by Skye Taylor
As her heart rate slowed and her thoughts began to settle, the truth hit her.
It hadn’t been her passion that had shocked her back to sanity. It had been the touch of John’s hand. The warmth and urgency even through the bulky layers of her uniform, cupping her breast, caressing her so intimately. Too intimately. Just like Remy McAllister back when she was only twelve.
She’d encouraged them both, then panicked when they responded to her invitation. Did that make her a tease or just plain stupid? And what about her promises to Ben?
What is wrong with me?
Margie could explain away the fiasco with McAllister. Meg had been just a kid then. She hadn’t known much about men yet. She hadn’t understood what McAllister might want if she led him on. But she couldn’t claim innocence with John.
John knew she was married. She was a junior officer. John would never have crossed those boundaries if she hadn’t sent him the wrong message.
If she hadn’t clung to him, kissing him as if there was no tomorrow.
What else was he supposed to think?
Meg hung her head. Shame flooded over her like a tsunami. She’d hurt John, and she’d failed to honor her promise to Ben. Her promise that Ben would be the only man she would ever want.
Tears that ached to be shed were as far away now as they’d ever been. When was the last time she’d cried? When Bobby Daniels left? But she’d been six then. Had she cried when her grandmother died? She didn’t think so, but maybe she had. In any case, she’d deserved the right to tears then. She didn’t now.
She deserved to live with this penance of guilt. She deserved—
“Meg?”
Meg sucked in a stifled cry of alarm.
Ben came toward her across the shadowy porch. He was barefoot and wearing nothing but a ragged pair of cutoff shorts. “What’s wrong?”
Chapter 10
MEG STOOD IN front of the mirror at Francine’s Frocks staring at herself, not happy with what she saw. Francine’s was the only place to buy a dress in Tide’s Way, and she didn’t really want to have to drive all the way downtown to Wilmington. She didn’t really want a new dress, either, but she had a wedding to attend. Jake’s wedding. She had lost so much weight over the last year that everything she owned hung on her.
She had met Zoe Callahan for the first time at the welcome home party and had liked Jake’s fiancée right off. She was so perfect for Ben’s baby brother.
Jake was a gentle, loving man who’d been shafted by his first wife and left holding the bag with three daughters and an ailing mother-in-law. But he’d never lost his sunny disposition, nor had he ever complained about his abandonment, although it must have hurt him deeply. Meg had never once heard him say a single disparaging thing about the woman he’d married right out of high school, giving up all the dreams he’d had for himself and a great deal more trying to make things right after getting her pregnant.
Zoe Callahan was everything Marsha Jolee had not been. She doted on Jake’s girls, she cared deeply for the mother-in-law suffering from Alzheimer’s, and she loved Jake to distraction. That had been obvious. Ben had told Meg about the courtship and the events leading up to Jake delivering Zoe’s baby in the middle of a hurricane via Skype a month ago. He’d grinned happily as he’d told her how totally in love his brother was, but how long it had taken Jake to see his feelings for what they really were. The whole family was thrilled for him.
Jake deserved his happiness. He deserved Meg’s best effort to show up at his wedding, cope with being seated near the front of a packed church, and get through a chaotic reception afterward. Meg knew about the tiny preemie that had been born beside the road some years back—an event Jake had just happened to come upon on his way home from the station one night. And she knew some of the anguish Jake had felt when the lifeless little body in his hands had been unable to survive despite all Jake’s efforts to revive it. He must have been scared to death when Zoe went into labor, and he was the only one on hand to help her. Yet he’d held it together. With no power, no coaching, no training, and just candles for light he’d held it together. And it wasn’t even his child. Zoe called him her hero.
Jake was one of Meg’s heroes too. If he could hold it together, then so could she. She could square up to her issues with crowded places and noisy receptions and be there to rejoice with him. But she needed a new dress.
Back in the little changing room, she removed the shimmering gold dress and hung it back on the hanger. The color was all wrong in spite of her desert-tanned skin. Or maybe because of it. The last dress she’d brought in to try on was a bit pricey, but Meg slipped it on anyway and stepped back out to the big mirrors.
She ran her hands down the teal blue silk, turned a bit, and studied her reflection again. She was way too thin. Odd that Ben hadn’t commented on it. He’d once told her he liked women with a little meat on their bones. Of course, at the time she’d been plump with pregnancy and feeling ugly about that. Ben was such a sweetheart. He always seemed to know the right thing to say. Or not to say.
Like last night when he’d followed her out to the porch to ask her what was wrong. He must have heard her talking in her sleep. Why else would he have been awake? Why else would he have come after her? How else had he known anything was wrong?
She should have told him right then. He’d asked, and she knew he’d have listened without interrupting. Until she confessed her feelings for the man who’d been there to offer her comfort when Scout had been killed; her moment of weakness might always stand between her and Ben like a hedge of brambles. It would prick her constantly.
She should have told Ben. She should have trusted him. Except, what if the hedge of brambles became a wall of bricks? What if Ben was hurt beyond forgiving?
Fear shouldn’t have stopped her. She should have told him, but she’d let the moment slip between her fingers. She was a coward and a tease.
“What do you think?” The clerk stood beside her, eyeing the view in the mirror. She smiled and nodded her head. “I think it flatters you.”
Meg glanced at the clerk blankly for a moment, then back at the mirror. Right. The dress.
Ben liked blue. He’d like this dress. He’ll like me in it.
“Shall I ring it up for you?” The clerk was eager for the sale.
Meg checked the price tag again and then made up her mind. “Sure.”
She hurried back into the dressing room to take the dress off and pull her jeans back on, trying not to think about her unforgivable lack of honesty with Ben.
BEN FINISHED WRITING the last check, shut the checkbook, and dropped it back into the big center drawer on his desk. He glanced out the window to the driveway, but Meg’s Honda wasn’t back yet.
She’d gone out to buy a dress for Jake’s wedding hours ago. Perhaps she’d had to drive all the way into Wilmington to find one she liked. He thought she looked good in anything. Or nothing. But she tended to have a hard time deciding when it came to buying clothes.
Maybe it had something to do with wearing uniforms so much of the time. One didn’t have to think about them. Just pull on the uniform decreed for the current activity. Someone else did all the deciding. It was a skill he hoped she’d soon have to re-learn. He’d never tell her what she should do, but he prayed she’d choose to leave the military now that her commitment was up. He was more than ready to have her home permanently.
That day at the airport, with her back in his arms where she belonged, he’d been certain that now she was home everything would be fine. But now he was beginning to understand that a year in a war zone had changed her. Had changed them. He didn’t know if they could survive another deployment.
He finished sealing the checks into their respective envelopes, placed stamps in the corners, and stacked them into a neat pile, then got up to carry them out to the mailbox.
Mike was working with one of the dogs out in the training field. Ben could have taken one of the other dogs out to work with, but he needed to get away. He needed time to think. He started to return to the kennels to get Columbo for company, then changed his mind and headed toward the house and Kip.
Kip sprawled in front of the door on the porch. His head was on his paws, but his eyes and ears were alert. He watched Ben approach but didn’t move until Ben said his name.
“Come, Kip,” Ben commanded from the foot of the stairs.
Kip got to his feet and came down the stairs obediently. Without any signal from Ben, he circled Ben and sat at Ben’s left side, looking up, expecting the next command.
“You’re a good fellow. Aren’t you?” Ben reached down to run his hand over the coarse black and tan fur of Kip’s head and shoulders.
Kip tipped his head.
“Maybe we should try you with guns? See if you’ve turned gun-shy. Or if it’s just missing your partner that’s your issue. What do you think?”
Kip’s ears slanted forward as if he understood every word. He probably only understood two of that last exchange. Gun and partner. And maybe not partner.
“Missing Ray still?”
Kip shot a glance in several directions as if expecting his missing partner to appear.
“I guess that would be a yes.” Ben started walking back toward the kennel. Kip trotted along at his side without urging. Back in his office, Ben unlocked the gun safe, retrieved his favored Glock handgun, then reached for a box of blanks. He filled the clip, shoved it into the gun until it locked into place, and then put the box back and locked the safe again.
Discharging weapons, even loaded with blanks, tended to cause alarm for folks who weren’t expecting it, so Ben decided he and Kip would head out to the beach. It would be pretty much deserted at this time of year and this time of day.
Columbo, who’d met them at the door and carefully checked Kip out, accompanied them back to the door. “Sorry, Columbo, not this trip.” Ben patted the big dog’s head and ushered Kip back out into the parking lot.
Normally he would have put Kip into one of the crates bolted to the floor of the truck bed, but instead, he opened the passenger door and invited him to get in. Kip leapt nimbly onto the passenger seat and sat looking out the windshield with an expectant, tense set to his shoulders and body. Was he thinking they were going to find Ray? If that was the case, he was going to be disappointed.
Ben rambled on sociably as if he were talking to another human on the drive toward the beach. Kip glanced at him from time to time, but mostly kept his vigilant gaze on the road. He jumped eagerly from the truck when Ben opened the door for him. Ben reached under the driver’s seat and retrieved a coil of rope with a snap hook on the end.
“Can’t have you bolting for parts unknown if you take exception to the gunshots,” he told Kip as he snapped the hook onto Kip’s collar.
The dog lifted his face into the wind and sniffed. Ben sniffed as well. “Smells good, doesn’t it?” Ben loved the scent of the sea and loved that his kennel was close enough for the scent to reach the house. But it was so much more pronounced here. There was a light breeze off the water, and little waves lapped noisily along the shore. He headed toward the sandy path that led through the dunes to the water.
A bright blue plastic barrel disguised with a wooden enclosure drew the dog’s attention first. He sniffed carefully, then left his own calling card and trotted off to the next item of interest. That happened to be an old-fashioned anchor planted in the packed sand that spilled out of the dunes at the entry to the path. After sniffing thoroughly, Kip chose not to pee on the anchor. He looked back at Ben as if checking to make sure he was still following.
The sun was warm, but the breeze felt cool. Ben zipped his jacket all the way up as he followed Kip through the dunes to the beach. They walked through the soft sand to the hard-packed, still-wet shore and turned to follow along the tide line. Kip ran ahead as far as the rope would let him, but kept returning to check on Ben before trotting off again.
Kip didn’t mind his feet getting wet, but he apparently had no desire to swim. Ben smiled. If Jake’s golden had been along, she’d have made a beeline into the water. And once done with swimming, she’d have rolled in the sand, coming up looking like a sugar donut. Just as well Kip wasn’t interested in getting soaked with seawater and bringing salt and sand back into the house. Meg wouldn’t have been pleased.
Ben let his mind drift back to last night.
To Meg’s mumbling in her sleep. No one called her what? He wondered. And what was it she didn’t want to remember? What was it she could tell John, but she couldn’t tell her own husband? Is she afraid I won’t understand? Or is it just a warrior’s disdain for a civilian’s lack of firsthand experience?
She had almost told him. At least Ben thought she had been on the verge of telling him something when he joined her on the porch swing. But then she hadn’t. Maybe he’d imagined her hesitation. Ben wished he knew more about this guy John and just what he meant to Meg. Beyond being her commanding officer and friend.
Ben pushed his hat back and ran his hand over his hair. He squinted into the glitter of sunlight glancing off the water.
He’d been so sure everything would go back to the way it had been before Meg left. He should have known better. He’d read enough about the transition from warrior to civilian, from a war zone to peacetime. But somehow, he hadn’t believed it would intrude on the relationship he and Meg had always enjoyed. Maybe for other couples, but not them.
Even before they’d become lovers, they’d shared just about everything. From the mundane details of their individual days to politics and world events. Their hopes and dreams, their triumphs and their fears. They had shared everything. Well, nearly everything. She had never talked to him about her mother’s boyfriend, either. Maybe there were other things . . .
Ever since her first night home things had been different, and he didn’t know what to do about it. She was eager to share her body with him, more than eager it sometimes seemed. But whatever was going on in her head, she kept to herself.
Kip nuzzled Ben’s hand. Ben had stopped walking, and the dog had come back to see why.
“It feels like she’s shutting me out,” Ben told the dog.
Kip gazed up him and wagged his tail once.
“She’s hurting, but she won’t let me help.” Ben put his hat back on and began moving toward the dunes. Kip followed. “She won’t even tell me what’s hurting her.”
Saying it aloud, even to the dog, suddenly made Meg’s silence feel a lot more ominous. The uneasy feeling that had begun to grow in his heart solidified into dread. Ben felt suddenly afraid. But afraid of what?
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was like when you suddenly realize your toddler in the next room is unnaturally quiet, and you don’t know what he’s up to. Your heart races, and your mind comes up with all the worst possible scenarios until you finally get up to go look and find him sitting amidst a pile of stuffed animals flipping the pages in his favorite book. Everything was just fine, and it was only your imagination that had taken a flight into disaster. Maybe I’m reading too much into Meg’s silence.
She just returned from a war zone, and she’s probably just trying to sort things out. She’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. I just need to be patient and be there when she needs me.
“I need to stop taking it personally,” Ben told Kip. “Meg’s always been fiercely independent and determined to face life head on. You knew she was a Marine? Right? It takes someone really tough to be a Marine.” He ran his hand over the dog’s head and down over his back. “Like being a working K-9. You have to be tough, too. And it’s time for you to face life head on, just like Meg. Time to face life without Ray.”
Again the dog scanned the area intently. Ben squatted in front of the
dog. “Ray’s gone, Kip. It’s just me. You and me and the critters who inhabit this beach. Want to see if we can scare a few seagulls?”
Ben removed the Glock from the small of his back and racked the slide to load a round into the chamber. Kip eyed the pistol and lowered his head. Ben made sure he had a firm grip on the loop on his end of the rope, then raised the muzzle toward the sky and pulled the trigger.
Kip cringed but didn’t run. Good dog. Police dogs don’t run when guns go off.
Ben pulled the trigger again, three times in quick succession.
Kip whimpered and shoved his face into Ben’s crotch. Not so good. Police dogs can’t flinch at the sound of gunfire.
Ben kept firing. A lock back on the gun signaled that Ben had emptied the clip.
Kip shivered all over, his face still buried against Ben’s jeans.
This wasn’t a good sign for an eventual return to police work, and it wasn’t a good thing for a service dog either.
Ben pushed the gun back into his jeans and then sat down. He gathered the quivering dog into his arms and held him.
Maybe he’d been too precipitous with the gun thing. Kip had been doing well since Officer Brady had dropped him off. Hopefully today’s little experiment hadn’t set him back too much.
“I had this other idea,” he told the dog conversationally. “If you weren’t up to returning to the K-9 unit, you might be a candidate for a service dog instead.”
Kip stopped shivering but kept the top of his head butted firmly against Ben’s chest.
“You know Mike, right? The guy who works out in the kennel? His brother Ron came by a few weeks back, and you wouldn’t believe the change in him.
“Ron’s a disabled vet. He’s got a chest full of ribbons to prove he was a good soldier. But they sent him into combat one too many times. He wasn’t much good when he first got back. Jumping when he heard loud noises and all. Wanting to spend most of his time in his room. Kind of like you.”
