Hard to Hold

by Stephanie Tyler

The bar fight had gotten his blood going, but that kiss ramped it up to a nearly unbearable level.

  And you pride yourself on control.

  She’d saved him a trip to the hospital and stitched him up. He’d thanked her by getting angry and then kissing her, all within the space of two minutes.

  Smooth. The perfect bodyguard.

  At least he’d held it together for the stitches. Marginally.

  He hadn’t lied to her about not liking doctors as a rule. Sitting still while Isabelle worked on him had not been easy. Closing his eyes had helped, but opening them had been an even better distraction, because she looked beautiful. Beyond beautiful. She was down-and-dirty hot in jeans and a skimpy shirt that showed off her curves.

  Thinking about that wasn’t helping anything.

  She’d been on a date. With a Marine.

  You’re the dumb-ass who turned her down.

  Her boots were next to the couch, her black leather jacket on the coffee table, and it took everything he had not to rifle through the pockets. Force of habit and she had nothing to hide, but still, his nerves were taut, on edge. Ready for action. Action he wasn’t going to be getting from the teams for quite a while and longer from Isabelle, judging by her reaction.

  She was pretending to be all right—she wasn’t even close. He got stupid around her, and anything that made him stupid couldn’t be good for him.

  He wanted her with a fierceness he couldn’t begin to understand, wanted to protect her, comfort her—make love to her until neither one of them could see straight.

  He turned onto his good side on the couch and threw down the book he’d been attempting to read. The way the lights flickered, he expected power to go out at any minute.

  Sleeping wasn’t an option. He couldn’t afford to have a nightmare with her right there. Besides, he was officially on duty now, and even though the town and its surrounding cities were locked down by the storm, and the house alarms—and his personal ones—were all set, he’d be power sleeping only. Focusing on endurance techniques.

  He shifted in another attempt to find comfort, but his body was too long for the small space, and pulling out the couch was something he always avoided.

  Pullout couches reminded him of too many days long ago, when he was eight years old with a dead mother and a mean drunk for a stepfather in a shitty, one-room apartment in Brownsville. Dirty linoleum, dingy Formica countertops with the metal edging coming loose, sharp enough to slice you if you were unlucky enough to be thrown against it. He’d been unlucky a lot, had slept on a pullout couch from the time he was old enough to remember. Neighbors gave him food and sympathy, when all he ever wanted was the food. Sympathy would make him soft. Sympathy always got him more pain and almost got him killed.

  Steve—his stepfather—was a former heavyweight boxer who got his start in the Marines and liked practicing his moves on his stepson. Every once in a while, when the whiskey hadn’t completely taken hold and turned him, Steve would actually show Jake some of the moves.

  In that twilight zone, suspended between the light and dark, Steve would bellow, You’re gonna have the moves just like your old man, right son?

  Son. Jesus Christ.

  Yeah, just like you, Dad, he’d agree, because he’d never been stupid and a night of peace with no beating was something he’d learned to cherish.

  Two stiff jabs, right cross.

  Steve’s footfalls, heavier than they should’ve been, slammed without finesse on the old floor, even though in his mind Jake was pretty sure the old man thought he was Muhammad Ali.

  If that doesn’t take ’em down, go for the body shots … go for the ribs. Knock the wind out of them, then finish with an uppercut to the chin …

  Long after Steve passed out, Jake would practice those moves and the hand-to-hand combat Steve had shown him from his days in the Corps—Spring-stance, power-point position, knife your hands, son—because someday Jake would be big enough to really use them.

  Someday, Jake had. The buildup of anger and frustration had pushed him past his capacity, had created a far too potent mix for a young boy to handle on his own.

  Here, you will learn endurance and survival techniques. Captain Harry Lopez’s voice echoed in his mind from that long-ago day during the SEAL Qualification Training when Jake had just turned sixteen not long after making it successfully through Hell Week. If and when you are unlucky enough to be taken prisoner, you will need this course. Here, you will learn to control what can be controlled, to stay fit, both mentally and physically. You will learn to not encourage beatings, to develop support networks and to create your plan to escape. Most of all, you will begin to understand how much the desire to live affects all of your decisions.

  Jake had proven that desire more than once. But here, on the couch, if he slept now, he’d just be eight years old again and waiting for something to happen.

  Jake met Nick that same year, when Steve had taken a job as a janitor at some fancy prep school in Manhattan; Jake’s acceptance and tuition there had been a part of the bargain. Steve worked the afternoon shift—it meant he could sleep in and sleep off the drink from the night before and still leave his evenings free.

  Nick was still trached at that time, refused to talk even though he was more than capable of it. He’d been labeled slow and stuck in a Special Ed class. Alone. Privileges of the rich, turned into cages for their children who weren’t considered perfect.

  Nick and Isabelle had a lot more in common than they knew. Jake knew too that being rich didn’t protect you from anything at all.

  His sons were just lucky that Kenny had a bigger emergency to deal with, or else he surely would’ve tracked down at least one of them. Which would have in turn roped in the other two, because their philosophy of leave no man behind extended well past their military missions. Always had.

  Kenny’s private jet had been the last aircraft allowed to take off from Virginia—he’d managed to outrun one storm but he knew he’d end up catching it in New York.

  Le bon Dieu mait la main.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  He looked up at the young nurse behind the main Emergency Room desk and realized he’d been speaking aloud. “Sorry. I was just … it means God help.”

  “Yes, well, we could always use some of that around here.” She gave him a brief smile—the smile of someone who saw too much pain and suffering on a daily basis, and he wanted to grab her and tell her this was all taking too big a toll on her. But he didn’t. She most likely thought him crazy already.

  He’d arrived at the hospital in time for the ER resident to declare the bass player of one of his more famous bands dead as of 2:03 A.M.; in time to pay the insurance bill for the lead singer, who was having his stomach pumped as Kenny signed the forms. The only upside to the weather was that the paparazzi hadn’t gotten wind of this yet.

  “Are you done with those forms, sir?” the nurse asked, for the third time, and no, he wasn’t. He’d had to put down the pen she’d given him to fill out the forms several times already; the vibes of every single person who’d touched it that night—their fear, their pain—bursting through and getting under his skin.

  Repeating the short Cajun prayer helped moderately.

  Hospitals were not great places for him to be. Too many people in distress, too chaotic. He couldn’t see the dead, but places like this put his psychic nerve endings on edge.

  “I’m done,” he said finally, threw the pen down on the counter and shoved the clipboard toward the nurse whose name tag read Penny. His mind clouded and an image began to form …

  Non. Sa c’est de trop.

  “That’s too much,” he muttered, rubbed his arms and refused to let images in by walking away from her.

  If he kept moving, things were better, the feelings less intense. Unfortunately, the waiting room at this big city hospital was packed to the gills and the roar in his brain wouldn’t subside until he let something through.

  He settled in by a free windowsill
, closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cold glass. The anniversary of Jake’s stepfather’s death was this week, which always made Jake’s aura more sensitive. But something bigger was going on with Jake, and Kenny still couldn’t put his finger on it. The panic here wasn’t helping.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw that the snow had already begun to fall.

  Nick found the company he’d been seeking after the fight ended and right before the police were called into the bar. He’d slid out the back door, more in an attempt to avoid his father’s wrath than the law, and he’d run into a pretty woman whose name began with an R. Rachel, maybe. Or Rochelle. She’d been eyeing him all night, gave excellent head and had scratched the shit out of his back when she came.

  He’d been on his way home when his cell rang. It was Chris, who was in a situation at the convenience store a few blocks from their house.

  And yes, the situation was exactly what Nick thought it would be.

  When he stormed inside the small store, he saw the clerk—a new guy, probably not even out of high school, huddled in the corner by the register, looking confused.

  “Where are they?” Nick asked him.

  “Middle aisle. That guy said it’s the warmest place in the store. And then he told me to get the hell out of his way.”

  “Sounds about right,” Nick muttered as the sound of a woman’s screams rang across the store.

  In the middle aisle he found the screaming woman lying on an inflatable raft, her head facing him, Chris sitting in between her legs, and this was not the way Nick planned on ending his night.

  “Do you have some kind of magnetic force inside your body that pulls them toward you?” Nick asked over the sound of another bloodcurdling scream.

  “Honey, you’re doing great,” Chris told the woman, and then addressed himself to Nick. “I was just buying some stuff for breakfast.” Chris adjusted the beach towel over the woman’s midsection. “This is Kristin.”

  Kristin craned her neck to try to see behind her. “He says he’s done this before.”

  “He has.”

  “He said his mother’s whole family were midwives.”

  “Yeah, they were.” Nick couldn’t help but smile at the mention of Maggie. Midwifery was something she’d given up once she and Kenny left Louisiana, but, like Chris, she’d always seemed to find herself helping someone give birth in the most unlikely of places.

  “You have no idea how much this hurts,” Kristin half yelled.

  “She should’ve been in BUD/S,” Nick muttered.

  Chris stared at him. “Breathe, Kristin. Just breathe, like I told you. But don’t push yet.”

  “I need to.”

  “Not yet,” Chris said.

  “Why don’t we get her to the hospital? The road’s not closed yet.” Nick knelt down by Kristin’s head.

  Chris peeked under the towel and shook his head. “No time.”

  “I can’t have my baby here,” she implored Nick, as if he were the only reasonable one in the room. “I had a birth plan. My husband is supposed to be with me. I had a craving for mint chocolate chip ice cream and now I’m having a baby on the floor. This isn’t in the plan!”

  “Have you tried calling your husband?” Nick asked, used a towel from the pile to wipe some sweat off of her brow. Chris had already prepared an area for the baby, had the usual supplies from his ever-present medical kit close at hand.

  “Gary’s in the Pacific until next week. I’m not due for another two weeks,” Kristin explained.

  “He’s a Marine?”

  “No, a pilot. He’s training to fly F-14s.”

  “You must be proud of him,” Nick said and her face crunched into a grimace as she nodded. A long, low moan followed and Nick took the opportunity to ask, “You’re going to keep her out here?” as he snapped on the sterile gloves and checked the bulb syringe, the sterile chuck and the O2 tank, just in case.

  After doing this for so many years, Chris was nothing if not prepared. His car was like a walking triage center.

  “If you saw the back room, you’d understand,” Chris said, and yeah, it looked like Kristin was going to give birth right beside the tampons, which was kind of ironic.

  “Did you see Jake leave?” Chris asked him, then turned to Kristin. “Don’t push yet.”

  “He left with the doctor,” Nick said.

  “Who’d you leave with?”

  Nick opened his mouth to answer but noticed Kristin looking up at him. “Don’t you have a contraction to have or something?”

  “Is he always this much of an asshole?” Kristin asked Chris.

  “He’s usually much worse. Women seem to love it,” Chris drawled.

  Nick didn’t bother protesting.

  “She can’t have the baby here—my boss will kill me.” The clerk tugged at Nick’s sleeve as Kristin clamped down with a death grip on Nick’s hand.

  “No choice, my man. Deal with it,” Chris told the guy, then smiled, his widest It’s all gonna be fine smile, and said, “It’s time to push,” with his eyes looking even more different-colored and crazy. Kristin turned to Nick for reassurance.

  “He’s done this before. You’re in good hands. Really.” Nick always wondered what the hell these women must be thinking at a time like this, when a crazy man who wasn’t a doctor was telling them to push.

  Kristin screamed again and clamped down harder, twisting Nick’s fingers, and he also wondered if she’d break any of the bones in his hand by the time she was done, because she was not letting go.

  He always got this end of the job, but at this point there really wasn’t any end of the woman he wanted to be near. He got the whole joy-of-life thing, but this part was messy and complicated and he’d try to imagine what went wrong during his own delivery.

  Chris always tried to tell him that watching a woman give birth should be cathartic for him. It never was.

  “Head’s out,” Chris said. “Mouth clear. Okay, let’s get the shoulders free, Kristin.”

  “Breathe and push,” Nick said. “Grab your knees, look at me—focus on me.” She nodded frantically and pushed until Chris nodded.

  “One more time should do it,” he said, and Nick repeated his focus speech. Kristin pushed and then burst into tears of relief when Chris said, “Stop. He’s out!”

  “He? It’s a boy?” she asked through her sobs. Nick moved away from her, draped a clean towel across the floor and took the baby from Chris. His back to Kristin, he performed a quick APGAR—score of nine—before he cleaned off the kid with the warm water he’d asked the clerk to provide. Chris reassured Kristin as he delivered the placenta, while Nick wrapped the baby in a fresh towel and handed Kristin her son.

  “Oh, my God … I can’t believe this.” Kristin looked between the two of them. “He’s all right?”

  “He’s fine, you’re fine. Everything’s fine,” Chris said, just as the power sputtered out.

  An hour later, parked outside the ER, Chris lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “Dad said tonight was going to be nuts.”

  “I figured he said that because we were all together,” Nick grumbled. “He’s really got to start specifying this shit.”

  “How specific do you want him to get about your life?”

  Nick stretched. “Not very. Besides, he seems most involved in Jake’s now. Which is fine with me.”

  Chris rubbed his chin. “Something’s going on with that doctor.”

  “Yeah, and by something you mean that she wants him, right?”

  “That’s the vibe I caught. From both of them,” Chris said, peered out the front window. “Getting shittier out here.”

  “We’re not supposed to get involved like that. Not with someone we rescued.”

  “Yep. I know.” Chris flicked his cigarette out the window and lit another.

  “He’s having the nightmares again.”

  “Yeah, I know that too.”

  Nick put his head back and sighed. “Let’s get home before the
weather gets worse. It’s going to be slow moving and I don’t feel like sleeping in the car tonight.”

  “She’s naming the baby after me, you know.” Chris maneuvered the old Jeep out of the parking lot and skidded out onto the main road, catching the wheel expertly just before they went into a tailspin.

  Nick shook his head and laughed. “They all name the baby after you,” he said, as his and Chris’s beepers began to ring in tandem.

  “It’s a fine night for training,” Chris said as he pointed the car toward the base.

  CHAPTER

  5

  There was no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight, alone, in Jake’s bed. Sleep had never come easily, but here, surrounded by the pure, masculine scent of the man she’d been longing for, Isabelle’s senses were on overdrive.

  Lights off, she stared at the ceiling as two hours ticked away. The blinds were open and the glow from the street lamps came through the windows. The tink of hail against the glass was an unsteady beat. Even though the house was well made, the wind still found places to force itself inside with a low, desperate howl.

  When the streetlights went out, the room was suddenly too dark. She pushed the comforter off and felt the chill, and then she tripped over the night table while heading for the door.

  “Isabelle? You all right?” Jake’s voice came, low and reassuring through the door. She paused with her hand on the latch before she unlocked and opened it.

  He was holding a flashlight, pointed down toward her feet so he didn’t blind her.

  “Did I wake you?” she asked.

  “No.” He walked over toward her and handed her the flashlight. “I’ll grab a few lanterns. This happens all the time around here. We keep talking about putting in a generator, but we’re never here long enough to make it happen.”

  “Don’t you need this to find them?” she asked as she followed him with the flashlight into the hall.

  “I work well in the dark,” he called back.

  “I’ll bet you do,” she murmured to herself.

  “Did you say something?”