by Em Petrova
She carried all this to him, along with the bottle of painkillers his doctor prescribed.
River sat up in bed, propped on the pillows she’d just finished fluffing.
She set the tray on the nightstand and nearly knocked over the antique lamp. She grabbed the ceramic base just in time.
“That was close.” Her nerves kicking in again, she held out the water to him. He accepted it from her, and she reached for the pain pills.
She grew aware of his stare on her, following her every move. That summer, she’d seen a fire in his eyes so often. One night, they’d crossed paths in the kitchen, both of them going after a late-night snack. Their gazes had locked. River lifted a hand to her cheek, and her heart almost exploded in joy and want.
She’d leaned into his touch, but he dropped his hand and walked away without doing anything more. In the years since, she’d often wondered if she’d experienced the platonic touch of a brother figure or something else. Either way, she’d never had a chance to find out because he and Ethan left the next day.
Sascha jerked herself to the present and screwed off the cap of the pill bottle.
“I’m not taking them,” he stated in a flat voice.
She searched his tired, wan face. The man was in obvious pain. “The doctor says you need to or he wouldn’t prescribe them.”
He removed the bottle from her hand, read the label and then pitched the bottle into the wastebasket a good ten feet across the room. It sank into the depths. “Give me regular painkillers. That’s all I need.”
She opened her mouth to fight his stubborn streak, but what good would it do?
To cover the moment, she reached for the sheet to pull it up. Her fingers brushed his accidentally, and that same unforgotten heat hit her stomach as their gazes locked.
You are the same River, aren’t you? He’s in there.
Quickly, she withdrew her hand and left the room in search of painkillers.
Chapter Three
Hepburn needed to get out of bed.
He had an inkling of hours passing. Seeing the sun and darkness shift through his room. He ate when she set food before him and slept a shit ton.
How many days had he been here with Sascha?
The woman looked prettier each time he set eyes on her. She also possessed the sweetest singing voice. Even listening to her hum eased some of the pangs of pain.
He planted his hands on the bed and pushed into a sitting position. He felt stronger today. His mind a little bit clearer. Good, because he needed to call his momma at the very least. Since he hadn’t told her that he planned to take leave to come help with Kyle, she hadn’t expected him, which meant she wouldn’t be worried sick.
At some point, he recalled Sascha offering to call her, and he refused right before he drifted off to sleep once more.
As he shifted on the bed, he realized something was off.
He pulled the sheet up and took a peek.
From head to toe, he lay completely naked.
He blinked for a minute, trying to make events and timelines add up in his scattered brain. For the life of him, he didn’t remember stripping down. Since he’d been sharing quarters with his fellow military buddies, he didn’t sleep naked anymore.
Maybe he’d gotten too hot in the night?
He glanced at the floor, but he didn’t see his sleep pants or boxers cast off there.
Sascha’s sweet voice reached him from some other part of the house, most likely her office.
A thought struck. How many days had it been since he showered? He took a sniff of his underarm and smelled only clean soap.
Fuck—could Sascha have stripped and bathed him?
No. No way. She’d never be able to move him—he must be double her weight. He would have awakened.
He cast a suspicious glare at the food tray beside his bed. Maybe she’d been spiking his food with the pills the doctor gave him. He couldn’t blame her really—he’d been as surly as a wounded bear.
Since his brain actually fired on more cylinders than he could recall this past…week?...he set aside his concern for his nakedness and grabbed his cell.
His mother’s number took a minute to conjure from the depths of his mind, but he punched in the numbers and waited for her to pick up.
After three rings, her voice projected into his ear. “River! What a surprise. You never call at this hour of day. Is everything all right?”
He hated that she had to worry over him so much. With the nature of his work, there was no help for that.
“I’m all right.” He didn’t consciously think of withholding the information about his accident from her, but he didn’t plan to mention it right now. She’d only insist on coming to him and making a fuss, when she had other things weighing on her mind with Kyle.
His voice sounded rusty from disuse, and he cleared it before speaking. “I thought I could get leave, but it turns out I can’t. I’m sorry, Ma.”
“Don’t worry a bit. You’re always trying to take responsibility for everyone else around you, when you should worry about staying at the top of your game.”
He massaged his eyes, which were starting to ache less. “What’s happening with Kyle?”
She sighed. He pictured her sitting at her desk, working her nine-to-five. “I presented your brother with some options, and he surprisingly didn’t argue.”
He shook his head. When had the room stopped spinning so much?
“I’m shocked but glad he owned up to his problems,” he said.
“So am I, River. Now he’s in the facility for a ninety-day program.”
“Let’s hope it helps more than just AA meetings.”
“Yes. It’s got to come from him, but at least he’s giving it a shot. Now, how are you? Tell me about where you’ve been recently.”
She always enjoyed hearing about the small towns, mountain ranges and interesting people he crossed paths with in Alaska. Of course he was unable to disclose anything about the actual missions, but he seemed to have plenty to share with her.
He pulled a town out of his mind, along with a camping area near the house they’d just invaded before he left Alaska. An image of the men he’d killed filtered into his brain, and he shut them behind a door with all the others he’d been forced to take out in the name of freedom.
After a few minutes of chatting with his mother, he started to feel the effects of spending so much time in bed. He told her he loved her and had to go. After they ended the call, he got up and walked just to get some blood flowing. His stamina compared to that of a puny child’s—he’d need to work up to his former strength.
He located his clean clothes stacked on a vintage dresser and put on his boxers. When he sank to the floor and stretched out in a plank pose to do some pushups, his mind made a short circle but stopped rotating quicker than before.
He did twenty pushups—nothing compared to his former number, but he’d take it.
Then he flipped onto his back and did a few sit-ups. Those proved more difficult, because the action of sitting up messed with his equilibrium.
When Sascha entered, she stared at the bed. Her gaze slipped to the floor, and she gasped.
“Oh my God! Did you fall? I didn’t hear you. I—”
Concern burned in her blue eyes, leaving him feeling bad for frightening her. “Sascha, I’m fine. I was just doing some…” The word evaded him. Then it suddenly popped onto his tongue. “Calisthenics.”
She straightened. “Oh.”
He ran his gaze from her gold toe rings, up her bare legs to those cutoffs he remembered from years ago. Only today she wore a loose top with embroidery that looked to be snatched straight from the closet of a hippie.
Hell, he wanted to lock his hands on her hips and draw her down on top of him.
He shoved to his feet. His hardening cock betrayed him in nothing but his boxers, and he quickly jumped under the sheet again.
“You must be feeling better if you’re exercising.”
“A little, yeah.” He rubbed his jaw, hearing a lot of rasp from beard growth. Sascha locked her attention on his fingers.
“Can I get you anything? I’m just doing some work, but I can make you a sandwich.”
He knew from his phone call that the lunch hour approached, and his stomach did feel hollow, as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
“I can get up and fix something.”
“No, you won’t. Do you prefer ham or turkey?”
“Ham.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When she whirled to the door, presenting him with a perfect view of her round ass hugged by tight denim cutoff shorts, he was damn glad to be under the sheet, because his cock stretched to a full-blown erection of epic proportions.
Good to know I’m in working order. But bad timing.
Of all the women to react to, why did he have to lust after Sascha Lacey? Sure, she was adorable. And intriguing. They’d had a lot of fun together.
But no way could he lay a hand on her.
What about a tongue?
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
He couldn’t trust himself not to break down in his weakened state, could he?
Hell no, that internal voice informed him.
He could add cowardice to his list of personality traits, because he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep when she brought the sandwich in for him. As she stood staring down at him, he battled to steady his breathing.
His cock surged with want. Hauling her into his lap and peeling down those cutoffs seemed to be his top mission for the day.
He hoped to Christ his dick wasn’t tenting the sheet.
After a long moment, she left the room. He held his breath, listening to her bare feet on the floor. A bit later, he heard the whistle of the teapot and Sascha’s humming.
The homey sounds filtered into his bruised and battered brain, but as he sat up and reached for the ham sandwich she’d brought, he felt the sounds doing more for his soul than he thought possible.
River had been in her care for four days. He slept a lot. He ate what she brought him.
By now, she should be used to seeing his handsome face on that pillow.
Or his muscled body, considering she’d given him several sponge baths.
But each time she turned to him, she fought with herself to keep from doing something rash, like climb into bed with him, hike up her skirt and sink down over that erection that never seemed to go away when she came into sight.
She’d seen more than her fill of his impressive body…and a lot of scars too. When she flipped him onto his side to wash his back a few days before, she’d gasped at the evidence of previous wounds. How he didn’t wake at the sound she made, she had no clue. He slept like the dead, but today he seemed more alert.
And he’d been exercising.
She chewed on her pen, wishing she’d walked into the guest room a few minutes sooner. She could just imagine the glory of that steely body performing calisthenics.
The fact he could pull the word out of his mind also gave her hope that he really was improving. She couldn’t take credit for any of it. Simple rest and lack of stimulation helped his brain heal.
Heal enough for him to try to fake being asleep.
He didn’t want to deal with her, and that stung. Especially after all the things she’d done for him, even putting her filming for her two clients on hold. She didn’t want to leave him unattended in the house to do the jobs, so she’d cancelled on her people.
She also spent a good amount of hours sitting at her computer, distracted by every little noise that came from his room. She got up to check on him often. Yet he feigned sleep so she’d go away.
Perhaps he didn’t have the energy for conversation right now. She understood that. But some deep inner voice kept telling her that his reason for pretending sleep had to do with Ethan.
She pushed out a sigh and stared at her screen. A few emails would keep her mind off things.
The first came from her mother. She’d forwarded a prayer for the grieving. Sascha’s heart wrenched for her momma, but she struggled to bring herself to read the words and deleted the email.
After one from her professor and another from her client voicing her upset at not filming this week, she switched to social media to keep her mind off the work she loved but that chained her to this desk.
She scrolled through a few posts from friends she’d let drift away. After her brother’s death, it became too much work to put on a brave smile she didn’t feel at the moment. They left her alone, and neither party had made overtures to rekindle a friendship.
She scraped her fingers over her short hair. The most fun she’d had in months was tugging the boxers off a sleeping man and giving him a sponge bath.
How long had she wished for a change of pace? After her brother’s passing, she thought about moving out of her town, her state… Hell, she could even leave the country. A whole world sat waiting for her to explore and discover. She’d stuck around for her momma, and she felt more isolated than ever.
She always lost herself in music, so she switched on her tunes and began to bop to the upbeat song projecting through the computer speakers.
The notes gave her some inspiration, and she brought her project onto the screen, tweaking clips to make them shorter or longer. One she inserted into a new spot about three minutes in.
Before she knew it, the late afternoon sun slanted through her windows. She listened to the silent house. Having River here left her with a lot of questions she had no answers to. He’d spoken little about his life—past or present.
Of course, none of it was her business. She had a duty to get him on his feet and back to where he’d come from.
Wherever that was.
Before she knew it, she’d opened Ethan’s video again. She smiled when her brother came on, but she skimmed past the other buddies and straight to the hot younger, unscarred version of the man lying in her guest room at this very moment.
River leaned up against the treads of a tank, the earth, rock and sand beneath him, everything a shade of tan, including his desert camo. Ethan asked him what he’d rather be doing right now, and River responded that he’d like to jump in a pond and cool off.
The guys all laughed in agreement. Then the short video ended.
She knew exactly how he felt. She could use a cooling off too. Sharing a roof with the man she never stopped wanting had her all tangled up in knots.
And if that hard-on she spotted riding just beneath the bedsheet told her anything, River possessed a few of those knots too.
Christ. Of all places to end up it had to be in Sascha’s house. And he already lay in bed. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to pull her down with him and finally learn how she tasted, after all these years.
To say he never forgot her would be ridiculous. Memories of her were all tangled up with her brother, and he’d loved them both in different ways. If Ethan had lived, River might have returned to visit Sascha…and things might have been different.
Instead, he’d stayed as far away from this part of Texas as possible, not wanting to accidentally cross paths with her. How to ever explain what happened that horrible night Ethan died?
She’d delivered the painkillers and made sure he swallowed them with a sip of the sweet tea. Then she left him to rest.
Only he lay awake, listening. He heard her open a window somewhere in the house. The brush of a broom across the floor and then she took out a bag of trash. All the homey sounds he’d forgotten existed. On base, he and the Xtreme Ops team were doing well to wash their clothes and throw together a meal before rushing out to the next mission.
When her cell phone jingled with a ringtone sounding like windchimes, he got caught up in thinking how much that sound suited her free spirit until he heard her speaking in low tones.
“Hi, Momma. How are you?”
Several seconds ticked by.
“Yes, I realize his birthday’s coming up.”
Ethan’s. If he were alive, Hepburn would take him out for a round of drinks.
“It’s been a long time, Momma. I understand it’s painful and difficult, but I really think you need to find some peace with it. Throwing a birthday party for him is just…not going to help you feel better.”
Fuck. A birthday party for a dead man?
He didn’t want to know how screwed up their lives had become. His own struggles had been bad enough to live with. For an entire year, every night the sun went down, Hepburn relived that blast that had injured him and taken his friend’s life.
He sat up and swung his legs over the bed, dropping his head into his hands. Beyond the sheer white curtains, the evening sky would be speckled with stars just popping out.
That deep, painful itch of anxiety hit. He scrubbed his hand over his shaved head. What the hell could he do to ease the tension?
On base, he and the guys would grab some ammo and shoot up some targets, but he didn’t have that luxury here. He started to pace the bedroom while listening to Sascha speak to her mother in the other room.
“What does your therapist say?” She paused for another minute.
Hepburn flicked aside the curtain to peer out onto a yard and a small flower garden under his window. He let the fabric fall over the glass once more and turned to the bed. The tray still sat on the nightstand beside the lamp Sascha’d nearly knocked over. His memory might be off, but she seemed clumsier than he recalled.
He picked up the water bottle and chugged it all. The clawing feeling under his skin coupled with the nagging pain in his head made him drop to the bed.
Footsteps neared his door. Sascha stopped.
He lifted his head from his hands.
“Does your head hurt?” She hurried to him and touched his shoulder.
He jerked away, and she recoiled, stumbling a step.
Meeting her gaze hurt. Too much guilt lay at his feet, a wide chasm he couldn’t step over.
Even though he told himself not to, he looked into her eyes. After her talk with her mom, she seemed more somber. No wonder. This was all his fault.