Fighting For You (Danvers #4)(39)
Ella pushed her fist against her mouth, trying to hold back her sobs at the despair she heard in his voice. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him until the horrors that still haunted him were pushed away. Instead, she listened quietly as he continued to talk, almost like he had forgotten she was there. Once the words started, he couldn’t seem to stop the flow. Had he ever talked to anyone about all of this before?
“You start to see death as part of a daily routine. Just another nameless face. Some of the guys would even joke about it. It wasn’t that they were heartless; it was just how they coped with something that no one should ever have to see. Mainly, I suspect, they laughed to keep from breaking down and crying. There were some good days too. We were a brotherhood, and we always will be. There wasn’t a man in our group who wouldn’t take a bullet for one of his brothers, still would. Weeks of good days though could be blown all to hell by one bad day. A bad day there meant someone was dead.” As if remembering her presence, he looked down saying, “This may be more than you wanted to hear, Ellie . . . why don’t we just leave it for another time?”
Ella wasn’t about to let go now that she was finally getting some insight into his past. She ran a hand down his handsome face, feeling the stubble that was already forming there. Somehow that just made him more appealing. Her hand continued on to his biceps tracing the tattoo there. “What does Semper Fi mean?”
With a husky voice he answered, “Always faithful. Pretty damn ironic isn’t it considering I just found out I’ve got a kid from a one-night-stand.”
“I think it fits you perfectly. The women who passed through your life probably weren’t looking for a commitment any more than you were. Did you ever make any type of promises to them at all?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No, never. I was always very upfront.”
“Then stop ripping yourself to shreds over it. Because of who you are, it bothers you. You use it as a reason to question your integrity. I bet those in your brotherhood would say different. I . . . I want to hear the rest of the story if you can. I think you need to tell me about Craig because it’s tearing you apart.” When he started to shake his head, she added, “Please, for me.”
He sighed and continued. “Craig was just a kid. He decided to join the military to have his schooling paid for. He didn’t come from money and he was engaged to a girl that did. He wanted to prove himself to her and her family and he thought the military would do that. Hell, maybe he watched one too many recruiting commercials, who knows. He was just so young and idealistic. They got married right before he shipped out and he rode that high for a while. He got pretty lucky and didn’t see active duty until the last part of his term. His wife had gotten pregnant during one of his trips home and he was on top of the world. There was a light at the end of the tunnel and he thought he could handle anything thrown his way at that point. A lot of the guys were on their second tour like me and we were just used to turning away and shutting down when things got bad.”
“But not Craig,” Ella said softly.
“No, not Craig,” Declan agreed. “He wanted to save everyone. We all covered him as best we could. It was understood if Craig was with you, you looked out for him. We were all pretty battle weary, but damn we all got attached to him. No matter what everyone said to the contrary, when he started reading letters from home, we stopped to listen. Having someone so full of life was contagious. There was no jealousy that his tour was almost up. We were all excited for him. My favorite saying each day was, ‘Watch each other’s back and don’t do anything stupid.’ Craig used to tease me about how motivating my speeches were. I’d flip him off and he’d just laugh. You’d have liked him, Ellie.”
She smiled, “I know I would have.”
“One day we were patrolling the border. A task we had all done many times before. It was pretty routine. We had a local woman come through. Everything was in order so she passed on through. A few feet later, she stopped her car and got out. My gut clenched when she looked around like she was checking our positions. She fell against her car as if in pain. I knew something was wrong. After you had been there a while, you tended to develop a second sense where trouble was concerned. I started motioning everyone back, indicating possible trouble. I turned to say something to Craig who had been right beside me and he wasn’t there. We all saw him run toward the woman at the same time and it was like everyone froze for a moment in horror. I started yelling at him to stop, that it was a trap and, I swear, he turned back to me and smiled as if I was overreacting. I remember running toward him and then the world just broke apart. I was in the hospital for a few weeks with a pretty bad head injury and a few broken bones. I was lucky though, Craig went home in a casket.”
“Oh God,” Ella gasped.
In a voice thick with emotion, Declan said, “I couldn’t save him. He was on my watch and I let him down. I cost him his f**king life.”
Wrapping herself around him, she said, “No baby, you didn’t. He made that choice. I know you well enough to be sure that you had lectured him time and again about the dangers there.”
Turning haunted eyes on her he rasped, “It wasn’t enough Ellie. Now there is a wife without a husband and a child without a father. If I had only been sharper, faster, I could have saved him. I should have never let him out of my line of sight!”