Wondering how she happened to be there with her head on his chest, he licked his lips in manly satisfaction. The cinnamon sugar freckles sprinkled across her nose were tempting, and he was hungry enough to risk running just the tip of his tongue over them. Would they taste as sweet as they looked? He ached to know the answer.
What a perfect armful this valiant Joan of Arc was. His nostrils flared at her feminine scent mingled with some kind of medical antiseptic odor. Yes, she was a little banged up, but he still detected a hint of cream and sugar drifting off her skin. Sugar cookies. That’s what the delicious aroma was, vanilla sugar cookies, the kind in the baker’s window he’d drooled over back in the day. That scent probably explained why he wanted to eat her up. Beginning with those lush, juicy lips pressed together in an adorable, sleepy pout.
Her nose crinkled. She sniffed, and something unusual happened. He couldn’t help it. He smiled. Could anything have touched that cold spot in his heart as quickly? He didn’t think so.
They weren’t made of the same things. McKenna was sugar and spice and sunshine. He was all things that lurked in shadow. By the sheer force of Mother Nature, they were destined to live apart like polar opposites. She was the tropical equator, where every living species, be it plant, animal, or human, thrived in abundance. He was the North Pole, the barren end of the world, where frigid death ruled, and life could not. Never the twain shall meet, and all that crap.
It was time to leave before she rose like the morning sun and cast that beautiful light of hers across the land. Beau wasn’t sure what he’d do then, but it’d probably be stupid, and he simply couldn’t take the chance.
Reluctantly, he eased his body out from beneath the luscious warmth of hers. Then he looked twice. There McKenna lay, so warm and soft, her head in a cloud of raspberry blonde. She was the epitome of why he did what he did. Why he was willing to leave that bed and march into battle. Again. Women like McKenna deserved to live long lives full of peace and prosperity. He meant to ensure that she did. Yet even as he stood there debating how badly he needed to leave, he couldn’t remember sleeping as well or as deeply as he had last night. What the fuck was that about?
Dressing quietly in the clothes he’d worn yesterday, Beau worked his feet into his boots with one hand. Lacing them and tying them took time, but he managed with just a few whispered cuss words. Donning his holster was just as difficult, but finally, he eased his bandaged hand into his jacket sleeve, promising this was the last time. By the time the sun set today, Montego would be cold and dead. He didn’t know exactly how that would go down, but it would. McKenna needed to be safe, and that was enough incentive. End of story.
Stealthily, he made his way to the door, and was soon seated on the bench inside Maverick’s front door, retying a boot lace that had come undone, because, hell. He needed two hands and all ten fingers for even the simplest tasks, and tying a lace was no longer easy. The house was quiet, and Beau had work to do. It was better this way.
“Leaving so soon?”
Beau stiffened, his hand barely on the knob that would’ve gotten him gone. “What’s it look like?”
As quiet as the house was this morning, Beau hadn’t realized anyone was up until Maverick spoke, but Jesus. His sarcasm could kill a horse as big as one of the gigantic Clydesdales prancing out back in his pasture.
“Looks like you’re running away again. Doesn’t that ever get old?” Pushing up from the leather couch, Maverick rolled his neck like he thought he was a prizefighter before the first round.
Beau curled his one good hand into a fist. Guess again, jerk-off. I don’t run.
China strolled out of the kitchen in a bathrobe draped over long navy-blue pajama bottoms, and a top that said, Ride ’Em, Cowboy, in big, bold script across her chest. Two mugs steamed in her hand. Like the strong-willed, over-confident, annoying woman he’d always found her to be, China walked straight up to him and handed one mug over. “Thought you’d be gone by now, but I’m glad you’re not. Here. I made this for you. You like it black, right?”
He couldn’t help it. His nostrils flared at the tempting aroma. His stomach growled. “Yes, ma’am. Thanks,” he said as he accepted the delay tactic. One cup wouldn’t hurt.
“How’d you like the meat and cheese tray?” she asked, a saucy gleam in her eye. “I wasn’t sure what you preferred, so I gave you a sample of the best we had. I would’ve brought beer, but drugs and booze don’t sit well on a guy’s stomach. Was the bottled water cold enough?”
“It was fine,” he answered, dipping his head in deference to the lady. “Everything you’ve done for me is very much appreciated.”
“You’ll accomplish more after a hearty breakfast, you know,” she said, staring him down. Taunting him. Making him wish he’d gotten up ten minutes earlier and left sooner. “If you leave now, you’ll miss the fun.”
“I don’t do fun,” he growled even as he took a sip of the aromatic beverage in his hand.
Maverick rolled his eyes. “No, really? Tell me something I don’t know.”
“But you do care for McKenna,” China insisted, her deep blue eyes glimmering with truth Beau couldn’t deny. “And while she’s here, I intend for her to rest and be happy. Don’t you want that for her, too?”
His reasons for leaving were slipping away. “She’s a client, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. That’s not what I hear. Kelsey told me how panicked McKenna was when you got her to safety last night. How she clung to you. You might not know it right now, but that woman needs you. She’s not strong like you are, and she’s falling apart. Maybe she needs you more than you need her. I don’t really care, but you will not desert her in her hour of need.”
He cocked his head at the nerve of the woman Maverick married. “If I recall correctly, ma’am, I was the only one there for her in her hour of need,” Beau reminded her with a sarcastic twist.
Maverick nodded from the couch. “You’re right, and that makes you responsible. I don’t know what she sees in you, but when she wakes and finds you gone, what do you think she’ll do? I’ll tell you what. She’s going to freak. She’ll think you deserted her. You’re her life line right now. You leave, she sinks. Might not be what you want to hear, but that woman in there” —he tipped his head toward the bedroom Beau had just snuck out of— “is hanging on by a thread. For Hell’s sake, stay until she’s ready to let you go.”
Beau gave Maverick his chin. “You make me sound like a cane. A walker. Isn’t that your job?”
China had the nerve to giggle. “I never thought of it that way, but that’s exactly what you are, Beau, and precisely what McKenna needs. Someone to keep her from falling off the deep end. We’re not asking you to marry her. Just hang around until she catches her balance. That’s all. She’s a strong woman, but she’s traumatized. It won’t take long. You’ll see.”
They made it sound easy, but Beau knew better. He wasn’t good enough for McKenna, even as a walker. She needed someone better than a broken-down sniper, who hadn’t yet caught his own balance after all life had thrown at him. Yeah, Kelsey and China seemed okay with the rugged men they’d married, but Alex and Maverick were made of different stuff. They were still assholes, but not broken assholes. They were that indefinable ‘good enough’ he would never be.
It was time to go. He had a bitch to hunt. Until the door he’d closed only a few moments earlier reopened, and McKenna caught him standing there. Leaving her.
Her soft green eyes glimmered as if she’d woken up alone, confused, and afraid. As if she’d been crying. Her nose was red. Her eyelids were puffy. The simple cotton shift clung to her body, revealing her shape in ways she probably didn’t realize. But he did. The tender peaks of her taut nipples pointed at him like twin lasers. Accusing him of betrayal. Of promises broken. The bandage covering the razor-thin line at her neck mocked his righteous intentions and outright called him, ‘Liar.’
“You’re leaving?” she said, the squeak o
f a tremor in her voice and her fluttering fingers unsteady on the doorjamb. That was what got to him. He couldn’t make himself look away, her devastated countenance daring him to keep lying. To keep leaving.
“It’s what I do, ma’am,” he replied evenly to keep this farewell brief. “You wouldn’t be here to begin with if not for me doing my job last night. That’s all this is, a job.”
“Oh,” she whispered, blinking like a deer about to bolt for cover.
His head canted with the first inkling of indecision. His heart stuttered. This was a first. Nobody had ever looked so forlorn at his leaving before. Hell, no one had missed him, not once in his life. The feeling unsettled the steel in his spine.
“Okay then, b-b-but, umm… are you leaving?” she asked again, like she hadn’t heard his answer the first time. What she really meant was, ‘Do you have to go? Why can’t you stay? How can you do this to me?’
Because you don’t need someone like me in your life. Trust me. You don’t.
China and Maverick were watching out there somewhere, but Beau had lost track of them. “Doctor Fitzgerald. I...” Damn, I don’t know what to say. Or do. I can’t hurt you again, but I have to.
“B-b-but I... I...” McKenna leaned into the doorframe, her eyes glistening and on the verge of tears. She was making this hard. It had to end.
“Ma’am,” he said sternly. Purposefully. Using the same voice he’d used on others he’d rescued over the years. “I save people for a living. It’s what I do. Go back to bed. Trust me, you’re just one of many.” Only you’re not, and I’m only leaving because I can’t risk anything happening to you.
Someone stifled a growl behind him. Sounded like a wolf. Could’ve been Maverick. But it might’ve been his wife.
“Oh-okay, then. B-bye,” McKenna said softly, her voice breaking as she backed away and shut herself inside the guest bedroom once more.
“That was cold, you ass,” China snapped. “You really don’t have any social skills, do you, Jennings?”
“That what your hubby told you?” Beau bit out.
Maverick waved him off. “Leave him be, China. It’s better this way. McKenna doesn’t need the grief. Go, Jennings. Do your thing. Leave. Be a fuckin’ hero. Don’t know why the boss wastes time on you.”
Beau leveled a lethal glare at his alleged teammate. “That makes two of us.”
It wasn’t hard to leave then. With a rapid about-face, he turned and shut Maverick’s front door as quietly as he’d closed McKenna’s bedroom door only moments earlier. There was no sense slamming it like a two-year-old and making a ruckus. This was who he was, and hunting predators was what he did. Catalina Montego would die today. He’d make sure of it.
He made it halfway down the long gravel driveway when Maverick yelled, “Wait up!”
Beau whirled on the guy, his fist clenched, sick to death of having to defend every last one of his actions. This shit needed to stop. Right. Damned. Now. “What the fuck do you want now, Carson?”
Damn Maverick stopped short and ran a hand through his hair. “Before you go, I, ah, I hate to ask, but I... Shit, I need a hand. It’ll just take a couple minutes, I hope. China’d help if she could, but she won’t leave McKenna and—”
“And I will, right?” Beau spat. “Fuck, I get it, Carson. I’m an asshole, and the rest of you are fuckin’ saints who walk among us inferior little people, gracing us with your divine presence. Well, you can just back the fuck off and let me be. I don’t need you or anyone else on this fuckin’ mess you call a team!”
Maverick cocked his head as if he didn’t understand.
“For Christ’s sake, Carson! Do I have to spell it out? What the fuck do you need, one last swing at—?”
Maverick’s hands came up, placating. “I’m not here to fight you, man. Settle down before you give yourself another heart attack. Did you just hear yourself? That was the longest string of fucks I’ve heard since I left the Corps. Why are you pissed all the time? We’re only trying to help you and Doc Fitz.”
Beau stood there breathing hard, his heart pounding a merciless beat. Too late he remembered that damned thing in his chest had quit on him only a couple days ago. He shouldn’t get so spun up that it stopped again. He’d never find Montego then, and McKenna might die because of him this time around.
Not going to happen.
Maverick might be right. Deliberately, Beau inhaled as slowly as he could. Through his nostrils. Then blew it out through his mouth and did it again. But there was no way he’d answer that stupid question. Beau wasn’t just pissed. A lifetime of stored self-loathing and misdirected anger put him light years beyond simply being pissed. Try nuclear.
For whatever reason, the same instant Beau exhaled, Maverick also blew out a long, slow breath. What the hell? Did he have heart trouble, too?
He licked his top lip like he was nervous. Like he didn’t want to be standing there with Beau any more than Beau wanted to be held up by him. “To be honest, I need your help with one of my mares, and it might take more than a few minutes. She’s been in labor all night, but the foal’s stuck. She’s in trouble. I lost her grandmother in a fire a couple years back. I can’t lose her, too.”
So not what Beau had expected. His lips curled in a sneer. “You want me to help you? Me? Do you remember who you’re talking to? You sure you don’t need Gabe or Taylor? Aren’t they your buddies? I hear Cartwright was supposed to be here by now. So, where’s your shadow?”
Maverick shook his head, fire flashing in those dark, mean browns again. “Knock it off. It doesn’t matter where he is, but you’re here now. I’ve been up all the night, and I can’t do this alone. I’ve got two hired hands, but they’re old geezers. I can’t risk them getting hurt.” The guy sure sounded sincere. What if he was? What if he was really asking for help?
Beau looked at the dark clouds gathering in the western sky beyond Maverick’s shoulder, not certain of anything that had to do with the Carsons. For all he knew, Gabe was probably inside the ranch with his wife. Keeping her safe. Being the good husband Beau would never be. Hell, it might rain before he caught a ride to where he still wasn’t sure he was going. Too bad Marcus and his cab weren’t around.
Jesus Christ, if it’d been anyone but Maverick asking for help...
“Yeah, fine,” he finally grumbled. “I’ll help, but this better go down quick. McKenna needs to live, damn it, and I intend to make sure she does. Now move it. I’ve got a bitch to hunt.”
Maverick canted his hard head, the shaft of morning sun glinting off the side of his face a sharp contrast to the thunder clouds at his six. “That’s why you’re leaving? To protect her?”
That pissed Beau off. “What’d you think, asshole? That I’d run out on her when the going gets tough?” He clenched his one good fist into a hammer. Damn these arrogant sons-of-bitches! Everyone on the whole fuckin’ TEAM thought they were better than him. Well, they weren’t! He saved McKenna, him—only him—while they were out chasing their asses. He’d done it and he’d done it alone. Because alone was what Beau did best. Why couldn’t these pricks get that through their fat heads?
“Doesn’t matter what I thought,” Maverick replied quietly, some of the tension gone from his ugly face. “Come with me. I gave the mare something to help speed things up earlier this morning. This shouldn’t take long.” He nodded at the barn that took up most of the rest of his property. Might have been a stable. Beau didn’t know the difference. There were a few horses browsing the fence line, though.
“Where we going?” he asked before he willingly committed one more step to a path that hadn’t felt right to him since he’d signed onto The TEAM.
Maverick tossed over his shoulder, “To do what you do best, Jennings. Save a life.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You’re not my mom anymore,” McKenna said out loud as she sat at the edge of the bed, blinking her fears away. “You threw that gift away, when you killed yourself, Aurora. W
hen you hanged yourself with your gown. Remember that day? I do, because I never saw Dad cry before they called and told him what you did. You should’ve been there with him and me, but you weren’t, were you? No, because you were always more important than everyone else. Even him.”
Both McKenna’s demons sat with her. The one with a long, black braid. The one with shorter-than-short blonde hair, spiked because Aurora hacked it off in a fit one day. Then said she’d done it because ‘short hair makes me look so much younger’. And a lot crazier.
“I’m safe now. You c-c-can’t hurt me,” McKenna murmured, rocking forward and backward, not willing to look either of them in the eye, yet fully aware how close they both hovered over her shoulder. Watching. Peering down at her. Waiting. Ever ready to push her off the thin tightrope she balanced on. To shove her over the edge to where she’d never be seen again. Into the abyss or a closet. Either way, she’d be out of sight and out of mind.
Demons breathed, bet you didn’t know that. But, yeah. Icy breaths skated beneath the cotton shift and drifted down McKenna’s spine like nagging frigid fingertips. Tap, tap, tapping her shoulders, threatening her fragile hold on self-control. Reminding her that they knew better. Loosening the threads that bound her to the real world. Eroding the world beneath her feet, until strand by strand and bit by bit, she unraveled. Like sand on a never-ending beach of solitude and sin, McKenna could feel herself sinking. She’d felt the sting of Beau’s curt dismissal more than she thought she would. It shouldn’t have hurt, but after the gentle way he’d handled her last night and this morning...
After the promise he’d made that he’d stay… she’d thought... she’d thought…
Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18) Page 16