John (Guardian Defenders Book 3)

by Kris Michaels

  “I didn’t figure she’d hang out around me too much. Her owner spoils her and I guess I do, too. Made the mistake of feeding her one night and then someone pushed fast forward and she’s still hanging around.”

  Shae took a small piece of meat and lowered her hand toward the floor. It took Cat about a sixteenth of a second to make her way to the treat. She delicately pulled the small bite from Shae’s fingers and marched away with her spoils. John shook his head. Damn animal now had three people wrapped around her broken bobbed tail.

  “Here are your meds.” John called Shae’s attention back to the table. She drew a deep breath and carefully lifted each off the tabletop. He waited while she took them and then set down the water glass.

  “Would you like to keep the leftovers?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, well, if it is okay with you, tomorrow night I’ll bring over two plates so you don’t have to eat alone.”

  Shae turned toward where Cat had disappeared and shrugged. John guessed that was as good as he was going to get. He stood and collected the almost-untouched meal. He pulled the tinfoil over the plate and opened the door. “See you tomorrow night.” She didn’t acknowledge him and that was all right. He wasn’t there to make a friend. He was doing a favor for Frank and Doc. That was it. The woman had big issues to deal with and he wasn’t part of that. Cat darted out of the door when he opened it, meowing at the plate as if she was going to get the scraps. John pulled the door closed behind him. Damn cat was spoiled because hell yeah he was going to give her the scraps.

  Chapter 8

  The evening sun cast growing shadows through the cottage window. Shae was huddled in the corner of her small couch, which had become her normal position. Her session with Jeremiah this morning, like every morning for the past month-and-a-half, had consisted of him talking about shit that had nothing to do with her or what had happened. He told her about his life in Hollister and before when he practiced in California. He went on about his gramma and the impact she had on his life. Shae walked when he asked her to and tried to care, but she didn’t. He’d tweaked her medication and the drug-induced fog had cleared, yet her carefully banked emotions still floated just out of reach. The disjointed feeling of… not feeling was difficult to understand, let alone describe. It was as if she was holding a balloon carrying all her emotions and she could see where they were stored but really didn’t care if they floated out there in front of her.

  Human contact was still a trigger for her. She couldn’t stand anyone touching her. Adam had been down and checked on her every morning. She liked Doctor Cassidy, yet she couldn’t even tell him that she’d been willing to sell out each and every one of her coworkers. She would have screamed out where each of them lived, how to find their families, where to strike them to make the most violent impact. Her compatriots at Mossad would have been laid at the altar of that bastard just so the pain would stop. She had begged for Maurice to let her tell the woman. To give information on her superiors, on the Mossad organization, and any information she knew about any operation.

  She didn’t deserve anyone’s concern. She loathed herself. If her agency knew what she’d been willing to do to stop the torture, they’d… Shae shook her head. She should be dead. Sometimes she wanted to be strong enough to end it all. The thought of living no longer held the same power over her thoughts as it once did. Everyone would be better off without her. She couldn’t dispute the fact.

  A small sound brought her out of her mind and spiraling dark thoughts. Shae made a slow, careful sweep of the little cottage. A meow, and then another. She lifted off the couch and took a moment to ensure she was steady before she made the slow trek to her door. Shae opened the door and Cat strolled in, rubbing her body against Shae’s leggings. She left the door open slightly so the animal could leave when she wanted and made her way back to the couch. As soon as she sat down, Cat was in her lap. The animal promptly curled into a ball and looked up at her. Of their own accord, her hands stroked the ugly animal’s fur. The animal meowed at her and rolled onto her side, stretching so far she ended up draped over Shae’s leg like a limp noodle.

  A knock at the open door sent it into the cottage. Cat jumped down and ran over to John Smith, who was carrying two plates in his hand. “Hey, you spoiled thing. I wondered where you’d run off to.” John talked to the cat and ignored Shae as he usually did. John didn’t expect her to talk to him which was… comforting? There was no pressure during their evening moments together. No anticipation that she answer questions or engage in useless conversation. He put the food on the table and headed into the kitchen to get two glasses of water. Shae forced herself out of the chair and over to the table.

  John returned and pulled the tinfoil off two plates of chicken and cheesy pasta with a side of peas. The aroma punched through to her senses, making her mouth water and her stomach growl. Macaroni and cheese was one of her favorite dishes. Her mom made it a lot when she was growing up. Not unexpected when you were raising a daughter without the help of a father.

  John sat down and placed her water and meds in front of her. Shae took them and lifted a forkful and enjoyed the warm, melty goodness.

  “I’m early. The twins and Chief want me to fill in as a fourth for poker tonight. They’ll be heading down to my place soon. Frank and Amanda are gone a couple days and Doc has his hands full with two new guys at the clinic. An operation in Venezuela went south.”

  Shae frowned down at her plate. “I don’t know who any of those people are. You’ll have to explain that statement.”

  John stopped his fork halfway to his mouth, obviously surprised she’d spoken, and Shae could understand his shock. She’d said maybe six words to him in the last week.

  “Chief—actually, his real name is Mike—he runs the Guardian side of the ranch. Dixon and Drake—Drake owns that bundle of fur—are twins and work for Guardian. Doc usually joins as a fourth, but he’s not going to be able to make it tonight. Frank and Amanda own this ranch. They went to New York to watch a play on Broadway, so instead of playing up at the main house, they are coming down to mine.”

  Shae put her fork down, no longer hungry. “This is all a Guardian facility, no?”

  “Actually, no, it is a working ranch, and a damn big one, too. From what I’ve been told, the Guardian side of the property started out with a small concept. A place for injured Guardians to come and rehab. Frank was able to rent them a sizable portion of land and it grew exponentially. The other side of that row of hills is a small town run entirely off the grid. Guardian has more resources than any other agency in the world. Including the Mossad.”

  That pulled a small smile from her. “You were there? Jeremiah said you were on the team that rescued me.”

  “I was. I’m not part of the team, I was looking for something else, but I held your hand until help arrived.” John glanced down at her hands. “I’m glad you were able to survive.”

  “Survive.” The word echoed around her mind. Survive. Had she? Really? Her body was here, but should it be? What she’d been willing to do? To sacrifice everyone she worked with or knew to stop Maurice from hurting her anymore? He’d broken her in ways that she couldn’t articulate. Humiliation, pain, and more pain. Maybe survival wasn’t enough.

  “Eat, please. Cat is getting way too fat. Look at the belly on that thing. She’s going to waddle before long. Maybe I should tell Drake to change her name to Duck.”

  Shae looked over at Cat, who was sitting at John’s feet and staring at him. Her golden eyes never flicked from him.

  Shae stabbed some more pasta with no intentions of eating it. “Cat isn’t fat.” Shae’s mind swirled around the whispered ideas she’d been coveting. The whispers grew louder.

  John laughed and speared a bite of chicken. “She’s a spoiled, entitled animal.”

  “You spoiled her.” Shae surprised herself with her response. It was as if her mind knew she needed to divert attention from the course of action that was firming up in
her mind.

  “I’ll deny it to the day I die. I don’t like cats.” John pinched off a small piece of chicken and casually tossed it to the floor where Cat pounced on it.

  Shae lifted her eyes from the bedraggled feline to her dinner partner. “I can tell.” Shae felt a moment of lightheartedness that flickered warmly inside her and then was swallowed into guilt that quickly swirled to steal away the happy thought. She dropped her eyes and put down her fork. She didn’t have the right to be happy. Not anymore. Waves of remorseful condemnation and an ocean of self-loathing pushed against her. The small voices in her thoughts that taunted her now spoke loud and clear. She’d been struggling with the idea since she’d come here. If she was going to do it, it should be now. She looked up at John and drew a deep breath in. She’d wait until he left and then she’d end the pain and the guilt. Once and for all.

  Yesterday, she’d written out her apology to her superiors and colleagues and had poured out her pain onto the paper. Seeing her sins in writing only compounded her guilt and humiliation. She hated herself. The world would be a better place without her in it.

  John didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he cleared his throat and stood, gathering his plate and hers. “Are you all right?” He asked the question as he stood at the door.

  Shae nodded and even sent him a small glance and a smile. “Actually, I’m much better now. Much better. You make sure she stays fat, all right?”

  John didn’t understand or particularly like the sudden change in Shae. Something was off, almost as if a switch had been thrown in her mind. He couldn’t suppress the feeling that something was terribly wrong. He stood at his kitchen counter and chopped up the leftover chicken pieces for Cat.

  He’d learned to follow his gut. He palmed his phone and pushed Jeremiah’s contact. The phone rang twice before the doctor came online. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know, but I got this feeling.”

  “Explain that.”

  “We were eating, and she was her usual subdued self. But then… It was as if I was watching all the tumblers in her mind spin and lock into place. The only thing is I have no idea what the fuck opened.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. John gave the man time to process his comments. “What was said?” He recounted their brief exchange word for word.

  “Son of a bitch. John, get your ass back over there, I'll call Adam. I’m on my way.” John hit the door in a full-out run. It took him little time to clear the distance between his house and the cottage, but the realization of the warning signs he picked up on earlier slapped him across the face.

  She could be suicidal.

  Fuck him, he prayed he hadn’t been gone long enough for her to do anything. He hit the front door of the cottage, slamming the wood into the plaster behind it, and swept the area for her. He saw her curled up on the bed and launched after her. John pulled her into his arms and cradled her, pushing her hair away from her face. “God, tell me you didn’t take anything, did you?” He searched the area for any sign she’d ingested any more drugs.

  Shae shook her head and shuddered against him before a torrential sob tore from her chest. She grabbed ahold of his neck with a strength her weakened body shouldn’t have. Her sobs vibrated through both of them. John moved back and leaned his shoulders against the wall, tugging her body against his. She folded into him and… hell, she lost her shit. He held her and tried to understand what she was saying. The sobbed words started to link up in his mind. He cringed at the guilt the woman was carrying. He stroked her hair and rocked from side to side, not knowing what else to do.

  When Lori had been upset, she only wanted him to listen, not to fix anything, but just to let her talk out her worries and concerns. It was the hardest fucking thing for him to do. His DNA was wired to fix problems, make things work, define the correct channels, and assign meaning and responsibility. The woman falling apart in his arms didn’t need that. She was so fucking broken, and thank God he’d been here and smart enough to call Doc Wheeler when something seemed off.

  John heard a truck skid to a stop beside his house and then the pounding of feet across the small area to the cottage. Adam Cassidy pulled up short and then made his way to the twin bed where he was holding Shae.

  The doctor’s eyes swept the room the same as his had. John watched him as he searched the house and pulled several prescription bottles off the counter. He dumped them out and counted. His shoulders relaxed and his head nodded as if he was confirming his own thoughts. He crossed over to the desk and grabbed a pen and paper. A heavy envelope slid to the ground, moved past the point of balancing on the edge when Adam turned back toward them. He held up a note that read ‘NO OD. JUST DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW.’

  John nodded and continued to sway from side to side and stroke Shae’s hair. Her sobbing had subsided, but she still clung to him as if he was the only flotation device available and she was trying to tread water in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Her whispered, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know how to stop him,” seemed to be important to her. She repeated it over and over. John tucked her head under his chin and hummed a song he remembered his mother humming to him when he was young. He closed his eyes and let the tune rumble through his chest.

  He heard Adam sifting through papers and cracked his eye open enough to see he’d picked up the envelope and was reading the contents. John closed his eyes and continued to hum while he stroked Shae’s hair. Her body fell limp against him. The ravaging sobs and unbridled crying left her, yet she still clung to him. His shirt was wet beneath her cheek and her thin body seemed cold. He gathered her tighter against him and she willingly allowed herself to be wrapped in his arms. Her breath hitched, no doubt the reflexive actions of leftover tremors from her breakdown. John couldn’t imagine the weight that bore down on the woman. She obviously felt she’d done something wrong as she had apologized over and over again while he held her.

  John had no idea how long he had held her. Cat appeared on the bed and curled up in the corner, watching them. A truck pulled up in the driveway. John opened his eyes and Adam held up a hand before he ducked out the door with the envelope in his hand. He could hear the men talking. When he again heard footsteps on the wooden floor, he opened his eyes. Jeremiah Wheeler seemed to examine the sight of them with some type of awe. John had no idea why nor did he care to figure it out.

  Jeremiah moved over and squatted down next to the bed. “Shae, are you awake?” Her head moved north and south, and she tensed in his arms. He tightened his arms around her and started the slow back and forth sway again. He hadn’t realized he’d stopped.

  “Can you tell me what happened tonight?” Jeremiah’s voice held a calm that John knew he wouldn’t be able to match anytime soon.

  “I wanted to kill myself, but I couldn’t do it.” Shae’s quiet, hollow admission gutted him. “I had more prescriptions in my luggage. I was going to take them, but I couldn’t.”

  “Okay. Thank you for sharing that, Shae. What made you think you should kill yourself?”

  Shae lifted her head from his chest and turned toward the doctor. “I deserve it. I begged that bastard to stop, I offered to tell them anything, to give them information on where to find my people. I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I tried. God, I tried. He kept hurting me!” The tears that had abated tore through her again. John didn’t tighten his grip, not knowing what he should do. He looked at Jeremiah, but the man’s focus was directly fixed on Shae.

  “Shae, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Shae pulled away from him and screamed at Jeremiah, “Fuck you!”

  Cat scrambled off the bed in a whirlwind of claws and fur. The animal flew past Jeremiah and out the door like Satan’s pitchfork was prodding her mangy ass.

  Shae damn near vibrated on his lap as she continued her explosive outburst, completely ignoring Cat’s hasty departure, “How can you say that? Do you have any idea what I did? You don’t. I know what I did! I
know! I didn’t do anything wrong? How can you say that? You don’t know. Fuck! I was going to turn over my entire organization to those people! My organization, my coworkers! I would have told them anything to get him to stop!”

  Jeremiah’s face remained passive at the spewing barrage of hate. He nodded and rubbed his chin before he asked, “Do you think anyone else would have done differently if they had been tortured nonstop for days?”

  Jeremiah’s calm words were the antithesis of Shae’s impassioned explosion, and with that one quiet question, she deflated like a balloon.

  She collapsed back against John and slowly shook her head as if she was talking to an imbecile. “How would I know? You’re the one with a university degree in crazy people.” John suppressed a chuckle. There was a spitfire under all that hurt.

  “Right. Okay. John, I appreciate your assistance, but I need to talk with Shae in private.” John hesitated when Shae’s body tensed.

  “Are you okay with that?” John whispered the words to her. He was going to give her the choice. It seemed like she needed to be able to make that decision for herself. Shae nodded and crawled off his lap, moving into the other corner, her thick fall of hair covering her face.

  John lifted off the bed and headed toward the door. He turned before he walked across the threshold. “If you need anything, I’m less than a hundred steps away.” He didn’t wait to see if she’d respond but tapped the wooden frame of the door twice and headed back to his house. Adam, Dixon, Drake, and Chief were seated in the chairs in front of his house. Adam must have stayed after Jeremiah arrived and the rest were at his house for the Thursday night game. Dixon stood as he approached. “How is she?”