Backblast Candace Irving (classic novels to read .txt) 📖

hand and entire arm still quivering freely, she opted for dumping the contents directly into the sink and fishing out the bar of soap and her loofa rag, then glanced up into the mirror.

It was a mistake.

The chief hadn't been lying. She was covered in blood. It was in her hair, smeared across her forehead, her cheeks, her chin—all the way down her neck and over her shoulders and breasts. Hell, it was even on her lips and in the corner of her mouth.

Durrani's blood.

Her stomach lurched. Even now, the bastard was touching her.

Everywhere.

The shaking in her hand and arm grew worse. Hell, her entire body was quaking now. Violently. Even her teeth were chattering.

It seemed Yrle had been spot on with her first aid assessment, too. She was in definitely in shock. And it was getting worse.

Regan was certain as she grabbed her travel-sized bottle of shampoo with her normal hand and headed straight into the shower without testing the temperature.

Yet another mistake. The water was so hot she could feel it scalding her skin—and yet she was freezing. Somehow, she managed to release her braid from its confines and peel away her socks and underwear, then set about scrubbing every inch of her body with the loofa rag until her flesh was raw.

It didn't help.

She could see the final vestiges of the bastard's blood swirling down the shower's drain. Just as it had that day two decades ago. The day her mother had blown her own brains out with her dad's .38 backup revolver.

Durrani was right. Her mom had chosen to end her pain and misery in front of the towering fir that they'd finally decorated together that morning.

Throughout the years, she'd wondered if her mom had thought the location of her demise through. Surely, she had to have realized her six year old would find her there? Though even if the woman had realized it, Regan doubted her mother would've known that same six year old would also find her still alive, though barely—and be utterly, frantically, desperate to stop the flow of blood as she'd tried to put the pieces of her mother's face back together.

She'd failed then too.

She'd thought confronting and working John's first sergeant's suicide back at Fort Campbell had been bad. Tonight was far worse.

Regan leaned back against the wall of the shower as the memories shredded in once again. It wasn't enough to keep her already shaking legs from buckling completely. She slid down the wall and huddled into the corner, closing her eyes as she fought the renewed agony and horror of it all. She had no idea how long she sat there, cowering beneath that scalding spray, in the darkness of her own making, praying the water would heat up that much more and scorch away the layers of skin and the gnawing, empty pain that had overtaken her world, until there was nothing left to feel.

Nothing left of her.

But the water didn't get hotter. It vanished, instantly and completely.

Her unwelcome reprieve continued in the form of a pair of scarred, oversized hands attached to thick, muscular arms. Before she realized what was happening, they'd reached into the shower stall, wrapped themselves around her shaking body and lifted her up to set her on her feet.

John?

Either she was dreaming, or she'd finally lost it, because the mottled, roping scar crawling up the arm that supported her waist definitely belonged to the man she'd been missing for the past eight days. Hell, the past sixteen months.

She knew John wasn't really there. He couldn't be.

Not with Riyad calling the shots.

Crazy or not, she gave herself up to the fantasy of having the one man on this earth that she not only trusted, but needed, guide her out of the tiny bathroom before enveloping her shivering torso in the white terrycloth towel that'd been hanging from a ring beside the sink all day. All too quickly, John shifted the cloth and used it to dry her face and limbs. The towel fell away, and then her arms were being lifted and threaded through a tan uniform tee that, for some reason, fell midway down her thighs.

Not only was the tee too long, it was seriously baggy and it smelled like John.

He was definitely there, towering over her. As the numbing mist began to clear from her brain, she could make out that massive, naked torso, along with the dozen other thick, snaking scars where molten shrapnel and jagged metal had ripped through his flesh—as well as the five rounder, even more chilling, cicatrices created by the barrage of bullets that had nearly ended John's life the night his team's chopper had been shot down, then ambushed in Afghanistan eight years ago.

"What—"

"Shhh. Let me finish." He pressed his lips to her damp forehead, then turned her around, guiding her quaking fingers down to the edge of the sink for support before he retrieved the towel and used it to soak up the excess water from her hair. He plucked the wide-toothed comb from the nest of items in the sink next and carefully worked the tangles from the strands that hung more than halfway down her back.

Tangles dealt with, he tossed the comb into the sink and engulfed her shaking fingers in his steady grip as he led her to the bunkbeds. Once there, he shifted her duffel down onto the deck with his free hand. Clipping her sidearm, holster, keys and credentials from the lower mattress, he set those on the temporary desk, then turned to tug the sheet and blanket to the foot of the bunkbed.

"Hop in."

"I don't—"

The determination in his eyes intensified, deepening the gray as his hand came up to snag her chin. "Am I going to have to pull rank?" That deep dimpled fold she'd missed so very much slipped in amid his two weeks of unruly beard, softening the query.

But the determination held.

He followed up both with a gentle nod and gentler nudge toward the mattress. "In you