Nobody's Lost (Rescue Me Saga #5)(29)

“I didn’t have to respond.”

“But you did.”

Yeah, did I ever.

He’d have to be a eunuch not to respond to Megan. He took a step back.

She reached out to grab him. “Careful! Don’t get so close to the edge.”

He turned to see he was only a few feet from the ledge and a very steep plunge. Not feeling particularly suicidal today, he sidestepped away from both dangers—Megan and the fall.

Ryder ran his fingers through his hair, trying to reinvigorate the cells of his scalp, if not his brain. She’d only been out here a few hours, and already he had the hard-on to end all hard-ons. How the hell would he survive a few days with her like this?

“Megan, you’re the most beautiful woman I know. Inside and out. But I’m not interested in a relationship, and you’re too sweet a girl for anything less.”

“How do you know I’m so sweet and innocent? I know what I want. I want you.”

“I doubt you’ve slept with anyone except maybe that boy in college.”

She remained silent. The moments stretched out. He hoped she was coming to the realization Ryder was nothing like her former boyfriend.

“I’m not the man you need, Megan.”

She squared her shoulders. “I don’t need any man. But I want you.”

“What could you possibly want with me?”

Her features softened, and she took a step closer. He fought the urge to step back, but if she came any closer, he would.

“You’re brave. You have integrity. You dropped everything to do a favor for me, a total stranger, even though I’m sure it was because a friend, my brother, asked you to help.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend. He was my master sergeant.”

“He’s become good friends with others who served with him. I know he’d count you among his friends if he got a chance to know you in civilian life.”

If anything could douse the flames of his arousal, those words could. He turned away and faced the view that usually gave him peace, but now looked desolate, lonely.

“No, I don’t think so. I let him down once—no twice.”

“How?”

He wasn’t going to talk about Kandahar. That pain was still too raw. Fallujah was marginally safer. “We came under fire on a rooftop in Fallujah, and I didn’t do my job.”

“I’m sure things become chaotic during combat.”

“Yeah, but we’re trained to focus on our duties—especially during combat. I was supposed to call for artillery and air power, but seeing Sergeant Miller’s…” He wouldn’t say brains. He just f*cking wished he didn’t see them whenever he thought about his recurring nightmares from that horrific scene. But once he heard Orlando scream ‘Grenade!’, his only goal had been to get Grant away from danger. She’d been assigned to his unit temporarily, but—

Megan’s body pressed against his, and she wrapped him in a hug. “Please don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure you did all you could under the circumstances.”

His throat closed up, and he let her hold him but showed no outward sign of weakness.

“Shake it off.” His mother sounded in his ears. “Big boys don’t cry.”

He cleared his throat. “My corpsman almost died because I was too busy trying to help Grant evacuate Orlando whose…” foot had been blown off.

“Let it out, Ryder. Don’t keep stuff like that bottled up. You know Damián and Marc both survived that firefight. Maybe you tending to the wounded was more important than calling for fire power that probably couldn’t have arrived in time to keep Marc from being injured anyway.”

She was right, but tell that to his guilt-ridden conscience.

He blinked, hoping the wind would pick up and dry the embarrassing moisture from his eyes. Then again, maybe if she saw how weak and hopeless he really was, she’d end her na?ve attraction to him.

Ryder turned and took her upper arms in his grip. “I screwed up. I had a job to do, and I screwed it up.”

Megan’s hand lifted to his cheek and stroked him. Not the response he’d expected.

“If Adam thought you were a screw-up, do you really think he would have called on you to protect his only sister?”

Ryder blinked. That had bugged him from the moment he’d answered the phone the other night. It made no sense. A man died because of him. “Maybe there just wasn’t anyone else around on such short notice.”

She smiled. “You don’t know my brothers. Neither of them would send someone in for them unless they had absolute trust in that person.”

Could she be right? Hell, Top had sent him onto that rooftop in Fallujah with his best sniper and their communications expert because he trusted him to do the job. Hadn’t he? Even after he’d royally f*cked up in Kandahar.

“Why do you think Adam doesn’t trust you?”

He turned away, staring at the ground instead of the view. “I screwed up on a mission. I’d been trained to do a job, and I f*cked up.” He closed his eyes. “Excuse my language.” His emotions simmered on the surface. Raw.

“When someone in a stateside job screws up, the ramifications are perhaps missing a sale or causing equipment to break down. You had so much pressure on you and in the middle of a war zone no less. Cut yourself some slack, Ryder. No one expects people to perform flawlessly under fire.”