Chapter 38
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
Mercer
As garages went, mine was fairly standard. It had a few pegboards with tools, a workbench, a rake and shovel, and a stacked washer and dryer. The Victory took up most of the center space, gleaming beneath the overhead light.
When Darby outfitted my house, this space had been overlooked, so this was his first time seeing it. Pulling away from me, he cast a look around, his eyes glazed with exhaustion, disinterest, or a bit of both.
“This was a choice.” He glanced back at me. “Something wrong with your room?”
The combination of privacy and proximity had my heart thumping. Or maybe that was just the effect Darby had on me. I scrubbed my hand along the shaved side of my head while dodging his inquisitive gaze.
“It just seemed like it would be awkward to go in there and stand around my bed. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to…” Blush burned up my ears and caused me to grimace. “That’s not why you’re here.”
Darby turned away, but not before I caught the smile that tempted his lips.
Surveying the garage once more, he gave an approving nod.
“I can work with this. But I’ve gotta tell you, Mercy, I’ve been on my feet for thirty-some-odd hours, and I want nothing more than to sit. What have you got for me?”
I did a quick turn, scanning until I spotted the rolling stool shoved under my workbench. Grabbing it, I pulled it over to him.
Darby stared down at the padded seat with nothing short of scorn. Honestly impressive for a man who looked five minutes from passing out.
“You expect me to squat on that thing?” he asked.
Fair.
Looking past him, my gaze caught on the Victory. “You could sit on my bike,” I offered. “If you get on facing backward, you can lean against the tank.”
We went to the motorcycle together, where I held out a hand to help him climb up and swing his leg over. Then as gracefully as he did everything, he settled back against the tank, head bracketed between the handlebars and body curved in an impossibly beautiful arch.
His eyes fluttered shut.
He sighed.
And I stared like a fool.
A lot had happened in the past day, and Darby had barely begun to explain how we’d arrived at this place.
But the most incredible thing was that this man, this stunning soul, had come back to me.
He was here, relaxed and reposed like he didn’t have a care in the world, when I knew for a fact, he had plenty.
But maybe he didn’t have to carry all that weight around me. Maybe he felt safe enough to set down his baggage and his mask. I hoped so.
After a long quiet moment, Darby’s eyes cracked open, and he peered over at me.
“Aren’t you getting on? This thing is a two-seater.”
I glanced at the spread of his legs and the skirt hitched indecently high on his thighs. My brain short-circuited for a second. “You wanted to kick your feet up,” I said weakly.
“Mercer James, get your ass up here.” He sounded as exhausted as he looked. “I told you I’m done being mad, and I want to be close to you.”
That settled it.
I climbed on, trying to make room, but the fit was awkward. Our knees knocked, his shins brushed mine, and both of us adjusted and readjusted until I finally reached out and caught his legs, gripping them firmly enough that my thumbs dented the skin above the lace cuffs of his stockings.
“Do you mind if I…”
He pushed up, braced on his elbows and looked down at where my hands held him, then he shook his head.
I slid forward, pulling him in until I could drape his legs over my thighs. Once we were thoroughly entwined, he settled back against the gas tank with his eyes half-lidded. I kept my hands pressed against his smooth brown skin, stroking absently.
A minute or so passed, then Darby rolled his head to the side and gave me a soft, sleepy smile.
“You’re wearing shorts.”
I glanced down at the shiny metal and molded plastic of my prosthetic. “Oh… yeah.”
“I’m glad,” he said.
“Why?”
He pushed up again, inclining to meet me face to face. “Because it’s you. All of you.”
A grimace tugged at my mouth. “It is, arguably, not all of me.”
Darby nodded, then he too looked at my leg. “How did it happen?” he asked. “Will you tell me now?”
I sat back while his warmth continued to soak through my palms. Talking about this always felt like gripping barbed wire. In therapy, they’d assured me that it would get easier with time. I wasn’t sure how much would be enough.
“I was on deployment,” I said finally. “Middle East. Hot as hell, sand everywhere it shouldn’t be. I was out on patrol with some of the guys from my squad.”
Darby’s tail looped around my leg as he watched me patiently.
“We hit an IED.” The memory flashed—bright, loud, and fast. “It happens more than you’d think. The Humvee flipped, and we all got tossed around. Couple of guys got thrown clear out the back. Glass everywhere. People were hurt.”
I drew a steadying breath as Darby eased himself upright, leaning forward until we were both sitting and his hands were holding mine.
“I’m… I was a medic,” I continued. “You know that.”
He dipped his chin in affirmation.
“I was supposed to help them,” I said. “But I was pinned. My leg got crushed.” My stomach tightened. “I couldn’t move. Couldn’t get free.”
Darby’s forehead creased, but he didn’t interrupt.
“The guy next to me—Kelm—he was bleeding bad. Arterial. And all I could think was that if I didn’t do something, he’d bleed out right there beside me. I could barely reach him. Managed to tourniquet his arm so he didn’t lose it.”
I looked down at our joined hands and Darby’s manicured fingers laced between mine. I’d told this story so many times I could recite it in my sleep, but it always felt clinical. Detached. A report, not a memory.
Saying it now with him touching me, looking at me, made it real in a way it had never been. I wasn’t a patient here. Not a body in a bed or a name on an intake sheet.
Just a person, like Darby said. A body with a mind and a soul.
After a few seconds, Darby’s voice drifted out, hesitant. “That’s why you got the medals?”
“What medals?”
Blush tinted his cheeks, and his eyes darted away. “The ones in Molly’s closet,” he said. “I was being nosy, and I saw. But you shouldn’t hide them. Or yourself.” His gaze returned to mine. “You’re a hero, Mercy.”
A laugh escaped me, though his statement wasn’t funny at all. “I’m not… Darby, I was trapped in a damn truck, holding pressure on a guy’s arm. That’s not—”
“It is,” he insisted. “You helped him. You probably saved his life.”
That was how the Corps had seen it. And yes, that was why they’d pinned those medals on me. Awards I’d stashed away but still listed on my résumé, trying to impress anyone but myself.
Darby leaned closer and freed a hand to cup my jaw, thumb stroking slowly along the bone. “And you made it home,” he murmured. “For your daughter. And maybe… for me.”
We were close enough to kiss. Too close not to remember the feeling of his mouth on mine, his taste on my tongue. But before I could dip in, he spoke again.
“Mercy? Can we play our game one more time?” He eased back an inch, his expression going pensive. “Only this time, I want to ask questions, and you answer with the truth.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t our game at all, more like a modified Truth or Dare, or an interview for a job. Though, if that job was a position in his life, I would put my best foot forward.
“Okay,” I said.
Darby drew a breath, gaining resolve by the moment. “About what you said at the club. When I was still mad at you. Did you mean that?”
I sifted through the things I’d told him in the VIP suite—warnings about Antonella and apologies for my part in her plot—but it seemed obvious which one he meant.
“That I love you?”
He shrank back as if guarding a wound. “Don’t just…” He faltered, frowned, and tried again. “It’s okay if you didn’t mean it. People say things, and you were upset—”
“I do love you, Darby.”
Emotions flickered across his face—fear, hope, disbelief, longing—all of them so raw. Gradually, he composed himself, or tried to, grasping at the mask he’d put away when we walked in here.
“People say things,” he repeated as if that changed anything.
It didn’t.
“What’s your next question?” I asked.
His throat bobbed before he rasped out, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you… really?” His voice cracked on the last word.
“Oh, pretty girl,” I breathed as I took his hands again. “I love you because you’re profound.”
His chest swelled with a breath that shook his whole frame.
“You are the most genuine person I’ve ever known,” I went on, because stopping now felt impossible.
“You feel everything with your whole heart. You care so deeply it scares you, but you still don’t stop.
And you’re incredibly kind. Down to the bone.
I love you,” I repeated, needing the words in the air between us, needing him to hear them as many times as it took.
“Because you made me feel more welcome in this world, in this damn house, than anyone else could have. You created a place for me without even realizing you were doing it.”
Bringing one of his hands to my lips, I pressed a kiss to his knuckles.
“And I love you because you came home too,” I whispered. “To me.”
He swallowed hard, eyes shining and white lashes clumping with tears.
“Mercy,” he managed, barely getting those two syllables out. “One more question.”
“Yes?”
He hesitated only long enough for the first tear to break free. Then in the smallest, most devastating voice, he asked, “Can we go to your bedroom now?”