Hidden Heart Read online

  “Oh no,” Cash murmured. “Elsie—”

  She held up a hand. “There were four of them, and I put the hurt on one, and he was down and screaming his head off, which was how Spence heard us. And he put the other three on the ground, and then he stopped. As soon as they couldn’t hurt us anymore, he stopped. Because that’s Spencer. And then he picked me up—like Richard fucking Gere—and got me the fuck out of there.”

  She shook her head. “He… he hadn’t gotten there entirely on time. He took me to the doc, held my hand while they did the rape kit, told me stupid fucking jokes all the while. Told me they had to pull one guy’s tooth from my knuckles, and he was having it put on a necklace to remind me that nobody fucked with me and walked away. And then we reported it.” She snorted. “Because we still believed in fairy tales then, right?”

  Preston frowned. “What do you mean? Damien, what does she mean? Why would you believe fairy tales if you told the authorities you were attacked? I don’t understand!”

  “She means that the authorities don’t always do what they’re supposed to when it comes to sexual assault,” Damien said softly. “She means that sometimes they try to blame the victim, or they don’t believe it happened, or—”

  “Or the guy who left his tooth in my knuckles was the son of a prominent senator, and Spencer was going to be court-martialed for assault and battery.”

  “Wait—wouldn’t you be tried if it was that guy?” Theo asked, confused.

  “Well, yeah,” Glen drawled, anger in his voice, “Unless Spence said he did it when he saw which way the wind was blowing.”

  Elsie tapped her nose. “That,” she whispered. “And we had a good JAG defender. The best, really. But when all was said and done, Spencer was in the brig, waiting for the trial, and he was given the choice of a court-martial and probably serving time or submitting his papers and leaving without bennies.” Her voice hardened. “Our lawyer told me those were his options, and I told him to get me two sets of papers. I wasn’t going to bring them to Spence unless I had my own set to fill out.” Her smile twisted. “Josh brought three sets. We sat at the table in one of the conference rooms and filled out our discharge papers together, because it was ugly—so ugly—and we were fucking done.”

  “And now we know how you met your boyfriend,” Damien said. “I’d say it was a good story, but it’s awful, and hard, and I’m so glad you all ended up with us.”

  Elsie grinned at him through shiny eyes. “Me too. But you all see? I’d die for him. Glen’s blowing it off, but I know there’s a warrant out for his arrest in Podunk County or whatever, and Damien’s probably paying a fine for landing a Black Hawk in a hospital parking lot without permission. Theo needs to see that. He already knows not to listen to a thing Spencer Helmsley says about himself—now he knows you need to listen to everything he doesn’t say.” She gave Theo a watery look. “He’s going to give you hell, you know. You’re going to look at him with your heart in your eyes, and he’s going to run as fast as he can the other way.”

  Preston and Cash both snorted.

  “You look smart,” Preston said. “You’ll ignore his bullshit and listen to what he needs instead.”

  “The thing about pilots,” Cash said, complete earnestness in his pretty-boy face, “is that they have to wear cast-iron jockey shorts just to get their damned machines in the air. They do that, and they don’t have any sort of armor plating for their hearts, you understand? So everything that comes shooting out of their mouths is a defense mechanism, because they know their hearts are vulnerable, and they don’t want to get hurt.”

  “Glen,” Elsie snapped. “You need to shut him up. My ovaries are shriveling!”

  “Jesus, kid,” Damien said, completely dismayed. “Are you trying to destroy us? Could you not tell all our secrets in one go?”

  “Cash,” Glen said, his jaw tight, “could you maybe not strip us all naked here? We’re trying to keep a brave face.”

  Cash scowled. “You all suck at it. You’re as fucking worried as I am.” He looked at Theo. “We love Spencer. All of us. And believe me, he worked really hard not to let that happen. I figure if you shared a raft with him for twelve hours and you’re here worried sick, then you’re going to stick for a while.” He shot Glen an exasperated look. “I spent almost two days trapped under a wall with this asshole here, and I thought I could walk away from that. Believe me, you can’t. You look smarter than I was, so I figure you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. Can you put up with the bullshit, Theo?”

  Theo really was worried sick, and he was heartsore, and every other breath he had to check himself and remember that Glen may have offered to put him up in a hotel while they waited for Spencer to recover, but he was still homeless, townless, and pretty much alone in the world as everybody he knew was scattered to the four winds in order to find a place to land.

  But all of it was worth it, if only Spencer could come through.

  “His bullshit doesn’t scare me,” Theo said softly. “His heroism might give me a fit or two, but the bullshit does not.”

  “Good,” Glen said, sending Damien an obscure look. Damien must have gotten it, though, because he nodded. “Because Spencer’s going to need nursing when he gets through this. As soon as we can manage after he comes through surgery—and he will come through, don’t nobody doubt it—we’re going to move him home. He’s going to need nursing. In-home would be best. And after he’s back on his feet, we’re going to need two more pilots and an office manager. It would help if he had EMT experience.” Glen gave Theo a stern once-over. “You know anyone who’s up for the job?”

  Theo’s mouth dropped open, and he sucked in a breath. He remembered Spencer’s faith in these people—everyone from Elsie to Glen to Damien to Preston and even Cash, who may have been all candy and be-bop on stage but certainly seemed made of steel now.

  And here they were, offering him a job—a new life, perhaps—based simply on the fact that he was so desperate to see if Spencer was okay he could almost cry with it.

  At that moment the door to the OR was thrust open, and a grave-eyed doctor surveyed them from behind her mask.

  “He’s not out of the woods yet,” she warned them. “The wound on his side actually nicked his small intestine. That had to be flushed extensively, multiple times, and we haven’t stitched it together yet to give the flesh a chance to granulate. The wound on his leg needed to be scraped to the bone—it’s going to be a long time healing. We’ve pumped him so full of antibiotics and painkillers his eyeballs are floating.” There was a pause. “The next couple of days are going to be crucial. He’s going to be sleeping for a good twelve hours after this—we’re keeping him sedated so his own body has a chance to heal. I suggest you go sleep and then send maybe two of you at a time in to visit.” She looked around at all of them. “Is any one of you named Theo?”

  Theo nodded and stood. “Yes?”

  She nodded. “Good. You’re here. Before he went under he kept calling for Theo and Elsie?”

  Elsie stood too. “Yes.”

  “If you two could be here in the morning, it might help to ease his mind.”

  “When can we take him home?” Glen asked, standing. “We’ve got a Cadillac medivac transporter, and he’ll heal better at home.”

  “It depends on him,” she said. “We may need to do more procedures, depending on how he heals. His infection is going to be hard to kill and an ongoing concern. But if he’s a good boy and we only have a couple of glitches, I’d say two weeks. He’ll need someone to stay with him and a nurse to check in once a day. Does he have that?”

  Glen gave a tight smile. “We can find the nurse before we move him. And his housemate is right here. Isn’t that right, Theo?”

  Theo looked at him in naked gratitude, his eyes burning and exhaustion and relief practically taking him out at the knees. “Yeah,” he whispered hoarsely. “That’s right.”

  A whole new life. Well, if Spencer Helmsley could survive his
own goddamned heroics, Theo could certainly do a whole new life.

  And with that thought, his knees did give, and Preston and Damien had to help him into his seat, and he buried his face against Colonel’s neck again and shook until exhaustion took him.

  He didn’t even really wake up when he was hauled to the hotel room, where he slept for ten hours, and every time he surfaced, he thought, “Spencer’s okay,” before he was pulled under the even, dark current of sleep.

  Surprises and Shockers

  SPENCER opened his eyes blearily to find his best friend, the sister of his heart, actively engaged in a game of rummy with the guy he’d spent twelve hours trapped on a raft with, while his dog looked on.

  “Am I dead?” he asked, not displeased exactly. Not that he wanted Theo and Elsie to be dead too, but if he could have laid out an ideal way to spend eternity that wasn’t naked and engaged, this wasn’t bad.

  “Yeah, Spence, you’re dead,” Elsie said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why everything smells like antiseptic and your body’s on fire.”

  Spencer had to take stock for a minute, and as he did, it settled in. “You bitch,” he said without heat. “I hadn’t figured that out until you said something.”

  Because yes, everything hurt and some things were in agony and some things were on fire. His side—which had been aching pretty persistently the day before—now felt like someone had been rooting around in there with a red-hot iron ice-cream scoop, but that was nothing compared to the fits his leg was giving him.

  The look of sympathy on her face told him that he had probably almost died. He and Elsie didn’t do looks like that unless the other person had seen their absolute darkest moment, and he swallowed against a dry throat.

  Before he could say anything, Theo was there with a little cup of ice chips. “Here, Spence,” he said, slipping one between Spencer’s lips efficiently. Spencer hadn’t even seen him move, and suddenly he was close and clean and dry and bundled in plain navy fleece, with short brown hair combed neatly over his brow.

  “Thanks,” Spencer said, and he gave a little smile. “Do you realize that your hair was in your face all day yesterday? I seriously had not even seen the color of your eyes.”

  Theo gave him a lopsided grin. “Disappointed they’re not glowing purple? Clown-car red? Sunset orange?”

  “Naw—they’re fine. You look….” Spencer caught himself raising his hand to stroke Theo’s cheek. He paused but couldn’t make the hand drop to the bed. “Real good, is all,” he rasped.

  Theo met his eyes, his own alight with a dry spark of recognition. He captured Spencer’s hand and kissed the back of it, and Spencer stared at him in shock.

  “You look alive, which is also ‘real good,’” Theo said softly. “Now let’s see if we can’t get you all the way up to healthy.”

  Spencer gaped at him for a moment, and then Colonel started to whine at the other side of his bed.

  “Oh geez,” Elsie muttered. “Here, Spence, I’m going to drop the rail. Can you reach down and pet his head? He thinks he’s done something wrong because we won’t let him up on the bed.”

  “Dumbass,” Spencer muttered, and he looked down to where Colonel waited patiently, then closed his eyes and lolled his tongue as Spence fondled his ears. “Sorry about that, old son. Didn’t mean to worry you. Did you calm those kids down? I bet you did. I think Preston’s full of shit. You were never supposed to find drugs. You were supposed to calm down freaked-out kids. You’re not stupid—you’re a multitasker!”

  Colonel melted into his hand, obviously thrilled to have his human there where he could keep an eye on him.

  “He did,” Elsie told him. “Which was good because we got sent out three times after that until I could finally hook up with Glen and he put his foot down.”

  “What’s he doing now?” Spencer didn’t expect coddling—he knew that everyone there took the search-and-rescue part of their business seriously, whether or not it was a paid gig. Most of the time they could get fuel and supplies from whichever agency they were working with so they could assist with the job. And most of their work was cargo or private passenger flights, which they used to help fund search-and-rescue work. They’d made a name for themselves on the West Coast, which was how Glen and Damien had ended up getting paid to deliver water and blankets to Splinter right before the dam had gone.

  “Well, he and Damien are moving planes around,” she said. “And Glen has a delivery that absolutely must be done from Sacramento later today. Preston and Damien are going to take a shift with you tomorrow, then Cash and Glen the day after, and then it’s me and Theo until we can transport you back home.”

  Spencer scowled. “You all can leave me here to rot. You know that, right?”

  “Fuck off,” she said amiably. “The only reason we’re not all in here is, well, yeah, small business to run, but also they told us two at a time.” She looked at Theo. “Theo might be the exception, and we’ve been telling them Colonel is your antianxiety service dog.”

  Spencer looked over the bed to where Colonel waved his good-natured tail like a broom. “You little scam artist,” he said to his dog. “And they bought that?”

  Colonel panted and wagged his tail some more, and Spencer kept fondling his ears. “We won’t tell anyone,” he murmured, tired. Theo hadn’t let go of his hand yet, and Spencer was fine with that. The warmth, the contact, all of it, helped heat his center mass, and seriously, that part of him hadn’t felt toasty since they’d loaded up the chopper the day before.

  Then he recalled something Theo had said and struggled to sit up. Theo kept hold of his hand and put his own surprisingly strong hand in the center of Spencer’s chest.

  “Take it easy, big guy,” Theo said. “No running laps just yet.” His face did something complicated then, and Spencer didn’t like it one bit.

  “What? What was that look?”

  “You talk to me first. Why did you try to climb out of bed?”

  “You’re coming home with me? How does that happen? I fall out of a helicopter and Virgin Woodchuck Dream Date follows me home? Is there a rule in the Game of Life I missed somewhere?”

  Theo gave Elsie a speaking look, and she answered. “The doctor said you’re going to need someone with you round the clock, and a nurse for at least an eight-hour shift for the first week. Theo’s going to get some spending money to set up your guest room so he can be your housemate.”

  “But I won’t need that forever,” Spencer burst out. “I don’t know why I need it now! We can’t just give Theo a temporary job. He’s already had his home blown out the side of a cliff. He needs something long-term.”

  “Well, if you agree to let him room with you, Glen says once you no longer need his help, we need an office manager and two more pilots, so there you go. You’ve got a roommate, Theo has a job on Preston’s ranch of a million dogs, and everybody’s happy.”

  Spencer looked at Theo helplessly. “Are you?” he asked. “How can you be happy coming out to live on a dog ranch in Napa? You’ve got a chance to go somewhere, Woodchuck. Get out of your town—”

  “Be somewhere I’m needed with people I care about,” Theo said, and the hand on Spencer’s chest went from heavy to tender as Theo used his thumb to gently stroke the side of Spencer’s neck. “Even a loud-mouthed jackass who will probably be a hellish patient.”

  Spencer blinked at him and saw that he had big brown eyes as liquid and velvety here under the fluorescent lights of the hospital room as they’d seemed the day before, when the world was water and hell was about to swallow them whole.

  A shiver of awareness passed through him, and then a bolt of pain, but in his side, where he remembered being skewered by a tree, but… but… ah, God! Fuck!

  His vision washed black, and when he came to, he was exhausted and sweaty, and a nurse was injecting something into the IV in his arm.

  “What in the holy mother of fucking hell is wrong with my leg?” he asked blearily, and the nurse looked at Theo and
Elsie like he would rather they explain it than him.

  “Uhm,” Theo said, glancing at Elsie, who shrugged. “There’s not much left of it.”

  “It’s been amputated?” Because that didn’t seem logical. It hurt too much, goddammit!

  “No—it’s… well… you had that loose flap of flesh, Spence, and then you soaked it in a bacteria pond for a good hour. There’s not enough antibiotics in the world—they had to… uhm, cut off the skin and then scrape the infected flesh off.”

  Spencer’s vision went dark again, and he had to work hard to breathe through his nose. “I have helped doctor wounds for five years,” he said, “and that is one of the grossest things I have ever heard.”

  “Well,” Elsie told him grumpily, “I blame you. Anyway, it’s like when you have a burn. They’re going to have to keep ripping the scab off and hope it fills in some of the missing, uhm, meat to support your weight.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Spencer muttered, absolutely horrified. “I’m useless. Jesus, Woodchuck, you would have done fine! You should have just pushed me off the raft and let me die!”

  “Spencer, don’t be an asshole—”

  Elsie, he’d expected. What he hadn’t expected was Theo, standing up to his full height, which was damned near six feet, grabbing him by the hospital gown, thrusting his face into Spencer’s, and growling at him like a bear on his last fucking berry.

  “Listen to me, you demented, brain-damaged lunatic. I don’t know who told you that all you were in this world was a body, but they have lied to you, Spencer Helmsley, and lied to you badly. If my time as your roommate does nothing else for you, I will make you see how much you mean to the people you have touched with your kindness, including your dog, who is not even a teeny bit stupid and is possibly the most wonderful animal in the world, next to Mrs. Andreas’s cat, who is now our cat, so don’t argue.”