Own (Command Force Alpha #1) (21 page)

Her toes were freezing. It was an absurd thought when she was looking at her father’s dark lashes flutter as he did his damnedest to wake up. But she couldn’t shake it. Her feet felt like she’d dipped them in the harbor in February. They tingled with the cold, and her fingers were the same way—and her father’s hands were cold too.

Cold like death.

Except she knew he wasn’t dead by the very deliberate way he was fighting. Only Nicky Stafford would manage to make coming out of an induced coma into a fight. Tubes led to his nasal passages, delivering pure oxygen, and still his nostrils flared. His shoulders bulked without moving, drawing tense in the way she knew from the single time she’d brought home a disciplinary report from boarding school.

“Dad, I’m here.” She kept her voice soothing, the way her mom’s used to be all the time. It took everything she had not to give in to the breaking, snapping feeling that twisted her chest.

“We’ve been talking to him, for what it’s worth.” Snow sat in a windowsill barely wide enough for most people to put a hand flat on. But she’d perched there, her skirt riding up as both feet wedged into the far frame of the window. She hadn’t lost her creepy, oddly endearing smile, but she wouldn’t be Snow without it.

Kat petted her dad’s hand, stroking more gently than she’d ever touched him. This was backwards. She got comfort from
him
. When she could. “About what? Work? Missions?”

Snow shrugged. “It’s what we know, lovey.”

Bright, masculine blue eyes snapped open. That was her old man, all right. Asleep and then awake, with no blinking. He squeezed her hand in return. Only then did she realize how tightly her fingers were clamped around his. Her knuckles were white. She released them one by one.

“Dad. Oh God, Dad. How could you? How
could
you?” She clapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes jerked wide. Her cheeks went so heavy she knew she had to be dead white. “No, I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to say that. I love you. I’ve missed you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, and his normally deep voice was a flat-out croak.

Dr. Bascombe’s nurse had left a pitcher of cool water on the table. Kat held it under her dad’s chin, and though he made a face at the striped straw, he sipped. He pushed it away after a moment. “It’s all right, Kat. I got it.”

She averted her face as she put the plastic pitcher down. “I’m the most disrespectful daughter to say something like that. Like, ‘welcome back, Dad, here let me spew all over you.’”

“It’s been a tough time for you, I’m sure.”

She laughed, a little rueful, and shook her head. “I didn’t have twelve inches of my lower intestine taken out.”

“Twelve? Damn, am I gonna be able to stand my own five-alarm chili?” He grinned weakly. His gaze flicked past her, to Snow. “Alice. Good to see you.”

Snow lifted two fingers to her brow in a completely insouciant salute. “No one can stand that slop you call chili. But we’re glad you’re not dead, Colonel.”

Kat shuddered at the words.

Her father saw, of course. He saw everything. That’s what it always felt like. Could he see Evan’s touch on her? Could he know the downright filthy things she’d done with his shining star, the protégé Dad had met when he’d taught at West Point? Her dad was the one who’d seduced Evan with the idea of danger, duty and doing the right thing in Special Operations.

“Alice, can we get a few minutes alone?” he asked.

Snow unfolded from her position in the window, her skirt dropping back to her stocking-covered knees. “I’ll be right outside the door.” Her gaze flicked toward Kat, but the message there was unreadable. Snow usually was unreadable.

“Thanks,” Kat said quickly, just so her dad wouldn’t have to. His voice was raw from the breathing tube that had been removed from his lungs only that morning. A precaution, Dr. Bascombe had said. Still scary as fuck. As soon as the door shut, Kat turned back to her dad and fussed with the open-weave blanket tucked around his chest. She straightened the edge, pulling it up toward his shoulders. “You have to be cold. Fall is coming in. I know how it was always yours and Mom’s favorite season. Those drives to New Hampshire…”

“Katsu-chan.” He only laid one hand over hers, holding her still. “Look at me.”

She was shaking. Admittedly, she was calmer inside than she’d been when stepping into his room, but there was no holding back the tremors that snagged her by the neck and rocked her whole body. It took effort to drag her gaze back to his, but once she did, she managed a long, deep breath. Her head spun.

He was back. He was really back. When she’d been little, she’d thought his reliability came with his clear blue gaze, so different from her mother’s dark subtlety. She’d realized over the years that wasn’t true. It was the man behind the look. No matter the color of his eyes or how he hadn’t been shaved in days, he was still as steady and strong as ever—in will, if not yet in body.

“I wish Mom were here,” she whispered in Japanese.

“I wish she were here too, Katsu.” Even the way her dad replied in the same language was comfort, which she should be giving to him, not the other way around.

She didn’t cry. She wouldn’t. He didn’t need that. Instead there was a burning, stinging feeling at the back of her eyes that she tried to blink away. She glanced at the machines happily chirping away next to her. “I’m not doing this right.”

His hand tightened on hers. “Doing what right? You’re here. Seeing your little face is enough for me.”

She dropped her head, her hair shielding her cheeks. “There’s still so much confusion. No one lets me know what’s going on, and…” She swallowed the words like tacks. She couldn’t put stuff like that on him when he obviously wasn’t well enough to be his regular go-getter self.

Only…trust her dad to home in on the slightest hesitation. “And what?” His voice remained hoarse but unrelenting.

She scrunched her eyes shut and said it all in a waterfall of words. “And sometimes it feels like this won’t ever stop. You can have the best team in the world, and I can lie low in all the safe houses in Boston, but it won’t ever be right.”

He lifted his head from the stack of pillows. That was too much effort, apparently, because he winced. He tried to cover his stomach, but just as quickly yanked his hand back. The sutures hidden under the bedding and bandages had to be tender as hell, despite the gentle morphine drip.

“Is Evan taking care of you? Are you listening to him?”

She twisted in her already uncomfortable plastic seat. Her knees squeezed together. Heat ate its way up from the top of her chest to her throat. She had to be blushing. He’d see it. Her dad always did. “I’m listening, yes. I turned all my projects over to another translator I know. I’ve stopped talking to my friends, which sucks, and I didn’t go for the second interview at a job I wanted. I’ve done what you asked, staying with him twenty-four-seven. We’re at East Fourth Street.”

“Good. That’s good.” He eased back against the pillows, his shoulders loosening and his body relaxing into the pain that must be pinching from the middle up. “He’ll take care of you. I
do
have the best team in the world. That’s why I handpicked them, down to the nurses here. That’s why I chose Evan to look after you. I’m sorry we can’t tell you more, but it will be over soon. We’ll make things right again.” He smiled. It was wan but reassuringly arrogant. “We’re damn good at that. Do you trust me on this, Katsu-chan?”

She nodded because she couldn’t imagine what else to say. He was right, and Evan certainly took care of her. She just couldn’t think of
all
the ways right now, not in her father’s hospital room.

Evan at the pool hall—that was safe, as he’d indulged her, protected her and egged her on. When talking about her budding skills when she was eighteen, he’d been almost dismissive, like it was just a cute little hobby. Not this time. He’d been…charming. He often was, but having that intensity arrowing in on her was a heady narcotic. The rest of what had taken place after, and the way her thoughts were constantly reaching out for Evan Sommers, was beginning to scare the holy hell out of her.

“Tell me what to do for you, Dad. Tell me how I can help.”

He shook his head, a smile playing around his lips. “All the medical help comes from Doc Bascombe. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to.”

“Mom would know what to do.” She lowered her head to the bed, her forehead stacking on the pile made by her hands around her dad’s strong paw.

He lifted his other to stroke her hair. She eased into the sensation, feeling like a child trapped in the middle of a nightmare. She’d had them in the years after the cancer had taken its mean-ass time stealing Mom away, ounce by ounce, and then when Dad took the assignment at West Point. Packing up from the house their family had lived in for three generations and moving to New York sucked, but at least he’d been with her for three straight years.

“She
always
knew what to do,” she said, muffled against the blankets.

“That’s not true.” His hand didn’t cease its slow petting. “Sometimes Tam was a complete mess.”

She jerked upright. “No, she wasn’t. She was so put together. So calm. She was…fuck, Dad, she was
perfect
.”

“There were…things you didn’t know.” He shook his head before she could even open her mouth. “And no, nosy one, I’m not telling you. Just know that there were hard times for her, and times when she needed help. She wasn’t some perfect doll, Katsu-chan. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her if she had been. I wouldn’t have
stayed
in love.”

“But…but… The
monaka
…”

“Cookies? What?”

Kat shook her head, trying to get her thoughts to line up. She drew a deep, deep breath and remembered folding her thongs and stacking them next to her shirt while Evan watched. God, she was bent. But it worked. She folded herself into calmness. “Mom used to make
monaka
. Do you know how hard that was?”

“Yeah, I remember.” His blue-ocean gaze gathered a hazy, nostalgic quality.

“Took her hours. She even designed the top and bottom layers to look like cherry blossoms. And she’d put them in my lunch. Because I liked them. All that work…just to make a fourth grader happy. I’m sucking right now.” Her hands clenched on his. “I shouldn’t be torturing us with old memories. I should be the one telling you that it’s okay. And it is. Your guys…they have everything under control. They’ll figure this out. But no, here I am having a crying fit all over you. How do I stack that against what Mom used to be?”

“Your mom was alone in this country, disowned by her parents for those things I’m not telling you about—and frankly, for marrying me. She had years of her own wildness. You’re remembering a grown woman from a kid’s perspective.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You be your own person. That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, Katsu. It’s all she would’ve wanted for you. I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you any other impression. Your mom…she’s a role that was already filled. No one will be her—you’ll be you. And you’re beautiful, kitten. Inside and out.”

She managed to swallow the tears that wanted to break free. She drew in a shaky breath, then again and again. He seemed to really believe what he said. That unwavering truth burned from his gaze to hers. Maybe he was right. Evan seemed to like her snappy, liked when she smart-mouthed back. She’d stuffed down the impulse when she was eighteen, awed by the sexy man who was paying attention to her, afraid of saying something to turn him off or make him feel threatened—like guys her age would’ve been.

Of course, he also liked bossing around that wildness. Maybe the two went together.

She buried her face against their hands again, this time to hide an inappropriate smile. It disappeared when a brisk knock on the door announced Evan’s arrival. He looked…breathtaking.

“Colonel, it’s damn good to see you again.” He placed a plain manila envelope on the foot of the bed. Why did it send shivers up Kat’s spine? “You’ll want to read that when you’re strong enough.”

Maybe because of the ultra-serious look Evan and her father exchanged. And because they switched right back into macho mode.

“Why is everyone treating me like I’m just this side of dead?” He firmed his mouth, revealing none of the softness he’d shown Katsu when they were alone. He didn’t shift far in the bed—because there was bluster and then there was foolishness—but he lifted his chin.

“Because you were.” Evan stood next to Katsu. She wanted desperately to wrap an arm around his thigh. The rest of her was screaming for him to stay away, don’t touch him, don’t get close. Losing him was going to be difficult enough. If her dad knew what had happened, he’d be
so
disappointed in them both.

“Bullshit,” her father said, hard as nails. “It’ll take a hell of a lot more than a single shot to take me out. I can promise you that.”

Chapter Twenty

Evan took Katsu’s hand as they walked down the short corridor toward the secured elevator. She was shaking like a child after an hour-long thunderstorm, while Evan was perched between numbness and jittering excitement. He didn’t dare believe that Laurie was still alive. It was too much. The hope Evan had secretly nurtured for longer than he’d admit to his colleagues was a difficult emotion to control.

Coupled with seeing the colonel recovering so quickly, and knowing that Evan was about to run a very risky gambit, had him needing to ground himself in something.