“Well, we can give it the ol’ college try after I hit the head,” she said, pushing the covers off her long, luscious legs and heading toward the hallway.
He wanted to tell her to “hurry back, because the bed feels empty without you.” But he feared what would come out would be, “I felt empty without you.” Instead, he kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself.
Keep it simple, stupid.
She only disappeared for a few moments before returning to scoot under the covers. He took his own trek to the bathroom and when he came back, he paused in the doorway at the sight of her buried under the quilt.
She lifted the corner. “C’mon. What are you waiting for?”
With a sharp nod, more to himself than her, he entered the room and climbed in with her.
She let out a great big sigh of contentment as their bodies meshed, their arms intertwined, and their hands found the perfect spots to hold onto.
You seemed more relaxed,” Marc said to him, adjusting his awkward duty belt more comfortably over his hips.
Matt finished buttoning up his uniform shirt, grabbed his trouser belt from his locker, and concentrated on sliding it through the belt loops. “Do I?”
“Pussy will do that to you.”
He halted the belt’s progression and looked up at his brother. “What did you just say?”
Marc put his palms out and backed up a step, laughing. “Just playin’.”
Max pushed his way into the tiny locker room. “What are you shit for brains talking about?”
“Matt getting laid,” Marc volunteered.
“No, that’s not what we’re talking about,” Matt said, giving his back to his brothers. He sat on the wooden bench and pulled on his black tactical boots. It felt good to be putting the uniform back on after a week.
As he adjusted his pant legs over his ankle-high boots, a female voice floated in. “Well, if that ain’t one hell of a man sandwich, I don’t know what is.”
Amanda.
Matt stood, hiking up his pants, and faced his sister-in-law. “What are you doing here?”
She held baby Hannah in her arms. The kid was awake but quiet, thankfully.
“Picking up my handsome husband and dropping Hannah off at the ‘rents so we can have some alone time.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Can you do that so soon?” Marc asked, surprised. “Just asking for a friend.” Then he laughed.
“Why? You planning your own babies soon?” Max asked, whacking Marc in the arm.
“Nope. Leah has no mothering instinct right now. And I’m not going to encourage it.” He faced Amanda and said, “So don’t let her hold Hannah a lot. I don’t want her hormones to go crazy.”
“You mean there are women out there without crazy hormones?” Max asked, laughing.
“Shit. I need to run to the restroom.” She shoved Hannah in Matt’s direction. “Can you hold her for a sec?”
Matt looked at the baby like it was a piece of raw liver. No way, no how was he holding that thing.
Max, too busy changing into his civvies, didn’t have any hands free and Marc quickly pushed past Amanda out the door. “I’ll start on patrol if you watch the baby.” Then he disappeared in a flash.
The fucker. He didn’t want to hold the baby either.
Amanda shoved Hannah toward him again. “C’mon. She won't hurt you. And you’re not going to break her. She’s got really soft bones. Don’t ask me how I know.”
Max snickered, giving them his back as he pulled off his shirt.
“Here.” She shoved the baby against his chest. “Take her or she’s going to fall when I let go.”
Damn it. She was the stubbornest woman he’d ever met. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this on a daily basis,” he told Max.
“Oh, whatever!” Amanda exclaimed.
Then she let Hannah go and Matt’s instinct to protect the kid kicked in and he held the infant against his chest in his arms, trying not to look down into her face.
“See? Not so bad. I’ll be right back.” And with that she was gone.
“Can you take your kid?” he pleaded with Max.
“After I’m done changing.” His older brother glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like she may actually like you. Hard to believe.”
Matt reluctantly glanced down into Hannah’s face. Her little cupid’s bow lips were parted and her fists jerked uncontrollably, reminding him of Greg. She let out a soft, little sound. Like a coo.
Matt’s nostrils flared as he struggled to breath and his vision faltered. “Will you take this thing?” He tried to keep the panic from his voice, but it remained difficult. He couldn’t control the sudden stiffening of his spine and his ears began to ring.
Max turned on him. “She’s not a thing. She’s my daughter.”
Matt closed his eyes, his fingers gripping the baby tighter. “Sorry. Sorry. Please. Just take her.”
Then Max’s hands were there, prying her from his arms. “What’s the matter with you?”
Matt couldn’t look at his brother. He couldn’t look at his niece. He couldn’t get his mouth to work properly. “I… I…”
“Matt, snap out of it!”
“I just want to go to work,” he finally spat out.
“Then fucking go. Jesus.”
Matt blindly turned and rushed out of the room and down the hall, Max’s voice following him. “She’s only a baby!”
Amanda looked at him in surprise as he pushed past her toward the back door. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled to her.
“For what?” she asked.
Instead of answering her, he slammed the exit bar on the door with his palms and stepped out into the afternoon light. He gulped air into his lungs and turned his face into the warmth of the sun’s rays.
The heat and the fresh air washed away remnants of his panic. The muscles in his chest loosened and he sucked in oxygen at a normal pace.
He pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and scrolled through his contacts.
“Dr. Stephens,” came the voice that instantly calmed him.
“We can’t have sex anymore,” he told her in a rush.
He heard a slight hesitation on the other end. “What?”
“We can’t fuck anymore.”
“Uh. Why?”
“Because you want a baby.”
He heard a rustling through the phone and then her next words sounded muffled like she covered her mouth. “You’re not making any sense. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You want a baby,” he repeated, wishing his brain would make sense.
“Okay. And? What does that have to do with us having sex? I can’t get pregnant.”
He knew that. He knew. But that wasn’t the reason, yet he couldn’t get his thoughts straight to explain it to her. Nor could he grasp it himself.
He was being an asshole.
That was clear to him.
He was trying to cut off the best thing that had happened to him in his life. The only thing that made him feel whole.
All because he’d held Amanda’s baby in his arms. And it freaked him the fuck out. He shook his head, trying to gather a shred of sanity.
“Matt, are you okay?”
“No,” he said with a groan. “No. I will never be okay.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered harshly.
“But it’s true.”
“Matt, don’t say that. I love you. It’ll be okay.”
Pulling the phone away from his ear, he stared at it in horror. Now his brain really was playing tricks on him.
He put the phone back to his ear. Had he imagined what she said? “What?”
“I love you,” she repeated slowly.
“No.”
“Yes. I do.”
“No. You can’t.”
“But I do.”
“Fuck you, Carly. You can’t!” he shouted. He whipped the phone across the parking lot and watched it shatter into pieces along the pavement. Heaving a d
eep breath, he doubled over and released a scream that would have curdled milk.
“Get undressed and go the fuck home. I don’t want to see you for at least another week.”
Matt didn’t turn around. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see the censure in his brother’s eyes. He didn’t want to see the horror in Amanda’s. It was bad enough he knew it existed.
He hung his pounding head and nodded, his lungs burning as he panted. He almost apologized…again. But he stopped himself. He stood in the middle of the parking lot, staring at the pavement, while he listened to Max and Amanda load the baby in the car and drive away. Once he was alone, he turned back to station and went inside to strip himself of his uniform.
And his pride.
Every day that Carly came home and didn’t see the 4Runner, the disappointment, the dread, the sadness increased, leaving an ache deep inside her.
She never should have told him. She knew he would freak out.
And she was right.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Just the fact of her telling him she loved him had once again drove him over the edge. She didn’t know why she did it.
Oh, that’s right. He tried to push her away and she grew desperate. Any other man may have been flattered. However, Matt wasn’t any other man.
In the past week, Mary Ann had invited her over for dinner a couple times, but she couldn’t face his parents. Even though they didn’t know the details of what happened.
They only knew he had disappeared.
Once again.
She couldn’t eat, anyway. Her stomach felt painfully hollow, empty at the thought he may have done what he’d threatened to do. Go back overseas. To go back to the turmoil and the pain. Something familiar.
And it would be all her fault.
She couldn’t live with herself if he got himself hurt or killed.
Max had called her every day, asking if she’d seen him. And every day before he hung up, he’d try to reassure her by saying, “He’ll turn up.”
That didn’t sound promising. People turned up all the time. Though, sometimes not in the most desirable of ways.
Like a robot, she went through the motions of going to work every day, seeing her patients, listening to fetal heartbeats, giving advice. She even delivered a baby this week, and her normal excitement of bringing a new life into this world had been missing.
When her phone rang on the counter, she rushed to it and looked at the Caller ID. With trembling fingers, she picked it up and swiped across the screen.
She couldn’t even say hello.
She heard his breath on the other end of the line and she wanted to collapse in relief.
At least he was alive.
“I’m sorry.”
Her anger bubbled up at how worried he’d made her. “Stop apologizing all the time,” she snapped. Then she took a breath and composed herself. “Where are you? And if you say Iraq or Afghanistan—or, hell, Syria—I’m flying over there this minute to strangle you.”
She wished she was kidding, but she wasn’t.
“I wanted to let you know I’m okay.”
“Tell me where you are.” His silence made her squeeze the phone tighter. “Matt…”
“I’m okay, Carly.”
No, he wasn’t. He was not okay. People didn’t just vanish from their loved ones like that.
She heard voices in the background.
“I need to get off the phone now.”
“Why? Is someone making you get off the phone?”
“I have to go.”
“Matt. Tell me where you are.” Her words may have sounded calm out loud, but in her head she screamed. “Did you at least talk to Max?”
“Yes.”
The phone went dead.
She stared at the screen as it went dark. She quickly pushed the power button and scrolled through her contacts until she found Max’s number.
His gruff greeting brought a sense of relief to her.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“What?”
“Max, tell me where he is.” His hesitation made her want to scream. “I know you know, he told me he talked to you.”
Max didn’t disguise the surprise in his voice. “You talked to him?”
“Yes. Just now. Only for a few seconds.”
“I tried to stay out of it but now I need to ask…What’s going on between you two?”
Carly opened her mouth and then shut it with a snap. A disaster, that’s what, she wanted to say.
“Whatever it is, it’s triggering something.”
Carly closed her eyes, holding the phone to her ear, but unable to speak.
“Doc?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I mean… I know… Oh fuck.”
“Huh. Sounds like how my relationship with Amanda started. Sort of one of those oh-fuck-what-the-fuck-holy-fuck-what-the-fuck-are-we-doing starts. I can’t say it was easy in the least. And believe me, I’m sure dealing with Matt is twice, three times, hell, a million times messier than what I had to deal with Amanda.” He chuckled, then sobered quickly. “Carly, listen. I have a feeling something big is going on between the two of you. Even so, he needs to give me permission to tell you where he is.”
“And he didn’t give it,” Carly whispered into the phone, gripping it harder.
“I didn’t ask. But I promise I will.”
She nodded, then realized Max couldn’t see her. “Please.”
He cleared his throat. “Uh… Are you in love with my brother?”
She sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “I think so,” she said softly.
“Oh shit. How did that happen?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t need to you tell me how that happens. I guess I’m trying to figure out how anyone could fall in love with that walking…” He blew out a loud breath. “Catastrophe.”
“He’s not a catastrophe.”
“Oh hell, you’re definitely in love.”
She sighed. “Okay, he’s a mess. However, he’s a good person.”
Max sighed. “He’s an asshole. You know why? Because he brought all this on himself. He had the option to come home several times. He didn’t. He made that decision. No one else.” His voice became thick and he hesitated. “But seriously, he truly has a good heart. Though you can’t convince him of that. I talked to his C.O.s—”
“C.O.s?”
“Commanding officers,” he clarified. “Just in an attempt to figure him out, figure out what he went through to try to find a way to help him. He’s my baby brother, my blood. It hurts me to see him like this.”
Carly dropped her head into her hand. “Me too.”
“If you want my advice, you should just leave him alone. Save yourself from all the heartache and pain.”
“I don’t want your advice.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. But it was free and you got it anyway.”
“Love sucks,” she groaned.
“Yeah, maybe. It’s like a tattoo. It hurts like a bitch until it heals, and then you realize it was all worth it in the end. It turns into a piece of art. Sometimes it’s fucked up art, but it’s art you can appreciate for the rest of your life.”
“That is the most screwed up analogy.”
Max laughed on the other end of the phone. “I know. I suck at that stuff.”
“Amanda is a lucky woman,” she said softly, meaning it.
“Nah. I’m the lucky one. And we’re lucky we had you to deliver our baby girl. Welcome to the family, Doc. You’re going to be on one fucked up ride. So hang on tight.”
And with that, he hung up.
Forget buckling a seatbelt for this ride. She needed a five-point race car harness.
Chapter 15
Carly watched Amanda move around the kitchen of the Boneyard Bakery. The little dog biscuit bakery the woman had built from the ground up was impressive.
She perched on one of the stainless-steel counters with Hannah in her arms. The baby slept soundly and she di
dn’t want to wake her. Though, the kid was becoming heavy and hot.
The infant was precious though. The ache in her chest widened as she gazed down at the baby’s face, her little bow-like lips parted as she slept.
“You don’t have to keep holding her,” Amanda told Carly as she pulled out a huge sack of flour to start a fresh batch of dough. “I know after a while she feels as heavy as a cement block.”
“I want to.”
“Have you heard from him lately?” Amanda asked, as she gathered the rest of the ingredients.
There was no doubt who Amanda was talking about. “No. Not since that one quick phone call.”
Amanda shook her head. “Sorry.”
“It’s been a month. Do you know where he is?”
Amanda hesitated and avoided her eyes. “Yes.”
“But you can’t tell me.”
“I want to. But it’s up to Matt.”
Carly nodded. As a doctor she understood the privacy thing, though now that it affected her, she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“Am I the cause for what happened? Am I the reason he left?” Carly asked.
Amanda laughed, stopped what she was doing, and slapped her hands on her hips. “Hell no. Don’t you ever take the blame for Matt’s actions.”
Hannah sighed in her sleep and smacked her lips. Carly smiled down at the bundle in her arms. How did someone go from innocent and unknowing like Hannah to damaged and out of control like Matt?
Life. Life happened.
And sometimes it came at you like a speeding freight train and you don’t have time to jump out of the way before it hits you.
“Max told me about the conversation you and he had,” Amanda confessed.
“I figured he would.”
“Don’t be mad, we tell each other everything,” Amanda said as she went back to doing her thing with the industrial-sized mixer.
“I understand. I’m not mad.”
“He said he welcomed you to the family. So I assume you’re fucked like Leah and me.” She snorted. “Just kidding. Max was the best thing to come into my life… Well, besides Greg… Oh, and his crazy family. And that damn dog.” She tilted her head toward Chaos, the black and white border collie, who curled up asleep in a dog bed, his legs and face twitching as he chased bunnies in his dreams.
Brothers in Blue: Matt Page 13