Page 32 of Let It Burn (The Barrington Billionaires 4)
“I don’t know for certain that it was what my gut said it was, but I can’t let it go.”
“Okay.” Holy shit.
“After everything we’ve been through, I feel like you might be the only one who could understand what I’m wrestling with.”
“Say it. Whatever it is, just tell me.” Helene slapped her hand down on the bed sheets between them.
The light from the lamp didn’t stop the memories from flooding in once he opened the door to the day he’d tried to forget so many times. He didn’t start the story there, though. He started back when he’d met Dyonte Lofton during his first tour. They’d been paired to scout forward and an instant friendship had grown from discovering they could rely on each other. Lofton had become more of a brother to Andrew than any of his biological siblings had ever been.
He told Helene about the woman who had driven Lofton crazy during that tour, how he’d gone home to discover that she’d been sleeping with one of his friends for months, and how devastated he’d been. He retold how he’d teased Lofton mercilessly when his friend had first started talking to a woman, Gabrielle, who he’d met on a single’s dating site. It had seemed like a sure-fire way to ensure history repeated itself.
Then Lofton came back after spending his leave with his online obsession and said he’d found his reason to keep fighting. No one had expected it to last. Deployments tested even the most solid of relationships, but his friend had found his mate and Gabrielle had accepted Andrew as if he’d been born his brother. He was best man in their wedding, Uncle Andrew to their daughter, and their home had always been open to him.
Andrew leaned his back against the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes. He described how excited he and the other three Marines had felt to be at the end of the tour. He explained that it was that excitement, that cockiness, that made not reviewing the details of the colonel’s orders easy. The colonel had arranged every step of the mission, something Andrew normally would have done himself. He hadn’t cared. In his mind, they were already on their way home.
When it came to describing what had happened, Andrew didn’t pretty it up for Helene. He wanted her to know exactly what he was guilty of. He described how he’d been on the street watching for any trouble. Then the explosion. His friends inside. How deadly the rigged box had been when it had exploded. It had been instantaneous. He was back in that building, reliving carrying Lofton’s bloodied, lifeless body to the Hummer. He struggled to breathe as he described the smoke that had choked his lungs as he’d run up the stairs to carry out the remains of another of his friends.
And then the contents of the box. The remains had appeared to be pieces of a Russian aircraft seat. How it hadn’t made sense nor had it matched what the colonel had later said they’d been sent to retrieve. Lofton and the others had been given hero burials. Their families had received their Silver Stars for bravery. He’d received one as well, one that he’d put away in a drawer because he didn’t feel he’d done anything to deserve it. No matter what his superiors told him, there’d been nothing heroic about leading his best friend and fellow Marines to their death.
Torn between the past and the present, Andrew met Helene’s eyes and growled, “The contents of the crate were scattered around the room. I didn’t see anything but pieces of a pilot seat. The colonel lied. We were there to pick up a personal trophy for his office. I have no proof, but I know it. What I don’t know is if the truth is better than the lie he propagated. Gabrielle believes her husband was a hero. How do I look her daughter in the eye and tell her that her daddy wasn’t a hero at all, he was just a casualty of a senseless illegal request that I would have refused if I had bothered to look into it? How do I tell them that he’s gone because of me?”
Helene moved across the bed and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t say anything. She simply hugged him with her whole body.
“The guilt is slowly killing me, but is that any more than I deserve? It would feel good to out the colonel, to bring him down, but that same victory would tear Lofton’s family apart a second time. I used to know what to do, but I don’t know this time.”
They sat in silence for a long time. He had no idea what Helene thought, but she was the only person he trusted completely.
When she did speak it was in a tone he’d heard her use when she spoke about the importance of the rescue. “My mother says that inaction is humanity’s greatest enemy. She says people don’t wake up and decide to do nothing. Like you, when faced with two unacceptable choices it paralyzes them. What they fail to see is that it’s not a matter of this or that. Solutions are rarely all one or all the other. Sometimes you have to fight part of the battle and count it as a win. If I were you, I’d ask myself if there was something I could do that might make things better without making them worse.”
Andrew shifted so he was lying on his back again and pulled her down with him. He cupped her face with his hand. “That sounds like a bumper sticker—make things better without making them worse.”
She shrugged and kissed his chest. “That’s all I have. I would tell you that your friend’s death wasn’t your fault, that there was no reason for you to second guess your orders, but you know that.” She tapped his temple softly. “Up here you know.” She laid her hand over his heart. “This is where the problem is. Your friend wouldn’t have wanted you to die with him. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave you with the guilt, either. Maybe if you ask yourself what he would have wanted, maybe that’s your answer.”
He held her for a long time, long after she fell asleep in his arms. Her words echoed through him. What would Lofton have wanted?
Shortly after the sun came up, he slid out of bed, walked into the living room, and made several phone calls. When he was done, he wrote her a note and tucked it on the nightstand beside her. He bent and kissed her gently, careful not to rouse her, then he gathered his things and left the suite.
He finally knew what he needed to do. It was something he should have done months before.
Chapter Nineteen
Helene knew she was alone before she opened her eyes. She touched her lips. Had he kissed her while she slept or had she imagined it? She told herself that he was most likely out for his morning run and that if she closed her eyes and didn’t get up he’d be back when she woke again.
Her stomach churned when she saw a folded note on the nightstand. He might have written anything in it, but she knew it was goodbye.
She picked it up, lay back on the bed, and held it for a moment. Whatever it says, I know what we have is real. It might have been too much for him, but that doesn’t mean being with him was a mistake.
She opened the note:
Helene,
I hired a car to pick you up and take you to the airport. Call the front desk when you’re ready. There is a private plane waiting to take you home.
Thank you for last night and for every moment we’ve spent together. I’m sorry to leave you this way, but I know what I need to do now.
If I can, I’ll come back to you, but I can’t return until I know I can give you all that you give me.
Andrew
She hugged the note to her chest and closed her eyes. Halfway through the note, her throat had clenched because it had sounded like a man’s last words, but the final sentence implied he’d chosen another course. She was relieved, but also sad he didn’t feel she could be part of whatever he needed to do. Alone wasn’t how her family handled their problems. She rolled over, picked up her phone, and called her parents.
She didn’t tell them the details Andrew had shared with her. She would take those to her grave. She did, however, tell them he had shared painful memories with her, and then she read his note to them.
Ever the voice of reason, her father said, “You need to come home. He may be on his way to kill someone.”
Her mother’s lack of instant dismissal of that as unlikely was sobering. Helene took a moment to review everything she knew about him. From how he behaved when he w
as angry in Aruba to what he’d said he’d wanted for his friend’s family. Killing the colonel would make things much, much worse without making anything better. “If he is, then I don’t know him at all. Coming home now doesn’t feel right. I’d feel like I left him.”
“Honey, he left you,” her mother said gently.
“No,” Helene said firmly. Her uncle had left her. He’d chosen his own welfare over hers. Andrew needed time, and she had to believe he was trying to find a way to heal, not only for himself, but for her. Whether he was putting himself in a mental health program or going back to see his friend’s family, she needed him to know she believed in him. “He went to do something. He’ll come back to me and when he does I want to be here in Boston with his family. They need me, too. They won’t understand this.”
Not missing a beat, her father asked, “Do you need us with you? We can be there by tonight.”
A tear rolled down Helene’s cheek as she considered how lucky she was to have the parents she did. She didn’t need them holding her hand because their love was her strength. “No, I’m okay.” She took a moment to fill her parents in on how dinner the night before had gone. She even told them what Sophie had said about how the death of her son had changed her.
