The Edge of Courage (Red Team) (7 page)

They ate in silence. She knew he watched her. Her face was flushed—she was uncomfortably warm beneath his silent perusal. Too soon, he set his empty plate back on the work counter.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Time to pay the piper.”

Mandy had barely touched her meal. And now her stomach knotted. She looked up at Rocco. He crossed his arms, waiting for her answer.

“When I was a very young girl,” she sighed, wishing she didn’t have to tell him this, “I had a crush on Ty Bladen.”

Rocco’s brows lifted in shock at her confession. He barked with laughter. “Blade? You were hot for Blade?”

“I was a kid. I wasn’t
hot
for him—he was much older than I was. But yes, I thought he was handsome.”

He looked at her, studying her in a way that made her blush deepen. “All right, then.” He didn’t even try not to grin. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll see you at dinner.”

* * *

Mandy was still stewing about their encounter when she walked into Ivy’s Diner in town later that morning. Her discussion with Rocco had left her too disconcerted to make a normal start in her day. She needed to get some groceries, which was as good an excuse as any to stop in and have a cup of coffee with her friend.

Ivy was two years older than Mandy, but they’d been close friends ever since she’d started taking riding lessons from Mandy’s grandfather while they were in grade school. She left town with her family after her sophomore year in high school—right after the scandal with Kit. They’d reconnected online a few years back. Mandy had been thrilled when Ivy decided to come back to Wolf Creek Bend and reopen the diner.

At ten in the morning, the diner had few customers. She’d caught them between the morning and lunch rushes. Celia was running the counter when Mandy sat down. She flipped the thick china mug over and filled it with coffee.

“What else can I get for you, sweetie?” she asked.

“Just the coffee. Is Ivy in?”

“She’s in the office. I’ll go get her.”

Mandy looked around the cheery dining room. Booths with teal vinyl seats lined the walls. The tables and counter were edged in chrome. The look was definitely retro. Ivy had said she had an investor who’d funded the diner and its renovations. Having had to scrounge up funding for her own construction project, Mandy was happy Ivy had found the means to make her dream happen. It had been a big hit in town ever since she’d opened it almost a year ago.

“Mandy! I don’t often get to see you during the day!” Ivy took one look at her and knew something was up. Mandy guessed her problems were written all over her face. She gave Ivy a poor attempt at a smile. “You know, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do in the back. Why don’t you join me? We can talk while I work.” She picked up Mandy’s coffee and headed to the back, clearly not taking “No” for an answer.

When Mandy walked into the neat little office, Ivy shut the door behind her. “Spill. You’re face is flushed and it’s not even windy outside. What’s going on?”

Mandy covered her face. “Ivy, I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Man trouble.”

“So it’s true! You do have a hot boy toy stashed at your house. One smokin’ hot Rocco Silas, as I understand it.”

“Who told you about him?”

“Officer Jerry’s friendly with a couple of the guys working on your riding center. He’s been complaining about your hiring yourself a man. I think he did a background check on him—for your safety, of course—but didn’t find anything.”

“Ugh. He’s being vindictive because I wouldn’t go out with him.”

Ivy sat on the edge of her desk and waggled her eyebrows at Mandy. “So? Tell me. Everything.”

“He’s gorgeous. Tall. Dark. Mysterious. Moody. Angry.”

“Mm-mm. How is he in bed?”

“I wouldn’t know. We don’t—we aren’t—it’s not like that. He’s been diagnosed with PTSD. I think he has it bad, too. He won’t eat. Doesn’t sleep. He looks,” Mandy paused, searching for the right word, “haunted.”

Ivy sighed. “I’m sorry, Em. That’s tough to deal with.”

“I don’t know what to do to help him. Kit says to tackle one thing at a time. He wants me to get him to eat, but Rocco seems to have an aversion to food.” As soon as she saw the shadow that crossed Ivy’s face, she realized she shouldn’t have mentioned her brother.

“Why don’t you visit Dr. Crowley? For a shrink, he’s easy to talk to. I’ve met with him a time or two. Or talk to the sheriff. He served in the first Gulf War. He might remember some of things he faced coming back to the States.”

“You went to Dr. Crowley?” Mandy asked, shocked that her friend had been to see the town psychologist.

Ivy shrugged. “It hasn’t been easy moving back here. So many memories. So many shadows.”

Mandy took her hand. “Do you regret coming back?”

“No. Not at all. It was the right thing for Casey. And for me as well.”

Casey was Ivy’s twelve-year-old daughter. Ivy’s and Kit’s. “I think Kit’ll be back soon. He’s worried about the construction problems I’ve been having. That’s why he sent Rocco over. They served together.”

Ivy folded her arms. “That’s nice,” she said with a smile that held no joy. “So what happened that set you off today?”

“I had to tell Rocco a secret to get him to eat.”

“Did you?” Ivy grinned. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him that I once had a crush on Ty.”

Ivy’s jaw dropped. “Ty Bladen. You did not.”

“I was twelve, Ivy. I had a crush on everyone.”

Ivy held up her hands. “No. I think you have good taste. Ty’s gorgeous. He serves with Kit and your Rocco, doesn’t he?”

“He’s not my Rocco. And he did serve with them. I think he’s getting out. Rocco said he was injured.”

“Badly?”

“Shot in the leg. I don’t know how severe his injury is.”

“Wow. That’s awful. I hope, for his sake, it’s not too major.” Ivy handed Mandy her now-cold coffee. “But I know just what you need to do about your hired man.” Mandy eyed her warily. “We’re going shopping. Then Friday night, you’ll bring Mr. SexOnAStick to Winchester’s for some drinking and hip grinding. He’ll forget all about his troubles when he sees you in the outfit I have in mind.”

* * *

Rocco made the short walk from the bunkhouse to Mandy’s that evening. Hot dry winds had blown across the mountain all day, burning the new spring grass and sucking all the moisture from the ground. The air sat in place now, hot and unmoving, amplifying the growing sense of dread he felt in joining Mandy for supper.

He wanted to see her. He’d thought of little else since breakfast when she divulged her darkest secret. Every time he remembered the way she’d set her chin, her eyes looking straight at his when she told him, his whole body tightened uncomfortably. He felt an unreasonable wash of jealousy as he thought of Blade and Mandy together. She said she’d been a kid at the time, but she wasn’t a kid now. She and Blade would be good for each other. Their lands backed to one another. They had something of a shared history having grown up in the same small town.

So why did he want to plant a fist in his friend’s face? It made no sense. It’s not like Rocco would be starting something with her when he would be leaving soon. No, this was only a dinner, a condition of his employment. He’d eat and get the hell out of there.

If he bungled the whole thing, she’d go back to bringing his suppers down on a tray so that she wouldn’t have to deal with him. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.

He walked up the steps to Mandy’s porch. Taking advantage of the warm weather, she’d set a table on her front porch for their supper. Rocco felt his stomach clench at the explosion of color spread across it. The dishes were a noisy mixture of salmon, yellow, and green ceramic. The napkins were teal cotton. The tablecloth was a bright floral. The pitcher of iced tea was yet another color of blue. The salad bowl was a peach ceramic. The oversized salad servers were orange. He felt a cold sweat break out on his skin. He couldn’t do this. He would break, he knew it.

The kitchen’s screen door closed as Mandy joined him on the porch. He tried to calm his breathing. Her movement through the still air brought him her scent. It was faint. And pleasant. Against the warning of his shouting nerves, he drew her fragrance into himself. Sunshine. She smelled like sunshine and fresh air and the barest hint of jasmine.

It was dinner, he reminded himself. That’s all. Only dinner. Nothing was expected of him. There’d be no repercussions if his behavior wasn’t exactly normal.

He could get through this.

He looked at Mandy. She seemed made of shimmering light, backlit by the setting sun as she was. Unreal. He looked beyond her, down the rolling hills to the town several miles away. Maybe he wasn’t really here. Maybe this was a dream.

A rare, good dream.

He set his hat on the porch railing, sending a glance toward the pasture he’d worked earlier. If this were a dream, he should be able to conjure up his Zaviyar, running toward him on short, toddling legs, squealing with the joy of seeing his father, his arms outstretched as he reached to be picked up.

The boy was precocious as hell. By the time he was two years old, he could speak in full sentences. Rocco wondered what more he’d learned in the time they’d been apart. God, he missed him. He blinked, then saw only the bare field. The space was silent and still. And empty.

A nightmare then.

Rocco sighed as the vision of his son evaporated. This was not a dream, but what had become his life. He sat woodenly in his chair when Mandy took her seat. She was talking, but he still didn’t hear her. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He couldn’t handle sympathy or questions or concern or anger or any fucking thing.

He had to go back to Afghanistan. Soon. He couldn’t tackle the trip in the state he was in. He focused on his plate. He had to get better, get free of the cloud infecting his mind. If he didn’t, he’d get himself and Zavi killed.

“Your boy’s dead, Rocco. He died in the explosion,” his doctor had told him at the field hospital where they’d taken him after the hit on the cave. “You’ve got to accept that. He’s gone.”
Rocco couldn’t accept it. He still felt him.

Mandy filled his salad bowl, then served him a wedge of lasagna and offered him the breadbasket. He looked at the basket but didn’t take a roll. She set one on his plate, then filled their tea glasses before serving herself similar portions. She began to eat. He thought she was still making conversation, but he didn’t look at her. His skin felt uncomfortable, like he’d put it on backward. There was no place about the table that he could rest his gaze, no place that it wouldn’t get tangled in the loud, crazy colors.

Silence settled about them. He wasn’t certain if it was the unnatural silence that clogged his mind, or if the grasshoppers had really stopped snapping about, the birds had stopped chattering, and Mandy had stopped talking.

He looked across the table. She’d set her silverware on her plate and was simply watching her hands in her lap, her shoulders a little slumped.

He sighed. This was such a mistake. He shouldn’t have let her force him into this. She’d made a feast for him, and it would all be wasted. He sat as still and silently as she did, waiting for what would come next.

“What’s going on, Rocco?” she asked after a moment.

He pushed his chair back and stood up. His napkin was in his hand. When had he put it in his lap? He didn’t look at her. “I can’t eat. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He took a step away from the table, but she was faster as she moved to block him from the stairs. “Why, Rocco?”

“Mandy, don’t do this.” He did look at her then, into her fresh, emerald gaze.

“You have to eat. Not much, but something.”

“I ate this morning. I ate a lot.”

“That was this morning. You jogged—what, six miles? And put in a long, hard day. Now it’s this evening and you need to eat again.”

“I can’t.”

She held her ground, waiting for an explanation. “Help me to understand.”

“I need my hunger.”

Mandy frowned. “Why?”

Rocco looked beyond her to the wide, circular parking area. He looked at the fields to his right and the town in the far distance to his left, looked anywhere but at her and her silent demand for the truth. Shit. She was going to make him say it.

He shoved a hand through his hair and faced her. “It’s the only way I know I’m not hallucinating. It’s the only thing I know is real.”

She blinked, obviously expecting him to say just about anything but that. “If your mind is in a place where the real is unreal and the unreal is real, can’t you conjure up hunger, too? How can you trust that your hunger is real?”

“Jesus, don’t start fucking with my head. It’s mangled enough.”

“I know.” She nodded. “So let’s do this differently.” She studied him. “I need you to trust me.”

Trust her.
What did that mean? He’d seen that same look in her eyes when she worked with Kitano, always calm, steady as a rock. Relief leaked in through the cracks in his wall, soothing the ragged parts of him. He wanted to trust her, trust someone, because God knew he couldn’t trust himself.

He nodded.

“Okay. Sit here on the step.” She sent him a look. “Please.”

He did as she requested. She went to the table and picked up his salad bowl, plate, and glass, then sat next to him on the porch.

“I’m going to feed you. I want you to take as much as you can.”

Rocco lurched to his feet, powered by the anger that flashed through him. “I’m not a goddamned baby.”

She looked up at him from where she sat on the weathered, whitewashed boards. “I’m well aware that you’re a man.” A blush crept from her chest to her neck as she spoke. He watched the color blossom across her skin, feeling a corresponding heat in his body—but moving in an opposite direction. He gazed at her, wondering how to interpret what he was seeing, what he was feeling.

Curious, he sat back down. She cut a small bite of lasagna and fed it to him. He chewed it as he watched her. When he swallowed, she gave him another bite. She smiled at him. “Do you like it?”

He liked the way she was looking at him. “Yes.”

She gave him a bite of the salad. “Does it taste okay?”