Embattled Minds (Military Romance) (Lost And Found Series) (3 page)

Damn, it sucked getting old.

Preston punched a weight bag hanging from the corner ceiling, and didn’t even seem to be breathing hard. But then, Duncan had twelve or thirteen years on him.

Chad pounded along on the treadmill, steel blade on his left leg flashing. He seemed to be faster now than before he lost his leg, years ago.

His back twinged as he rolled to a sitting position, and his hip popped, painfully. He’d have to use the Jacuzzi tonight when he got home. If he didn’t, he’d be stiff as a board tomorrow. Pushing to his feet, he carried the weights to the rack against the wall and dropped them into place.

“Hey, Dunc, you seen Palmer today?” Chad gasped out.

Duncan swiped his face with a towel as he walked to the treadmill.

“No, not today. He said he’d be in tomorrow for a while, but he’s looking for a gift for Shannon.”

Chad grinned and glanced at him. “She’s got him so pussy-whipped.”

A half-full bottle of water hit Chad high on his back, jolting him off stride. Only natural athleticism kept him from landing in a heap at the bottom of the treadmill. He slapped the red button on the console and looked around.

“Fuck you, Lowell.”

Chad laughed when he saw Gunny Palmer sitting in his sport chair a few feet away, dressed in workout clothes.

“Well, you are. Did I see you carrying her fabulous, bejewelled purple purse the other day?”

Palmer clamped his heavy jaw, dark eyes narrowing. “Yes, you did. I’ll carry the damn thing everywhere she goes if she wants me to. You know why?”

“Why?” Chad asked, laughing.

“Because I get to go home and crawl into bed with her at the end of the day. And if she’s fucking happy, so am I.”

Duncan punched Chad on the shoulder. “I think he’s got a point.”

Chad flipped them both the bird and headed for the bathroom at the far end of the room. He turned before he left, though, and smiled. “I am happy for you, Gunny. You two are perfect for each other.”

Palmer nodded once. “Thanks, Chad.”

Duncan looked at his second in command of the company. John Palmer used to be a sour, uncooperative SOB. Over the past few weeks, ever since he’d been with Shannon, he’d changed. Easier to talk to without getting your head chewed off, more instructive with the younger guys. All around a better guy.

“I, personally, thought you looked fine with the purse.”

John glared, then burst out laughing. “You’re not right in the head, fucker.”

Duncan grinned, glad that his buddy had found his piece of heaven. If Palmer could do it, it gave him hope that he wasn’t a lost cause. “Seems late for you to be here.”

“Shannon’s parents are parked in the driveway till after Christmas. House is getting small.”

Laughing, Duncan followed John to the weight bench he himself had just vacated. The other man shifted from the chair easily, and Duncan handed him the fifty pound weights he preferred from the rack. Preston continued to pound the bag in the corner of the room. He’d given no indication that he’d even heard the joking between the partners, though Duncan had no doubt the man knew everything that went on.

John settled to his back and started doing compressions, barely even slowing down for the substantial weight. “I have to find her a gift and I have no idea what she wants.”

Duncan frowned. “I don’t know that I can help you out with that, buddy.”

“You don’t have any ideas at all?”

“Well,” he sighed. “She likes purses, and animals.”

John was shaking his head. “We already have Pickle and Gray Cat. I about had a heart-attack the other morning when I ran over Gray Cat’s tail. She screamed and I about pissed my pants.”

Duncan laughed at the visual.

“Well, you could always get her jewelry. An engagement ring, perhaps?”

One of the weights slipped in Palmer’s hand and Duncan lunged for it, but the Gunny caught it himself.

“Are you crazy? It’s only been a month since I moved in with her.”

Duncan shrugged. “Okay. It was just a thought.”

But the suggestion had been planted. He could almost hear the wheels in John’s head turning. As he walked out of the rec room toward his office, his phone buzzed with a voicemail. When he tapped the screen to listen to it, though, there was only silence on the other end. Hmm. He deleted the message and continued on.

*****

Ember didn’t even see the strike coming, but she certainly felt it, like a Mack truck slamming into her at full speed. White hot pain exploded in her face. Then she was free-falling for several excrutiatingly long seconds. She landed flat on her back, her head cracking against the hardwood floor. Everything went dark.

Agony woke her, blazing through her right jaw and cheek. Tears flooded her eyes and rolled down her temples into her hair. She was afraid to move, in fear that the pain would escalate. Her stomach roiled with nausea.

Somebody clutched her hand, squeezing and shaking her. She wanted to tell them to hold still, because they were hurting her more, but she couldn’t get her brain to shift into gear. Hazy sounds reached her ears, but it was like they were packed with cotton. Muffled.

Taking a deep breath, she forced her eyes to open. After much fluttering and tearing from the brightness of the light overhead, she was able to focus. Her father knelt beside her, her hand cradled in his as he tried to wake her. His eyes were anguished as he realized she’d woken and was staring at him. He raised her hand and pressed a kiss to the back, but she pulled it away.

He’d done it again.

She lifted a hand to her jaw, and wasn’t surprised to find it grossly swollen. It throbbed with pain, and she wondered if he had broken it. Taking a fortifying breath, she opened her mouth a tiny bit.

Fire burned down through the side of her face, neck and chest. It was all she could do not to cry out again. There was a very real possibility he had broken her jaw. She took a moment to catalog the rest of her body, but the only injury appeared to be her head. Laying here, she could feel a knot forming on the back of her skull. Possible concussion. She wouldn’t know until she got checked out.

Using her hands, she pushed up from the floor. Dizziness made her sway on her bottom, but she breathed deeply, dragging in oxygen to stabilize. She felt his hand on her back, but it would have taken more effort to shrug it away. She just didn’t have it right then.

She glanced at the hallway, but everything seemed to be quiet. It still looked dark outside, so she probably had a few hours before Drew woke up looking for her. How the hell was she going to explain this to him?

She blinked, realizing she’d sat there for several minutes. She was losing time, definitely a bad sign. She needed to get up.

Easier thought than done.

Eventually she rolled to her hands and knees, but couldn’t formulate what to do next. When he reached down to help her, she let him, but pulled away to sag against the hallway wall. Listing to the left, she staggered down to the bathroom and flicked on the light.

Fresh pain seared her head, and a few tears escaped her control to roll down her cheeks. Even
that
hurt.

She forced her eyes open.

God, it was bad.

Her jaw was blazing red and swollen. Purple bruising had already started to spread out from the strike, and she knew she would be ten different colors in a couple of days. It had already started to darken below her eye. There were a couple of deeper purple lines in the main bruise, from his individual fingers. How the hell were they going to explain this away?

He stood in the dark hallway, arms crossed, eyes haunted as he watched her.

Ember opened her mouth to speak, but it was too painful. He saved her the trouble.

“I’ll stay here with Drew while you go to the hospital.”

She nodded and lowered herself to the commode while he called her a taxi.

*****

Zeke scanned the bar when he walked in, but didn’t see Ember right away. When he’d gotten up the courage to go in to pick up their order on Tuesday, a day he knew she normally worked, she hadn’t been there. He’d asked for her, and the hostess’s gaze had slid away, as if she had something to hide, then said something about family time. The words sounded forced to him.

He’d waited three days. As he and Chad waded through the crowd now, he felt a little ridiculous checking on a woman who’d spoken less than fifty words to him. Zeke couldn’t yet articulate what he felt for her, other than a huge need to know more about her.

Chad seemed to understand what propelled him. He went to Frog Dog with him, because he admitted to being curious where she’d gone as well. Literally, Ember had never
not
been there when they’d gone in. She owned the place with her dad. It wasn’t like they could just pack up and leave.

A different young woman waited on them. Chad poured on the Texas charm, blue eyes twinkling, grinning even as the waitress surveyed the scars winding down his neck. “Is Ember working?”

The girl blinked and smiled, obviously remembering her job. “She’s in the kitchen. Do you need her?”

“Yes, we do. Can you get her for us?”

Zeke swallowed as the girl disappeared, anxiety tightening his chest. He didn’t know what he would say to her, if anything. His damn brain stalled out at the most inopportune times. He just needed to check on her for his own peace of mind. Her father had been having issues when they’d last talked to her.

The waitress returned with their beers in hand and an apologetic smile. “Sorry guys, she says she’s cooking and really busy right now. Can she talk to you another time?”

Zeke’s internal alarm went off and the tension in his gut increased. The grill wasn’t especially crowded, and he doubted there were that many food orders. Pushing to his feet, he met Chad’s eyes and circled the waitress. “B-back in a…minute.”

Without hesitation, he went to the swinging kitchen door and pushed through.

Ember looked up when he walked in, and when he saw her face, he felt like he’d been gut shot. Heavy bruising discolored the right side up to her eye, and she seemed to be in pain. Her mouth was pinched and her eyes squinted. When she realized he wasn’t one of the wait staff, she immediately turned away.

“No customers allowed back here,” she called. She moved down the cook line and motioned to a Hispanic man she was working with to take her place at the grill. Zeke prowled down the parallel aisle until he was right behind her.

“L-look at me.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “You can’t be back here, Zeke.”

“Look at me, please.”

After a long pause, she turned her body toward him, but kept her face turned away. Bending his knees enough to peer into her eyes, he waited until she looked at him.

Fury rolled through him as he realized he could see finger marks within the bruise. “Who d-did this to you?”

She shook her head and refused to answer. Tears glinted in her eyes. “It’s no big deal, okay? Accidents happen. I was just in the wrong place at the right time. It happens when you own a bar.”

Her eyes slid away and he thought there was something she wasn’t telling him, but he had a feeling if he called her on it she’d clam up completely. He reached out to touch a length of her dark hair that had escaped from her braid.

Her eyes flickered and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

He groaned. “D-d-don’t cry. I didn’t come in here to…up-upset you. Just had to check on you.”

*****

Ember didn’t know why his halting words disarmed her when nobody else’s concern had, but they did. Another tear escaped. Then another. She swiped them away, but they just seemed to fall faster. The events of the past week weighed on her, and she had decisions to make that were going to change their lives even more. For just a heartbeat in time, she wanted to
not
be strong.

When the big Marine pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head, she leaned into him and curled her hands beneath her chin, desperate for some kind of anchor in the catastrophe her life had become.

His massive arms wrapped around her and she broke into sobs, unable to tamp them down any longer. She heard rumbling beneath her good cheek, but couldn’t understand the words. When he swung her up into his arms, she didn’t even care, as long as he continued to hold her. She heard the squeak as her office door slammed shut, then the world tilted as he sank onto the old couch pushed against the wall.

Time stopped as she sobbed into his shirt and he gently rubbed her back. He was so solid and strong beneath her fists. It felt like the world could be falling down around them and he would still hold her safely above everything. A warrior battling back the nightmares.

She lost track of time as she cuddled into him, but her tears eventually began to dwindle away. Embarrassment rolled in as she realized how soaked his T-shirt was. She ran her hand over his broad chest. “I’m sorry, Zeke.”

His grip tightened around her as she tried to pull away. “It’s okay. J-just a shirt.”

Ember let him hold her for just a minute more before her pride forced her to sit up on his lap. She started to slide off, but he grabbed her hands in his. “What can I do to help?”

She blinked, unused to even being offered help. It had been her and her dad for so long, then Drew had been added to their little group, and they were pretty self-sufficient. That had all changed now, though.

She shook her head as she realized she was going to have to ask for help. “I don’t know. I have to move, and find somebody to watch my son. But I have to be here, too, to make sure everything runs right.”

When she lifted her gaze, his bright blue eyes were solid and reassuring. She choked out a laugh. “I can’t believe how much I’m trusting you right now. I hardly know you.”

He grinned at her, and the scar that looped down from his bottom lip pulled his smile off-kilter. “I’m a Marine. I’m a…good guy. Even though I don’t look it.”

Against her better judgment, she grinned too, then flinched when it hurt her jaw. “Ouch.”

His eyes drifted down her face and he raised one hand as if to touch her, but stopped. “Who did this? Really?”

She looked down at her lap, debating what she could tell him. Everybody would probably know eventually anyway. “My dad. I walked into our house last Saturday and it was dark. I thought he was sleeping, so I just started to walk through the house like I always do, but he was having a flashback.”