Tara Sivec - Worn Me Down

“Vargas, man, they’re dead. We have to leave them.”

Punch.

“You need to pull it together right now. We have to get the fuck out of here!”

Punch-punch.

“You can’t save them. They both took a bullet between the eyes. I’m not about to let that happen to you so get the fuck up and let’s go!”

Punch-punch-punch.

Pushing aside the memories, I hit the bag so hard that my hands sting and the muscles in my arms burn, but it doesn’t matter. The pain in my body takes away the pain in my heart from seeing one of my best friends completely lose it in the field, cradling the dead body of one of his friends to him and rocking back and forth in a daze. I need the distraction of being here, helping Brady out so I can forget about how one of the strongest SEALs I’ve ever met broke down and has never been the same since.

“What the hell are you doing?”

At the sound of Gwen’s angry shout, my arms pause mid-punch. I didn’t even hear her come in. Fuck, I’m losing it. I’m a SEAL, people aren’t supposed to sneak up on me. She’s like a Goddamn ninja.

“I was working, then I got bored waiting for you,” I tell her, glancing at my watch. “You’re fifteen minutes late.”

She slams her purse down on the table by the door and stalks around to the other side of the heavy bag. She’s wearing her usual uniform of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that hugs her body. Just once I’d like to see her wearing something skimpy that shows a little skin and a lot of cleavage.

Fuck, I need to get laid.

“How the hell did you get in here?” she asks me angrily as I begin unwrapping the tape from my hands.

I ignore her question. “So, I’ve been bringing myself up to speed this morning. You got some good shots of Bradford on the Harley.”

She glares up at me and I smile back.

“I thought we agreed you were going to leave me alone,” she complains, crossing her arms in front of her.

“We didn’t agree on anything. I smartly kept my mouth shut so you’d stop nagging me. If you’d rather, I could go pick your kid up from school and teach her some new words.”

She groans in frustration and walks out of the room. Tossing the pile of tape into the trashcan, I follow her out to her desk.

“Did you go through my files?” she asks in irritation, sorting through the folders on her desk.

“Well, since I’m going to be working here, I needed to see what you have going on. Don Bradford is a lying sack of shit, April Marcum is a cheating whore and Chris Speedman makes enough money to finally start paying his wife child support.”

She ignores me, stacking and restacking all of the files since obviously I didn’t put them back as perfectly as she left them, so I continue. “I also checked the calendar. Looks like we have a stakeout later today to catch another cheating spouse. Do you want to drive or should I?”

Gwen finally stops playing with the files and huffs. “You’re not going with me.”

I just smile at her. “Fine, I’ll go with you to your hair appointment and make sure you don’t do something stupid like go back to blonde.”

Oops. I’m not supposed to know that.

Her head jerks up and she looks at me wide-eyed. “How the hell do you know I used to be a blonde?”

I shrug. No sense in telling her Cole spilled some of her secrets. I’d much rather have her assume I’m onto her.

“Just a hunch. For the record, I like the blue and purple. It’s hot and makes you look like you could kick some ass. You’d look like a Stepford Wife if you were blonde,” I tell her with a laugh, hoping the ‘wife’ comment will get her to admit something about the poor guy she left behind in New York.

Her shoulders lose their tension and I actually wonder if she’s letting her guard down. She cocks her head to the side and stares up at me with those gorgeous gray eyes and runs her fingers through her shoulder-length dark hair self-consciously. My dick stands at attention when I think what that hair would feel like skimming across my thighs.

Oh, hell no! There will be none of that shit going on. Time to douse some cold water on everything.

“You do know that it’s my job to find out things, right? I know you ran away from New York with your tail between your legs and have been hiding out here with your brother. What happened? Mommy and Daddy not paying enough attention to you? Or maybe the guy you left behind finally decided you weren’t worth the trouble and kicked you to the curb.”

The softness in her eyes immediately vanishes and is replaced with hurt. I have a moment of regret for saying what I did, but I don’t have time for this bullshit. We can either keep playing this stupid little game or she can tell me what the fuck is going on and why I’m here instead of out on a mission where there’s real danger.

Instead of throwing a sarcastic comment my way like she usually does, Gwen turns away from me and heads to the door.

“I need to run some errands. You can sit at Brady’s desk and go through his files until it’s time to head out and do the tail in a few hours.”

And just like that, she shuts me down. Guess I probably should have went with my first instinct and continued to grill Cole about her. It would have been much easier than trying to pry the truth out of Gwen.

After an hour spent walking around downtown Nashville avoiding Austin for a little bit, I finally decide to suck it up and head back to the office to face him. One minute he’s being a smartass and the next he’s complimenting my hair and making me feel special. And then he goes right back to being a jerk by making that ‘mommy and daddy’ comment and the dig about my relationship with William. I was stupid to think he wouldn’t look into my background and I could just send him packing. At least he doesn’t know everything. Maybe I should just tell him – that would certainly shut him up. Tell him how up until the night I left, my husband would only hit me in places where no one could see the bruises; inform him that my parents don’t care what that ‘poor guy’ put me through, as long as I come back home so they don’t look bad in front of their friends.

As much as I want to wipe that smug look off of Austin’s face, I don’t want to see it replaced with pity. Every single day I look at myself in the mirror I worry about what people see, what my daughter sees. I want her to be proud of me for the choices I made and I want to be strong for her. I can’t do that if I’m surrounded by people who feel sorry for me. It’s why I’ve never told Brady everything that happened. Showing up at his place in the middle of the night with a busted jaw, broken ribs and a shattered arm was more than enough truth for him.

When I’m a block away from the building, my phone vibrates in my hand. Checking the display, I see that it’s Karen.

Brady introduced me to Karen, who lives across the hall in his apartment building, right after Emma and I moved in. She’s a retired widow in her sixties who raised six children that are now grown and scattered across the country. Emma took to her immediately and Karen jumped at the chance to watch her during the day while Brady and I were working. Most days she refuses to take any money from me and tells me that Emma keeps her young and eases her loneliness and that’s payment enough. Karen was a lifesaver when I was working as a waitress after I first got here and barely had two nickels to rub together.

“Hey Karen, what’s going on? Is Emma okay?” I ask as I wait by the crosswalk for the light to change.

“Hello dear, Emma’s fine. We just got home from an exhausting few hours at the park. Poor thing fell asleep as soon as she sat down on my couch,” Karen tells me with a laugh.

The light changes and I look both ways before crossing the street, smiling when I picture Emma talking Karen’s ear off and then crashing mid-sentence.

“I hate to worry you or anything, but I promised you I would let you know if anything strange happened while Emma was with me,” Karen tells me, all the humor gone from her voice.

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, my hand gripping the phone tightly. Karen saw me several times in the hall of our apartment building right after I showed up on Brady’s doorstep in the middle of the night. She saw the bruises and the cast, but never asked any questions. When she agreed to watch Emma a month later, she took my hands in hers and told me that it wouldn’t always be this hard. She told me that she would never pry into my personal life, but if I ever needed someone to talk to she would always be available. As much as I wanted to trust her with my secrets, I just couldn’t. It was hard enough to trust someone else with my daughter. I did, however, tell her to let me know if anything strange ever happened when she was with Emma. It didn’t matter how big or how small, if it seemed off, she was to tell me right away. Karen agreed without question. Each day I get to know her more, it makes me wish my mother could show even half the compassion that Karen does.

“What happened?” I ask in a shaky voice.

Karen sighs. “At first I didn’t think anything of it. Emma was on the swings and I was a few feet away on a bench watching her. After a little while she came running up to me and she told me that there was a man looking at her. When she pointed to where he was, there was no one there. I just chalked it up to her little imagination going wild and sent her back to play. When we were walking home, I noticed a car going real slow down the street past us. I didn’t think anything of it until the car rolled past us again and I realized I had seen the same car parked near the playground when we got there.”

I can’t stop my hands from shaking. “Did you see who was driving?”

“I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, they were wearing a hat and glasses. I’m not sure it’s the same person Emma saw watching her at the park, but I thought it would be best to tell you,” Karen replies.

It’s a miracle I can speak without crying, but I manage to thank her and tell her I’ll be home early from work. Right now all I can think about is getting home to my baby and holding her. I hate to do this to Emma, but for the time being, trips to the park are going to have to be put on hold. This could just be a coincidence, but I can’t take that chance.

I take a few moments to calm my racing heart and, with a deep breath and a lift of my chin, I fling open the door to the office and walk inside, tamping down my nerves over Karen’s phone call and preparing to face whatever Austin throws at me. I stop in my tracks when I see the empty office. The unoccupied room isn’t what makes my heart speed up and my hands shake, though. On the edge of my desk are five coffee mugs from the kitchenette, each one turned so that their handles are facing in the exact same direction. Those mugs weren’t on my desk when I left an hour ago, and even if they were, I would NEVER place them like that next to each other. I feel like a fool for standing here freaking out over a couple of cups, but it’s impossible not to when I think back to one particular day so many years ago…

As I finished emptying the dishwasher, I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the makings for a sandwich. I figured while William was working from home today I would make him lunch and take it upstairs to him in his office. I flipped on the radio attached to the underside of one of the kitchen cabinets and began to hum along to the music as I made his favorite – bologna and Swiss with mustard.

I hadn’t realized that William walked into the kitchen until I heard the crash of a glass breaking against the kitchen counter. I jumped and turned around, dropping the knife covered in mustard to the floor.

“What the hell is this mess?” William asked, holding the cabinet door next to the microwave open.

I quickly bent to pick up the knife and tossed it into the sink as I made my way over to him to see what he was so upset about. I stared at the shelves in the cupboard, filled with coffee cups.

“I-I just emptied the dishwasher, they’re all clean,” I told him softly, confused that maybe a dirty one had gotten in there by mistake.

In a flash, his hand was around the back of my neck in a painfully tight grip as he shoved my face closer to the shelves.

“The handles aren’t facing out. How many fucking times do I have to tell you that all of the handles should be facing the same way?” he shouts.