Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,11
steps leading to the front door. Nash was carefully navigating them, knowing depth perception was all but impossible with only one half-blind eye.
“I was doing my job,” Nash said once he reached the solid ground. He followed Rowden into a patch of sunlight and was relieved when the other man sank onto a square of brown grass. At least he wouldn’t be made to walk about. Although a small part of him wondered if he would encounter the unpredictable Miss Howard again.
“You were damn good at your job,” Rowden said. “Two of the times you saved my life, I didn’t even see the men coming.”
“I had a good vantage point.”
“You were also good at what you did.”
Nash didn’t answer. Good at what you did. Of course, Rowden wouldn’t say it outright. Nash was good at killing men. Sometimes he had killed them when they threatened his friends. But sometimes he had killed them simply because they might be a threat. And sometimes he’d made mistakes...
“We all came back with scars,” Rowden said quietly after they’d been sitting in the sun long enough for Nash’s cheeks to feel warm. “Some of us have visible scars, like you. But we all have to come to terms with what we did and who we are now. The war changed us.”
Nash lifted a hand and slashed the air angrily, cutting Rowden off. “That’s easy for you to say. You still have your sight. I’ll never see again.” He was surprised at how bitter his voice sounded. He hadn’t said the words out loud very often, but in his mind, they hadn’t sounded quite so petulant.
“You will never see again,” Rowden said, and the words were like the final nail in Nash’s coffin. “But you are alive and the rest of you is in good working order. You can marry, have children—”
“What woman would want me?”
“Hell, what woman would want any of us? Yet, I keep receiving marriage announcements. Mostyn is going to be a father.”
Nash had been lounging on his elbows but now he sat up. Ewan Mostyn had been the Protector of the group, a big man with little to say and no charm to speak of. Nash had watched him toss men as though they were mere ragdolls. He could not imagine the large brute as a father.
“That was my response too,” Rowden said, obviously observing Nash’s shock. “But his wife told me herself.”
“The child would be two before Ewan said anything to you,” Nash observed.
Rowden laughed, and Nash smiled. It did feel good to smile. It had been a long time.
“Now that I have improved your mood, let’s discuss how we might keep you out of Bedlam,” Rowden said.
It was all very well to make plans and talk about the future on a sunny, cool autumn day when Nash had slept the night before and his mind was clear. Nash had made many such plans on days like this. Today was a good day.
But he knew better than to assume the good days would continue. He might have a stretch of three or four before The Cloud descended and he had a dozen bad days. Those days were so dark, so bleak, so devastating, it could take weeks to climb out.
When he was caught in The Cloud, Nash couldn’t stop his mind from going over and over the mistakes he’d made in his life. In particular, the mistakes he’d made in Draven’s troop. The innocents he’d killed. The men who hadn’t died right away after he’d shot them. Men who he’d watched writhe on the ground, crying, begging for help as their blood and their life seeped slowly away and they died a slow, agonizing death.
When he was caught in The Cloud, even the act of breathing seemed to take too much effort.
“Maybe I should go to an asylum,” Nash said after a long moment of silence.
“If that was your attitude, you could have saved me a trip here,” Rowden said, his voice filled with annoyance.
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“But I came anyway.” Rowden’s voice was steely.
“For the money.”
“For friendship and brotherhood. Because I’m your friend. Mayne and Fortescue are your friends. We’re trying to help you.”
Nash stood. “I don’t want your help.”
“Clearly. The last time Fortescue was here, you shot at him. You wounded Duncan Murray.”
Nash raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know it was Murray.”
“Who did you think it was?”
Nash didn’t answer. It sounded too mad, too unreasonable.