BEAST (35 page)

She frowned in confusion. “Why? They were worried about you. They were going to help me find you.” She accepted the
offered beverage and relished
its frothy goodness.
Kiwi, strawberries…spinach?
She wasn’t quite sure. All she knew is that she missed his special concoctions.

He began cleaning up. Yeah, they wanted to find him alright. They knew he’d come to them.
If there was any doubt than they would have already shown up at his door.
He didn’t know how bad things would escalate and he wasn’t taking any chance of Ashleigh getting in the middle of things.

“Those are your friend’s, Christopher. They care about you. They won’t do anything to hurt you.” She frowned when he remained quiet. “They wouldn’t…hit you in your face would they? Christopher?”

He gathered her in his arms. “No. They are not going to hit me in my face.” He pressed his cheek to her forehead. “Now, I don’t want you to worry. If you want we can meet for lunch, how about that? Invite Kendra and Lance and we’ll all go out; my treat.”

She grinned.
“Yeah?”

“Yeah.
I’ll meet you guys in the lobby like before.”

She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his bandaged lips. “Okay.”

Christopher dropped Ashleigh off at the front door of The Federal Building and then drove to the main office where he had to collect his personal items and fill out paperwork. He was done within the hour and then drove into the underground garage and parked in his normal spot. He still hadn’t decided on a new job, but he wasn’t allowed back to ‘work’ so he supposed that this would no longer be his parking spot.  They would be hiring some other guy to replace him and this would be his spot.

He frowned.

He scanned in and wasn’t surprised when sixteen guys were waiting for him on the other side of the door. Security cameras…they worked both ways.

“Shit.” TK said. “What happened to you?”

Ashleigh hadn’t told them.
Great.
Maybe the bandages would bide him some time so that he could actually get a few words in before he got jumped by sixteen angry Marines…no sixteen angry
Special Ops
Marines.

“I had six surgeries to fix the problems with my face.”

There was prolonged quiet. “Oh.” Carlos said. “Wanted to be pretty for the girl-”

“Don’t go there.” Christopher said tightly. “I did it because I was sick and tired of not having a face.”

“Well we think you just wanted to cop out of the mission because you didn’t want to leave your girlfriend.”
Lem
said stepping forward.

So they’d chosen
Lem
to face him. They were the same height, roughly the same build and evenly matched…well except for the fact that Christopher couldn’t take a punch to the face.

He held up his hand. “Look. I came to talk to you guys, not to fight.”

“The Commander got hurt filling in for you!” Someone said.

“I know! I was down in Ft Campbell visiting him yesterday, so I know!”

“Then you know that h
e lost his arm,” TK said evenly,
“and his career.”

“I know,” he said, calming down some. “We talked about it. That’s why I’m here.” He looked at each of the men. “The Commander told me that it wasn’t my fault-”

“Bull-!”

“I KNOW IT’S MY FAULT!” Christopher began to pace. “Bruce Koepke is my Commander, my friend, the father I lost to dementia…” He stopped pacing and faced the men. “And he’s the person that I owe my life to.” The Military had given Christopher’s life direction. But Bruce had given him a chance to be someone truly special. “I apologized to Bruce…and that’s between us. I didn’t come to talk about Bruce with any of you. I came here because I owe each and every one of you an apology and an explanation. And I mean to give it.” No one spoke and he continued.

“I met a girl and I fell in love. No different than any of you all have done; met a girl, got married, had kids. But there is one difference. Each of you made the decision to stay in Special Ops. I made a different decision. I made the decision to get out. I’ll deploy again and when I do I’ll go and serve my time. But I want off the roster for special assignments. I went to Bruce and told him that. I’m a Marine for life but not with the
special forces
; not anymore. He tried to talk me out of it but I told him, just like I’m telling you, I choose my life with Ashleigh over the missions.
Period.
End of story.

“Bruce
okay’d
it and told me to start putting in for other jobs.” Some of the guys looked at each other. “I hadn’t found any,” Truth is, every time he’d think about not being able to look at the cameras to monitor his sweetheart, or not being able to personally protect the building that she worked in, he’d find an excuse to keep looking. He’d passed up many jobs that he would have surely qualified for and gotten but…

He focused his attention back to the men glaring at him. “Then we got called down. I wasn’t supposed to be on any more missions. I’d requested off and he’d
okay’d
it weeks before this mission came up! I should have been taken off the roster once my Commander
okay’d
it. But it didn’t work like that. My name wouldn’t come off the roster until I
BQ’d
for a new position.” He stared at them, waiting.

“But you still got out of it. You used your face as a way to get out of it!”

Christopher sighed and looked at the ceiling. “The Commander
okay’d
my surgery.” He looked at them again. “He didn’t have to. Don’t think for a second that he didn’t know that he was getting me out of a mission.” Christopher glared at them angrily. “And while each of you dickheads have been finding girlfriends and knocking up women and getting married, I have been alone. Okay? I could have had surgery and…maybe found the confidence to find someone too. But then it would have taken me away from the team for upwards of six months. I wasn’t willing to do that! This team…this was my life. And I happen to know what facial surgery feels like; it ain’t pleasant. And guess what? I’ll still be ugly, okay? I fucking know that!

“But for Ashleigh…” he nodded his head. “I’d do it in a heartbeat if my face will just look a little bit better for her. If people will stop staring and…”He shook his head before saying, ‘if it means that her ex can’t talk his way back into her life’.

No one said anything.

“Look. I know I was still wrong. But I put in a request to be taken off the roster long before the mission came up.”

Carlos rubbed his cheeks eyeing Christopher.
“Sounds like you stalling, son.
Anybody
would have
pick
you up with your training.”

Christopher was shaking his head. “I just need to find the perfect job for me.”

“Yeah.”
TK said.
“One where you can shoot a gun and throw some grenades while in the field and then come home and
perv
your girlfriend at work all day.
Yeah…
that’s a
hard job to top.”

Lem
turned away with a look of disgust. “Don’t worry dude. We’ll watch her for you, even though that’s supposed to be YOUR job to keep juiceheads off her in the gym. But…I’m pretty sure she would have hit that guy in the head with a free weight had we not gotten down to the gym in time.”

“He was pretty big, though.” TK added. “Good thing we were watching.”

Christopher felt like he was going to black out. Stars moved in front of his eyes. “What the hell are you saying?” He managed to growl past the fury that was overtaking his thoughts. Were they saying that someone had accosted Ashleigh in the gym?

TK and
Lem
exchanged looks. “She didn’t tell you?” TK spoke.

Though no one could see Christopher’s face, the change to his posture spoke volumes.

“Tell me what?” He asked.

Lem
gave him a smug look. “Couple days ago there was an incident in the gym. We had to go down and prevent a highly volatile man from…”

“From?!”
Christopher said.

“Some guy was hitting on your girl.” TK finished. “And he wouldn’t take no for an answer-”
Lem
scowled at TK for stealing his thunder.

Christopher swore. If they could have seen his face they would have seen that it was now beet red with fury. “Did he put his hands on her?”

“Not exactly,”
Lem
continued. “But he wouldn’t let her pass-”

Christopher swore again. His hands had formed fists. “Who is he?”

“Beast, calm down. We handled it.”
Lem
said. His attitude was completely different now that it was obvious that Christopher was being pushed over the edge. It was his job to push the big man but not to cause him to lose it.

“I want to know who this guy is!”

“He doesn’t even work in this building.” Someone spoke, attempting to diffuse the situation.

“I want to see the report!” Christopher charged to the file cabinet where the incident reports were kept. He had been the one to file the last one on Ashleigh, when she had collapsed in the gym.

“Beast!
There is no report!” Carlos yelled stopping him in his tracks. Christopher stared at Carlos.  The young Hispanic man looked around at the other members of the team.

“We…took care of it.”

Christopher’s body tensed instead of relaxing. He understood what it meant that there was no trail. But it was very bad that someone else had had to take care of this problem for him. He stood there, breathing like a bull in helpless frustration.

One of the members of his team explained. “Two of us followed him out and…secured his identify…and then…” there was a brief cough. “We gave him a very painful warning not to ever return. He won’t be back.”

Someone chuckled and it sounded purely evil. “It’ll be six weeks before he’ll be able to use his fingers again.”

The information should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. Yes, he was grateful that his team had been there to protect Ashleigh. But his woman had needed protecting and he hadn’t been there and there was nothing that made him feel more useless. Not to mention that he had this pent up rage and no one to pound.

Christopher turned and headed out the room. Why hadn’t Ashleigh told him about this? He needed to talk to her. He wanted a word by word replay of the incident and then he would decide if a few broken fingers
was
all the asshole would end up with. What if he had touched her? What if he had hurt her? What if someone else did?

“Beast!”
Someone called after him. “You know you don’t want to leave us. And you damn sure don’t want to leave her here where any old foo
l is going to be walking in
watching her on that treadmill!”

Christopher’s steps faltered and he looked over his shoulder but didn’t turn.
Lem
chuckled in satisfaction. “We’ll do what you ain’t willing to do.”

His chest felt constricted with barely contained rage. “I know what you’re trying to do.” He said after another pause. “But it ain’t going to work. I made up my mind. I’m thinking about her and I’m thinking about our baby.”

“Baby?!”
Someone yelled.

“Yeah.
She’s
having a baby
.” He left the room and headed for the elevators that would take him to the Federal building. He didn’t even hear TK until he spoke just behind him, having followed him out. Christopher almost swung on
him,
he was so wired with frustration.