Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

Straining to listen, she heard him open Sophie’s door, then close it. A moment later her own door opened, just as a bolt of lightning brightened the darkening afternoon. For an instant he looked as if he were stepping out of another world, a mythic being come briefly to earth. Then the lightning faded and he was Ethan again.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Hardly surprising. Sophie’s out like a light.” He came into the room and lay down beside her, pulling her close with gentle hands, cradling her head on his shoulder. A shaky sigh escaped her as she relaxed against him, feeling his fingers in her hair, stroking gently.

“You know,” she said presently, “I’ve been totally self-absorbed this week.”

“You’re worried about Sophie. I’m surprised you can think about anything else at all.”

“But what about you?” she asked. “How are you doing? Are you hurting? Are you getting on with Micah? I feel so selfish.”

“You’re not being selfish. Micah and I are hitting it off better than I hoped. He wants me to come stay with him and Faith for a while after we take care of the threat to Sophie.”

“That’s a good idea.” But, selfishly, she didn’t think it was a good idea at all. She wanted him to stay here. For the first time in her life she had someone she could really lean on. Someone who seemed to have shoulders broad enough to bear the burdens of life with her. And she didn’t want to let him go.

Which was purely selfish. Ethan hadn’t come here to take care of her. He’d come here to find a missing part of his life. Only a shrew would deny him that.

But here, right now, she had found a peace so deep that she hated the thought of losing it, even briefly. When he kissed her forehead, it felt like a blessing. From his lips, a warm relaxation spread throughout the rest of her.

He didn’t say anything. It seemed as if holding her was enough for him, too.

“What about pain?” she asked. “I’ve seen how you move sometimes. You hurt, don’t you?”

He sighed. “Most of the time,” he admitted. “They say it’ll get better eventually.”

“How do you stand it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Did they give you anything for it?”

“Of course. I can have all the painkillers I want. Thing is, I don’t want them.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like a clear head, and because I don’t want to become an addict.”

“But if it gets really bad...”

“If it gets bad enough that I can’t move, I might consider them. But only then. Discomfort is a state of mind to a large extent.”

“Pain is a little more than discomfort.”

“Same thing, different degree. A lot depends on how you look at it. It’s not a fatal disease, it’s an injury. Lots of people live with that.”

“You’re right.” She sighed again and unconsciously snuggled closer. “Was it hard being raised by a single parent?”

“I suppose there were disadvantages, but none I really noticed. My mother made sure I knew her people.”

“Her people?”

“Her family. Her father’s side was Cherokee, which is how my uncle came to train me. Her mother’s side was...” All of sudden he gave a deep chuckle. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“Philadelphia mainline.”

“What?” She nearly giggled. “Mayflower?”

“They didn’t get here quite that early. But you can imagine. They weren’t rich. That pretty much went away in the Great Depression, but they were still part of that crowd. And they didn’t quite know what to make of me.”

“Perplexing indeed.”

He chuckled again. “Quite a combination. So I got exposed to two very different worlds, but mostly to her father’s side. They didn’t seem to care that I was half-blood.”

“But the Philadelphia crowd did?”

“I don’t know exactly what it was. I mean, you can see how Cherokee I look. So it wasn’t as if they could ignore it. But they loved my mother, and I came with her, so they tried. Maybe they were just embarrassed that she had never married. It might have been more that than me. But my uncle...he took me to his heart. So in that sense I didn’t miss out on much.”

“What made you decide to go into the service?”

“That’s simple. I was brought up to be patriotic, to feel that service is essential. Many Native Americans enlist for that reason. My uncle nurtured that in me, along with my more mystical side, and I guess I felt a natural urge to follow in my father’s footsteps, even if I didn’t know him.”

“I can understand that.” She hesitated. “Do you ever wonder if your mother’s background and family were part of the reason she never told Micah about you?”

“Yeah, it’s crossed my mind. They were a somewhat hidebound bunch. Maybe that entered into her decision. I don’t know. But she never hesitated to take me with her when she went to visit, so I doubt she ever hid her relationship with Micah.”

“Interesting.”

He gave her a little squeeze. “Some questions never get answered, not in any fully meaningful way. We keep hunting for those answers, but they stay just out of reach. Thing is, I think hunting for the answers is generally more important than finding them.”

“So is knowing when to stop looking,” she said, thinking of Leo. “Some questions are only going to drive you crazy. Like why Leo beat me. He made me feel responsible for it. Maybe I was, in some way. But why he did it... I don’t think I’ll ever understand, even though I’ve heard all the psychobabble about it.”

“Maybe he was just plain mean.”

“There’s that possibility, too. But you still want to ask why.”

“Not necessarily. Some folks are just born with something missing.”

“Also true. God knows, I saw enough of it on the streets in Denver. But the thing is, in a particular case, you never know.”

“Rarely,” he agreed. “But there’s another thing my uncle taught me.”

“What’s that?”

“That no matter what we are when we’re born, whether we’re missing a leg or missing something else, as long as we have a working brain, we make choices. Those choices define us.”

Another crack of thunder rent the afternoon, loud, as if it was right overhead. Moments later a voice called from the doorway, “Mommy, I’m scared.”

Before Connie could even sit up, Sophie had catapulted herself into the bed beside her. Connie at once turned her back to Ethan and hugged her daughter. “It’s loud, all right.”

“It’s a bad storm.” Sophie snuggled in, seeming not at all fazed that Ethan was there. Seconds ticked by like heartbeats, and thunder cracked again, this time almost at exactly the same moment that lightning bleached the room.

Not long after that, Ethan wrapped his arms around both of them and pulled them close.

Throughout the storm, he sheltered them.

Chapter 17

The storm continued to rage throughout the afternoon. Around three, Connie, Ethan and Sophie went downstairs to start dinner.

“I think we should have something special tonight,” Connie said.

“Yay!” Sophie clapped her hands.

“It has to be something I already have,” Connie cautioned her. “I’m not going out in this storm.”

Sophie immediately ran to check the refrigerator. Apparently she had something in mind, because in no time at all she’d pulled out a quart of her mother’s frozen spaghetti sauce, grated parmesan and a large container of ricotta cheese, then ran to get a box of lasagna noodles from the cupboard.

“Well, that’s pretty clear,” Connie said, watching with a smile. “Make sure I have mozzarella.”

A ball of same emerged from the cheese drawer in the fridge and joined the other ingredients on the table.

“We seem to have everything essential,” Connie said.

Sophie clapped her hands again.

Connie looked at Ethan. “I hope you like lasagna.”

“I love it.”

Connie nodded and looked at Sophie. “So what do we do first?”

“Thaw the sauce.”

“Right. You know how.”

Sophie retrieved a saucepan from a lower cupboard, filled it half full with water and put in on the stove over a low flame. Then she placed the container of spaghetti sauce in it to thaw.

“Good job,” Connie said. “Let’s mix the filling, then put it in the fridge until we’re ready to use it.”

Ethan volunteered to grate the parmesan and mozarella, saving Connie’s and Sophie’s knuckles. Connie and Sophie mixed the ricotta with seasonings and the mozzarella, and soon the bowl was in the fridge, covered by a plate. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the sauce to thaw.

Sophie saw the cards and chips stacked neatly on the table. “Were you going to play a game?”

Connie hesitated. “Well, it was a grown-up game.”

“Oh.” Sophie didn’t appear at all deterred. “What kind of grown-up game?”

Connie nearly sighed. Sophie could be insistent about getting answers. “Poker,” she said. “Not for kids.”

“Why not, if you don’t play for real money?” Sophie asked, depriving her of speech.

Connie looked at Ethan and realized he was trying not to bust a gut laughing. His face, carved as always, nevertheless seemed to be battling to remain impassive.

Julia chose that moment to roll into the room. “The girl’s right,” she said. “What’s wrong with it, if you’re just playing for worthless chips?”

“It’s gambling,” Connie said.

“Most things in life are,” Julia retorted. “The chips are just a method of counting.”

Connie didn’t have an answer for that, although she tried to think up a good one. Then it struck her. “In most games you don’t risk your points. You keep them.”

“True,” Julia agreed. “But poker has lessons of its own. Like not risking things you don’t want to lose. Like making decisions and living with the outcome. Like reading other people.”

Connie stared at her mother. She’d never seen this side of her before, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“And,” Julia wound up, “there’s not a thing to be lost at this table except some worthless plastic chips. In real life, when you make decisions, you have a lot more on the line.”

Sophie spoke. “Don’t get mad at Mommy, Grandma.”

“I’m not mad at her, child.” Julia smiled. “Not in the least. I just think her reaction to this game is more instinctive than valid.”

Sophie’s brow creased as she tried to figure that one out.

Julia looked at her daughter. “And it’s the very risk that makes some things look so attractive.”

Connie felt it then. An emotional blow. A comment on her marriage to Leo, maybe even on her choice of jobs. Was she drawn to risk? Had that been the factor that had gotten her into so much trouble?

Bad boy Leo. Admit it, she told herself. Admit it for once and for all. He hadn’t seemed like an angel. Far from it. She’d been drawn to the bad boy and had paid dearly for the attraction. The thrill of running a risk. The stupid, stupid idea that her love would change him.

She looked down at the table without seeing it. Seeing instead her past from this new angle. And knowing, in her heart of hearts, that Julia was right. She’d been drawn to the thrill and the risk, drawn to the very challenge of possessing Leo. Then, before she really knew what was happening, she’d been ground under the heel of his boot.

All love was a gamble, of course, but some kinds of risk-taking were foolhardy. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt Sophie to learn that in a game where the only risk was a few plastic chips.

She lifted her head and looked at her mother. “In that case, I think Ethan is going to teach us Texas hold ’em.”

Julia smiled. “Time to learn how to gauge worthwhile risks.”

Ethan proved to be a patient teacher, especially with Sophie, but by the time they’d played for an hour, Sophie not only understood the relative values of the cards, but she also grasped that she needed to be careful or lose her chips.

Ethan probably folded to Sophie more than he needed to, but not so much that it was obvious. Besides, as Julia had pointed out, this game was about learning when to take risks and how much of a risk you were willing to take. Even the bluffing became a lesson, as Sophie learned she could be lied to by having large sums of chips dangled in front of her as a temptation.

By the time they stopped to make the lasagna, Sophie was beginning to understand the nuances. Connie hoped her mother was right, that Sophie could learn something about life from playing this game, even the most unsettling fact of all: that even when you did everything right, you could still lose sometimes.

Sophie enjoyed herself, regardless, and Connie found herself looking at her own life and decisions in a very different way than she had in the past. It was one thing to acknowledge that she’d chosen poorly with Leo. It was another to face up to the temptation that had sucked her in. The challenge. The risk. The notion, idiotic though it seemed to her now, that there would be a great payoff eventually.

She also noted something else, something she pondered quietly as she and Sophie layered the lasagna together: that just because you went bust on one risk, that didn’t mean you couldn’t take another and win. In fact, if you were ever going to win, you had to take another. The necessary element was balancing risk against the likelihood of winning.

It was something she’d never really thought about before in quite that way.

Lessons, it seemed, could sometimes be found in the unlikeliest of places.

* * *

After dinner and washing up, a general vote was held to watch Shrek. Sophie loved the movie, and for the first time ever, Connie watched it without feeling cynical. The ogre remained the ogre throughout, never changing. It was the princess who learned where true beauty lay.

No kissing of frogs to turn them into princes. Quite the contrary. A very different fairy tale. One that seemed strikingly apropos, all of a sudden.

Outside, the storm continued to rumble and growl, a beast at bay. She noted that sometimes Ethan would tilt his head and listen to it, as if he could hear things in that grumbling. A little shiver snaked through her as she once again had the feeling that there was something very, very special about Ethan Parish. Something beyond the ordinary.

She tried to tell herself that he was just a man like any other, that she was just being fanciful, but for some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that the man sitting on the couch on the other side of Sophie was special in some very important way. Like an old soul.

Sophie certainly liked and trusted him. In all honesty, Connie couldn’t remember Sophie ever warming up this quickly to a man. But right now she was leaning against his side, and he had an arm around her shoulders, as if she belonged there.

Connie’s throat tightened, and she had to blink back burning tears. She hoped nobody noticed.

But Julia did notice. Sitting in her wheelchair, inches away from Connie, she reached out and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured. “I promise you, Connie. It’s going to be okay.”

Looking at her daughter and the stranger who had come into their lives only a week ago, Connie wondered, though.

Thanks to two strangers, their lives had changed dramatically. Maybe things would be okay, but they would certainly never be the same again.

And maybe, just maybe, she wanted something more than “okay” for her life.

She caught herself, appalled by her own greediness. For now, the only thing that mattered was protecting Sophie. Only a fool would ask for more. In that snug little living room, a haven against the storm without, Connie gave thanks for the moment. This moment.

Sophie wanted to stay up late and watch another movie.

“We have church in the morning,” Connie reminded her.

Something odd passed over Sophie’s face, then fled so quickly that Connie doubted she’d seen anything.

“How come I never get to stay up late,” Sophie muttered as she started up the stairs.

In that instant, blessed normalcy returned and Connie laughed with genuine ease for the first time in days.

“Cuz you’re seven, kiddo,” she replied.

“That’s your answer to everything.”

Not everything, Connie thought as she followed her daughter up the stairs. Not everything.

Life should only be so easy.

Chapter 18

The storm died sometime during the night. Connie slept restlessly, never imagining her bed could have felt so empty. But Ethan remained downstairs.

Probably having second thoughts. Every time she awoke during the night, she wished he was beside her, and every time, she reminded herself that he had plenty of reasons not to pursue matters any further. At least as many reasons as she had.

Then she would roll over and fall into a restless dream that never quite became a nightmare, but always seemed to feature something dangerous lurking just out of sight.

Finally, when the first light of dawn peeped beneath the curtains, she climbed out of bed, dressed in warm jeans, a sweatshirt and socks, and crept as quietly as possible downstairs to the kitchen. She forced herself not to glance in the direction of the living room to see if Ethan was still sleeping.

In the kitchen, she started the coffee. It was way too early to start breakfast for the family, so she popped a slice of bread into the toaster and brought out some blueberry jam. After a night of tossing and turning, her stomach felt as if someone had filled it with acid.

Just as the coffee started to perk, Ethan appeared. He wore jeans and nothing else, causing her heart to skitter a bit at the sight of his broad, smooth chest. He was a beautiful man, she thought. She wished she could see the face behind the beard.

Then she noticed the scars. How had she missed them before? She must have been too transported when they made love to notice the multitude of white scars, some small and thin, a few larger and longer, that marked one side of his torso.

“Morning,” he said. He saw where she was looking and asked, “Should I get a shirt?”

“No. No! It’s just that... I guess it was really bad.”

“I don’t remember much of it. A blessing.”

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she told him, meaning it as much as anything she’d ever in her life said.

“Me, too.” He gave her a crooked smile. “About time I was able to say that. Sorry I fell asleep.”

“It’s not like you were on guard duty,” she reminded him. “And you have to sleep sometimes. Besides, the house is locked, and one of us would have heard if someone tried to get in.”

“Very true.”

“Have a seat. I’m making toast. Would you like some?”

“Just some coffee when it’s ready, thanks. I haven’t been up long enough to feel hungry. You look exhausted.”

She shrugged and pulled her slice of toast from the toaster. “I had a restless night. One of those where you feel like you keep waking up, but you almost never wake up enough to actually do anything about it. You know, like turn on a light and read or something. In and out like a swinging door all night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It happens. In a strange way, it almost felt like when I was in the hospital.” She sat at the table and began spreading jam on her toast. “When they had me drugged. I wasn’t really sleeping, I had the oddest dreams, and I kept waking up but couldn’t really wake up. Weird.”

“Yeah. Been there.”

She laughed quietly. “Can’t blame the drugs this time. Maybe too much coffee, but not drugs.”

He grinned. “Leading the clean life, eh?”

“Oh, yeah. I donate blood as often as I can, and when I go in, they have these forms. Same questions every time. I tease them that I’ve led a very dull life. Last time the nurse asked me if I’d ever received money for sex, I said, ‘I wish.’ I thought she was never going to stop laughing.”

His smile broadened.

“But you know,” she added more thoughtfully, “I find there are lots of questions I answer negatively that I ought to be able to answer affirmatively.”

“Such as?”

“‘Have you been out of the country in the last three years?’ Heck, I haven’t even taken a real vacation locally. So I go in and answer the questions and start thinking about taking a cruise, or visiting another country, or...”

“You’ll do it someday.”

She let go of her wistfulness and smiled. “Yeah, I will. Someday.”

“I can’t donate blood at all anymore. Been overseas too often and too much.”

“That’s okay. I think you’ve given enough, anyway.”

He shook his head. “Wrong way to look at it.”

“You think so?”

“You can never give enough.”

As she considered his words, she nodded. “You’re right. There’s always a need to be met somewhere.”

“Maybe I will have that toast,” he said. When she started to rise, he waved her back. “I can make it for myself. You just rest.”

“Bread’s in the bread box. If you want butter...”

“I know.” He smiled. “The refrigerator.”

She laughed then. “Something about being a mother changes you forever. You start assuming that people need explanations for the simplest stuff.”

“Looking after others is never a bad habit.”

His words warmed her, and she sipped her coffee, savoring its richness, trying not to stare at the scars on his back. There were probably more she had missed, and somehow she felt embarrassed not to have noticed them. Even in the throes of their incredible lovemaking.

He popped a couple of slices of bread in the toaster, said, “Be right back,” and disappeared from the kitchen. He returned before the toast was ready, wearing a sweatshirt of his own.

“Are the mornings always so chilly here?” he asked.

“Most of the year,” she admitted. “At the height of summer it can get really hot in the daytime, but the nights cool down fast. I’ve never yet had a night when I didn’t need a blanket.”

“That’s the best way to sleep.”

They sat together for a while, sipping coffee, eating toast, no conversation necessary. They had reached that exquisite point where neither of them felt pressed to fill a silence. Connie savored that comfort. To her, that had always been a mark of a truly good relationship, when there could be companionable silence.

Eventually she glanced at the clock. “I guess we may as well go to the early service, if I can get Sophie and my mother up.”

He nodded.

“Do you want to come?”

“Sure. Dress up?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Times have changed. Jeans will do.”

“Nobody complains?”

“Why should they?” She shrugged. “I’ve often felt that God couldn’t care less what we’re wearing when we pray. Clothes are for other people, not for him.”

“I like the way you think, Connie.” Standing, he astonished her with a kiss. “I’ll go wash up real quick while you wake the others.”

Julia awoke quickly, with a smile, and agreed she would like to go to the early service. “Much more peaceful,” she said. “Not so many folks stirring around and coughing.”

Connie laughed. “Then up and at ’em. I’m going to get Sophie.”

She climbed the stairs feeling better than she had in a week. Somehow Ethan’s presence this morning had managed to batter back the night’s vague fears, and the sunlight pouring in every window seemed to fill the world with a crisp, clean glow. The sky, she thought, would be almost unbearably clear and blue this morning.

She knocked on Sophie’s door, then opened it. For an instant she didn’t register what she was seeing. For an endless, eternal instant, she couldn’t put the pieces together.

“Sophie?”

No answer.

“Sophie?” She turned from the bedroom and ran to the hall bathroom, finding it empty.

Then she screamed. “Sophie!”

Only silence answered her.

Chapter 19

Five sheriff’s cars filled the tree-lined street. Gage and Micah were there, along with her other friends. Other cars were already out on the streets and ranging the countryside, searching. Every one of them had Leo’s arrest photo.