by Ruth Wind
She was wiping off the stove and thinking gratefully of her bed when Manuelito jumped up and started barking furiously at the back door. Startled, Ramona looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly eleven. Who could be out there? Quickly, she went to get her gun and cocked it. The other two dogs took up the intruder alert, and Ramona waited, rifle at the ready.
When the knock sounded on her back door, she nearly swallowed her tongue. She’d been half hoping it was a bear or some other mountain creature making its way over her property, but no animal knocked.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“Me, Ramona. Jake.”
She flung open the door with equal portions of relief and irritation. “This is the second time you’ve nearly gotten yourself shot. Have you ever heard of a phone?” He simply stood there, framed by the screen door, his dark hair damp and brushed back from his face, his hands loosely tucked in his pockets. Ramona finally registered the utter misery that shadowed his blue eyes. “God, Jake, what is it?”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” She pushed open the wooden screen. “Are you all right?”
He came into the kitchen, not taking his hands out of his pockets, and turned to face her. The hollows under his eyes were deep and dark, and his jaw had that gaunt look of sorrow. He hadn’t looked this haunted since the first time she saw him at the wedding. “No,” he said finally. “I’m not all right.”
She smelled the Scotch on his breath. “Sit down. I’ll make you some coffee.”
“I don’t want coffee.”
Ramona halted. “What do you want?”
He closed his eyes, and it made him look unbearably weary. He seemed to sway on his feet, and she wondered just how much he’d had to drink. Quite a bit. Putting the gun away on its rack, she moved around him to the sink. Water would be best under the circumstances. Plain old water to wash the poisons out of his system.
Gently, she put her hands on his shoulders, intending to steer him to a chair. But he grabbed her fingers and kissed them, and Ramona was—for a moment—lost. “Ramona...” He cursed softly, profanely. “I can’t stop thinking. I can’t turn it off. It’s killing me.”
“What is, Jake? Tell me about it.”
He lowered his head, closed his eyes as if to shut out the visions that tormented him. “There’s no peace, is there? Not anywhere.” His voice was ragged.
And Ramona, who’d been tending strays and patching up soldiers for most of her life, could do nothing but reach for him. He swayed forward dangerously, his hands catching around her waist, his head falling to her shoulder.
“There is peace, Jake,” she whispered. “Right here. Right now.” She put her hand against his hair, stroking it to soothe him. Against her body, she could feel the bonedeep trembling of a man resisting his pain. “Let it go, Jake. Let go of that pain.”
He only moaned, a quiet howl of grief, and his fingers dug into her side as he pressed his face harder into her neck. “I want to be in you, Ramona,” he said.
Now it was her turn to close her eyes. To resist. His soul was bleeding, and so was his heart, and he needed her. She ached to give him what he thought he wanted, but her instincts told her it would be wrong. “No, Jake. Not like this. Not drunk.”
He lifted his head, and in his eyes she saw he was lost in a wilderness of pain and bewilderment. “Then just let me hold you.” As if his head were too heavy to hold up, he lowered it slowly, putting his forehead against hers. “Please.”
In that single instant, Ramona knew it was too late for her. She wasn’t falling in love; she’d already fallen. All the way. Way, way over her head. In this tortured man who had nothing to give her, she had found the one man she wanted for all time. It wasn’t logical or reasonable or even possible, but the fact remained. She loved him.
And because she did, she cupped his cheek tenderly with her hand. “All right,” she whispered. “Come lie down with me.”
She led Jake to her bedroom, redolent still of patchouli and roses from her bath. He sank onto the bed and kicked off his shoes, then lay down in all his clothes. Ramona turned off the light and went to stretch out next to him, leaving on her robe. She covered them both with the quilt. Jake put his arms around her, pulling her tightly into his embrace. Ramona nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder and put her hand on his chest, over his heart.
In moments, he was sound asleep. And Ramona, pierced, lay a long time in the darkness listening to his heart beat and his breath move in and out of his lungs before she, too, fell prey to her exhaustion and slept.
Chapter 14
In his dream, it was bright and hot. A furnace blast of wind, eternally laden with sand, tossed grit in his face. Mirages shimmered on the horizon and mingled with the black smoke from burning oil wells. Jake sat, his gun on his knees, and viewed the scene with a vast sense of hopelessness. They had been victorious. They had vanquished the invaders and freed the beleaguered people of Kuwait.
But the grit battered his sunburned face, stinging like biting gnats, and the air stank of death. and oil and he wished only to be somewhere far, far away. He hated himself for it, but he also knew he wasn’t alone. They all wanted to escape.
Into the quiet came a cry. Thin and weak, but distinctly a cry of pain.
And then in his dream, his hand was clasped tightly around the small, dirty hand of a child, and an agonized sound of unimaginable pain ripped through the blinding desert noon, ceaseless and excruciating.
As he had a thousand times, Jake started awake, half-sitting up with a cry on his own lips, a hand tightly wrapped in his own, horror in his throat and belly, torn by an anguish he could never escape.
This time, he was not alone. This time, a woman’s soft form flowed around him, smelling of soap and sweetness and honor, her hair a gliding silkiness brushing his arms, her breasts full and giving against his arm. “Shh,” she whispered, and stroked his brow. “Shh. I’m here. It was only a dream.”
Her hand was cool against his forehead, her body a comfort he could never have imagined. Jake pulled her close to him, tucked her next to his heart and let himself be soothed, let the trembling seep away, let the horror glide on flapping bat wings into another man’s dream.
A miracle. A miracle. He breathed the word as she stroked his head and his temples, and somehow, somehow, he drifted away into sleep again.
A miracle.
There was light in the room the next time he awakened, and Jake was alone. Disoriented and dry mouthed from the copious amount of Scotch he’d consumed, he was lying in a four-poster. A Siamese cat with a white mustache was curled next to his head on the pillow, shifting only a little when Jake moved his head to look at her. “Did I take your place, sweetie?”
He felt a stab of guilt. Mr. E had been alone all night. Jake had fed him before going to the VA home, but he had probably been lonely.
Through the open door of the room, Jake heard Ramona humming and the faint clink of utensils. The smell of coffee and something cooking wafted into the room, and the combination struck him as powerfully harmonious. Comforting. Of course she would hum when she cooked. Of course she would cook a breakfast. Of course she would have a bed like this enormous four-poster with its patchwork quilt and a big fern hanging in front of the window. Of course the walls would be polished pine, and the artwork scenes of gardens and nature that soothed the eye and the spirit
Slowly, he sat up, amazed to find his head wasn’t too bad. His mouth felt like a sewer, and he didn’t like to think of his appearance, but maybe the morning wouldn’t be so bad. As he stood up, he had the sense that something terrible had happened and he tried to remember what it was. Why he was in Ramona’s house at all this morning—
It rushed back, the terrible story Harry had told him. Stunned all over again, Jake sank back onto the bed. He bowed his head, fighting the new rage the memory brought, the rage that made him wish to be armed with his rifle.
In the kitchen, Ramona’s humming becam
e a song. It was a beautiful sound. Her voice was a surprisingly strong soprano, the song something exotic and lilting. Maybe a folk song.
He lifted his head. He looked again at the bed. At the picture of a purply red geranium in the rain that hung over the trunk in the corner. He inhaled the aromas of coffee and soap and the meaty smell of cooking. And remembered her holding him in the night, taking him to her bed with a heart full of love and trust.
How had she done it? How had she weathered such a monstrous act? Urgently, he stood up again, meaning to go in and ask her, then he stopped. Instead, he went to the bathroom first and washed his face. He heard her song coming closer and then her gentle knock on the door. “There’s a toothbrush in the linen closet. Towels, too, if you want a shower.”
Suddenly, he did. He wanted to wash away the howling of the night before, the shame of coming to her in his pain when she had borne so much herself. He wanted to wash away four years of cowardice and be the man he once had been, that strong, proud soldier who might have—
Standing under the spray, he left the thought unfinished. Might have what? Saved her? Protected her? Wreaked vengeance?
All of it. For his whole life, he had believed a soldier did just that. Noble things. Good things. Made the world safe for women like Ramona, for boys like Curtis and Cody, for the innocent and helpless. Soldiers were heroes who fought and got bloody and died so no one else would have to. And it was all such a lie. There was no such thing as a hero. No such thing as keeping anyone safe.
It made him breathless with sorrow. He put his head against the cool tile and forced himself to take in a deep breath, to suck it all the way to the bottom of his lungs. One thing he could do for Ramona was stop hassling her, dumping his pain on her. Stop making an ass of himself with drink and reckless driving, or at least do it where she wouldn’t see him.
Carefully, he combed his hair, realizing it was way past his collar. In a fit of self-loathing, he stared at his face, at the yellowing bruises, his unshaven jaw, his hollow eyes. He looked like he was dying. Maybe he was.
Before he opened the door, he halted and squared his shoulders. Show time, as Bob Fosse always said. One thing he would not do again was burden Ramona Hardy. Not for another single second.
She was stirring something in a big cast-iron pan on the stove when he came in. She still wore her robe, but she’d pulled back her hair from her face. The light was dim and cool, and he realized it was raining, giving a musical undertone to the morning.
Against the tumble of plants and the quiet light, Ramona looked like one of her pictures—fertile and motherly and sensual and beautiful. Halted in the doorway, Jake could only look at her, feeling helplessly ensnared as desire washed over him, filling his every cell with a potent, powerful yearning.
She glanced up and smiled. “Good morning.”
He swallowed and stepped into the room, almost dizzy. “I’m not drunk anymore,” he said.
Carefully, she put down the big spoon she was using. “I can see that.”
He crossed the floor in his bare feet and stopped in front of her, lifting his hands to put them around her face. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, gazing deeply into her velvety brown eyes. He smoothed her hair from her face. “So sweet.”
She looked at him wordlessly, her hands on either side bracing her against the counter,
“Last night,” he said quietly, “Harry told me what happened to you.” He paused. “He told me about the rape.”
Disappointment washed over her face, disappointment and something else, maybe despair or sorrow. “And so you came here to ask me about it.”
“No. No. I don’t remember why I came here.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I was so angry, thinking of it. I can’t even breathe whenever I let it come back into my mind. I wish that hadn’t happened to you.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “So do I.”
And now a hundred questions did crowd into his mind. A thousand. He grabbed the first one. “How can you be the way you are after something like that?”
“How am I, Jake?” For the first time since he’d met her, there was an edge to her words, a hardness in her face. “What exactly do you mean?”
He hated himself for doing this, but he ached to know the answers. “You’re one of the most sensual women I’ve ever known. You make sex feel like a joy. How can you be so free?”
She lifted her eyes, and Jake glimpsed the wariness she tried to keep hidden, the core of strength and courage deep within her. He saw the fierce stubbornness of a survivor. “Those boys...” she began, then stopped. Taking a breath, she tried again. “Those boys took a lot from me. They stole my innocence, and for a long time, my ability to trust. I was afraid all the time, I couldn’t focus and I had nightmares.” She swallowed. “I still have nightmares. I still have scars on my body. I won’t ever be able to put on a pair of cross-country skis again.” She smiled bitterly. “My hands shake so badly I can’t fasten my buckles.”
Her voice was very calm, very matter-of-fact. Jake felt sorrow rise in him, sucking away the heat of his rage. His throat grew thick.
She looked away, and now her voice was not nearly as steady. “For years, I carried a terrible burden of hatred—” she paused, her gaze focused on some distant spot “—and rage. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be overpowered that way, to be so helpless.” Her voice quavered. “They hurt me a lot.”
Jake didn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes felt hot.
She took a deep breath. “But when I finally started to want to get well, to really heal, I knew one of the things I had to take back was sex. I couldn’t let them take that from me, on top of everything else. I couldn’t let one day define the whole rest of my life. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he whispered, rubbing her shoulders.
“And I haven’t. My life belongs to me.” Her voice broke. She gave a little cry and put her head against his chest.
He clutched her close, as close as he could, while she wept against his chest. And his own hot tears fell, where she could not see them, where she would not know how he ached for her. How he wished he could take that burden and carry it for her! “You’re so brave, Ramona. You’d be a good soldier.”
She choked a little, almost a sound of laughter, but only clasped him tighter. “I never told anyone all of that. How mad I was. How it hurt. How much I hated them.”
He rocked her and kissed her hair and smoothed his hands down her back. “I’m sorry to make you think about it.”
“Sometimes it’s good to bring it out. It loses power that way.”
Against his body she was soft and warm and comforting, and he felt as he had last night. Whole for as long as she touched him. Maybe it was that, or her willingness to share her story, but he found himself shutting his eyes very tight and pulling her as close as he could. “There was a little boy in a Kuwait village. The village had been bombed ahead of our arrival, and there wasn’t a lot of it left.”
He halted, unsure he could go on with it, even with Ramona holding him. As if she sensed his conflict, she pressed into him, and her hands moved on his back.
And he found he could go on after all. He told her the reality behind the dream, of the boy crushed in the rubble and his endless, endless scream. “Whenever I go to sleep, that scream returns to haunt me. I feel like I’m never going to stop hearing him scream.”
She pulled away a little and took his face in her hands, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
Something in him just gave way. Jake groaned, hauling her roughly to him. He opened his mouth and she met him in a deep, searing kiss, their bodies pressed into a tight, almost breathless embrace. He grasped her head, his fingers lost in her thick, glorious hair. Tilting his head, he plunged his tongue into her mouth, needing to taste her, feel her, love her. His whole body yearned for her, and he could feel her hands on him, roving, exploring, clutching. Needing.
He touched her neck with his open palms, absorbing the fragile delica
cy of the skin, and slid his hands down to her collarbone and shoulders beneath her robe. His fingers stumbled on the slim straps of her nightgown, and he pushed them away, all the while kissing her and kissing her and kissing her.
A sense of urgency flooded him, an unstoppable and furious need to be with her, to touch and taste all of her, to be buried in her and absorbed by her. He unfastened the belt of her robe and pushed it away and off her arms. She cried out softly and helped him shrug it free. He surfaced momentarily for breath, and with a swift movement, he skimmed the simple, silky gown to her waist, exposing her breasts to his gaze. Reverently, he touched her and kissed her again, whispering her name in a chant.
And then there was no time, no thought, only her hands on his skin, and her mouth against his, her lush body against his palms and his mouth and his raging member. His shirt came off and fell to the floor, and he groaned aloud as she slid her torso against his and touched his sides with the tender skin of her inner arms, their bodies brushing and colliding and settling into a swaying, dizzying motion. She lifted her head and gasped, “My bed,” and somehow they backtracked to the cosy, pine-paneled room with its four-poster.
As long as he lived, Jake knew he would never smell roses or patchouli without thinking of Ramona falling to the bed, clad only in her panties. Ramona holding out her arms, her hair spread around her, her eyes smoky and dark as he shed his jeans and came to her, flowed over her. His thighs and hers, his groin pressed to the heat of her, her lips and her breasts and her hands all over him, hungry and eager. Low, pleased sounds came from her as he tasted her and slid against her. He would never forget the way she knelt over him, her hair and breasts sweeping forward to brush his excruciatingly aroused skin, to put her mouth on him as if she loved the taste of his flesh.
