Hard Landing Read online

  I expect nothing in return.

  Her addendum drew his eyebrows together. That couldn't be true. All women had expectations—as they very well ought to, especially Rebecca, whose father had taken off when she was a young teen. Of all the women in the world, she deserved to have a man she could rely on, who could promise to love her for the rest of her life. Not a guy like him.

  He reached for the wall, needing it to steady himself.

  Never once had he envisioned making eternal promises to any woman. What had kept him uninvolved was the certainty that he would break his word and in the process break a woman's heart. But he was too involved now to backpedal. And he had only himself to blame, having spent as much time with her as he had, causing their affections to deepen, and her to conclude that she loved him.

  And yet, he could think of nothing more amazing than sweet, giving Rebecca loving a silver-tongued cowboy like himself. Astonishment kept him in a trance. He didn't deserve her kind of love, no more than his father had deserved his mother's. Closing his eyes, he expelled a harsh breath.

  You cannot let her down.

  Chapter 14

  Rebecca stared at the kaleidoscope of light and shadow shifting across the wall closest to her bed. Even though she had volunteered to work over the weekend—anything to keep her mind off her present misery—sleep eluded her again tonight.

  Reliving her encounter with Bronco two days earlier, she wondered as she had the previous sleepless night if it had been a mistake to admit her feelings for him. Her confession had so obviously astounded him. He certainly hadn't rushed to reciprocate her feelings, nor had he called or texted her in the hours and days that followed. And, still, her stubborn heart refused to believe he didn't love her in return, not when his feverish kiss had told her that he did. He simply didn't want to love her. Or was she only fooling herself into believing that?

  With a whimper of longing, she rolled onto her back. The fierceness with which he'd held her, the heat of his kiss, and the unmistakable hardening of his sex had all suggested that he wanted to be with her. Yet he still kept his distance. Granted, there were valid reasons why he ought to, not the least of which was the fact that his commander could destroy his career or even arrange for some terrible accident to befall him.

  Fear sliced through her. She sat up abruptly in bed, her heart pounding as the thought crossed her mind again that Max was behaving too passively these days. Aside from the one night he had loitered briefly in the parking lot in front of her apartment, he'd respected her expressed wish for no contact. He'd stayed away from the hospital. He hadn't called her on her cell phone even though he knew her new number. It wasn't like him to be so complacent.

  Had she actually succeeded in persuading him that Bronco wasn't her lover?

  Not likely. Max was suspicious by nature, not gullible. It was far more likely that he'd contrived a plan of his own which consoled him for the time being. He didn't mind giving Rebecca time and space because he was confident that he was going to get her back in the end... by eliminating the competition.

  "Oh God." The seemingly paranoid fear which she'd harbored for some time now morphed into a certainty.

  Lunging for her cell phone, she noted the time. Bronco was likely asleep at just after midnight. After all, SEALs worked half a day on Saturday, and he wouldn't want to exhaust himself. She dialed his number hoping he would answer regardless of the time.

  "Please pick up, please pick up," she canted, but his phone went right to voice mail, letting her know that he'd turned it off. But—wait—that made no sense. Frogmen were on call 24/7. They weren't allowed to turn off their phones.

  "Hey, it's me," she said, following the instructions to leave a message. "Is everything okay?" She paused to collect her thoughts. "I can't shake this feeling that Max is going to target you, like he threatened to do once before, remember? Please, tell me he hasn't done it already. Why aren't you answering? If you need to transfer to a different team to get away from him, then do it. Do it before he hurts you." She paused to catch her breath. "I guess that's it. What I told you the other day—it's true, Bronco, and it always will be."

  She ended the call before bursting into tears. Moisture rolled down her cheeks. It was scary enough that she'd fallen in love with a man who avoided intimacy in his relationships. Intuiting that Max might well kill Bronco before he had a chance to work out his own demons—that terrified her.

  She needed to talk to someone about her fears, or she'd go quietly out of her mind. Her friend Maddy lost enough sleep looking after her baby. Her friends at work all thought her foolish for leaving Max in the first place. Only her mother, whose newfound happiness she'd been reluctant to disturb until now, would provide her the support she needed. Luckily, the night was still young in Hawaii.

  With trembling fingers and a fresh wave of tears, Rebecca speed-dialed her mother's number.

  * * *

  "It's closing time, hon." Maura, who tended bar at Brant's favorite watering hole, stretched a veined hand, five fingers encrusted with rings from her admirers, across the counter to retrieve Brant's empty glass. "Make sure you walk home. No driving for you." She always looked out for "her boys" as she called the SEALs.

  Brant slapped a twenty on the bar by way of a tip. Good old Maura had kept his mug brimming with a tasty lager that had the highest alcoholic content of any of the beers on the menu. Putting away his wallet, he rolled off of his barstool and nearly pitched face first onto the floor as it lurched like a ship on a stormy sea. Clearly, he did need to walk home—if he could make it that far.

  It was not until he pushed into a windy September night that the full extent of his idiocy revealed itself to him. Here it was, zero two hundred hours on a Saturday morning and he was facing muster in four hours, followed by half a day's work.

  Atlantic Avenue had teemed with activity only a few hours earlier. But now it stood practically deserted. Hotels loomed against a dark sky, just a few lights still shining in the glittering windows. A taxi cruised by him, the driver eyeing him hopefully.

  Brant waved him on. He'd left Maura with his last bit of cash, and he needed to walk if he was going to sober up.

  What a night. It had started out with a small group of SEALs sharing drinks in the basement bar at the Shifting Sands Club on Dam Neck. But then Bullfrog had gone home to study, and the rest had taken off to go dancing at Peabody's. Brant's run-in with Rebecca the previous day had turned him into a morose companion—a real kill-joy. He hadn't wanted to ruin their fun, so he'd given them the slip, driving toward the oceanfront and winding up at O'Malley's Irish Pub.

  The ocean, only one block away, kept a steady roar in his left ear as he headed toward his Bronco in the public parking lot. A crescent moon skated behind a thick layer of clouds, leaving it up to the intermittent street lamps to light his way. The cool, salty air sobered him sufficiently that he remembered Max was out to get him.

  He cast a wary eye around, but the only suspicious activity was what looked to be a drug deal taking place up an alley across the street. He walked faster, spying his old Bronco up ahead, one of only three cars left in the lot. Not that he could even drive it home in his present state. He had drunk way more than usual tonight.

  You're an idiot, his conscience pointed out.

  The two-mile walk to his apartment would comprise his punishment.

  Weaving down the narrow sidewalk, he teased his cell phone from his pocket to see why Bullfrog hadn't called him. The answer became apparent when his phone refused to light up. It was as dead as a doornail. Under normal circumstances, it would be charging at this time, just as he would be sleeping. But these weren't normal circumstances because the world had turned on its axis—Rebecca fucking loved him.

  Bullfrog had a quote that he said from time to time that fit the situation perfectly. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. The quote came from some famous English book, but Brant couldn't have said which one.

  "You're such an idiot," he
said out loud this time, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

  Given his luck lately, the task unit was responding to a crisis half a world away, and he was now officially AWOL. He would be court-martialed and held accountable. And what would his excuse be? That he'd drunk himself into a stupor because the wife of his CO loved him but she had no expectations—probably because she knew what a loser he was.

  He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. Watch it! The warrior within him ordered him to stop for a moment, expand his awareness, and sense his environment. A rash of goose bumps skated up his forearms.

  Was someone watching him? He put his back against the building next to him and searched the dark street, hunting for the source of his sudden disquiet.

  "You're an idiot," he whispered, only to wish he hadn't said it three times. Now he was committed to it, like Bullfrog once said.

  The purr of a motor reached his ears along with the corresponding whisper of tires over asphalt, but that was one block over. This block remained quiet.

  Repressing a shiver, he resumed his walk, picking up his pace, while keeping a sharp lookout. But soon his intoxicated brain started listing all the things that came in threes.

  "Three little pigs. Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Three Stooges. Three Musketeers. Three-ring circus."

  Recalling his tenuous situation, he glanced around again, saw no sign of pursuit, and went right back to amusing himself.

  "Three primary colors."

  He nodded, proud of himself for that one.

  "Three French hens." He chuckled. "Three blind mice—see how they run. Oopsie."

  He bumped into a bicycle that was leaning on a street sign and caught it as it toppled over. Propping it back up, he noticed that the bike wasn't secured. It was sitting there like a gift from the gods, waiting for a rider. Made for a teenager, it wasn't the biggest or the best-looking bike on the planet, but the tires weren't flat and the chain was still attached.

  He swiveled his head left and right. The bike appeared to have been abandoned. With a shrug, he helped himself to it.

  Gripping the rust-speckled handlebars, he focused on the monumental task of riding a two-wheeler down a narrow sidewalk. The little ramp that swooped down onto the road nearly got the better of him.

  God, I am so drunk. "Three sheets to the wind."

  He laughed out loud at his brilliance. Peddling faster, he came to the street that led to Sunrise Apartments. He could make out his building now, still about a hundred yards away.

  "Three feet in a yard."

  Thinking of the meager sleep he'd get before wake-up, he increased his speed. He was peddling furiously past the rental office of his apartment complex when a hulking figure leapt out from behind a bush to intercept his path. Brant locked up his brakes to avoid a collision. Rough hands seized his shirt. He tried jumping off the far side of the bike, caught a toe on the crossbar, and crashed face-first to the sidewalk, splitting open the cut on his cheek that had nearly healed.

  An immense weight pounced on him, crushing him onto the pavement. He tried to squirm free. But the man proved heavier, more agile. The all-too familiar rasp of Mad Max's breath sent a shard of horror straight into Brant's muddled brain.

  Told you, said the voice of reason. Now Max was going to slit his throat or put a bullet in his head. He'd left himself wide open.

  A knee gouged his spine. Brant sucked in a painful breath. "Get off me, motherfucker."

  A sharp sting in his upper arm drew his gaze to the syringe in Max's grip. It had gone straight through the fabric of his shirt into his deltoid to pollute his bloodstream. With a glint, the syringe disappeared, and the crushing weight abated as Max climbed off him.

  Too befuddled to move, Brant listened to Max's stealthy footfalls retreating. A car door slammed and the same purring engine he had heard earlier revved to life. He ordered himself to get up, but he couldn't move. His body seemed to be floating. He couldn't see. Darkness filled his vision. And now he could hear nothing except the drum of his decelerating heartbeat.

  Hear no evil; see no evil; speak no evil.

  The drunken reveler inside him declared victory with this last set of threes.

  * * *

  Jeremiah rolled over and groaned. The last time his intuition had whispered for him to wake up, he'd been sleeping under a fallen tree in the jungle in Chiapas, Mexico. Heeding the inner voice, he had rolled out of his hiding spot three seconds before the tree splintered under a hailstorm of gunfire. Since then, he'd put his full faith in it.

  Tossing back the blanket, he put his long, narrow feet to the floor and reached for his cell phone. The absence of a return message from Bronco made his stomach drop. He stood up, grabbed his plush, black robe with the yin/yang symbol embroidered on the back, and tied it around his hips as he crossed to his bedroom window to check the parking lot.

  The sun wouldn't rise for another hour, but the moon shining behind a bank of clouds cast enough of a glow for him to see that Bronco's parking space stood empty. He hadn't come home last night, which meant that he was probably with Rebecca.

  So no need to fret. Except Bronco had said he was going to steer clear of her, at least until the investigation was over. And Bronco was a man of his word.

  Anxiety kept Jeremiah from crawling back into bed. He showered and dressed in his BDUs. Then, with a longing glance at his cappuccino machine, he headed for the door. He would splurge on coffee at Starbucks after he found his friend.

  An uneasy feeling ambushed him as he trotted down the staircase in the breezeway. Chilly, damp air increased his foreboding as he hurried toward his Jeep. Widening his peripheral field the way he taught his martial art's students, he spotted two unusual lumps on the sidewalk in front of the leasing office.

  As he headed toward them, he made out the handlebars of a bicycle first. The realization that the second lump was human had him sprinting toward it, dropping to his knees, his worst fears confirmed.

  "Bronco!" he croaked, getting no response.

  His friend lay half on his stomach, half on his side, like he'd taken a spill, tried to get up, and promptly passed out. Jeremiah reached for his wrist and sought a pulse.

  Nothing. Where was it? There. Under the cold flesh, a faint and feeble pulse leaped against Jeremiah's fingertips. He bent over, putting his ear by Brant's nose and flinching at the odor of beer coming off him. His breaths were slow and shallow. Had he passed out from drinking too much?

  "Bronco." Even in the feeble light, the blue cast of his friend's lips was unmistakable. He looked half dead already.

  Jeremiah shook his shoulder. Not so much as a groan emerged. Noting the pool of blood under his cheek, he gently rolled him over. The cut that he had stitched over a week ago had been torn clean open, and now the wound bled copiously. At least there were no apparent lumps or lacerations on his skull.

  He reached for his wrist again, counting heartbeats as he consulted his watch.

  Forty-three beats per minute. Way too slow. Pulling out the pen light he kept handy in his breast pocket, he thumbed an eyelid open. The pinpoint pupil staring back at him almost stopped his own heart. This was looking serious.

  Get help. With a sense of unreality, he pulled his phone from his pocket.

  "9-1-1. Do you have an emergency?"

  "I need an ambulance fast," he heard himself say. His training as a corpsman enabled him to function in spite of his shock. He provided the operator with Brant's heart rate and listed his symptoms. He heard himself suggest that the paramedics come supplied with Narcan, an opiate reversal drug.

  Brant would never do drugs. What the hell had happened?

  With the promise that help was on the way, the operator let him go. He shucked his jacket, tossing it over Brant's prone form to keep him warm.

  "Stay with me, brother," he ordered, in a voice gruff with fear. Closing his eyes, he laid both hands on Brant's head, cleared his thoughts and concentrated on sending him the energy he needed to survive.

 
* * *

  Rebecca was hanging her jacket on one of the hooks in the break room when a voice came over the intercom.

  "EMS report. Patient is a Caucasian male, twenty-eight years old, probable opiate overdose. Bed assignment on arrival."

  The urgent situation coming so early on a day she didn't normally work jump-started her adrenaline. Delaying the cup of tea she'd been about to pour herself, she quickly washed her hands and left the break room to relieve the night-shift nurse.

  Sandy greeted her with a smile of relief and a list of the patients under her care. The previous night had been a quiet one, but Rebecca sensed that was about to change as the doors at the ambulance entry swished open. The tramping of boots and the clatter of a gurney heralded the arrival of the opiate overdose patient.

  Dr. Edmonds joined her in the hall as the paramedics burst through the swinging doors into the ER. Rebecca summoned them toward the closest available room, keeping out of the way as they transferred the patient from the gurney to the bed. When the lead paramedic began to list the victim's symptoms, Rebecca jotted herself notes.

  "He's got something toxic in his system, and it's not just alcohol, though he's definitely been drinking. The cut on his face is an older wound, torn open." Whisking the crinkly metallic blanket off the man, the paramedic revealed a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved polo.

  Dr. Edmonds leaned over the patient, giving Rebecca the barest glimpse of a face covered in blood. "Fixed and constricted," he announced, examining the man's pupils. "I think you're right about the overdose."

  "We administered .4 mgs of Narcan already, but his BP keeps dropping and he's barely breathing." He shook his head at the grim outlook.

  Dr. Edmonds glanced up at him. "Thank you, Thompson. We've got it from here."

  The paramedics withdrew, and Rebecca clipped a pulse oximeter on the man's index finger. Dexterous-looking fingers and a powerful wrist suggested a healthy physique. At least he had that much going for him.

  Watching the clock, she counted the sluggish beats. "Only forty-one beats per minute. Oxygen is eighty-eight percent."