Captured at Nightfall (Capture My Heart Love Story) (31 page)

“Hey,
Allie,” Matthew’s voice shook her out of her trance.

“Huh?” She dragged her eyes away from the passenger-side window, feeling like they’d been stuck there with molasses.
Matthew and she had been on the road for about twenty minutes now, but Allie’s thoughts were still back in her mom’s room.

When a warm thumb ran down the side of her cheek she closed her eyes and curled into the touch.

“You okay, baby?”

She opened her eyes to find that
Matthew’s gaze was fixed on her, the corners of his mouth tight.

The first of several drops of warmth trickled down the side of her cheek and she swiped at it with her fingertips.

She was crying?

Not
full-out crying yet, she supposed. But, she’d most definitely sprung a leak.

“I’m fine.” She dropped her eyes to her trembling hands and took in a deep breath, trying like crazy to keep her dam of emotions at bay.
This was unbearable
. Matthew was superman—a little busted up, sure—but tough as nails, all the same. Allie wanted to be strong like him. She’d always been sturdy where her mom was concerned. And it wasn’t like the doctors hadn’t let her know what to expect.

This afternoon hadn’t been a revelation or anything. She’d gone in
other times before to find that her mom had deteriorated a little more. And, if she could deal with the time Mary had stopped talking, she could handle this.

It was just . . .
damn it
!

Every
now and then something happened; some new stage in her mom’s sickness would manifest and punch her right in the chest—tearing a little bit of her heart right out.

This, tonight, had been unexpected, that was all.

She’d thought when she introduced Matthew to her mom; Mary would just sit there and smile, or ignore the both of them. Instead, Allie had been tossed down a vortex, and now was scrambling to get her bearings.

Before
today, she’d never really imagined the possibility of her mom dying. She’d gotten so used to visiting her at the home. The prospects of having to confront an empty room . . . having to clear out Mary’s shirts and dresses from the tiny closet . . .
oh!

She’d only thought of
Mary’s death in the abstract. And here it was now, in blaring, vibrant HD.

Her chest started to heave as she began to lose the battle over her churning emotions and she wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. Like that would hold it
all in.

I just have to readjust. That’s all
—deep breath—
I’ve done it before. This is . . . no . . . different.

A shudder rippled up deep inside her and loosened all the hard-fought control she’d perfected through years and years of struggle.
Years of living the
keep-your-shit-together
mantra. All that shattered in a violent wave as a sob burst through trembling lips.

And she just completely lost it.

Allie was well-aware that she was an ugly crier. She didn’t do it often, but when that dam broke, it was like every negative bit of held back energy was released.

Not good
when you happened to be riding shotgun in your new boyfriend’s SUV.

She pulled her knees up under her chin and hid her face, knowing it would be a blotchy, red disaster. What was it about
Matthew that had the waterworks flowing all the time?

“I’m . . . s-sorry.”

Matthew was looking at her like she was some kind of bomb that had just gone off and he had no idea how to go about fixing the carnage.

“
Shit
,” he cussed. He cranked the wheel hard to the right, crossed two lanes of traffic, and barely made the exit. Tires squealed to a stop in a gravel shoulder before he threw the gear shift up into “P”. His seatbelt flew off and then he was climbing over the central console, stripping her of her own seatbelt, and pulling her into his lap.

“I’m so . . . s-stupid,” she stuttered between sobs, “I’m sorry.
I totally r-ruined our day. This was supposed to b-be about you.” She burried her head into his shirt. His body was hard and strong—warm and comforting—and as she breathed in the dark, spicy scent of his cologne, she calmed a little. Figuring she’d already made a complete ass of herself, she burrowed up in the soft heat of his throat. The rasp of his five o’clock shadow grazed over her jaw as she pressed her lips against the raised scaring that cut above his collarbones.

His voice rasped over the top of her head.
“You didn’t ruin anything, Allie. Please stop crying.” Strong arms crushed around her waist. “I hate it when you cry.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” She sniffled when her tears had dried up some. “I thought we’d be in and out. Just to say hello, you know. I o-only wanted you to meet her.”
Allie paused as a residual shudder ripped through her chest. “She
never
speaks. And. Tonight. I swear, it was like she was . . .”  she could
not
finish the sentence that was on her lips. It hurt too damn bad.

“You’re good,
Allie. I get it.” Matthew’s hand stroked over her head. “It’s all good.”

Once she’d managed to stop bawling all over the both of them, she straitened her spine a little
and reigned in some dignity, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She looked up and cringed.
Awe, crap.
“I ruined your shirt.”

Brows raised,
Matthew’s eyes dropped to the huge lake that had formed over his t-shirt. He looked down at her, a smile stretched over his lips as he shook his head.

“Sorry,” she said for the twentieth time in the last few minutes.

He shrugged—“No worries”—and pulled the thing over his head to toss it into the backseat. When he turned back to her, she rested her cheek over all that newly-exposed skin—right over his SEAL tattoo—and sighed. She could feel the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath the heavy pad of muscle. Winding her arms around his neck to keep him close, she dug her fingernails in a little at his hair line. “I love your chest. Have I mentioned that before?”

She felt the pucker of his smile on the top of her head.
“Yeah. You have.”

When he seemed certain she wasn’t going to sprout a second head or anything, he crawled behind the steering wheel and pulled back onto the road. When he passed the entrance to the freeway and, instead, turned down a main road,
Allie asked, “You’re not ready to dump me home after my little freak out?”

“
Allie.” He shook his head. “You didn’t freak out, for fuck’s sake. You had a very normal reaction to your mom’s. . .” he trailed off, seeming to realize what he’d almost said.

Looming death?
she finished silently for him.

“Ah, okay, then,”
Allie said. “What did you want to do now?” The road they were on looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“I thought we’d go hang at my place for a while.” Long fingers started picking the stitching around the steering wheel.

Her eyebrows rose. “More sex?”
Holy criminy
. She was going to have to take up yoga to keep up with him.

The corner of his lip pulled away from one white canine—his wolf smile. “With you that’s always an option.
But . . . uh, no. I thought we’d talk. About
stuff
.” He clamped a hand over the back of his neck while his eyes turned to hard chips on the road ahead. “The, uh, doc said I should talk to you about
it
. About, my past, that is. And Jayce.” That green gaze briefly darted to hers and he added, “If you’re cool with it. I know it’s been a long day.”

Holy, holy shit.

Could she handle this? What if she said the wrong thing?
“Of course.”

His jaw tightened. “Okay.”

The rest of the ride to his house was quiet. Super quiet. And super heavy.  Allie spent the time picking at her shirt while her stomach did flips. Whatever had happened to Matthew had messed him up. Bad. Had caused him to ostracize himself from his family and all his friends, to beat the hell out of himself as some kind of punishment or revenge week after week.

And he was going to unload on her.

This was a big deal.

A
huge
deal.

Please, God, don’t let me mess it up.

***

As soon as they were parked
in his garage and had walked into his house, Matthew made a bee-line for the fridge. “Beer?”

“Yeah.”
What the hell. Beer wasn’t her favorite, but she was going to need some help to get through this. When Matthew pulled a whole twenty-four pack out and brought it to the couch, Allie figured he was thinking the same thing.

She scrounged around the inside of an end table and pulled a blanket free.
Geeze
,
Louise
. She was shaking already.

Matthew
sat down and went right after the Bud. When he pulled the empty can away from his lips, he just stared at Allie. After a few seconds, she was feeling twitchy as hell under his bleak gaze. This was probably a bad idea. He was not ready for this. She should—

“
I feel like I’m at confession.” The low chuckle that followed was forced. “So, yeah . . . the doc told me to talk to you.”

This was so hard for him. It felt cruel to make
him go somewhere he wasn’t ready to go. Like teaching a kid to swim by shoving him into the deep end of the pool. “Look, Matthew. You don’t have to say anything—”

“
—No. I need to do this. It’s just. Hard”—his eyes squeezed shut—“to get the words out.”

Allie
scooted a little closer to him on the couch and put a hand on his thigh.

Matthew
’s eyes were in his lap. His fingers knotted between his knees. “So . . .” He cleared his throat. “Jay and I had been in the same platoon for years. Been on a lot of deployments together. We were gone a lot. Which was cool with me. I’d never been into settling down or anything and it was such an adrenaline rush, I was restless to get back as soon as I got home. What we do is too messed up to try to keep a relationship going. Divorce rates are high in the teams. It’s just, too . . .
yeah
. You’re brothers are your family. Anything else is too unstable.

“Anyway,
Stacy and Jayce had this crazy, freak-of-nature marriage. Don’t know how they managed to stay so in love. The shit we see and do messes with us. Keeps us detached from normal, civilian life. We’re prepared for it, but I think to do so we end up living in death’s shade. After a while we start thinking its normal. All the grizzly shit.

“But,
Jay. He made his marriage work. He’d go home to her and
be
there with her, you know? Stacy is one tough chick. Rock solid. Tough enough that she raised twin boys pretty much on her own while we went and gave our duty to God and country. Teams first, and then family. It’s a harsh thing to say, but it’s the way it has to be to be the best of the best.

“I’ve always looked up to my bro. Idolized the bastard. He had his shit so together. Pulled me into the teams and changed my life. It’s a hard-as-fuck life. But every second lived among your brothers is a second lesser men couldn’t even begin to dream of.”

When Allie smiled at the whole
lesser men
stuff, Matthew hit her with an unapologetic smirk. “Yeah. We’re told we’re bad asses. But we can back that shit up every day of the week. If not, we’d be dead.” He took another drag on his beer. “So, anyway, we’d been sent out on a pretty routine body snatch. Parachuted into this little scrub of mountain off the ball’s end of the Hindu Kush, just outside Afghanistan. We’d spent the last few days creeping from one waypoint to the next, avoiding the pax. Once we finally got into position, Jay radioed HQ. After that it was all a waiting game. We spent the time rehydrating, sitting on our asses, and throwing twigs and rocks at each other while we waited for nightfall. I’ll tell you, it’s long as hell, sitting in a dirt hole with a boulder up your ass. I was jumpy, unable to relax. Would have been nice to catch a few, but that didn’t ever happen. Lots of dudes struggle with insomnia, especially come mission time. When we finally got the okay from the Head Shed, there was a whole lot of
hallelujahs
goin’ on. Once the call comes we slip into training mode, and it’s sweet as pie from then on: get in, grab the objective, and get the hell outta dodge before the pax can screw it up.”

“What’s a
pax?”

Matthew
raised his brows at her. “Oh. Pax is military jargon for people.”

“Oh.”

He took a drag on his beer and went on, “Mission would have gone fine, but our intelligence had seriously underestimated the amount of jihadists and weaponry that was there. It was around three times what had been assumed.”