Page 18 of Duty Bound

“Thank you.” It was nice of her to say, not that he believed it.

“But I do blame you for making him sign up for the Green Berets to begin with.”

He thought he’d misheard. “Excuse me?”

“It was you who convinced him it was a good idea to sign up. I know it was.” She took an angry breath. “He was happy in the Ordnance Corps. He didn’t want to be a killer.”

Blade couldn’t deny it. That was exactly what they were. Glorified killers, trained to take out the enemy with extreme prejudice and capable of excessive force when necessary. And he was proud of it. But he hadn’t coerced his friend. That wasn’t true.

“Spade wanted to try out for the Green Berets,” he said slowly. “There was a selection process. We went through it together.”

“He joined the army to train as an engineer. You put the stupid idea of the Green Berets into his head.”

Every syllable pierced his heart.

“If it wasn’t for you, Joe would still be alive.”

CHAPTER 7

It was hard to believe this was the same guy she remembered. Blade Wilson. The girls who flocked around the base couldn’t even say his name without swooning. He’d been something of a god at Fort Bragg. From his broad, muscular shoulders and washboard abs to his sexy, carefree smile and witty banter, he was every woman’s wet dream. Tough too, outperforming most of the others in the training exercises and, according to Pat, a natural leader.

Personally, she’d always wondered what the fuss had been about. She didn’t deny he’d been good looking, if you liked the whole blue-eyed, bad-boy thing, but he’d lacked substance. There’d been something shallow and dismissive about him that had turned her off.

No one ever stayed with Blade for very long. He’d love you and leave you, but then, his women knew what they were getting. She masked a snort as she struggled to keep pace with him. His commitment phobia didn’t change those women’s minds. They looked at it like a challenge, each wanting to be the one to tame him. But no one ever did. Blade’s only loyalty, as far as she could see, was to his country and to his friends.

Then, there was the brooding hulk of a man he’d become. He was still good looking—she’d be a fool not to see that—but in a haunted, brutal kind of way. The easy smile had vanished, and the blue eyes no longer laughed. Instead, they gleamed with an intensity that made her nervous.

Joe had looked up to him, almost hero-worshiped him, a trait that had irritated her. Joe had been a smart guy, but he’d lacked confidence, particularly in the beginning. She supposed the unit had cured him of that. He’d always been able to figure out how anything worked, take it apart and put it back together again. He would have made a brilliant engineer, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He’d wanted to follow his cocky, self-assured friend into what she secretly called the death squad.

Deep down, she’d always known it would end this way.

Joe wasn’t like Blade and Ricky and the others. He was strong, had been well-trained, but he was a softie at heart and killing bothered him. He’d struggled to process what he’d done. He’d had nightmares. Once, a few weeks before he’d deployed that last time, she’d woken up to find his hands around her neck. Luckily, he’d come to his senses and realized what he was doing before he’d done her any harm.

When she suggested he get some help, he’d flatly refused, saying they’d kick him out of the army if he was diagnosed with PTSD. Unfortunately, he was right, that would have ended his career as an operator. Not that it would have been such a bad thing, in her opinion. But he’d made her promise not to tell anyone about the incident, not even his father. The unit was his life. His teammates were his family. And Blade? Joe looked up to him as an older brother.

On they marched, Blade with a look of intense concentration on his face, his shooting hand gripping the pistol, ready to go should there be a problem, the muzzle in front of his nose, the weapon angled at forty-five degrees. There was another sidearm in a holster strapped to his leg. She tried not to notice how thick his thigh was, how it filled out his cargo pants.

The growly beast had clammed up since her little outburst and hadn’t uttered a single word for at least two miles now. Did she feel bad about what she’d said? Hell, no. She did blame him, but she also blamed Joe. Maybe she should have added that.

Basically, she was just pissed he was dead and needed a target for her anger. Blade made a big target.

Hot tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. Now wasn’t the time to have a moment, now was the time to stay focused and get out of there, far away from the men who wanted the codes.

“When do you think they’ll realize we’ve gone?” she asked, to break the silence.

“Not long.”

Great. Now he was giving her the silent treatment.

It would take her captives some time to clear the debris caused by Blade’s explosive device, but it had already been a couple of hours. Exactly how long, she had no idea. The miles seemed to blend into each other, and she was walking on autopilot.

Blade stalked rather than walked, always a step or two ahead of her, his head moving like a homing beacon. Wary, cautious, alert.

To raise her spirits, she thought about what might have been. She and Joe would be married by now, maybe even have a baby on the way. He’d be working at Fort Bragg as an engineer, building airplanes, tanks, or something else he was passionate about, while she went to work at her computer job, comfortable knowing her husband would be home safe and sound when she got back.

Sadly, that’s all it was. A dream. Her fantasy.

Not Joe’s.

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