“At least I know the rumors are true.” Marina shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Black men are hung like horses.” One clear crystal eye winked at Kat.
“Mar.” Oliver’s upper lip curled, and his mouth dropped open.
Across the room, Sloan snickered.
“Not a word from you, Mrs. McCord,” Baine warned.
“What?” Sloan chuckled and pointed at her chest. “I didn’t say a word.” Her brow arched high. “But if I had, it’d have been a big one.” Her large grin and the glint in her eyes challenged Baine.
“I’ll give you a big one,” he warned.
Kat broke into a fit of giggles. Hunter turned his amber gaze on her and offered a smile that warmed her to her toes.
“Everyone to breakfast in the main house,” Baine ordered. “Except for you two.” He pointed at her and Hunter. “You’ll need clothes first.”
“Don’t know if I can eat, but I can always drink coffee.” Oliver nodded.
“That sounds great.” Marina offered Oliver her hand. Oliver looked from her to Hunter, as though making sure he was real.
“I’m not going anywhere, man.” Hunter grabbed a pillow from the bed and held it in front of his waist.
“It’s damn good to see you, brother.” Oliver straightened, grabbed Marina’s hand, and followed the others out the door.
They listened in silence as the four descended the stairs and exited the cottage. When the door closed behind them, the silence remained. Hunter didn’t say much as he hopped over to the drawer, grabbed clean clothes, and laid them on the bed with no help from her. Not long ago, he’d required her assistance for even the simplest tasks. Now, he was completely independent. The evil cocktail of pride and sorrow mixed itself inside her belly.
Hunter moved through the progression of dressing with his head down. He was a million miles from the bedroom.
Kat swallowed the tears threatening to topple her and walked to the bathroom. With every step, she begged him to call to her, to give her a sign that she still mattered. The cold tile floor gave her more comfort than the absence of his attention. She closed the door, leaned against it, and let the sadness fall silently onto her feet.
The connection they’d had only moments ago seemed so fragile an ardent wind could carry it away.
“Kat?”
“Yes?” She sucked back the tears, wiped her face with the towel on the back of the door, and reached for the knob.
“I’m going to head down. You don’t have to rush.”
“Okay.” Kat sat on the edge of the tub and listened to Hunter’s retreat from her life. Her fists clamped into tiny balls of rage. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her heart fractured into a thousand pieces.
25
Hunter took the cottage stairs two at a time and prayed the prosthesis would keep up with him. Adrenaline dumped near fatal amounts of Holy Fuck into his veins. Sweat slicked his brow. His muscles pumped full with the intoxicated blood. He reached the landing on two feet instead of his face, exhaled and grabbed the doorknob. His hand slipped off the metal, and the momentum carried him chin first into the thick oak.
“Fuck.” His grunt filled the empty room. He sidestepped and mentally checked himself.
Oliver had just arrived. He and Baine were likely not through all the introductions yet. Too bad the girls were at school and couldn’t run interference. When they were around, it took twice as long to accomplish the simplest of tasks.
He wiped his palm on his jeans. This time his grip held and the door opened. It closed too loudly behind him, but he couldn’t stop himself from running across the gravel. Frosted wind swept under his T-shirt. He didn’t slow to curse it.
The back door opened and Law stepped out with the leather log carrier. His forearm lifted in a quick defensive move that it took Hunter a second to realize was aimed at him. The large man reeled the arm back in and sized him up. “Blast it, Masters. I could’ve laid you out.”
“You wish.” Hunter eased his pace but jockeyed for a way around the operative who’d made him feel more at home than Hunter had ever felt at his apartment.
“Look.” Law dropped the wood carrier to the side of the walkway and closed the door, halting Hunter’s progress. “I can see you’re excited to get inside and talk to your friends…”
That should have been the reason Hunter wanted inside so badly, but it wasn’t close. He needed inside the house, in the conversation to make sure no one said anything to Oliver about Kat being a Royan. If that was the first thing Ollie found out about her, it would color his every opinion. More than anything, he wanted his friend to like the doctor who’d brought him back from the dead and stolen his heart right out of his chest in the process.
Law’s eyes drifted off farther than the trees for a second too long before coming back around. “The transition into an old life—especially when things have changed—is harder than you’d think.”
“I know I’m not going back to the field.” Hunter kicked the dirt.
“I’m not talking about your physical changes.” Law dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. “Judging by how fast you were clipping it to the house, your leg won’t hold you up much at all. It’s the stuff they can’t see. Hell, it’s the stuff you can’t see that’ll trip you up.”
“Talking from experience?”
“It’s like us and civilians.” His new friend nodded once. “They think they know what we’ve been through because they saw a documentary on PTSD or they watched Saving Private Ryan. Fellow operatives will think they know what you’ve been through because they’ve experienced battle. They won’t get it any more than the civilian does a soldier’s life.”
Law must have seen the skepticism in Hunter’s gaze. More than anyone, Oliver got him.
“Transition is hard for even the best friendships. Just take it slow. Don’t expect too much from yourself or others.”
“They’ll always disappoint you?”
“No.” Law grabbed the leather carrier. “You’ll do that all on your own.”
His new friend clapped him on the back and headed for the wood pile. Hunter stood suspended in the honesty of the man’s imparted wisdom. He’d created a life for himself devoid of any real vulnerability. If you didn’t give people the opportunity to disappoint you, they couldn’t. In doing so, he’d set himself up for lifelong defeat.
Through the door’s window, he saw the only person he’d ever let into his life pacing back and forth in the living room. Oliver was his best friend. They knew enough about the other’s demons to let them sleep while they’d run at life full tilt. Marina moved into the frame of Hunter’s vision and extended her hand to his best friend. Oliver grabbed it like the last ammo rounds in a knee-deep battle. His steps ceased. He pulled Mar into his arms, and a deep breath settled his shoulders.
Maybe he and Oliver had been running away from life. As much time and trouble as they dusted up around the world, none of it ever brought the look of contentment to his face as much as Marina’s touch did.
Oliver didn’t know the depth of Hunter’s scars. The only one he’d ever let glimpse those mangled parts of his soul was Kat. He hadn’t made the conscious choice to let her in, but something about her quieted his inner turmoil, lowered his defenses, and allowed him to connect on a level so deep he hadn’t known it existed until her.
Hunter opened the back door and stepped inside.
“Morning, hung—I mean handsome.” Sloan laughed and set the last two plates onto the table.
“I heard that.” Baine uncovered the phone’s receiver and continued his hushed conversation inside a large pantry.
“I meant for you to.” Sloan giggled. She turned to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of orange juice. “Breakfast will be ready in ten.”
“Ish,” Baine added.
Sloan stuck out her tongue at her husband. “I’m not as good at timing as you are. Remember, until a year ago, my go-to meal was cereal.”
“Year and a half,” he
corrected.
“Not quite,” she shot back.
“It feels like forever.” Baine grabbed his head and groaned.
Oliver and Marina eased to the threshold between the kitchen and living room. Sloan winged a thin biscuit at her husband’s head. He snagged it out of the air and bit off a large bite.
Law opened the door behind Hunter and stepped inside with a full load of wood. “Ooh, I’ll have one.” He opened his mouth wide.
Hunter walked through the kitchen and toward his friend. He didn’t know if Sloan chucked Law a biscuit or if he’d grabbed one for himself, but when Law walked around Hunter and to the hearth, he held half of one and chewed on the other. Hunter stopped in front of Oliver and stared at the man whose life he would have happily given his for. Gone was the man’s signature wavy blond locks and the full beard he’d rocked since Hunter had known him.
“I don’t know which is worse; me losing a leg or you losing your hair.” Hunter smiled at his friend. Scars occupied what had been bloody flesh where Tor Royan had shaved off Oliver’s hair.
His friend harrumphed and pulled Marina into his side. “You’re just worried the ladies will die for my devilishly handsome mug.”
“Ladies?” Marina smacked a hand against Oliver’s stomach.
The woman who barbed his friend while openly loving him wasn’t the same woman they’d rescued from the prison Tor had made for her. Muscles instead of bone etched her frame. A smirk sat pretty where a hollow frown once had been.
“I’m just starting the list of reasons I can’t be his wingman anymore,” Oliver explained.
“You think I ever needed a wingman?” Hunter scoffed. “That was just to help you get lai—” Marina’s narrowed gaze cut him off. “Some attention every once in a while,” he amended.
They laughed, but too soon the raucous sound faded. Reality stared them in the face. Marina straightened from Oliver and stepped back, breaking the small circle and leaving them face to face.
“Tucker wouldn’t tell me much of anything.” Oliver rolled his shoulders. “I can’t fucking believe he knew you were alive for a month and didn’t tell me.”
“Hey, now,” Baine warned, now off the phone. “Tucker has a duty to all his men, not just you, Knight.” The European commander for Base Branch operations called Ollie by his last name. They didn’t know one another beyond internal reports and a handshake. “Keeping intel from our own is the hardest job we have, but it serves a purpose.”
“Yes, sir,” Oliver agreed. “It just—” His jaw flexed.
“Fucking sucks,” Baine offered.
“Yes, sir.” Oliver looked Hunter in the eyes. “It fucking sucked. I still don’t understand why he couldn’t tell me, but what I really don’t get is why you kept silent for five goddamned months.” His hand scraped over his tightly cropped hair.
Kat stepped between him and Oliver. He hadn’t heard her enter. “Because he was in a coma for more than a month and had a long road to recovery.” Her chin jutted.
Oliver stepped back and peered around Kat. “Hunter, who’s your guard dog?”
“Oliver, Marina, meet Kat.” Hunter pulled Kat into his side. Shit, this was not going the way he hoped. He wanted Ollie to like his woman as much as he did. Well, maybe not that much. But he wanted them to like one another.
“Nothing against you, Kat. It’s just…this situation is crazy.” Oliver’s gaze slid to Hunter. A deep sorrow hung around its edges. “We looked for you for a long time. There was nothing in the rubble. No body. No sign you’d been there.” Ollie rubbed his chest. “I knew you were alive, which hurt more because I—” His teeth flashed white in disgust. “I couldn’t help you.”
“Kat saved me.” Hunter rubbed his thumb over the smooth skin on the back of her hand. “Nothing against you, Ollie. It’s just…Kat has more first-aid knowledge in a strand of her hair than you have in your head.”
“Have you seen the size of my head?” Oliver begged.
“Both of them.” Hunter nodded.
The ladies choked in unison.
“What?” He shrugged. “I was talking about his actual skull and his ego.”
“Sure, you were.” Marina stepped around Oliver and offered her hand. “Hi, Kat. I’m Marina.” Kat sized up the young woman for a few beats before meeting her halfway for a shake. “Anyone who cares about Hunter as much as you obviously do is a friend of mine. While Oliver saved my life, Hunter saved our relationship.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. All he’d done was give her the pep talk she needed to pursue Oliver. “I’m glad you two worked out.”
Oliver and Marina looked at each other and then back at Hunter.
“It wasn’t easy,” Mar admitted. “When he lost you, he quit everything. Not even Royan’s death helped him.”
Kat turned from pliant to stone in his arms. “Royan’s death?”
Hunter prayed they were talking about her uncle’s death. The hairs on the back of his neck stood tall, offering the answer before anyone else.
Oliver nodded. “I was supposed to kill the bastard to better the world.” Tears welled in his bare-knuckle brawling, motorcycle riding, all night partying friend’s eyes. “I killed Tor for you, but it didn’t help.” He sucked back the emotion. “It didn’t bring you back.”
Kat clamped a hand over her mouth. It didn’t deaden the scream that escaped her throat at all. It reverberated in Hunter’s eardrums and liquified every cell in his body.
“What?” Oliver crouched into a defensive position. His gaze swung left and right. When he found no intruders, he turned back to them. “What’s wrong?”
“Tor Royan was her father,” he whispered.
She cringed. Kat’s pain became his. Every tear that streaked her cheek gouged a path in his skin. She crumpled onto herself. Hunter hooked a hand under her legs and gathered her to his chest. Her face burrowed in the crook of his chin.
“Motherfu…” A hundred different emotions toyed with Oliver’s features.
Hunter turned and walked them slowly through the kitchen.
Tears framed Sloan’s amber eyes. She strangled a dish towel as though it were her greatest adversary.
Baine’s face was a mask of indifference. When Hunter drew near, the massive man whispered, “I’ll take care of them.” If he didn’t know the many facets of Baine McCord, he’d guess that meant to take them out back and shoot them. But over the past month, they’d grown close to the guy. He would treat his friends like family. That was what the Base Branch was…for Hunter. Family. And now, Kat had none.
26
Around Kat, the room quieted yet a shriek rattled her skull. The soft tissue congealed into a gelatinous heap robbing her of all function. Her limbs gave up. Gravity took hold, dragging her toward the pits of hell. It was the only way she’d be close to her father ever again. Oliver, Hunter’s best friend, had made it so with the casual dispense of a round from his gun.
Her assaulted mind wondered where the bullet had entered her father’s body. What path had it taken through his flesh? Had it nicked any arteries, ripped a jagged wound in a major organ, or lodged in a bone? Years spent working in an ER had taught her that some bullets reached such high velocity that they exited the body in a clean line. Those usually did the least amount of damage. The ones that penetrated the skin but lacked the power to plow through the muscle, cartilage, and tendons and punch out the other side—those bounced around like pinballs. Each ricochet ripped through important tissue. Each ping off a bone left fragments so small it took hours to clear from the site.
Bile whirled in her stomach. It couldn’t find the exit. So much time spent around horror stole her body’s ability to eject nearly anything. Her stomach’s contents were the least of her troubles. There were rolls and rolls of overexposed film containing the terrible scenes she’d experienced as a doctor; the loss, the heartache, the disappointments. Her mushy brain stored them in a dark vault in the back of her mind.
Now the frame rattled.
The door bowed. Panic threatened to release every awful thing she’d ever dealt with in a flash flood of shit.
“Shhh.”
The noise came from above. Heat encompassed her. The excruciating sound of screams had given way to quiet, save for the rhythmic hushing.
Moisture soaked her face. The top of her shirt clung to her chest. Hair matted to her forehead. Kat’s hiccups drew her further from the discontent of her past and into the dread of her present.
Hunter’s strong arms held her firmly against his thick pecs. He sat on the couch in the cottage, rocking her in his lap, but any bit of goodness and solace ended there. Her father was dead. Murdered. And there was nothing anyone would do about it because he was the bad guy. Her father had been the thing that hid under people’s beds. He was the one they locked their doors for. He was the one harming the world. He was her father, and now she could never earn his love and attention.
“Kat?” Sorrow shadowed Hunter’s voice. “Talk to me, please.”
What was she supposed to say? Could she even form words? Her mouth tingled as though she’d been close to hyperventilating. An arrhythmic heartbeat stammered along inside her chest, giving the feeling at any moment it could fly out of her sternum or quit entirely. Her head oscillated on a steady back and forth.
“I know you can,” he insisted. “Anything you want to say. Say it.” His thick lips formed a line. “I can take it.”
Still, her head refused to stop denying him.
“You hate me? You want me never to see Oliver again?” He shrugged. “Whatever it is. Let me have it. Don’t keep these things inside. They’ll only hurt you.”
That wasn’t true. They’d hurt him too. As sure as she knew the sun would set on this horrid day, she knew she couldn’t deal with any of this. There was too much. A mountain stood high and impenetrable between Kat and the life she wanted.
“Kat?” Hunter’s lips pressed to her temple. She couldn’t take his tenderness a second more. If he continued to show her affection when what she needed—what she’d always wanted—was love, she’d crack in two.
Captor Mine (Base Branch Series Book 13) Page 18