Read Hard to Hold on To for Free Online Page B

arm. “Probably gonna be wobbly.”
    Jenna nodded, then slowly pushed herself into a standing position. Seeing her on her feet again filled Easy with reassurance and satisfaction. She really would be okay.
    And then she won’t need you anymore.
    Spiral, spiral, spiral.
    “You want to try to eat or drink something when you’re done?” Sara asked, guiding her one step at a time away from where he sat on the bed, his back against the cold, hard wall.
    “Maybe,” Jenna said.
    And then the sisters stepped through the door and out of the room. Easy stared at the empty doorway and tried to beat back the despair that threatened at the loss of everything he’d found in Jenna’s presence. Stupid, really. He’d known the danger of his dependence when he’d first felt it, and he was feeling the evidence of that danger right now.
    Because she wasn’t his to need, to want, to depend upon.
    Shane’s gaze was suddenly a physical weight on Easy’s face. The last thing Easy wanted was a too-perceptive intelligence officer putting his skills to work on him, so he got off the bed and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
    “You were great with her, E. Thank you,” Shane said.
    Dropping his hands, Easy met his teammate’s gaze and shrugged. “Just doing what anyone would do.”
    Chuffing out a humorless laugh, Shane shook his head and crossed his arms. “Well, that’s some bullshit.”
    The black hole in the center of Easy’s chest was making itself known again. To distract himself from the pain and Shane’s inquisitiveness, he tore off his shirt, dropped it to the floor, and grabbed a new one from his duffel. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked as he tugged an old, soft gray hoodie over his head.
    “Just what I said. Calling things how I see ’em, and what I’ve seen since the moment you took Jenna out of my arms last night was a man feeling all kinds of protective over a woman—”
    “Again. Like anyone would be.”
    Shane threw up his hands. “Okay, E. Whatever you say. You want to play it like that, I won’t push. But since you don’t have any special interest here, how ’bout we let Beckett take the next shift with Jenna.”
    Heat roared through Easy’s brain, and he spun on his heel.
    The barely suppressed smirk and arched eyebrow told Easy he’d walked right into that one.
    “Fuck you,” Easy bit out, moving to push by the guy.
    Shane grabbed his shoulder and blocked his exit. “Aw, don’t be like that, man. I came clean to you about Sara.”
    “That was different,” Easy said, muscling back the anger but feeling it clawing at him from the inside out. He didn’t want to take Shane’s head off. He really didn’t. After all, it wasn’t Shane’s fault that Easy’s emotional bank was so empty that he couldn’t stand being teased about wanting something he could never have.
    The guy’s gray eyes narrowed and drilled into Easy’s. “What’s going on?”
    A quick shake of his head. “ Nada. ”
    His brows cranked down. “Easy, it’s me. ” Shane studied him for a long minute, then came out with, “Most of my life, I’ve felt responsible for the abduction of my eight-year-old sister.”
    The admission was like a sucker punch to the gut because Easy knew what Shane was trying to get him to do. Easy respected the hell out of Shane McCallan—for his ability to say what he’d said and a whole lot more—but there wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell that Easy was pulling up a chair to circle time and sharing his boo-boos.
    He let that shit out, and he might never get it back in its box.
    Not that it was too well secured as it was, but whatever.
    “Wasn’t your fault,” Easy finally managed to say. “Now I gotta ask you to back off.”
    Shane gave a nod and a slap on his teammate’s shoulder. “All right. I’m here, though. You know that, right?”
    “Yeah. Now, why don’t we give the women some privacy and clear out of here?” Last thing he wanted to do,