Unfaded Glory (18 page)

“This is a pretty fairy tale you've got for yourself, Lt. Hawkins.”

He recognized the voice. It was heavily accented. Russian. He signaled to Sonja, and she started tapping madly on the screen of her phone.

“Yes, it is. I'm very grateful,” he answered neutrally.

“What about your team, Lt. Hawkins?”

Oh, Christ.
His first instinct was to declare the interview over, but he couldn't. Not if he wanted to keep Damara safe. They could run a trace on the call from the news studio and figure out where Kulokav was.

Byron didn't say anything else. He pursed his lips. He had to remember that the world could see him. Everyone could see him. They'd be able to see his pain and his guilt.

He'd just been thinking about how he wished he could tell their families...

“Your team in Uganda, Hawkins.”

Fuck, how had they found out about that? It was classified. Top secret. No one had access to that information. His brain churned around the logic, the mission, but his guts ached and revolted, demanded that he give the emotion, the attention, it deserved.

“What about them?” he asked, his face stony and hard as he fought the tidal wave washing over him.

“I just thought you'd have something to say about it since you're here and they're not. How'd that happen?”

Damara bristled. “Sometimes those in a position of leadership and power have to make hard decisions. Choices that lead to other people's pain, but they're for the greater good. Or they're the only thing you can do—”

“I live with that guilt every day. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I could change what happened.”

“Princess, so you admit that sometimes a leader has to make hurtful choices?”

Byron knew where this was going, and he also knew that even if he wanted Melanie to cut the call, she wouldn't. This was too juicy. He knew he had to turn it back around on himself.

He knew he had to face his demons there where everyone could see.

“You asked me a question. Do me the courtesy of allowing me to answer.”

“By all means, Lt. Hawkins,” Melanie said.

He took a deep breath. The memory barged to the forefront of his mind, stark and awful. The screams, the fire—and the absolute knowledge that it was his fault. “We were in pursuit of a guerilla faction. It was a trap. My men died. The official inquiry exonerated me, but I feel their loss and I regret what happened every day.” He was as succinct as he could be.

“What were you doing in Uganda?” Melanie asked.

“That's classified.”
Damn them. Damn them all.

“And you've lit up the switchboard again, Lt. Hawkins.”

Damara's fingers threaded more tightly with his and she tugged lightly to get him to look at her.

When he did, she spoke a wealth of things with her expression. It was written as plainly as words in a book that if he wanted to stop, if he wanted to end this, he could.

No, he could do this.

Or so he thought. Then Melanie spoke again.

“We have Belinda Foxworth on the line.”

He couldn't hide his reaction to hearing her name. He imagined his face must have looked much like an animated clay figure as it was formed and destroyed and reformed by all the emotions that riddled him like so many bullets.

Byron was frozen to the spot. He wanted to run. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg her forgiveness. He wanted to do something besides sit there and silently bear the weight of what he'd done. But there was nothing else for him to do. He was caught in a trap of his own making.

“Lt.—Byron? Can you hear me?” Her voice was gentle and sounded just like Foxworth had described it to him. Like the chiming of small bells.

“Yes, ma'am,” he answered. God, this was the culmination of everything he'd hoped for and everything he couldn't face. But he owed it to her to bear whatever she wanted to fling at him. If she wanted to rage at him on national television—he owed her that and so much more.

“I don't blame you. His children don't blame you. It wasn't your fault.”

That was the last thing he'd expected from her. That kindness, those words, they drained the life out of him, sapped the strength from his bones. If Damara hadn't been there holding his hand and rooting him in the real, he would've crumpled like paper.

He found he had no words. Not just that he didn't know what to say, but that he couldn't speak them even if he did. His throat was so tight, his tongue thick and useless.

“I want to invite you and the princess to come visit me at the ranch. It would mean the world if you'd come. Austin spoke of you often and well.”

“Thank you, Belinda.” He managed not to choke on his answer.

Melanie was quiet for a moment, and then she began speaking. “An emotional time now for Lt. Byron Hawkins as—”

“I'm sorry. Excuse me.” He left the interview. He had to get away from the cameras, away from that raw pain and the horrible feeling that was forgiveness.

He'd thought he wanted it, but he didn't. Byron couldn't punish himself enough for what he'd done, so he needed her to do it for him.

He should have known that Belinda wouldn't blame him, not after the way had Foxworth talked about her. She was a light; she was a jewel. She was...everything he'd thought about Damara.

Her hands were suddenly on his shoulders, and he turned around to face her.

“Let's go to Texas. Let's go right now.”

“Have you lost your mind?” He couldn't go to Texas. Not now, not ever.

“Probably. I had Sonja get Belinda's information. I've got her address, and I told her we're coming.”

“I can't.”

“You
can.
” Damara nodded. “You owe her and yourself that much.”

“In case you forgot, there's a threat against your life.”

“No, I didn't forget. But I'd like to. If we take one day to go to Texas and see her, it's not going to hurt anything.”

“I just can't face her,” he confessed.

“She's not angry with you—she doesn't blame you.”

“Not, but I do, and she should.”
Oh, she should.
If she'd been there, if she knew what he'd done...

“That's the great thing about emotions. You don't get to choose how other people feel,” Damara reminded him gently.

“Wouldn't it be easier if we could?”

“No, I don't think so. There's a reason we feel the things we do. Lessons we can't learn otherwise. Even the things that hurt.”

“Damara, I can protect you. I can kill for you. I can die for you. But don't ask me to do this.”

“I'm not asking for me. It's for you.” She reached up and cupped his cheek.

“Then let me do it in my own time. Right now is about protecting you.”

“And I wish it wasn't.”

“But it is and wishing it wasn't isn't going to change anything. For either of us.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
T
WAS
SUDDENLY
all too much for Damara.

The situation was so far beyond her control that it made her wonder if she'd ever had a shot at making a difference, both with Castallegna and Byron.

Damara was furious.

Furious at the news outlet, furious at Sonja. And most of all, she was furious at her brother for making Byron a target. She hadn't realized what he'd been through and the weight he carried around with him. She didn't want to be the one who dug into his soft places with sharp things. She didn't want anyone to hurt him.

From what it seemed like since they'd come back to Glory, Byron had no one. Renner used him for what he could. He had no friends. All the time working for the DOD, he'd never made any real human connection with anyone.

To Damara's way of thinking, she was all he had.

Did she think she was going to swoop in and save him by dragging him to Texas to face the pain he carried with him? She couldn't do that for him. And even if she could, it wasn't her place.

“I've got to get out of here for a while.”

“Damara—”

“Look, I just can't be here... and this... It's fine. I need some space. Some quiet.”

“I'll go with you.”

“I need it away from you, too.”

“Tough luck, Princess. We don't have to talk, but if you think you're leaving here by yourself, you've got another think coming.”

“I just want to feel normal.”

“Let's go feed the ducks.”

“We need to talk about arrangements,” Sonja interrupted them.

“I just can't right now. I really don't care what you do. It doesn't matter. Whatever works best for the spin, right?” Damara replied.

“You don't want to at least pick out your dress?” Sonja took her hand.

Damara shook her head. “No. Choose whatever you think is best.”

She couldn't think about planning a wedding to a man she wasn't going to stay married to. The deal had been sealed when she'd signed the license. This was just pouring perfume on a goat, as her father liked to say.

“Why don't you give us a little while? We'll be back in a few hours, and Damara can approve everything then.”

Sonja looked back and forth between them and nodded slowly. “You can take my rental.” She handed her keys to Byron.

As soon as she stepped outside, she tried to use her breathing exercises to calm and center herself, but everything was still too close, too tight.

Too much.

He was the one who'd just been through an emotional ordeal, and she was the one who couldn't keep it together. Damara was embarrassed and ashamed, but that did little to help her.

“Hey, it's okay. I get it,” he said once they were driving past the outskirts of the main downtown area toward a small park entrance. “I'm surprised you haven't been more upset before now. This is a lot for anyone to handle.”

“Not you.”

“It's my job to handle it,” he reassured her.

“Mine, too.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “You expect too much from yourself. You say that you're just an ordinary woman, but you're not. You are every inch a princess.”

“And I'm still in my tower.”

“I'd say you're a long way from your tower.” He eyed her. “But you don't have to do anything right now but come feed these fat little bastards.” He pointed at the ducks.

There was a vending machine with little pellets just to feed the chubby white birds.

“The palace swans bite. Do these bite?” Damara asked, cupping the food in one hand.

“If they do, they'll get drop-kicked like a football.”

“Byron!”

“When I was a little kid, my babysitter used to bring me here so I'd have something to do while she made out with her boyfriend. She'd give me crackers to crumple up and throw on the water. The ducks decided they didn't need me to get the bag.” A duck nipped at his fingers lightly, begging for more, and there was no drop-kicking. He indulged the animal and gave it some more. “I guess it was kind of funny to watch, all those ducks quacking at me, flapping their wings and nipping at me to get the bag, all the while I was screeching like I was dying.” He shook his head. “I had nightmares about ducks for years.”

“And this is where you wanted to bring me?” She laughed and looked up at the sky and then down at the patient ducks at her feet. “I guess mine are better mannered.”

“I should hope so. They heard what I said about drop-kicking.”

The knot in her chest started to unravel, and she sat in the grass, food in hand.

“I don't know if I'd sit down with them. It wouldn't do for me to return the princess to the palace covered in duck droppings.”

She laughed. “No, they wouldn't dare. They don't want to be drop-kicked.” One bold duck allowed her to stroke her hand over his feathered head. “My father used to take me to feed the swans when matters of state got to be too much for him.”

“You said they were mean?”

“Cruel to a point, but they were so beautiful.”

“He didn't take Abele?” Byron asked carefully.

“No. He didn't like the swans.” She remembered Abele never wanted to go with them. “I miss my father so much.”

“He'd be proud of you, I'm sure.”

“I don't know. I'm not proud of me.”

His hand flew forward, and she blocked it with her forearm without thinking. He did it again, and she repeated the block, the ducks scattering as they squawked and fought over the flung pellets.

She hopped to her feet, understanding what he was doing. He was trying to show her that she had skills.

And she did.

Damara darted behind him and feinted to the left. He blocked her easily.

“Again,” he said.

She could tell he was restraining himself. “Don't hold back.”

Byron startled her with a kick, but she caught his leg and sent him sprawling.

He laughed as he rolled to his feet. “See what I mean? There aren't many people who can do what you can do.”

She wanted to say that he was the one who'd just been through something and he shouldn't be worried about making her feel her own self-worth—he should be focused on his own. But maybe this was what he could do with what he was feeling. He'd already said he didn't want to talk about it, but Damara couldn't leave it alone.

“There aren't many people who can do what you can do, either.”

“I used to believe that.”

“Until Uganda?”

“There's more to life than this, hoss.”

“What?”

“It's what Austin Foxworth used to say whenever things got dicey. It was his way of saying it would get better, that we could make it better. But we— I—didn't.”

This was as close as he'd come to sharing anything with her.

“You made it better for me. I never would've made it out of Tunisia without you.”

“You'd have found a way.”

She was surprised by all the faith he had in her when he had so little in himself. The knot in her chest started to tighten again, and she flung herself back in the grass, looking up at the sky.

“I'm still looking for a way. I don't see how I've done anything but make it worse.”

“You've shed light on the situation. That goes a long way.”

“I'm sorry you're stuck with this—me.”

“I've had worse assignments.”

That wasn't what she wanted to hear.
Don't demand I love you, too,
was what he'd said. That was exactly what she wanted to demand, even though them being able to stay together was a hopeless fantasy.

“I'm sorry about everything else, too.” Everything he didn't want to talk about.

Suddenly, he was on top of her. “What are you doing?”

“Stay very still,” he whispered into her ear. “I'm going to kiss you and you're going to reach for one of our phones and you're going to squeeze the power and sound buttons at the same time. Do you understand?”

She didn't, but she'd do as he asked. Damara fought the urge to look around for the threat.

“I never should have brought you here alone.” His lips brushed her cheek, and it was no chore to push her hands down his sides and reach into his pocket for his phone. “The phone will transmit an emergency signal. No matter what we do, he's going to shoot. Do you understand what that means?” His voice was so calm, so quiet, as if he were soothing her to sleep rather than asking her to accept he was going to be shot. That he could die protecting her.

Terror knifed through her.

“Don't be afraid, Damara. I won't let him hurt you. Remember how you pounced to your feet earlier? You're going to do that again and you're going to stay behind me. We're going to run for the car. It's only about twenty-five feet.” His breath was warm against her ear.

“No, we're not.” She choked on the words. Damara wouldn't let him die for her. She'd known when she'd asked him to help her that it was a possibility, but it seemed fey and misty, something unlikely to actually happen. Yet, here it was unfolding before her in some red-tinged nightmare.

“Yes, Damara. That's the only way. You're going to get in the car and you're going to follow the nav to Fort Glory. You're going to tell the exit/entry staff who you are and they'll get you to a secure location. We have to assume the house has been compromised.” He said this as calmly as if they were still talking about wedding arrangements.

“I won't leave you,” she said stubbornly.

“Yes, you will. The emergency signal will bring the cavalry running.”

“You're asking me to let him shoot you. For me.”

“Did you forget that's what I'm for?”

Faced with losing him, she couldn't. Damara knew in that second it didn't matter how many safeguards she'd put around her heart. She loved him. She loved him more than herself, more than Castallegna. She wouldn't trade his life for a thousand. But she'd trade her own.

“Maybe this is what my people need. Maybe they need a martyr to rally behind and they'll overthrow Abele.”

“And maybe you've lost your damn mind. We both have a better chance of surviving the farther away he is. If we stay like this much longer, he'll risk getting closer. If we run, he'll shoot on my terms.”

“No.”

“I won't let you become another voice screaming in my head, Damara.”

She was afraid, terrified. She'd hear him saying that forever.... When he jerked her to her feet, she didn't scream. She ran behind him as instructed and even though she heard a series of pops, she thought they were fine. She thought they'd made it safely and he'd missed.

But the shooter hadn't missed.

Byron stumbled against the car, a smear of his blood thick on the door, but he jammed the keys in the ignition.

“Drive.”

Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she froze. She'd never seen so much blood.

“Fucking drive, Damara.”

Even though the shooting had stopped, she kept her head down and shoved him in the backseat, his blood staining the pristine interior. “Don't die, Byron. Please don't die.”

“You better hope I do, because I'm going to throttle...” He choked and blood gurgled at the corner of his mouth.

“I love you,” she blurted.

“Don't do that, either.”

That was when it occurred to Damara that she wasn't the target at all—it had been Byron all along. The three shots to his chest were all center mass. The shooter hadn't been aiming anywhere but at Byron. This was Abele's warning to her. Even if he didn't kill her, he'd hurt anyone who dared to help her. Or anyone she loved.

Damara did as he instructed. She put the car in the Drive and typed “Fort Glory” into the GPS.

She hated the voice on that thing, the silly bitch so calm while Byron bled his life out in the backseat of a rental car.

“Don't die. You can't throttle me if you die.” He didn't make any sound. “Talk to me. Stay with me.”

“Bossy,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, that's me. Tell me all about it.” She had to keep him talking.

He mumbled something she couldn't understand.

“I read a story about a navy SEAL who got shot, and he plugged the wounds with his fingers. Don't tell me he's got the drop on you.”

She was met with utter silence.

“You promised me in Barcelona that everything was going to be okay. This is not okay, Byron. Do you hear me?” She tried to tether her emotions, to push them down. If she was hysterical, she couldn't help him, and she definitely wouldn't be able to drive on the wrong side of the road. She'd probably broken so many laws...but it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting Byron help.

The GPS said they were only three minutes away from the entry gate. She turned into the lane. As soon as they were out of traffic, she opened the door.

“I'm Damara Hawkins and have Lt. Byron Hawkins. He's been shot.”