Merline Lovelace – Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover (страница 26)
Connie replaced the receiver and found Ethan watching her. “Everything’s all right.”
He nodded, saying nothing, returning his attention to his plate as if wishing to give her a moment of privacy, one she seemed to need.
Looking at her hands, she realized she was shaking. Not good. She stuffed them in the pockets of her robe and returned to the table, trying to act as if everything hadn’t all just come crashing back.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
She bit her lip. “I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“Leo made me feel as if I needed to apologize for everything. I’m still doing it.”
He nodded, pushing his plate to one side. Hardly a crumb remained. “That’s a damn shame, because I can’t see anything you need to apologize for. Not one thing.”
“I’ve been working on that,” she admitted. “My mother hates it when I keep on apologizing.”
“I don’t hate it,” he replied, “but I think it’s sad you feel that way.”
“Maybe it’s more habit than anything.”
“Maybe.”
She watched as he rose and took care of the dishes, washing them and putting them in the rack. Then he put the pie away and wiped the table down. She supposed it was his military training, but she liked it. Leo had never done anything like that in the whole time she’d lived with him.
Together they climbed the stairs and returned to her bedroom, where they lay in the dark, embracing. The sexual fever had passed for now, replaced by an equally urgent need for comfort and closeness.
“I’ve been alone for too long,” he said quietly. She could feel his voice rumble deep in his chest.
“Even with your buddies?”
“That’s different. That’s an intense community. We depend on each other for our very lives. But it’s different.”
She gave him a little squeeze and waited for him to continue.
“There’s a special bond,” he continued slowly, then cleared his throat, as if he were finding it difficult to speak. “You know your buddies always have your back. You know you always have theirs. I don’t know if I can really explain it. But it’s like many have said, when you’re in the foxhole, you’re not fighting for principles, country or any such abstract thing, you’re fighting for the guy next to you.”
“I can understand that,” she murmured.
“But there’s something more. We were dedicated to something, Connie. Something bigger than us. Something we were willing to die for. And it wasn’t just the guy beside us who depended on us. It was—this is going to sound nuts, given all that’s happened—we were dedicated to helping those people in every way we could. We didn’t want to abandon them to the darkness again. We wanted to save lives, improve lives, make sure little girls could go to school, and that babies didn’t die needlessly of treatable diseases. We wanted to get rid of all the threats.”
“Yes.”
“The horrible thing about it is, no matter how much good you try to do, you create more ugliness at the same time.”
“That must be awful.”
“It is. It was better in Afghanistan, actually. In Iraq, everything was all blurred. But when I got to Afghanistan, it was clearer, believe it or not.”
“I can believe it. Iraq turned into such a mess.”
“Yeah. It’s horrifying. There wasn’t anybody in uniform who didn’t want to make life better for those people. Not a one of us. But it turned out to be like opening Pandora’s box.
“In Afghanistan, though, it’s clearer. A lot of people just want us to go away. But a lot want us to put an end to the Taliban. I don’t think they care much one way or another about al Qaeda, but the Taliban...there’s still a lot of anger against them. And every time they raid a village and destroy a girls’ school, it’s amazing to watch the village elders get together to rebuild it.”
“Do they ask you for help?”
“Sometimes. We’re still occupiers.”
“It’s sad.”
“What?”
She tried to see his face in the dark but couldn’t. “It’s sad that trying to help has hurt so many.”
“I know. And I don’t blame the locals for having mixed feelings about us. How could I? Most of us understand how we’d feel if a firebase run by some other country was up the road from us.”
She sighed and moved closer. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I volunteered. And I learned a lot.”
“But now you’re cut off from your mission and your buddies.”
“That hits the nail on the head.”
“Basically, you have to start all over.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “You did it, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t exactly the same.”
“Emotionally it’s exactly the same. You gave up all your buddies in the Denver police, all your friends, and vanished into a different world to protect your daughter. The only differences between us are in degree and the idea of choice. I didn’t choose to leave.”
“I’m not sure I did, either.” She shook her head and pressed her face into his chest. “I had no choice, not once I felt my baby was threatened.”
He squeezed her. “We’ll take care of her, Connie, I swear. Nothing’s going to happen to her.”
All of sudden she couldn’t hold still. She pulled away and left the bed, throwing on her robe against the deepening chill and pacing.
“What could he want with her, Ethan? What could he possibly want with her after all this time?”
The words emerged as a cry from the abyss of fear inside her.
“I don’t know,” he said heavily. “I wish to God I did.”
They picked up Sophie from Jody’s house around eight. Connie had the day off, because Gage always gave her weekends off to be with her daughter. It was one of the perks of being on a small force; personal needs could be taken into account.
Sophie looked at them sleepily from puffy eyes. Enid said the girls hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly six. But when Ethan suggested they go to Maude’s for breakfast, Sophie perked up. She liked steak and eggs, and didn’t get them often, usually because Connie needed to watch her budget.
A crowd filled Maude’s, as it usually did on Saturday mornings. Lots of folks came in from surrounding ranches to take care of business in town, and the City Diner usually topped the list of places to go. Still, they found a booth near the back, and Sophie surprised Connie by squeezing onto the bench beside Ethan, instead of sitting next to her.
One of those unexpected pangs hit Connie as she wondered how much Sophie missed having a father figure in her life. Probably a whole lot. And while Leo could never have been a decent one, not given his violent nature, that didn’t mean Sophie didn’t need a dad.
But dads didn’t grow on trees. She couldn’t just go out and pluck one from a branch somewhere and bring him home. Nor could she risk bringing home the wrong man.
There it was again, her fear of making another bad character judgment.
Somewhere in the midst of steak, eggs and English muffins with jam, the bomb dropped.
Sophie looked at her mother and asked, “Where’s my daddy?”
All of sudden Connie felt light-headed and faint. Her mind seemed to have flung itself somewhere far away, divorcing itself from her body, leaving her with tunnel vision. Distantly, she knew that Sophie was still staring at her, waiting.
Now she understood why Sophie had chosen to sit beside Ethan and not her. Her heart slammed, dragging her back to the table and out of complete shock.
“I’m not sure where your father is,” she said finally, hoping her voice sounded steadier to Sophie than it did to her.
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“Why?”
So that was the way it was going to be. Connie drew a long breath. “This isn’t a good place to discuss this, Sophie. Can you wait until we go home after breakfast?”