Page 17 of Shane
“Everyone. Definitely four dozen or so, give or take a couple missing wives or husbands. But kids. Lots of kids. Did you know Mark and his wife havefivechildren?” Everlee’s eyes widened and her brows lifted nearly to her hairline. “’Course the twins are adopted, but five. Can you even begin to imagine having all those kids? The Houstons are a party all by themselves.”
Shane zoned out somewhere betweenblanket inviteandparty. He hated crowds and now Everlee wanted a ride. Which meant he’d be driving her home. Maybe walking her to her door and dealing with the awkwardness that went with it. “I, ah, I’ve got dogs. My truck’s full of dog hair and—”
“So? In case you haven’t noticed, this place is the most dog-friendly place you’ll ever find, and there’s plenty of dog hair here. Get over it, Mr. Hayes. Shane. What’ll it be? Do I have to call a cab, or will you let me tag along with you this one time? It’s not like I’m asking for a date. Just a ride.”
“Ride,” he answered gruffly. “Sure, yeah, no problem.”
Big problem.
“I’ll call when I finish with Mark, and we’ll go from there. Sound good?”
No, sounds bad, really bad. She’s pretty and I don’t see a ring. She’ll expect something, only I don’t have anything to offer.
“Great!” Everlee handed over a business card. “Here’s my contact information. Call when you’re ready to leave. I’ll meet you out front.”
He tucked the card into his shirt pocket. “Yeah, sure. I’ll call as soon as I’m able.”
Damn it.
“See that you do. Be there or be square!”
Her excitement was annoying as hell and hard to miss. He nodded, then walked back to Mark’s office with Molly and Dolly tagging behind, not at all sure about Stewart’s invite. If anyone had a reason to duck and run for cover, it was Shane. He hated crowds, but mostly, he was a lot like Stewart had been. He hated people. Too many hidden land mines in a large gathering at an unfamiliar home, and what if he lost control? What if he panicked and did something stupid? Like curse or scare the kids or…that.
What if he fell off the thin line between forgetting and remembering? Some of the shit he’d done for the Corps had a sneaky way of coming back at him. Nothing was stable in a world where every corner and shadow could hold a hidden terrorist, a suicide bomber, or an IED that would shred a man’s boots, feet, and legs to bloody mulch. Never mind what it could do to the rest of him.
He inhaled a deep breath to get the terrors of all he’d lived with, seen, and done off his back. Scout snipers might do their best work from a safe distance, but the carnage they created through their scopes was always up-close and too damned personal to forget. There was a time Shane had been new at his hunter/killer job. From that day forward, he’d zeroed down on every sort of mass murderer the Taliban or ISIL had thrown his way. His scope had focused mostly on men ready to kill themselves for their causes, but there was the occasional woman who’d been willing to kill herself or her children. Plus, there were still Sara and Abby and Mom and…
WHOOSH. Damn. Fuck!
Nightmares flooded back on him en masse, each fighting to be seen and remembered, all of them elbowing forward, the stench of rotted flesh suffocating the shit out of him. They poured into his mind like swarming wasps. Too close and too fast. Too painful…
No longer able to see past or through them, he closed his eyes and slapped a palm to his breastbone to keep his heart from pounding its way out of his chest. The buzzing anguish of all those yesterdays crescendoed into louder screams and bloodier mayhem. So many tears and so much—
“Shane!” Some fiend screamed at him through the black cloud sucking the life out of him.
How’d these shadows know his name? “No!” he barked, needing them to stand down and back off. “Hell, no! Keep away from me!” His gawddamned heartbeat matched the agonizing volume of all those buzzing, terror-filled memories. There was no escape. No way to fight all of them.
“Shane! Son of a bitch, you’re not alone!” The same asshat grabbed his biceps and shook him like a limp, wet rug until the back of his head knocked against something as hard as granite. He was on a floor?
“Come back to me right gawddamned now!”
He turned his face toward the slathering beast at his side, wishing he’d brought one of his pistols and—
What the fuck?Hewason his back. Hewason the floor inside TEAM HQ. In the lobby. Looking up. Sweating buckets. Watching for terrorists hiding up in that stupid, retro-industrial ceiling of painted-black pipes and tiles and—Shit!Whose bright idea was that black-splattered ceiling? It camouflaged anyone up there perfectly. Damned if his eyeballs weren’t frantically rolling from side to side, forever searching for the terrorist assholes and hidden IEDs and—
“Snap out of it, damn it. You’re at TEAM HQ, Shane,” the asshat growled like Beowulf. “Nothing to worry about here. You’re among friends.”
“I know, I know,” he huffed, gradually letting the suffocating nightmare go. Gathering his senses and moving out of the dark shadows. Sliding into the present, forward into the here and now. Instead of backward into—the horrible then. Shane swallowed, at least he gave it his best shot. But there wasn’t enough spit in his mouth to make that bodily function work. Funny how he always tasted dust and blood after these panic attacks.
But then everything got so much worse. He blinked the nightmare off and found himself staring up at—Alex. His boss. No, no, no!
Shane jolted upright, damned near banging his head into the man’s chin. Sticking both palms to the floor behind him to steady himself, he licked his lips and forced the panic back to its rightful corner in his mixed-up head. He’d no more than sucked in a deep breath of‘I am so fucked,’ when two cold noses and wet tongues lashed up his neck and his chin and over his face.
Molly and Dolly to the rescue. He pulled his girls in hard to his chest, wrapped his arms around his lifesavers while they crowded in. He let them slobbery kiss him, needing them. Not needing Alex or anyone else huddled on the floor with him.
Shit!He’d drawn a crowd. They’d all seen. Even Kelsey. Now everyone knew.
After-tremors came fast and hard and…