Line of Fire (15 page)

His father’s face softened. “Never thank me for being your dad. As for the other, I understand, believe me. See you in the morning.”

“See you.”

After the older man was gone, Shea took his vacated seat and steeled herself for the conversation to come. She didn’t need a crystal ball to see the man in the bed was about to do some serious backpedaling. Anger and confusion fairly vibrated around him, and the wall quickly being erected between them was as impenetrable as a fortress.

She’d spent so long being afraid to love him. Now she was terrified of losing him.

Reaching out, she rested her arm on his pillow and ran her fingers through his hair. “You don’t know how scared I was when I found out what happened, and that they were looking for you. When they brought you in, I was there, and I was scared I’d lose you. Thank God you’re going to be all right.”

“Is that what you think? That I’ll be all right? That I’m happy as shit to be twenty-three years old and facing the prospect of no job, no future? That I’m thrilled to carry a reminder of my failure on my face for the rest of my goddamned life? Excuse me if I don’t leap for joy and praise God that I’m not dead!”

His shout echoed in the small room like a bomb, explosive and every ounce as destructive. His eyes were wild, like a trapped animal ready to chew his leg off to escape confinement.

“Well, you’re not dead,” she said calmly, taking back her hand. “And it’s not fair of you to wish you were when so many others might have begged for the second chance you received. Especially your own brother.”

He flinched, but his steely tone didn’t change. “Don’t talk about Donny to me. And what the hell do you know about second chances?”

Grief swept her, and her voice broke. “I know that my baby never got a second chance. I know that I’d give almost anything if she’d had one.”

That stopped him cold. “Your—your baby?”

“My daughter. You see, I made the mistake of falling for a football player, the big man on campus. This plain Jane was easy pickings for a guy like him—he crooked his finger and I ran to him, grateful he asked me out. But when things went too far and I said ‘no,’ he didn’t take that for an answer.”

“You . . . you were raped?” Tommy looked ill.

“At seventeen. I turned eighteen in a hospital bed, recovering from losing my child and almost hemorrhaging to death. Shane and I lost our parents just a few months later.”

“What happened to the baby’s father?” he asked quietly.

“He served some time, lost his college football scholarship. After that, I have no idea. And I don’t care.”

Tommy looked away. “Finally, it all makes sense. Why you were so reluctant to be with me, to trust me.” His tone was bitter. “I guess the writing was on the wall, wasn’t it? You and me, we never would’ve worked. I started out as nothing more than a terrible reminder of what you lost, and now? I’m a joke.”

“What?” She stared at him, alarmed. “You’re not a joke! I love you! I don’t care what you do for a living or if you have a scar. Those things don’t matter.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I didn’t remind you of him.”

“Okay, at first you did,” she admitted. “But only on the outside, because of your looks and the fact that you’re a jock. I was afraid to trust, but that wasn’t a reflection on you.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about my looks anymore, do we?”

“Don’t do this,” she said. Unshed tears stung her eyes and she struggled not to let them fall because it would be like admitting defeat. He was using every trick in the book to push her away and she was losing ground with each passing second. She’d never felt so helpless.

Tommy’s eyes filled as well, but he didn’t waver. “It’s over.”

“Tommy, no—”

“At least you still have your fancy city manager with his fine clothes, pretty manners, and his big wallet.”

Her heart tore. “No. I don’t want him. I want you.”

“Get out.”

“I love—”

“Get out!”

She knew what he was doing, that he didn’t mean it. But she fled just the same—pushed from her chair, grabbed her purse, and hit the door running. Maybe later she’d regret allowing him to push her away, but at the moment, all that she could think of was escaping his rage. His endless pain.

She couldn’t even call him a coward.

By running, she was a coward, too.

Shea left me.

Driving her away had been too damned easy.

Which meant he’d done the right thing. Saved them both a ton of heartache down the road. Saved the woman he loved from being tied to a man with an empty future. A man she hadn’t wanted to be with in the first place, one who brought back awful memories.

He could survive without her. He could.

Alone in the gathering darkness, he covered his eyes with his good hand and wept.

Joseph was usually in bed asleep by now, but the sandman eluded him. So when the phone rang in the living room at an hour when no one usually called, he pushed from the bed and tottered to the door, twisted the knob slowly. He eased the door open and listened, not nearly as ashamed to do so as he would’ve been this time last week.

“Good, I’m glad this is over. I’ve got enough to see us through.” Pause. “I don’t want to know about this, Forrest.”

Joseph straightened, every cell on alert. Forrest Prescott? “No, I won’t take responsibility for what you did to that firefighter! I never thought you’d actually go through with it! Don’t try to divert the issue. What is our contact doing with all that money?”

Joseph braced himself against the wall, hand on his heart.

“None of my business? That’s funny. Whatever, man. I don’t care as long as I’m out. I didn’t get anyone hurt this time and never on purpose. That was your deal.” Pause. “Fine. Don’t call me.”

Will ended the call and Joseph crept into his bedroom, closing the door. Shuffling to the bed, he sat and considered everything he’d seen and heard, for a very long time.

His heart sank as he realized he was backed into a corner. Will needed help and there was only one way out he could figure.

He just had to find the courage to make that phone call.

15

Two weeks. She’d called three times; once while Tommy was still in the hospital and twice since he got home last week. He hadn’t answered, or returned her calls.

His rejection hurt so bad she thought she’d die, but she held on to the knowledge that he was, in actuality, rejecting himself. Didn’t make the pain any less, but at least it made sense.

She hated to picture him alone in his apartment, in great emotional distress and not speaking to anyone, but his dad had told her that’s exactly what he was doing. He’d shut out his parents and his friends. Refused to discuss how he was doing, just waved it off and said he was fine.

He was in pain, and she couldn’t reach him. He’d have to make the first move, and that wouldn’t happen until he’d come to grips with his situation. He had to decide he was as much a man as before, and let her in. Until he did, it wouldn’t work between them.

And he might never come around.

The phone rang and she practically attacked the damned thing, fumbling it to read the caller ID. Her heart sank when she saw the name and number, and she felt foolish for getting her hopes up. Still, it would be good to hear a friendly voice other than her brother’s.

“Hello, Forrest.”

“Hey, beautiful. Got time for a friend?”

“Of course I do,” she said, picking at the sofa cushions.

“I wasn’t sure, given the way we left things before.”

“I feel bad about that.” Which was true. “I never meant to hurt your feelings.”

“Oh, it’s all water under the bridge. No worries. Speaking of my rival, I wanted to call and tell you I saw on the news about what happened to Skyler, and I’m terribly sorry. How is he doing?”

Rival? What an odd word, out of place with his sympathy. Not to mention that Forrest had never really posed any competition against Tommy.

“Not very well. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not get into it.” She winced at her sharp tone.

“I—oh, no,” he breathed. “You two aren’t seeing each other anymore, are you?”

“Change the subject, or I’m hanging up.”

He sighed. “I apologize. I just wanted to know if you were free for dinner tomorrow night. As friends. I have to admit, I could use one.”

“Yeah? Maybe I could, too,” she said, relenting. “I shouldn’t have been so short with you.”

“We’ve both been under a lot of stress lately. Why don’t we go out and forget about it all for a little while? Please?”

What else was she going to do? Sit around here and mope until Tommy decided to give them a chance? If he ever did.

“Sure, why not? What time?”

“Wonderful! I’ll pick you up at seven and we’ll go have some Chinese or Mexican. Whatever you want.”

“Sounds good. See you then.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

For a long time, she sat with the phone in her lap, willing it to ring. She’d much rather spend the evening with the man she loved.

With every passing day, it looked as though she was waiting for the impossible.

He stood on the edge of the precipice, unable to go either forward or backward. Death awaited him in either direction, mocking his puny efforts to cheat it.

Behind him, slow torture. Before him, a swift end.

He knew his choice, and his heart lurched.

He lunged for the edge, and Shea screamed—

Tommy’s eyes popped open. He lay curled in his bed on his side, disoriented, gasping, still vibrating from the nightmare.

A pounding noise filtered into his brain as the dream faded, and he gradually realized the sound was part of the real world.

The racket was accompanied by a deep, insistent voice. And whoever was there wasn’t giving up anytime soon.

He pushed out of bed and swayed on his feet, dizzy. The pain pills made him loopy and he hated them, but he disliked pain even more. The bruises on his body were healing and while the scar on his face was sensitive, it didn’t sting. But his wrist and hand ached like a bitch. He’d been lucky infection hadn’t set in, and the skin was pink and healthy.

Lucky. Hah.

Stumbling through the mess in his living room, he tried to be careful where he stepped. Wouldn’t do to fall and injure his useless extremity. Then he’d have to get fitted for a fake hand, and how fun would that be?

The pounding increased in volume, as did the yelling on the other side.

“I’m coming, dammit!”

Using his left hand, he fumbled with the lock and flung open the door. Great. On the threshold, looking as though they’d lost their best friends, were Zack, Eve, Julian, and Six-Pack, who was clearly the one doing the pounding and yelling.

“You going to invite us in, or what?” he demanded.

Tommy attempted a smile and a wave, but immediately lowered his hand so they wouldn’t see how badly it shook. “Sorry, guys. I was asleep and didn’t hear the door at first. Come in.”

“Chingado,” Julian muttered, glancing around in disgust.

Standing aside, Tommy waited for them to file in and closed the door, breathing through his mortification. The very last thing he’d wanted was for his friends to see the disaster of his apartment, not to mention the sorry state of his person.

Tommy studied the place and saw it through new eyes. Pizza boxes, milk on the counter, dishes overflowing in the sink, newspapers, beer cans. Six-Pack found the last and swung his angry gaze to Tommy’s.

“Tell me you are not drinking while taking painkillers.”

“Not at the same time,” he lied. “I’ve been careful.”

The lieutenant, who topped Tommy by nearly six inches in height, was truly a fearsome sight as he stalked forward, muscles straining under his T-shirt. “Jesus Christ! As if I don’t have enough to deal with getting Sean well, and now this? I find you living like a pig, not bothering to answer the phone, not eating right, and you fucking stink! When’s the last time you had a shower?”

Tommy’s face heated. “Nobody asked you to deal with me! I’m not your problem.”

“No, you’re not,” he yelled, poking Tommy in the chest. “You’re my friend, you ignorant jackass! Every one of us is here because we care about you.”

“And you not being at the station is never going to change that,” Eve said softly. “We love you, Bro.”

“Aw, damn . . .” His voice choked and his gaze dropped to the floor. “Here I am doing my best to be a shithead and you guys have to go and say something nice.”

“But you do stink,” Julian said. The others chuckled and he shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”

“I was going to take a shower,” he said, embarrassed even if they were his friends.

“Can you manage okay?” Six-Pack asked.

“It’s not easy doing stuff one-handed, but I get by. Besides, I’m supposed to work it a little when I’m not wearing the brace.”

Zack spoke up. “Tell you what. You go shower while we tidy this place some.”

Tommy shook his head. “You don’t have to do that.” “We want to,” Eve insisted. “Go.”

He felt a slight warming in a place inside him that had been like ice for two weeks. “All right. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Julian said. “Need some help with the bandage?”

“If you don’t mind.” While the others began to pick up his crap, Julian carefully unwrapped his bandages. When he was done, he didn’t even pretend not to stare at the thick, jagged line bisecting Tommy’s wrist that matched the one slashing his face and throat.

“Sucks, huh?”

“Yeah, it does. I’m sorry, amigo.”

“At least I can get it wet now, which was hell when I first got home. Ever try to bathe without getting your face or hand wet?”

“Nope. How did you?”

“My dad came over and helped me.”

“You know, if you had a lick of sense, that pretty lady of yours would be here taking care of you instead.”

“Don’t start with me, Jules. As you can see, she’s better off.”

“What I see is a fool who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I’ll be back in a few.”

Ignoring their glances, he left them to pick up his place, feeling damned guilty about it but grateful for the help. It took him forever to take out the trash, do dishes, all the mundane things fully abled people did every day. It was exhausting. And it was wrenching, especially for an athletic guy like himself.

In the bathroom, he turned on the water and struggled with his clothes, finally getting them off. The spray felt heavenly and he cursed himself for an idiot for denying himself a simple pleasure he could still enjoy.

Flipping open the lid on the shampoo bottle was a challenge, but after that things got easier. When he was done, he turned off the spray, more invigorated than he’d been in days. His friends’ arrival had as much to do with that as the shower, he suspected.

After drying off, dressing in clean boxer briefs, shorts, and a T-shirt was another battle. One of many he had to look forward to, for the rest of his life. Some of his optimism dimmed, but he was determined not to let it suck him down. He’d been in a dangerous place in his head for the past few days, and it scared him.

He did not want to wind up like Sean.

Padding back into the living room, he stopped and his mouth dropped open. “Oh, wow. It looks great.”

Eve had just turned off the vacuum and Julian was placing the last of the dishes on the drain board. Howard and Zack had tackled the trash cleanup and had filled an entire garbage bag. Everyone grinned at him and he couldn’t help but smile back, even though he knew the scar made his face look weird.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Zack shrugged. “That’s what friends are for.”

“Start singing like Dionne Warwick and I’m history,” Julian said.

Eve ignored them. “Just say you’ll call and ask for help before you let it get like this again. And promise you’ll take better care of yourself. We don’t need this sort of stress.”

“I will, promise. I feel bad for making you guys worry when you’ve got so much else on your plate,” he admitted sheepishly. After a pause, he asked, “How is Sean?”

His friends shared a “look” and then turned their attention to Six-Pack. He was always their leader, their rock, even away from the station.

Six-Pack set the garbage bag by the front door and returned to sit on the couch. “Dad took him to that rehab facility where we made the reservation before. They kept a spot open for him. According to Dad, he’s detoxing, and it’s ugly. I wish I could see him, but he’s not allowed any visitors for a few more weeks.” Howard sighed. “He might not want to see me anyway.”

Across the room, Eve quietly rolled up the cord on the vacuum and swiped at her eyes. Was she crying? He couldn’t tell. She straightened and rolled the vacuum down the hallway to the little closet.

Tommy turned his attention back to Six-Pack. “Why wouldn’t he want to see you? You’re his best friend.”

For a long moment, Tommy thought he wouldn’t answer. When he spoke, his voice was filled with regret. “When the building fell on you, I didn’t realize he was in the middle of a meltdown. A flashback. Before I knew he was sick, I accused him of being responsible for you getting trapped in there. He was lost in a daze, talking about his family burning. I knew then we had a serious problem, but it was too late to take back the shit I said.”

“Doesn’t make it any less his fault,” Julian muttered.

Coming back into the room, Eve rounded on him. “How can you say that? He was ill. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“And if he’d listened to us when we held the intervention and gotten treatment, what happened to Tommy might have been avoided. Sean might be well by now and Tommy—”

“Guys,” Zack interrupted, glancing between the combatants. “Come on. We can drive each other crazy with what-ifs and it won’t change a thing. It is what it is.”

The pair stopped arguing but continued to glare at each other. Tommy processed what the lieutenant had said; Sean had hit rock bottom and as a result, Tommy’s life had been destroyed.

Or at least altered on a major scale.

It was hard not to blame Sean. But he was trying.

As if Six-Pack read his mind, he said, “I know Sean will want to see you when he’s released. It will be part of his program to deal with the messes he made, and make restitution. Will you see him?”

“Of course I will. I want him to get well as much as anyone does.” No question.

“Good. I’ll let him know when the time comes.”

“Tommy . . . have you seen Shea?” Eve asked.

Just hearing her name made his heart bleed. “No, and I don’t plan to.”

“Maybe you should—”

“Do nothing. I should do nothing but let her get on with her life, and I don’t want to talk about this.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued, until Zack spoke up. “Have you eaten anything today?”

At the reminder, his stomach grumbled. “No. I’ve been asleep most of the day.”

“Well, that settles it. Get some shoes on, we’re taking you out. Unless anybody here wants to cook?” A chorus of “no way” settled the matter and Zack stood, the others doing the same.

“Oh, guys, I don’t know.” He stared at them, gut clenching. “I haven’t been out since before . . . well, just before.”

“People are going to see your face eventually, my friend,” Eve said, giving his shoulders a hug. “And truthfully, the scar isn’t that bad. Makes you look sort of rakish, like a pirate.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake.” But it did make him feel a little better as she went on.

“Might as well take the plunge. You can’t stay holed up in here forever like an old hermit.”

“Nope, we won’t let you,” Julian said. “I’ll help you wrap your wrist.”

They wouldn’t allow him so much as a word of protest. In short order, his wrist was done in a fresh bandage, tennis shoes were shoved on his feet, and he was herded out the door.

They’d arrived in two vehicles, so Tommy and Julian rode with Six-Pack in his big black Ford truck, and Eve climbed into Zack’s Mustang. Tommy looked around, the afternoon sunlight almost too bright after being cooped up for so long.

“Where are we going?”

Julian answered. “The diner on the square. It’s the best place for homemade Southern food.”