Nobody's Lost (Rescue Me Saga #5) (14 page)

And there was nothing she could do about it because the man only saw her as someone who needed protection from some very absent foes.

The knife slipped and nicked her finger.

“Ow!”

Before she had time to grab a paper towel, Ryder had her hand under the running faucet with cold water, washing away the blood. Her hand was growing numb, but he continued to hold it under the frigid water.

“I think it’s stopped bleeding, Ryder.”

When he didn’t move or say anything, she turned to him. His eyes had glazed over.

“Ryder. Look at me.”

As if a puppet on strings, he slowly turned his head toward her, but his eyes remained unseeing.

“Ryder. It’s Megan. I just cut myself. Minor cut. I’m fine. You’re here with me in your kitchen.”

He blinked and glanced down at her hand again. She pulled it out of the water to show him the bleeding had long since stopped.

His gaze returned to hers, clear-eyed. “You okay?”

She smiled and relaxed, realizing she’d been holding herself so still her arms ached. “I’m fine.”

“Let me get you a bandage.”

“Just a Band-aid. It’s superficial.”

He went to a corner cabinet, which apparently served as his medicine cabinet, too, judging from the over-the-counter and prescription bottles she saw inside. He pulled out the familiar box and a tube of antibiotic ointment.

As he ministered to her cut, she asked, “Where did you go?”

“What?”

“You zoned out for a bit when you saw the blood. Want to talk about it?”

“No.” He washed his hands and returned to where he’d been chopping vegetables earlier, but it took him a moment to pick up the knife and continue.

“I respect that you want to protect me from the horrors you experienced, but I can handle more than you know if you ever want to share anything.”

He glanced her way and stared. “Careful what you wish for, Red. Keep asking me to open up to you and someday I just might. You may never look at me the same way again.”

Oh, Ryder.

She closed the gap and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was so stiff and unwelcoming, but she continued to hold him. Maybe if he knew she cared—

He laid down the knife. “God damn it! I don’t need this!”

Megan held on.

“I don’t want you to baby me.”

“I’m just holding you, Ryder.”

“I don’t need to be held and certainly don’t deserve to be comforted. The families of the ones who died, they’re the ones people should be comforting.”

Despite his words, a tiny hole appeared in his armor and a sob of anguish broke free from him. Megan forced him to turn toward her and held onto him even tighter, but didn’t look him in the eyes. His psyche needed space. But his body needed a hug.

Please, trust me enough to let go.

When she thought he’d continue to stand there like a wooden statue, his arms finally wrapped around her, holding her so tightly, at first she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t push him away, though.

“I’ve got you, Ryder. You’re safe. Let it go.”

He choked on another sob and then another. “I fucked up. Twice. It was all my fault. Men are dead or maimed because of me. Because I didn’t do my job.”

Survivor guilt. So many veterans she knew suffered from it. Losing a buddy on the battlefield was the worst thing a Marine could experience.

No man left behind.

But sometimes all they could retrieve was what was left of their buddy’s body.

“Tell me about the first time.”

“Can’t.”

“Was it Afghanistan or Iraq?”

The silence dragged out. She waited.

“I can tell you about Fallujah. Iraq.”

Apparently, whatever happened in Afghanistan was too painful to speak about yet. She’d give him time. “Tell me what it was like in Fallujah.”

“Street warfare. Never knew who the enemy was until it was too late.”

“What was your job?” Best not to zero in on the scene he flashed back to, but she wanted to understand more about him—and Adam, too. They had served there together. Usually Patrick didn’t mind talking about his job detail.

Ryder was no exception. “I trained in Kosovo to be an artillery fire direction operator, but we didn’t see combat on that tour. Basically, I was in charge of calling for air strikes or supporting arms fire missions. By the time we got to Kandahar—Afghanistan—I had advanced to the FIST team, but…”

“FIST?”

“Sorry. The Fire Support Team. In Kandahar, my job was forward observer, calling for fire support and air strikes.” He paused. Did he realize he’d revealed something about Kandahar? “I held a similar job by the time we got to Fallujah, just a higher rank.”

“Sounds like an important position, and one you were well-trained for.”

“We worked as a team. Everyone was important to the mission.”

“What was the most stressful part?”

He looked away and answered in barely a whisper. “Making sure I knew where all our friendlies were…”

Oh, God, no. Not that.

“Luckily, I never got any of the coalition troops injured or killed.”

She relaxed some. He’d just been answering her question. Thank God he didn’t have that on his conscience. The guilt would have been unbearable for anyone.

He squeezed her even tighter. Megan didn’t know what to say to comfort him but hugged him hoping he would continue to talk. How much more was bottled up inside him? So much like Patrick. She didn’t know the half of what he’d experienced either.

When his grip loosened, she took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry you had to go through those things, Ryder. I can’t imagine making split-second decisions involving so many lives in the chaos of combat. So much can change in a flash. You aren’t the first and won’t be the last to make the wrong call.”

“It wasn’t my first screw-up.”

“Tell me what happened,” she whispered, although it pained her to hear more anguish from him.

“I don’t want to talk about the first time, but when we came under attack in Fallujah, I hesitated in calling for our preplanned fire mission. I was more worried about getting Grant out of there.”

Megan remembered talking with Grant at Adam’s wedding. One tough woman who apparently wanted to be more like one of the guys if the role she fulfilled in the wedding party was any indication.

While everyone was busy making preparations the day before the wedding, Megan and Grant had found time to talk a little about what it had been like for Adam’s unit in Fallujah. The woman even asked if Patrick had any combat-related stress issues and made Megan comfortable enough to share a little about how hard it was for him when he first came home. Grant gave her some tips on how to deal with his PTSD in the future.

“It’s normal to take care of your buddies in your unit when under fire, but I didn’t think women Marines served in combat situations.”

“We were in an observation post during a cease-fire, and hostilities had all but ended. Or so we thought. She’d been assigned temporarily to my unit because of her expertise with high-tech communications. We had a Marine sniper on the roof with us—Damián Orlando. Grant was trying to correlate real-time satellite tactical data on a primary insurgent target’s location so he could take him out. Then all hell broke loose.

“My sergeant was killed by a grenade. Nothing I could have done about that, but I put our corpsman in danger by not doing my job. A mortar came in while he was prepping Orlando to be medevacked out. Doc could have died, too, because of me.”

Surely someone else could have called for the airstrike when Damián was wounded. Adam had been there, too, although higher up the chain of command. Did her brother blame himself, too? Probably. He took responsibility for everyone around him in civilian life, too. The man was a protector and a guardian by nature. She wished she could give Adam a hug of comfort to reassure him. She’d do that when she got to Denver this month.

She realized she hadn’t heard anything about Karla in a while. She’d call later. Right now, all that mattered was the man in he arms.

“But Marc didn’t die. I saw him at Adam’s wedding. He looks very fit, in fact.”

Ryder pulled away. “I’m glad to hear he’s doing well. I never could face him again after Fallujah.”

She raised her hand and stroked his cheek, feeling the stubble of his whiskers. “Ryder, you’re human. You were put in a position that would leave most of us curled in the fetal position. Please stop blaming yourself for things that didn’t go as planned. It was a goddamned war zone.”

He stared into her eyes but remained silent.

“You have a lot in common with my brothers, you know. They blame themselves for everything that went wrong, too. Thank God most of you came home, but I hate that you brought the war home with you. All of you deserve to have some peace now, too. You served your country honorably.” She wished she knew what to say to make it right for him. How could she help him release that pain? “What would the Jemez tribal leaders tell you to do?”

“Reconnect with the Great Spirit.”

“And how do they suggest you do that?”

“Spiritual ceremonies. Drumming is one way I learned as a kid to reconnect to the heartbeat of Mother Earth.”

“When’s the last time you drummed?”

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Before I left for Fallujah, I participated in a warrior ceremony that prepared me to go to war again. Carlos had just enlisted in the Navy, so we went through the ceremony together.”

“Did you participate in any kind of ceremony when you returned? Something to welcome you home and, more importantly, remove the negativity from your wartime experiences?”

He shook his head.

“Why not? Don’t they do something like that?”

“Sure, but I was too busy trying to…save my marriage. And exist.”

“Have you talked with Carlos? Perhaps he could arrange some kind of—

“He’s been trying to get me to do a purification lodge ceremony and vision quest. I don’t know that anything will help at this point.”

“Never give up, Ryder. You have people in your life who would be heartbroken if you kept this bottled up inside to the breaking point. Including me.”

“You just met me. Why do you care?”

“I…feel a special connection with you.”
One I’ve never felt with any other man before you
.

Not able to explain why, she needed to be as close as possible to him. Framing his face, she pulled him toward her as she rose on tiptoes. Her lips brushed his, making hers tingle in a delicious way, but his mouth remained stiff and closed. Her tongue traced the line of his lips. With a groan, he relented and pushed her forward until her hips pressed against the counter behind her. He grabbed her head and held her still in that way, too. His tongue invaded her mouth, and she welcomed this assault on her senses.

Her nipples hardened. She broke away long enough to gasp for a breath.

“Ryder, I want you. Inside me. I’m not promising you anything more than this moment and don’t expect anything from you beyond today, but…will you make love to me? Tonight?”

He tried to pull away, and she lowered her hands to his shoulders, not wanting him to leave her frustrated. Again. Neither of them was looking for forever, but right now, they needed each other.

She doubted Ryder could deal with being responsible for another person and knew he would take on the lion’s share of responsibility in any relationship he entered into. Just as he held onto his responsibility for the Marines who served with him long after they returned home.

“No strings, Ryder. No regrets either. I know you want me as much as I want you. I’ve felt how…turned on you are. I feel you now, hard against my belly.”

He put some distance between their bodies. “I don’t want to hurt you, Megan. You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who would sleep around. You need to wait for someone who can love and cherish you for a lifetime. I’m not that man. With you, I would feel responsi—”

Megan seethed. Unlike Ryder, she wouldn’t hold back. “I’m
not
your responsibility! I’m your friend. A friend who has felt a strong attraction to you since we met.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Look, Ryder, I’m not interested in long-term either. Or, God forbid, marriage.”

“Why not? You’d make a wonderful wife and mother.”

She closed her eyes, the pain of looking into his eyes too difficult. “I’m not… It’s just…” She wouldn’t explain her fateful decision to him, but gazed up at him again. “Not every woman is looking for marriage and family, Ryder.”

He leaned away, widening his eyes. “But you are one perfect woman for some lucky man.”

How could she convince him she wasn’t looking for a husband? Perhaps actions would speak more loudly than words. She placed her hand on his chest and flicked her thumbnail against his nip and leaned closer to whisper, “You turn me on, Ryder Wilson. No man has ever had that effect on me before. My vibrator has been working overtime for days now.”

He grinned. “So I’ve heard.”

Her eyes opened wide. “No way!” The heat rushed into her cheeks.

His callused finger stroked her flushed cheek. “I love how you blush. So sweet. Innocent. But hearing that vibrator the other night surprised the hell out of me.”

Oh, God
. How many times had he heard it?

Did he just think she was oversexed? “Just know I’ve been fantasizing about our making love.”
Wait. Leave love out of it. Neither of them could handle that.
“I want to have sex with you, Ryder. I can tell by the way you kiss me back and a thousand other gestures that you would be a gentle lover—partner.”

She probably should stop, but the words kept pouring out. “I want you beside me, inside me.” She wanted to make it very clear going into this deal what he would find. No surprises. No tricks. “I want you to be my first.”

The smile left his face. “First—
ever
?”

She nodded. “Yes.” First and last, but she wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on the man.

He broke away from her and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Jesus, Megan. If your brothers found out I even slept with you, much less that I took your virginity, they’d nail me to the nearest tree.”