Jesus.
“I hurt you,” he whispered, the sound of his voice tortured and broken. “I left marks.”
“You let go,” she reminded him gently and covered his hand with hers. “You were scared and cornered and betrayed. You lashed out, but only because I forced your hand to begin with.” She put her other hand to his t-shirt-covered chest, let his warmth seep into her palm, and hoped her conviction would seep into his skin. “I trapped you there, Will. Refused to let you leave. After a year of imprisonment anyone, anyone,” she repeated when he shook his head, “would have lost it. I don’t blame you for being angry. Or for sending me away.”
But into what? she wondered. Because there were bruises and scrapes and sore muscles she couldn’t account for. And she didn’t believe for even a single second that Will had put them there.
“No excuse—none—makes it okay for a man to put his hands on a woman. I hurt you, Cooper. Even if it was only a little, even if the marks will fade, I hurt you.” He jerked away from her, as if he couldn’t bear to let her touch him. “A part of me enjoyed it. That power. That knowledge that I wasn’t helpless or weak or at someone else’s mercy. I liked knowing I could hurt you back.” He choked, as if the admission were something he had to purge like poison. “And a part of me wanted to do so much worse. What kind of man does that?” he asked, the question hollow and flat, as if he didn’t believe it even had an answer.
But it did. She knew it did. And before they did anything else, she was determined he’d know it, too.
“The kind of man who spent the last year of his life in captivity. You were at their mercy, Will. Beaten and starved and tortured—”
“And they fucking broke me—”
“No,” Cooper cut him off with all the harshness she could levy at a man who simply didn’t deserve it. “A broken man would have done the things that instinct and imprisonment and the white-hot rage told him to. A broken man would have snapped my neck the second I raised a hand against him.” She laced her fingers around his forearm and gently squeezed. “It’s been days, Will. Days since I pulled you off that mountain. Days since you nearly died. You haven’t had the time or opportunity to even begin to deal with what happened to you—I didn’t give you the chance.”
“You were desperate—I understand that a little better now,” he admitted.
“How?” she asked, nudging the conversation back onto a safer track. For him, at least. “What happened after I left?”
She swallowed the little flutter of panic that said maybe she didn’t want to know. That maybe nightmares were better left in the dark.
“You wandered for a few blocks.” Will let his palm hover over the bruises he’d left, then ghosted it up her shoulder. His face twisted, as if he wanted to touch her. To comfort her? To remind himself she was still alive? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t startle or flinch when he settled his huge palm at the curve of her neck and brushed his thumb over her collarbone. “I watched you from the window—I thought I could let you walk away. Figured you weren’t my responsibility.”
“I’m not.”
The fingers against her skin flexed but didn’t squeeze.
“But when I realized you were being followed . . .” He shrugged and pulled his hand away.
“You came after me,” she finished for him.
“I was too late, though.” Will sighed heavily, as if he’d expected more of himself. “I lost you in the crowd. When I finally found you, he had you on your knees, a gun to the back of your head.” He shifted and bunched his fists at his sides. “You scared the shit out of me, Coop. I thought . . . I thought I was too late to save you, but just in time to watch you die. You were so . . . cooperative. Accepting—”
“It was the drugs, Will.” Because no way would she have gracefully knelt to accept a bullet to the back of her head otherwise. She’d have fought. Maybe she wouldn’t have won, but Cooper would have gone down fighting.
“Yeah. I think you’d have done just about anything anyone told you to.” Anger, brief but hot, crossed his features. “I would have been completely at your mercy. Helpless. Thoughtless. A prisoner in my own mind.”
“I couldn’t let you leave—”
“You had no right to make me stay!” He stepped back, as if the outburst had caught him entirely off guard, then deflated.
“I know,” she offered. “I know, okay? I didn’t plan it, Will. Didn’t even remember the syringe was there until it rolled into my palm—”
“I know.” The admission dropped between them with the weight of a field pack after a thirty-mile hike. It wasn’t a platitude or an agreement or just something he’d decided to take on faith. There was conviction behind those two words. And knowledge.
“You questioned me.” She had no right to be angry, none. She knew that. And she wasn’t, not really. But the realization that he’d felt the need to interrogate her still stung. That she’d never know what he’d asked her, what she’d told him, itched beneath her skin like a sliver of fiberglass. “At least now you can be sure I was telling you the truth.” She sighed.
“I knew that before I asked you the first question—I just needed to be sure there wasn’t anything else.”
She jerked her chin up, caught him staring at her in a way she wasn’t quite sure how to interpret. His gaze was steady and somber, but soft, too. As if he’d seen the very heart of who she was.
“How?”
“You went meekly to your death, Coop. But you fought like hell to beg me not to kill him.”
Cole.
Oh God. She hadn’t even asked who’d found her. And wasn’t that a sad reality? When had she gotten so used to running for her life? When had it become normal for her to close her eyes and wonder if this time she’d wake? Somewhere between the CIA’s betrayal and the mounting price on her head, Cooper had faced her own mortality and moved on.
But if Cole had been the one to find her . . .
Fear, and something that tasted a little like relief, flooded her mouth.
“Is he . . .” She was too afraid of the answer to finish asking the question. If Cole was gone, then she’d failed him. But a part of her, a weak, selfish part, wanted this nightmare to end. Wanted to stop worrying about what would happen if Cole caught up with her.
Wanted the thought of what she’d do if it came down to that one, brutal choice—his life, or hers—to stop haunting her steps.
“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re asking.” Though he didn’t exactly sound happy about it.
Not that she could blame him. He had fresh bruises, too. New marks and hurts and scrapes.
Because he’d come for her.
“I couldn’t do it,” he admitted.
“Why not?” It didn’t make sense. Not coming from the man who’d just admitted how on edge he was.
Will shivered.
“You were out of it, Coop. Completely pliant—so much so that you’d have happily died in that alley.” He gently brushed a thumb across a bruise she barely felt on her collarbone. “There was no fight left in you at all. Not until I had my arm around his neck. Then you fought. Then you surfaced. Just long enough to plead. For him.”
“He’s my best friend,” she whispered.
“He hurt you, Cooper.” Will brushed the tips of his fingers to the cut on her lip, to the bruise on her cheek, against the scrape on her brow. Then let his gaze travel over her body in a slow, saddened sweep. “Betrayed you. And still, when you were at your most vulnerable, you protected him.”
He stepped back and propped his shoulders against the wall. “I wanted to kill him for touching you.”
“But you didn’t. Because you’re stronger than that—”
“No,” he snapped with a clipped shake of his head. “Because you were stronger than that. Because you could fight for him, forgive him . . . forgive me—” he whispered brokenly.
“There’s nothing to—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “You’re better than the both
of us, Coop. Loyal, clearly to a fault.” He tried to smile, but his face fell under the weight of a guilt and regret he couldn’t seem to let go of. He gave up, and all the tension left his body in a sad, defeated rush. “You came for him. Fought for him. You won’t stop . . . you won’t give up on him, will you?”
She shook her head. “Cole wouldn’t give up on me.” That he’d hurt her, more than once, would devastate Cole. But he’d be here and whole and she’d help him through that, too.
“Then he’s luckier than he knows.” The sorrow of an unwelcome realization clung to him like a wound he couldn’t let heal.
“You weren’t forgotten, Will.”
“A year, Cooper. A fucking year.” His body vibrated, and his voice shook. With rage. With agony. With a desperate loneliness that ate away at confidence and self-worth and the conviction that some foundations were unshakable.
But Will had lost faith in his friends, in his family, and in turn, he’d lost faith in the certainty that he was worth fighting for. Worth saving.
Cooper wished she didn’t know exactly how that felt almost as much as she wished he’d never had cause to doubt himself in the first place.
But in this, she could give him at least a sliver of hope.
“Your friends and family didn’t give up on you,” she said gently, reaching for him, then running the back of her fingers up his t-shirt-covered abs when he tried to dodge her. He trembled, just a little, beneath her touch, but stilled when she settled her palm over his chest, met his gaze, and said, “They didn’t forget you, Will. They mourned you. Buried you.”
“I . . .” He swallowed hard. “I guess I understand that they’d stop. That they’d have to assume . . .”
“No.” As if she could wipe away the shadow that clung to him, she brushed her thumb back and forth over his heart. “I don’t have all the details,” she explained. “Only the basics. But you were declared dead and a body was retrieved. Given full honors. No one gave up on you. No one forgot or abandoned you—not your friends, at least. They didn’t know, Will. No one did. Not until very recently.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, his voice raw with hope and relief.
“I’m sure. I wouldn’t have been able to find you if people hadn’t been making inquiries on your behalf. They were discreet, but inquiries drive questions and questions always have answers. If you know where to look. And who to pay.” And if you had Pierce. But Cooper didn’t bother to explain that.
“The second your family knew you were alive, they started looking.” She stepped in close and was utterly humbled when he let his head fall forward and tucked his face into the curve of her shoulder. He shuddered, and she brought her arms around him, held him, and let him bury at least one of the demons haunting him.
“Thank you for that.” He pulled away, his eyes dry and the lines of his face the most relaxed she’d seen them. “And for pulling me off that mountain, even if it was because you needed me.”
“No matter what, I wouldn’t have left you there.”
“Because whatever else you’ve done, you’re still a good person, Cooper. How the fuck that’s possible given everything you’ve told me, I have no idea.”
Regret and denial lodged in her throat like a sob and smothered the air in her lungs. She tried to pull away, but he bunched a fist in the front of her shirt. “I’m not,” she whispered. But oh God, she wanted to be. Somehow, someway, Will had not only forgiven her, but found a way to see the best in her.
“You are, Cooper.”
That he believed the words didn’t make them true, but they humbled her all the same.
“I tried to drug you. It doesn’t matter why, or that I panicked, or that I was desperate—I crossed a line.” Her voice dropped, the next admission a jagged breath of air that hurt to voice. “I’ve crossed so many lines since I took those shots.” She looked up at him, forced herself to hold his stare. “You’re not the only one who’s changed, Will. Some days, I don’t even recognize myself. I’ve done so many things I’m not proud of. So many things I’ll have to find a way to live with.” She took a breath and spoke her shame. “But I don’t regret them. I can’t.”
And there it was. The fear that kept her up at night and the one that greeted her every morning. She’d done terrible, brutal things. Taken contracts to earn the money to keep on running. Keep on searching. It didn’t matter that she’d been selective. It didn’t matter that she’d trusted Pierce to find her the worst humanity had to offer. She’d killed. For money. For Cole.
And she’d do it again.
“I’ve done so many things I never thought I’d do. How am I going to know?” she asked, praying Will had an answer for her. Lord knew she didn’t.
“Know?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
“When it’s a step too far? How will I know that this line is the one that can’t be uncrossed? Am I going to recognize it?”
Had she already crossed it? She told herself no price was too high to save Cole. That she had to find a way to free him and expose whoever had done this to him.
But what if she succeeded? What then?
“Every step I take to save him is one step closer to a woman I don’t know.” And one she didn’t like but was becoming far too comfortable with. “I’m so afraid that in the end, I’ll have crossed so many lines I’ll never be able to find my way back.”
Will let go of her shirt but tilted her chin up until she had no choice but to meet his gaze.
“You haven’t crossed that line yet, Cooper.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have.” The admission came out rough but determined. As if he’d cleaved off a part of himself that had been festering. “I moved past the point of no return a long time ago. Believe me, you know what it looks like. What it feels like. It killed a piece of me, Coop. Made me bitter and angry and cruel.” He traced the pad of his thumb over the arch of her brow bone, his touch a gentle contradiction to his confession. “I know what that feels like.” He pressed his lips to her temple, then moved his mouth next to her ear. “Just like I know what it feels like when someone brings that deadened part of you back to life.”
He stepped away, but his warmth remained like a favored, well-worn blanket.
“You pulled me back from the edge, Cooper. Gave me something I thought I’d lost forever.”
“What?” she asked, her fingers itching with the need to reach for him, to pull him back, to put his hands back on her skin.
“Decency. Forgiveness.” He dropped a kiss to her parted lips, the briefest brush, the gentlest thanks. “Hope.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried with every single thing she had to keep that same hope out of her mind and out of her heart.
It hurt too much to trust in it.
“I’ll take you to the bank.” Will headed for the door. “And, Cooper?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “If it comes down to it, if you get too close, I’ll stand between you and that line.”
Something tugged at the corner of his mouth. Nothing so simple as happiness or humor, but something warm and friendly that held just a touch of conviction.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Chapter Thirteen
“What, no eggs on toast?” Cooper asked as she emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed and looking far less vulnerable than she had just a half hour ago.
Will should have found it a marked improvement. He’d hated seeing her hurt. Loathed hearing her cry. But while he’d always had a soft spot for confident, bossy Cooper, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed holding her. Comforting her.
“Reserved for special occasions.” He set the plate of eggs and fried ham on the table.
“Special occasions?” she asked, the words rote, but humor tugging at the corners of her eyes all the same. “Or special friends?”
“Either, but preferably both.”
“I’m hurt.”
“There’s coffee,” he offered by way of an ap
ology.
“You’re forgiven.” She accepted the cup he poured for her, then sat and drank half of it in three long swallows before finally reaching for the sugar.
“Feeling a little better?” It was as if the shower had washed away the exhaustion and the vulnerability along with the grime. She’d calmed, pulled herself together, and tucked away the parts of her that Will was surprised to find he very much wanted to explore.
“Yeah.” She pushed wet hair behind her ear and glanced away. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
“You took care of me, too, Cooper.”
“Even?” she asked, her voice thick but her eyes hopeful.
“Not even close,” he said, then flinched when her face fell, and her fingers clenched the handle of the mug.
“Okay.” She nodded and focused on pushing her food around on her plate. “I get that.”
His body tightened, and Will fought back conflicting urges he didn’t fully understand. He wanted Cooper. Always had. Her sexy, sassy brand of confidence had always drawn him in. Tempted him. Challenged him. On more than one occasion, it had inspired thoughts of all the varied ways he could test it, taste it, provoke it.
None of that surprised him. He’d always known they’d be combustible. That when they finally came together it would be in a tangle of limbs and a battle of wills. There’d been a time when nothing would have made Will feel more like a man than putting Cooper on her knees, against a wall, or over a desk and laying waste to the woman’s battle-hardened control. But that was before.
Before Colombia.
Before captivity.
Before the anger that simmered on low, waiting for the right moment to boil over.
And while he still wanted to do all of those things, what caught him off guard was how much he wanted to shelter her, too.
“Cooper,” he said, watching as she stood, one arm tucked across her stomach, the other clutching a cup of coffee she was doing her best to hide behind.
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