The Way You Are (18 page)

Chapter 40

Ruby had been told to sit on the couch while the paramedics worked on Garrett and her brother. No matter how tightly she wrapped the afghan around her shoulders, her body continued to tremble from fear and nerves.

The police had asked her for a statement, and she kept pushing it off, trying to organize her thoughts.

As they carted Garrett away, a lone officer came in. Standing at six foot and built like a semi, he gazed at her with kind blue eyes and winked. “Are you okay, miss?”

“Yes, I-I’m fine.”

He nodded and took her hand. “This must be very frightening for you,” he murmured. “I’m here at your disposal.”

He slipped something into her palm, and she grabbed it. He smiled at her again, and walked down the hall. It was a piece of paper, and before opening it, she looked around to make sure she sat alone.

I’m with Jo
e
.

She balled up the paper and jammed it into her pocket, a surge of relief washing through her.

He came back out to the living room. “I understand you haven’t given a statement, Ms. McDermott. Is that true?”

She nodded. “No, I haven’t given a statement.”

He sat down on the opposite end of the couch and took out a pad of paper and a pen. “Please, tell me what happened.”

Glancing around, she whispered, “The truth, or what I’m going to tell the police?”

“I need the full truth,” the officer said, leaning forward. “After I have the sequence of events, I’ll doctor up the statement. Based on the smell in that room, my guess is there was some shifting going on here.”

She nodded.

“No one needs to know about that. We won’t even mention it.”

With a sigh of relief, she took a deep breath and began talking.

Chapter 41

Beeping. Incessant beeping that didn’t stop.

How could anyone get any sleep with that shit going on?

He opened his eyes and glanced around the room. A television played on low in front of him. Machines—the bastards responsible for the noise—continued their job to the right. To his left, Thomas sat, reading a magazine.

“Hey,” Garrett whispered.

Thomas gazed up at him and pulled a phone from his pocket. “He’s awake,” he said, and hung up.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Thomas.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Garrett grinned, feeling fairly loopy. “Don’t you want to kiss me first?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and looked back at the magazine.

He guessed that was a definitive no.

His head swam, and he lulled back to sleep.

It could have been hours, minutes, or days, but Joe’s voice brought him out of his reverie.

“I understand you think it’s a good idea to keep him here, doctor. However, as his personal physician, I can assure you he’ll be in good hands.”

Garrett glanced over at him and chuckled at the white coat he wore and the stethoscope draped over his shoulders. Joe pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, glaring at the other doctor as if he dared the man to argue with him.

“He has taken a bullet to the shoulder, Doctor Smith.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’m quite aware of that. I’ll be discharging him immediately. Please prepare all the proper paperwork.”

“Well, you know that you’ll be responsible for him.”

“Of course I know that. I just said it,” Joe snapped.

The doctor glanced at Garrett, Thomas, and Joe one last time, shook his head, and left the room.

Twenty minutes later, Garrett sat in a wheelchair being pushed down the hall. Whatever drugs they had him on made him feel like he rode a rollercoaster, and he couldn’t help but laugh as they took a turn and it seemed he experienced high g-forces.

“What in the world do they have you on?” Thomas murmured as he pushing him.

As they rounded the last corner, he noticed Joe arguing with the same doctor again. He gave the doctor a wave, and Joe met them at the sliding glass door. A burst of fresh, spring air assaulted him as Thomas wheeled him up the van a few feet away.

The back door slid open, and the ramp came down.

“Put him in the front, Thomas,” Joe said, wheeling himself up the ramp.

The van sped out of the hospital driveway, and after a few short turns, hit the freeway.

“Where’re we going?” Garrett asked, finding it hard to form the words.

“To safety,” Thomas said. “Just make sure you don’t puke in the van. Please.”

His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he passed out as he tried to remember how he’d ended up in the hospital to begin with.

Chapter 42

He came to consciousness again, his shoulder throbbing. He opened his eyes and looked around.

The room, colored in rich, forest greens, had sunlight streaming through the large-paned windows. It seemed to be another beautiful day in … where was he again?

Cursing, he looked down at his shoulder. A large white bandage wrapped around it and part of his torso. As he tried to move it, the events leading up to his injury came flooding back.

Ruby.

After they’d made slow love, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d pulled on his sweats, snuck out of the room, and taken refuge on the small balcony. The shadow of the trees had danced in the moonlight, providing an almost hypnotic movement. He’d sat deep in thought, thinking about his life without Ruby.

The more he’d considered it, the more he’d realized there wasn’t anywhere for them to go.

If they did decide to continue on with the relationship, he couldn’t become a productive, working member of society. He ran from the government he’d given his soul to, and they wouldn’t have any trouble putting a few bullets through his brain if they caught him. Sure, Ruby had money, but he wasn’t the type to sit around and let his significant other support him.

So, say he kept working for Joe, which he really wanted to do. He could be gone for days, or even weeks, and he didn’t think Ruby would be happy with that arrangement. Besides, what would her family think of her being with an ex-Marine who could turn into a bear, and who the government also wanted?

They just weren’t a good match.

As he’d sat there trying to work the situation in his mind to both their benefits, the assailant must have snuck in. Garrett only knew they’d had an intruder because of the shot.

Fear had coiled in his gut, but he’d kept his wits about him as he’d quietly opened the sliding glass door. He had tucked away his gun in his duffle bag, and wouldn’t be able to get to it as it seemed the mêlée was taking place in the bedroom.

Get up. Let’s go.

Those four words had sent him into a rage like he’d never experienced. Ruby wouldn’t be going anywhere with anyone, not until his heart no longer beat in his chest.

Without thinking, he’d lunged into the room and plowed into the kidnapper. Lights had flashed behind his lids and blood had roared in his ears as he’d pummeled him. When the shot had rang out, he’d felt a sting in his shoulder, but the adrenaline had kept most of the pain at bay.

Garrett! You’re going to kill him!
Ruby had shouted, and he’d known he should stop hitting the attacker, but his rage ran too thick and too deep.

As he’d raised his fist again, suddenly Ruby had appeared in front of him, throwing herself over his target. Only then could he stop, and he’d stepped off the bed.

His body had trembled, the beast inside him fighting to get loose as the pain in his shoulder had registered. Garrett had succumbed to the feeling and shifted.

His anger still off the charts, he’d been furious to see Ruby try to leave the room. Of course he’d never hurt her, but he couldn’t help her if she left the apartment. She needed to stay with him.

Trying to bully Ruby had only made her more upset, and he’d found the longer she talked to him, the calmer he became. He had no recollection of what had been said, but her voice had soothed his fury, and eventually, he’d calmed, becoming human again.

He didn’t remember much after that.

The door cracked open and Thomas stepped in. “Feeling any better?”

He nodded.

“They had you on some major painkillers, Garrett. We brought the dose down a bit.”

He said nothing, wondering if Ruby was safe.

“I’ll get Joe for you,” Thomas said, leaving the room.

A few moments later, Joe wheeled himself in and looked over Garrett with an assessing gaze, as if he could tell Garrett’s medical condition.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been shot in the shoulder.”

Joe grinned. “Well, at least you aren’t asking me if I want to kiss you, so I believe we’re making progress in the right direction.”

Garrett wrinkled his forehead, having no idea what Joe referred to, and not certain he needed to be aware of that knowledge.

Joe peered at him over his glasses.

“Where’s Ruby?” he asked, his throat dry.

“She’s home safe with her parents.”

“What about the kidnapper?”

“Did you know it was her brother?”

Shock rolled through him as he tried to remember if he’d been aware of that before, and he thought he remembered Ruby saying something like that. “Really?”

“Yes. He paid the first set of kidnappers a thousand dollars to grab her, which, as we know, was a failure. Once he found out where Ruby was in Arizona, he sent some other people up there.”

“How did he find the house?” He had been certain Ruby hadn’t given her family the address when she’d talked to them.

“Well, apparently, Ruby’s description of the house proved enough. Google Maps is a very powerful tool for finding things. A little time and effort, and I’m sure it was quite easy.”

Garrett shut his eyes. He wasn’t up on all the technology available, but he should have thought of that as Ruby described the house to her family during that fateful phone call.

“You called it, Garrett. Amateur hour, indeed.”

“So, where is he?” he asked, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Ruby’s brother was responsible for the whole mess.

“Well, after all was said and done, it appears he had quite a drug problem and blew most of his money on that, along with a few bad business dealings. He tried to kidnap Ruby so their father would pay the ransom. Ruby’s father told me he’s sent his son to a rehab facility in Colorado.”

“Her brother was behind this all along?” he asked again, not able to believe it.

Joe nodded.

Wow. That had to be some strong addiction for him to want to kidnap his own sister. Hell, he’d almost shot her. The guy obviously hadn’t been anywhere close to being in his right mind.

“Garrett, I’ve read the report on what happened in Ruby’s apartment. You two had become lovers, hadn’t you?”

He thought about lying, but decided against it. In the time he’d known Joe, he had realized the man never asked a question he didn’t already know the answer to. He had a feeling trouble would descend when he admitting the truth. He wasn’t supposed to sleep with the clientele. “Yeah, we were.”

Joe sighed, pulled off his glasses, and scrubbed the lens with the hem of his shirt. “And what are your plans now?”

“Well, we go our separate ways. I don’t belong in her world, and she sure as hell doesn’t belong in mine. We come from two different places, Joe.”

“Does that really matter?”

“Well, yeah, it does.” He sat up in bed. “I want the fuckers responsible for what happened to my unit. I want Group Nine. I’m a man with a mission, Joe. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t avenge the members of my platoon.”

Joe slipped on his glasses and stared out the window for a moment.

Finally, he gazed back at Garrett.

“I haven’t been very forthcoming to you or any of my employees on my history.”

That could very well be the understatement of the year. Garrett had a tough time trusting those that hid their lives from others, but he’d trusted Joe because there hadn’t been another option for him. He could have either spent the rest of his life in the shitty apartment being monitored, or he could’ve allowed Joe to take him under his wing of protection and actually do something with his life. If he’d chosen option A, he most likely would have committed suicide at some point. It hadn’t been a way to live. Either that, or he would have escaped to the mountains of Seattle and lived as a bear, but then he had to worry about being killed there as well by some damn hunter.

Yeah, Joe had been his only option. He decided to remain silent and let the man talk.

“Garrett, I was once in your shoes. Your unit isn’t the only governmental experiment that has taken place, and it won’t be the last.”

His throat tightened in anger at Joe’s words.

“It was about seven years ago. My platoon was scheduled for our annual check-ups, and we were told some of us were due for vaccines. Over the course of a few days, they called us in one by one, and I began to notice difference in those who were called in first. They became quite ill, and I watched one of them die. The only thing they’d all shared was the visit to the doctor.”

Joe turned his gaze out the window. “I had become friendly with one of the nurses on base, and I asked her about it. She’d been very withdrawn since the procedures had begun. We went out to dinner, and she told me everything. They had been shooting my unit with different diseases: the flu, polio, chicken pox … things like that.”

Almost afraid to move because he didn’t want to break Joe’s train of thought, Garrett tried to not even breathe too heavily.

“I lost my two best friends to that experiment. Joel Boesel and Tim Richards. I named the horses in Arizona after them.”

The shock of recognition traveled through Garrett as he remembered the horses—the black one, Boesel, and the white horse, Richards.

“I decided I wasn’t going to be a part of the experiment, and she decided she wouldn’t administer the shots any longer. Together, we thought it best to go A.W.O.L. It didn’t take them long to find us.”

Joe waved his hand in front of his face, as if to clear the air from an acrid smell. “What happened after that put me in this chair and disfigured the woman I loved. We went underground and I became obsessed with my mission of dismantling this part of the government that conducted these experiments, but I knew I couldn’t do it without cash. I borrowed money from my uncle who does quite well and I started my protection agency, using my uncle’s ties to corporations to spread the word. I hired some of my old unit, and my business flourished. The wealthy and those with power have much to hide from, many problems that need to be dealt with whether they bring them on themselves or if they are a victim of circumstance. Within eighteen months, I was able to pay back my uncle, expand my business, and I continued my mission to find others like me who had given their lives and souls to the government and have been stabbed in the back, both literally and figuratively.”

Joe sighed and rubbed his eyes. “In my determination, I lost the love of my life, Garrett. The nurse. Ella was her name. She became my second, and even third, priority.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s still a part of my organization, but mainly because she has no other choice. She helps me with medical issues and is self-taught in computer hacking. She’s an amazingly smart woman.”

He got the feeling he knew where this conversation was going to lead, but he had to be sure. “And what does any of this have to do with me?”

“Garrett, I’m not a fool. While you were in the hospital, you screamed for Ruby, over and over. That was one reason they had to sedate you so heavily, and we knew we had to get you out of there. You made quite a fuss.”

“Look, Ruby and I had a good time. Once I’m healed up, I’ll be ready to get back to—”

“Garrett, have you ever been in love?”

He swallowed hard and thought about all the women he’d been with. Love hadn’t even been on the radar. He’d never stuck around long enough to let any serious relationship develop, and he shook his head.

“I’m not saying you are now, either, Garrett. But Ruby is obviously special to you. The man I sent to her apartment after you were shot took her statement, so I know that she knows everything about you, and accepts you for the way you are, bear tendencies and all. Don’t do what I did, Garrett. Don’t let revenge and hatred cloud your soul and keep you from true happiness.”

With that, Joe left the room, allowing Garrett to stew in his own thoughts.

The idea of never seeing Ruby again made him hurt worse than the bullet hole in his shoulder.

However, could he let go of the hate he’d been nurturing for so long and allow himself to be happy? He had for a while in Arizona, but could he put it aside permanently?