Both Huntley and Cullen remained very still.
Beck released a weary sigh. “We were extracting a group of POWs. They’d been there a week, but we couldn’t get close enough or get an accurate count of the insurgents guarding them.” He swallowed hard. “One of the POWs was a high-profile journalist and there was pressure to act faster than I felt comfortable with. We went in at night…and they’d moved locations through an underground tunnel. We missed them by mere minutes and when we entered the tunnel, there was an explosive device waiting for us.” Cullen tensed beside him but maintained his hundred-yard stare. Beck closed his eyes, scenes from the tunnel bombarding him from all sides. “Xander was the most experienced specialist among us, but he—”
“Finish what you have to say,” Cullen demanded, his voice quiet.
“He got it wrong.” Wood splintering, earth falling, shrapnel lodging in his side. Being unable to reach his friend. “The explosive went off and half the tunnel caved in. Most of us were in an offshoot that remained standing.” Huntley pressed her face to his shoulder and Beck wrapped an arm around her. “This isn’t on you.” It’s on me. “No amount of training—”
Beck didn’t even flinch when Cullen’s fist shot out, sending the shot glasses crashing behind the bar because he’d known it was coming. Nor was he surprised when Cullen scraped back in his chair and took off toward the bar exit.
Beck started to go after Cullen, but Huntley, her eyes full of unshed tears, laid a hand on his arm. “I’ll go.” She rubbed her nose. “I’m a nurse. I work with grief-stricken soldiers every day. He thinks he’s responsible, and that’s worse than grief.” She looked in the direction Cullen had gone, then back at Beck. “It’s going to take him some time.” Her blue eyes sharpened on him. Her hand reached out and touched his side through his shirt, as though assessing his injury. “I’m glad you’re back and it’s over, but you could have died over there, too, Beck. You’re a part of me. I couldn’t have handled that. Please don’t keep anything like that from me again.”
“I won’t.”
He only had a second to marvel over how strong his sister had become in his absence before she turned and went after Cullen. When the door of the bar slammed closed behind her, Beck felt it reverberate in his head, like a gunshot going off, telling him he shouldn’t have come home. More than anything, he wished he’d made different judgment calls that would’ve resulted in having his friend home healthy. If such things were possible, he’d have switched places with Xander. Too heavy. The weight of that night, the things he’d heard and seen, was a two-hundred-pound anvil tied to his neck.
Without having made a conscious decision, Beck pushed back from the bar, his destination already a foregone conclusion in his mind. Kenna. Her name was synonymous with comfort, with losing himself, being taken to a place where he didn’t have to think or hurt. He tossed a handful of bills onto the bar and started to leave, but a prickle at the back of his neck gave him pause. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? No. There she stood, about halfway down the bar. Another girl tugged on her arm, urging her in the opposite direction, but Kenna wasn’t budging. She watched him, an odd expression on her face.
Beck didn’t second-guess himself. He went for her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oh mama. Kenna had two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle heading her way and it was attached to intensity so thick it surrounded her legs so they couldn’t move. Why hadn’t she followed Darla out the back exit? She’d started to, but the misery radiating from Beck had reached her from the bar. At once, his cryptic explanation from their first afternoon together had replayed, as if she was hearing them for the first time. What I came back with, what I failed to do…it’ll be a burden on everyone soon enough.
Burdened. That’s exactly what he’d looked like as first his friend, and then the woman so obviously related to him had bailed, leaving him there. She didn’t know what bomb he’d dropped, but knew one thing with total certainty. Beck wasn’t a man who caused others pain if he could damn well help it. She couldn’t be the third person to walk away from him that night. It didn’t seem fair. Fair. Right. That was the only reason she was standing there, no doubt resembling a wigged-out forest creature who had heard a twig snap.
When Beck had almost reached her, she managed a paltry step backward, but it was too late. He stooped down to wrap a brawny arm behind her hips, lifting her against his hard body with so little effort, a whimper snuck out. His friend sending shot glasses flying across the bar had garnered zero attention, but Lieutenant General Sutton’s daughter being manhandled in public grinded the entire operation to a halt. The band forgotten, everyone shuffled around to face them. Thankfully, the music was still loud enough that only Kenna—and Darla, who stood openmouthed beside her—could make out Beck’s words.