Chapter 3
Hudson stopped a foot from Chris’s room in the military medical center outside of Washington, D.C. Two weeks since he’d narrowly escaped a burning hell, and he still hadn’t fully healed, not from the injuries anyone could see and not from the ones they couldn’t.
“Fuck.” He rubbed at the sweat dampening his T-shirt and sucked in a breath. Breathing shouldn’t be painful. Neither should visiting a patient post-trauma. He’d never hesitated outside a doorway, not even when duty called for him to deliver an unfavorable prognosis.
Chris is alive. You saved his life.
But had he?
Metal crashed inside the room. A scream swallowed the reverberation. Hudson lunged for the doorway as a woman ran out. Was that Chris’s wife? A guttural wail cut off his thought.
“Help.”
“Don’t leave me.”
Hudson surged into the room. Chris howled in his bed, his hand clamped above the tight wrapping on his shoulder. With each ravaged syllable, his body jerked in a physical echo of the memory gripping his mind.
“Hey, man. It’s Hudson.” He gripped the bed rails and leaned as close to Chris as he dared. “You’re having a flashback.”
Chris punched out his fist, a shriek ripping from his throat like his other arm had been torn off.
Hudson jumped to the side as two men rushed into the room. One readied a syringe while the other wrangled Chris into a safe position. The desperate fear in his voice hurt Hudson’s heart more than the funerals he’d attended for the fallen SEALs since he’d returned stateside.
He backed to the door. They didn’t need help sedating Chris. And when memories from the inferno that took his buddy’s arm—and a massive piece of his soul—burned through the drugs, the punishing cycle would start again.
Flashback.
Drug.
Repeat.
Vowing never to tell Chris he’d seen him in that position, Hudson raced to his rental car and peeled out of the parking garage. Today wasn’t the first time he’d questioned if he’d sentenced Chris to hell on earth by saving his life.
Now he had the answer.
Stepping on the gas of his rental car, Hudson headed toward the place that never failed to calm him and parked under a leafless cherry blossom tree.
A crisp breeze drifted over the tidal basin as his legs twitched to run between the columns of the Jefferson Memorial like he had as a kid.
Instead, he paced the curved steps of the circular monument.
Footsteps stopped him. Tensing, he spun toward the sound.
A man halted and raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa, son.”
Hudson nodded to the guy around Pop’s age in the Vietnam Veteran ballcap. His vigilance eased, but his body didn’t. “Thank you for your service, sir.”
The veteran zeroed in on the Navy Hospital Corpsman insignia on Hudson’s T-shirt. “And thank you for yours, Doc. Your brothers before you saved my life in Nam.” He tapped his fist over his heart and backed away. “Keep fighting, son.”
Hudson knew the veteran wasn’t talking about fighting wars.
Hell, Chris was fighting from a hospital bed.
Hudson had endured his fair share of traumatic experiences too, but this last mission broke something inside his thirty-eight-year-old brain.
Right now, his grandfather felt like the only person who could put him back together.
“Fuck it.” He pulled out his phone and tapped a message to the General, his old family friend who’d been relentless about pushing him to consider the classified program known as Project V.
Cancel my meeting tomorrow. Decided to retire. Fully.
As he hit send, his phone rang. Turning to the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson in the center of the dome, he glanced at the number. Cursing, he hit accept. “What do you want, Vivian?”
“Where in God’s name are you?”
He rounded the memorial toward his rental car. “In D.C. Leaving now. Don’t tell Pop I’m coming home early. I want to surprise him.”
“But don’t you have a meeting in the morning?”
“I canceled it. And cancel my plans with Nathaniel tonight too.”
“You do it.”
“You scheduled the dinner with your new husband. You can unschedule it.”
Vivian sighed. “Fine. But his company is bidding on military contracts, and he’s been dying to get your opinion. When you come home, make an effort.”
Hudson ignored the request. According to Pop, Nathaniel Montvale was still a pompous prick, just like his father. He was perfect for Vivian, the daughter of Pop’s deceased second wife, who acted like Pop’s mansion belonged to her.
Vivian clucked her tongue. “Stop being a jerk and listen. Your grandfather is about to ruin everything.”
Hudson held his hand to his unhappy ribs as he laughed for the first time in weeks. “What’s the matter? Did he move his fishing buddies into your wing of the house?”
“Stop being facetious. Your old-as-the-sun grandfather has a girlfriend.”
“Really?” Hudson smirked. Had Pop fallen in love with Tessa, his lady friend who lived next door in the duplex Vivian knew nothing about? He picked up his pace, eager to get home and meet the mystery woman. “So, what’s the problem?”
“She’s much, much younger than him. Like in her twenties.”
“That’s ridiculous, Viv, and you know it. Pop possesses a few questionable behaviors, but he’s not the kind of man who sleeps with a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.”
“Your grandfather isn’t any man. His money makes him vulnerable to all kinds of schemers. I’m afraid some woman with a sob story will tug at his big heartstrings and he’ll loosen his purse strings even more.”
Dammit, Vivian had a point. “How do you know about Pop’s alleged girlfriend?”
“I saw them together in Atlantic City, hugging when she won at blackjack.”
“Really?” Pop had mentioned his friend Tessa liked blackjack. Maybe she had a granddaughter who liked to gamble too.
“Yes, really. I’m texting you the address where I followed them to.” Vivian’s sneer sliced through the cool breeze. “It’s in Belmarva, of course.”
“Stop talking about Belmarva like it’s trashy. It’s where Pop grew up.” And where the old man went to the house he’d bought in his hometown to escape Vivian, no doubt.
“You need to go there and find out who this woman is and then have a talk with your grandfather.”
No, Vivian needed him to make sure she didn’t lose a piece of her inheritance. Still, unease skittered down his spine as he folded himself into his rental. He wouldn’t relax until he’d sorted out this girlfriend claim and met this Tessa woman who’d worked her way into Pop’s life.
As he headed out of the city, the midday tourist traffic increased with each turn. So did the unexplainably desperate, yet sensible in a way he couldn’t process, need to see his grandfather.