Collateral Damage (7 page)

“It’s nothing, only a flesh wound. Just needs to be bandaged.”

Like hell. He knew firsthand what shrapnel wounds felt like and knowing her she could have other injuries she wasn’t going to tell him about. Only a flesh wound? She had no idea what the wound looked like under there. “Honor. What happened?” he repeated, with less patience this time.

She let out a hard exhalation, as if his presence was trying her tolerance, and didn’t bother looking at him. “It’s no big deal and I’m fine. Go back to the debriefing. I don’t need help walking to the hospital—I know the way.” Her sarcastic tone made it plain she specifically didn’t want
his
help.

Liam eyed her pale face, unwilling to listen. There was no way in hell he was letting her go to the hospital alone when she was injured and bleeding that bad. He might hold a grudge but even he wasn’t enough of an asshole to leave her alone right now.

A thin rivulet of blood snaked down her right forearm and dripped off her wrist to the ground. The sight triggered a powerful and instinctive urge to comfort and protect, something he’d mistakenly thought he’d buried long ago. Despite what she’d said, he knew her wound wasn’t
nothing
. He also understood why she was acting this way.

When it came to self-protection, he was an expert. Since her his walls had walls, so he recognized the signs. Though he understood why she’d want her shields up around him now, it frustrated him that she’d freeze him out like this when she clearly needed someone. Before the epic meltdown with her family that had changed everything between them, she would have turned to him for help without hesitation. The thought set off a sharp twinge of regret in his chest.

“We need to put pressure on it.” Dammit, it was killing him to see her hurt like this and not be able to help.

She shook her head. “I’m almost there. I’ll do it once I’m admitted.”

Apparently her stubbornness hadn’t lessened any in the time they’d been apart.

Liam set his jaw and shortened his strides to stay next to her, wanting to wrap a supporting hand around her elbow but he knew she’d wrench her arm away and that would only make her wound hurt more. “Is your nurse friend working right now?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t elaborate and he didn’t push for more because he knew it would be a waste of breath. The emergency room was busy with a flurry of new patients from the earlier attack. Honor didn’t even flick a glance at him as he pulled open the door for her. “You can go now.”

Not happening.

Ignoring her icy dismissal he stayed with her as she went to sign herself in. Liam stayed to the side of the room, leaning against the wall and never taking his eyes off her. He kept his arms folded across his chest and curled his hands into fists to keep from dragging them through his hair in frustration.

Fuck, okay, he goddamn
hated
seeing her bleeding and in pain she wouldn’t admit to. It made him edgy as hell with the need to do something, anything, to make it better. Even though he knew he shouldn’t because it might send mixed signals he still wanted to touch her, hold her.
Something
.

The admitting nurse called someone to the front and another nurse came out with some gauze bandages for Honor a minute later. Honor took them and started to shrug out of her body armor, trying and failing to cover a wince. Without even realizing he’d moved, Liam found himself halfway to her before his brain caught up.

“Here,” he said gruffly, unable to sit back and not help her a moment longer. Even if she hated being around him, she needed help and she’d just have to suffer his attention because there was no way he was leaving her side right now. He tried to tell himself it was solely in the interest of looking out for her, but deep down he knew it was because he wanted to be near her.

It wasn’t a comfortable realization.
She’d
left
him
. He had every right to feel the way he did after she’d abandoned him like that.

Stuffing the gauze into his pocket he brushed her left hand away from her right shoulder and gently removed her Kevlar vest before peeling the sleeve of her ACU jacket down her arm. She stood very still but he caught the way she sucked in a breath when the sodden material pulled away from her skin and he immediately saw why.

Shrapnel had torn through her clothes, burying itself into the flesh at the back of her right shoulder and upper arm. She must have hit the ground hard too because both her elbows were bleeding, already swelling and turning color.

Sweet pea…

Seeing those wounds in her soft, delicate skin made him feel helpless. Where else was she hurt that he couldn’t see? He battled against his instinct to comfort and soothe. Two years ago he would have automatically gathered her into his arms and stroked her back and she’d have come to him willingly. Now that he no longer had that right, he found he wanted it back. So much that it was a physical ache gnawing beneath his breastbone.

“You’re gonna need more than a bandage,” he told her, carefully ripping the torn shoulder of her shirt apart to expose the wounds. Four of them that he could see, two small but deep and the others a few inches in length and definitely in need of suturing.

Liam frowned as he studied them. She was moving her arm okay so maybe there weren’t any fractures but if he’d learned anything over the past two years it was just how tough Honor was inside that feminine exterior. Wouldn’t surprise him if the shards had hit bone and she was merely putting on a brave face.

“They’ll have to do X-rays then pull the shrapnel out and stitch you up.” She’d be sore and bruised as hell afterward, even with only superficial damage. Goddammit, she could have
died
today.

Honor expelled an irritated sigh. “Great. Tell the general I’ll be in to see him as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about that.”
And I’m not going anywhere until you’re taken care of.
He didn’t bother saying it out loud because there was no point. She’d just argue and he didn’t care what she said, he was staying. It didn’t matter that they’d broken up on far less than amicable terms. Seeing her hurt bothered him so much that he couldn’t walk away, no matter what had happened between them. It also made him feel like an ass for the way he’d treated her, ignoring her when she’d reached out to him before.

Liam wadded up her bloody ACU jacket and tossed it onto the body armor vest he’d placed at his feet. Hating that she was still doing her best to ignore him, he wrapped a hand around her left upper arm and guided her to a plastic chair set against the far wall. She was stiff and unyielding at first, then gave up and sat down, still studiously avoiding looking at him.

A wave of pure helplessness washed over him. He knew he deserved this, her indifference. But being reminded once again that he was no longer part of her life and never would be again made him feel cold and hollow inside.

He took the seat next to hers anyway and slid the gauze from his pocket. “I’m gonna put pressure on them,” he said, gripping her left shoulder to hold her still as he gently but firmly pressed a pad against her wounds. She stiffened and her mouth tightened into a thin line but she didn’t utter a sound. His fingers itched to stroke her cheek, glide over her nape in reassurance.

They didn’t speak as they waited for someone to come see her. He kept his attention on providing enough pressure to slow the bleeding while she watched the hustle and bustle going on in the room and hallway beyond them.

The first small pad was soaked through within a few minutes so Liam used another, wishing he could do more. He knew she was hurting even if she refused to show it and it didn’t help that he was basically shoving the shrapnel deeper into her flesh as they waited. If he could have taken the pain for her, he would have in an instant. It drove him crazy to see her hurt.

After another twenty-plus minutes a male nurse finally came out and called her into an exam room. Liam’s fingers had long since gone numb but he kept up with the pressure and thankfully she let him after one attempt to take over on the way to the room. When they entered the room she set her left hand on the gauze and twisted away.

Liam let her go and went to the sink to wash his hands, her blood staining the water pink before it swirled down the drain. He was thankful the wounds weren’t serious, otherwise he’d be losing his mind right now.

He wasn’t a fucking machine, couldn’t shut his feelings off no matter how much he wished he could. Maybe he wasn’t in love with her anymore, maybe he was still bitter about the way things had ended, but he still cared. More than he wanted to, he was slowly realizing.

“Thanks, I’m good now. You can leave,” Honor told him.

He shook his hands in the sink and reached for a paper towel to dry them with, replying without looking at her. “I’ll stay until your friend gets here.”

“Who’s your friend?” the male nurse asked.

“Lieutenant Kelly,” Honor said.

He smiled at her. “I’ll go find her. We’ve been kinda busy in here but if she’s free I’ll grab her for you.” He shut the door, leaving them alone in a vacuum of uncomfortable silence. Out in the main waiting area there’d been plenty of noise and movement going on to distract them. Now there was nothing but the quiet and the chasm of their past lying between them.

Honor cleared her throat. “Seriously, you don’t have to wait with me. I’m good.”

Damn it, no. “I’m not leaving, so just make peace with it.”

At that she finally looked up at him. Her aquamarine eyes were shadowed, her face a stoic mask and for one insane moment he wanted to rip it away and see beneath it to the woman he’d once loved with everything in him. “Why are you doing this?” she finally asked.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you’d been wounded?” he countered.

“Because I didn’t think it was serious enough to say anything under the circumstances.”

“Well it is. You don’t know what kind of damage is underneath there, and no one will until the X-rays come back.”

She broke eye contact, training her gaze on the linoleum floor. “Just can’t see why you’d bother, since you’ve made it crystal clear you want nothing to do with me and can barely stand the sight of me.”

Only because he hadn’t been willing to endure the pain of seeing her and knowing she was no longer his. “Yeah, well, today I’ll make an exception,” he said, more curtly than he’d intended.

Honor met his eyes again and he wasn’t proud of the hurt he saw in hers. Regretting his choice of words and tone he quickly changed the subject. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

She shook her head and shifted her hand on the fresh gauze pad. “Just bruised my back and hip when I hit the ground.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You hit your head too?”

“Had my helmet on.”

Satisfied for the moment, he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. Man it was tough to be alone in here with her. Having her this close brought up too many memories, some the best of his life and others too painful to think about. He still felt raw, even after all this time. Maybe he always would. There was so much left unsaid and unresolved between them, all of it better left buried because the damage couldn’t be undone. Not for him.

“What about what’s going on in your head right now?” he asked after a few minutes.

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What you did out there,” he said, meaning the way she’d volunteered to crew one of the Chinook’s weapons. He knew damn well that she not only had never fired a minigun before, but that she’d never taken lives, either. Knowing Honor, that would weigh heavy on her, regardless if she knew she’d done the right thing or not. “You know you helped stop the attack and saved lives today, right?” She deserved a helluva lot of credit for that. He was impressed with her—proud, even—for all of it, especially since she’d stepped up in spite of being wounded. He knew a lot of men who wouldn’t have had the balls to do what she’d done today.

She went back to studying the floor and gave a negligent little shrug that had to hurt her shoulder. “It was either me, or you guys went up with one less gunner.”

“You did good out there.” No, she’d been
amazing
.

Her eyes flashed up to his, and held this time. “Thanks.” Her expression thawed a little and she even allowed a grimace as she shifted on the table. “Is there another pad? This one’s soaked too.”

“Here.” He closed the small distance between them and handed the last one to her, this time taking a seat on the doctor’s stool close by her rather than returning to the wall.

A few silent, tension-filled seconds passed before she sighed and dragged her left hand through her hair. “We just gonna keep ignoring the elephant in the room while we wait, then?”

Liam’s gut constricted, a warning tingle starting at the nape of his neck. “I think that’s best, yeah.” He wasn’t interested in ripping open those wounds again.

She shot him a disbelieving look. “Well you might not have anything to say, but I do.”

Liam rolled the stool back a bit and crossed his arms again, his posture totally defensive but he didn’t give a shit. “Seriously, I don’t wanna hear it.”

She snorted. “Too fucking bad.”

The sharp retort and sudden flare of anger from her caught him off guard. Honor was calm and even-tempered, almost serene most of the time, and she hated conflict. With everyone but him, it seemed.

Before he could get a single word out, she started in on him. “I assume you got my e-mails up until you changed your address?”

He nodded.

“Did you read any of them?”

“Yeah.” All three of them. Over and over again until he’d realized how pathetic it was to hold on to the hope of maybe patching things up with her someday. He’d responded to the first one then made himself delete them all and changed his e-mail address so she couldn’t contact him again, more out of self-preservation than anything else.

“And?” she prompted, raising one strawberry-blond brow.

What the hell did she expect him to say? “And, nothing.” He was at war over here, responsible not only for the men under his command, but the troops and equipment he carried on missions, and for the multi-million dollar aircraft his rank and position within SOAR allowed him to fly. The last thing he could afford was letting the fantasy of reconciling with Honor fuck with his head and distract him when his focus needed to be one hundred percent on his job.