by Drake, Laura
She put focus and elbow grease in her brushstrokes. “So. You and Cam. You getting married?”
Katya had forgotten the dark side of gregarious. How to answer? No, we’re just hot for each other? Not only inappropriate, but untrue. Well, she was hot for him, but there was more. Possibly even a lot more. If they couldn’t decide what to call their relationship, how could she hope to explain it to a teenager? “Wow. You just jump in, huh?”
“Hey, how do I know if I don’t ask?”
“I guess I see that. And no, we’re not getting married. I’m not going to be on the circuit after the finals.”
“Well, that won’t be a problem. Neither is Cam.”
Darned kid and her logic. “I know you’re a junior, but what are your plans after high school? Are you going to college?”
Thank God Chrys allowed the subject change. “Cam wasn’t kidding when he said that Cassie got most of the brains. I do okay in school, but I don’t plan to put my life on hold for four years to study boring stuff.”
“So what will you do? Get a job around here?”
She dropped the rubber brush in a bucket and lifted out a metal one. “Not hardly. I’m getting the heck out of here as soon as I have my diploma.” She walked to the horse’s tail and started working on the snarls. “I’m going to see the world. I’m joining the military. I just have to decide what branch.”
“Don’t do that.” The words shot out like bullets.
Chrys stopped brushing and stared.
The last thing Katya wanted was to discuss her past, or expose the raw meat of her pain.
Yet imagining this sweet girl, in cammies, firing a weapon—being fired upon—imagining Chrys coming home with fewer arms and legs than she left with… Katya grasped the twine holding the bale together to keep from throttling the girl. “I’ve been in the service. Trust me. The place I got to see wasn’t anywhere you’d want to go.”
“What happened?”
She held Chrys’s stare, though it wasn’t easy. “I watched people I love die.”
“Oh.” Chrys ducked her head and continued brushing. “I’m sorry.”
Katya bounced a knee to burn off excess anxiety. “Did you always want to be in the military?”
“Not really. I just want to see things, experience things.” She patted the horse’s rump, walked to the opposite side, and started on its mane. “Fort Collins and this farm is all I’ve ever known. I want to see some of the world before I settle down. How do I know if this is best if I’ve never seen anything else?”
“I wanted that too, when I got out of school. It was right after nine/eleven, so the army seemed like the right way to do it.” She sighed. “Looking back now, I wish I’d joined the Peace Corps. I would have gotten to see a lot more.” She crossed her arms and thought a moment. “Hey, you know about farming, right? I’ll bet there are tons of places in Africa that would need those skills.”
Chrys stopped brushing. “Oh, Africa,” she said the words like a dieter said “éclair.”
“Think about it. You’d be helping people. I bet it would be easier to appreciate your adventure without bullets flying around.”
“I kinda like that. Thanks, Katya, I’ll Google it.” She walked around the horse and dropped the brush in the bucket. “Let me put up Twilight, and we’ll go see what everyone else is up to.”
While Chrys led her horse clopping out of the barn, Katya sat back to wait. Chrys reminded her a bit of herself at that age. Altruistic. Determined. Naïve.
So why was it okay for you to go over there and not okay for her?
We had 9/11. And I was older.
Yeah, and you knew so much more.
When did I get to be such a smartass?
You hadn’t planned on a career in the military either.
Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her wallet. She opened it, dug into a deep pocket, and slid out a photo. Her graduation from boot camp.
Trace stood, arm around a slight girl in desert fatigues. Black hair haloed her head in spite of a billed cap. Seeing the shining innocence in that huge grin, she wished she could reach back in time to that lost girl.
More than that, Katya wished she remembered who that girl was. Who was she, if not a soldier?
A Gypsy.
Yes, she’d always be that. But with Grand gone, she no longer belonged in the kumpania. Her family was the army. And her family was deployed in Kandahar.
Really? How many do you know there that are still alive?
Shut. Up.
You know there’re more kinds of family than just the army. You’ve seen it the past months. You could be a part of that.
Yeah, and while I dreamed that pretty dream, my friends were dying.
CHAPTER
25
Cam walked into the barn, temporarily blinded by the shift from blazing sun to shadow. “Katya?”
“I’m right here.” She materialized as his eyes adjusted, sitting on a hay bale. She leaned against a stall, arms crossed over her chest.
“Chrys told me you were in here.” He sat beside her. “You okay? You look pissed.”
“I’m fine. I’m just sitting here arguing with myself.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“It’s nothing I even want to think about.”
He put up his hands. “I know better than to get in between two arguing women. Did the runt show you around?”
She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Don’t you call her a runt. She’s a lovely young woman.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda fond of her myself, but don’t tell her that.” He dropped his hat in his lap, crossed an ankle over his knee and slipped an arm behind her back.
She leaned against his shoulder and they sat awhile in silence. She was one of those rare people that wore quiet well.
“What did your dad want to show you?”
“Some land. Apparently there’s a farm down the road for sale. He wants me to buy it and settle here.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got the place in Bandera. I don’t need more to look after.”
“Isn’t it just a little tempting?” She turned, a soft look in her big eyes. “Your family seems so nice and they obviously love you. Wouldn’t you like to be closer to them? Especially when you’re not on the road all the time.”
“Hang around awhile, hon. They can get overwhelming.”
She picked a piece of straw off her jeans. “Have you thought of what it will be like, after the finals?”
Hell, have I thought of anything else?
“After all these years, it must feel kind of like leaving your family.”
The future yawned, a black, bottomless chasm. He did not want to talk about this. “They’ll still be my friends. We’ll stay in touch.”
“Have you given any more thought to being a coach?”
“Yeah I have. I’m still thinking.” He had the knowledge. He had the skill. What he wasn’t sure of was if he had the patience. But if not that, what? His brain fired up the same old songs it had run on for months. His stomach brought the acid to the party. He was so tired of this dance. “Have you ever ridden a tractor?”
She shook her head.
“Well, lady, this may just be your lucky day.”
After the dinner dishes were cleared and everyone sat drinking coffee at the dining table, Chrys got out the family photo albums to show Katya while Nellie told stories.
Cam was right. This was my lucky day.
“So I’m frantically looking for Cam and I finally find him standing in the middle of the sheep pen, filthy, his mouth smeared with mud. He tells me he’s been eating M&M’s which turned out to be sheep droppings!”
Cam dropped his head onto the table as everyone else laughed.
“It’s funny now, but at the time I was so worried that I called poison control. They had a good laugh. Said it was one of the most unusual calls they’d ever gotten.”
Chrys choke
d out, “Ugh, Katya, you’ve kissed those lips! How old were you, Cam, fifteen?”
“Give me a break, I was two. And if you start with the prom story, I’m leaving.” He glared at his mother. “I mean it.”
Smiling, Katya thumbed through pictures of the Cahills growing up: Cam showing sheep, Carrie barrel racing, Cassie with a blue ribbon from the science fair, Chrys under a tinseled Christmas tree, sans front teeth. She watched the progression of Nellie and Roy from a young couple to parents, aging, graying, smiling. She closed the book.
This is what a full life looks like. A melancholy bubble formed in her chest and she swallowed to keep it in. The army might be family, but it wasn’t one that would end in her sitting around a table like this, reminiscing with her children.
Children. She wanted children. A girl like Chrys, so full of life she was bursting with it. A sweet-faced boy, like the towhead in the album.
Another sweet dream.
Dan, his expression sober, tapped a spoon to his coffee cup. “Now that Cam’s home and we’re all together, Carrie and I need to talk to you all.”
Carrie looked at her hands in her lap and bit her lips.
The table went silent, though Katya could almost hear the crackle in the tense undercurrent.
“Well, spit it out,” Roy said, his eyes on his wife. “You’re worrying your mother.”
Dan took Carrie’s hand and his lips twitched. “We’re going to have a baby!”
Carrie looked up, a huge smile on her face. “Finally! Can you believe it?”
“Aiiieeee!” Nellie was on her feet, hands over her mouth. Her husband stood, slipping an arm around her shoulder to support her.
Chrys squealed and ran to hug her sister. Cassie stretched an arm across the table to grab Carrie’s hand.
They all started talking at once.
Cam stood and strode to pump Dan’s hand. “Well it’s about time. I was starting to think we’d need to bring in a new bull!” He clapped him on the back.
The melancholy bubble ascended from Katya’s chest to her mind. She brushed away a stupid tear then struggled to keep the rest of them in.
Dreams just aren’t enough.
Two days later, Cam lounged in a low chair on the front porch, watching the girls play lawn darts. The setting sun reflected the gold in his sisters’ hair, in their skin, in the wheat across the road. In contrast, Katya seemed to absorb the light. Wild dark hair framed her exotic face, setting off her dusky skin and almond-shaped eyes.
Bringing Katya home had been a great idea and a bad one, all at the same time. In spite of her differences, or maybe because of them, the girls took to her. She seemed to enjoy seeing their world and they seemed to genuinely like Katya.
Well, the jury was still out with Carrie, but she’d always been overprotective of those she loved. It would make her a fine mother.
He watched Katya throw a dart and completely miss the plastic ring in the grass. Laughing, she put her hands over her mouth. Chrys, her teammate, shouted encouragement from the sideline.
His chest tightened. The past days, longing had grown to a huge snake in his chest, writhing and wrenching at the peace he’d always found in his childhood home. Its restless movement kept him up nights, walking the fields to a chorus of coyote hunt songs.
He’d brought Katya to show her what was possible: a strong family, a good country life, children. He hadn’t realized that seeing her here would make it so much harder for him. He could very easily imagine what a life with her would be like. If she decided to return to the army after this, it would tear him up. Bad.
The screen door flapped, and his mother stepped onto the porch. She lowered herself into the chair next to him. “If your expression is any guide, your thoughts are not happy, my son.”
“I’m fine, Grandma, how are you?”
“I’m content. You know, everyone talks about how awful it is to get older. Not me. I love watching my kids turn into amazing adults, marrying, having babies.” His mother watched the girls play, a soft smile on her face. “There’s a lot to be said for mellowing.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“You always were my driven one, barely finishing one challenge before jumping into the next.”
“It’s what I’m good at.” He watched Katya contemplating her next throw like an Olympian before a high jump. “But what good is drive, when it won’t get you what you want most?”
“Oh, Cam.” She reached out and patted his hand on the arm of the chair. “Sometimes instead of hunting down what you want, you have to wait and let it come to you.”
He squirmed in his chair, trying to get comfortable. “I don’t have that skill!”
“I know.” She made a noise like a laugh, except it didn’t sound happy. “Once you retire from the circuit, you may find need of all kinds of new skills.”
“Great, just when I get something mastered, I have to move on to where I don’t know the rules, and have no map to follow.”
“From what you’ve told me, isn’t that how Katya was when she started on the circuit?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way. You’re right.” Katya pumped a fist in the air when she scored a bull’s eye. “Only she’s a lot braver than I am.”
“Sounds like you’ve found a teacher for some of those skills you’re going to need, son.”
CHAPTER
26
Katya walked carefully through the uneven grass, trying not to spill a full glass of lemonade. Where had the week gone? Her anxious arrival at the airport felt like months ago, yet they’d be returning there tomorrow for their flight to Texas.
Reaching the fence, she balanced the glass on top and watched Carrie, in the center of the corral, talking to a young girl on a tricolored horse.
Cam’s family had taken her in and made her feel so at home that she could actually envision belonging here someday. Someday? Had she really just thought that?
Well, maybe I could.
Maybe had been her word of the week.
Maybe after I get back from Kandahar…
Maybe Cam will wait…
Maybe-he-could-buy-the-farm-next-door-and-have-our-kids’-grandparents-nearby. She thought it fast, as if then it wouldn’t count as a real thought.
She shook her head. Dr. Heinz would be proud.
Away from the distraction and worry of her job, her future stepped to the front of her mind. Six months ago, that future was career army. Now, without her realizing it, the past months of pain, emotion, and discovery had scratched like sandpaper, wearing away the hard shell of a soldier. Just this week, she realized she was clinging to a persona that was crumbling away beneath her fingers.
The surprise had been what was revealed beneath. A softer woman. A traditional woman, who wanted nothing more of life than a mate, and some land. And children.
A family.
She still had a duty. After this week, she was clear what that was. She’d enlisted to protect places like this. Ways of life like this. So had Murphy. So had Carol. She owed it to them to finish what they’d all started. Less than two years left on her stint. She’d finish it for them and maybe then she could mark “paid” to the heavy chit she’d been carrying in her conscience. There was enough of her old shell remaining to soldier on for that long.
That decision felt right, as if one more tumbler clicked home in the brain-lock she’d fumbled over since the explosion.
Then, maybe she could come home—to a real home—with a man, for always. She sighed. Such a pretty dream. It would sustain her in the desert.
“Okay, that’s enough for today.” Carrie patted the horse’s neck. “You two did well. Be sure Bandit is completely cool before you put him up.”
When the girl nudged her mount to the gate, Carrie walked to the fence.
Katya held out the glass. “Your mother asked me to bring this out to you. She used vitamin-fortified water.”
Carrie rolled her eyes. “If it were up to my husband and my m
other, I’d be living in a glass bubble for nine months. How have I managed my whole life without them watching me every second?”
Katya handed her the glass. “I think it’s sweet.”
“It’s just hard to have limitations imposed by others.” Carrie took a sip.
Katya watched the tractor growling over the field past the corral. She couldn’t see inside the cab, but she knew Cam was driving. “I think you’re amazingly lucky.”
“I am. My family means more to me than anything.” She flipped her long hair over her shoulder and regarded Katya. “Can we talk?”
Here we go. She’d known from the first night at the airport this was coming. She straightened. “Somehow I don’t think I could keep you from it.”
“I know you think I don’t like you, but you’re wrong. I can see you and Cam are good together.” She glanced across the fields. “My brother is different now. There’s easiness around his eyes and a bit of slack in his jaw that I’ve never seen there. It’s as if he’s easier in his own skin.” Her pale eyebrows pulled together.
The muscles in Katya’s core snapped taut. There’s a “but” coming.
“But know this.” Carrie handed over her half-full glass and ducked under the fence slat. When she straightened, she stood in Katya’s personal space. “My brother is a swan… he mates for life.” She retrieved her glass. “Do not mess with him if you’re not serious.”
Mate? She put up her hands as if to ward off Carrie’s impression. “Hang on a minute—”
“Oh, I’m sure he told you that you coming home with him wasn’t a big deal.” She pulled her gloves off, one finger at a time. “I’m sure he was convincing and you had no reason to doubt him.” She looked up, and squinted as the sun came from behind a cloud. “But you’re the first woman he’s ever brought home to us.”
What? He’d been so nonchalant. Said it wasn’t a “Meet the Parents.” Could she have completely mistaken his intent? Hot blood thundered up her neck to flood her face. “Candi—”
“Oh, he brought her here. After they were married. That was the first we knew of her.” She glanced to where the tractor made its way down a furrowed hill. “That told us a lot about their relationship. It was no surprise to me when he told us she was pregnant. Or later, when it turned out she wasn’t.” She turned back and studied Katya for a long moment. “Has he told you yet?”
