Chapter 25 Worth Fighting For
Chapter twenty-five
Worth Fighting For
On the third night after the chaos, Lynnette was jarred awake from a dreamless slumber. Groggy and heavy-lidded, she blinked her eyes open in an attempt to see through her darkened bedroom. She didn’t understand what had woken her.
Not until the man wrapped around her let out a low, pained groan. He sucked in a hard breath as realization dawned in her mind, and the next thing Lynnette knew, Lance had flipped completely over and rolled to the floor.
Alarmed, Lynnette threw the comforter aside and scrambled across the mattress to better see. And her heart lodged in her throat.
Lance was on his knees, parallel to the mattress and hunched forward, hands clasped over the back of his head.
His body trembled with every unsteady breath, but no other sound or movement escaped him.
For a man so large and so naturally intimidating, it was hard to believe he’d made himself so small.
Harder still to see.
Lynnette climbed carefully from the bed so she could maneuver around to squeeze herself at least somewhat in front of him.
She didn’t want to approach him from behind when he was obviously distressed, possibly not even awake, and entirely liable to lash out on reflex.
The latter was an unavoidable concern, but at least she could minimize her risk. She hoped.
She had to twist her torso a little sideways to squish herself between his hunched shoulders and the nightstand, but she ignored the discomfort.
“Lance,” she said, keeping her voice gentle.
Her heart wanted so badly to reach for him, but she knew better.
So, she curled her fingers into her palms to hold herself back. “Lance, baby, look at me. Please.”
His next breath seemed to shake worse.
We’ll definitely be talking about therapy later. One more night of this misery was one more than she ever wanted to see him endure. First, though, she had to wake him up.
Lynnette forced herself to relax as best she could and slowly reached out, willfully ignoring every syllable of advice she’d ever heard on not doing exactly what she was doing. No one won if she just left him to suffer through whatever he was re-living.
And that was assuming he didn’t start to spark.
So, with the gentlest touch she was capable of, Lynnette laid the tips of her fingers on his exposed forearm.
It wasn’t a grip, it wouldn’t feel like a restraint, and hopefully it wouldn’t trigger any associated responses.
If anything, it might feel like a passing bug or the shift of fabric his mind may have convinced him he was wearing.
Still, she kept herself moving, nice and slow.
“Lance,” she whispered again. “Wake up. Come back to me. Everything’s okay. ”
He went still as her light touch neared his elbow.
“Lance,” she repeated.
Tension rolled through him and he exhaled roughly, but the sound was different. His body didn’t shake. His fingers unlatched. “Fuck.” That single, gruff, agitated word rumbled from him as the weight of the air changed. Then, finally, his arms dropped.
Lynnette withdrew her own in case he needed a moment. She watched the way he pressed his knuckles to the floor. The way he kept his head bent.
Seconds passed before Lance shifted himself to drop onto his ass and scrub a hand down his face, as if he couldn’t bear to look around, or didn’t want to be seen, but also didn’t have the strength to walk off. His chest continued to heave, but his breaths were steadier.
Lynnette watched for another beat, then decided he was awake enough.
It was one thing if he didn’t want to talk about whatever nightmare he’d had—she couldn’t claim to understand it fully, but she’d seen her dad struggle with PTSD long enough to understand what that did to a man.
She would offer her support when he was ready to hear it.
In the meantime, she needed to make it clear the one thing she wouldn’t tolerate.
So, she scooted herself around until the bed was at her back and pressed herself up against his side.
She looped an arm through his and laid her head on his shoulder, trying to show him that she was there.
And that he didn’t get to pull away just because she’d glimpsed a less glamorous side of him.
He didn’t speak right away. Seconds passed before he even relaxed into her or laid his other hand over where she’d clasped hers on his arm. But, eventually, his breathing calmed and it became hard to tell who was truly leaning into whom.
“Sorry,” he finally whispered. “Sometimes, the nightmares … overwhelm me.”
Lynnette frowned and gave his arm a squeeze.
“Don’t apologize,” she whispered back. “I probably can’t imagine some of the things you’ve seen.
I have nightmares sometimes, just from the second-hand trauma of some of what I’ve witnessed as a nurse.
Especially when I worked in the ER.” The shit people did to themselves was horrifying, honestly.
“I just want you to know I’m here for you, however I can be.
” She tilted her head a little and pressed her lips to the bare shoulder beneath her chin.
He kissed the top of her head, his exhale tickling the back of her ear. “About a decade ago,” he said, still speaking quietly and making no other effort to move, “I was sent on a job that went bad. I mean, shit goes sideways all the time, but not like that.”
Lynnette pressed her lips firmly together to keep from interrupting.
If he was talking without prompting, then he probably needed to release whatever the story was.
The least she could do was dutifully listen, so as to help him carry the burden of it moving forward.
Because she felt sure, just from the tone in his voice, that it would be a burden.
“Standard shit, I guess. Didn’t know we’d entered a minefield.
A good half of our unit was out, just like that.
” He paused and she felt his fists flex.
“I got thrown clear with the first blast, so I was kinda fucked up but okay. Wasn’t much we could do but wait for extraction, and we were too far in for that to be quick.
Those of us who could manage had to keep on-guard for night attacks. ”
The scene that unfolded in her mind played out like an old war movie.
The type that drew the audience straight into the thick of it and locked them there while the hard parts unfolded in real time.
And she had a whole new appreciation for why her mother had refused to watch those kinds of movies when she was younger, because suddenly she never wanted to see another one again.
Then Lance got to the part even those films generally shied away from.
“We got hit after nightfall, exactly like we’d feared,” he said, “and I hadn’t had enough time to heal up so my mobility was still shit.
I popped off a couple rounds but my head was spinning.
I couldn’t concentrate. Next thing I knew, the noise had stopped and everything I thought had hurt before hurt about five times as bad.
” He drew a hard breath and the arm beneath her hands tensed.
“I was held, beaten, and tortured for five days before Jon’s recon team got me out. ”
Nausea rolled through her stomach, but Lynnette held herself steady.
She’d wanted him to share his burden with her.
And what a burden. Tortured for a week? He ought to have been released with honors as soon as he was medically cleared for travel.
But she didn’t have to ask to understand that with his rapid healing, the Marine Corps would have seen an opportunity to keep a strong and willing weapon in their hands.
It was a little sickening to think about.
But he’d said the incident had happened a decade earlier, so she knew that had to be the explanation.
Lance held his breath for a moment, then slowly released it and gave her hands a squeeze.
“Officially, I’m not supposed to tell that story to anyone who didn’t experience it unless they have a certain clearance.
” His thumb stroked over her skin, and when he spoke again, an uncharacteristic vulnerability had slipped into his voice.
“But anyone who makes a life with me probably needs to know, because nightmares like that … happen. Sometimes.”
Tears rushed to her eyes and Lynnette blinked hard to chase them back.
He didn’t need a sobbing, soft-hearted princess.
And generally, she wasn’t one. So, she extracted herself from their embrace and twisted around, climbing into his lap so that she was straddling his hips and could more easily catch his handsome face between her palms.
He blinked up at her with slightly widened eyes as his hands landed on her hips.
“Thank you for sharing with me,” she said softly.
“I know that isn’t easy, and I want you to know I appreciate it.
” She dragged her thumbs through the half-day’s worth of scruff that had accumulated on his jaw.
“Even more than that, thank you for letting me be here. There may not be much I can do against those memories, but if there’s anything at all, I want to do it.
” She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
“You’ve sacrificed so much, for so many.
Let me take care of you in the quiet moments.
Even if only when it’s just the two of us. ”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow and he tugged her closer. “I know you’re my soulmate,” he said, lips kicking up at the corners, “but how are you so damn perfect?”
Lynnette scoffed and leaned forward enough to curl her arms around his neck. “Oh, I’m not, don’t worry.” She teased him with a whisper of a kiss. “For starters, I’m unemployed.”
Mischief glinted like a freshly lit spark in his pale green eyes. “For now.”