His eyes scanned past to home in on one person.
A woman sat huddled in a chair outside a VOQ room, blanket wrapped around her while her teeth chattered, security cops on either side. He didn't need to see a face to recognize her. Nikki Price.
Hell.
She looked up, the motion jerky from shock most likely. Her eyes locked on his down the length of the passageway, dark circles underneath. Hair even darker, tangled around her head in a silky mess that begged his fingers to comb through, to rest on her shoulders and pull her to his chest for the comfort she no doubt needed.
Her fingers went slack around the deep red blanket until the edge slid open to reveal her clothes. Jeans and a silky pink shirt, mis-buttoned as if hastily snatched up and on—the same clothes she'd been wearing when he ran into her the night before. He stuffed back the kick of jealousy and moved closer. Still she didn't speak, a slight tightening of her full lips the only indication she registered his approach.
He wrestled with the detachment he would need to get through the next hour, a difficult battle. He looked past her into the room to the sheet over a body on the floor. Closing his eyes, he swallowed and winged a quick prayer for the dead man. There was nothing more he could do for Owens.
Nikki needed him.
Carson knelt beside her, too aware of the cops standing guard a few feet away. "Nikki?"
Finally, he let himself look at her face again even as he steeled himself for the unshakable draw combined with guilt that made it tough to think around her, much less speak. He worked to read her expression, but her face was blank. Still he couldn't miss the pale cast under her olive complexion.
She glanced up, frowning, confused. Or disoriented? Her shaky hand rose toward his face. "Your mustache. It's gone."
What an odd thing to notice, but then she had reason to be in shock. Her wounded eyes seemed so much older than her twenty-three years right now, a dangerous thought for him to have since their twelve-year age difference helped him keep his distance.
He stroked his freshly bare upper lip. "That's what I get for shaving on the fly when I was running late." Because his few hours at home during the night had been filled with thoughts of running into Nikki outside Beachcombers on her way in to meet up with another man. "What happened here?"
She shrugged, the blanket slipping farther. "Gary is dead." Her voice was low, overly calm but thready, a thin substitute for her normally husky and—God help him—sultry tones. "You probably already know that."
"How?"
"We're not sure. Sometime during the night he hit his head."
Hit his head? Drunk and stumbling around in the room? Possible. Yet something was still... off. "I'm sorry this had to happen to you. What can I do to help? Tell me and I'll do my damnedest to make it happen."
"Gary's the one we should be sorry for." Her fingers twisted in the burgundy blanket even as her face stayed composed. "Thank you for coming over, but the SPs have everything under control."
So why were they keeping her around?
God, he wished she were anywhere else right now. She should be on her way to work. She often went in early or on Saturdays to tutor at-risk students from other classes and schools. He shouldn't know so much about her, but his ears always tuned in when her father bragged about his daughter's graduation from college, her junior high teaching job, her latest marathon race.
Damn. He was a freaking sap when it came to this woman. Always had been.
Tearing his eyes away from her before he did something dumb like scoop her up and take her away, he stared at the shrouded body being hefted onto a gurney. "Owens was in my squadron. I have to be here for him, and your father would want me to look out for you."
Her father, a cargo plane loadmaster, was deployed to the Middle East. The last thing the Price family needed was more stress with J.T. in a war zone and his wife taking care of a toddler with another late-in-life baby on the way.
"I am okay." Nikki's teeth chattered faster in contradiction to her seeming composure.
"Right. And you're not in shock, either. Uh-huh." Carson shrugged off his jacket. No way did he want to think of her father right now or all that guilt would drive him to his knees.
He'd betrayed the man in the worst possible way, a man who was more than a friend, more than a comrade in arms. They'd been POWs together, the strongest of bonds.
He owed J. T. Price better than screwing the man's daughter. He couldn't make up for the past, but he could take care of the present by hauling Nikki out of whatever mess she'd landed her most excellent ass in.
Carson passed his jacket to her. She stared at the coat so long he wondered if she might simply ignore his offer. Finally, she took it from him carefully, without touching his hand.
The blanket slid around her waist as she shoved one arm then the other into his coat, a final shiver rattling her teeth. "I'm sure my dad will be grateful."
Not hardly.