Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me)

by Masters, Kallypso

  At least the hero ice made it easy for him to look capable of doing something right. Every placement sank into the soft ice on the first swing.

  But some fucking hero he was. He couldn’t save himself, much less win the girl.

  The exertion of reaching the next foothold blotted out all thoughts but those needed to ensure his safety.

  Almost. Adam had texted him over the weekend saying Angelina was visiting Denver.

  She’d left him. Packed up and moved out. Okay, so she’d said she’d be gone when he got back from Italy, but he hadn’t believed she’d do it.

  What the fuck had happened to his controlled, orderly life?

  No amount of soul-searching these past few weeks had helped him sort this out. Normally, the mountains held all of the answers, but they were sadistically silent this time.

  When he met Angelina last fall and she moved in with him, he knew he’d found the only woman he would ever be able to love. But the love he had to offer hadn’t been enough for her. Just when he thought he’d gotten his shit together, a couple of weekends with his family in Aspen turned his life upside down. Now Angelina was gone.

  Hell, could he even say the people in Aspen were his family? He had no clue who he was, where he came from. His life was full of secrets and lies, not unlike the ones he’d perpetrated on Angelina and even Pamela. Neither had deserved that, but maybe that’s all he knew. As long as the lies were told with good intentions, they wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  But that was yet another lie he told himself. Both women had been hurt by him.

  He kicked into the ice to plant the front points of his crampons and then stood on them before swinging the axe again. Missed. Merda. He’d been climbing nearly an hour and already was exhausted. His muscles strained as he fought to land the axe on the next try.

  He hadn’t climbed with wrist-attached tools for years, because they gave him the screaming barfies, a feeling somewhere between wanting to scream and wanting to barf at the same time when he lost circulation to his hands because of the straps.

  He grinned. Not unlike the pain he felt when Angelina had topped him and removed that first nipple clamp. No wonder she didn’t like those things. But she’d taken the pain for him many times, and he’d sucked it up for her.

  He swung the axe again. Got it. Now the other one. Ka-thud. Success on the first attempt! He pulled himself up, the steel points on the toes of his boots easily sinking into the plastic-like ice. The temperatures and sunlight had warmed up the ice enough to make climbing a breeze. Not that brittle ice he encountered on colder days.

  Sweat trickled down his back as he continued to strain muscles he’d neglected for months. Maybe describing ice climbing as a breeze wasn’t the right term. He hadn’t been gone more than a few days at a time since Angelina had moved in. He hadn’t wanted to be away from her that long.

  Now she was gone, and he’d been out here for weeks. He took a moment to let the raw beauty surround and envelop him. The wind whistled through the spruce and fir trees below in the valley between the peaks. A hawk screeched overhead. He spotted it, despite the glare of the sun, soaring on air currents as it sought its next meal.

  Women weren’t like the mountains he loved. These rocky slopes were predictable, constant. Okay, not really, but they were a helluva lot more stable than the women in his life had been. Maybe more stable than any of the people in his life had ever been.

  Out here, away from people, Marc felt at peace. From what Solari had said, he’d been running to nature for comfort and solace his whole life.

  So why couldn’t he find either today?

  Thoughts of his biological father brought on memories of Gino. Even though Siena wasn’t the same as their birthplace in Brescia, he’d been haunted by dreams of Gino ever since he’d returned from Italy. Disjointed images of Gino. Always the big brother, good and bad. They’d fought, as brothers often do, especially just before Gino enlisted, but Marc was surprised that more of the memories he’d been flooded with lately were of a Gino he’d forgotten about since that time. The Gino who had always tried to guide and protect him. In the absence of a healthy paternal role model in their early years, Gino had assumed that role. Despite being only three years older, Gino had taught the young Marco a lot about life and how to build character.

  “Don’t let them see you cry.”

  “I didn’t, Gino.”

  Ka-thud. Now more than halfway up the face of the falls, he groaned as he pulled himself up a few more feet.

  He’d fought his whole life to keep his emotions hidden away. He thought being strong meant never losing that iron-tight grip on his self-control. But how much control did he really have?

  Marc stretched and swung the axe again. His foot slipped on the wet ice, but he quickly regained his hold by sinking the steel points into a new patch. Enough had slipped away from him lately. He wouldn’t let a fucking frozen waterfall get the best of him.

  Gino’s words continued to bombard Marc as though his brother were right there with him. His voice was older now, perhaps during Gino’s college years. Marco became a bit of a wild child. He’d always chosen nature over his classroom studies, and when it came time to choose a college program, he’d been lost. One thing he knew for certain, he wouldn’t be following Gino on the MBA route.

  “Set your goal and then map out a strategy to get there. Just break it into smaller components. What is it you like to do?”

  “Hike. Camp. Ski.”

  Gino tolerated the outdoors more than enjoyed them. In a resort community, the things Marc loved were a commodity to be bought, sold, and marketed by Gino and his family.

  Surprisingly, instead of telling Marco he needed to be more mature and responsible, Gino smiled.

  “Then get a degree in recreational studies. You need to find a calling in life that is fulfilling for you. One you can enjoy. Otherwise, you’ll just wind up resentful, bitter, and unhappy.”

  Marc stopped and looked over his shoulder at the mountains and valleys stretching behind him for miles. He hadn’t remembered that conversation until now. Gino had accurately described how Marc felt the time he’d been forced to help run the resort in his brother’s absence after Gino joined the Marines.

  Before that, though, Gino helped steer Marc toward the degree he had earned. How had he forgotten that? The view blurred, and he blinked until it cleared again.

  His gut knotted remembering those months after Gino’s death when he tried to fill his brother’s shoes, knowing Gino wouldn’t be back at the desk ever again. Dio, but he’d been so fucking miserable. He could never replace Gino.

  But he didn’t need to. Gino had never demanded it of him. Even his parents hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d left home to join the Navy. Sure, Mama had been bitter at first, but she and Papa had shown up to sit by his hospital bed in Germany when he’d been injured. It became clear to him then that she’d been worried about his safety, not about the bottom line at the resort.

  Ka-thud.

  Almost there. Focus, man.

  But if Gino had cared so deeply about Marc’s welfare, why had he turned around and stabbed him in the back by stealing his girl away, even if it had turned out to be one of the best things to happen in Marc’s life? He shuddered to think what life with Melissa would be like.

  His mind flashed back to the moment he’d found Gino screwing Melissa. Marc had blocked out the visual memory for years, focusing instead on the fight that ensued afterward and the distance it created between the brothers—a chasm that would never be bridged. Something didn’t mesh with the memory he’d had all this time, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Mr. and Mrs. D’Alessio, we regret to inform you…”

  Mama’s scream in anger and grief ricocheted through his head. When she’d been given the news Gino had been killed in Afghanistan, she’d clung to Papa a moment before beating her fist against her husband. Neither had shed any tears that day, but Marc hadn’t either. In fact, he had yet to cry
over the loss of his brother.

  “Don’t let them see you cry.”

  Papa had thanked the uniformed Marine and the Navy chaplain for fulfilling their duty and coming to tell them about Gino’s fate.

  Mama and Papa might not have cried, but they had taken the news of Gino’s loss as hard as any biological parent would. Marc had seen that haunted look in their eyes when they came to visit him in the hospital in Germany, too.

  Clearly, it hadn’t mattered to Papa that Gino and Marc weren’t his sons by birth. He and Mama had raised them almost their entire lives. Marc had never thought about becoming a parent before but knew he could learn to love, protect, and nurture an adopted child as much as one he’d helped make himself.

  Why was it so hard for him to believe his parents could do the same? Why was the notion of being adopted so difficult for him to accept? Would it change who he was?

  Perhaps he’d never figured out who he was in the first place. He’d run to the Navy hoping to find himself. He thought he had, but recent events had shown him he had no clue what he was even searching for.

  Pulling himself up by the embedded axes, Marc listened in disbelief as the right one popped out and ripped from its purchase. Merda. He watched the axe hurtling toward him and grabbed for it with his gloved hand and missed. He hung a bit precariously by the one embedded axe, hoping it wouldn’t give way as well.

  The loose axe came to the end of the bungee leash attached to his harness and bounced a few times off the wall of ice before he pulled it back to him. Climbing with one axe would have been more of a challenge than he wanted right now. Good thing he hadn’t thrown caution to the wind and left the axes untethered.

  Climbing alone today had pushed the boundaries of safety enough. A climber much more expert than he had been killed not too long ago after making a simple mistake, and he’d even had a partner climbing with him. Marc needed to focus.

  Swinging the axe again, he continued to climb a few more meters, hypervigilant to make sure he didn’t screw up. He wasn’t about to switch to wrist straps now, though. He’d just be more careful. He took a deep breath, waiting for the adrenaline surge to hit. When it did, he grabbed the other axe and planted his crampons into the ice for a safe hold.

  The stillness of the day wrapped around him as he continued to climb. Peace surrounded him. Maybe this was where he needed to be—away from everyone, alone on the mountain.

  His inability to come to terms with his past might have cost him Angelina. Hell, no might about it. She left him three weeks ago without a single call to initiate reconciliation. She’d also made it clear she wouldn’t return unless Marc made her a part of his life.

  What kind of life did he have without her in it?

  But how could he be the man she deserved—needed—if he didn’t even know who he was?

  Remembering to climb, now only ten meters from the crest, he swung the axe in his right hand once more and pulled himself up.

  Crack. The stillness exploded again, and he looked up to see a chunk of ice the size of a toaster oven hurtling toward him. Too fast for him to react in time, the ice made a thudding impact against his chest, robbing him of breath. Memories of the mortar attack in Fallujah sent him into full-blown panic mode. His heart raced as his body fell backwards at the impact, but he maintained his toehold as he gripped the still-embedded axe.

  He attempted to fill his lungs. No luck.

  Oh, fuck. Please, not another pneumo.

  At least he hadn’t been knocked off his boots and down the icefall. He clipped himself into the only tool at hand, a nylon sling girth, attaching it to the clip-in point at the base of his axe with a carabiner, which freed up one hand. Hoping to relieve some of the pressure on his chest, Marc twisted and let the chunk of ice fall off of him. The searing pain in his ribs and chest from the simple movement gave him something else to worry about. Had he cracked a rib? If so, he ran the risk of puncturing his lung, if it wasn’t already deflated.

  Shit.

  He reached for two ice screws from his bag. This ascent was over. He needed to get off this ice before any more chunks came hurtling toward him. While his head was protected with his helmet, obviously other parts of his body remained vulnerable.

  He’d ended his climb far short of the goal, but he had no control over that.

  Much like his life.

  Taking advantage of yet another adrenaline rush, Marc slammed two screws into the ice to create an anchor and attached a carabiner to each. He reached for a bundle of rope from his pack and clipped it onto the carabiners.

  Putting himself into a slow, painful rappel, he fought hard to keep his body from bumping along the face of the ice. About halfway down, he dangled in midair a few moments while catching his breath, bracing himself against the wall of ice with gloves and boots as best he could. Pain radiated from his chest, more pain than he’d experienced since Iraq, and the thought of the motion of planting the front points into the ice caused sweat to break out on his upper lip. He grimaced. He needed to get down off this frozen waterfall to assess the damage to his chest and lungs.

  Breathe, man.

  The last thing he needed was to lose his focus—again. He’d blundered today in more ways than one, including not informing anyone of his ice-climbing itinerary. He had his satellite phone with him, though. He’d been involved in enough search-and-rescue missions that had rapidly become recovery operations for people who hadn’t taken that basic precaution.

  When he reached the base of the fall, Marc didn’t bother to recover his rope or other tools. He held his side to keep the aching ribs from being jostled as he inched his way to a nearby boulder. The effort to walk only a few meters drained him. Sagging against the rock, he removed his gloves and then the pack. He dropped them to the ground beside him, and his chest burned from the exertion.

  Marc opened the zipper of his jacket and pulled the black T-shirt from the waistband of his pants. He gasped when his wrist rubbed against the sore rib. He gingerly palpated the area with his cold fingertips. No apparent break. No blood—not externally anyway. He still wasn’t sure how stable that third rib was and didn’t want to chance packing his gear and driving.

  Marc sighed and reached into the side pocket of his pack to pull out his sat phone. Damn, he hated to call, but Luke was the closest to this location with Fairchance only thirty minutes away. He’d rather have Luke know what a fool he’d been than anyone else. If he put out a distress 911 call, word definitely would get back to his squad in Denver. Bad enough he had to call Luke.

  He chose Luke’s number from his contacts list and waited, trying to catch a full breath. Memories of his collapsed lung assailed him, but this didn’t feel that bad. Perhaps he hadn’t reinjured his lung. He hoped not, anyway.

  Luke answered after two rings. “About damned time.” Luke’s voice had an edge to it that confused Marc. Okay, so he hadn’t called his friend in nearly two months. Luke had been easier to shut out lately than his friends in Denver, because Luke had moved two hours away and they were no longer working together on the same SAR squad.

  Now it was Marc who needed rescuing—in more ways than one.

  “I screwed up.”

  “I’ll say. And I have one gorgeous Angel here who would have to agree with us.”

  His chest contracted, making him wonder if maybe he had aggravated the old injury. Angelina had gone to Luke’s?

  Marc tried to tamp down the feelings of jealousy that assaulted him. Why had she gone to Luke, instead of just heading back to her family in nearby Aspen Corners? Of course, she’d given up her rental house there soon after moving in with Marc, but her mom and two brothers lived there. Any of them would have taken her in.

  Had she rekindled something with Luke?

  No. Don’t think like that. The two of them were just friends. Luke wouldn’t betray him the way his own brother had.

  Would he?

  “How is she?”

  “Other than waiting around here for weeks until
you got your act together, she’s fine.”

  Okay, he deserved that. Wait! She was waiting for him? That sounded like there was still hope. But he didn’t want her to see him like this.

  “Can you get away for a couple hours without telling her where you’re headed?”

  “Sure. Angel’s busy in the kitchen fixing dinner. You know that’ll take hours. She’s happier next to a stove than anywhere—except maybe with you, you big ass.”

  Some of the fear and pressure receded, causing him to notice the pain in his chest again. He could trust Luke with his life—and had on occasion during dangerous rescue missions. He also trusted Angelina, even if she didn’t think so. He ought to be grateful to his friend for giving his girl a safe place to land.

  Shit, could he still consider Angelina his girl if she’d moved out on him and they hadn’t spoken to each other since last month?

  He wasn’t ready to deal with the reasons why she’d left him right now. He wasn’t any closer to finding answers to so many questions about his past and who he was than he had been before she walked out.

  Dio, he missed her. But he didn’t want her to see him like this.

  “Look, I’m in a bit of a predicament.”

  “What the hell have you done? If you did anything to hurt Angel—” The censure in Luke’s voice surprised him, more pronounced than at the beginning of this conversation. He knew the man had feelings for Angelina and wouldn’t want to see her hurt, but hell, Marc didn’t want to hurt her either.

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve just had a minor accident.”

  “Damn it, man. Why didn’t you say so? Where are you?” He heard a rustling at the other end. Luke was probably gathering up his gear.

  “Base of Lodgepole Falls. Hang on for the coordinates.” Marc pulled the phone away from his face and looked at the screen. He read off his GPS location to Luke. “Got it?”

  “I know exactly where you are. I’ll be there in forty tops, depending on road conditions. Top-rope?”