Ricochet (30 page)

The lump in his throat swelled, and Ryker pried his gaze away from the house. He looked at the keys hanging in the ignition, wanting so badly to turn the engine over and head back to the set. Make up an excuse to Chappie for not coming.

But he couldn’t. He was Carmello’s CO. It was his duty.

And Carmello was one of his best friends. At least he had been before Ryker saved his life. He didn’t know how his buddy would feel toward him now, after Ryker’s actions had brought Carmello back to his family as half a man.

When he pushed the truck’s door open, his arm felt leaden. Once on his feet, his legs felt stiff. By the time he reached the sidewalk, his stomach was boiling in acid, and when he’d finally made it to the front door, he was drenched in sweat.

As he stood on the porch, Ryker’s head swam. He gripped both sides of the doorframe for balance.

He had to get this over with.

He lifted his hand and knocked, then prayed no one was home.

But he hadn’t even finished the prayer when a young voice yelled, “I got it!”

The front door swung open. A boy stood there, his face almost as familiar as Carmello’s after seeing endless pictures of the kid. The gap in the kid’s front teeth made it all so real. So damn tragic. Ryker forced a smile. “Looks like you lost another tooth there, buddy.”

“Who are you?”

Ryker cleared his throat and glanced past the boy. The house was small and clean, the hardwood floors polished, the paint fresh. “I’m a friend of your dad’s.” His voice still sounded rough. “You’re Travis, right?”

The boy tilted his head, and the look he gave Ryker reminded him so much of Carmello, Ryker’s throat closed again. “How’d you know?”

“Your dad told me. Is he home?”

“Yeah.” With the lightheartedness of a kid, he turned and ran down the hall, yelling, “Daaaaaaaad, someone’s here for you.”

Unease kicked back to life. Should he walk in? Should he stay there? Would Carmello even be able to move?

“Boy, where do you think you’re goin’?” Carmello’s voice filled with distinctive attitude sliced a ripple of shocked uncertainty down Ryker’s chest. It was strong and clear. So…normal. “Get your butt back here.” A wheelchair darted between doorways at the end of the hall, just a flash of silverbefore Ryker could focus, then Carmello’s voice bellowed again: “And treat whoever is at the door like a guest.”

“But, Dad,” Travis whined, “I’m on level five. I just need two more coins—”

“I’ll kick your hiney back to subzero if you don’t get back to that front door and apologize for running off.”

So many emotions crowded inside Ryker at once, he felt as if he were caving in—relief, grief, gratitude, anger, fear, joy, surprise—a big tangled mess drawing everything to the surface.

He hadn’t gotten a handle on it before Travis turned out of a room in the distance and ran back down the hall and toward the door again. But Ryker’s gaze held on the man following—Carmello, pushing himself along in a small wheelchair with one arm. He wore gray gym shorts and an army-green tee with the words GO ARMY across the front. The white bandages covering the stumps of his other three limbs seemed obscenely bright.

“Sorry, Mister.” Travis’s apology barely reached Ryker through the ringing in his ears.

“What in the hell…?” Carmello’s voice brought Ryker’s gaze into focus again. His buddy was smiling—that huge, all-teeth smile. The infectious one that put sparkles in his dark eyes. “Ryker? Are you standing on my fuckin’ porch? Or is this some crazy-ass flashback?”

He cleared his throat, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he couldn’t. Emotions he’d thought he’d found a place for rose up and flooded his chest. His eyes stung. His lungs burned.

Ryker lowered his face into one hand and leaned into the jamb on a whispered curse.

“Travis,” Carmello said, voice low and serious, the voice Ryker had heard so many times in the field. “Get Segeant Ryker a glass of water.”

The boy’s feet thudded away on the hardwood, and Ryker exhaled. The breath came out as a laugh, but his knees gave, and he sagged against the wood.

Carmello grabbed Ryker’s arm, guided his hand to the cold metal of the wheelchair, then clasped his own over top. “Dude,” he said in that same low voice, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I can’t haul your sorry ass off the ground no more. The best I can do is to drag you to the carpet by the hair after you drop. I wouldn’t advise it.”

Ryker laughed, but his eyes were already wet, and he couldn’t do anything about the tears squeezing out onto his face. He wiped at them before he dropped his hand. “Can I…I don’t know…hug you or something?”

Carmello released his hand and lifted his arm in invitation. His concern vanished, and joy filled his face again. “You’d better.”

Still using the chair for support, Ryker leaned down and hugged the man. Tears kept pouring out of him, more than he’d known he possessed. But Carmello just kept his arm, his only arm, wrapped tight around Ryker’s shoulders, his hand fisted in Ryker’s shirt.

“Missed you, man,” Carmello said, voice thick.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Here’s your water, sir.”

Ryker straightened at the sound of Travis’s voice, rubbed his eyes on his forearm, and took the glass. “Thanks, buddy.”

“You’re welcome.” He turned to Carmello. “Can I play my game now?”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning, love filling his face. “Go.”

Travis scuttled down the hall.

“Let’s get your ass in a chair.” Carmello breezed past Ryker in the chair, his single arm still bulging with muscle as he pushed the wheel. “You’re makin’ me nervous.”

Ryker exhaled, downed the water, and wiped the wetness from his face before following Carmello into a small living room and dropped onto a leather sofa. He set the glass down on the table, clasped his hands, and looked up at Carmello again.

“Fuck,” he said. “You look great.”

Carmello’s grin returned. “You oughta (?) see me with the fancy prosthetics they’re making for me at Bethesda. I’m like the six-fucking-million-dollar man.”

Ryker laughed, and another wave of damn tears rushed forward. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the sting. When he finally looked at Carmello again, his friend’s expression had turned serious. And concerned.

“What are you doing in the states, Ry?”

Ryker shook his head. “Fucking Barker...” He dropped his gaze to the softly patterned cream carpet covering the hardwood. “Said he wouldn’t accept my reupping papers until I took a two-month leave Stateside.”

“He knows you,” Carmello said. “What kind of support are you getting?”

“Jesus, don’t you start.” Ryker sat back. “Barker doesn’t know shit.

Carmello’s lids lowered. “How’s that denial working for you, buddy?”

“Great, as a matter of fact. Thanks for asking.” He sat forward. “Dude, I’m not here to talk about me, I want to know how you’re doing. How you’re healing. Tell me about these new gadgets you’re getting.”

“How often do you have nightmares?”

Ryker frowned at him. Shrugged. “They’re no big—”

“Every night? More than once a night?”

He exhaled and scratched his head. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about, yet it was all he wanted to talk about. No one would understand better than Carmello, yet he was the last person who should be hearing how his own tragedy had affected Ryker.

“Mike,” he said, “I appreciate your concern, but—”

“That bad,” he said, eyes narrowed, voice soft. “I knew it. I knew this would be slowly killing you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mike leaned forward in the chair, his dark eyes solid and stern on Ryker’s. “This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

Ryker’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. In his mind, he saw that damned goat dart into the middle of the road. Over and over and over, it played in his head. “I should have killed it.” The words scraped out of his throat in a voice he didn’t recognize. “I…hesitated. I…”

“I could have killed it too,” Mike said. “The others could have killed it too—”

“I didn’t give the order.”

“Fuck orders,” Carmello said. “When’s the last time any of us listened to you anyway?”

Ryker dropped back on the sofa again. He wanted to turn back time. Step out on the front porch again and start over. Stay upbeat. Keep the focus on Mike. “How the hell did we get here? Tell me the good stuff, man. Tell me about Travis and Julie. Tell me about being home, all the great food, great beer, great weather.”

“I’ll tell you about the good stuff, Ry,” Mike said. “I get to see my kid every day. I get to do his homework with him, build Lego battleships, watch movies. I even play basketball with him. When those prosthetics come through, I’ll be able to do everything every other dad gets to do with their kid. And I get to wake up to Julie every morning. I get to kiss her good night every night. I get to whisper to her in the dark, laugh with her every day, and, yeah, eventually, I’ll even be able to make love with her again. All because you saved my life, Ry.”

“I don’t know...” He shook his head, the whole incident still unreal. “I still don’t know how you survived.”

“They told me the explosions cauterized my vessels enough to staunch the flow until you got the tourniquets on. If you hadn’t been so fast, so efficient, I’d be dead.”

This was too much to absorb. Ryker was overwhelmed by his positivity. His hope. His optimism. His lack of anger, bitterness, hate. “How…how can you… How did you get here?”

Mike exhaled, gave Ryker that matter-of-fact look, and said, “Therapy, Ry. Don’t act like a stereotypical dumb shit. Find someone to talk to. Someone who can help you sort things out in your head. I only have one or two nightmares a month now. How many do you have?”

“I don’t count.”

“Thirty, right. One every night?”

Ryker sighed.

“Are you seeing anyone? A woman?” Mike asked.

He frowned at the sudden change of topic and lifted a shoulder. “You know me.”

“I do. And that’s another thing you’ll want to think about changing. Knowing I had Julie and Travis to live for—that’s what kept me going. That’s what kept me alive. That’s what I live for now. Without them, I would have eaten my gun a long time ago.”

Ryker’s chest felt brittle, like his ribs were going to crack from the internal pressure.

“That bullshit they tell you at every psych eval,” Mike went on, “about guys with a girlfriend or a wife at home coping better, healing faster, suffering lower PTSD episodes, than those who don’t—it’s not bullshit, Ry. It’s not only true, it’s what makes life worth living.”

Ryker clasped his hands between his knees and stared at the floor.

“I’m badgering you,” Mike said, “because I love you. You know that.”

“I know.” Ryker nodded. “You know I love you too.”

“I do. How long are you in town?”

“I’m not in town exactly. I’m helping a buddy on a project a little over an hour north. I report back on the twenty-third.”

Mike rolled his chair to the coffee table, picked up a business card, and extended his arm, offering the card to Ryker. “That’s my shrink, but you’d never know he’s a shrink. Talking with him is like getting a dose of my dad’s wisdom. Promise me you’ll think about calling him.”

Ryker nodded, suddenly exhausted—emotionally and physically. “I promise I’ll think about it.” He slid the card into his pocket. “Chappie said he’s coming up her on his first day back and whooping your ass at basketball. Better get your lazy ass on the court for some practice.”

“In his dreams,” Carmello said, sitting back again. “I can whoop his ass just like this, in the chair with one arm, but with my prosthetics, he’ll need a fuckin’ army to beat me.”

“Mikey,” a female voice said from the foyer as heels clicked on the hardwood. “How many times do I have to tell you not to swear? I’m starting to think you’re doing it on purpose just to get another spanking.”

Carmello’s laugh was deep and rich, one that warmed Ryker in a very cold place. “Come here, baby. I want you to meet someone.”

Ryker stood, running his hands down the thighs of his pants, nervous again.

Her voice went distant a moment as she moved into another room, then came toward them. “If you keep making friends like this, I’m gonna have to put you to work. Our barbecue bills have gotten way out of hand.”

The woman who stepped into the living room was tall, brunette, and pretty. She was dressed in a navy suit with navy heels and a cream blouse.

She held her hand out to Ryker. “Hi, I’m Julie.”

He took her hand tentatively, giving her room to pull out of the grasp when she found out who he was. “I’m—”

“This is Ryker, Jules,” Carmello said.

Her smile fell. Her big green eyes darted down to meet her husband’s gaze. He nodded. Ryker pulled his hand back, already working up his good-bye even though he wanted to stay and hang with Carmello. It would be too painful for Mike’s family to have the memory of the incident—

“Oh…” she breathed, emotion rushing her face, and tears filling her eyes. “Oh…wow. I never thought I’d get a chance to meet you.” She shifted on her feet, and Ryker pushed his hands into his back pockets, wishing he could melt into the floor. “I…I…wasn’t prepared…”

“Uh-oh,” Carmello said, “here come the waterworks. Jules, he’s a guy. Don’t make it a big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal,” she snapped back, making tears flood over her lashes. “They don’t come any bigger than this.”

“Look, I’m really sorry,” Ryker said, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to see how—”

“Upset me? You didn’t upset me,” she said with an attitude matching Mike’s. “You…you’re…
God
…”

And she lunged toward him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and held him so tight he had to turn his head to breathe. Ryker pulled his hands from his pockets, not sure what to do with them. He cut a look at Carmello, who was grinning like an idiot.

“Thank you,” she whispered through tears with another squeeze of his neck. “Thank you for bringing Mike back to us.”