.”

  “OK, well… when you put it like that, I guess I can see the appeal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Kelly took another sip, grimaced, set the wine down. “It’s romantic. Stupid maybe, but romantic.”

  “Good move, puttin’ the wine down. You gotta get ready for your work meetin’ in a few hours.”

  “Jesus, Kee!”

  “I know, I know.” Keegan grinned, feeling happier than he’d felt in a long, long time. “Burned at the stake, right?”

  “Damn right. I may do it yet.”

  Chapter 6

  Three days later; Wednesday

  Trish looked at herself in the full-length mirror on her closet door, twisting and turning, trying to see how she looked every which way, both coming and going. Spending years in front of the camera and being offered to the lascivious public gaze meant that she was achingly aware of her own body, of its flaws and not-so-hot angles and sides. She was an expert at tilting her head just-so to show her eyes to best advantage, to displaying her curves with a certain grace and insouciance.

  It was like she always, always saw herself through the lens of a camera, always knew how she looked to other people. She hated it because she wanted to just relax into her own life and body and face, to stop living it from a third-person perspective, but it was hard to break the habit.

  That’s what six-plus years naked in front of the world did to you. Your whole life became a goddamn movie in your own mind.

  She tossed her head a bit so her long blonde hair could fall over her shoulders and frame her heart-shaped face. She blinked, admired the new sultry brown eye shadow and burnt orange lipstick that she’d bought that morning on sale at the Target. They were unusual shades for her in her new life: she’d really muted her makeup since leaving the world of porn. Early on, she’d decided that if she wanted to look completely different from Thalia Flame, that had to include makeup.

  So it was out with the heavy eye shadow, red lipstick, powder and blush applied with a trowel, and loose flaming red hair. In with taupes and pinks, and casual subtlety, and her blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Trish was absolutely certain that part of the reason that she got puzzled double looks on the bus and in the store was because her porn makeup had been a disguise of sorts, and now she’d taken it off. After all, her fresh-faced and wholesome appearance was light-years from the result after a hair and makeup artist had worked on her for ninety minutes at a time before filming.

  On the whole, Trish liked the way that she looked now but she was a woman, and she could always find something to improve on. The curse of women’s magazines and Hollywood – and yes, the porn industry too. Nobody knew better than Trish how fake the movies that she’d been in were and what impossible standards they set for women and men. It was all a con and a lie: nobody saw the breaks for fixing makeup and endless takes from several angles, nobody heard the director coaching her how to ‘cum’ screaming after being pounded by a guy on drugs in every imaginable position for forty minutes straight, and she was now deeply ashamed of the message that she’d been part of promoting for six years.

  She looked OK for her date with Keegan, though. She looked like a normal woman, just your average female in a cute little blouse and faded jeans heading out to meet a devastatingly hot ex-soldier for coffee. She looked like everyone else that she saw on the street – and that was all that Trish wanted at this point. To fit in, to blend in.

  She gave herself a smile, then turned away from the mirror. Keegan had seen her in her work uniform and with hardly any makeup; he’d also seen her mussed and fussed, after crying and having been dragged through the dirt. If he could find her attractive and ask her out after that, well… this was going to be just fine.

  Trish grabbed her purse, checked for car keys and wallet, threw in her small makeup bag for touch-ups. She checked her cell phone clock and jumped a bit: she had thirty minutes to get to The Web Café and it took about that much time to get there. She had to get moving.

  A quick spritz of light flowery perfume and she was out the bedroom door, down the hall and tugging on her high-heeled brown boots, the only ones without a hole in the bottom. It had been raining all day and she wasn’t keen on sitting through a date with soaked socks.

  “You off?” Meredith asked her from the living room. “Going on your hot date?”

  Trish tugged on her cheap coat, hating how ratty it was but having no choice until she got paid. She had money set aside, of course, but it wasn’t for a coat… it was for just in case.

  “Yes,” she said. “Where’s Nora?”

  “In the kitchen.” Meredith took a sip of tea. “So I’m all set for tonight and you shouldn’t worry.”

  Trish nodded, wrapped her scarf around her throat. “It’ll be nice to go for coffee, I must admit. This guy is… well. He’s quite something.”

  “Have fun, hon.”

  “I will. But don’t think I’ll be out all night.”

  “Trish, it’s your night off and you do with it what you want and what you will. As long as you’re back on duty at seven tomorrow morning, to relieve Nora and help me and have breakfast with me, it’s none of my business what you do before then.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now go.” Meredith gave her a smile. “Go have a good night.”

  Trish returned the smile, suddenly excited about her date, and opened the front door. She stepped outside, turned to shut it – and that’s when she saw the envelope attached to the door, stuck on with thick tape.

  The name on the envelope was ‘Thalia’.

  Right away, she wanted to fall to her knees on the soaked doorstep and throw up. She recognized the writing, she recognized the dragon logo in the left corner. She already knew what the note inside said.

  She looked around quickly, trying to see if there were any people sitting in parked cars, or men standing on the street corner, but there was nothing and nobody. The little street was quiet and vacant; the silence and stillness made her more on edge, like this was the calm before the damn storm that wiped out a small town.

  With a trembling hand, she plucked the envelope off the door, ripped it open. Sure enough, it was what she’d thought:

  30 MINUTES. $1000. THE PARK

  Trish shut her eyes and gave a small, defeated whimper. Fuck, he wanted her to hand over money today. Now. She knew that it would take her at least twenty minutes to get their usual meet-up spot in the park – and she also knew what would happen if she was late or didn’t show. She had his phone number and she could always call and beg for more time – but begging had never done her any damn good in the past and she knew that it would do her no damn good now.

  She had no choice. She never had a choice.

 
She wrenched the door open again, strode back into the house, crumpling the paper in her fist and shoving it in her coat pocket as she went. Meredith and Nora both looked up in surprise from watching a movie as she passed the living room.

  “Did you forget something?” Nora asked.

  “Yeah. My wallet.” Trish rolled her eyes in a self-deprecating manner, tried to stop gritting her teeth. “I need that, huh?”

  “The young man should pay for coffee,” Meredith said severely. “Should he not?”

  “He should,” Nora agreed. “No doubt.”

  “I still need my driver’s license,” Trish pointed out. “Just my luck, I’d get pulled over and not be able to show it.”

  “Ah.” Meredith nodded. “True.”

  Trish went back to her bedroom, looked over her shoulder, for no reason that she could fathom other than her damn paranoia. The women were absorbed in the TV of course, had she really expected one of them to follow her to her room and supervise her grabbing her wallet?

  Jesus. Get a grip.

  She went to her closet and retrieved the locked box from the highest shelf, then she knelt down and fumbled in her left running shoe and found the key. Barely breathing, listening for movement or footsteps in the other room, she opened the lock, flipped the box lid open. She gazed down at the money that she kept in there and felt nothing but despair.

  The box contained $1,154 exactly. It was all she had in the world, besides the twenty bucks in her wallet – and that bastard was going to basically wipe her out, take everything that she’d killed herself to set aside.

  Again.

  But really, what was she saving for besides paying him off? Who was she saving for besides him?

  No, the truth was that Trish salted away every cent that she earned from Meredith and from serving up cake and champagne because she was always, always waiting for that damn envelope with Thalia’s name on it and with the dragon in the corner. She lived in utter fear and certainty of that moment when she saw that loathsome scrawl giving her instructions. The contents of this box were her safety net, her insurance, her shield.

  And starting tomorrow, she had to start saving again. Because there was going to be another letter, then another, then another. There would always be another letter.

  This was the price she had to pay for who she’d been – and to protect who she was now.

  It was only as she locked the box and stuffed it up on the shelf again that it occurred to her that she wasn’t going to be able to meet Keegan in – quick glance at her cell clock – twenty-four minutes. It was astonishing that it had taken her so long to remember this fact, but then again, every time she got a blackmail note, her thought process went to hell and she panicked and moved heaven and earth to meet him when and where he said.

  Everything else flew away like dust and ashes. All she saw was what she had to do to keep her life safe from harm.

  Trish almost ran out of the room and back down the hall, and she somehow managed a wave and a cheery goodbye to the ladies. She bolted out the door and to her car, reminding herself that she had to get her shit together now to drive. Causing an accident and hurting someone else, or running off the road and missing her deadline to meet the creep was not the way to go.

  As she pulled out of the driveway, she allowed herself a few seconds of regret. Maybe five seconds; maybe a few more. It would have been great to see Keegan again, to have a relaxed coffee and carry on flirting. It might have been the start of something pretty damn special or it might not – but now she’d never know.

  Why hadn’t they exchanged numbers? Why had they gone for the fun and playful thing of ‘I’ll be there and you’ll be there and yay!’ like that movie ‘Before Sunrise’? In the movie’s sequel, the audience finds out that the guy had shown up in Paris one year later and the girl hadn’t… and here Trish was, bolting in the opposite direction to where Keegan was probably going right that minute.

  I’m sorry, Keegan. God, I’m sorry.

  **

  Keegan walked into the meeting room, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. He was pissed off and crazy disappointed, but he wasn’t sure that he was quite ready to talk about that yet. Not even with the guys.

  “Hey, man.”

  With an internal sigh, Keegan turned. There stood Luke Rhodes, one of the most admirable people that Keegan had ever met – and all the more so because he’d started this group and led it. Luke stood there, totally relaxed and open as always, but damn those dark blue eyes missed nothing at all and never did. Keegan knew that Luke would have spotted his weird demeanor and shit mood within two seconds of him walking into the group meeting.

  “Hey,” he replied. “What’s new, Luke?”

  Luke shrugged, still looking at Keegan closely. “Nothing much. Just working and seeing Selena.”

  Keegan nodded, felt his chest tighten at the mention of Luke’s kickass and gorgeous professional bodyguard girlfriend. Until this second, he’d never been jealous of Luke, he’d always been happy for him; God knows, Keegan understood what Luke had faced when dating. Like Keegan, Luke was ex-military and like Keegan, he’d come back from war missing a physical part of himself. In Luke’s case, it had been his left hand.

  But somehow Luke had managed to get Selena. She accepted him only having one hand and she loved him despite everything. Not that Keegan saw losing a limb as something to forgive or excuse or somehow become ‘OK’ with, but he knew damn good and well that for most of the general population of the USA, it was still something that caused discomfort and squeamishness.

  And for women, it was something that took an otherwise healthy man out of the running for dating, sleeping with, getting serious about in terms of a relationship.

  He was absolutely certain that it’s the reason why Trish had stood him up almost two hours earlier. Her initial reaction of shining positivity had been fine, but she’d probably gone home and thought about the reality of what Keegan looked like without clothes, without his prosthesis… and she’d decided that it was too gross, too disturbing, too unsexy.

  She wasn’t the first to reach that conclusion and she wouldn’t be the last.

  So to have Luke standing in front of him now, in a fully-functioning and loving relationship with a drop-dead amazing woman was a bitter goddamn pill to swallow, after having sat in that café for over an hour. The slow, dawning realization that Trish wasn’t going to show up, the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he understood that yet another woman had rejected him: they weren’t new or unfamiliar moments for Keegan, but damned if they ever got any easier.

  “I thought you couldn’t make it today,” Luke said, running his hand through his always-unruly black hair. “You said that you had something personal going on?”

  “Yeah, well. Turns out I don’t.”

  “OK.” Luke stared at him. “You need to talk about it with us? Or maybe just me after the meeting?”

  “I’ll see. I don’t know yet.”

  Luke nodded and dropped it. That was one of the most awesome things about the man, really: he knew when to push the guys to talk and he also knew when to back up and let them have some space to think shit through. Every man in this room was a wounded warrior of some kind – anything and everything from missing limbs to severe scarring to losing their voice – and sometimes, that kind of thing brought up life issues and challenges that needed to be slowly absorbed before being shared. Sometimes it was just about time and Luke gave them that, no problem.

  After all, every man here was angry in some way and for some reason; every man here was struggling to find themselves and a relationship and a place in this world. In order to subside and diminish, anger needed space and time – and patience. True love needed even more of those things, needed them in spades.

  Luke and Nick were the only ones who’d successfully managed to do all of those things with women. Keegan reminded himself to be happy for his friends, and to look to them for inspiration and hope of a relationship of his own one day.
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  But not today. Today, he was going to be pissed off and hurt and angry.

  And alone.

  Stupid idiot, gettin’ your hopes up again.

  “So, let’s get started.” Luke raised his voice a bit to be heard over the guys’ talking. “All right, let’s sit down.”

  Low murmurs were heard as the group found chairs and sat in a circle, some clutching paper cups of coffee or Coke. Keegan picked a spot as far from happy Luke as possible and for some reason, felt much better. Of course, he was now sitting next to Dalton, the biggest asshole that Keegan had ever met in the whole of his life.

  Besides being an angry, unpleasant prick, Dalton McGregor was a total mystery. He never shared with the group about what had brought him to the meetings and from even just a casual glance, it was obvious that the man was in full possession of both legs and arms. It was possible that under his clothes he was badly scarred, like Terrance or Chad, who both had full-body skin damage, Terrance from an explosion and Chad from a fire.

  But if so, Dalton had never told anyone that or anything at all – except for Luke maybe. But the biggest rule of the group was that nobody was forced to talk if they didn’t want to, so Dalton could sit and listen and be a moody, obnoxious jerk to the others, and he could choose to share nothing.

  Today, though, Keegan was happy to be next to the surliest guy in the group. It fit his mood perfectly.

  “OK,” Luke began and silence fell. “Good to see you guys. Nick sends his apologies because – of course – he’s on his honeymoon with his lovely wife, Mia.”

  There was a cheer at this and some semi-joking raising of glasses, then the men fell quiet again.

  “You guys know that today is open day so anything and everything is open for discussion. Does anyone want to say anything first? Or set a kind of theme for today?”