Tara Sivec - Worn Me Down

Well, that explains it.

“Enough about my shit. Seriously, what the hell are you doing in Tennessee?”

With a sigh, I explain to Cole about the phone call I received from Brady.

“Huh, so that’s it? You’re supposed to just sit on your ass and keep an eye on Gwen? Suddenly, sitting here on the deck staring out at the ocean seems like a party compared to what you’re doing,” Cole laughs.

“Fuck you. Speaking of Gwen, what do you know about her?”

Cole and Brady went to the same high school. It never even occurred to me until now that I probably should have just asked him what the deal was with her. Brady would only tell me what I needed to know and Gwen obviously isn’t going to give up the goods.

“I haven’t seen her in years. She was a few years younger than us in school so I never hung out with her or anything,” Cole explains. “She was pretty shy and quiet, blonde hair down to her ass, did whatever her parents told her to do. She married some big wig doctor back in New York and turned into the socialite her mother always wanted her to be.”

Are we talking about the same person? The Gwen I know has purple and blue streaks in her hair, a nose piercing and a mouth like a trucker. That’s a far cry from being an ass-kissing social climber.

“I was kind of surprised to hear she skipped town with her kid a few months ago and never told anyone,” Cole continues. “Definitely not something the Gwen I knew would do.”

Jesus Christ, what the fuck has Brady gotten me involved in? Even though I want to ask Cole a million questions, something now feels wrong about prying into Gwen’s life without her knowing. I’d much rather have her tell me what the fuck is going on. I end the call with Cole, making him promise to let me know the minute he decides what the hell he’s planning on doing with his life.

Forty-five minutes later, after sorting through all of the customer files in Gwen’s desk, I’m bored sitting around waiting for her to come to work so I make my way to the back room where I know Brady has a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling and a stack of free weights.

Wrapping up my hands with some of the boxing tape Brady left on the floor by the weights, I take my frustrations out on the bag, beating the shit out of it until I work up a good sweat. It was good to talk to Cole again, but doing so always brings up bad memories that are better left buried. With every punch to the bag, scenes from the past flash through my mind.

“Vargas, man, they’re dead. We have to leave them.”

Punch.

“You need to pull it together right now. We have to get the fuck out of here!”

Punch-punch.

“You can’t save them. They both took a bullet between the eyes. I’m not about to let that happen to you so get the fuck up and let’s go!”

Punch-punch-punch.

Pushing aside the memories, I hit the bag so hard that my hands sting and the muscles in my arms burn, but it doesn’t matter. The pain in my body takes away the pain in my heart from seeing one of my best friends completely lose it in the field, cradling the dead body of one of his friends to him and rocking back and forth in a daze. I need the distraction of being here, helping Brady out so I can forget about how one of the strongest SEALs I’ve ever met broke down and has never been the same since.

“What the hell are you doing?”

At the sound of Gwen’s angry shout, my arms pause mid-punch. I didn’t even hear her come in. Fuck, I’m losing it. I’m a SEAL, people aren’t supposed to sneak up on me. She’s like a Goddamn ninja.

“I was working, then I got bored waiting for you,” I tell her, glancing at my watch. “You’re fifteen minutes late.”

She slams her purse down on the table by the door and stalks around to the other side of the heavy bag. She’s wearing her usual uniform of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that hugs her body. Just once I’d like to see her wearing something skimpy that shows a little skin and a lot of cleavage.

Fuck, I need to get laid.

“How the hell did you get in here?” she asks me angrily as I begin unwrapping the tape from my hands.

I ignore her question. “So, I’ve been bringing myself up to speed this morning. You got some good shots of Bradford on the Harley.”

She glares up at me and I smile back.

“I thought we agreed you were going to leave me alone,” she complains, crossing her arms in front of her.

“We didn’t agree on anything. I smartly kept my mouth shut so you’d stop nagging me. If you’d rather, I could go pick your kid up from school and teach her some new words.”

She groans in frustration and walks out of the room. Tossing the pile of tape into the trashcan, I follow her out to her desk.

“Did you go through my files?” she asks in irritation, sorting through the folders on her desk.

“Well, since I’m going to be working here, I needed to see what you have going on. Don Bradford is a lying sack of shit, April Marcum is a cheating whore and Chris Speedman makes enough money to finally start paying his wife child support.”

She ignores me, stacking and restacking all of the files since obviously I didn’t put them back as perfectly as she left them, so I continue. “I also checked the calendar. Looks like we have a stakeout later today to catch another cheating spouse. Do you want to drive or should I?”

Gwen finally stops playing with the files and huffs. “You’re not going with me.”

I just smile at her. “Fine, I’ll go with you to your hair appointment and make sure you don’t do something stupid like go back to blonde.”

Oops. I’m not supposed to know that.

Her head jerks up and she looks at me wide-eyed. “How the hell do you know I used to be a blonde?”

I shrug. No sense in telling her Cole spilled some of her secrets. I’d much rather have her assume I’m onto her.

“Just a hunch. For the record, I like the blue and purple. It’s hot and makes you look like you could kick some ass. You’d look like a Stepford Wife if you were blonde,” I tell her with a laugh, hoping the ‘wife’ comment will get her to admit something about the poor guy she left behind in New York.

Her shoulders lose their tension and I actually wonder if she’s letting her guard down. She cocks her head to the side and stares up at me with those gorgeous gray eyes and runs her fingers through her shoulder-length dark hair self-consciously. My dick stands at attention when I think what that hair would feel like skimming across my thighs.

Oh, hell no! There will be none of that shit going on. Time to douse some cold water on everything.

“You do know that it’s my job to find out things, right? I know you ran away from New York with your tail between your legs and have been hiding out here with your brother. What happened? Mommy and Daddy not paying enough attention to you? Or maybe the guy you left behind finally decided you weren’t worth the trouble and kicked you to the curb.”

The softness in her eyes immediately vanishes and is replaced with hurt. I have a moment of regret for saying what I did, but I don’t have time for this bullshit. We can either keep playing this stupid little game or she can tell me what the fuck is going on and why I’m here instead of out on a mission where there’s real danger.

Instead of throwing a sarcastic comment my way like she usually does, Gwen turns away from me and heads to the door.

“I need to run some errands. You can sit at Brady’s desk and go through his files until it’s time to head out and do the tail in a few hours.”

And just like that, she shuts me down. Guess I probably should have went with my first instinct and continued to grill Cole about her. It would have been much easier than trying to pry the truth out of Gwen.

After an hour spent walking around downtown Nashville avoiding Austin for a little bit, I finally decide to suck it up and head back to the office to face him. One minute he’s being a smartass and the next he’s complimenting my hair and making me feel special. And then he goes right back to being a jerk by making that ‘mommy and daddy’ comment and the dig about my relationship with William. I was stupid to think he wouldn’t look into my background and I could just send him packing. At least he doesn’t know everything. Maybe I should just tell him – that would certainly shut him up. Tell him how up until the night I left, my husband would only hit me in places where no one could see the bruises; inform him that my parents don’t care what that ‘poor guy’ put me through, as long as I come back home so they don’t look bad in front of their friends.

As much as I want to wipe that smug look off of Austin’s face, I don’t want to see it replaced with pity. Every single day I look at myself in the mirror I worry about what people see, what my daughter sees. I want her to be proud of me for the choices I made and I want to be strong for her. I can’t do that if I’m surrounded by people who feel sorry for me. It’s why I’ve never told Brady everything that happened. Showing up at his place in the middle of the night with a busted jaw, broken ribs and a shattered arm was more than enough truth for him.

When I’m a block away from the building, my phone vibrates in my hand. Checking the display, I see that it’s Karen.

Brady introduced me to Karen, who lives across the hall in his apartment building, right after Emma and I moved in. She’s a retired widow in her sixties who raised six children that are now grown and scattered across the country. Emma took to her immediately and Karen jumped at the chance to watch her during the day while Brady and I were working. Most days she refuses to take any money from me and tells me that Emma keeps her young and eases her loneliness and that’s payment enough. Karen was a lifesaver when I was working as a waitress after I first got here and barely had two nickels to rub together.