Chapter 16
Cole wished he could say that wandering a quiet house in the middle of the night, staring out at an equally quiet neighborhood, assuming every tree and shadow hid a deadly threat, was new to him.
But that’d be a giant fucking lie.
He did this every night. Eyes on the world outside, ears open for the purr of an unfamiliar engine, listening for footsteps crunching on gravel or the telltale snick of a latch that shouldn’t have been opened…it was kind of his thing.
The new element to his evening, however, was his damn near choking need to watch a closed bedroom door.
Hadley had handled everything so far like a champ, but she’d been attacked, dragged out of her house, stuffed into a van, black-bagged, interrogated, and coerced into a mission she had no business being part of in the first place.
She was strong and adept at using humor to mask her trauma, but she wasn’t superhuman.
At some point, she was going to crack. Cole knew that.
What he didn’t know was just how deep that crack was going to go.
So, here he was, hovering outside the bedroom door, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for…something. He had no idea what. But whatever it was, he was going to be ready for it.
There wasn’t shit going on in the neighborhood, anyway. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Franklin had dumped them in the wrong place. Or that this was a twisted test of some kind.
That’s when he heard it. A tiny, strangled sound. Half whimper, half gasp. It was a sound he was way too familiar with. He’d probably made it himself on more than one occasion.
Nightmare.
Fuck.
He was opening the door before he had time to think better of it.
It wasn’t completely dark. She’d left the bathroom light on, and it cast the bed in an eerie glow.
Hadley was a tangle of limbs and sheets in the middle of the mattress, white T-shirt rucked up around her waist, sweat-dampened hair plastered to her forehead.
Her hands were at her throat like she was trying to rip invisible fingers away.
His heart clenched.
He was at her side in two strides. But he knew better than to wake her too quickly. That would only shove her fight or flight instincts into overdrive. He sat on the edge of the bed and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. “Hadley,” he whispered.
She jerked away, making a desperate, choked sound that clawed at his gut.
Time to switch tactics. He brought his hand up and let it hover near her cheek, close enough that she’d feel the heat without the weight of it. “Hadley, baby, it’s Cole. Please wake up.”
Her eyes flew open.
For a second, she didn’t see him. He watched the terror flare in her eyes, and it made him want to dig the men who’d hurt her out of whatever hole Franklin’s men had dumped them in just so he could kill them again. Her hand shot up and fisted in his T-shirt hard enough to stretch the cotton.
“It’s just me,” he assured her softly. Although, who the hell knew if that was comforting to her after everything she’d been through?
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then she sucked in a huge, shuddering breath that sounded damn painful. And finally, her gaze locked on his.
“There you are,” he murmured. “You were having a nightmare.”
“No, I wasn’t. Because nightmares are things that didn’t really happen,” she whispered.
He’d do anything, give anything, to take her pain away. “I know.”
“I almost died.”
“Yeah,” he rasped.
Her eyes filled with tears. She swallowed convulsively, fighting valiantly to choke back what was either a sob or a scream. But he didn’t want her to fight it. Keeping it in would eat away at her like a cancer and eventually, she’d go numb. She’d be…
Just like him.
No fucking way was he going to let that happen. Not to the woman who carried the light of the sun in every smile, every laugh. Not to his Hadley.
He didn’t waste time overthinking his next move. He just scooped her up, banding his arms tightly around her. “It’s OK,” he said into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Cole half expected her to push him away. It’s what he would’ve done in her position, and he would’ve let her. He wasn’t about to be just another asshole in a long line of assholes who’d forced her into something against her will.
But she didn’t push him away.
Her breakdown started slowly, in stages.
First came the stuttering breaths, like she was trying to fill her lungs but couldn’t quite get them to cooperate.
Then came the sniffles. Just little, snuffling noises when she pressed her nose into the spot where his neck met his shoulder.
And finally, worst of all, came the sobs.
The first sob broke over him like a crushing wave at sea—absolutely devastating in its power. Others quickly followed until her shoulders shook and her tears drenched the front of his T-shirt. He absorbed every sob, every tear, like a blow.
He had no idea how long they stayed like that.
Time seemed to lose all meaning when he was this close to Hadley.
But eventually, her sobs quieted. She eased back far enough to allow him to brush her tears away with his thumbs.
She didn’t let go of his shirt, though—a fact he was way too aware of.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get there faster. ”
She sniffled. “You saved me twice. No one could’ve gotten to me faster.”
Which did not make him feel better. He wanted to move mountains for her. Pull stars out of the sky for her. Be superhuman for her. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d failed her.
Never. Fucking. Again.
If he had to stalk this woman until one of them died of natural causes in an old folk’s home, she was not going to be in that kind of danger again. He’d make damn sure of it. “Want to talk about it? I hear that helps when it comes to nightmares.”
Hadley shoved her hair back with her free hand.
Her other hand remained on him. He kind of hoped she’d leave it there forever.
“I don’t know about that. I told everyone when I had a nightmare about tap dancing naked in front of my entire middle school while the rest of my class threw cocktail wieners at me, and to this day, I still have that one occasionally. ”
Despite his dark mood, he chuckled, because that shit was hilarious. And leave it to his Hadley to make a joke when any other person would be rocking in a corner.
When he’d started thinking of her as his Hadley, he had no idea. “Still, though. Talking about it might help.”
She frowned at him. “Something tells me you wouldn’t talk about it if you were the one having the nightmare.”
Which was probably why he’d been having the same damn nightmares for years. He’d gotten so used to them that he assumed he couldn’t have regular dreams anymore. “Trust me. You don’t want to be like me.”
She snorted. “Strong and capable and not emotionally falling apart? Being like you sounds pretty damn good right about now.”
“You could shove your feelings down for a couple of decades,” he admitted. “Pretend you’re unbothered to numb the pain. Trouble is, after a while, you go numb to everything, even the good stuff. That’s no way to live.”
A sad fact he was way too familiar with.
She swallowed hard. “That sounds…lonely.”
“It can be.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
His gaze dropped to her plush lower lip—the one she was now biting down on. If he let himself think, even for a second, that they had a future together outside of this fuck-ass mission, he’d grab Hadley and never let her go.
So, he ruthlessly shut that train of thought down. She wasn’t offering him forever. She was warm and sleepy and grateful and most likely offering nothing more than her friendship.
Which was still way more than he deserved.
“Not for you, it doesn’t,” he told her. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to.”
“Maybe you could just…stay and talk to me for a while?”
“Of course.”
“And maybe just…hold me?”
He should say no. Watching over her and talking until she fell asleep was one thing. But holding her? That was dangerous territory. So, of course, he said, “Anything you need.”
D’oh! When did I get to be so damn dumb?