Ricochet (38 page)

Tires ground on gravel, and the truck shot forward. Ryker gripped Ray’s wrist and held it over his head to hinder blood flow. “Hang tough, Mikey. We’ll be at the hospital soon. They’ll get you fixed up.”

Before they’d reached the main highway, Ray had fallen unconscious. But Ryker kept his fingers pressed to the main artery feeding Ray’s hand, and his pulse was strong.

When they were on the freeway, speeding through the dark, Jax said, “He’s breathing, right? He’s got a pulse?”

“Yeah. Just passed out.”

In the passenger’s seat, Charlie turned and glanced over his shoulder. “Rachel found three fingers.”

Ryker slammed his eyes shut and spewed a stream of curses. “When I said find his fingers, I didn’t expect
her
to do it.” He dropped his head back against the seat. “Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Jax said. “She’s as tough as they come.”

Maybe on the outside, but inside… Inside she had a heart of liquid gold that spilled with every stick.

“Do you think they’ll really be able to do something with them?” Charlie asked.

Images of Carmello’s severed limbs flashed in Ryker’s head. All the blood. The terror and pain in his voice. Ryker swallowed and rolled his head back and forth on the seat. “A better chance than if we didn’t have them.”

“Fuck,” Charlie breathed, paused, then asked, “Ry, who’s Mikey?”

His stomach iced over. “What?”

“Mikey. You were calling Ray Mikey.”

Christ
. He knew he’d been thinking about Mike but hadn’t known he’d swapped his name with Ray’s.

He ground his teeth. Forced everything from the past out of his mind. Focused hard on the moment. “Nobody. I just…got confused.”

Rachel startled awake to the sound of her cell. She lifted her head from her arms and straightened from where she’d slumped on the dining room table, waiting for word on Ray. And Nathan. When Nathan had carried Ray into the truck, he hadn’t looked a whole lot better than the man missing fingers.

She saw CHARLIE on the display and hit Answer. “Charlie?” she said, breathless, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was 2:00 a.m. “What’s happening?”

“He’s out of surgery,” Charlie said, his voice rough and tired. “They replaced all his fingers, but won’t know how well it will take for a few days.”

Rachel flashed back to the image of a severed finger in her flashlight beam, and her stomach rolled toward her throat for the tenth time since she’d picked them up. She still had no idea how she’d done it.

“Okay,” she said, disappointed there wasn’t better, more miraculous news. “How’s Ryker?”

“Uh…” His voice trailed off, then grew quieter. “Not great. How long has he had this PTSD?”

“PT what?” It sounded familiar, but her brain wasn’t functioning well at all.

“Posttraumatic stress,” Charlie said, voice low. “This triggered something bad for him. He hasn’t stopped pacing. He’s pale, jittery, irritable, and fragmented.”

“He’s broken—on the inside. He’s hurting in a place that can’t always be healed.”
Troy’s words filled her head.

“I’m, um, not sure, but I think it was relatively recent.”

“Well, we’re headed out. Ray’s going to be sleeping for a while. His parents are on their way from Ukiah. They’ll be here when he wakes up.”

A fist of pain gripped Rachel’s heart out of nowhere, and she grimaced. An accident was an accident, but she was tortured over how this accident would affect Nathan. “Charlie?” she said before he hung up. “Do you… I don’t know, do you think I should call Troy? To be here for Ryker?”

He hesitated. “Hard to say since I don’t know him all that well, but my guess would be no. I think he’s going to need you more.”

Rachel disconnected and dropped her head into her hands. Thoughts pinged through her mind in all directions.

The door opened behind her and she lifted her head, glancing over her shoulder. Josh sauntered in, his hair a wild mess, his shirt untucked, his eyes tired, and—unless she wasn’t reading him wrong—haunted like Ryker’s.

So many secrets
, she thought, turning to face him.

“Hey,” she said. “What did you find out?”

He pulled out a chair , propped his forearms on the table, and turned the charred piece of metal between his fingers. “It wasn’t his fault,” he said, his voice flat and exhausted. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really.” He dropped the metal on the table as if he couldn’t stand to hold it any longer and sat back. “Bad cap.”

“Bad cap?” she asked, wondering if she’d missed part of their conversation.

“The blasting cap,” he gestured toward the metal. “It was defective. When Ray was picking up supplies to put them away, it went off in his hand.”

Rachel exhaled long and slow, staring at the metal, knowing the fact that it was just defective wouldn’t help any of the men deal with this better, but it sure as hell would alleviate Nathan’s conscience.

“This is why I’m such a hard-ass for precision,” Josh said. “Because I may not be able to stop the true accidents, like this one, but I can minimize the careless mistakes, so these incidents happen less often. In this case”—he shook his head—“there was no way for any of them to know and no way to stop it from happening. That cap just came from the factory defective. It was the luck of the draw. Ray ended up with the short stick, but it could have just as easily been Charlie or Ryker.”

Josh met Rachel’s gaze, and she saw that the sharpness had returned. “In fact, it should have been Ryker. He should have been the one cleaning up and putting supplies away. He should have seen the explosion through to the end. Put it to bed himself.”

She stiffened. “You just said it was an accident that wasn’t his fault.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “Nowhere in the SOP did you require Ryker and only Ryker to handle the blast beyond the post check for undetonated explosives. Charlie is licensed and qualified as well. He was just as capable of handling the cleanup.”

Josh’s jaw hardened; his gaze turned smoky. And he opened his mouth to say something that might just push Rachel over the edge.

She lifted her hand and held it out in a stop gesture. “Don’t, Josh. You’re not being fair. You haven’t been fair to Ryker from the start, and it’s becoming a problem. I’m not going to stand by and watch you dig into a wound that’s already been ripped open again.”

His lips pressed into a stubborn line of determination.

“I know that look. And let me just tell you right now, if you don’t put your self-involved issues away, I’ll call Precision.” She had no idea what she’d say, but he didn’t know that. She lowered her chin and bluffed. “And you won’t like what I tell them.”

His shoulders fell. “Rach—”

“Jax, Charlie and Ryker are on their way back now. Ray is out of surgery, but they won’t know anything for a few days.” She turned and started for the door. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” She paused at the door and looked back one last time. “Don’t forget what I said.”

She was shaking when she stepped out of the dining room. Shaking with anger, with fear, with heartache. In her room, she undressed and pulled on sleeping shorts and a tank, then settled into the rocker and watched out the window. It seemed to take forever for the truck’s headlights to appear. Trying to keep her mind from replaying the night’s horrible event, she thought back to the night before and the way it felt to have Ryker beside her as she’d fallen asleep.

“What if…I didn’t volunteer to extend my tours and came back to the States in between? Would you see me again?”

His words skittered through her heart, creating both excitement and apprehension. He was clearly a troubled man. A troubled man returning to the melee that had created that shadow on his soul. That couldn’t be healthy. It was one thing to fall off a horse and get back on. It was another to throw yourself into a pen of wild horses and expect to ride every one without getting hurt. And if his returning to Afghanistan wasn’t healthy for him, it was twice as unhealthy for Rachel, because she would not only take on his struggle but battle her own at the same time. Agreeing to a long-distance relationship with Ryker was simply setting herself up for heartbreak—the very thing she promised herself never to do again.

Headlights finally appeared down the long drive leading into the ranch, and Rachel’s breath caught. Her gut tightened. And her heart ached. She may not be able to take care of him after he left, but she could be here for him now.

The truck slowed and dropped Ryker off in front of his bunkhouse. Rachel crossed her arms and fisted her hands as Jax and Charlie continued down the drive and out of sight. She scraped her lower lip between her teeth when the light in his cabin didn’t go on. She glanced at her cell, but she hadn’t missed any texts or calls. Maybe he’d just dropped into bed.

“This triggered something bad for him,”
Charlie had said.

Thinking about him alone in that room, probably blaming himself for Ray’s injuries, pushed her to her feet. He could send her away if he wanted, but she couldn’t just sit here, sleepless another night, knowing he was hurting.

Rachel slipped on her flip-flops by the door and crossed her arms against the chill air as she hurried across the drive to his room. At the door, she found herself breathing too hard for the quick jog and tried to catch her breath.

She bit her lip, raised her hand, and closed her eyes for a moment, second-guessing her decision to intrude. He might want to be alone. Even if he didn’t want to be alone, he might not want to see her.

“Too damn bad,” she murmured and let her hand fall against the door three times.

When no one answered, Rachel knocked again. “Nathan? It’s Rachel.”

Again nothing. Unease trickled through her gut. She turned her ear to the door, closed her eyes to isolate sounds, and heard the shower running. She exhaled in relief and tried the knob. It turned in her hand. She pushed the door open and peeked in. The bathroom door stood open, the light on, the shower door closed, but Nathan’s big, tanned body showed behind the wavy glass. He was facing the spray, both hands on the wall, head hung.

The stance was so defeated. So…broken. And Rachel’s heart twisted.

She closed the door behind her, took a few steps toward the bathroom, and called, “Nathan? It’s Rachel.”

“Not a good time.” He spoke without moving, and he sounded horrible, his voice rough, exhausted, and dark.

“That’s why I’m here.”

He didn’t respond.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” She eased toward the bathroom until she was standing in the doorway. Her gaze lowered to the pile of clothes on the floor—and all the blood still staining them. The almost full, uncapped liter of vodka sitting on the floor beside them.

“No,” he muttered. “I’m not okay. Which is why you need to leave.”

Unease and sorrow gripped her at the same time. He sounded like a completely different man. Hard and cold. But she knew that wasn’t the real Nathan. At least not the Nathan she knew.

Then she remembered all she’d learned about the Rangers and realized there had to be some part of him that was very hard and very cold to kill the way Rangers reportedly killed.

She swallowed and took another two steps into the bathroom. Still, he didn’t move behind the glass. She wanted…needed…to help him. But she’d experienced the painful attempts of others trying to help her when she’d discovered Nicole and Dante’s relationship, and wouldn’t presume to know what he needed at a traumatic time like this.

“I want to help,” she said. “I just don’t know how.”

He slid the shower door open with a swipe of his hand. A motion so fast and fierce, the glass slammed against the wall and Rachel jumped. When he turned his head, stormy gray eyes peered out from beneath dark, wet hair, dripping water.

“You want to help?” he asked, clearly challenging. “Then get in here.”

For a long moment, she didn’t know what he meant. Then Troy’s words trickled back in again. “
He’s been doing it with a different woman every night for the last month in New Orleans. He was spiraling.”

So he’d been using sex to keep the horrific memories—whatever those were—at bay. It made a twisted sort of sense. Rachel buried herself in her work to forget. Nathan buried himself in women—literally.