Page 2 of Adoring Delaney

The email icon caught my attention, an account only my father and uncles had the address for and only used for emergencies. Everyone else in the family used my personal email box. I hesitantly tapped the app and pulled up the email.

Carter,

When you get this call home ASAP. It’s Delaney. Stay safe, son.

Dad

The sour in my gut I’d felt earlier turned to acid.

It would be another week before I was back at the FOB and could call home. Seven days of fucking torture not knowing what was going on with Delaney. Seven goddamned days trying to keep my head in the game so I wouldn’t get dead. I’d tried and failed not to think about Delaney and what could be wrong while I trudged through tunnels and scouted villages.

As soon as we got back to base I went straight to my room and I rummaged through my locker until I found my cellphone. After three tries to my dad, all of them going to voicemail, I called Delaney, went directly to her inbox, too. So I called my best friend, Jason, her brother.

“Hey, man, you stateside?” he greeted.

“No. I got an urgent message from my dad to call home, but he’s not answering. Thought I’d call you. He said it was about Delaney.”

“Did you try her?”

“Yeah. Straight to voicemail.”

“She ran into some trouble…”

Jason quickly briefed me on the investigation, Delaney following a man named Derek Lowe, his arrest, his release on bail, everything. All the way to the bloody end.

And it had been bloody.

“Please tell me you’re fucking with me,” I growled.

The acid churning in my gut turned poisonous.

“’Fraid not.”

“You’re telling me this Lowe fuck took my woman and hit her?”

“So, you finally pulled your head out of your ass and you’re claiming my sister?”

Not this shit again.

“What?”

“You said, my woman. That mean you finally got your shit sorted?” His question hit me like a freight train and before I could answer he continued, more pissed than I’d ever heard him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Delaney’s bruises are fading. But, man, there’s something broken in her, and she will not share. It can’t be what she saw, because thankfully, she was unconscious when Mercy blew the fucker’s head off. She’s not uttering a word to anyone, the only thing she does say is she’s fine.”

“Fuckin’ Walkers. Stubborn to the core.”

“That’s rich coming from you, friend. My sister has loved you her entire adult life. Yet you push her away because you’re too pig-headed to take what she’s offering you. I’m telling you, she needs you. If you ever loved her, you’ll find a way to get your ass to her as soon as you’re home.”

“Man, that could be another month.”

“Then we’ll see you in a month. But I’m telling you, it’s time. You’ve danced around long enough. It will kill her, but if you don’t want her the way she wants you, rip the scab off and let her move on.”

“She’s the only woman I’ll ever love. I just—” I paused when my name was shouted followed by three loud bangs on the door. “Hey, I gotta run.”

“Stay safe.”

“Tell her…fuck. Just tell her I’ll be there when I can.”

Months.

---