by Tawny Weber
The man looked like...
God, he looked fierce and strong and... not quite scary, but like he could be if he wanted to.
"Amanda," he said.
Maybe he'd been saying it for a while. She sensed she was missing a lot. It seemed to take a long time to process the simplest thoughts, like too much was going on for her to take in.
She was in the corner of the room, her back pressed against the two walls, and that felt reassuring, having those walls behind her. She didn't need to worry about someone coming at her from behind.
Was anyone else here?
She didn't know.
She ran her hands over her body, and everything seemed to be there. She was dirty and dusty, and there was... Something was sticking out of her arm. Or into it.
She tried to figure out—
"No." The man was there so fast, pulling her hands away. When she cried out and tried to back further into the corner, he backed up again. "It's just an IV," he said. "Fluids. You're dehydrated, Amanda."
He knew her name?
Who was he?
"Here." He held out a pouch with a tube sticking out of it. "It's water. Just like what's in this cup. Have some. I bet your mouth feels like it's full of sand."
It did, she realized.
How did he know?
She wanted to refuse the water, but the thought of it seemed so good. She wasn't sure she could even speak, her mouth felt so dry. So she took the pouch and drank.
It felt amazing in her mouth and then sliding down her throat.
"Good," he said. "How do you feel?"
Feel?
What did he mean? It seemed like much too complicated a question. She had to think to feel things, had to think about one thing at a time.
"What hurts?" he asked next. "Other than your ribs?"
Okay. She could think about that. What hurt?
"Everything," she whispered.
"No one thing anymore than another? Except for the ribs?"
She nodded. That hurt, too. Her head.
"Hey, try this," he said, reaching for a little rectangular pouch on the floor beside him, pulling something out and extending it to her. "This always feels good in this kind of climate."
It looked like a tissue. No, a small cloth. He draped it over her hand, and he was right. It felt so good. Cool and soft and a little bit wet.
"Baby wipe," he said. "Best things in the world."
Nothing had ever felt so good, and she wished she had one big enough to cover her whole hot, sweaty, grimy, aching body.
She thought about where she wanted it most and decided on her face, but when she tried to make that happen, her arm felt so heavy, her eyelids, her mind. Everything seemed to take so much energy, and she didn't have any more.
So many things she needed to figure out, to remember, and her head hurt so much.
"Okay," the man said. "It's okay."
She thought he was touching her, and she didn't want him to, but couldn't make a move to stop him. Then she was lying flat again, and that scared her, too, until she felt that incredibly soft, wet cloth on her face, her cheek.
Oh, that was so good.
She managed to open her eyes, and there he was, that man who could look so fierce, trying to smile down at her while he gently wiped her face.
"It's okay," he said.
No, it wasn't.
She didn't know why, but it wasn't.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You don't remember?"
"No." She didn't. "It's under the water, I think. I want to go back, but I'm scared. Is it here? On the surface? Or there? I don't know."
"Okay, I need you to tell me your name." His voice demanded an answer.
"Amanda," she said.
"What year is it, Amanda?"
Year? Did she know?
"How about the month? Do you know that?"
"January, but it's hot."
"That's right. It's hot."
"What's your father's name?"
"James Warren."
"Good. That's good."
"My father. I want my father." So much.
"I know. He sent me to find you. I'm going to take you to him."
"Promise?" She reached out and found a hand, his hand, and held on tight.
"Promise," he said.
Then, everything was gone. She slipped beneath the surface again.
Baxter, Ohio
Amanda heard a week later that Will was leaving town, his medical leave up, and he hadn't said a word to her, when he'd promised he would. She was mad, which was much better than being scared, so she went with the feeling. She drove to the shelter early one evening and punched the doorbell.
Emma answered the door.
"What are you doing here?" Amanda asked.
"I volunteer here a few hours every week. What are you doing here? Are you okay?"
Amanda nodded. "I heard Will was leaving. Did you know?" She hoped Emma hadn't kept that from her.
"I just heard myself, when I got here tonight. No one here wants to see him go. The women, the kids, they all feel safe with him here."
So, it wasn't just Amanda.
Will made all women and children feel safe.
"Where is he?" Amanda asked.
"He was out back digging a ditch around the back yard. We were getting standing water when it rains, where the kids play, and they were always a mess. He was trying to fix it. If he's not still there, he's probably upstairs. He's staying in the director's studio apartment above the garage. There's a door in the kitchen that leads to the stairs."
"Thank you." Amanda hesitated. "Are you going to be here?"
"For another hour, at least. Come and get me if you need me."
"Thank you. If he's leaving and not coming back..." God, she hated that so much she could hardly stand it. "He has to tell me everything. There's not even that much left for him to tell. A helicopter came and took us out of the country. How hard can that be to hear?"
Emma shook her head. "I don't know."
"But there's something there, something he's scared to tell me."
"I know."
"Do you know what it is?"
"No."
"Well, I think you should know, at least. How about that? We'll make him tell you what he's holding back, and if you think I'm ready, he can tell me."
"And if I say I don't think you're ready, your imagination is going to be coming up with every horrible thing you can think of that might have happened to you."
"Okay, but it's still what happened, and it happened to me. I have a right to know, and he's leaving, Emma."
"Then go talk to Will. If he's willing, I'll listen to what he has to say."
"Thank you, so much," she said, scared all over again, dammit.
He wasn't in the back yard, so she charged upstairs and banged on his door. He didn't open it right away, which made her even more frustrated. Did the man think he could hide from her?
Finally, he hurled it open, looking like a man ready to surge out and slay dragons if necessary.
Then he saw her.
He backed up a step, because he'd been halfway through the doorway the second he got it open. She'd caught him fresh from the shower, and his hair was still wet, and a little messy from him toweling it off. For the first time, he wasn't wearing his eye patch.
He also hadn't zipped his jeans all the way up or snapped them closed. His chest was bare, as were his feet.
"Is this something I need a gun to handle?" he asked.
He held up a small metal box with a digital keypad on the side.
Gun safe?
"I hope not. It's just me," she said.
"Jesus, Amanda. Don't scare me like that. I thought somebody's husband or boyfriend had broken in downstairs."
"Sorry," she said as he put the box away, high on a shelf in his apartment's tiny kitchen. "I was just mad."
"This is you mad?"
She nodded as she watched hi
m zip up his jeans, couldn't help herself, his hands on his own body oddly fascinating to her, as was that thin line of hair leading from his belly button down into the jeans he was fastening.
She could see entirely too much of him. He didn't have one of those bulging bodies that spoke of hours in the gym. He was too lean for that. Yet he was perfectly muscled, with all those pretty lines in his abdomen, the dips and swells that blended together to make the man.
"Mad at me?" he guessed.
"Yes," she said, trying to tear her gaze away from his body and remember why she was there. It wasn't easy. She wanted to stand there and stare at him, but she knew she shouldn't. "You were going to leave town without telling me?"
"No." He turned and disappeared behind a corner of his big, open, L-shaped room. She could see a small sitting area and the end of a bed.
"But you are leaving?" She hated the idea. Where would he be and what would he be doing? Be safe, Will. But the job description probably meant not playing it safe.
"The gossip system in this town is incredibly efficient," he said, coming back around the corner with a T-shirt in hand. He pulled it over his head and into place. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It always has been. I had a scan of my eye in Cincinnati two days ago, and I heard just yesterday that it's better. I guess you didn't get that part of the story."
"No."
"I'm going back to see the doctor in Virginia Beach who's been treating me and hope he clears me for duty, but I wasn't going to leave town without saying something to you, Amanda."
She let herself watch his chest rise and fall with his breath, beneath the plain, thin, white T-shirt he was wearing. It hugged all the muscles on his arms, his shoulders, his chest. And he smelled so good. All warm, clean skin with a little hint of spice. He had a perfect layer of stubble on his face that she wanted to touch.
She looked back at his face, too late, and saw that he'd caught her staring.
It was clearer than ever that Will Gerard could make her feel more than fear, than numbness, than safe. He could make her feel like a woman who might, someday, be interested in a man. Sexually.
It was stronger than a fleeting hint this time, and that felt so good. It made her hopeful. There was life after the fear.
"Sorry," she said, thinking he was freaked out by her interest. "I guess I'm not dead after all. But don't worry. It was just a thought."
At first, he'd just stared, and she'd thought she could read his thoughts on his face. He was so uncomfortable, he couldn't even seem to speak.
"Marine Guards, remember? You agreed. You're off-limits for anything... real. But I'm allowed to have a thought, right? Like maybe... you smell really good."
"I... sure. I mean..."
She laughed. "I know. I'm surprised, too. But it felt good, and I don't have a lot of thoughts that feel good to me lately. So, thank you, Will, for that moment. It gives me hope that I'll feel like a normal woman again one day."
He still looked uneasy.
"You can't be shocked to have a woman find you attractive. I'm sure it's happened before." And then, she had another thought, a hard, hurtful one. "Unless... is it that I was raped?"
"What?"
"Some men freak out. They can't handle it, that a woman was raped. There's that whole damaged goods thing—"
"Well, some men are idiots, and I try not to be one of them. I was just surprised. That's all. And I wasn't sure what to do. Am I allowed to feel that way?"
"You can feel whatever you want," she said.
"And the damaged goods thing? I find that offensive—"
"So do I—"
"—if you think I could ever feel that way. I don't deserve that, Amanda. I know what you went through. I know it was awful, and I know that none of it was your fault. Jesus, you know that, don't you? We talked about it. That it was not your fault?"
"Mostly. I just think I shouldn't have been so stubborn, so naïve. I should have left when my father told me to. He begged me to, Will."
"Yes, but you didn't know what was going to happen. And if you hadn't been there, what would have happened to those kids? Have you thought about that?"
"Yes. I've thought about whether it was some kind of cosmic bargain. If there's any way they could have been safe if I hadn't been there, so I'd never have to feel the way I do now. And then I feel like a horrible person, thinking little children's lives aren't as important as me not being raped."
She started to cry then. Dammit.
She wanted to be so strong for him.
He stared at her for a long moment, looking as frustrated and lost as she felt. "Jesus, how did we get here?"
"With me thinking you smell really good. Will, no one treats me like a normal person anymore, and especially not a normal woman. It would be nice if you treated me like an ordinary woman. Could you do that, please?"
Chapter 14
Will knew what she was asking, what she needed, and he knew why. He knew he should make this simple and tell her what she wanted to hear, but he didn't think he could bring himself to lie. Even a nice little white lie.
And he was a man who lied often and very well for a living.
He knew she was angry and hurt. He hated that, but she was killing him and making him crazy.
"No, I can't," he began.
Immediately, she jumped to the wrong conclusion and backed away, ready to leave. He'd hurt her again. "Amanda."
She gave him what must be her best don't-mess-with-me look. It included her chin coming up, a tilt of her head to the side, her freckles standing out more than usual on her cheeks, her glaring at him. He wanted to laugh, because the woman just couldn't pull it off. She was too adorable, and at times seemed ridiculously young to him.
He had a birthday coming up. He'd be thirty-nine. It sounded ancient, especially since he'd met her.
She seemed so small and sweet. She taught kindergarten, for God's sake. Women who taught five-year-olds were not tough.
Except when it came to protecting their students, of course.
He admired her so damned much, sweet, beautiful, vulnerable Amanda who seemed to really need him.
"You are not ordinary in any way," he said. "And I cannot treat you like you are."
She still glared up at him. "You know what I meant."
"Yes, I do. And it's not a question that I can answer with a yes or a no. We'd have to have a conversation. Will you give me time for that, please?"
"You don't have to do that—"
"I want to. I want to explain... Shit, okay, I don't want to, but I don't want you thinking what you're thinking, either. Because it's not true. So if those are my options, I want to try to explain."
"You don't have to. I have no right to barge in here and start a fight with you."
"We're supposed to be friends, Amanda. Have a seat," he said. "Want some coffee?"
It took a long moment, but finally, she said, "Okay. Do you have decaf? It's late for me to drink anything else."
"There's some downstairs, but not up here. I don't believe in it."
"How do you sleep?" she asked.
"I sleep fine, anywhere, anytime. In my job, you have to sleep whenever and wherever you can."
"That would be a nice trick to learn."
He looked at the dark circles under her eyes, the lines on her face. Some combination of tension and fatigue, he'd bet. She somehow managed to look stubborn as hell and fragile at the same time.
She sat on the sofa. He pulled out a chair from the two-seater table in the kitchen and sat across from her, wondering how the hell he was going to leave her.
"I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable," she began.
"Amanda—"
"I did. I know it."
"Okay, I was uncomfortable."
"If I was any other woman who'd said something like that to you—that you smelled good—what would you have said?"
He shrugged. "If I thought you were attractive—which I've already told you that I do—I'd probably have gotten a litt
le closer, maybe got my face in your hair, maybe up against your neck, and told you that you smelled good, too."
"Okay. There we go. You'd have flirted, but not with me."
"I don't know if you're ready for anything like that. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I sure as hell don't want to scare you. I hate what happened to you, Amanda. It makes me furious. And it makes me want to be very careful with you, and I want everybody else to be careful with you, too. At least, right now. I didn't think that made me a bad person. I thought it made me a nice guy."
"I'm sure you are trying to be a nice guy," she said. "It's just that everyone tries to be so careful. I get tired of all the weirdness."
He sighed. "I can understand that. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I overreacted. I'm mad because you're leaving, even if I have no right to feel that way. You told me you'd go." She looked so sad and lost. "How long until you leave?"
"Two or three days. As soon as I make sure the work at the shelter's covered and I can get a seat on a plane."'
"For how long?"
"No idea. The Special Ops guys have been going pretty much non-stop since 9/11. I don't see that changing anytime soon. We've been trying to wind things down in the Middle East. Africa's heating up. Now Syria's a mess. Who knows where I'll end up?"
"So, you get back here..."
"Once a year, maybe once every two years. Are you going to stay here?"
She nodded. "I can't imagine being without my father right now. Or Emma."
"Good. I want you to have them, to feel safe and taken care of."
"I'm thinking about volunteering here at the shelter. Emma says these kids move around a lot and their lives are so chaotic that they're often behind in school. I could help them catch up. Plus, some of the moms are working on their GEDs or taking community college classes. I could help them, too. I'd be teaching, but I wouldn't have to walk into a classroom or a school."
So, she'd be here, at the shelter, and he wouldn't be around to make sure she was safe here, or that the kids were, or their mothers. One man had already found the place and broken in. Will had done what he could while he was here, but the problem was the location. After the break-in, it was too well-known in the community, and that made him uncomfortable, especially with Amanda here.
He'd talk to Sam. Sam would do whatever he could. So would Amanda's father. She had damned well better be safe here.