“I thought you’d never ask.”
“You should’ve said something if you needed to stop. I’m not out here to kill you, Mel.”
He winced at the pained look that flashed across her face. Okay, poor choice of words. “You sit there and rest. I’ll build us a shelter.”
She nodded wearily as he moved off, looking for a likely spot. He found a pair of fallen trees lying side by side about six feet apart. It would be a tight squeeze for the two of them, but for camouflage, he couldn’t ask for better. Efficiently, he slung a tarp between the logs, being careful not to disturb the layers of moss on the bark as he lashed the roof into place. A couple minutes of tossing dead leaves and dirt on the tarp, some brush to hide the entrance, and they had a cozy little nest, safe from prying eyes.
Melina must be more exhausted than she was letting on. She made no comment when he led her to the shelter. She just crawled inside, stretched out on the down sleeping bag he’d spread out on a bed of soft boughs, and closed her eyes.
“I’m going to get some sleep, too,” he murmured as he crawled in after her. “If, for some reason, something wakes you up that doesn’t happen to wake me up, give me a poke, okay?”
One eye opened to stare at him blearily. “In about two minutes, a marching band could go through here and I wouldn’t hear it.”
He laughed. “Okay, then. We’ll rely on my reflexes.” Although, as he lay down, doubt in his reflexes flashed through him. He hadn’t been out in the field in a very long time, and his system was far from clean from the sedatives and narcotics he’d been doping himself up on for months. Who knew if a threatening noise would wake him from a deep sleep in his current state? He dared not pull a sixty-hour, no-sleep marathon, though. He was alone out here without backup, and there was no telling if the anti-fatigue meds would work properly on him right now-or work at all, for that matter. Damn, he was a mess. What the hell had he been thinking to let himself get hooked on painkillers and muscle relaxants? Hell, he’d even started taking sleeping pills about a month ago.
He set his wristwatch alarm for four hours and closed his eyes.
He must’ve slept because he dreamed. Disjointed, bloody nightmares of the Afghan ambush and being chased by the animated, dead bodies of his team. No matter how far or fast he ran, their ghosts were always right there behind him, reaching out to him, trying to speak to him. He didn’t want to hear what they had to say!
He awoke, agitated and out of breath, disoriented. Where was he? Green half-light filtered down from a tarp overhead, and the cold and damp of lying on the ground had seeped into his bones. His back, unaccustomed to these conditions, was killing him. He glanced at his watch. The alarm wouldn’t go off for another fifteen minutes or so. Perfect.
Taking his backpack with him, he crept outside, being careful not to wake Melina. He rummaged around in a side pocket, experiencing a moment of panic when what he sought wasn’t immediately obvious. Urgently, he dug around, and then breathed a huge sigh of relief when he came up with the brown plastic bottle. His hands shaking so badly he almost couldn’t tear the lid off, he got the bottle open and poured a half-dozen white pills and four pink pills into his palm. He didn’t bother with water. He tossed the lot down dry, and closed his eyes in soul-deep relief. The pain hadn’t even abated yet, but just the knowing that it was going to be better soon was enough to send sweet freedom singing through his blood. He already felt halfway human again.
He opened his eyes.
And jolted.
A pale face stared at him from beyond the curtain of brush, still and shocked.
Melina.
Crap. She’d seen it all.
Chapter 9
Stark, cold fear washed over Melina. How bad off was he, this man who was supposed to save her family’s lives?
No sense hiding from the truth. He’d already seen her staring out at him. He knew that she knew. She crawled outside on her hands and knees and sat back on her haunches to face him. “Just how badly did you hurt your back eight months ago?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“Are you asking as my client or my doctor?” he retorted sharply.
“Both,” she replied evenly.
He shrugged. “Bad enough. It may never be right.”
“What exactly did you do to it?”
“You already saw the scar. I was shot. And then I crawled around on it for a couple of days. It got infected, and the surgeons who removed the bullet had to take out a chunk of meat, too.”
“How did you get shot?”
His gaze clouded over with painful memories. She’d meant the question in a technical sense…how close was the shooter, what angle had the bullet entered his body…but he seemed to be thinking of more than that. But whatever was on his mind, he didn’t answer her.
Okay, then. Not gonna be the world’s most cooperative patient.
“I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.”
He snorted with what was supposed to pass as laughter, but came out sounding more like a gasp of pain to her. “I’ve lost count of the people who’ve said that exact line to me over the past few months.”
“They’re right.”
He glanced up at her, his gaze piercing her with its power. “I’m aware of that.”
This was no simple guy with a painful secret. This was a warrior in his prime. A man of authority and responsibility. Used to being in complete control, of himself and his environment. And clearly, he was not adapting well to not being in control over this.
She replied dryly, “I gather from that look that you’ve declined to answer any of them?”
His gaze narrowed even further.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She pondered him thoughtfully. What could mess up a man like him so badly? It was no great feat of logic to figure out he’d been involved in some sort of law enforcement or military profession until very recently.
She asked neutrally, “Did the bad guy get away when you got shot?”
He jolted. Not the directions his thoughts had been running, clearly. And just as clearly, he didn’t like the question. “Thanks, Doc, but I don’t need any more people like you poking around inside my head.”
She smiled lightly. “So, you’ve become lovers with all of your doctors? I would have to object to the blurring of the patient-client boundary implied by sleeping with your physicians.”
He turned away from her sharply. “Enough already. I didn’t sleep with any of them.”
“Then please don’t lump me with them.” When he continued to stare into space in stony silence, she probed again. “Okay, so we’re not talking about what happened to the bad guy. What happened to your partner or partners?”
The response was incredible. He didn’t move so much as a muscle. And yet, all of a sudden, waves of rage and grief poured off of him so forcefully they all but knocked her over.
And it all clicked in her head. His comments about not deserving to be happy or to live…his deep sense of responsibility…that terrible scar…his utter refusal to talk…
Somebody he’d worked with, maybe even led, had died. And he, while terribly injured, had lived.
She asked lightly, gently, “So, just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of a thing called survivor’s guilt?”
His gaze narrowed. “Free psychoanalysis was not part of this deal. And besides, that’s none of your damned business.”
Damn. He was not going to cut her any slack, even if they’d made mind-blowing love together and bared their souls to one another. She hated to hurt him, but her gut and her training suggested a little shock therapy might be in order.
Her gaze narrowed back. “My neck’s on the line here, sport. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re in
