Operation: Endeavor (When The Mission Ends) (2 page)

“Yes, sir. We appreciate you taking us in.” Colton looked down at the twins and tried to give them a brave smile. They would make the best of it, the three of them together. He was the oldest. He’d be strong. The twins needed that from him
.

Present Day

Lubbock, TX

“Dammit, Colton. Leave me the fuck alone.” Chris leaned on his crutches glaring at Colton. The effort it cost him to simply stand there showed in the paleness of his features and the sweat on his forehead, despite the cool March day.

Colton ground his teeth together and mentally counted backwards. He was not going to lose his temper with Chris. Not this time. It had only been three months since Chris was rescued. A rescue from a madman who’d tortured and starved him for over six months. All things considered, he was doing pretty well. But pretty well wasn’t good enough. Finally, after weeks of infection and possibility of amputation, his doctors were able to fix his knee with a host of surgeries. Everyone was relieved, but all that pain and effort wasn’t going to do any good if Chris didn’t start putting an effort into his rehabilitation.

Even without the rehabilitation, Chris was young and his body was beginning to recover, but his mind wasn’t. That worried Colton. They had to break through this lousy attitude of his. Colton understood Chris had been through a lot, but he couldn’t deal with this belligerent and defeatist attitude.

“Chris, if you don’t work at your physical therapy, you aren’t ever going to fully recover. You’re lucky you even have your leg. Why can’t you be grateful for that and use it? You’ve got to start doing the exercises. I’ll do them with you. If you want, we could even head over to the gym…”

Chris interrupted, “Fuck! Don’t you get it? I don’t want your help. I don’t want your pity. I want you to leave me the fuck alone!”

Chris turned quickly to try to get away from the conversation, but he moved too fast and lost his balance. Colton reached to help him, but Chris righted himself and glared at Colton. “I’ve got it. I’m not a complete cripple.”

Running a hand through his hair in frustration, Colton sighed. “No, you’re not a cripple, but if you don’t start working your leg, you will be. You know what the doctors said. If you want full use of your leg back, you need to build the strength back up. Now, before it’s too late. It’s going to take time and it’s going to take work. That’s why I got out of the Air Force… so I could be here to support and help you.”

Chris stared down at the floor and spoke low. “No one asked you to do that.” He looked back up at Colton with hard, angry eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want you here. You shouldn’t have given up your career.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad. That’s what family does for each other. I’m here now and you’re going to have to deal with me. Now, you have two choices. We can work out here or at the gym.” Colton eyed Chris warily. He knew he was pushing him, but someone had to. The problem was Chris’s fuse was getting shorter and shorter.

Chris clenched his jaw and Colton couldn’t help but notice how gaunt he still looked. He’d lost so much weight and bulk. Three months ago, he’d been a virtual skeleton. He was better now, but still had so far to go to get back to where he’d been before his captivity. His eyes were haunted and the circles under them showed he wasn’t sleeping well. Colton was worried. Chris needed to see a counselor. He’d mentioned it once before and Cassie shot him down because they needed to focus on the more pressing physical concerns, but he thought it was time again.

Officially, Chris medically retired from the Air Force after they discovered he wasn’t dead. The Air Force provided counseling for him, but with all the vets returning back from the war zone traumatized, the therapists were overworked and he’d fallen through the cracks. Now with his retired status, no one could force him into the counseling sessions. It was like talking to a wall to try to get him to spend some time with a therapist.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Colton told him. Why couldn’t Chris get that through his head?

They were at a stalemate. Chris wasn’t going to give in. Colton could tell by the aggressive stance he’d taken and the anger flashing in his eyes, but he gave it one last try.

“Fine, then we’ll do your exercises here.” Colton said softly, and that was all it took for the explosion to occur.

Chris’s muscles bunched up in anger and he launched himself at Colton. They tumbled to the floor. Colton was 6’3” of pure muscle after spending many hours at the gym pounding weights. Chris’s 6’0” lanky frame, still recuperating from physical abuse, was no match. Right now, though, Chris had anger on his side. Colton was trying hard to subdue him without hurting him. They rolled into an end table, sending the lamp on top of it shattering to the ground.

It was in that moment, Cassie walked in. “What the hell is going on here?”

Colton looked up. Chris took advantage of his distraction and punched him right across the side of his face. Colton growled and rolled Chris so that he was astride Chris’s torso. “Goddammit, Chris. Hold still.” He grabbed hold of him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. They were both breathing hard, but Chris was sweating and pale.

Cassie rushed up behind Colton and shoved him. “Get off him. What the hell are you thinking?”

Colton slowly moved off Chris to make sure that he wasn’t going to over-react again. Chris, for his part, didn’t say anything. He just scowled at Colton as Cassie helped him to the couch.

Colton stood watching Cassie as she coddled Chris. Chris’s chest was heaving with the effort their tussle had taken.

“He lost his temper again,” Colton explained. “I was just trying to get him to do his exercises.”

Cassie’s eyes lit up with anger. She rounded on Colton, her temper matching her flowing, fiery red hair. “So you thought it would help to start a fist fight?”

“Physically fighting with him was never my intention, but yes, he needs someone to push him. Cassie, he’s not going to get better as long as you let him get away with excuses. He needs to work out. He needs to see a counselor. He needs to move forward rather than languishing in this house every day.”

“
He’s
sitting right here,” Chris interjected and Colton could see him clenching his jaw in anger, but that was okay. Anger was better than apathy any day. “I can also make my own damn decisions about my own damn life.”

“Chris,” Colton began, trying not to show his frustration, but Cassie cut him off.

“Colt, that’s enough for today.” She eyed Chris’s pale complexion worriedly. “Why don’t you take off for a little while and let things calm down around here?”

Cassie began to clean up the lamp. He knew she wanted to protect Chris, but couldn’t she see she just enabled his bad behavior?

“I don’t think—”

She cut him off again. “Not right now. Just go. Give us some time to cool things off around here.” She eyed Chris worriedly.

“Fine.” Colton shrugged on his jacket and stormed out of the house.

The muscles in Colton’s arms screamed, but he hardly noticed. He focused on the pounding beat of heavy metal pulsing through his ear buds as he counted off the reps. He channeled all his frustration into pushing the weights slowly off his chest. Fourteen, fifteen…

He’d been home two weeks, and already his siblings were kicking him out of the house. He ignored the sweat dripping off his body as he thought about the scene he’d just left at Cassie’s house. It was time for him to find his own place to live. Maybe if he gave Chris a little bit of space to find himself again, then he would begin to heal faster.

He also needed to figure out what he was going to do for the rest of his life. He’d planned to make a career out of the Air Force, but when they’d found Chris six months after he’d ‘died’, Colton knew that Chris was going to need his help with his recovery. Luckily, he’d served his time so he had the option of separating. The situation with Chris allowed the process to go easier than normal. He’d been a good officer so he was widely respected, which helped clear the way for his separation paperwork to move faster through the system. So he’d separated from the Air Force and left a career which had been shaping up to be a successful one. Luckily, he’d been too busy in his career to do much besides work, so he had some money saved and had a little bit of time to figure it all out.

He moved to the leg press machine and ratcheted up the weight. It was different working out at the Fitness Center on campus. He glanced around at all the young coeds. When had he gotten old? The sad thing was most of these students had a better idea than he did about what they were going to do for a career.

In the Air Force, he’d flown Hercules C-130’s for Special Operations forces. He could fly low-altitude, high-risk missions with people shooting at him, but that didn’t translate well into life in West Texas. Last time he checked there wasn’t a whole lot of combat flying out here. Regardless, he wasn’t ready to give up flying, so he needed to go check out the local airport soon.

He moved to add more weight to the machine and was surprised to find himself staring straight into gorgeous jade green eyes filled with concern. He quickly pulled out his ear buds. He hadn’t even known she was standing there. So much for his combat-readiness. He looked at her warily with his heart pounding much faster than it had been just moments before.

Penelope Pruitt was one of Cassie’s friends since her college days. Colton didn’t know her very well except that she was blond, beautiful, and flighty as a butterfly. From what he’d seen, she was the modern age equivalent to a flower-child. A flower child who looked damn good in her low-riding yoga pants. She had a natural beauty that showed through even when glistening through the sweat from her own workout. He tried to ignore the alluring bead of sweat that dripped down the side of her neck. He needed a distraction, but she wasn’t the kind that he needed right now.

*
* *

Penelope had watched Colton through the workout room windows while she finished teaching her yoga class. He’d easily been pounding weights for over an hour and from what she could tell, he didn’t have any intention of stopping anytime soon. No wonder the guy was so cut.

After her class filed out, Penelope walked over to Colton, who was dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt that hugged every hard plane of his very impressive muscles. He wasn’t dressed for a workout, but he lifted like he planned to stay the rest of the day. She’d lay good odds he had another fight with Chris, especially given the bruise forming on his cheek. From everything Cassie told her, things were really tense between the two brothers. All she knew was this guy needed to relax and his current method wasn’t doing it for him.

As she mused and watched him from behind the weight stack, he became aware she stood there. He pulled his ear buds out and stood abruptly. Jeebers, this guy was huge. It wasn’t just the fact he was built of solid muscle. At 5’9”, she wasn’t exactly short, but he towered above her. She craned her neck up to look at him.

Surprise and wariness flared through his eyes. “Hi, Penelope. I didn’t see you.”

“Hey, Colton. You’ve been working out pretty hard.” She leaned her head toward the weight bench as he nodded. She stepped back and looked him up and down. After lifting for so long, his muscles were literally bulging at the seams of his tee. His sweat made the shirt cling in all the other areas where it wasn’t straining. He made for a very impressive picture for men’s fitness, if you could ignore the lines of fatigue around his eyes and face, the tenseness of his shoulders, and the general tautness of his neck.

“What are you doing?” He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

She ignored his question and grabbed hold of his arm. “Lifting weights isn’t helping you. Come with me.”

She dragged him into one of the workout rooms and pulled two rolled-up mats from a bin in the corner. When she spread them out on the floor, he held up his hands in protest. “Wait, what are y—”

“Listen, I can tell by watching you that your stress levels are maxed out. You’re trying to work off your frustration, but at this point, all you’re doing is giving yourself muscle fatigue. Give me fifteen minutes and I promise you more stress relief than you’d get from lifting weights all day.”

Colton looked from the mats to her suspiciously. “What are you going to do?”

“
We’re
going to do some yoga.”

Colton shook his head and eyed the door to make a retreat.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who’s too much of a manly man to do yoga.” She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows.

“No, of course not. I just don’t think—”

“Good. The point is not to think.”

He muttered under his breath, “Something you’re very good at.”

Penelope stuck her tongue out and glared at him. She had to remember he was stressed out. It was her job, albeit self-appointed right now, to help him release some of that stress. On a normal day, Colton was uptight. As tightly wound as he was right now, he was in danger of a mental and physical breakdown.

“Colton, fifteen minutes is all I’m asking for. Give me that and if you hate it I’ll never bother you again. I promise.” She leaned toward him, trying not to get lost within his wary, navy blue eyes.