Surviving the Fall

by Brittney Sahin

  Jake walked into the living area adjacent to the dining room and stared at the unlit, floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, the half-eaten burnt log drawing his eye.

  That’s how he felt.

  Like part of him was gone. Burned. And all that was left were ashes.

  But then there was another part of him, some strange part on the inside that wanted to scream. To tear down the damn walls of shame that he was building and fight back. To find whoever the hell did this to him. He had to assume those feelings came from the man he had become.

  A cold chill wrapped his spine, and he flinched a little when his sister’s hand came down on his shoulder a few minutes later.

  “Jake, I made you something.”

  He faced Emily and forced a smile to his face. He’d always been there for her in the past, and he hated the idea that now she, along with everyone else, had to take care of him like a wounded animal.

  “What is it? A homemade get well card?” he half-joked.

  She handed him a folded piece of paper, fighting a smile. “It’s a list of your friends, smartass. People you can rely on.”

  Jake gripped the bridge of his nose as he studied the list, squinting a little.

  Emily rested a hand on his forearm for a moment. “Hang on.” She moved over to his mother’s purse and dug around inside. “Here we go. Mom brought the spare pair you keep at her house.”

  Emily handed him a small black case.

  “I wear glasses?” he blurted, popping it open. They were framed in thick, black plastic.

  “Only for reading.” She smiled.

  “Great . . . I really am old.”

  “That’s for sure,” she teased.

  He slowly placed them on and looked at the list again—it was a hell of a lot more in focus.

  The first name his sister scribbled with her chicken scratch (she should have been a doctor, with that handwriting) was Michael Maddox. He’d been the resourceful one, the one who’d managed to find him in London. He read the next two aloud: “Connor Matthews. Mason Matthews—”

  “Brothers. Both former Marines, too,” Emily interrupted.

  Jake still couldn’t believe he’d been a Marine. Going into the military had been about the last thing he had ever considered doing when he was younger. “What do they do now?”

  She sighed. “Well, the Matthews brothers inherited their father’s business recently, but last I heard they were thinking of starting their own PI firm—or private rescue group. I don’t know. They help people—that’s what I know.”

  “Oh.” He looked at the next name. “Aiden O’Connor.”

  Emily smiled. “Irish guy. Great accent.”

  Jake raised a brow, ready to go big brother on her if his sister had a crush on his friend. Even if it was a friend he couldn’t even remember.

  “Hey!” Emily shoved her brother in the side. When he grimaced, she covered her hands over her mouth. “Oh, shit. Sorry.”

  “I was just getting back at you,” he lied. “I’m okay.”

  “Thank God.” She pursed her lips together. “And to clarify, Aiden is taken. Engaged to a hot biochemist.” Another smile teased her lips, and Jake had to wonder if his sister was hiding something. “Besides, I have a boyfriend.”

  “Oh yeah? Who?” He probably would hate the guy.

  “He’s English, actually. Lives in London. I met him at an event two years ago, and we hit it off. The long-distance stuff is hard, but we manage. You came to London last year to meet him . . . well, more like drill him.”

  Jake touched his chest. “You’re telling me that you’re dating a guy in the city where I just survived an explosion?” What the hell were the chances?

  Emily shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Well, did I like him at least?” he grumbled.

  “Ha. You barely even saw him. You became enchanted by some sexy Brit you met at the New Year’s Eve party.”

  “Now that I wish I remembered.” He smiled, almost forgetting everything for a moment.

  Emily returned his smile and nudged him in the side. “Anyways, there’s one more name on the list. You have a lot more friends than these, but I narrowed the list down to the guys you tend to call—or they call you—when things get hairy.”

  “Hairy?” This elicited a chuckle from him.

  “I don’t know. You boys tend to find yourselves in trouble. A lot.”

  Great.

  “His name is Ben Logan.” Emily flicked at the paper with her index finger. “He has a private security firm out in Vegas. Although he was a pro-baseball player for two years before that.”

  “Let me guess, before that he was also a Marine. Do I have something against the other branches of military?” The thought made him smile. “What does Dad think about his son becoming a Marine? Did I do it just to piss him off?” His dad had attempted to raise him to become a soldier, which was exactly why Jake had never wanted to be one—he wanted to be as different as he could be from his father.

  “Probably. You know how badly he wanted you to be Army like him. And you just couldn’t help yourself . . . he got over it, though.” She shrugged. “Since you, for the most part, followed in his footsteps.”

  Jake thought about asking her why he joined, but he held off. “Thanks for the list, Emily. I probably won’t see any of them until my memory comes back, though. If it comes back.” He stuffed the paper in his jeans pocket and walked over to the leather couch in front of the fireplace.

  “It will come back. And when it does, whoever did this to you will regret it.” Emily crossed her arms and smirked.

  “You believe in me that much, huh?”

  She squinted a little while waving her hand between them. “Well, between you and your friends, someone will go for the jugular.”

  “And you’re okay with that?” he accused.

  “After what I’ve seen you go through—and, hell, what I’ve witnessed in Washington—very little bothers me anymore.” Her espresso brown eyes met his, and he cringed at the thought of his sweet little sister dealing with Washington cronies and criminals.

  “Well, I don’t know if I want to be that guy anymore.”

  Emily shook her head. “Jake, I don’t think it’s possible for you to escape your past so easily. And as much as I’d wish my big brother would quit being in the line of fire, that’s just not who you are.” She touched her collarbone and exhaled. “You are strong. Dependable. And although I don’t want you getting a big head, you’re kind of amazing.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Jake?” His father’s voice stole his attention from his sister.

  He was standing in the doorway with a laptop tucked under his arm. His dad hadn’t said all that much since he’d been there, and Jake wondered if they’d grown even more distant in the past twelve years.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen.” Emily looked at her brother out of the corner of her eye, and then brushed past her father and left the room.

  “What’s up?” Jake’s shoulders rolled back a little as if he felt the need to be taller in his father’s presence.

  “Hm. Well, I have something that I thought might help you remember things.”

  His words caused a slight twitchy reaction in his stomach. Some part of him didn’t want any more memories. Maybe it was the part of him that got sick every time he remembered some part of his past. The nausea was like a greeting card from hell.

  “Okay,” he dragged out the word like it was stuck in molasses. “On the computer?”

  His dad nodded and motioned for him to have a seat on the couch.

  Jake sat down, pulling an extra pillow behind his back for support. Still, the pain crept through his skin—like he was still stripped naked, his back bleeding.

  His dad opened the laptop and went into his email account. “Here.” He slid the laptop over to Jake. “There are at least a hundred emails from you on there. Most of them are to your mother, but a few are to me.” His dad stood. “And most of these emails are during your
time in the service.” He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe they’ll help trigger something for you.”

  Jake stared at the computer screen in a daze and when he looked back up, his dad was gone.

  He sat alone in the room; the only sound was the slight clank of dishes as his mother cleaned up the kitchen, that and the low hum of her voice as she spoke to his sister.

  He stared at the list of subject lines, not sure if he wanted to read his own words. He clicked on one at random and stared at the few lines that came onto the screen. The message was dated November 2005.

  Mom, the training is harder than I expected. But don’t worry about me. I’m doing good. Better to be over prepared, right? Well, give Emily my love. Tell Dad hi. Miss you. –Jake

  Did I become a man of few words? When did I turn into my father?

  Jake closed the message and scrolled through the list. He opened one from two years later.

  Mom, you need to stop worrying about me. Afghanistan’s not that bad. Promise. And I’m working with a good group of people. They have my back. I won’t be in touch for a while because I’m going out on an OP. Love you, Mom. –Jake

  Jake read a few more emails, but he couldn’t bring himself to read his mother’s responses. He remembered how stressed she had been when he was a kid, and his father was deployed in the Army. He could only imagine what his own time in the Marines had done to her. And he wasn’t ready to relive whatever agony he had put her through.

  He shut the laptop and shifted it off to the side on the couch, unwilling to torture himself anymore. He’d had enough torture to last a damn lifetime. He bent his head forward, pressing his face into his palms. The sound of shoes walking on the old, beaten up floors had him straightening.

  Jake couldn’t take his eyes off his father as he slowly moved the computer out of his way to sit next to him. “Jake.” There was a crack in his voice—a sound Jake had never heard from his composed, controlled father.

  “Yeah, Dad?” Jake touched his quads, grounding himself.

  A hand on his shoulder had Jake flinching. Then he sagged as his dad tugged Jake against his shoulder, unable to believe the gesture, desperate not to do anything that might make it end. His father pressed his face against the side of Jake’s temple. “We could have lost you.”

  Jake couldn’t remember his father ever crying, at least not when he was younger. Hearing him do it now . . .

  So, Jake did the only thing he knew that made sense. He let go with a sob, suddenly feeling like a child again in the safety of his father’s arms.

  Warm beads of perspiration trailed from his scalp down his face. His spine dripped with sweat as he kicked at the covers and turned over in bed.

  Jake fisted the sheets as images poked into his mind—a nightmare or memories, he wasn’t sure which.

  In his mind, he was back in the desert.

  Helmet. Black boots—heavy and practically glued to his feet.

  The air was layered in yellow and gold, fumes baking the land. So thick. So hot. It was hard to breathe.

  The city before him was quiet. Eerily quiet.

  The buildings were in ruins. Freshly burned.

  Then he heard it—gunfire spraying in the distance.

  The screams.

  Jake rolled out of bed and thudded loud against the floor. He winced as he pressed his palms to the hardwood and stood up.

  “What the hell?” He wiped the sweat from his face and pulled back the curtains that covered the window near his bed. The sun had yet to rise.

  As he dressed, Jake pushed back the choking sensation in his throat.

  The heavy jacket and cowboy boots he’d found in the closet looked as though they’d seen better days.

  The ranch felt empty now that his family had left. Trent had decided it wasn’t a good idea for them to stay for long, that it wouldn’t be safe for them. Jake was happy to go along with any plan that meant keeping his family out of danger.

  But the three days he’d spent with them had been good. Snippets of his past had slowly edged back into his mind, and some of them had been almost . . . nice.

  Jake stepped out onto the porch, automatically searching for the federal agents who were supposed to be on guard outside.

  What he didn’t expect was to see a woman standing behind the agents’ car.

  Not just any woman.

  He took a step closer and squinted as the first bright rays of sunlight pierced the horizon.

  He could only see her profile, and her hair wasn’t red, but a deep brown. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him, he decided. There was no reason why the nurse from London would have followed him there.

  But when the woman looked his way, there was no mistaking her eyes. They could shred a man like a bullet, even in the hazy morning light.

  She slowly walked the stone path, which had been shoveled by the agents yesterday. He stared in shock as she stopped at the bottom of the steps.

  “Hi, Agent Summers,” she said in a soft voice, looking up at him.

  Chapter Ten

  Alexa rubbed her gloved hands over the arms of her jacket. It was freezing.

  Jake was staring at her, his lips parted and his arms relaxed at his sides. He looked healthier than when she had seen him last. His cheeks had more color, and the bandage on his head was gone—in its place was his dirty blonde hair. Shorter on the sides, and longer, slightly messy on the top.

  “Do you recognize me?” she asked.

  “You’re not a nurse, huh?” Jake perked a brow and slowly turned back toward the house and started for the door. He moved without a limp. He didn’t look like he was suffering—that was a good sign.

  Alexa looked over her shoulder at Xander. He sat in their rental car, a hand draped casually over the steering wheel. He was parked behind two American agents, who were sitting inside a black SUV. They served as Jake’s security.

  Alexa had asked Xander to stay in the car for now. She figured Jake would want answers, and she couldn’t believe she was about to reveal her identity to him.

  The whole situation was surreal.

  Alexa tilted her head toward the house, letting him know she was going inside, and he nodded back.

  She climbed the few steps, but as she rested her gloved fingers over the doorknob, her nerves got the best of her. You can do this.

  She forced herself to go inside after a deep breath. “Hello?” she called out. The place smelled of pine, and the dark, exposed wood and stone fireplace screamed comfort. The fireplace was the kind you burn wood in, the kind that could actually heat a home.

  “In here,” Jake answered.

  She tugged at her black leather gloves, removing them and set them on top of the brown sofa as she chased the sound of his voice.

  Jake’s back was to the kitchen counter, his arms crossed. As she moved through the room, stopping a few feet shy of him, he pinned her with his brown eyes. Her lips closed tight, and she watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed, her mind racing with what to say.

  Jake’s eyes flashed shut, and he squeezed his brows together as if in pain, his dark lashes splaying against his golden skin.

  “Are you okay?” she asked and took a cautious step forward.

  His head lowered as his hands moved to each side of him, bracing the tiled counter. His knuckles whitened as his fingers gripped harder. “I’m fine,” he said with a strained voice.

  She could tell he was anything but.

  Her gaze flickered over to the fridge, and she went over to it, skirting him, careful not to touch. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and returned in front of him.

  “Here.” Her eyes dragged from his tanned throat to his hard chest, all the way down his denim jeans to the worn out brown leather boots he wore.

  A cowboy FBI agent, huh?

  Jake opened his eyes and reached for the bottle and held it tight in one hand. “Do you always make a habit of going into men’s homes uninvited?”

  She took a small step back
and pressed her hands to her outer thighs, drumming her fingers there as she tried to remember the lines she’d planned to say. Lately, she was beginning to feel more like a stage actor than one of the top cyber intelligence officers at the agency.

  But what she hadn’t planned or anticipated was how her heart would move in her chest like a tap dance, or how her stomach would lurch at the mere sight of him. She’d been too surprised to feel anything but shock when she saw him in the hospital in London, but now that Mr. New Year’s Eve was in front of her, all she could think about was how he’d given her the best orgasms of her life.

  Get it together. She needed to delete those memories. Like Jake had.

  He set the unopened bottle of water down on the counter and, in one quick move, closed the small space between them. “You’re a spook, aren’t you?”

  “A spook?” She almost laughed. “I’m with—”

  Am I really going to admit the truth to him? “I’m an agent at MI6,” she said slowly. Some strange weight, which felt like a hundred or so kilos, lifted from her shoulders.

  Jake blinked a few times before brushing past her. He grabbed a navy-blue kettle and brought it to the sink. “Coffee?” he grumbled.

  Well, that wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.

  “Oh. Um, yes, please.” She preferred tea, but she wasn’t about to argue.

  “You gonna stay standing all morning, or would you care to sit?” He turned on the burner and placed the kettle down before facing her.

  She tried to fight the smile that pulled at the edges of her lips. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to get comfortable.”

  His broad shoulders relaxed. “I don’t, but you came a hell of a long way. And since the agents let you waltz up here, I’m guessing they don’t think you’re a threat.”

  He was taking this better than she’d thought. She hadn’t been sure what to expect of a man who’d lost part of his life. Well, his memories.

  “So, you’ll hear me out?” Of course, he didn’t have much of a choice. The orders had come from high-ups in both their governments. Although the Americans still hadn’t come clean about Italy—about anything, actually—but they wanted her and Jake to work together.