When a Man Loves a Weapon (44 page)

“He didn’t tell you everything.”

“It doesn’t matter, Lori Ann,” Cam said. “Leave her alone, she’s had a rough night.”

Bobbie Faye narrowed her gaze at Cam. “Yeah, like that’s gonna work.” Then she focused back on Lori Ann. “And?”

Cam hobbled closer, slowly lowering himself to a coffee table in front of Bobbie Faye as Lori Ann’s anguished expression got as deep as the sea.

“Bobbie Faye,” Cam said, “let this one go. I’m asking you, please.”

Exhaustion and despair creased his face. Bobbie Faye turned from him to Lori Ann, and her heart lurched. What weren’t they telling her? Then she looked back at Cam, and the fatigue of his arms, his shoulders, his eyes begging her to let it go. There was so much she could not give him, but she could give him this privacy. She nodded.

“Cam stopped me from driving drunk,” Lori Ann blurted out. Bobbie Faye was about to toss off a
duh
, when her sister continued, “with Stacey in the car with me.”

Bobbie Faye went completely cold. The police report had said Lori Ann was alone. That Cam had seen her swerving and had pulled her over.

“She was in the car with me,” Lori Ann said, wiping her eyes with her other hand, never letting go of Bobbie Faye’s, “and I was flying. Really flying—I don’t know how fast I was going.”

“Ninety-seven,” Cam said when Bobbie Faye looked at him.

“The ticket didn’t say anything about ninety-fucking-
seven
,” Bobbie Faye said.

“Or about Stacey being in the car,” Lori Ann reminded her. “I don’t know how I missed the eighteen-wheeler, but I did. If Cam hadn’t stopped me, I’d have probably flattened the car before the night was over. I was still drinking.”

In the car. She’d been drinking
in
the car. With Stacey. And speeding. Bobbie Faye held Cam’s gaze and started understanding a lot more. He had to have gotten Stacey out of that car and off that site—she’d
thought
it was odd that Stacey had been spending the night with his mom that night because she could have sworn that Lori Ann had said no to the offer. But Stacey had turned up there and Bobbie Faye had assumed Lori Ann had changed her mind.

Which meant Cam had arranged it, all from the side of the road.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him.
Oh, how different their lives would have been.

“I asked him not to,” Lori Ann said. “I begged him, Bobbie Faye. I knew I’d lose Stacey. For good. And I deserved it, but I wanted to get cleaned up. I wanted a chance, and I knew I’d lose her.”

“But
you
didn’t tell me,” she said again, pinning Cam with a glare. “As long as we’ve known each other, you knew that wasn’t the sort of thing you should keep from me.”

“I knew how you’d react,” he said. “Which was astonishingly close to how you
did
react.”

Because she’d believed he’d arrested her sister for spite
. To prove that he, as the big bad cop, knew best. That his way was the only way anything could be done. She glared at him, and his glare softened into one of deep regret.

“I promised her, Bobbie Faye. I couldn’t go back on that.”

She turned to Lori Ann, who was frowning at the two of them. “So why are you telling me now?” She was pretty sure she knew, though.

“Because y’all broke up because of me, and you should know . . . you should know what a coward I was and that I begged him not to tell you. I wanted you to know so you could forgive him. And maybe have a chance together.”

Bobbie Faye closed her eyes, breathing evenly, thinking carefully, remembering all of the things they’d said to each other over the year after that arrest. She wasn’t entirely sure how long they sat like that, the three of them in the waiting room, but she knew, suddenly, that Trevor was at the entrance. It wasn’t just Lori Ann’s intake of breath or Cam’s subtle stiffening, but the way her body hummed, reaching out for him. Connecting.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, leaning there against the entrance archway, waiting for her. Patient. Determined, but patient. There was a world of promise in a man like that, a man who wouldn’t quit on them. On her. Who wouldn’t let disagreements stop him.

She looked back at Cam, sitting across from her, bitter ache etched into his face. She wanted to reassure him, somehow, but she couldn’t. Because the simple fact was, both men had lied to her.

Or, rather, omitted the truth.

Trevor, because he was trying to make sure she had the opportunity to be herself—her true self—for them to be together, and Cam because he was afraid of that same true self. And maybe it wasn’t even that simple but her heart understood it.

More than that, she realized, she’d been able to fight with Cam and walk away. She’d already been able to imagine a life without Cam.

She couldn’t imagine a life without Trevor. Didn’t want to ever contemplate it, couldn’t breathe with even the flicker of the possibility. She met her fiancé’s gaze and wondered if he knew. She held her heart there for him to see and he nodded. Warmth from his eyes, warmth from his heart, wrapped themselves around her and he hadn’t even moved an inch from where he leaned against the doorframe. She wasn’t quite sure how he managed that.

She turned to Lori Ann, at the apprehension sparking off her as Bobbie Faye reached for her little sister, hugging her. “No, kiddo, we did not break up because of you. We broke up because of us, so don’t take that on yourself.”

She cocked her head and appraised her sister. Really
looked
at her. Lori Ann looked good. Healthy. A little heartsick right then, but good.

“I’m proud of you,” she told her and Lori Ann’s eyes widened when she understood what Bobbie Faye had said, and she beamed as Cam stood up on his crutches.

Bobbie Faye stood, too, putting a hand on his arm to stop him from leaving. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you for stopping Lori Ann that night.” When he gave her an
are you kidding me
? look, she said, “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ But thank you.”

He held her gaze a long, long moment, his own expression becoming unreadable, and she knew he was hurting in a way she couldn’t reach. Shouldn’t reach. Because she was only making it worse.

Then she looked over to Trevor, who was still waiting. “I’m ready to go home now,” she told him, and she saw the understanding in his eyes, saw him grasp what she was telling him, though his expression remained quiet, calm.

“Bobbie Faye,” Lori Ann said, confused, “your house blew up. Where’s home?”

She hadn’t taken her eyes off her fiancé, and when she said, “Doesn’t matter,” he nodded.

Trevor held her gaze and she knew he understood she was drawing that line. That he deserved that, he deserved her thinking of
him
, first.

Cam turned to leave and paused. He looked at Trevor, who met his gaze.

“I’m not stopping,” he said.

“Neither am I.”

“You wouldn’t deserve her if you did.”

Trevor nodded and Cam left, easing out on his crutches and then disappeared down the hospital hallway.

Marcel gathered up Lori Ann and Stacey and after they left, Trevor took Bobbie Faye’s hand and they walked toward a back exit.

“Where are Riles and Nina?”

“Still being debriefed.”

She and Nina had a lot to talk about. A lot of betrayal, a lot of years of double meanings to layers and layers of meanings and it made Bobbie Faye’s head spin just trying to figure out the webbed tangles of their friendship.

She and Trevor moved together in synch through the hospital hallway, hand in hand, almost waltzing as they spun and dodged crash carts and EKG machines, trolleys of bandages and busy patients complaining loudly on their cell phones.

“Is Riles still griping that he didn’t get to shoot me?”

“That was never going to happen.”

“It was a part of the plan.” He cut her a look like she was delusional. “Well, it was. If I couldn’t get Sean to come out of that helicopter, Riles was going to shoot me—hopefully not something major—and I’d fall and then Sean or his men would—oh, hush,” she said as he steadily cursed under his breath. “It could’ve worked. Riles seemed pretty bummed about me veering from the plan.”

“There was no way on this planet I was letting anyone shoot at you. I’d have to be dead first. And even then, Riles would know to pull you out of any situation.”

“You know Riles and I don’t exactly get along, right?”

He grinned, and twirled her so that she was out of the way of a young intern barreling down the hall, her nose in a chart. “Actually, you get along with Riles better than most people. Most people try to kill him by the second day.”

“Geez,
now
you tell me. I feel like I missed an opportunity here.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’ll be more. He’s going to be my best man.”

“Now that’s just peachy. Does Riles have the same wedding handbook I have? Because in the
official
‘don’t torture the bride’ wedding handbook, the best man is not supposed to kidnap the groom to ‘save him’—”

“He is
not
going to kidnap me.”

“Or put one of those ‘exploding altars’ in the church—”

“He is not going to put in an exploding altar.”

“Or have a team of psychiatrists standing by—”

“He is
not
. . .” he tucked her into him and kissed her as he danced her through automatic doors that swooshed open, “going to do
anything
to stop this wedding.”

“Hey, he made a list, is all I’m saying.”

“He made a list?”

“Color-coded.” Then when Trevor arched an eyebrow, she said, “With footnotes. There may have even been pie charts.”

“I’ll have a talk with him. He’ll behave.” They passed the nurses’ station, walking through a bank of patient rooms. “Or I’ll sic Nina on him,” he mused.

“He’s afraid of Nina?”

“Most everyone in the black ops world is afraid of Nina, though she’s only known by a code name.”

“Really?”
Huh
. Now
that
could be handy.

“Most people don’t ever get the chance to see her like you do. It’s one of the reasons she needs you so much.”

She felt the balm of that statement wash over her, a gift so simple, so needed, that she had to look down at the floor. Her vision blurred and she held onto his hand so he could guide her around carts and wheelchairs and random equipment lining the hospital corridor.

Then a thought suddenly grabbed her. “Hey, wait—why aren’t you still there being debriefed?”

“Well, technically, I no longer work for the FBI. They’re talking to my lawyers.”

She stopped, her heart plummeting so quickly it hit her toes and bounced. “What?”

He looked around them, saw an empty patient room and pulled her inside, closing the door with a soft shush, and then he tugged the privacy curtain across the little metal window embedded in the door. Trevor cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking along her cheeks, lingering on her lips. “I was going to tell you when we got somewhere private.” He searched her eyes for anger, but she knew he saw, instead, her shock and concern. “It’s okay. Someone has to be the fall guy for that disaster.”

“What?” she asked again, barely coherent.

“It was a mess, the botched undercover sting, losing
Alex—who, if he has any sense at all, is halfway around the world right now.” His hands went to her shoulders, his fingers playing in her hair, and he sighed. “And killing everyone . . .” His gaze drifted far away, past the hallway, past the buildings, and she clutched at his waist. He came back to her then. “It wasn’t the right thing to do. Nor was moving the bodies. And technically, as far as anyone knows, we were airlifting those guys out for immediate medical attention, so we, again, technically, did not destroy a crime scene. But officially, someone has to scream, and officially, someone has to take the hit.”

“But it doesn’t have to be you!”

“Yes, it does, Sundance. It was my family they were after.” He meant her. She was it. “And don’t you dare feel responsible.”

“Yeah,” she interrupted him, “in a world of Top Ten Bullshit Things to Say, that just hit number one.”

“This is on me,” he said, slapping a palm into his chest. “
Me
. I could’ve wounded them instead of taking them out, and I knew it. But I wasn’t giving MacGreggor another chance at hurting you or anyone else. I’d do it all over again.”

They regarded each other and she said, very quietly, “Trevor, nothing, ever, is
just
on you.
Not ever again
. We’re a team.”

And she saw how hard that hit him, how much he needed her, needed to hear that. His eyes softened and he cupped her chin, his thumb running over her lips, unable for a moment to speak.

“What will happen?”

“Lots of posturing. It’ll get ugly. But I can handle it.”

“
We
.”

“
We
can handle it. And the thing with my mother—and really, the rest of them,” he continued after kissing her gently, “is going to get
very
ugly.”

“Trevor, I just danced the chicken dance in my underwear in front of the Universe. I think I can handle ‘very ugly’—don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, hugging her to his chest, his face buried in her hair, his voice choked. “Thank God,
yes
.”

His phone rang and he frowned, then pulled it from his pocket, checking the caller ID and showing her.

“Ce Ce?” she said, answering it as he ran both hands down her waist and then up and under her shirt. Discovering (as if he didn’t know) that she’d ditched the stupid wet sports bra. “What’s wrong?” She listened for a second and then said, “No. Absolutely not. I’ll call you later.”

He paused from his exploring and she said, “She had a
great
idea.” And Sarcasm said,
hi, I’ve
missed
you
. “She thought all of the bridesmaids should wear acorn headdresses.”

“Acorns?”

“I don’t know, some sort of symbol of fertility or something.”

His thumbs circled the underside of her breasts as he gazed at her and she felt her entire body say
home
. She leaned into him a little.

“Fertility’s not a bad thing,” he said, watching her carefully.