Embattled Hearts 1 (6 page)

For a long moment, John wondered what it would feel like to be that connected to another person. To have a somebody. His mother had dropped him off at the orphanage when he was five years old. He remembered the day perfectly. It had been bright and sunny, and she had been unusually nice to him that day. Letting him ride in the front seat, getting him a hamburger from McDonald’s. And she had been sober. He’d been so surprised and it stuck out in his memory as one of the best times he’d ever had with her.

When she had pulled up to the curb of the big, beautiful church, he hadn’t thought anything was out of the ordinary. They often when to church rummage sales and food lines. But when she handed him a paper sack with his clothes in it, he knew something was wrong. There were tears in her eyes as she told him things had changed, and that if he was a good little boy, he would be able to find a family that would love him and be better able to take care of him. John hadn’t understood. What had he done to make her mad? Crying had only made her more determined, until she finally snapped at him, “This is why I’m getting rid of you.”

She left him standing there on the steps as he cried his eyes out. It was the last time he’d ever seen her.

John contemplated the suburban scene in front of him as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d covered a lot of distance between then and now. Actually, if he thought about it, he was fairly proud of where he was. For an abandoned kid that had barely scraped through school, he did good in the military. Commendations and awards were stacked in a box in his closet, telling him how brave other people thought he was. As a Gunnery Sergeant, he had been well respected by his men. His orders were followed immediately and without question, and his team had had one of the lowest casualty counts in his company.

Well, until that day outside of Kabul. Everything had gone to shit then.

He tipped his head to one side, then the other, cracking the bones in his neck. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and flicked the ignition on without starting the truck. He pressed buttons on the radio until he found an irritating station that would keep him awake.

Shannon was up and moving around by seven o’clock. John thought it was safe to head back to the apartment. Maybe he could catch a few minutes’ sleep in his bed before he had to go in to the office and submit the evidence. Jamison would not appreciate business on a Saturday, but it couldn’t be helped.

*****

Through a crack in her bedroom drapes, Shannon watched John pull away from the curb, several yards down the street. Her heart warmed at the thought of him waiting out there in the cold, watching to make sure she was okay. For a man who didn’t have any relationships, family or otherwise, she was amazed at how well he took care of her. If she confronted him about it, he would deny it, of course. But she knew the truth. John Palmer had an incredibly warm, caring heart.

And he seemed to have a soft spot for her.

Smiling, she turned and headed for the hot shower. She needed to clean and shop today.

C
had called Zeke at three.

“’Lo?”

“Dude, are you still in bed?”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Chad thought the other man had fallen asleep. “Maybe. What do you want? It’s damn…early.”

He snorted. “No, it’s not. It’s after three. What time do you normally get up?”

Zeke yawned on the other end of the line. “Mm, five-ish. Depends on the job the night before.”

“Well, whatever. You need to get up. Are you going with me?”

The silence stretched on the other end of the line even longer, and Chad knew Zeke had hoped he’d forgotten.

“I don’t know, Chad. I’m not…ch-chomping at the bit for a girlfriend like you…are. I don’t need to go out and be looked at like a bug over and over again.”

Chad winced at the too-blunt description of their normal nights out. Zeke was all too right. Finding girls was not the problem, it was getting to know them. Between Chad’s obviously fucked-up arm and Zeke’s long pauses and patchwork face, people tended to give them a wide berth, no matter how friendly they tried to be. And if the women did pause long enough for a drink, they usually fell into two categories: the motherers and the pityers. Neither of which they were in the market for. If he wanted to be mothered or pitied, he could go back home to Texas.

He was hungry for companionship, though. It had been years since he’d been in a serious relationship, and months since his last half-dressed fuck.

The first time he’d been with a woman, she’d said over and over again she’d be fine with his amputation, and that she’d seen injuries like his before. Well, apparently not, because as soon as she caught sight of his stub, she’d paled and shuddered, making an excuse to leave. The second time he’d been with a woman he’d left his jeans and leg on, in spite of her protests, and everything had worked out great, though it had felt shallow. Not as mind-blowing as his first fuck post-injury should have been.

Finding the perfect woman was probably an impossibility for him.

“I tell you what, we won’t go looking for girls. We’ll just go get a drink, and see if we can get a couple of the other guys to go, too. We’ll just hang out and watch the game tonight.”

Zeke sighed over the line but agreed. Chad promised to text him where and when once he’d talked to the others.

They settled on a new sports bar in the Flat Irons Mall area, to the north of the city, called Frog Dog. When they walked inside, it was busy. Chad looked at his buddies and saw the same trepidation he felt at being in a group like this, and he would have faded right back out the door if the hostess hadn’t arrived just then.

“Four of ya?” She smiled at them all then scanned the wipe-board on the podium. “This way, please.”

She started to weave through the noise toward the back of the restaurant. Chad was about to stop her, but she led them to a table along the back wall, a bit detached from the rest of the room. It still had a perfect view of the flat-screens. “Your waitress will be with you in a minute.”

He looked at the guys as they sat down. Ortiz took the chair farthest away from the crowd and backed it up against the wall even further, arms crossed over his chest. Chad, Zeke and Terrell took the other three seats, and they all tried to look relaxed, though they were all scoping out the numbers they’d have to take out to get to the exits. Zeke was the only one okay with the crowd at his back, because it was more comfortable than being under scrutiny for his scars.

Chad swallowed heavily and forced himself to sit back. Ortiz was the most newly discharged, and his tension was feeding that of the group. Five years after combat, Chad had learned to tamp down the urge to fight in crowds like this, but the younger soldier had a long road to go.

“Hi, guys! What can I get you?”

The cute little brunette waitress was unaware of the tension she’d just help dissipate. She grinned at Chad with a toothy smile, and her eyes didn’t flicker at all, even when she glanced at his hand.

“Ah, beer, please. What do you have on tap?”

“Well, Frog Dog is our in-house brew, but we have just about anything you’d like.” She reeled off a list of names but he chose the house stuff. Ortiz asked for a cola, Terrell the same as Chad. All eyes swung to Zeke. The waitress rested her hand on his shoulder, and his eyes widened when they looked up at her. Color leeched from his face.

“And what about you, big guy?”

His mouth worked, but he couldn’t articulate what he wanted. The waitress waited, though she had patrons calling her, until he finally wrenched out the name of a domestic brew. She smiled even wider. “I’ll get your drinks for you. Menus are there on the table and I’ll be back to get your order in a minute.”

She turned away and they all watched her cute little backside disappear into the crowd.

“F-fuck! I didn’t think I was going to be able to spit it out. She…surprised me.”

Chad grinned at Zeke. “But you worked it out, buddy, and she didn’t seem to mind at all.”

Zeke grinned and nodded.

Chad handed him a menu. “Decide what you want now so you can plan it in your head.”

Zeke ducked his head to the menu. Chad knew it would take him a few minutes to work things out, but he’d gotten faster over the past year. In Afghanistan, he’d been standing on the opposite side of a ten-foot cinder-block wall when a mortar exploded. He’d received a traumatic brain injury from the blast, then being buried beneath the rubble, and the bricks themselves had ripped up his face. The docs had patched him up, but he needed a few more surgeries before he would feel confident enough to respond to a woman like their waitress.

If he ever did. Surgery wasn’t the answer to everything. And it wouldn’t help his stuttering and delayed speech from the concussive injury to his brain. Only time and a lot of therapy would help that.

The waitress returned with their drinks and thumped them down in front of each of them, then pulled a pad from the back pocket of her jeans. “Do you guys know what you’d like?”

They all ordered appetizers and sandwiches. Zeke stumbled over his buffalo chicken sandwich order, but he powered through. It helped that the waitress smiled sweetly at him and didn’t seem in any hurry to leave. She nodded to the group when they were done. “I’ll get these in to the kitchen now. My name is Ember. If you guys need anything just give me a holler.”

Zeke twisted in his chair to watch her walk away. Chad thought it was funny the way he had reacted to her. “She’s cute.”

Zeke glanced at him and nodded, then picked up his beer and turned enough to watch the screen.

They all had a good night, and Chad was glad they’d gone somewhere different. The crowd was boisterous because the game was on fire, and the enthusiasm was contagious. Even Ortiz relaxed enough to enjoy himself and joke around.

Ember came back several times throughout the night to reload drinks and chitchat, and she made it a point to draw Zeke into the conversation. Although he seemed uncomfortable at first, he appeared to like the attention.

They left that night in much better spirits than when they’d arrived.

*****

At nine o’clock Saturday night, when Shannon peeked out the curtain, John was parked once again several yards down the street. Just barely within sight of the house. Shannon really appreciated that. When she’d returned from running errands, her machine had been blinking with a message. John had given her his house address, and Shannon was surprised at how close they had always been.

Denver was a huge city, so it was a real coincidence that they landed just a few blocks away. In the back of her mind, she had to wonder if his proximity to her was on purpose. He had no other family. The two of them got along well at the office. Definitely better than John and anybody else. He got along well with Duncan and Chad, but they were the exceptions. They acted more like brothers than anything. Everybody else he treated with, well, reserve.

Maybe he just couldn’t relate to people without being in charge. He was one of three partners, but Duncan definitely had the authority in the company. Maybe John just couldn’t figure out how
not
to be a commanding officer.

She backed away and tried to distract herself by watching some TV, but her eyes were drawn to the window instead. An hour later, she peeked out again. John’s truck was still in the same spot, and it had started to flurry. She was too far away to see inside the vehicle, but she hoped he stayed warm.

Guilt ate at her as she got ready to turn in. It didn’t seem right that she was in her comfortable bed, and John was out there in the cold. It probably wasn’t good for his back either. When he thought nobody was looking, he would often go through a series of stretches forward and back, and twist side to side. Always with a grimace on his face. It was painful to watch, and she always cringed along with him.

Curiously, though, she was not worried about the strange occurrences that had happened. John put her at ease. Well, when he wasn’t turning her on. She had given little to no thought to Mike. Certainly, the prison would have notified her if he had been released. Hell, she still had an active restraining order against him. His first parole hearing wouldn’t be for several years yet.

An hour later she still tossed and turned in bed. She appreciated John’s help too much to leave him out there any longer. Snatching her cell phone off her bedside table, she scrolled through until she found his name.

He answered on the first ring. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Totally fine. You have to be cold, though. Why don’t you come in?”

Silence stretched on the other end of the line.

“How long have you known I was here?” he asked finally.

“Since last night.”

For a moment, there was just silence, then he snorted. “Fuck. Guess I wasn’t as sneaky as I thought I was, huh?”

Laughing outright, she sat up in bed. “Well, normally I’m sure you are, but I’m pretty paranoid recently. I’m, like, hyper-aware of a lot of things right now.”

“That’s understandable. But you don’t have to worry. Until we figure out what’s going on, I’ll be here every night.”