Ravaged River: Men of Mercy, Book 6: A Military Romance Series

by Cross, Lindsay

  He saw Hank first, bent over in one of those plastic chairs with no arms, his elbows on his knees and his head cradled in his hands. Maxine had her arms around him, her head on his back. Hoyt slowed his pace as fear slithered down his spine. Hayden’s father looked–defeated.

  Hoyt’s throat closed off and he stumbled, stopping right beside the man to whom he’d broken a sacred promise. He’d told Hank he would keep his daughter safe. He had failed. Hoyt tried to speak, but all he could manage was a few hard gasps of air.

  Maxine looked up, her deep brown eyes swimming with tears, and Hoyt stopped breathing altogether. He dropped to one knee. The energy it took to stand was suddenly beyond him. Hoyt knew that look.

  But no, she couldn’t be dead. They had brought her to this place, this place where they saved people every day. They had to save her. They just had to.

  Bam!

  Hoyt tensed and Maxine touched his arm. “Hoyt, it’s okay.”

  His breathing was harsh and loud, but he managed to pull himself together enough to get to his feet. He wasn’t about to get kicked out of the hospital before he even saw her. “Where is she?”

  “She’s resting in there.” Maxine pointed to the door directly across the hall.

  Resting? The world tilted on its axis at that one word. She was alive? Hayden was alive?

  He had to see for himself. He got to his feet and stumbled over to the door.

  “Sir, only family is allowed in the room.” Another nurse approached, but Hank held up his hand.

  “It’s okay. He can go in.”

  He put his hand against the cold wood, stalling out of the fear that this was some cruel trick meant to give him hope only to bash him over the rocks.

  Hoyt pushed the door open on silent hinges and went inside. The beep, beep, beep of the monitors was slow and steady. Hayden was reclined on the bed with various tubes and wires connected to her arm. Pale and so beautiful she stole his ability to think. Somehow he made it to the chair pulled up to the side of the bed. He sat there and took her small hand in his. Hoyt silently begged her to open her eyes and look at him, to tell him everything would be okay, but she didn’t move. All he could do was stare at the slow rise and fall of her chest and reassure himself that she was alive.

  “You saved my daughter’s life.” Hank James walked into the room and stood beside him.

  “Shouldn’t have ever left her side,” he choked out.

  Hoyt felt Hank edge closer. Sensing the older man’s hand hovering above his shoulder, Hoyt tried to prepare himself for the crawling sensation he’d feel when Hank actually touched him.

  “Son, you are the person I would trust her life with most. I know you did the best you could.” Hank’s hand settled heavy on Hoyt’s shoulder, and somehow it didn’t trigger him.

  Tears pricked Hoyt’s eyes as he stared straight down at Hayden’s hand wrapped in his. His throat worked, trying to swallow down the emotions rolling inside him, and he shook his head. “If I’d done enough, it would be me in the hospital, not her.”

  “If not for you, she might be dead.” He squeezed Hoyt’s shoulder. “And you wouldn’t be scared to death right now if you didn’t love her as much as I do.” His voice broke a little as he said it.

  When Hank let go of his shoulder, Hoyt was surprised by his reaction. He felt the loss of connection so keenly he couldn’t hold back his emotions. Hot tears tracked down his cheek and dripped on Hayden’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You got nothing to apologize to me about. Way I see it, you gotta forgive yourself. And you better hurry up and figure out how to do it, so you’re ready for my girl when she wakes up.”

  Hank was giving Hoyt his blessing. Hoyt tore his gaze away from Hayden and leveled it on her father. Hank’s gray eyes were bright with emotion, but there was no condemnation lurking in their depths. There was only open honesty.

  “How can you say that? I don’t deserve her.” All Hoyt could manage was a broken whisper.

  “Listen, son, I don’t know much about your past, but I know you went through some heavy stuff and got the scars to prove it. But Hayden doesn’t care about that. She sees you for the man you are. The one who’d give his own life to protect her. And I’m okay with the thought of her being with a man like that.”

  Hoyt worked on swallowing the gigantic boulder in his throat. “I don’t have anything to give her.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Hoyt didn’t hesitate. “More than my life.”

  Hank gave him a hard stare. “Then fight for her.”

  Fight for Hayden. Would she be able to look at him after the hateful things he’d said to her back in the lab? He knew what he’d put her through—he’d seen it in her eyes. Was he strong enough to fix it? To fix himself?

  Maybe Hunter would come around too if he could pull himself together.

  “Baby, you coming?” Maxine poked her head in through the door.

  “Yeah, hon. Give me a sec.”

  Maxine glanced at Hoyt and then nodded and shut the door.

  “You look at Hayden the same way I look at Maxi,” Hank continued. “Women like that don’t come around very often, and when they do, you got to man up and tell them how you feel.” Hank turned for the door, pulled it open and paused. “You’ve got my blessing, but if you hurt her feelings again, I’ll kick your ass. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hank left, and Hoyt turned back to Hayden and propped his elbows on the bed, careful not to jostle her. The monitor continued to beep and a small green line moved across the screen, cresting with each heartbeat. Hayden’s life on a computer screen.

  And all because of Zafar and Mr. J.

  If it took the rest of his life, Hoyt would track the leaders of that group down and put bullets in their brains. No one threatened his family. No one. And while it had taken him longer than he liked to realize it, Hayden was family. She was his one shot for a future.

  27

  Hayden came back to consciousness slowly. Forcing her heavy eyelids open one at a time. She became aware of a burning pain in her shoulder and then she registered the needles in her arm and the beeping monitors.

  Her brows dropped. The last thing she remembered was Hoyt running toward her, screaming…

  Hoyt’s head was cradled on the bed beside her, his warm hand wrapped around hers. She was in the hospital. Hayden glanced down at her shoulder, saw the huge white bandage there. She’d been outside in the sun. She’d felt an explosion of pain in her chest. And then the world had gone black.

  Hoyt twitched and moaned in his sleep, sweat breaking out across his brow. Hayden skimmed her palm over his head, remembering the last time she’d soothed him through a nightmare. He’d had too many after his torture.

  She missed his long curly blond locks. But she couldn’t deny that the buzz cut only emphasized the sharp handsome planes of his face. His eyelids twitched and he moaned again. Hayden trailed her hand down to his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”

  Her thumb stroked back-and-forth across his cheekbone, his brow, anything she could do to soothe him. After a minute, Hoyt settled down.

  The door opened and the nurse came in. She frowned when she spotted Hoyt. “It’s not visiting hours.”

  “He stays.” Hayden was sick of everyone looking at him like he didn’t belong. If that nurse didn’t get the hint, Hayden would get up out of her bed and force feed it to her.

  The nurse didn’t even try to approach the bed. She just nodded and backed out the door, leaving Hayden alone with Hoyt.

  Even better. He was out cold, but he was here. That was all she needed. That and the memory of the look of terror on his face as he gunned it for her in the parking lot. It had been the expression of a man terrified of losing a loved one.

  Now she just had to figure out how to stop him from pushing her away.

  Hayden squeezed his hand and tried to scoot closer, but a sharp sting in her shoulder was a not-so-gentle reminder to stay still. Her movement
had been enough to jostle Hoyt, though, and he lifted his head from the bed. When he sat upright, Hayden gasped. “Hoyt, are you hurt?”

  Hoyt glanced down and shook his head. “Your blood. How do you feel?”

  Hayden gave a small laugh. “Like I’ve been shot.”

  “Don’t joke about that.”

  Hoyt tried to pull back, but she clamped down and held him in place. “Don’t leave.”

  The light teasing evaporated, leaving behind stark reality. She’d not only been targeted, but shot. Her chest burned with pain and her lungs locked down. If Hoyt left her now…

  “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not leaving you. You’re safe.” Hoyt held on to her gaze, his eyes intense.

  Hayden trembled and held on tight. “Will you stay with me?”

  “I won’t leave your side.”

  The fear and adrenaline started to drain away, leaving her lids feeling heavy. Hayden fought the urge to go to sleep. What if she woke up and he was gone?

  Hoyt caressed her cheek. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

  *

  The next time she dipped above the sea of consciousness, she was in Hoyt’s arms, snuggled against his chest, her face cradled against his neck. She vaguely registered a car door opening. Hoyt climbed inside, still holding her, and she could feel and hear the steady bump and grind of the wheels on the road.

  “Are you sure?” her dad’s rough voice asked from the front seat.

  Hoyt’s chest vibrated against her cheek, “Yes, sir. She’ll stay at my place.”

  And then she fell asleep again.

  28

  “Okay, with the second team here, that gives us a total of eighteen men.” Hunter spread out a large map on the command center table. “Hank has roughly one hundred acres in this rectangle. Good news is it’s fenced in with barbed wire. Bad news is a lot of it’s wooded, so if they sneak up, we won’t be able to see them coming from far away.”

  Hoyt squeezed in with the rest of the crew, all of the members of Task Force Scorpion were crowded around the conference table with their back up, Team Omega. Col. Grey had been unable to secure a full Special Forces team on such short notice and had called in a favor form his old buddy, a former SF operative Holden, who’d sent in a full team of former operatives turned private contractors.

  Hank was also present. He leaned in now and pointed to the east, west, and south borders of his property. “These are your weak spots—the places where the trees come right up to the fence line. I cleared out a perimeter inside the fence when I first bought the property, but didn’t do anything around it.”

  “I want teams of two on the front here.” Hunter pointed at the northeast and northwest corners. “Col Grey has acquired two security towers. Rowdy, I want your men in two-man teams in those towers. Hank can help show you where to place them. Use the camo net to break up the towers outside. From there you can cover our flanks and catch anyone coming from the north.”

  Hoyt pointed to the back of the property, where it was all wooded. “What about the south?”

  “I want to set up three teams of roving guards. Here, here, and here.” Hunter pointed the areas out on the map.

  “I’ve already set up thermal cameras on the southeast and southwest corners, and there’s one centered on the south line. So we’ll have eyes on the property in the places where we don’t have enough men,” Ethan, TF-Scorpion’s resident technology genius, said.

  “Hoyt, you and Jared will set up at the command post in the center of the property. You can see clear to the highway from there, so you can watch over this residence—” Hunter pointed to a small square to the left of headquarters. Hoyt knew it represented his team leader’s own house, “—and the other two properties here and here.” Now he was pointing at Hank’s house and the ranch house where Jared and Hoyt lived.

  “Rowdy’s team will have two guards stationed at the front gate at all times. They’ve set up a serpentine of downed trees from the property at the entrance of the gate starting a hundred meters out from the gate. Ethan has set up motion-activated thermal cameras at the entrance to the drive off the main highway to alert us to any approaching vehicles.”

  “And who’s going to be tracking down the terrorists in the meantime?” Hoyt asked. He wanted to be out there hunting those fuckers and taking them down one by one.

  “Mr. K and his team are working round-the-clock. As soon as we get a lead, we’ll send out a team. But until then I want you all to stay tight. Malik has continued his monitoring of the social networks and the chatter increased drastically as of yesterday. We don’t know whether or not that had something to do with the attack on Hayden, but until we know more, our best option is to stay here and protect our family.”

  “Any questions?” Hunter looked around the table. Everyone nodded, good to go. “Good, Rowdy’s team–stay with me. Hank’s gonna take us on a tour of the property. My team is already familiar with it, so they’ll go ahead and set up shop. Hoyt and Jared, get on the roof. There’s some camo net in the back. Riser and Aaron, you’ve got Hank’s house. Me and Ranger will take mine. Ethan will stay here to monitor the cameras. Merc and Cord, you’ll swap out with Jared and Hoyt. Twelve hour shifts. You rest until your shift, just like in the suck.”

  29

  Hayden woke the next day to the sweet aroma of wild flowers. They were everywhere, on the bedside table and the dresser, across the bed. Some in vases, other bundled with ribbon or twine. Purple and yellow. Just like the bouquet she’d picked for Hank and Maxi.

  She lifted the bundle off the table and held it to her nose. Tears pricked her eyes. The beauty of the gesture nearly overwhelmed her and made her forget the dull pain in her shoulder.

  Moving slowly, she set the flowers back on the table and used her good arm to push herself upright. The wave of dizziness took her off guard and she almost fell back. Hayden forced herself to take long slow deep breaths until the room stopped spinning around her. One step at a time. She swung her right leg off the mattress, followed by her left, then eased a foot down to the floor, holding onto the bedpost until she stood steady.

  The distance from Hoyt’s bed to the door was about ten feet. She could manage that. Hayden steeled herself and took a step. Then another. By the third one she had to let go of the bed post. The room swam around her, she wobbled and slapped a hand on the nearest wall. Sweet Jesus, she might have overestimated her ability.

  Maybe she should just wait for Hoyt to come back. No, she wanted to see him, now. More than that, she needed to find out what was going on. Had they caught the shooter? Or was he still lurking out there, waiting to pose another attack on her and the people she loved.

  Hayden swallowed past the lump of fear and pushed on the door. She made her way down the hall with short, careful footsteps, moving toward the kitchen.

  When she was a kid, she’d loved to sneak over to the low-slung ranch house with her brothers and play. It stretched out long, with the bedrooms on opposite ends of the house, the kitchen and living room in the middle.

  Sounds drifted toward her from the kitchen and Hayden slowly shuffled that way, carefully bracing her hand along the wall. The sound of voices grew louder, and then there was a small burst of laughter. Was Hoyt in there?

  Heart tight with anticipation, Hayden ducked into the hall bathroom to do a quick mirror check. Jesus Christ. Bad idea. Some blood spatter was still caught in her tangled mass of hair, making her look like the post-prom version of freaking Carrie.

  Hayden switched on the sink and quickly splashed some cold water on her face, all with one hand, which took twice as long. She dried her face with a hand towel and reassessed. Ugh. Now she just looked like a shinier cleaner version of Carrie.

  Another bark of laughter, this one sounding a little like Hoyt. She really should go back to her room and wait for someone to check on her, but her desire to see him outweighed that thought. Besides, he always told her he liked her better without makeup.

  Wel
l, she was fixing to test his theory.

  Hayden shuffled down the hall and hung a small right into the kitchen only to stop dead in her tracks. Hoyt was nowhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, she didn’t recognize half of the six men in here. She gasped as every single pair of eyes fixated on her.

  Hunter turned toward her from his position at the sink, his expression dark and stormy. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  Hayden flinched, not because of the tone of his voice—which she would kick his butt over later—but because one of the men at the table had pushed his chair back, sending the wood legs scraping over the tile.

  “Ma’am, take my chair.” The stranger, who had chestnut brown hair and a matching beard, held out a hand in her direction. His expression was kind, but she hesitated.

  Hunter barked out, “She’s not sitting, she’s going back to bed.”

  Hayden’s chin lifted of its own accord and she took the guy’s hand and allowed him to assist her into the chair. “My name’s John David, ma’am, but the rest of these eggheads call me Rowdy.”

  Eggheads? They are about as far from that as you could get. Hayden counted five other men, and with Hunter and Rowdy, that made seven. All of them were clothed in black from head to toe and strapped with guns. The kitchen table had been turned into a holding place for weapons and radios. Getting out of bed probably hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  “It’s okay, we’re part of the team that’s going to help protect you from anything like this—” Rowdy gestured to her arm, “—ever happening again.”

  And despite their fierce get-ups, something about this man put her at ease. He was about Hunter’s age and just as big, but there were laugh lines grooved around his eyes.

  Hayden smiled and decided to focus on the least intimidating person in the room. “Thank you. I appreciate that. This has been one of my least favorite experiences.”

  Tension exploded off Hunter. Hayden could practically feel his black eyes boring into her, but she refused to look at him. He might command his troops at his whim, but he didn’t control her.