Chapter Nine
Ryan needed to have a long talk with Connor.
It was a talk he’d been putting off for years.
He couldn’t really come clean to Aria until he’d come clean to Connor.
He wondered what Connor would have to say to his confession.
Hey, buddy, I lusted after your girl, and she came on to me. Right before she died.
But Connor was married, sickeningly in love, and about to become a daddy. He had a feeling Connor would forgive him. Now, if he could only forgive himself.
The war had screwed him up. The war and Casey.
His best friend Connor’s girlfriend. A fellow combat medic.
Casey was smart, dedicated, and gorgeous, even with no makeup and dressed in her camo fatigues and other accoutrements that went with her role.
Casey had a wicked sense of humor, yet boundless compassion.
She and Connor had met early in their combat careers and been together ever since.
Ryan had figured they were together for good.
Connor had loved her. So had Ryan, but he never told anyone.
She was Connor’s and he wouldn’t betray his friend.
So he, Casey, and Connor were friends. Casey and Connor were two of the medics that Ryan dealt with most often.
Of course there were others but the three of them seemed to have a special rapport.
Then Casey began acting different. She’d show up and hang around Ryan when Connor was in the field and she wasn’t.
She flirted with him. At first Ryan had thought nothing of it, but the longer it went on the more he began to wonder.
He’d asked Connor if everything was going well with Casey.
Connor said yes, and he was going to ask her to marry him. Ryan decided he was imagining things.
But he wasn’t.
She came to him early one morning, the day she died.
Of course, he hadn’t known she was going to die.
He wondered if his response would have been different had he known.
He wondered if she’d died because of his response.
Because he’d turned her down. It wasn’t totally farfetched.
She was upset. Not paying attention. Not the best way to go into combat.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“What about?” She’d tracked him down to his tent. He’d taken a break before the next influx of injured. She looked determined. He wanted to leave but she blocked his way.
“Connor and I broke up.”
Shit, shit, shit. He’d known it. “Connor’s in love with you. He wouldn’t break up with you.”
“He didn’t. I told him we were over.” She walked to him and laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“It’s not my business.”
“Actually, it is. We broke up because I’m in love with you.”
God, what he’d have given to hear her say that. If Connor hadn’t been in the picture. But he was. “No, you’re not.”
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
And God help him, he kissed her back. His arms tightened around her and for a moment he forgot everything but holding Casey in his arms and kissing her.
Kissed her like he never wanted to stop.
Held her in his arms and fought himself, fought to keep from taking what she offered. Then reality hit.
He set her away from himself. “This isn’t happening.”
“Why? You want me, Ryan. Admit it.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Why did you kiss me, then?”
“When a woman plasters herself against you and kisses you, the normal response is to kiss her. It meant nothing.”
“Liar. You couldn’t have kissed me like you did if you had no feelings for me.”
“It was a kiss, Casey. Nothing more. It didn’t mean a thing.”
“You’re fooling yourself if that’s what you think. Ask Connor. He’ll tell you we broke up.”
“I’m not saying you didn’t break up. But not because of me. Don’t lay that on me.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.” She sat on his cot and looked prepared to stay there until she got what she wanted.
He shook his head. “Whether it is or not, Connor’s in love with you. He wants to marry you. You can’t do this to him.”
“I can’t live a lie, either.”
“You don’t get it. Nothing is going to happen between us.”
“It sure felt like something when you kissed me.”
“You’re imagining it. Overreacting to a kiss. You’re a friend. A friend who’s trying to screw up that friendship.”
“I don’t love Connor. I’m not sure I ever did.”
“Bullshit. You two couldn’t be closer.”
“Not anymore. It’s not sudden. I’ve known how I felt about you for a long time now. And I think you have feelings for me too. No matter how much you deny it.”
Ignoring the second part of her statement, he said, “If that’s true why are you just now telling me this?”
“I didn’t want to hurt Connor. And I wanted to be sure. But I’m tired of living a lie. I’m tired of never admitting my true feelings.”
“Do you think you can come to me from his bed and I’ll be okay with that? This isn’t like you, Casey.”
“Connor and I haven’t slept together in weeks.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I love you and I think you love me too.”
She rose and walked over to him, standing so close he could smell her scent. Light, fresh, and damn it, seductive. “I don’t. I have never given you cause to think I do.”
“Not purposely. But you don’t realize how easy your face is to read when you’re not in doctor mode. I’ve seen how you look at me when you don’t think I’ll notice. But I have noticed. Say you’ll give us a chance.”
“No. Whether I have feelings for you or not is immaterial. You’re Connor’s girl.”
“Not anymore.”
If this had happened before she and Connor had gotten together … But it hadn’t. And Connor was his best friend. A man he was as close to as a brother. “You don’t get it,” he said, losing patience. “Nothing is going to happen between us. Ever. Go back to Connor. He loves you and he’s a good guy.”
“I know he is. But pretending I feel the same for him as he does for me has become impossible. I feel like a horse has been lifted off my chest now that I’ve told him.”
“You’re going to regret it. Fix it before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late.”
“No, it can’t be. You and I? We aren’t happening.”
“Why? Why are you being so stubborn?”
“I don’t love you. I never will.” Damn it. Now she was crying. “It’s not being stubborn. I can’t do it, Casey. Being with you would be wrong.”
“You’ll change your mind. You have to. This isn’t over. I’ll talk to you later.” She left him then.
Not if he could help it.
He watched her go, wishing he was another kind of man. A man who would take what he wanted—who he wanted—no matter the consequences.
Then Connor and Casey went on a run to pick up some soldiers injured when a roadside bomb blew up. Hours later, Connor brought Casey in. She’d been caught in a secondary explosion while she was helping the injured.
Casey was in as bad a shape as he’d ever seen. He’d done his best, Connor as well as their best nurse assisting, but it hadn’t been enough. Casey died on his table.
He and Connor had never talked about it. But after they were discharged they handled the trauma in different ways. Connor couldn’t stay with one woman. Until he met Sierra. Ryan couldn’t stay in one place, and no woman had made him want to.
Until Aria.
*
Ryan called Connor, but naturally, he was working so he wound up talking to Sierra. “Do you know how long he’ll be gone? Is he at the hospital or is he on a flight?”
“They were called to an accident scene out on Highway 89. It’s a fair distance away, and the accident was bad with several injuries, some of them possibly life-threatening. So they requested a helicopter. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets in?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Before he could hang up, Sierra spoke again.
“Ryan? Is everything okay? You sound stressed.”
“I’m fine. Talk to you later.” He hung up and cursed.
Of course he was stressed. He was going to talk about one of the worst days of his and his best friend’s life.
He knew Connor must have come to terms with it since he’d fallen in love with and married Sierra, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous about bringing up such a painful topic.
One he and Connor had never talked about once it was over.
Connor called him early that evening. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you. In person.”
“When?”
“Now, if you can.”
“All right. Do you want to come over or want me to come to you?”
“I’ll come to you. Be there in a minute.”
“Can you stop and pick up some chocolate chip ice cream for Sierra? I forgot and she is not happy with me.”
“Sure.” Of course thinking about the ice cream made him wonder what Aria had craved during her pregnancy. He wished he’d been around to find out. More, he wished he’d been around to help her. But he was with her now, and he intended to make it count.
After Connor had taken a bowl of ice cream to Sierra, the two of them went out on the back porch with a couple of beers and sat in the two rockers.
Connor popped the top of his beer can. “What’s going on? Sierra said you sounded super stressed when she talked to you.”
Ryan drank some of his own beer. The only way he knew to do this was to just lay it out. “It’s about Afghanistan. About Casey.”
Connor’s eyebrows rose. “If this is about how you couldn’t save her, we’ve already had that conversation. It wasn’t your fault, Ryan. We both know that.”
“Maybe not. But the fact that she was injured in the first place was my fault. Or it sure as shit could have been.”
Connor leaned back in his chair and propped his foot on his other leg. “I’m listening.”
“I know why Casey broke up with you.”
“Figured that out, did you?”
“She told me. The morning of the day she died. She told me you two had broken up because she was in love with … me.”
“Yeah, that’s what she told me too. Did you know?”
“Not at first. I wondered but I didn’t know for sure.” She’d begun flirting with him, which she hadn’t done in the past. Coming to see him all the time. “By the time she told me I was pretty sure.”
“But you never did anything about it, did you,” Connor said, and it wasn’t a question.
“No. But I wanted to. I was in love with her. If she hadn’t been with you—” He broke off, the implication obvious.
“So, you were in love with her, but you didn’t do anything about it because of me.”
“I kissed her.” She’d kissed him but he didn’t want to tell Connor that.
“That last morning. But nothing else happened.” He drank more beer.
It didn’t help. “When she came to me that morning, I was brutal. I told her there was no way there could ever be anything between us. That I didn’t love her and never would. I’m not sure she believed me.
“When she left, I thought she’d have time to deal with it. To accept what I said and think about what she had with you before she threw it away. But she didn’t. You two got called immediately after that.”
“Are you thinking it’s your fault she was injured? Because it’s not. It was bad luck. It could have just as easily been me.”
“We don’t know that she didn’t screw up because she wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe she’d have noticed something in time to avoid the second blast.”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s over. Casey’s gone. It’s sad and a waste but that’s war. Casey knew the risks just like we did.” When Ryan didn’t say anything, Connor continued. “Is this why you’ve never stayed in one place? Or with one woman?”
“I don’t know. Probably.” He’d always thought he didn’t deserve happiness—at least, not with a woman—after what had happened in Afghanistan.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I need to talk to Aria about it. I figured I should talk to you first.”
“If you’re looking for absolution—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“There’s nothing to be absolved,” Connor continued as if he hadn’t heard him.
“You did the right thing. Something most people wouldn’t have done.
And it cost you. But Casey died a long time ago.
It bothered me for a long time. Hell, it damn near broke me.
It still makes me sad. She was too damn young.
But I have Sierra now, and a baby on the way.
I’ve moved on. You need to move on too.”
“I have to because of Sophie.”
“That’s not all it’s about, is it?” Connor asked shrewdly.
“No, damn it. I’m still in love with Aria. And if it weren’t for Sophie, she’d have nothing to do with me.”
“Hell, Ryan, she moved here to be near you. So you could get to know your baby. That doesn’t sound like wanting nothing to do with you.”
“It’s not so much me she wants. She wants a father for her baby.”
“You walked away from her. Did you ever talk to her between when you left and when she moved here?”
“No. I screwed that up too. I kept thinking I’d get over her. But I couldn’t.”
“She’s pissed and hurt. I can’t blame her.”
“I don’t. But she’s put up so many roadblocks, I don’t know if I’ll ever get past them.”
“She hasn’t been here that long. Keep trying.”
“I will.” Because now that he’d finally admitted it, he knew he had to do everything possible to convince Aria that she could depend on him and that he wanted her as much as he wanted the baby.
He loved her. Now he had to find a way to prove it to her.