Absolved (Altered series)

by Marnee Blake

  Holding her breath, she wondered if this was the right choice. She didn’t share her mother with anyone. Finally, though, he smiled, and it was that boyish grin she didn’t see often enough. Her doubts fled.

  “I’d love to.”

  …

  When they pulled into the parking lot of a well-maintained VA home, Luke’s unease intensified. “What are we doing here?”

  In the garden next to the building, three or four occupied wheelchairs were sitting in the late afternoon sunshine. It wasn’t a bad day to sit outside. The breeze was crisp, but it was warmer than it had been last week, with no more signs of snow.

  “I haven’t been here this week.” Beth turned off her Jeep’s engine. “Come in. Meet my mom.”

  “Your mother is here?” He pushed the car door closed with more force than he should have.

  “Yeah.” Beth shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it over the seat into the back. “She’s been here for a while.”

  That told him nothing.

  The past few days, he’d focused on training her, on making sure she could use her powers. It would help her be more confident. He remembered feeling lost in the first days after his change. He decided he shouldn’t kiss her or hold her, not until she’d had time to process all that had happened.

  He’d almost convinced himself that he shouldn’t ever touch her like that again.

  Now, as she walked around the front of the Jeep and looked up at him, her eyes were soft, vulnerable, and he wondered if he’d been wrong.

  Stepping closer, he trailed his hands along her arms. To warm her, he allowed. But, mostly she looked like she needed some kind of connection. Maybe he needed it, too.

  What harm was there in this?

  “My mom has Alzheimer’s. She’s in the late stages.” Her sorrow bled into the explanation, and he felt the words like a punch in his stomach.

  Alzheimer’s. His grandmother had died from it, and his father had said that watching it progress was like losing someone while they were still physically in front of you.

  Her eyes searched his, and she had tensed as she would to prepare for a fight. This clearly wasn’t information she normally shared. But she’d told him.

  Pulling her forward, he folded her against him. He’d lost his father, but it had been fast, brutal. She was losing her parent in a slow, aching drag. It probably burned every day. He couldn’t imagine that kind of nagging heartache.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Just like that.”

  He squeezed, tucking her head under his chin.

  Right there, in the parking lot, she allowed him to hold her for a long moment. They didn’t speak, and they didn’t move. He breathed her strawberry-scented hair, and her arms gripped him tight.

  When she pulled back, she looked stronger. Ready. “Let me introduce you.”

  They entered through the front with their military IDs. Inside, she passed more than a few nurses who greeted her with smiles and called her by name. They rode the elevator to the third floor and paused at the nurses’ desk.

  “Hi, Jeanne. I got a call. What’s going on?” Beth asked the blonde behind the computer.

  The entire ride here, she hadn’t mentioned a call. Again, it struck him that she didn’t share much about herself. Not that he could judge.

  “She’s having a hard time breathing, hon. We had to start her on oxygen.”

  No one else probably noticed the change in Beth’s demeanor, but he caught it, the slight tightening around her mouth. “I’m going in to see her. Is that all right?”

  Jeanne smiled, full of kindness. “Go ahead. She’ll be happy to see you.”

  As they turned, Beth slipped her hand into his. He followed her to the end of the hall. When she pushed into the room there, the lights were soft. Beth hurried the last two steps to her mother’s bedside. Instead of taking the chair positioned next to the bed, she sat on the bed beside her mother and folded the older woman’s hand into her own. “Hey, Mama. You look good today.”

  He didn’t know what bad looked like, if this was good. Her mother looked thin, and her skin was translucent. There were wires and tubes all over, including the oxygen at her nose. Her eyes were closed.

  Beth adjusted her grip on her mother’s fingers, and her brow tightened. He recognized the look. He’d seen it on Kitty’s face often enough. “What are you listening to?”

  “Her thoughts. They’re…mangled,” she whispered.

  He had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. Sliding into the seat she’d left vacant, he reached for Beth’s hand.

  He wasn’t the hand-holding type. But with Beth, maybe he was. Learned something new about yourself every day.

  Beth introduced him, explained who he was, and told her mother everything that had happened the past week.

  As he listened, he couldn’t help wondering why she was going through this, reliving it all. Her mother didn’t seem interested.

  Beth faltered, then, for the briefest moment, before continuing her story. When she finished, she crawled forward, leaning down to kiss her mom on the cheek. “Bye, Mom. I’ll be back on the weekend.”

  Then, standing, she snagged Jack’s sleeve and dragged him to his feet. Apparently, they were leaving.

  In the hall, she shoved his arm, glaring at him. “She is in there, Luke.”

  He lifted his hands. “I didn’t say she wasn’t…”

  “I heard you. You were pitying me and the whole charade”—she waved her arm to encompass the hospital—“of me coming here to see her. But that’s my mom. I miss her. I want to see her.”

  “Of course you do.” He completely understood that. He’d want to see his father, too, in the same circumstances.

  “I’m not going to pretend she’s dead when she’s lying right there in that room, alive.” Pointing to the hospital door, her hands shook, and her entire frame tensed.

  “I know.” When had this gotten so far out of control? He hadn’t even said anything. And now? Nothing he had to say about this situation was going to help.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, and luckily, she let him. Sometime over the past few days, he’d started to need to touch her. It was an ache, delicious and terrifying at the same time. Desperate to smooth things over with her, he tried a different approach. “My father is dead. If I were you, I’d spend as much time with her as you can.” God, he’d take anything he could get, even the physical husk of his father, if it meant seeing him again.

  She blinked, cocked her head. “You don’t think she’s in there, though. Not in her body anymore.”

  Keeping his mind calm, he shrugged. He didn’t want to upset her, even accidentally. “I don’t know. You were listening. What did you hear?”

  She shook her head, gazing back into the room and wrapping her arms around herself. “There were parts of her there. Flashes of things. Images, fragments. I was there, but much younger. She’s been sick for years. In her mind, the years have run together. There was me as a child, then me as a teenager.” She closed her eyes. “It was all a mess.”

  He rubbed his hands along her arms. What could he say to that? There wasn’t much for her to do but watch helplessly as her mother faded away.

  “There is, though.” Her eyes opened. “There is something I can do.”

  “What?” She had a lot of brainpower, and her new gifts, but that wouldn’t cure an incurable disease.

  “Solvimine. I’m trying to figure out how Solvimine’s ability to open pathways in the brain might help patients like my mother.”

  Oh God no… He stepped back, his head shaking slowly and then faster. “No. It’s an awful idea.” The possibility for disaster… Nothing good had come from that drug, only death and destruction. Families had been ripped apart, including his own.

  “Luke.” She sighed. “You have to understand. It’s the best option I have. I’ve already broken the drug into its vital pieces. And I’ve made some hypotheses that are very hopeful.” She inhaled. “Over the past few days,
too, my ability to read…” She shrugged. “I read so fast. It’s like the few barriers in my mind before are gone now.” She took his hands. “This could be it. I could use this to help my mom.”

  “I can’t believe that you’re suggesting this.” He leaned down to meet her eyes, only a few inches between them. “You’ve been changed. You know how awful it is.” He waited as she shivered. “You can’t think that is something that would help your mother. She’s already frail. She’s already fragile.” The drug could steal the remaining time her mom had. If Beth did something that inadvertently hurt her mother, she’d never be able to live with that.

  He was familiar with that kind of guilt.

  She pulled her hands away. “I have to try. There’s an old colleague of mine working at a pharmaceutical company. We’ve already talked about how the drug could help.”

  “I beg you,” he whispered. “Don’t do this.” It was so incredibly dangerous, such a slippery slope.

  “It’s science, Luke.” She leveled her steady gaze at him. “This drug is the combination of many scientific discoveries. It’s the result of a lot of research. There’s one difference. The scientists who created it weren’t using it for the good of humanity. Since then, it’s been hijacked by power-hungry people who have their own agendas. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t good science in there that might be used by good people to do good deeds.”

  He hated that he couldn’t see it like that. All he could see was the endless possibility to do harm. “Please reconsider.”

  So many had lost their lives. With what she planned, the drug would stay out there. How would he ever be able to think that he’d avenged his father if there was a chance that all of this destruction could happen again? He’d never feel like he’d paid his debts.

  Would he ever be able to forgive himself, then?

  Her face was unreadable. She could hear him, though.

  Finally, she closed the space between them and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “I see you, Luke Kincaid. I really do.”

  His eyelids closed. For the moment, he allowed himself to breathe. Did she? How could she and still look at him like this, like he was worthy of her?

  “Come home with me, Luke,” she whispered. “Right now.”

  He opened his eyes slowly, seeing no judgment. He found himself nodding. “Yes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Beth let them into her apartment twenty minutes later. She dropped her bag by the door and shrugged out of her jacket.

  In the three years since she started renting this place, she might have had four people here, at most, and one of them had been the attorney who’d helped her sort her parents’ estates. Having a big, rangy male body in the one-bedroom apartment made it feel even smaller, more compact.

  She listened to him take in her apartment, the colorful prints on the wall, the lived-in disarray of it all. There were books everywhere. Long ago, she’d filled the bookshelves around the room with keepers. Since then, she’d had to pile them on top of the shelves, and then on every other surface around the space. That was only her printed books. There were at least two ereaders in the house that were full, as well.

  She hadn’t read all of those books, though. Yet. She was working on it.

  Trailing her finger along the trunk she used as a coffee table, the one covered in punk band stickers, she tried not to consider how this might be a colossal mistake.

  They were still so far apart on all things Solvimine. It couldn’t have been any clearer at the VA home, listening to his fears about using components of the larger drug for other purposes. Even after meeting her mother. That should have shown him exactly why she wanted to do what she was doing. But he’d remained torn, stuck between understanding her and his own baggage.

  Yet, when she’d talked about her mom, on some level he’d understood. He’d lost his own father. A person couldn’t pretend that kind of empathy. Maybe she could still get through to him. He only needed time.

  He might believe whatever mistakes he’d made were too much to forgive, but when he’d held her, they’d connected. That had to be a good place to start.

  Even though his feelings for her weren’t as intense as hers for him, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel as much as he could. Lots of times, people shied away from the deeper, more frightening things. Obviously, he cared for her. She could see it, hear it. She felt it in his actions.

  More time, that was all.

  She doesn’t want me here. I should go. He remained near the door as if he wasn’t sure he was invited all the way inside.

  “No. That’s not it. I do want you here.” Massive understatement. “I’m just not used to having people around.”

  Nodding, he kicked his sneakers off by the welcome mat without bothering to untie them. He shuffled farther inside, shrugging, his hands buried in his pockets. I’m not good at this stuff.

  She almost laughed. As if she was. Between them, they were one big nerdy disaster. “Come on. Let’s make some food.”

  “You have food?” Eyebrows lifting, he grinned, following her into her miniscule kitchen. “I never see you leave the office.”

  “I don’t keep a lot,” she qualified, flustered as she navigated around his lithe frame in the limited space. “But, I get enough takeout at the base. When I’m here, I try to at least attempt real meals.”

  She opened the freezer. Rifling through the packages, she found what she was looking for. “How do you feel about lasagna?”

  “You’re speaking my language.” He straddled one of the stools at the bar. “Is that homemade?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I need to keep my hands busy.” Another understatement. A lot of nights, she hummed with nervous energy. It had gotten worse the further along her mother’s disease had progressed.

  Preheating the oven, she slipped the aluminum foil covered packet into it. She set the timer on the microwave and then smiled at him. “One night I figured out an issue with the chemical composition of an anti-nausea drug while making bags of fajitas and chicken cacciatore meals.”

  He glanced around the kitchen. “I run.”

  They were a matched set. She hid and cooked, he ran. As she turned to him, she closed her eyes.

  Around her, she only heard one other person in the closest apartments. It was nearly nine at night, and the woman who lived upstairs was watching a sitcom. Her mind was quiet, relaxed. Beth breathed deeply, enjoying the respite from the constant bombardment of thoughts. The only one left was Luke. There was enough uncertainty there, though, to fill the space.

  She needed to get to her lab. Her mom didn’t have much time, and she had to find a way to counteract the drug and keep Parker and his minions from becoming an army. But she also needed this. Just a small break with this man. Life was precious, and she wanted to spend some time with him before things got crazier.

  And they would.

  “Thanks. For coming with me to see my mom,” she offered, opening her eyes. “It was nice to have company for once.” Only after she said it did she realize how true it was. Going alone took an emotional toll.

  “You know, there are plenty of people in our office who want to know you, Beth. You could give them a chance.” He ran through the list in his head, including Blue and Kitty.

  For him, it was as simple as that. Allow people to know him. He might be having a hard time right now, with all the stuff in his head, but Luke’s natural inclination was to be open with others. He didn’t understand why she had so much difficulty with that.

  “People confuse me.” She shrugged. “And I confuse them.” Navigating normal small talk wasn’t easy for her. She said things too bluntly, made others uncomfortable. Now that she could hear their reactions, she had no idea how much harder that would be.

  She doesn’t understand. People aren’t confused—they’re intimidated.

  “Intimidated?”

  He stood, circling the bar. Standing close, he ran a finger along her cheek. The light touch sent a shiver skit
tering along her, but his gaze held her captive. “You’re smart. Gorgeous. You say exactly what you think, and it might be blunt, but it isn’t malicious. Most people’s inner thoughts are at least partially inappropriate for others. At least mine are. You, though? You are inherently good, and your first inclination is to fix things. It’s refreshing. And it makes everyone feel like they don’t stack up.”

  “I don’t want to be better than others. I only want to be my best me.”

  “Exactly. That’s exactly it.” The soft circles he traced on her jaw were entrancing. Her eyelids drifted low, and she sighed, enjoying the contact. She never would have expected that she’d relish little touches so much. It was as if after all the years keeping to herself, she hadn’t realized how much she craved physical contact.

  “Beth,” his voice was in her ear, low and gravelly. “Can I hold you? Maybe we could stay here for tonight, away from everything at the base. If you wanted to.” Tonight, I’ll pretend that I’m good enough for this talented, brilliant woman.

  His assessment of her warmed her stomach, even while she ached at the pain within him.

  As she leaned into his arms and breathed his rich smell, she wasn’t thinking about how much he wanted her. His mouth found hers, and she was determined to prove to him what they could be together. He might doubt himself, but she could see into his heart. Luke Kincaid might be struggling with the shitty results of a hard situation, but he was coming out the other side with dignity and grit.

  Many would buckle under that weight. She meant to show him how strong he was.

  She laced her fingers in his hair, reveling in the softness, so at odds with the steel-willed man she knew. He pulled her closer, tucking her into him, leaning down as she stood on tiptoe.

  Why haven’t I kissed her again until now? I should have, whether it was the right time or not.

  She pulled back and looked at him. When she spoke, her voice was breathless. “You didn’t kiss me because it wasn’t the right time?”

  “The change… Giving you a chance to adapt, to get used to your new situation.” He dropped kisses on her cheek softly, as if he was testing the taste of her. “I thought it would be best to wait until a better time.”