Page 29 of Damned
“My buddy Wayne’s a real good listener. That’s why he wanted you here tonight. He’s worried about you. Do you think you’re ready to go in yet?”
“Not now. I l-l-look like—”
Kruze kissed the top of her head. “You look perfect to me. Think about it. That’s all I’m asking. No stress. One step at a time. Even a half-step is better than breaking apart. But if you’re not ready, that’s good enough, too. I’ll stay out here with you as long as you want.”
Another sigh shuddered out of her. “So, what caused your PTSD? What are you afraid of?”
And there it was. Time to come clean. Kruze drew in a bellyful of air and admitted, “Honesty, I guess. Facing the truth. That’s all.”
Bree straightened on his lap, dabbing at her swollen eyelids with another tissue. “That’s about as cryptic as anything I’ve ever heard. Spill, Sinclair. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
Any other time, Kruze would’ve come back with a smartass comment and a ton of bullshit about any woman showing him hers. But this was Bree. And tonight she needed something real to hang onto, not a glib comeback meant to distract her.
Kruze nodded, took hold of her fingers and pressed them to his chest, more so he could get through this than because she needed something to hold onto. This was going to be hard. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his brothers, what happened in Panama. The only ones who knew were locked under the same confidentiality rules he was. His brother SEALs had never talked. They never would. But there were some things he could share.
Taking another deep breath, Kruze looked Bree in the eye and said, “Her name was Juliana Mendez. She was sixteen. I was twenty. I was on a hunter/killer team, my first real SEAL action. Sorry, I can’t tell you where or when, only that the mission went bad. I was shot. In the ruckus, I was left behind. My guys had to leave. I’m glad they did or they’d be dead, too.”
He had Bree’s full attention now. “Afterwards, Juliana found me in the jungle. She took me into her home and nursed me back to health. She lived there alone. It was only me and her—”
“You loved her.”
Kruze nodded. “Yeah. I did. She was sweet and beautiful, and I fell for her. But we didn’t stand a chance. The bad guys showed up one day, and they… they…” His jaw locked and his heart shut down. Storytelling came to a screeching full stop. He couldn’t tell Bree the name of the sadist who’d hunted him to make an example of an American Navy SEAL, then who’d turned on Juliana to break him.
Remembering her screams took Kruze straight back to the jungle in some crazy, spinning, time-warp way. The sweet scents of flowering vines, rotting hardwoods. The smoky smell of sooty campfires. The gentle babbling of the nearby brook that dumped into the same river he’d entered Panama by. The bright color red when blood burst out of Juliana’s throat after they’d cut her… After they’d beaten and brutalized her slender, innocent body… When she’d cried and screamed for him to help…When Kruze couldn’t break the cuffs that kept him chained to the post in her yard… The post where they’d meant to burn him alive… When all he could do was scream and watch those sons of bitches defile and destroy the purest woman on earth…
Kruze tried to swallow, but his throat failed. He had no spit, no way to make any. There was no need to continue this ugly truth, no need at all… Except for the tender woman sitting on his lap, her eyes full of tears and her arm wound around his neck, her hand now splayed over his heart. Bree more than anyone needed to know his truth. It might help her to understand that even the ugliest wounds could heal—someday. Maybe…
Hell, he didn’t know that for sure because his hadn’t healed. Probably never would. He clutched her hands to his chest. Her fingers were cold, but they were his lifelines, holding him to the present, so those gawddamned memories didn’t suck him into the past. Damned if he wasn’t just another broken teapot.
“They killed her,” he finally whispered, “right in front of me. They’d chained me to a stake. Couldn’t help, couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t stop those bastards. Then it was too late…” There was no sense telling Bree the gory details. She was smart. She’d figure it out.
Kruze ended with, “In the middle of it all, my guys showed up. Shot every one of those fuckers. But it was too late for Juliana. Shit. They only saved me.”
“You still love her,” Bree whispered sadly, her slender fingers knotted with his.
All Kruze could do was nod like an idiot, the pain still as real as if Juliana had just died. He wished he’d kept his big, dumb mouth shut. Revealing this particular hole in his heart wasn’t one of his better ideas.
Bree pulled his forehead down to the tops of her breasts and wrapped her arm around his head. “You poor thing. I am so sorry for your loss. For you, Kruze. For Juliana. She must’ve been beautiful and strong.”
He nodded again, speechless and crying like a gawddamned baby. Tears! He had fuckin’—sorry Mom—tears dripping down his cheeks. Damn Wayne to hell. This was his fault.
Bree stroked the back of Kruze’s hard head and ran her fingers through his hair. He could hear her heart pounding. He could smell her skin and the flowery scent of shampoo in her hair. A dangerous growl wrenched out of him, like a living beast. His heart cracked open, as Kruze wept for the loss of his first true love and the pain and—God, everything. The years he’d lost with Juliana. The heartbreak he’d endured by himself and had hidden from his brothers. The hole in his fuckin’ heart that never healed.
Chance knew damned well something terrible had happened on Kruze’s first deployment. But Kruze had locked the pain up so tight and so deep in his heart, that to break it open and share it had seemed somehow sacrilegious and wrong. A dishonor to sweet Juliana’s memory. Yet another sin he could never break free from. But telling Bree was different. It helped. The pain didn’t seem quite so fresh nor so cutting. The longer he let her hold him, the easier it was to breath.
“How long were you with Juliana, Kruze?”
“A month and a couple days.” He wiped his face, wondering where the hell those tissues were now. This was what he’d been afraid of when he’d accepted Wayne’s treacherous invitation. That he wouldn’t know when to shut up. That something would trigger his heart to spill this particular poison. That he’d make a gawddamned fool of himself. Wouldn’t that be just what all these poor people needed? Yeah, right. Wayne was as big an idiot as he was.
Bree slid the packet of tissues into his hand. Everything was backwards. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one strengthening her? Wiping her nose? Letting her lean on him instead of the other way around? Yet there she sat, cool, calm, and collected. Holding him, waiting for him to compose himself and man the hell up.
Kruze shook his head and blew out a ragged sigh, not making eye contact. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. Please. I know how you feel. I saw what those rebels did to Mehmet, remember? The Turkish photographer I was traveling with?” A shudder roared through her.
He pursed his lips and sighed again, tried to swallow. “I remember. You’ve been through some shit, too.”
“Yeah, I have. I’ve told Dr. Packard bits and pieces, and I really do like him. He cares, and I know that.” She fingered the first button-hole on Kruze’s shirt. “It’s just hard to talk about.”
