CHAPTER 2
HAWK
She has to be okay.
She has to be.
“Rhi! Talk to me!”
I know I’m shouting, but my hearing still isn’t working properly. And I can’t seem to control the panic surging through me. The breath-stealing fear that Rhiannon is terribly hurt. That something is broken that can’t be fixed.
There’s a rumble of voices around me, people crowding close, but I can’t tear my attention from the woman sprawled on the concrete in front of me.
I can’t stop looking at the blood on her cheek. Or the crimson darkness staining the sleeve of her shirt.
Her hand is wrapped around my wrist, and I try to draw comfort from it.
She can move. Raise her arm. So she’s not paralyzed. Right?
Except her legs. How do I know if she can move those?
Ah, fuck. I keep seeing Rhiannon as she was tossed into the air from the strength of the explosion. And then, in a moment that felt like it lasted an eternity, her slender body crashing to the unforgiving ground.
“Hawk.” My attention jerks to her lips as a whisper of a sound escapes them. “I’m okay.”
“What happened?” Xavier demands. His voice is rough with anger and worry. He kneels beside me and reaches for Rhiannon’s hand, and it takes everything in me not to shove him away.
He’s her teammate. Her friend. And given the shitty job I’ve done of being one, Xavier deserves to be by her side more than I do.
But I can’t bring myself to move away.
Dante comes to my left and crouches down, his attention fixed on Rhiannon. Lines are etched across his forehead and around his eyes, his concern a visible thing. He takes her free hand and rests his thumb on her wrist, his brow furrowing as he takes her pulse.
Minutes after the explosion, the ringing in my ears has dulled, so I can hear him more clearly as he says gently, “Hey, Rhi. Can you tell me what hurts? Don’t try to move yet. Just relax, okay?”
Erik hovers behind him, shadows clouding his features. He pulls out his phone and jabs at it, then growls, “There was an explosion in the parking garage at the Four Seasons. One person injured at least. We don’t know the severity yet.” His mouth pinches as he looks at Dante. “Is she okay? How bad?—”
“I’m okay,” she interrupts. Her chin takes on a stubborn jut.
“You don’t know that,” retorts Dante. “You were thrown—” He glances at me with his eyebrows raised.
“At least ten feet,” I reply, feeling sick at it. Ten feet. That’s far enough for her spine to be damaged. For internal bleeding. A traumatic brain injury.
Rhiannon’s dark blue eyes are alert as she looks at me. “I’m okay. Really.”
I touch her cheek again, my fingers coming away sticky with blood. “You’re not okay,” I reply gruffly. “You’re hurt. Bleeding. There could be injuries we can’t see.”
“I’m a medic,” she insists. Pulling her hand from Xavier’s, she tries to push herself up, but Dante gently grasps her shoulder and holds her down. “I would know if there was something wrong.”
Dante frowns at her. “You know that’s not how it works, Rhi. We need to make sure you’re alright. You can’t just jump up and act like nothing happened.”
“What the fuck happened to her SUV?” Xavier grits out. “It just exploded ?”
“There was something attached to the undercarriage.” Rhiannon scowls. Her dark brows wing into an angry V. “I saw smudges on the door. Like someone had touched it. It struck me as odd; the way it looked. So I checked underneath and I saw the little box. That’s when I ran.”
Ice encases my heart. A chill seeps through my veins.
What if she hadn’t noticed? What if she’d gotten in the SUV and then?—
Fuck .
What if I distracted her and that’s why she’s hurt? If I hadn’t come after her, she might have spotted the bomb sooner. And she would have been able to escape unharmed.
Fuck.
Did I fail Rhi all over again?
“The police and ambulance are on the way.” Erik slides his phone back into his pocket. He walks towards the still-burning wreckage of the SUV. “I want to take a look before they get here. See if there’s anything that wasn’t destroyed.”
It makes sense, given that Erik is the team’s resident HAZMAT expert, but Rhiannon still calls over, “Be careful, Erik. There could still be a secondary explosion.”
He turns and gives her a grim smile. “I know. I’ll be careful.”
She tries to sit up again, glaring at Dante when he holds her down easily. “D. Let me up. I want to see the damage.”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. You know if it were any of us, you’d be saying the same thing.”
With a heavy exhale, Rhiannon sighs, “Fine. I won’t move. But once the paramedics check me out and say I’m fine, I’m going home. No hospital. Nothing’s broken. I had the wind knocked out of me, but that was it.”
I glance at her bloody sleeve again, bile rising at the sight of it. “Please, Rhi. Just let them do what they need. If they say you need to get checked out at the hospital, just go, okay?”
Maybe I had the right to make such demands back when we were on the same team. Back when we saw each other nearly every day. When she was the person I talked to about practically everything, and she did the same.
Now, she has every right to dismiss me.
She has every right to tell me to stop touching her. To stop stroking the soft skin of her cheek, which I’m now discovering feels like warm satin just like I always imagined it would. She could tell me to back off, to let her real teammates help her instead of the one who let her down when she needed me most.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she turns her cheek into my palm, and her eyes fill with an emotion I haven’t seen before.
Longing.
But that can’t be.
Not after everything.
“Okay, Hawk.” It’s low. Almost timid. So unlike the confident Rhiannon I’m used to. Then she sucks her lip between her teeth and hesitates for a second. “Are you still leaving tonight?”
My guilt takes a distant second to the rabid protectiveness surging through me.
I can’t leave her. Not now. Now when she’s hurt. Shaken. When she could have died right in front of me.
Nothing could make me leave Rhiannon’s side.
“No.” Though I shouldn’t, I let my thumb trail across her cheekbone, memorizing the feel of her skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”
As she meets my gaze, her shoulders sag minutely. A tiny sigh escapes her lips. “Okay.” Then a beat later, her mouth curves into a small smile. “Good.”
* * *
“Are you sure someone shouldn’t go check on her?”
Niall almost chokes on the water he’s drinking, coughing to clear his throat before he answers with a laugh, “She’s only been in her apartment for ten minutes, Hawk. If we went to check on her now, she’d be insulted.”
Matt leans back against the couch cushions and stretches his arms above his head, barely stifling a yawn as he does so. His ever present laptop is balanced on his lap, and he blinks at the screen with a bleary gaze. “The ER doctor said she was fine, right?”
He swallows back another yawn. “Sorry,” he adds quickly. “Dove didn’t want to fall asleep last night and I took over feeding duty so Isla could get some rest. But I’m running through the surveillance footage at the hotel. And I have calls in to our contacts with the police to get more information as soon as they have it.”
“Yeah, the doctor said Rhi was okay.” Dante taps the screen of his tablet a few times before setting it on the coffee table in front of him. “And you don’t need to apologize, Matt. You’re on leave right now. You don’t have to be here. Especially when it’s after midnight and you have a newborn to take care of.”
Niall flashes Matt an understanding smile. He has the same faint bluish smudges beneath his eyes that Matt does, no doubt from sleepless nights with his own baby. “We had a couple nights like that last week with Declan. Poor Jade was practically in tears before I made her put in earplugs and get a few hours of uninterrupted rest.”
Matt lifts his chin at him. “Fortunately, it’s just been the one night so far.” Pausing, he glances at the laptop screen again, his eyes narrowing as he inspects it. After a moment, he adds, “If it were a regular case, I’d still be in bed. But this is Rhi. She’s family.”
Standing at the window, Erik turns away from the night sky to face us. His posture is stiff and his hands are shoved into his pockets. A deep frown pulls at his features. “I’m still pissed that the police showed up before I got a good look at Rhi’s SUV. I barely got a chance to search for adhesive residue before they pushed me out of the way.”
Dante huffs in irritation. “If we were in San Antonio, that wouldn’t have happened. But we don’t have any contacts with the Austin police department. Not like we do with the SAPD.”
Though I’m not a part of Blade and Arrow, I know what Dante means. As a result of the time Cole spent in San Antonio before forming B and A, he has plenty of connections with the police department and local sheriff’s office, in addition to some other first responders and law enforcement officials in the area. That’s one of the main reasons the Bravo team branch is located here, so they can take advantage of those local connections.
But unfortunately, that doesn’t extend to the Austin police, which means we’re limited in the information they share.
“I’ll hack into their records,” Matt says. “Once I get through the surveillance footage, that’s what I’ll do next. It may take a couple hours, but anything they’ve discovered, I’ll make sure we have access to it.”
Right. Or Matt, the computer genius of the team, will find the information by any means necessary. Which I’m more than in favor of, especially since it relates to Rhiannon’s safety.
Dante’s wife, Sarah, walks into the common living room—a large space in the center of the expansive ranch that the team uses for group events and gatherings. In her hands is a large wooden tray loaded with cut vegetables, chips, sandwiches, and a heaping plate of chocolate chip cookies. She sets it on the coffee table and says, “It’s not much, but I thought you guys might be hungry. And I just set some fresh coffee brewing. It should be ready in another minute or two.”
Looping his arm around her waist, Dante tugs Sarah onto the couch beside him and brushes a kiss across her lips. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that. But I really appreciate it.”
“Like I wouldn’t be up to help,” she scoffs. Her teeth dig into her lower lip. “When you told me Rhiannon was hurt… I just couldn’t believe it. Are you sure she’s okay?”
“That’s what the paramedics and doctors said,” Xavier answers. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he quickly pulls it out to read the screen. “It’s Lucy,” he explains a beat later. “I told her she should get some sleep and see Rhi in the morning, but she doesn’t want to wait.”
“How’s she feeling?” I ask, knowing Lucy is five months pregnant and how protective Xavier is of her.
His expression brightens. “She’s really good. Ever since the first trimester ended, Luce has been feeling more like herself again. She’s back to writing all the time, taking her walks in the woods, teaching her creative writing class at the community center…”
Before I can respond, he cocks his head and gives me a long look, his expression speaking more loudly than words. “I thought you had to get to Corpus Christi tonight?”
I only just stop myself from reaching over to smack him.
Xavier knows damn well that Rafe doesn’t need my help. Rafe doesn’t need help from anyone.
And my former teammate also knows me well enough to know my excuse was just that.
Does he know why?
Sometimes I think he does. When we text and he always makes sure to mention how Rhiannon is, or he asks me for the fiftieth time when I’m coming to San Antonio for a visit, I wonder if my secret was as well kept as I thought it was.
But he’s never asked, and I’ve never volunteered the truth. It’s easier that way. Less complicated.
“I think this is more important,” I reply tightly. “Rafe can wrangle his bail jumper on his own. And anyway, I already texted him. He understands why I’m staying.”
Rafe was a part of my old Green Beret company—along with Niall and Xavier and Rhiannon—and now he works as a bounty hunter in Texas, based down south in Corpus Christi. When I texted him to let him know what happened and why I wouldn’t be showing up as expected, he immediately offered to help.
I can pass this job on to someone else , he wrote. You guys need anything, and I mean anything, let me know. I’ll be there.
“You can stay as long as you like,” Dante says. “Until we figure out what’s going on with Rhi, we’re not taking on any new pro-bono cases. So the client apartment is yours if you want it.”
I lift my chin at him. “Thanks. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stick around until we know more. Not to interfere with your work, but?—”
“Stop.” Niall picks up a carrot stick and flings it at me, and I only just snatch it out of the air before it hits my forehead. “You’re part of the family, Hawk. We’re glad to have you here.”
How did I forget how much these jerks like throwing random things when you least expect it?
And how did I forget how much I missed it?
With a wry grin, I whip the carrot back at him, smirking when it bounces off his chin.
He picks the carrot off the floor and makes a face at it before dropping it onto the tray. “I only missed that because I’m sleep deprived. Just for the record.”
“Right.” I drag out the word. “Or maybe you’re just getting old and losing your touch.”
“Getting old?” Niall narrows his eyes at me. He snatches a stalk of celery from the tray and brandishes it at me. “You’re a year older than me. If anyone is losing their touch, it’s fisherman Hawk.”
“Hey, fishing is a dangerous job,” I shoot back. Then I quickly toss a mini tomato at him.
Dante chuckles. “Not to ruin the food fight here, but maybe we could not throw all the food Sarah just prepared?”
“Sorry, Sarah,” I tell her. “But to be fair, Niall started it.”
Sarah smiles. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” She watches Niall carefully, and the second his attention shifts to his phone, she throws a celery stick at him, hitting him in the center of his shirt.
“Sarah!” Niall’s head jerks up as he looks at her in surprise. “Et tu?”
Just for a second, as I laugh with my friends, it feels like things are back like they used to be. And I wonder, not for the first time, if I made the right decision staying away.
“Are you guys going at each other again?” Rhiannon walks into the room and her gaze immediately goes to the celery stick laying on the floor. Her lips lift. “It’s like you’re kids instead of full-grown adults.”
Sarah jumps up and rushes over to Rhiannon, wrapping her arms around her carefully. “Are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you want me to make you anything to eat? I threw together a few things, but I can make you whatever you like.”
Rhiannon barely hides a wince, but she hugs Sarah back, anyway. “I’m good. Really. The shower helped a lot. And I can grab something you already made. Don’t worry about cooking me something special.”
As she steps away from Sarah, her attention shifts to me. A flicker of relief crosses her features, and guilt settles over my shoulders again.
Did she think I would leave after I said I was staying?
Or am I reading things wrong and in actuality, she’d rather I wasn’t here?
“How are you feeling, Rhi?” Xavier’s smile sobers. “I know we said we’d meet after you showered, but if you’re too tired, we can put it off until tomorrow.”
“No, I’m fine.” By my count, Rhiannon’s said she’s fine at least twenty times since the explosion. But I’m still not convinced. “We should talk about it. At least a little. And since you’re all here…”
She shoots me a questioning glance. “You’re staying?”
“I said I was.” It’s sharper than I intended, and I feel guilty all over again when she flinches at my tone. I quickly add more gently, “I thought I’d stay for a while. Help if I can. If that’s okay?”
Rhiannon stares at me for a second before replying softly, “Of course it’s okay.”
Then she crosses the room and takes a seat on the couch beside me. She glances over with a questioning look and asks in a tone only loud enough for me to hear, “Are you sure, Hawk? If you need to leave…”
I know I should answer. Say something reassuring.
But now that she’s sitting next to me, it’s hard to concentrate on anything other than her presence. On the faint coconut aroma of her shampoo, the same scent she’s used since I first met her seven years ago. I can’t make myself think about anything other than how beautiful she is; her ebony hair still damp from the shower and her cheeks flushed from the heat.
I can’t stop looking at her delicate features; her high cheekbones and bow-shaped lips and expressive eyes rimmed with the longest lashes I’ve ever seen.
Though we’re not touching, my skin feels alive just being close to her, like I’m filled with static electricity and she’s the spark waiting.
And then I see the little cut on her cheek. It’s not bad, just a surface wound that should heal without scarring. But it’s still a harsh reminder of what happened only a few hours ago, and just how close I came to losing her.
My molars grind to dust as I try to keep from shouting out my impotent frustration.
I should have done something.
Should have been nicer to her at the event, so she wouldn’t have rushed off on her own.
Should have insisted on walking her out to the garage instead of waiting.
Shit .
The few bites of sandwich I ate sink like a weight in my stomach.
“Hawk?” Rhiannon’s voice pitches up. Uncertainty fills her gaze. “If you need to leave?—”
I don’t know what’s happening to me. All my rational thoughts are fracturing.
Without thinking first, I reach for her injured arm, pushing up the loose sleeve of her old Army sweatshirt. Beneath it, white gauze is wrapped around her forearm, and a rising bruise is already turning purple around it. My fingers brush across the gauze, my light touch a contradiction to the anger bubbling up inside me.
She shouldn’t have been hurt.
I want to punch something. Or someone, more accurately. Like the piece of shit who stuck a bomb to the underside of Rhi’s SUV.
To look at things logically, this isn’t the first time Rhiannon’s been in danger. After all, we used to go out on the most dangerous of missions, ones where failure meant torture or death. We ejected from helos over enemy territory and faced off against tangos outnumbering us four to one. I saw IEDs go off dangerously close and RPGs that only just missed us.
If I could handle it back then, why am I so upset now?
But I know the answer. Because back then, I was there to have her six. The entire team was. And we were prepared. Ready for whatever threat came our way. It’s not like tonight, when the danger came when she was least expecting it.
Tearing my attention from her arm, I meet her gaze. “No, I don’t need to leave. This is more important.” I stop. Then reveal a part of me I’ve kept hidden for years. “ You’re more important, Rhi. I want to be here for you. If you’ll let me.”
She glances at my hand, which is still holding her arm.
An emotion I can’t quite read moves across her face.
I’m about to pull my hand away when she says quietly, “I would really like that. If you’d stay.”