Locked-Down Heart (Combat Hearts Book 3)

by Tarina Deaton

  She paused and he couldn’t help but think a guy named Preston was a pretentious asshole. He’d never hated someone so much in his life for no other reason than his name.

  “After a couple of weeks, I was told to concentrate on Ali instead. The kid was funny. And smart. He picked up English really fast. I was spending a couple of hours a day with him. I didn’t think he knew anything, but Preston kept pushing, telling me to use harsher tactics to get the intel they needed on his uncle. I refused and I refused to let them do it. Threatened to go up the chain if they tried it.”

  She took a shuddering breath, as if preparing herself for what she was going to say next. He was afraid he knew.

  “I got a Red Cross notification that Sarah was in the hospital.” Her voice broke and she sniffled into the pillow. She took another deep breath. “When I got back to the base, Ali and his mom weren’t there anymore. I asked and kept getting vague answers—they’d been released, they’d been transferred—no one could give me a straight answer. Finally, I confronted my roommate, who was an analyst. A few days after I left Iraq, there was a major coordinated attack on the camp. Lasted a couple of days. For some reason, Preston got it in his head that Ali knew about the attack and had information on it. He died during the interrogation. His mother committed suicide.”

  Jesus. He couldn’t even fathom it. His team had taken young males off objectives, but they’d never taken children. They sure as hell hadn’t ever interrogated a fucking kid.

  “I was so angry. About everything. Eddie. Sarah. Ali. I went after Preston with a crowbar. Cracked his jaw and broke his arm. I had my gun to his head when my OIC walked in. He talked me out of putting a bullet in his head. Told me he wasn’t worth my life. Preston was on a plane the next day. They came up with some story about a utility vehicle rolling over on him to explain his injuries. My boss gave me the information on the Combat Support Teams the next day.”

  She rubbed her face on the pillow. “The worst part was I blamed Sarah, of all people.” She scoffed. “How fucked up is that?”

  He rubbed his nose across her back and felt it was safe to ask, “Why did you blame Sarah?”

  “She was in the hospital because of Eddie. If she’d left him like we’d urged her to, I wouldn’t have had to go home and Ali would be alive.

  He stroked her arm. “You don’t know that. A douche canoe like that guy would have found a way. He could have done it one night while you were sleeping or at the gym or anytime he wanted.”

  She stayed quiet for several minutes. Had he said the wrong thing? Had she retreated back behind her walls? He continued to caress her arm and back.

  “I know,” she said in a small voice. “But I didn’t talk to her for almost a year. She didn’t deserve that and I never said I was sorry.”

  Her chest heaved with her fresh tears. He had nothing. No words of wisdom to help her work through her guilt or her pain, so he held her and tried to comfort her as best he could. Eventually, her tears subsided.

  “Will you tell me about her?” he asked.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “You guys were really close?”

  “Yes. I wish we’d spent more time together when we were kids, but she was almost five years younger than I am. I was already in high school when she came to live with us. I thought it was cool, finally having a little sister, but we didn’t really have a lot in common.”

  “Why did she live with you?”

  She sighed. “Her step-father was physically abusing her.”

  “Like…?” Christ, how much bad luck could one person have?

  “No. She wasn’t sexually abused. Just physically. How horrible is that, that I have to qualify abuse by ‘just physically?’”

  “Pretty fucking horrible.”

  Denise rolled over and faced away from him. She pulled his arm over her waist and gripped his wrist. Maybe talking about these things was easier if she couldn’t see him. “Her mom and my mom are sisters. We were driving to North Carolina from Florida and decided to surprise them on the way since they lived in South Carolina. Their house was trashed. No food. Garbage everywhere. I remember Sarah stank to high heaven and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a bath. My dad lost his shit. Beat the crap out of my aunt’s husband and told my aunt we were taking Sarah and she’d have to call the cops if she wanted to try to stop him. My parents went to court for custody the next year. It was uncontested.”

  She was playing with his fingers and he couldn’t help but let his mind wander to other things he’d like her to play with, but it wasn’t the time.

  “I’ll tell you what I can about Eddie.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, Denise.”

  “I know that. Sarah worked really hard to get away from him and to give those kids the love and happiness she never really had.” She shook her head. “I’ll help how I can, but nothing can happen to those kids. I won’t put them in a position where that’s even a possibility.”

  He kissed the back of her head. “You won’t have to.”

  Chapter 11

  Denise blinked in the early morning light and scrunched up her swollen face. Her sinuses were stuffed and her forehead felt like someone had beaned her in the center of it a hammer. Plus, her stomach was a little queasy, probably because she hadn’t had much to eat at the wake last night.

  Shit. Kaden and Kimber. Grabbing for her phone on the nightstand, she unlocked it and revealed a screen full of texts from Bree.

  How’re the dogs?

  Are you okay?

  Please answer me. I’m starting to worry.

  Sending the cavalry.

  Then this morning: Sleep in. Taking the kids for pancakes.

  Mortification was an ugly bedfellow. A sneak-out-the-next-morning-without-trying-to-find-your-underwear, pretend-it-never-happened kind of ugly. Holy bejeezus, she’d made an ass out of herself.

  A low, snuffling snore came from behind her and she froze. Please let that be Sprocket. Except she’d left Sprocket with the kids. She eased onto her back and stared at Chris still sleeping in the bed next to her. Maybe if she slunk down under the covers, she’d find a portal to a parallel dimension where she hadn’t lost her shit in the middle of a thunderstorm, hadn’t cried after sex, and wasn’t currently fighting a wave of nausea brought on by either hunger or extreme embarrassment. It was hard to tell which was the driving force.

  He’d stayed though. Even when she’d turned into a certifiable basket case. Even after she’d given him what promised to be an impressive black eye.

  He rolled to his stomach and bunched the pillow under his head. Blinking his eyes a few times, he finally left them cracked in a sultry, half-open gaze.

  “Morning,” he mumbled. “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight.”

  “M’kay. Thirty more minutes.” He shut his eyes again.

  There was no stopping the smile at his adorableness.

  “You’re staring at me.”

  “Just looking,” she said.

  A few seconds passed and he blinked his eyes and closed them again.

  “What happened to your leg?” she asked. The scar was still red and not one he’d had before he left.

  He sighed and turned to his side to face her, bunching the pillow under his head. “We had two agents undercover with the Anarchists. They’d missed a couple of check-ins, which was unusual. I was sent in as the brother of one of the agents. My cover was I was trying to find him because our dad was sick. I kept getting the runaround on where my agents were.”

  His eyes were on her, but his gaze was focused inward like he was watching the reel of events play in his mind while giving her the highlights. “Their bodies turned up in a landfill. They’d both been shot execution-style and thrown away like garbage. One of the agents was a woman.”

  The last statement hung in the air. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. This conversation had gotten way heavier than she’d intended.

  He swallowed ha
rd. “We weren’t sure if my cover had been blown, so we set up the raid a few days after they were found.” Rolling to his back, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “It went ugly, fast. I took a hatchet to the knee.”

  She winched and sucked in a breath.

  He looked back at her. “Surgeon said if it hadn’t been dull or had gone half an inch left or right, it would have really fucked up my knee. Instead, it cut through to the kneecap. Thirty-four stitches later, I’ve got an awesome scar and a fucked-up story.”

  “I’m sorry.” There was nothing more to say. It sucked that he’d lost two agents and had been injured, but selfishly it didn’t assuage the pain at being abandoned with no word. Maybe that made her a bad person.

  He rolled back to his side. “So am I. I didn’t mean to ghost. When I got the word I was going in, I was ordered to go radio silent. We have protocols in place to make sure our covers can’t be tracked to our real lives, including shutting down all forms of communication.”

  It was her turn to drop her gaze. “I got it.” Still didn’t make it hurt any less.

  “Denise.” His voice was soft and gravely and raised goosebumps on her arms as if he’d dragged the tips of his fingers across her skin.

  “It’s alright, Chris.”

  “It’s not.”

  She looked up. “But it’ll probably happen again.”

  “Maybe.”

  There was the problem. He couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. More than likely it would happen again. Maybe not with her, but with someone.

  At the thought of him telling someone else he had to go, a bright, hot wave of jealousy surged through her from out of nowhere. The suddenness of her rage caught her off guard and she jerked.

  A furrow appeared between his brows. “You okay?”

  She pressed her lips together. “Mmm hmm. Muscle spasm.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Why did you join the Army first? Why not go straight to college?” She wanted to know everything about him with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. Before had been casual and lazy—they’d had all the time in the world. Now she knew that wasn’t true.

  “No money. My grades weren’t good enough for an academic scholarship and I wasn’t good enough at any sport to get a scholarship. Most of my high school friends were going nowhere fast. A couple O.D.’d on meth or heroin and the Army offered me a way out. What about you? Why the Army and not college?”

  “I went for about two years before I joined, but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I’d always had it in the back of my mind that I’d join. We were in Virginia and my dad got orders back to Bragg. I was going to community college and living at home. I did not want to do that in Fayetteville, so I enlisted.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “And you ended up back here anyway.”

  She tucked her hands under her head. “I’d like to point out Haven Creek is a good thirty minutes away from Fayetteville,” she said.

  “Touché. You never wanted to finish your degree?”

  “I have a Master’s in Business Management.”

  “Really?”

  Her eyebrows pinched together. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “It’s just—Well, you—I don’t have anything to say around the foot in my mouth.”

  She smiled. “It’s alright. People do it all the time.”

  He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “They shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve known better than to underestimate you.”

  A swarm of butterflies took flight in her stomach and her muscles felt gooey. Shit. This was what girlie felt like. It’d been so long since it’d happened, she almost forgot.

  “Why seven years?”

  “Huh?” What was seven years?

  “When we first got together you said you hadn’t been with anyone in seven years. How come?”

  “Oh.” Warmth spread across the tops of her cheeks. “Um, the short answer is I never liked anyone enough to want to go through the hassle of it.”

  “Of sex?” His shocked expression was comical.

  “Of any of it.” She shrugged. “I either intimidated guys or they viewed me as a challenge. The limited reward was never worth the effort.”

  “I don’t think you were meeting the right kind of guys.”

  “No doubt.”

  He shifted closer. “Thanks for thinking I was worth the effort.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m sorry about last night.” It was a morning for sorries.

  His hand cupped the side of her face. “Don’t. You have nothing to apologize for.” He kissed her gently and pulled her into his arms.

  It was sweet and comforting and the girlie emotions rose up inside her. She didn’t know what do to with what she was feeling, so she tucked her face into his neck and simply enjoyed not having to worry about anything.

  A few minutes later, he said, “I need to go to work for a few hours. You going to be okay?”

  The disappointment at his announcement was why she never let the girlie emotions have free reign. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Wasn’t she always?

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Call me if you need me.”

  Denise heaved a sigh while she rubbed Sweetpea’s belly and considered the options. Let someone adopt her or adopt the dog herself. It made sense really. Kaden and Kimber had been monopolizing Sprocket. She felt bad telling them no, but there were times she absolutely needed Sprocket with her. When she went grocery shopping for one. There were no delivery companies that serviced the rescue or Bree’s house so that wasn’t an option and, with Kimber and Kaden, neither was going late at night like she normally did to avoid the worst of the crowds. Getting the dog for K-Squared was common sense. They’d have a dog they could play with and she’d have Sprocket back. Problem solved.

  The door from the reception area slammed closed. She pivoted in her crouched position to see Emily, one of her part-time employees, rushing toward her, clutching her phone.

  She rose, closing and latching the kennel gate. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uh, there’s a really scary guy here to see you. Should I call the police?”

  Denise raised her eyebrows. “Scary how?”

  “Just…something about him. He’s got all these tattoos and…” She shuddered. “The way he looked at me. Like, guys look at me, but not like that.”

  “Like what?” She could see real fear in Emily’s eyes. They dealt with people with tattoos all the time, including local police, so that wasn’t it. Hell, they used to get dog fighters coming in and asking about their dogs and she’d never freaked out like this.

  “Like…not nice.”

  She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. Not nice. That explained everything and nothing all at the same time. “Okay. Stay on this side of the door with your phone ready.” She headed toward the front of the small building. “If you hear anything that worries you, call the police.”

  Emily nodded. “Okay.”

  Squirting hand sanitizer onto her palm from the bottle on the shelf by the door, she pushed through, giving Emily a reassuring look.

  “Hi. How can I…” She froze, ice forming in her veins.

  Eddie fucking Perry leaned against the counter as if he had not one fucking care in the world.

  An almost overwhelming rush of emotions threatened to break through. Anger. Hatred. Disgust. Even fear as she checked the clock on the wall over his head, making sure K-Squared were still in school.

  “Denise. Looking good.” His eyes traveled from her head down her body. “No words of welcome for your favorite in-law?” His voice was smooth like honey with just enough of a southern drawl that he didn’t sound like a hick. It had always creeped her out how such an evil person could have such an appealing voice.

  “No. What do you want Eddie?”

  “I want my wife and kids.” He said it like he was asking for popcorn and Coke to have during the matinée show at the m
ovie.

  “You don’t have a wife and kids.”

  He stood straight and braced his hands on the counter. Emily hadn’t been kidding about the tats—he was covered knuckle to neck. He sneered. “I don’t care what the courts said, I never signed no divorce papers. Sarah is still my wife and belongs with me.”

  She inhaled sharply through her nose. Holy shit. He didn’t know she was dead. “Yeah, well. Put a bullet in your brain. That’s the only way you’ll ever get close to Sarah again. Although, you’ll be burning in hell, so even that’s unlikely.”

  He slammed his hand down on the counter. “Tell me where the fuck she is!”

  His outburst was expected and she didn’t flinch. It’d always been his way. Sugary sweet and polite, followed by an violent tantrum when he didn’t get his way. Sarah had admitted, after months of therapy, his sweetness had been one of the reasons she’d stay for so long.

  “Saint Martin’s Episcopal Church. Section four, row twelve, plot three.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  She crossed her arms. “It means she died. Ten days ago.”

  If she hadn’t been hyperaware, she might have missed the brief flash of pain that crossed his face. Maybe, in his own sick, demented way, he had loved Sarah. It didn’t change anything.

  “I want my kids.”

  Asshole didn’t even acknowledge Sarah had died. Didn’t ask how or why. He was only worried about what he considered was his.

  “You don’t have any kids.”

  “Those kids are mine. They belong with me.”

  She took a step closer to the counter and the gun she kept in a drop-down compartment underneath. The biometric scanner would recognize her fingerprints and drop the compact nine millimeter into her hand in less than five seconds.