Fall to Pieces (13 page)

Which, she'd heard from enough sources was
long and thick and expertly wielded by its owner.

He'd wake up, startled at first. Then he'd
whisper her name.

I was hoping you'd come.

He slid his hands up her back and pulled her
down until her bare breasts pressed against his hair-roughened
chest. His mouth took hers in a deep, hungry kiss, his tongue
sliding against hers. his hands were everywhere, cupping and
stroking her breasts, squeezing her nipples between his callused
fingers.

Then lower, sliding between her legs,
finding her hot and wet and more than ready to have his big, thick
cock deep inside of her.

His fingers found her clit, stroking,
circling—

She came with a jolt and a muffled cry,
reality settling around her. She slid her own hand from beneath the
waistband of her panties and curled over on her side.

###

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Dylan teased her the
next morning over coffee. Her cheeks heated, not because she'd
passed out on his couch, but because she couldn't get the vivid
image of herself, her hand busy between her thighs as she imagined
him touching her.

She dropped her gaze as though afraid he'd
somehow read her mind. "Sorry about that."

"No need to be sorry. You can crash on my
couch any time."

Though that was far from the ideal scenario
in which Sadie ended up sleeping at his cabin, later that evening
she took him up on his invitation to once again join him at his
place for some real food.

It quickly became a pattern. After June
cleared the dishes, they'd head over to Dylan's for edible food and
a drink or two.

Some nights they'd watch a movie or a TV
show, but often they lingered over their second dinner talking. She
was surprised at how well informed Dylan was on all sorts of
subjects. Not only was he a confessed news junkie, but there was
always a book out on the coffee table, which changed every couple
of days. In the few nights since she'd been coming over, he'd read
everything from the latest best seller, to military history, to an
old classic.

One night after she'd helped him polish off a
pan full of stir-fried chicken and vegetables, she wandered over to
his coffee table and picked up his current read,
War and
Peace
. He only had hundred or so pages to go. "You're really
reading this?"

"It's not like I'm reading it in the original
Russian," he replied with just the barest edge in his tone. "My
grasp of English is pretty solid."

"I didn't mean it that way," she said hastily
and set the book back on the table. "It's just funny, how things
have changed." She turned to him with a smile. "Back in high
school, I was supposedly the smart one," she said, making little
air quotes with her fingers. "But now you're way more informed
about current events and politics than I ever was, not to mention
more well read. I can't remember the last time I read anything
serious."

He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder as he
mixed their drinks. "You get a lot of down time when you're
deployed. We get boxes of books, out of date magazines and
newspapers, and I pretty much read everything I could get my hands
on."

He walked over and handed her a vodka tonic
and took his place on the couch as Sadie settled on the opposite
end.

"I never really thought of that. I was always
worried you were getting shot at all the time."

"You worried about me?" His full lips quirked
in that sexy half smile that never failed to make her tingle all
over.

"Of course, we all worried about you, Damon,
and Deck, like we worry about all the military boys in town," she
said primly, not about to admit that while she had worried about
Dylan's brothers, Dylan's was the name she'd anxiously looked for
every time the local paper listed the names of Montana residents
killed in action.

"Yeah, well there was plenty to worry about,"
he said, his voice turning grim.

He flicked on the TV and tuned it to CNN.
Sadie ignored the talking head, focused on Dylan, the tight set to
his jaw, the tension in his shoulders.

Though his gaze was locked on the screen, she
didn't think he was paying any more attention to the news than she
was.

"I remember when you were wounded, we were
all really worried." It had happened earlier this year, before her
father's heart attack. Sadie had still been living in San
Francisco. She'd gotten the call from Molly while she was enjoying
happy hour with her co-workers at some hipster spot in the South
Beach neighborhood. She remembered vividly how the handful of nuts
and the half mojito she'd consumed had turned to acid in her
stomach.

Someone had noticed her distress. When Sadie
had explained what happened, the murmurs of sympathy quickly
digressed into a conversation about how the war was pointless and
how the United States had no business over there anyway.

Sadie had stayed mute, thinking all the while
that she didn't give a shit about the politics. All she cared was
that Dylan, handsome, strong, so full of life, was lying badly
wounded in a hospital half a world away.

"It wasn't so bad," he grunted, but she
didn't miss the way he unconsciously reached down to rub his right
hip.

"Molly told me your mom was worried you would
said you would lose your leg."

He turned to face her. "My mom can be overly
dramatic. It was never a big risk."

Sadie bit her lip. "It still bothers you."
Though he tried to hide it, she saw how stiff he got towards the
end of a long day of work. "And you've been on medical leave for a
long time."

"But now I'm almost fully recovered, and
pretty soon I'll be able to get back to doing what I want to
do."

"Which is?"

For a split second, there was a flash of
something dark and turbulent in his eyes. It disappeared as quickly
as it came, covered up by a wry smile. "You don't want to hear the
details, trust me."

She wanted to ask him more, sensing something
unsettled underneath his usually easygoing exterior.

He picked up the remote and jacked up the
volume on the TV, signaling the conversation was over.

###

Dylan felt a twinge of guilt when Sadie said
good night soon after. It wasn't her fault that even the most
innocent comments about his injury and the months since sent a
whole mess of emotions churning through him.

After she left, he grabbed a beer from the
refrigerator and tried to focus on the news. But he couldn't keep
his mind from seething with the images, the day he was injured
replaying like a movie reel through his head. There was that
uncomfortable, squeezing sensation in his chest, like a big fist
wrapping itself around his heart, followed by a rapid
thudthudthudding against his ribcage.

He took slow, steady breaths, willing the
sensation away, demanding his body calm down.

Finally, unable to deal with the sensation
any longer, he switched off the TV and grabbed his laptop from its
bag resting by the front door. He set it on the small table where
he and Sadie had shared dinner and flipped it open.

Lakota warriors went into battle with the
cry "Today is a good day to die."

Though I never said it out loud, that same
cry was always running through my head when we went out on an
op.

I never thought much about what it meant.
Just something to psych me up, to somehow manage the fear of death
that might otherwise paralyze me. Fear that would take my mind off
the mission. Fear that would lead to mistakes.

I never thought about it until months after,
when my leg no longer looked like raw hamburger, when all of the
shrapnel that could be removed was gone. When I was working to make
all of the atrophied muscles learn how to work around all the scar
tissue.

It occurred to me then, long after the
attack, no one ever says, "It's a good day to survive."

I wasn't ready to die that day, but I didn't
realize how hard it would be to live.

I don't remember anything after the flash of
red, like the whole world was washed in blood. I didn't learn until
I woke up in the hospital that the bomb meant for the ledge had
missed its mark. Instead of hitting the ledge where the enemy
forces gathered, it hit the cliff face several meters below. As the
two thousand pound bomb had blown half the ledge away and a dozen
or so of the enemy with it, the shrapnel had sprayed out at our
team at speeds of over five hundred miles per hour.

One ten inch piece embedded itself in my hip
as dozens more tore into my thigh.

But I was in better shape than Cheese, who
took a piece in his head after the force of the blast knocked off
his helmet. He died on impact.

Mac, Skip, and Slick suffered only minor
injuries and were able to deliver Al Abdul to the CIA agents
charged with getting him to spill his secrets.

At the end of the day, Operation Hydra was a
success.

Cold comfort as I lay there wracked in pain,
haunted by the memory of Cheese lying so still next to me, half of
his skull ripped away.

I knew it wouldn't do any good to rail
against God and the unfairness of it all—a hero like Cheese dying
to protect a piece of trash like Al Abdul.

I had to channel all that anger, all that
grief, into pulling my body back together. I didn't care how much
it hurt, how hard I had to work. My leg would fucking heal. And I
was going to come back stronger than ever.

Though I had lived and Cheese had not, I
knew I would not fully get my life back until I was able to once
again fight beside my teammates.

Failure was not an option.

###

"You realize these horses are athletes, they
need an experienced rider."

Sadie felt her shoulders bunch up at her
father's tone.

"You can't just come and go as you please,"
Jim continued. "They need consistency."

Way to woo a potential customer, Dad,
Sadie thought. From the moment Tucker Madsen had stepped out of his
brand new Yukon, Jim had been unable to hide his disdain.

"He's some computer guy," he'd said when
Sadie had insisted that her father take a meeting after Madsen had
called inquiring about buying a couple of geldings to keep at the
cattle ranch he'd recently purchased outside of Livingston. "He has
no business running that operation. And Elmer Lewis had no business
selling it to some yahoo from California." He said the state's name
as though it was the foulest of curse words.

Sadie didn't bother pointing out that Tucker
Madsen was far from a mere "computer guy." He was in fact the
founder of a software company that he'd recently sold to Google for
a whopping half billion dollars. And if Elmer Lewis wanted to sell
his operation and retire on the generous price Tucker was willing
to pay for his spread, that was his business.

Though Sadie had heard of Tucker—he'd been
the it boy of the technology scene well before she left the Bay
Area—she'd never met him in person. According to her friends back
in San Francisco, the recently divorced, now fabulously wealthy
Tucker was one of Silicon Valley's most eligible bachelors.

She could see why. At thirty-eight, Tucker
was lean and handsome in a clean cut kind of way. Though dressed in
the local uniform of jeans, a pearl snap front shirt, and boots,
those were no thirty dollar wranglers from the feed store skimming
his long legs. His dirty blond hair was a little shaggy, brushing
his collar, and his blue eyes were friendly behind his trendy
frames.

Overall, a very appealing package.

And based on the way he flashed Sadie a
conspiratorial smile as he said, "Don't worry Mr. Thornton. I've
been riding since I was a kid," he found her appealing as well.

Sadie returned the smile. Maybe she could use
the attraction to offset her father's curmudgeonliness.

"Prancing around an arena? Jumping over fake
fences? That's not what these horses are for," Jim said, gesturing
to Thunder, a two year-old paint who was high stepping and head
tossing his way across the corral.

"My family went to a dude ranch in Wyoming
every summer."

"Riding some burnt out old cow horse is a
damn sight different—"

"Tucker"—Sadie cut her father off—"why don't
you come in for a cup of coffee while Dad gets Thunder back into
the barn."

"Sorry, about Dad," she said once they were
out of earshot. "He's got this thing about so-called outsiders."
She opened the door and gestured him inside and led him into the
kitchen.

"I've been getting a lot of that," he said
with a grin that made his eyes crinkle. "Another evil Californian,
driving up all the land prices."

Sadie rolled her eyes as she poured the
coffee. "I don't think he'll ever forgive me for moving out
there."

"Really? Where?"

"I moved to San Francisco right after
college, and lived there until this past December."

"You were in tech?"

"I still am—at least when I'm not feeding
horses or mucking out stables," she said, warming under his
attentive smile. "I develop apps and create web sites for clients
in the fashion industry-"

She broke off at sound of a cell phone chime.
Her hand went instinctively to her pocket before she realized it
had come from Tucker's.

"Sorry to cut this short," he said and set
his barely consumed cup of coffee on the counter. "I forgot I have
a conference call in ten minutes."

"No problem," she said as she escorted him to
the door. "You'll let us know about Thunder?" she asked as they
stepped out onto the front porch.

"If you're dad's willing, I want him."

"Consider him yours then." She'd convince her
father one way or another.

Tucker started down the steps, then stopped,
turning. "I'd really like to continue our conversation," he said,
his hands nervously toying with a belt loop. "Would you have dinner
with me tonight?"