Tacker (Arizona Vengeance 5)

“Didn’t know you were so accomplished with hair?” I say.

His lips curl up, his voice going soft. “I used to braid MJ’s hair. Weird, huh?”

“Not at all,” I say. “Very intimate.”

Again, his gaze moves to me and he swallows hard. “Now’s the time to talk about it, right?”

“I had hoped we would. I think you’re ready.”

We’re talking about the actual crash and what happened after. It’s a subject he’s steered me far away from over the last two weeks, but because he’s made such amazing strides, I know he can do it. I honestly think he needs to do it—needs to make it over that final big hurdle of the most painful thing to talk about.

To my surprise, Tacker puts his forearms on Starlight’s back, one on top of the other, then lowers his head until his chin rests on them. He’s leaning slightly against the horse, and the sunlight makes the differentiation of browns, golds, and green in his eyes sparkle.

“I don’t remember the crash. For a few moments, I couldn’t even tell if we were going up or down because I was so disoriented. At some point, we were upside down, but that’s really all I know. The crash investigators say I’d managed to get it upright again, and that the treetops sort of slowed us down a bit. But I pretty much blacked out the actual impact.”

His voice isn’t quite flat, but it is a little detached. A safety mechanism.

“What’s the next thing you remember?” I ask.

“Pain,” he replies. “In my back. A piece of the wreckage had sliced diagonally across my back, which is what woke me up. I remember reaching back, my hand coming away with blood all over it. The plane remained pretty much intact, or at least the cockpit area had. Except…”

His voice trails off.

“Except?” I prod.

Tacker blinks a few times, then straightens. He doesn’t bolt, but merely starts playing with Starlight’s mane again. His fingers work at braiding another long piece as he talks. “Except a huge tree branch had come through the cockpit windshield at a downward angle, hitting MJ in the lower stomach and pelvis.”

I don’t say a word, but my stomach cramps with pain over what it must have been like for him to see that. What it must have been like for her to feel that.

“She… um,” he says, his voice cracking slightly. “She was… um… unconscious at that point. I actually thought she was dead when I figured out what had happened and saw all the blood. I was in shock and couldn’t tear my eyes away, unsure what to do. When I finally snapped out of it, I tried to move, but my legs were pinned in by the wreckage. Then, the radio sort of crackled. Startled me.”

“Were you able to call for help?” I ask, giving him a moment to distance himself from the horror.

“Yeah. They had me on radar still. Said help was on the way, but I was in a pretty remote area. It took a few hours.”

“And what did you do during that time?”

“Realized MJ wasn’t dead,” he replies bitterly, his eyes still locked on his fingers that diligently work at Starlight’s mane. “Had reached out to her with my hand. Wanted to just touch her and when I did, she sort of moaned.”

“I can’t even imagine,” I murmur, which causes his attention to come to me.

“You can, though,” he replies. “You watched people you love die right in front of you.”

“Not for hours,” I say.

He shrugs, but it’s a pitiful attempt to diminish the horror.

“She was in so much pain,” Tacker says, his voice cracking even more. “And she was lucid through some of it. She’d wake up, then pass out again. But the times when she was awake, she was very much aware of what was happening to her.”

“What were you feeling, Tacker?” I ask.

“Helpless,” he says. “Out of fucking control. I’ve never felt so worthless in my life.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I remind him.

“She didn’t know that,” he croaks, and tears fill his eyes. “I mean… she didn’t understand what had happened, other than I’d crashed that plane. As far as she knew, I’d killed her.”

I don’t know MJ other than through the memories Tacker has shared over the last few weeks. But what I have gleaned is she was a kind woman who loved him. In a million years, I can’t imagine her ever laying blame on his doorstep. So I go out on a short limb, attempting to focus his attention on that. “Did she hold you responsible? Did she say that to you?”

He shakes his head hard and his eyes squeeze shut, releasing a stream of tears. I watch as they flow down his cheeks, his hands gripping into Starlight’s mane. She holds still, a patient support system for his pain.