Nobody's Lost (Rescue Me Saga #5)(46)

“I can’t say, but since its brain has been separated from its body, I don’t see how it could. Its warrior spirit has moved on. Just the body’s nerves and muscles moving. Like when a chicken runs around after you cut the head off.”

“So I’ve heard, but the only dead chicken I’ve ever seen comes wrapped in cellophane in the supermarket.” For a city girl, she wasn’t freaking out as much as he thought she might. “I guess I’m going to get to find out for myself if it tastes like chicken or not.”

He turned toward her. “You mean you want to eat it?”

“Might as well. Isn’t that the Native American way—to eat what you kill? Besides, this probably will be the last time I’ll get to try something like that.”

He grinned. The woman was full of surprises.

Then she met his gaze, dead serious. “I’m going to make my time up here an opportunity to try all kinds of new things, Ryder.” Her words were more a warning than a statement of fact. “Thanks for last night.”

At least she’d dropped the Sir when speaking to him now that they weren’t in a scene. Role-playing for fun rather than doing an actual power exchange helped ease some of his guilt over what he’d exposed her to. Then again, even the way she said his given name did things to him. Hell, she could call him shithead and he’d probably get turned on.

“Want to keep the rattle as a souvenir?”

“Um, no, I think I’ll pass. I won’t need any reminders of what I did.”

He glanced over at her and saw tears rolling down her freckled cheeks. Cleaning his knife on some scrub brush for now, he returned it to its sheath and walked toward her.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head, negating her words, and he opened his arms for her to come to him. Cradling her, he sat on the rock.

He stroked her soft hair. “Shhh. It’s okay. We’re going to cook and eat it. The meat will nourish our bodies. If you like, we can do a ceremony over it, thanking it for serving our needs, but I said a prayer over it before I made it safe to handle.”

“That’s okay. I already told it how sorry I was, just before I—”

“Then it knows.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. He’s moved on now to other hunting grounds.”

She sat up and gazed at him. “We need to do a ceremony like that for you.”

He lowered his hand to his side. “What do you mean?”

“A ceremony to let you know that your service is appreciated, but that you need to move on, too.”

He glanced back at the snake. “Not the same thing.”

“Why not?”

Because…hell, he didn’t have an answer, but just knew in his gut this was different.

Gino D’Alessio had been killed in an ambush that left Master Sergeant Montague severely injured. D’Alessio had been deployed to Afghanistan sooner than he was ready, all because Ryder ended up with a severely displaced fracture of his arm while playing football during some down time on Super Bowl weekend in Kandahar. If he’d been more careful or had found a better use of his time, his unit might not have been caught in that ambush. Even so, Ryder would have been there to call for airstrikes in time to avoid the attack.

All my fault.

Jerry had talked him into coming to the club in LA again a couple of days after Ryder had heard the news of the clusterf*ck with Ryder’s unit in Kandahar. The club’s owner mostly wanted to talk with him and help him try to process what had happened. He’d also been one of the first people to reach out to him after the tragedy in Fallujah, but Ryder hadn’t wanted him to see what a mess he’d become.

By then, Sherry had moved back to New Mexico and Ryder tried to avoid cities, so he left the Marines and came home riddled with a shitload of guilt to wallow in.

“Hop down.” He guided her off his lap and to her feet. “Let’s get this snake into some brine. I’m thinking for your first taste of rattlesnake, we’ll go with a chili, but it’ll take some prep time.”

When he retrieved the carcass of the snake, she cringed away from the squirming meat, but didn’t scream or run away. Ryder held it to his side, out of her sight, as they walked back to the house.

“How often do you see Carlos?”

“He stops in every now and then. Haven’t seen him in a few weeks. Why?”

“Just wondering. You’re awfully isolated up here. What if you’d gotten bitten by that snake out there? You could die before someone found you.”

There had been times when he courted danger, almost asking for that outcome. Hell, even a few weeks ago, he’d come near to putting an end to his pain. But the idea of checking out that way no longer appealed to him.

Not since meeting Megan. Or maybe it had more to do with having a mission to focus on again. He gave a mental shrug. Whatever it was, he knew he wasn’t going to let PTSD rule his life from now on.

“You’re right. I’ll set up a deal where I check in with him at least once a day.”

“You can always call me, too. Two contacts a day, one in the morning, one at night, and then if something happens, you won’t be out here as long.”

He wasn’t sure he could handle being in touch with her by phone every day—and not being able to touch her body, hold her hand, kiss her. Jesus, last night was a f*cking mistake he’d have to carry with him the rest of his life.