Chapter 9
Mac sat in a small row of chairs outside Brooke Barrons’ hospital room, Hawk by his side. His head ached from a lack of alcohol, the fluorescent lights of the hallway humming too loudly in his brain.
Look what you’ve done to yourself.
He leaned his head back against the painted brick wall and let his eyes close a beat too long. It was tempting to drift off, to disassociate, to leave. But that wasn’t what he was going to do.
He flexed the fingers of his right hand, the feeling slowly returning with pins and needles as the local anesthetic wore off. He’d sustained a long gash up his forearm from the goddamn apple cart that had taken twenty-seven stitches to sew up.
It felt good to be useful again.
To fight with his hands and defend something worth saving. It had been a long goddamn time since he’d done any such thing. Hawk’s words to him back at the house rang through his head in an endless circuit. Something positive. You don’t get to waste it.
Work for me.
It was a fucking pipe dream from where he was now to where Hawk was asking him to be.
A leap longer than any faith was great. It had never been his intention to become a drunk, to fall off the edge of society and lock himself up in a three-hundred-year-old house in another country. He just hadn’t known what to do next.
How to move on.
He could see Ellie in his mind’s eye, her rich brown eyes forever laughing, her pale brown skin dotted with freckles year-round. The first time he’d set eyes on her she’d been sixteen, with full breasts hidden beneath an Aerosmith T-shirt and curvy legs stuffed in jeans she’d outgrown.
Her beauty had shone through it all.
He’d been in full uniform, ready for departure, and more than a little filled with pride.
He’d kissed her that day, her tentative response and unschooled technique telling him she was innocent and untouched.
As their passion heated, she’d offered herself to him completely.
It had taken every bit of restraint he possessed to turn her down, and he knew he’d hurt her feelings even as he promised to come back when she was old enough for more.
The words were spoken casually, but he never forgot them. It was Ellie’s voice he heard in his dreams, Ellie he talked to in his mind when he was alone and deployed. He came back four years later and found a grown woman in that sweet girl’s place—a grown woman who’d been saving herself for him.
He took her virginity in a real hotel room, after a half bottle of champagne and as much gentleness as he could muster, holding himself above her and watching her expressive face as her body accommodated his size.
He’d been given a gift—one he didn’t deserve—that began with her body and ended with her heart.
They were married six weeks later.
Ellie was pregnant before he left for his second tour, the pictures of their baby girl capturing his heart just as quickly as her momma had done.
By the time Mac met Hawk, he and Ellie had been married eight years and had three children, but the sum total of their time together stood at less than eighteen months.
He’d been a fool not to listen when she told him of the sleepless nights, her need for a flesh-and-blood man beside her in bed more often than not.
But he’d been in love with the job just as much as with her, the SEALs becoming his mistress.
Now that his eyes were open, he knew every single nail he’d hammered into the wood of their coffin, but it was too late to get Ellie back.
“Thanks for what you did back there,” said Hawk, pulling him out of his reverie.
“No problem.” His voice was hoarse and deeper than normal, his hangover obvious.
“I would have been dead in the water without you. And Olivia—shit. You saved her.”
Mac reached in his pocket. “I forgot to give you this.” He handed Hawk the small box with the engagement ring inside, the slightest pang in his chest. He longed to give his friend a piece of advice, but who would listen to an old fuckup like him?
Don’t take her for granted.
“Where’d you find it?” asked Hawk.
“On the ground as the EMTs loaded Olivia into the ambulance.”
Trevor opened the top, gazing at the glittering diamond with a sigh. “I screwed up, Mac. I never even considered her phone could be used to locate her.”
“Shit happens. You did the best you could.”
“It wasn’t good enough. I’m not leaving her alone like that again.”
Mac crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his legs. “Age-old problem. How are you going to be there for her and get your work done, too?”
Hawk met his stare. “I’m done working for HERO Force.”
“Just like that?”
“Nothing else matters.”
“Be careful. Don’t become so focused on her safety that you let go of who you are.”
Hawk narrowed his eyes. “Look who’s talking.”
Mac looked at his hands, dark brown skin contrasting with the gold of his wedding band. “It’s a balance. Not one I ever found. Now I’m nothing but a drunk old man waiting on a woman who doesn’t want me. I know every moment of every day how I got this way, believe me.”
Hawk was quiet, and Mac imagined the other man was trying to figure out the best way to phrase pity. In that moment he longed so intensely to be back home, a drink in his hand and Trevor Hawkins several thousand miles away, back where he belonged.
He’d stared into this particular mirror long enough.
“I want you to work with me,” said Hawk.
Mac blew out air and shook his head. “Not this shit again.”
“Help me get it off the ground. Take care of everyday operations while I pay more attention to Olivia.”
“Not a good idea.” Even as he said the words, the tiniest spark lit within him. He could be commanding men again. Running covert ops. Making a difference, and he cursed Trevor for lighting that particular flame, because it was out of reach. As impossible as holding a star in his hand.
“Why the hell not?” demanded Hawk.
Mac’s mouth dropped open. Didn’t he see it? Couldn’t he tell? He would have to spell it out. “Because I’m broken, man.”
Hawk shook his head. “I don’t give a shit about your leg.”
“Not my leg, Hawk.” He pounded on his chest. “In here.”
The moment stretched out between them like the quiet after an accident. Hawk stood. “So do something good with your life. Fight the bad guys. Kick some ass. Don’t just sit there and wait for something that might never happen.”
“For my wife and kids to come back?” He frowned. He knew Hawk was right, but it didn’t make one damn bit of difference. “They’re the only reason worth living.” He stood, a look passing between them before he walked away. He’d made his choice long before this moment.
Trevor jogged to him. “You’d have HERO Force’s resources available to you.”
Mac kept walking, eyes forward.
“You could find them, Mac.”
Mac stopped. All this time he’d been waiting on Ellie, unable to go after her or know where she was. But he knew the kind of resources Hawk was talking about. Computer databases. Connections with government agencies.
I could find her.
Wherever she was in the world. It might take some time, some doing, but he was right.
With HERO Force’s resources he could find his wife and kids.
The scale that had been so heavily weighted toward one side began to shift, a difference so slight but fundamental.
He could see her face in his mind’s eye. Wondering how she’d changed.
“You’d have to give up the booze,” said Hawk. “I need you sober.”
Of course that was necessary, but well worth it if he could set his eyes on his wife one more time. He imagined he could touch her face from her temple to her jaw, the smooth skin warm beneath his fingers.
He turned, his eyes meeting Hawk’s. It wasn’t a fair bargain. His friend needed his help, yes. But he was reaching down to lift Mac up, and he knew it. “Why me?”
“I need someone I can trust.”
He laughed without humor. “I’m a one-legged drunk who dropped out of the game a long time ago. That’s one short list of friends you’ve got there.”
“No, Mac.” He grinned. “Just a short list of heroes.”
It had been a long damn time since Mac O’Brady considered himself a hero.
Was it possible? Could he pull himself together and go back to the States, do what Hawk was asking?
He was tempted, the idea looming large in his mind.
“My family is my number one priority. If I find them, I can’t guarantee how long I’ll stick around. ”
“We can deal with that when the time comes.”
He’d be a commander again. Have elite soldiers under his foot, important missions dependent on his actions. The faces of the men under his command through the years flashed through his mind. Those who’d done well and gotten out, like Hawk. Those who had died. Those who were as good as dead.
The broken ones, like him.
There were far too many of them—at least a dozen over the years from his own team.
Guys who’d seen too much, done too much.
Left too much behind. Some of them were physically changed like he was, but most were visibly the same, the current beneath their calm exterior frightening even themselves.
He thought of the rush he’d gotten when helping Olivia, the healing power of work.
He was changed for saving her. Change like that could help other men, too. He eyed Hawk warily. “I pick my own men.”
“Fine.”
“They won’t be the squeaky-clean kind you’re used to. The men I want working with me have problems.”
Hawk crossed his arms. “What kind of guys are we talking about?”
“Strong, capable soldiers. But we’ll be a motley crew. It will be a second chance for the guys who need help.”
“SEALs?”
“Yeah. Broken, busted-up, fucked-up SEALs.”
“Sir?” called the doctor behind the men. “Miss Barrons will see you now.”
“I have to run it by Jax, the owner of HERO Force.”
He was going to turn him down, the drapes pulled tight against the first rays of sunshine to come his way in years. “Look, don’t do me any favors,” said Mac, suddenly sorry he’d suggested it. “I’m sure you want guys with their fucking heads screwed on straight. Not men like me.”
“Wait. Jesus, Mac.” Hawk ran his hand through his hair. “You don’t make this easy, do you?”
Mac put his hands on his hips and waited for the euphemisms to come pouring out of Hawk’s mouth, the half-baked reasons he didn’t want a force of losers working for him.
“Okay,” said Hawk.
“Okay what?”
He nodded. “I’ll run it by Jax. Tell him it’s what I want, that I’m behind you one hundred percent. I think he’ll want to help these guys, too. If he approves it, you can run the new HERO Force any way you see fit, as long as they’re good soldiers. I trust you.”
Mac lifted his chin. “The best.”
A new office. A new job. A chance to get back everything he’d lost. Mac smiled. “Let’s do this.”