Blind Fury (3 page)

Mick gave a pained expression and ran a hand through his sandy-blond hair. “It wasn’t enough to protect him.”

So not small arms fire? Clearly, Mick was trying to soften the blow as much as possible by giving her a sanitized version of the incident. The media and Claymore’s official representative had been equally vague, as had the State Department’s investigator. She knew all the tricks after being on the receiving end of bad news so many times. In fact, she should be an expert at getting it by now. But some things didn’t get easier with experience.

“Why are you being so ambiguous?”

“Because it’s easier than telling you the messy details. It’s hard enough remembering them,” he responded, his voice rough and low.

She gave him a closer look and was surprised by the sight of his red-rimmed eyes. Had he been crying? It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be seeking comfort as much as giving it, but Rob had been his best friend. Here she was wrapped up in her own sorrow, not even thinking about what others had lost. Especially Mick. “I’m sorry. This has to be hard on you too.”

“I’ll survive. We both will,” he said with a conviction and a seriousness she’d never seen in him before. He had always been so glib, ever ready with a quick joke when things got too heavy. Today he wasn’t hiding behind his slick charm.

Would she survive? Possibly. Right now she wasn’t so sure.

Her eyes on the floor, the fireplace, the chair—anywhere but his face—she said, “Thank you for coming.” Then she risked another glance at his eyes. “Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?”

He gave her an odd look. “Of course I’ll be there.”

She nodded and clasped her arms across her chest. What a dumb thing to ask. But being around him had always lowered her IQ by at least ten points.
 

“You don’t have to do all this by yourself, you know.”

“I know.” She focused on the wall behind him. “I’m not. Tara’s been helping.” And thank God for her. Without her, Jenna would be completely lost.

“I’d like to help too.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, apparently taking his cue from her unwelcoming posture. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Yeah, sure.” If he was smart, he wouldn’t expect a call, but she nodded as she walked him to the door. He leaned in closer, as if for a hug, but she couldn’t let him touch her again, not when the feel of his arms was still imprinted on her skin.

There was another time, a few years ago, when he’d been this close. The memory was still as vivid as the man before her. He’d been helping her and Rob move into this very house, and her brother had gone out to pick up lunch.

Jenna was cutting open a box, but the blade slipped and sliced her palm instead. Mick heard her gasp and practically dropped the chair he was carrying in his haste to reach her side.

“Jesus, Jay,” he said as blood dripped from her hand. He covered her palm with his own and led her to the tiny bathroom where he rinsed her wound and placed a wad of folded toilet paper over it.

They sat there for several minutes while he pressed her hand between both of his, his expression fierce as he waited for the bleeding to stop. They’d never touched before, not really, and her stomach fluttered at the feel of his rough skin against her own.

He glanced up with the most serious expression she’d ever seen on his face, the look in his ocean blue eyes making her heart race. “You scared me there for a minute. I saw the blood…”

Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks. At that moment she had wanted him to kiss her more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. He didn’t.

And now he stood in front of her, that same serious expression back on his handsome face, offering the solace she so desperately needed. But he was too tempting, and she was too vulnerable.

She gave him her best effort at a smile and positioned herself behind the open door as he stepped through. “Thanks for stopping by.”

He hesitated on the stoop as if waiting for a sign from her, but then nodded and jogged down the stairs toward his car.

Jenna shut the door and plastered her back to the cool metal. She was messed up enough without adding the complication of Mick. But he was her last link to Rob, and God help her, she liked having him around.

Three hours later, Mick looked through the windshield of his car and squinted against the reflection of the evening sun off the window of the Manassas tattoo parlor he’d just left. Gripping the steering wheel, he was shaky and nervous, like a chain smoker who’d gone too long without a hit.

He had spent the last three days stuck in transport with the rest of his team—they’d all been sent home for an indefinite leave after the incident—and in spite of that transition time, the change from war zone to suburbia was disorienting. Home was both foreign and familiar.

People here went about their lives, ignorant of the daily fight for survival that went on in so many parts of the world. Oblivious to how petty and meaningless their struggle to keep up with the Jones family was. He rubbed the dashboard of his Camaro.
Hypocrite
.

But not really, because he’d bought this baby for speed, not looks.

Mostly.

He slammed the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot with a satisfying squeal, keeping to a reasonable speed on the freeway. The car strained like a tiger on a leash, eager to be set free, until he passed Haymarket, an outer-ring suburb for those willing to suffer long commutes for larger, newer homes and manicured lawns.

Then Mick dropped the hammer, opened up the throttle, and unleashed the horses under the hood. In seconds, the endorphins flooded in, his hands steadied, and his brain calmed. His pulse thrummed with the engine, and just like that, he could finally breathe again.

God, he was such a wreck. Only a madman would need to go a hundred miles an hour to relax.

A sign for food and gas flashed by and he slowed to a crawl—seventy—to exit. An empty bagel shop beckoned and he parked behind the building, hidden from the main road. He beat his forehead against the steering wheel a few times before sitting back in the seat, eyes closed.

The soft tick of the cooling engine disrupted the otherwise silent interior.

He’d promised to watch out for Jenna—whatever the hell that meant—but she didn’t want him around. Probably didn’t need him either. And when he was with her, she tested his restraint on every level. He could sense a wildness beneath her prim exterior that made him want to pin her to the wall and peel back her carefully crafted veneer of control. Nothing turned him on more than the idea of that tightly reined woman letting loose.

Maybe Rob had secretly hated him, because asking him to protect—but not touch—Jenna was like asking a starving man to box up a steak for someone else.

He’d also promised to quit Claymore and stay in the States, but after being home for just two days, he was already restless. There was too much time to think here. And all the promises he’d made collided in his brain until his head felt ready to explode.

Rob, Jenna, bullets, blood.

There was only one way to stop the voices and images flashing in his head. Both disappointed and relieved by his decision, Mick started the engine up again and went looking for a bar.

After letting Tara drag her out for Indian food, Jenna returned to her empty house. The oppressive silence lay over her like a blanket. The rooms would never again be filled with Rob’s deep laughter or his exhaustive musings on everything from the Peloponnesian War to veganism.

He’d been gone more often than not over the past few years, but she’d always held onto the hope that he’d return. After all, without hope, what was left?
   

Moving with leaden limbs, she dragged Rob’s bag over to the sofa. Damn, the thing had to weigh fifty pounds. How had Mick hefted it like it was a kid’s backpack? She opened the duffle and removed each item, sorting everything into piles on the coffee table. One to donate, one to decide about later, and one to go into a box in her garage along with the rest of the Ryan family’s belongings.

Tara would probably be shocked that she was already beginning to mark her brother’s clothes for charity, but the activity soothed her, giving her a way to occupy her mind and hands.

Underneath Rob’s clothes, Mick had packed the few personal items he’d found. A twin of the family photo on her mantle, a cheap cell phone, Rob’s toiletry bag, a pack of cinnamon gum, a large handgun, a rifle. Jenna stared at the guns, covering her mouth with her hand as images of Rob getting shot played through her head like a bad movie. How had it happened? Had he done something stupid or just been colossally unlucky?

The questions kept piling up, but she was short on answers.

Hastily shoving the weapons into the keep pile, burying them under a sweatshirt she remembered buying for Rob, she made a mental note to ask Mick if he wanted them. Rob had taught her how to handle and shoot all of his weapons, but that didn’t mean she wanted anything to do with them now.

Returning her focus to the near-empty bag, she picked out Rob’s digital camera. Unable to help herself, she turned it on, curious to see the photos her brother had taken in his last days. All she got was a message that there was no memory card.

She checked the slot, which—sure enough—was empty. Weird. She removed the remaining few items from the bag—a flashlight, a pair of rubber flip-flops, and a tattered
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue—but didn’t find the tiny card. Maybe Mick would know something about it. She could ask him tomorrow after the funeral.

She added the camera to the keep pile, then put the donations in an old shopping bag and set them by the front door. Another bag of items went into the garage until she could get a box for them, and the things she wasn’t ready to decide on went upstairs into Rob’s bedroom closet.

Emotionally wrung out, Jenna tried to relax in front of the television, but she couldn’t pay attention to anything. She finally gave up trying and got ready for bed.

A few hours later, she lay shivering under her blue down comforter, the room bright with moonlight that had snuck in around the edges of blinds. She stared at a popped drywall nail on the ceiling. If Rob were still alive, he would have fixed it when he got home.

She pounded the pillow. How long would it take her to stop having those thoughts? Each one pierced her through with fresh pain.

The drumming of her cell phone against the nightstand startled away her impending funk, and she rolled on her side to answer it.

“Hey there, Jay,” Mick said, his voice thick and muffled.

She glanced at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock. Eleven-thirty. “Hi,” she said cautiously. What the hell was he up to?

“Listen, sweetheart, the bartender here says I can’t drive. Unfortunately, he’s right.” The slur in his speech was more evident now. “I know it’s a bit late, but do you think you could pick me up?”

As if she could say no. The only thing that surprised her was that he hadn’t found a bar bunny to go home with instead. A smarter woman—one who sought to protect her heart—would tell him to take a taxi. But Mick was hurting, and she couldn’t bring herself to pawn him off on a stranger. “Where are you?” she asked with a resigned sigh.

Forty minutes later she walked into an Irish pub about fifteen miles west of her townhome in Fairfax. The place was clean and relatively quiet, with dark paneled walls and a large wooden bar that dominated the center of the room. Muted flat-panel TVs broadcast various sports events, and maybe fifteen people sat in little knots, hunched over their beers.

Mick was at the back corner of the bar facing the door, his hands wrapped around a soda. Hopefully just a Coke, sans rum. A pretty brunette who was perched on the neighboring stool held his attention, and Jenna couldn’t stop a little arrow of jealousy from lodging in her gut.

Fortified with a deep breath, she marched around the bar. “Do you still need a ride, or have you found a better option?”

“Jay.” He grinned at her and her traitorous heart danced. “Thanks for coming, babe.”

Gripping the bar, he slid carefully off the stool, pulled out his wallet, and threw a few twenties on the counter. Then he turned to the brunette, who was pouting at him, another victim of a Mick drive-by. “Good luck with that boyfriend of yours, Katie.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she said, the note of disappointment in her voice making it all too clear that she’d expected Mick to help her get over the boyfriend.

Oblivious, he hooked his arm around Jenna’s shoulders and pulled her toward the door. He could walk, but not very well. If he fell, they were both in trouble because he was way too big for her to help him up. She’d never seen him this sloppy drunk before, not even at one of Rob’s parties.

She wrangled him into her old Volvo and got behind the wheel. He leaned over, his warm breath feathering her neck. “You smell good,” he said.

She shoved him away. “You smell like a brewery. Stay on your side.” Focusing on the road would be hard enough with him in the car, but if he kept breathing on her—beer breath or not—she’d probably crash. And that thought was enough to break the spell.

Without looking at him, she pulled out of the parking lot. She followed the road to the freeway entrance, unable to decide if she was mad, disgusted, or sympathetic. Maybe all three.

“I’m sorry for being such an asshole,” he said, his playfulness gone. “I’m supposed to be taking care of
you
, not the other way around.”

She glanced at his handsome face, all angles and shadows in the dim glow from the dashboard. Where had he gotten that idea? “Why? I’m a grown woman.”

“No mistaking that,” he said, speaking so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Then louder, “I promised Rob I’d watch out for you if anything happened to him.”

Her throat tightened with the all-too-familiar need to shed tears, but she blinked them back. Rob had always been an overprotective brother, even before their parents and Jimmy died. Not that he’d stuck around to keep watch over her in person. He’d had his own demons to battle.

But he shouldn’t have pawned her off on Mick. She didn’t want to be anyone’s obligation.