Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117443 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117443 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
***********************
Chris had to take a moment to absorb her words. Of all the things he’d seen and done in his life, he couldn’t imagine going through what she’d been through and surviving. She’d done it alone. And with no training. He’d had years of training, the best training the army had to offer, and even when that bomb went off and things were at their worst, he’d had his team, his unit, his men around him. She’d gone into a hole in the ground, alone, pulled herself out, alone, and stayed alone for five years. The truth of Hayley’s life was so much worse than any of the scenarios he’d imagined. But she was so much more beautiful for having survived it. The fact that she was here for him to touch, and that she let him, welcomed him even, was almost beyond his understanding.
He reached out, needing to feel her again, needing to reassure himself that she was real. As she always did, she leaned into him, needing him just as much. The enormity, the entirety of the girl next to him hit him like a freight train and grabbed onto her fiercely. And cried. He felt the heated drops slide down his cheeks and realized he was fucking crying.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Or if he’d ever. He couldn’t think of anything right now. Only Hayley and her warmth, her presence. She slid her arms around him and rubbed his back, comforting him. She was comforting him. Which should, and did, make him feel like an ass, but he only gripped her tighter. Christ, she was such a fucking miracle. A thing he hadn’t known he’d needed and had no explanation for, but couldn’t let go of now for any price.
Chapter 26
The next morning, Chris wasn’t in any kind of a better mood. He threw his keys on the desk in the office and shut the door harder than he meant to. He’d made a valiant effort, he thought, to hide his feelings from Hayley, but inside he was twisted up and on the verge of rage. Which would be pointless since there was no one to receive the brunt of his anger anyway.
He’d seen action during deployment. It wasn’t a secret. And he’d seen his fair share of violence overall. But he’d also seen better looking corpses than Hayley. He couldn’t even imagine the kind of cold-bloodedness it would take to inflict that kind of damage on a woman. Hell, Chris couldn’t imagine raising a hand to female, let alone taking a knife and butchering one. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bright colors of a hot rod calendar on the wall. A yellow Impala with a nearly topless Asian girl spread across the hood. And he’d found a target for his fury.
He grabbed the calendar and yanked it off the wall. And from there he just kept going. He tore every poster off every wall, throwing them onto the floor. With one hand he launched the computer monitor with its racy wallpaper off the desk. It collided into the wall above the filing cabinet. The resulting crash alerted the others, who opened the door.
Hawk gave a low whistle. “Damn,” he said. “Guess we’re redecorating.”
Tex and Jimmy filed into the room. Jimmy picked up the monitor and inspected it’s cracked screen. “This is toast,” he announced to the room, and tossed it onto the desk.
Tex eyed the posters on the floor. “Got some issues to work out, I see.”
“I can’t deal with that shit right now,” Chris grumbled.
Tex picked up one of the posters, which was nearly torn in two. “It’s a helluva thing,” he declared. “Her stomach all shredded like that. I wonder what her tits look like.”
Chris launched himself at his friend, crashing them both into the filing cabinet, his forearm laid across Tex’s throat.
“Chris,” Tex said calmly. “A large part of woman’s sexual identity is her breasts. Men don’t think about that sometimes. Just like a man and his penis and testicles. How many stories have we heard about guys making it home with one ball or needing an implant and they can’t take it so they eat their gun?
“If a woman’s breasts are mutilated or made to look unattractive it can do a lot of damage mentally and emotionally. They need a lot of counseling and sometimes even reconstructive surgery won’t help all that much. They won’t look or feel the way she remembers. It can take a long time to heal. I just wondered about the extent of what you’re up against.”
Chris hesitated for a moment and then released Tex and stepped back.
Tex clapped his former lieutenant on the shoulder. “Sorry I used that word. That was crass and I didn’t think.” He sat down at the desk and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and several glasses from the bottom drawer.