Breaking Free

by Teresa Reasor

  “The baby is all right,” she said as soon as she hung up. “She was in distress and they had to get her out pretty quickly, but the pediatrician said she’s doing fine now.” She swallowed and her composure wobbled, but she held on. “They had to do an emergency hysterectomy on Sharon. They couldn’t get the bleeding stopped. She’s had to have transfusions.” She rubbed her arms as though cold. “They nearly lost her.”

  He had to hold her. All the reasons why he shouldn’t didn’t matter in that moment.

  He sat down next to her and put his arms around her. The way her head found the perfect spot between his chest and shoulder to rest in, the way her breasts pushed against his ribs had a rightness to it. There was no reserve in the way she wrapped her arms around him and held on. It seemed he’d waited months, not weeks, for a reason to hold her.

  If only she were allowing him to do so under different circumstances.

  She shook with reaction but she didn’t cry. Driven to offer her comfort he said, “They didn’t lose her or the baby. No matter what other sacrifices had to be made, Zoe, that’s the important thing.”

  She nodded. “I have to call Mom.”

  Without releasing her, he stretched back to tug the cell phone from his belt and flipped it open. He scrolled down to Clara’s number and pressed it, then waited for her to pick up. When she didn’t answer, he said, “She must be on the flight already. The tower may allow the pilot to get a message to her though. I’ll get the phone book and call the airport.”

  She drew back releasing him, but her hand rested on his chest for a moment, and she looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Hawk.”

  Confused, he asked, “For what?”

  “It’s been one family drama after another ever since we moved in here. It’s not normally like this with us. If it gets to be too much for you---”

  “Not a chance,” he cut her off. “I’m sticking around for when something good happens to balance things out. Hey, it already has---you’re an aunt again.”

  “Yes, I am.” She offered him an unsteady smile and her shoulders fell in a release of tension.

  “Congratulations, Aunt Zoe.” He brushed her lips with a kiss he told himself was a friendly gesture, but his lips clung to hers. The soft, lush texture of her mouth begged to be explored. He wanted to taste her, test her response. He forced himself to pull back before teeth and tongue came into play.

  Her eyes looked huge, and a pale vibrant blue. He read surprise in her expression and something else that grabbed him right below the belt.

  “I’ll get the phone book.” He grasped the bag of food and carried it into the kitchen. He had to get away from her before he did something stupid. Like kiss her again.

  CHAPTER 8

  Langley Marks swung the station wagon into a parking space at the firing range. Sporadic gunfire echoed from just over the man-made rise. “Flash, Doc, and Bowie should be here instructing.” He didn’t put the vehicle in park but continued to eye Hawk. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Hawk shook his head. How had Lang known something was happening? Had he read his body language? Had something he’d said alerted him? He studied his expression. Lang was his oldest and closest friend since joining the unit. He trusted him implicitly. Besides he’d had only a peripheral part in planning and implementing the mission.

  “Officially, Cutter’s injuries have been ruled an accident. Unofficially, the brass has decided that until they know for certain what happened, those of us who took part in the mission, have a cap on our promotions.”

  “Jesus.” Langley leaned back against the seat and shoved the gearshift into park. His expression remained blank with shock for several moments then he looked up. “Something else is going on here.”

  “Something happened while we were in Iraq, something Cutter saw or did.” Hawk rubbed a hand along his jaw. “I don’t know.”

  “They believe one of the team caved his head in and left him to die,” Langley said as though trying to absorb it.

  “Yeah.”

  Lang turned toward him. “They can’t think it was you.”

  “No. But they expect me to get to the bottom of it. And the only way I can do that is talk to the guys and see what they know.”

  “Doc and Bowie are tight. They won’t give each other up, if they’re involved.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Derrick’s a hot head, but he and Cutter have been tight since BUDS. And Flash was never inside the building.”

  “As far as we know,” Hawk said.

  Langley’s brows rose. “Do you have any reason to believe differently?”

  “No, but I’m not limiting any possibilities. Shaker had his hands full with a tango but I’m not ruling him out either. I need to find out what Cutter was up to before the mission. If he had any disagreements with any of the men, owed them any money, that kind of thing.”

  “I can’t see any of them going ape shit over money, so it has to be something else.”

  “Yeah, something worse. Something that could affect their careers. But what?”

  Langley shook his head. “Jesus.” He rubbed a hand over his closely cut hair. “And what if all this is bullshit, and Cutter just fell or something? It will affect all your careers---for nothing.”

  “No shit. But if it was just bullshit, why would someone be slapping him around to make sure he wasn’t waking up?”

  “Damn.”

  The disheartened tone of Langley’s voice mirrored Hawk’s own feelings.

  Hawk shoved his hand into his pack and came out with a DVD of the hospital footage. “I need you to freeze frame the images on this disc and see if you can see who it is that came out of Cutter’s room that morning.”

  “Consider it done. Flash is better at this than I am, but I suppose under the circumstances, you don’t want to take it to him.”

  Hawk ignored the comment. “Zoe’s staying at the hospital practically twelve hours a day afraid to leave Cutter alone.”

  “Shit,” Lang breathed. “She can’t keep that up.”

  “No she can’t. That’s why I’m here. Doc, Flash, and Bowie are here and I’m going to see what I can find out from them.”

  “Do you need me to watch your back?” Lang thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, his features twisting with a grimace part anger, part frustration. “I can’t believe I just asked that. Jesus--These men are members of our team.”

  Team. That word had taken on a different connotation to Hawk as soon as he’d discovered Brett unconscious inside the building. Would he ever be able to trust anyone as completely again? Realizing Lang was waiting for an answer he looked up. “I’ll be all right. Keep your distance, Lang. You don’t want to get tangled up in this.”

  “I’m here for you, Hawk, and for the team. Whatever you need.”

  Langley’s show of loyalty loosened the knot of tension twisting his insides. “Thanks, man. I may need to use you as a sounding board, but I think it’s smart to keep it between just the six of us.”

  “And what about, Zoe?”

  “She’s agreed to stay quiet until I figure things out.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “We’re Cutter’s team too. Zoe’s a Marine Corps brat. She knows how important it is to all of our careers. She knows the score.” Maybe too well.

  “Is she protecting everyone’s career or just Cutters?”

  Was it just her brother she was protecting? “I don’t know.”

  Lang’s brows rose.

  “We’re not--We haven’t---”Hawk drew a deep breath. “Her mother asked me to look after her. I won’t break that trust.”

  Lang’s smile held a wry twist. “That’s an admirable position, but I’ve seen the way you look at her, my friend. And I’ve seen how she looks at you, too.”

  He couldn’t deny the attraction that ricocheted back and forth between them, but Zoe wasn’t going to act on it. He had a gut feeling about that. “She doesn’t want to get drawn back
into the life. Her Dad was killed in Desert Storm and now Cutter’s---” He swallowed. “And there are other issues.”

  Lang raised one thick brow. “Her leg?”

  “Yeah.” Hawk rubbed his jaw and tried to relax the urge to grit his teeth in frustration.

  Lang’s gaze grew sharp. “I wouldn’t have thought that would matter to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Hawk said his tone certain.

  Lang frowned. “Shit.”

  That just about said it all.

  Hawk grabbed his pack. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Call when you’re ready to head back to the hospital. I’ll be at the administration building.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hawk limped across the parking lot. A knoll of ground separated the cars from the range. He followed the path to the top of the shallow hill. BUDS trainees lay on the ground shooting at distant targets with AK47s. The cacophony of sound assaulted his ears as they fired.

  Doc O’Conner paced back and forth behind the men watching as they practiced. As Hawk drew close, Doc’s haggard look became evident. Blood vessels lined the whites of his eyes like tributaries and lines of stress dug crevices around his mouth.

  At Hawk’s greeting, Doc’s smile appeared strained.

  “How’s it going?” Hawk asked.

  “This batch seems better than most,” Doc said during a lull in the noise. “Ensign Jeffers, the guy at the end, has sniper training. He’s lethal every time.”

  Hawk watched the trainee for a moment. “Did you have a party and not invite me, Doc? You look a little rough around the edges.”

  Doc grinned. “No party. Well at least not one more than two people attended.”

  Was it really just a late night with a woman? Or something else?

  “How’s, Zoe?” Doc asked.

  “Still spending twelve hour days at the hospital. We need to talk about Cutter. When will you be through here?”

  “Something happen?”

  “Yeah.”

  Doc glanced at his watch. “It’ll be about an hour before we’re relieved.”

  “Is Bowie around?”

  “Yeah, he’s walked down to the head and will be back in a minute.”

  “Bring him along. I thought Flash was here, too.”

  “He’s down at the administration building keying in a report.”

  Hawk nodded. “I’ll give him a call on my cell.”

  Doc’s brow furrowed and dread took up residence in his eyes. “Is Cutter worse? Is he---?”

  “No. But I need to speak with you about him. I’ll be on the pistol range when you’re done here. ”

  Hawk sauntered down the field past multiple long distance training ranges to the sheltered pistol range and spoke to the range master to set up his target. Between the barrages of fire, he made a quick call to Flash on his cell and promised to meet him at the administrative building in an hour. He lifted his pack upon the narrow shelf that marked his firing position and separated him from the field.

  What if they were all somehow involved in what had happened? His team. He flinched inwardly. Whether they were or weren’t, he already looked at them differently. He’d viewed these men as part of his family.

  God, he hated this.

  He removed his nine-millimeter Sig Sauer and several clips of ammunition and placed them on the shelf. He slid the bolt back to check the weapon’s chamber and finding it clear, slapped in a clip. He slid on his protective headgear, thumbed off the safety, raised the handgun, and waited for the next signaled burst of fire.

  Squeezing the trigger and boring holes in the distant target helped relieve some of his frustration. Temporarily.

  After he finished his practice, he stood atop the shallow plateau above the range and watched other personnel cycle in and out.

  Thirty minutes later, Doc and Bowie arrived in a military Humvee. As they exited the vehicle, he studied each man’s expression. Would it have been better if he’d talk to each alone? They’d faced BUDS together. If they had a choice, they’d faced the charges, the disruption to their careers together. Hawk rolled his head to loosen the taut muscles in his neck.

  “Hey, LT. What’s up?” Bowie asked.

  “They’re still looking into Cutter’s accident and I wanted to touch base with you on it. Do either of you remember Cutter behaving differently before we were called up on the mission?”

  Bowie shook his head. “No. He was joking and jacking around just before the drop. We were talking about going out with twin sisters he’d met when we got back home. If they were still available.”

  Hawk remembered the conversation. “He hadn’t been complaining about headaches or any other physical problems?”

  Doc and Bowie each shook their head.

  “He’d been working out some with Derrick, not as obsessively as Strong Man, but just enough to get some definition,” Doc volunteered.

  “How was he with Strong Man and Flash? Did you pick up on any tension between him and either of them?”

  “No,” Doc said.

  Hawk studied Bowie’s frown. “Is there something you remember?”

  “It was nothing. Flash said something to him about minding his own business the day before the drop.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded like he was just giving him some advice about something.”

  “Anything else you can think of?”

  “Why would Cutter go back into the building after he’d already gotten out?” Doc asked.

  Hawk frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw him climbing back through the window after he should have completed his run.”

  He’d gotten out of the building, then turned around and gone back in. Why would he do that? Had he heard or seen something? Forgotten something? Not a chance with their training.

  There were three blonds on the team. Cutter, Strong Man, and Flash. Had it been one of the others? Strong Man had radioed Cutter’s absence. Flash had been positioned on the roof diagonally from the target location. If it hadn’t been Cutter climbing inside the building, then who? Could Strong Man have radioed from inside the building?

  “Are you sure it was him, Doc? Could you see the guy’s hair?”

  “No, it was too dark. Who else would it have been?”

  “They don’t think it was an accident.” Bowie’s tone was as flat as his gaze.

  “No, they don’t.”

  Doc’s eyes widened. “Jesus--”

  Bowie’s features grew taut. “We’re all under suspicion, aren’t we?” He stepped close into Hawk’s space. “What the hell did you put in your report, Hawk?”

  Hawk braced a hand on Bowie’s shoulder and met his gaze. “I wrote exactly what I found when I entered the building. Cutter was out cold and stuffed behind a cabinet, the side of his head bloody. The position of his body suggested that someone had put him there so he wouldn’t be seen.”

  Bowie’s features slackened in surprise and he stepped back. He and Doc exchanged a look.

  “It wasn’t either one of us, Hawk. Neither of us had a reason to hurt Cutter. He was---”Bowie paused, “is our buddy. We’d never even had words about anything.”

  Hawk studied Doc. Something was going on with the man. He seemed distant, dazed. “Is that true for both of you, Doc?”

  “It’s true.” The man’s gaze met his. “I’d never do anything to hurt Cutter. Never. I did my best to keep him alive until we got back to base.”

  The man’s sincerity had him taking a relieved breath. His gut told him they were both telling the truth, but could he still trust his instincts. And what the hell was going on with Doc?

  “All right. I want both of you to think back on the days before the mission. Every conversation, every observation, anything at all that you noticed about Cutter. And Doc, think back on the guy you saw going in through the window. Anything you observed about him.”

  “You don’t think it was, Cutter?” he asked.

 
“I don’t know. Why would Cutter turn around and go back in once he was clear? And if it wasn’t him---”He left it hanging. “Write it all down, it may help you to think it through. If either of you remember anything at all you feel is relevant, call me. We have to figure this thing out.” He looked from one to the other. “I’m not going to let team loyalty stand in the way of finding out what happened. Neither of you should either.”

  Bowie’s hands clenched and released in an open characteristic of stress, but his anger seemed to have passed. “Aye-eye, LT.”

  Hawk glanced at his watch and bent to pick up his pack. “I need a ride to the admin. You guys ready to go?”

  Doc nodded, the action subdued, tired. “Yeah, we’re ready.”

  Silence, oppressive and painful, pressed down on Hawk as they drove from one location to the other. As Doc wheeled into the parking area, Hawk spotted Flash leaning against a car in the parking lot of the admin building waiting for him.

  “Stay icy. We’ll figure this thing out,” Hawk said as he opened the door and got out.

  “Damn straight,” Bowie said, his tone hard.

  Doc threw up a hand as he pulled away.

  Hawk returned to the gesture and he turned to face Flash.

  “How’s the knee?” he asked before Hawk reached him.

  “It’s coming along.”

  “Good. What’s up? Has something happened to Cutter?” Flash’s brows rose then converged in a show of concern.

  “No, he’s about the same.” Hawk studied Flash’s narrow face.

  “You had a bird’s eye view on the whole mission. Did you see Cutter come out of the building then go back in?”

  “No. All I saw was you going in after him right through the front door. That was the God damnedest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been a SEAL. Then a few minutes later when you burst out the front door and the muzzle flashes started flaring as all the tangos fired at you--” He shook his head at the memory. “You were born under a lucky star or something man. I still don’t know how you kept from getting hit.”