Saving Axe (Motorcycle Club Romance, Cowboy, Military) (Inferno Motorcycle Club) (22 page)

"When he realized we'd saved him," I said.  "You know what he said?"

Cade waited, silent, still not looking at me, but obviously listening.

"He said it didn't matter, because he was already dead."

"Jesus."  Cade shook his head, a strangled noise in his throat.  "Shit, June, if you wanted to deal with that kind of stuff, why didn't you just become a head wizard?"

"I haven't heard that used since I was with the Marines," I said, stifling a smile at his use of the term.  "Seriously, can you picture me as a psychiatrist?  I'm too fucked up for that shit.  Plus, I'm a g
reat surgeon.  Or, well, I was.  I wanted to do something good."

"Why did
you quit?" he asked.

I wasn't sure if he was talking about the Navy or medicine.  Either way, I didn't like being on the receiving end of all the questions.  Cade was really good at avoiding talking about himself.  "Why did you?"
I asked.

"I didn't quit," he said.

"I can add, Cade," I said.  "You joined out of high school, you've been out for a few years now.  That's what, ten years, in the Marines?  Why didn't you stay in?"

"Twelve years," he corrected.

"Why did you get out?"  I asked the question, even though what I really wanted to ask was, why did you join the biker gang?  I had a feeling that question was the one that was too personal to ask.

"It wasn't by choice
," he said.

"
What do you mean?"

"L
eave it alone, June," he said.

"
How long have I known you, Cade?  I can't ask you questions?"

"You might not like the answers," he said.  I had a feeling we weren't just talking about the Marines now.

"Tell me."

"Fine.  You want to know?  I got boarded out.  I got twelve years in the Marines, made Gunne
ry Sergeant early, and got fucking boarded out."

"Oh," I said
.  He was medically retired from the Marines, so it wasn't by choice.  I thought about his touchiness around the scars, the burns on his chest.  He was physically okay, though, not permanently disabled, and that wasn't something that would get him medically boarded.

Which meant that the issue wasn't physical. 
"Oh."

"Yeah," he said.  "Oh."

"Cade, I -" 
You can talk to me about it,
I wanted to say. 
You can tell me what happened.
 

If there was one thing I knew about, it was about battling mental demons.  But I stopped.  Everything I could say would sound stupid, trite.

"Now you know," he said.  "They wouldn't stay in because I'm too much of a fucking mental case."  He looked at me, finally, and I could see the pain behind his eyes.  "Are you happy?  Now you know what a fuck up I am."

"You're not a
screw up, Cade."

"Yeah," he said, his voice hard.  "
You're saying that now, because we fucked.  Not because you believe that."  He looked away, and I realized what it was, the look on his face.  What I was always seeing flash across his face.

S
hame.

And my heart broke for him.

"Oh, Cade," I said.  No one thinks you're a fuck up, least of all me."

"Yeah?" he asked.  "My father sure does."

"He's afraid of losing you."

Cade was silent for a moment, and I thought he might be considering what I was saying
, thinking that maybe he wasn't the mess he thought he was.  But then he spoke.  "Do you know why I'm here, June?" he asked.

"I hope because you want to be here."  My voice shook as I said it
.  Shit, maybe he really didn't want to be here.  I picked at the stupid piece of thread on the bedspread, wanting to yank it out, unravel the whole thing.

"Not here with you," he said.  "Here in West Bend."

"No."  He was in some kind of trouble with his biker club, but I was afraid to ask what the specific brand of trouble was.

"The Marines were my whole life.  I couldn't fucking deal
with it when I got out.  It was the only thing I knew, since high school.  The discipline, the structure, the brotherhood - I was fucking lost without it.  When I found the MC, it was someplace I fit, someplace with other vets.  With people just as fucked up as I was.  No one gave a shit that I'd spent the last twelve years being a killer."

I opened my mouth, started to say som
ething, but Cade kept talking.

"In fact," he said.  "I had certain skills that were useful in my new line of work.  They gave me a family, a home, when the Marine Corps kicked me out of mine."

"So what happened?"

"The Inferno," he said.  "My fucking club, the people
I thought were my fucking family, they tried to kill me."

Shit.
  I had thought it was something big, but not that. 

"They tried to kill me, kill Crunch," he said.  "
Would have fucking killed April and MacKenzie.  After I did everything for those assholes."

"I'm so sorry, Cade,"  I said.  What else could I say?

"Do you know what it's like to lose yourself, to lose everything you believe in?" Cade asked.  "To lose who you are?"

I lost my family before I turned eighteen.  "Yes,
" I said.

Cade looked at me for a long moment, and nodded.  "You would be the one person who could understand
that, June," he said.  "The problem is, what did you do with your shit?  You became a fucking doctor.  Joined the Navy.  I didn't exactly go the honorable route."

"What do you mean?" I asked.  "You joined the Marines."

"And then I joined the MC, June."

"You had your reasons, I'm sure," I said.  "It was a place that fit.
  It wasn't all bad, from the beginning, right?  You couldn't have known."

"June," he said.  "You need to stop.  Stop defending me.  It's not worth it.
I'm
not worth it."

"Don't say that," I said.  "It's bullshit.  And, besides, I'm not defending
you.  I can think for myself."

"Do you know wha
t I did for the MC?" he asked.

I shrugged.  Nothing good, I was sure.  "Probably a whole bunch of criminal stuff.  I'm not naive, Cade.  Give me some credit.  I just think that you feeling ashamed of what you've done is pointless.  Just because
you've fucked up in the past doesn't mean you're fucked up forever.  There's always a way to right things."  I listened to myself say the words, the person who believed people couldn't ever change.

Did I really believe that, or was I just naively hoping Cade could change?

"June."  He brought his face up, looked at me, unblinking.  "I was the enforcer for the MC."

"So what?" 
Enforcer.
  I had an inkling of what that meant.

"So," he said.  "It's not
just because I was good at throwing punches, June."

"It's because you were a sniper," I said.  "So you killed people for the MC."  I wasn't asking.  I was listening to how it sounded, the s
tatement coming out of my mouth.

"
On occasion," he said.  "Still think I'm not fucked up forever?"

I couldn'
t answer.

"Yeah," he said. 
"I thought so."  He exhaled, his eyes down, looking like he was deflating as he sat there.  My heart ached for him, for the pain he carried.  I wanted to tell him I couldn't answer because I was the one who was permanently fucked up.  How could I judge him, when I was just as bad?  It's not like I hadn't ever killed anyone.

"
Cade," I said.  I couldn't take it, watching him hurt like that.  I crawled over to him from where I sat, moved across from him, put my fingers under his chin and tilted his head up.  He shook his head away, and I took his face in my palms, made him look at me.  "You're not fucked up."

"Don't, June," h
e said.  "You don't know all of it.  Not everything."

"What else is there?"

He took my wrists, pulled my hands off his face.  "June.  There's something..." His voice started to crack.  "Shit, I can't even say it."

"What is it?"  I pulled back, already tense.  What could be that awful that he was so ashamed?

"June," he said.  "Hell, I don't even know how to say it.  Your sister- the ranch hand, it's all my fault, what happened."

"What are you talking about?"

"I knew about the two of them.  I caught them together once, in the barn.  I threw him out, sent her home.  I should have done more, but I didn't.  And it was my fault.  If I would have kicked his ass, told someone..."

"This is your big secret?  The thing you're so ashamed to admit?"

"June, I don't even know what to say..."

"Cade," I said, taking his head in my hands again, "I knew about them too.  That night?  I knew my sister was going out to party with him.  She snuck out of the house."

"You knew about it," he repeated slowly.

"Yes," I said.  "Have you been beating yourself up over this for all these years?"

He didn't say anything.

"Oh my God, Cade," I said.  "We were kids.  We didn't know any better." 
I leaned forward, kissed him lightly on the lips.  He didn't push me away.  So I kissed him again, gently, and his lips parted.  Then he kissed me back.  Wordlessly, I climbed on his lap, sat on his crossed legs, wrapped my legs around his back, held his head to my chest.  I breathed in, feeling my heart rate settle and come down low as I held him tight against me.  I kissed his forehead, breathed him in.

And felt warmth spread throughout my body,
in response to the smell of him. 

How wrong was it that I was thinking about how much I wanted him inside me?  Cade was sitting here, feeling ashamed and horrible,
and all I wanted to do was ride him.

As if he could read my thoughts, Cade looked up.  "Come here," he said, his hand at the base of my neck, pulling my hair, pulling me into him.  He kissed me, roughly, and I felt m
y nipples harden to his touch, need washing over me.

It wasn't slow and gentle, not like the way he'd made love to me this morning.  This time, there was no time for foreplay; it was all I could do to rip myself away from him in order to grab a condom.  I didn't want to talk anymore, and I didn't want to think about who Cade was or what he might be a part of.  Hell, I didn't want to contemplate those questions myself.

I guided him inside me, rocking against him, my movements intense from the very beginning.  There was no build-up, no gentle rhythm.  We were both consumed with need, too caught up in the moment to worry about anything else.

But when we did explode together, not more than minutes later, just before I came, I thought,
he's going to make me fall for him - and then he's going to leave.

I
woke with a start, fear gripping my chest like a vise, and it took me a moment to even register what had woken me.  Beside me, Cade was thrashing in the bed, talking to himself.

"No, no, no," he yelled, followed by a string of something that was unintelligible.  From her bed on the floor in the room, Bailey whined.

"Cade," I said.  Then, louder again.  "Cade!" He flailed wildly, and I had to move back to avoid being hit.

He jerked awake, gasping for air, looking
at me.

"Are you ok?"
  I asked.

He
didn't say anything, didn't acknowledge me.  I wasn't even sure if he heard me, and I wasn't quite sure whether he was awake or still asleep.  He leaned forward, his head in his hands, his breath more and more shallow, choking.

Panic attack.

I definitely recognized those.

I slid
close to him, put my hand on his back.  "Just breathe," I said.  "Breathe."

I kept my hand there, still, until his breathing began to slow, then got a cool washcloth from the
bathroom and dabbed it on his forehead.