Safe Harbor (14 page)

She gulped.

Mac followed her gaze and smiled. “Punishment canes. Rattan.”

He pulled one of the thin, whippy rods from the stand and showed it to her. “Depending on how it’s used it can feel fantastic, or slice the skin open and flay flesh right off the bone.”

“How can that possibly feel good?”

“Turn around,” he softly said.

She eyed him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised.

She reluctantly turned.

She forced herself not to flinch when he touched her right shoulder, between her neck and arm, with the cane. “Don’t move.” He started a gentle but firm bouncing rhythm with the wooden rod that didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it felt more like a massage than a maiming.

As she relaxed, he increased the force a little, until she closed her eyes

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and reached out to the closet doorway for support. After a few minutes, he switched to her other shoulder and repeated the same process until she relaxed so much that her eyes popped open when he stopped.

She turned. “That’s it?”

He slid the cane into the stand. “Did it hurt?”

She shook her head. Hell, it actually felt pretty good there at the end as she’d relaxed and her muscles loosened.

“Maybe one day he’ll let me work you over with a heavy flogger.

When I finish, you’ll think you had a spa massage.” He winked.

She helped him finish putting clothes away. As she opened one drawer, the sight of leather cuffs and a few other intimate odds and ends greeted her.

He noticed her expression. “Sorry, should have warned you about that drawer.”

When they returned to the living room, Sully was already asleep.

Mac retrieved his sweatpants from the playroom and led her downstairs to the utility room to show her where everything was. She stared at the exercise equipment. Maybe she could make use of that now that her body didn’t hurt. Work off a little of her excess physical baggage.

“Can I use this?”

“Of course. Help yourself. May I ask why?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

He frowned and leaned against the washer. “No, I’m not. You don’t need to work out.”

Clarisse snorted in disgust. “You know, I appreciate it, and it’s sweet of you, but cut the bullshit.”

“Clarisse.” His firm tone, the one she thought of as his “boat voice.” “I meant it when I said it. You’re beautiful the way you are.

You don’t need to work out. Want to? That’s fine. Don’t you dare let me catch you driving yourself crazy dieting and working out.”

The intensity in his voice made her blush. “Whatever,” she

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mumbled self-consciously.

He caught her hands and made her look at him. “Sweetie, you are beautiful. I don’t lie. I don’t like getting my ass whipped for that.

Exercising to be healthy, fine, I’ll go along with that. If you try to turn yourself into some skinny little anorexic waif, I’ll force feed you rice pudding.”

“Rice pudding, huh?”

“Yeah. One of my specialties.” He pulled her to him for a quick hug. “I make it with heavy whipping cream.” She snorted, in amusement this time. He laughed when he realized what he’d said.

“Haha, very funny, girlie.”

* * * *

Another reason Sully hated the painkillers—the dreams. He usually experienced really vivid ones when in the narcotic’s grip.

Mostly bad dreams that left him sweating and trembling as he relived the shooting.

As he napped on the sofa, his dreams turned slightly more distant.

Standing nearby while Jason questioned a man with sandy blond hair who sat on the back bumper of a rescue wagon. The ambulance carrying the man’s sister had just pulled out. Gauging from the blood patterns on the guy’s clothes, he’d been the one to find her, not harm her.

“Please, can I go? I need to be with her!” Tears rimmed his brown eyes, but there was no spray of blood on his face or in his hair to declare him guilty.

“I’m sorry, Mr. MacCaffrey. I’m almost done,” Jason said.

Sully listened as Jason quickly ran through the standard questions.

One of the crime scene techs took pictures of the guy and scrapings from under his fingernails.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll need to take your shirt as evidence.”

The man stood and removed it. One of the EMTs brought over a

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bottle of saline to rinse the blood off his hands and arms.

If Sully hated anything about his job, it was this, the grieving kin.

Not dealing with them, but struggling against his own memories, demons, and nightmares as he tried to help them through the process.

“I’m going inside, Jayce,” Sully said. Jason nodded. Sully walked to the front door and showed his badge to the uniformed deputy standing guard.

He pulled up short at the large pool of blood on the floor.

Scanning the house, Sully fought to contain his rage. Young female victim, attacked by the husband, most likely. Lots of pictures on the walls, many showing a woman he guessed would turn out to be the victim. Quite a few of them including the man being questioned outside.

He couldn’t stand it. He returned to Jason, who was finishing with MacCaffrey. “Mr. MacCaffrey, give me your keys. I’ll drive you. My partner can follow us.”

Jason arched an eyebrow at him.

The man fumbled in his jeans for his keys and handed them over with a trembling hand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to have the EMTs transport you to the hospital?” he asked. “Get you checked out?” He suspected the man was close to shock.

“No. I want to be with Betsy.”

Jason nodded. “Go ahead. They transported her to Harborside. I’ll catch you there.”

The man led Sully to his truck, grabbed a duffel bag from behind the seat, rummaged around and found a shirt, and pulled it on. From the look of his tan and firm, natural muscles, he was used to hard outdoors work. He climbed into the passenger seat and waited for Sully.

Sully noticed the stacks of collapsed boxes and other moving supplies in the truck bed as he opened the driver side door. He threaded the truck between emergency vehicles and marked patrol

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cars as he pulled out of the driveway.

“Why do you think it was her husband, Mr. MacCaffrey?” he quietly asked.

“Because the bastard’s been beating on her for years. I told you guys, I was moving her out tonight.” He closed his eyes as tears rolled down his face. He punched the dash. “I should have made her leave him sooner. Dammit!” He broke down sobbing. “This is my fault! I should have been here for her!” He stared out the window. “She met the fucker while I was in Iraq. If I’d been home and not in the fucking Army, I never would have let her marry the bastard. Or I would have killed the fucker myself the first time he hit her.”

“She’s an adult. You can’t force someone to do something if they don’t want to.”

“She’s my little sister!” He moaned. “Aw, fuck. I’ve got to call my baby brother.”

“Baby?”

“Well, that’s how I think of Jim. I’m the oldest, I’m twenty-eight.

He’s twenty.”

“Do you have other family?”

“No.” He slumped against the door. “My mom died last year. It’s just us three kids.”

Sully sympathized. His own mother had been murdered by her boyfriend when he was only seventeen.

MacCaffrey pulled out his cell phone, called, and broke the news to his brother. When he hung up, he stared out the window again.

“I can’t lose her, man. She’s my life, they both are. They’re all I’ve got.”

Sully stayed with Brant at the hospital, using his badge to get them faster access to information and doctors than might normally be available. Sully was on a first name basis with Brant by the time his brother arrived. Within three hours, the prognosis was known and it wasn’t good. Sully called Jason to update him and have him inform the state attorney’s office the charges would most likely be updated to

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murder within a few days.

He knew he was getting personally involved when he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. He saw too much of himself in the younger man.

He sat with the brothers all night as Betsy was taken from surgery and moved into the SICU. He stayed with them for their first visit with her, offering them support and helping them navigate the quagmire of red tape.

Jason tried to get Sully to go home, but he wouldn’t. “I can’t leave them. Not like this. They need someone.”

Jason shook his head. “This isn’t your mom all over again. You need to maintain your distance.”

“Fuck that, they need someone to lean on.” It’s not like Cybil would miss him.

If she was even home.

Better to focus on helping someone else through their pain than having to face his own. At least something good could come of it.

Sully listened to the brothers tell stories about their sister and comforted them when the doctors made their final grim prognosis. By this time, Jason had gone home. Sully stayed with the two men. A uniformed deputy had been assigned to stand watch in the SICU in case the husband showed up. He hadn’t been apprehended yet.

“Brant, let me take you home so you can get a shower and change clothes.” He needed one too. “They won’t let you back in until morning.” The man seemed emotionally numb, trapped in the denial stage of his grief. His younger brother had left for home an hour earlier to shower and change clothes and would be back soon.

On the ride north, Brant slumped in the passenger side. “Why are you doing this for us?” he hoarsely asked. “Not that I’m complaining, seriously.”

Sully gripped the steering wheel and fought his own demons.

“Because I need to.”

“How do I get through this? I can’t lose her. She’s my little

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sister.”

“You keep putting one foot in front of the other. That’s all you can do. Don’t look ahead. Just focus on the next step.”

Over the days that followed, Sully used some of his personal days to stay with the brothers, console them, sit with them. When the brothers made the final decision to discontinue Betsy’s life support, Sully kept a supporting arm around each man as they watched her life end. He helped them plan the funeral and sat with them through the service.

Despite the horrible circumstances, he considered Brant a friend and knew he was one of the few people who could honestly say he truly understood exactly what Brant felt. The anger, the guilt, the what-ifs.

The
I should have been there and done more
self-loathing.

The sound of pots and pans in the kitchen awakened Sully. When he glanced at the cable box, he realized he’d napped two hours away.

Damn.
So much for working.

Mac heard him trying to sit up and hurried out to help him. “Do you want another pain pill, Master?”

Sully studied his lover’s worried face, his dream of their past fresh in his mind. He smiled as he reached out and, taking Mac’s hand, accepted his help. “No, I’m okay. Let’s try the regular stuff. I’m just really stiff.” Mac helped Sully limp to the bathroom, then grabbed a tube of ointment on their way back to the couch. Clarisse stood in the kitchen entrance and watched as Mac worked on Sully’s leg.

Clarisse moved a little closer. “What does that do?”

Mac didn’t look up from where he knelt on the floor, his hands working the tight muscles in Sully’s leg. “The PT showed me what to do, warned me this could happen from time to time.” He shot Sully a stink-eye look. “Especially when someone doesn’t exercise or work their leg like they’re supposed to so the muscles don’t tighten up.”

“He’s worse than any drill sergeant,” Sully quipped. “You sure can tell he was in the Army.”

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“Hey, I don’t hear you complaining over the naughty nurse game.”

* * * *

Clarisse felt her pulse skip when Sully smiled and reached over to tousle Mac’s hair. “Okay, you’ve got me there,
Nurse
Brant.”

Mac’s beaming smile stirred something in Clarisse’s heart. He obviously doted on Sully, loved the man. Who was she to judge what they did in their relationship?

She wouldn’t deny a twinge of jealous envy. Bryan had never shown appreciation to her. Especially not the way Sully did with Mac.

Sully appeared to love Mac as much as Mac loved him.

Sully tipped his head back and met her gaze. “Watch out. If Mac gets his hands on you for a backrub, he’ll have you melting into the carpet. He’s great.”

Mac blushed. “Thank you, Master.”

* * * *

Sully spent the entire day on the sofa, working, napping, and talking with Clarisse. They ordered a pizza for dinner. At bedtime, Clarisse retired for the night and the men returned to their bedroom.

Mac surprised Sully when he brought the punishment cane out and presented it to him, then knelt on the floor next to the bed and bowed his head.

“What’s this for?”

“I owe Master strokes.”

Sully tried to replay the day in his mind, as much as he could remember through the medication, pain, and naps. “Okay, I give. For what? You ditched the clothes.”

Mac related his earlier exchange and demonstration with Clarisse and the cane.

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Sully considered it, letting Mac sit and stew for a moment. “You didn’t actually touch her though? Just with the cane?”

“Just with the cane, Master.”

“She enjoyed it?”

“Yes, Master.”

Sully fought the urge to laugh, knowing that would hurt Mac’s feelings. Mac had done more to win back her trust with that short demonstration than he realized.

“Stand up and bend over.”

Mac complied. Sully didn’t stand. He lined up the cane from where he sat and laid only one stroke across Mac’s ass. “That’s all.”

Mac frowned. “Master?”

He immediately gave Mac a second one. “That’s for questioning me.”

Mac took the offered can and returned it to the closet. Only when they were situated in bed did Sully explain. “I only gave you one because you felt you needed it. You didn’t break any rules. You didn’t hurt her. In fact, that might have helped change her perceptions in a good way. You know why you earned the second.”

“Sorry, Master.”

Over the years, during the bad times they’d found the best position for Sully to lay propped against Mac, the larger man’s body supporting his leg at the perfect angle to help relieve the pain.

Snuggled like that, with Mac’s arm around him, Sully settled in and tried to sleep. It not only helped with his pain, but the contact with Mac’s body also helped keep the bad dreams away.

His safe harbor.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me, Brant,” Sully said. “I appreciate it.”

Mac rubbed his chin across the top of Sully’s head. “Thank you for allowing me to serve you, Master.”

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