Barry turned the chopper up and away, Riley’s view now of vibrant, green land, shaggy spruce, meadows sprinkled with white flowers amidst a backdrop of jagged foothills.
Barry’s words before they’d deployed rushed back at him. You are their good shepherd. Protect them. Guide them. And bring them home safely.
Riley leaned his head back. Closed his eyes. And wished his instincts weren’t always right.
Good thing Larke had decided not to let him into her life, because one look at Riley sleeping in the hospital bed, a little broken, scuffed up, and vulnerable, one of his wide, ropy shoulders bandaged, could turn her all gooey and warm inside.
He looked like a wounded warrior.
A smart girl would remember that she’d had her fill of those, thank you.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to leave his room. Probably just the medic inside, wanting to see her patient stable. Keep him from doing anything stupid.
Like run back to a fire line and possibly do worse damage to his already broken self.
Even from here, through the wide picture window on the second story of the Copper Mountain Regional Hospital, she could gauge the thickening cloud of soot and smoke that hovered over the park.
I’m not trying to be a hero. We could be in real trouble here.
His angry, almost desperate voice still shook through her.
They need me, or someone who knows what they’re doing.
He wasn’t trying to be arrogant—she knew that. But if he only could have seen himself when they picked him up—a raw scrape on his chin, his golden brown hair sooty and matted, his face blackened, his eyes reddened, and his hand securing his arm to his body—he might have agreed that he wasn’t exactly the guy for the job.
Or maybe he was, because he’d definitely been in serious pain, but he’d still stumbled over to Seth, the big blond guy he’d left in charge, and shouted final instructions. She’d nearly gotten back out of the chopper to catch him, woozy as he was on his feet, but the look on Riley’s face suggested he would only push her away.
He seemed angrier at himself than anyone else, however. Proven by the fact that he could barely look at her when she helped him from the chopper to her truck, once they’d landed at the ranch, and by the time they reached the hospital, he was gritting his teeth rather than openly groaning.
Tough guys. They drove her crazy.
A nurse came into the room and checked his vitals. An oxygen cannula ran under his nose, a pulse ox on his finger, an IV line with pain meds taped to his arm. They’d washed his hair and given him a sponge bath before taking him into surgery, and now his hair lay in thick tousles, his beard even longer, golden strands mixed with deep chocolate brown.
Tempting.
She tucked her hands under her armpits and stood away from him as the nurse finished.
“He should be waking up soon,” she said. “And you should get some sleep. It’s after midnight.”
Larke nodded, then sank down in a chair near his bed.
No, she shouldn’t, because the minute he woke up he’d probably want to do stupid things, and she’d start worrying all over again. And now she definitely rued the decision to follow Reckless to the Midnight Sun and get tangled in his arms.
What on earth had she been thinking?
She leaned forward, rubbing a sudden fatigue from her face.
“I can admit wanting to wake up next to you, but this isn’t what I had in mind.”
She looked up into Riley’s brown eyes, one side of his mouth lifting up.
Oh brother. “This is as close as you’re going to get to that fantasy, so drink it in.”
“I am. That and whatever drugs they have me on…” He breathed deeply. “Maybe I’m dreaming…”
She rolled her eyes and got up. “They had to pin your collarbone. And your arm is in a braced sling. You’re in no shape to fight any fires there, champ, so sink back into that morphine and enjoy.”
The tiniest flicker of challenge raked through his eyes, and his smile dimmed.
Especially when he looked past her, out the window. His lips thinned to a tight line. “Any word on the fugitives?”
She shook her head, and when he closed his eyes, as if in frustration, she nearly reached for his hand.
Instead, she put hers in her pockets. “Are you thirsty?”
“I’ll take a whiskey, straight.”
“Ha.” She picked up a Styrofoam cup and angled the straw toward his mouth. “I have water. Neat. Sorry, the ice has melted.”
His gaze latched onto hers as his lips closed around the straw. He took a couple swallows, then leaned away. “You didn’t have to stay.”
She put the cup back on the patient tray. “I know. I didn’t trust you not to make a break for it.”
His jaw tensed, as if yes, she had foiled all his plans. “They’re all rookies out there.”
“They’ll be okay.”
“This is such a mess.” A little red lingered in his eyes. “I totally screwed up. Again. I know better than to walk under a snag. Stupid. Simple firefighting 101.”
She stepped back, arms akimbo. “You’re being a little hard on yourself, aren’t you?”
He lifted his good shoulder.
“The answer to that is yes.”
“Or no. I was in a hurry, trying to get the fire mopped up, my brain thinking about Tucker and Skye and not on my job, and I could have gotten myself—or one of my teammates—killed.”
She’d been on this side of many post-attack dark evaluations and now sat on the chair again. “It doesn’t help to rehash it. It happened. Deal with it.”
He looked over at her. “Sheesh. What happened to Sunset Girl? I liked her—bring her back.”
“She woke up. Answered a call to pick up an injured smokejumper and realized that she was right back in a war zone. No thank you.”
“Wait—you are mad at me.” He grinned then.
“Why are you grinning?”
“Because you like me. My charm worked. You missed me. You’re worried about me.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Come over here and kiss me.” He even reached for her.
“Have you lost your mind?” She got up and put the chair between them. “You’re arrogant and reckless and you drive me crazy. Our little sunset conversation was a bad—very bad—idea and I’m…leaving.” She headed for the door.
“Stop being such a coward.”
She stopped, turned.
He’d dropped his hand, his smile gone also, those brown eyes flashing. “I was kidding about the kiss—mostly, but you weren’t. You do like me, and that scares you. A lot. Enough to run.”
“I’m not running. I’m…you’re fine. And I have to get back to the ranch—”
“You’re so running, but…not from me, I don’t think. I mean, yeah, technically, but I just remind you of your ghost.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
He cocked his head. “Freeman, wasn’t it? The guy you loved. Who died because—he saved your life?”
Her mouth opened, and, okay, fine. “You’re right. You do remind me of him. He was reckless and made a stupid decision. I was pinned down, yeah, but I was fine. Safe. And he ran out through the chaos and got hit for nothing. And what’s worse, if he’d just told me he was hit—good grief, I’m a medic. I could have done something. But he just…he just sacrificed himself because…because—”
“Because he loved you?”
She stared at Riley, the fact that he’d said it so softly it landed like a punch to her sternum. Crazily, her eyes filled.
“Because he didn’t believe I could take care of myself.”
Riley gave her a sad look. “That’s a lie, and you know it. You were a soldier. He did it because he couldn’t stop himself.”
She closed her eyes, her jaw tight. Opened them and walked over to the window. “He should have. It’s my fault he’s dead.”
A beat.
Then, “That’s a lie, too.”
“It feels true.”<
br />
“Larke. I didn’t know Freeman, but I do know that it’s simply instinct for a guy to protect the woman he loves.”
She wiped her wettened cheekbone. “Maybe. But I wish everyone would stop acting like I’m breakable.”
“Who does that?”
“I’m the only girl in a family of men. And they act like I am the weak one, that they needed to protect me.”
“You’re their sister—”
“I’m their older sister. I should be taking care of them.”
“Anyone looking at you knows you can handle yourself.”
“Yeah, well.” She took a breath.
She couldn’t tell him it was all a game. That inside she mostly felt like she would shatter into a thousand pieces.
“I lost my mom when I was eight. She died of cancer and was the strongest person I knew. But she turned into a shell right before my eyes. It terrified me. And the grief took me apart. My brothers had each other, and well, I felt so alone. I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s place—my cabin. When she died, I realized I had to take that fear and grief and push it into a hard ball. I forced myself to join the military, did a tour in Afghanistan.”
She whirled around. “I can fly a plane, a helicopter, remodel my own house, and birth a freakin’ baby. I can even patch up guys who have their legs and arms blown off, long enough to get them to a hospital. I don’t flinch, I don’t run away, and I don’t fall apart!”
She did, however, apparently yell.
He hadn’t flinched, hadn’t taken his gaze off hers. And clearly he possessed the ability to see right through her, because, “Except you can’t sleep and you went looking for a guy who could help you forget your wounds, didn’t you? Which tells me that maybe you aren’t as unbreakable as you say.”
Her breath shucked out. “How did you know I can’t sleep?”
“You told me about the sleeping part. I figured out the rest.”
Her face reddened. “That was a mistake.”
He drew in a breath. Then, “Everyone is breakable, Larke. You just have to let yourself admit it.”
“Really? Can you admit it? Because I remember a guy saying, ‘I’m indestructible.’”
He seemed to be debating something quippy, like I am. Instead, “Naw. I’m a total wreck.”
Silence, a beat, and he looked over at her, something sad in his expression. “And now you know. I did warn you. I’m no hero.”
Whatever.
She found herself walking over then, sitting on the chair by his bed.
“I was broken long before my dad died, if you’re thinking it’s about him. I mean—yeah. He was bigger than life to me. A superhero. Master Chief McCord. We lived in Chicago at the end, but only because he’d taken a job training the pre-SEAL candidates at Great Lakes naval base. And then they needed him overseas and called him to Afghanistan.” He turned his hand over and looked at the ink inside his wrist. If. She’d seen a flash of it that night in the bar but hadn’t asked him about it.
“‘I am that man. I will not fail,’” he said softly. “‘If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.’” He drew in a breath, then looked up at her.
“SEAL creed, shortened. My Dad had this sense of honor—not just from being a SEAL, but…he had this poem he lived by. It was by Rudyard Kipling, all about being a man. ‘If… If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone…’ Anyway, it’s a long poem, and my dad made me and my older brother learn it until we could say it in our sleep. His way of instilling in us a code, maybe. Even if we weren’t going to be soldiers.”
“But you were going to be a marine.”
“I was. I told my dad I would enlist before he left. It’s the one thing I did that made him proud.” He gave a little laugh, no humor in it. “And then, of course, I broke that promise.”
She frowned. “Of course?”
He glanced at her. “Two sons, one golden, one the screwup. While my brother got A’s, I was the one who got in fights at school, took chances, broke bones. I just couldn’t sit still… I always had to see, do, explore. School was boring and hard and…in more than one school, I had my own desk in the principal’s office.”
“You sound like a normal boy.”
“When I was ten, we lived in Oahu, Hawaii, and I heard about these giant sea turtles that would come on shore at night, about fifteen miles north of where we lived. So I hitchhiked up the shore and camped out for two days until they showed up. It was amazing…huge beasts, they crawled up on the sand and just lay there, big eyes watching me. I stayed there all night. The next morning, I went home, and my dad was there. He’d been on a training op, I think. But they flew him home because they thought I’d been kidnapped.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“It was bad. My dad called me reckless and stupid, and I think I was grounded for the rest of my life—”
“You were ten.”
“Still. He was right. My mother was a mess. She did everything she could think of to corral me—from church to camp to sports clubs. I was finally diagnosed with ADHD, but by then Dad had sent me to military school and I learned how to behave.”
“I’ll bet not.”
She didn’t know why she said that—it just felt, well…she could see him. A restless kid buttoned up, his golden brown hair shaved, marching in rows to class, sitting perfectly at a desk, and in truth, it hurt a little.
He gave her a true, tiny grin. “Maybe not. But I behaved well enough for my dad to let me come home for my last two years of high school.”
“Right before he shipped out?”
“Yeah. Maybe so I could be with my mother—Beau was already at the Naval Academy by then.”
“Wow. All heroes in your family.”
“Except me. I’m nothing like my dad, or my brother.”
She shook her head. “Whatev—”
“Seriously. I’m not a hero, Larke. You called it. I’m reckless, I love anything that is hot and dangerous, from fire to…well, don’t be fooled. I’m not a good guy. I was totally going to sleep with you a couple nights ago, and that hasn’t left my head in the least.”
“But you didn’t. We didn’t. Because my head wasn’t in the right place, either.” Except. “Why didn’t you? You didn’t even try to put the moves on me.”
He was looking at her strangely, a tenderness sinking into his eyes a moment before he blinked it away. “I dunno. I guess I lost my game, like Tucker said.”
Hardly. But she didn’t want to suggest otherwise. Because he turned a little red and that only made him more… Aw, there he went again, wheedling into her heart.
Especially when he cut his voice low, his eyes still on hers. Devastating. “Or, maybe I realized that I wanted something more than just a night with you.”
Her throat tightened. She got up, rubbed her hands on her pants. “Yeah, well…I think…um…”
A beat. Then he smiled. “Calm down, Larke. I’m just saying I’m glad we didn’t.” He didn’t add a yet. Or a wink or anything to suggest something more.
“Oh. Uh, me too.”
“But I wouldn’t turn down a kiss.”
There he was, the charmer she couldn’t stop following.
Would probably still follow. Right into trouble, danger, and heartbreak.
“I should go.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Or, you could stay. I might go into cardiac arrest. I need a good medic.”
“Cardiac arrest—from a dislocated shoulder?”
“And broken clavicle. Don’t forget.” He was scooting over in the bed, patting the empty space. “It’s late. And listen, nothing exciting is going to happen. I’m on drugs. And I hurt everywhere.”
“You’re on morphine.”
“I still hurt.”
For some reason, she didn
’t think he was kidding.
Even when he added, “But it would make me feel much better if I knew I was under your medical care.” His mouth tweaked up on one side.
“So, this is your best game?”
“I mentioned the drugs part. I could try harder.”
“No, it’s working,” she said softly and slid onto the bed beside him, on top of the covers. But he was warm and strong and put his arm around her as she settled her head on his unhurt shoulder.
Closed her eyes.
Oh, she needed sleep. Without nightmares.
Without Freeman.
“By the way, not only can you handle yourself, but I think you’re pretty tough, too.”
Clearly not tough enough. Because despite her resolve, here she was, right back in Riley’s arms. She breathed in his scent—clean, although with the finest hint of smoke and salt on his skin—and sank into the strength of his arm around her.
She refused to be afraid. Or broken.
But if she were, this was exactly where she’d want to be.
5
Never did Riley want to be a different man more than when Larke closed her eyes and fell into a deep, beautiful, unblemished slumber in his arm.
Just the one arm because the other was pinned to his body, thanks to the body sling. And probably that was a good thing because that pretty much meant he was unable to roll over and run his fingers through her white-gold hair or smooth his hand down her shoulder or even tuck her in closer.
He had to behave.
And of course he would behave—he wasn’t that guy to take advantage of a woman while she was sleeping, but…
But with everything inside him, he battled the other guy. The guy who told him that she’d never see him as anything but the one-night stand she’d gone after in the Midnight Sun.
A guy she couldn’t depend on. A guy she couldn’t trust. And certainly not a guy she’d give her heart to.
That guy was painfully aware of how she smelled—musky, the tiniest scent of exertion on her skin. And the morphine wasn’t helping, because it took the edge off his pain and made him sink into dreams and what-ifs and wishes and…
Summer of the Burning Sky Page 31