Chapter 11
11
After his breakdown, all these emotions and feelings were new to him, and he was struggling to understand how being with Sadie was changing him. He never even entertained the fact that he would pull away from her, thinking that he needed space. He’d had space, and it hadn’t helped to alleviate the way he was feeling ever since the first panic attack.
He buttoned the last button on his white shirt, grabbing his earpiece out of the case and tucking it inside his ear canal.
She was suddenly there, the tank top and very short Navy khaki shorts covering up that delectable body, her multicolored hair braided and still damp, but small dry wisps framed her fresh face, devoid of any makeup.
She covered his hands, her soft touch feeding and soothing him all at once, and he had to admit that he was embarrassed, a tad angry, and confused by his outburst. Leave it to Sadie to comfort him and bring it out into the open. “I hope you don’t think I’m a wuss,” he growled, feeling more heat suffuse his face. His tone had a brittle edge to it. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time, not since he had been reamed out by his father for trying to get out of going to the soup kitchen so he could play some basketball. The mortification had been excruciating, and he was haunted by the pain of recollection.
She took a soft, almost hitching breath. “I’ve just reveled in two intense, sexually charged, satisfying experiences with you, seeing your powerful body and overwhelmed by your sheer, unadulterated masculinity. So, wuss? No. Someone trying to understand and find his way in a morass of confusing emotions that he has every right to feel at any time without judgment? Oh, yes,” she said with quiet conviction.
He closed his eyes, her compassion washing through him like a warm, hard hug, touching on uncomfortable, negative feelings, anguish, resentment, and, yes, pain. A lot of pain. How did this happen? How had he found her when he needed her the most? And she was so goddamned giving. “Fuck, Sadie,” he said softly, not sure how to react, genuinely afraid of leaning into this anymore, feeling the seductive pull of her generosity and understanding, nothing manipulative or held back. He didn’t want to need this…but he did, and not only that, he wanted more of it. He just felt so clueless about how to get what he needed.
Him. A man who never backed down from anything, had energy to spare when even a thirty-two-mile swim was a simple exercise. He was tough physically and mentally. He had to be…but all the time? He was suddenly exhausted from holding all those barriers in place.
She cupped his jaw, lifting his head so she could meet his eyes, a quiet urgency in her voice. “Something tells me you don’t do that often, if at all…big, tough guy, and you don’t have anyone you feel secure with to let go like that.”
He stared at her rigidly for a moment at the way she did that so effortlessly, pegged him like a pro. His jaw tightened, sending waves of pain shooting into his temples, then she caressed him until he relaxed his teeth. “No. There’s been no jumping-off point in my life.” The words came out with a bone-tired weariness. He dropped his head, the look in her eyes making his chest tight all over again.
She stepped closer, her hand slipping around to his nape. “It royally sucks to keep it all inside or to release it all alone. There’s nothing but pain there and a loneliness that only compounds any kind of strong emotion. I have felt the tension in your body from the moment your head landed on my shoulder.” His chin came up, a soft smile smudging her mouth. She squeezed his hand and the back of his neck. “Letting go, releasing things, then regrouping is always best.”
“This is a stretch for me. I don’t analyze anything. I have to keep myself in a strong place.”
“I know you think you do,” she whispered roughly as her hand settled over his heart. “I know it from my own experience.” He hauled in a deep, shaky breath, keeping his gaze on hers, catching that torment in her eyes as she continued. “But you don’t have to shun everything to get to that place. I say that embracing all there is inside you gets you to an even stronger place.”
He turned away, feeling overcrowded, confused, and angry again. “I’ve never felt this helpless in my life, and I’m struggling, Sadie. No one but you knows that. I don’t know how I would handle it if Tex or any of the guys find out what’s going on with me.” He felt almost sick with the need to hide it from his teammates.
Sadie’s face softened as she reached out and took his face between her hands. “Look at me, Twister,” she whispered jaggedly, her eyes glimmering with a fierce light. Slowly he responded to the pressure, feeling that all the anguish that was scarring his soul was right there for her to see. With infinite tenderness, she smoothed her hand along his jaw, her touch firm and comforting. “You never have to feel that you can’t be who you are in front of me, and those men love you, so they will support you any way they can. Don’t be afraid of trusting that.”
Memories flooded him, so many pushing in on his mind. BUD/S, where every team guy found his calling. All those thoughts and feelings, all that need to find challenges and beat them. All of that fell into place. He had met his people, found his place amongst them.
The memory of the surf zone torture came back to him in a rush. Water splashing around their already saturated boots, a kind of cold that sank into his very bones, slicing his skin like razor blades. As if the pounding surf, sharp wind, and the uncontrollable shivering wasn’t enough, they had to sit down in the water, each man’s arm linked with the next in a long chain. Waves pummeled the line, arms wrenched with fatigue as they fought to keep them linked. If the chain broke, they would have to endure more time in the ocean.
No one wanted to be that weak link, failing himself and all those men who were digging down deep to endure this latest test of will and mettle. Even with rip currents pulling at the center of the class and breakers pounding the ends, tearing at their ranks, hundreds of pounds of water smashing them to the abrasive bottom, water swirling around their heads, filling every orifice with salty grit, they hadn’t broken.
That’s what the brotherhood was—an unbroken chain, no matter the mission, no matter the circumstances, no matter the cost. Every single one of them would pay it for the good of the team and for whatever task had been assigned. He was responsible for the lives of his team, and the only way to survive was to trust them and in turn be trusted. They all had to think like a team, all the time. But the weight of his inability to control what was happening to him only made him try to stand taller, stand tougher, and deal with it so that it didn’t impact his brothers. His mindset was that he could overcome this given enough time. Why open up doors when he didn’t need to walk through them just yet.
She took a hard breath and rubbed her cheek against his, her hand slipping to the back of his neck just as tenderly. It was clear from the way she touched him that she couldn’t get enough of it. He had to admit grudgingly, he couldn’t either. Again, there was that fear that if he allowed himself some slack, it would be harder and harder to build back the armor he needed. They were together here on deployment, but she had her career, and he had his. There was no guarantee that they would even be in each other’s orbit again.
If he gave into her, gave into this exquisite weakness, where would he be in a month? Two? Yet he was still experiencing panic attacks, and she was helping, so whatever he was thinking and feeling with her, it was tied to the reason he couldn’t shake them. When she took over during both panic attacks, he had begun to realize that with her, with his loss of control, he could truly trust her. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t belittle him, and didn’t embarrass him. In fact, she had only supported him in those moments of sheer terror. His chest got tight. He was safe with her.
That was worth repeating. He was safe with her. If only he could accept it.
“Let’s look at it this way,” she said softly, giving him another lingering kiss. “We saw each other losing it, so that makes us even.” She smiled, and damned if she didn’t charm the pants off him.
He smiled back, but it faded when Tex’s voice came through his earpiece. “Twister?”
He straightened and said, “LT?”
“We’re getting to the dock. If you're done with your toilette , could you grace us with your presence?” Did Tex guess what he’d been doing down here? Of course, he did. His CO was no fool.
“Yes, sir,” he responded, then looked at Sadie. “As much as I want to keep talking to you about this, I’m being summoned.” He swallowed, then his voice hoarse from the unbearable strain, he whispered her name as he enfolded her in a crushing embrace, his arms like vises around her as he pressed his face into the curve of her neck. Hauling in a ragged breath, he found her mouth, covering it with a soft groan, and he was rewarded with her sweet response. Cursing the circumstances that kept him from fully engaging with Sadie, he let her go, ushering her to the door and stepping through.
It was time to go back to work.
Back to what they were here to do. Protect the salvage operation and the divers. In his mind, there was no honor in quitting, giving in, failing. They were only as strong as their weakest team member, and he was determined he wouldn’t break that fucking chain, ever.
Dagger glanced over at Twister for the umpteenth time. His buddy was restless and moody. It had been several days since that first dive, and Dagger was feeling the same way. His calls to Quinn had gone unanswered, unreturned, and he was ready to chew glass, desperate to find out how she and the boys were doing, whether she’d bent enough to get the help she sorely needed.
Sliding into a very pissed place, he knew her silence was compromising his attention to the mission. She had to know it was affecting him, and maybe she was getting some satisfaction out of it, some subtle revenge. Or she was just reacting without malice, trying with everything she had to work out her feelings, be there for her kids, and move on with her life—apparently without him being a big part of it.
But he was a part of it both by blood and by marriage, regardless of the fact that his brother was dead.
Brian was always straightforward and didn’t mince words. It was still a shock when he just came out and asked Dagger to help, to father the children he and Quinn so desperately wanted. Brian didn’t want to adopt. His request had blindsided Dagger. He said that Dagger was part of his bloodline, and that satisfied both him and his wife. When he had confessed that Dagger was the only man alive he would trust with this situation, Dagger had to consider his own feelings on the matter. He’d been speechless, absorbing the magnitude of Brian’s seemingly simple request. His main concern was how Quinn felt about it. Brian confidently told him that Quinn was the one who had conceived the idea.
That was another slam dunk to his mind, upending him completely. Brian realized that he was struggling with the concept and told him to take his time before he made his decision. He couldn’t sleep that night, thinking how he would feel, knowing she was carrying his child, knowing that part of him was responsible for creating a life…with her. It had nearly killed him, but over time, gradually, he stopped considering his own feelings and switched to Quinn’s, and the possibility of being able to give her a child eased that awful hole in his chest. This would be a way that he could validate what he felt for her, his chance to give her something no other man could. That’s when everything changed, and the thought of his child growing inside of her gave him the kind of peace he needed.
She had come to base to see him after that restless and sleepless night. When he’d been told he had a visitor at the gate, and he’d gone there puzzled, all the blood drained from him when he’d seen it was her. That amazing hair of hers was a cloud of wild curls around her head, and she’d worn a cornflower blue dress, highlighting her slim figure, the color contrasting with her brown, glowing skin. She’d drawn him over to a shady area, and with tears in her eyes, told him how much she wanted a baby and why. If he hadn’t already made up his mind, he would have buckled under the desperate longing in her eyes, and it would have been an irrevocable decision. With emotion cramping his throat, he told her he’d be honored to do it.
Then there was the experience itself, and the small room where everything he felt for her spilled out in that donation. He hadn’t been able to face either of them or the upcoming procedure. With his head messed up after leaving the clinic, he’d asked for two weeks leave and went to Oil Nut Bay, a secluded Caribbean beachfront villa located on the British Virgin Islands, where he reconciled his feelings in solitude, admitting to himself, just briefly, that his feelings for Quinn were strong and needed to be pushed to a place he couldn’t visit.
He had thought that would be the end of it, then Brian had died, and she blamed the team, and specifically him, for allowing it to happen. It was ludicrous, absolutely unreasonable, to think they— he —would have stood by while it happened. He was just as devastated at the shock of Brian’s loss, something none of them saw coming, but grief did terrible things to people.
Ten months after her procedure, Ezra and Elijah were born. Two for the price of one, and he was elated, not only for the new life, but for the fact he wouldn’t have to perform the same function. He wasn’t sure he would have been up for it. They were a miracle and a Godsend, giving him someplace to put all the emotions he had been carrying around inside him. He would gladly give his life for any of them, and their existence somehow made everything right. Through a conscious decision, he’d never thought of them as his. They would always be Quinn’s sons. Always.
Gifts were meant to be given away, and Ezra and Elijah would always be his nephews. His feelings were buried, and he’d never taken them out and examined them again, resigned to leaving that particular loneliness, that particular pain deep-sixed. He took comfort in knowing that he’d given her the two children she had wanted so much, and he was almost content with that.
Twister lived up to his name as he flipped back onto his side, obviously not focusing on the book he was supposed to be “reading.” Dagger looked over to Bondo and murmured, “Have mercy on him, Master Chief. You know what he’s going through.”
Easy nodded enthusiastically, and Shark said, “Amen to that.”
Bondo made a wry face, his eyes flicking to Twister and back to Dagger. Everyone, including Tex knew why it had taken him so long to “get cleaned up.” The tension between him and Sadie was as thick as hell. The same kind of tension that had flowed between Tex and Nora, Bondo and Cameron, Easy and Astraea, and Shark and Maddy. It was unmistakable. Even unattached guys like him understood the pull of a new relationship, no matter when or how it was happening. Sex was intoxicating, and with big, young men in their prime, it was hard to keep that particular urge under wraps.
Bondo cleared his throat and said, “Twister.” When he looked up from the book, he was a million miles away. Dagger knew it was more than Sadie tying him up in knots. Panic attacks. Fuck, that was concerning. Dagger had seen the way he’d looked up close in that torpedo tube. Hopefully, after this deployment, they would get some much-needed leave. He even contemplated suggesting Oil Nut Bay to Twister. Maybe some sand, water, and sun would help. As the door closed behind them, Dagger dialed Quinn one last time and was shocked as hell when she popped up on his screen.
“Dagger. What is it you want?”
He sighed heavily. Her eyes still had those circles, and she didn’t look any better than she had a few days ago. “I’m checking up on you. I told you I was going to do it, and you kept ducking my calls.”
“You should really focus on your mission. The boys and I are doing fine. Please stop calling me every five minutes. I don’t need your help.”
He opened his mouth, but she had already disconnected the call. He dropped his face into his hand, deciding that what she wanted didn’t matter. When he got home, they were going to have this out, once and for all.
After Brian’s death, he made a point to keep in touch, but Quinn had totally walled up. That once vibrant smile was absent, and she was so brittle. All of it was hard to watch. He had been concerned ever since her hostility had become apparent. She’d hidden it, but after the funeral, she pulled away, got distant, started to talk to him with that edge in her voice.
There were nights when he’d lay awake until dawn trying to figure out how to get through to her about how Brian had died. And unless she opened up and allowed him back into her life, he was at a loss. Quinn might need to be rescued, but she certainly didn’t want it to be by him.
That hurt like hell... She was suffering through all of this alone and refused to come to him for help. He genuinely wanted her to get on with her life, but she was mired in some serious grief and unhappiness, and he had to face the fact that his feelings for her only seemed to compound, and he was fantasizing about wanting a whole lot more.
Didn’t matter. He wouldn’t, couldn’t turn his back on her and those boys, not now, not ever. She had better get prepared for that reality, and if he needed to, he would play the biological card whether she liked it or not.
“Master Chief?” Twister asked, not sure why he’d called him into the hall. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing in the direction of Sadie’s door, and his eagle-eyed chief didn’t miss it. His body was restless because he wanted to be close to her, and it wasn’t all about sex.
“I’m guessing you’d rather be sleeping somewhere else than your bunk,” Bondo said.
There was no use denying it. He wanted to be with Sadie as much as possible, considering their schedules. “So much for subtlety.”
Bondo chuckled. “We all know how subtle I was with Cameron, and I’m aware of what you’re going through. In this case, looking the other way seems prudent and will alleviate your…distraction, and you can choose to sleep where you’d like to sleep.”
“Seriously?” Twister said. “What about Tex?”
“Who do you think suggested it? He doesn’t miss a damn thing.”
It didn’t matter that Tex was their CO. All that mattered was that he was part of their team. “Thank you, Master Chief.”
“Not so fast. You need to be discreet about this, but we’re not going to police you.” He paused and gave Twister one of his direct looks. “Speaking of our CO, Tex is concerned about you, and it has nothing to do with Sadie. Are you one hundred percent?”
This was the moment he had been thinking about, and although he didn’t want to lie to Bondo’s face, he also didn’t want to fess up to his panic attacks. He might be yanked off the team and sent home, and he didn’t want to leave his brothers short one shooter. He also didn’t want to leave Sadie. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was in danger. It wasn’t overt, just a gut feeling he had regarding her safety. “I’m working out some issues, but I’m operational, Master Chief.”
Bondo’s eyes narrowed, and he sighed. “I get that, Shane. We’ve been through some shit on our deployments. I killed someone with friendly fire. We dealt with sexual harassment and menacing on board an aircraft carrier. We almost lost Easy and Shark, and you…fuck.” He looked away and Twister gave him a moment.
“Yeah, and you became a dad and got a second chance. We’re built for what we do, and we both know it. It’s just that sometimes we get a little twisted up and have to find our way again. I’m just a little lost in the jungle.”
Bondo didn’t say anything. He just continued to stare at him, giving him an inscrutable look, then turned and opened the door. “Twist?”
Twister turned back. “Yeah.”
“You’re not alone in that jungle. You might think you can’t see us. But we’ve been there the whole time. We’re not going anywhere.”
“Copy that, Master Chief,” Twister said, clenching his jaw and fighting back a flood of emotions. The brotherhood bound him, regardless of how much he was struggling, invisible bonds still connected him to each of his teammates and always would regardless of where he was or what he was doing. This brotherhood was for life, an earned and beloved burden, and the only way any of them left it was in a body bag. Bondo’s reminder settled inside of him. He wouldn’t forget that again.
Axel Beck stared at the FBI forensic ME. She had delivered some news that reverberated in his head. He glanced at Griffin, and the same shock was on his face.
“Could you repeat that so I’m sure I heard you right?” Griffin said, his voice hushed in disbelief.
“Petty Officer Mercer was murdered with a military knife. In fact, I have sufficient evidence to suggest it was a Navy-issued weapon.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Axel said, his gut tightening at the implications of the murder weapon.
She nodded and walked away. “What the hell?” Griffin said. “That’s something I didn’t expect her to say. What are we looking at here?”
Axel shook his head, at a loss for words. He stared at Griffin, having worked with him in Niger. “Someone literally stabbed Mercer in the back. One of the divers?”
“Or it’s possible that a terrorist used one of their knives to kill Mercer.” He bit his lip. “I think someone should get back to that crime scene and search for the knife. Does Petty Officer Lancaster still have his knife?”
“That’s something we’re going to ask him, but if he had anything to do with Mercer’s death, why did he try to save him?”
“That’s a good question, and we seem to have nothing but questions right about now.”
“Investigating is hard,” Axel said, and Griffin chuckled at his sarcasm.
“You are a great addition to NCIS, Volk,” he said.
“No one calls me that anymore,” Axel growled. “My Shadowguard days are behind me.” He sighed as they left the staging area where the FBI team had set up and got into their rental. Yeah, his CIA days were behind him, but not his memories or how much he missed Luna. But he loved NCIS and the brain and footwork he had to do to run down leads and figure out clues. He rolled down his window, and the scent of fresh lavender hit him square in the face, transporting him all the way back to…France. He closed his eyes as Griffin navigated the crowded streets, remembering her…remembering Brigitte. His throat got tight, and his heart followed suit.
He’d never forgotten her, and he knew that she would haunt him as strongly and as heart-crushingly as Papillion still did. But to his surprise, the memory of his previous partner and lover had faded a bit, as if she was a worn copy of a vibrant photograph, and now all that seemed to remain was Brigitte burning in his memory.