Wicked Choice (The Wicked Horse Vegas #4)

by Sawyer Bennett

  “She’s not cleared—” the CIA douche starts to say, but Kynan glares at him.

  “She’s staying. Get her clearance if you need to, but she’s not going anywhere.”

  The man steps out of Kynan’s office, putting his phone up to his ear to make a call. Kynan walks back around his desk, and sits down with a heavy sigh. Jerico stands up from his chair and pats the back. “Come sit down, Rachel. It’s going to be a long day.”

  I don’t think to argue with Jerico. Besides, my legs are so rubbery from fear I’m afraid I might just pitch over onto the carpet. I take the chair, and Jerico moves to the window to stare out of it.

  I’m not surprised he’s here. He’s got no stake in the company, but he’s Kynan’s best friend. I know the safety of all the people here are still of great importance to him. Of course he’d be here.

  I also suspect Jerico is here because he has important contacts in the government. If he suspects that not every available resource is being used to get our guys back, he’s going to start making calls to the top brass.

  Pulling my phone out, I flip to my photos. I have pathetically few, and hardly any of people. I might take a photo of a pretty sunset or an interesting flower, but for the most part, I don’t preserve memories except within my head.

  But the very last photo on my camera roll, taken the night Bodie was packing for this trip, is perhaps my favorite in the world.

  It’s of Bodie and me together. We were laying naked in bed, having just had utterly amazing sex, and he started teasing me.

  “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone, aren’t you, Hart?” he’d asked as he rolled on his side to look at me.

  “Not in the slightest,” I said airily. “I’m tired of you hogging all the covers at night anyway.”

  “You’re so going to miss me,” he said tauntingly. “Probably will sit by the window, shedding some tears, waiting anxiously for my truck to pull back in the driveway. Fuck, you’ll probably have a million yellow ribbons tied around every tree in the neighborhood.”

  I’d scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Totally delusional, Wright.”

  He winked and laughed.

  I rolled away from him, snagged my phone off the bedside table, and turned on the camera app. Holding it up, I snapped a quick picture of his face. “There. I got your face right here so I won’t be missing you at all.”

  Bodie was the one who rolled his eyes. He reached a long arm out, grabbed his own phone, and proclaimed, “That’s not a proper picture.”

  Before I knew what he was doing, he had me dragged over onto his body, my face resting next to his. He held the camera out and said, “Smile.”

  I’d had to tilt my head and crane my neck a little to look, but there we were. Bodie and me with our faces right beside each other on his camera, which was in selfie mode. He’d been grinning like a lunatic.

  I’d been mesmerized by the sight.

  Me and Bodie together.

  He looked so happy.

  I looked dazzled.

  He snapped the photo and then immediately texted it to me. I pretended it didn’t mean anything, and it was soon forgotten because Bodie put his hands and mouth on me and well, who could think at that point?

  But after he left the next day… when I first realized that I did miss him, I’d pulled that photo up. Not the one of just Bodie I’d taken, but the one Bodie had texted to me.

  I’d saved it in my favorites.

  It was the only photo in my favorites.

  I become vaguely aware of Jerico, Kynan, and the CIA guy talking as they stand around Kynan’s desk, looking at some maps that had been rolled out.

  I catch words like “eventuality,” “extraction point,” and “any force necessary”.

  Kynan’s voice lowers, but I can still hear them talking about the possibility of body retrieval.

  My eyes focus in on the photo of Bodie and me. I stare at it so hard my eyes burn and his face starts to blur around the edges.

  Pain pierces me right in the center of my chest, so exquisite that my breath is knocked out of me and bile rises in my throat. I lurch up from the chair, and all of their heads snap my way.

  “Rachel?” Jerico asks with concern in his voice.

  “Need to use the restroom,” I rasp, it actually hurting to get the words out. I turn away from them and hurry from the room, grasping my phone so hard in my hand that my bones ache.

  I scurry into the women’s restroom and press my back against the door when it closes. My breaths are coming out in sharp pants, and the pain in my chest intensifies to the point I worry I might be having a heart attack.

  But I know that’s not true.

  I’m feeling the searing pain of grief, believing I’ve already lost Bodie before I could even tell him that I was so glad I found him. It hurts worse than anything I could have ever imagined. A million times more intense than when I miscarried all those years ago. The pain of a thousand bullets ripping through me.

  “Oh, God,” I groan as I slide down the door until my ass hits the floor. I bring my knees up and press my forehead to them, acutely aware that I’m in so much pain I can’t even cry.

  A racking, dry sob bursts out of me. An image of me walking our son to Bodie’s grave flits through my mind. How can I tell him all about his daddy when I didn’t get enough time with him myself to know all there was to know? I’ve only got a few months of memories to share, and now a lifetime to regret everything.

  Tears finally sting at my eyes, hot and burning. Another stab of pain in my chest… a gurgling sob. I wrap my arms around my stomach—around our baby—and I just let myself grieve.

  I open up and take the pain.

  Breathe through it the way I might when I go into labor.

  I’m startled when the bathroom door nudges at my back, but it immediately stops when it meets resistance.

  “Rachel?” It’s Kynan on the other side.

  I scramble to my feet, wiping my face with my hands to dry the tears. After I open the door, I look at him expectantly.

  “Just got an update. They’ve been located in a small temporary camp. It’s not well defended.”

  “Are they okay?” I ask as I walk out of the bathroom.

  “They haven’t made visual contact. It’s some abandoned buildings with only four men who patrol around the area. We’re guessing that’s where they’re holding Cage and Bodie.”

  “Or where they’re holding their clothing, which have the trackers sewn into the lining?” I point out fearfully.

  “Infrared confirms there are two people inside the building the signal is coming from,” he returns in a low voice. “It’s them.”

  “Okay,” I say as I breathe out, feeling the pain in my chest lessen minutely. Infrared means there’s body heat, which means they’re alive.

  “We’ll know soon,” Kynan says. He turns back toward his office. “It’s only about 11:30 PM there now. The SEALs are going to hit just before dawn.”

  Just a handful of hours that I have left to hope Bodie is alive and safe in that building, and this rescue goes off without any bloodshed on our part. In a handful of hours, I’ll know if that torturous grief I’d been experiencing just moments ago in the bathroom was just a preview of what’s to come if Bodie doesn’t make it out of there.

  CHAPTER 23

  Bodie

  My eyes flutter open, and I can’t help the groan of pain that slices through the center of my brain as the light filters in. I snap them shut again, the blessed dark providing some relief.

  “Bodie?” a voice calls. It sounds hollow, like it’s at the end of a long tunnel. For a moment, I think maybe it’s God calling me to join him in the light or something, but fuck that… I’m not ready.

  Plus, that light hurts like hell.

  “I think he’s waking up,” the voice says.

  Another one says, “I’ll get Kynan.”

  Kynan?

  Kynan’s here?

  I struggle out of the black, open my eyes t
o barely slits so it turns gray. Two figures are hovering over me.

  Pain throbs in my head, causing me to groan. It feels heavy, and I can’t lift it. I try to lift my hand to rub against the ache, but it won’t move.

  “Don’t move that arm, buddy,” the first voice says, and I recognize it now.

  Jerico Jameson.

  I push against the pain and open my eyes. The two figures go from blurry to just fuzzy. Jerico is to my left and Kynan is to my right.

  “About time you fucking woke up, slacker,” Kynan says with a grin. I have no clue what’s going on, but I can hear the relief in his voice. I try to smile, but fuck… even that hurts, so I don’t make it past a grimace.

  “What happened to me?” I say, but my words are slurred as they try to make their way past a thick tongue that feels like it’s glued to the top of my mouth.

  “Get him some of that water,” Jerico says. The next thing I know, there’s a straw pushing in my mouth. “Just a few sips.”

  I try to pull hard because I’m so damn thirsty, but I get no more than a few drops down my throat before the straw is pulled away.

  “Where am I?” I ask as my eyes sluggishly move around what is clearly a hospital room.

  “You’re at University Medical Center,” Kynan says. “They had to put some pins in your elbow. You smashed it good on a rock or something.”

  I lift my head to look at my arm, but the resulting pain makes me squeeze my eyes shut for the sweet dark again.

  “Yeah, don’t try to do that either. You had a pretty bad head wound. I’m guessing another rock—”

  “Rifle butt,” I mutter when it starts to come back to me. I let my eyes open again. “Cage and I slid down a really long rocky embankment trying to take cover. I took a bad tumble; hit my elbow on a rock. Later… when they found us, I took a hit to the back of the head when I tried resist. Cage was—”

  I stop a moment, horror filling me. My entire body lurches upward despite the pain and immobility. “Cage… what happened to him?”

  “Easy,” Jerico says with a hand to my shoulder to ease me back down. “Cage is fine.”

  “He was shot—”

  “And he was rescued right along with you. He’s recovering on the next floor up. He got out of surgery about the same time you did. He’s going to be completely fine.”

  I sag in relief. He’d taken a bullet to his calf. While I’d managed to dress it sufficiently to stop the bleeding, I knew that every hour that went by without some real medical help might mean he could lose it.

  “And everyone else?” I ask. All I remember is being ambushed in the middle of the night while we were set up on a short perimeter to gather photos and take notes of our observations to report back. It was on a small town at the base of the Tahtali mountains where a small suspected ISIS cell was developing. We were getting details on the number of people in general broken down by men, women, and children, as well as an estimate on the weaponry.

  “Everyone is fine. The rest of the team made it out, and we sent in a SEAL team to get you and Cage.”

  I give a slight nod and learn very quickly it’s better to keep still. “How long do I have to stay in here?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jerico answers. “Your head is apparently hard as hell; that’s all checked out. Your elbow was pretty bad, so they had to put some hardware in to piece it back together.”

  I glance down. My arm is bent at the elbow in a natural forty-five-degree angle, and splinted and wrapped from wrist to shoulder. It’s absolutely immobile.

  That’s going to make it a little difficult to fuck Rachel properly, but I’m sure—

  I lurch off the bed again. “Where’s Rachel?”

  “Jesus, you’re a mess,” Jerico mutters as he gently pushes me back down. When my head settles onto the pillow, which feels about as hard as the rifle butt, Jerico steps to the side. Rachel is sitting across the room in a chair.

  She sits straight, her hands held together in her lap, legs pressed together. She just stares at me, and I can’t read a thing on her face.

  She finally stands from the chair, wiping her hands on the denim covering her thighs, and it seems her movements are hesitant. Her face is impassively blank.

  “Let’s go get some coffee,” Jerico suggests to Kynan, but I don’t bother looking at either of them.

  I only have eyes for Rachel. I’d imagined her face… her body… our baby… practically every minute of every hour we were held prisoner. I’d like to be the hero and have some glamorous story about how Cage and I were tortured for information, but they actually dumped us in an abandoned house and left us there. I was confident we were being held for some higher-ups within ISIS to question us, but thankfully we were rescued before then.

  So, I thought of her incessantly. Sadly, I had no chance to dream about her because sleep was impossible with a crushed elbow and what felt like my brains leaking out of the back of my head.

  When Rachel makes it to the side of my bed—the side with the busted elbow—I can see the dark circles under her eyes and the grim set to her lips. I want to reach my hand out to touch her.

  To comfort her.

  But I can’t.

  Her eyes roam all over my face. I have no clue what it looks like, but I try to put on a cheerful look despite how crappy I feel. None of that matters now that I’m back home.

  “You scared a lot of people back home,” she says quietly, her hands gripping the bed rail so hard her knuckles are white.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, my eyes drifting to her belly.

  “Yeah,” she says in a raspy, dull voice. “Me and the baby are fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine,” I say flatly. I sort of imagined she’d be overjoyed to see me alive and well.

  “I thought you had died.” I didn’t think it was possible, but her voice is flatter than mine.

  “But I didn’t,” I reply in a singsong voice, trying to make her smile.

  It doesn’t work. Her expression darkens, and her blue eyes turn almost gray with pain.

  “Hey,” I say softly, my busted arm involuntarily trying to move to her, but it’s held in place. I sigh with frustration, and use my voice only. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “I can see that,” she murmurs. She even attempts a half-hearted smile, but it doesn’t obliterate the gray in her eyes.

  “I heard my boy was awake.” It’s my mom’s voice coming through the door. Rachel turns and looks over her shoulder.

  My mom walks in followed by my dad, who is carrying a cardboard tray with three large Styrofoam cups with lids.

  Rachel backs away from the bed so my mom can come in. She smiles down at me the way I wanted Rachel to, eyes brimming with happy tears. Her hand comes to my face. “You had me so scared, Bodie Allen Wright.”

  “Uh-oh,” I say jokingly. “Used my middle name and everything. I must be in trouble.”

  My eyes cut to Rachel. My dad hands her a cup—tea, I imagine—setting the tray with the other two still entrenched on a rolling bedside table. He steps up beside my mom, completely blocking my view of Rachel.

  Dropping her hand from my face, my mom holds onto the rail with both hands and leans over me. Her eyes shimmer with love and relief. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m so damn happy you’re going to be coming to Nebraska after the baby is born. Then I can stop worrying about you getting killed.”

  I chuckle but that hurts my head, so I cut it off sharply. “Sorry to disappoint you, Mom, but I’m going to be staying. Rachel wants to keep the baby… raise it with me. So I’m staying here, and we’ll both continue at Jameson. Didn’t she tell you?”

  My parents have been here long enough—given they were all sitting in my room waiting for me to wake up—that I assumed the subject would come up. I didn’t get a chance to tell them before I left last week, figuring I’d call them with the news when I got back.

  I lean slightly to the left to try to see around my mom to Rachel, intent on perhaps g
iving her a reproachful look for not telling my mom. She probably felt it wasn’t her place, though, so I decide just a smile will be good enough.

  Except I don’t see Rachel.

  I try to lean further, and my mom gets the picture. She steps back, and she and my father both turn to Rachel.

  Except… Rachel is just gone.

  Silently ghosting out without a word.

  “She probably stepped out to give us some privacy,” my mom says in a cheery voice. “Although why she would do that is beyond me. We’re almost family, you know.”

  My mother’s eyes are on me expectantly, wanting me to be happy just to be alive the way she is. I’m feeling all kinds of dark inside, though, because I know damn well Rachel didn’t step out just to give us privacy.

  She ran away from me.

  “Bodie?” my mom says gently, calling my attention to her rather than the empty doorway my eyes had drifted to.

  I pull a smile on my face, turning to look at my mom. “Yeah… I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Now, tell me the details that Kynan and Jerico left out. I don’t even know what day it is.”

  My mom starts to chatter. She tells me we had been rescued day before last and somehow ferreted out to a U.S. Naval ship on maneuvers close by. I vaguely remember this, but I also remember them giving me painkillers, so I was floating high. After talking to the Navy doctors on the ship who felt we were well stabilized, Kynan made a judgment call to have us flown via a C17 medical flight to March Air Force Reserve Base in California. From there, we took a private medical flight home to Vegas, making it back in thirty-two hours from the time of our rescue. Surgeons were on standby and waiting when we arrived.

  I continue to get the low down on my medical condition. Listening half-heartedly, I know there’s not a damn thing I can do to change circumstances.

  A doctor comes in and checks me over. He says if I do well overnight, I can go home tomorrow.

  A nursing assistant comes later and takes my vitals.

  Lunch arrives, and my mom has to help feed me because I’m still groggy and awkward with my busted arm.

  A nurse brings pain meds, and I have no choice but to nap.