Текст книги "Hard Beat"

Автор книги: K. Bromberg

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter 22

There’s a lot of time to think on a seven-hour flight.

A lot of time to look at the same five photographs of Beaux from the morning of our embed mission over and over. Her silhouette against the sky, her cautious smile, and the selfie we took together that shows two people in love.

Except only one of them knows it.

I try to sleep to escape the pain in my body and the more prevalent ache in my heart, but the deep rumble of the C-17 Globemaster III transport vibrates through my chest in a way that prevents me from getting any real rest. I feel like I’ve been in the center of a tornado, both mind and body battered and bruised and heart put through a wringer. Thank God that Sarge was able to pull some strings so I could hitch a ride on a plane of medical evacuees heading to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany just beyond my twenty-four-hour time frame.

From my tiny little jump seat at the front of the plane so that I’m out of the way of the critical care team taking care of wounded soldiers, I can overhear the medics relaying to one another they need to buckle up for landing.

I owe Sarge big-time. I’m sure he’s breaking every rule in the military handbook to get me on this flight, but I think he blames himself a bit for what happened. And he shouldn’t. It’s not his job to watch Beaux or me on an embed. It’s not his responsibility to know Beaux has a soft spot for dogs and that she was going to see a wounded animal and want to help.

No. That’s my job. And once again I failed – and I have berated myself over it left and right in the past thirty hours. I’ve gone over the entire chain of events and blame myself for getting caught up in my conversation with Rosco without looking around more, not that that would have solved anything. Beaux made it clear on more occasions than I care to count that she’s stubborn and has a mind of her own.

I just have to hope she uses that obstinacy right now to fight like hell to overcome her injuries.

The frustrating part is that I don’t even have enough energy to be mad at Beaux for not following the rules, because all I want is to see her. The measly bits of information I’ve gotten haven’t told me shit.

Sarge got me on the transport but hadn’t been able to get me any other information beyond that she was stable. And stable doesn’t mean shit to me. Stable could have so many variations that my mind has gone over and rejected every single one of them while the minutes have crawled by without any updates on her condition.

When the wheels touch down, the jolt makes me wince as my head gets jarred from side to side and my sore muscles ache as they tense up. My knee jogs in anticipation from the fact that I’m minutes away from Beaux now, and the pressure in my chest has intensified now that I’m here.

And for some reason as I sit in this beast of a plane as we taxi across the tarmac, I begin to question myself. Am I making more of my feelings for Beaux because of everything that happened to Stella? Am I overly attached to her, considering how long we’ve known each other? Has the coincidence of what’s happened made me marry the feelings for both women together?

What in the fuck am I thinking? I swear to God it has to be nerves along with the hit I took to the head that’s making me think crap like this. Because I know how I feel about Beaux without a doubt. I go to scrub a hand through my hair and stop when I remember how sore my scalp is, settling for running my hand gently over my stubbled and scratched-up jaw to try and knock some sense into myself.

I knew how I felt about her on our rooftop date when we blew bubbles together. I knew how I felt about her as we walked side by side into the destruction of the village bomb site. It’s never been more clear to me than right now, even with the anxiety over her condition and doubt trying to weasel through the cracks all of my fears have left in my psyche.

What I feel for Beaux isn’t that lust-to-love crash course feeling that Stella used to tease me about. Fuck no. This is so completely different, and yet I can’t even explain it to myself. When I think of Beaux, there’s an ache in my chest, a warmth in my gut, and a fear in my heart kind of feeling like someone used Super Glue and it just won’t let the hell go. It’s like even if I wanted to rid myself of her, I don’t think I could.

Love. It’s an incredibly euphoric and unbelievably scary feeling all at once. I think the only thing that could make me feel more vulnerable is if I’d told her I loved her and she didn’t say it back.

Like I did to her on our last date.

Holy shit. How fucking stupid was I? Trying to be cool and play by old-school rules when I knew all along that things were different with Beaux. The never-say-I-love-you-back-or-it-doesn’t-mean-the-same-thing philosophy didn’t apply to her. Damn it to hell, if I say it, I mean it, so why did I ever hesitate? Is it because I thought that it was too quick to feel this strongly about someone? Well, I do.

Now she’s lying in a bed somewhere, not knowing how much I care about her. There’s nothing that’s going to stop me from telling her I love her now.

Nothing.

The ride to the medical facility feels like it takes the same amount of time as the flight: forever. The minute I step foot in the lobby of Landstuhl, I forget all of my aches and pains from the blast, the stitches in my shoulder, and the gash up the back of my calf – all of it – because my body is running on pure adrenaline from the thought that she’s here.

After the rigmarole of the front desk, checking in, getting a visitor’s clearance sticker, it takes everything I have not to scream at the lady behind the desk who I’m sure is sweeter than sugar to just hurry the fuck up because I have a woman upstairs I need to see.

And time is of the essence.

Impatient, I can’t wait any longer as she turns around to call and inform the intensive care unit that Beaux has a visitor. Time is wasting. I ignore the dull throbbing in my head and jog toward the elevators, knowing that I get to see her in mere moments is the only thing I can focus on, each moment overshadowed by the anticipation of the next.

The ding of the elevator as I reach the third floor causes my heart to skip a beat and lodge in my throat as I all but run off the car and toward the nurses’ station in the center of the hallway. As I rush to the desk, my heart thunders in my ears, and my eyes dart all over as the sounds and sights of the ICU ward assault my senses: the sterile smell, the steady beeps from the monitors in the rooms around us on a constant barrage are an immediate reminder of the gravity of the situation.

Yes, I’m going to tell her I love her, tell her I’m sorry, tell her I’m not going to leave her side until she’s discharged, but for the first time, the thought hits me that she might not ever hear it. And then that blinding panic I felt when I was trying to get to her and again when I woke up two days ago hits me with blunt force. My eyes dart furiously around the unit, but the room numbers are obscured by all of the medical carts and paraphernalia. All I want is to see her to clear up all of this unsettled bullshit. Once I can touch her and be reassured by the sight of her chest moving up and down telling me that she’s breathing, then I can ease all of the discord I feel within and deal with concretes.

I’m good with the concrete. I may live a life that thrives on the spontaneity of others’ actions, but fuck if I like to live in that suspended state of limbo when it comes to my personal life.

I approach the nurses’ station, smiling warmly at the petite woman behind the desk. It takes me a minute to find my voice as urgency and anxiety collide in a ball of turmoil within me. “Beaux Croslyn’s room, please?”

“Your name, please?” she asks as she picks up a clipboard toward the side of the desk and flips a page up, her eyes lifting to meet mine.

“Tanner Thomas.” My body vibrates with so many emotions that I find it hard to stand still as I wait for her to look for my name on the approved list. And then when her brow furrows, I immediately start to panic. “I’m approved. I know I am.” I pound a fist on the desk, an action that jolts up my shoulder and causes me to wince.

She puts her hands out in front of her in a “calm down” gesture. “I’m sure you’re on here. Just give me a moment please, sir.” Her eyes meet mine, trying to calm me just like the soothing tone in her voice. I don’t think she gets the only thing that is going to calm me down is seeing Beaux.

But I turn around and walk a few feet away from the desk, my hands kneading the back of my neck as I try to contain the frustration while I wait yet again to see her.

“Mr. Thomas?” Eyes wide, I’m at the desk in a second, leaning forward and ready to take off in whichever direction her room is. “Sorry for the wait, but since you aren’t immediate family, I had to make sure you were approved by the chain of command.” My audible exhale of relief fills the space between us. “Ms. Croslyn’s room is three hundred seven, and I —”

I don’t hear anything else she says because I grab my bag and am already taking off, searching for her room number. And when I finally find it, in my mind I hesitate for the slightest second before barreling through the doorway to face what I fear head-on.

The immediate sight of her staggers me. She looks ten times worse than I ever imagined and a hundred times better than my fears had her looking. I expect my feet to falter when I see her bruised face, the cannula in her nose for oxygen, her small body dwarfed by the white, imposing bed, but they don’t. And I don’t pay an ounce of attention to the two doctors off to the other side of the room as I take her in because nothing and no one matters right now but her.

I’m at her bedside in a second, bag dropped to the floor, and my hand immediately finds one of hers while my other hand reaches out to cup the side of her face. And ironically I don’t know which of us I’m trying to reassure more with the rub of my thumb over her cheek. And Christ, even like this, that zing when I touch her skin ripples through me in that indescribable and unmistakable connection between us.

I can’t help myself, even though a small part of me worries I might hurt her more, but I sense that I won’t. I lean forward and press my lips so very gently to her forehead, tears stinging the back of my closed eyes as we stay like this for a moment, allowing myself to feel the warmth of her skin, know she’s still alive, still fighting, and that I haven’t lost her now that I’ve found her. I draw in a shaky breath, my heart at an uneven pace, and my lips needing to tell her the one thing I can’t hold back any longer.

When I draw in a deep breath, despite the medicinal scent of the room, I can still smell the underlying scent of her shampoo, and I hold on to that little piece of normalcy as I lower my mouth to her ear with my hand still on her cheek. “I’m here, rookie. I’m here and you’re going to be okay and we’re going to get through this. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you fast enough. I…” My voice breaks as I’m overcome with the emotion of everything that has happened, especially finally being with her again, skin to skin, heart to heart. “I fought my way to you, Beaux, and now you’d better fight as hard as you can to get back to me because damn it, I love you. Did you hear me? I love you.”

Leaning my head against the side of her face, I draw in comfort from her as I let my heart hope for the first time since the ricochet of the blast froze it with fear. “I was stupid and didn’t tell you that night on the rooftop and I’m sorry and regret it but I’m saying it now. And I’ll say it to you every day until you open those eyes of yours and hear me say it to your face. I love you, Beaux Croslyn. You’d best get used to that.”

As I press one more kiss to the side of her cheek, my heart feels a little lighter after my confession, but my soul is a bit wary of the road ahead. When I lean back, my eyes still trained on hers, I become cognizant that one of the doctors who’d stood in the corner of the room is now on the opposite side of the bed. But when I switch my focus from Beaux to him, ready to ask a zillion questions about her status and prognosis, I realize he’s not a doctor at all, not even in uniform as are most of the people in this hospital. My gaze trails up the Levi jeans, muscular arms crossed over his wrinkled T-shirt, unshaven jaw, and then stop when I meet tired but demanding blue eyes.

“Name’s John,” he states.

Unsure why the man feels like a threat on my testosterone radar, I rise to full height to meet his eyes, pissed that he’s ruining this moment between Beaux and me. “Is there a problem, John?” I ask, irritation prevalent in my voice because I’m more concerned over finding her actual doctor so that I can get an update on her condition than wanting to deal with whoever this guy is. He’s already rubbing me the wrong way before he even says anything of relevance.

He clucks his tongue before pulling his lips tight as he nods his head, eyes never leaving mine. “Yes, I believe there just might be,” he says in a slow, even drawl.

It immediately gets my hackles up, and I feel like I’m back on base with Beaux when she was surrounded by all the soldiers who were teaching her how to play darts. “How so?” My gaze flickers momentarily to the doctor in the corner of the room whose attention we’ve piqued before returning to the man across from me.

“Because I believe you just told my wife you loved her.”

It takes me a few moments to hear what he’s just said. Well not really. I hear what he says immediately, a confused chuckle on my lips, but it takes a few seconds for it to sink in. Shock, disbelief, then indescribable confusion flicker through my already fucked-up head. I just stare at him, jaw lax. The ability to form a response is not even a remote possibility as I slowly pull my hand off Beaux’s and take a step back to physically distance myself although I already feel like I’ve been carried a thousand miles away from her.

This isn’t possible. Not at all. She said she loved me. She…

“What do you mean your wife?” I must look shell-shocked, because the bomb he just dropped on me was ten times worse than the one that exploded in our faces days ago.

“I really don’t think you have any right to ask the questions here.” He raises his eyebrows at me as I shake my head, the staggering pain in my chest only intensifying as I try to process some of this, but I just keep coming up empty-handed. “Were you sleeping with my wife?”

What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that the woman I just professed my love to is married. Like silver-ring-on-his-left-ring-finger type of married. How can I answer him when I don’t even understand what’s going on here? I was just so absolutely blindsided that I’m still trying to find my feet after being knocked on my ass with one clothesline tackle.

“Yes.” It’s all I can say to him. I can’t lie to the man, can’t take back the words I said to her even if right now they taste like bile on my tongue. His revelation doesn’t change that I love his wife. Oh my God, what the fuck is happening here?

I step farther away from the bed and bump into the wall behind me because I haven’t been able to tear my eyes from the sight of Beaux bruised and broken in the hospital bed. I need her to open her eyes and talk to me, need her to explain what the hell is going on… that what was between us was real and that what this guy is saying is all a joke.

But she’s not.

And neither is he.

John rounds the bed, teeth gritted, shoulders squared, and I know what’s coming next, but still I stand there like a deer in the headlights. “Then you deserve this,” he says as he cocks his fist back lightning fast and connects with my cheek.

My body crashes into the corner where the walls meet, my arm flying out and knocking over something on the bed tray that clatters loudly to the ground, causing the doctor to drop his clipboard and run to get between us. But there’s no need. Absolutely none.

I’m not the kind of guy who takes a punch without scrambling back up and landing a few myself. No one coldcocks me and walks away unscathed. And yet right now, I have absolutely no fight left in me. It’s not just the pain radiating in my already scrambled brain, but the fact that I deserve a whole helluva lot more than one punch because just like I don’t let anyone coldcock me and walk away; I also don’t sleep with someone’s wife. That’s not the type of guy I am.

But fuck, man… I didn’t know. I did not know. And I still fucking love her. How is that even possible?

I rest my head against the wall for a moment with my hands pressed on either side of it, the doctor and John at my back, to try and gain my bearings. I feel like I’m drunk and am trying to get the room to stop spinning out of control around me.

I need to leave, know I need to go, but can’t bring myself to walk away from her just yet. “Is she going to be okay?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine, but I need to know the answer before I walk away and sort the shit out in my head that’s throbbing like a motherfucker right now. It’s rivaled only by the ache in my heart.

“Not your business, now is it?” John says as I turn to face him. The doctor stands between us in the small space at the same time security arrives in the room. “He needs to leave,” he tells the guards as the doctor takes my arm. I shrug out of his grip, my only show of resistance.

For a moment when I start to walk from the room, John and I are shoulder to shoulder, emotions raw and tempers escalating on both sides. I pause to contemplate their relationship for a second. Shit, I didn’t even know there was a relationship, but I speak the one thing I know deep down for certain. “You don’t deserve her.”

I may not have thrown a punch, and I may be one hundred percent in the wrong since I’m the one sleeping with his wife, but fuck me, I know he doesn’t deserve her. The Beaux I know would cheat on her husband only if the situation was bad, if she had reasons.

And now I just need to wait until she’s recovered and stronger to find out what those reasons are.

Chapter 23

“Can I get you anything?”

I look up at the sound of the voice, surprised to find the petite nurse from the ICU station peeking her head into the waiting room. Glancing around, I notice there is no one else in here and realize she’s speaking to me. “Not unless you can tell me how she’s doing,” I murmur. The clock on the wall tells me that I’ve been sitting here for six hours without a single person talking to me except for my family via cell phone. I’m the pariah, the asshole who slept with a married man’s woman, and now I’m banned from the third floor with no hope of getting another glimpse of Beaux.

Without returning my eyes to the nurse, I sink back in my seat because every other person I’ve asked this question has left and never come back. I lean my head against the wall and scrub a hand over my jaw, surprised when I hear the chair next to me scrape across the floor as she moves it. I snap my head forward, my hope building that I might get some kind of answer here.

She stares in silence with sympathetic eyes that flicker toward the door every few seconds before she starts. “I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out I’m giving you this information,” she says, emphasizing how much she’s risking by being here. All I can do is nod. “Ms. Croslyn is stable. She had some swelling of her brain due to her proximity and the force of the blast. After the medical team successfully stopped the swelling, they were able to determine that she has what is called a diffuse axonal brain injury.” She pauses momentarily because yes, I knew coming here that Beaux had a head injury, but hearing the technical term scares the crap out of me, and without my computer open so that I can Google it and see all of the details, I need more.

“What does that mean?” I plead for more information even when she’s giving me more than anyone has thus far.

“Once she arrived here, the neurologists were able to do some more intensive testing and believe she’s incurred a stage one injury, which is the least worrisome of them —”

My audible exhale cuts her off, the pressure in my chest abates some, so that I lean forward, elbows on my knees and head in my hands as I try to rein in the rush of emotion that thunders through me like a freight train. And the nurse hasn’t even explained what an axonal whatever it is called means, but that it’s stage one is enough for me to hold on to until I can look it up myself.

“Now please remember that it’s still a brain injury. Until she wakes up, we won’t know the extent or if there will be any long-term damage, but compared to some of the injuries that we see here from the same scenario, I’d say luck seems to be on her side.”

I swallow over the lump in my throat as I nod my head because the diagnoses I’d imagined were so much worse and daunting. “How long until she wakes up?”

“That’s up to her body and the doctors. They did give her a mild sedative to allow her body to settle some, so they’ll probably bring her off that later today and then it’s a wait and see… but she’s a fighter. Has been responsive and seems to be struggling to wake up.”

All I can do is nod once again while tears well in my eyes before I blink them away as relief and hurt surge through me. “Thank you for talking to me,” I whisper as she scoots her chair back and nods in kind to me before walking away. She’s almost to the door when I speak without thinking. “I didn’t know she was… That’s not the kind of person I am…” I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain to her that I didn’t knowingly fall in love with a married woman, to let her know I’m not that guy. Maybe so she doesn’t regret her decision.

The nurse falters in her footsteps, keeps her back to me, but nods her head. “I figured as much by the way you came barreling into the ward. A man acting like that doesn’t know. I’m sorry for you too.” And with that she exits the room and leaves me alone with my thoughts.

I slump back in my chair and close my eyes as I let my thoughts war against one another. I’m the fool here. I should leave and never look back since the woman played me like a damn violin, but I can’t find it within myself to leave just yet. A small part of me hopes that there is some huge misunderstanding, that she’s going to wake and clarify everything, because I can’t comprehend that she doesn’t love me. If I was watching someone else go through this, I’d tell them they were a sucker, to cut their losses and leave with some of their dignity intact.

But I just can’t bring myself to put one foot in front of the other and walk out of the hospital. Only I know the passion in her kiss, the raw honesty in her eyes. God, I am a sap. Honesty? It seems that word doesn’t apply to Beaux Croslyn at all.

The longer I sit here, the more I hold on to that fact, shoving away how much I care for her, and try to focus on the anger I feel – at her, at John, at the whole fucking world. But then as the reality of my situation comes crashing down on me in this solitary waiting room, the eddy of my thoughts whirls back to the fact that there has to be a reason why she’d let me fall in love with her when she was committed to someone else.

Her explanations about her past filter through my anger, make me recall my fears that she had an abusive ex or a bad situation at home that she was escaping. Could that still be true? Is John one of those missing pieces that Beaux purposefully left unexplained? And if so, how does it all fit together?

Further, why the fuck do I care? If that was the case, then she should have just told me. Wouldn’t she at least have told me there was someone else and that it was complicated?

Stop making excuses for her, Tanner.She played you from the get-go, made you believe her time and again until you fell for her. Fell for her? Shit, more like yelling “Timber” at the top of my lungs in a forest-full-of-falling-trees type of fall for her if I’m being honest with myself. And yet through everything, rooftop confessions, afternoons spent making slow and sweet love, trying to teach her the lay of the land, none of it mattered because in the scheme of things, I was being played on every level imaginable.

Now I know I should walk away while I can. Grab my bag and go the fuck back to my reality where the possibility of being hit by opposition fire seems ten times more appealing than having my heart toyed with by a woman like Beaux and an angry husband in a hospital room that I don’t even belong in.

But I can’t. Not until I know she’s going to be okay. Call me a pussy, but I can’t turn off my feelings for her. I just can’t.

Instead, I shove up out of the chair, needing a change of scenery, some fresh air for a bit instead of this depressing waiting room with artificial light and waning hope. On the elevator ride down, I tell myself that I need to let this go, but I know for sanity’s sake that I need to make sure she’s okay before I can go back to the life I knew without her.

The minute I exit the doors of the hospital, I feel like I can finally breathe again, clear my thoughts, and am dialing my phone instantly. The phone is picked up on the third ring.

“Everything okay?”

“What do you know about Beaux, Rafe?”

“What do you mean, what do I know? Are you not in Germany with her?” Rafe asks, confused about where I’m coming from.

“I’m here. I want to know about her background. What do you know about her?”

“What? Whoa? What’s her status? What aren’t you telling me, here?”

I clench my fist at my side as my feet eat up the sidewalk outside of the facility. I need to slow down, know it’s important to tread lightly considering Rafe is my friend but also my boss who might look down on coworkers who sleep together. Especially when my stability is already being closely watched after Stella’s death.

The last thing I need is for him to see that as misplaced grief over Stella, and that I fell for Beaux with misguided feelings.

After a deep breath, I relay what the nurse told me about Beaux’s status. “But when I arrived, her husband was here. She never mentioned having a husband, Rafe. She just referred to a bad situation at home…” My voice trails off, and I let him infer what he will, hoping it’s what I want.

“And your point is what, Tanner?”

“My point is that my gut instinct is zinging here that something’s off, and I wanted to know if you knew she was married.” I’m toeing the edge of mistruth with my friend, hoping he doesn’t see right through me.

He blows out an audible sigh that hangs on the connection while I wait him out to hear the answer. “Man, I’m her employer… I can’t give out that information.”

I harden my jaw in frustration because I knew this was going to be his answer. “Throw me a bone here, Rafe,” I groan into the phone, sick and tired of being railroaded. “How about if I ask this way instead: Does her job application have something written in the spot that says maiden name?”

“Damn it, Tanner.” He sighs, and I can tell he’s conflicted over professional versus personal obligations. Silence stretches for a moment before he continues. “But if you were concerned for her safety, for instance…”

“Yes. I might be,” I tell him without hesitation. I’ll take any out I can to get information to validate my feelings or justify hers if there is any such thing.

“That’s not really a question I can ask in an interview because it implies that I can discriminate if she is or isn’t married, but I did ask her if being away for extended periods of time for work would cause any problems. She said no and didn’t elaborate.”

“What about a wedding ring?” I ask, unable to give the topic up.

“Kind of hard to see when the interview was done over the phone. She was already freelancing. All I had were her bio with her picture, her portfolio, and an urging from the bosses to hire her.”

“You’re not giving me shit to go off… Can’t you look at her file, see what it says?” I hang my head back, my feet stopping as I come to the edge of the grounds lined with huge trees.

“I can’t. It’d flag HR, and they’d want to know why I’m looking at her info. Personal data is kept under lock and key around here since you guys are in the public eye.”

“Guess I shouldn’t expect anything less from you, should I? You used to break rules with me left and right to get what we needed. I guess when you slipped on that suit, you gave up your personality too.”

I end the call without another word and lean back against a short retaining wall behind me, not caring at all that I just hung up on my boss. My finger slides across the screen to those damn photographs again. When I pull up the one of the two of us together, I just stare at it as frustration builds inside me because there is no way in hell that moment was fake, that the happiness in our eyes and the smiles on our lips were not authentic. It takes all I have to tear my eyes from my phone and at the same time not throw it away from me in anger.

Instead, I sit there for a moment with my face up to the sun, enjoying the warmth since the heat here is so different than in the Middle East.

My phone rings again and I’m immediately pissed. I don’t want to speak to anyone, but when I look down and see it’s Rylee, I have to answer it.

“Hey, Bubs.” Shit, I sound like a dejected puppy dog.

“How are you feeling?” she asks with concern in her voice. It’s only been twelve hours or so since we talked last, since I reassured her and my mom and dad that I was completely fine, just a little worse for wear, but I know she’s a worrywart and is going to call me often. And in a sense I’m okay with that because everyone loves to know that they are loved. On the other hand, I’m not home much, and so I’m not used to her being in my business.

“I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“How’s Beaux?” My hesitation must clue her in immediately, because before I can respond, she continues. “Tanner, is she okay?”