“Because everything’s going so well?” She shook her head. “We all need help sometimes, Damon. No one can do it all alone.”
He took a deep breath, surveyed the apartment as if he’d find the words there somewhere, glared at the cat, then met her gaze again.
“You did ask to come here,” she pointed out.
He glowered at her. “I owed you a thank-you.”
Haley thought she’d try to make him smile. “If you thanked everybody with orgasms like that, you’d have a lot more friends.”
Damon didn’t laugh, though. In fact, he looked more grim than before. “It’s not going to happen again.” He bent to haul on his boots.
“So, you don’t want me to visit your mom when you can’t?”
He half-turned, his expression wary, and Haley knew he was torn. “That’s not what I said.”
“If I do, will you say thanks again?”
Damon’s jaw tightened and she thought of volcanos on the verge of explosion. His control was amazing. His eyes blazed, then he composed himself again. “No. This was the last time. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She got a simmering look for that.
“You can’t fix me, Haley. I won’t lie to you. And I won’t promise anything I can’t deliver.”
Haley shook her head. “Well, I’d like to live in that world,” she said. “Imagine, being able to control every little thing. Imagine being in command of all the details, of being able to decide what happened next.” She raised her hands. “Who lived. Who died. Who got cancer. Who won the lottery. That would be some kind of power.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. I’m pointing out the flaw in your logic. You can’t control every detail. You’re not God. You can’t know that you can keep every single promise you make. You can only try.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
“There’s a big one. Because if you believe you’re in complete control and something bigger than all of us makes you wrong, where does that leave you?” She didn’t think she had to mention his mom’s illness.
Damon looked so suddenly broken that Haley’s compassion surged to new strength. “Right where I am, in case you haven’t guessed,” he admitted under his breath.
“You couldn’t keep one promise,” she guessed in a whisper. “So you won’t make any more.”
“I let someone down. I won’t do that ever again.” He shook his head and turned away from her. He picked up his jacket, without ever looking back at her.
“But what happens when you need someone, Damon?”
He gave her a hot look. “I never need anyone.”
“You will soon.” She could have said he needed someone already, but she knew he’d argue that.
“No.” He shook his head, emphatic in clinging to his conclusions. Haley admired his resolve. “No. I will not withdraw what I can’t repay.”
“You’re underestimating yourself. Your partners would have your back if you trusted them with the truth.”
“Are you done?” he demanded, his tone sharper. “This was sex, Haley, not therapy. I’m sorry I had a nightmare but that doesn’t make me your next project. You have no right to examine my choices and pester me to make different ones.”
“Because I was just a fuck,” she said, her voice hard, and watched him flinch.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It must be what you mean.”
“No, it isn’t...” He fell silent, then eyed her for a moment. “What happened with Aidan?” he asked instead. “What did he do?”
The question caught Haley by surprise but she gave him one of his own answers. “It’s not your concern.”
“You’re right,” he said quietly. He swore under his breath, pivoted, and left her apartment.
Haley swore a little more loudly, locked the deadbolt behind him so that the sound would echo down the corridor, then folded her arms across her chest.
Had there ever been anyone she’d wanted to shake more than Damon?
The cat considered her from his perch on the counter.
“Maybe I should call you Damon,” she said to him and he jumped down elegantly, coming to twine around her ankles. He meowed and looked up at her, obviously hungry. “Except you have a lot more charm,” she acknowledged. “Especially when you want fish.”
Maybe she didn’t have anything left that Damon wanted enough to turn on his charm. Haley winced and headed for the kitchen to open a can of tuna for the cat.
* * *
It had snowed more during the night. There was about six inches of the white stuff on the ground and more falling. Damon zipped up his jacket and marched back to the house, knowing that the exercise would calm his mind.
It always did.
Exercise was one of the keys to his plan. Regular exercise. Healthy eating. Small, achievable goals. One step at a time. Lots of rest. It was all about routine, about controlling the little things so the big ones didn’t overwhelm.
That was how he’d ended up at the gym where he’d met Kyle.
Despite the vestiges of his nightmare, he was thinking about Haley’s words. She hadn’t been angry with him or accusatory. Her tone had been direct but not emotional. She challenged him and she wasn’t afraid of him, and the combination meant that he couldn’t dismiss what she’d said.
The nightmares had returned since his mom had become sick. He’d been without them for years and that made them seem worse. They were pretty much the same, though. And he guessed that it was powerlessness that brought them on, a lack of control, that sense of inevitability and his own impotence in the face of events.
Like that rolling grenade.
He’d never forget it.
He’d never forget that he’d been the one to remind Foster about R.O.E.
Buchanan had lost a hand.
Foster had died.
Not only was he responsible, but he was unscathed.
More or less.
It seemed wrong. He should have been the one to die or be maimed. He should have been the one to pay the price for following the rules.
The therapist had called it survivor’s guilt.
Damon trudged across the park, moving quickly. He had three private sessions in the weight room this morning, back to back, and knew he had to compose himself. Even though he hadn’t had much sleep, he had to make sure those clients got what they paid for. He was responsible. He fulfilled his obligations to F5. That wasn’t going to change. He exhaled, doing the breathing exercises he’d been taught as a means of calming himself, and tried to focus.
He might have managed it if his phone hadn’t rung.
Instead he stood in the middle of the empty park, the snow falling silently around him, as the nurse in the oncology ward told him that his mom was gone.
Then he bowed his head and wept silently, feeling more alone than he ever had.
* * *
“Hello to those of you at the North Pole, or its closest equivalent,” Kyle said, his cheerful voice coming from the speakerphone.
“Let me guess,” Cassie said as she slid into her seat. “It’s sunny and warm in San Francisco.” A foot of snow had fallen in Manhattan over the weekend and the city was a mess. There had been power outages and transit delays, although things were returning to normal.
“Beautiful,” Kyle enthused. “Not too hot. Crisp wind off the ocean.” He paused. “No snow.”
“Go ahead,” Cassie said. “Rub it in.”
“I hate that stuff,” Kyle said. “Give me fog or even rain any day over the white junk.”
“Doesn’t the cool temperature cut into your surfing?” Cassie asked as Damon entered the conference room.
“Northern California is why God made wetsuits, Cassie.”
“He’s just frisky because he went surfing today,” Theo said, also on the speakerphone. “Kyle here thinks he’s becoming a Navy SEAL.”
Damon snorted.
“I don’t think so,” he muttered under his breath, but the guys in California obviously didn’t hear him. He pulled out a pad of paper and tapped his pen on it. “Are we having a meeting or what?”
What was his deal? Cassie knew that Damon’s expression was more inscrutable than usual and it wasn’t like him to be grumpy. When did she last see him crack a smile? It had been too long. Was he that annoyed that Ty had made him work the previous Friday night? He’d certainly been in a mood since the weekend. Cassie had been relieved to have a Friday night to herself but was torn between feeling that Damon should have taken his turn sooner and her sense that something was wrong.
“Hey, has that tattoo done its magic yet?” Kyle demanded.
“Not so much as a nibble,” Cassie had to admit.
“Early days yet,” Kyle said, his tone encouraging. “It’ll happen.”
Cassie wasn’t so sure.
Ty came striding into the meeting, looking as delicious as ever. Cassie did love a man in a suit. She’d been crazy for this one for a long, long time, but Ty was off-limits now. Was that the problem? She’d already found the love of her life but he’d married someone else?
“Sorry to be late,” Ty said, taking his place and opening his briefcase. “Do we have an agenda?”
“Not officially,” Cassie said and he smiled at her. Her stupid heart went thump but she kept her expression bland.
“No problem. I’d like to talk about adding to the team,” Ty said. “We’re really stretched thin and Cassie’s done too many night shifts. I’m going to suggest that we hire one or maybe two people to manage the dance club.”
“You’re delegating my baby!” Kyle complained.
“Only after you abandoned it,” Cassie countered.
“And of course, Damon isn’t going to give up his Friday nights with Natasha,” Kyle said.
Damon frowned but didn’t reply.
“He did last Friday,” Cassie contributed.
“Only with encouragement,” Ty added.
“And what did Natasha think of that?” Kyle asked brightly. “Has she pined away from neglect after surviving one Friday night without your loving touch.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Damon growled, biting off each word.
Cassie exchanged a glance with Ty. That was the closest she’d ever heard Damon come to losing his temper.
“Excuse me?” Kyle said. “Are you getting hostile with me, bro?”
“I’m telling you to mind your own business,” Damon snapped. He stood up and marched out of the room. “Decide whatever you want,” he said from the doorway. “I’m gone.”
“Whoa!” Ty said, lifting his hands.
“What was that?” Kyle and Theo demanded in unison.
“The sound of you pushing your luck a little too far,” Ty said and started to stand up.
“Me?” Kyle protested. “I was just razzing him a bit...”
“Let me,” Cassie said, touching Ty’s shoulder so he stayed put while she went after Damon.
“Good idea,” Ty murmured with a nod. “He wouldn’t talk to me.”
So, she wasn’t alone in thinking that there was something wrong. Cassie wasn’t going to make any conclusions about her and Ty thinking the same way. He was married.
She found Damon at his locker, jamming things into his messenger bag—all of his things, as if he had no intention of coming back.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked, leaning in the doorway to block it.
“No.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“You don’t think that after ten years of partnership, we maybe deserve an explanation?”
Damon bowed his head for a moment. Cassie could almost feel the war within him and she wondered what it was about.
Then he closed his locker with his usual care and turned to face her, his features composed again. His eyes, though, his eyes were haunted. “Natasha is not my girlfriend. She’s my mother and she was diagnosed with cancer. I spent every Friday night with her.”
“Oh, Damon, I’m so sorry. You should have told us...”
He lifted a hand to silence her. “It doesn’t matter anymore. She’s dead.”
Cassie was so shocked that it took her a few moments to find the words. How could he have been going through this without telling them? Without even mentioning it? She didn’t think the others knew either. She cringed inside as she recalled Kyle teasing him. “What can we do to help?”
“Nothing. It’s over.” Damon took a deep breath and she watched him stand a little straighter than he had before. “I can work the nights at the club now, or if you’d all rather, I can leave the partnership. Just let me know what you decide.”
He would have stepped past her but Cassie didn’t move. “You can’t just leave. We’re partners.”
Damon’s gaze flicked to hers. “Fine. Give me a schedule and a list of your expectations. I’ll fulfill them all.” He gave her a dark look and she moved out of the doorway, feeling helpless as she watched him stride away.
“When’s the funeral, Damon?” she called after him, thinking that attending it was one thing they could all do for him.
“There isn’t going to be one,” he said without turning back, and Cassie was shocked to silence again.
She felt Ty come to stand behind her. “So?”
“Natasha was his mom. She just died of cancer.”
“What?” Ty demanded. “He never told us?”
“She’s been in the hospital. He went there Friday nights to visit her. His mom is Natasha.”
Ty swore and shoved a hand through his hair. “Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
Cassie turned to Ty. “He’s not going to have a funeral either. What can we do?”
Ty frowned, his gaze trailing after Damon. He was thoughtful and concerned, and Cassie waited for his conclusion. “Nothing, I guess,” he said finally. “Especially if that’s what he wants.”
“It feels wrong.” She glanced after Damon, but he was gone.
“It is wrong, but pushing ourselves on Damon will only backfire. Maybe that was what his mom wanted.” He looked down at Cassie and she saw that they were both equally shocked.
“He said it was up to us if he remained a partner.”
“Of course, he’s remaining a partner.” Ty was impatient with the possibility of Damon leaving F5. “Privacy is one thing, but this partnership is another. He’s just dealing with a lot and not thinking straight.”
“I think so, too. He looked devastated, Ty.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” He didn’t wait for an answer but Cassie nodded. “Actually, this gives me a good reason to call him later. Let’s decide about hiring Hunter or someone else, and work on the details for Chynna’s start.”
“I did some mock-ups for a Valentine’s Day launch,” Cassie offered. “It’s on a Wednesday this year, which isn’t perfect, but I thought we might open the dance club that night for a special event.” She sighed. “Kyle said it’s the tattoos she does on the full moon that have the love magic, but unfortunately there isn’t a full moon in February at all.”
“Kyle and Theo are still on the line. Let’s make some plans.” Ty gestured and Cassie headed back to the conference room, noting that both of them glanced to the foyer with concern for Damon.
“He needs us to need him,” she whispered.
Ty nodded. “We do. I’m afraid the tough part is going to be convincing him of that.”
* * *
Haley stood in front of the house where she knew Damon lived, gathering her nerve. She’d waited until Wednesday and her day off but she couldn’t stand it anymore. The nurses in oncology had told her about Natasha’s passing. She’d had a good cry and sent some more prayers after Damon’s mom. She’d hoped Damon might call her, but he hadn’t. She had a feeling that he would close himself off from the world, which was just about the worst possible choice.
He could be having nightmares.
He could be experiencin
g his PTSD in full glory again.
He was alone and he shouldn’t be.
Even though she expected him to be hostile, she had to try to help. She stepped up and rang the doorbell. It echoed through the house, but there was no other sound. No footsteps inside. The curtains didn’t move and no one looked out. She couldn’t see any lights on.
Of course, with his military training, Damon would be able to be more still and more quiet than normal humans. Would he have to come out for food? For all she knew, he had enough rations in the cellar to survive Armageddon. Would he leave the house to go to work? He did seem to be committed to F5.
Maybe he was staying downtown at the club.
The nurses had told her that there wasn’t going to be a funeral for Natasha. Haley thought that was a really bad sign of Damon’s emotional state. It was impossible to ignore the fact that his mom was gone, and she wasn’t going to let him try.
She expected a fight and she was ready for one.
It was funny but just a few short weeks ago, she would have left him to his misery, knowing that he didn’t want her interference. It turned out that taking a chance or two had given Haley the need to speak up, and to be more active about facilitating change.
Even if it meant offering help where help wasn’t wanted.
She rang the bell again.
Nothing.
She went around the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door. There was no curtain on the window in this door, and she could see that the kitchen was meticulously clean.
As if no one lived there at all.
Or as if Damon did.
Haley went back to the front door to ring the bell one last time, only to find Damon striding down the walkway to the house. He was frowning at the pavement, looking as if he was in bad mood, and he stopped cold when he saw her. There was a flicker in his eyes, but she didn’t have time to decide if it was annoyance or relief before it disappeared and he was impossible to read again.
“Lost?” he asked. His tone was less than welcoming and she figured resistance was starting immediately.
“You got a ride with Joe from the hospital one night. He told me where you lived.”
“Spy network?”
“He likes to tease me. I didn’t intend to ever come here.”
In the Midnight Hour Page 15