Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
I’m two miles away from the ranch before I stop glancing in the rearview. Hell, I’m surprised that they don’t have the calvary coming after me or a helicopter landing on the road to block me. So it’s no surprise when my phone vibrates.
I didn’t leave the house without pissing off more than a half-dozen people.
But when Snoop Dogg blares Ba Da Da DaDa out of my phone speaker I know things just took a turn for the worse.
Goddamnit.
Would those sons of a bitches really call Lana on me?
Low. Really fucking low.
With a new kind of unease coating my tongue, I grab my phone and hit Accept. “Lana.” I clear my throat. “Hey, baby sis.”
“Ev.” She exhales. “You haven’t checked in and my dad has been worried sick.”
I grimace with a new kind of pain moving through me. “How’s he doing?”
This time my sort-of-adopted sister’s tone is sad.
“Stubborn as a gator. Mean as a cottonmouth.” She blows out a shaky breath. “But you know that. He’s feeling worse and worse. The chemo is taking more out of him each round.”
I clench the wheel as my vision gets wavy. “Fuck, Lana. I’m sorry. I should have called sooner. I’m just not used to being a civilian. I promise I’ll do more to stay in touch.”
“He’d like that.” She pauses and her soft sob makes me choke. “Ev, I’m really worried about him.”
A spike of pain hits my chest. “Fuck, Lana, I’m…sorry.”
I’m also sad, which is an emotion that I’m just not wired to handle.
“He wants to see his boy. Can you come? I know it would make him so happy.”
I hit the brakes and pull the truck to the side of the road because I can’t see anymore and running into a tree is going to have a serious effect on me doing what I’m about to do.
Throat tight, I grip the phone harder. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“He’s loved you from the day he found you sleeping behind his garage.”
I close my eyes, fist my hair and try to breathe. “I don’t know how he did. I was…”
“You were lost.”
An echo of the way I used to feel resurfaces. “I was broken. I still am.”
She sighs and her fatigue is obvious. “You have always had every right to be angry.”
I use the bottom of my shirt to press into the corners of my eyes. “That's all I know.”
“Now that’s a lie, Ev.”
Silence sinks between us. Between all my anger, they did everything they could to show me another way. “You’re right. You and him gave me the only peace I knew.”
“And the Navy,” she says teasingly.
“They didn’t give me peace. They gave me purpose.”
We’re quiet for a beat.
She breaks the silence, her whisper rough. “I’m proud of you. The man you’ve become. I love knowing that my brother has been out saving the world. I’m proud to call you a badass warrior.”
“Don’t, please don’t say that.”
I look at my hands and think about what I’m going to do with them. Without regret. Without remorse. With a single driven purpose to make someone pay for hurting Marianna.
When I don’t say anything else, the woman that used to annoy me unendingly when she was a little girl, makes a concerned sound. “Are you okay?”
Fuck, no.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Come home, Evan. Dad needs you, and from the way it sounds, you need us.”
There is no way in hell I can breathe now. So I have no idea how I speak— or why I say what I say. “I fucked up a mission for my new company when I met a woman.”
Lana’s gasp is not a surprise to me. But she regains her composure quickly. “Are you bringing her home?”
No. I’m… I’m going to save her from me.
Sad as fuck, I reply, “No. It’s… complicated.”
Lana’s the smartest person I know, she’s also a world class attorney so she’s one hell of an interrogator. “Evan Walker, you think she’s too good for you, don’t you?”
“I think she wouldn’t understand why I can’t let go of the anger.”
“You’re so wrong.”
I stare through the windshield and try to press visions of Marianna out of my head. “Look, I’m working, I have to go.”
She makes a growling sound. “I’m coming to find you, Evan. I know who you work for. Watch your back, because I don’t give a damn where you are. I’m not letting my older brother live in hell by himself any longer. This has gone on for far too many years.”
I chuckle darkly at her warning. “Lana, I didn’t know you were a mamabear.”
She’s not laughing.
“I’m no mamabear, I’m a wolverine.”
“There are no wolverines in Alabama.”
“No, but we don’t grow wilting daisies down here. You are the one that taught me that. I still have a killer good left hook.”
“I’m sure you do. Look, I gotta go. I’ll come home and see Mike as soon as I can. I’ll call him tonight. Promise.”
“I’m serious, Evan. Just because your momma threw you away doesn’t mean shit. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And my dad and I got the treasure. Now go kick ass as you always do. I better see you on my front porch soon or this Alabama wolverine is coming huntin’.”
She hangs up on me.
I spend the next ten minutes crying like a fucking child.