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Dammit. The guy’s equally unique accent, a combination of highbrow British and hardcore New Yorker, was smooth as a knowing criminal—because he damn near was. Fucker had known exactly where this conversation would go, didn’t he?
Franz grimaced, unsettled. No. Horrified. Since when did his own guys pull a psychological wedgie on him? It was his job to know them better. Always.
Always.
He jammed both hands in his pockets.
And for the first time in his entire life, began to pace.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
His world was so goddamned off-balance—a chaos having nothing to do with losing his eye. This shit went deeper. So much deeper. Half his breaths weren’t worth taking anymore. Half his thoughts weren’t worth completing. At the top of every minute, he all but screamed at time to hurry the fuck up and get on with the next—only to realize the exact same experience waited for him in the next sixty seconds.
Every one of those sensations was even worse now—not helped a goddamned bit as he wheeled on the smug sonofabitches, openly gritting his teeth. “Just a few things. huh?” Raging defensiveness cut into the words. He heard it, and hated it—and forced himself to just live with it. If this was what Head Shrink Lange wanted, this was what the bastard was going to get. “Outstanding. Let’s go, doc dick wad. What you got for me?”
The guy pushed to his feet too. Almost assumed a full attention stance, which flattened Franz’s instinct once more. How the hell was he supposed to stay pissed at the po’o ’olohaka, when he was playing the half-prince of politeness in return?
“This isn’t about what I’ve got for you, Captain.” He lifted his head a little higher, causing the sun to ignite the red tints in his light brown hair. “And I think you know that, as well.”
“Oh, by God’s massive cock.” Rebel rolled upright, heaving a labored sigh. “And they say we French beat around the bush.”
Rhett swung a pissed glower. “Maybe I’m attempting a little bloody respect? We’re talking about the president of the country, asshole.”
“Who’s also a human being,” Rebel rebutted. “A femme magnifique, I might add—one who is, perhaps, a woman at last worthy of this homme incroyable.” His stare sharpened as he dipped a nod toward Franzen. “Question is, does this guy still agree?”
His jaw clamped so hard, his teeth hurt. Didn’t come close to the agony of the vital organ beating at the inside of Franz’s ribs. “What this one agrees or disagrees to isn’t part of the equation.” When Reb just blinked blankly, he snarled, “Reminder of the day? In your boy toy’s own words? President of the country, Stafford. Let me translate that one a little clearer. A woman who’s now being called on to help redefine a brand-new world. To restore some semblance of security for our whole land. To take on a job that will be, on most if not all days, overwhelming—”
“And you think she doesn’t want help with that burden?” Rhett stepped in, firing the charge—making Franz notice, for the first time, that both he and Rebel wore long white cargo pants with their basic white polos, instead of shorts. “That she doesn’t long for someone to be there, helping with all those crazy days and decisions?”
“And suddenly I’m that guy?” Franz spat. And why the hell were they having it out about this, right now? If Mom was demanding everyone fancy their shit up for Sunday dinner, these two bozos were smart enough to realize she’d be livid about the “appetizer course” being a vicious dust-up, yeah? Because this shit was turning into that shit pretty fast. “And what happened to you being on my side about this? Understanding exactly who the hell we’re talking about here?”
“Which is why I’m still standing over here—” Shrink Lange swept both hands toward his feet—“not lunging over there, trying to strangle some fucking sense into you.”
Franzen spread his own arms—wide and violently. “I can’t help her.” The bellow turned his torso into a volcano, his mind into bursting lava, his composure into a black wasteland. “Do you not think I crave that, Lange? Do you—any of you—not see it’s what I spend every other goddamn minute thinking about, grieving about, praying to any power out there about? Do you not really know that I wake up every fucking morning, begging—God, pleading—that I’d been smarter out at Barking Sands? That I’d told Kellan to take his shot at Wrightman sooner that night? Hell, that I’d taken the damn shot at the fucker myself, back in Vegas?”
His hands had twisted into fists. With vehement resolve, he uncurled one pointer finger out, then slowly raised the quivering spear toward his face. “Does this fucked-up shit see better than all of you boxes of rocks put together?”
“Maybe it does.” The interjection wasn’t Rhett’s—or Rebel’s. Only one guy belonged to that Dark Knight baritone, with the enormous physique to match. “So enlighten us, fucker,” Zeke intoned, striding onto the sand in nearly identical clothes to his battalion mates. Garrett appeared behind him, also adhering to the all-white theme.
“I’m on board with that.” Ethan. Scowling. Also all-whiting. “Show us the light, Franz.”
He narrowed a glare. What the hell? Show them the light? But what if they’d already showed him? Had Wrightman really taken him all the way out at Barking Sands, and were the last few weeks just a strange Purgatory? Was he actually resting under the ground beneath these palms, being visited by weird angel versions of the guys? Or maybe this was just one hell of a crazy-ass dream…
No matter what the explanation, it brought one defining conclusion.
They wanted the truth that bad?
They could sure as hell have it.
“Okay.” He folded his arms, running an assessing gaze along the semi-circle of their attentive faces. “You want the light on? Here’s your goddamn light, kids.”
So starting was easier than continuing—but he tightened his gut, ordering the words back the right direction. Words that had haunted his psyche for all these agonizing, endless weeks. Had pushed at the confines of his heart like words to a poet, music to a minstrel…purpose to a warrior.
“I’m in love with Tracy Livia Rhodes. Pretty damn sure I have been since the moment I met her.”
He looked up as another movement caught his eye. Quirked one side of his mouth, saying to the new arrival to their circle, “You all think I’m the one who kept her alive after that explosion then the bullshit in Seattle—but the truth is, she saved me. All of me.”
He trailed off, knowing he didn’t need to say more—confronting the understanding of that in every inch of Garrett’s brotherly smile.
