The Risk-Taker (13 page)

* * *

H
OPE
WATCHED
HIM
THROUGH
heavy-lidded eyes. His hair was damp from the shower they’d just shared. Thank heaven his parents’ room was downstairs because they hadn’t exactly been quiet and she was embarrassed enough as it was.

Gage grasped the ends of the towel he’d draped across his shoulders after drying his head. She’d been so preoccupied before that she hadn’t really stopped to look at his thumbs now that they were unbandaged.

Her stomach flip-flopped sickly. She’d never been one to be bothered by blood, but the physical reminder of what he’d been through... It was hard to look at.

He followed her gaze, glancing down at his fisted hands and then back at her.

“You can’t let it go, can you?”

Slowly, Hope reached for him. She wrapped a hand around the sharp edge of his hip and pulled him closer. Stiffly, he let her tug him to the bed. His knees hit the mattress, but he didn’t fall beside her.

Hope grasped one hand and, one by one, uncurled his fingers until he let the towel swing free. She squeezed, stretched out his thumb.

“It bothers me.”

Gage tried to pull his hand out of her hold. “I’m sorry. I’ll cover them up.”

Her forehead crinkled with annoyance. “That’s not what I meant. It bothers me to think about you in pain.” She placed the barest kiss right above the exposed nail bed. “It must have hurt.”

Gage shrugged. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

A strangled laugh lodged inside her chest, aching just a little, as if she’d swallowed something hard and couldn’t quite get it down. There was nothing funny about this. “Somehow I think that’s an understatement.”

He didn’t answer her, just stood there in silence and let her stroke his hand.

“Tell me.”

She expected him to refuse, to pull away from her and shut her out like he did everyone else. So she was shocked when he didn’t.

“They took pliers and applied pressure to my thumbs until the nails cracked. Then they ripped the pieces out.”

“Holy hell.”

“There was nothing holy about it.”

“No,” she choked out, “there wasn’t.”

She’d known whatever happened hadn’t been good. It didn’t take a genius to figure out. And hearing the specifics was gut-churning enough. But what bothered her most was the even, steady voice he’d delivered them with.

Like he was issuing a grocery list instead of talking about torture.

“What did they want?” she forced herself to ask. Not because she wanted to know, but because she knew that he needed to talk about this to someone. If that someone was her...she’d find a way to get through it.

When her mother died, Gage had been there for her. A ten-year-old boy who’d never dealt with loss himself had been one of the only people to understand. To sit there in silence with her when she couldn’t talk about it, or listen to her endless stream of words when she couldn’t hold them inside anymore.

“Information. Details about our plans, our troops, our informants, whatever I could give them.”

“You didn’t give them anything.” It wasn’t a question because Hope already knew the answer.

Her eyes strayed to the thumb she still held. Could she have lasted through that kind of deliberately inflicted pain? No, she didn’t think so. She wasn’t strong enough.

“I would have crumbled.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

Hope made a sound of disagreement.

“You forget, I’ve seen your determination in action. Nothing sways you once you make up your mind about something.”

Not exactly true. Where had her dedication been when she needed to resist him?

Twelve years ago she’d been so angry with him. And scared. Scared to let herself love him and lose him. Scared of the danger he was willingly walking into and his need to push the boundaries and test everyone—including himself.

She hadn’t even lasted two days before she’d given in and let him touch her. If he’d stayed around back then would she have been able to resist longer? Or would her anger have dissolved and left her open and vulnerable just like now?

“When there are lives at stake you find the strength. Anything I’d told them would have been used to harm American soldiers. I was already responsible for our capture, I wouldn’t add that to my conscience.”

“You were willing to die.” Again, not a question. The nature of his job involved a willingness to make that sacrifice if that’s what was needed.

That reality scared the shit out of her. It hurt, deep inside. The pain of loss was recognizable even though it had been so many years since she’d felt it. Not that time really mattered when you were talking about that kind of grief.

Losing her mother, losing Gage, would have hurt the same. Even before she’d dropped her defenses and let him in.

“To protect my brothers? To exchange my life for the thousands of men and woman who served with me? You bet.”

Knowing he’d make that choice and hearing him voice it were two different things. What made it more difficult was that it went beyond that. “To protect one,” she whispered. Because that was really the rub. Choosing to protect lots of people was just noble. And easy. The greater good. Choosing to sacrifice yourself for one single person...that took guts, commitment and a willful recklessness.

The kind of recklessness that sent a chill down her spine. That made her want to wrap her arms around herself and curl into a ball. Because, while she admired him for that courage and integrity, she realized making that sacrifice was the easy part.

Learning to live without him—and with the guilt of wishing he could make a different choice—would be hard for those he left behind.

He didn’t answer her because they both knew what she’d said was true.

But something he’d said earlier finally registered. “What do you mean you were responsible for what happened? How could you possibly be responsible?”

13

G
AGE
CLOSED
HIS
EYES
.
He’d been hoping she wouldn’t pick up on the detail he’d let slip. He should have known better. Hope liked things neat and tidy.

He opened his eyes again and looked into her upturned face. She watched him, her green-gold eyes patiently waiting.

Cupping her face, he ran the pad of his finger across her soft skin. He wanted to tell her. The urge surprised him. How could that be possible?

Even as he tried to issue a stern order to his mouth to stay shut, the words were falling out.

“I screwed up and got us captured.”

He didn’t want to look at her, to see the horror and disappointment on her face, so he dropped down onto the bed beside her, giving her his back.

Behind him, her weight shifted. Part of him expected her to just get up and walk away. And, really, he wouldn’t have blamed her. But she didn’t.

The sharp jab of her knees pressed against his hips. Her hands brushed lightly across his shoulders, down his arms and up his back. Finally, she wrapped herself around him from behind and rested her chin against his back.

Beneath her touch he was rigid. Every muscle in his body was pulled tight with the memories and regret he’d been fighting for weeks.

She didn’t ask him to continue, which is probably why he did.

“I was...restless that day. I’d just found out a good friend had died. Senselessly, in an accident, which actually made it worse. I was pissed and upset.”

“Understandable.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t deal with it well. Instead of taking a day or two to clear my head like I should have, I went in and asked to be sent out on assignment.”

“A distraction. A way to push your body so your mind could rest.”

Gage nodded. “Exactly.” It should have helped that she understood. It didn’t. It just reinforced the feeling that he was entirely too predictable. A woman he hadn’t seen for twelve years knew exactly what he’d been looking for when at the time he hadn’t had a clue. What did that say about him?

Certainly nothing good.

“Boy, did I get it. Our assignment was simply to visit a local village and to gather any intel our regular contacts had to report. Simple.”

Hope rubbed her cheek against his back. “Famous last words.”

And they almost were. They were so damn lucky no one had died. That was probably the only thing that let him sleep at night.

“One of the kids was acting funny. A boy, twelve or thirteen, that I’d talked to before. He was jumpy. That should have been my first clue something was wrong, but I thought it was because he was scared about sharing the information he had in such a public place. When he beckoned us to follow him, I did.”

He could see the men, the kid, the place so clearly he could have been standing there. A bitter scent greeted them when they crossed the low threshold into a house. Darkened hallways.

“The house was sprawling, probably big enough to shelter a huge extended family. The inside rooms had no windows. It was so dark, even in the middle of the day.”

And like the inside of a maze, one room opening up to a hallway with a handful more, and on and on.

“Within a few turns we were lost. Each room looked exactly like the next. The team swept the house as we went, but it was so big and they’d been waiting for us....”

“It was a trap.”

“Yeah.”

“So how was that your fault?”

Slowly, Gage turned his head and looked straight into her eyes. “Because we shouldn’t have gone in. That sixth sense you develop out on the battlefield, the one that keeps your ass safe, told me something was wrong, but I ignored it.”

She stared back at him, steadily.

“I ignored it
and
protocol. The house hadn’t been cleared, but I didn’t want to let the boy get away. I knew if we didn’t follow him whatever intel he had would be gone. I pushed, like I always do. But this time I wasn’t the only one to pay the price.”

He dropped his gaze to Hope’s mouth. It would be so easy to drown himself in the taste of her. To use sex and her presence to push away everything he wanted to forget.

But he’d never been a coward and he wasn’t starting today.

So instead, he pulled his gaze back up to hers and waited for the recriminations he knew he deserved.

“No one died, Gage.”

“Maybe not, but they could have.”

“Didn’t.”

“My friend lost his leg.”

“And you were tortured. I’m not saying there aren’t scars, I’m saying the wounds aren’t fatal. For anyone. You made a mistake. It happens. Despite what you’d like everyone to believe, you are human.”

He laughed, the sound bedraggled and drowning in despair. What she said might be true, but it didn’t help. “I’m supposed to be more than human, Hope. A Ranger. The best of the best. The strongest of the strong.”

Hope pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. The tiny hairs there stood at attention, immediately responding in an unnerving approximation of that warning itch he’d ignored.

The last thing he’d expected was a kiss. It was the last thing he deserved.

“The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean? What
can
I do about it? It’s over.”

“Maybe. But I’m talking more about you. Are you going to take chunks out of your own hide every day for the rest of your life in penance? Are you going to wallow in self-disgust? Or are you going to figure out how to move past this? The way I see it you have two choices, let it destroy you or do something about it.”

Ever the pragmatist, that was his Hope. He should have known she’d cut through all the bullshit and tell him the truth. At least she hadn’t tried to convince him he hadn’t done anything wrong as Tanner had done.

She had a point. A good one. In this state he wasn’t good for anything or anyone. He definitely wouldn’t trust himself in a combat situation, and though he wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone else, he wasn’t sure he’d ever trust himself there again.

He’d been trained to rely on his instincts to protect himself and the men around him. He no longer trusted those instincts. He was pretty screwed up at the moment, and this was one time he knew better than to push himself. It wouldn’t be fair to the other men in his unit that depended on him to have their back.

One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t go back if he couldn’t completely trust himself to protect the brothers with whom he served.

But that was a bridge he didn’t have to cross. At least not yet.

What bothered him was that even if Hope made sense, her advice was easy to offer and damn hard to follow. Exactly how was he supposed to move past the guilt?

Rather than ask her, and get an answer he wasn’t ready to deal with, he settled on the next best thing. Kissing, touching and holding her. When she was with him, at least some of the turmoil he’d been carting around inside him eased.

Including the stuff that had always been there. Restless energy. That need for challenge and danger. When she was there, those needs weren’t.

Bridging the gap between them, Gage pressed his mouth to hers. Her hands slipped up his chest. She leaned into the kiss and asked for more.

Desire overwhelmed him. It was heady and delicious. So much more pleasurable than the things he was trying to forget.

* * *

D
AMN
. S
HE
’
D
FALLEN
IN
LOVE
with him. What was she supposed to do with that? How had she let this happen?

Hope stared down at him. His mouth, hands and body were more relaxed than she’d seen since he’d been home. The skin under his eyes only carried the faintest hint of the bruise he’d gotten at the fight.

Man, he was a fast healer.

How could she have given him her heart just as quickly?

Or maybe she’d always been on the verge of doing that. If that was the case she’d picked a hell of a time to give in.

Helpless tears burned her eyes. Hope angrily pushed them away. They wouldn’t help.

There were so many reasons why this wouldn’t work. The most important one being that he would hurt her. He might not mean to but...

Her mom had been ripped from her. The way of it, so sudden, had hurt almost as much as the gaping hole in her life. A car accident on an icy winter road driving home from work in Charleston. There one minute and gone the next.

Her dad had tried to fill the gap, but a girl needed her mother. Especially during those teenage years when she tried to figure out what kind of woman she was going to be. What kind of wife and mother. She’d lost the example just when she’d needed it most.

She could lose Gage the same way. Boom! In one second he’d be gone and she’d be alone and devastated. Without him there to help her through the agony.

He was a fighter and had been long before becoming a soldier. The same things that made him a great soldier—that damn reckless streak, honor, bravery, determination—made him a terrible bet to build your life on.

Hope’s gaze was drawn to the uncovered wounds where his thumbnails should have been. One of these days he was going to end up dead.

A bomb, a gun, a fight or faulty parachute.... One risk too many. It didn’t matter when or how. What mattered was that it would happen. Today, tomorrow, ten years from now.

Even thinking about it had her chest tightening so much she couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stay here.

* * *

G
AGE
WOKE
ALONE
. And wasn’t happy about it. What was worse was that the bed beside him was stone cold, telling him that Hope had left a long time ago.

Why had she skulked out in the middle of the night like a common thief? They were going to have to discuss this.

He tried not to let it bother him that he’d opened up to her, shared not only the worst experience of his life, but also his role in what had happened and the guilt that went right along with it, and she’d disappeared in the night.

Dread and a sense of foreboding rolled through him. It was the same sixth sense that had kept him safe more times than he could count.

This wasn’t good. Climbing out of bed, Gage headed for the shower.

He’d been so caught up in everything that he hadn’t realized what day it was until he walked into the kitchen to find his parents standing in the center kissing. A vase full of roses—ten red and two white—sat in the middle of the table. It was the same predictably sweet bouquet his dad had gotten for his mom every Valentine’s Day for as long as he could remember. The red were for their love, the white for each of their children.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” His mama beamed at him over his dad’s shoulder. Her eyes glowed with happiness. He wanted that. To love and be loved thirty years later.

He wanted that with Hope.

The thought surprised him. But it shouldn’t have. He’d loved her for as long as he could remember. His mind was spinning as he stood silently and stared at his parents.

His mom’s smile faltered. She glanced worriedly up at his dad and then back at him. “Is Hope coming down?”

That jerked Gage out of his stupor.

“Oh, don’t look so guilty, Gage. You’re an adult. Besides, we like Hope and always have. She’s welcome to stay anytime.”

Well. Okay. It wasn’t that he’d expected to keep Hope’s visit a secret. Or that his parents would kick up a fuss. It was more that he’d expected all of them to just pretend it hadn’t happened. Sort of like don’t ask, don’t tell.

His dad swung slowly around to face him, his arm still wrapped tightly around his mom’s waist.

“I have to admit I was worried when Edith told me Hope had bought you for the week, what with your history. I never did understand what happened between you before you left, but I knew it wasn’t good. By the time I’d learned of it, though, there was nothing I could do. The couples had already been announced.”

Hope had paid to be coupled with him? Why would she do that? Thinking back to that night, when the announcement had been made, he realized she hadn’t looked surprised. Nervous, yes. Wary, absolutely. Shocked, no.

“Why would she do that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His mom asked. “She had a change of heart and wanted the chance to fix what happened before you left.”

Gage rolled that notion around inside his head, rejecting it almost as quickly as his mom had offered it. Hope had definitely not been repentant for rejecting him. In fact, not once had she mentioned it or even apologized for it, not that he needed or wanted her to.

But if she’d bought time with him for that purpose wouldn’t that have been the logical place to start? And if Hope was anything, it was logical. Hell, she probably would have made a list.

As far as he could see, there was no list.

In fact, at first she’d been rather reluctant to even be next to him. He’d had to practically drag her out onto the dance floor at the cocktail party. And she hadn’t loosened up, not really, until the next afternoon in the rain outside the bowling alley.

Sure she’d begrudgingly offered him comfort when he crashed her place in the middle of the night. And at the fight she’d asked about Afghani— His thought trailed off.

She’d asked him about Afghanistan. Not once but at least twice. And she’d slept with him. Sure, she’d chased reporters off her front lawn with a shotgun, but that could just as easily have been a stunt to claim her territory rather than to defend him.

With a groan, Gage sank into one of the kitchen chairs and dropped his head into his hands.

“Honey, are you okay?” his mom asked, alarm turning her voice shrill.

And he’d told Hope everything she’d wanted to know. And more. Last night.

Rage blasted through him. His mama laid a hand on his bent back. With a roar, he surged to his feet, knocking it off.

She’d slept with him and he’d spilled his guts.

How stupid could one man get?