Authors: Megan Mitcham
“Who told you this?”
“The Stas.”
“How can you even begin to believe them over your own—”
“What, captain? He’s not a real captain. He’s a gun for hire.”
“Just like you and me,” Greer hollered.
“He played us and the Stas for information. We were pawns, Greer.”
Her head shook in a constant back and forth while she tried to calculate the situation from every angle. The partiality she had for Zach couldn’t come into play. But it already had. He said he wasn’t a good guy, but he acted like one. Derrick said he was a good guy, but didn’t act like one.
Derrick went back to work on the lock. Metal scraped metal and her nerves.
“They took him too,” she finally blurted.
“Yeah, to find out what he wanted from them. I don’t think they got it.”
“Because he doesn’t cave.” Accusation hardened her voice.
Something shifted on Derrick’s face. A slip of the mask. Hair at the back of Greer’s neck stood on end.
He dropped the paper clip on the floor and abandoned the lock. “I think they’ll come after him again. He’ll be back soon. We need to go.”
Derrick clutched the opener in his fist.
“Why didn’t you go earlier?”
“Because you didn’t. But you’ll come with me now. Won’t you, Greer?”
“
T
ake
a step and we’ll see how well you breathe through your brain.” Zeke trained his Glock on Derrick’s temple.
The man stopped a foot from rounding the desk toward Greer. Her blue gaze found him, but snapped back to Derrick’s hands too quickly.
“Drop it.” Zeke whispered the order and mounted the stairs.
A letter opener Derrick must have found in the old desk clattered to the wooden top.
“Well, it didn’t take long to chase those kids off, Alexi.” Derrick held his hands up in surrender and turned toward him. “Almost like there weren’t any kids. Just like there isn’t a Zach Saulter.”
“There were kids,” Zeke countered, “six months ago. I never knew the footage would come in handy.” He shrugged. “Well, for more than the obvious. And Zach Saulter exists. He’s just a lawyer in Dallas.”
Greer’s jaw dropped as though he’d pissed on a Bible.
He’d expected as much. He just hadn’t expected the weight of her reaction to sit on his chest like an angry gorilla. His breath hitched.
“I told you.” Derrick shifted his jaw toward Greer and his left foot shifted ever so slightly in her direction.
If she noticed, she didn’t give any indication. Her gaze locked on Zeke’s, waiting for an explanation he couldn’t give. Especially not with a rattlesnake coiled between them. He needed Greer to recognize Derrick for what he was—and for her to hold on to the misplaced trust she had for him a little while longer.
Zeke squeezed the steel between his palms and used it to harden his voice. “How’d you know?”
“They questioned me for hours, chained in that damn warehouse. The Stas wanted to know about you. When I said I didn’t know anything, which was true…” Derrick jabbed a finger at him. “You didn’t show us shit and told us even less.” A snort spewed from the wanker’s razor-edged nose. “They tried to turn me against you. So they told me that shit. What they didn’t know is that I never had an allegiance to you.”
“Well, you did the British Academy proud. Truly, a moving performance.” Zeke dipped the end of his Glock and tipped his head. “I’d clap, but I might blow your lying ass off.”
Greer stayed unusually quiet. Her gaze bounced back and forth between them.
“Say what you want, but she already knows the truth,” Derrick said.
“Yes, she does.” Zeke fisted the front of his shirt in his left hand and yanked it up, revealing the ravages of his captivity. “She knows what a questioning from the Stas looks like.” He released his shirt. “You have a pledge of loyalty. I don’t. They didn’t question you. What would they gain? You’re a lowly pissant who doesn’t know anything.”
Derrick flung himself around so quickly his shirt flapped in the breeze. “Greer, did they do that to you?”
That primitive desire to protect Greer flopped around in Zeke’s chest once more. Someone mercilessly held defibrillator paddles to it, forcing it to life inside him.
“They didn’t question her,” Zeke growled.
Derrick’s brown gaze sliced back to Zeke. The top of his lip curled into a hideous sneer.
“How do you know for sure?” Greer voiced the man’s question in a whisper. “There’s so much I can’t remember.”
He held Derrick in his periphery, but centered his gaze on Greer’s soulful blue eyes. “You’d remember every hit, every cut, every lost breath, every burn. There also isn’t a mark on your body.”
“He’s seen you?” Rage cracked Derrick’s voice and his carefully constructed facade. His pecs puffed with rapid breaths and he stepped in her direction.
“Careful.” Zeke’s index finger eased down the trigger guard, itching to take a shot.
Had they been a couple before all this? Had they been intimately involved? Zeke entertained the notion for no more than a second before deciding they hadn’t. Not because he figured Greer had been saving herself for him, but because Derrick Coen’s brash and irreverent personality didn’t lend itself to intimacy.
His didn’t either, now did it?
Greer stumbled back from the sudden outburst, but caught herself. Then everything changed. A certainty he hadn’t seen in her demeanor since training straightened her spine. Her gaze sharpened to the fine point of a blade.
“Those bastards abducted me. They drugged me for nine long days. Zach…” Her gaze bobbled for a fraction of a second before firming on Derrick. She pointed at Zeke. “He, whatever his name is, he saved me. He dealt with the aftermath.” Her finger shifted to her sternum. “And my body isn’t your concern.”
Sweat beaded on Derrick’s flushed forehead. His mouth formed a hard line. “Sure it is.”
The dip of Derrick’s temple begged for a bullet. It took ounces of reserve to keep from hugging the trigger and giving it to him. He didn’t need the son of an Irish whore much longer, but he needed to know where he’d gotten the information he’d told Greer.
Her eyes widened, but the set of her jaw firmed. “The hell it is.”
“You’re my prize.” Derrick’s smile grew. He lunged.
Zeke’s index finger tightened on the trigger. Instead of Derrick’s head, he lifted the barrel and aimed for the blacked-out figure skirting the roofline with an automatic rifle snugged to his chest. The man’s arms flew back. He teetered and then fell backward off the tin roof.
Another shadow shifted on the far end of the barn past the kitchen window. Derrick’s hands gripped Greer’s shoulders.
A roar erupted from Zeke’s throat. He’d only heard anything like it once before. The first time his father had beaten his sister with a closed fist. He’d been five, a boy, completely incapable of helping. Now, he could do amazing, terrifying things with his hands.
Greer caught Derrick’s chin with a punch. His head jerked, but his grip held. He shoved her toward the far wall, near the chest of drawers—and her gun.
Zeke holstered his Glock and—
A deafening
boom
echoed in his skull. Invisible force shoved him to the floor. Bits of wood and glass hailed, pinging off his prone form like angry hornets. Black lapped at the edges of his consciousness.
Greer?
He had to find her. The need pushed him forward more ardently than the blast. The black tide receded. He blinked. Crimson laced his field of vision. Zeke used the back of his arm and swiped at the blood. He pressed to his hands and knees. Blood blinded. The floor swayed.
“Greer?”
Zeke listened for her answer. A distant ring replied. Again he wiped at the stream, and then forced his eyes wide.
Derrick dragged Greer’s limp body across the debris-laden floor. Her bare feet scraped over splinters of tin and chunks of glass.
A possessiveness completely foreign gulped its first heavy breath. Zeke pulled a knee to his chest and struggled to stand. He searched for solid ground, but floundered, finding only the hard edge of the kitchen table.
“No!”
From too far away Greer’s voice cut through the haze and disorientation. He grabbed the hand towel from the table top and dragged it across his eyes. The smoggy room developed like an old Polaroid. Using the chair for balance, Zeke straightened. A large hole gaped in the front of the barn. The blast had been made for distraction, not destruction…except for his car, which seemed to be at the epicenter of the blast. He couldn’t see it. That was a good thing for Derrick. Maybe when he caught the fucker he wouldn’t kill him.
Grunts of a tussle and the smack of flesh meeting flesh filtered in through the gaping hole. Greer yelped. Nope. Derrick was already dead. He just didn’t realize it.
Rage drove him forward. He ran full tilt toward the old loft door. The rusted hoist chain hung from the large round pulley and weathered wood post he’d kept through the updates. Zeke leaped into the open air. He looked right, expecting to meet the bullet of the shadow he’d seen ghosting across the barn roof moments before the blast. His left hand clamped the rough metal. Blood had snaked down his arm. Several links in the old chain slipped through his grasp. He redoubled his effort. His grip held. No shots rang out. Gravity went to work.
Chain screeched through the un-oiled wheel. The baler hook at the bottom of the circular length soared. Before it met the pulley—
shit
—before it passed him knotted links jammed into the pulley’s slender opening. His fall stopped with an abrupt jerk. The chain slipped from his fingers and he fell toward the earth.
A tuck and roll saved his ankles from total decimation. His shoulder took a hit. Blood trickled down his face once again. Zeke anchored himself on a knee. He yanked his sidearm from the holster.
Greer stood over Derrick. Crimson oozed from the man’s nose. Her knuckles whitened around the letter opener she held high in the air. Determination tightened her features. Her fist drew for the strike.
A shot split the air from the right.
The other shooter
. Zeke swung toward the barn. He focused a bead on the gunman.
Greer screamed.
Zeke’s stomach followed his bullets across the yard. The man grabbed his neck, fell forward onto the tin eave. He was up and running before the thought registered. His barrel swung back around and found Derrick, ready to obliterate the man, but completely unprepared to see the horror of what had happened to Greer.
Brain matter and blood clung to blades of grass.
She hunched forward. Her white blonde hair cascaded over her shoulder. Slender fingers hid those beautiful blue eyes from the annihilation that was Derrick Coen.
The tip of his Glock wavered. Muscles in his entire body rubberized and he actually stumbled to the side. Whether from the blood loss or relief he wasn’t sure. But he had time for neither. He moved forward, blocking Greer from the line of the barn. The setting sun cleaved into his sensitive vision. Zeke squinted against the dying light and surveyed the perimeter. Branches swayed in the light breeze. Bugs accosted the kitchen window, beating themselves against the glass, trying to get to the florescent light.
No one scaled the roof. No one moved in the woods. It didn’t mean they were safe. It just meant they wanted them alive. Zeke had endured his last day in captivity and would die before he returned.
“We need to go.”
She looked at him with wet, blood-shot eyes. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not dead yet, so it’ll keep for now.” He held out his hand. When her fingers wrapped around his they grabbed something else deep in his chest.
“
W
ho shot him
?”
Z—she’d taken to mentally calling him that, since she didn’t know what the hell his name was—hiked his other foot into the truck, slammed the door shut, and plopped a motel key on the seat between them. “I was beginning to think you’d succumbed to shock.” His big hand wrapped around the shifter and yanked the relic into drive.
“I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, for all your muttered cursing.”
“Men don’t mutter,” he groused.
“I’d say let me check your pants, but that won’t be necessary.” She flashed him a smirk. Her nerves vibrated from the non-stop rollercoaster, but this mindless banter with him—whoever he was—made it tolerable.
He slid her a sideways glance, but didn’t even crack a smile.
“I didn’t peg you for a materialist. I mean, we’re both alive,” she pointed out.
The old pick-up wheeled into the back parking lot with a long series of groans and squeaks. Z parked the vehicle behind a motel two hours away from the Pennsylvania farmhouse and closer to New York. “It wasn’t just a car they destroyed. It was a symbol, a…” He let the words fall off with a shake of his head. “Just wait until I find them.”
“A symbol of what?”
Z opened the door and leaned out, but stopped. He surprised her by turning back and slumping against the seat. A sigh drained from his lips. It expelled the tension in his shoulders. “Freedom. It was my freedom.”
It might be the first real answer he’d given her. The subject matter meant something to him. His willingness to share shifted something between them. A grimace creased his blood-crusted forehead. He grabbed the wheel with his left hand and shifted toward the door.
Greer held her breath and dove. After all, it couldn’t be any more terrifying than hearing that shot rip through the wilderness and thinking that Z’d been shot. She reached out slowly, giving him time to escape if he wanted. He watched her hand stretch the distance for his. Her finger slid over the top, smoothing over the large ridges of veins, tendons, and coarse hairs. It was wider than she’d imagined, warmer. She didn’t so much hold his hand as shield it.
“Even when they held you captive, they didn’t take your freedom. You’re stronger than that.”
A cloud drifted through his stormy gaze. Had she taken him back to those awful days? Had she over stepped the tentative bounds of their budding…who knew what it was? For that matter, was it anything? The knot in her throat said it was something, on her part anyway.
“They—whoever they were—targeted Derrick. They shot him before you or me. Derrick knew something valuable. I don’t know who took him out, but if we figure that out we’ll figure out why we were taken.”
Greer lifted her hand. “I didn’t say that so you’d—”
“I know.” He trapped her hand against his palm. “I’m telling you what I can.” His lips compressed and then released. “I just can’t go back there.”
No wonder he couldn’t rehash the days of imprisonment and torture. “More than most, I get that.”
Z nodded. “Back at the barn, why didn’t you run when Derrick gave you the chance?”
She looked at their hands, at his strong fingers, capable of crushing hers in their grip, capable of cuddling hers in their grip. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”
“According to Derrick, I’m the leader of a notoriously violent gang.” The firm line returned to his mouth.
“And yet, you risked your life to save mine. You did the same for Derrick.”
Her eyes clamped shut at the memory of his body at her feet—the body of someone she’d thought of as her friend. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
“You still haven’t.”
She looked at him, really took in his hard jaw and proud nose, his troubled eyes, and she slipped a little. The precipice was steep and threatened her life as truly as the Stas had, but the urge to throw herself over the side livened every cell inside her.
“I would have.”
“Good. When it’s you or someone else, always choose them.” He squeezed her hand.
The hole in the side of Derrick’s skull haunted her again, but she pushed past it. “Did the Stas turn him?”
“Did he work for them all along?” Z asked. “Or did he work for someone else? All questions we need to answer. I had my suspicions before…about both of you.”
“What the hell?” Greer yanked her hand from his as though his touch burned.
“When you were taken I thought I was wrong. I wasn’t wrong about Derrick.”
“I can’t even…”
The notion steamed its way down her esophagus and she nearly hacked it up, but what did it matter. His opinion of her didn’t matter, not even enough to finish the thought. She jerked the handle and shoved the door with everything she had. Good thing too. The bottom of the damn door ground against the metal frame, lamenting its order to open. Her sturdy backside helped in closing the thing. The sneakers Z had bought for her whined as she hurried by a parked Cadillac across the wet asphalt. When the hell had it rained?
Z grabbed her left arm. She pulled it away.
“You’re walking through urine.”
Her shoes stalled in a shallow puddle. She whipped around and glared at him.
“Hey.” He lowered his hands and spread them wide. “I didn’t do it, but I’m betting the guy taking a piss on the building did.”
Sure enough a man in dirt-trimmed clothing aimed his sizable penis at a motel room door and created a pool at the threshold. Her cheeks heated. She’d seen more man parts in the last two days than she’d seen in her entire life. At the other end of the building a narrow breezeway sheltered a faded rucksack—digital woodlands print—the kind that never quite blended into the sands of Afghanistan—a dog, and a bag from the fast food chain a few blocks away. Tears stung her eyes without warning. She blinked them away. Looking at the puddle of piss she stood in helped. It and the one forming at the corner of the building were the only wet spots as far as the eye could see.
“Let’s go.” Z reached for her arm again, but she side-stepped him.
“You go. I’ll be there in a minute.” Greer rubbed her soles on the dry ground, and then headed for the large black dog.
“What are you doing?” Massive pectorals and a frown blocked her path.
“I’m going to talk to that gentleman.” She pointed to the still-peeing man. “When he gets finished.”
“It’s just pee. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”
Greer smiled. “Stay here or go to the room. You’ll make him nervous.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“Good.” Before he could say more she hurried toward the breezeway.
The pup stood. His head canted and one half-masted ear flipped up to a point.
“Hey, sweet boy. What’s your name?”
Intelligent eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“I’m Greer.” She sat across from the pair’s territory, leaned her back against the wall, and stretched her legs out in front of her.
Light glinted off the dog’s onyx nose as he sniffed the air.
“Hey?” A deep, hollow voice barked.
The man had zipped his jeans. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk. His dirty blond hair flopped back and forth as his head swiveled between her and Z, who leaned against the old truck with his arms crossed over his massive chest and a scowl on his sexy face. The gash on his forehead only added to his brutish appeal. Though, this guy probably didn’t think so. Her attention returned to the dog.
“I take good care of him.”
“I can see you do.” Greer gave a soft smile, careful not to sound condescending. She pointed to the nook across from her. “Please, I just want to talk for a minute.”
He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. Shrapnel scars speckled his lean bicep. “Look, that asshole had it coming. He tried to strong arm Poppy into his Caddy after she told him she wasn’t open for business tonight.”
“Poppy?”
“She…uh…” He scrubbed a hand through his scruffy locks. “She works at the motel some nights.”
“In an unofficial capacity?”
“Don’t try and cause trouble. She’s just trying to get by.”
“I’m not here to make trouble.”
“Well, God hasn’t done much for me lately, lady. So, thanks for trying, but don’t waste your breath, trying to save my soul.” The man moved to the corner of the breezeway and leaned back, keeping Z in his line of sight. He gave a little nod and the dog rushed to his side. His gleaming black muzzle found the guy’s hand and they exchanged a familiar greeting.
“He hasn’t done much for me lately either. So, don’t worry.” The man’s gaze narrowed, but she pushed forward before he could say anything. “My name is Greer. I’m a marine.”
The man snorted. “They make ’em prettier than they did a few years ago.” His gaze found Z. “Then again, maybe not. He a marine?”
“He’s a lot of things. How long have you been back home?”
“Just ask what you want to know. How long have I been a bum? Why don’t I have a job? Where’s my family? Why don’t they help?”
Greer offered her palm. “I don’t want to know your business. I just wanted to know if maybe we served at the same time, in the same hell hole. But it doesn’t matter.”
His brow hiked at that. “Oh no? Look, I’m not into threesomes either. At least, not with another dude.”
She laughed. It lifted the burden on her shoulders for the barest of seconds. Full breaths filled her lungs for the first time in too long. “I’m not here for that either. Look, I have a friend, a woman I served with. She’s trying to do something good. She’s trying to make a place for veterans.” His lips parted, but her quelling look stopped him. “It’s not an institution or anything like that. It’s a ranch. I think she’s calling it the Big Brass Ranch. I think you could help. I think it could help you.”
Greer leaned forward, ripped a piece off the paper bag, and then stood. “Do you have a pen?”
The guy let out a long, weighted breath. He looked at the dog, at her, and then at Z. After a string of seconds he leaned down, plucked a pencil from his bag, then handed it over.
Grooves had been carved to make the fine point she used to scrawl a phone number onto the scrap. She extended it to the man. “Her name is Emerson. Tell her I sent you.”
When he took the paper she skirted him and headed for the room number she’d seen on the key.
“What’s the catch?”
She stood only a few feet away from the ruggedly beautiful and empty man. “Don’t let me down.”
“Letting people down is what I do.”
“Not people. Only yourself. It’s what we all do.”
“That’s some pep talk.” Lines formed a bracket around his shallow smile.
“I’m not a cheerleader.”
Greer dipped her head and walked away. Z met her at the door. His shoulders drooped as though the pride had been knocked from him. He stared at her shoes and started to look at the man in the breezeway, but his gaze didn’t quite make it. The key slid easily into the slot. He opened the door and waited. She thought to toe her shoes off before entering, then thought better of it. This wasn’t a Marriott. The place made a Motel 6 look like a Hyatt. But it was as off the grid as they could get tonight.
Z’s lips parted like he wanted to say something, but words didn’t follow. She halted on the threshold and met his eyes. Still his gaze dragged the floor. When she didn’t move ahead he grumbled. “Why’d you do that?”
“Why’d I talk to that man?”
“Yeah.” He may as well have been a kid hiding his hands and kicking the dirt. The mightiness of his height, girth, and brawn paled. Something small and vulnerable shuffled into its place.
Emotion thickened her throat, but she swallowed. “Because I thought I could help.” She walked to the far bed and sat.
He closed the door, locked it, and wedged a small black mechanism between the door and jam. After depressing a button on the flat surface a small red light illuminated the side facing the wall. She wondered if it was meant to keep her in, others out, or both. The luggage he carried in one hand plunked onto the other bed.
“Look.” He propped both hands on his hips and rose to all his egomaniacal glory.
“No, you look.” She flopped back onto the bed and stretched her arms out. “I’m still mad and I don’t want to talk about it. Go take a shower. You’re a bloody mess, and I don't mean that as a cute British colloquialism.”
“So you think I’m cute?” One brow furled.
“I think you’re an insensitive, distant ass covered in blood.” Only she didn’t believe it, not any more. Greer hid her eyes with the back of her arm. He’d begun showing her glimpses behind his wall that made her question the hard and fast opinion she’d formed about him so long ago. Seeing it whipped her up inside.
She needed to lighten the mood. Her arm slipped off her forehead and she looked him up and down. Cracked, crusted blood stuck to the edges of his face and the sleeves and chest of his shirt. “What did the clerk think of you?”
“I told her I was an MMA fighter. She said she’d be by at the end of her shift,” he deadpanned.
“Of course she did.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you better go get a shower before she gets here.”
Z sauntered to the bathroom door with his hands still on his hips. When he reached the partition his arms dropped and he met her gaze. “My life…hasn’t evoked confidence in others. My career reinforces mistrust.” His head bowed, but his gray eyes held. “I know I was wrong about you, Greer. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. You trust me even though I haven’t done anything to earn it. You trust me even though your trust has been broken.”
A tear slipped across Greer’s temple.
“Thank you.”
She couldn’t respond, couldn’t breathe. Her lungs ached. The lights above his head contorted. Z disappeared into the bathroom and the door closed with a quiet
click
. Damn him. Her heart pounded under her hand. She didn’t want to think about the past. She didn’t want to think about Derrick. She didn’t want to think about why she wanted to believe in Z, why she wanted to know him better, why she wanted to make him see how honorable, how worthy of trust he was.
Greer jumped to her feet and used the hem of the large, grass stained, dirt smudged shirt to swipe at her tears. No way could she sleep. An old-school television sat on a short dresser that stretched from the doorway to the rod hanging on the wall meant to represent a closet. On the night stand the digital clock read 8:45 p.m. Neither looked particularly inviting. She was here for answers, right?