Sniper Fire (Love in the Crosshairs) (13 page)

Bitterness at the turn his life had taken welled up and spilled over. Kyle found himself gesturing right back at her. “And you need to get back inside and put some clothes on. What the hell are you doing running around Josh’s house naked anyway? Are you waiting for a particular lover or just trying to get yourself raped?”

As soon as the words were out, he wished them back. Too late. Farrah’s head jerked as if he’d slapped her. Shame joined the bitterness party, the rancid mixture flooding him till he felt physically sick. God, he was such a bastard. He had no right ripping into her like that. It wasn’t her fault he was a cripple. She’d done her best to help him. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe apologize, but she held up her hand. Only then did he notice she was holding a second towel.

“I wanted to apologize for knocking you in the pool. I even brought a peace offering.”

Kyle blew out a ragged breath. Now he really did feel like a maggot in a week-old carcass. No guessing who the adult was in this conversation. “Thanks.” He held out a hand for the towel, more than willing for a return to peace between them.

Farrah’s brows arched. “
Wanted
being the operative word.” She swung her arm over the pool and spread her fingers wide. The towel landed in the water with a wet plop.

“Excuse me,” she said, the words as sharp as his knife, “but I need to go get decent now. I wouldn’t want to be accused of tempting one of my best friends into attacking me.” She spun on her heel as neat as a recruit fresh out of boot camp, and headed for the balcony steps.

“Farrah…”

She didn’t even slow down. Kyle watched as she marched up the steps to the balcony, feeling more helpless than when Joshua had broken the news to him about his leg.

Great job, Fagan
, he told himself. Not home an hour and he’d alienated the last person on earth he ever wanted to hurt. Could his life suck any more?

****

Kyle finally walked out of Joshua’s cabin over an hour later. Yes, his life could indeed suck more. Despite his earlier prediction, the weather had done a quick turnaround. Wind blew, sweeping down over the top of the ridge in an angry rush. Tall pines swayed, firs whipped, and oak limbs creaked like a chorus of bull frogs. All around him, dry leaves danced frantically, swirled by the frenzied currents. The scent of rain lay heavy in the air.

Great, more water. Just what he didn’t need. His clothes weren’t even completely dry yet from his unplanned dip in the pool. Kyle snatched up the plastic jug of water to feed to the rental truck’s radiator and started the mile-long walk. He really shouldn’t complain about the coming rain. The area needed the moisture. As for getting wet again, he had only himself to blame. Arrogant fool that he was, he’d sat by the pool, waiting for Farrah to come back down after she dressed so he could apologize. It had taken a good half hour for him to realize she not only wasn’t coming back down, but she’d left.

“Didn’t even bother to check on me,” he muttered, stabbing the end of his cane into the ground with each limping stride. Not that he’d needed, or wanted, her to. It would have been nice, though, if she’d offered to give him a ride. She had to have noticed that hers was the only vehicle parked in Joshua’s front yard. But had she come back down to ask how he’d gotten here?

No, she hadn’t.

What kind of doctor did that make her? And what the hell was she doing running around without her clothes on in the first place? True, no one lived close by to see her, but hell, that just made it worse. Anyone could have walked up on her.

The more he thought about the whole episode, the angrier he got.

Thunder rumbled, the growling echoes rolling around the valley. More followed. Soon the night was filled with a continuous cracking and booming. Kyle glanced at the dark sky. Lightning flashed almost constantly, sometimes lighting up the boiling clouds from inside, sometimes breaking free to skitter across the black background. The furious display matched his mood perfectly.

By the time he reached the truck, rain drops as big as dimes were coming down in sporadic showers. Kyle quickly topped off the radiator, thankful when the truck cranked on the third try. Tinkering with an engine in the middle of a thunderstorm was not on his list of things he liked to do. As the team’s unofficial mechanic, he’d done it before, and it hadn’t been fun then either.

He put the truck in gear and eased back onto the road just as the deluge hit. He’d walked the last of the cramp off, but the pain shooting up from his knee every time he had to switch between gas and brake pedal didn’t help his mood. Cruise control had made the drive from DC bearable. Navigating the curves and inclines of a mountain road through gusting wind and driving rain quickly became a form of torture. By the time he pulled in next to his own truck inside his garage at home, Kyle was soaked again, this time by sweat.

He shoved the gear shift into park and turned off the engine with a sharp twist of his wrist. Instead of getting out, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, listening to the storm rage. God, he was so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of hurting. Most of all, he was tired of thinking.

Despite his best efforts, his mind constantly returned to that alley in Cairo, going over his every move. What if he’d done this? What if he’d turned there? Why hadn’t he noticed the sniper on the roof? Why hadn’t Rash? It had been his job to take out roof problems, not Kyle’s.

Why had life served him up such a shitty future?

Kyle heaved a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t need a therapist to know such thoughts were destructive. He needed to snap the mental rubber-band and change his thinking.

Snap!

Nope, didn’t help. Never did.

Part of him hated thinking about the mission that had ruined his life. Another part seemed to crave the reminder of what he’d lost. Where were the Hawks now? Were his friends safe and dry, or were they lying in a similar storm, waiting for their prey? Damn, he wished he was with them right now. He’d take his life back—lying in mud and God only knew what else—over what he had now in a heartbeat.

With a shake of his head to dislodge that useless train of thought, Kyle opened the truck door and got out. He hobbled the few feet to the control panel on the wall and punched the button to close up the garage. Then he headed inside. He’d get his bag out of the truck tomorrow. Right now, he needed a hot shower and a glass of Jack.

****

Later, one glass of Jack turned into two, then three. Still searching for oblivion, Kyle tabled the rest of the whiskey in favor of a six-pack he found in the back of the fridge. Chasing good whiskey with stale beer wasn’t the smartest thing he’d done, but hey, neither was getting shot.

Somewhere near the bottom of the fourth bottle, he ceased to care about even that.

****

Farrah stared out her living room window, nibbling on her bottom lip. The glow from her outdoor security light was a dim shadow of itself, half-drowned by the cascade of a sudden burst of rain. Less than a minute passed, and the violent little squall was gone, pushed on its way by the whipping wind. She’d be a fool to go back out into that mess.

Still…

She leaned against the cool glass, wincing as another flash of lighting was followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder. She shouldn’t have left him. No matter that Kyle was being, well, to put it crudely, an ass, she still shouldn’t have left him. But he’d made her so mad! How dare he talk to her like that? She wasn’t a child. Nor was she some stupid, helpless female. Just because she didn’t approve of violence didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself. Hadn’t she proved that in Cairo? Hadn’t she proved it here by pushing him off the balcony?

Accusing her of trying to get herself raped by taking a naked swim in Joshua’s pool? Really? She’d thought the idea preposterous at first. It wasn’t until she recalled the Sheriff’s warning again about half-way home that she admitted to herself that going to Joshua’s alone hadn’t been one of her best ideas. Not with Craddoc still supposedly in the valley. The Sheriff would think she’d lost her mind if he knew. But Kyle just got home. He probably didn’t even know a dangerous criminal was on the loose. What was his excuse for ripping into her like that?

Pain, probably, guessed her professional side. She’d seen enough of it on patients’ faces to recognize that Kyle had been suffering. Her medical training had kicked in the moment she saw him out of the pool. She’d noted the sharpness of his features, the pale skin along his jaw denoting clenched teeth. She’d also noticed the way his soaked t-shirt clung to a chest and biceps that no longer resembled a granite boulder flanked by a pair of sturdy young pines.

Oh, he still had a body most men spent hours in a gym for, but she could tell he’d lost weight since she’d seen him last. The surgeries, the protracted hospital stay, neither would have been easy on someone normally so active and vibrant. So used to taking life at a dead run.

She drew in a sharp breath. Knowing Kyle, the injury was causing pain to more than just his physical body. Tough as he was, he couldn’t hide all the signs. Not from her. She knew him too well, had watched him too closely over the years. Even before she and Joshua had split up, she’d watched Kyle Fagan. The man was just too darn sexy to ignore.

Farrah jerked as another bolt of lightning stabbed the night. Thunder cracked, shaking the whole house. Somewhere behind her, her cell phone rang. She pushed away from the window—with all that lightning, she really shouldn’t be standing there anyway—and scooped her phone off the kitchen table. The number on the display made her smile.

“Hi, Joshua.”

“Hi, sweetheart. You doing okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” She walked into the living room and settled into a corner of the sofa. “I was going to call you.”

“About Kyle?”

“Yes. He arrived a little after sunset.”

She heard his relieved sigh even over the battering storm. “That’s good. I’m glad he made it there safely. If he’d just waited another day, I could have driven him down. He’s an impatient idiot, you know that, right?”

“Indeed I do,” Farrah agreed dryly.

A slight pause. “Why do I get the feeling Kyle’s already done something to reinforce his idiot status?”

Farrah bit back a laugh. Joshua had always been good at reading her tone of voice. She wasn’t about to complain to him about Kyle, however.

“It’s nothing, Joshua. Kyle’s just being Kyle. And he’s hurting. I thought the arterial graft would have helped by now. And I can’t believe he hasn’t had the knee replaced yet. Do you know what the prognosis is?”

“Nothing good. As you know, there was a lot of tissue and nerve damage. The kneecap was busted up pretty bad. The docs recommended a full knee replacement, but Kyle balked. Said he wanted to give it a chance to heal before going the artificial route. As for the artery, three surgeries and they still can’t seem to get the grafts to work right.”

She bit her lip. “Does he… Do you know if he blames me for that?” He would have to, wouldn’t he? She’d done her best, but still…

“No, hell, no. He knows the problems with the graft have nothing to do with your work. According to the doctor, Kyle’s lucky he still has a leg at all, not to mention being able to walk on it. That was thanks to you.” A short pause. “We almost lost him, Farrah.” The unspoken words, “we still might”, hung heavy in the airwaves separating them.

Farrah’s eyes burned. The pain in Joshua’s voice touched a similar chord inside her. “He’s strong, Joshua. You and I know that better than anyone.

Another deep sigh. “Yeah, I know. Problem is, I keep putting myself in his place, wondering how I’d handle the same situation. Being forced out of Special Ops. Having to give up a life I love to try and create a new one from scratch. The physical limitations. The constant pain. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’d take the easy way out, just that the temptation would definitely be there. And you know how Kyle is about resisting temptation.”

Yes, she knew. A two-year-old set down in the middle of a toy store and told not to touch anything could resist temptation longer than Kyle Fagan. She also knew she’d never allow him to take that deceptively easy way out. “You don’t worry about Kyle. I’m not going to let him sit around and feel sorry for himself for long.”

A soft chuckle. “That’s my girl. Do me a favor and see if you can get him to agree to another consultation. Aberashoff rounded up a new pair of doctors before Kyle left,” he said, referring to the head of Special Ops. “But our stubborn, idiot friend refused to see them. Private sector docs, too, top grade. One supposedly specializes in tough knee replacements and the other in some kind of popular artery surgery.”

“You mean arterial popliteal surgery?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Something about restoring circulation to the starving muscles so Kyle can walk without that damn brace. Um…sorry ’bout that.”

Farrah smiled. Joshua was always good about curbing his harsher language around her. Kyle, on the other hand…

“That’s okay. Listen, do you think you can get me a copy of Kyle’s medical file? I know there will be privacy issues—”

“Say no more, sweetheart, I was hoping you would ask. I’ve already got our information specialist on it. You should have hard copy in a day, tops.”

“Sounds good. In the meantime, I’ll try and get him to let me examine his leg.”

Joshua snorted. “Good luck with that. From what I gather at the VA hospital, he wasn’t exactly cooperative the last few days he was there.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with difficult patients before.” Not so much since she started her practice in the valley, but during her residency? Farrah stifled a shudder at the memory of some of the characters she’d had to treat. Difficult wasn’t a strong enough word.

“Yeah, but this is Kyle Fagan we’re talking about.” The tone of Joshua’s voice altered, became less kidding and more serious. “Don’t let him get to you, Farrah. This injury has changed him. I hate to say it, but he’s not the same person we grew up with. He’s bitter, and I can’t even blame him for it.”

Neither could she. She’d already had a taste of Kyle’s bitterness and let it push her away. Well, not anymore. She wouldn’t let him curl into a ball and ignore the rest of the world. A little bitterness was to be expected when faced with a life altering experience you didn’t want and had no control over. No doubt she’d be bitter, too, if her ability to practice medicine was suddenly ripped away from her. It was human nature. Getting Kyle past that bitterness would be the hard part. She’d have to find a way to turn his vitriol into something positive, a way to channel his negative energy into something fulfilling.