by Susan Stoker
“No. But I saw her last night.”
“Where?”
Dane sighed. “I was at the local bar, trashed out of my mind, and she came in and took me home.” Nothing but silence greeted Dane. “Hello? Truck? Still there?”
“You all right?”
Figures that Truck wouldn’t focus on the fact that his little stalker had apparently found him and brought him home. No questions about what they’d done, if he’d fucked her or not. Truck’s only concern was the fact that he’d been drunk. He might be a bit rough around the edges, but when push came to shove, he always showed what a good friend he was. “I’m fine. And no, I’m not an alcoholic. It was a poor decision made on an empty stomach. Once I started, it seemed like a good idea. Believe me, this morning I realized how much of a piss poor one it really was. I’m fine. No need for an intervention.”
“Good. Now talk about the chick.”
Dane chuckled. Now that was the reaction he’d expected in the first place. Then he sobered. He could use a sounding board, and Truck was about as impartial as he was going to get. “Here’s the thing, man, I was pissed when I found out what she’d done at the store. I felt cornered, like it was written all over my face that I was just another soldier with PTSD who couldn’t manage to walk through a damn store without freaking out. You know what I said to her before.”
“Yeah, you said she was a freak.”
Dane winced. It sounded so much worse now that he remembered last night and how much he’d enjoyed Bryn’s company. “I did. And I felt bad about it, but figured what was done was done. Then in she came last night. She didn’t seem to care that I didn’t even have on my prosthetic. I hate wearing the thing. It’s awkward and looks like shit. She didn’t care that my name looks like a first grader’s signature because I haven’t learned to write with my right hand yet. She could drive a stick shift. And the way she…”
Dane’s voice trailed off, not sure he wanted to go into detail about how she’d examined his arm and how it made him feel.
“You sleep with her?”
“No.”
“But you want to,” Truck correctly surmised.
“No,” Dane denied immediately, then snorted and relented. “Maybe.”
“Look, I don’t know what went on, but it’s obvious, at least to me, that she likes you. Women show affection in different ways. Some will ignore you to the extreme, even pretending you aren’t in the same room with them. Or they’ll pick fights with you because they can’t understand or deal with what they’re feeling inside. Others will come right out and tell you they’re interested. You just have to learn to read her signals.”
“She blurts out random facts when she’s nervous and takes things really literally.”
“What else?”
Dane tried to think about the night before. “She’s selfless and generous.” He remembered the twenty percent tip she’d neatly written on the credit card bill. He’d found the receipt in his wallet, which she’d left on the dresser in his room.
“Do you think she’s playing you? That she wants something from you?”
“I have no clue, but I don’t have anything to give her.”
“Now that’s bullshit. You better not be talking about your missing hand. I’ll have to come up there and beat some sense into you. I didn’t spend almost an hour of my life holding your damn artery between my fingers for you to become a grouchy, whiny shut-in who thinks no one will ever like him because of a little scar.”
Dane burst out laughing. “Little?”
“Okay, a big scar, then.”
Dane had no idea how Truck had received—or how he felt about—the scar on his face. It pulled the left side down into a scowl and, combined with his size, made him one scary dude. But missing a hand was a lot different than having a scar. He wasn’t going to compare himself to Truck. No way in hell would he go there, but he figured the other man understood a bit of what was going on in his head. His tone lowered. “No, Truck, that’s not what I feel, exactly. Smalls is just so…blunt. It’s like she doesn’t have a filter and just says what she is thinking. She had no problem looking at my stump. Hell, she seemed excited, in a clinical sense, that she was able to examine it up close. For the first time since it happened, I didn’t feel less of a man in front of a woman.”
“Smalls?”
“Yeah. In my drunken haze last night, I kinda christened her that. She’s only about five feet tall and probably weighs about what our packs did over in the desert.”
“Take my advice,” Truck told Dane in a serious tone. “Get to know her. Without the alcohol in the way. Having a woman say what she means is a gift. You won’t have to wonder what she’s feeling or try to interpret a ‘fine’ or ‘okay’ when you ask how she is. ’Cause I’ll tell you, one hundred percent of the time when a woman says she’s ‘fine,’ she’s not. But trying to figure out if she has a headache, or if she just had surgery and feels like her guts are being pulled out by a pair of tweezers, is one of the hardest things about caring about a woman. It sounds like Smalls has gone out of her way to try to look after you. The least you can do is say thank you for getting your ass home in one piece last night.”
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“Ass,” Dane returned, more comfortable now that they were on familiar ground and not talking about love and feelings anymore.
“Seriously, Dane. Find her. See what you think of her in the light of day. Maybe she is a freak. Maybe she doesn’t give a shit about you, but is trying to simply do a good deed, or maybe she has acrotomophilia.”
“Do I want to know what that is?” Dane asked warily.
“It’s someone who’s sexually attracted to amputees. It’s a fetish.”
Dane didn’t really have a response to that. He didn’t truly think Bryn was attracted to him because he was missing part of his arm, but honestly, he had no idea. The fact that there were people out there who were sexually attracted to amputees freaked him out a little, and gave him one more thing to be worried about when it came to getting into a relationship.
“My point is that you should get to know her. You’ll figure it out soon enough. You’re a smart guy.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Truck returned immediately. “Now, I gotta go. I’m picking Mary up from a doctor’s appointment in a bit.”
“What’s up with you two?” Dane asked.
“It’s complicated,” was Truck’s informative reply.
“It sounds like it.”
“But I’ll tell you this…she’s worth it. She’s worth every second of sleep I’ve lost, every moment of worry, and every headache she’s given me.”
“You and her are a thing?” Dane questioned. “I mean, last I knew, you weren’t exactly her favorite person.”
“Mary’s complicated,” Truck repeated. “She’s had a tough life. Extremely tough. She’s learned that she can’t completely trust anyone.”
“I thought she trusted Rayne.”
“She does. To a point. But I think there’s a part of her that’s just waiting for Rayne to let her down too. So she does what she’s done her entire life. Cuts people out of the important shit she has going on so as not to be disappointed.”
“Rayne’s not going to be happy.”
“I know. But at the moment, she’s not my concern. Mary is. I’m working on showing her that I can be trusted. That when I say something, I follow through and mean it.”
“Good luck, man,” Dane told him.
“Thanks. But I don’t need it. I can out-stubborn that woman any day of the week. She means somethin’ to me and I’m not letting her push me out. I can help her, with her current and past issues. But enough about me. Keep me in the loop with Smalls. You know if you need us, we’re there.”
“I will, and I appreciate you having my back. Tell the others I said hello.” Dane hadn’t spoken much lately to the rest of the team, but was appreciative of them all the same. After the
shit with Kassie, he’d only gotten closer to them all. It felt good. Really good.
“Will do. Just throwing this out there…the guys and I have been talking about taking a trip to Northwest Idaho in the near future.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“It’s about time. I’d love to see all of you…without the whole, you know, kidnapping of girlfriends and asshole ex-boyfriends and their creepy friends to deal with.”
Truck chuckled. “I’ll make it happen. And Dane?”
“Yeah?”
“Prepare yourself for a hell of a ride with this chick. If you’ve given her a nickname, she’s already gotten under your skin.”
“Later, Truck.” Dane didn’t bother contradicting the other man. He’d think what he wanted regardless if Dane denied it or not.
“Later.”
Dane clicked off the phone and drummed his fingers on the kitchen counter. He was excited about Truck and the others coming to visit, but at the moment he had more important things on his mind. He recalled tracing the edge of her bra, how her little nipples had peaked without him even touching them…and the look of surprise and bewilderment on Bryn’s face when she realized how her body was reacting to him.
She’d been confused by her reaction to him, and it was that innocence, that small glimpse of insecurity that made his decision this afternoon easy. He wanted to get to know her. Wanted to know all about her. Why she seemed to be a walking encyclopedia. How she’d known exactly what he needed in the grocery store to feel more comfortable. Why she’d quit.
He had no idea where she lived or what she did as a job, but if she could find him at Smokey’s Bar last night, he could certainly find her. He hadn’t spent a good chunk of his life as a Delta Force soldier to fail now. Rathdrum wasn’t that big…if Bryn worked in the small town, he’d find her.
Pushing off the barstool next to his counter, Dane headed for his room. He needed to change out of the sweats he had on, put on his prosthetic, and head into town. He had some questions for one Bryn Hartwell, and he felt anticipation for the first time in what seemed like forever. He’d figure out what her deal was once and for all. And maybe, just maybe, he’d get a second chance to see, and touch, her delectable body.
A man could hope.
Chapter Five
Bryn pushed the cart around the Rathdrum Public Library and tried not to think any more about the night before. It had been an exciting night, life-changing, one she knew she’d never forget, even if Dane didn’t remember anything about it. It felt so good to take care of him and have him trust her. After the long walk back to the bar, she’d gotten home around five-thirty, slept for three hours, then got up to make her shift.
She’d never needed a lot of sleep. Even at a young age, she would go up to her room at the appropriate time, but she’d stay up late reading, doing math problems, and surfing the Internet, trying to quench her ever-growing thirst for knowledge. Typically, she only needed around four hours of sleep but could get by on two or three if necessary.
Her parents were happy to send her off to boarding school when she was nine. Bryn knew they loved her in their own way, and their way was to send her money for birthdays and holidays. The only thing Bryn had ever wanted from her parents was their affection…and it was something they never knew how to give.
Even today, their relationship was distant. They’d call on her birthday and send cards at Christmas, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. At this point in her life, Bryn had given up on ever getting more than distant affection from them.
Shaking her head to try to dispel the depressing thoughts of her family, she turned her attention to the books she had to put back on the shelves. Working at the public library wasn’t exactly her dream job, but it paid the bills and kept her feeling more like an everyday person. She’d tried to work in a lab when she was twenty-one, but found herself getting bored. Most people would probably never understand if she tried to explain that sitting behind a microscope and doing calculations and research was boring, but it had been.
Bryn wanted to be like everyone else. Talking about advanced quantum physics and solving math problems that had no numbers in them made her an outcast.
So working in small-town Rathdrum and re-shelving books after they’d been returned was perfect…for now. Besides, she had all the books she could ever want, and if once in a while she got the urge to figure out how the wiring in her apartment worked or how to take apart and put back together the garbage disposal, she could indulge her too-smart brain and do it without anyone being the wiser.
She grabbed the next book and looked at the title. Dangers of Fertilizer. Bryn’s nose wrinkled…she knew people could make a bomb with fertilizer, but didn’t know otherwise how it might be dangerous. She flipped through the book and realized that there was a chapter on making a bomb with the kind of fertilizer that could be found on hardware store shelves. But perhaps more alarmingly, there were handwritten notes and highlights in the book…in that specific chapter.
Bryn froze for a moment and bit her lip. She didn’t know what to do. The last thing she wanted was to accuse someone of something. Maybe they were like her…simply interested in how things worked.
Undecided, she put the book down and picked up another stack. She’d work on those first, then get back to the fertilizer one. Seeing a couple in a clench on a cover of the romance she was holding, she sighed in relief that it wasn’t a book on how to make a bomb or something equally as alarming. She never understood the concept of romance novels, they just weren’t realistic, but she did get that a lot of women read them. The library was constantly getting requests for specific authors, and Bryn was always restocking the romance shelves.
After an hour of putting the borrowed romances back, she picked up another batch of books. Hardware. She pushed the cart to the craft section and turned the book over to see what it was about. Design and Build Your Own Doomsday Bunker.
Cool was the first thing Bryn thought at seeing the title. Seeing this kind of book wasn’t exactly surprising in this part of Idaho, but she hadn’t really thought much about it herself. Looking around for the head librarian to make sure the woman didn’t see her wasting time, Bryn flipped through the book. There were diagrams on how far down to dig depending on how many people you’d be sharing the bunker with, how to get fresh water, and what do to about human waste while underground.
She was about to shut the book and shelve it, when handwriting in the margin caught her attention.
There were arrows drawn around a few paragraphs and what looked like a shopping list. But it was the words fertilizer storage, with an arrow pointing to a small space on a sample bunker on the page, that stood out. Not to mention the handwriting was similar to the notes in the fertilizer book.
It was too much of a coincidence, and one that Bryn knew she couldn’t overlook.
Now she was curious, and when she got curious, she couldn’t just let it go. It drove her mother crazy when she’d been growing up. Once she got interested in something, she had to see it, hear it, or experience it for herself. When she was only five, after seeing a high schooler’s textbook and listening to her talk to her friend about how gross it had been, Bryn had nagged, cajoled, and pleaded with her mom to let her dissect a frog, until she’d allowed it…if only to teach Bryn a lesson.
After explaining to the high school anatomy teacher a little bit about Bryn’s intelligence and desire to learn, he’d agreed. But instead of the trip being traumatic or a deterrent for her, young Bryn had chatted and hung out with Mr. Adams for two hours one afternoon after classes were over. She still remembered it to this day—and it had been proof for her mom that when Bryn’s curiosity kicked in, it was better to indulge her rather than try to talk her out of it.
So seeing the book on fertilizer and the notes in the margin of the one on bunkers made Bryn want to know who had checked them out, why, what they were planning, who else was involved, and how and where they were going to
build the bunker in which they wanted to store fertilizer. And, of course, she wanted to see the bunker when it was done.
“Are you done, Bryn?”
She almost jumped out of her skin, but managed to calmly put the book on how to build a bunker face down on the cart and turn to the librarian.
“Yes, ma’am. I only need to finish up these last few books.”
“Good. Story hour just finished and the children’s area is a disaster. Can you please go and help put the books back in their proper places?”
Bryn nodded. “Sure.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Bryn watched the older matronly woman walk away and sighed to herself. She didn’t want to think bad of anyone, but Rosie Peterman was a stereotypical librarian. Probably in her mid-forties, she looked like she was at least ten years older. Her long hair was graying at the roots and usually was held back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She was average height and wore clothes more suited to a woman in her sixties.
But the worst was that she lived alone and had five or six—Bryn could never remember the exact number—cats. It wasn’t the living alone thing that bothered Bryn the most, it was the thought that she herself was going to end up being just like the librarian someday. Alone. Set apart from society and not able to integrate.
As she made her way to the children’s area, Bryn thought about Dane. He’d called her a freak, but he didn’t seem to mind her being weird the night before. Yes, he’d been drunk, but he wasn’t a mean drunk, and that went a long way in Bryn’s eyes. She’d seen too many men who turned angry and aggressive when they’d had too much alcohol. Not Dane. He was funny, silly, and made her feel like a woman for the first time in her life. He’d hadn’t seen Bryn Hartwell, the super-smart outcast. He’d acted like he’d enjoyed her company, and when Bryn closed her eyes, she could see his smile in her head as if she’d seen it every day of her life.
Thoughts of Dane and his embarrassment over his messy signature made her think about his missing hand, which made her want to know more about the science behind his amputation. Determined to quickly put the kids’ area back to rights so she could find some books on missing limbs before her shift was over, Bryn moved the two books on fertilizer and bunkers to the bottom of the stack still waiting to be shelved. She’d deal with those later. For now, thoughts of Dane and his missing hand were first and foremost in her mind.