“Hey, man, get your own woman. I should have known you’d be off sweet-talking mine.”
Nathan grinned and relaxed. This he could handle. Typical banter. He hadn’t realized how much he just wanted to revert back to old times where his brothers gave him shit instead of looking at him like he was a quarter off a full dollar.
But then he hadn’t helped in that area. If he wanted to be treated normally, he needed to stop putting up walls between him and his family.
“I can’t help if a pretty woman prefers my company,” Nathan drawled.
Ethan ambled forward and slid an arm around Rachel. “You two avoiding the family out here? I seem to remember Rachel slipping out here a time or two when things got overwhelming.”
“I was just telling her how amazing I think she is.”
Ethan smiled. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“Okay, you two, enough,” Rachel grumbled.
She slipped out of Ethan’s grasp, gave Nathan another quick hug and then headed inside, leaving Nathan alone with his brother.
“Everything okay, man?” Ethan asked when Rachel had shut the door.
“She’s pretty damn special,” Nathan said, ignoring the question.
“Yeah, I know. You two have a lot in common.”
Nathan’s lips quirked upward. “Oh? You think I look as good in a dress as she does?”
Relief flared in Ethan’s eyes at the comeback, but then his expression grew more serious. “No, I meant you’re both survivors.”
CHAPTER 11
NATHAN’S eyes flew open and the splash of stars in the inky midnight sky instantly swam in his vision. They loomed close then backed away, and the world spun crazily around him.
He tried to sit up in the sleeping bag and promptly fell over, weak and disoriented. His mind was clouded, and random images flashed, none making sense.
Strange men, yawning faces and a sense of overwhelming fear.
What the hell was happening to him? He hadn’t drunk that much beer. Certainly not enough to get a buzz, much less stupid drunk.
This wasn’t like his other panic attacks. He hadn’t been dreaming. It was one of the few nights that his mind had been blissfully free of the past.
There was such a sense of dread overwhelming him that his breaths puffed out and his stomach rebelled. His chest burned from the pressure. It was as if weight pressed down on him from every angle.
And then he felt her. Just one brief moment, as if she were desperately trying to reach out to him.
Shea.
Scared. Terrified.
It was her panic he felt. Her disorientation.
Shea!
He screamed her name in his mind. Then he yelled it hoarsely, the sound echoing through the night.
He tore away the sleeping bag that confined him, stumbling out onto the ground and to his knees. Beside him, Swanny shot upward.
“What the hell?”
Nathan shoved his hands into the grass, trying to push himself upward, but he was too weak, too disoriented to maintain his balance. He fell heavily to his side, cursing because he couldn’t wade through the fog in his mind to reach out to Shea. She was there. He knew it. Was she trying to reach him? Did she need help?
He curled his fingers into the soil, trying again to right himself, to get up and battle the confusion. Swanny scrambled over, his face close to Nathan’s.
“What’s wrong, man? Do I need to get help? What’s happening to you?”
Nathan snarled his frustration, grabbed on to Swanny and pulled. “Help me.”
Swanny pushed to his knees and then stood, Nathan still gripping his hands as he pulled upward. He staggered to his feet, wobbling like he’d been on a bender from hell.
The world kept moving around him, dipping and swaying until nausea rose sharp in his belly and into his throat, clenching and squeezing until he couldn’t breathe.
“What the fuck is wrong?” Swanny demanded. “Let me call a damn ambulance. Or at least drive you to the hospital.”
“Just let me get my feet under me,” he gritted out.
He put his hands to his head, sucked in breaths and then reached out again.
Shea, talk to me, damn it. Are you okay? What’s going on? Please, just talk to me.
He caught just a hint of his name, and suddenly the disorientation faded. The shadows drifted away, leaving him sharply aware of his surroundings. The smell of a late Tennessee spring, verging to summer. The lake. The trees, the pine.
A breeze cooled the sweat that dampened his body, and he shivered in reaction.
She was gone. Like she’d never been there. Again.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Nathan, talk to me, man. What the hell is going on?”
He pushed away from Swanny and stalked toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the lake. Below, the water was inky, reflecting only a sliver of moonlight.
Was he losing his mind? Was he crazy? Was she real or not?
How could he explain the emails, the very real emails, if she wasn’t real? He clung to that piece of evidence, the only thing he could point to with any assurance. If it weren’t for those emails, he’d have already surrendered the last threads of his sanity.
“She’s real, goddamn it.”
“Who’s real?” Swanny asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“She’s real and she’s in trouble and I have no idea how to help her.”
Helplessness and frustration swamped him. Overwhelmed him. What could he do?
He cupped his hand over his face and dug his fingers into the corners of his eyes. He squeezed the bridge of his nose as he concentrated on the mess he’d awakened to.
None of it made sense. He hadn’t seen anything. Only sensed it and had an experience so bizarre that he’d swear he’d taken some bad acid trip.
“Look, just calm down. We can talk about this.”
Nathan shook his head. “Just let it go, Swanny.”
There was a pronounced silence and then Swanny shoved in front of him, obscuring Nathan’s view of the lake. All he could see was the determination gleaming in his friend’s eyes.
“I won’t let it go,” Swanny said in a low voice. “I came here for answers. I haven’t pushed. But something happened in Afghanistan. Something I can’t explain. Now you’re talking crazy and mentioning this woman’s name, the same name you screamed when we were rescued. Whether you want to talk about it or not, you put your hands on me and something happened. I wasn’t going to make it out of there. I knew it. You knew it. But then you did something. I’ll never forget that feeling. Like sunshine warming me from the inside out. And the pain. Gone. I could breathe again. It was so damn peaceful that for a minute I thought it was the end.”
Nathan looked up at the sky, closed his eyes and breathed out as his shoulders sagged.
“You played it off, man. And I let you. But you know you fed me a line of bullshit. Angels, God. Yeah, maybe, but you know more than you’re letting on.”
“I don’t know! I wish to hell I did,” Nathan bit out.
He balled his fist in frustration and pressed it to his forehead.
“Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe we both are.”
“I’m perfectly okay with that explanation,” Swanny said calmly. “But we aren’t. Now stop holding out on me.”
Nathan stumbled back toward the sleeping bag, sat down and pulled his knees to his chest. Beside him, Swanny crawled into his and stretched out on his side. For a long time, Nathan just sat there, staring into the distance. The silence was brooding, but Swanny waited. He just lay there and watched Nathan, waiting for him to speak.
“Her name is Shea,” he said quietly. He wasn’t betraying her because Swanny had already heard him calling her name on more than one occasion.
“Yeah, I gathered that much. The question is who is she and…well…who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Swanny sighed and rolled to his back to stare up at the sky. “Has anyone ever told you what a frustrating son of a bitch you are, Nate?”
“I thought I imagined her. Right up until the time she emailed my brothers to let them know where to find us.”
“How the hell did she do that? There weren’t any women that I saw in that hellhole.”
“That’s just it. She wasn’t…there. She was here,” Nathan said, tapping the side of his head. “She talked to me in my head. I don’t even know where she was.”
Swanny turned back to his side and stared at Nathan, mouth agape. “You mean like psychic shit?”
“Well, she wasn’t telling me my future,” Nathan said dryly. “She’s telepathic and she can…”
“She can what?”
“She took my pain away. Took it on herself. And when I was tortured, she took that too. She suffered. I hated it.”
“Holy fuck,” Swanny breathed. “You’re serious?”
Nathan nodded even though he wasn’t sure Swanny could see.
“That’s some freaky-ass shit, man. You didn’t imagine it? Like as a coping mechanism?”
Nathan made a dry sound of amusement. “I would have said absolutely yes except for the very real email that my brother received telling him exactly what I told Shea to tell him.”
Swanny went silent. For a long while he lay there motionless as if grappling with whether or not to believe Nathan.
“Where is she now?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Nathan muttered. “She was in trouble. She wouldn’t say much. She was too determined to shield me from pain and get me the hell out of there. She was afraid, though. I could feel her fear. I felt it tonight.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
Nathan leaned back and pulled the sleeping bag around him as he settled down once more. “I don’t know. What can I do? I know nothing about her. Just her name, and she begged me not to tell anyone about her. If I tell what I know, I could endanger her. I don’t know enough to find her.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“You don’t think I’m batshit crazy?”
“Nah. In a weird way it makes total sense. I have no idea how it’s possible. Maybe we’re both crazy. But I know what I felt. I know that whatever she did, she saved us both. Instead of spending time worrying that I lost my marbles, I’m just going to be damned grateful she did what she did.”
Nathan chuckled. “You certainly have a way with words, Swanny. The hell of it is you make complete sense.”
“I do that every once in a while.”
Nathan laughed again, and some of the tension seeped from his bones, leaving him exhausted and barely able to remain awake.
He relaxed and closed his eyes, but he was haunted by the music of her voice and memory of her warmth and gentle touch.
I’ll find you, Shea. Somehow, someway, we’re going to meet again. Even if it’s just in my mind.
CHAPTER 12
THE tie was choking him and it already hung loose around his collar. He hadn’t been inside the high school gymnasium more than five minutes when his skin started to itch and his airway was constricted.
Outside, a gentle rain fell, preventing the commencement ceremonies from being held in the stadium. So Nathan was trapped inside a stifling hot gym with several hundred other people.
His mom tugged him toward the seats that Sam and Sophie had saved for the family. It was actually an entire section where the Kellys had gathered along with “extended” family and friends.
Swanny was sitting this one out. That and the huge family celebration that would be held at Nathan’s parents’ house afterward. He still wasn’t comfortable being around so many people. The scar on his face drew a lot of stares, some much bolder than others.
On the way up the bleachers, Nathan was treated to several hugs, exclamations, slaps on the back and welcoming smiles. Hometown hero and all that shit. He felt like a huge fraud.
Getting captured by the enemy didn’t make him a goddamn hero.
He tugged at his tie some more until the knot rested well below the collar line and then he unbuttoned the top button. Feeling like he could breathe again, he took the seat next to his mom and smiled acknowledgments at the rest of the family. He didn’t miss their looks of surprise at his presence, since none of them had invited him. Only Rusty had. They’d assumed he wouldn’t come.
Joe was sitting toward the end, bouncing Charlotte on his knee. When he saw Nathan, he stood and handed the baby back to Sophie and maneuvered his way down to sit by Nathan.
“Hey, man. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Rusty wanted me to come,” Nathan returned.
“We all did. I’m glad you came.”
Nathan nodded, not knowing what more to say.
“You look like shit, man.”
Nathan frowned and turned to look at his twin. Obviously Joe didn’t suffer the same affliction of not knowing what to say.
“When was the last time you slept? You were looking good when Swanny first got here. You were smiling and joking again. Now you look like you haven’t slept in a week and are about to freak out being closed in with all these people.”