Embattled Hearts 1 (10 page)

Quickly, she moved to the hall closet and tugged down another blanket, this one fuzzy with a horse running across the width of it. She wrapped it around her like a robe, then settled on the floor in front of the couch. Shannon felt like a coward, because now she didn’t have to look at John directly, but she was still close enough to feel his body heat behind her. She worked one elbow out enough to prop it on the edge of the couch in front of him, and rested her head on it. John shifted back to his side, and mirrored her position.

“Sorry,” she told him. “I had to move. That corner was getting a bit sharp.”

“That’s fine. I don’t want to put you out.”

Shannon frowned at him. “You’re not putting me out at all. I owe you for helping me out.”

John frowned, then changed the subject. “What is your brother doing in Florida?”

Shannon laughed lightly, pulling the fuzzy blanket closer around her. “Who knows? It seems like he’s had ten different jobs since he’s graduated school. He’s spreading his wings. He’s only twenty-seven, so I guess it’s okay. It’s just kind of hard, because he was living here not too long ago. He wanted to get away from Mom and Dad after the shooting, and I was the farthest away. But not far enough away that they didn’t come to visit. A lot. I think he just poked his finger on a map one day to find a job far enough away that our parents wouldn’t check up on him day and night.”

“Are your parents hard to get along with?” he asked finally.

“No, no, not at all,” she told him quickly. “They just love us and want to see us do well. And with Chris’s injury, it just seems to be a bit harder for them to let him go. They’ve taken care of everything for him. He was just seventeen when he got shot. I think they’re kind of lost as to what to do now, without him nearby. Dad still works, but Mom always stayed home with us kids, and it’s hardest for her.”

John stared off into the fire, and Shannon wondered if this was painful for him to talk about. “What happened to your parents?” she asked quietly.

Tension leapt into the air, and John tensed. Although he hadn’t physically moved, Shannon could feel his withdrawal.

“I never knew my dad. My mother left me at a church when I was five. I remember her saying she didn’t have the money to keep me.”

“Wow,” she said softly. It took all the strength she had to not let him see how much his history hurt her. “Did you have any brothers or sisters?”

His dark brow furrowed. “You know, I think I did. A younger brother, maybe. Though I may just be confusing one of the other orphanage kids. I don’t know for sure. It was a long time ago.”

Shannon turned to face him fully. “Aren’t you curious? Why don’t you look him up? You’re in a perfect position to do some snooping. It would kill me to think I had a relative out there I had never met.”

John shook his head. “I’m sure he doesn’t even remember me. Why should I stir stuff up?”

“John, what if he does remember you, though? What if
he’
s been looking for
you
?”

There was a fierce frown on his face, like he was actually thinking about what she said, but he shook off her words.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not pertinent to what’s going on now. Besides, he probably couldn’t care less.”

Shannon sighed at the hardness she heard in his voice. Obviously his mother had cared less, so of course the brother wouldn’t care either. That kind of stance was difficult to reverse. Honestly, she would probably feel the same way.

“So, how long were you in the orphanage? Did you have friends?”

“Friends?” he asked her with a snort. “No, no friends. What was the sense in making friends if they were just going to be gone in a day, or a week, or a year? I was in the home for most of my childhood, give or take a few months here and there when somebody would take me in and try to mold me into what they wanted. I was eventually sent to a boy’s halfway house and strongly encouraged to join the military when I was old enough. I didn’t have anything better to do at the time, so I joined. It’s turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“Were you in the Marines with Duncan and Chad?”

He rocked his head on his hand. “Nah, I didn’t meet them until I was injured in combat almost six years ago. I met Chad first and the damn kid wouldn’t leave me alone. Duncan came along a few months later. We were roomies at Walter Reed.”

Shannon smiled. “I thought you guys had known each other longer. You seem like brothers.”

John laughed lightly. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that, but they’ve gotten me through a lot of crap. I’d give my life for either one of them.”

Shannon blinked at his vehemence, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. When he decided to do something, he did it whole-heartedly.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He just looked at her for a moment. “You can, but I may not answer it.”

She took a deep breath. “How were you injured?”

His brows quirked and one side of his mouth tipped up in a sardonic smirk. “Well, we were on patrol and we came across this vehicle that was broken down in the road. We knew something was up, so we parked about thirty yards away and approached it cautiously. It ended up being exactly as it appeared. A broken-down vehicle. When we headed back to the Hummer, though, we were attacked. The Hummer was blown into the air and came down in pieces. A door landed on me, shattered a couple of vertebra.”

Shannon swallowed heavily. His words were flat, as if he had told the story many times, although she had a feeling quite the opposite was true. Her heart ached at the thought of his being injured in a foreign land and coming home to no one. That was so wrong.

They were both quiet for a long time, lost in their own thoughts. The fire spat and crackled merrily, in counterpoint to the heavy overtones in the room. She wondered if John realized how much anger he carried around inside him. It was obvious to her, and she wondered why he even told her about it. Another attempt to connect in some way?

She felt a tug on her scalp, and looked back to find John running a thick curl through his fingertips.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You can,” she told him with a smile, “but I may not answer it.”

John grinned at her as she parroted back to him. “Is this your natural color?”

“Muddy brown, you mean? Yes, it is.”

“It’s not muddy,” he told her firmly. “In the firelight it looks about ten different colors. None of them mud-colored.”

“Thank you,” she said finally. He tugged the loose curl out straight and let it fall, then pulled it out again. Finally, he tunneled his fingers in against her scalp, and Shannon could not help but groan. Nerve endings on her head leapt to attention. “That feels really good,” she told him, and tipped her head to rest completely against the couch.

For several long minutes, he ran his fingers over and under and through her hair. “I have to warn you,” she told him finally, “that if you don’t quit, I’ll be asleep in no time.”

*****

John chuckled quietly, and continued to tug and massage her scalp. True to her word, within minutes, she was asleep, her head lolling with his movements.

John sighed and let his head rest on the pillow while he continued to run his hands through her hair. It was soft as silk, and smelled like some kind of fruity confection. Actually,
she
smelled like some kind of confection. It was a distinctive mix of sugar cookie and ocean. He could tell hours later when she had been in a room, and he always found himself inhaling more deeply, trying to track her down.

Hell, he’d known the minute she entered the living room, but he had feigned sleep for a moment, to watch her. And what a show he had gotten. The thin cotton gown she wore was nearly transparent, and he had seen every delicious curve of her body. The sight had turned him on unbearably, and he had spoken out so she wouldn’t leave. Shannon’s attention was becoming something he required, rather than just wanted.

His background was not something he ever talked about, but he had felt as if Shannon would understand and not pass judgment. It had been a long time since he thought about that period of his personal life, and he’d almost forgotten about his brother until she asked. What had his name been? Jason, James? J-A something. The only clear memory he had of him was when he was playing on the floor. John had had one of those wiggly-eyed rotary phones, and he remembered specifically giving that to the little guy before he was dropped off. They had been in an old blue station wagon, and the kid had been crying in the back. John had handed it over the seat, and gotten out of the car. There had been no goodbye kiss from his mother. She barely even looked at him as she drove away, leaving him on the steps of the orphanage.

What had happened to…was it Jake? No, that didn’t sound right. James, Jamie. That was it. Jamie! What had happened to him when he disappeared? Had his mother eventually gotten tired of him as well, and dropped him off somewhere too? The thought nagged at him for a long time.

Shannon was beginning to slump forward. He sat up and debated what to do. Could he lift her up onto the couch? Did he have the leverage? There was plenty of room for her if he could. John reached down as far as he could, scooped underneath her legs and back, and lifted. Her weight overbalanced him a bit, but once he got her past a certain point, everything straightened out. She hardly weighed anything at all. Hell, the gear he used to carry weighed more than she did. He held his breath and waited for her to waken, but her eyes remained closed. She mumbled a bit in her sleep, but John whispered to her that everything was fine, and she quieted.

John lowered them both down to the couch cushion, Shannon’s head on his shoulder. She was quiet as a mouse, and John felt a little bad about taking advantage of her this way, but he couldn’t help himself. His heart pounded so loud he was afraid the sound would wake her. It had been so very long since he had held somebody against him in sleep. He tried to remember when it had been, but his brain was beginning to slow down. At least six years. There’d been nobody since he’d been in the chair. He wrapped his arms around her belly and pulled her against him. She sighed and melted into him, and his blood headed south. He tried to think generic thoughts to tamp down his desire. If she woke up, he didn’t want her to run from the room in disgust.

Taking a deep breath, he buried his nose in her hair. Just the smell of her turned him on even more. God, what was he going to do with her?

*****

Shannon woke up slowly. She was incredibly warm and content. Somebody had bumped up the heat. With a sigh, she tucked her chin into the quilt and snuggled down.

She woke again a little later.

Eyes squinted, she looked for the alarm clock at the side of the bed, and was totally confused when she saw the fireplace. The fireplace? She was in the living room? Consciousness was returning quickly, and she realized the burning heat behind her was not the cat. It was a hard, masculine chest branding itself to her back. How on earth had she gotten here? John had been rubbing her hair. But she had been on the floor, not on the couch. Trying to move slowly, she turned her head to look behind her.

John’s somber dark eyes regarded her quietly. “Good morning,” he rumbled.

Damn, Shannon thought, his voice was even sexier with that rasp in it. She tried to summon up a smile. “Good morning. Uh, how did I get here?”

“You fell asleep, and rather than let you crumple on the floor, I brought you up here with me.”

Blood crept into her cheeks. “Oh. Sorry ’bout that.” Shannon started to peel back the blanket to sit up, but John tugged her back down.

“Don’t leave just yet. You’re very warm. And don’t be sorry. I enjoyed every minute of it. I actually slept very good with you, which is surprising.”

Shannon eased back down onto his shoulder and pulled the blanket up to her chin. A heavy hand resettled at her waist.

“You don’t normally sleep well?”

“No. Dreams wake me up a lot, like last night.”

“Oh,” she said, inanely. Duh. Shannon felt so out of her depth as she lay here and tried not to breathe. Last night John Palmer was her somewhat friendly boss she had a crush on, but this morning they had stepped over some line. They were teetering, she felt, on the cusp of slipping into a relationship. Which was what she wanted, right? Her heart pounded so loud she knew he felt it.

Looking at the front window, she saw it was still dark out, so it had to be early.

“Can you fall back asleep after the dreams wake you?”

He was silent for a long time, and Shannon relaxed as she listened and felt his deep breaths. The burning heat from his body tempted her back to sleep as well, and she felt her eyelids drift down.

“Sometimes,” he said finally.

John’s right arm tightened over her belly, pulling her back snug against his front. Suddenly, she was not tired anymore. Shannon’s skin tingled where it made contact with his, and her breath caught as she realized her nightgown had worked up around her hips and she couldn’t feel any clothing on his legs. Bristly hair tickled the back of her knees, and she was hit with a wave of need. How bad was it that a man’s legs turned her on? Instinctively, she arched her back and pressed her bottom into his groin.

John gasped and clenched a heavy hand on her hip. He also could not seem to prevent the involuntary grind, and Shannon was so extremely relieved to feel him swell into her bottom. They had not gotten to the point where they talked in depth about his injuries, so she had had no idea whether or not he could participate in a physical relationship. Even while her body readied itself for him, a corner of her mind cheered that this intrinsic part of being a man had not been taken from him.

And oh, if what she felt could be trusted, it would have been an incredible loss to womankind.

Shannon realized his hand on her hip trembled, just slightly. She peered over her shoulder at him.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

Heavy black lashes rested on his cheeks, and his skin looked ruddy in the dim glow from the coals. He inhaled deeply through his nose, lifted his lids and gave her a slow, sexy smile. All the angst of the week, and the worry, faded away at the sight of the most beautiful expression she’d ever seen on his face.