Lindsay McKenna (12 page)

Cat heard the sadness in his voice, saw guilt in his expression. He had not been there when Sandy needed him the most. “Well,” she soothed, “maybe with the way things have worked out, you’ll be here for her now. That’s all she needs at this moment.”

When she removed her hand, Talon missed her touch. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking the other day.”

Cat frowned. Nervously, she said, “This is probably none of my business, but have you ever dealt with dying and death? I don’t know that much about black ops or the SEALs.” She was worried he might not understand the journey that dying often took with a person who had a slow-moving disease.

His eyebrows drew down. “Yeah, I’m just a little familiar with death and dying, Cat.”

She winced inwardly over the harsh sound in his voice. His eyes had gone flat and hard. And just as quickly, he looked away. The sense of insurmountable grief around Talon bludgeoned her like an invisible sledgehammer. Reeling from the sensation, she sat back, trying to absorb the anguish and grief she suddenly felt around him. The warning look he gave her told her to not ask one word about it. Not one.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly, finishing off his glass of water and standing up. More than anything, Cat understood the loss of both parents at an early age. And God knew, he
wanted
to hide in her arms, her body and find solace from the unremitting pain from the past overlaying the present. Hell, he hadn’t even begun to work through the loss of Hayden and now, his mother dying was weighing on him even more. He felt as if his shoulders were weighted with Abrams tanks. Rubbing his bearded jaw, he put the glass on the counter.

“See you tomorrow morning,” he said abruptly, leaving the kitchen. Zeke followed him.

“Good night....”

The kitchen fell silent. The larger-than-life energy of Talon left the kitchen. Cat missed him. She knew he was upset. How badly she’d wanted to get up, stand behind his chair and wrap her arms around his shoulders and just hold him. He had looked so desolate and lost during their conversation about Sandy. She felt it. Something terrible had happened to Talon and it hadn’t been that long ago. All she had to do was see the freshness of the vertical scars across his back and she knew he was carrying a horrific load of trauma within him. Would Talon reach out to her in moments of need or not? Cat wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t going to be put off by his snarling warnings, either. She could help Talon get through this. If he’d let her.

* * *

T
ALON
GIRDED
HIMSELF
emotionally as he knocked lightly on his mother’s apartment door. Jordana had given him approval to see her, his pneumonia completely gone. Val had told him to take the rest of the day off for this visit. He was grateful to the McPhersons. As a wrangler, they could have insisted he work his eight hours today instead of visiting his mother.

Talon knew from talking with Cat that the door to her apartment was locked, but there was always a key beneath the doormat, which he had in hand. He heard his mother’s voice through the door and, with trembling hands, he unlocked and opened it. The apartment building was three stories high and worn looking. He knew living in Jackson Hole was tough for people like his mother, which was why most of his paycheck had gone to her. Talon didn’t begrudge his mother at all. She’d grown up on a ranch just outside of town. All her friends and support group were here.

Talon wasn’t prepared to see his mother in a wheelchair. Tears slammed into Talon’s eyes as he closed the door and turned to see her sitting in the living room in such a weakened state. His mother had been a strong, vibrant ranching woman when he was growing up. She was about five foot eight inches tall and sturdy. Talon could recall her during branding season easily hefting young calves off the ground and turning them on their backs. Those calves weighed a goodly amount and Sandy had no trouble with them. She had always been the strength and core of their family in every way.

Until now.

Ruthlessly, Talon shoved his tears back. He forced a smile he didn’t feel, trying to deal with the shock over her gaunt condition, her skin sallow looking, and the scarf wrapped around her head, her hair gone.

“Hey, Mom,” he murmured, coming over to her.

“Tal!” Sandy cried, pushing herself out of the wheelchair. She stood uncertainly, her arms open to her son. “Thank God, you’re home!” She swept her thin arms around his broad shoulders, holding him with all her strength.

Talon held his mother as if she were a fragile, breakable egg. She buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed. Closing his eyes tightly, fighting not to cry with her, Talon held her. God, tears from two women he cared deeply about in less than twenty-four hours. Talon wasn’t sure he could handle the excessive emotions. He awkwardly patted her gently on the back. He could feel how bony her spine and ribs felt beneath his fingers. It tore him up. Tears squeezed out of his eyes.

Finally, Sandy released him, patting him weakly on his shoulder. She smiled brokenly up into her son’s hard face. Seeing the tears in his gray eyes, she slid her hand against his cheek. “You look so good, Tal. I’m glad you’re here. Thank you... I love you so much.”

Talon nodded, his throat tight, a lump growing larger by the second. “I love you, too, Mom. Come on, you need to sit down.” He guided her to the wheelchair. Once she was sitting, he picked up the edges of her blue robe and drew them across the white flannel nightgown she wore. He tried to keep the shock out of his face over her deteriorated condition.

“Sit down,” she whispered, her long, graceful hand pointing to the couch next to her wheelchair. “Can I get you anything to drink? Have you eaten lunch yet?”

Talon smiled and sat down. He put his hand over hers. “I’m fine. Have you eaten?”

“Yes, Gwen Garner just brought over lunch.” She motioned toward the small table near the kitchen. Wrinkling her nose, she added, “I’m just not hungry, Talon. I’m so appreciative of what everyone does... The chemo kills your appetite.”

He looked into her cloudy hazel eyes. “You need to eat, Mom. If I bring it over, will you try?” He had to get some weight on her. She was literally skin and bones. Talon was blown away by how gaunt his mother had become. “No,” Sandy murmured, giving him a sad look. “If I eat, I throw it up later. I just don’t want to go there.”

A sense of helplessness clawed at him. He was a SEAL. He was used to fixing things. Making them right. “How about some water? Are you drinking enough?”

She smiled weakly. “Cat is always on me about not drinking enough water.”

His heart broke in half as he realized that his mother had given up. Shock and grief rolled through him, smothering him, making him feel as if he couldn’t draw a breath into his body. “Cat’s right.”

“Isn’t she something?” Sandy said, staring at her son.

Talon nodded. “She’s a decent person, Mom. Does right by others.”

Sighing, Sandy squeezed her son’s hand. “You know, I often wondered, if you ever came home and met her, whether you two wouldn’t like one another.”

“She’s a good person, Mom.”

“Do you like her?” she asked.

He smiled, seeing the anxious look in her eyes. “Yeah, I do.” His mother’s face radiated with happiness and he found he’d do anything to see the light come to her eyes.

“Oh, good,” Sandy murmured. “I was telling Gwen Garner that I thought you two would make a wonderful couple. Cat is so beautiful.” And then she reached over, patting Talon’s cheek. “And you are drop-dead handsome, Talon. You look like your father. You’re so handsome and strong.”

He felt himself blush beneath his mother’s sudden enthusiasm and joy. “Listen,” he told her in a thickened tone, holding her gaze. “My only priority is you right now. Okay? Everything else in my life comes second.”

Tears sprang to Sandy’s eyes. She pressed her other hand across her eyes. “I’m so sorry it’s come to this, Talon.”

Wrestling with his grief of losing her sometime in the future, Talon squeezed her hand. “Listen to me,” he insisted, getting her to look at him. “I love you. I’m not leaving you, Mom. We’ll take this walk together, wherever it leads us. I’m in for the long haul.”
Because I couldn’t be with you the first time you got this damned cancer.
Talon felt terrible he couldn’t be here for when she went through radiation and chemotherapy before. Now life had seen fit to give him a second chance.

Sniffing, Sandy released Talon’s hand and dug into the pocket of her robe for a tissue. “You always say and do the right thing, Talon. I never doubted for a moment you wouldn’t be here at some point.” She wiped her eyes and nose. “How are
you
doing? You spent six months in rehab.”

Talon kept his face carefully arranged. His mother was not going to know one damn thing about what had happened or why he was in the hospital. “I’m fine now,” he assured her. “Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

C
AT
WAS
IN
the darkened living room, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. It had been good to hear that Talon had visited with his mother. She heard a door quietly open and close down the hall. It was one-thirty in the morning and she couldn’t sleep. She wondered if it was Gus who was up. Sometimes, the elder didn’t sleep well at night. And sometimes, Cat would make her a cup of hot chocolate and they’d talk at the kitchen table.

As she looked to her left, she saw Talon appear out of the hall barefoot, heading into the kitchen. The open concept of the kitchen and living room made it easy for her to see him. This time, he was wearing a dark green T-shirt with his pajamas. Her heart took off in an aching beat of need for him. Talon’s short hair was mussed and he looked drowsy. There was something vulnerable and appealing to her about him with his large, bare feet.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she called softly.

Talon hesitated, rubbing his eyes. He heard Cat’s voice from the living room. As he glanced through the grayness from the light at the kitchen sink, he noticed her shadowy figure at one end of the couch. “Yeah, something like that,” he said.

“Join me.”

“In a minute. Getting a glass of water.”

Zeke came and sat down next to Cat, thumping his tail in welcome.

“You know I have marshmallows,” she accused him with a grin, reaching out and petting him. “I’m going to have to ask your master if you can have one.”

Talon appeared silently and sat down at the other end of the couch, leaning into the corner and stretching out his long legs across it. “Now he’s going to think every time I get up to get water you’re going to be out here with marshmallows,” he accused, his voice thick with sleep. He pushed a few strands off his brow and sipped the water. Cat’s profile was clean. His gaze automatically went to that lush mouth of hers. He’d kissed that mouth. And he wanted to taste her again. She’d been so warm and willing in his arms. Would she ever be again?

“What are you doing up?” he demanded.

Cat nestled her back into the corner of the couch, drawing her legs up against her body. “I get nights like this.”

“Still chewing on that accident?”

“Yes.” Cat felt the raw masculine power around Talon. “You seem at ease.” Because that normal tightly sprung tension didn’t exist around him right now.

“I am.” Because he was near her, but Talon didn’t dare say that. Cat looked relaxed, too. And if he could, he ventured to think she might be happy. Happy he was here with her?

“I’m glad Sandy ate today. I’ve been worried about her. She’s been getting so thin....”

“I couldn’t believe how gaunt she looked when I saw her,” Talon muttered, sipping the water. “Scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m sure it was a shock.”

“I grew up seeing my mother as young, strong and full of life.” His voice fell. “I didn’t know how far down she’d gone. I wish...I wish I’d gotten home more often.”

Cat could tell how guilty he felt. It showed in the dark set of his face. “I learned a long time ago that you do the best you can. Sandy has never once complained to me about you. She has many wonderful stories about you growing up, so don’t feel bad. I know you did the best you could, Talon.”

How easy it was to say, he thought. And how hard it was to reconcile her simple truth within him. Few people understood black ops, precisely because it was top secret. His life wasn’t really his own. Had he worried about his mother after she got breast cancer? Absolutely. But his job required intense, uninterrupted focus and he couldn’t be thinking about her for days or weeks, sometimes months, depending upon the mission. “I like the way you see life.”

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Cat confessed, shaking her head. “That’s all we humans do is mess up. And many times, it’s not our fault. We all get caught up in things that may or may not be of our own making.”

Talon thought about her as a child growing up with an abusive father, her inability to escape, to cry out for help. She had no mother to protect her. “Still, I like your live-and-let-live policy,” he teased gently. Because, despite the terror Talon was sure she experienced quite often as a vulnerable child, Cat had grown up to be a good person. He had never seen her abusive toward anyone else, so her father’s sins had not rubbed off on her, thank God.

Cat gave him a thoughtful look. “What’s the choice? Blame everyone for the mistakes they make?” Cat hitched her shoulder. “We learn from our mistakes.” And then she added wryly, “Usually...” She thought about the three men in her life she’d drawn. All abusers. She hadn’t learned. Thank God, she had friends around her.

“Mistakes in my business can get you killed,” Talon said. “But I do understand what you’re saying.”

“Not all mistakes cost a person their life.”

Talon wondered how much of Cat’s life had been destroyed by her father. Did the man ever understand what he’d done to his daughter? How it had shortchanged her? Made her mistrust all men? Talon grew angry because he knew Cat still hadn’t separated him out from his father. He’d never touched a woman except to love her, make her feel good. His own father had held his mother in deep, abiding respect. And that had rubbed off on Talon, as well.

“I’ll bet you got Sandy to laugh.”

“Yeah, we shared a few laughs,” Talon admitted, smiling a little, feeling good about it. His mother’s eyes had lit up and that was when he’d seen life come back into them.

Cat’s hair was softly tangled around her face. Talon watched her continue to softly stroke Zeke’s head. His dog was in complete adoration of her, his huge, intelligent brown eyes worshipful.

“What happened that she decided to fight the cancer?” Cat asked.

“I don’t know. We talked about her therapy, what the doctors said and what her goals were in regards to it.”

“Humph,” Cat muttered. “Sandy refused to talk to anyone about it. She’d told Gwen Garner she was stopping the chemo treatments a couple of weeks ago.”

“That’s changed,” he said. Now Talon hoped she wouldn’t change her mind.

“You’ve given her a reason to live,” Cat confided softly, catching and holding his gaze. “You’re good for her, Talon. I know coming home meant leaving a job you loved, but you’re giving her back her life. That’s pretty powerful.”

“I did like being a SEAL,” he admitted quietly.

“The work or the guys you worked with?”

Her insight was startling. Hayden’s square face, the cockeyed smile that was always on his mouth, appeared in his mind. Talon’s heart ached with grief. He took a deep drink of the water. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “It was both.” For whatever reason, Talon almost started telling her about his best friend. Hayden was like the brother he’d never had but had always wanted. He’d been a single child in his family. Hayden filled a void in him, and now that he was dead, Talon knew the emptiness would remain.

Cat regarded him in the silence. “It’s very hard to leave a way of life,” she whispered. “You gave almost a decade of your life to the SEALs. I don’t know what I’d do or how I’d feel if someone told me I could never be a paramedic again. I think I’d feel lost.”

He was. Completely. “Yeah, it’s tough making the changes.” He wanted to share that she was helping him to find himself whether she knew it or not. And he did have focus on his mother. He had his priorities clear, but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss his friends in Bravo Platoon.

“But you can never go back to the SEALs?”

“No.”

“Because of your wounds?”

Talon could feel the tightness of the many scars on his back. “Yeah, because of that.” He hoped she wouldn’t pursue this. Coming home was something he’d had to do. And while his heart was in seeing his mother and helping her, Talon had felt depressed about everything else. Until Cat appeared unexpectedly in his life.

“Val said she had a rocky landing coming home from the Air Force,” Cat mused. “Gus had broken her leg and Val was her only relative. She was forced to take a medical-leave discharge, which she didn’t want to do.”

“It’s not easy,” he said.

“She said the first six months was rough.” Cat smiled fondly. “But I guess when Gus hired Griff McPherson, he kind of grew on Val in a nice way.”

“So that’s how they fell in love.”

“Yes.” Cat sighed and sipped her hot chocolate. “Val and Griff had a rough start, but he was determined to win her love. And he did. I just love when they look at one another at the table. There’s such a fierce love shared between them.”

“You’re a romantic like my mother,” Talon said, his voice low but not accusing. Like the fierce emotions he held secretly for Cat. Only he didn’t know what to call them. He was afraid to use the word
love
because he’d never really loved a woman. Absently, Talon rubbed his chest, feeling his heart yearning for her, wanting her in every possible way.

“Your mom had two happy marriages. I think that’s rare, but I also feel her attitude gave her many years of happiness.”

“My mother was lost without my father after he died,” Talon said, remembering that terrible time in their lives. “Looking back on that time, it seems like providence that Brad walked into her life nine months after that.”

“Did you get along with your stepfather?”

“I did. I missed my father, but Brad worked hard to earn my trust. He treated me like a son and he helped raise me to be what I am today.” There was a good feeling in his heart for Brad. It was too bad he died. His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after his death. Talon often wondered if the shock and loss of the two men she loved had pushed her body toward a disease. It was a sense, nothing else, but Talon had seen some of his SEAL friends lose their loved ones and they were never the same afterward. Another reason never to fall in love. Yet, his mother had successfully negotiated that cliff and met Brad, who had loved her with a passion Talon had seen every day growing up. Brad had worshipped her. And both had felt blessed to have been given a second chance at love.

“You were lucky,” Cat said, moving the cup slowly between her hands.

“I know that now,” Talon admitted. “At the time I felt Brad’s love and his care for my mother. He was a big man with a big heart.”

“I wish I’d been so lucky,” Cat grumped.

Talon held her gaze. “If I could change anything in the world, I’d have wished you had father like Bradley. He never lifted a hand to me. His voice, yes, but never did he threaten or hit me.”

Cat shrugged. “It was a long time ago, Talon.”

“Might be, but you’re still working your way out of it, Cat.”

Chewing on her lower lip, she nodded. “I know.”

The pain in those two words scored his heart. “Not every man was like your father. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do. Just on some days, I see my father in all of them. I don’t want to, but sometimes, it happens.”

“Well,” he said, “try not to paint me with that brush?”

She compressed her lips. “No, I won’t do that with you.”

“Why?”

“Because of our kiss.” And she looked straight at him, her chin lifted, confidence in her expression. He smiled slowly, his eyes gleaming with humor. No one kissed like Talon. “I mean,” she stumbled, “it felt good and wonderful...”

Even in the grayness he could see a blush staining Cat’s cheeks. “I liked it, too,” he admitted in a rasp, seeing her eyes flare with surprise and then happiness.

“I’m not very experienced,” Cat said, almost in apology.

Talon’s heart opened with yearning for Cat. Right now, she looked so damned vulnerable and beautiful to him. His arms ached to hold her. His body was hardening. If he said her kiss was one of the best he’d ever had, it would probably scare her off. Instead, he said, “Experience has nothing to do with the heart.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Cat murmured. “But your priority is your mom. I’m so glad you got her to eat some food.”

“I told her I’d already buried one parent and that I didn’t want to bury her.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it. Brutal honesty sometimes shocks the person out of depression.”

“Was she depressed?”

“Of course. Very. I tried to get her to take some antidepressants, but your mom hates drugs in general. She said she was fine.” Her voice dropped. “But she wasn’t. I couldn’t convince her otherwise.”

“My mother likes alternative medicine. I was raised on herbs, not drugs,” Talon said wryly.

“So, that’s why she didn’t want the chemo?”

He nodded. “Yeah. But I persuaded her differently.” Because he wanted his mother around. Wanted to give her a better life than she had now. Granted, as a wrangler he wasn’t going to make a lot of money, but Talon wanted her out of that ratty, small apartment. She deserved a helluva lot better.

“I’m glad,” Cat said, her voice soft with emotion. “Your mother is a wonderful person, a fighter.”
Like you.
She could see the stubbornness in Talon’s face, the set of his jaw, the tender look in his eyes when talking about his mother.

“Makes two of us.”

“Did she promise to start eating her meals?”

He nodded.

Cat sipped her hot chocolate. Zeke was eyeing her intently. She felt sorry for him but wasn’t going to give him a treat unless Talon authorized it.

“How about you?” Talon asked, holding her gaze. “How are you doing?”

A special warmth embraced her, as if Talon were touching her. It made Cat feel loved. Loved? Where did
that
word come from? “Okay.”

“Now you sound like a SEAL,” he said.

“Oh?” She saw his mouth lift.

“We say we’re good even if we’ve got a broken arm or leg. If we’ve been shot and are bleeding out.”

“So, ‘good’ in SEAL vernacular means I may be hurting like hell itself but I’m not going to admit it to anyone?”

His smile grew even wider. “You got it.”

She held his dark gray gaze, felt her flesh rifle with pleasure, remembering his hand skimming her shoulders and back. It felt so good. As if in some unspoken way, Talon was claiming her as his woman. Cat finally said, “I couldn’t sleep because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the rollover accident.”