The Farther He Runs: A Kick Novel Read online

  The Farther He Runs is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2016 Loveswept Ebook Edition

  Copyright © 2016 by Lynda L. Aicher LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780425285145

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: © Yuri Arcurs/iStockphoto

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  By Lynda Aicher

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Rain sputtered down in an annoying drizzle that collected on the windshield and blurred Tanner Dorsey’s view of the two-story Tudor. The urge to switch his wipers on, even for a single pass, was blocked by his trained instincts. Movement gave away position, and he wasn’t ready to be seen.

  Nothing had changed, at least from the outside. The manicured lawn was green, the shrubs trimmed into neat containment. The olive-toned siding was accented by the red-brick entry and white trim that highlighted the distinctive narrow gables, thin windows, and timber framing. Its stark bareness stuck out beside the abundance of seasonal decorations littering the other houses. The blinds were drawn tight on the ground floor, lights extinguished, zero activity detected.

  He inhaled, released it slowly, and clicked through the refuse clouding his thoughts. An easier task than sorting out the strangle of emotions he’d blocked since returning stateside. Eighteen months overseas, ten focused solely on the mission. Plenty of time for things to go to hell.

  For him to fail on his duty to his brothers while serving his duty to his country.

  The gray light camouflaged the time, trapping the world in a depressed state of uniformity. No brightness or shadows. Consistency at its worst, but it was preferable to the blistering blindness of the unrelenting sun.

  Sweat clung to his nape and plastered his undershirt to his back, yet a shiver trembled down his spine. He suppressed it without thought. He was free to move here. Free to yell and scream…or cry. He wouldn’t, though. To crack was to fail when he couldn’t repack everything that had escaped.

  The car engine ticked as it cooled, the cold creeping in the longer he sat there. His plane had landed that morning. He’d booked the first available flight out of San Diego once his debriefing was done, and his leave had officially begun. There’d been no question on where he’d spend his time off, and no guilt either. His family didn’t even know he was back on U.S. soil. He’d call his mother later. After this was done.

  He needed his brothers now. Not his blood relations, but the ones who knew him better than he knew himself. The ones who’d become his family the second he’d stepped off the bus at Parris Island and placed his feet in the same yellow footprints that’d welcomed so many recruits.

  But there was one brother who needed him more than anyone else—and Tanner needed him too.

  He was a Navy brat by distinction of his father’s job, but he was a Marine by choice—one he’d never regretted. Not through almost twenty years of service. Not through all the wars, deployments, and missions. Not through the pain of battle and loss.

  Not…until yesterday.

  One message. That was it. One single text had sucked the breath from his lungs and almost dropped him to his knees.

  He hadn’t read the rest of the updates until he’d begun waiting for his flight. Nine months that chronicled the status of his brother to his right and the one who was no longer to his left.

  The ache in his throat swelled until he forced it back with a hard swallow. A few blinks and the burning sensation faded from his eyes. Another long exhale to the count of heartbeats. One, two, three, four.

  He’d ended his information-gathering after that. Everything else that’d happened while he’d been in the dark could wait. The deluge of information was standard after returning from an extended special operations mission where a blackout of personal communication had been required. Almost a year without civilian contact of any kind. No emails or texts. No video messaging or calls. Care packages were a joke. Much like showers and clean clothes. All sacrifices he’d willingly given in the name of freedom.

  There were many, many more who’d given everything.

  He closed his eyes, flashes of faces racing past in a silent tribute to his fallen brothers. He’d had the misfortune—or fortune if one chose to look at it that way—of serving the majority of his military career during a period of war. Would he have changed his mind when he’d enlisted in the late nineties if he’d known what the next two decades would bring? Not a chance.

  The memories weren’t all great. Many haunted him in his nightmares, both awake and asleep. But it was his life. One that’d given him purpose and inclusion, shaped and saved him in ways only other Marines understood.

  He jerked the door open and exited the rental car in a single movement. He’d changed quickly when he’d stopped by his storage shed on base to grab his prepacked suitcase and his garment bag. He could buy anything he’d forgotten.

  He yanked the flight bag out of the back, left the garment bag, and glanced up and down the street as he closed the hatch. Shoulders back, chin high, he strode to the green Tudor. He scanned the perimeter, checked between each house, eyed the windows. The street held a deserted feel that coincided with the midweek work schedule of most civilians. The dreary December weather didn’t help with the welcoming, either.

  The rainy mist coated his leather jacket and spit at his face, but was easily ignored. This was nothing, and didn’t even register on his annoyance scale. His shoes were silent, his bag held at his side. His pulse quickened with each step closer to his destination. There was no valid reason for the anxiety stacking up within his chest. His extended absence wasn’t unexpected, nor would it be criticized. Yet the worry had built over each long hour it’d taken him to get to Portland.

  He bounded up the short flight of stairs to the small stoop, familiarity settling in. He’d been here before, but it’d been a while since his last visit.

  Obviously, too long.

  He’d tried to prepare himself for what he’d find behind this door. Tried and failed. The complete lack of information from this source—the direct source—had chilled him more than the updates from Rig and Axel, fellow brothers, mutual friends, and business partners.

  The door swung open before he was ready, the slow sweep tensing his muscles until they twisted in his abdomen. The revealed man was a thinned-down ver
sion of the brother he knew and loved. Hardened too. A thick wall of distrust and defiance separated them, unseen but apparent in his closed expression and stiff hold.

  Tanner didn’t speak, couldn’t around the hundred different thoughts congealing in a jagged knot in his throat. This move wasn’t his to make. Too much had changed. His coming here now—nine months too late—was the only thing he could do.

  “You’re here.”

  The gruff statement cleared a coating of doubt from the layers that’d stacked up in Tanner over the last day. Finn Kelley had morphed into another version of himself that Tanner both recognized and didn’t. But this tone, the seemingly flat statement was very Finn and held more emotion than any buoyant welcome could have.

  Tanner nodded. “I am.”

  He set his bag down and caught Finn in a hug a second later. Fuck. He closed his eyes, absorbed the contact and connection he’d schooled himself to forget while deployed. He had dozens of military brothers, men he still worked with. But this bond was deeper, longer, and more solid than any other he’d forged before or after.

  Finn’s hold was tight, stronger than he’d expected. The intensity soaked through the cold that’d surrounded him for eighteen months. Finn’s frame was smaller; he was the thinnest he’d ever been. The differences flashed through Tanner’s mind in snippets that registered and fled: more bones than flesh, weight braced heavier on his right side.

  Right behind them were the familiar notes that rang through the physical damage. Tanner nuzzled his neck and inhaled, reveling in the soap and man scent that was all Finn. The smooth brush of his shaved cheek, the regulation haircut that bristled against Tanner’s temple.

  His heart swelled, ached with loss and regrets he couldn’t voice. But over it all was relief. That Finn was alive. That he was here to hold at all.

  That Tanner could be here now when he should’ve been here months ago.

  —

  Finn clung to Tanner with a relief and desperation he hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge through the long months of his recovery. He’d refused to think of what Tanner’s extended absence could mean. Rejected any thought that would lead to the dark possibilities that came with every military mission. He’d lived that life for fifteen years and understood the dangers as only a special-ops brother could.

  But despite all his efforts, he’d feared the worst.

  Finding out Chris had died in the rafting accident that’d landed him in a coma for seven weeks and almost claimed his own life had devastated him. But he hadn’t allowed himself to focus on how badly the loss hurt. On the hole that still gaped in his heart at the death of the brother to his right.

  Tanner, the brother to his left, was back, and he couldn’t process anything except his profound thankfulness for this gift. The touch and connection. The unspoken understanding that flowed between them on a level so deep it burrowed into him to quiet the craggy whispers of doubt and doom.

  He simply held on and took the comfort that was being given by the only man he could take it from without shattering completely.

  Hints of vanilla muddled by the damp flooded past his blocked receptors to fill him with a warmth he’d given up ever feeling again. This deep flash of love and belonging had been dulled for so long that the rush threatened to knock his shaking legs out from beneath him.

  Eleven years of friendship forged under situations most couldn’t comprehend, let alone survive, had created a level of intimacy no absence could break.

  He tightened his hold, pressed his lips to Tanner’s smooth jaw. His heart stuttered, clenched, and finally relaxed to allow air into his lungs. He sucked in a deep breath, gripped Tanner’s nape, and rested his temple on Tanner’s.

  He swallowed twice before he could speak, and then his voice was barely above a croak. “How long?”

  “Five weeks.”

  Warm breath ghosted over his cheek with each word. He suppressed a shudder and collected himself, stretching the unspoken promise over the hole in his heart in a miserable excuse for a patch.

  Five weeks. Forever on military time and barely a blink on civilian.

  The annoying drizzle of rain peppering his face and arms finally penetrated the tunnel focus he’d fallen into the second he’d spotted Tanner approaching his home. But he gave himself another moment to relish this bond he couldn’t explain and had feared completely severed after Chris’s death.

  Another deep breath, a brush of lips on his cheek, and he let go. He took a cautious step back, smothered his wince when his knee almost buckled. Newly learned habits and tricks kept his legs beneath him and his dignity intact as he held the door open for Tanner.

  Damn, he looked good.

  A Marine to his core, Tanner Dorsey emanated the confidence and poise that came from his years in the Corps and the prejudices he still battled. Finn had always viewed Tanner as a mix of the best of both his parents. His diluted Korean heritage from his mother clung to his distinctive almond eyes and thick black hair. His father’s Caucasian assets of an oblong face along with his height and build provided the muscular form that drew many eyes, both male and female.

  Rain clung to his short hair and slicked his leather coat in a wet gloss. His jeans hugged his narrow hips and molded around an ass, sculpted by hours of rigorous training, that flexed with each step he took.

  Finn shut the door and Tanner hung his coat in the entry closet. His familiar ease within Finn’s home loosened yet another of the harbored concerns that’d manage to fester beneath the layers of worries.

  Finn’s shoulders were back, stance as straight as he could get it when Tanner turned to him. Seven months of rehabilitation therapy had gotten him to this point, but he was still far from the man he’d been before the head injury and coma had stolen his entire sense of self.

  So much passed between them through eye contact alone, thoughts flying and answered with nothing more than a slight raise of a brow and compression of lips. Are you okay? Do you miss him? Are you ready for what’s next?

  The dim hallway didn’t hide anything. An arm’s length away and miles from where they’d once been, he ached to fall into Tanner’s strength when he’d always stood on his own.

  But he flat-out refused to be that weak.

  “Have you talked to Rig?” Finn asked, his voice too loud in the hushed space of his small foyer.

  “No.” Tanner wet his lips, shoved his hands into his pockets. “I got back at twenty-two hundred hours yesterday and spent the next six in debrief.” He stepped closer, hurt and sorrow clouding his deep brown, almost black eyes. “I came here the second I was free.”

  Finn could only nod, his throat too tight to speak. The unasked questions about why he hadn’t contacted Tanner were yet another of the many lobbed but not physically spoken. Another round of sadness spread over Tanner’s frown, his brows pulling together before they flattened out on a deep inhalation.

  The urge to yank his gaze or duck his head crawled up Finn’s nape and threatened to humiliate him even more. His physical weakness had nothing on the emotional vulnerability he battled daily. It was foreign, and so damn annoying. He fought the elusive fucker from sunup to sundown, and then armored up before going to sleep with the hope that he’d wake in one piece.

  If he could let anyone see that, it would be Tanner. His soulmate in every way except sexually, he would understand. No, his fear of exposing the raging beast of insecurity was based solely on his belief that once it was set loose, he’d never be whole again.

  Tanner raised his hand, the movement cautious—or was it deliberate? He cupped Finn’s neck, thumb stroking over the edge of his jaw. The touch seared Finn’s heart and almost shattered the core of determined strength he’d been sucking from his entire life. He gasped, turned his chin into the caress.

  “I’ve missed you, you fucker,” Tanner murmured.

  The tenderness wrapped around him in a harsh reminder of how distant his existence had become. A lifetime of holding everything in and everyone at bay had
kept him sane when he should’ve gone crazy. Tanner and Chris had been the only ones he’d ever allowed in. The only ones who’d ever breached his barriers, when he’d been positive no one ever would.

  Nine days trapped behind enemy lines—fighting their way through hell, scared out of their fucking minds, witnessing and doing acts they’d signed up for and yet somehow never believed they’d do—had seared them both into his heart.

  Finn cleared his throat and fought back the burn scorching his sinuses. He stepped away, too weak to take more of what Tanner offered.

  “I’ll call Rig,” Finn said, heading down the hall to the kitchen, working to keep his gait fluid. The next task would suck more than all the physical therapy he’d been through in the last months—and that’d been more debilitating and horrible than anything he’d experienced in the service.

  He grabbed his cellphone from the counter, found Rig’s number, and pressed Call without looking at Tanner. He sensed him, though, his presence crowding the room he’d never thought of as cramped until now.

  “It’s about fucking time you called,” Rig barked when he answered, his sergeant voice berating Finn.

  He winced, his stomach flipping. He deserved that, but he refused to feel guilty. He’d basically isolated himself in his home since he’d been freed from the rehab center in November. Seeing the vital, healthy Marines who populated the adventure company he’d founded with Chris only emphasized his own broken state.

  But the guys at Adrenaline Kick Adventures were more than employees; they were fellow brothers and friends. Men he’d trusted to have his six, and they’d all stepped up to keep the company running, with Rig taking the point position.