Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (7 page)

“Thank you,” she whispered. “From my heart—truly, thank you.”

He nodded, clearing his throat roughly as he swiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Talon,” she called out softly. He stepped forward, standing opposite of Rush over her bed, his liquid eyes dark, though his expression stoic. “You’ve covered everyone’s asses on every single mission. We can only do what we do because we have the confidence of knowing you’re out there, watching over us. You know that, right?”

“No one harms you and lives to talk about it,” Talon told her fiercely, gripping her other hand.

Such warriors, these men. Completely trustworthy. Utterly devoted. For all the loss she’d had in her life, Sam had gained so much too.

She smiled at them. “I need you boys to take care of Carey and Lennox Chase while I’m recovering, okay?”

Both men nodded.

“I’m proud of you both,” she told them in a rare display of emotion. “I’m also damn lucky to have you both. I know that. Now both of you need to go get some rest for what’s coming. Let Alejo take over babysitting me for a while.”

Rush glanced uncertainly at Alejo, “Boss—”

“Please, Rush?” She met his eyes, and he finally assented, stepping away from the bed. He and Talon nodded toward Carey as they left.

Her eyes turned to Wes, who’d moved to stand by the large picture window, arms crossed, resting on the ledge. She could see the snowflakes glistening behind him as they fell in a flurry, sticking to the glass, the pale light outlining him like a halo. He was wearing a thick cable knit sweater that made him look like the captain of some sea vessel, his burnished hair over-long, days’ old scruff lining his jaw. Wes watched her, the vulnerability from the stress of the last few days plain in his golden gaze.

“Carey, I’d like a moment to speak with Wes privately,” she murmured.

“You got it, Sammy,” Carey said with a nod. “We’ll be right outside,” he added before leading Alejo out of her room and shutting the door with a soft click.

Wes moved toward her slowly, picking up the pitcher of water and the plastic hospital cup that Carey had helped her drink from earlier. He poured more water for her before sitting down beside her, helping her up so she could take a couple deeply satisfying sips, her throat still raw and ravaged from the intubation.

“Thank you, Wes,” she said in relief as he laid her back down, arranging her pillows. She winced a little, her back throbbing, but Wes was infinitely gentle with her as she waited for the worst of the pain to subside.

When Wes didn’t say anything, she opened her eyes to look at him. Even after all these years, she could read him. She could see he was freaked out, turned around and at a loss of where to begin. So was she, she supposed, though she had just the right cocktail of painkillers in her system that the enormity of what she’d come out of hadn’t really caught up to her yet. Wes didn’t have that luxury. The days she couldn’t really recall had clearly taken their toll on him. His bloodshot eyes glittered as he gazed at her, his full, normally lush mouth set in a hard line. He reached up to stroke her hair back, spreading a skein of dark waves across the pillow.

“Apparently, I put you and everyone else through the wringer,” she said softly, gazing up at him. “Sorry about that.”

Wes looked away, his throat working as he looked for the right words to address a completely overwhelming set of emotions and circumstances.

Sam ran her fingers along his bristled jaw. She had a brief flash of remembrance—of doing this exact same thing in a different decade, another time, when they were both still so young, without the weight of their experiences, without the sorrow that came with a broken heart.

“You thought you were going to die, didn’t you?” he asked finally, his voice rough and pained, expression haunted. “You made love to me because you thought it was the end.”

Samantha closed her eyes, struggling to recall everything that had happened. She remembered kissing him like her life depended on it, just before the mission to kill Nazar. She vividly recalled the hot and urgent press of their bodies, the taste of his need as he moved with her, the visceral, almost desperate mating, the violent relief of it, the momentary shelter she’d felt in his arms.

“I didn’t like my odds,” she admitted, meeting his gaze.

“I worry—” Wes took a shaky breath before trying again. “I worry you
wanted
it, Sammy. I worry that a part of you wanted to die. We almost lost you so many times. You were so ready for it—
too ready
—
God
, Sammy—” He swallowed hard. A stark, hurt hesitation stretched across the space between. She saw in his face she’d left Wes littered with doubt.

That was the thing
, she thought.
Distance didn’t ruin relationships. Doubts did
. They were too pervasive, too insidious—impossible to control or stop once there, in the seams.

“I suppose I was saying goodbye,” Sam admitted in the sterile cool of her hospital room. “The relationship that you and I shared felt like a gaping wound for so long, it seemed the right time to stitch it up. I’m sorry I scared you.” She cupped his cheek and Wes shut his eyes, pressing a kiss into her hand. “I never expected you to come along for the ride.”

“I know that,” Wes answered tightly. “But you know what worries me the most, Sammy? After all the days we’ve been together since Rio?”

She shook her head.

“It’s the sadness in your eyes, darlin’.” He brushed his thumb over the line of her cheek. “The woman I remember had this undeniable passion for life—this unparalleled
verve
.
Nothing
was going to hold you down.
No one
was going to hold you back. I can’t see that anymore,” he whispered on a pained wince. “Did I do that to you? Did I take it from you? Because it hurts to see you like this—
God
—it hurts so much—”

Sam wanted to deny it. She wanted to tell him that everything was fine—that she was okay. That they’d both be okay. But there was an unerring accuracy to his assessment of her, a perspective that only he had because he’d known her when she was still as bright and shiny as a brand new penny, ambitious and irreverent, loving and light. He was right in a way, because the woman she was now was deeply unhappy. Exhausted and damaged. And it wasn’t just from the ordeal in Afghanistan. Sam had been numb for so long after her family died and Wes had disappeared. Then, she’d been angry, pissed off,
fucking
furious
. And when that burned out… she been left feeling empty and aching and…
hollow
.

Truth was… Sam never minded taking the risks—gambling with her own life when she thought the reason was worthwhile. Maybe she’d even welcomed death in her subconscious mind, seeking a little peace, some kind of reprieve. Sam realized she’d come to a point where she just wanted to lay down the burden. She was weary of carrying that mantle.

“I’m not the girl you loved anymore, Wes,” she murmured. “I haven’t been her in a long time.”

Wes shook his head before he kissed her hand again. “I want to put that light back in your eyes, Sammy.”

“That’s not your job, Wes. One person can’t be responsible for another person’s happiness. That’s just too much responsibility to bear. I don’t know how I get back to it, or if I can—but it’s not your job.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is it Jack’s?” he asked quietly, the edge in his voice ultra-fine and razor-sharp.

God, Jack…

But Sam didn’t want to discuss Jack with him. It wasn’t right, and she wasn’t equipped to process the myriad of emotions she felt for that beautiful, maddening man. Their split still felt too tender. She also couldn’t believe he’d been here to see her, only to depart again by the time she’d awoken. That hurt too, though she didn’t want to think about it.

“Wes, I’m not looking to start up anything with you or anyone else right now. I need to heal, in so many ways,” she admitted to him and to herself. “And I need some time to do that.”

“No way in hell am I letting you go now,” he told her, taking on that stubborn look she’d seen on his face so many times. He was only going to dig in harder. And now was not the time.

“Wes, please go home,” she asked tiredly. “Better yet, take on a fresh project. Get your mind off this—off of me and what we used to be—”

“Hell, no,” he replied vehemently, chin coming up. “Don’t, Sammy—
just
don’t
.”

“Don’t what?” she countered, tired of arguing. “Don’t ask you to take care of yourself?”

“Don’t act like we’re over,” he answered hotly, chin rising. “Because we’re not.
This
isn’t over.”

The pain in her back was morphing from dull throb to full-on fire. She shifted again as the painkillers stopped taking the edge off.

“Where’s the damn morphine button?” she mumbled, patting around blankets.

Wes found and pressed the button deftly. The release felt all at once miraculously relieving. She sighed as the lenitive spread throughout her system.

“I’m sorry, Sammy. I’m coming at you with too much, too fast.” He drew a calloused thumb down her cheek. “I’m just scared of losing you again. That’s all.”

“Do me a favor?” she asked, her voice sounding small as she sunk toward oblivion.

“Anything, Sammy.”

“Go home, Wes. Give me time to find you again. When I’m ready…” and with that last request, she was out.

*

December—An hour later

Asklepios Klinik Barmbek, Hamburg, Germany

W E S L E Y

Samantha fell into
a comatose-like sleep almost immediately after she asked him to leave, and he sat beside her, ruminating on what she’d asked him to do after she’d all but confirmed the painful truth he’d been suspecting for weeks. The woman she’d become in the years they’d spent apart was altogether different from the girl he’d fallen in love with at nineteen. The difference was night and day.

Where Sammy had once been vibrant and unrestrained, this woman was composed and controlled. The girl he’d adored was warm and loving and enchanting, and the provocative queen she’d become was as cold and hard as a cut diamond.
Had he taken the light from her eyes?
Wes wondered again. Because the very thought of that—the realization that he’d had a big hand in changing her from the lovely young thing she was to the damaged, unhappy soul she was now made him want to commit
hara-kiri
. He didn’t know how long he sat there, brooding, watching over her as she slept. The one thing he did know was that he wasn’t going to run away again. If he’d done this to her—he had to make it right. He had to find a way to help her heal. A small penance for a terrible betrayal. He wasn’t the best man. Hell, Wes wasn’t certain he was good at all—but he loved her, and Sammy deserved better than what he’d left her with.

When the nurses finally kicked him out of her room to check on her IV drips and give her a sponge bath, Wes wondered back out into the hall. Alejandro stood by himself, leaning against the wall, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.

“Never thought I’d lay eyes on you again,” Wes admitted. He’d never particularly cared for the guy, but Alejo and Sam had been partners in ROTC, so they’d always had a sort of
you-stay-over-there
and
I’ll-stay-over-here
sort of wariness toward each other.

“Likewise,” Alejo inclined his head.

“How’s Rita?” Wes asked, more out of politeness than anything. Marguerite Ramos, Alejo and Rox’s cousin, had been Sam’s college roommate and best friend. The two were inseparable, two peas in a pod. Rita’s sass and sexiness had balanced out Sam’s buttoned-up seriousness in school. She’d been a firecracker, and Wes hadn’t laid eyes on her since he was an undergrad, when Rita and Sam had both entered the Navy.

Alejandro looked away, his expression turning hard and cold. “She was pinned down in Tikrit in 2011.”

“Jesus,” Wes muttered, wiping a hand down his face, grief biting through him. “Just before the U.S. withdrew from Iraq?”

Alejo gave a curt nod. “Two more months and Rita would have been riding out the remainder of her service at a naval base in Hawaii.”

“Goddamn, I’m sorry, man,” Wes told him sincerely. “Your cousin was a good one. I always liked her.”

“She had no love for you though, asshole,” Alejo replied with a ghost of a smile. “After you bailed on Sam, she always swore she’d hunt you down and cut off your
cojones
.”

“Sounds exactly like her.”

“That’s partly why I’m here,” Alejo responded. “Wyatt did Rita and me a solid a few years back.”

“For Roxy, your little sister?” Wes asked.

Alejo nodded.

“And Rox is going after Lightner now?”

Carey turned down the hallway before Alejandro could answer, heading toward them and holding a fresh cup of coffee. Evan and Talon were nowhere in sight.

“She good?” Carey asked, nodding toward Sam’s hospital door.

“Out like a light,” Wes confirmed.

“Good. Don’t want her suffering any more than she already has.” Carey turned to Alejandro. “So what did you have in mind for Sammy?”

“Rox told me a bit about Lightner’s M.O. I don’t think he’s going to be brash enough to come after Sam outright, unless she’s a sitting duck in a place like this,” Alejo continued, gesturing toward Sam’s hospital room. “He’ll come at her sideways, like he did before, by kidnapping you in Rio or Jack in London. The good news is that Rox managed to put two slugs in him. But we don’t know where he is or who’s helping him, so I think it’s best to get Sam barricaded somewhere safe while she heals.”