Impossible End (Unchecked Book 3) (9 page)

“Nothing’s broken.” She inhaled, putting weight on her leg.

Without thinking, I stroked her hair.

Startled, she looked up. Big blue eyes and a face full of mistrust met my gaze.

Everything went still.

The bullshit chaos in my head, grief, anger, it all went quiet like the flip of a switch—a fucking jasmine switch.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to step back. “C’mon.” I grabbed her duffel.

She took a step and an unsteady tremor went up her spine.

My hand automatically went to her back and I felt around for anything out of place. “Your back too or just your leg?”

“I’m okay.”

Jesus. “No, you’re not. But I’m gonna see what I can do ‘bout that.” I put an arm around her shoulders and she instantly leaned into me for support.

I walked her to my shop and for once, Kendall kept her head down and her mouth shut. I led Nic to my office and set her in a chair.

She winced and the leg she’d been favoring stayed straight out in front of her. “Thank you.”

Enough with this bullshit. “Where else are you hurt?” I demanded.

“My wrist.”

I stared at her. Blonde hair tossed by the wind, clothes a mess, face beaten to hell, she was still beautiful. I caved. “All right. I’ll play this your way.”

I squatted next to her and my training took over. I inspected the swelling on her cheek and gently pushed at the surrounding bone but she didn’t flinch. I pulled her wrist toward me and turned her hand over in mine.

She sucked in a breath and shifted in her seat.

I bit back my anger. “Tell me what happened.”

She shrugged the one shoulder.

Holding her wrist, I felt my way up the rest of her arm. “Where’s Randy?”

“At the apartment. I think,” she admitted.

Nothing else seemed injured. “Was he breathing when you left?” I gently placed her wrist back in her lap. It was broken.

She slowly exhaled. “I don’t know.”

I stood and crossed my arms, leaning on my desk. “But you think he’s dead?”

“He didn’t really look like he was breathing.” Her voice was soft and breathy but the words were emotionally detached.

“Did you kill him?”

Her eyes met mine but her expression gave nothing away. “No.”

“What’s your end game?” I wasn’t fucking around with this shit. If I was going to do anything beyond dumping her at the ER, I needed to know what I was getting myself into.

“What do you mean?”

I lost my patience. “Fuck, darlin’, c’mon. I don’t have time for this shit. You show up on my doorstep half beaten to death, sayin’ you didn’t know where else to go. That tells me two things. One, you’re in deep shit and two, you think I can help. So, I ask again, what’s your plan? And don’t tell me it’s to go back when he calms the fuck down. Dead or alive, you’re done with that worthless prick. I ain’t a fuckin’ battered women’s shelter you check in and out of.”

“Randy told me you were a doctor in the Navy,” she said in that quiet voice that was beginning to make me wonder if she ever got pissed off.

I sighed. “SARC, Marines.”

“What?”

“Not a doctor. Trauma medic. Answer my question.”

“I don’t want to go back there.” Nothing changed in her expression.

I pushed off the desk, hoping like hell she was telling the truth. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Where?”

“ER. X-rays. Your wrist’s broken and I want your cheek looked at. Not to mention the leg you’re favorin’ that you won’t tell me about.”

“It doesn’t hurt as much as my wrist.”

“Thank God for small favors. Up.” I held my hand out, gentleman that I am.

She stared at my hand a moment.

Then she reached for me and her entire story fell to shit.

TALON
(Uncompromising Series Book One)
releases March 1
st
, 2016

Turn the page for an excerpt from
IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE
, Book One in the Unchecked Series
by Sybil Bartel, now available at all participating e-retailers.

IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE

By Sybil Bartel

Marine Sergeant Blaze Johnson offered Layna Blair a way out—her freedom, his rules, no questions asked.

G
LANCING OVER MY SHOULDER, I
crossed the parking lot. I didn’t see them but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. They were always close, but I’d found a place where they wouldn’t follow me. One hour a week—when you had nothing, it was something.

I breezed into the last pew and kneeled just long enough to cross myself. I wished the gesture still held some significance but I’d stopped believing three years ago. The thought of three years ago made the familiar panic surface. Sweaty palms, shortness of breath, heart clamoring to get out from under my ribs. They were all a precursor to the terror. I dug my nails into my palms, desperate to take my mind away from the past.

Maybe tonight had been a bad idea. I should’ve stayed hidden in my apartment. Then I wouldn’t be here, studying the side exit, counting the steps, wondering if I slipped out the back how long it would take before they found me. Because they always found me. I wasn’t stupid enough to go far. I glanced at the exit again. No, tonight, I was going to be just stupid enough to give them something to do. I grabbed my purse and stood.

He stopped in the aisle and fear more familiar than my own name prickled across my skin. His deep, quiet voice hit me a fraction of a second before his scent.

“This seat taken?” Soap and musk mingled with old church, and blue eyes the color of winter ice stared down at me.

My stomach in my throat, I shook my head, and he stepped into the pew. When he focused his attention forward, the air whooshed out of my lungs. He wasn’t one of them. They never got this close, not in public, but the fear was ingrained—three years ingrained.

My exit strategy shot, I set my purse down and snuck a glance at the wall of muscle next to me. Legs slightly apart, hands clasped in front, he stood perfectly motionless. Square jaw, chiseled cheekbones, his features were too harsh to be beautiful and too beautiful to be harsh. His close-cropped haircut screamed military, but the bottom of a tattoo peeking out from his shirt sleeve was the giveaway. USMC.

For one impossible moment, I closed my eyes. He smelled amazing, like freedom and strength and security—everything I’d never have again. Resigned, to my one hour, to my life, I glanced at the stupid exit and swore under my breath. “Damn it.”

Quick, precise, the marine turned and locked his gaze on me. Heat hit my cheeks, my mouth went dry and the sweater over my shoulders fell to the seat. Shit.
Shit.
I quickly looked away but the damage was done. I’d drawn attention to myself.

For the next forty-five minutes I tried to go through the motions of the service, but the closeness of the marine was making me want to crawl out of my skin. Vibrating with raw power, he was so distracting I wanted to shove him into the aisle…or cower under his huge biceps and hide. And that would be disastrous. Fuck-my-whole-life-up disastrous. I came here for an hour of peace, not soapy musk and unleashed strength. I didn’t have time for bullshit fantasies. I glanced at my watch. I didn’t have time at all. My hour was almost up.

I reached for my purse. Black boots, worn but polished to a high shine, had caged it in. And because I’d done nothing right since I’d walked through the church doors, I let my traitorous eyes sweep up. Hard muscles strained against black cargo pants. A fitted T-shirt skimmed a flat stomach and stretched across impossibly wide shoulders. A cut jaw ticked and cold, knowing eyes waited.

He raised an eyebrow.

My leg began to bounce.

“Everything okay?” he whispered.

Okay?
No, everything was not okay. I was sitting next to a marine who made me wish I was anyone else besides who I was—utterly alone yet followed everywhere. Nothing about that was okay. But before I could do something really stupid, like acknowledge him, the haunting sounds of the organ filled the church and mass ended. I grabbed my purse and shot to my feet.

But the marine didn’t step out of the pew. He rose to his towering height, blocked my escape and waited for every single person to file out of the church. Then he stepped out and back a foot.

I told myself not to. I really did, but it was as if this complete stranger had destroyed all of my self-control. So, I glanced up.

And the marine glared at me.

Struck dumb, I stared for two heartbeats before self-preservation kicked in. Then I scrambled forward and tripped. Viselike heat gripped my upper arm and I was immediately righted. Stunned by the strength in his hand, I jerked away and rushed out of the church.

The priest’s crinkly face smiled in my direction then looked past me with concern. “Sergeant Johnson, good to see you. How is your mother?”

“Not well, sir.”

I flew down the steps. The last words I heard were his.

“Who is that, Father?”

I
DIDN’T BOTHER LOOKING FOR
the men that’d been following me since I’d moved to Gainesville. I never should’ve left Miami but I couldn’t breathe for the memories. Fumbling through my purse, searching for my keys, I didn’t recognize the name being called behind me.

“Ms. Blair.”

Where the hell were my keys?

“Ma’am.”

My hand palmed my keys the instant recognition hit. Layna Blair was my new name.

“Ms. Blair, you forgot something.”

Damn it. I never should’ve told the priest my name. Tempering my rising panic, resigned to getting this over with, I turned around.

“Your sweater, ma’am.” Anger gone, arm outstretched, the marine studied me.

I silently took the sweater.

“In a hurry?” Patient, deep, his voice was almost cathartic.

I didn’t say anything. What was the point? I’d be gone in ten seconds and I’d never see him again. I flipped the sweater over my shoulders and got one arm shoved in before he reached out to hold the other sleeve. When his fingers brushed over my shoulder, I shivered.

He frowned. “You’re cold.”

This was taking too long. Sucking in a breath, I forced out polite words. “Thanks for the sweater.” I turned back toward my car.