The Edge of Courage (Red Team) (10 page)

“There are no enemies here. These are just regular people.”

“There is. I’m never wrong about this feeling, Em. Never.”

Mandy moved in front of him, shielding him from the curious glances coming their way. “I know these people. They’re friendly.”

“One of them is not a friendly. We need to leave.”

“No. We’re staying. We’re going to sit down and have a nice lunch like normal people.”

“It is too dangerous. I don’t know which one it is.”

“It is none of them. I know them.”

He looked at her, watching her expression. “You know all of them?”

She looked at the people seated at tables and booths. There was Sheriff Tate with Deputy Jerry, a couple of tables of farmers and ranchers, several local businessmen, two families she didn’t know. The plumber and the family physician sat on stools up at the counter. Jerry and the sheriff, as well as a few others, were watching the small drama unfolding by the diner’s entrance.

“I know most of them. The others I’ve seen around town. We’re plenty safe. You’re probably picking up on the vibe from the sheriff, who’s about to head over this way. Just stop. Trust me. Please.”

Rocco’s heart was beating rapidly. He could feel a cold sweat break out over his body. He wasn’t safe. He had no weapons with him, and his psych eval from Walter Reed had made it impossible for him to buy new. No matter. He could kill with his bare hands as easily. He would keep Mandy safe.

“We need to leave. We are surrounded,” he told her. The smoke from the griddle took on a metallic scent. Blood.

The room shifted, flickered, became a courtyard filled with men in
shalwar kameez
wearing turbans and
khapol
caps, sitting about in small clusters, smoking, laughing, drinking tea. Hiding semiautomatics. A fucking viper pit filled with Afghan and Pakistani insurgents and village men who would as soon shoot an American as help one. And he stood among them in fatigues. Unarmed. It was his nightmare come true.

Ah, Jesus Christ. He was dead. Dead.

“Rocco, look at me. Look at me now.” The voice of an angel whispered to him urgently. She touched cool fingers to his cheeks, cupping his face. His gaze shot to his arm. The blackened flesh was there, shrinking, drying. He tried to breathe. He wanted to vomit.

“There are no enemies here. You are safe. I am safe,” the angel spoke, her voice so like Mandy’s. Hot tears tracked down the clammy skin of his face. “Rocco, do you hear me?”

Please, God, kill me. Kill me, if you must, but don’t touch the angel.

Mandy watched the sanity leach from Rocco’s eyes as his body became rigid. She turned him and dragged him by his sleeve through the door, outside into the fresh air and sunshine, making a beeline for her SUV. She had no idea what just happened, but it was clear that Rocco was in over his head. She shouldn’t have forced the diner on him. What had she been thinking?

He didn’t resist as she settled him in her SUV. He said nothing as she reached across him and fastened the seat belt. She worried he might try to get out while she drove if he weren’t buckled, or that the warning beep from the unfastened seat belt sensor would deepen his anxiety attack. She put the air-conditioning on full blast and rolled all the windows down, letting the movement of the air calm him as she drove back to the ranch. Halfway home, she heard him sigh as he leaned his head back against the headrest, finally coming back to himself.

At the house, Rocco jumped out of the car almost before she had fully stopped the SUV. He marched to the bunkhouse. She called to him, but he ignored her. He went directly to his bedroom and pulled his duffel out from under his bed. Jerking open the top dresser drawer, he pulled out his things and started shoving them into his duffel.

“What are you doing?” Mandy asked from the doorway. He should have known she’d follow him. He didn’t waste a look on her. He had to leave. Had to run like hell.

“What does it look like?” he snapped.

“Stop this, Rocco.” She took a handful of his clothes and brought them back to the drawer.

He glared at her hands on his clothes. “Why can’t you leave me the hell alone? I’m not fit to be around people,” he growled a warning as he grabbed his clothes and tossed them back into the duffel, most of them missing the yawning opening. “I’m dangerous, Mandy. I could hurt someone and not know it until afterward. I could hurt you.”

His chest rose and fell, rage visibly building inside him. His face hardened. His nostrils flared. His lips pulled back from his teeth as a roar broke from him, shaking the walls of the little room. He backhanded the lamp from the dresser, swiping it against the far wall. The shattering sound fell short of the satisfaction he was looking for—it was far too little noise and destruction. He looked around the room for something else to destroy. Mandy had no doubt the dresser would have followed the lamp, along with several other pieces of furniture, had she not been standing in the room.

She didn’t back away, didn’t fold her arms. She held herself as absolutely still as possible. “You can’t run from yourself,” she said quietly, not as an indictment but as a simple statement of truth. “Where ever you go, you’ll just end up there with yourself. You’ve got to stand and fight somewhere. Do it here.”

He shook his head, glaring at the dresser. “What the hell was Kit thinking sending me here, a wolf into a lamb’s home?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

His head lifted, his hard gaze leveling her. “You should be. I’m afraid of me.”

“What is it that you fear?”

“Stay the hell out of my head, sweetheart. The shadows there have teeth. They will shred you as they have me.”

She wasn’t backing down. “Where did you go today, at the diner? In your mind, you saw something.”

A muscle worked in corners of his jaw. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Leave it, Em.”

“No.”

Rocco sighed, his shoulders slumping. He looked at the wall in front of him. Tears pooled in his eyes, spilled down his rigid face. He thought, with some relief, of his shotgun and the cold metal of its barrel. He could put a shell in the chamber, put the muzzle against the roof of his mouth, and end the fucking hell festering in his head.

“Where did you go at the diner, Rocco?” Mandy asked again.

He shut his eyes. “There was a courtyard full of insurgents, resting from the midday heat. I saw them. They saw me. An angel was there. With your voice. I knew I was dead, knew there was no way I’d get out of there alive, but I begged God to spare the Angel.”

He realized, in that moment, if he killed himself here, God would not spare her.

Mandy pulled a ragged breath. She forced her eyes away from Rocco, offering him the only kindness she could. Privacy.

“Put your things away. I’ll go make you a sandwich, then you can get back to the work waiting for you in the pastures.”

“I don’t need a fu—”

“I know
you
don’t, but
I
need to do this,” she interrupted him.

He looked at her. “Why?”

“Because helping you is the only thing my brother ever asked of me. Ever,” she answered, with more vehemence than she wished. The last thing Rocco needed now was more emotion. “Everyone here failed him,” she said in a calmer voice. “I did. My grandparents did. His mother did. My parents did. His girlfriend did. The whole town turned its back on him when he needed them. This is the only thing I have ever been able to do for him. And I won’t let you take it from me. You are important to him, and that makes you important to me.”

She headed for the door but stopped at the threshold and glanced back at him. “Look, Rocco. Not all wounds are physical, but they all take time to heal. Cut yourself some slack. You had a setback today. Big deal.” She shrugged. “It’s not your first and it won’t be your last. I don’t care what the town thinks of you or us or me. I never have. So don’t start arguing that you should leave.” He said nothing, which seemed the best of all mercies.

She’d taken two steps before he stopped her. “Em?” His face was pale. Lines of fatigue showed around his eyes, his mouth. “Make it two sandwiches. And a milkshake?”

She smiled at him and nodded. “Coming up!”

Chapter 8

The next few days were blissfully uneventful for Rocco. He worked. He ate. He ran. The shadows held less and less of him. Maybe there was something to Mandy’s grandfather’s philosophy.

He spent his evenings sitting on his porch, tending her second-hand tack. Area residents had donated most of it, like much of the center’s equipment. Some had belonged to her grandfather. All of it needed cleaning and maintenance.

He worked in phases with the leather items, cleaning, conditioning, then mending. Tonight, he was preparing to stitch a cinch buckle back on a child’s Western saddle when Mandy came down the hill toward the bunkhouse. He looked her over from her feet up, letting the distance camouflage his interest. Her boots were made of soft leather that hugged her slim calves. She wore a short jean skirt that flared at her bare thighs. Her shirt was a short-sleeved, blue gingham confection scooped low at her neck with thin ribbons of elastic that made it fit tightly around her slim waist. Her hair was loose. The streams of her copper mane were topped with a straw cowboy hat.

She looked good enough to eat.

He picked up a lump of beeswax and drew it down the length of saddle thread, then turned the thread and waxed the other side. He didn’t look up when she stepped onto the porch.

“Hi!” she greeted him.

“Evening.”

“Rocco, you’re amazing! These pieces look new! I didn’t have the heart to tackle them yet.” She ran a hand over the child’s saddle. “We may not have to buy as much tack as I’d feared.”

“Mm-hmm.” He still didn’t look at her, though he knew she watched him. Her voice and her scent were as seductive as the sight of her. All he could think was how useful that bare stretch of wall behind him could be. That short skirt would be no impediment—he could have her legs wrapped around his waist in seconds flat.

Did she know how close he was to breaking? What the hell was she doing out of the house dressed like that?

“Rocco—do you dance?”

He pricked his finger with the thick needle and swallowed an oath. “Not unless my life depends on it.”

She leaned restlessly against one of the porch supports, her hands behind her, a knee bent as she braced a foot against the wood. “Do you think you could make an exception tonight? I thought we could go into town and meet my friend, Ivy, at Winchester’s. They do line dancing there. It’ll be fun.”

About as much fun as standing in a field of rattlers in mating season. The thought of a crowd of people made him break out in a cold sweat. A person couldn’t move through a barroom thick with people without touching some of them. What if he had one of his freak-outs in the middle of Winchester’s? That would be a grand start to the work she was doing here, just top off his little performance earlier in the week. People would avoid her riding center for fear of running into him.

“That ain’t my thing.” He shoved the needle through the next hole, playing for time as he flicked a glance at the smooth, pale expanse of her thighs. “You goin’ out dressed like that?”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Mandy asked, looking down at herself. She smoothed a hand over her denim skirt, pressing the short hem of it against her raised thigh.

He locked his eyes with hers. “Your legs are showing.”

She laughed, spilling that tinkling, joyful sound across the porch. Goosebumps rose on his arms. “What century are you from?” she teased him.

He dropped his gaze to the leather strap he held. He’d been in Afghanistan too long, most of the past eight years—seven of them deep undercover. He was used to much more conservative behavior from women. He stabbed the needle between the two sides of leather he was sewing and tossed it on the table. “Then I guess I better go with you. Make sure no one mistreats you.”

She grinned. “Yes, you’d better.”

* * *

Rocco backed his old Ford into one of the last parking spots in the section farthest from the bar entrance. Neon signs listed their draft beers and made a wagon wheel appear to be turning. He regretted his decision to come as soon as they walked through the small crowd of people who milled around the entrance. He opened the door for Mandy even as he cast a glower over the crowd, daring any of the men to look at her.

He stared at her back as they walked through the long entranceway, focusing on her as if she were a lifeline. They passed the coat checkroom, restrooms, offices, and kitchen entrance. The place was low ceilinged, paneled in pine, lined with posters, prints and sculptures. Benches made of halved logs sat along the hallway. As the entranceway opened to the main bar area, the crowd thickened.

Mandy seemed to know where she was going. He followed her, his gaze focused ahead of them, making eye contact with the men, claiming her in an ancient way of silent communication between men, one that worked in any culture, anytime. It was brief, subtle, and harmless unless ignored—wholly effective in opening the crowd so that they could pass.

Long rows of tables bordered the dance floor. Large booths lined the walls on three sides, forming a horseshoe around the band and dance floor. Mandy drew Rocco to a corner booth with a circular seat where a woman was sitting between Officer Jerry and another man Rocco had not yet met.

Instantly, Rocco wanted to get Mandy out of there. There was only room for one of them at either end of the half-circle table—he wasn’t going to be able to sit next to her. If he made an issue of it and asked them to scoot around, he’d still have to let Mandy sit next to one of the men. And if he didn’t, she’d be open to approach from men outside their group.

The woman between the two men noticed the situation and quickly pushed against Jerry to get him to move down so that they could both squeeze in beside the other man. Rocco let Mandy get in first, choosing the lesser of the two evils. When they were settled, Mandy performed introductions.