Since returning home a week ago, Alexa had succumbed to screaming nightmares every night, leaving both her and Gage sleepless and edgy. Gage, however, had additional concerns. Alexa had missed two appointments with her physician since returning home from Paris. She had muttered something about being “okay” and not needing another appointment, and Gage couldn’t drag her to the doctor’s office in nearby Alexandria, Virginia.
Dara, a pediatrics physician, had agreed to make a house call and come out to their farm and see how her fiancé’s younger sister was doing. Gage was relieved; she had a low-key, maternal way about her, and her soft smile could bend steel. Alexa agreed to meet with her, and Gage was hopeful she could make some headway in getting the woman he loved so much to stop running and face her problems.
About an hour later, Dara arrived and stopped by Gage’s office at their farmhouse. Normally, she was buoyant and smiling, but not today—not after getting the report about the threats from Sharan and Rasari. Gage asked her to come in. She was still the wearing cinnamon colored wool slacks, a blazer of the same color, and a white silk tee from her day at her clinic. The colors set off her shoulder-length, straight blond hair.
“Alexa’s in the office down at the end of the hall, first door on the left,” he said, gesturing toward it. “Could you use some coffee?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right now, I think a stiff drink would be about right. But I’m pregnant now and alcohol is out of the question.”
“Yeah, I think we all could go for one at this point,” Gage agreed amiably.
“But coffee does sound wonderful.”
“Great. I’m making a fresh pot. Can I bring you and Alexa some in her office? It’ll be just a few minutes.”
Dara reached out, hugging Gage. “Thanks, you’re a doll.” She released him and studied him, unable to hide her concern. “How are you holding up, Gage? You look really stressed out.”
Gage walked to the kitchen to begin making the coffee as she followed him. “I’m okay,” he lied.
Dara gave a ladylike snort, leaning against the granite counter near the sinks while he prepared their coffee. “Children lie better than you, Gage,” she said, grinning.
He managed a faint smile. “Alexa isn’t sleeping through the night. I thought it was bad before she left for Paris but now, she’s had a screaming nightmare every night since her return.”
“Hmm,” she said, nodding. “Not unusual, Gage. Has her doc ordered a mild sleep med for her?”
“She refuses to take medication.”
“Well,” Dara said, giving him an understanding look, “we’ll see about that.”
*
Alexa managed a warm, welcoming smile as Dara entered the room with two cups of coffee in her long, delicate hands. “Hey, how are you doing?” she asked Dara, standing up behind the desk and gratefully taking one of the coffee cups.
“Stressed out,” she admitted, sitting down at her computer. “That board meeting was an eye opener. And being pregnant, my energy doesn’t last as long, but I’m not complaining,” Dara closed the door, taking the chair beside the desk where Alexa was on the computer.
Alexa glumly nodded. She loved Dara since having met her after Matt had rescued her from a near kidnapping in Afghanistan. The thirty-year-old physician was warm and a wonderful listener. Alexa was so happy that she and her brother, Matt, were going to get married next June in Kuşadası, Turkey, and then spend their honeymoon in cousin Angelo’s mountain villa on the slopes of Mt. Olympus. Alexa was going to be one of her bridesmaids and was so looking forward to it. She fiercely loved her brother, Matt. She wished only good things for this couple.
“You’re looking really tired,” Dara said, reaching out and touching Alexa’s hand. “Are you having a tough time with nightmares from that capture by Rasari?”
Groaning, she muttered, “Yes. I swear, Dara, you’re a mind reader sometimes.”
“Not really. What I can do to help you?”
“I’d give anything to get a full night’s sleep. Poor Gage, I’m waking him up with my screams, Dara. I told him I’d go out on the couch and sleep, but he refused to leave my side.”
“Because he loves you, silly,” Dara patted her hand. “He wants to help you and be there for you, Alexa.”
“I know. If this was your problem, Dara, what would you do?”
Smiling a bit, Dara considered. “Well, since you’ve had two back-to-back horrific traumas, I think I’d want to change that energy.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was a resident physician, I worked sixteen or more hours a day—it was tough,” Dara said. “And after a while, I felt numb, worn out, and behaved more like a robot than a human. Matt’s already seen me in this mode, and when he sees it, he yanks me off to the Smoky Mountains where your parents have that wonderful cabin. And I can’t tell you how much that revives me, puts me back together again and makes me feel whole. More important, I feel human again. No longer am I numb or robotic. My emotions are on tap again.” She smiled softly. “Matt calls it a ‘time out,’ and I call it ‘breaking the energy.’”
Giving Alexa a sympathetic look, Dara continued, “Is there somewhere you would love to go? Just to stay for a couple of months—with Gage, of course. You need to get away from here, Alexa. Just be free, be alone, be by yourself. To me, that helps more than anything else.”
“Would it stop my nightmares?”
“Maybe not at first, but the more you’re where you love to be, the more relaxed you’ll feel. And as a doctor, I can predict that you’ll get more sleep and have a lot fewer nightmares. How does that sound to you?”
“Better than taking sleep meds,” Alexa grumped, sipping her coffee. Giving Dara a pleading look, she said, “I have to do something different, Dara. I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I do feel like a robot. I’m numb inside. I feel dead …”
“That’s how I feel when I get pushed beyond my emotional limits, too,” Dara admitted. “If you were my patient, I’d Rx you to your favorite vacation spot for three months. You truly need downtime to heal, Alexa. No distractions, no working seven days a week, which is what I know you’ve been doing. You’re hiding from your emotions, not working through them.”
“I know,” Alexa whispered. “I-I’m so scared of what I might do … I feel like a nuclear bomb ready to detonate.”
“Right.” Dara patted her forearm. “Listen, why don’t you discuss this with Gage? There isn’t a person alive who wants to help you more than he does. And he’s the right man to have around. Besides, with what’s going on, you need him as your personal security detail. He can keep watch over both of you until Tal, Wyatt, and Matt can get our family security plan in place.”
“That makes good sense,” Alexa admitted quietly, moving the cup slowly around between her hands. “And I wouldn’t want to be alone, Dara. God, I get so scared. It just isn’t like me at all, but honestly, I jump at my shadow sometimes.”
“It won’t hurt anything for you to take three months off, Alexa. You have Sarina, who’s perfectly capable of filling in for you here at Artemis. And I think Dilara and Robert would love to see you get away for some downtime. What do you think?”
Alexa sensed a tiny glimmer of hope. It was the first time since Gage and the SEAL team had rescued her from that cave in Afghanistan.
“You’re right, Dara. And I’m going down the hall to talk to Gage about it,” she said with a hopeful smile. “I think he’ll feel good about my vacation therapy too.”
CHAPTER 5
Gage was fixing dinner when Dara came over and gave him a warm hug and kiss on the cheek.
“Hang in there,” she told him. “Alexa and I had a good talk.”
He smiled a little, his hands wet in the sink. “Do you know anything about snipers?” he asked her, taking a nearby towel off a hook to dry his hands.
“Well,” she said tentatively, “just what Matt mentioned in passing. Why?”
He hung the towel back on th
e hook, holding her gaze. “Snipers have the patience of Job.” Gage glanced down the hall toward the office where Alexa remained. “I’ll never give up on her, Dara. I love her. You don’t walk away from someone when the bad times hit. And right now, she’s hurting a lot. I’ve got the love and patience to walk through it all, so don’t worry, okay?” He squeezed her arm gently.
Dara gave him a look of relief. “Good. Because Gage, I think Alexa’s ready to crash.”
Nodding, he said, “Yeah, I think so too.”
“I talked to her about getting away for three months, away from this job and its daily reminders of what she went through. No one can emotionally handle that all the time. I know how hard this is on the partner.”
Gage shot her an understanding look. “You don’t know about my past, Dara. I think if you did, you wouldn’t be worried that I’d walk out and leave her when things got tough.”
“Just know that I’m here for both of you,” she said quietly. “Please, stay in touch with me, okay? You’re a wonderful couple, and you deserve each other in the best of ways, Gage. I hate seeing both of you having to go through this crap.”
“That makes three of us,” he said wryly, seeing Dara’s expression ease a bit. “Tell Matt hello from us, okay?”
“I will. Good night …”
*
Gage stopped himself from going to Alexa, instead mulling over his brief chat with Dara. He hoped that talking with her had helped her understand that he was in for the long haul. As he busied himself cutting up green beans for the steamer, he heard the door quietly close down the hall. Normally, as a sniper, his heartbeat was slow and solid, whether he was targeting an HVT, high value target, or just relaxing here in their farmhouse.
But all those years of being a sniper out in the badlands of Afghanistan had given him heightened awareness of everything around him, whether or not there was a threat. In this case, his love for Alexa made him even more aware of potential danger.
“Hey,” Alexa whispered, coming up and sliding her hands around his waist, resting her head against his back. “Mmm, smells good. What are you cooking for us tonight?”
“Hey, you,” he grinned, turning and seeing the stress in her hazel eyes. “We have some leftover lamb, steamed green beans, and a salad. That sound good to you?”
Because Alexa had lost at least twenty pounds since being home, her appetite was usually nonexistent. Only when Gage had moved with her into the farmhouse, where he could cajole her into eating more, had she gained back at least six of those pounds. He felt her arms tighten around his torso.
“I’m not very hungry tonight, Gage …”
“We’ll see,” he murmured. Alexa wasn’t someone who could be pushed into anything. “How did your chat with Dara go?”
She sighed, moving her hands slowly up and down his shirtsleeves, needing his warmth, his solidity, and his soothing nature. Gage was the calm eye in the center of her hurricane of emotions, and she yearned to be with him whenever possible.
“It was interesting,” she offered without going into detail.
“That sounds like a tease,” he said, wishing he could do something to help Alexa sleep through the night. She couldn’t go on like this much longer.
She smiled a little and nuzzled her cheek into his back, kissing the fabric across it. “I think she might have a good idea.”
“Tell me about it,” Gage offered, feeling her ambivalence, hearing it in her voice.
“Dara suggested I take time off from work and go someplace I’d like to stay for three months or so.”
“Hmm, to decompress, right?” Gage finished cutting up the green beans, set the knife aside, and blotted his hands dry on the nearby towel. Gently, he eased her arms from around him so he could turn and pull Alexa against him. Just touching her sent him into a hunger to love her.
Alexa settled trustingly against him, looking up at him. “What do you think about it?” she asked cautiously.
He framed her face, looking deep into her troubled eyes and feeling her conflicting thoughts and desires. This wasn’t the Alexa he knew from before, and it reinforced for him how shattered she’d been from her trauma in Afghanistan.
Grazing her lips with his, Gage asked, “More important, how does it feel to you, baby?”
She leaned heavily against him and searched his gaze, their noses nearly touching. “Honestly? I don’t feel anything anymore, Gage …” She quickly amended herself. “I mean … when you love me … I do feel something. A lot, actually. I’m free of all that shit that’s rolling around inside me, especially after I climax.”
She rested her hands on his chest as he released her and allowed his hands to move lightly across her tense shoulders, massaging the tightness out of them.
“I have a story to tell you,” Gage offered quietly.
“Okay,” Alexa said, sensing this was important to him. She loved when he opened up to her about his past.
“After Jen was raped and murdered by that street gang and my father went after them and killed several of them—before they killed him …”
Alexa nodded. “Oh, Gage, I remember everything you told me about that awful day.”
“After that, my mother went to pieces, and I was left all alone to deal with it. I can understand it far better right now than I did as a thirteen-year-old. I was in shock, just like she was, but my Dad had always told me I would be the man of the house if he didn’t make it back from Iraq. I took his words seriously—but I never imagined he’d be killed on the streets of Chicago.” Gage lifted his fingers, moving them through her silky strands, watching her eyes grow less shadowed. His touch always brought Alexa back to her core center.
“But what did all that do to you, Gage? When you first told me what happened, I couldn’t imagine how you felt. But now, after what’s happened to me, I think I can deeply understand a little of what you went through.”
He cupped her hips gently against his. Their intimacy and the trust they shared always overwhelmed and humbled him. “I’m sure you do. Others can’t understand, even though they may want to try. But if someone hasn’t gone through a similar trauma, he or she can’t imagine what it does to you inside and out. So when you were talking about not feeling anything …”
“Yes?”
“Well, I understand. I was completely numb emotionally after Jen and Dad were murdered. I felt like you: hollowed out, like an untethered ball rolling around in the sky. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t feel anything, Alexa. That went on for months.”
“You had to devote your attention to your mother, Gage. You were never given a chance to work through your own grief, were you?”
He gave her a sad smile. “No, I had no one. But you do,” he said, rocking her a little in his arms. “And now you have an opportunity to unplug from the past. I feel strongly you should take it, Alexa. I never got such an offer, and looking back, it took me five years to start feeling again. I didn’t cry until my mom died when I was twenty-three and in the Marine Corps. I was on duty and couldn’t be there for her, and it shattered me. And for the first time, I cried for all my lost family. I never cried so hard, so long, in all my life. And for two years afterward, I’d suddenly cry for no reason at all.” Grimacing, he added hoarsely, “It was grief, old grief, making its way up and out of me, I suppose.”
“But you had no one to hold you or help you,” Alexa whispered, searching his dark, turbulent gaze.
Shrugging, he said, “No, I didn’t. But that’s just how it goes, baby.” He grazed her cheek. “In your case though, you have me, you have your family, and you have many, many friends who support and love you.”
“I can’t even imagine getting through what you did alone, Gage. You’re so much stronger than I am!”
“Well,” he said wryly, “there’s an old saying that God doesn’t give you any more than you can bear. That was one of my mom’s favorite sayings, and I grew up with that philosophy. So when my family was suddenly taken away from me, I figured God had given
me the strength to get through it, and I put myself in charge of doing exactly that.”
Alexa gnawed on her lower lip, looking away for a moment. Smoothing her fingertips across his chest, she asked, “Do you think that my staying at my post here at Artemis is like digging into an open wound? That it’s not allowing me to heal—that it’s reopened because I’m reminded of it daily?”
“I love how self-aware you are, Alexa,” Gage said gruffly, giving her a spontaneous hug. “Yes, I do think it’s working against you. I talked to Becka about this very topic weeks ago and she said the same thing. You jumped from the frying pan into the fire, baby. You came out of that sexual assault and kidnapping in Afghanistan, turned in your officer’s commission, and then marched right into Artemis and took over that position.”
He sighed and gave her a tender look. “You read visceral reports from the field, from other Delos charities, and they were about child abuse, rape, and sexual assault. It had to trigger you, trigger memories of what you went through.”
He skimmed her hair, kissing her wrinkled brow. “I know how much you love helping people. It’s such a part of your core essence, who you are. You’re a dead ringer for your mom, Dilara. She’s built the same way emotionally as you are. And all she knows how to do is to serve those who have less. It’s an admirable gene and trait, but in your case, Alexa, it’s not allowing you to heal up properly. Becka, Dara, and your whole family feel strongly that you should take three months away from your job here. Sarina can take over for you for that timeframe. It will be in good hands.”
Alexa rested her head against his brow, her heart filled with love for this man of hers. Gage had gone through so much—he’d lost his entire family. She hadn’t lost hers.
“A part of me has been destroyed,” she whispered, closing her eyes, feeling his hands move up her back and cup her shoulders.
“Yes,” he huskily admitted, holding her tightly. “It’s sort of like losing a limb. But it doesn’t mean you can’t live with what you’ve got left, baby.”
Dream of Me: Delos Series 4B1 Page 7