Aftershock (13 page)

“Does your back hurt?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, lying down on her side.

“Can I help?”

She wished he’d go away. She wished he’d stay. She wished for
another earthquake to bury them all. He started massaging her back with tender,
tentative motions. It was annoying and embarrassing, only a slight improvement
over nothing.

“You fail at massages,” she mumbled.

His hands stilled. “How do you want me to do it?”

“Rub harder. With your thumbs.”

He did it. Not hard enough, and in the wrong place, but
better.

“Lower,” she said.

After a short pause, he moved lower, where she really ached. He
still wasn’t using enough pressure, and the sore spot seemed to move around. He
couldn’t quite get to it. Satisfaction was elusive.

“To the right,” she growled.

He went too far.

She pressed her fingertips on the side of her spine.
“Here.”

When he kneaded the general area, instead of a specific place,
she wanted to scream. “Just forget it,” she said, swatting his hands away. She
buried her face in the pillow, fighting tears of anxiety and frustration.

It reminded her of the time Tyler had tried to bring her to
orgasm. He kept slowing down, or missing the mark just slightly. When she
offered a few gentle instructions, he got mad and gave up.

Owen hadn’t given up. Although she’d been mean to him, he’d
followed her directions and made a more genuine attempt at pleasing her than the
father of her child.

“I hate you,” she cried into her pillow.

He didn’t say anything. When another contraction came, he
offered her his hand. She gripped it like a lifeline, her fingernails leaving
red crescents in his skin. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes.

After it was over, he started rubbing her back again. This
time, she didn’t complain.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

C
ADENCE
CRIED
HERSELF
TO
SLEEP
in his arms.

After she’d been out a few minutes, Garrett transferred the
girl to Don’s side, and Lauren put a blanket over them.

“Do you think he’ll live?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her mouth made a serious line as she
adjusted Don’s IV drip and checked Garrett’s.

She’d been amazing tonight. He couldn’t believe she’d been able
to stop the bleeding, and administer an emergency transfusion. Her hands had
stayed rock steady during the procedure. She’d performed like an experienced war
medic, decisive and indefatigable. He was in awe of her abilities.

“What happened back there?” she asked.

“I approached from the west side,” he said, meeting her eyes.
“Don and Owen stayed on the east. But my crowbar got caught on the bumper of a
car, and Jeb heard the scrape. He started shooting blindly. We ran.”

“In opposite directions?”

“Of course.”

“Why’d it take you so long to get back?”

“Jeb and Mickey followed me. I had to...evade them.”

She knew exactly what he’d done. Where he’d hidden. Removing an
antibacterial wipe from her bag, she gave him a questioning look. When he nodded
his permission, she began to clean the layers of grime from his face. It was
uncomfortably intimate.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He closed his eyes, lest she see the tears swimming in them.
“No.”

In debates about women in combat, a lot of attention was paid
to physical performance. Most females couldn’t carry as much weight as their
male counterparts, and they couldn’t hump it for as long. What these training
exercises failed to measure was mental and emotional strength. Garrett had
noticed, time and again, that women were better at dealing with loss. Female
Marines allowed themselves to
feel.

Although he didn’t want to recount the horrific experience of
lying among the corpses, he longed to hear Lauren’s voice. She’d piqued his
interest earlier by avoiding the conversation about fathers. “Is your dad still
alive?”

Her brows rose with surprise. “No.”

“Tell me about him.”

She set the soiled square of cloth aside. “He was an airline
pilot. Handsome, outgoing. A good father, when he was around. I adored him.”

“How did he die?”

“He...had a heart attack. Five years ago.” She hesitated for a
moment. “It was a terrible shock.”

“Sudden?”

“Sudden, and under tragic circumstances.”

“He was flying?”

“No,” she said, her mouth twisting. “He was at his girlfriend’s
house.”

Garrett could read the pain on her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, it was incredibly awkward. My mother had no idea.
Neither did I. They’d been seeing each other for years. He had a secret life.”
She looked up at the ceiling of the tent, taking a deep breath. “It made me feel
like our entire family was a lie. But I couldn’t call him on it. I couldn’t ask
him why.”

He understood her frustration. If he found out his dad had
cheated on his mom, Garrett would want to punch him first and demand answers
second.

Lauren’s revelation also had some disturbing ramifications,
considering that Garrett was currently deceiving her. She wouldn’t forgive him
for it. Watching her work, he’d come to another important realization. Even if
he was available, and free to pursue her, they could never be together. She
saved lives. He took them.

There was no place for a man like him in her world.

She turned the subject back to him. “Do you have kids?”

“No,” he said, unnerved by the question.

“None that you know of, you mean?”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. Even in his drunkest, darkest
days, he’d worn condoms. The idea that one of his after-hours bar hookups had
resulted in a pregnancy seemed unlikely. “I’ve always used protection.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little. “What about your dad?”

“What about him?”

“Why don’t you see each other?”

“We had a falling-out.”

“Over what?”

“I disappointed him.”

She looked curious and skeptical, which told him he’d been far
too successful in carrying out this ruse. “How?”

He stared at the tube draining blood from his arm. Soon, he’d
begin to feel light-headed. “When I got back from my second tour in Iraq, I was
pretty disillusioned. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue my career in the
military.”

“That sounds like a normal reaction.”

“It wasn’t unusual,” he agreed. “At the time I was battling
insomnia, and self-medicating with alcohol. Like a lot of young Marines, I spent
too many nights in bars. I told myself I was relaxing and having fun.”

“You weren’t?”

He shrugged. “I was always spoiling for a fight. Or trying to
pick up women. If I had any fun with them, I didn’t remember it the next
morning.”

“Maybe they had fun.”

He doubted it, but pride kept him silent. Some men went to war
and came back heroes. Garrett hadn’t fared so well. He’d left all of his good
qualities in Iraq, and returned an empty shell. Serving alongside women hadn’t
taught him to respect them, either. When he got back, he’d slept around
indiscriminately and treated them like sex objects. More often than not, he’d
taken his pleasure and left before the sheets were cold.

“There was one girl...I shouldn’t have even been talking to
her. She had a jealous boyfriend, and I knew he was drunk. So I kept giving her
attention just to make him mad. He got between us and pushed her. That really
set me off.”

“What did you do?”

“I took him outside.”

“He went willingly?”

“Yes, but I threw the first punch. He hit me back in
self-defense.” That was an important distinction. “I wish I could say I’d
blacked out after that, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But I did. I was
totally out of control, but lucid, if that makes sense. I kept hitting him, even
after he was down.” He struggled to continue, because the last part was the
hardest to face. “I lifted him up by the shirt and punched him one last time. I
think he was unconscious when the back of his head hit the concrete.”

“No,” she breathed, her eyes filling with tears.

“Yes,” he insisted. “They took him away in an ambulance, but
the doctors couldn’t do anything. He died at the hospital.”

“It was an accident.”

“I killed him.”

“Did you mean to?”

“Does it matter? He’s dead.”

She fell silent, her expression troubled. Garrett held his
breath, waiting for her to connect the dots. He wasn’t sure the truth would make
a difference at this point. Until they were rescued, she had no choice but to
trust him. Maybe that was why she didn’t shrink away in horror, or ask any more
questions. His misdeeds were too hard to swallow.

He knew he should come completely clean with her. But she’d
decided he was a hero, and holding on to this ideal of him was helping her cope.
Later, she’d hate him for keeping up the charade. Right now, it felt too good to
let go.

For a little while, they could
both
pretend.

“My dad hasn’t spoken to me since,” he said.

“How long has it been?”

“Five years.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes.”

“What have you been doing for work?”

“Manual labor,” he said sardonically, staring at his callused
palms.

She accepted his words at face value, and seemed to sympathize
with his plight. “What are we going to do about Jeb?”

Garrett pushed away the painful memories, considering a new
plan of attack. “He’ll probably try to shoot me if I climb the wall again. He
threatened to do it, and I assume he’ll follow through.”

“He’ll sabotage his own chances of survival?”

“No, he’ll ensure his escape. I won’t help them climb, so the
best they can hope for right now is a rescue. But if they kill me, they’ll have
total control. Jeb can force Owen to continue working at gunpoint. They can get
out.”

“What if we try to negotiate?”

“You can’t negotiate with a lunatic.”

“We could tell Jeb that we’ll let them out first. In exchange
for some water.”

Although it was a good idea, they weren’t dealing with a
rational person. “He wouldn’t believe it. Even if he did, what would stop him
from firing down at me from the crevice as soon as he got free?”

She sighed, closing off his IV tube. Before attaching the bag
to Don, she drew a solution from a bottle with a syringe and injected it into
the blood. Anticoagulant, she’d explained. “What do you propose, another
ambush?”

“Yes.”

“Because the last one worked so well?”

Garrett smiled at her sarcasm. She might have mistaken him for
a good guy, but she didn’t think he knew best. “I underestimated Jeb,” he
admitted. “I won’t do it again. We need to draw him out.”

“How?”

“I’d like to make him think I’m climbing. I’m almost certain
he’ll try to get close enough to take a shot. Maybe I can make some sort
of...decoy.”

“There’s a CPR dummy in the back of the ambulance.”

He’d seen the head and torso. It had fake-looking hair, and no
limbs. But if he put on the cracked helmet, and attached some stuffed clothes,
the dummy might fool someone. In the dark, and from a distance.

“I have to set it up tonight,” Garrett said, straightening. It
wasn’t as simple as rigging a dummy to the climbing ropes and waiting for Jeb to
strike. He had to construct a series of traps for them to fall victim to. He
envisioned a fortress of snares and pitfalls.

“Not so fast,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “You have to
rest after giving that much blood.”

He reclined on the mat, listless. She leaned forward to remove
the IV from his arm. He hated needles, and this one was a monster, so he focused
on her bent head, the fine tendrils of hair against her cheek. The stink on his
clothes had faded, enabling him to smell the rubbing alcohol and hospital soap
she’d used. He inhaled deeper, detecting a heady concoction of warm fabric and
flushed female skin.

As she placed pressure on the crook of his arm, she bit down on
her lower lip, reminding him of the kiss he’d stolen earlier. He wanted to taste
her mouth again, to fill his hands with her breasts and bury his face in her
hair.

But she’d told him not to touch her, and he planned to honor
that request. Now that she knew about his past, she wouldn’t change her mind.
The fact that he was covered in filth was another powerful deterrent.

He tore his gaze away, determined to resist temptation.

* * *

O
WEN
’
S
PALM
ACHED
from
Penny digging her nails into it.

He didn’t complain about the discomfort. Next to her pain, it
was nothing. And, in a sick, sad little way, he enjoyed it. Any touch from a
woman, even a woman in labor who hated him, felt like an illicit thrill.

He’d also enjoyed touching
her
. The
massage had been fraught with tension, and she’d cried through most of it, but
she seemed more at ease with him now. Maybe she was no longer afraid he’d hurt
her.

“Tell me a story,” she said between contractions.

“About what?”

“Anything. Your life.”

Owen drew a blank. His mother hadn’t been the storytelling
type, and his childhood memories might disturb Penny.

“Why’d you get this tattoo?” she asked, indicating the swastika
on his hand.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

He pulled away from her slowly. She rolled onto her other side
to face him. Even with flushed cheeks and anxious eyes, she was beautiful. “I
asked for it.”

“At a tattoo parlor?”

“No. There aren’t any tattoo parlors in prison.”

“Then how do you get them?”

“We smuggle in the parts. All you need is ink, a motor, some
tape and a needle.”

“Pen ink?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds gross.”

“We use clean needles.”

“It doesn’t look professional.”

He just shrugged. His tats weren’t pieces of artwork. They were
body armor, used for protection.

“Why do you hate Jews?”

“I don’t hate Jews.”

“That’s what the symbol means,” she said, rolling her eyes. She
thought he was ignorant. “Do you hate black and brown people?”

“Only if they’re in prison with me. And I don’t hate them
because of their skin color. I hate them because they’re my enemies.”

Her mouth thinned. “What if I was in prison with you?”

“You’re a girl.”

“So, you only hate guys who aren’t white? Girls get a
pass?”

For members of the Brotherhood, dating a nonwhite woman wasn’t
allowed. Owen hadn’t needed to worry about that. He’d never had a girlfriend of
any color. “These are prison rules. You can’t apply them to the outside
world.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Brotherhood is my team. My crew. In sports, you wear
jerseys to show which team you’re on. My tattoos are like that. They let
everyone know who I represent. It’s not about hating the other team. It’s about
being down for your crew.”

“Why did you join?”

“Why not?”

“Did you have a choice?”

“Of course.” He could have been raped and beaten, instead.

“Were you jumped in?”

“No,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the ugly mark on his
hand. “I had to prove my loyalty.”

“How?”

“By doing a favor for the gang or getting a visible
tattoo.”

“What was the favor?”

“I can’t remember,” he evaded.

“And if you said no to both?”

“Then I’d be on my own. Unprotected.” For some prisoners, that
was fine. Old guys didn’t get hassled much. Big, muscular men like Garrett could
defend themselves. At eighteen, Owen had been skinny and weak, an ideal
target.