“I do,” Zack spoke up, pushing his long blond hair off his badly-scarred face. “I had – something happened this week at work.”
“OK, man.” Luke opened his right hand to show his palm, made a kind of ushering motion with it. “The floor is yours.”
“So I was at the clinic,” Zack began. “With the change to autumn weather, it’s cold and flu season and we’re getting tons of kids in for shots and check-ups. Kind of a crap time, but I like the kids that we get in as regulars, so it’s all cool.”
“Kids,” Dalton muttered, bang on cue. “Fucking little ankle-biters.”
“Yep and I love ‘em,” Zack said, unfazed by Dalton’s usual bullshit. “Anyway, a new family has moved into the clinic area from Guatemala and they showed up on Monday for a general appointment. Three kids and a single Mom, never had insurance before so the kids need to be put on a vaccination schedule and the full run-through physical for the first time in their lives. You know. The kind of people that I actually started the clinic for – at-risk people.”
Everyone nodded.
“So the nurse brings them to me, and it was crazy busy up front, and she hadn’t – well. She forgot to tell them about my –”
Zack gestured at his face, at the scars that twisted his mouth, extended underneath both eyes, ran down his neck and up into his hairline. Right away, all the men tensed and braced for impact. They all remembered the first time that they’d seen Zack Fillion’s face and the shock had been extreme – and they were adults and ex-military types who were pretty used to seeing damaged bodies up-close. What would unprepared and unsuspecting little kids think? God knows, the reactions that Zack had described a few times had been heartbreakingly hurtful – and that had been from kids who had actually been prepared for Dr. Fillion’s face.
“So. Mom shows up with the kids aged fourteen, ten and six. The kids took one look at me and lost their minds, which I’m not surprised about, but the real shock was the mother. She started to scream – I mean scream – and throw things at me. Then she opened the door and shoved the kids out, screaming at me the whole time in Spanish so I wasn’t getting much in the way of actual comprehension. Everyone came running and Carmalita started to talk to the family and tried to calm them down, because by then all the kids were crying in the waiting room.”
“What did the mother say?” Shep asked. “What was she so upset about?”
Zack sighed heavily. “I didn’t know this, but in Guatemala there’s a celebration called La Quema del Diablo.”
“‘Burning the devil’?” Felix translated, clearly puzzled. “I’ve never heard of it. We don’t have it in Mexico.”
“Yeah, Carmalita had never heard of it either. Apparently, before Christmas the devil is burned in effigy to keep him away from the family and their celebrations. It’s a very powerful cultural symbol there – and in some villages, a shoot-off of it is that any man who is severely burned is thought to be –”
“The devil,” Shadow rasped in his strangled voice. “Shit, man.”
“Yeah.”
The men all stared at Zack, hurting for him, angry for him, humiliated for him. As bad as things were for them sometimes when people noticed their missing limbs or burns, it was nothing, nothing compared to what Zack went through on a daily basis at work, in the grocery store, in line at the Starbucks. He’d told them that the silent horrified stares were the worst, worse than the laughter and name-calling.
“In the end, Mom grabbed the kids and hustled them out of there, never to return she said.” Zack leaned back in his chair. “She told Carmalita that the clinic was cursed, and I was evil, and that she’d make sure her kids never even walked past the building. Just in case I kidnapped them, seeing as I’m the devil and all.”
“I’m sorry, doc,” Josh said, his dark blue eyes even darker than usual. “You shouldn’t have been treated that way, not even by an upset and protective mother.”
The other men murmured apologies – like it did any fucking good – but they all knew that for Zack, it wasn’t about them saying sorry. It was all about having a place to tell someone stuff like this, knowing that when he did, there would be nothing but support and goodwill.
“Thanks, guys,” Zack said. “I felt – I don’t know. That one felt worse than usual. It was a bad day at the office, you know?”
They all nodded quietly; they all knew a thing or two about bad days.
Keegan looked around the group, saw that everyone was looking around at everyone else. Some nights were like this, everyone waiting to see who needed to talk. Some nights it was an hour of arguing and sniping at each other as tensions and frustrations boiled over, and they took it out on each other instead of random strangers on the street. Some nights it was one guy doing most of the talking, talking about something that he’d never talked about ever before. And some nights, it was more like a party as they all joked around and teased each other like brothers.
Tonight wasn’t a party night. It was a night to talk about painful stuff, stuff that pierced and pricked. It was about disappointments and dashed hopes, about how being who they were was just that bit harder than it used to be, back before whatever had happened to them happened.
Open your mouth, you coward.
“I had somethin’ happen today,” Keegan said. “Somethin’ that I want to talk about. Nothin’ like what happened to you, doc, but still – I was stupid enough to get my hopes up.”
Ten sets of eyes turned to face him and as always, Keegan felt slightly abashed at being the absolute focus of attention. Yeah, these guys were his family just as much as Kelly was – even Dalton, for all his crap – but that didn’t make it easy to talk about things all the time.
“What happened?” Danny asked him, then he paused as he remembered something. “Wait. Didn’t you have a date tonight? I thought you told me that you wouldn’t be here… that woman from Nick’s wedding, right?”
“Yeah, well,” Keegan grated out. “That’s what happened.”
“Aw, no,” Danny said, dismayed. “The date didn’t happen?”
“She didn’t show.” Keegan sighed. “She left me sittin’ in the café.”
“I hate when that happens,” Shep said quietly. “It’s so fucking spineless.”
“Did you tell her about your leg?” Zack asked him. “She knows?”
“Yeah. I told her.” Keegan shrugged, a part of him still pissed that he’d done that the first night that they’d met. Maybe if he’d waited until the coffee date that night to tell Trish the truth, given her a chance to get to know him a bit better, she’d have been more open.
But past experience showed him that really, it didn’t matter when he told a woman. If he opened his mouth on the first meet, they gave his prosthesis in his jeans a startled, horrified glance, then bolted and were never seen again. If he waited to say anything, they accused him of leading them on and said things like ‘you should have told me sooner’. So he didn’t know the right time.
He was beginning to think that there just wasn’t a right time.
Or maybe you just haven’t met the right woman. If she’s right, then any time will be right too. Right?
“Back up, Keegan,” Terrance said in his deep voice, his dark eyes gentle and thoughtful. “Who’s this girl?”
“Yeah, OK. Background is good.”
So Keegan told them about spotting Trish at Nick and Mia’s wedding, about her long blonde ponytail and incredible eyes, about how she blew him off and how the drunk guy had been leering and gross. He told them about how he and Kelly had come upon Trish being dragged into a car, and how Keegan had beaten the prick into the dirt (the guys gave an ironic little cheer at this part of the story), then how Kelly had insisted on Trish going for coffee with them. He told them about how the three of them had chatted, how Kelly had left early, how Trish and Keegan had flirted and how she’d reacted so well to the news about his leg. How he’d asked her out and she’d accepted happily – then how he’d sat in the café that even
ing for over an hour, watching the clock and feeling his chance with her just dissipate like morning dew.
“OK, so, wait,” Chad said. “You didn’t exchange numbers?”
“Nope,” Keegan said. “It was stupid, I guess, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Just went with the vibe and the flow of the night.”
“It was stupid.” That was Dalton, naturally; the group rolled their eyes as one at his utter predictability. “You fucking moron. You finally get a woman interested in you, a cute girl that you rescued so she’s all grateful and you blow it? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinkin’ that it was fun and spontaneous,” Keegan said tersely. “You know anythin’ about that kind of stuff, Dalton?”
“This isn’t about me, Sinclair,” Dalton pointed out. “I’ve got no problems in the woman department but you sure as shit do. I’m starting to wonder if you’re screwing it up for yourself on purpose.”
“What?” Shadow rasped, his throat damage from all those chemicals making the word somehow even more disbelieving and menacing. “You for real right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen asshole,” Keegan told Dalton. “I wanted this date with Trish, OK? I thought that she’d show up for sure. Kelly loved her and that’s always somethin’ when she goes for another woman right off the bat and thinks of her as honest and sweet.”
“Ah yes,” Dalton sneered. “Perfect, magical Kelly.”
“Shut up,” Keegan snarled back. “You keep my sister’s name out of your filthy fuckin’ mouth.”
“OK, OK,” Luke intervened. “Dalton, dial it down ten notches and I mean now. Keegan, I’m sorry that this woman stood you up. Being led on and lied to sucks, and we’ve all been there. The question is: do you honestly think that your leg was the reason that she didn’t show?”
“What do you mean?” Keegan asked. “You think that I got stood up because I ain’t a nice guy?”
“Look,” Luke said calmly. “People get stood up every single day. Men and women with all their limbs, with money, with great houses and expensive cars. Right?”
“Right.”
“Some people are just flakes about promises. Maybe she accepted because she felt like she had to after you saved her from drunk jerk. Maybe she accepted because she genuinely liked you but she went away and realized that she’d not ready for any kind of relationship. Maybe something came up today, something with work or her family, and she had no way to call you without your number. Maybe she thinks you’re a player, some good-looking ex-soldier who sticks his dick in anything that moves. Maybe she has a boyfriend that she forgot to mention. You get me? There are a hundred reasons why she didn’t show that have nothing to do with your left leg.”
“Yeah, OK. Fair enough. But she could have called the café and told me that she wasn’t able to make it.”
“Maybe she felt bad about canceling and couldn’t face telling you, which is chickenshit. Maybe she’s at the hospital dealing with a sick family member and she forgot about your date altogether. Maybe her phone battery was dead and she had no way to get to the internet and find the café website and contact information.”
“Yeah. Yeah, OK.” Keegan sighed. “So your point is that bein’ stood up fuckin’ sucks and I can feel shit about that, but I shouldn’t just assume that it was because of my leg?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Dalton snorted and rolled his dark green eyes.
“Dalton,” Luke said cheerfully. “Do you have anything to share today?”
“Nope.”
“As usual,” Josh muttered. “Once again, the great Dalton gets to crap on everyone and be a royal pain in the ass… and keep mum about what the hell he’s actually doing here.”
“Josh,” Luke reproved. “You know the group rules.”
“Yeah,” Felix chimed in. “But shouldn’t one of the rules be that if you’re going to trash everyone for talking, you have to sometimes talk yourself? Be as open as the rest of us?”
“What do you think, Dalton?” Luke asked him. “You think that’s a fair rule?”
“Nope.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Luke’s blue eyes were cold and his voice was as chilling as it ever got. “But I think you and I need to have another private talk about how you conduct yourself in this group. You do know – as I’ve discussed with you more than once – that your presence here isn’t an automatic guarantee. You’re here on my say-so… and that can be taken back any time I choose.” He paused. “I have nothing against hard talk, calling each other out and conflict if these things can lead to some growth or realizations of some hard truths. I do have something against being a deliberate asshole and provoking the guys, just because you need some excitement.”
Dalton shifted in his chair, looked as abashed as the guys had ever seen him.
“So.” Luke gave him a smile, like a cobra smiling at a bird in a nest. “Anything to share today, Dalton?”
“No.” Dalton cleared his throat. “Not today. Thanks, Luke.”
“Sure.”
“And Keegan.” Dalton turned to the other man. “It sucks that she didn’t show. Sorry that happened.”
“Uh. Thanks.” Keegan blinked. “Appreciate that, man.”
“Good.” Luke looked around the circle of men again. “Who’s next?”
Chapter 7
Trish lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She was trying very hard to not mind missing her date with Keegan the day before – and she was failing. Hard and completely and miserably.
You idiot.
OK sure, she didn’t know the guy, like at all. But she wanted to, she wanted to quite badly. No, she had no hopes or illusions that they had any kind of serious future together but that didn’t mean that she saw nothing between them. Dinners and great conversations and laughs, for sure; some mind-blowing moments in the bedroom, maybe.
Or maybe not maybe about the bedroom stuff… she’d seen the look in Keegan’s eyes when he’d looked at her during coffee with Kelly. Trish didn’t know much in this world, but she knew male interest and attraction. She knew when a man wanted to see her naked and when sex was on the table. She’d made a pretty great living selling sex back in L.A., after all, so this was one area where she was utterly confident.
She knew that Keegan had been very keen on getting her clothes off.
Not that it mattered now, though. She’d blown it.
You stupid idiot.
She sighed and stared at the ceiling some more, trying to forget what Keegan’s smile had looked like when they’d said goodbye the other night when he’d dropped her off in the cab. God, why had Dragon’s local nameless guy (that she mentally called ‘Bulldog’ because of his big, stupid, ugly tattoo of a snarling, drooling dog on his forearm) decided to spring a blackmail meeting on her yesterday of all damn days?
But even as she had the thought, Trish knew that that wasn’t the real issue.
Bulldog – or whatever his fucking name is – left the note on the door, so he knows where I live. He’s been watching me.
That meant that Meredith was on Dragon and Bulldog’s radar. Bulldog could knock on the door at any second and just tell her everything, show her everything. He and Dragon could hurt Meredith somehow; they weren’t above that, Trish knew, they weren’t above anything. Hell, Bulldog could gain the sweet and slightly naive old lady’s trust and access to the house somehow, and then suddenly Trish would have to see him all the time and that leering awful face. He could do anything that he wanted. Anything at all.
Trish had never felt so small, afraid and alone.
That was when she realized what she’d actually seen in Keegan, even more than a potential great lay.
A friend.
No, she couldn’t tell him about Bulldog and Dragon, no way and no how. But she could have had someone in her life, on her side, in her corner, even if he didn’t know what she was up against. She could have enjoyed his company in any way that he offered
it, and it would have been relaxing and relieving. He could have been her little oasis in the desert, a tiny reprieve from her lizard brain obsessing and on a never-ending loop of ‘what if’. She would have really loved that, to just take a breath with him.
And also – it came to her now – she liked Kelly, liked her very much. She knew that she had exactly nothing in common with a whip-smart lawyer, an amicably-divorced woman with a kid, a kickass chick who had her whole damn life together in ways that Trish could only dream of, but still… she thought Kelly was kind, funny, all-around incredible.
She could have been a friend too, maybe.
But not now, now that Trish had blown it.
You stupid fucking idiot.
Thinking about Kelly called something to mind now, something that began to kind of tug on the corners of her busy, worried mind. She squinted at the ceiling, tried to pinpoint what it was that was pulling insistently at her thoughts. It felt like an answer somehow… but what was it?
It came to her now like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky:
Kelly’s business card.
Trish launched herself off her bed, stood stock-still in the middle of the room, scrambling to recall where the hell she’d stuffed that precious little piece of stiff paper. Her cheap crappy purse? Her work pants’ pocket?
No. Her coat pocket.
She threw herself across the room, yanked her door open, hurried down the hallway to the coat tree at the front door. She rummaged through her pockets: keys, kleenex, gum, fucking blackmail letter – and then her fingers landed on a little card.
Kelly’s card.
Trish took it out, stared at it like it was The Holy Grail and a million dollars and keys to a Jag, all rolled into one. It wasn’t the answer to her problems, of course, but it was something.
It was a chance to have a friend – whatever that friendship might end up looking like.
“Trish?”
She turned now to see Meredith standing at the other end of the hallway, in the kitchen doorway. She was leaning on her walker and looking very alert and sprightly.
Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1) Page 8