Alex (In the Company of Snipers) (23 page)

“White.”

“Just white?” She wished he would look at her again.

“Just white.” Alex sighed and adjusted a knob on the final brace until it was snug.

“What if I made doll blankets for each of them? Would you mind? It wouldn’t take much time. I could crochet twenty-five different colored blankets. It might be fun.” She was going to say, “That way I could teach you how to crochet,” but she didn’t. What little nerve she had started the evening with had long since fled. Kelsey wondered why she had wasted her time with make-up and mascara. She didn’t need to look good for this kind of an endurance test.

“Whatever you want.” He gave her a sideways glance that didn’t really see her. Alex was excellent at the cold shoulder. Kelsey shivered. Those tender blue eyes could also be ice.

“When do you need them?”

He tightened the final wood clamp an extra long time. “Christmas Eve.”

“Good. Okay, then I’ll start tomorrow.” He was making her nervous.

“Fine.” Alex gathered the sandpaper and stowed the glue bottles. Without another word or glance, he gestured toward the basement steps.

“Okay.” She dusted her hands and headed up the stairs behind him. “You’re easy to work with.”

“Yeah, right.” He sounded gruff and tired.

“You probably have jet lag.”

“Yes.”

“Are you too tired for a bowl of ice cream?”

This was her last chance effort. The twenty-five cradles might be done, but this whole night had turned into one, big disaster. Right now, moving back to Washington state seemed like a good idea. Just as the thought materialized, Alex reached around her to turn off the basement light. It was no big deal, except all that muscle training from her life with Nick Durrant was still alive and well. Kelsey ducked, yelping like a kicked puppy with no place to hide. In less than a second, she was out of control and ready to fall down the stairs. Hot tears sprang to her eyes. She grabbed the handrail for support before she did something stupid, like scream.

Alex froze. He stood over her looking down, and that didn’t help. A black wave of claustrophobia swarmed her.
I have to get out of here.
Instead, she clenched the handrail tighter, her voice small and squeaky. “I’m going to get over that someday.”

He didn’t move.

“It’s just that ….” She looked up and into blue eyes.

The ice had melted.

“He used to … and I …” she mumbled. Kelsey didn’t mean for her words to come out so lame, but he had been gone a long time. While she had no reason to be afraid of him, she was very afraid—of everything.

“Talk to me.” His voice had thawed, too. “I’ll listen.”

“No.” The tears spilled over. She looked up again. He looked sad. With a huge breathy sigh, she licked her lips and relented. “Oh-kay.”

The second he offered his hand, her heart lurched. Panic shook her from head to toe. Here she was standing on the same precipice all over again. To trust or not to trust. To believe or not to believe. Nothing in her history could help her take this tiny step forward. She wished he had never come home.
Please, if I give you my hand, don’t hurt me.

Kelsey cringed and placed just her fingertips at the edge of his. Surely that was enough. He could kiss them or break them. It was the now or never, the live or die moment she knew would eventually come. No matter what happened next, from this telling moment on she would never be the same.

He blinked hard and fast as he pulled her gently up the last steps and into the kitchen. Alex pulled out a kitchen chair for her, waited until she sat down, and cleared the last of the dinner dishes from the table. “Sit down. I’ll make us some coffee,” he said calmly.

She composed herself as much as possible, but she couldn’t stop shaking. Before he turned around from the coffee maker, she balanced her chin on her fist hoping to hold her head still. She had to get a grip.

“How’d you meet him anyway?” he asked quietly.

She blew out a big breath before she could begin, still trying to calm herself for what she knew was ahead. “At school where I taught kindergarten.”

“He was a teacher?” Alex brought two cups to the table.

“No. Maintenance crew. One day when I took my class out to recess, he was watching me, and then he showed up at my apartment with flowers.” She shook her head at that stupid recollection. She had actually been excited for the attention. “I was so dumb.”

“Here you go. Cream and sugar included, ma’am.” He poured the coffee and sat across from her, watching intently. “Why do you say you were dumb?”

Kelsey clutched her cup instead of looking at him.
How do you tell the man you want to impress that you were socially inept?
She bit her lip.
Might as well just spit it out. Then he’ll gladly help you pack.

“Because I’d never dated much. I had my books and my kindergarten kids, and I thought I was happy. I’d never been with a man before and—” Tears welled up. It was embarrassing admitting what a social misfit she had been, how backwards, and what a fool. “Anyway, I thought why not? He was kind of cute. It was just one dinner. What could go wrong, right?”

This story did not have a happy ending. She deliberated walking away, but gritted her teeth instead. Someone needed to know what she had lived through.

“What happened?” His eyes looked so kind, maybe even forgiving. That did it. The closet door to her self-loathing was wide open now.

“At first, he was fun to be with.” She gulped. “I mean he didn’t always have money, so I paid for movies and stuff like that, but he was fun. He made me laugh. He was always showing up with presents and flowers and stuff.” Those things had all been stolen.
How could I have missed all the signs?

Abruptly he pushed away from the table. She thought maybe she had disgusted him, but he returned with a box of tissues. She took several, blew her nose, and mopped her face. “Thanks.”

He didn’t answer, just watched and listened.

“It seemed like a fairytale. He wanted to marry me, and he bought me a ring.” Yeah, right. A full carat diamond ring that had turned her finger green. “I believed everything until it was too late.”

“You don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want to.” His voice sounded sincere, but she couldn’t stop.

“No, it’s just that I already pregnant.” She focused on the soggy tissues in her hand. Her guilt reminded her for the millionth time that made none of this would have happened if she had been a good girl and gotten married before having sex. But guilt was as much help now as it was then. She brushed her negative judgment aside.

He reached his hand across the table, but she didn’t take it.

“I had morning sickness. At first he was happy when Jackie was born. I was happy. We weren’t rich, but we were doing okay. But when I got pregnant again ….” Her voice trailed away. Everything was her fault. She had spoiled her happy family. “He changed. He stayed at his mom’s more and more. Everything I did made him angry. It was hard to be sick all the time.

The day came back with vivid clarity. “He punched me. He said the boys weren’t even his and, and he punched me.” Her fingers went automatically to her cheekbone. She thought he had literally knocked her head off it had hurt so much.

Alex groaned and offered his hand again. She ignored him. This way he couldn’t pull his hand away in revulsion. Besides, if she never held it, she could never lose it.

“He cried afterwards. He said he was sorry, and he would never do anything like that again. He kept apologizing, and I thought it was my fault. You know?” By now the tissue was shredded.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she whispered. “I had to stop teaching. I was sick all the time anyway.”

“It’s okay.” His hand lay warm and gentle on hers on the table. She hadn’t noticed when he had done that. Kelsey thought she heard another tone in his voice, or maybe it was her guilt raising its ugly head again.
You deserved exactly what you got. You should’ve known.

“I wasn’t always like this.” She glared at him, her sorrow turning into anger. “I went to college. I loved my job. I was good at it, you know? I had a nice apartment. It wasn’t big, but it was nice. Did you even know that?”

“Yes, I do know that about you.”

She stared at him. Was he lying, too? How could he know? The gentle squeeze of his fingers seemed to bridge the gap. All she saw was a friend and her strongest, heck, her only protector. He pulled the sodden mass of tissues from her fingers and replaced it with another batch, his gentle hands never losing hold of hers in the process. She glared at those blue eyes that had only moments before been cold and unfeeling. Whatever was happening between them, she wanted it out in the open, all the poison and anger, all of it. Now.

“You know, people think women like me are stupid because we stay,” she explained, “but it’s not easy to leave. It’s like I changed over night. One day I’m doing pretty good. I’ve got a job, and I’m happy, but the next day, I’m ugly and all beat up. It’s hard to get away. I couldn’t believe anyone could hurt me like he did. I’d never been in a fight, not even once. Ever. I didn’t know how to slap anyone.” Her words rushed out in a squeaky crescendo through the tissues.

Alex cringed, and Kelsey caught herself just in time. There was no need to explain what he already knew. He had seen her at her worst.

“I always thought it was my fault.” She stared as she remembered. “But the day he almost hit Jackie, I knew it wasn’t me. It was him. There was something broken inside of him that I couldn’t fix. I had to get my boys away. I couldn’t save him, but I could save them. Louise bought bus tickets for us, only he found out.” Kelsey bit her lip, blinking hard. What was she doing? This was a stupid idea. Angrily, she pushed away from the table. Her chair clattered to the floor behind her.

“You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I deserved what I got. I asked for it, okay? Is that what you’re thinking, because you’re right. What was I thinking?” She bolted to the sink, shaking so hard she wanted to throw up.

“You’re the victim here.” His quiet statement hit a tender chord in her heart. “No one blames you. No one.”

“I blame me.” She wiped tears that couldn’t be held back. “Do you know what I hate the worst?”

“Yourself.” He was as calm as she was agitated.

“Yes. I hate me. I hate that I was such a coward.” She thumped her forehead hard into the overhead kitchen cupboard. Hot tears drenched her face, but the pain against her forehead felt deserved. The truth was she had stayed with Nick because she hoped she could change him. He’d had such a pitiful childhood that she had blinded herself to the animal he truly was. Hearing her sad story out loud only made her more aware how foolish she was. She hit her forehead harder and harder. Dishes rattled. “It’s my fault. I should’ve killed him.”

“Well, then can I teach you to shoot a gun?” His question stopped her self-abuse.

“W-what?”

She wiped her face with another fistful of tissues before she turned to face him. His invitation sounded like he would help her kill the man who had murdered her sons, but when she looked at Alex, his face was filled with tenderness. A creeping awareness tickled the back of her mind. No. This man wasn’t going to help her commit murder.

“Think about it. It might be nice to get some of your power back. It’s not like we have to blow anyone’s brains out, but we could put some more tools in your arsenal. You’ll feel better knowing you can protect yourself.” He was so matter of fact, his eyes searching hers like an intense probing spotlight looking for what? She had nothing to offer, nothing but sins she would never be able to atone for.

“But I did want to blow his brains out.”

“No, Kelsey.” Alex shook his head slowly. “I know you. You wouldn’t kill anyone. Besides, the best thing you can learn is how to defend yourself. Lots of women are expert marksmen. You’re smart. You might be surprised.”

She recognized the truth in his words. Alex was right. She couldn’t hit another person much less kill them. The false heat of her anger dissipated in the warmth of his eyes.

“Do you remember the day I got shot?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered. She couldn’t look away.

“You never even racked the slide.”

“I never what?”

“Remember the gun I gave you? It’s a semi-automatic. It was still on safety. You have to switch the safety off and rack the slide before a round enters the chamber. You couldn’t have killed anyone even if you’d tried.”

“How do you know? You were dying.”

“The sheriff told me that’s how he found my gun. He kept it for evidence.”

“But I thought I could.”

“Like I said. I know you,” he said gently. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”

She blew out a huge sigh of relief. The knowledge that she had almost killed Nick, even though he was a murderer, had tormented her. But now she wanted to know.

“Why are you doing all of this?”

He shrugged. “It’s easy to be nice to the nice.”

“No, I mean it. You’ve saved my life over and over again. Why? What do you get out of all this besides someone to walk your dogs?”