Collateral Damage (10 page)

Erin shrugged as she watched Honor swallow the pills. “Sometimes tough love is the best medicine, especially when dealing with alpha male patients. Or alpha males in general, for that matter.” She aimed a sly smile at Ace. “But I usually get my way in the end.”

Honor stopped listening and tuned them both out. She was too absorbed in the memory of that terrible night that had cost her everything she held dear.

Nineteen months ago

The phone rang in the bedroom as Honor stepped out of the shower in the master bathroom. Wrapping a towel around her body she smiled as she rushed to the bedside table and glanced at the screen, expecting to see Liam’s number. Instead she found her mother’s cell.

A jolt of alarm hit her. It was after midnight. They’d never call her at this hour unless there was a problem.

Ignoring the dread curling inside her, she picked up and blurted, “What’s wrong?”

“Your sister’s in the Emergency room.” Her mother’s panicked voice was hoarse with tears. “She tried to kill herself.”

Honor’s stomach pitched and her hand tightened around the phone. “
What
?”

“She took a bottle of sleeping pills and washed them down with straight vodka. The note said she couldn’t live with whatever you told her.” Her voice cracked. “What did you
say
to her, Honor?”

Honor felt the blood drain from her face. Charity had her problems, but this was unthinkable. Guilt and denial warred inside her, mixing with the rising wave of panic. “Where are you?” she demanded.

“In the Emergency waiting room.”

“Is Dad with you?”

“Yes.” She started to cry. “They wouldn’t let us sit with her. They took her into the OR a few minutes ago to p-pump her stomach and get her stabilized but she wasn’t c-conscious…” She dissolved into tears. “My God, what did you do?”

It felt like her heart would burst. “Mom, I’m coming down. Be there in twenty.” Without waiting for a response she ended the call, raced for her closet and threw on jeans and a sweater. She flew down the stairs of her off-base townhouse, snagged the keys and her wallet from the entry table and dashed for her car parked in the driveway. As she turned the engine over she called Liam, her hands shaking so much she could barely dial his number.

“Charity’s in the hospital. She tried to kill herself after I called her,” she blurted when he picked up.

Liam cursed. “I’m sorry. Wait there for me, I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“No,” she said, a lump of fear and grief lodged in her throat. “Can’t wait.”

“Then I’ll meet you there.”

“
No
. Not a good idea.”
Understatement of the fucking
year
. She could just imagine what would happen if Liam showed up at the hospital with her parents right now. “I’ll call you later.”

Not wanting to waste any more time, she set the phone on the passenger seat and reversed out of her driveway, ignoring it when he called her back twice. As she drove she was torn between fear for her sister and the terrible, gnawing realization that this was all her fault.

The roads were nearly empty. At the hospital she parked and shut off the engine, then sat for a moment, her gaze locked on the aquamarine solitaire on her left ring finger. He’d chosen it because it reminded him of her eyes, he’d said, before getting down on one knee.

She’d only had it on for three hours. Right now the sight of it made her feel queasy. She couldn’t walk in there wearing it.

Honor worked it off her finger and slid it in her front jeans pocket before climbing out of the car and heading into the Emergency ward, her heart thudding in a sickening rhythm against her ribs. Both her parents stood when they saw her come in. Her father had his arm wrapped around her mother’s shoulders and her face was streaked with tears. Both their expressions were grim, their stares accusing.

Swallowing hard, Honor approached them. Without a word she reached out and wrapped her arms around the both of them. Her father was stiff but after a few seconds gripped her with his free arm while her mother buried her face in Honor’s shoulder and started sobbing.

Honor closed her eyes and held on tight. She was dreading telling them what had happened.

They stood that way for a few minutes before her mother finally gathered her composure and stepped back. Feeling awkward, Honor put her hands into her pockets. The fingers of her right hand made contact with the ring and her gut twisted harder. “Any updates?”

“No,” her father said, lowering his large frame into a chair where he’d set the well-worn Bible he never went anywhere without. At fifty-nine he was still a powerful, imposing man. He’d spent over twenty years in the Navy serving his country, and he still bore the signs in his rigid discipline and posture. “They said they’d update us when they can.”

“Sit down, Mom,” she told her mother, gently guiding her to her seat. “I’ll get you some tea.” When her mother murmured her thanks she rushed off to find the tea, using the time to figure out what she was going to say to them. They were going to demand an explanation of what happened between her and Charity and there was no hiding from it.

This whole thing felt surreal. Tonight should have been one of the happiest memories of her life. She’d been so excited until that call had come in, even though she’d known she couldn’t hide the source of her happiness from her parents for long. The reckoning was inevitable; she’d just never expected to have to come clean to her parents at a time like this.

With tea in hand she headed back to the waiting room. Her parents were still sitting in their seats, her father’s lips moving as he read a Bible passage to her mother. “Any word from the doctors yet?”

“No,” her father said.

She pulled in a deep breath.
Time to come clean.

After handing her mother the tea, she remained standing, enduring her father’s hard stare as she thought frantically about how to word this.

“You look like you have something you want to tell us,” her father said in that implacable tone that never failed to make her stomach knot.

She nodded. “I called Charity a few hours ago.”

Both her parents’ expressions sharpened. “What did you say to her?” her father demanded.

“The truth.” She’d have preferred to have this conversation in private somewhere rather than out here in the middle of the waiting room, but there was nowhere else to go at the moment. There was also no way to break this to them gently, so she told them flat out. “Liam proposed tonight.”

Her father launched to his feet, his face turning a mottled red as fury contorted his expression. “He
what
?” Her mother had blanched, was staring at her with wide, horrified eyes, one hand covering her mouth.

Honor swallowed. “I said yes.”

His eyes bulged. “The
hell
you did.”

Her mother stood and grabbed hold of her husband’s arm. “John.”

“No.” He wrenched from her hold and turned a withering glare on Honor. “How dare you,” he whispered, the low volume somehow even scarier than if he’d roared it. From the corner of her eye she could see several people staring at them from across the waiting room, but tried to block them out. She had bigger problems to deal with right now than losing face in public.

“I’m sorry, but it’s done.”

“You’re not sorry,” her father snarled, fists clenching. “This is what you wanted all along. How dare you stand there and lie to my face!” he shouted.

Now everyone in the room was gawking at them. Inwardly she cringed but knew there was no escape from prying eyes. “I didn’t know Charity would react like this,” she rushed on, desperate to calm him down, make him listen. She had to have gone off her meds. It was the only explanation. “I knew she’d be upset with me, but that’s why I called her before anyone else. I wanted her to hear it from me. I thought it would be easier for her.”

Her father shook with rage. “You know how fragile she is. You
knew
it would drive her to this!”

“No I didn’t!” she burst out. Her angry show of defiance had predictable results. Her father’s brows crashed together and he took a menacing step forward, his mouth a tight slash in his face.

“John,
no
.” Her mother grabbed his arm again, freezing him in place, though he never took his eyes off Honor. Then her mother’s gaze shot over Honor’s shoulder and the sudden flare of dread there made Honor brace for the worst.

Whirling around, she saw Liam stalking toward them, wearing his game face. He was in full protective mode and had obviously seen her and her father arguing.

“Oh, shit,” she breathed and shook her head at him, raising her hands to ward him off. Not now. He would only make things so much worse.

Liam ignored her and kept on coming, not stopping until he was close enough to wrap an arm around her shoulders and lock her against his side. She could feel how taut his muscles were, his body braced for battle. Together they faced her parents, the brittle tension seething between them.

Her father stared at him. “You would dare come here at a time like this? After what you’ve done?”

Liam didn’t blink, meeting that furious gaze head on. “I’m here for Honor.”

“She doesn’t need
you
here, we’re her family.”

“So am I,” he fired back.

“You’ll never be her
family
, and you’d best get out of my sight.” The threat seemed to reverberate off the walls.

As they stared each other down, Honor scrambled to figure out how to diffuse the situation. “Dad, look—”

His bloodshot gaze shot to her, the raw fury there cutting her words off as effectively as a knife. “How dare you? How dare you do this to us, your family, then bring
him
here?”

To her horror, her eyes began to tear up. This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. “I didn’t—”

“Honor hasn’t done anything wrong,” Liam cut in, holding her tight to him. Normally his touch and body heat would have comforted her but she was so keyed up she was barely aware of it.

Her father leveled his gaze on Liam. “You’ve both broken God’s law,” he snarled, nostrils flaring. “You’ve defiled His word and committed a mortal sin by breaking His commandments.”

Honor’s head snapped back at the hate-filled words. He sounded and was acting like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”

“
Honor thy father and thy mother
,” he said coldly. “And
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
.” His voice shook, his chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythm.

The Fifth and Tenth Commandments? Honor shook her head in disbelief, realizing for the first time just how severe this breach between her and her parents really was. He was literally twisting the Bible to suit his purposes.

Not for the first time, she wondered if Charity wasn’t the only one in the family to suffer from mental illness. “I haven’t dishonored anyone, and the last accusation is ridiculous. Charity and Liam only went out a handful of times over the period of a few weeks, and none of that matters right now because we should be focused on her—”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Her father’s hand shot out to grab her upper arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he shook her once. “You took what belonged to your sister, consented to be joined to him for all eternity, and your sister suffered for it.”

Liam grabbed her father’s arm and wrenched it away from her, his expression livid. “You don’t touch her like that. Ever.” His voice was so cold it sent a shiver of dread up Honor’s spine.

Her father slapped Liam’s hand away. “I’ll touch her anyway I damn well please, and you can get the hell out of here because you’re just as much at fault in this as she is!”

Blood roared in her ears as the tension kept mounting. Liam and her father were going to come to blows, right here in the waiting room. “Both of you, just
stop
,” she cried, stepping between them and placing a hand on either of their chests. Liam was the calmer of the two but coiled, she could feel the energy seething inside him. Her father was trembling, his glare still boring holes through the man she loved.

Concerned that her father would escalate things further, Honor pushed at his chest, bringing his eyes back to her. “This isn’t about Liam, or me, or even you, Dad. We’ll talk about all this later but right now we should be focusing on Charity. She needs us.”

“No,
you
should have been focused on your sister all along, instead of carrying on with
him
when you knew how much damage it would cause.”

Then he sneered at her.

Actually sneered, and the disgust and anger in his eyes left her reeling. Charity had always been his favorite, his baby, and Honor’s relationship with him had never been easy. Still, she’d never imagined seeing that look directed at her. She’d only seen him look at someone like that once before, the night Faith had died. He’d looked at her oncologist the same way, placing her death squarely on the doctor’s shoulders.

An arrow of pain lanced through her and she let her hand drop from his chest, suddenly shaken to the core.

“They’d only gone out a few times,” she repeated in a whisper, tears slipping down her cheeks. Liam had kissed Charity, but nothing else. How could her father not see how unhealthy Charity’s attachment to Liam had been in light of those things? How could her family not see the difference between that and what Honor had with him? This insanity didn’t make any sense yet in the depths of her mental illness Charity had acted like the world had ended when he’d broken up with her.

Because of Honor.

Honor hadn’t known that was the reason at the time, only finding out a few months later, after she’d started dating him. In secret, for fear of how Charity might react.

In her wildest imaginings Honor would never have thought Charity would attempt suicide over Liam.

Liam’s arm tightened around her, lending her strength. She was too in shock to bother wiping her startled tears away as she continued. “Neither of us expected any of this to happen when we first met. Neither one of us wanted to hurt anyone, but you know how Charity is—“