Page 16 of Keeping Guard
“My fault.” He leaned over and retched as those two words raced through his mind over and over.My fault. My fault. My fault.
After clearing the debris, the team found a third body that turned out to be the bomb maker. They also found a hole under the old man’s bed where the bomb maker had been hiding.
“How the fuck you miss that, Alba?” his commander said at the briefing. “Did you even look under the bed?”
“Yes, sir.” He had looked and had swept his hand across the floor as far as he could reach. What he hadn’t done was call one of his teammates in to help him move the bed so a thorough search could be made. The majority of beds in these poor villages were pallets on the floor, and that the elder was on a heavy wooden bed should have raised his suspicions. Instead, he hadn’t wanted to disturb an elderly sick man more than he had to. Now that man was dead, along with Asim and Snoop. The bomb maker he couldn’t care less about, but the others would be on his conscience until the day he died.
“Why didn’t he blow me up?” Noah asked.
“We’ll never know, but my guess is that he hoped he wouldn’t be discovered,” his commander said. “Then when Snoop came in and alerted to the bomb, the motherfucker set it off.”
My fault. My fault. My fault.
Back at their base camp, Noah had closed the case holding his guitar and hadn’t played it since. His last memory of the guitar was laughing as Asim butchered “You Are My Sunshine.” The instrument was a reminder of his failure, and he couldn’t bear to take it out of the case and touch it again. He hadn’t been able to leave it behind, though, and he figured a head doc would have a field day with that.
The ringtone from his phone penetrated the soul-stealing memories drowning him. He blinked several times, the fierce heat and choking sands of the desert fading away. Sweat poured down his face, and his breaths were ragged. How long had he been parked in front of the apartment, the car engine running while he relived the second worst day of his life?
He picked his phone up from the cup holder, seeing Jack’s name on the screen. He didn’t want to talk to Jack or anyone else right now, but if he didn’t answer, Jack would come looking for him.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“At the apartment.” He glanced at his watch. Damn, he was supposed to have been at Operation K-9 Brothers half an hour ago.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, man. Just getting a late start. Sorry.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Noah. I can hear in your voice it’s not nothing.”
He sighed. It was hell having a brother—because that was what the team was to each other—who knew when to call bull.
“Fine. I had a flashback. But I’m okay. See you shortly.” He disconnected before Jack could answer, because Jack would say, “You’re not okay.” Then he’d tell Noah to take the day off. The last thing he needed was to sit around his box of an apartment and stare at the walls as they closed in on him.
He went inside, showered, dressed, collected Lucky, and headed for Operation K-9 Brothers.
“The dog—”
“Lucky.”
Jack grinned. “You named him. Good.”
“If you say so.” He wasn’t about to tell Jack that Peyton had been the one to name him. That would mean having to explain how he’d absconded with a runaway bride, a woman he’d never see again. That thought sent a pang of regret through him, but feelings like that were to be ignored.
His friend laughed. “Stop looking like you’re sucking on lemons.” He glanced at the dog pressed up against Noah’s legs. “Lucky is yours to train, and it’s obvious he likes you, so you both are off to a good start.”
“I don’t know about this. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Let’s go sit for a minute.” Jack headed for a bench under the shade of a tree.
Noah blew out a breath as he followed, Lucky trotting alongside him. Appeared it was time for a lecture on getting his act together. Whatever Jack thought being here and working with dogs would do, it wasn’t going to work. Not only was he having nightmaresanddaymares about what happened, but the ones he’d had as a boy who’d watched his father kill his mother were coming back. It had taken him years to put those behind him, and he didn’t know if he could do it again.
Refusing to make it easy on Jack, he kept silent after sitting on the opposite end of the bench. He loved Jack as much as he would love a blood brother, but he resented being forced to be here, to be within a mile of dogs, expected to face his demons, which was what this was all about. No one could help him. Not a dog, not Jack, not sharing his feelings.
“Here’s the deal,” Jack said. “I had nothing to do with your being ordered to be here, but I can help you.” His gaze fell to Lucky, who had one paw resting on Noah’s knee. “Lucky can help you. At some point, you’re going to have to talk about what happened, but I’m not going to force that on you. You’ll talk when you’re ready.”
“Or not at all.”
