Collateral Damage (13 page)

Wentworth tipped his chin at the leg press. “May I?”

“Sure, be my guest.” He shifted from one foot to the other and tried to think of a segue that would allow his next question to seem nonchalant, but came up empty, so he just went with it. “You hear anything else about her? How she’s doing?”

The CCT shot him a funny look as he seated himself at the machine and rubbed a hand over the reddish-brown scruff on his face. “Thought you were with her at the hospital yesterday.”

“I was, but I left before the doc could see her. Sounded like she might have a concussion on top of everything.”

“That’s what Ace said, yeah, but it’s mild and you know Erin’s gonna be all over her like a mother hen for the next few days.” He added another plate to the weights. “Other than a bump on the head and some stitches, she’s okay. Just lying low for a day or two, until she gets clearance to go back to work.”

Liam disliked having to find that out from someone else, let alone someone who barely knew her. He made himself nod, pushing back the irritation that was slowly driving him insane. He could compartmentalize with the best of them but yesterday’s events had messed with the locking mechanism in his brain. All he could think about was how close she’d come to dying.

“That’s good.” He didn’t know why he was still standing there, hoping Wentworth would feed him another crumb of intel about her. Freaking pathetic.

“You know,” the other man said slowly, setting his feet on the metal plates to begin knocking out his first set of reps, “if you wanted some privacy to see her for a while, Ace could make it happen. I’ll talk to her about it if you want.”

Liam’s gaze sharpened on him, the beginnings of a scowl creasing his forehead.

The other man kept his eyes on his quads as he kept pumping out reps. “Just saying. Ace could figure out the logistics and I could pass it on to you.”

Liam stared at him, the scowl deepening. “Why would I want either of you to do that?”

At that Wentworth raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Whatever, man, it’s your business. I was just offering.” Liam opened his mouth to tell him he didn’t need or want help where Honor was concerned, but the man’s next words made the retort die in his throat. “It’s just…if you were willing to go to the hospital and stay with her, then I figured you’d probably want the chance to see her again before she leaves,” he added with another shrug, like it didn’t matter to him one way or the other.

“Leaves?” Liam echoed, a wave of dread washing over him. He hadn’t thought her injuries were severe enough to warrant sending her stateside.

Wentworth looked at him, legs still pumping. “Yeah, Ace said her whole unit’s being sent back to JBLM in another week or so. You didn’t know?”

“No.” And dammit, even though he didn’t want that to change anything, it did. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, they had unfinished business to settle once and for all and now it seemed the only way that was going to happen was to take care of it before she left.

“It was a last minute change, by the sounds of it.”

Liam nodded then gave himself a mental shake. “See you later,” he said to Wentworth.

“Yeah, man, take care.”

Liam headed for the gym door, his mind racing as he walked.

Yeah, seeing Honor again was unavoidable at this point. He just needed to get into the right headspace first. Getting her alone in her hut was dangerous though. He still wanted her, and he knew she still wanted him. Or had until yesterday, anyhow.

He hadn’t slept with anyone since her, for various reasons, and he and Honor still had the kind of chemistry that burned hot as a phosphorous grenade. But it couldn’t have been as good as he remembered, otherwise she never would have dumped him in the first place.

No. He needed to wind up that chapter of his life and move on without ever looking back. There was only one way forward now. Her heading back stateside was exactly what he needed in order to put her behind him once and for all.

He’d see her one last time but keep his guard up. All he had to do was remember the night she’d walked out.

In ripping his heart out she’d taught him a lesson he’d never forget.

Nineteen months earlier

The drone of the next-door neighbor’s lawnmower drifted through his open bedroom window, the warm spring breeze bringing with it the smell of freshly cut grass. Liam added the last of his tightly rolled up T-shirts to his Army-issue duffel and shut the top drawer of his now empty dresser before pausing to look around his room.

His place was always tidy but now it felt almost sterile in its emptiness. Twelve hours from now he’d be on a plane for the long flight to Germany, then on to Bagram for his second combat tour in a row.

And suddenly he was weary. Bone-deep weary.

He knew once he got over there his mental state would switch gears and his head would be in the game. But right now the thought of leaving for another long deployment made him feel exhausted in every sense of the word.

It’d been four days since he’d seen Honor at the hospital. Four days and three nights without being able to see her or talk to her in person, let alone do something to help the situation.

He was a fixer, a doer. He knew she was going through hell with her family but there was nothing he could do if she wouldn’t even see him. Honor had called to give him a few updates about Charity, informing him that she was going to be okay and that she’d been admitted into a psychiatric facility for intensive treatment until they found the right mix of meds and therapy to help stabilize her mental state.

Within days of meeting Charity at the bar that first night, his internal radar had already been alerting him that something was wrong.

Like,
really
wrong.

Right from the start she’d seemed overly clingy, texting or calling him constantly, way beyond what he considered normal for the stage they’d been at. After a few hours in her company he’d seen she was needy too, and those were all deal breakers for a relationship with him anyway. Hadn’t taken a genius to see Charity had problems, even back then.

He’d already been planning to end things with Charity because of her borderline obsessive behavior with him, but meeting Honor had clinched it. She’d blown him away with her poise, confidence and sweet personality. That she’d been a rotary wing aviation maintainer in the Air Force almost seemed like an unbelievable coincidence. They liked the same things, had similar beliefs about life. Both of them were low key and dedicated to serving their country. After ending things with Charity they’d become good friends long before he’d ever revealed his true feelings for her.

Liam ran a hand over his face. He just didn’t understand how things had gotten so blown out of proportion with Charity and her parents. Exactly what was the big fucking deal about their practically non-existent history, anyway?

They’d only gone out a couple of times and he’d never done anything beyond kiss her. Yet Honor’s family seemed to think he’d broken some sacred vow to Charity when he’d ended things. Their batshit reaction to finding out about the engagement was beyond ridiculous. He’d made a clean and decisive break from Charity long before making his feelings for Honor known. Months, in fact. It wasn’t like he’d cheated on Charity, or that Honor had gone behind her sister’s back. And comparing a few casual dates with Charity almost two-and-a-half freaking years ago to what he and Honor had together now was fucking crazy. Jesus.

Honor was still refusing to see him after the other night, claiming she needed to be with her sister and help her parents through this. He could tell from the exhaustion in her voice that she wasn’t taking care of herself properly. After twenty-four hours of being shut out like that he’d gotten desperate and driven to her place a couple of times but she hadn’t been home. Seeing her porch light on in the middle of the day was a dead giveaway that she wasn’t staying there.

She had to be staying either at the hospital or her parents’. Him showing up at either location after the other night would only result in another total clusterfuck. Even with a deadline looming for him and Honor before he left and as much as he wanted to see her and make her talk things out, he knew causing more friction with her family would just alienate her further. That left him with no other option but to wait for her to come to him, and every hour she didn’t was slowly driving him insane.

It hurt like hell that she would shut him out this way and leave him in limbo hell as far as the current status of their relationship was concerned. She’d taken the ring off, the one she’d cried over when he’d gotten down on one knee and proposed.

Yeah, she’d told him she’d done it in an effort to hide it from her parents, but the fact that she’d taken it off in the first place spoke volumes to him. He knew things had moved fast between them but he’d thought they were both ready for the next step. Were they still engaged, or not? Were they even together right now? Didn’t feel like it. Fuck, he didn’t know what to think.

She knew damn well he was leaving tomorrow. Was he just supposed to go off to war, and assume everything would work itself out in time? Because there was no way in hell he could do that and she shouldn’t expect him to.

He zipped the bag shut. It scared the shit out of him that he might have already lost her. The worst part of all this was knowing he was losing her, yet being powerless to do anything about it. The combined uncertainty and worry were torture. He hadn’t slept much since that night, had barely eaten. The Honor he knew—or thought he’d known—would never do this to him. How could this be happening, when even in the face of his upcoming deployment they’d been so happy up until the call about Charity?

Since it had been at least twelve hours since he’d forced himself to eat he went down to the kitchen and nuked some leftovers from a couple days ago. Six bites in, his phone rang with Honor’s special ringtone. The food seemed to congeal into a hard ball in his gut.

Setting the spoon aside he pulled his phone out and took a deep breath. Now that she was finally calling he didn’t know what to say, but he also knew he couldn’t go on like this. He needed answers and reassurance that they were going to work through everything. Most of all he needed to see her. To hold her, make love to her and sleep with her in his arms tonight, so he could take that memory with him for the lonely months ahead.

“Hello?” He made sure his tone was even and tried to ignore the pounding of his heart.

“Hey.”

From her subdued response he could already tell that this wasn’t going to be good. “Hey.” He gripped the edge of the counter with his free hand, waiting for her to say something.

“What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

“Oh-seven hundred.” Which she already knew and there was no way she’d forgotten. Honor didn’t forget details like that.

She paused. “I’m outside. Can I come in?”

Liam blinked. She was outside right now and seriously thought she had to ask? The slight bit of hope he’d been holding onto all this time burst like a popped balloon.

He drew himself upright, all his instincts urging him to retreat emotionally, protect himself against what was coming. The grinding sensation in his gut worsened. But dammit, no matter what she’d come to tell him, he still had to see her and have his say. The constant uncertainty was killing him.

She was waiting on the front doorstep when he opened the door. Dressed in dark, fitted jeans and an embellished bright pink tank that showed off the curve of her breasts and the toned muscles in her arms, she searched his eyes in silence. The lack of a smile didn’t bode well either, but when he looked down he saw she was wearing his ring.

Some of the tension inside him eased and he could breathe again. She didn’t reach for him though and given the way she’d been treating him he wasn’t going to be the one to initiate physical affection.

Keeping his expression carefully blank, Liam stepped back without a word and let her in. Following her to the kitchen where she took a seat on one of the barstools at the island, he went to the opposite side, folded his arms and stared at her, waiting. She was acting so cool and distant and the level of dread inside him was growing exponentially by the second.

She glanced around the kitchen rather than look at him. “I’m guessing you’re all packed up?”

“Yes.”

At his clipped tone she met his gaze and swallowed. When she didn’t say anything else he lost his patience. “So you just wanted to drop by and say goodbye before I left, or what?”

“Partly,” she acknowledged with a nod, looking uncertain. She knew he was angry and had to understand why.

“Then why else?”

When she hesitated again the anger that had been simmering below the surface burst free. “Then how about you start by explaining this whole cold shoulder routine you’ve been giving me,” he demanded. Goddamn it, it wasn’t like her to be cruel or play games.

Honor dropped her gaze to her lap, her posture stiff. “Liam, you don’t understand.”

“You’re damn right I don’t.”

Her mouth thinned at the verbal jab and she took a deep breath before continuing. “You have every right to be mad at me, but you don’t have the first clue how miserable I am right now. You have no idea what it’s like to be in my position at the moment, okay?”

Because she wouldn’t fucking
talk
to him!
“Don’t I? I was there, Honor, I heard what your dad said to you.” He’d never liked the asshole in the first place but the other night Liam had lost what little remaining respect he had for the man. The sooner Honor was out from under that man’s influence, the better.

She shook her head, adamant. “Yes, and you know how important my family is to me—how huge a part of my life they’ve been and still are, but you can’t ever relate to it because you’ve never
had
it.”

“I thought I finally did,” he fired back, staring at her. He’d finally had that sense of bone-deep connection and unconditional love, with
her
. He’d given his heart away and for the first time in his life he’d actually felt like he
belonged
with someone. Did she get that? Did she understand how huge that was for him? He’d thought so but maybe he’d been wrong.