Sweet Affliction [Sweet Awakenings 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) (8 page)

“Did I hurt you?”

God help him. She looked so vulnerable. After all he’d said to her, after all she’d done to take care of him, and she was worried about him. He may not have died and gone to heaven, but she was the closest thing to a saint he’d ever come in contact with.

“No. I’m fine.”

She looked to him while shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have behaved that way. I’m not a violent person. It’s just…” She took a deep breath and looked around the room before continuing, “we only just arrived, and the past three days have been so crazy.”

He hadn’t stopped to think what this whole ordeal had been like for her before he blew up at her. He would have never come at her like he did if he knew her father was sick. He wanted to explore why any of this mattered to him. Truthfully it wasn’t his style to feel sympathy. Any time there was a job to do, he went in, got it done with no complications, and left. The irony that he was almost killed just days ago and one of his very best friends actually was and he was holed up somewhere, someplace with a complete stranger that was hurting and all he could think of was easing some of her hurt, escaped him.

“AJ.” He reached a hand up and nudged her chin back up to meet his gaze. “I am so sorry. My mother died just a few months ago. I know how hard it is to lose a parent.”

He watched while she visibly tensed under the subject of her father’s death. She reached over and grabbed the bowl and a spoon from the tray.

“You should eat this before it gets cold.”

Adjusting his pillows behind his back, he sat up and took the bowl from her hands. The second the meat smell hit his nostrils he remembered how hungry he was. He took a spoonful and slurped it in his mouth. Damn but it was good. Better than any steak he’d ever had. He knew that was bullshit, but after not eating for days, chicken broth was like a goddamned delicacy.

Two more spoonfuls, and he was impatient. He wanted the entire warm concoction of yellowish water to coat his starving stomach. He placed the spoon on the tray and brought the bowl to his mouth, drinking like he was a kid watching Saturday-morning cartoons while slurping down the last of his Fruit Loop-flavored milk.

“You shouldn’t drink that so fast,” she insisted.

By the time she tried to stop him he was already setting the bowl beside the spoon he discarded just moments before. He wiped his mouth and grabbed the water bottle, quickly disposing of the cap as he gulped nearly all the contents down in seconds.

He tried his best not to laugh at her expression. “What? I was hungry.”

“I guess so. You’re going to have to take it easy. I don’t want you getting sick again.”

He was afraid to ask the question, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Did you clean me up?”

She raised her brows and gave him a bemused look. “Afraid so.”

Mortification. That was the only word to describe it. Getting shot and having a pretty little lady take care of him wasn’t that big of a slap to his ego. He rather liked the idea. Puking in front of her and having her cleanup said puke though, that made him feel like a child and brought him to an all new low.

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know I was recovering from a bullet wound, but still. That’s nasty. You’re a saint.”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “No, I’m not. The first day you were here I fought my father like crazy to turn you in. I didn’t want you here.”

Turn him in? For what?
He thought of asking her questions, but she was already talking again.

“There’s more. Things I didn’t get a chance to tell you. I beg you to please try and understand. He’s my father, and I swear to you everything I told you about him being a good and kind man was true, it’s just…”

He didn’t know why he felt the need to reassure her, but he reached over and gently rubbed his fingers on her knuckles, which were nervously clutching onto the sheet. “I know. He saved my life, remember?”

The fear in her eyes was driving him mad. For some reason he wanted her to trust him.

“I just don’t know if we did the right thing. See, my dad was a marine once. When he was younger. Before I was born. He fought in Vietnam. I’d seen pictures of him in his uniform, but he never talked much about it. Everyone who knew him just assumed he didn’t want to, so the issue was never forced. When he saw that man was standing over you with a gun, I saw something in him I don’t think I ever have. It was like something in him clicked.”

She turned to him then. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she recalled the events to him.

“Whoever it was, he wanted to kill you. Not like hold a gun to you and shoot you because he had to or was supposed to, but because he wanted to. As my father and I stood in the small cluster of palm trees, we could hear him saying something about waiting too long and you were finally getting what you deserved.”

The news of that surprised him, and he decided to file it away for later rather than interrupt her. Unless she spoke Spanish, he could only assume the man spoke in English. He’d have to remember to clarify that later.

“That’s when my dad told me to stay put. I pleaded with him to not leave me. He was so weak, so frail. How he even ran toward the man, let alone knocked him down, still amazes me. Anyway, he told me something wasn’t right. I tried to argue with him, but he held up his hand to silence my mouth and said something about never leaving a man behind. It was strange. I’d heard the phrase before, but I never saw such conviction in my father’s eyes. He was always so tender and loving, but in that moment he looked like someone I didn’t recognize.”

For some reason, unbeknownst to him, he needed to be closer to her. He could feel her anguish over her father’s illness in every word she spoke about him. He scooted his body a little closer to her despite the ache in his side.

Completely covering her hand with his, he asked, “Will you go on, please?” He said it so damn politely and caringly he wondered if he was under the influence of a heavy medication.

She nodded. “Unbelievably, he sprang into action. It’s the only way I can think of to explain it. My dad, who was walking along side me and holding my hand just minutes before as I worried whether he would be too tired to make the short trip back to the house, suddenly ran toward the man, knocked him down, wrestled with the gun and…”

She stopped, and he felt her hand tense under his. “It’s okay.”

“It went off. I was so scared. I ran to them while screaming. He stood up and tried to catch me before I saw. The man’s face was…gone.” She winced as she said it.

“Somehow my dad had fought with enough strength to make sure the bullet not only didn’t hit you, but it didn’t hit him either. Once it was aimed at the man my father pulled the trigger. He was nearly unrecognizable, as a man I mean. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. My dad was covered in blood, and I searched him for signs of injury, but he looked into my eyes and calmed me before he tended to you.”

The story she was telling was unbelievable. Not in the sense that he thought she was lying, but clearly the man must have been riding on pure adrenaline.

“It was when he saw your tattoo. He started shouting for me to check the man’s pockets as he searched yours. He found your ID and read the name aloud before sliding it in one of the dead man’s pockets.”

No matter how much he tried to stop himself from interrupting her, it was fruitless. As a moment of “what the fuck” consumed him he asked, “What the hell did he do that for?”

Her tension turned to fear again. He was starting to be able to read her better and hated that his question scared her. “Please? AJ, I need to know what’s going on.”

“He wanted them to think the man was you. That you were dead.”

His eyes closed tightly shut, and he ground his teeth together in an effort to keep from screaming. Some of the loose ends were starting to make sense. That was why he wasn’t taken to a hospital. That was the reason. As far as the United States Navy knew, he was dead.

“Please let me explain.” Her words were distraught.

He wondered what the fuck kind of explanation she could come up with that would even come close to justifying faking his death, but none came to mind. He was already classified as dead, so listening to her really couldn’t hurt too much.

“Okay,” he answered, although anger raged within him.

“He started ranting. He was going on about a sixth sense and how when he’d stare through the scope of his rifle the little hairs on the back of his neck would stand up when something wasn’t right and how he felt that again. None of it made sense. I was confused. My father was covered in blood and so weak, yet he was barking orders at me, telling me to brush the trail of blood you’d left away with my feet, covering it with the sand. It was almost like something in him snapped. All I wanted to do was get him back here and resting.”

She looked deep into his eyes then, truly staring at him with everything she had. He could see just how confused she really was.

“Don’t you see, Commander Slater? My dad is dying. He has no strength and can barely handle a short walk in the evenings, yet when he saw you it was as if someone had injected him with superhero powers. He was strong like he used to be, only stronger than I’d ever known him to be. And for some reason when he told me that I needed to trust him, that no one could know you were alive…” She shrugged. “I trusted him. He’s my dad.”

Nick thought before he chose to respond. Debating on the right thing to say, he kept his hand on hers. For all intents and purposes, her story was insane. Every normal person in the world would hear that story and roll their eyes in an exaggerated manner, writing the whole thing off to utter and complete bullshit.

Something she said was nagging at him though. Her father was a marine. Granted, he was a navy man, but marines were not candy asses. Sure they liked to poke jabs at the other branch of military and vice versa, but he’d served with many marines over the years and knew damn well that some of the finest men the military had to offer were from the corps.

That mixed with her father’s description of hairs rising on the back of his neck while he searched through his scope. He knew that feeling all too well, and it had saved his ass more than once. Several times actually. He couldn’t be sure, but based on the little information he had it seemed more than probable that her dad was a marine corps sniper. Knowing he served in Vietnam as well only heightened his belief that maybe her dad knew exactly what the hell he was doing. He’d heard stories of some of the marine snipers from Vietnam. Some of those stories were legendary. Their kill numbers were high, and very few of them ever made a mistake.

The idea that he was dead, at least in the official capacity, pissed him off. He couldn’t ignore all that her father had done though. Those things all played an important role in him deciding how he was going to handle this. As a matter of fact, something told him that if her father believed it was best everyone thought he was dead, then dead he should be.

“I understand, AJ.”

Surprise washed over her. “You do?”

He wanted to do something to erase the unease he saw in her. Motioning toward his bandages and his body, he answered, “Do I have a choice?”

She looked at him, confused. He sucked at being aloof. It wasn’t his thing.

“Come on. Your dad tackles someone hell-bent on killing me, struggles with a gun, shoots the man who wants to murder me, removes a bullet from my body, stitches me up, and from what I can remember gave me medicine and convinced his very sweet but incredibly tenacious daughter to not turn me in…I’d say it’s kind of a no brainer. Your dad saved my life in more ways than one. I would be a jackass not to understand.”

Thankfully he watched as relief put some color back into her cheeks.

“Would you like to meet him?”

He smiled at her and gently brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “I would like that very much as a matter of fact.”

“Can you walk? I can get you some clothes. They’re my dad’s and will probably be tight on you, but at least you won’t be naked.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and lifted the sheet that covered the lower half of his body. For some reason he hadn’t thought to look before now, but sure as shit, he was butt naked. A smirk was itching to show itself as he looked at her and caught sight of a blush filling her cheeks. Clearly she had blurted it out and not thought about it before she said anything. Oh, how he could’ve teased her about it, but that wouldn’t be appropriate right now. Instead he decided to spare her any embarrassment and act as though she said nothing.

“That would be great. Thank you.”

“Okay, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Nick watched as she hurried from the room. She was a pretty little thing, long brown hair to match her deep chocolate brown eyes. The eyes that he wished didn’t hold so much anxiety.

Deciding he didn’t want to be a pussy in front of her when she returned with his things, he swung his legs to the side and placed both feet firmly on the floor beside the bed. Being in bed for three days had done no good to his body. It relented against him in that moment as his legs shook with the pressure he placed on them.

Standing proved to be harder than he thought. Sweated beaded on his brow, and he decided to sit and wait for her to return. He didn’t want to use all his strength until he absolutely had to. He bunched the sheet around his waist and waited.