Forbidden River (The Legionnaires #2.5)(21)

“Do you normally holiday alone?”

He settled in beside her leg, strapping on his headlamp. “No one is fool enough to join me. Like you say, it takes a special kind of death wish.”

He switched on the lamp, flicked out his pocketknife and slid it under the hem of her jeans. She’d rather avoid light but she’d also prefer he didn’t do this blind.

“What about your brother?” she asked.

He stilled. “How do you know about my brother?”

Shit. “You mentioned him.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t.” A definite bitter note. He stabbed the fabric from underneath and sawed. “Did you Google me?”

Honesty is the best policy, as her mother used to say before she got convicted. “Had to check I wasn’t delivering a novice kayaker to his...”

“...death?”

“So...your brother?”

The pressure around her leg released as he cut. “What about him?”

“He’s into suicidal kayaking, too, right?”

Cody pocketed the knife and began to unpeel the denim, stopping where he met resistance. She held her breath.

“Was,” he said.

“He gave it up? Smart guy.”

“He died. Kayaking.”

Oh my God. “I’m sorry. That was...”

“Don’t worry.”

“No, seriously, I am sorry.” She’d intended to tease him, not upset him. “How long ago?”

“Seven years.”

“That’s why you joined the legion?”

He grabbed nail scissors from the kit and started snipping around the wounds. “I enlisted a year later.”

That tightness in his tone—he wasn’t just grieving, he was angry. There was something unresolved, something he wasn’t going to volunteer.

“Were you with him when he died?”

Snip. “Yep.”

Yikes. “So is it him you blame, or yourself?”

He jerked his head up, his brow stern, the light drilling into her. “What?”

She shut her eyes and pressed the heels of her palms to them. “You’re pissed off about it.”

She sensed a return to darkness. When she opened her eyes, the night was twice as black, apart from a cone of light around him and her leg.

“Shouldn’t have happened,” he said, drawing her lower leg across his lap, sending tingles over her skin. God, Tia, he’s talking about his brother’s death.

“Accidents never should,” she said. “That’s why they’re so hard to accept. Though, to be fair, any death that isn’t from extreme old age is hard to accept.”

“I guess.” As he cut away the fabric, the points of impact became clearer. The dog had attacked from the rear, but its top teeth had embedded near the front of her shin and the bottom ones in the flesh underneath.

“Is that what happened to your family—an accident?” he asked.

She shook her head, not that he’d see.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

Hell, the whole of New Zealand knew the story. Why not him, too? “My mum and dad got sent to jail.”

He lifted his gaze, shielding the light. “Whoa. That I didn’t see coming. The way you spoke about accidents—I thought...”

“No, that’s more professional. I’ve mopped up after a lot of tragedy. Guess I’m a little desensitized,” she said, feeling the need to explain her tactless questioning.

“Happens.” He pulled tweezers from his kit. “Is that partly why you left the air force?”

She frowned. Did she want to share details? She’d met the guy only a few hours ago.

“Talk to me, Tia. It’ll take your mind off this.”

Good point. And she felt an urge to connect with the part of him that was still living his hell. “I’d had enough of senseless death. I wanted to return to the land of the living where sudden, violent death is the exception, not the norm.”

“I hear you.”

“I know it’s a cop-out to leave other people to do that job, but after a while you either go mad or you go numb. I could feel myself swinging between the two, sometimes empty, sometimes furious, as if my mind was trying to settle on which way to go. When you start laughing at the other guys’ dark jokes, about the bodies, about death...”

He tilted his head. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to reach the point where it was me making the jokes. And you can’t shovel that shit while you’re swimming in it, no matter how many psychologists they dump you in front of.”

“You’re still doing good work, with the search and rescue ops.”

“It’s as much death as I can handle.”

“These tourists—it’s hit you hard, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Must be hard for you, too, after your experience.”

“This next bit...” The corners of his eyes wrinkled.

“It’ll hurt, I know. Just do it.”

He gave a grim nod. She guessed that was him slamming the door on sharing his story. He bent closer, his warm breath coasting over her skin. She closed her eyes, concentrating on that, not on—

“Yeow,” she breathed, her eyes flicking open.