Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (32 page)

Why was it so hard for him to believe his parents could do the same? Why was the notion of being adopted so difficult for him to accept? Would it change who he was?

Perhaps he’d never figured out who he was in the first place. He’d run to the Navy hoping to find himself. He thought he had, but recent events had shown him he had no clue what he was even searching for.

Pulling himself up by the embedded axes, Marc listened in disbelief as the right one popped out and ripped from its purchase.
Merda.
He watched the axe hurtling toward him and grabbed for it with his gloved hand and missed. He hung a bit precariously by the one embedded axe, hoping it wouldn’t give way as well.

The loose axe came to the end of the bungee leash attached to his harness and bounced a few times off the wall of ice before he pulled it back to him. Climbing with one axe would have been more of a challenge than he wanted right now. Good thing he hadn’t thrown caution to the wind and left the axes untethered.

Climbing alone today had pushed the boundaries of safety enough. A climber much more expert than he had been killed not too long ago after making a simple mistake, and he’d even had a partner climbing with him. Marc needed to focus.

Swinging the axe again, he continued to climb a few more meters, hypervigilant to make sure he didn’t screw up. He wasn’t about to switch to wrist straps now, though. He’d just be more careful. He took a deep breath, waiting for the adrenaline surge to hit. When it did, he grabbed the other axe and planted his crampons into the ice for a safe hold.

The stillness of the day wrapped around him as he continued to climb. Peace surrounded him. Maybe this was where he needed to be—away from everyone, alone on the mountain.

His inability to come to terms with his past might have cost him Angelina. Hell, no
might
about it. She left him three weeks ago without a single call to initiate reconciliation. She’d also made it clear she wouldn’t return unless Marc made her a part of his life.

What kind of life did he have without her in it?

But how could he be the man she deserved—needed—if he didn’t even know who he was?

Remembering to climb, now only ten meters from the crest, he swung the axe in his right hand once more and pulled himself up.

Crack.
The stillness exploded again, and he looked up to see a chunk of ice the size of a toaster oven hurtling toward him. Too fast for him to react in time, the ice made a thudding impact against his chest, robbing him of breath. Memories of the mortar attack in Fallujah sent him into full-blown panic mode. His heart raced as his body fell backwards at the impact, but he maintained his toehold as he gripped the still-embedded axe.

He attempted to fill his lungs. No luck.

Oh, fuck.
Please, not another pneumo.

At least he hadn’t been knocked off his boots and down the icefall. He clipped himself into the only tool at hand, a nylon sling girth, attaching it to the clip-in point at the base of his axe with a carabiner, which freed up one hand. Hoping to relieve some of the pressure on his chest, Marc twisted and let the chunk of ice fall off of him. The searing pain in his ribs and chest from the simple movement gave him something else to worry about. Had he cracked a rib? If so, he ran the risk of puncturing his lung, if it wasn’t already deflated.

Shit.

He reached for two ice screws from his bag. This ascent was over. He needed to get off this ice before any more chunks came hurtling toward him. While his head was protected with his helmet, obviously other parts of his body remained vulnerable.

He’d ended his climb far short of the goal, but he had no control over that.

Much like his life.

Taking advantage of yet another adrenaline rush, Marc slammed two screws into the ice to create an anchor and attached a carabiner to each. He reached for a bundle of rope from his pack and clipped it onto the carabiners.

Putting himself into a slow, painful rappel, he fought hard to keep his body from bumping along the face of the ice. About halfway down, he dangled in midair a few moments while catching his breath, bracing himself against the wall of ice with gloves and boots as best he could. Pain radiated from his chest, more pain than he’d experienced since Iraq, and the thought of the motion of planting the front points into the ice caused sweat to break out on his upper lip. He grimaced. He needed to get down off this frozen waterfall to assess the damage to his chest and lungs.

Breathe, man.

The last thing he needed was to lose his focus—again. He’d blundered today in more ways than one, including not informing anyone of his ice-climbing itinerary. He had his satellite phone with him, though. He’d been involved in enough search-and-rescue missions that had rapidly become recovery operations for people who hadn’t taken that basic precaution.

When he reached the base of the fall, Marc didn’t bother to recover his rope or other tools. He held his side to keep the aching ribs from being jostled as he inched his way to a nearby boulder. The effort to walk only a few meters drained him. Sagging against the rock, he removed his gloves and then the pack. He dropped them to the ground beside him, and his chest burned from the exertion.

Marc opened the zipper of his jacket and pulled the black T-shirt from the waistband of his pants. He gasped when his wrist rubbed against the sore rib. He gingerly palpated the area with his cold fingertips. No apparent break. No blood—not externally anyway. He still wasn’t sure how stable that third rib was and didn’t want to chance packing his gear and driving.

Marc sighed and reached into the side pocket of his pack to pull out his sat phone. Damn, he hated to call, but Luke was the closest to this location with Fairchance only thirty minutes away. He’d rather have Luke know what a fool he’d been than anyone else. If he put out a distress 911 call, word definitely would get back to his squad in Denver. Bad enough he had to call Luke.

He chose Luke’s number from his contacts list and waited, trying to catch a full breath. Memories of his collapsed lung assailed him, but this didn’t feel that bad. Perhaps he hadn’t reinjured his lung. He hoped not, anyway.

Luke answered after two rings. “About damned time.” Luke’s voice had an edge to it that confused Marc. Okay, so he hadn’t called his friend in nearly two months. Luke had been easier to shut out lately than his friends in Denver, because Luke had moved two hours away and they were no longer working together on the same SAR squad.

Now it was Marc who needed rescuing—in more ways than one.

“I screwed up.”

“I’ll say. And I have one gorgeous Angel here who would have to agree with us.”

His chest contracted, making him wonder if maybe he
had
aggravated the old injury. Angelina had gone to Luke’s?

Marc tried to tamp down the feelings of jealousy that assaulted him. Why had she gone to Luke, instead of just heading back to her family in nearby Aspen Corners? Of course, she’d given up her rental house there soon after moving in with Marc, but her mom and two brothers lived there. Any of them would have taken her in.

Had she rekindled something with Luke?

No. Don’t think like that.
The two of them were just friends. Luke wouldn’t betray him the way his own brother had.

Would he?

“How is she?”

“Other than waiting around here for weeks until you got your act together, she’s fine.”

Okay, he deserved that.
Wait!
She was waiting for him? That sounded like there was still hope. But he didn’t want her to see him like this.

“Can you get away for a couple hours without telling her where you’re headed?”

“Sure. Angel’s busy in the kitchen fixing dinner. You know that’ll take hours. She’s happier next to a stove than anywhere—except maybe with you, you big ass.”

Some of the fear and pressure receded, causing him to notice the pain in his chest again. He could trust Luke with his life—and had on occasion during dangerous rescue missions. He also trusted Angelina, even if she didn’t think so. He ought to be grateful to his friend for giving his girl a safe place to land.

Shit, could he still consider Angelina his girl if she’d moved out on him and they hadn’t spoken to each other since last month?

He wasn’t ready to deal with the reasons why she’d left him right now. He wasn’t any closer to finding answers to so many questions about his past and who he was than he had been before she walked out.

Dio
, he missed her. But he didn’t want her to see him like this.

“Look, I’m in a bit of a predicament.”

“What the hell have you done? If you did anything to hurt Angel—” The censure in Luke’s voice surprised him, more pronounced than at the beginning of this conversation. He knew the man had feelings for Angelina and wouldn’t want to see her hurt, but hell, Marc didn’t want to hurt her either.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve just had a minor accident.”

“Damn it, man. Why didn’t you say so? Where are you?” He heard a rustling at the other end. Luke was probably gathering up his gear.

“Base of Lodgepole Falls. Hang on for the coordinates.” Marc pulled the phone away from his face and looked at the screen. He read off his GPS location to Luke. “Got it?”

“I know exactly where you are. I’ll be there in forty tops, depending on road conditions. Top-rope?”

“No top rope.”

“Damn, Marc. What were you thinking?”

Problem was he wasn’t thinking very clearly lately. But he didn’t need his former SAR partner giving him a lecture right now. He knew he’d fucked up. “Hey, just take your time busting my ass. I’ll hang around until you get here.” He looked up at the falls he hadn’t been able to conquer today.

“Any injuries?”

“Sore rib, tight chest, but I don’t think there’s a pneumo.”

“I’m on my way.”

* * *

“What happened? Where’s Marc?”

Angelina had overheard enough of the conversation to know Luke was talking with Marc—and that he was in some kind of trouble.

“Don’t worry about a thing, darlin’.” Luke grabbed his sheepskin jacket and Stetson on his way to the door. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Luke, stop! Is he okay?”

Luke twisted the doorknob and opened the door, tossing back over his shoulder, “Pride’s hurt worse than anything. He slipped on some ice. He just needs a little help getting up again…or maybe down.”

Angelina knew from the way he’d reacted on the phone it was more serious than he was letting on. Was Marc lying on the cold ground with a broken ankle or leg or something? What did Luke mean by getting him down? Maybe he’d been climbing and was hurt on a ledge or something. Her imagination ran away from her like his Porsche hurtling around the mountain curves.

She didn’t want to remain calm. Damn it, she wanted to make sure Marc was okay.

“I’m going with you.” She removed her chef’s apron and tossed it on a dining-room chair as she ran across the room, grabbing her coat off the hook by the door where she’d hung it this morning after helping Luke clean stalls.

Luke closed the door again and took the coat from her hands. His face grew serious. “Angel, you’re not going with me. Call it a macho guy thing, but his ego isn’t going to want to have you seeing him in the predicament he’s put himself into. If you want to run over and play nursemaid to him later, I’ll take you to him myself. But not until he’s back on solid footing. ’Til then, you’re staying here to keep working on that fabulous supper I smell cooking. I’m going to be hungry when I get back. Maybe I can even talk the big lug into joining us.”

She blinked away the tears of frustration, clenching her fists to keep from yanking her coat away and following him, if need be, to wherever Marc was waiting.

But Marc needed help, might even be hurt. Clearly, Luke wasn’t going to back down. She yanked the coat away from him and returned it to the hook.

“Hurry! Go take care of him.” If she couldn’t be the one, she wanted someone he trusted to be there for him.

Luke reached out and stroked her cheek. “You know I will, baby girl. He’s gonna be all right. This might just be the attitude adjustment he needs. I’ll let him know how badly you wanted to come with me. How much you care.”

“Wait!” Angelina rushed into the kitchen to bag some biscotti she’d baked last night and ran back into the living room. “Here. Take him these.”

Luke added the bag to his pack. With a peck on the cheek, he reopened the door to a blast of cold air and slammed it resoundingly. He was gone.

Anxiety took a firm hold of her. She could do nothing but wait.

And make cannoli—Marc’s favorite. She returned to the kitchen, grabbing her apron on the way, and started pulling out the ingredients from the fridge and pantry. Luke’s kitchen was much better stocked now than it had been when she’d arrived.

The howling of the wind picked up outside, and she tried to tune it out by singing some of Papa’s favorite Dean Martin classics. When she heard the howl of a wolf or coyote in the distance, she dropped the spoon and looked out at the pitch-black night. Her man was out there at the mercy of whatever might happen across his path.

“Please, Luke, hurry. He needs you.”

* * *

The phone disconnected, and Marc closed his eyes. Images of Angelina in the French maid’s uniform he’d asked Adam to buy for her last October invaded his mind for some reason. Maybe it was Luke’s mention of her being in the kitchen cooking. A vision of her chained to the stove in their kitchen back in Denver sent his cock to throbbing, which only caused his chest to ache even worse.

He really had been an ass where Angelina was concerned. She’d done nothing but try to help him face the truth and come to terms with the past. In return, he’d done nothing but run—from both her and the past. In the bargain, he’d shut her out.

He was going to lose her forever if he didn’t do something about it. About her.

But could he stop running?
Merda,
he’d been running since he joined the Navy. Maybe even before that—when he’d found Gino in bed with Melissa. He’d always managed to keep the drama and emotion around him at least an arm’s length away, but since Angelina had left, he’d been fucking miserable. Even if she wanted him to deal with things he’d rather run from, his whole world had collapsed when she was no longer in it. He couldn’t eat, sleep, or work.