Tyler groaned and Piper’s attention went to her brother’s face. His eyes opened slowly, his pupils unfocused and dazed.
“He’s heavily medicated,” the doctor said.
“Tyler,” she said, bending down.
He looked at her as if he were trying to assimilate the image of her with being in a combat zone, as if he might be dreaming.
“Yes, I’m here. You’re going to be fine,” she said, smoothing back his beautiful, caramel-brown hair.
He closed his whiskey-colored eyes and groaned. “LT. Find out about LT.” His deep voice was filled with pain, his speech slurred. He started to get agitated and she soothed him.
“He’s fine.”
“Did you see him?” Tyler demanded, trying to push up, but collapsed down with a groan.
“No, but the doctor told me.”
“Please, see him. Find out. Please, Piper.” His expression was full of panic, as if he were sure Dexter was dead.
“I will,” she said, rubbing at his arm. “Calm down. I’ll find out.” She’d never met Dex, but he was one of Tyler’s favorite topics.
Piper leaned down and kissed him on his bristly cheek.
She left the room and tracked down the nurse who had brought her to her brother. “Nurse Davis, I’m looking for Lieutenant Kaczewski.”
“He’s in bed twelve, just one wing over. Why…?”
Piper touched the nurse’s arm, her voice intense. “He’s my brother’s best friend and he wants me to check on him. I promise. I’ll only stay for a few minutes.”
Her face softened. “All right, but just a few minutes.”
Piper nodded her agreement and headed down the hall. Her detail followed, but she had them wait outside the room. It was dim inside and she didn’t want to disturb Dexter, but she wanted to quiet down her brother. He was so distressed.
The half-drawn curtain was a flimsy barrier and as she stepped closer, she heard it. A choking sound, then another one on its heels. Then she was sure. He was crying…no―her heart contracted―sobbing. The kind of gut-deep sorrow she knew intimately. That car accident had taken everything from her, and it had felt as if her whole world had ended.
He was brave, making noise, showing people his grief.
Piper’s response had been different. The worst type of crying—the silent kind. The one when everyone was asleep. The one where she felt it in her throat, and her eyes were blurry from tears. The one where she just wanted to scream. The one where she had to hold her breath and grab her stomach to keep quiet. The one when she realized the person that meant the most to her was gone.
She knew how it felt. She knew exactly how it felt to cry in the shower so no one could hear her, and waiting for everyone to fall asleep so she could fall apart, for everything to hurt so bad she just wanted it all to end.
They must have told him about the three SEALs he’d lost from his team. He was hurting so badly, and part of that hurt had something to do with guilt…with Tyler. She was well aware of that, too, and how it could twist you up until it was hard to sleep at night.
She knew what it was like to lead, to be in charge of something so important it consumed her, but…this―leading men and being responsible for their lives, making life-and-death decisions, the weight of that… A rush of profound, heartfelt compassion made her whole chest ache.
Her throat tightened and all the fear for her brother and all the pain she had tried to dodge by working and numbing herself welled up in her. She should leave, and she even took a step back. She didn’t want to let it loose either. But the lost and broken sound of him reached out to her, touched her with the honesty of his emotion, the bravery of him to allow himself the grief, to feel the loss. She’d felt so alone, had shed the same kind of broken tears.
She changed her mind and stepped around the curtain. He was on his back, his eyes closed, his chest heaving, tears running down his cheeks over dark stubble.
She must have made a sound because his eyes popped open. Caught off guard, his handsome face vulnerable and open, the agony of loss scored his cobalt blue eyes; pain contorted his striking features.
“Dexter,” she said softly, as if she knew him. “I’m Tyler’s sister.”
She’d never met him, but her brother had talked about him all the time whenever he was home on leave.
Tyler had said that his LT—Dexter—was the essence of a Navy SEAL, a guy who got into the mess with his men, led them with strength and courage, never let them down, hung with them through everything—whether they were up to their necks in a fight or wrecked over a breakup letter from their girl. He was sarcastic, with a whip-like wit, made them work hard, learn about what made Navy SEALs unbreakable so they’d be safe. Through Tyler, she felt like she knew Lieutenant Dexter Kaczewski.
The introduction set him off again, and he covered his face and wept. It seemed the most natural thing to lean in and gather him against her. He buried his face in her neck and held on to her fiercely. And she held him, rocked him through that terrible storm. Her heart breaking for the heaviness of his burden, of leading men, coming to know them and love them, then losing them. Command had to be so very difficult.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over as he totally lost it, his tears wet against her neck. He made a soft sound of pain when he wrapped his arms around her waist as she pressed his head against her chest. His hair was soft, his scalp warm against her palm as she cradled him.
But what slammed into her and made her move forward and comfort him in this dark hour was that Dexter had saved Tyler, braved death to carry her baby brother to safety.
Dex held on to this beautiful blonde angel, whom he wasn’t sure was real. She felt solid and her voice was sweet and calm, filled with the tears he’d seen clouding her eyes. He wasn’t ashamed of breaking down. It was inevitable and his macho face would be back in place in only a few short hours, but now was the time to feel the loss of Spaceman, Slim Jim and DJ. Men he had nurtured, fought with and protected as best he could.
By way of Coronado, California, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, on to Germany, and they had dropped into the most dangerous place on earth. Hours after their team had been assembled for the mission, he was a world away from home. He knew he might not see his brother, Russell “Rock” Kaczewski, a former Marine, or his dad, two-star Navy SEAL Rear Admiral Matthew Kaczewski, stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, or his sassy and beautiful mother, Thelma, again. He’d made peace with knowing each mission could be the last a long time ago.
A SEAL’s troubles were different from many kinds of civilian stress. He’d risked his life so many times in so many battles, but he’d never let it control his performance. He had only one regret, and that was how his deployments had really messed up his relationships. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about those now. But there were two, to be exact. Melissa, who was a beautiful, soft, gorgeous soul. They had been heading for marriage. He had no doubt about it. But he’d wanted to be a SEAL, just after he finished the Marine corps basic training. He had put in for a transfer to the Navy and entered the Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School, then it was two and a half years of training before he became a SEAL. But when he made the decision to go into Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, they had started to fight. He wasn’t home enough. He was changing. He wasn’t the same man. And her complaints only grew until there hadn’t been anything left of what they once had.