by Paige Tyler
* * *
Landry hadn’t said a word since they’d dropped Jim off at the Doubletree Hotel near Love Field twenty minutes ago. Everly understood why. Dinner with Jim had been…well, emotional was the word for it, she supposed.
It started out lighthearted and fun when Landry and Jim had explained all the acronyms they’d thrown at her earlier. It turned out EOD was short for Explosive Ordnance Disposal, which was a long-winded way of saying Landry and Jim had been in the army’s bomb squad. A VIP detail was when an EOD team was sent to work with the Secret Service or the State Department to provide bomb search expertise for protection of high-level American and foreign dignitaries, like the president.
Everly couldn’t believe Landry had failed to mention the fact that he’d worked security details for people like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and some well-known foreign big shots. Landry had immediately downplayed his part in what he said was a huge, complex operation, saying that EOD’s only job on VIPs was to search any area where the protectee would be for bombs and explosives. But still, it seemed like a big deal to her, and she told him so.
As they ate, Jim regaled her with stories about all the crazy things he and Landry had found while working VIPs together. She’d laughed so hard she could barely eat.
But then, Jim’s stories had turned more introspective and somber. Maybe that had to do with all the beer he’d been drinking. Or maybe, it was simply because it was hard to talk about their work without thinking about friends who hadn’t made it back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither of them would get into specifics, and Everly hadn’t pried, but as they talked, she realized why Landry hadn’t mentioned his time in the army on their first date.
If half the stories about what he’d done for those six years were true—and something told her they were—EOD made SWAT look positively safe by comparison. Landry had been on at least three deployments she had counted, plus a lot more trips overseas for something they called TDY. She knew it had something to do with temporary assignments, but hadn’t bothered to ask what it actually meant. She’d quickly figured out that military acronyms were stupid, and as long as she got the general gist of what they were talking about, she didn’t bother digging any deeper. The bottom line was that Landry and Jim had spent a lot of time in really dangerous places doing really dangerous things.
Something had gone horribly wrong on Landry’s last deployment in Iraq though. From the hushed way Jim said the names of the people who’d been with them, Everly knew a lot of their fellow soldiers had been killed. And while Jim wouldn’t go into detail, she knew Landry would have died too, if Jim hadn’t risked his life to save him. She wanted to know what had happened, but neither could seem to talk about it, so she didn’t push.
Everly had watched the news, waved flags for Veterans Day parades, and knew people who had family members in the military. But hearing Landry and Jim talk about it and the price people paid, it suddenly felt a lot more real.
By the time they finished dinner, Jim had switched from beer to hard alcohol. He downed so many whiskeys that Everly was surprised he was still upright and able to talk coherently. Then again, maybe Jim drank like that all the time. But from the way Landry frowned at his friend, she didn’t think so.
When they’d left the restaurant, Landry refused to let Jim drive, saying they’d drop him off at his hotel and that he could take a cab to get his car tomorrow. Fortunately, Jim hadn’t fought Landry on the issue.
“Give me a call, and we can get together again while you’re in town,” Landry said when they got to the Doubletree.
Jim’s eyes teared up, and for a moment, Everly was sure he was going to cry. Instead he man-hugged Landry tightly, mumbling how good it’d been seeing him again but that Landry had Everly, and he didn’t want to be a third wheel. Everly had felt her own eyes well up.
“Jim, you’re not a third wheel. You guys are friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time—I get that. I don’t need Landry all to myself,” she said, adding with a smile, “just the parts you’re not interested in.”
Jim had laughed, then squeezed Landry on the shoulder and told him he’d call. As Everly watched him make his way to the hotel’s entrance, she got the feeling he walked like a man who wasn’t quite sure where he was going. But was it thanks to all the alcohol he’d consumed, or something else entirely?
“You want a beer or something?” she asked Landry as they walked into her apartment.
Mia wasn’t around, but Everly kept her voice low in case her roommate was sleeping. She turned on only one light, which left the living room in deep shadows cast by the glow of the streetlamp coming through the living room window.
Landry hesitated. “No, thanks. I’ll take a bottle of water, if you have it.”
She grabbed two bottles from the fridge, then carried them into the living room. Handing one to Landry, she sat down on the couch beside him.
“You okay?” she asked. “You’ve been quiet ever since we dropped Jim off.”
Landry took a swig of water, then put the cap back on the bottle. “I guess. Jim and I have talked on the phone, and emailed a few times since I got out of the army, but…” He shook his head. “He’s changed so much since the last time I saw him.”
She kicked off her sandals and curled her legs under her. “When was that?”
Landry sighed and leaned back against the cushion. “Four years ago as he was dragging my partially paralyzed ass out of a burning building in Iraq. But he’s changed so much since then that I barely recognized him today when I opened the door. He’s gone gray and gotten thinner. He looks like he’s the one who got screwed up over there—not me.”
Everly stared. A few hours ago, she’d almost begged him and Jim for details about what had happened, but hearing Landry using such succinct words to describe something as awful as that… The thought of him being hurt so badly made her feel like she couldn’t breathe. Part of her didn’t want to know any more, but the other part needed to hear it.
She sat there silently, hoping he would tell her, but dreading it at the same time.
“I fell for a stupid trap I should have recognized,” he said finally. “My team and I blew up an IED—improvised explosive device—in an old abandoned building outside this city called Samarra in Iraq. Standard operating procedure is to check to make sure the IED is completely destroyed after you blow it and that the area is safe. As the team leader, that was my job. But there was a second bomb waiting for me when I went into the building. I didn’t realize it until it was too late, and I couldn’t get out in time.”
Landry’s voice was flat and emotionless, like he was reading a book he’d read a hundred times…or reliving a movie that had been playing over and over in his head since that day. Everly almost told him to stop, that she didn’t want to hear any more. Yet something told her he wasn’t telling her the story because he thought she wanted to hear it. He was doing it because he needed to say it out loud.
“I was hit really hard,” he continued. “Broken back. Bleeding out from a half dozen wounds. Choking to death on smoke from the fire the blast had started. I was sure I was dead. Then Jim showed up and dragged me out.”
Tears filled Everly’s eyes, but she ignored them, letting them pool up and run down her face. She couldn’t in her darkest nightmares imagine having to live through what he was describing. He hadn’t said a single word about the pain, but she knew that it must have been beyond horrible.
Landry swallowed hard. “The bomb going off was a signal to the local insurgents to launch an assault. Bullets were flying everywhere, but Jim ignored them and dragged me all the way back to the safe area where our vehicles were set up. He and the other members of my team cut me out of the bomb suit and plugged up the holes in my body, then got me on a spine board and called in a medevac bird. And the whole time, Jim was right in my face telling me over and over that I wasn’t going to die. Turns out he was right.”
Thank God. “What happened after you…go
t better?”
“It took a while before I did, and by the time the army realized I was actually going to be able to walk again, they’d already medically discharged me.” He blew out a breath. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to stay anyway, not after everything that happened. Finding the SWAT team was a godsend. After getting blown up, there was no way I could ever go back into EOD work full-time again.”
Landry turned to look at her then. Everly quickly tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks before he could see them, but he lifted one big, gentle hand and softly did it for her. His touch was so tender she almost started crying again.
“I’m sorry to dump all this depressing crap on you,” he said softly. “But I’ve never been with anyone I trusted enough to talk about it until I met you. I never even realized how much it’s been weighing on me, not until I saw Jim tonight. Thank you for listening.”
She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “Of course. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough with me to talk about it. I’ve never had to deal with anything like what you went through, but I know what it’s like to have stuff inside your head you can’t talk about.”
Landry lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. “Like your mom, you mean?”
Everly blinked. “How do you know about my mom? Did you do a background check on me or something?”
He smiled. “No. I just guessed. Since you didn’t mention her even once in all the time we were at dinner last night, it wasn’t much of a leap. I figured you’d tell me about it when it seemed like the right time.”
Everly relaxed against the cushions embarrassed she’d accused him of doing something as underhanded as a background check. She shouldn’t be surprised he’d picked up on the fact that she hadn’t mentioned her mom. She’d already figured out he was amazingly perceptive.
“It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything,” she said quietly. “It happened a long time ago, so I don’t think about it that much now.”
He lifted a brow as if to say that was a bunch of BS.
She sighed. “Okay, maybe I do think about it.”
Actually, she thought about it every day.
“What happened?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “When I was little, we lived on a big farm in the French countryside. I don’t really remember much about it, but my parents had a huge winery. Dad grew the grapes and made the wine, and Mom took care of the business side. She and I were in the house one day when a worker Dad hired came in and attacked Mom.”
“Oh God,” Landry breathed. “How old were you?”
“Seven.”
She bit her lip, digging through the few memories she had left of her mom—and that day. It had always made her mad that she could barely remember her mother, or what had happened.
“I only remember bits and pieces,” she said. “I was helping Mom bake a pie when he came into the house. He was angry about something, and Mom pushed me down behind the kitchen counter and told me to stay there. I can’t remember much after that. I don’t know exactly what he did or how she died. All I know for sure is that he killed her, then left without ever looking for me.”
“Did the police catch the man and find out why he’d done it?” Landry asked.
She shook her head. “Dad told me that the police found the man dead several days later, but they didn’t say who had killed him or why he murdered my mother. But once Mom was gone, Dad couldn’t live in the house anymore. It was too hard for him. Too hard for all of us. So…he sold the farm and the winery and moved us here.”
“I’m sorry you lost your mom,” Landry said gently.
“Me too.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “The worst part is that I was so young when it happened. I barely remember her at all. I mean, I have photos of her, but it isn’t the same thing. Sometimes, it feels like I lost her twice.”
Another tear escaped, and this time, Landry wiped it away.
He put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, sad at the reminder of her mother’s death, but glad she had told him. They talked some more about what she did remember about living in France—the farmhouse, playing hide-and-seek with her brothers, running through the vineyards in a yellow sundress, stomping around in a vat of grapes. The memories made her cry all over again, but in a good way.
“I should probably get going,” Landry said softly against her hair.
Everly wanted him to stay the night, but after having dinner with Jim and talking about what Landry had gone through in Iraq, not to mention what had happened to her mother, she wasn’t in the mood to pick up where they’d left off at his apartment. She suspected he wasn’t either.
“Landry, do you think Jim might have a drinking problem?” she asked as they walked to the door. “It could be why he looks so much different than you remember him.”
She expected Landry to deny his friend had a drinking problem. The guy had saved his life, after all. But Landry surprised her.
“As much as I hate to say it, yeah.” He sighed.
“Was he already drinking a lot before the accident in Iraq?”
She hated to even ask because she didn’t want Landry feeling guilty, but seeing his best friend broken and bleeding must have been horrific for Jim.
But Landry shook his head. “Jim drank for years before seeing me get blown up. I don’t think it was a big problem back then, and it never interfered with his job, but he could always knock ’em back. Hell, if you ask around, most people will tell you that EOD actually stands for Every One Drunk. But seeing me get screwed up may have pushed him in that direction. Unfortunately, what happened to me wasn’t the worst situation Jim had to deal with on that deployment to Iraq.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard us talking during dinner about those other soldiers in our unit who died, right?” At her nod, he continued. “He feels responsible for their deaths.”
Everly listened in shock as Landry described what happened in Samarra after he’d been injured and medevacked out of Iraq. From what Jim had told him, he had responded to a large IED call along with five other members of his unit. A device had gone off in the safe area while Jim had been downrange, and three EOD techs had died.
“I saw a copy of the final report,” Landry added. “There were implications that someone had made a poor decision in selecting the safe area where all the other team members had been waiting, but the conclusion was that the deaths were due to hostile action, something that couldn’t have been foreseen or prevented. Yet the official report didn’t stop the rumors. EOD techs are people, and people talk. The conspiracy theory is that someone screwed up badly. Most people think it was Jim because he was the senior EOD tech there.”
Everly didn’t really understand the details of what had happened. She just knew Jim had been blamed for it. “Do you think he did something wrong?”
“Definitely not,” Landry said firmly. “Jim is the best tech I’ve ever worked with. Hell, he’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. If someone screwed up, it wasn’t him. Unfortunately, not everyone knows him as well as I do. I imagine he’s had to put up with people whispering behind his back ever since the accident.”
“No wonder he drinks,” Everly muttered.
Landry shook his head. “Seeing your friends and teammates die, and knowing people blame you for it is bad enough, but then there’s the guilt of surviving when those you were responsible for didn’t. Jim is probably dealing with some PTSD. He’s going to need help whether he wants to admit it or not.”
She noticed Landry didn’t mention he’d gone through some traumatic ordeals of his own. No doubt he was dealing with serious issues from his past as well. But at least he’d been surrounded by his friends on the SWAT team. And now, he had her. It didn’t sound like Jim had anyone.
“If Jim gets a job in Dallas, maybe we can convince him to get help,” she said.
Landry regarded her for a time, then reached out and pu
lled her into his arms for a long, languid kiss.
Regardless of the serious discussion they’d been having for the past few hours, all it took was his lips to make her feel better.
He pulled away to rest his forehead against hers. “Do you know how amazing you are, Everly Danu?”
That made her feel even better.
Chapter 7
Cooper pulled out his phone to call his friend Dennis the moment he came out of Delacroix’s office. Now that he was allowed to suit up and get back in the game, he wanted to figure out where the FBI was on the bombing case. He still didn’t understand exactly why Delacroix had done it, but she’d signed off on his fitness-for-duty evaluation, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He hadn’t even known he and Delacroix had a meeting this morning until he’d left Everly’s last night and saw a voice mail on his cell phone saying she could slip him in at nine o’clock the next day if he was available.
Cooper would have rather headed over to Everly’s place this morning just to see what she looked like with her hair all tousled and sexy from sleeping, but Becker and the other members of the Pack needed him to get his ass off suspension. They were running themselves ragged covering all the search warrant details plus their normal workload. If meeting with Delacroix on a Saturday morning would get him closer to that, he was there.
Cooper left Dennis a message, saying he was off suspension and to give him a call, then climbed in his Jeep. He was still surprised at how well the meeting with Delacroix had gone. He’d walked into her office to find her watching the bank video again, this time going over the section where he’d charged the guy holding Everly and knocked him out.
He’d almost groaned¸ expecting their session to be like the previous one, with her asking him why he’d done what he had in that part of the video, and what he had been thinking about at the time. But instead, he and Delacroix had spent the first thirty minutes talking about last night’s dinner with Everly and Jim. At some point, the conversation got around to all the stuff that had gone down in Iraq—both to him and Jim. It still wasn’t easy to talk about, but now that he’d already had the conversation with Everly, he could get the words out at least.