12. Linc
“Remember, Linc. Therapy doesn’t mean you’ll wake up one morning and be cured. This is ongoing, it’s going to hurt, and it’s not going to be easy.” Ian Keller, one of the Marines I’d been deployed with, stares at me expectantly from the chair on the other side of the room. “Your first breakthrough was coming in. Asking for help, that’s the first step. And it’s the most important.”
A nod. That’s all I manage to give him.
“You’re here because of Kennedy, aren’t you?” The blunt question takes me by surprise, and I look up from my folded hands to see him holding a pen between two fingers and waiting for my answer.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I want to be able to… I don’t know.”
“Post-traumatic stress isn’t anything to mess with. It strips those who have it of any confidence in their decisions. From employment, to love, to finding happiness in our lives.” He sighs and puts the pen down on the notepad in his lap. “I remember you holding her photo and talking to her while we were overseas. Do you talk to her like that now?”
The photo he brings up sits in my wallet, and every shift I pull it out to make sure I still have it. But I didn’t think he’d remember that.
“No.” My throat burns as I tell him the stinging truth. “I haven’t.”
“Maybe you should.” He trails off for a second and then clears his throat with a small cough. “Don’t miss therapy with me, of course, but talk to her. Tell her about your worries. Let her in, because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to get past it.”
The soft bell indicating the end of our session goes off, and I sigh. Whether it is one of relief or regret, I’m glad I don’t have to answer. But when I leave his office, conveniently located across the street from Birch County Sheriff’s Office, I don’t head home.
Instead, I start toward the building where Kennedy works and is just about to get off shift. Ahead of me, there is a small red coupe that pulls into a parking spot and I groan inwardly.
Mallory, the same nurse that Parker has problems with, and the same one who I know for a fact is currently dating Royal Prince, gets out of her car and smiles broadly at me.
“What are you doing here, Linc?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at the fake saccharine tone of her voice and instead walk right by her.
“You know,” she says while dropping the act, “Royal isn’t gonna let Kennedy go. There’s a reason he keeps manipulating her. She’s nothing but a game to him.”
That has me stopping in my tracks to turn around and look at her, and from the look on her face, she knows exactly what she’s done by saying what she did.
Her arms cross over her chest, pushing up her already impressive cleavage, but my eyes don’t stray from her face.
“Didn’t you know?” Mallory doesn’t even bother to pretend that I know what she is talking about. “All the trouble with your brother’s widow? All of that was Kennedy’s fault.” The spiteful woman walks away, leaving me standing there with my mouth hanging open in shock. “Why don’t you go ask her about it?”
I always thought the filter of red that people in a fit of rage describe as descending over their eyes wasn’t a thing, but as I stand there watching her retreating back, I see red. Dark and pulsing, it obstructs my entire field of vision until there is nothing but the hatred. And then the red shifts, changing even as I stand unblinking in the parking lot. Instead of rage, I see Danny’s blood on my hands.
Danny!
My mind calls out for him, even though I know I can’t be there. I can’t be in the desert. The smell is wrong. Everything is wrong. But my body won’t listen to logic. And just like that, I’m there again.
Screams echoed in the open air. Gunfire not long behind. Shots fired all around me, but I couldn’t do anything except stare at Danny’s body. Not until I felt the hot metal of my rifle burning into the skin on my body through the pain of losing my brother. Constant and comforting, I knew I had to do something.
With one last look at Danny, I was off the ground, rifle in hand, running into war.
Body after body fell, friend and enemy alike, until I couldn’t breathe without feeling blood coating my mouth, mixed with the bitter taste of bile and regret.
Danny’s smile, grotesque and bloody, stayed in my mind’s eye until it started to shift. Blond hair turned red, and blue eyes turned brown, until I wasn’t looking at my brother anymore. No. I was looking at Kennedy’s lifeless body, and every remaining part of my soul died.
Gasping for air, I catch my hand in the chain around my neck. The dog tag and the ring. The one from Kennedy. The only thing that brings me peace.
Breathe, Linc.
Like she stands right next to me, whispering in my ear, bringing me back to myself, Kennedy’s voice is everywhere.
Over and over again, I take a breath like Kennedy’s phantom orders.
In. Out. Breathe, Linc. Come back to me.
The pleading in her voice catches me off guard. Kennedy doesn’t do that. Kennedy never did that. Still, I concentrate on breathing. On pulling air into my lungs and holding it until keeping it in burns. Until I finally come back to myself. Back to Maine. Back to the parking lot where I’ve been standing for who knows how long.
And with the return to my senses comes a migraine the likes of which I haven’t had in months. Excruciating pain hits the side of my head, blood pounding in my temple like a bugle during reveille, and there is no escaping it. Not until a pair of cold hands cradle either side of my head and my eyes snap open.
“There you are,” Kennedy says quietly with eyes the size of dinner plates. “You were gone for a second there.”
“Are you real?”
Slam. Slam. Slam.
The pounding in my head keeps a rapid pace, and my chest throbs with the force of my heart pumping blood through my body, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the woman in front of me. My own guardian angel.
She tilts her head to the side, like she always does in my dreams, and any second she will break out in a smile. Right before I wake up alone and miserable.
Instead, her eyebrows furrow while she stares up at me with concern, and a slight breeze picks up, blowing hair across her face.
“Linc… Are you okay?”
Her voice rolls over me, hitting every single nerve I have. I’m not dreaming. I’m not hallucinating.
Kennedy sees me in the middle of an attack.
Panic courses through my veins, mixing with the adrenaline, making everything worse. My lungs decide it is a great time to join my heart in acting up, because I can’t breathe. I can’t focus. I can’t do anything except stare at the woman I love, unable to say a thing. My mouth goes dry, like it is covered in glue, and I can’t move my tongue to form words.
She stares at me, understanding dawning in the eyes I only ever see in my dreams. Her mouth puckers and she purses her lips while I can see the wheels turning in her head.
“Ken—”
She holds up a hand, her eyes flashing with unspoken danger. “No. Don’t say a fucking word, Lincoln Hayes.”
The sudden change in her tone and posture have me on edge, but I don’t move. Don’t try and say anything else. I owe her that much.
“If you’re going to tell me that you stayed away from me for the past six years because of what I just saw, I’m going to gut you myself and feed you to the bear that lives behind my house in the summer.”
When I don’t say anything, don’t give her an answer to her question, her upper lip lifts in a silent snarl. But she must think better of whatever she is going to say, because she closes her mouth and bites her lip.
“Kennedy.” My throat burns as I force out the words. “You don’t understand. I can’t be with you like this. Not and give you any type of happiness.”
Pouring my heart out in the middle of the parking lot like that isn’t my first choice, but it’s not like I can stop once I start.
“Fuck that.” Her words break. “Fuck that, Linc.”
“Kennedy.”
I reach for her, needing to touch her. Needing to reassure myself that the image of her dead in my arms is wrong. Thankfully, she lets me. Whether it is a slip in judgment on her part or just the fact that she needs me as much as I need her, I don’t care. Her choked sob hits me harder than any bullet, and I curl my arms around her, pulling her as close to me as I can manage.
“Why?” she cries, and every wall I’ve built up shatters. Every bridge I’ve tried to burn with her is there, waiting and begging to be crossed. Every line I’ve drawn in the sand, wiped away. “Why did you do this to me? To us?”
“I don’t want to bring children into this life, Kennedy.” The words break me to admit, but I can’t hold that back from her. I have to give her the truth. All of it. “Not when I can’t even get through the day without knowing for sure this won’t happen. I remember that night.” The only night I had her in my arms. The night we talked about forever. “You want a family. You want kids. I see it in the way you look at Nox. In the way you were with those little ones in his class. And I can’t give you that.”
“You’re an idiot, Lincoln Hayes.” Her words cut, but they don’t hold the venom I expect. “All I ever wanted was you.”
She is going to say more; I can feel the way she tenses in my arms, and I know she is about to give me a piece of her mind.
“Get your hands off my fiancée.”
Kennedy flinches in my arms at the sound of Royal’s voice and I want to drive my fist through his face for interrupting.
“She’s not your fiancée, Royal.” I don’t bother trying to hide the venom in my voice. “She hasn’t been since you did something to hurt her. I told you to stay the hell away from her. I meant it. That includes sending Mallory to torment her or her family.”
The look in his beady little eyes tells me that he never expected to get caught, and I’m only too happy to tell him how I found out.
“Mallory, your precious little toy, told me what you did to Parker. Because you wanted to punish Kennedy, no doubt.” I hold her tighter when the woman in question tries to pull away. “It’s not going to work. You’re not going to get her. She’s not yours.”
“I fixed what you broke,” Royal snarls, completely ignoring the fact that we are still standing in the middle of the parking lot. “She’ll come back to me.”
“No. You didn’t. You tried to twist and manipulate me and make me into something I wasn’t.” Kennedy’s words are slightly muffled by my chest, but she pushes away, and I let her go, silently supporting her while she handles her shit.
“We’ll talk about this later.” Royal tries to grab her by the arm but stops when he sees the look on my face.
“No.” Kennedy shakes her head. “We won’t.”
The sound of car doors slamming catches my attention, and out of the corner of my eye I see Remy and Dom both standing next to their cruisers. They aren’t alone, either. There are at least four other cops and two deputies standing there with their attention focused solely on us.
Royal, pissed and ready for a fight, looks like he is about to get physical when Kennedy turns around to face me.
Before I can second-guess myself, I pull her into my arms. Right before I press my lips to hers, she smiles.
“Finally.”