Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5)

by Cecilia London

  “If it works for you, it works for me.”

  “It hasn’t ever worked for me, but my opinion doesn’t seem to matter to you.”

  Caroline made a face and sat on the couch. “Okay, Commander.” She used the term as a pejorative. “What would you like to talk about?”

  He glowered at her. “It’s hard for me to have a conversation with you when you speak to me that way.”

  “How else am I supposed to act? I can’t believe what you pulled last night.”

  He felt his temper rising, the same way it had the night before. “I didn’t pull anything. I kissed you. You responded. You liked it. And then you acted like I assaulted you. Don’t rewrite what happened.”

  “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  Was there anything he was allowed to do anymore? “Then I’m sorry. I’ll try not to express my feelings for you. I’ll try not to care. I’ll let you scream your head off when the next nightmare comes and you can thrash around in my bed for hours while I sit by doing nothing. I won’t comfort you, I won’t hold you, I won’t calm you down, I won’t do anything to show you how much I love you. Is that what you want?”

  Caroline didn’t say anything, but shifted so she was facing away from him. How goddamn fucking predictable. He could set his watch by her behavior.

  “Well?” he asked. “Is it?”

  She remained silent, and something snapped inside of him. Jack seized her arms. “Is this what it takes to get you to respond to me?” he asked. “Grabbing you? Scaring you? Intimidating the hell out of you? Is that how Morton treated you?”

  “Don’t talk about him,” she said.

  Of course she wouldn’t want to talk about her dead boyfriend. Well, fuck her. Just thinking about them together sent his stomach churning.

  “No,” Jack said. “I’m sick of walking on eggshells around you. You’ve been raging at me for months and all I’ve wanted is to hold you, talk to you, let you know how much I’ve missed you. You’ve tried to hurt me as much as you could, pushing me away, making it clear to me that I am worthless…maybe even less than worthless in your eyes. You give me these bits and pieces of you then yank them away again. You’ve been shutting everyone out, but I’m the one you seem intent on hurting the most. Why is that, Caroline?”

  She tried to shake him off. “I don’t have to tolerate this kind of treatment. I’m leaving.”

  Answers. He deserved answers. And he’d keep pushing until he got them. The die was cast. “The fuck you are.” He held her tighter. “Did you like it when he touched you?”

  Caroline closed her eyes. “Don’t do this, Jack.”

  “Why? Because the memories hurt?” She tried to get away from him, but he dug his fingers into her arms. “Look at me,” he snarled.

  She shook her head back and forth. Oh, she thought that would work? That she could act like a petulant child refusing her medicine? Enough of her games. Enough of her avoidance. He’d reached his breaking point.

  “Goddammit, look at me!” he yelled.

  She flinched and her eyes flew open, but she didn’t say anything. Fuck it, he was diving in. She was going to know what she’d put him through.

  “Did you whisper his name into his ear?” Jack asked. “Murmur to him while he kissed you, caressed you, made love to you, worshiped you? Did he stroke your scars, tell you how beautiful and brave you were, how remarkable you were, how it felt to be inside you? Did his hands explore you the way mine did?”

  Her lip trembled. “Stop,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said. “I won’t. Did he move with you, fuck your brains out and leave you begging for more, give you everything you ever wanted? Did he make you wet with the sound of his voice, bring you to your knees, cater to your every fantasy, taste you, make you wail with desire?”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “Please stop.”

  God, was she thinking about Morton? She was. She had to be. What else could she possibly have going on in her mind?

  “No,” he repeated. “You have to hear this, no matter how much it hurts. Tell me, did he do anything to make you feel like the woman you are? Or was he rough, uncaring, unfeeling? Did he soothe your nightmares or let you scream yourself to sleep? Was he kind, generous, and giving, or did he throw you away? What did he do for you, Caroline?” He couldn’t control himself anymore. His reactions were not his own. He started shaking her. “What was it he gave to you that allowed you to do and say all those things with him that you refuse to do with me? What does he have that I don’t?”

  Caroline hung her head. “What do you want from me?”

  Jack released her and leapt off the couch. “I want you to let me in. You’ve been here for months, avoiding me, yelling at me when I confronted you, telling me all the horrible things you possibly could in order to push me away. Every time I tried to get you to let me in you pushed me away again. What have I done to make you detest me as much as you do? Do you want to be completely alone? Is that it? Do you want everyone to let you collapse inside yourself, wasting away until there’s nothing left?”

  She wiped her face. “Why do you care?”

  Did she mean to imply that she didn’t deserve his affection, or that he wasn’t capable of giving it to her? “Because I love you. That has never changed.”

  Caroline rose to face him. “You want to know why I cared about Gabe? Because he helped me when no one else did. He risked his neck so I could live. He never gave up on me. He nursed my wounds and held my hand. He committed himself to me in a way that he never had to, because he knew it was what I needed and he’d seen what I’d gone through.”

  Jack glared at her. She couldn’t have made it any clearer. She thought he was a jackass. But he damn well wasn’t going to let her get away with implying he didn’t love her. “Say it, Caroline. Say what you mean. You’ve used all these euphemisms, made your snide little comments, but you’ve never said what you really wanted to say since you got here. Spit it out.”

  She scowled at him, fury in her eyes. “I knew Gabe would never leave me, unless it was involuntarily. But you wouldn’t know about that kind of commitment. Would you, Jack?”

  He expected the accusation but it still hit him harder than he anticipated. Every planned response he had laid out in his head flew out the window. For all her glaring, all her yelling, all her silent, seething wrath directed at him, he had never, ever expected to hear her voice come out the way it had. Her tone was filled with an unforgiving anger that was not easily repaired.

  Be careful when you ask for the truth. You just might get it.

  Jack backed away from her. “You told me to leave.”

  “I know what I did.”

  She sounded so cold. Like it didn’t matter. “That night in the woods, you were mad, you were insane, and I saw the fear in your eyes. I had never, ever seen you look at me like that before. And I had no inkling what to do when you told me to go on alone.”

  “You knew exactly what to do,” Caroline spat. “You ran.”

  He locked his eyes on the floor. Hell if he was going to look at her. “You told me to leave,” he repeated.

  “I remember.”

  Didn’t she realize what was happening? What she was saying? Did he sound as lame as he felt? “You told me to leave!”

  “Yeah, and I thought I was dying too,” she said. “Funny how that worked out. I spent a lovely few weeks being tortured and almost killed in a federal prison while you got to mosey on to Canada without me.”

  There was no going back now. They couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle. Jack paced in front of her, furiously jerking on his hair. “You told me you’d never forgive me if I didn’t go without you. And you meant it. You know you meant it.” He couldn’t keep himself from bellowing at her. “And it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do but I did it anyway.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You did something all right.”

  * * * * *

  Caroline clenched her fists, resisting a very strong urge
to hit Jack. His pretending to be clueless, his heated demeanor, his attempts to tear her apart by reminding her what it was like when he touched her.

  And that prison. That horrible, awful place. The Fed. The place she tried so hard to forget but could never block out. Those endless days and nights with nothing but her fear and despair. He had to know what he had done wrong. How could he not?

  “You can’t blame me,” he said, before she had a chance to speak. “I did what you wanted me to do. You forced me to go.”

  “I can blame you for anything I damn well want to.”

  Jack looked like he was struggling for breath. Poor dear. “You can’t – I did what you wanted,” he said. “I didn’t want to do it. But you told me-”

  “I remember what I said,” she interjected. “I knew I was dead weight. I knew I was useless. I knew you were the only chance we had left.” The volume of her voice rose to match his. “But you told me you’d come back for me, you fucking bastard.”

  The anger climbed up her throat, like a powder keg ready to blow. And she couldn’t stop it, not anymore. Caroline was teetering on the edge of her emotions. He’d lied to her. Over and over again. He’d lied to her in the forest and he’d lied to her for months, oblivious to the damage he’d done.

  “You told me you’d come back,” she said, her voice breaking. “Why didn’t you come back?”

  Jack closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Another self-serving apology. Her rage consumed her and she moved toward him, her vision blurred by her tears. She blindly swiped at him as he put his hands over his head. “You promised me! You promised me you’d come back!” she screamed. “I waited and waited and waited for you and you didn’t come back.”

  Jack lifted his head up. Of course he wouldn’t say anything. What could he possibly say? Caroline pounded on his chest, punctuating her words with her fists. “I spent weeks in that wretched place, holding out the slimmest of hopes that you would find me, that you would rescue me, that you would save me, that you would do whatever you needed to do to get to me, and you never came.”

  “I did what you wanted me to do,” he said softly. “I didn’t know.”

  “You promised me.” She couldn’t pretend to be strong anymore. Her voice was a whimper, muffled against his shirt. “You promised me you’d protect me.”

  Jack let her beat against his chest until she collapsed against him. “Caroline,” he said. “I didn’t-”

  How many times could he apologize? Could his suffering even compare to what she’d gone through? Her resentment bubbled to the surface and she pushed away from him, reaching up to slap him across the face as hard as she could. He stumbled backward and turned away from her, holding his cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Sorry wasn’t good enough. He still had his sharp mind. His perfect face. His unscarred body. He had his life. He could try to convince her that she belonged in it but she knew better. Her hands trembled but her voice was clear. And trembling hands could still be used as weapons. “You fucking asshole! I hate you. I really hate you.” She ran at him again, pushing and punching at him as hard as she could, wanting to hurt him, wanting to hear him cry out. “I hate you!” she shrieked, tearing at his shirt.

  Jack wrapped his arms around her. She tried to squirm away but he held on. “You don’t hate me,” he said.

  Forever arrogant, he was. “I do.”

  He slackened his grip and pulled her chin up. His eyes were red. There was a small trickle of blood running down from the corner of his lip, but he made no move to wipe it away. She’d hit him harder than she thought.

  “You don’t hate me,” he said. “You couldn’t.”

  “I do.” Caroline shoved against his chest but he stood firm.

  “You don’t.”

  Presumptuous, insufferable asshole. She wanted to wipe that conceit off his face forever. “Fuck you,” she said, and reared back to punch him.

  At first she thought he was going to put his hands around her throat. That sure as hell looked like what he was going to do. But instead he placed them securely around her wrists.

  “You can keep trying to push me away, Caroline,” he said. “But I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”

  She squirmed as he attempted to pin her arms at her sides. Fucking bastard. She deserved to get a few more shots in. It was only fair. “Let me go!”

  “Not until you calm down. You can rage and scream and attack me all you want, but you will never make me believe that you hate me.”

  If he was so sure of himself, she could try a little harder. She twisted her wrists but he held firm.

  “Stop,” he said. “You want to hurt me or hurt yourself and I’m not going to let it happen.” Jack pulled her toward him so she was forced to look him in the eyes. “You can’t run away and you can’t solve your problems with violence. You’re going to have to face this whether you like it or not.”

  She tried to twist herself away from him as he pinned her arms to her sides again, pushing them behind her back. “Please let me go.” A familiar adrenaline fueled panic began to fill her chest. “Please.”

  “No,” Jack said. “You’re going to listen, my dear wife. You don’t get to speak that way to me and then scamper off. You don’t get to make the rules anymore. I make the rules. You hear me?”

  She never got to make the rules. She was a pawn in someone else’s game. And now she was trapped in his, getting closer to that bottomless depression she couldn’t quite control, no matter how hard she tried.

  Fight it. She had to fight it. Fight the darkness, fight the despair, fight the memories. Would he let her go if she went limp? It didn’t matter. She had to get away. “Don’t hurt me,” she begged, trying to retreat to the safe place inside her mind. The place where nothing hurt. “Please let me go.”

  Something in her expression must have registered, because whatever trance he was in vanished. Jack released her wrists, staring down at his hands and then back at her. “Caroline, I’m sorry,” he said, looking horrified with himself.

  She hunched over, rubbing her arms, breathing hard. If he apologized one more fucking time she really was going to punch him in the jaw. She was good at that. “Go fuck yourself,” she snarled. “Fucking control freak.”

  He wiped at his lip, wincing. “You don’t hate me,” he whispered, staring at the blood on his fingers. “You don’t.”

  “I do. With good reason.”

  “Sweetheart-”

  “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me. This isn’t working. I need my own room. I want to be as far away from you as possible. So figure it out. Until you do, I want to be left alone.” She went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Chapter Eight

  Caroline sat up on the bed, unable to fall asleep. She could do something constructive with her time. Like practice her posture, count the holes in the ceiling tile, ignore all those reminders of her that Jack had sprinkled around the room. Do her best to forget all the horrible things she’d just said and done to him. She’d heard the exterior door slam after their argument. Her husband hadn’t returned.

  It was late afternoon and she was attempting to nap. She remained completely exhausted and emotionally drained. How many days had passed since she’d been discharged from the hospital? She couldn’t remember. Natalie had warned her that she’d be fatigued as her body gradually recovered from the trauma of the blast. But when was she never not tired?

  She’d been fortunate not to have a more serious brain injury, not to have been hit by more shrapnel, not to have bled out on the bumpy, frantic ride back to the base. Caroline knew that she was, yet again, lucky to be alive. Maybe that guardian angel was still on her shoulder. Or maybe karma was a fucking asshole.

  She lay back on the pillow. The light in the corner was on, even though it was a sunny day. The dim glow gave her comfort. Caroline saw the box of Gabe’s possessions in the corner. She hadn’t noticed it before. Given that she was s
taying in the bedroom and Jack was sleeping on the couch, he’d probably put it in with her so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Caroline had never bothered going through Gabe’s things after she packed them up. Hadn’t wanted to see or touch his clothes. And she purposely ignored the letter he’d written her. She had yet to see Jones and the others since they all returned from the mission. If Caroline didn’t know any better, she’d think they were avoiding her. She missed her connection with them. It was uncomplicated, rough, and real; not overly emotional, not too jovial either. They were simple men and she appreciated their ability to live easy.

  She rummaged through the box until she found it. It wasn’t thick. It couldn’t be a long letter by any means. Gabe had been a man of few words.

  Her hands shook. This was a bad idea. Every instinct told her to ignore what might be inside the sealed envelope. She hadn’t loved Gabe. He knew that. She knew that. It wasn’t all that difficult to understand. But he had felt much more for her than she had for him. She wasn’t sure if she could handle those feelings laid bare on paper. But curiosity got the best of her and she found herself opening it anyway.

  There was a single sheet inside, folded into thirds. She looked at it for a long while, not wanting to see what Gabe had written. Was it worse to ignore it or just break down and read? She unfolded the paper. He had nice, neat, impeccably printed handwriting.

  Dear Caroline:

  If you’re reading this, I didn’t make it back. And that’s okay. I’ve had a pretty good life. I should have done more with it than I have. Hopefully I went out doing something important.

  I wasn’t sure what to put in here. I’ve never done this before. I guess I could have written to all of you – including Jones, Gig, and Crunch – but I’m not sure they need to hear what I want to say.

  I know you feel alone. That you think your time at the Fed broke you. It didn’t. I remember what you were like before the government fell. So much of that is still in you. I hope you hold onto it.