Sweet Affliction [Sweet Awakenings 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Nicole Morgan

  Opening his eyes, the pain intensified. A bright white light sliced at his pupils, nearly blinding him. He howled in pain and felt his insides roil and curdle like he’d just chugged year-old expired milk. Not a moment later he was covered in his own vomit. The wrenching smell flared his nostrils in disgust as he smelled bile and other scents he didn’t know his body was capable of.

  He listened to the two discuss things that didn’t make sense. There was mention of apologies, of doing the right thing, of sacrifices. He thought he heard her cry, and he felt an unknown tug from his insides. Despite all her crazy emotions he didn’t like the sound of her sadness.

  He closed his eyes, spent and exhausted. Sleep took him as he listened to the man promise his daughter that she was strong enough.

  Chapter 7

  All six of them climbed into the SUV. No one complained when Adam insisted on driving. They knew it occupied his mind and kept him from processing his grief. None of them agreed with his methods, but it worked for Adam, and no one relished the idea of challenging him on it.

  Rex looked at his wife and covered her hand with his. She had been a rock for him during the service. Her hand had squeezed his tightly at almost every time he felt moisture was approaching his eyes. She had stood patiently by his side as he shook hands with some teammates he hadn’t seen in years and offered polite condolences to everyone she met. His Shelby had been through a lot of things, and it amazed him how well she had healed. Her strength, although she never admitted to have any, left him awestruck.

  The thought brought his attention back to Adam. Chelsea sat beside him in the front seat, holding the wooden box bearing the trident in her lap. Their marriage had taken Rex off guard. Adam was never a one-woman man as far back as he could remember, but that obviously changed back when he’d been engaged to the woman, Alie, that no one was ever to mention. Even after that though, he seemed broken. Chelsea, for all her sweetness, had swept in under Adam’s radar and managed to hook him.

  Their relationship was the opposite of conventional. Adam had a roughness that never seemed to leave. He at times was rude and curt, and more than once Jack and Rex had wondered if he was trying to push his new bride away. She seemed to understand him though. She almost always knew when to retreat and wait patiently while he came back from his dark moods.

  Despite Adam being a puzzle that Rex didn’t think he’d ever solve, he was glad that Chelsea seemed to have most of the pieces in place. She grounded him in a strange way. For all his quietness, the only time Rex ever saw a tender moment was when it involved Chelsea.

  Hell, even the short eulogy Adam spoke at the service was absent of emotion. He simply stated that his buddy Slater was going out to sea where he most felt at home. He commended him on his duty to service, his years of admirable work, and how he was always a trusted brother that any of them were lucky enough to come across. And just as simply as he’d said the words he stepped back to stand beside his wife and saluted Nick’s urn.

  So here they were, leaving Miramar on their way to Coronado NAB to stand on one of the high rocks to scatter Nick’s ashes in the ocean. It surprised the hell out of him when Adam had supplied the navy with a notarized copy of Slater’s last will and testament. He knew the two were close at one time but never knew they had kept in touch this whole time.

  He watched as Adam’s hand reached across the console of the SUV to take his wife’s hand. Rex couldn’t help but smile. Clearly there was quite a bit more to his friend, Adam, than met the eye.

  He looked down as Shelby rested her head on Rex’s shoulder. She’d seemed tired all day, but she held up without lending a hint to her exhaustion. God how he loved her. He was one lucky son of a bitch, and he knew it.

  A tap on his shoulder had him look to the seat behind him. Jack, who was sitting with Tamara, looked stressed.

  “Yeah?”

  Jack shook his head in frustration and nodded his head toward Tamara, who looked equally annoyed. He couldn’t help but smile. Jack and Tamara never argued, but whenever they did it was an instant moment of satisfaction for him. Jack needed to be brought down a peg or two once in a while, and Tamara was damn good at doing it.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked them.

  Exhaling a big breath, Jack answered. “Would you please tell her that when Colleen says JJ is fine, that it actually means that he is fine.”

  Rex bit back any laughter that was itching to break free. Why on earth Jack thought he would win an argument over their new baby with Tamara he had no idea. The man was clearly an idiot.

  Giving a sympathetic smile to Tamara, he asked, “Why don’t you think he’s fine, sweetie?”

  She looked at him for a few seconds and rolled her eyes at her husband. “I guess I don’t really think that. Colleen wouldn’t lie to me.” She held up her hand to interrupt Jack, who’d started to talk.

  “But it’s just that when I called she kind of scolded me for nearly waking him up after she’d just gotten him down for a nap. I asked if he’s been fussy, or colicky, or even sick, but she swore he wasn’t.”

  “Okay then. There’s your answer. You said it yourself, she wouldn’t lie to you. Especially not about JJ.”

  “Yes I know. It’s just she sounded kind of tired or like she was at her last rope. Maybe he’s too much work for her? What if…”

  “Oh for God’s sake! She is at her last rope with you. You call her about every fifteen minutes!” Jack snapped out so abruptly that everyone in the SUV heard him and glanced to the backseat.

  Tamara’s cheeks flooded with embarrassment. “I don’t call that much.”

  Despite her protests, the inflection of her voice gave her away. Rex felt a tug of sympathy for her. Tamara was a loving soul, and baby JJ was her whole world. He winked at her and gave her a smile before turning to Jack.

  “You pull me into an argument with you and Tamara again over my godson, I’ll kick your ass first then take her side.”

  Jack flipped him the finger and put an arm around Tamara, who was trying to stifle back some tears. Despite not having a family of his own, Rex was pretty damn lucky to have these people in his life.

  Chapter 8

  Nick woke to the sound of humming, singing. She was there with him again. Her soft voice was like a healing melody that made him feel peaceful. He could picture her lulling a child to sleep with her angelic sounds.

  Slowly he opened his eyes, careful as to not have the light startle him like it had the past few times he’d woke. Faint memories of waking several times for only a few minutes only to quickly fall back under came back to him. Each time he remembered her being there, yet he couldn’t remember seeing or hearing the man she called her father.

  He was coming to expect her to be there, like she was his personal nurse. The thought brought him back to reality as he wasn’t in a hospital, and the people who cared for him were not medical staff. It perplexed him why the few times he’d been awake and asking questions that it never dawned on him to ask the biggest one of all. Why the hell wasn’t he in a damn hospital? Even though he didn’t admit to being a SEAL, clearly her father was not a stupid man. Hell, it sounded like he was one brave son of a bitch. He needed answers. Ready to demand them, he was surprised with which question he whispered first.

  “What’s your name?” With his eyes barely open he found himself confused by his question. Really, Nick? Of all the shit you’re in and you want to know her name? Hey, next ask her if she likes Italian food, and maybe you two can grab a bite later. What the fuck?

  “Good morning, Commander Slater.”

  So she knew his name and rank. He sure as hell didn’t remember giving it to her. The idea that she knew that about him while he had so many holes in the cluster fuck of what his past two days had become pissed him off more than he’d expected.

  He didn’t confirm nor deny that he was Commander Slater. Instead he asked stoically, “Your name?”

  “AJ. Well really it’s Alyssa Jo, but everyone calls me AJ.”


  AJ. It was an oddly tomboyish name for someone that seemed so delicate and whose voice was so serene. He stared at her for a moment before he asked her anymore. The knowledge of her name was a surprise. He had expected to her something completely girly and princess-like. Granted, he wasn’t sure what a princess-like name sounded like, but “AJ” just didn’t seem to fit the bill.

  “How are you feeling?”

  A vague recollection of lying in his own vomit flashed across his foggy memory. He looked down to see he was lying in clean sheets and smelled of soap. New bandages covered his bullet wound, and gauze was wrapped around his bicep. He lifted his arm in confusion. He didn’t remember being shot in his arm.

  As if reading his thoughts she spoke, “You didn’t have a bullet there. Well, not one to remove anyway. Dad said it was a…” She looked up for a minute as she tried to recall what was told to her.

  He wondered why the man always seemed to disappear whenever he was awake and coherent. Not really seeing this man, and knowing nothing about him other than what his daughter told him, made him uneasy to the core. Regardless, he knew what she was talking about.

  “Was it a through and through?”

  “Yes!”

  He was surprised by her glee that he’d found the words to finish her sentence. Something about her confused the hell out of him. She was manic. Up, down, smiling, frowning. Woman or not, she was riding the emotional rollercoaster of mood swings and making it harder than hell for him to read her.

  Enough of this shit, he needed answers!

  “All right, AJ. Mind telling me just what the fuck is going on here?”

  He tried not to wince as he watched her visibly jump back from his words as though he had shoved her. Damn it, but he didn’t want to scare her. He just wanted…No, fuck that, he needed answers! One of his best friends, a brother, a team member, had been killed right in front of him. Too many things were happening that just didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

  “Well?” he asked her again when she just stared at him.

  “I…don’t know what you mean.”

  Despite the soreness of his arm, he brought it against his chest and crossed it with the other as he gave her a mocking glare.

  “Really? Your father, a veterinarian, removed my bullet and sounds like saved my life. All this after he tells you that I’m a United States Navy SEAL. Neither one of you appears to have medical training, other than his extensive knowledge on deworming of dogs and cats, but yet here I lie in what seems to be a dirty makeshift clinic, which I’m told is in the basement of your home.”

  He watched her as the words sunk in. He was purposely adding sarcasm to everything he said in hopes she wouldn’t fuck with him. He was in no mood for it. Whatever pain and nausea he felt before he was now feeling stronger. Resolving to not succumb to exhaustion again, he stared her down and waited for her to respond.

  “Cat got your tongue, AJ?” He purposely emphasized her name. Hell, how did he know that was her name? She could have lied. He knew nothing about this woman.

  “No. I just…I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  He wanted to scream when he heard her voice crack. She better not cry. Fuck it all, if she cried he didn’t know if he’d be able to be this intimidating with her. He didn’t know why. Maybe because despite not knowing anything about her or her father or having a damn clue about what was going on, she had been caring for him.

  Despite his hesitance he refused to relent his line of questioning. “How about telling me why I’m not in a hospital. I was ambushed. That much I remember. My friend is dead. I’m still active-duty military. Surely they’re looking for me. I mean if my time is right I’ve been here for at most three days, right? So why the fuck isn’t anyone looking for me?”

  He shouted the last sentence, and much to his dismay she burst into tears. Fuck!

  Okay, Nick you can do this. He took several calming breaths, reminding himself that when it came to the female species, sweet words got you much further than shouting.

  “Don’t cry.”

  She looked up at him then. She was making no sounds, but tears continued to trickle from her eyes.

  “I’m sorry I yelled. I’m just very confused and have no clue what is going on. You must understand what that’s like to be completely in the dark about where you are or why you’re even there.”

  His voice was calm and soothing as he pleaded with her to understand. Surprisingly though, it wasn’t a rouse. He was being sincere.

  “He’s a good man.”

  Okay. Huh?

  “I’m sorry? Who is a good man?”

  “My father. I told you before. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. That’s the last thing he would ever do.”

  As a moment of “oh my God, what the fuck” consumed him, he chose to not react and pray she had an actual point to her sudden change in subject.

  “I already told you I believed you.”

  “Do you though? He thinks he did, no…he still thinks what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

  My lord, but he wanted to rip the words from her. She explained things like a child who made no sense.

  “Please, I don’t understand. What are you doing that he thinks is the right thing?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No. You’ll think he’s crazy. You’ll be angry and…” Her voice trailed off into a whisper, and she stopped her thought.

  Enough was enough. He was getting nowhere with her. Nothing she said made any sense, and she was wearing what small thread of patience he had very thin.

  “With all due respect, ma’am, how do you know what I think? You don’t know me at all. What little you have told me I’ve taken at face value, which is something that goes against everything I believe in. You could be lying about everything you’ve told me. I’m only assuming you’ve been truthful. I haven’t even technically seen the man. Sure, I’ve heard his voice, but every time I wake he is resting and you are here.”

  He put a finger to his mouth to shush her before he continued. “I know you’ve cared for me, but come on…even you have to admit that something in what you’ve fed me makes no sense. You and your father”— he made mocking quotation marks in the air with his fingers at the mention of her dad—“have been caring for me. Your father tackled a man and removed my bullet. Your father is a good man. Your father is not crazy. I mean, shit. Where is this father of yours? For all I know you are the crazy one. For all I know you are the one who removed my bullet. For all I know you are disguising your voice to sound like a man every time to lend to the reality you’ve created that you live here with a father.”

  He was now fired up and on a roll.

  “Hell, for all I know, you have your dead father in the next room dressed up in one of his old suits as you mimic the voice he once had as you live out this deranged fantasy of him still being alive. Hello? Psycho? Should I be afraid to take a shower in here? If I wander upstairs will I really see a motel?”

  For every possible reaction he’d expected to get from her, he hadn’t been prepared for the one she gave.

  She lurched at him with a fire in her eyes. He hunched over in pain as she began pounding on him with her fists and managed to get a good blow in his side where the bullet hole was still trying to heal.

  Shouts of disgust and anger tore from her as she called him every name in the book. Curse words he was surprised that she even knew rolled off her lips. He grabbed onto her arms and tried to fight her off, but damn she was strong for a little thing.

  Her hair was flailing about as she continued to scream at him. Wetness trickled on his chest, and at first he thought she’d spit on him. Then he felt her body shake as her motions slowed.

  Still holding her wrists, not sure if it was a trick, he studied her for a minute, waiting for her to react. She was trembling in his grips.

  “AJ?”

  Slowly she looked up at him. Her hair was tangled across her face, but he could still see her eyes. T
hey were flooded with pain, deep, gut-wrenching sorrow that came from somewhere deep within her soul. His heart squeezed so tight he thought it would stop beating.

  “Soon.” She choked out the word.

  Never before had he been so confused. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted her, but he released the tight grip that was holding her. He expected her to bolt from the room and come back with any type of weapon she could find to finish the job of beating the shit out of him.

  Surprisingly she sank to the bed and sat beside him. Her head went down to stare at the sheets. He wanted to say something, anything. Shit, he wanted to say sorry for making her cry. Why the hell he felt that way he had no damn idea. He wrote it off to the physical trauma his body had been under, even though he knew it was bullshit.

  They sat there for minutes. Neither of them spoke. Her breathing, which was erratic, was now slowing. An urge to stroke her arm pulled at him, but he refused to give in, telling himself that if he was patient enough she would soon say something.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when his patience proved him right. She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it off of and away from her face. Her eyes looked haunted, and she had the look of someone who was all alone. His jaw clenched at the sight and he ignored how badly he wanted to reach out and touch her.

  “He’s dying.” She closed her eyes tightly for a moment before she continued, “Pancreatic cancer. We just arrived last week to spend his last days here where he met my mother.”

  She looked to him then. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled from them like a faucet. “It’s why he’s always resting. I don’t know where he got the strength to attack the man who held the gun on you, but in that brief moment I saw the man I once knew before he got sick.”

  Nick watched her as tears continued to come. There was no sound in her cries, just a never-ending waterfall of grief and sadness. He needed to touch her, but his reach proved to be too late. She got up from the bed and walked out of the room.