Max studied the picture. “You worked with dogs?”
“Not officially. Kip, one of my weapons guys, picked her up in Basra. The Brits didn’t want her, so she came back up north with us. He trained her in just a few weeks. She was amazing.”
“What’s her name?”
“Saja. It means to be calm in Arabic.”
“And was she?”
Jed chuckled. “Yeah, when she couldn’t smell explosives. Then she was a damned werewolf. Saved our asses more times than I can remember.”
“Where is she now?”
Jed’s humor evaporated. “I don’t know. Kip’s dead. Chances are she is too.”
Max felt each dull, flat word like a razor blade scraping over his heart. He averted his gaze, gathering up the photographs that had scattered across the bed when Jed tackled him. Kip was dead, Paul was dead, and Jed had been hurt so badly he’d nearly died himself.
How many of the other men he’d seen tonight had shared their fate?
Chapter Eighteen
INMID-JANUARY,Jed drove Nick to rehab himself, spiriting him away from Ashton in the dark early hours of the morning. It wasn’t an intervention, far from it. With Kim’s foot up his ass, no doubt, Nick had approached Jed himself and begged for the help he so desperately needed. A step forward, for Nick, at least, but Jed drove back from the facility in Salem a few hours later feeling heavy with the weight of responsibility. His sympathy was limited—as far as he could see, Nick’s problems were of his own making—but he’d be gone for more than a month, and Jed didn’t like the idea of Kim and kids all alone in that big house.
He merged on to the freeway, letting his mind drift to Max. It had been a strange couple of weeks. Max hadn’t mentioned the altercation with Nick, or the mess he’d found Jed in the night he’d come back from Phoenix. And though he’d slept in Jed’s bed every night since, he hadn’t mentioned the resulting, mind-blowing sex either.
Jed was glad of it. He didn’t regret sleeping with Max. How could he? But it took him a while to get his head around the way Max made him feel. It had been years since he’d last bottomed, and he didn’t remember it beinganythinglike being fucked by Max.
Even simply sharing a bed with him was an experience. Max hadn’t slept well the first night, convinced he’d have a seizure and hurt Jed. Then the second night, he’d been too tired to freak out, and it had been Jed’s turn to stand guard, watching the sporadic flickers of sleep seizures, waiting for them to manifest into a full-blown episode.
They didn’t, and Jed got over it, and though he didn’t do much sleeping at night, resting beside Max, lulled by his deep, even breathing, was enough for him.
An hour later, he pulled up at the cabin. He glared at the gray sky and jogged across the yard. He’d managed to run a little every day for the past two weeks, and his leg was feeling so good Carla had cut his sessions to once a week, but he didn’t relish the idea of running a loop of the lake in driving rain.
He found Max in the kitchen, surrounded by the contents of one of the cabinets.
Max glanced up from his position crouched on the floor and offered him a tentative smile. “All right?”
Jed hung his jacket by the back door. “Yeah. Sorry I woke you up when I left.”
“You didn’t. Flo did. She wanted out. Did he go in okay?”
“I guess.” Jed hovered in the doorway. Max looked like he was in the middle of something chaotic, and he’d learned from experience that getting in his way when he was feeling enterprising was counterproductive.
“Kim called. I offered to stay over there tonight, but she’s having a girlie night in with her cronies. I think she’s actually looking forward to having her mates around without Nick crashing the party.”
Jed didn’t doubt that. He’d grown up with an alcoholic and knew how isolating it could be. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d let Dan inside his childhood home.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
Jed looked down. Max was still rummaging around in the cupboard. “Are you talking to me?”
Max glared over his shoulder. “Very funny.” He dusted off his hands and stood up. “I wanted to ask you about your… I mean, Frank. Does Nick know he’s not your dad?”
Jed should’ve figured Max wouldn’t let that one go. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out. It was a secret he’d carried for most of his adult life. Even Paul hadn’t known. “No. I figured it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything for him.”
Max reached for the kettle and stuck it on the stove. “What about you? How did you even find out?”
“Biology class in high school. We were blood typing, and I came up B negative.”