Safe Heart (Dreamspun Desires Book 102) Read online

  “Nothing,” Cash admitted. “He just… just solved all my problems in about three sentences. Reminded me of how much more I would have had if I’d stuck around.”

  Spence grunted. “Like him. You would have had him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bailed on him. Twice.” Spencer sounded like he was pondering.

  “It’s great that you know that, by the way. I’m so happy the whole world knows.”

  Spencer hardly rolled his eyes. “Why? Like, seriously. The fuck would you do that for? You don’t look brain-dead.”

  Great. A guy who spoke in grunts and probably scratched his balls as a come-on was lecturing Cash on being stupid.

  But then….

  “I was scared,” Cash whispered.

  Another grunt.

  “Everyone’s scared,” Spence said after a minute. “You bang everything that moves, nothin’s gonna move you.”

  Cash stared at him. “You might not be stupid,” he said, a little dazed.

  That earned him half an eye roll. “Can’t say the same.”

  Cash sputtered for a second. “I… he ran out of the room. No means no!”

  Spence stared at him. He’d turned the TV on, and in the faint glow from the big screen, Cash could appreciate that Glen’s new roommate was really shockingly good-looking, like Rock Hudson had been shockingly good-looking. He didn’t have Damien’s way with people, but damn. At the same time, Cash had spent the last five months not able to look at another man, period.

  Spencer Helmsley didn’t do anything for him, and the guy who did had fled in terror. After holding him close and making him feel the only safety he’d known in his entire life.

  Aces.

  “No means no,” Cash repeated into the suddenly uncomfortable silence.

  “Did he say no?” Spencer asked.

  “He ran away.” What was this guy not getting?

  “Yeah, but did he run away because he wanted to say no, or did he run away because he wanted to say yes? I mean, most times that’s pretty obvious, and you just let the guy go, but this guy’s been waiting for you to show up for five months. I mean, you know. Couldn’t hurt to check.”

  Cash closed his eyes. “Couldn’t hurt to give him some space.”

  Spencer blew a raspberry. “Space. Hah.”

  “You’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than a condom, have you?” Cash snapped.

  “Actually yes, yes I have. Have you?”

  Cash listened to the shattering of his glass house and deflated. “Look, whatever you were going to watch, just press Play.”

  “What are you going to do? And by the way, we’re wheels up at 9:00 a.m. If you want to hash things out with him, I suggest you get a move on. All reports say he got zero sleep last night.”

  “Whose reports?” Cash asked, curious.

  Spence let out a faintly evil laugh and then passed over his phone, which displayed texts from Glen.

  You asshole—you do dog transport next. Huskies, are you fucking kidding me?

  And it’s one a.m. and the fucking dogs are on another round of “Open my crate goddammit!” It’s their favorite song.

  And it’s two-thirty and they’re discussing politics. You could learn something, Spence—the red-coated one has a solid platform.

  Damien has promised to bring Preston next time we do this. My brother the fucking dog whisperer—where the fuck is he now?

  And… they sleep. It’s four goddammit in the morning. Unbefuckingbelievable. You owe me for this.

  That last one, Spence had actually answered.

  Sorry, Glen. I turned my phone off at twelve. How was the concert? Did they do “I wanna hump your hand!”?

  Cash muffled a laugh. “You,” he said with emphasis, “are a horrible human being.”

  “I am,” Spencer agreed. “But my point is this. If you want to talk to him, do it now. If you want to sleep with him, do it now. He’s exhausted, he’s grumpy, and he’s hurting, and he’ll probably just lie there with his eyes open, working himself into a lather over you, so you might as well get it over with so he can sleep and doesn’t kill us all in the morning.”

  Both literally and figuratively since he’d probably be flying.

  “Got it,” Cash said. He slid off the couch and headed reluctantly to the bedroom. “Good talk.”

  Spencer snorted. “If you move in here, I need to tell you how to organize the refrigerator. Glen is fucking picky—I’m not even shitting around.”

  “You are a fountain of fuckin’ optimism,” Cash told him. Behind him, he heard Spencer chuckle and then the low sounds of the television playing a sitcom from ten years ago. Well, everyone had their comfort TV.

  Cash paused when he got to Glen’s closed door, his hand in a fist, ready to knock.

  The darkness, the proximity to Glen without being able to touch—it all seemed frighteningly familiar.

  As seamlessly as his next breath, he was dragged into the past.

  Past

  THEY woke up together, sweltering in the porch room of Enrique’s store, and Glen tumbled out of bed first to go use the john. He came back and washed his hands and rubbed his teeth on his T-shirt. He’d brought a small pack with him, and when Cash got back, he was butt-naked, rinsing his private parts with a cloth and some soap, a pair of briefs on the stand by the basin.

  Cash couldn’t help laughing. “You, uh, came prepared.”

  “I’ve got mouthwash,” Glen said with no irony whatsoever, nodding to the tiny bottle on the stand.

  Cash took a small swallow gratefully and swished it around, then ran to the toilet and spat it out. “You’re a lifesaver,” he murmured, bringing the half-empty container back.

  “That’s what it says on the plane,” Glen said lightly.

  “Really? Sounds official.” Cash hadn’t seen the plane—Glen had said something about flying it to the airfield near Las Varas and leaving it with a friend.

  “Yeah, well, when it was time to come up with a name for the business, I was like, Echo and Ward Search and Rescue. Damien wouldn’t do it, though. He was like, ‘Gecko you have been, and Gecko you shall be forever and ever amen.’ I shit you not, he said that in front of our financial officer. It’s a good thing Mallory liked us or we’d still be flying cargo planes back and forth from Japan.”

  Cash laughed softly, letting Glen’s chatter ease some of the awkwardness from losing his shit the night before. “It’s a good thing your guy likes you—he’s about ready to go to a lot of trouble to get you back.”

  Glen grunted. “Yeah, well, he owes me. He’s been a taciturn hole in my karma for the last year. Saving my ass will give him a nice warm fuzzy in the pit of his balls.”

  “Why?” Cash went to the front of the store and looked for Glen’s phone, grunting. “And by the way, your phone has about a five percent charge after an entire night. I think this charge cord’s had it.”

  “Crap.” Glen grabbed the phone and leaned up against the wall behind the counter, texting Damien. Cash faced him, leaning against the counter proper, watching Glen’s absolute faith in his brother and friend in real time as Glen texted them. “They must be shitting Twinkies by now.” As he was typing, Glen started to laugh. “Not that Damien has ever had a Twinkie up his tailpipe, but, you know….”

  “Oh my God,” Cash groaned, but he was still smiling, right up until the ground bucked under their feet.

  The lights in the end-cap refrigerator flickered, and Glen’s phone went dead, and then… then the room pitched and yawed like a tiny ship on a stormy sea.

  “Kid, get under the counter!” Glen screamed it as the walls around Cash buckled. Cash was scrambling to obey, and Glen was watching him, probably waiting to see if there’d be enough room, when Cash heard a terrible cracking noise.

  Oh God—“Glen!”

  The wall that crashed down on Glen pinned him to the floor and blocked Cash in, and as the world stopped trying to shake them off its crust like a dog shaking fleas, Cash he
ard Glen’s first scream of pain and then an eerie silence.

  For minutes after, all Cash could hear was the harshness of his own breathing in his ears. Then, “Glen? Oh God, Glen? Are you okay?”

  Glen’s voice was muffled, and if Cash lay down on his stomach, he could see Glen’s face—but there was no room for Cash to get under the wall and take some of the weight, and no room for him to climb out and get help.

  “Hey, kid,” Glen croaked. “How you doing?”

  “Are you okay?” Cash asked again, and he could hear the hysteria rising in his voice.

  “Been better,” Glen rasped. “Look around and tell me what you see.”

  Cash had a limited view, but it was better than Glen’s. He had access to some things from under the counter, but there was too much debris—and too much of it with jagged edges and collapsed timbers overhead—to risk much movement.

  The end-cap refrigerator had shattered, and plastic bottles of soda and water were rolling around the floor. When he mentioned those to Glen, Glen told him to gather as many as he could.

  Cash managed three bottles of water and one of cola, but everything else was too far away. It was maddening. He could see the shelf of chocolate bars and beef jerky in almost pristine condition about five feet away, but it was propping up another wall, and if Cash knocked the counter over to get to it, he might end up like Glen, or worse.

  He reported all this to Glen, who grunted, “Well done, kid. That might keep us alive.”

  “What do we do now?” Cash asked, wanting mostly to panic but learning from Glen’s example.

  “We wait,” Glen said, and Cash swallowed against a dry throat.

  “Okay.” He closed his eyes and fought the temptation to scream. He’d spent his whole life fighting for freedom, and now he was literally in a cage of walls. The only thing that kept him from completely losing his shit in the hot, dark closeness of that wrecked little building was the fact that Glen was crushed under a wall, in considerable pain, and he’d kept his voice even and strong for Cash.

  Cash needed to give back.

  “If you, uh, have some way to do that,” he said, stomping ruthlessly on the tears in his voice, “I’d love to hear it.”

  Glen grunted. “Tell me a story, kid. Doesn’t have to be a great one. I just need to hear a voice in the dark.”

  So Cash closed his eyes and told Glen about the beagle he’d had in the first grade, how much he’d loved Smithers and how the dog had lived for ten years and had been his best friend.

  Glen had told him, word by painful word, about how his brother raised dogs. “Preston’s got limited use for people—except me and Damien, and his housemates, Oscar and Belinda, I guess—but he’s like the fucking dog whisperer. Damie and I have no pets in our apartment—sometimes I think we go bother Preston just to pet the damned dogs.”

  One story at a time. Cash’s freedom in Jalisco but his yearning for boundaries from his mother, as an act of love. Glen’s time in the service and how he and Damien had taken a premature honorable discharge so as not to leave a fellow soldier behind. How much Cash had loved performing—he sang several songs at this point, because Glen was getting weak. How much Glen had missed his friend Damien’s bullshitting and good humor since he’d been badly injured in a helicopter crash.

  Story by story they built a bridge between the two of them, a bond that Cash could neither deny nor escape.

  A reason to stay in one place, a person he could tie himself to without worry. Glen Echo, with every word, established himself as a man who wouldn’t let Cash down.

  They’d slept at night and rationed the water as best they could. But by the time the sun hit its zenith the next day, Glen’s voice was getting weaker, and only dehydration kept Cash from weeping with claustrophobia.

  And then they’d both heard it, from a distance, and Glen’s raw-throated laugh had given Cash hope.

  “What is it?” he asked, but he knew. All those stories together—Cash knew.

  “That there,” Glen rasped, “is my brother’s goddamned dog. Preacher, buddy. Go get ’em. Tell ’em we’re right here.”

  Present

  CASH’S hand fell to his side as the rest of the memory flooded him. The two of them tended to, Damien’s heroic ride down the mountain to return with a battered helicopter that only angels and heroes would dare to fly.

  Damien was apparently both, because he got them to a hospital in Jalisco, and Glen was prepped for surgery while Damien and Preston went out and got to be heroes in the most earthquake-damaged areas of the city.

  And as Cash sat there in the hospital chair, looking at Glen’s pale face, he realized that Glen Echo was a good man. He was the best kind of hero, the best kind of person.

  And Cash Harper had brought nothing but misery to his life.

  He’d kissed Glen then, softly and thoroughly, wanting nothing more but to remember that this man had once touched him, and told Glen that he was running to get food.

  The expression on Glen’s face had told Cash he hadn’t been fooled—he knew Cash was saying goodbye.

  But he obviously knew Cash would be back. Instead of knocking on the door, Cash reached out and turned the knob instead, letting out a breath when he found it unlocked.

  “’Sup?” Glen asked from the edge of a queen-size bed. Cash couldn’t see much in the moonlight, but the room looked military neat, only decorated. Framed prints of small aircraft took up the wall space, and Cash wanted to smile, but Glen deserved his attention first.

  “I need to hear your voice in the dark,” he said purposefully. “Can you just talk to me?”

  Glen let out a breath. “No,” he said, and before Cash’s heart could crumble, he added, “but only because I am dead beat. C’mon, kid. The bed’s bigger than the one in Enrique’s store.”

  Cash crawled in, backing into Glen and wiggling until Glen sighed and turned, spooning him.

  “How’s your back?” Cash asked.

  “Better after painkillers. You get enough to eat?”

  “Yeah. Spencer’s back.”

  Glen let out a grunt. “Did he offend you or just irritate you?”

  “He’s actually sort of a genius.”

  Glen’s snort stirred the hair on Cash’s crown and gave Cash hope. It was the first noise he’d made that hadn’t been robotic, his defense mechanisms on full. Glen moved his hand so it rested on Cash’s hip, and a tiny cold sliver in Cash’s heart melted.

  This wasn’t hopeless. He’d needed to know that.

  “No, he’s genius,” Cash said.

  “What makes him so fucking smart?”

  “He told me not to give up on you.”

  “Kid—”

  “I’m not leaving, and I’m not giving up. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson. Men stay.”

  Glen sucked in a breath. “I—”

  Cash cut him off. “Don’t stress about it tonight. I’ll be here in the morning.”

  “That’ll be a first,” Glen muttered sourly.

  “That’ll be a start.” Cash kept his voice firm. Five months. Five months of remembering Glen as he’d been in the hospital—pale and hurt, angry and disappointed. Five months of wanting to be the man who could change that. He couldn’t undo the past; he wasn’t sure he would if he could.

  Spending those hours in the dark with only Glen’s voice for company had taught Cash more than he ever thought possible about how to deal with pain, about how to keep your soul intact during fear—about what a human being could do with a little bit of confidence in the world around him.

  Cash hadn’t been the man who could pull someone else out of that sort of pit by telling funny stories, by talking about old lovers and old dogs and daring feats of prowess in the air. He’d been afraid, desperately afraid, and seeing Glen in the hospital had reminded him that he’d been the one to put him there. Cash had gotten them into that mess, and Glen had kept Cash’s sanity so he could get out of it.

  Cash hadn’t been good enough. And he’d lost
Brielle.

  His first stop after he’d left had been to try to find her—and he’d come up against a dead end. Quite literally. Tranquilo Paz had taken his remaining followers down to the river and away by boat, blowing up the dock behind him. Cash didn’t have the resources Glen did. He’d been left on the muddy river bank, still wearing the clothes he’d been wearing the morning he and Glen had been trapped under the wall.

  He remembered that moment clearly, falling to his knees, not even enough strength in his heart to cry.

  And he’d seen, in excruciating detail, how his every action to prove he was independent and needed nobody had succeeded.

  He was dirty, heartsore, and alone.

  Glen’s contact in Nayarit saved him. Apparently everybody knew Buddy, and he’d come back to Agujero en la Roca to help the tiny town rebuild. He got Cash back to Puerto Vallarta, back to his mother, who had greeted him with… well, cheerful obliviousness, really.

  Cash spent a month with her, and she tried to convince him to go to more parties. “Have some more champagne, Cash. Do you like my new lover? He has the best drugs—try some!”

  He would never forget one of the last days with his mother. They were having breakfast on the porch of her mansion, overlooking the pool, on the hills surrounding the lake. She wore an off-white lounge ensemble worthy of a sixties-era starlet, right down to the band around her rich black hair and oversized sunglasses hiding her fathomless black eyes.

  Not somebody’s mother, he remembered thinking. Not really his.

  He asked her if she thought raising him there, where there was a party every night and sex and substances for the abusing, had ever given her any regrets.

  She’d looked at him thoughtfully—one of the few times he felt his mother had really seen him.

  “We spent so many years,” she said, “being afraid to even let a pin drop. Afraid to get dirt on your face, afraid to cook the wrong thing for dinner. I just wanted to be free after that, didn’t you?”

  She was still so beautiful. She hadn’t hit fifty yet, and nobody would know when she did.

  “But, Mom, did you want to be free of me?”