Shielding the Suspect
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C.J. Miller
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Prologue
Brady Truman’s life wasn’t as he’d planned. It was far, far worse. He shifted some of his weight to his bum knee, stifling a wince as pain shot up and down his leg. He gritted his teeth and took another step. More pain. It had been this way for two months. Two months of therapy, rehabilitation, surgeries and medical procedures as the doctors saved his leg from amputation and tried to restore function. Brady didn’t want to walk with a cane for the rest of his life.
Then again, he didn’t want a lot of things and choices had been taken away when an enemy had shot him.
He didn’t want to live with the disfiguring scars on his leg and the weakness in his knee. The surgeons had done everything they could. They said he was lucky that they had been able to save his leg.
Lucky. Sure. It was the last word he’d use to describe his current state.
The physical rehab was difficult, but he hated the psychotherapy more. Too much digging around his psyche about events that didn’t matter and trying to make a mountain out of a bump in the road. Brady avoided bumps. He didn’t stop and scrutinize them.
Adjusting to life outside the military would be difficult. He’d seen friends try it and fail, returning to the military because they needed the structure and discipline.
For Brady, returning to the military wasn’t an option. He couldn’t return to his former position with the Special Forces. His injury guaranteed he would never be stealthy and athletic enough and he couldn’t expect his team to trust him again after his colossal screw-up. A pararescueman needed to be strong, nimble and responsive. Brady didn’t credit himself with any of those traits. Not anymore. Brady let out a grunt of pain when his knee collided with the side of the hospital bed.
His balance was off, like everything in his life.
A tap at the door. He’d gotten accustomed to doctors, nurses and specialists coming and going, and he didn’t know why they bothered knocking. Brady had no illusions of privacy in the hospital.
“Come in,” he said, hiding signs of his discomfort and displeasure. It was one thing to harbor resentment and anger. It was another to act like a pansy and complain about his circumstances. Bad enough he was feeling weak, but worse to have others think it.
Brady didn’t want any more drugs forced on him and the more perfect a patient he was, the sooner he could be discharged. He wanted to go home. Staying in this hospital was making him crazy. He hated being caged in with nothing to do except exercise his leg and think. Too often his thoughts turned to the past and the mistakes that had led him to this point.
It wasn’t a doctor or nurse who entered the room. Instead, a familiar and unwanted face from the past.
“Justin,” Brady said, unpleasantly surprised to see his old pal from the air force walk into his room. The circumstances kept getting worse.
He and Justin had hung out occasionally with a mutual friend back when they’d both been enlisted, but they hadn’t spoken in more than a year and Brady was fine with that. He had nothing to say to the man who had betrayed him. They’d formed a competitive relationship from their early days in the military, but Justin’s relationship with Susan had taken things from competitive to combative.
“Brady Truman, I never thought I’d see the day you had to walk with a cane.”
Brady didn’t smile or take the bait and reply with a smart retort. He should tell Justin to get out of his room, but he didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of knowing his words had cut deep.
“It won’t be for long,” Brady said. He’d been walking around his room for close to twenty minutes, near his upper threshold for endurance. He wasn’t admitting his leg was ready to collapse and he needed to sit. Not in front of Justin Ambrose.
“I heard you spoke to Susan the other day,” Justin said.
Brady had spoken to Susan, but she’d done most of the talking. She had been waiting in his room when he’d returned from his session with the therapist. At the thought of Susan, the memory of making love with her lodged in his mind, making it difficult to focus on the conversation. She was a true beauty with long hair and expressive brown eyes, a narrow waist he could wrap his hands around and soft, delicate skin. At least his injuries hadn’t killed his libido. Whether they were bad for each other or not, Brady would never stop wanting Susan.
His brief discussion with Susan wasn’t Justin’s business. “Yes. She came to the hospital.”
No point in denying it and no point in delving into details. If Susan wanted Justin to know something about their conversation, she would tell him.
“Susan and I are engaged. Did she tell you that?” Justin asked.
She hadn’t. But Brady had known. His brother Reilly had mentioned it to him. Reilly and Susan worked together at the police station, Reilly as a detective and Susan as a sketch artist. It was a job she’d taken to supplement her income from selling her artwork.
“I’m aware of your engagement.” Their engagement. Susan belonged to another man. Though he’d heard it before, the words hit him with blunted pain.
Justin bared his teeth and Brady took a sliver of delight in knowing his caginess was getting to the other man. “If you are aware of it, then stay away from her and don’t jeopardize what we have. You walked away from her. Don’t think you’ll win her back with some poor, hurt veteran routine.”
Brady took exception to almost everything Justin had said. He wanted Susan to be happy and he would never put her in a place to make a difficult decision, like asking her to choose between him and Justin. After the way Brady had treated her, she’d probably choose Justin anyway. She deserved what Justin was offering. A house. A family. A stable life. A boring life perhaps, but a stable one.
Things Brady couldn’t offer anyone. Couldn’t offer before and certainly couldn’t offer now. His knee throbbed and he forced more weight onto his good leg and the cane.
“You’re engaged. She made her choice.” Leave it at that.
“Yes, she did. She chose me,” Justin said, his expression radiating superiority.
Justin was former air force and he had friends and family who were still active duty. He could provide Susan the type of life she deserved, but he was also under his father’s thumb. Brady couldn’t help wondering what Lieutenant General Tim Ambrose thought of Susan. Brady had gotten the impression Justin’s father wanted his son to pick a Stepford wife who would blend in with the Ambrose family’s social circle. Brady couldn’t picture Susan as servile, submissive or thrilled to take a role in the political games that were played by military men at Lieutenant General Ambrose’s level.
“I’m happy for her,” Brady said. For her. Not for Justin. He couldn’t have cared less about Justin’s happiness. Bitterness seeped into his chest, taking some of the heat off his stinging leg. Though Brady wasn’t good enough for Susan, it wasn’t easy to watch another man with the woman he desired. Hell, two years ago, he would have gone crazy with jealousy to think about Susan with another man. He’d had to let her go. For her sake. He was a disaster for her.
“If you’re happy for her, then stay away. We don’t need you nosing around,” Justin said.
Justin hadn’t changed. Despite his lofty façade, he was still plagued with self-doubt and the constant need for reassurance, just as he had been in the military. Brady wasn’t in the mood to stroke his fragile ego.
Brady’s thigh muscles shook with fatigue. He dug deep for the energy to remain standing. “If Susan is satisfied with you, you have nothing to worry about.” Justin needed to leave so Brady could rest.
Justin glared at him. “Don’t mess with me. My family is powerful and you’ll regret it.”
Brady didn’t care about power or worry about Justin’s threat. The Truman family was loyal and resourceful. Brady’s mother was former CIA, his dad a former Navy SEAL, his brother Reilly was a detective and his oldest brother, Harris, an FBI agent. Over the course of their careers, they had made contacts and alliances with people in influential positions. Even Brady had a few connections he could reach out to if a situation became too dicey. But none of those connections could help him walk again or erase what had happened in the past and win over Susan.
Is that what he wanted? To win over Susan? He didn’t want to watch Susan marry Justin, but like everything else, Brady couldn’t do anything to change it.
Brady’s knee gave out and his other leg couldn’t catch his balance despite the cane. He fell, his cane skidding out from under him, his head slamming into the rail on the hospital bed.
Justin’s laughter faded as two nurses raced in, shooed him from the room and assisted Brady.
Brady’s leg hurt only second to his pride.
