Safe Heart (Search and Rescue #3) - Amy Lane

Past and Present

GLEN Echo dragged his sorry ass down the hallway of his South San Francisco apartment building, wishing like hell the elevator hadn’t crapped out on the sixth floor of the eight-floor building. Usually the complex was prime—the two-bedroom, two-bath unit was pricey because it was a cat’s spit away from San Francisco itself, but his former roommate had also been his business partner, and the two of them had worked to be as close to the airfield by Napa and as close to the city as possible.

The compromise had been here, and they gladly paid the rent.

Of course Damien now lived in stupid bliss with Glen’s brother, but Glen wasn’t going to hold that against either of them. Much. Sure, he loved Preston—enjoyed his company even—but Damien had been the brother he’d chosen, and he halfway wished Damien had called bullshit when Glen told him to go live in Napa and have a happy life. Sure, they still had lunch together once a week, and at least twice a month, Damien spent the night on the couch of what used to be his apartment, because, well, beer. But in the meantime, Glen was here with a new roommate and a pain in his chest he was doing his damnedest to forget.

And the last two days had been bullshit, pure and utter bullshit.

Glen had actually hit his hour limit in the plane while it had been on the fucking tarmac. It was just a cargo run, but the cargo had been three Alaskan Husky puppies, and finding a place for him and three crates of noisy, vocal, woe-is-me fuckin’ dogs to sleep hadn’t been easy.

He hoped one of those fluffy, happy assholes had gotten some sleep in between debating the weather, the traffic, and the state of the world, since letting Glen sleep had not been any one of the host of things those bitches and one son of a bitch discussed.

And the hotel bed had been a fuckin’ treat too.

His upper back and shoulder had still not recovered—might never recover—from being crushed under a wall nearly six months ago, and Glen thought longingly of the ibuprofen in the flight bag over his shoulder. Soon—soon, he would be in the apartment, on the special mattress Damien had insisted on buying to facilitate his recovery, washing the ibuprofen down with a beer and some shitty TV.

It sounded so heavenly the apartment practically had a halo.

And then Glen saw him.

He’d lost weight, his small frame looking damned near elfin, and his famous cheekbones almost slicing through skin. His dark eyes were large and shadowed and haunted in that peaked face, and Glen got the smell of a guy who hadn’t showered in a while, probably about five steps before the kid got the same thing from Glen.

“Cash?” The name he’d been trying so hard not to say over the last six months sounded strange in his own ears.

“Hey, flyboy,” Cash said weakly, standing in Glen’s doorway on obviously stiff legs. “I’m, uh, so sorry to drop in on you like this. I… I wanted to be all perfect, you know? Take care of my own shit? But I—” He looked away, an agony of embarrassment crossing his features.

“You need my help?” Glen supplied, and he’d meant for it to come out bitterly, but it didn’t.

“Yeah,” Cash said, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m so sorry. I… I owe you so much better than—”

But Glen didn’t want to hear it. He wrapped his arms around Cash’s slender shoulders and held him until his shoulder screamed for mercy.

Cash rested his head against Glen’s chest and cried.

Six Months Earlier

CASH hadn’t looked like a handful when Glen had finally caught up with him in a tiny bar in Nayarit. Now, if you were hunting down a boy-band member who was reported to have gone on a bender in Nayarit, Mexico, you would probably find him in one of the resorts. There were some beautiful stretches of sun and sand, with little private bungalows and secluded swimming coves on the beaches of Nayarit, and when Glen had first taken the job from Cash Harper’s manager, that was where he assumed he was going.

He’d signed on enthusiastically—he hadn’t had his knob waxed in forever and figured once he got Harper squared away, he’d have a chance to rectify that situation, because oh my God, he needed to relax.

His best friend was breaking his heart over Glen’s damned brother, and it just hurt to watch. Glen needed to get