Chapter Eight #2
“Yeah, baby. Drink this,” I rasp, emotions clogging my throat as I bring the bottle to her lips. She takes small sips, and I don’t pull away until she’s had enough. I grab a small cup and pour some for Penny, who perks up, wagging her tail weakly as she drinks.
“Can you walk?” I ask, brushing sweat-damp hair off her temple. “I’ll help you, but the terrain going back is rough on my knee. Let me get you up and steady, and then we walk together.”
She nods.
I get her to her feet with my good arm braced under her shoulders, my left hand on her ribs to keep her upright.
She’s wobbly the first few steps, but she finds her legs.
Penny’s leash is in my other hand. We move slowly—slower than I’d choose if I weren’t favoring the knee and her dehydration both, but slower is what we have.
I drop my face into her hair as we walk and breathe in deep, cursing myself for a fool.
How the fuck do I go back? Is it possible to even go back?
Ashley stumbles once, leaning hard into me, and I tighten my grip. “Almost there, baby.”.
“Matt, how far from the house are we?” she asks, looking around.
Before I can answer her, I hear the sounds of people approaching, and then my brother appears with a group of men he works with—and a woman I recognize from the photograph on Ashley’s company's website. Diane. Her boss.
I read the relief in Michael’s eyes when he spots me, but the worry remains as they bound toward us.
“The paramedics are not far behind,” he says, turning to look at Ashley. “Is she okay? Do you need help with—”
“I’m fine,” I insist, tightening my arm around her. His eyebrows go up at my possessive tone, but he doesn’t say a word.
Ashley’s boss steps closer, taking in the scene—Ashley leaning into me, my arm wrapped around her ribs, Penny pressed against my leg. There’s a long beat where I think she’s going to say something pointed.
Instead she just says, “Get her home, Mr. Galloway. I’ll see her when she’s recovered.” Her eyes flick to mine, and there’s an understanding in them I wasn’t braced for. “And for the record—there’s no rule against this. I’d have told her so if she’d asked me.
Ashley’s hand tightens on the back of my shirt. She heard.
There isn’t much said on my part either as we walk back to the house, where we run into the paramedics.
What follows is a blur as the medic fusses over Ashley and the rescue team disperses.
I take my eyes off Ashley long enough to thank the men who only know me as Michael’s brother but didn’t hesitate to show up.
When I return to the ambulance, the medics are done.
“We’ve treated the cuts and scratches so she doesn’t have to go to the hospital. She’ll need plenty of water and rest for the next couple of hours.”
“Thanks,” I tell the pair then wave them off when they climb back into the ambulance. I turn to look at Ashley, who’s seated on the front steps, her head buried in Penny’s nape. Uncertain of how to approach her, I just stand there like a fool, watching her. I don’t turn when Michael joins me.
“I can give her a ride home,” he says, but it sounds more like a question to me. I should say yes. I should let my brother drive her home and hope she forgets about the day—forgets about me. But hell, I can’t imagine losing her. Not again. Not if there’s a chance of making things right.
“I need to talk to her,” I tell him, shrugging my hands into my pockets. “Don’t ask. Please. I’ll explain everything to you tomorrow, I promise. Can I just…”
“Sure,” Michael responds, clapping my shoulder, then he too climbs into his car and drives off. I wait for his car to disappear before making my way toward Ashley.
“I’m going,” she snaps before I can open my mouth to speak. “I just need a minute to catch my breath, okay? Then I’m leaving.”
Her tone is harsh, and it fucking stings. Isn’t that what I wanted? For her to leave so I could wallow in my own pain? And now, I can’t bear the thought of spending another night in this goddamned house by myself. I need her too much. Damn it all to hell, but I fucking need her.
“Can we talk?” I flinch when her green eyes shoot to mine, clearer than they were half an hour ago. But now, rage burns in them.
“Please.”
She’s silent for a moment then nods. “Fine.”
I open the door and let us into the house. Penny follows and walks straight to the workout room where the dog bed is. I don’t imagine we’ll see her for a while. Ashley, on the other hand, follows me into the kitchen and takes the water bottle I offer her without a word.
I wait for her to drink before breaking the silence. “I’m sorry for what happened this morning.”
Ashley rolls the bottle cap in her fingers for a moment before she looks at me across the kitchen counter. “Why did it happen?”
“I wasn’t in the right…headspace.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Ashley, I can promise you that I’ll have better control of myself when—”
“No!” She tosses the bottle cap across the counter where it bounces off and rolls to the floor.
“I won’t let you brush me off with a simple apology.
I want to know why you wanted to toss me out like I didn’t mean anything to you.
If you can’t tell me the truth, then I’m walking out the door, and this time, I won’t come back, Matt.
” Her voice cracks when she speaks. “You broke my heart with the way you treated me!”
My jaw clenches with the need to shove everything back and bury the truth as I have done for the past couple of months. Of course, it surfaces in the dead of night when I’m asleep, but why the fuck do I need to face it in daylight, too? “Ashley…”
The disappointment in her face barely registers over the heartbroken look she gives me. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll—”
“My brothers died because of me,” I blurt out, watching her eyes widen with shock, but when she doesn’t say a word, I decide I might as well tell her everything.
“I was the LPO on that mission. Lead Petty Officer. I ran point with my dog, Bear, a bomb-sniffing K-9. He and I cleared the route at pre-dawn—walked it ourselves, end to end, marked it safe for the convoy to come through at oh-eight-hundred.”
I lower myself onto a stool and drop my head in my hands.
“There were eight of us in the Humvee when the convoy ran the route at oh-eight-hundred. The route was clean—I knew it was clean. We’d walked every meter of it in the dark.
Somebody planted the IED in the window between my clearance and the convoy run.
Two hours. That’s how long the window was.
And in two hours, somebody got out there with a device and buried it in the road I’d just insisted was safe.
“Missions like this can injure the soul, even for hardened men. That night, we’d just rescued hostages—men, women, mostly children.
We were taking them back to base. The mood was good.
Someone made a joke and someone else tossed one back, and soon we were talking about what we’d do when our tour came to an end. ”
I don’t hear her move—a testament to the noise in my mind—but I feel her hand on my shoulder, and her head rests over mine. So I keep going.
“The explosion killed half of us and changed the rest. William lost most of the hearing in his right ear. Miller has metal in his leg now.”
“God,” she whispers.
“I got off the easiest,” I add quietly.
She wraps a hand around my neck and hugs me to her chest. She doesn’t offer words of comfort or assure me that it’s not my fault like others have, and I take small comfort in that.
“Men in our field do not form roots, little rabbit,” I rasp, pressing my face to her chest. “There is a risk of not making it home after a mission, so we don’t form roots.
And yet, that day, everyone was just so full of dreams. Jefferson was talking about proposing to his girlfriend.
Carter wanted to open a shop in his hometown in Arizona, work with his hands finally.
Johnny was going to gamble whatever was left in his savings after divorce number two—already had his eye on wife number three.
” I let out a sound that isn’t quite a laugh.
“William wanted the whole nine yards. A house. A wife. Kids. Henry was going home to see his family. Miller and I were the only two who didn’t have plans.
The military was our life, and the squad was our family. ”
“That’s why you were so mean to me this morning,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to my temple. “You don’t think you deserve happiness because of what happened to your team, do you?”
“How could I?”
“I can’t imagine the weight on your shoulders.
I can tell you it’s not your fault, but I guess that’s something you have to tell yourself to believe.
” Ashley pulls back, cups my jaw, and forces my eyes to meet hers.
“All I am asking is that you don’t push me out.
You don’t have to carry that weight alone.
” Her fingers caress my beard as she speaks, soothing something in me I didn’t know needed soothing.
“Until you’re ready to accept the truth, I can help with the headaches when they come and be here for you when you’re having a difficult day.
” She leans in and brushes her lips over mine.
“Don’t ask me to leave again, or even your superb tracking skills won’t help you find me the next time you do. ”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And if you break my heart again, I’ll drag you to those cliffs and—”
I slam my mouth down on hers, cutting off her murder threat before it can form and take root.
Not that I’ll be breaking her heart again.
The thought of losing her is enough to make my chest ache.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” I assure her, kissing her, sliding a hand to her nape, and holding her still as I kiss her soft lips.
A whimper slips out, and her mouth opens against mine, hot and demanding.
The kiss turns wet and heated, and the sexy little sighs she makes has my cock hardening to steel.