Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9

by Abbie Zanders

  But it was too late.

  The burned flesh was already drying, sticking to him, to them, to everything. He leaned to his side, bucking against the dry heaves squeezing his ribs. He sucked in a harsh breath, smelled the smoke of the burning village, and heaved again.

  Rocco leaned against the wall as he wiped the spit off his mouth with the back of his hand. The cinderblock was cold through his sweat-dampened T-shirt. Keeping his eyes closed, he drew small breaths through his mouth. He didn’t dare smell the air, fearing it would stink of smoke and ash and burning flesh. This world and the other kept flashing in and out, back and forth, like a TV that flipped between two channels. He squeezed his head between his fisted hands, trying to make it settle on a single reality.

  Let it have been a dream. Just a dream. Nausea writhed in his stomach like a living thing. God, he couldn’t take seeing Kadisha’s home collapse again, tracking the cloud of dust that had risen from what had been her house. It wasn’t real, this. It was a dream.

  He cautiously opened his eyes. Someone had switched on the fluorescent panels, flooding the room with sterile, white light. He looked around, blinking, unable to reconcile where he found himself with where he’d just been—where his soul still was.

  “Everything all right?” Reverend Daniels asked. He leaned toward Rocco, but didn’t touch him.

  “Hell no, it’s not all right, Rev,” one of the men said. “You heard him screaming. All of Cheyenne heard it. Ain’t none of us can get any sleep with him here.”

  Rocco looked at the man who spoke. In deference to the minister, his fellow vagrants had moved a few steps away. But they stood in a tight circle, staring at him as if he’d sprouted feet out his ears. The bus from DC had dropped him here three days ago. Faithful Heart Homeless Shelter. A holy fucking Mecca to all drifters, hungry and lost men, women and children.

  “You ain’t lettin’ him stay, are you, Reverend?”

  “He does this every night. He could hurt someone.”

  Rocco’s gaze slashed toward the new speaker. He could hurt someone. It would be so easy. He bent his ankle, feeling for the strap of his knife’s sheath. It was gone. All of his weapons were gone. No matter. An arm around the forehead, a quick twist. The end would be the same.

  Sweet, goddamn silence.

  “I’m sorry, son. I’m afraid they’re right.” The minister set his hand on Rocco’s shoulder. Rocco jerked free, sending a quick look from his arm to the preacher to see if the blackened flesh had moved.

  It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. It wasn’t real. He held his arms up and looked at them, seeing only his bare skin, damp with sweat. He felt like vomiting again, but knew nothing would come up. He’d not eaten since he’d been here. He’d taken only water as his body rid itself of the meds the shrinks had pushed on him at Walter Reed. That shit fucked with his head. He needed to get clean, to start thinking straight.

  “Get your things, son, and come see me. I’ve got some coffee on in my office,” the minister offered. Having nothing else better to do, Rocco moved to his cot. Someone had set it back upright. He shoved his feet into his still-new combat boots, struck by the oddity that after ten years’ service, he didn’t have a pair of boots that was broken in. Forcing himself to stay focused, stay present, he grabbed his jacket and green duffel bag, then followed the older man.

  Reverend Daniels poured two cups of coffee. He was stirring sugar and powdered creamer into one. “How do you like yours?”

  Rocco ignored the question. Answering it would involve too many decisions about preferences he didn’t have. And way too many words. He shrugged. He’d drink it however it was served him. It wasn’t as if food tasted like anything anyway. He took the proffered mug and sat in one of the chairs in front of the minister’s desk.

  “You got a place to go, son?”

  “Yeah.” That’s why he was staying in this shithole.

  “You serve overseas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come back recently?”

  Rocco sighed and leaned forward, scrubbing a hand over his face. The inquisition made him nervous. All he needed was for the helpful minister to put a call in to Walter Reed. They’d send a couple of muscles out with a straitjacket for him. Hell, they could come right over from F. E. Warren. He set the mug on the desk and stood.

  “Thanks, Reverend, for the coffee, the place to crash.” Rocco slung his duffel over his shoulder and made his way outside. It was a few hours to morning. The chilly spring air cooled his fiery skin. Shoving a hand in his pocket, he dug out the key to the old Ford truck he’d picked up. He tossed his duffel in the truck bed and climbed inside. The vinyl seat was cold, the steering wheel like ice. He leaned his forehead on the hard, cracked surface.

  Pressure had been building in his head since he woke, expanding his skull, throbbing against his eyes. He grew still, pretending his brain hadn’t become an IED about to detonate.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. None of it. Maybe a person could will himself to die. Just stop breathing.

  Just. Stop.

  But if he died, who would save his son?

  He dragged a breath into his lungs. And another. And then they came in rapid, ragged gasps.

  God, he was fucked.

  The Edge of Courage is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WXJ0H2

  Excerpt from My Name Is Desire: The Bad Baker Boys: Mark's Story

  From Tonya Brooks...

  Mark walked over to where Desi sat and asked, “Wanna dance, pretty lady?”

  “Luv to,” she agreed and rose a bit unsteadily.

  He slid his arm around her waist and led her to the edge of the crowded dance floor. Looking down at her face, he noticed she looked flushed. “Are you all right, Desi?”

  “Jus' great,” she said with a dazzling smile.

  The glassy eyes assured him that she wasn't. “Have you been drinking?” He asked in surprise.

  “'Course not,” she snorted indignantly. “I don' drink.”

  Like hell. Mark knew an intoxicated woman when he saw one. “What did you drink?” He demanded with a worried frown.

  “Punch,” Desi said and then hiccupped.

  Dammit, she'd been in the bowl with alcohol he realized and the frown deepened because he'd been monitoring that one and hadn't seen her come near it. “Who gave you the punch?”

  “John.”

  “Sonuvabitch,” he muttered angrily. His brother had made numerous trips to the punch bowl.

  “Are you mad wif me?” She asked in confusion.

  He stared down into her glassy emerald eyes and sighed. “No, I'm not mad,” Mark assured her. “But you drank the punch that had alcohol in it.”

  It took a couple of seconds for that to register and when it did, she protested, “John said you made it.”

  Ah, hell. Desi had drunk the punch because she knew he wouldn't fix her anything alcoholic. Mark felt as guilty as hell even though he hadn't done a damn thing wrong. Fuck. She had trusted him and now she was drunk because of it. “I'm sorry, honey. John doesn't know you don't drink. I made a batch with alcohol and one without it. He gave you the real deal.”

  “S' okay,” she said with a lopsided smile. “I feel won'erful.”

  “You do now,” he agreed ruefully and then thought to ask, “How much did you drink?”

  “A lot,” she said and laid her head on his shoulder. “Made me thirsty.”

  Which was what it was supposed to do, he thought with a sigh of resignation. It was an old bartender’s trick. Make the drinks dry to keep the customers thirsty and coming back for more. “Just don't drink anything else unless I give it to you, okay?”

  “'Kay,” she agreed and closed her eyes as she snuggled deeper into his embrace. “Mmm. You smell good 'nuff to eat. Wanna lick ya all over.”

  Yeah, she was hammered all right. The fact that the alcohol had removed her inhibitions became glaringly obvious when her hands began to wander all over his body. If she had been sober, he woul
d have loved every fuckin' minute of the delicious torture she was inflicting on him. Since she wasn't, he needed to take control of the situation before it got out of hand.

  Knowing that Desi would die of mortification if anyone saw her grabbing his ass, Mark managed to catch her hands in his and tucked them both neatly at the small of her back. He maneuvered them over to the edge of the dance floor while she rubbed her body against his in a seductive manner that had his cock as hard as granite.

  When the song ended, Desi lifted her head and opened her eyes. Her hold on Mark tightened and she swayed unsteadily. “Ooh. I don' feel s'good.”

  He'd been afraid of that. “Come on,” Mark said as he kept his arm around her waist and led her to his office. He steered her over to the couch and let go of her to put the throw pillows into place. "You need to lie down for a few... holy shit!”

  While his back was turned, Desi had unzipped her dress and it was doing a slow slide down her body, revealing every glorious curve his hands ached to touch. The red bustier lifted those glorious breasts up in offering and made her waist impossibly small. The matching scrap of lace at her hips had his cock doing a happy dance in his pants.

  "What are you doing?" He demanded in a strangled tone as his eyes raked over every magnificent inch on display.

  "Undressin' for bed, silly," she said as if that were perfectly obvious.

  Mark knew he had to get the dress back on her, but covering that exquisite body would be like defacing a work of art. Or a sin. Definitely a sin. It was enough to make a grown man cry, and he actually did whimper in something akin to pain. His cock wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea either.

  Hands that were expert at disrobing a woman held a noticeable tremble as Mark knelt and grasped the material that had formed a puddle at her feet. He hastily pulled it back up those long luscious legs, over the curve of her hips and into place around the finest rack he'd ever had the pleasure of seeing.

  "You really need to keep this on, honey," he assured her huskily as he wrangled the zipper back into place.

  "M'kay," Desi agreed amiably and swayed on her feet.

  He helped her stretch out on the sofa and she bolted right back up again, a hand pressed to her head. “The rooms spinnin'. Make it stop.”

  She needed a strong cup of coffee. “Stay there and I'll be right back,” he ordered gently.

  Desi grasped his hand. “Please don' leave me.”

  The fear and confusion in her eyes tugged at his protective instincts and he sat down beside her, pulling her trembling body into his arms. “I won't leave you, Desi,” Mark promised and placed a tender kiss to her temple.

  My Name is Desire is available on Amazon here:

  http://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Desire-Baker-Marks-ebook/dp/B00KQA95AU