“He died protecting you?”
“I don’t—won’t talk about that.”
“Okay.” But she didn’t move away, only rested her head on his shoulder.
After more long moments of silence where there was only her warmth to hold him there, he began talking.
He told her everything he remembered about that day. How bright the sun had been. But not too hot. Afghan winters could be as cold and bright as those in Colorado. But everything remained brown. He told her about the run that morning, how clean and fresh and powerful he’d felt. Those things were as lucid and bright in his mind as if they were today’s memory. But he was there with her. He could feel her fingers wrap halfway on his biceps when he began to tremble.
He stuttered now. The story coming in more fragments. Bits and pieces blown fresh of the mooring of sequence.
“Scud died protecting me from my own unit.” Law sucked in a breath, pushing against the pain that threatened him. “I should have protected him better.”
“I’m so sorry, Law.”
Jori reached up to touch his face but he jerked away from her. He could feel it coming. Needed to get away from her, away from the shame of what was exploding inside him.
He tried to stand. But his legs didn’t work. His body wasn’t under his command. He began to shake with the effort to override whatever had him rooted to the spot.
In panic he felt the eruption within and he couldn’t stop it. Anger, fear, grief, and agony were all elements of the wall he’d built to hold it all in. But comfort, as alien to him as love, did him in.
Jori put her hand on his shoulder and leaned her head against his.
His eyes filled. “Fuck.”
He held himself rigid, refusing to accept what was happening, a fist pressed to his belly to hold it in. But it came anyway, pain that made a lie of all his years of carefully constructed isolation. A moan escaped him as it gave way like a physical tearing inside. Then the place where he didn’t need anything or anyone burst open like a dynamited dam.
Tears spilled over the seam of his closed lids.
He felt Jori’s arms go around him, trying to cradle his larger frame to hers. He could so easily have broken her embrace and escaped. But he didn’t even try. At least she didn’t promise that it was okay. And that everything would soon be fine again. He knew better.
Sam came forward, shaking and whining, ears flat in confusion of the moment. Both members of her pack were hurting. She licked at Jori’s face, slick with salty wetness, then lay her head behind Alpha’s head in the cradle of his neck and waited for the emotional hurricane to die down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“This isn’t going to work.” It was just after dawn and Law was slamming into his clothes, at least the tux pants and shoes. Samantha watched from a prone position a few feet away. Her body was taut and ready for action.
“What are you talking about?”
“I lost it. Showed weakness.”
“A few tears?” Jori sat up in bed, covers pulled close to protect her nakedness from the cold. “That didn’t bother me. I’m a woman. We deal in tears.”
He shot her a hostile glance from beautiful bruised eyes. “I don’t.”
“Yeah, well, get over it. You needed to let the grief out. It will be better now. You’ll see.”
She saw on his face that she’d said the wrong thing. Offering platitudes to a man who knew better.
He hunched back toward the corner of the room, his chin tucked. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His mouth was pinched and his eyes hooded. All that was lacking was raised fists to make him look like a cage fighter at the end of his options. Nothing to do but slug it out. She had no doubt he thought he was fighting for his life.
“I’m too messed up to be with you. To be with anybody.” He seemed to wrestle every word out of himself. “I was flashing back half the night. What happened took more than my leg. I’m fucked up.”
“Okay.” Jori took a deep breath. Maybe she didn’t know enough to know if it would get better. He’d probably had counseling that revealed things she might never know. They had been through a lot in just a few days of knowing each other. But there was another side to Law. A side she didn’t know at all. She’d seen signs of it twice last night. And both of them worried her.
They had sex in the middle of the night. Long after they’d climbed into bed, too exhausted to even talk anymore. The wind had come up, slamming into the house with a force that was a perfect reflection of the conflict raging inside the cottage as two bodies locked in physical embrace struggled for emotional survival.
It was not fun or amorous but a carnal grappling of dark emotions and hard-edged regrets working themselves out in a quick rough coupling that left Jori sore and unsatisfied.