Scorch (The MacKenzie Family Book 17) (11 page)

Her temper was starting to rise. “Not everything revolves around your wants and needs, Shane. There are other people living around you with real feelings. We all want what’s best for you. We want you to heal and get back to what you do best. I’ve seen glimpses of the man you were and can be again since my time with you. But I’m not a woman that will be used and tossed away to scratch your itch.”

“Well, it sure as fuck felt like you wanted your itch scratched a minute ago.”

“Of course I do,” she agreed quickly. “But I want you to remember my name at the end of it, and I don’t want you fucking me because you can’t decide if you’d rather punch something instead. You’re on the right track. Your anger will pass. But you’ve got to keep working to get where you want to be. And better yet, you need to decide
who
you want to be.”

He moved to the side and let her out of the cage of his arms, and she skirted around him. “You’re not my shrink. You’re my babysitter.”

The words hit her like a blow to the chest. “You’re right. And since you won’t talk to anyone else, I guess you’ll have to live with my armchair analysis. Everyone wants to help you but
you
, Shane. You can do anything you want to do. Do you think a fucking missing leg is going to hold you back? That it’s going to keep you from doing something if you want it bad enough? Maybe those are the sort of thoughts you should be having.”

She heard a couple of car doors slam in the distance, and she looked back down the road to see a Jeep parked in Shane’s driveway. It looked like Declan had the SEALs back on the compound and they’d come to pay Shane a visit.

“I’ll drop you back at your place. I’ve got some things to do.”

He climbed back in the car, and she put it in reverse almost before he had the door closed. Then she drove back down to his cabin where several men stood watching with fascination as she threw open her car door, got his wheelchair out of the back, and then as soon as he was in the chair she left him where he was and got back in the car.

She drove off without a backward glance.

“
T
hat is one mad woman
,” Brady Scott said, his grin wide.

Shane stared at his friends and then wheeled himself around the ramp and up to the wide front porch. Along with Brady was Ezra Creed and Josh Holland.

“She’ll get over it,” he said.

And then he wondered why he was so bothered by what she’d said to him. He’d hurt her, and it wasn’t sitting well. She wasn’t like any woman he’d ever known before, and he
had
been using her. Using her to forget what he was, and using her to make him feel something when he hadn’t in a long time. She was worming her way into his life, and he wasn’t altogether comfortable with it.

“What brings y’all to the compound?” he asked.

“Human trafficking job out of South America that Declan needs our help with,” Brady said. “Twin girls taken from a mall in San Diego. Thirteen years old. A friend of a friend recommended the parents contact Cade. He’s been doing the initial investigation and picked up a lead that they were in São Paulo. We’re supposed to extract them once we get the final location verification.”

Shane looked out over the vast expanse of land that had been in his family for generations and felt more disconnected than ever from the man he’d been and from the friends he’d known.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here,” Shane said.

“We’ve been OOC. Just got in this morning. Dec said you were out with the Doc.”

Things were stilted between them. In a way that they’d never been before throughout their friendship. Shane knew Brady was no longer authorized to talk to him about the missions they’d been on while out of the country. Shane was no longer part of the team. It was slapping him in the face every time he turned around.

“I thought you’d have a prosthetic by now,” Brady said. “I saw a couple of videos of something similar to the one you’re getting. The technology looks incredible, and Dec says the one you’re getting is even better, because MacKenzie R&D is the mastermind behind the whole thing.”

Shane shrugged. “The infection from the shrapnel took longer to heal than they thought. Doesn’t matter one way or the other. I’m stuck no matter what.”

“Are you kidding?” Josh Holland said. “Dec is chomping at the bit to have you active again. Lord knows what Dec’s plans really are, but you know how he is. He’s probably got some scheme worked out that’s been years in the making. Like RoboCop.”

Holland was the youngest of the group, a couple years shy of thirty, and he couldn’t have looked more like the all-American boy—blond-haired and blue-eyed, with a baby-face that constantly got him ribbed by his team members. Creed was older by almost a decade, and the lines of experience showed on his face. He was from the swamps of south Louisiana and was one of the toughest men Shane had ever known. He had more lives than a cat.

“You’re an idiot, Holland,” Creed said. “You think Dec doesn’t have something better in mind for the commander than making rocket launchers out of his arms and legs”

“Tell me something,” Shane said. “What am I best at?”

“Easy, LT,” Creed said. “You’re a SEAL. You can run a water op in your sleep. You can fucking swim with the dolphins.”

“Then I guess that takes care of that theory,” Shane said, the bitterness in his voice unmistakable. “You can’t swim with the dolphins if one of your body parts will short out as soon as it touches the water.”

“You’re just as viable on land,” Brady said quietly.

“Except slower and more vulnerable to attack,” Shane said. “Thanks for stopping by. I’m sure Dec wants to have a briefing, so y’all had better get going.”

Shane rolled himself into the house and closed the door behind him, leaving his friends staring after him in bewilderment.

* * *

L
acey sped
through the back roads of Surrender like a bat out of hell. She needed a pressure release, and she needed to forget what it felt like to have Shane’s lips touch hers. To know that it probably wouldn’t happen again.

Never in her life had she let her emotions get the best of her. She’d always been clinical—almost robotic—in her approaches to everything from school to relationships to bodies lying on the ground in need of help. But Shane had managed to get past her defense and open up a well of emotion she hadn’t felt since she was an angry fourteen-year-old girl.

She drove into town, got groceries, got her oil changed, stopped at the library, and also stopped at Annabeth MacKenzie’s shop, where she was talked into a couple of dresses she’d probably never wear and several sets of sexy lingerie Annabeth kept hidden in the back room.

It was dusk when she got back in the car and saw the manila envelope in her passenger seat. Her doors had been locked and nothing had been there when she’d gone inside Annabeth’s, but it was there now.

She reached in the back seat for her medical bag where she carried extra latex gloves. She put them on and then reached for the envelope. There were no markings on the outside at all. It was simply clasped at the top.

She undid the clasp and then dumped the contents out on the passenger seat. Her heart stopped when she saw the photographs that had spilled out. A cold, gripping anger overcame her as she looked into the faces of the soldiers she’d once known. The ones who hadn’t survived the last convoy she’d been on.

The photographs were copies of the ones the military had taken before their bodies had been shipped back home to the United States. They weren’t photos that were readily available to the public. Someone had to know where to get them and what specifically they were looking for.

It hadn’t been so long since her house had burned down, and she hadn’t forgotten the potential for danger. She’d been extra vigilant since, but even though the feeling of being watched had never quite gone away, she’d started thinking she was just being paranoid. She was trained. She could spot a tail. And there’d been occasions she’d gone different directions and circled back just to see if she could see one. But there’d been nothing.

Clearly her training wasn’t as polished as she thought, because the proof was staring her right in the face. She had no choice but to go to Declan. He was going to be pissed. But it was better to have Declan pissed and working for you than pissed and working against you.

S
he was gone
.

Darkness had long since passed and Lacey hadn’t returned. Not that he’d expected her to come back to his cabin, but she hadn’t returned to hers either. And he’d been watching for her headlights to come down the road.

The truth was, she’d become his anchor. She was the reason he woke up in the morning—the sound of her voice, the low, seductive laugh that never failed to stir his blood. He relied on her presence to keep his mind from going to dark places. She was his light. He remembered having a similar conversation with his brother and not understanding what he was talking about. How a woman could balance all the horrible things that they dealt with in their line of work. But now he understood it completely, especially now that he’d tasted her. It was all he thought about.

And now he’d ruined it all, and she was gone. His life was empty and bleak. What did he have to show for thirty-six years? The answer was a resounding
nothing
. His command. His identity as a SEAL. It was all gone, and he was alone. His brothers and sister all had families of their own. And the woman he’d just realized was so much more to him than he’d planned was gone too.

He hadn’t become his own person until he’d joined the Navy. And he hadn’t discovered the type of man he was until he’d suffered through Hell Week and BUD/S. His purpose had been definitive at that point, and he’d lived for the next assignment and the thrill of doing a job that very few people in the world could do.

And now he had nothing. He
was
nothing. Because his career had defined him as a man, and he was discovering that maybe he wasn’t quite the man he thought he was. He sure as hell didn’t like the man he’d been living with the past few weeks.

He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the bottle of whiskey. It hadn’t been hard to text Creed and get him to drop a bottle off. It was already three-quarters of the way gone. The bottle of Percocet sat next to him, mocking him as the pain from his injuries wracked his body. Or the pain that had manifested in the area where his leg had once been. Ghost pain was what they called it. But it was very, very real.

Lacey had told him to fight through the pain. To wait past the point of when he thought he needed the pills before he took them, just so he knew he could. So he didn’t start to rely on the hazy illusion of being pain-free. His good leg throbbed unmercifully and the stub of what was left of his other leg hurt more than it had a right to, considering there wasn’t anything there to hurt.

Maybe he’d run his course in life. Maybe he’d done exactly what he was supposed to for the time he’d been able. It had been a good life. A worthy life. But he didn’t feel like fighting through the pain anymore. And in his wildest dreams, he couldn’t imagine what worth there was in the rest of his life.

He should have felt
something
—fear maybe. Definitely anger. But even that emotion was numbed to nothing.

Shane unscrewed the cap on the whiskey and poured the remainder into a tumbler so it filled to the brim. And then he opened the bottle of pills and poured them all out into his hand. He was about to find out what kind of man he really was.

“I never took you for a coward.”

Shane didn’t look up. He just kept staring at the pills in his hand. He’d been so focused on the “what ifs” he hadn’t heard her come in. He felt the tightness in his chest loosen at her presence.

“I thought you quit,” he said.

“Nope. I told you I wouldn’t quit. I just had to take a walk to keep from strangling you. You need to work on your sweet talk, MacKenzie. I’m never going to marry you if you keep this up. Think what a great wife I’ll make. I’m already an expert at ignoring you and telling you to get off your lazy ass.”

Shane shook his head and let out the breath he’d been holding. Oddly enough, the thought of her becoming his wife didn’t terrify him like the idea of marriage had in the past.

Doctor Lacey Shaw was an enigma. She came in a tiny package, but there was a core strength in her that was deceptive. She could pick him up when he fell—which was often at the beginning—and she could give him a tongue-lashing that would put any Navy brass to shame.

He’d put her through hell and still she stayed. And all he could figure was that Declan must be paying her a hell of a lot to put up with his shit. He finally looked up and made eye contact with her. She wasn’t a beautiful woman by traditional standards, but that seemed wrong to say. Because he found himself watching her more and more.

Her face was small and all angles—pointed chin and a sharp nose that was just slightly crooked. A square jaw that look like it could take a punch and skin like alabaster. Her hair was dark blonde and hung just below her chin, and her brows were a shade darker, making him wonder if that were her real hair color. She wore jeans and a gray t-shirt with the MacKenzie Security logo over the breast, just like she did every day.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?” he asked.

“Not since you did yesterday.”

“Jesus. Losing a leg wasn’t good enough,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve been cursed with you too.”

“There you go with the sweet talk again,” she said, arching a brow. “I’m getting all tingly what with all the romance.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe. She always wore an ugly black military watch around her left wrist, and the face was large enough that he could read the time from where he sat.

“Now that we’ve gotten all the pleasantries out of the way let’s go back to my original statement. I never took you for a coward, Lieutenant MacKenzie.”

His body jerked at the title, as rage roiled in the pit of his belly. The blood rushed in his ears and his skin felt too tight for his body. His hands bunched into tight fists and he felt the pills crunch and turn to powder in his hands.

He opened his hand and let them fall to the floor and then braced his hands on the little table and pushed himself to a standing position.

“You’ve gone too far,” he said, his voice soft with barely controlled rage.

“Last time I checked the Navy didn’t take back your rank when you were discharged. You earned your rank. Just because you don’t want to face it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“Don’t pretend to understand what the hell I’m going through.” His skull was pounding and the pressure behind his eyes made little black dots dance in his line of sight. “The last time I checked you don’t abandon your team. If one of them dies while they’re on a mission, it’ll be on me.”

“I thought your command went to your best friend. Not a new commander, but someone they’ve already risked their lives with. The reality is, you haven’t been in command in months. It was an adjustment for the team, I’m sure, but they have a job they have to continue to do. Just like you have a job you have to continue to do.”

Perspiration slid down his back and the side of his temples and his leg trembled with fatigue, but he didn’t give himself a reprieve.

“The last time I checked,
Doc
, you had all your limbs. You can shower and take a piss by yourself. You weren’t jerked out of your command and retired from the only life you’ve ever loved or been good at, only to be looked at with pity from everyone you come into contact with. So don’t fucking stand there and pass judgment on me if I want to look at a handful of pills or stare down the barrel of my gun. You don’t know what the hell is in my head and you sure as fuck don’t understand what I’m going through.”

Her face showed no reaction, not that he expected it to. He’d watched her long enough over the last few weeks to know when she was really upset. Her face turned into a mask of polite disinterest, and he wondered if he’d finally pushed hard enough to send her away for good.

His knee buckled and he sat down hard on the edge of the bed. Neither of them acknowledged it.

“You’re right,” she finally said. “What the hell do I know about anything?”

She worked the clasp of the watch at her wrist, and he felt a pang of guilt to see that her fingers trembled. He’d never once seen her shaken. She’d always fought his temper with a smartass remark and a determination that never seemed to waver.

Shaw jerked the watch from her wrist and hurled it as his chest in one smooth motion. He didn’t bother blocking it as it made contact with his sternum. He probably deserved it. And maybe he was too surprised to. Because he’d seen the evidence with his own two eyes—the long, raised white scar on the interior of her wrist.

“Give me the bottle and the pills. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” she said, turning toward the living room. And then she paused and turned back. “The thing is, Shane, you have so much to live for that you’ve never even considered. You’re so wrapped up in the past and what you planned for your life that the possibility of anything else is beyond your scope. There are people in this world who need you. There are people in this
compound
who need you. And there’s a person in this room who needs you to live.”

Shane rubbed the sting from the center of his chest and wished the knot forming in his stomach would go away. Something between them had changed, and for the first time in a long while his problems weren’t at the forefront of his mind. But he had every interest in getting to the bottom of Lacey’s and finding out why she’d tried to take her own life.

Maybe it was true what they said about misery loving company. Maybe she had a good reason to stick around after all.

* * *

S
leep wasn’t coming
.

Lacey watched the clock on the wall and got up every hour to check on him. She was worried—he’d scared the hell out of her. She was attuned to every sound in the house, and when she heard the squeak of a floorboard she threw back the covers and headed toward his room.

She hadn’t wanted to go home for a change of clothes, afraid to leave for even a short amount of time, so she wore the white tank she’d been wearing under her clothes and her panties to sleep in.

The door to Shane’s room was cracked, as she’d left it, and his light was out. But she knew there was displacement in the space as soon as she stuck her head in. There was no light coming from the bathroom, so she turned toward the window and saw his shadow against the moonlight.

“What are you doing up?” she asked.

“Just wondering how many times you’re going to come check on me and keep me awake,” he said. “I’m a SEAL. I’m trained to wake up when something moves.”

“So you were just faking the snores then?” she asked.

“It was enough to fool you.” He let the silence lapse for several seconds, and she almost turned around and went back to the couch. But then he surprised her by saying, “I wouldn’t have done it, you know? It’s not in my makeup to quit. I might want to sometimes, but I wouldn’t. You and I both know the suicide statistics of vets that come back after war and can’t adjust to civilian life. And we know that those who think of it, but never follow through, is an even higher percentage. How many men and women do you know who’ve served that have held the gun in their lap, just staring at it? Or further yet, put it to their temple?”

“Several,” she answered. “It’s something that many who suffer from PTSD struggle with, from local law enforcement to special operations to field agents. It’s the reality of what we deal with on a daily basis.”

She could see his head nod in the darkness and she moved into the room a little more.

“We all have the thoughts,” Shane said. “It’s whether or not they’re acted upon. I know for certain I have a future. What I don’t know is what it will be.”

“You’ll know when you know. It hasn’t been that long since the accident. Don’t try to rush it, but at the same time, you can’t sit around with nothing to accomplish. A man like you has to have a purpose, otherwise he withers away.”

He snorted out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Today’s been the first day since I’ve met you that I’ve sat on my ass and done nothing. You’re worse than any instructor I’ve ever known at the Naval Academy.”

“Thank you,” she said, deciding to take it as a compliment.

He moved just a little to the left, enough so she could see him better in the moonlight. Her breath caught at the beauty of him. His chest was bare and the gym shorts he wore hung low on his hips.

He took a step toward her and the crutch caught on the chair leg and fell to the ground. She went automatically to pick it up for him, but as soon as she moved closer his hand latched onto her wrist and he pulled her closer.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused.

“Of course I did. You told me a man like me needs to have a purpose. I just thought of one.”

Her brows raised at that. “Oh did you?” she asked. “Very subtle, MacKenzie.”

His smile was wolfish as he brought her closer, so her nipples barely brushed the hair on his chest. They were both adults and there was no doubt what was happening between them. The question was what to do about it afterward. Could she take just one taste of him and go back to the way things were before?

“I never pretended to be subtle,” he said.