“I don’t know why she left,” Keegan growled, when Bob asked yet again. He’d been asking daily for the last month. “I can’t read her mind, but I know one thing. I’m not chasing another woman. Those days are over for me, Unk.”
“Look at me, dumbass!” Bob shouted, and Keegan dropped the wrench back in the toolbox, then looked up to meet his uncle’s eyes with a sigh. “Did you tell her you love her?”
“No, because I don’t,” Keegan replied, flinching when a sharp pain sliced through the center of his chest. He didn’t want to, but fuck if he didn’t. He’d get over it, though, just like he had with Cee Cee. He wasn’t in any more pain than he’d been in before he met Jules Lawson.
“And you are a fucking liar. I know love when I see it, boy—I’ve been living it daily for nearly twenty-five years. Louise is my rudder and I’d be lost without her.”
Keegan threw back his head and groaned. “Even if I did, she didn’t give me a chance to say it, because she didn’t want to hear it!”
“Maybe it’s something else. Did you say something to piss her off? I know she was pretty angry that you locked her in that cabin with us.”
Anger and frustration rushed up to make his head feel like it would explode. “She’s gone, so just leave it alone! We had a fling—it’s over!” Keegan scrubbed his hand over his mouth, because the words tasted like acid on his tongue.
“Have you seen the doctor about that surgery?” Bob demanded, harping on his second favorite topic, since he and Louise went with him to the ER after he left the ship. “A one-armed mechanic is about as useless to me as you are without her.”
Keegan’s anger turned to rage and consumed him as he shot up to his feet. His fists curled and he hissed a breath reaching up to massage his right shoulder.
“If I’m useless to you, Unk, then I won’t waste any more of your fucking time,” he growled as he spun and stalked toward the back door.
“You’re not wasting my time—you’re wasting your own, Son. Stop being a stubborn ass. Have the surgery, and go get that girl. If you don’t, you’ll be useless for the rest of your life. You need a rudder, boy, because you’re headed for the rocks.”
Keegan pushed the back door open and the bright sunlight blinded him. Bob’s words echoed inside his skull, his heart pounded and his ears rang. A feeling of hopeless desperation kept him from walking out. If he walked through that door, he had no idea where he’d go, what he’d do, or how he’d survive. He would be headed for the rocks with no job, no family who gave a shit about him, and nowhere to live.
He had a little money, so he could find a place closer to his parents in Tennessee, but they were still angry at him for turning his back on his brother. He might be able to make peace with them and Kane, but what then? He would live in a small Podunk town on his disability and have no purpose in life. He’d shrivel up and die inside.
That was the scariest consequence of all and what kept him planted right where he was.
Bob had offered him a purpose and by walking out, he was spitting in his uncle’s face. Without the surgery, his uncle was right, he would be useless here. Taking a deep breath, he blew it out slowly and let the door close. He turned around to face Bob and his insides clenched seeing the disappointment on his face.
“I’ll make the appointment to see the surgeon today and schedule the surgery as soon as possible,” he said, and his uncle nodded.
“And the girl?” Bob asked, not letting Keegan off the hook.
“I’ll try to give her a call to at least find out why she left,” Keegan said with a sigh. “But I can’t guarantee anything there. I really do think I was just a heat-of-the-moment thing for her.”
But it definitely wasn’t for him. To satisfy his uncle, he would make the call and have her tell him to his face it was just about sex to her. It would hurt worse than his shoulder did now, but maybe it would be cathartic and help him find closure, too. Put those fantasies of her calling him out of the blue to tell him she loved him too right out of his mind.
***
“Hey, Keeg—how are you feeling, baby?” a female voice cooed, as soft fingers brushed across his forehead to push his hair back to drag him up a long dark tunnel.
He opened blurry eyes, saw red hair and excitement rushed through him, but when they focused, Louise appeared. With a groan, he closed them and his shoulder throbbed. He tried to move his fingers and nothing. Panic shot through him as he shot up but was pulled back down to the bed by the tubes connected to his body.
“Is my arm still there?” he asked, his voice raw as pressure built in his head and his insides went numb. Losing a limb had been more of a fear than dying on missions. He’d seen how some of his buddies went home and would rather be dead.
Not riding a bike again would kill him.
When he tried to ride his bike home after the cruise ship was hauled into harbor, it was too excruciating to extend his arm and his hand was too weak to grip the throttle, so Bob had to ride it home and he rode with Louise in the Jeep. He hadn’t ridden since, because it hurt too fucking bad and never riding again had been a fear he’d secretly dealt with since.
“Settle down. You’re loopy on the drugs, and of course your arm is still there. The doc said your entire arm will be numb for two or three days from the anesthesia, and when the feeling comes back it will hurt like hell for months,” Louise said, holding his shoulder to the bed.
“I rather the pain so I know it’s there,” Keegan replied, as relief made him weak and he reached up to feel the thick gauze bandages and moved his hand down his padded arm to the sling, which tied his forearm across his middle.
“Doc said he had a lot of repair work to do in there, but he thinks you’ll have pretty close to full mobility after several months of intensive physical therapy.”
Keegan’s eyes snapped to her. “Really? The other doctor didn’t say that. He said I’d be lucky to have fifty-percent after it’s healed.” He tried like hell not to let that hope inside him, because he knew he was just setting himself up for a helluva fall.
Just like he had with thinking Jules would return his calls.
During the week he waited for surgery, he’d left message after message for her. He’d texted her and knew she’d seen them—at least the first five or so he’d sent. Then he figured she’d blocked him because the time stamps stopped.
That told him what he needed to know.
Emotion built again, his chest tightened, but Keegan forced himself to relax.
She was just a woman, and they were a dime a dozen. At least the kind he planned to allow into his world from here on out were. That other part of him was dead now, as dead as his arm was at the moment and it wasn’t all that bad, so far.
He would just deal with the pain Louise said would come once the numbness wore off.
Like the grueling PT he’d have to endure for his arm to get better, he’d do other things, and other women, to wipe a certain blue-eyed blonde turned temporary redhead from his mind. He knew now he’d been as temporary in her life as that red hair color.
He’d done what he promised Bob, and it was over. If he brought her up again, Keegan would shut him down fast. Jules Lawson was a closed subject.
“Where’s Uncle Bob?” he asked.
Louise’s face flushed. “He had some errands to run, but he’ll be here soon. I need to call him and tell him you’re awake.”
Louise stood and hurried out of the room with her phone in her hand. Keegan closed his eyes, and sighed. He was thankful for the IV that pumped drugs into his body as he floated on a white cloud and found peace. He hoped they gave him plenty of scripts to take home with him so he could get through the next few months.
A soft, warm palm cupped his cheek and he smiled as he turned his head toward it and nuzzled the silky skin. A very familiar floral scent drifted up his nostrils and when his mind connected the scent with who it belonged to, he jerked his face away and opened his eyes.
“Hey, Boris,” Jules said, her eyes glistening as she pulled her hand away.
Keegan’s eyes soaked her up and his insides unfurled as hot need roasted his gut, melting the ice around his heart. He glanced at the drip bag and wondered if he was hallucinating from the drugs. But when he looked back at her, he knew she was really standing beside the bed.
She reneged on your agreement, MacDonald. She gave you the kiss-off when you needed her and didn’t return your calls. You don’t need her, or her sympathy. Don’t give her another chance to stab you in the gut.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Jules?” he growled, but his question was answered when he saw Bob standing behind her.
“Bob said you needed me. So, here I am,” she replied, her voice trembling. “You said I was good at fixing shoulders.”
And breaking hearts. No, he didn’t need a damned thing from her. She’d done enough damage.
Keegan whipped his eyes toward the wall because if he looked at her one second longer the roar building in his chest might just escape.
“Bob was mistaken. I don’t need a damned thing from you, so you can leave. I’m sure you have better things to do,” he grated, his left fist curling to combat the pressure in his chest.
“I’m transferring to the Los Angeles office in a few months, so I have some time off. I really would like to help you get through this,” she said, and Keegan ground his teeth to dust.
“Why, Natasha? Why do you want to help me?” he asked, forcing his eyes back to hers.
She flinched and didn’t respond for a second. “Because we’re friends and I care about you, MacDonald,” she finally replied.
“I have plenty of friends, you’ve met them. I don’t need another friend, Agent Lawson—I told you that.” A tremor shook her and her face flushed, but she didn’t refute her statement. He looked at the wall again. “Go to Los Angeles, Jules. I know you’re probably already compiling a list of terror suspects to take down. Have at them, but don’t call me to help. I’ll probably be out of the country with my friends.”
“You’re going back to the teams?” she asked, the fear in her tone real. “But Bob said you were taking over at the—” she stopped on a whimper to glance over her shoulder at Bob, whose face was grim. When her eyes found Keegan’s again, they were filled with terror.
“The doc says I’ll likely have full mobility after I heal, so yes, I’ll be rejoining the teams if they’ll have me. That is where I belong.”
Those men were his family and from here on out they were all he needed.