Free Seize (St. Martin Family Saga: Emergency Responders) Book 2: Erotic Romance by Gina Watson

wanted to help you. I won’t do it again.”
    “Don’t give up on me.” He shook her shoulder. Her entire body moved, and her large bright eyes grew even more rounded. He let go and turned from her, taking a seat on the opposite side of the compartment. He was so fucked in the head. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Escape, he needed it right now. This was the beginning of a panic attack. That doctor had given him those pills, but he refused to take them. Shit. The walls were closing in; he was unable to get away. He couldn’t get out. The moving train swished around him, back and forth, side to side. “Ah.” He couldn’t keep his head from spinning. Sickness was hitting him strong—he’d throw up soon. He shut his eyes tight as he tried to hold on.
    “Augie.”
    Opening his eyes, he saw her squatting between his knees, her eyes bright. Her hands went to his cheeks.
    “Augie, I’m here.”
    When he sat up she straddled him on the bench, and he reached his arms around her, squeezing tight. “Mia.” He gasped, almost sobbed into her neck. “Why are you here? I’ve hurt you again and again.”
    “People say things they don’t mean when they’re in pain. You’re guarded, you raise walls when people get too close.”
    “But you were crying. I hurt you.”
    “I know. Letting go and letting people in—it’s painful for everyone involved. But the ones who love you will always be there. No matter how great the pain.”
    Her sincerity cut him to the bone. She was squeezing his upper arms, and that motion tethered him to the present. Just her spirit could save him. She didn’t even have to say a word. He needed her. She should know that, but he was afraid to tell her. Afraid to have anyone know. Afraid that something he needed might be used against him.
    “I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
    “Augie, I’m okay. But I could have really used our friendship, don’t use my weaknesses against me.
    He grimaced. That was exactly what he’d done. He rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I’m sorry Mia.”
    *
    She understood he was only protecting his heart and his secrets, but his words were some of the meanest she’d endured, and she’d endured a lot from her clients at the crisis center.
    He was remorseful and that meant a lot, but she wanted an open-ended friendship and sensed he wasn’t offering that sort of companionship. She translated what he’d said about coming to him for anything. He’d said she could come to him, whenever she had a problem . But what about other times, times she didn’t have a problem but just wanted and needed a friend? When she wanted someone to share the passing of time with, to share her dreams with, to laugh with? What about those times and that unconditional bond that allowed her to just exist with another person? Would she ever find that? Was she too eager in seeking that?
    She’d never been overeager before, and she felt her face heat. He must think her a nut.
    He had calmed, and his head rested on her shoulder, the shoulder that was about to go numb. Then he shifted and inhaled deeply.
    “Scott was trying to save the children, but we’d been sent in to rescue twenty-one civilian women. They worked at the elementary school, only the school wasn’t empty. It was supposed to be empty, but it was full of kids locked in the gym. A radio message told us to avoid the gymnasium and the children and for a split second we wondered why, and then the bomb went off… in the gym.”
    His eyes glazed over and his mind was no longer there with her. A few minutes passed while he said nothing. Then he shuddered.
    “It was unimaginable. Indescribable. There are no words to sum up the magnitude of the evil I experienced.”
    She wanted to reach out to him and hold him and tell him what a wonderful soldier he was, but she was afraid he’d shut down and not finish what he needed to say.
    “At that moment I became a liability. I just couldn’t do the