by Dana Marton
The corner of his mouth looked like it was struggling to twitch, but she couldn’t be sure, because the next second he bent to unlace his boots at last.
She felt as if she’d moved a mountain. Better not get overconfident.
She waited until he straightened, kicked off his boots, and looked at her once again. Then she said, “Ecotherapy is basically ecopsychology. We use nature to connect to our inner nature.”
There. I’m the boss, and you’re going to have to get with the program. “About seventy percent of people report improvement in their depression after a green walk. We start by paying attention to the energies that connect us to the land and all other living things—”
He turned and strode forward on the path in front of her, effectively shutting her down, like turning off the TV.
Fine. She could use a breather from his intensity. She needed a moment to process her first impressions of him. Like that massive wall inside him that she sensed hid scary things. Dead things. Things she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about. Surface Cole was all she could handle this morning.
However, she did have to prove in this first session that she could handle the ill-tempered SEAL. So Annie hurried after him.
Inside the main building of the Hope Hill facilities, a man stood by the window. He stared absently at the trail where the big Hawaiian had disappeared minutes ago with Annie.
The man at the window had a plastic bag of pills in his pocket, and he worried them through his fingers, as if praying the rosary. He finally had enough pills to put even a large man to sleep. Permanently.
He had sent Mitch Moritz to his rest. He was ready to send another.
He didn’t think of it as murder. They were all troubled souls here. He would simply give another one the rest that the man desperately needed anyway.
He liked taking care of people. He took care of his mother. He was a good son.
He kept fingering the pills. The thought of finally using them was giving him an erection.
That was where pretty little Annie Murray came in.
Annie with her carefully kept distance. That wasn’t polite, now, was it? Soon she’d learn that trying to keep him at arm’s length was a poor decision on her part.
Poor decisions had consequences. Women were to be protected. But only women who knew their place.
He would teach Annie.
He liked helping people.
He only wished that they were smart enough to understand that he was the good guy here.
Chapter Three
COLE MAKANI HUNTER wanted nothing to do with the woods, or the ecotherapist.
At least he got to choose if he wanted to look at her, had a way to turn her off.
Or maybe he didn’t.
She skipped ahead of him and began walking backward.
She was tall, neither lean nor overweight, but full of soft curves. She wore khaki cargo shorts that reached her knees and a soft, flowing, short-sleeved, greenish cotton shirt. Her camo colors blended into the trees. She had plain, symmetrical features. Her reddish-brown hair—it looked like her natural color—cascaded to the middle of her back, uncurled, unironed, and frizzy from the humidity. No makeup. The cosmetic industry wasn’t getting rich off her.
She wore an old-fashioned wind-up watch on her wrist. No electronics—so no cell phone. The instruction sheet had been clear that none of that would be allowed during ecotherapy sessions.
She smelled faintly of lavender. Cole knew the scent only because his mother grew lavender on her windowsills.
“Tell me about your tattoos.” Annie wasn’t shouting at him, which he appreciated. She made sure to talk only when he was looking at her. “What do they mean?”
He had a feeling that if he didn’t respond, she’d just push harder. The woman was way too earnest, and she had an overabundance of enthusiasm for her subject.
He pointed at the flower on his arm. “The hibiscus is for Hawaii. My father was from Maui.”
“Is that where you were born?”
“Never been to Hawaii. Born in Chicago. My mother’s family’s been in Chicago since it was a one-horse town.”
“How did your parents meet?”
“My grandfather was in the navy. My mother’s father. He served with my father, took him under his wing. My father had no family, so my grandfather invited him home now and then when on leave to make sure the kid got a home-cooked meal.”
“How about your other tattoos?”
“The trident is for the SEALs.”
“And the rest?”
More difficult to say, but Cole said it anyway. “The names are the friends who didn’t come back. The barbed wire is one barb for every month of bloody torture.”
The smile disappeared from her face. “When you were held captive.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
He appreciated the sentiment. He would have appreciated it more if being sorry kept her quiet. It didn’t.
“How did you learn to read lips so well?” she asked next.
“Grandmother was a smoker. When she got cancer, they had to take out her larynx.” She’d lived with Cole and her parents at the time, and when the artificial larynx hadn’t worked for her, they all learned to read her lips. Cole, a kid, thought it a fun game. Then later, when he became a sniper, his ability to lip-read became an invaluable skill.
“Can you sign?” Annie both signed and asked the question.
He signed back. “I can, but ninety percent of everybody else can’t, so what’s the point?”
“ASL is the fourth-most-studied language in college now. And it’ll grow your brain. Studies documented an eight- to thirteen-point rise in IQ in kids who study ASL.”
He didn’t respond. What was there to say? She had everything tied up in a nice, optimistic bow. They lived in different worlds.
A minute passed as they walked.
“So this is it?” He nodded toward the trees with his head. “The whole therapy is just walking through the woods?”
“This and other things,” she said. “In one-on-one therapy, we’ll do our green walks. Then, in group therapy, we’ll clear new trails. We’ll also be planting a fruit orchard. And we’ll spend some time picking trash out of the creek. Ecotherapy is about healing both people and their environment.”
“In other words, free labor.” Cole didn’t bother to keep the snark out of his voice.
“In the process of healing others, we heal ourselves.”
He snagged that thought. There was something there. “Is that why you’re a therapist? Trying to heal yourself while messing with others?” He scrutinized her. “What’s wrong with you?”
He meant it as a gibe, because he was in a piss-poor mood this morning. And because she was pushing him into places he didn’t want to go, so he needed to push back.
Her root beer–colored eyes widened, opening a window to a deep darkness that looked uncomfortably similar to his own cave of horrors. Pain flashed through her gaze. For a second, her serene expression turned . . . stricken.
Cole felt as if he’d opened the door to a room he wasn’t prepared to enter. There was something deep and raw here, something that maybe scared him a little and scared her a lot. So he slammed the door shut and backed away. He didn’t know her. He didn’t want to know her.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said at last. “And there’s nothing wrong with you.” She paused before asking, “Do you think there is something wrong with you?”
He shot her a warning look. “You can tell me about your trees, but stay out of my head.”
He went back to studying her. She was less complicated on the outside than on the inside.
Her only jewelry was a leather string tied around her slim ankle, decorated with seven golden brown beads that matched her eyes. If she was going for the earth-mother look, she’d nailed it. A born tree hugger. Cole was surprised her T-shirt didn’t say MAKE LOVE NOT WAR.
If she brought up the subject, h
e was willing to do his part. His right arm and his ears might have quit, but his dick still worked. Even, apparently, when the woman was delusional.
The nonsense she could say straight-faced . . . Our bodies absorb negative electrons from the earth through the bottoms of our feet. If she thought he was going to buy any of the smoke she was blowing up his ass, she was going to be tragically disappointed.
“I’m not here to mess with you,” she said. “Nobody at Hope Hill is. We’re here to help.”
“You got a time machine?”
Because the path narrowed, she pushed branches carefully out of the way so they wouldn’t break. “You’re being uncooperative.”
You haven’t seen uncooperative yet, he thought. I’m here, aren’t I? I’d much rather be in my room, staring at the ceiling. “And you’re careless.”
He kept going, past the narrowing out onto a wider trail again, following her as she walked backward, all the while expecting her to fall on her curvy ass.
“How am I careless?” She didn’t as much as stumble. She could walk backward better than a crab, and she probably knew every inch of the trail.
“Being alone in the woods with me.” Cole gave his voice a deliberately dark edge. “Don’t you know all of us PTSD fucks are monsters? Barrels of gunpowder waiting for a spark. You never know what’ll set one of us off.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t curse.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “It hurts the trees’ ears?”
He wasn’t a fan of the woods. No more than twenty feet of visibility. As an ex-sniper, he wanted wide-open places. The woods made him uncomfortable, and his senses had been tingling already, a strong feeling that they were being watched as they stood at the edge of the trees a few minutes ago. The odd sensation had been the only reason he’d agreed to go on her damn walk with her.
She held his gaze, her eyes clear and peaceful now, soothing like the surface of a hidden mountain lake.
Cole nearly stumbled over his own feet. Had he just thought that? No way.
The whole ecotherapy bullshit made him feel stupid and awkward. So he turned his demeanor menacing even as he knew he was being a jerk. “You shouldn’t be out here with me alone. I could do anything to you.”
She kept her gaze level. “Try it.”
“I don’t want to.” Or did he?
Sex was becoming a distant memory. The first batch of drugs the doctors prescribed had messed with his body. He’d switched to different pills but . . . He’d never been into meaningless hookups to start with, and he couldn’t imagine spending enough time with a woman now to get to know her. Not to mention, who would want to spend time with him when he was like this?
But, hey, he had her invitation.
Maybe he’d get lucky and get kicked out of ecotherapy, which was a colossal waste of his time—made-up mumbo-jumbo science no sane person could take seriously. So he reached for Annie, not entirely clear what he meant to do with her once he had her. He wanted to put hands on her, he supposed, to prove that he could.
Next thing he knew, he was looking up at the sky, lying at her feet.
He blinked. Then blinked again.
In what universe . . .
He was beginning to get used to not being able to recognize his life, but this took the cake.
He stayed down, staring at her bare calves for a second before raising his gaze to her face. “How did you do that?”
“A couple of things,” she said with admirably restrained smugness, and counted them out on her fingers. “One: I grabbed your injured arm, then used twice as much force as I thought I’d need, deliberately overestimating you to be on the safe side. It almost wasn’t enough.”
Huh.
“Two: You think I’m a tree-hugging hippie, so you underestimated me. Probably figured your therapist isn’t going to beat you up during a session. I think you were lulled into a false sense of safety.”
He definitely had been. Not too smart.
“Three: You are drugged. Your reflexes aren’t what they should be.”
Which was exactly why he was doing all this, because the main shrink, Dr. Ambrose, had told him that if he participated in other therapies, he might be able to cut back on the drugs.
“Four: Back at the gas station, you took me by surprise. Here I was prepared and ready, expecting you to make that move.
“Last but not least”—more smug crept into her voice—“you’re a gentleman. I think you didn’t fully resist because you didn’t want to hurt a woman.”
Was that a self-satisfied smirk at the corner of her soft lips? He didn’t mind the smug, but he had to do something about the smirk. “Yeah. Don’t count on the gentleman thing.”
He scissored his legs, pulled hers out from under her, and brought her to the ground. Then, on some stupid impulse, he rolled on top of her to immobilize her, like he would have with an enemy combatant.
She stared up at him, wide-eyed, her long hair spread over the carpet of autumn leaves. She was soft against all his hard places.
Swaying branches crowded his peripheral vision. He didn’t mind them so much, suddenly. All his attention was focused on the woman under him.
Her eyes were lighter than he’d first thought, not the color of root beer but amber. They were too wide for her face, as if she wanted to gobble up all the light in the world.
“Maybe I could get into this one-with-nature business.” But really, he only said the words to get under her skin.
She’d be the worst possible woman for him to get involved with, even beyond the fact that he was her patient and she was his therapist, beyond his secrets. If they met under different circumstances, somewhere far away, they still wouldn’t make it a week. Her earth-power mumbo jumbo would either drive him to suicide or to strangle her.
“Not my type,” she said, breathless from having the air knocked out of her.
“Yeah. Same here. Bad idea all over. Sanity,” he said as he straddled her ankles like they were sit-up buddies, “ought to be at the top of the list of qualities everyone should be looking for in a partner. And, let’s face it, neither of us has it.”
She came up on her elbows. “You think I’m insane?”
“Not certifiable, but definitely on the spectrum. You hug trees.”
She wasn’t what he’d first thought of her. He felt as if she’d tricked him, and that angered him.
He had his guard up against the therapists and other quacks. But back at the gas station, he hadn’t known she was a therapist at Hope Hill. He’d let his guard down.
She’d been brave enough to talk to him. She’d been open-minded enough to see past his scowl, his tattoos, and the generally intimidating way he tended to appear to strangers. Even though blood obviously made her queasy, she’d been kind enough to help him. It’d been that reckless, uncalculated kindness that had gotten to him.
Back at the gas station, he had liked her. Back at the gas station, he hadn’t known she was just another person who’d want to poke around in his head so she could tell him what was wrong with him. Back at the gas station, he hadn’t known that she was the enemy.
Frustration made him clench his teeth.
“I’m a freaking cripple, all right? I’m dealing with that. I don’t need people looking into my head. I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m a crazy cripple.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Then what am I?”
“A diagnosis after five minutes? That’s a lot of pressure.”
“You had another five at the gas station. That makes it ten.”
She watched him, her gaze open and curious. He didn’t know many people who could stay as unruffled as that when he was in this kind of a mood.
She said, “I think you are . . . off balance.”
Off balance.
That came closer to how he felt than anything anyone else had told him so far, after a lot longer acquaintance. So, all right, maybe he’d give Miss Murray half a chance.
&nbs
p; Half because he still wasn’t sure about any of this.
And also because he figured half a chance was all she needed. Given half a chance, Annie Murray would run with it like a rabbit with her tail on fire.
Chapter Four
ANNIE LOOKED UP into Cole’s dark, assessing gaze and tried to decide what to do with him. She couldn’t complain that he’d brought her down. She’d started the fight. She’d put him on his ass first. She hadn’t worried about the fall hurting him, not on the spongy groundcover of old leaves and mulch spread on the path.
She couldn’t believe she’d been able to knock him down. OK, she hadn’t knocked him off his feet—she’d knocked him off center, and then his own weight pulled him to the ground. He hadn’t resisted for fear of damaging her. Even when he’d had her fully restrained, he’d been careful not to put his full weight on her.
He was a gentleman, despite his protests. But he was rough and gruff too. A wounded warrior.
Her patient.
She sat up and pushed against his shoulder.
He held her for another second, because this was a power play, and the whole point had been to show her that he was the top predator in these woods.
His point made, he rolled smoothly to his feet and extended a large Band-Aid–decorated hand to help her up.
She ignored the hand and came to her feet on her own power. “If you hate being here this much, why did you enter the program?”
He began walking again, and she figured he wouldn’t answer, but he said, “I promised my mother.” He glanced back at her.
When she said nothing, he asked, “What? I don’t look like I have a mother?”
“Now that you mention it”—she dragged her gaze across the span of his shoulders—“you definitely look like you could be the love child of a grizzly bear and a navy destroyer.”
The joke was for herself, to regain her equilibrium, but for the first time, his face lightened an infinitesimal measure. Not anything as drastic as a smile, but as if he’d passed a billboard with a smiling person this morning and he was remembering that. The lighter look didn’t make him handsome, but a maybe a little less mountain-of-doomy.