Remorse swamped him. Guilt at not bringing his best friend home to his family, at not helping with the children whose father he’d failed to bring home. Connor had promised Marsha at the funeral that he would be by to help out, but every time he had thought of making good on his promise, pain and remorse had choked him. He’d tried to rationalize it with himself, told himself that it would just hurt Marsha to see someone who reminded her of what she’d lost, but he hadn’t believed his own lies.
He could go over there, talk to her. It would be easy to grab the baby for a moment while she filled the tires with air, or to go sooth her daughter’s tears. He didn’t though. With guilt churning in his gut and the ashy taste of regret on his tongue, Connor refastened his helmet and rode home. He sat alone in the dark that night. He’d given up on a shot glass after a while and was drinking his whiskey straight from the bottle.
The bitter, burning liquid did nothing to numb his pain. Perhaps, Connor thought, that was because numbness was a relief that he was unworthy of. That didn’t mean he couldn’t try for oblivion though. He swallowed from the bottle again and again until finally he passed out in a hazy, anguish-filled stupor. Even then, Jonathan haunted his dreams, but not the friend he’d known. Dead, lifeless eyes stared at him accusingly as Jonathan asked him with bloodied lips again and again why he’d made Marsha a widow. Nothing would allow Connor to run from his demons, for now, they took the form of nightmares ghosting through his head until the blessed light of dawn could pull him back into the waking nightmare and the guilt that was slowly eating him from the inside out.
6
Everly found herself going through Connor’s case file again on her lunch break, even though she knew it would be better to use the time to unwind, or to review the files of one of the patients coming for an appointment that afternoon.
She didn’t know why she bothered pulling the thing, really. She practically had it memorized word for word. Connor Mitchell was a highly decorated Seal with an impeccable record. He’d been on numerous black ops that were outlined. All of them were violent, bloody affairs, but usually the bleeding was done by the enemy. That certainly hadn’t been the case with Connor’s last mission.
Connor’s sniper team had been in position to take out a lower profile target, a terrorist who was killed as a matter of opportunity rather than for his political or tactical significance. Connor had cautioned them that going that far into the heart of the terrorist compound would be no easy thing, but his chain of command had insisted. After a successful kill, his team had been ambushed.
They’d fought and held their position on the rooftop they’d been holed up on, but by the time his team had been extracted, only two men were still alive. That in itself wouldn’t have been surprising, considering the odds against them. It was the rest of the story that seemed strange. The reasoning behind the mission didn’t make sense, first of all. Why travel into the heart of enemy territory for a seemingly worthless target? That could be a result of doctored files though, changed to hide sensitive information. The damning evidence was the .556 caliber round that had been found in Jonathan’s skull. It was a different sized round than the AK-47’s their enemies typically preferred.
That, too, might be written off. While every effort was made to keep US weapons from falling into enemy hands, it was, from time to time, an unfortunate reality. It was the words of a dead man, though, that had led his commanding officers to question Connor’s stability. Before dying in transit, his team member’s last words had been, “Mitchell took him down.” While most had written off the statement, assuming that he’d been referring to their target, the origin of the round that had ended Jonathan left a nagging question in the minds of some. Had Connor truly been overrun, or had he betrayed them, at the cost of his best friend’s life?
Because there was no one left to ask what had really happened that day, no formal charges had been filed. Rather than accusing him of anything, the chain of command had decided to honor his previously spotless record by first finding out whether or not he was mentally stable. Everly’s job should be an easy one, but Connor was being so damned uncooperative…and the evidence was pretty damning. Even as Everly mentally shied away from the idea that she might have made love to a killer in a darkened parking lot, she couldn’t help but wonder. Was it possible that Connor might be insane?
7
Connor had kept his promise to himself and scheduled another appointment with Everly. He’d seen her a few times now, but every time he had managed to keep conversation away from what had happened on his last tour—away from that and anything else that might make him look vulnerable.
So it was that he found himself in the waiting room once again, mentally shoring up his defenses before he began another session of ‘the healing’, as he’d come to refer to it in conversation with his supervisors. As long as she didn’t see him upset, he reasoned, she would quickly realize that he was fine. He would answer her questions this time, he promised himself. It was obvious the stubborn beauty wasn’t going to clear him if he didn’t.
He smiled to himself when she called him by his first name rather than his rank and last name, wondering if she’d even realized she’d done it. He rose and strode across the room into her office.
“I’m ready, Doc. Let the healing begin.”
He didn’t miss the momentary tightening of her lips before her features became concerned but professional—she hadn’t liked it when he’d referred to it as her ‘head shrinking mask’—and she addressed him in a calm, even tone.
“At some point you’re going to have to take this seriously Connor, or I’ll never be able to clear you for duty.”
Connor bristled internally. Though some part of him realized that he’d been telling himself the same thing out in the waiting room, he couldn’t help feeling like she’d issued a challenge—or a threat even. Now if only he could remind his raging hard-on that he wasn’t happy with her at the moment.
He kept his face deliberately blank—two could play that game—and said, “Okay, Doc, shoot. What do you want to talk about?”
Surprised satisfaction flitted across her face before she answered, “I need you to tell me what happened the day Jonathan died.”
“I think you just summed it up pretty good yourself. He died. Next?”
“We have to talk about this, Connor. Give me something more. What do you remember?”
In a cold voice he recounted his official statement word for word. He knew that it was part of his file, knew that saying the words would give her nothing more than she already had, then she could clear him and he could go back to work, problem solved. She waited patiently, though, the look on her face told him she knew exactly what he was doing. She was silent, and that silence eventually drove him to speak again.
“Fine. There was smoke, noise and blood. Worst day of my life to date, though being forced to come in here and get my head shrunk rates a close second.” He’d meant to be flippant, but pain had lanced through him at the thought of Jonathan’s blood staining the ground, the life fading from his eyes—Damn. He didn’t need this crap.
He looked over at Everly, and the compassion in her eyes made something inside him snap. He stood and walked toward her, then crouched before her. He smiled without mirth when his closeness made her flinch.
“Gosh, Everly. I feel so much better already.” He broke off with a harsh laugh when she hesitantly reached toward him. “What do you know about a man dying anyway, Doc, laying in a puddle of his own blood?”
He saw the raw pain that had flashed in her eyes, but the same self-destructive streak that led him to drive away everyone else—everyone besides Jonathan, and look where that had gotten his friend— had him pressing on anyway.
“I can see why you’re concerned. Enough to drive a man crazy, right?”
He leaned in so close that he could feel Everly’s breath feather soft against his lips.
“Do you want to know what’s driving me crazy?” She didn’t answer,
but he could see her eyes dilating as his nearness brought her arousal. “Not being inside you, right now.”
She was still and perhaps willing, but Connor stood with a smirk and sauntered back to his seat.
“I think you need to leave now, Petty Officer. Come back when you’re ready to actually talk this through. Until then, don’t waste my time.”
Connor felt like an ass as soon as the moment had passed. She’d been trying to drag up painful memories—forgivable, considering that it was her job—and he’d reacted with condescension and petty anger. And, he thought, if that flash of pain was any indication, he’d dug up some painful memories for her as well. Yes, he was a first-rate asshole. But then, he’d known that all along.
He pushed the guilt to the back of his mind. It was a drop compared to the sea of regret he was drowning in. He pushed his way out the front doors and sped off on his bike, intent on going straight home and taking a couple shots, just to take the edge off a little bit.
Maybe he would apologize at his next appointment…if he decided to make another.
8
Everly watched Connor’s lean, muscled form as he left her office. She shouldn’t have let him get her riled up like that. She understood that he was lashing out to defend himself, not out of a desire to hurt her. In truth, that wasn’t really why she’d asked him to go.
He had gotten under her skin like no one else had ever done. It couldn’t have been the ‘dark and dangerous’ thing that had her insides doing flips when he turned his naughty gaze on her. As a military brat, she’d been raised around young, handsome, dangerous men. She had thought herself immune to their charms. Why, then, could she not be in the same room with Connor without wanting to tear his clothes off?
She had to maintain her professionalism. Not only was Connor the first case she’d been handed to evaluate in her new position, he was also obviously a man close to his breaking point. If he crashed and burned, Everly admitted to herself, a part of her heart might just shatter right along with him. She took a few deep, calming breaths before picking up the phone to call his commander.
Connor’s CO turned out to be a man who was clearly battle-hardened, but still good and true at his core. When the commander agreed to meet with her, he confirmed what Everly had already come to realize. Connor was also a good man, a good man who took his job seriously and followed orders.
In a gruff, no-nonsense tone, the CO informed Everly that Connor was a military man through and through. He couldn’t see Connor in the role of traitor or murderer, and neither could Everly. Though it was humbling, Everly confessed to him that she hadn’t been able to get through to Connor at all. His brisk nod told Everly that her words came as no surprise.
“I’d be more worried about him if you had gotten him to open up so quickly, Ma’am. Petty Officer Mitchell isn’t the type to let anyone close, not even those he served with overseas, except Jonathan Mills. They’d been thick as thieves since they were children from what I understand, even lived in the same foster homes from time to time.”
Though there was no emotion in his voice, something in his eyes, when he raised them to meet hers, told Everly that the man truly cared about Connor’s wellbeing.
“The man’s hard, but he’s not a man who takes joy in killing, and he’s sure as hell not a traitor. Even if he was, Jonathan Mills is the only soul in the world that he wouldn’t turn on. The higher-ups want the investigation, so they’ll have it. Me? I just want to make sure that Mitchell’s okay. You can’t go on the types of missions my men do if you aren’t up to the task mentally. I have to be sure.”
Everly nodded thoughtfully before replying, “Thank you for the insights. I hadn’t realized that he and Jonathan were that close. I can’t promise I’ll be able to get through to him, but I can promise I won’t clear him until I’m sure he’s ready to return to duty.”
“That’s all I ask, then.”
Evelyn mulled over the conversation on her way home that evening. Maybe, she thought, it would take more than a calm, structured office visit to get through to Connor. The emotional walls he’d built to ward off the rest of the world were thick, and strong, and by all accounts, the only person he’d ever let inside them now lay in an early grave.
Though it certainly crossed lines she’d never thought to cross before, Everly was considering using Connor’s obvious attraction to her to catch him off guard and try to get inside those defenses. Something told her that it might be the only way she could save him from himself. It was more than a little unsettling, because in order to do what she was considering, she would have to let Connor inside her own defenses, and something told her that once she did that, he’d have the power to hurt her like no one ever had before.
9
Connor was sitting on his couch in a dimly lit living room cleaning his 9mm Beretta when the knock came at his door. There was only a single lamp turned on, both because the light still stung his eyes—an after effect of overindulging the night before—and because the darkness suited his mood. It was easier somehow in the dark to ignore the world outside. He could almost pretend nothing had changed, that the last few months had never happened. Almost. A couple shots of whisky might do even more to kill the pain, but it was early in the day yet. He would wait until late afternoon at least.
He didn’t really need to clean the pistol—he hadn’t used it in months. It was his personal firearm—but the easy, practiced motions of the action, a ritual repeated hundreds of times before, soothed something inside him.
What did it say of him that he had only cold, hard steel that had been forged for violence to turn to when he was at his lowest? Well, that was a thought best pushed back into the recesses of his mind, in the corner that housed a childhood of abuse and violence, followed by an adulthood of the same, even though the violence by his own hands had always been for the right reasons. Did his being a monster on the government’s leash make his any less a monster?
When the knock came, he was equal parts relieved and wary—relieved at a distraction to pull him from his dark thoughts, and wary because there was no one left who would visit him for companionship. Jon had been the only one to do that… Connor shook of the thought and went to answer door, and then wished to hell that he hadn’t.
There stood Marsha, looking worn and fragile with a cardboard box clutched to her chest. Even for all that, though, he could see in her pinched brow and in her haunted but compassionate eyes that she was worried about him. He wished the compassion on her face could stimulate something in him besides regret and rage.
“What do you need, Marsha?” The words came out hard and clipped. Hell, she didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t her fault that looking at his dead friend’s wife had his insides torn to shreds.
Her mouth tightened momentarily, but she didn’t return his tone. “I just brought some things over that you might want. Some things that were Jon’s. I think he would want you to have them. Some pictures of the two of you, a few old home movies… I had them boxed up and ready, thought I would give you the box next time you stopped by, but you never came.” He could hear the accusation in her voice, barely restrained though she tried to hide it.
“I was going to Marsha. I just…” Couldn’t stand the thought of looking you in the eye. “…didn’t get around to it.”
He saw her anger rise to the surface. Somehow, the righteous fury in his eyes made him feel a bit better. This, he thought, was what he deserved.
“Couldn’t find the time, Connor? That’s just…fucking rotten.” The curse word fell heavy and flat from her lips. She was a gentle woman, not given to cursing or insults. “I can’t think of a single time my husband didn’t drop everything for you the second you needed it, didn’t come rushing when you called.”
She shoved the box at his chest and left with a rushed, angry gait. Her anger did nothing to rid him of the guilt that plagued his every waking moment though, for it was but a fraction of what he deserved, a few paltry drops when he deserved an ocean of r
etribution to cover him, surround him, fill his lungs. With wooden steps, he shuffled to the kitchen and upended the entire box into the garbage can. The sound of it hitting the bottom of the pail was a knife twisting in his gut.
How long he would have stood there, staring into space, he wasn’t sure, because a knock sounded at the door. Probably Marsha, come back to give him another piece of her mind. God knew he deserved that and more.
It took a second for him to realize that it was not Marsha, but Everly standing on his front step. When he said nothing to welcome her she breezed past him into the living room like she had every right to be there. Connor was too emotionally exhausted to care one way or another at the intrusion.
“Cleaning your gun, I see.” Her voice was light, mildly curious.
“Yes. It…relaxes me.” Admitting to the need for something to relax him at all was a bad idea, part of his mind realized, but his emotions were raw and exposed after Marsha’s visit.
“Cleaning it does?” Once again her tone was inquiring, but not pressing.
“Using it, cleaning it. Guns are what I’m good at, how I’ve made my living.”
“I see.” Somehow he felt like maybe she really did. “Teach me to use one?”
“Why?”
“I’ve spent weeks now trying to bring you some measure of peace. If guns are what you need to feel that way, so be it. We’ll just consider it a new type of therapy.”
The words brought a smile to his face. The spark of humor mixed with blunt honesty surprised him, and encouraged him. It was the first light emotion he’d felt in a while. Even his lust for Everly was a heavy, weighty thing, an inexorable force rather than the light, easy sexual encounters he’d had in the past.
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