“Maybe she can FaceTime you when she’s feeling better. She hit her head. And she’s probably got a sprained wrist and maybe some bruised ribs.”
“Oh shit,” he breathes. “I can’t believe this! What the hell was I thinking sending her up there?”
“Stop it! She’s fine. And in less than a week she’ll be back home and hating the both of us with a passion for messing her life up.”
“You’re sure she’s alright?”
“She is. She’s kinda testy but then again isn’t she always?”
“Only around you,” he chuckles. But it’s a weak sound, not like his usual good humor. “You know I wouldn’t have sent her up there if you’d have stayed in touch, answered me when I called.”
“I know you think that’s a good excuse but it’s not. You should never have sent her up here to find me. She’s got a life back home that she needs to live for. A good brother.”
“I’m not that good,” he huffs and I can almost see the way his ice-blue eyes twinkle. He and his little sister share the same eyes. It’s always been a sticking point for me. A little weird. But there’s so much more to how I feel about Marina. I fell in love with her way before I should have.
I think when she started following the two of us around when she carried her beat-up old velveteen rabbit, just like the book, I knew there was something special about her.
I just didn’t realize how special she’s be to me. How much I’d need her after awhile.
And how much it would rip my heart out when I realized that I couldn’t hold her back from her future.
“And Marina is not coming home. She’s on her way to a new job in Seattle.”
“She’s driving cross-country? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?”
He snorts. “I’m glad you think there’s somebody out there who can talk her into something or out of it if she’s made up her mind.”
“Why’s she going so far away?”
He sighs, rough and ragged. I can almost hear the pain in his voice this time. And anger. “I can’t tell you that. That’s her story to tell if she chooses to.”
“Then why the hell did you send her up here? If she’s so fragile right now.”
“Because she needs to see you and you need her as well. You’ve dropped out of sight and contact with all your old buddies. I had a feeling that the only person you’d really let get inside that fortress you call a heart is her.”
“You fucker! You know that I don’t want her here. I don’t want her anywhere near me.”
“Which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of and I’ve told you for the longest time that what happened to me is not your fault. You couldn’t have known that that vehicle I was in would hit that IED. Hell, none of us expected that attack.”
A chill crawls down my spine. I know that for a fact. All of us were caught off-guard when the insurgents attacked us. I’d been cut off from my guys. I was hit and thrown from the vehicle when it caught fire. It was enough to burn me but luckily I kept enough of my senses to stop, drop and roll. Otherwise I’d probably be dead.
Or sitting in a wheelchair like my best bud.
Muffling a groan, I listen to him trying to say all the right things.
It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what was coming. Hell, I didn’t even know it was coming. And I’d been the one gathering the intel.
I let my guys down and we lost a helluva lot of them because I had trusted my sources and not verified my intel by independent means.
And I’d cost my best friends since grade school something that he can’t get back. Something that made it impossible for me to look him or his sister in the face.
His ability to see. He’s been blind since we got hit.
And just knowing that my fuck-up cost him so dearly was too much for me to get through.
There aren’t enough sorries out there for a man who took something like that from someone.
I refuse to take his little sister too. He needs her more than I do.
