Page 91 of Forsaken Hearts
Like she understood what that goodbye meant to him. That Flint had been more than a horse. Flint was something steady to pour himself into during the years Pope was trying to claw his way back from Baghdad and everything that followed.
He should have stayed with her, and that guilt hit hard enough to make his chest ache.
Gripping his hat with both hands, he stopped beside the truck to wait for Colt. The world rumbled with the noise of trucks. He stared at the exit and the few vehicles already making their way to the main highway.
Summer could be in any of them, hauled away against her will.
Ben.
Oh god, another kid was about to lose the one person holding his entire world together.
The thought punched straight through his chest and stole his ability to breathe.
He bowed his head, unable to push back the terror crashing over him in one brutal wave.
His phone rang in his hand.
Carson.
He jerked the phone to his ear so fast he nearly dropped it. “Tell me you found her.”
“Not yet.” Carson’s words carved out more of his heart.
He sucked in a rough breath and looked back toward the highway again. Every passing vehicle looked suspicious.
Summer could be miles away. Terrified and calling for him.
Christ. He was losing it.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Carson’s voice brought his mind into focus.
He issued a harsh laugh under his breath.
“You’re blaming yourself for this. It’s Baghdad again.”
Carson’s words punched him right in the sternum, and he staggered. To steady himself, he planted a hand on the side of the truck.
“Wouldn’t you?”
A brief stretch of silence filled the line. “Maybe I would…if I didn’t have all the facts.”
His jaw flexed. “Poisoned food got onto the diplomat’s plate on my watch. Fact.” He started pacing because standing still wasn’t possible. “By the time I reached him, he was nearly dead. I couldn’t save him. Fact.”
The memories slammed him harder now.
Crystal glasses shattering on the marble floor. Women screaming. The diplomat’s face turning purple under the mood lighting as Pope fought to keep his charge alive.
“His wife was so distraught from his death she grabbed a gun and took herself out.” His throat barely pushed out the rough words. “Fact. Two kids got left without parents. Fact.” Rage and guilt churned in a violent turmoil in his chest. “I failed in every possible way. Fact.”
“False.”
Pope jolted to a halt.
“That’s not a fact,” Carson said firmly. “There were things happening you knew nothing about.”
He stared blindly across the lot. “Like what?” he spat out.
Carson issued a heavy exhalation. “Like the diplomat was going to be arrested the second he landed back on American soil.”
