Shattered (17 page)

The sun was lowering as Kirby and Shane drove to Zach and Sabrina’s home.

Swann Island appeared even greener than San Diego’s Griffith Park, and really, really small. The village itself consisted of only four tree-lined streets arranged around a Victorian bandstand set in the middle of a green square.

Kirby suspected it was the type of place where everyone knew everyone. And their business.

A crescent beach curved around the southern tip of the island, then wrapped around the eastern coast that faced out to the Atlantic Ocean. Rows of houses, built on stilts, lined the beach. There was also a wooden pier from which a man and boy were fishing.

A panorama of wheat-hued marsh made up the west and north coasts.

“What are these fields?” she asked as they passed row after row of waist-high green plants.

“Tea. And those trees over there are Swannsea’s peach orchard.”

Kirby immediately made the connection between the name of Zachariah Tremayne’s wife’s family home and these acres and acres of plants.

“Zach’s wife is the Swann of Swann Tea?”

Which made her really, really rich.

Yet she’d married a SEAL, who might be a warrior hunk, but last time she’d looked, the Navy didn’t pay its chiefs that much. Such a difference in economic status might be a problem for some couples, but from the way Zach Tremayne’s eyes had gleamed when he’d talked about his wife, it was obvious that if it ever had been a problem, it definitely wasn’t now.

Which made Kirby like Sabrina Swann Tremayne already.

“That’s her. Small world, isn’t it?” Shane asked mildly, letting her know that he hadn’t forgotten that Swann’s ginger peach herbal tea had always been her favorite.

And, in case she’d forgotten, which she hadn’t, it was also a subtle reminder of the time he’d gone online and surprised her by ordering an entire case from the company’s Web site to be sent to the Green Zone.

Which, now that she thought about it, was yet another indication that their relationship, despite what he’d claimed at Landstuhl, had been about more than sex.

“Zach said you’re teaching flying.” Which explained the plane logo on his blue T-shirt.

“Yeah. At an airfield over in Somersett.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

He shrugged. “The planes we use aren’t exactly extreme or challenging, but I enjoy being up in the air again.”

“I’ve always thought it would be fun to learn to fly.”

“Maybe, once we get back from Central America, I can give you a few lessons.”

“Maybe,” she said noncommittally.

“Shields up, Scotty,” he murmured.

“That reference escapes me,” she said, pretending a sudden interest in the waist-high tea plants outside the passenger window.

“Since we’re going to have to work together over the next few days, I’m going to resist calling you a liar,” he countered. “But I’m also not so clueless that I can’t recognize when someone’s put barricades up.”

“I don’t remember you being prone to exaggeration. I haven’t put up any barricades.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. But they weren’t anywhere near as high or thick as the ones he’d erected between them in Germany.

“Look, I realize I owe you a huge apology.”

His statement told her he was thinking the same thing. Which wasn’t uncommon. Back in Iraq, there’d been countless times they’d say the same thing at the same time. Kirby didn’t know whether the fact that things seemed to have stayed exactly the same between them was a good thing. Or bad.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

That was definitely true. Sure, she’d gotten hurt. But they’d both been equally responsible. If she hadn’t put her heart on the line, he couldn’t have broken it.

“Yeah.” He blew out a quick, sharp breath. “I do. And we’re going to have to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

Although she’d never admit it out loud, he was right. She was a liar.

“It’s between us, Kirby,” he said. “Now, if this was just about us, maybe we could ignore the way I screwed things up when you came all that way to Landstuhl.”

“You’d been critically wounded. And were on heavy medication.”

“Thanks for giving me an excuse.” She thought she heard just a bit of laughter beneath the seeming regret. “But we both know that I’ve had plenty of time to make things right since then.”

“Look.” She turned back toward him. “I told you, I understand. My God, I’m a doctor. Don’t you think I realize what you went through? What you’ve had to go through all these months in rehabilitation?”

A lump formed in her throat, clogging her words. “When I saw that report on the news about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed . . .”

Unable to finish, she could only shake her head.

“Hey.” He reached across the center console and took hold of her hand. “Those guys had it bad. Real bad, apparently. I lucked out because I never got moved into that building.”

When she didn’t pull her hand away, Shane returned to his original track. “The thing is, we’ve got to get what happened behind us. Because if the air in here was any thicker, we’d fucking suffocate.

“Vasquez didn’t consolidate all that military and political power by being stupid. If we don’t figure out a way to move on, there’s no way he’s going to ever believe we’re long-lost reunited lovers.”

He had a point. The problem was, in order to discuss it, so they could get it behind them, Kirby was going to have to open up and admit she’d been hurt. Which meant she was going to have to expose her vulnerabilities.

Which went against everything she’d been trying to do ever since she’d joined the Army and ended up a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

She’d had to hide the details about her life in Baghdad from her parents, who worried, and although they’d understood her need for money for medical school and were as patriotic as the next American, neither had ever quite been able to wrap their minds around their only daughter joining the military.

She’d definitely had to conceal her fear and concern from her patients in the CSH. They already had enough to worry about; her job had been to fix whatever she could, as fast as she could, and reassure her patients as well as she could before sending them back out the door.

Her WMR work was much the same. The only difference was, as in Afghanistan, and the other night on the road when she and Rachel were returning to the clinic from the presidential palace, showing weakness could very well have gotten her killed.

This situation wasn’t the same. She might not be able to entirely trust Shane Garrett with her heart. But she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she could trust him with her life.

“You’re right,” she said. “Maybe this evening . . .”

She paused as she saw the muscle jerk in his tanned cheek. “Or not.”

His reaction reminded her of all the months she’d waited around at the CSH for him to show up. On his schedule. Thought of all those really hard days when she could’ve used some emotional propping up.

Which really wasn’t fair, she allowed as she tugged her hand away and felt an odd little prick of loss. The Army wasn’t in the business ensuring her happiness. If she wanted emotional support, she could’ve e-mailed Dr. Phil.

“While you were talking with Mike, Zach decided we guys should run through the logistics once last time.”

“Tonight?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he reminded her unnecessarily. “And you know what they say: A failure to plan is planning to fail.”

“Yeah. I seem to recall hearing that while I was in the Army,” she said dryly. “Interesting that you big strong men decided to leave the little lady out of the briefing.”

“It’s mostly military stuff. Like where and how we’re going to get the copter, rendezvous locations, that sort of thing. Tactics we’re used to doing and are good at. Now, if you and Dr. Gannon wanted to start talking about medical procedures, there’d be no reason for Zach or Quinn or me to hang around.”

He had a point, she decided.

“Discussing down-and-dirty details of our past on the plane is definitely out,” he considered. “Never know who might be sitting in front or behind of us. And Quinn warned me that our hotel room in Cuidad Libertad could be bugged.”

“I have a hard time believing Vasquez has bugged every room in every hotel in the city.”

“Probably not. But you’ve lived down there for six months. You know the guy better than I do. Do you think he’d miss the chance to eavesdrop on Americans? Especially since most of them are in the oil business and would probably love to figure a way to cut him out of some of those windfall profits.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she allowed. “But it’s a good point.”

“Why don’t I pick you up a little earlier than planned tomorrow morning? You can sample a traditional Lowcountry breakfast; then we’ll drive over to the coastal side and watch the F-18s from the Marine Air Corps in Beaufort while we work things out.”

Kirby considered telling him that there wasn’t anything to work out. But knew she’d be lying. And knew that he’d know it, too.

She also couldn’t help noticing that he brought up the nearby air base. Flying was obviously in the man’s blood. There’d even been those times when he’d shown up at the CSH or her trailer, still flying so high from a mission—most of which he couldn’t give her any details about—when she’d wonder, if forced to choose, whether he’d wouldn’t have picked his beloved helicopters over her.

After things had fallen apart, she’d reluctantly come to the conclusion that she obviously hadn’t even come in a close second.

“I don’t know,” she dithered uncharacteristically.

Although she knew he had a point, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone with him all that long in the cab of the truck. But while South Carolina wasn’t exactly the North Pole, a cold front along the tail end of a winter storm in the Great Lakes had pushed through the Southeast, bringing showers and thunderstorms. Which, if they hung around, precluded sitting somewhere less intimate outside.

“And here I thought you were big on tradition,” he said.

“I am.”

His words reminded her of the day they’d decorated a Christmas tree in her trailer.

It had not been a fragrant live fir, but an extraordinarily fake white plastic tree they’d bought from one of the local kids in the zone, who always seemed to have a collection of hard-to-find goods available at highway-robbery, black-market prices. She’d crafted the silver bows out of shiny duct tape Shane had contributed.

Although only tabletop size, it had still claimed way too much space in the tiny trailer, but it had lifted her spirits. As had the CD of carols Shane had surprised her with.

She didn’t think she’d ever hear “The Christmas Song” without remembering making sweet, slow love to this man with Nat King Cole’s voice as a soundtrack.

“Then how can you deny me a chance to park with my girl?” he asked. “After all, we never managed that American tradition in Iraq.”

“There’s just one problem,” she said. “I’m not your girl.”

“If you keep talking like that, we’re going to slip up down in Monteleón,” he warned. “While I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t had the on-the-ground undercover training Zach and Quinn had in the SEALs, I was still Spec Ops. We were taught enough for me to know that if we’re going to be playing a role, it’s vital to stay in character from the get-go.”

She supposed that made sense.

Still . . .

“James Bond didn’t stay in character when he and Vesper Lynd went undercover in Casino Royale,” she argued.

“Yeah. And look how that turned out.”

Once again, he’d won the damn point.

“There’s not that much to go over,” she insisted. “Although I really don’t want to discuss it, I’ll admit to making a fool of myself in Germany. Well, as you can see, I survived, while you made what appears to be a near miraculous recovery. We both moved on. End of story.”

“You didn’t make a fool of yourself. I did. By letting you walk away.”

Hadn’t she thought the same thing? Too many times to count on those long, restless, lonely nights.

“They’d pumped you full of heavy medication.”

It was what she’d tried to tell herself. At the time, then later.

But if she’d truly believed it, she would have looked him up after he’d been farther down the road to recuperation. When he’d had time to realize what he’d thrown away.

“Yeah. And since I normally only ever take vitamin M, they hit my system damn hard. But I’m not going to use drugs as an excuse for my shitty behavior. Because I knew what I was doing.”

“I doubt that.” She folded her arms and stared through moist eyes at the bare limbs of peach trees lined up in straight rows, like soldiers at parade rest. “You couldn’t have possibly known how badly you crushed me.”

There, she’d said it. And in doing so, felt a bit of the emotional shell she’d encased herself in since that day crack, just a little.

“Yeah. I did.”