Manny’s Mission (Broken Wheel Ranch #7)

Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Ann turned her head to Manny and looked at him sadly, but when she saw nothing but understanding and worry in his expression, she knew she was about to do the right thing. She held her breath as she reached up and untied the bandana, then slowly let the ends fall to expose the scar on her neck. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back when he leaned in and studied the scar closely. It wasn’t until she felt his fingers on the scar that she opened her eyes and kept her steady gaze on him. She didn’t realize she was crying until he reached up and caught a tear with his thumb.

“It’s okay, I’m done,” he said, and leaned in to gently kiss her lips. At the feel of them, Ann turned, wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Before she knew it, she was lying on her back on the couch looking up at him.

“Wow, that was intense.”

“Yeah,” he said on a heavy sigh as he laid his head on her shoulder in order to regain his breath. When he tried to rise from her, he stared at her in shock when she tightened her arms around her.

“Stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“How about we move this into the bedroom?”

“I can deal with that,” she said on a grin, and disengaged herself from his arms.

As Manny rose from the couch, he held his hand out to her and sighed in relief when she placed hers into it. Neither one of them said a single word as he led her to the bedroom he had chosen for himself, and once inside, he turned to look at her. After several moments she became uncomfortable and cocked her head to the side to look at him with a frown.

“What?”

“You showed me your scar, and I’m sure you’ve seen mine, but we are about to get up close and personal. I don’t want you to freak out about what you’re about to see.”

“Okay,” she murmured, and watched as he slowly pulled his tee over his head, and she kept her eyes on his face. She didn’t look down his body until he gave a subtle nod. Only then did she walk forward and gingerly reach out to run the tip of a finger over one of the scars on his abdomen. She walked around his body and did that to every single scar. When she reached the one on his back, the one that was larger, and angrier looking, she paused, reached down and actually kissed it.

“What was this one from? I know you were tortured, but why is this one so much bigger and angrier?”

“That’s where they were trying to remove my kidney when we were rescued. They were cutting me when there was an explosion, then all hell broke loose. I don’t know whether they jerked at the blast, or they had already cut that deep when help arrived. I don’t think I’ll ever know. All I do know is that I wasn’t given any pain medication when they did all the cuts, and I passed out.”

“Oh, shit, please tell me those fuckers are no longer upright and breathing air.” She lifted her head to study the back of his and when he didn’t reply, she walked around to study his face. She only reached up and laid one hand on his jaw. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Manny couldn’t think of anything to say, so he only shrugged, then finally lifted his eyes to stare at her. “I know we both have scars, I don’t know about you, but most of mine are on the outside for everyone to see. I am carrying some around on the inside, but they are there because I still can’t come to terms with the fact that I let my team down and while some lost their lives, others, along with myself were tortured.”

“Stop,” Ann whispered as she walked around to his front, and reached up to lay her fingers on his hand. “I’m not trying to belittle your experience. I too have scars both on the inside and outside. I feel the same way you do, that if I had gone with Everhart, then things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. People wouldn’t be dead. You probably don’t want to hear this, and I don’t really want to admit this, but after talking with Ducky, I realize that I have survivor’s guilt. I’m not saying you do, but it might be something to look into. Talk with the guys when you get a minute, especially Ryan.” When he tipped his head to the side to scowl at her, she shook her head at him. “Trust me, he’s thinking the same thing you are about being the one to let you guys down.”

“Well, that’s just stupid.”

“Yeah, and he might think the same thing about you feeling guilty. I’m not telling you what to do, and I’m not recommending therapy, but I think you should sit down and talk with each other.” She shook her head when he started to talk. “I’m not saying you have to do it today, but think about it for a while, and maybe this Scott person is feeling the same way you are. There’s no way to tell until he gets here and settles into a routine.” She stepped back, then scowled at him. “He is returning, correct?”

“As far as I know he is,” Manny said with a shrug. “I called him a couple of days ago and he says he’s on his way. Other than saying he’ll be here by the end of the weekend, there’s nothing else I know.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “If you don’t mind, can we table this discussion and get down to business?” She grinned at him and laughed at his expression of glee. Not expecting his next move, she laughed harder when he picked her up and tossed her into the center of the bed, and followed her down. He didn’t let her up as he laid a hand on her stomach and lowered his head to her lips. As soon as they touched, Manny couldn’t tell who devoured whom. He just went with it.

To give them air, he lifted his mouth and kissed his way across her jaw to just below her ear. He didn’t know how she felt about it, but that was his favorite spot to kiss on a woman. Not that he’d ever had a serious relationship in the past, but in his dreams, he had always dreamt of coming in from working all day, walking up behind the love of his life, and kissing her on the side of her neck, close to the back of her ear. He shivered right along with her when he kissed her like that, and felt a pang in his heart. Not wanting to read too much into it just then, he continued to kiss her neck, and make his way down to her breasts.

He reared back and stared down at her in shock.

“What?” she asked breathlessly.

“Nothing,” he said with a grin, and took the hand on her waist, put it beneath her shirt and slowly lifted it. He made sure he had eye contact with her as he did so. The only time he broke the contact was when he lifted the shirt up and off, before he tossed it over his shoulder. With his eyes still on hers, he ran his hand up her firm abs, and smiled when he felt the front clasp of her bra. With a flick of his fingers, he freed her breasts and stared in wonder.

“Beautiful,” he whispered as he bent to kiss, lick the first, then the second pebbled peak. He took his time lavishing her breasts, and smiled against her smooth skin as he felt her hands dig into his hair and combined pulling it, and embedding her fingers into his skull. It wasn’t painful, but he felt empowered by how she encouraged him to continue. He took one hand and moved it down to the waistband of her jeans and froze when she told him to stop. He reared up onto an elbow and stared down at her.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said breathlessly, then pushed him off her. At his scowl, she giggled. “I still have my boots on.”

“Oh, sorry,” he chuckled along with her, and quickly got off the bed and removed them, her jeans, and his own jeans and socks. He stood before her in just his briefs and she only wore her panties. They looked at each other and removed the last of their clothing before falling back onto the bed.

“Please, tell me you have condoms,” she whispered as he took up where he’d left off. He looked at her with a grin, lunged to the side, opened the drawer to the side table and withdrew several packets. They both shared a laugh as they rained down on the bed. With that out of the way, he resumed what he had been doing, and it wasn’t long before he was at the juncture of her thighs.

He licked the length of her, and had to hold her down when she reared her hips off the bed, and gave a loud moan at the same time. He held her down, then devoured her, not letting her up until she had her first orgasm. As she was enjoying her bliss, he donned a condom, crawled up her body, and poised at her entrance. He waited until she opened her eyes and smiled down at her.

“Ready for round two?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, and placed her hands on his shoulders. He lined his cock up with her entrance, and entered her slowly. He wanted to savor the feel of her for the first time, and wasn’t disappointed at her tightness. He didn’t stop until he couldn’t go any further, and paused to look down at her as she adjusted to his size.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

With the reassurance from her, he began to move slowly, and because he wanted to feel her nipples rubbing his chest, he lowered himself to her in small increments. He didn’t want to crush her in case she had some response to being held down by his body. When she didn’t object, he lay on her fully, put his arms beneath her, and held her tight. He sighed in bliss when she wrapped both her arms and legs around him. All the while they snuggled together, he made slow love to her. He had never before gone as slow as he was now, and for the first time, he felt an emotional connection with the woman in his arms. He smiled into her shoulder when he felt her inner walls start to spasm, and because it felt good, he sped up, and as her body tightened, he felt his release build. Going faster, they looked into each other’s eyes and came at the same time.

“Oh,” she said on a sigh as she came and then laid a hand on his jaw. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, I enjoyed it too.” He stayed where he was, then slowly pulled out. He tossed the covers over her as he went to the bathroom to take care of business. When he returned he smiled as he saw her curled on her side in the fetal position. He donned his boxers and climbed back into bed with her. When he realized she had fallen asleep, he lay there to look at her, and about thirty minutes later, he slowly rose from the bed, dressed, and went back out into the kitchen area, quietly closing the door behind him, letting her sleep.

Because he had slept for so long before taking Ann to bed, as quietly as he could, he cleaned up the house, and started something for dinner, though it was still hours away. He thought letting Ann sleep would be the best thing for her.

Three hours later, he looked up from his position on the front porch and cocked his head to the side as he saw Ryan Carter standing there. Without saying a word, Manny lifted an unopened beer, and Ryan joined him, taking the bottle, opening it, and downing about half of it. When he wiped his mouth, he looked at Manny.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing really, Berry said you were finally awake, and I was wondering how you felt?”

“Pretty good.” Manny nodded and used his own bottle of beer to point to a chair beside him. “I’ll be at work first thing in the morning.”

“Okay, can you tell me if you know where Ann is? She came here to see you at lunch and didn’t return.”

“She’s asleep,” Manny said, then grinned. “In my bed. Didn’t Jammer tell you that Erin gave her the rest of the afternoon off?”

Ryan’s smirk turned into a grin. “Yeah, now I remember something like that was said. So, you two are an item?”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far yet, but I really like her and want to see if we can have something. She’s my first real serious hope.”

“I understand.” Ryan sat back in his chair and they both looked out over the landscape, and Manny let out a gigantic sigh as he looked over at Ryan.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you hate me?” Manny asked, and didn’t expect the reaction he received. Ryan jumped to his feet, while still holding his beer bottle, pulled Manny to his own feet, and wrapped him in a hug. He wouldn’t let go until Manny hugged him back. When they broke apart they both had tears streaming down their faces.

“No, when I was in that room watching them torture Broome, all I could think of was how much you and Gould hated my guts for getting us in that situation.” Ryan shook his head and held up his hand to stop Manny from talking. “ I was the second in command once the Lt was killed. I should have gotten us out of there instead of waiting to see if we could get our downed guys to safety. Everything that happened was on me. You, Gould, and Broome had nothing to do with what happened, it was all on me. Because of that, Broome lost his life, and the two of you were cut all to shit. Only God knows if you would have survived if help hadn’t arrived when it did.”

Manny scrubbed his face, hard, then sat on the edge of his seat as he studied the other man. “Jesus, Carter, is that what you think? I don’t blame you, I blame the upper Brass.”

“What? Why?”

“Because we weren’t given all of the information we had to have after we were boots on the ground. I asked if you hated me because I told LT that we didn’t have all the information and shouldn’t move forward until it came in. As third, I should have backed you up and told LT to stand down until we got the correct information. Because they failed to inform us properly, LT and the others lost their lives. I don’t know if this happened to you, and I’m only telling you this because of what we went through together, but when I was in the hospital in California, upper Brass came to see me.”

“About?” Ryan held his breath as he waited for an answer. “They never came to see me.”

“Oh, well, the first words out of their mouths were that I wasn’t to repeat what they were about to tell me. To anyone. It turned out that they had the proper information for us, but failed to tell us because they were testing the LT to see if he had what it took to be a leader in that type of situation. They knew or at least suspected he had TBI and PTSD, and they wanted to test him. They only came clean because he was dead, and they told me they were going to talk to you. By your reaction, I see they didn’t.”

“What the fuck? They didn’t tell me shit. Hell, they never even came to see me when I was in the hospital.”

“Yeah, my exact same words to them. They knew LT had a screw loose, but after what Echo team went through with their LT and his TBI, they didn’t think ours was that bad, but they suspected. They also told me that they were proud of how you and I stepped up to the plate after being ambushed.”

“Then why the fuck did it take them twenty fucking days to find us? Why the fuck did Broome have to die because they were testing our leader?”

“I asked the same thing, and they disgusted me by saying that was the spoils of war.”

“Fuck me,” Ryan said as he sat back heavily and finished his beer.

“Yeah, I thought you hated me because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I thought they found us when I went back to get the dog tags from our dead.”

“No, Manny, I didn’t hate you then, and I don’t now. We did what we had to in that situation. If anyone is to blame, and to hate it’s the upper Brass for not giving us all the Intel, and using us as guinea pigs. Do I resent the fact that I lost an eye? Of course, but what burns my ass even more is how Broome died. I’m not saying your horror was any less than mine. We all went through hell. My resentment is that Broome died the way he did.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that. It makes me wonder if they did what they did because they were looking where to place the kidney. I don’t know if you recall this, but when the other teams arrived to rescue us, both Gould and I were on make-shift operating tables with someone between us. They had just cut into our backs to remove the kidney when the doors exploded inward. I don’t know whether this is true or not, because I was in and out of it and in a lot of pain, but I thought I saw the red dots before I succumbed to the pain.” He shook his head and saw the horror on Ryan’s face. “Very little pain medication was given to us. As you know, we spoke their language. They said they didn’t want to harm the new kidney with giving us pain meds. They were under the impression that it wouldn’t be a successful operation if they drugged our pain to take our organs.”

“Fucking Christ, did you tell that to the Brass?”

“I did. The guy that came to talk to me, I had never seen him before, said that they would look into compensating us.” Manny shook his head sadly. “I told him I wouldn’t hold my hand on my ass waiting for anything. All I wanted was a public apology for their fuckup, that was it. I swore the guy lost all the color in his face when I said that. I stressed that it didn’t have to be with the ‘general’ public, but I wanted a formal apology in front of all our serving brothers. Both you and I know that will never happen, so I’ve let it all go now.”

The two of them sat there for a long time in silence. At least fifteen minutes passed before Manny looked over at Ryan.

“We good?”

“Yes. Now we just have to make sure Gould is good when he gets back.”

“Yeah, that should be in a couple of days, he said he’d be back by the end of the weekend. I’ll be at work at seven in the morning. Clark told me I’m to take over overseeing the construction over at New Double.”

“Yeah, we can go over that in the morning. Since all the blueprints are there, it’ll be easier.” Ryan nodded and made sure his beer was empty before he set the bottle down on the porch beside his chair. He looked directly at Manny. “Thank you for telling me what you did. All this time, I thought I was the one in the wrong.”

“No, it was the upper Brass.” Manny stood, and held his hand out to Ryan, who stood and shook it. They gave each other another man hug, and as Ryan walked down the steps toward the cabin he shared with Pru, Manny felt a weight lift from his chest and he took a deep breath, the deepest he’d been able to take since they’d left for that mission the previous year. Feeling lighter, he picked up the empty bottles and went inside to get dinner ready for himself and Ann.