A Soldier's Journey (19 page)

“Good,” he said and limped to the door. He opened it for her and they walked together to his pickup.

“I can open the door myself,” she said.

“Okay,” he said to her surprise. “Heaven forbid that I don't respect that streak of independence.”

But when he stepped inside and settled in the seat next to her, he took her hand for a minute. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“Why?” she said. She was truly mystified.

“Because you, like Josh and then Clint, brought new life to this town, and you're dragging others along with you.” He hesitated, then added, “Including me.”

“I don't think I did much dragging tonight.”

“Exactly. You drag them along without you, or them, knowing they're being dragged.”

“I don't think so,” she said slowly.

He chuckled. “It's not a bad thing. I bet you were at the head of your class,” he said. “And not only that, I bet you helped everyone else along.”

It was a nice compliment, made even nicer because he believed it. His hazel eyes had a glint in them and the air in the pickup was warm and growing warmer.

He inserted a key in the ignition and started the pickup and they rolled out of the parking lot. The silence during the very short drive to her cabin was heavy with sexual tension. She fastened her gaze on the road ahead, not on him.

But they arrived all too soon, and her body was alive with want as he gave her a long measuring glance, then stepped out of the truck. This time, she didn't jump out but let him go around to her side and open it. She didn't know why, except it was a courtesy she appreciated and missed, and she wanted to grasp that strong hand he held out to her.

He put his arm around her as they walked to the porch and then the front door. She was immediately greeted by an ecstatic Joseph, who after a moment of frenetic tail wagging turned a quizzical eye on Nate.

“Do you think he questions my motives?” Nate said.

“Should he?”

“Yep.”

“Want a cup of coffee?” she asked.

“Yes.”

He limped with her to the kitchen and she sensed he was watching her every movement, just as she was aware of his. She was asking for trouble by inviting him in, and yet she had questions. And she didn't want him to leave. She didn't want to be alone.

She'd already noted that he took his coffee black, as she did. It was an army thing where sometimes the niceties of cream and sugar were not immediately available and you got used to whatever kept you going.

When the coffee was ready, she handed him a cup and led them out the back door to the deck chairs. Joseph came with them and sat next to her.

The sky was alive with color, a palette of scarlet and gold and crimson colliding in an explosion of hues. Nate's hand found hers, and her fingers tightened around his. She knew she shouldn't. She knew where it could lead. But tonight she needed the companionship of someone who had been where she had been.

“Were you career army when you were in Iraq?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Thought I would join, have an adventure, travel, earn educational credits, then come back, get married and go to college.”

“You said you're divorced?”

He shrugged. “That's a long story.”

It was obvious it was one he didn't want to tell. She digested that. She knew so little about him. News might move rapidly in Covenant Falls, but apparently not about Nate.

“How long were you in the army?” she asked.

“I reenlisted after four years. I was close to the guys in my unit. Didn't seem to be a reason to go home. I was accumulating education credits but not enough.”

He was silent for a moment, then added, “Not that I regret it. I grew up. I had to. I learned a lot about myself, about loyalty and commitment and working with a team. I still keep in touch with members of my unit. But I don't want it to be the only choice. Louisa has told me how talented some of her kids are, and she tries to do what she can to develop that talent, but we just don't have the resources to showcase it.” He paused, gave her a lopsided smile. “I didn't mean to get on my soapbox but I think...hope we can open some doors. Maybe this all is a dumb dream, but...”

If her heart fluttered before, it pounded now. She had been attracted to him from the beginning. She had fought it, thinking it a betrayal of Jared, but the more she saw him, the more she liked him, and the more she liked him, the more she trusted him, and the more she trusted him...

She shouldn't have invited him in, but there had been yet a new side to him today. Mischievous and self-deprecating when he'd said, “king of the world.” She wanted more of that side. She wanted to smile again.

“What happened to the girl?” she asked.

“What girl?”

“The one that made you wary of women.”

“That obvious?”

“Just hints here and there.”

“The whole messy story?”

She nodded.

“Margaret was my high school sweetheart. She was Maggie then. Old story. She was a cheerleader, and I was on the football team. I wasn't the hero or good enough for a college scholarship, but I made my share of touchdowns. At the end of high school, I wanted to study architecture. I was damn good at building blocks and forts as a kid and putting things together as I grew older. But that took money, and we didn't have much. My dad died when I was young, and I wasn't going to let Mom sign a college loan. I decided to join the army and earn education credits while in the service.”

“And the girl didn't want to wait?” she guessed out loud.

“She said she did, but that lasted about two months after I was deployed to Iraq. I was one of many guys who got Dear John letters. When I came home on leave, I heard Maggie had married and moved to Chicago. I reenlisted. Three years later I was wounded, and I was in the hospital when my enlistment ended.

“I'd earned twenty credits online and I had money saved along with some educational credits earned while in the army. I went to the University of Colorado to study architecture. Maggie—she was Margaret now—showed up at the end of my third year and said her marriage had been a terrible mistake, that her husband had abused her.

“Long story short, we made love, or at least I thought it was love, and two months later she said she was pregnant.

“I married her and dropped out of school. I couldn't afford a wife and child and college expenses. She knew someone in Seattle, and I got a job in new home construction.”

He looked at her. “Sure you want to hear this?”

She nodded.

“She miscarried in the fourth month, but I had already dropped out of college and I still had a wife to support. I stayed with the construction company and gradually became head of construction. I hated it. The builder wanted me to take shortcuts and the houses had no soul.”

He hesitated, and she sensed how painful this was. She waited. She didn't want to push.

He continued after a moment. “End of story—she had an affair with my boss. I think that's how I got my job. They had an affair while he was married and I was more or less their cover. When his wife died, she wanted a divorce after we'd been married for five years.

“I knew it was not a good marriage, but commitment meant something to me. I thought we both wanted children but we were having bad luck. I later found out that she had lied about not taking birth control. I don't even think she was pregnant when she came to me for help. She spent every penny I made and piled up credit card debt in my name by forging my signature. It did a hell of a job in shattering my ability to trust.”

“You didn't go back to school?”

“No heart for it. I'm a good craftsman and designer, but I wanted to come home. My brother moved to Chicago. Mom was alone and getting older, and I figured it was payback time. I loved growing up in Covenant Falls and its sense of community. I just didn't realize how much I did until I lived in a big city.”

Andy reached out her hand to him. Regardless of his last comments, she sensed the wound in him.

“She's an idiot,” Andy said.

“You think?”

“I know,” she said with such emphasis that he leaned over and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

D
AMN
IF
N
ATE
knew why he was spilling his guts. She was just so easy to talk to. No judgment, no “you're an idiot.” Just she was the idiot.

But the kiss was reward enough. His hand tightened over hers and he stood, guiding her to her feet. She leaned against him and their bodies gravitated toward each other. Her lips met his again, and his world exploded. Heat rushed through him.

So did the rush of other feelings, and they all had to do with the heart. They had been building since the days since they met. It seemed longer because they'd been thrown together so much...

He knew he was in deep trouble. He'd never believed in love at first sight, but basically that was what happened when he'd seen Andy summoning the courage to step out of her car and into a new life. He'd tried to deny it. Considered that it had been too long since he'd had any real feminine companionship. Or maybe an aberration that would disappear in the light of reason. Reason didn't seem to be working.

Her body felt just fine against his. Soft and supple and strong. The kiss deepened and ignited fireworks that radiated through every nerve in his body.

His heart thundered and his body shuddered as her arms went around his neck. She looked up at him with those large gray eyes. The void that was there the first day they met had been filled with an intensity and hunger that matched his own.

Then he felt her hesitation, and he stepped back, his hand catching hers. “I'll go slow, Andy, as slow as you want.”

“I don't think I want you to go slow,” she said. He heard the bewilderment in her voice. “How could I...feel this way...”

His fingers caressed the back of her neck. “I've felt as if I've been hit by a tornado since I first saw you. It's crazy, I know, but...” He looked down at those wide, confused eyes, and his heart melted from a different kind of heat than that which had rocked his body.

His fingers moved from her neck and traced the cheekbone. “You're so pretty.”

“You're not bad, either,” she admitted in a wry voice.

He chuckled at that. “You're not very good at compliments, are you?”

“I've been told that.”

He realized they were standing there, lost in each other's gazes and making ridiculous small talk while her eyes were saying something else, and he imagined his were doing the same.

He reached out and took her right hand in his so she couldn't escape suddenly. Her fingers were soft, although he felt the strength in them. They would have to be strong and supple and efficient to work in an army hospital, especially a forward base. Casualties often came in multiples and they were usually critical.

Then he took her left one. The fingers were stiff and barely managed to curl slightly into his. She tried to pull her hand away but he took it up to his lips and caressed it.

“It's ugly,” she said.

“I think it's beautiful. Just like everything about you.”

She shook her head silently.

“I can't pretend to know how this is happening or why,” he said, lifting her chin so she looked up at him, “but I'm sure as hell not going to question it.”

She stood on tiptoes and kissed him thoroughly, and he felt as if he had arrived in some glorious place he hadn't known existed. The embers that had glowed between them flared, enveloping them in a circle of heat. Raw sexual hunger filled him and he feared it was very obvious. It was all he could do not to pick her up and carry her off to the bedroom.

Even the air around them was charged with electricity.

Not wise.
Not yet. She was still fragile. Vulnerable. He wanted to make love to her, but he sure as hell didn't want her to have regret about it.

He drew back. “You don't know how much I hate saying this, but I should probably go.”

“I...think I do know,” she said with a rueful grin. “But I don't want you to.”

He closed his eyes for a second to keep from grabbing her. She looked so...beguiling. And bewildered. The admission was obviously galling her.

He took her hand and they went inside, Joseph trying to get between them. “Do you think Joseph is trying to tell us something?” he said.

“Joseph?” she asked the dog.

Joseph barked.

“Do you think he approves, or what?” he asked.

“He likes you, so I think he approves.”

“Let's see. One bark for approval,” Nate said.

Joseph barked once.

“Great,” Nate said.

“I think you rigged that,” she said. Her gray eyes were alive but then he detected a shadow.

His fingers tightened around hers. He liked the quick comebacks. Her dry wit. Hell, he liked everything about her.

He led the way and they sat on the sofa. It was time, he thought, to address the third person with them. “Tell me about him,” he said, knowing he risked losing her, but he also knew it was something she had to face before they made love, if, indeed, she wanted it as badly as he. He didn't want to be a substitute for someone else. He needed her to want Nate Rowland, not a ghost.

She didn't answer immediately, then slowly, hesitantly, she started to speak. “Jared and I worked together in Germany, then we were sent to Afghanistan. We were just colleagues then. He was a really fine surgeon and I was a surgical nurse, and there was a line I didn't want to cross. There was respect but distance.”

Her fingers tightened around his as she took a deep breath, then continued. “Things changed when we went to Afghanistan. Our job was to keep our guys alive until they could reach Germany, and sometimes...we lost. We all grew close, especially as the danger increased. After one hellacious day and night when a ranger team was ambushed, we worked nonstop for eighteen hours and still lost three.

“I was exhausted, emotionally ripped to pieces. They were so young. It didn't matter that they were seasoned soldiers. They were little more than boys, and the wounds were so bad. They were depending on us and there was nothing...nothing we could do to save them.

“I was shaking when I left. Jared caught up with me. He took me to one of the storerooms to help me come down before I went to my quarters. He held me, as much for himself, I think, as for me, and suddenly we were tearing each other's clothes off.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “It was grasping for life. Trying to find something that wasn't blood and pain and...defeat because we couldn't save them. We made love that night,” she said. “It seemed the last night in the world.

“That's how it started,” she said. “Maybe it would have ended there except I saw a side of him he kept hidden. Unlike the emotionless, staid perfectionist he presented to everyone else, I came to know a man who hurt every bit as much as I did.”

She looked up at him. “Everything was...intense. We took refuge in each other, but we knew we would be transferred if our superiors found out. Maybe the secrecy added to the...intensity. We fell in love, and when our deployment was coming to an end, he asked me to marry him. It didn't matter then if anyone knew. Neither of us were staying in the service.”

She paused. “He was a great orthopedist, particularly with traumatic injuries, and he'd received a number of offers. He was considering job offers in Chicago and Richmond. We were going to be married. One week later, an Afghan orderly, a man Jared helped get the job and to whom I gave money for his family, charged into the operating room and shot everyone there. Jared stepped in front of me. He died. I lived. The others died, too. The anesthesiologist and two another nurses, as well as a soldier who was on guard outside the tent. All of them died...all of them except me.”

Her face was rigid as she said the words, as if it were made of marble. All but her eyes, those big gray eyes, and they were misty with grief that was obviously still very raw inside her.

For a second he regretted asking the question, but then he realized he'd had so much bottled inside when he returned from Iraq that he'd been useless to himself or anyone else. It was like getting a two-ton truck off his back when he finally talked about it to someone who had been there, who understood. He hadn't experienced anything as rough as she had, but he'd seen some pretty bad stuff and had lost too many buddies. It still haunted him.
Why them? Why not me?

“I'm so sorry,” he said, knowing that the words meant little as he put an arm around her. “Maybe I shouldn't have asked...”

“Yes, you should have,” she said. “I didn't
want
to talk about it, but I
had
to.” She said it with such intense sadness that he felt it flow through him, as well.

Nate closed his eyes for a minute. He'd thought he had known what happened. He hadn't. No wonder she seemed so closed off, or why Josh's psychologist friend had recommended she come here. The mountains had a way of cleansing the mind and nourishing the soul, and Covenant Falls was a place where she could find others who'd gone through similar experiences, a place that would embrace her without asking questions.

But he
had
asked questions, and he wasn't sure she wasn't lying about needing to open up. Her fingers, which were entwined in his, had gone stiff, and he sensed she was barely holding herself together, and he...well, he had licentious thoughts.

He pushed them away. It wasn't what she needed now. She was already riddled with guilt that the man she loved had died protecting her. He knew he could take her to bed now. It would be for the same reason she went with the doctor that first time. Pain. She was still crying inside.

He leaned over and kissed her lightly. “Want to take a walk?”

“Your ankle...”

“To hell with my ankle.”

The ankle was nothing compared to the ache in his lower region. His heart ached, as well. He had to get the hell out of this cabin.

He stood and guided her up. He put an arm around her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “I want you as much as a man can want a woman,” he said slowly. “And I'll wait as long as it takes for it to be right for you.”

She looked at him with those haunted eyes. They were misted over. She visibly swallowed. “Did I tell you how much I like you?”

He noted the
like
instead of
love
but then, it was early. “Ditto,” he said and grinned. “Let's go.”

“I would like that,” she said.

* * *

A
NDY
TOOK
HIS
HAND
, and they walked to the door. She felt...drained down to her toes, but she needed the fresh air.

Nate limped slightly. It probably cost him pain, but she suspected he wasn't going to give in to it, no matter the cost. Joseph meandered along with them. He had obviously decided Nate was a trustworthy friend.

She still felt an emotional overload. She had relived what she had tried, unsuccessfully, to forget. She felt cleansed. The grief was no longer festering. She had said the words without going to pieces, without the terrible anger that had once sustained her, then eaten her up inside.

The moon was bright enough that they could follow the path up the mountain. They walked in silence but she felt his quiet understanding. Her hand in his, she moved closer to him, felt his warmth. He was a strong man. A good guy. She'd recognized it before but tried to ignore it.

But tonight proved what kind of man he was. She would have gone to bed with him. She'd wanted to. Her body had wanted it as well, and it had been evident that his did, too. But he'd sensed, more than she, that she wasn't ready.

They reached the lookout, and she was grateful there was no one else there. He was right about the night and the view and the peace this particular place fostered. She turned around and saw the snow-capped mountains rising ever higher as she looked west.

“It took me a long time to realize this is where I really wanted to be,” he said softly.

“It's beautiful,” Andy said.

“It is that. In the winter it glistens.” Winter? Would she even be here then? Surely she should be vacating the cabin for someone else. The next vet.

She shivered. She didn't want to leave. Nate was behind her, and as if he sensed her mood—he was uncanny that way—he put both arms around her and she leaned back against him. He made her feel safe. And she would be kidding herself if she didn't know he made her feel other things, as well.

He touched her hair. “Your eyes... Damn, but they're dangerous. Sometimes I think I can see your world in them and then they're like the fog rolling in, and I'm losing my way.”

New emotions flowed through her. With Jared, it had been all storm and fire and frantic love. Grabbed moments.

She felt something altogether different with Nate. It was almost as if she had found a sanctuary in his arms. She also wanted him. Wanted to sleep with him because she knew it would be achingly tender and yet tumultuous. She'd felt both in his earlier kiss.

It's too soon. You don't really know him.

Yet she did. More than she'd known Jared despite the months they had worked so closely together. He'd always kept part of himself secret.

How can you even compare the two?

She swallowed hard, then moved away, but she couldn't help looking at him. He had long lashes. She hadn't really noticed that before, but now they swept down and half hid his eyes that always seemed to know too much about her.

“I...think we'd better go back before...”
Before I fall into your arms and sink to the ground and we make love right here and now.

“Woof!” Joseph had looked asleep, but now he was on his feet. He nudged her. Apparently her words had awakened him.

She stooped down and gave him a hug. “Okay. Home it is.”

Nate took her hand and they started down. About halfway down, his ankle apparently twisted slightly and he went down, taking her with him. She landed on top of him and she felt his body react. He felt good. So good.