Fragile Read online

  Blood, death, patching his buddies back up when they got injured, dealing with drug dealers, playing nursemaid to injured hostages while he and the rest of the team tried to get the innocent people safe before all hell rained down: it wasn’t a life he regretted choosing. But if he kept on going, if by some small miracle he could get back into the unit—and that chance was small, as in microscopic—even if that happened, Luke wasn’t so sure he liked the way his life was playing out in front of him at this point.

  He was no longer so sure he wanted this to be the rest of his life. Even when he had served out his usefulness on an active Ranger team, even if he went on to train new recruits, ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, he wanted to look back and see something besides the army.

  “If you’re having second thoughts, now’s the time to say something,” Jeb said, misjudging Luke’s thoughtful silence. “Maybe Tony could pull some strings . . .”

  Tony Malone, their CO, stood across the room. “You’re wasting your breath. I already tried.”

  Luke turned away from the window. It was a slow, painful journey, but he moved better with the cane now than he had last week. And in a few more weeks, maybe a month, he’d try walking without the damn thing.

  “I’m not having second thoughts,” he said, concentrating on the chair less than eight feet away. Six feet. Four. Shit, he thought disgustedly as he realized he was all but gasping for air. By the time he was able to sit down, he was covered with sweat and mentally questioning whether he’d be able to walk without that cane all that soon. Closing his eyes, Luke leaned his head back. His breathing calmed as he waited for the pain in his leg to ease a little.

  “You sure?”

  Cracking an eye open, he glanced at Jeb. “Do I really look like I can come back, Jeb? It ain’t happening.” Then he shrugged. “Besides, I think . . . I think I’m done, man. I’m done with this.”

  He was done, and he was good with that. He hadn’t thought he would be. A year ago—hell, six months ago—had this happened, Luke would have thought he’d be fighting a medical discharge with everything he had in him.

  Instead, he was cool with it. Hated the busted leg, but was cool with the discharge.

  “Liar.” Quinn stood by the door, one foot braced on the wall. Throughout the conversation, Quinn had been quietly watching everything with cynical eyes.

  Luke looked across the room at his brother and said, “Yeah, I’m gonna miss you, too, Quinn.” The two of them were identical, from the wheat blond hair, to their gray eyes, to their size-twelve feet. Identical twins, but they hadn’t even met until they were eleven years old.

  Born in the middle of an ugly divorce, it was probably safe to say they’d been born into warfare, although Quinn had definitely gotten the raw end of the deal. Their mother had been drinking, and drinking hard, throughout most of the pregnancy and had made it clear to everybody she met she didn’t want the two brats she carried inside her. Not that Luke’s father had ever said such a thing. No, Patrick Rafferty hadn’t ever said a harsh word against the woman, although Luke knew his old man had plenty of them trapped inside him.

  From what Luke could piece together, it had been a miracle Luke and Quinn had been born functional. As it was, Luke had been born with breathing problems and couldn’t leave the hospital until he was nearly a month old. His dad liked to tease him that he’d been born smaller than most, and apparently it pissed Luke off, because within a few months, he’d grown like a weed, and by the time he was ready for school, he stood a head and a half taller than the other kids. A natural athleticism combined with the stubborn streak he’d been born with made it hard to believe he’d once been forced to let a machine do his breathing for him.

  Quinn hadn’t had as much trouble at birth, though. If he had, maybe she wouldn’t have taken him.

  Being born too soon had saved Luke from a very unhappy life, although now he had to live with the guilt of knowing his twin had been suffering while Luke grew up happy and loved.

  Thirty-one years ago, hospitals didn’t have the precautions against child abductions that they did now. Their mother had taken Quinn from the neonatal nursery and walked out just as easy as could be. Their father’s attempts to find the newborn were unsuccessful, and Luke had grown up never knowing about his twin.

  Quinn wasn’t big on talking about his childhood. Luke didn’t know much, but what little he knew wasn’t good. Annie Rafferty hadn’t been a good mother, not when she was carrying them and not after she’d given birth. Luke, the baby she abandoned, ended up better off than his twin.

  He could still remember how pathetically thin Quinn had been when they went to Toledo to get him. Annie had died of alcohol poisoning; if she hadn’t, Luke may never have gotten to meet his twin. His other half . . .

  Quinn’s lips quirked in a faint smile. But he didn’t say anything. Quinn never said more than he needed to. He didn’t have to. Luke knew what was going through his twin’s mind. Quinn wouldn’t ever leave the army. He was in it for life, and he couldn’t understand how Luke was taking his medical discharge as well as he was.

  Luke understood. Quinn had to be here. It wasn’t just all he knew: it was all he wanted. He loved what he did. It was one of the few things in life that Quinn could totally commit to—and Luke meant very few. Sometimes, he suspected this life was the only thing Quinn could commit to. He lived and breathed it.

  For a while, Luke had been the same way, not the commiting part, but loving the life, loving the job. But it hadn’t ever defined him the way it defined Quinn.

  Even though they had been separated the first eleven years of their life, they did have that weird bond so many twins had. They loved the same kind of foods; they were both adrenaline junkies; they went for the same kind of women.

  But for every similarity, there were differences.

  Luke was quick to laugh, quick to tease; Quinn rarely laughed and seldom smiled. Most jokes rarely struck him as funny. When they weren’t on the job, Luke hit parties, went to movies, had one date lined up right after the other. Quinn would rather be on an op, and his downtime was spent in a small, two-room efficiency apartment on the base, usually just sitting in silence, almost like he was waiting.

  Luke always had that weird feeling around Quinn, like his twin was waiting—waiting for an op, maybe. That was the only time Quinn really seemed alive sometimes—didn’t matter if they were parachuting down into some war zone, slipping undetected through the rain forest on yet another battle in the unending war against drugs—that was when Quinn came to life.

  The rest of the time, the quieter brother seemed more like a damned robot, even to his own twin. As much as Luke loved Quinn, there were times when Luke felt he didn’t know the man at all.

  Even after nearly four years in the unit, Quinn rarely spoke to anybody besides his brother unless it was required. He was just so damned isolated.

  Luke’s leaving the army also meant leaving his brother, to some extent.

  But Luke was tired.

  Tired of this life. Yeah, he liked the adrenaline rush. He liked knowing he was doing a job few others could do. A field medic in the Rangers, he’d saved the lives of his buddies more times than he could count. He’d loved it. But he’d also seen more blood than he wanted, and too much of it had come from innocent, helpless victims. He’d lost two friends. He’d spent too much time in hellholes, and there were things he had seen that were starting to keep him awake at night.

  “Wish you’d reconsider leaving.”

  Luke didn’t bother looking at Tony. His CO had made that more than clear. Nobody seemed to want to him to leave. None of them could seem to understand he was through, and it really didn’t have much to do with his injury.

  The injury had just forced him to acknowledge things a little sooner.

  “I’m not a teacher. I don’t want to be a teacher.”

  “You can’t leave it behind as easy as that, Luke. You don’t want to teach, don’t teach. But this is your life. You ca
n’t just walk away.”

  “Wanna bet?” Luke shook his head. “I know you guys don’t get it, but I don’t want this anymore.”

  Quietly, Tony asked, “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke murmured. “But it’s not this.”

  Off to the side, Quinn watched him with unreadable eyes. Luke met that level gaze for a minute and then looked away. He didn’t know what was worse: his twin’s unspoken censure, or the guilt because he didn’t feel at all bad for leaving his twin behind.

  TWO

  Six Years Later

  THE early spring rain came down in an ugly, cold drizzle. Fitting, Luke guessed, as he stood by the graveside and listened to the minister’s voice drone on and on.

  The gleaming black case held the remains of Sergeant Adam Murphy, one of Luke’s friends from the unit. The rest of the unit was gathered around in their finest, various ribbons and medals decorating their uniforms.

  Luke stood in the rain wearing a black suit he seldom wore and a topcoat that didn’t block the chill in the air. It had little to do with temperature, though, and everything to do with the fact that he had to watch another friend get buried.

  You weren’t able to leave it behind after all, he brooded. Adam’s wife of three years sat across from him with a blank, dazed look on her face. She still hadn’t managed to process what had happened; it would take a while, Luke knew from experience. Even when a person was familiar with death, even when they’d had it happen close to home before, it wasn’t something a body ever got used to.

  The funeral ended as the flag adorning Adam’s coffin was folded and given to Leah Murphy. She accepted it without really seeming to realize what she was doing. That dazed, shocked look on her face had both the doctor and the friend inside Luke concerned. He glanced at the older woman sitting next to Leah. It was her mother; he remembered meeting her at the wedding.

  The men standing beside Luke were mostly friends from the unit, guys he’d bled with, laughed with. There were too many new faces, four new members of the unit in all, and only one of them was at all familiar to Luke.

  The rest of them were strangers, and Luke knew within a matter of weeks, there’d be another new face, one to replace Adam.

  Luke had only met one of them, Brandon, three years earlier when Adam had gotten married. Back then, Brandon had still been considered new, the guy who’d been brought in to fill Luke’s place. Brandon. Brandon Lashley, Luke thought, even as he wondered why in the hell it mattered who the man was.

  Typical human reaction, he knew, thinking about little details to avoid thinking about the big, ugly ones. Like the coffin being lowered into the ground. He glanced at his brother and murmured, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Quinn didn’t respond, just kept staring at the grave.

  Working his way through the mourners, Luke reached Leah’s side. She gave him a wan smile and held out her hand. It was cold, clammy. She was pale as death. “Hello, Luke. I’m glad you could come.”

  He squeezed her hand gently. “Of course I came.” He dipped his head and kissed her cheek. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Leah shook her head, tried to give him a smile, and failed. “No. I just . . . I think I should go home. Rest.” She glanced to the lady at her side and murmured, “Mama’s staying with me for a while.”

  “Good. That’s good. You don’t need to be alone right now.”

  “Alone.” She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together. Her lashes lifted, and he saw the gleam of tears in there and silently cursed himself. But then she gave a watery little laugh. “I’m not going to be alone, Luke.”

  She squeezed his fingers and then took her hand back, laid it on her belly. “I just found out a few weeks ago I am pregnant.” Her smiled wobbled and faded. “I hadn’t told Adam, wanted to wait until he was home for a while. I . . . I didn’t want to worry him. I was afraid he’d worry, and then something bad . . .” She sighed, passed a hand over her eyes. “But something bad happened anyway, and now he won’t ever know he was going to be a daddy.”

  Her voice broke, and her mother stepped up, wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you home. We have to take care of that little baby now, right?”

  Feeling like a helpless ass, Luke stood there watching as the women walked away. “Shit.”

  A hand came up, rested on his shoulder, and he glanced back to meet the grim blue gaze of his former CO. Tony looked like hell, his uniform not quite fitting right, like he’d lost weight. Too much of it. The guy was big, built like a linebacker, not just muscled, but broad and tall. But he had a gaunt look to his face, and the grief in his eyes had him looking a good twenty years older.

  “She’s pregnant,” Luke said.

  The men gathered around them reacted in different ways, some swearing low and ugly, others, like Quinn, remaining as silent as death. “Now that is a son of a bitch for you,” Jeb swore. He glanced in the direction of Leah and her mom, his dark eyes unreadable. “Fucking unfair.”

  Fucking unfair. Yeah, that about summed it up.

  An hour later found five of them, Tony, Jeb, Brandon, Quinn, and Luke, at Tony’s small apartment in Fort Benning.

  “Am I why the others didn’t come?” Luke asked as he followed Tony into the living room, stripping off his soaked coat.

  Tony shrugged. “I dunno. Told them they were welcome to come, but maybe they wanted to give us a while first. We were all with Adam the longest.”

  Part of Luke was grateful, even though he felt bad. People needed to be with friends in times like this, but he knew he wouldn’t have felt as comfortable if the newer guys had been around. Weird enough having Lashley there, even though the two men had met before.

  Luke’s flight home wasn’t until the following morning, and he needed the time with his friends. “You can’t leave it behind as easy as that,” Tony had said six years ago when Luke left the army behind.

  In a way, Tony had been right. Luke had left the unit, but he was still a part of it. Enough a part of it that nobody but Lashley thought twice when Luke asked what had gone wrong, how Adam had ended up dead.

  “Not really anything we can go into detail about,” Lashley had said, only to be countered by Jeb’s harsh laugh.

  “Hell, Bran, he ain’t asking for a write-up.”

  Lashley gave Luke a respectful nod, said softly, “I know he was your friend, but you’re not—”

  Tony cut him off. “Not what? Not with us anymore? You can’t leave it behind as easy as that, kid. Luke wants to know the ugly story about how some bastard betrayed us, fine. Keeps me awake at night, and I have no problems sharing if he wants the same problem.” His voice got harsher and harsher with each word, until he finally turned around and stomped out of the room.

  “He’s taking it hard,” Jeb said softly.

  Luke glanced at him. “Friend dies, you can’t expect him not to.”

  Jeb shrugged. “It’s more than just a friend, Luke. Tony’s in charge; one of us gets hurt, gets killed, he feels responsible.”

  Luke wanted to respond, wanted to say it wasn’t Tony’s fault, that Tony wasn’t responsible. In his gut, he knew it was true. But in his soul, he knew he’d feel the guilt the same as Tony if their places were switched.

  In the end, it was Quinn who explained, in short, terse terms, reciting the main facts in a flat, emotionless voice. He didn’t tell Luke everything, and Luke knew there were things he wouldn’t ever know, not unless Quinn filled him in.

  Tony’s willingness to share his insomnia was only going to get Luke a few highlights, no specifics. Neither Jeb nor Tony would share too much, and Luke hadn’t expected anything beyond that.

  “Somebody sold us out. Somebody who knew where we were coming in, where we were going. All of it. They had to; otherwise they never would have been able to lay that fucking trap.”

  “Damned miracle we ain’t all dead,” Jeb said softly.

  Brandon snorted. “Miracl
es have nothing to do with it. Pure blind luck, that and because Quinn got through to us when he did.”

  Quinn’s face was unreadable, his eyes turbulent and cold. “Fuck you, Lashley.”

  Lashley blinked and then scowled at Quinn’s back as the other man stalked out of the living room. Luke heard the front door slam before he even managed to get on his feet.

  “What in the hell did I say?” Brandon demanded as Jeb sent him a withering look.

  Luke grabbed his coat, headed for the front door. Jeb intercepted him. “You might want to leave him alone for a while, Luke.”

  Luke lifted a brow. “You might want to get out of my way, Jeb.”

  Jeb scowled and scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d shaved that morning, but already there was thick stubble darkening his craggy face. “Luke, Adam wasn’t the only one to get killed on this. There was a woman . . .”

  He glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure nobody else was listening. Lowering his voice, he murmured, “We had somebody feeding us information, a woman we’ve worked with before. They caught her, beat the hell out of her, raped her, killed her. Quinn found her when he . . .” his voice trailed off, and then he shook his head. “Quinn found her, Luke. And he never said anything, but I think he had feelings for her. He’s blaming himself.”

  LUKE found Quinn in his cramped apartment two miles away, soaked to the bone from the rain and sitting on the floor in the living room. He still wore his Class A uniform, the tie askew, jacket unbuttoned. His head rested against the couch, and he didn’t stir, even when Luke flicked on the lights and came to sit down beside him.

  “You regret leaving?” Quinn asked after a while.

  Luke shook his head, replied softly, “No.” He shrugged restlessly, his eyes roaming over the bare walls of the apartment. No pictures, no calendars, nothing but bare, white walls. Empty. “I miss you. Sometimes the guys. But I don’t regret leaving.”

  Quinn closed his eyes. “I’m glad you’re gone. Today, saying bye to Adam, I kept thinking if you’d stayed, it could have been you we’d been burying. Four of us, man, four of us gone, and I keep thinking I’m damn glad my brother ain’t with us anymore.”