Page 2 of True Ruin

Pierce stretched out his legs, hooking them at the ankles. His khaki cuffs were ragged from years of abuse. “You’re talented, True. Aside from me, maybe the best on-the-run writer in the business.” He held up a beefy hand before Dallas could respond to the rare compliment. “But your brashness is a liability, flat-out. Not much of a criticism, because it takes one to know one.”

“Hold on a second.” Dallas sat up, wincing as a jolt of pain shot through his ankle. “I couldn’t let Rafael take the fall. I talked to you about it.”

Pierce sighed and gave the pack of Lucky Strikes a soothing tap. “And I toldyou, getting too close, giving your fixer money to disappear, crosses a line. You do your job, he does his, even if he’s only sixteen. We agree on the risks going into the deal. Helping someone—admirable, okay, sure—but it’s not what we’re supposed to be doing out there. Defying your editor is another matter we should cover.”

“When did I?—”

“You received that evacuation order two days before the hotel was hit. I sent the damned dispatch myself. You went back in there to get that kid out.” Pierce shook his head and cracked his knuckles, making Dallas wish he would light another cigarette. “Don’t yank an old man’s chain, True. This isn’t your first rodeo, either. How about the camera you slipped past a checkpoint in Zaire last year? The local military wasn’t too happy about that stunt, especially when the piece won those awards.”

But the kid, his fixer, had been therebecauseof him. Though he couldn’t use that argument.

“How long?” Dallas whispered, trying to recall when he’d taken time off. Last year, or was it ’95? His brothers had been riding him—his cousin, Campbell, too—for months about coming home. As if anywhere was truly home.

With an infuriating smirk that said he knew he was winning, Pierce settled back, the chair squealing in protest. “Two months’ leave isn’t so bad when you think on it. You can start working on that book you’re always gabbing about.”

Dallas slid from the bed, balancing on one leg, a move he’d perfected when the nurses weren’t looking. “Rest rotation, you mean.”

Swearing beneath his breath, Pierce wrestled the cigarette pack from his pocket. “What’s the damn difference? Take the offer, show up for briefing on December 1. End of story.”

A rush of memory—cotton fields baking beneath the hot sun, the sharp scent of red clay, a young woman’s teasing laugh on a summer day—broke over him.

“Go visit your brothers,” Pierce advised, jamming an unlit cigarette between his teeth. “The one who contacted me when no one had heard from you in weeks. Joey? Jimmy?”

Justin.

Without comment, Dallas muscled his arms into the sleeves of a faded Duke sweatshirt, then bent to awkwardly work a black Dr. Martens boot onto his good foot. And they werehalf-brothers, not full, although the half had never mattered to anyone, least of all him. If there were issues—and there were—bloodlines weren’t one of them. Hell, his colleagues didn’t even know about Promise. His professional bio listed Philadelphia, not a word about secrets hidden away in rural South Carolina.

Not realizing his reporter was preparing to flee, Pierce kept talking about rehab protocols, corporate liability, and insurance forms, but the words blurred, thin as the gray light leaking through the blinds. Dallas had been torn by too many things lately. The safety of a desk assignment against the adrenaline of the field was one.

So was the pull between staying away from a town he’d once hoped would heal him and aching down to his studs to return.

That ache went all the way back to when he was fourteen, battered, alone, his mother gone, with nothing but a birth certificate in his hand and a last name that had never belonged to anyone real. Not until he’d boarded a Greyhound bus, ridden into a small Southern town, and knocked on the door of a grand house in a neighborhood he had no business entering. They’d taken him in without question.

Well, everyone except Justin.

Driven by that old pinch of resentment, Dallas reached for the IV line. A clean dart of pain burned up his forearm as he pulled the needle free.

“Christ,” Pierce growled, rising from the chair.

“Tell them I’ll take it. Cairo. And the two months of mental restoration.” He hobbled across the room, the tile cool beneath his bare foot. His ankle screamed, but he ignored it, working a crutch beneath his armpit and rolling his shoulder. Good thing he’d put on sweatpants this morning. If he was honest with himself, he’d been planning this breakout for days, and he knew exactly where he was headed.

Damn Justin and his fucking letters.

“You can’t just walk out, True.”

Dallas gave a half-smile and grabbed his satchel. “Seems I can.” He started for the door, each crutch-thump churning up emotions he had no intention of digging into tonight. He was going to let his recklessness ride a little longer.

Pierce’s shout followed him into the dimly lit hallway. “Where the hell are you going?”

The past came at him in snapshots. He wondered if his brothers were still working on that broken-down mill of Campbell’s, if the trees in the vacant field behind the high school were shifting into fall, or if, by the time he got there, they’d already be bare. Promise, South Carolina, had been the worst thing to happen to him. And, somehow, thebest. It had handed him the family he’d wanted, the heartbreak he hadn’t, and memories he’d never outrun.

Dallas lowered his head and let out a disbelieving laugh at the question that rose before he could stop it.

Had Gabi Wilder thought of him even once since he’d left?

Guess he was going to find out.

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