Read A Broken Christmas Online
Authors: Claire Ashgrove
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #Holidays, #Military
Everything inside Kyle recoiled. Denton’s hard expression, the pain-lined grimace fringed with a silent soulful plea, clamped Kyle’s throat closed. He looked at his friend, sickened by the unmistakable request. Put him out of his misery, end his suffering—only a sadist wouldn’t. But take the life of someone he’d laughed with, someone he’d exchange his life for…
Kill
his friend? Even when he knew Denton didn’t stand a chance of making it out of here alive?
Kyle swallowed and shook his head.
Denton’s grip took on more strength, his insistence coming through his fingers. He tried to speak, but only a gurgle came from his throat. Another heart-wrenching grimace followed, and the blood flowed more steadily from Denton’s mutilated abdomen. Those brown eyes found Kyle’s again, and like an icy hand, reached in to twist his heart. Kyle didn’t need Denton’s voice to hear the issue in his unblinking stare—
Fucking do it.
Kyle couldn’t. And yet, he couldn’t
not
. They’d all made the pact. All vowed they’d do the impossible if no other choice presented. Kyle wouldn’t want to wither away slowly, waiting for the next band of bastards to come in and see what was taking their buddies so long, hoping the end would come before they did. He couldn’t leave a good man to suffering he’d endured far longer than Kyle had been awake. If he let Denton die like this, choking on his own blood, agonizing with every raspy breath, he’d be as sadistic as the men who’d inflicted the brutal wounds.
He took a breath.
Denton’s grip tightened.
Kyle turned his head. Hating what he must do, hating God Himself for failing to spare Denton this horrific end, Kyle touched the muzzle of his gun to Denton’s forehead and squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot that ricocheted through the room filled Kyle’s eyes with tears. He dropped his head to the blood-soaked floor and yielded to brief sorrow. Denton was a damn good man. He had deserved better than this.
The sudden sound of voices beyond the door pulled Kyle from grief, reminding him someone would be coming in here. Not friends this time. Enemies bent on making sure he didn’t see the next sunset. If they found him, he’d be in the same place Denton had been. He could only assume the reason he wasn’t already was that they’d stumbled onto Denton first.
He turned his head to inspect his body once more, and the reality of his injuries settled on him fully. He couldn’t walk. Already, he felt light headed from loss of blood. His right arm was toast.
Like Denton, he wasn’t coming out of here. He might make it longer, but he didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting out of the village on his own power. They’d cut him down the minute he crawled into the street.
No, they wouldn’t cut him down. They’d
take
him down and turn him into sport before he’d be granted death.
Like hell.
His heart thumped hard as a vision of Aimee’s beautiful smile drifted up from the depths of his memory. He held onto that vision as he tightened his grip on his pistol and shuffled it closer to his head.
Like hell he’d become a playing field for their sick games.
“Drop it!” Walsh’s voice bellowed from the pile of rubble. “Drop the fucking gun, Kyle.”
Chapter One
Ft. Bragg, North Carolina
December 22, 2011
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Aimee Gardner’s nervous heartbeat pounded the thought through her brain. She wasn’t supposed to be standing on the tarmac with the other military wives who waited for their husbands to climb off the transport. She didn’t belong any more, no matter how her heart yearned otherwise. Kyle had seen to that. Him and the divorce he had insisted he wanted. Denied even the opportunity to speak to him, she’d refused to sign the papers, but the state gave Kyle his divorce. Still, her heart hadn’t let go.
It never would. She loved that stupid, headstrong buffoon too much. And she loved the noble, fearless, soldier even more.
Jet engines whined to a stop, and the plane came to a standstill. Aimee’s grip tightened on Conner Walsh’s forearm as her heart leapt into her throat. Would Kyle walk off? Or would he be in a chair? She knew only the vaguest details, bits and pieces Conner had gathered from his commander, about Kyle’s extensive surgeries and rehab in Germany. They’d saved his leg. His hand, too. But Aimee knew Kyle well enough to understand whatever had caused those injuries had done far more internal damage than Kyle let on.
He’d cut Conner off. Refused to take even a phone call from his best friend. A standard job gone wrong wouldn’t have divided two men who’d spent almost ten years guarding each other’s backs. Guarding each other’s secrets. Something more had happened out there in that desert. And nobody was talking.
Least of all to her.
“Hey. Here he comes,” Walsh murmured.
Aimee rose on her toes, trying to get a better look over the small gathering. Her vantage point at the back of the crowd, however, only gave a brief glimpse of khaki and beige caps exiting the plane. “Where?” she asked.
Conner pulled her to the left and pointed through a gap in the excited crowd. “Right there.”
Her searching gaze landed on Kyle, and her heart swelled to painful limits. His cane didn’t matter. The limp he bore with quiet dignity didn’t change a thing. Kyle was home.
Home.
Seeing him alive—every instinct in her body ordered her to run across the asphalt. To throw her arms around his neck and kiss him until they were both breathless and panting. Like she had the last time he’d returned. And every time before that, for the last six years.
Reality, however, kept her feet from moving forward. There would be no happy reunion. The minute Kyle saw her, he’d be as pissed as a snake and every bit as ready to strike. He’d wanted his divorce so badly he had stayed in Germany just to effect North Carolina’s mandatory year-long separation. Claimed when he left for his tour last October that he had no intention of returning. He didn’t want her here.
The papers said it all. But Kyle had yet to say a word of it to her.
No, when he saw her waiting to take him home, when he realized she hadn’t moved out of their house, he’d be furious.
Nerves kicked in, and she clutched at Conner’s arm again. “Oh, Conner. He’s never going to forgive me for this.”
Conner tossed her a smirk. “Well, that’ll make two of us. We can commiserate over beer, and maybe you’ll decide I really am the better looking one.” He nudged her with his elbow. “You can always marry me, you know.”
Aimee couldn’t help but laugh. Conner’s good humor always had a way of making grey skies into blue. Since the night she’d met him, on Kyle’s arm at a formal military ball, Conner Walsh had been trying to convince her she’d made a mistake. None of it serious. No, Conner’s loyalty to Kyle ran deeper than blood. But the jest had entertained all three of them many times.
Conner pulled her in for a sideways hug and kissed the top of her head. “Okay, hate to do this, but I’m gonna get.”
“What?” Wide-eyed she stared into his baby blues. “You’re not leaving me here, are you?”
“You think I’m going to confront that?” He jerked a thumb in Kyle’s direction. “I’ve made more than enough effort, babe. You’re on your own.”
Oh crap. Being stranded by Conner hadn’t been part of her plan. At least not until she and Kyle had returned to their house.
Ruffling her hair, Conner turned her loose. His mischievous smile softened with sincerity. “Good luck, Aims. Maybe you can kick some sense into him.”
The statement Conner had made mid-summer drifted back to her mind.
Major says he’s pretty fucked up, Aims.
Her gaze pulled back to Kyle. Why had he wanted out? Yes, things had been difficult since her miscarriage the previous March, but the only explanation she’d received was from his lawyer—Kyle didn’t want her hurting anymore. All attempts to discover more, to dig deeper, yielded utter, maddening silence.
Well, time to get some answers. She had a week before New Years. Two before she started the ER nursing job in San Antonio. Either she’d change Kyle’s mind, or she’d understand. One way or the other, she wasn’t leaving North Carolina without some sort of closure. Six years of marriage didn’t just up and vanish overnight.
Taking a deep breath, Aimee summoned her courage and stepped beyond the crowd, out onto the tarmac, putting herself smack dab in the middle of Kyle’s path. There, she pulled off her knitted hat and struggled to maintain a jittery smile.
****
Kyle came to a dead stop, his heart kicking hard. Aimee. What the hell was she doing here? They’d been divorced for two months now. She should be gone. Away from Bragg, away from this life.
Away from him.
Hair the color of rich milk chocolate glinted in the bright winter sunlight as it whipped around her face. Her smile had always reminded him of youth, and as he stared at her, the same old warmth stirred in his blood. God, she was a sight for sore eyes. What he wouldn’t give to feel that soft body pressed against his, to taste the hungry kiss she always greeted him with.
Silently, he cursed. Those days were over. He’d spent one too many nights feeling like an ass for not being able to confide the deepest parts of himself and, unintentionally, driving a wedge between them. Each time he changed the subject, each time he diverted her questions away from what he’d seen in war, he knew he wounded her. Hurting Aimee was the last thing on this earth he wanted to do. She’d suffered enough when they lost their child.
He had realized then former combat-nurse Aimee Garland wasn’t as strong as she wanted everyone to believe. For two months, she’d hardly left the bed. The third saw her in heavy therapy. Not wanting to distress her further, he’d pulled inside himself, keeping his own grief silent. When he deployed, he realized she worried about him more than she admitted. He didn’t want her sitting home alone, her imagination running rampant, when he went weeks without a means of contacting her. Sometimes months. She didn’t need that when she’d just begun to heal.
Having seen more than he could bear of Aimee’s grief, he’d done the only thing he knew to do. Though it killed him, he set her free.
Now why the hell was she still hanging around?
Walking up to him.
Reaching out for his bad hand.
Kyle took a step forward, forbidding her to touch the deadened nerves in his fingers. Looking straight ahead at the open hangar where families reunited, he asked, “What are you doing here, Aimee?”
“I came to see my soldier home.”
Hers.
How he wished that were true.
Leaning his weight on his cane, he resumed his shuffling walk toward the parked golf cart that would take him to Bragg’s front gates and a taxi. Even if things had been different, if he hadn’t forced her into a divorce his heart didn’t want, she’d never look at him the same once she realized he wasn’t the man who deployed fourteen months ago. He could walk, yes, but only for short intervals before destroyed nerves screwed with his balance and lifting his foot turned into dragging it behind. The cane helped some. Yet the same damage in his right hand forced him to use his left, and he hadn’t mastered that coordination. Everything felt off. Discombobulated.
Broken.
Kyle sucked in a sharp breath as Aimee slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. Elegant fingers gripped firmly, offering unexpected support. A gust of wind stirred her hair into his face, bringing the scent of her fruity shampoo to his nose. He resisted the instinct to inhale deep and savor the sweet fragrance. It held such familiarity. Such damning comfort.