On Lavender Lane (25 page)

“As you said, you had your own problems to deal with. But yes, he hurt me. He broke my heart.”

“But you got over it.”

“Do you mean, did I allow myself to care for another man again? Yes, I did. And look how well that turned out.”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to make a mistake and choose the wrong man.”

“True. And, unfortunately, I won’t be the last. But, although I did manage to move on with my life, whenever I’ve thought of Lucas over the years, I’ve always hated him with the heat of a thousand suns.”

“And now?”

“I want to,” Madeline admitted. “But not only does Gram seem to like him, and he’s admittedly being a big help with her new plan, it’s also proving hard to hate a guy whose dad just died. Especially since, other than those few holidays he’d spend with his mom in Colorado every year, his dad was essentially the only family he had left.”

“I can’t imagine how I’d react if anything happened to
Trey, so I’m trying not to judge Lucas’ mother. But having your mom desert what’s left of the family, after all that happened to them, had to leave scars.”

Kara sighed. “Anyway, I was thinking last night, watching Lucas behaving as if he’d just slid back into life here as a laid-back summer guy, that perhaps you’re not getting the entire picture of what he’s been through since you two broke up. And what he’s experienced that’s made him change.”

“Does he know you’re having this conversation?”

“I offered to speak to you,” Kara allowed. “But I didn’t tell him what, particularly, I’m going to share, because like so many vets, he’s been closemouthed about his war days. Which makes total sense, because SEAL missions are secret to begin with. But Sax had more problems than Lucas is displaying, so he did tell me some things that he gave me permission to share with you.”

Her somber tone had Madeline digging back into the cheesecake. “Are you sure we have enough chocolate for this discussion?”

“It’s not an easy one. But I’ve decided since Lucas seems to be serious about winning you back, it’s important. Because, as much as I care for him, I also wouldn’t want you entering into a relationship without knowing some background.”

“Which should be his to tell.”

“True.” It was Kara’s turn to take a big piece of the cake. “But put yourself in his place. If you were in love with someone and trying to convince them to give you a chance to show how right the two of you would be together, would you start out by sharing some of the darkest moments of your life with them?”

“Of course not. But eventually I would.”

“When you felt safer.”

“When I felt safer,” Madeline agreed, finding it a little surprising that for all his swagger, Lucas might not feel comfortable around her.

“It’s probably the smart thing to do. But here’s the thing: I was watching him joking and playing around with the dogs and Trey, Angel, and Johnny last night, and I came to the conclusion that he’s holding back because he doesn’t want his friends to worry about him.”

“Which you do.”

“I worry because I know that he’d have to be superhuman not to have some unresolved issues, and I worry that ignoring them so he can concentrate on you might put him at more risk for PTSD-related problems.”

“Surely not everyone who returns home from a war suffers from PTSD,” Madeline said.

“No. Of course not. But Sax does a lot of advocacy work with veterans’ groups, and a recent study suggests that twenty percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have PTSD. Though even one would be too many.”

“I suggested he might have problems to Gram. But she wasn’t worried.”

“Neither am I, really. Though I do suspect that part of the reason Duncan Chaffee decided to retire when he did was because he’d begun to get worried about Lucas. Sax said his e-mails were sounding more guarded. And the fact that he wasn’t sharing stuff the way he always had suggested he was having more and more trouble dealing with it. Especially when you think about it, a SEAL medic isn’t exactly called upon to do his work when things are going well.…

“But they’re doing better testing on returning troops, and forcing them to take a decompression time before getting out, so that’s encouraging. Plus, he has a great, close support base with Cole and Sax and now Gabe. And Sax’s dad served in Vietnam, so he’s another resource.”

“And then there’s Scout,” Madeline suggested.

“Absolutely. That dog’s proving to be a big help. Especially since she needs Lucas’ help with her own problems. So I don’t think you need to be concerned about him going off and doing anything dangerous.

“The reason I wanted to talk with you is that I suspect he’s going to go overboard trying to prove to you how normal he is. Which means that you might not really get a handle on how much he’s changed since that twenty-year-old college sophomore who broke your heart.”

“I guess everyone knows about that?” Madeline was getting used to the idea that no one anywhere had a private life anymore.

“Not everyone. But you know how small towns are.” Kara shrugged. “Everyone pretty much lives in everyone else’s pockets. Which has both its good and negative points.

“Getting back to Lucas. Of course, I have no way of knowing most of what he’s experienced. But Sax did tell me about a time when they were on a mission in the Afghan mountains. Apparently, it was a ridiculously risky operation. Since they’d gotten delayed for various reasons, if they’d landed in the planned location, they would have been climbing the mountain in the dark.

“So, rather than delay the mission—which was to take out an al-Qaeda stronghold—overnight, the command decided they’d land on the top of the mountain. In the dark.”

“Which had to be riskier,” Madeline suggested, shivering beneath her pretty new cardigan as she imagined a moonless sky and the wind wailing through the desolate mountaintops. She’d always thought she was tough. Not only had she survived her parents dying suddenly, but she’d had her heart broken, toured Europe while still a teenager, and then established a career in the testosterone-driven culinary world.

But she could not imagine doing what Kara had just described.

“Lucas was the medic on the Chinook. Which also included, along with the SEAL team, Marines, Rangers, and some CIA operatives. Oh, and an Air Force Special Forces guy and the Army SOAR pilot. SOAR’s like special forces, so we’re talking a very elite team.

“Sax told me that Lucas was the most amazing special-ops guy he’d ever teamed up with. If there was any army, anywhere in the world, that had better equipment or drugs than the U.S. Army did, Lucas would track it down and make sure he had it in his overloaded Mike bag.”

Cooking had a language all his own. But hearing Kara use a military term for what she guessed must be a medical supply kit, had Madeline thinking, as she suspected the other woman wanted her to, what a different life he’d been living these past ten years.

“Anyway, the Chinook was shot down. And although the safer thing would’ve been to stay on board until a rescue copter could come in, there were terrorists on the ground shooting at it, plus it started to catch fire.”

She briefly closed her eyes and shook her head in a way that had Madeline suspecting that Sax had given her more details. And that they were very, very bad.

“The first firefight, as they evacuated the Chinook, lasted nearly thirty minutes. The Rangers, because of some stupid ‘Lead the way’ creed, charged off the copter, blasting away, as Sax described to me, like they were reenacting the shoot-out at the OK Corral. Unfortunately, they ran straight into a barrage of bullets, grenades, and RPGs that were pouring in at them from a camouflaged bunker they hadn’t been able to see from the air.”

“Oh, my God.” Madeline’s blood chilled.

“It got worse when the Marines followed. Sax said that if they’d been on Omaha Beach instead of a snowy Afghan mountain, it would have looked like the opening scene of
Saving Private Ryan
.”

“I hated that movie.”

“You’re not alone there. Naturally, they called for an evacuation, but since they were just a small cog in a larger wheel, the commanders decided that to try to get another copter into a hot zone would be unsafe and unsound.”

“You’re kidding.” Madeline waved away that question.
“Never mind. It was rhetorical. So, they left the survivors up there? All alone?”

In the dark? And the cold? In one of the most dangerous places on the planet?

“They dragged the wounded into the bunker after clearing it out.” Madeline knew that couldn’t have been as simple as it sounded. She’d seen enough war movies to imagine the shouting, the shooting, the blood. “Then they hunkered down for the night.

“Of course, when the sun came up—and Sax said it was appropriately bloodred—they realized that they were sitting ducks if they stayed there. But they were also in the midst of a blizzard, and since the pilot was badly injured, taking him out of the bunker would risk him dying of hypothermia. Unfortunately, once again command wouldn’t send another Chinook into that spot until nightfall, and Lucas determined the pilot wouldn’t last the night.”

“So what did they do?”

It was strange, Madeline thought. Like watching a movie or reading a novel. She found it nearly impossible to think that the young man who’d bought her taffy then kissed her at the seawall, who’d made love to her in a cave that sparkled like diamonds, and even had flirted with her in her grandmother’s kitchen could have experienced anything like this. Not just the battle and the snow and the danger. But the immense responsibility he’d taken onto his shoulders.

Kara had mentioned wounded. Which meant more than merely the pilot. And it had been up to him and his Mike bag to keep them all alive. What were the odds of everyone surviving?

“A CIA guy who’d come along on the mission knew about a medical relief camp that had been set up after a recent earthquake. To get there would take four to five hours. Straight up.”

“And straight into enemy territory,” Madeline guessed.
When she realized she was holding her breath, she had to remind herself that Lucas had obviously survived the mission or he wouldn’t be here in Shelter Bay. As had Sax.

“Worse yet, the camp was on the Pakistan side of the border.”

“Were they even allowed to go there?”

“Not then. The rules of engagement were changed later, but at the time, if they crossed the border, they’d be risking headlines, congressional hearings, and court-martials. And if that wasn’t bad enough, as you pointed out, the al-Qaeda and Taliban holed up all over the mountains weren’t all that hospitable to outsiders.”

“Especially ones wearing the uniform of the U.S. military.” Madeline took another big bite of cheesecake.

“Especially. Sax said it was a classic military catch-22—that by trying to save the life of the pilot who’d saved theirs with what he said was a near-miraculous landing, they could end up getting him, along with the rest of the survivors, all beheaded on Arabic television.”

“But they went for it.”
Of course they did.

“They didn’t hesitate. Lucas triaged the guys who’d be okay to stay behind; then they got the few Rangers who remained behind to pull the wounded up the mountain on SKEDs—that’s like a stretcher on skis. Lucas managed to keep the pilot alive the entire time, despite what Sax said involved many more firefights even worse than the first—though, blessedly, he didn’t describe it in detail.”

“Dammit.” Madeline pressed her fingers against her temples. “Of course Lucas kept him alive. Because that’s what he does. He takes care of people.”

“Like he was trying to take care of you that summer,” Kara guessed what had just dawned on Madeline. “I realize how you might think he was trying to control your behavior, and yes, he was. But he really was trying to do what he thought was best for you. In his stupid guy way.”

“I hate this,” Madeline muttered. “I hate that he’s spent
the past ten years in war zones. And I also hate that now I’m going to have to apologize for hitting him.”

Kara’s brows rose. “You hit him?”

“Well, I didn’t slug him. But I did slap him.” She held up a hand, forestalling any comment. “And I know it’s a cliché.” She sighed. “But I was so damn mad that he thought he had any right to take away my choices back then. Then Scout got horribly scared because I guess the slap sounded like gunfire—”

“And she hit the floor.”

“Actually, she hit the floor, then crawled beneath the table.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kara laughed. “For someone who probably came back to town for some much-needed R and R, you’ve certainly landed yourself in a lot of activity.”

“Tell me about it.” Madeline pressed the tines of her fork on the now nearly empty plate, picking up the last of the Oreo crumb crust.

30

After all Kara had shared, Madeline wasn’t prepared to meet with Lucas this afternoon. Not until she had time to think about what he’d been through. Process the changes in the boy she’d known back then and the man he’d become. She called the cell number he’d given her, only to be put into voice mail. Which suited her fine, since, if she were to be perfectly honest with herself, she’d have to admit that he was a difficult man to say no to.

After leaving a message to put off the meeting until tomorrow, she called her grandmother so Sofia wouldn’t worry, and told her that she was going to take a little drive along the coast road to clear her head.

“Your husband called looking for you,” Sofia said, her voice dripping with vinegar. “I told him I had no idea where you were. Which just happened to be the truth, since I didn’t know if you were still at the Sea Mist. Or perhaps with someone else.”

Someone
meaning Lucas.

“The meal part of lunch was cut short,” Madeline said. “Charity had surgery. But Kara and I stayed and talked. Caught up on what’s been happening since we last saw each other.”

Which wasn’t precisely what the conversation had revolved around. But close enough.

“How nice for you. Kara’s such a lovely young woman.
And she seems to have settled into her father’s sheriff’s role as if it were created for her. She’s also a wonderful mother. And, of course, you nearly have to wear sunglasses whenever you’re around her and Sax Douchett. There’s just the brightest aura around them.”