Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (23 page)

“
Ryder.” She smacked his backside, the very fine backside she’d admired not that many minutes ago. “This is ridiculous. Put me down.”

He flipped her upright so fast she’d have lost her lunch if she had anything left in her stomach. Her head did a quick spin. “Oomph.” He planted her solidly on her feet.

“
You want to challenge me?” He kept his hands clamped on her shoulders. She’d bite her tongue off before admitting the firm grip kept her upright. “Baby, I’ve been way too easy on you if you think—” He cut himself off, the rapid rise of his solid chest the only sign of agitation.

His aborted sentence stirred up every insecurity, every fear inside. Why did he hold back? If he knew about the attorney, he might believe she still wanted a divorce, and it would make it that much easier for him to leave. “You think you’ve been easy on me by disappearing?”

Anger was stamped on his hard face, but he didn’t respond.

How would she convince him to stay if he closed off this way? Lauren stepped away from him. “I don’t want you to leave.”

As she forced out the words, everything in his demeanor shifted, going military strong; spine stiff, jaw hard, eyes front. He morphed into a soldier in front of her eyes, and the sun beat down like a spotlight on his hard features. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“
By leaving?”

“
If that’s what it takes.” The stoic expression matched his monotone voice. His eyes shuttered, as closed off as a burial tomb. He was a warrior whether he wore a uniform or not, and a primitive part of her wanted the warrior. The fighter, not the cold man in front of her.

Lauren fisted her hands. “No.” Her voice wavered with the strain. The hangover made her stomach twist, but she was emotionally sick as well. “I’m not letting you go this time.”

“
What about the divorce lawyer?” Hurt and rejection hid behind the question, and she couldn’t let him go another minute believing she didn’t want him.

“
A knee-jerk reaction. Pain. Pride.” She swallowed. “I missed you.”

The narrowing of his eyes was the only reaction.

“
I threw up after I left his office. I never went back.”

“
Maybe you should.” He dug his hands through his hair as if he could twist his head off. “I’m screwed up. You shouldn’t want me. I’ve endangered you more than you know.”

Those words he’d said before, and she needed to know the story behind them, but she needed to know something else first. “Do you want me anymore?” She wanted to ask if he loved her, but chickened out.

“
After the last few days, you have to ask?” He stood steps away, but miles apart.

Sweat slicked her hands. “There’s a difference between sex and commitment. I’m not sure what you want.”

“
What I want?” The predator stalking her sent her back a step. Menace oozed off him and a flush climbed his cheeks. She backed away, but Ryder met her step for step until he had her backed against the barn. “What I want is no divorce. No other man. No trouble hounding our door.”

“
That’s not the same as wanting me.”
Loving me.

“
Would you like a demonstration?” He pinned her hands over her head against the barn, the rough wood scratching her wrists. “You are the center of everything, but I am afraid—Jesus Christ, I’m terrified—that I will hurt you, and that kind of fear shouldn’t be possible anymore.”

“
Why?” The tension riding him infected her, and she shivered against him. “Damnit, Ryder, what did they do to you?”

His mouth fused to hers, cutting her off. The kiss was meant to punish, to push them both over the edge into desire, but he’d been using sex to avoid this long overdue conversation, and Lauren wouldn’t let him anymore. The heat turned to anger inside her. Anger at the Army, at Madigan, at the situation. Anger at Ryder. She fought against her restrained hands. “Let me go.”

He pressed her wrists against the barn. “I can’t.” The conflict inside him turned to anguish in his eyes, giving him an almost feral look.

“
You already did.” The words choked from her throat. The truth spilled out, bypassing any filter. “You deserted me. You chose your team over me. You didn’t love me enough or want me enough or trust me enough. You weren’t strong enough to keep us together.”

“
Stop.” He dropped his head near her neck, his forehead resting against the weathered wood, his hands grasping her wrists like a lifeline. He avoided her gaze, as if seeing into his eyes would release the hidden lock on his cryptic emotions. She struggled against him, trying to break free, but his grip was stronger than any handcuff. “What if I lose it?” Tears coated his words, freezing her in place. “What if I do to you what Mad Dog did to his family?”

The truth echoed in his words. The way he’d left after Madigan’s suicide. The number of times he said he couldn’t stay. To protect her, he’d always said. He honestly believed he could hurt her. She whispered soothing words, nonsense words that could never contain the pain she felt at his admission. For months, he had harbored this fear. Alone. And no matter what he said or believed, it was fear that kept him away. Her chest shook with the tears she held inside. This time, she needed to be the strong one. “Ryder, you could never hurt me.”

The warmth of his breath kissed her collarbone. “And the days leading up to Mad Dog’s death, Maggie would have sworn the same thing. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I never would have had the strength to leave.”

Lauren wanted to pull his head back so she could see his eyes, but he still had her manacled to the side of the barn. She wiggled her fingers. “Let my hands go.” He dropped her hands like they burned his flesh, but she grabbed him before he could drift away. She twined her fingers around his neck and squeezed. “Look at me. Please.”

He straightened away from the bare wood, and when he met her gaze, his eyes were red-rimmed but dry.

She couldn’t imagine what had driven this strong man to such despair, but she was going to find out. “Leaving me isn’t strength. It’s fear.”

Bleakness covered him, turning his lips to a frown and his eyes empty. “I don’t fear anything. Ever.”

He’s said it before, but— “I’m sure it feels that way after living with the effects for so long.” Was it PTSD? Did he deal with the stress by hiding his fears? Her heart thumped short angry beats against her chest. “Everyone feels fear, even a big bad warrior like you. Historically, it goes back to Homer in The Iliad.” It was easier to discuss in terms of history than to consider for one moment that her rock-solid husband was struggling. “In World War I they called it shell shock and World War II it was—”

“
It’s not PTSD. For a while, I thought maybe. I even hoped, because it’s better than...”

“
What?” He was back to half-completed sentences. She leaned against the barn to keep from putting her arms around him and offering comfort, because he’d hide there as he had so many times before. This conversation was a long time coming. “Ryder, you can tell me anything. Nothing you say can make me think less of you.”

He grabbed her hand and led her to the front porch where they sat on the steps. He didn’t look at her, but leaned over to stare at his boots. “I need your promise that you’ll hear me out.”

“
That sounds ominous.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Promise.”

“
Okay. I promise.”

“
I came back to let you go. To give you the freedom you deserved.”

She averted her gaze to the pale winter sky and blinked back tears. A few dropped, and he brushed them away. She leaned into his touch.

“
Then that cowboy put his hands on you, and the line between doing the right thing and claiming you got blurry. Anger is a problem for me, just like it was for Madigan. I know it’s right to let you go, but I don’t know if I can anymore.” Anguish crossed his features and then disappeared into the wall of his granite jaw. “So I’ll leave it up to you, and maybe you’ll be smart enough for both of us.”

“
You think I’m going to leave you?” That was just crazy talk. She’d been waiting and watching for
him
to go. It never occurred to her that he thought the same of her. “Why would I leave?”

Ryder rubbed his thumb over hers, staring down at their joined hands. The rumble of voices filtered through the silence. Breakfast preparations continued. Lauren waited, holding hands with her husband in the winter sun. Finally, he took a deep breath that lifted his shoulders as if in defeat. His voice, when he spoke, was low and rough. “When I moved here from Fort Carson, I left my Special Forces Team.”

“
I know that.” She’d met him shortly after he moved to El Paso.

“
I joined a new one.”

Lauren shook her head. “Fort Bliss isn’t home to Special Forces. You said—”

“
It was classified. Still is. After a particularly bloody mission that cost several good men their lives—men I worked with my entire time on the teams—afterwards, after the funerals, I was approached by a man who offered me the chance to make a difference in the war. I was angry. I wanted retribution. I wanted this shit to end. He offered me a leadership position on a special team. One of six twelve-man teams.” Ryder continued to stare at their joined hands. She squeezed to encourage him to continue.

“
Not wanting to face another mission with only half my team, I said yes. Some of it was ego. An elite team was the best opportunity of my career, but there was a catch. Several actually. First, we were off books.”

“
What does that mean?” Lauren leaned forward to try to meet his gaze, but he shifted away.

“
We were still in the Army, but we operated outside the military hierarchy. No one knew we existed. We received orders from outside the normal chain of command. Our captain never told us who.”

Lauren’s stomach growled. She put her free hand over it to cover the sudden fear twisting through the empty spaces. “CIA?” This was outside her area of expertise.

“
Captain Johnson called them the company or the organization. We never met anyone other than the captain who hired us. Once we signed, we received orders here to Fort Bliss, under Johnson’s command. We had a separate barracks, separate chow hall, separate everything. We continued to receive our military pay, we continued our training, but added a new component.”

“
That’s the second catch,” she guessed. The acid in her stomach churned. Whatever had her husband so serious wasn’t going to be good.

“
We were a part of a trial on a new medication that inhibits the physiological reaction to fear. The training schedule was incredible. The medical protocol was exact. We could no longer drink alcohol. We could no longer take so much as an aspirin without medical personnel present.”

That explained a few things. None of the men ever drank beer when they came into the bar. There had been more of them then, and some would cut it up and hit the dance floor with the local girls, but they’d stuck to a strict training schedule. Maybe it wasn’t simply a training schedule. “You truly don’t feel fear?”

“
No.” He glanced up, finally meeting her gaze. Hollow, haunted eyes greeted her. “We were in quarantine the first ninety days while they adjusted dosage and tested our responses. The first few months, we experienced lost time. Frequently. We’d wake up bloody or bruised and not know what happened.” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear the memories. “I hadn’t met you yet. I thought—we all thought—it was the right thing. This was the next big evolution in war fighting.”

“
A fearless soldier.” The company—whoever the hell that was—was playing God with these men. This kind of experimentation had historical precedence, but Lauren was accustomed to studying this kind of thing, not living it. “It worked?”

“
It worked. Our first successful mission was a week before I met you. We went over to the desert on a classified mission. Kicked ass and came home. Since the worst of the side effects had stopped, they gave us more freedom.”

“
That’s the night you guys came to the bar?”

He nodded. “The moment I saw you, I knew you were to good for me. Smart, funny, gorgeous—”

“
Hardly.” Her heart rate picked up, her fear at what had been done to her husband turning her hands slick with sweat, but he wouldn’t let go.

“
I knew better than to chase you, but the medical cocktail made me fearless. Pursuing you became my next big mission. No fear meant I didn’t give up when I should have had the sense to leave you alone.”

“
I was a mission?” Hurt colored her tone.

“
You’re my foundation. I don’t know how everyone else handled it, but you kept me grounded rather than believing I was some super soldier without limits. A few people believed the hype. Went...”

The pounding in her chest threatened to break her ribs. The hand not holding Ryder shook, so she moved it to clasp over the back of his hand, fully encasing him in her grip. “Finish it.”