Ricochet (36 page)

Within two steps, Nathan had whipped in front of her and stopped her by the shoulders. She exhaled heavily and sagged. He cupped her face and lifted her head to look into her eyes. His were warm and worried and guilty. “I’m sorry I’ve caused so much stress. I’ll try not to add to it.” He released her face, stroked one hand over her hair, and slipped his arm around her shoulders, walking her forward. “I’ll take a better look at it in your room. Then you’re turning in early. You need a break.”

No, she needed to work. Lying in bed reliving every lousy moment of her sister’s visit and her rant at Nathan would not reduce her stress. But she didn’t want to argue with him, so she kept quiet and let him walk her back to her cabin.

When he stepped in after her and closed the door, the air suddenly seemed thick. If Josh was on site, she would have forced him out, but with all the emotion roiling around inside her, she would like nothing better than to sink into Nathan and forget about everything but the pleasure he brought. And now with him pulling her into the bedroom by the hand, her mind overwhelmed, she couldn’t remember why she kept pushing him away.

“Is it in your bathroom?” he asked.

“What?” She refocused on his face as he released her hand and looked around.

“The first aid stuff.” He glanced back at her. “Is it in the bathroom?”

“Oh no. Closet.”

“Sit down.”

She sighed, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched him rummage in the closet, pulling out a small toolbox.

He turned, knelt at her feet, and set the box down, grinning as he opened it. “A mini version of the emergency station Lexi’s got for all the renegades that drip blood on her carpet every time of the day and night?”

“How’d you know about that?” Rachel asked.

“She whipped it out when Duke cut Keaton’s eyebrow with the back of his hand during pool hoops.”

“Oh, that’s right. There’s a full version in my office and on all of the trucks. But I know what babies men can be when they’re hurt or sick, and how they always seem to seek out a female for care like a little kid. I expected more than a few visits.”

He chuckled. “You’re running with the wrong group of men. You need the kind who brag about their injuries. Argue about whose is worse like it’s a medal of honor.”

She smiled as he took her hand and inspected the cut closer. “You look good on your knees.”

He barked a laugh and glanced up, her eyes warm with both sexual heat and pure affection. “I’d get on my knees for you anytime.”

Her smile softened, and her mind muddled. Had he crossed that no-strings, no-complication border he’d promised? The thought created a sudden burn beneath her breastbone. That wouldn’t be good—for either of them. He would be oh so easy to fall for. And he’d be oh so gone in a couple of weeks.

He cleaned her scrape with hydrogen peroxide, pulled the skin together, and secured it there with Steri strips, then covered the whole thing with a couple of Band-Aids. “There. Do you want some ibuprofen?”

“No, I’m okay.” She sighed, suddenly exhausted. She lifted her hand, opening and closing her fingers, testing the feel. “Thanks for…humoring my insanity.”

He smiled. “Let’s tuck you in.”

He pulled off her cowboy boots with a shake of his head. “Never thought these would turn me on.” Then he stood, moved to the head of the bed, and pulled the covers back. “Come on, get in.”

He was really just going to put her to bed and leave? That didn’t sound appealing to Rachel at all. “I’ve got a lot of work—”

“You’ll be more productive rested. I’m not leaving until you’re under the covers with your pretty little head on the pillow.”

She sighed. That sounded so good. Maybe just a quick nap. Then she could stay up late and work in peace while everyone was in bed.

She turned and crawled across the bed, sliding under the covers. Nathan covered her up and lowered to one knee beside the bed. The move made her wonder if Dante had gotten down on one knee to propose to Nicole. Rachel expected a rush of anger. The burn of hurt and betrayal. But she only felt pity. A welcome change.

Nathan leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead, then stood.

She caught his hand. The move had been instinctual, unconscious, and now she didn’t know what to do or say when he lifted a quizzical brow.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Load the truck for tomorrow. Find all the people who were looking for me today. Go over the blast protocol with my guys.”

“You’re ready? To blast?”

“First stage is ready.”

“But we don’t have cameramen—”

“Jax promised they’d be here first thing. And Marx will be back in the morning.” He leaned in and stroked her hair. “Everything is taken care of, honey. Get some rest.”

He pulled his hand from hers and stepped away from the bed. Rachel sat up. “Stay.” As soon as she realized how confusing that invitation could be, she added, “Just lay down and talk with me a few minutes. I’m too wound up to sleep.”

He released a breath and rounded the bed. “Just a few minutes. I have a lot still to do tonight.”

On the opposite side of the bed, he stretched out, propped his head on his hand, and stretched his other hand across her waist. “Close your eyes.”

She covered his arm with her hands and stroked his tight muscle, warm skin, toyed with the crisp hair on his forearm. “Thanks.”

They fell into silence. Rachel couldn’t keep her eyes closed, and Nathan didn’t nag her again. His gaze remained on her hands stroking his arm, his expression serious.

After a few minutes, he said, “How long were you two together?”

She knew he meant Dante. “Two years.”

“Do you still love him?”

“God, no.” She lifted her gaze to Nathan’s. “I don’t think I ever really did.”

“Then why the animosity toward your sister?”

“The betrayal,” she said. “She’s my sister. He was my lover. Other than my parents, there was no one I trusted more.”

He nodded. “How did it happen?”

She cleared her throat and threaded their fingers, her gaze on their hands. “I met Dante through my parents. He was the son of one of my father’s customers. He was doing his residency at the time, and he was ridiculously busy. I was managing my father’s business. We struggled to see each other. And there was always a lot of stress. We tried living together, but it didn’t help. He’d just come home from those long hours and fall asleep. But I was looking at the big picture. The long term. I knew the rough times were temporary, so I stuck it out, believing it would pay off in our future.”

She was softening the conflict. In reality, they’d moved in together to alleviate Dante’s financial struggle. She’d worked, making twice what he did in residency. All his money went to paying off his loans, so all Rachel’s went to their living expenses. She’d done that believing in the future Dante had continually promised her.

“After residency, he got a fellowship back east. It was an increase in pay with a guarantee of a great paying position when he was finished,” she continued. “Stupid me, I thought it was the light at the end of the tunnel, so when he said he wanted to move out there alone and get settled before I moved too, I just saw it as another step in the process.”

She sighed and lifted her gaze to the blinds covering the single window. “But Dante never planned on having me move. He was done with the relationship and took a cowardly way out. After six months of cat-and-mouse, he told me he was seeing someone else. Then told me it was Nicole.”

The memory still felt like a knife in her gut. “They saw each other at my cousin’s wedding in Martha’s Vineyard and slept together that first night—just a month after he’d moved. They kept up the affair, flying back and forth across the US to see each other in secret. On a long weekend, I hopped a flight to surprise him—”

“Oh no…”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, forcing the memory away. “It was ugly. They had been screwing for five months while I still thought Dante and I were together. Man, I’ve never felt like such a fool.”

When she paused, he asked, “How long ago was that?”

“About six months,” she said. “My father’s sister passed away right around the same time. She didn’t get along with my father but loved Nicole and me and left us her house here in LA. My parents weren’t happy with Nicole and Dante, but our family had always been so close, the rift between my sister and me was killing them. They wanted what we’d always had, and since I was always the giver in the family and Nicole was always the taker, they expected me to forgive, forget, and accept Nicole and Dante’s relationship.”

Nathan made a deep sound of disapproval in his throat. One she deeply appreciated.

“I decided—”

“Not to let them walk all over you anymore and left.” He tightened his arm around her and kissed her temple. “Good girl.”

“I bought out Nicole’s half of my aunt’s house with the money I’d been saving for…of all the stupid things…a wedding. It’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Except for taking me home from the bar. That was fucking brilliant.”

She laughed. “That’s debatable.”

“Not to me,” he murmured against her hair before kissing her there. “So that’s the root of your aversion to a serious relationship.”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. Not at first. Not until I came to LA, met Rubi, and saw how much fun she had with the single life.”

“Um…she’s in a relationship that sounds pretty serious to me.”

“Yeah, now. But Rubi’s had a long history of sex-only relationships, and I envied her freedom, and the way she was never upset by moving on from one guy to the next. I wanted that.”

He stroked her hair again, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him look down at her. “You know not all guys are like Dante. You know I’d never do anything like that to you, right?”

She sputtered a laugh and met his gaze. “Nathan, I hardly know anything about you. This is totally different. I knew you were leaving from day one.”

He held her gaze, his eyes soft in a way that made her stomach float and tighten in dread at the same time. “What if I didn’t?”

She frowned. “Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t leave,” he said, lowering his gaze so he wasn’t meeting her eyes.

“What…does that mean?” A streak of panic slid through her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean…” He shrugged, still not meeting her eyes. “What if I came back between tours?”

The alarm burned hotter. She pushed up on her elbow and faced him. “Nathan.” She waited until he met her gaze again and read the confusion there. “You’re not making sense.”

He didn’t respond at first. Just searched her eyes, his fingers tightening on hers. “What if…I didn’t volunteer to extend my tours and came back to the States in between? Would you see me again?”

Holy. Fuck.

An unwelcome thrill sang down her spine. “You…can
do
that?”

He lifted a shoulder, noncommittal.

“If you can do that, why haven’t you done it before? Why do you stay overseas for years at a time?”

His head tipped, his gaze lowered to her mouth. “I’ve…never had someone to come home to before. I never had any reason to return to the States.”

Her lips parted, but she couldn’t find anything to say. Her brain was spinning. Her heart twisting.

He kissed her forehead and lowered his head to the pillow, pulling her close and tucking her head beneath his chin. “Close your eyes, baby. Get some rest.”

Rachel lay against him, their fingers still twined, his other hand combing through her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a long breath of frustration. The first man she’d been seriously attracted to since Dante, and he could only commit to a relationship for a few weeks out of every year.

She had the worst damn luck with men.

Ryker waited as Charlie inspected the last cluster of blasting holes the crew had drilled into the bridge’s asphalt and scanned the safety perimeter again, looking for Rachel. Everyone on the site was there, waiting for the final check, the all clear, the countdown.

But no Rachel.

He rested his hands at his hips and glanced down at Charlie, where his partner’s gloved hands checked every connection between the cylinders of RDX imbedded in the bridge’s roadway. Ryker would make the final check before they called it good, a double-tiered safety measure Marx had been pleased with—the first element of this whole fucking scene the guy hadn’t argued about.

He turned and looked toward Jax, positioned half a mile away on a wide flat spot on a hillside. Three Eurocopter Squirrels sat ready to lift off, cameras strapped to several different locations on each chopper. Marx stood nearby, arms crossed, watching Charlie and Ryker make their rounds. When he lifted binoculars to his eyes, Ryker flipped him the bird, then crossed his arms, and scanned the crowd again.

Still no Rachel.

The niggling sense of dread that had taken root the moment he’d left her cabin the night before after she’d finally fallen asleep deepened. He’d gone too far with his “what if.” He hadn’t heard from her all day, when he usually talked with her half a dozen times about job-related details. And she wasn’t the only one spooked by that little brain twist of his. Every time he pictured himself telling his men he was leaving them to go home to shack up with a chick, he felt sick with guilt. With failure.