* * *
Patrick stopped at the gas station in Saber Falls, needing to fill up the rental car and a badly needed jolt of a ridiculously good cup of coffee to warm his blood. He’d come home with Sam in the past and the best cup of coffee north of Bangor was clearly the Green Mountain Coffee served there.
He always forgot to order some to take with him.
Maybe he’d remember this time, especially if this was going to be his last time here.
He sighed heavily, needing to clear space in his lungs for…oh, oxygen. Breathing was fundamental, but he couldn’t do that with this elephant of sadness sitting on his chest.
He was not going to spend this entire trip sulking like a kicked puppy.
He knew Sam. He could figure this out, right? They’d been through rougher things before.
“Hey, Patrick, how’s it going?”
He turned from the coffee to see Finn Rierson step into the gas station, followed by his cousin Garrett, the local sheriff. Sam always made it a point to see the Rierson boys every time they came home. The first time, Patrick had been mildly jealous, curious about these men that Sam had insisted on meeting at the Whistling River Pub.
But then he’d met them, and they were both damn hard to be jealous of.
They were good dudes. Friends from high school that Sam had refused to let go of even as life and the war and the Army kept her away from home for longer and longer periods.
And over time, they’d become his friends, too, so that he no longer felt like an awkward third wheel but part of the memories they shared every time they got together.
“I didn’t know you were coming home,” Garrett said. As though Saber Falls was as much his home as Sam’s.
He supposed it was.
“It was an unexpected trip. Sam…really needed to come home after the year she’s had.”
“Yeah. The whole town was devastated when we lost Mel.” Finn’s voice was edgy and raw, the grief still sharp. A shadow crossed Finn’s face and Patrick knew he was looking at a sadness that would never leave the other man. Mel and Finn…they’d been a thing, despite the war, despite the distance. And now she was gone, like so many others.
Finn took a step toward the coffee. Patrick only knew the fear of waiting for a lover to return from war, not the loss.
“I can’t imagine what he’s gone through,” Garrett said quietly. “It was bad enough when I had to bury my parents and Derrick didn’t come home.”
Patrick frowned. “When did your folks die?”
“Last year. Right after Fourth of July.”
“Ah hell, man, I’m really sorry.” He’d only met Garrett’s parents in passing but Joan and Ken Rierson had struck him as good people. “Derrick didn’t come home?”
He’d never met Garrett’s brother but had heard enough stories to know the prodigal son was missed.
“Said he couldn’t get leave out of Iraq. Something about his unit not letting him go. That doesn’t sound right.”
“It happens. It all depends on the commander and what’s going on at the time and how many people are already gone.”
Finn sipped his coffee as he rejoined them. “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a meeting over in Dover,” Finn said. “It’s good to see you, Patrick.”
Patrick cleared his throat roughly. “You, too.” He waited until Finn stepped out of the gas station and into the cold, the door shutting with a jingle behind him. “How’s he holding up?”
“As good as he can, I guess. He stays busy.” Garrett shrugged, and that was the end of the conversation. “Anyway, you and Sam should come out to the house. I’ve got some ice cleared off. You guys can skate on the pond.”
“I’ll ask her.” He dumped cream—real cream—into his coffee. “She’s been having a rough time of things since she’s been home.”
Garrett twisted the lid off his stainless steel thermos and reached for the darkest blend. “That doesn’t sound like Sam. She’s always so damn…fierce.”
“Tell me about it.” It felt strange to talk about this. He hadn’t told anyone at work about things going to shit after Sam had gotten home. The couple of guys he’d been close to had their own stuff going on.
He’d just tried to muscle through. Until Sam had left him.
He looked up from his coffee to find Garrett watching him. “Something you want to talk about?”
Patrick tested his coffee, buying time. “Sam left me.”
Garrett said nothing for a moment, focusing on twisting the lid back on his thermos. “So is this the last Christmas home or is this the surprise ‘I’m here to fight for my woman’ visit.”
Patrick laughed bitterly. “You have been watching too many Lifetime movies, my friend.”
Garrett grinned. “I have to go check on Mrs. Poole once a week. We sit for an hour, and I have to watch whatever’s on while she tells me the entire plot, backstory, and spoilers.”
“Dude, are you like even a real person? You sit with old ladies? Next thing you’ll tell me you brake for squirrels or something.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
Patrick smiled. “Nothing. Nothing at all. And to answer your question, this is the ‘I’m not letting her go without a fight’ visit.”
“She didn’t know you were coming, did she?”
“Nope.”
“And?”
“And we made it about six minutes before she tried to tell me that Natalie wasn’t mine, and that we were over.” They paid for their coffee and stepped out into the bitter cold morning. “Dear god, how do you people live in this kind of cold?”
“Where are you from originally?”
“Florida.”
“Meh, you’d get used to it if you were here long enough.”
Patrick shrugged. It wasn’t like he was going to get a chance to get used to it. Not if Sam had her way and they were really over.
“She’s not, you know,” Garrett said after a moment. “Legally, Natalie isn’t yours.”
Patrick looked over at Garrett. “I’ve known you for a long time, and that is the single most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I’m a cop, Patrick. I deal with this shit all the time. It doesn’t matter that you were there from the beginning. It doesn’t matter that Nat calls you Daddy. Legally, you don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“I’ve got powers of attorney naming me her guardian when Sam deployed.” But he felt his certainty slip away. He knew the law. Hell, he was a damn lawyer.
But Only a foolish lawyer has himself as a client wasn’t a cliché for nothing.
“Damn it, Sam,” he muttered.
Garrett gripped his shoulder. “You’re going to try to fight a custody case for a little girl that has neither your name nor your blood in a region of the country that notoriously does not consider taking children away from their mothers for even the worst transgressions.”
Patrick’s mouth fell open. “I don’t want to take her away from Sam. I just want to be part of her life. Sam’s a good mom. She’s just…”
“What?”
Patrick paused. “I wish I knew. It’s like only part of her came home from the war.” He sipped his coffee. The shock of heat burned against his partially frozen lips. “She’s there, but she’s not. It’s like she’s a shadow.”
Garrett scoffed quietly. “I wish I didn’t get that. The one time I’ve seen Derrick since the war started, he was definitely not in the moment.”
“How is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone into complete radio silence since last year. I kind of went off on him for not coming home for the funeral, and well, we haven’t talked since.”
“I’m sorry.”
Garrett shrugged. “I can’t live my brother’s life for him.”
There was more there, but now wasn’t the time or the place.
Patrick sighed after a long moment. “The war’s fucked up everyone’s life, hasn’t it?”
Garrett snorted quietly. “W
ars tend to do that, don’t they?”
Patrick said nothing for a long moment. “Yeah, I guess they do.”
Chapter 5
Sam wasn’t sure how long she’d sat, alone in the sunroom, sorting through the myriad emotions riding roughshod through the landscape of her soul, listening to Natalie and her mom make cookies.
It was morning. She should have been finishing up last minute Christmas shopping but she couldn’t summon the energy.
The wind slapped against the plastic her mom had used to insulate the sunroom. Sam curled up in the chair, cradling her mug of coffee, savoring the warmth.
Wishing the taste on her lips was still Patrick’s.
It would be so easy for her to drive to the bed and breakfast where he was staying. To open his door and slide into bed with him.
She could go back to pretending that everything was fine, that the smile on her lips was real. She could drive down Route 16 and ask him to forgive her. She could put their family back together again.
So why didn’t she?
She closed her eyes. Because she would be lying. To her daughter. To her lover.
To herself.
She looked up at the sound of a car pulling into her mom’s driveway. Her pulse beat a little faster at the thought of it being Patrick. She supposed that was a good sign—her body remembered how to feel even if the rest of her didn’t.
But it wasn’t Patrick. All the air left her lungs and she swallowed, trying to squelch the rising emotions that swelled at the sight of her second dad.
Thomas Carreau.
Melanie’s dad and the man who’d helped raise her after her father had hightailed it to Idaho when she’d been about six.
She wanted to run out into his arms. She wanted to hear him laugh and call her Samsquatch or one of the other terrible nicknames he was forever coming up with for her and Melanie.
But instead, she sat unmoving as he climbed the front porch and walked into her mother’s house without knocking.
Because he and Nancy had long ago become close friends—enough that her daughter noticed and knew about “Grammy and Thomas time”.
Sam was happy for her mom. She deserved someone to make her happy.
But Sam had been avoiding seeing Thomas since she’d come home. Had left the house the moment her mom mentioned he might come by. Had avoided any chance of running into him.
Because she wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t know if she’d ever be.
Except that he was here now and there was no more running.
“Hey, Nattie Bear.”
“Hi, Mr. Thomas,” came Natalie’s response.
“Where’s Grammy?”
“In the bathroom. She had a sour tummy from all the cookie dough.”
Sam smiled. Leave it to Natalie to share information that she was reasonably certain—no matter how close Nan and Thomas were—her mom would not want shared.
“Whatcha making?”
The exchange was normal. Completely ordinary. The kind of conversation that a grandfather would have with a granddaughter.
Except that Thomas would never have grandkids now.
“When my Melanie and your mommy were little, they used to bake chocolate chip cookies every Friday night and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
“What’s that?”
“A show about a guy trapped on a space station with two robots forced to watch bad B movies for the rest of his life.”
Natalie laughed. “That sounds awful. TV in the old days must have really sucked.”
It was Thomas’s turn to laugh quietly. “Don’t underestimate it. There were some quality shows back in the dark ages of the 1980s.”
“Did you have electricity when mommy was growing up?”
“Of course we did. It was twenty some odd years ago, not last century. Well, I suppose it was last century. Anyway, yes, we had power and television and phones. Life wasn’t so different then.”
“But you didn’t have iTunes. You had to walk to the store for music.”
“Yes, and don’t forget about barefoot, uphill in winter. Sheesh, kiddo, you make a man feel his years.”
“Natalie, stop making Mr. Thomas feel old.” Nan had finally returned. Sam caught a reflection of her kissing Thomas quickly in greeting.
Why didn’t they just get married? Her mom was so damn weird.
“You can just call me Thomas,” he said to Natalie.
“My mommy says I have to call adults Mr. or Ms. because I’m a kid,” Natalie said.
“Then how about we just let it be our secret?”
“Nuh-uh. Mommy knows when I’m keeping secrets.”
“Yeah, well, Mommy doesn’t know everything.”
Sam took a deep breath and stepped into the kitchen. “It’s a Southern thing,” she said when she was sure her voice wouldn’t break. It did anyway. “Kids down south don’t call adults by their first names. At least not the ones I’ve been around.”
She braced for it, that shockwave of emotion crashing over Thomas’s face.
It rose violently, tearing at her insides, ripping open the chest wound that ached and bled for the sister she’d lost and the daughter he’d buried.
“Hi, Samwise.” His words were choked and thick.
She blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from cascading down her cheeks.
She failed.
And when his arms came around her, she surrendered to the wave of crushing sadness that dragged her under.
* * *
Natalie and her mom were making another batch of cookies. Gingerbread men this time, apparently. Sam and Thomas sat out in the sunroom. Sam was curled in one of her mom’s old wicker chairs, nursing a sad cup of coffee that was neither warm nor energizing. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t swallow past the block in her throat.
“We were just north of Baghdad,” Sam said quietly. “There hadn’t been any attacks in days. We were on patrol, meeting with a local sheik, trying to see what services they needed, what we could provide.”
“Did you leave the base often?” Thomas asked.
“We did. Mel was on the battalion commander’s personal security detachment, and I was with public affairs.” She shrugged. “We were always together. It was just like camp. Except for the explosions and all that.”
Thomas smiled. “You two were always into something. You and the damn Rierson boys and the McLaurin girls.”
Sam swallowed at the mention of Cass and Ashley McLaurin. She needed to go see Cass, but she hadn’t really thought through everything she was going to say.
Ashley—Cass’s sister—was still in Afghanistan. She didn’t know how to mourn one friend while worrying for others. It was too much, too overwhelming.
Still, seeing Thomas… For a moment, the floodgates had opened and released a cascade of grief and ragged anger. And for a moment, just a moment, it had felt good to release some of the pressure hiding in that black box she tried to ignore.
“Yeah. We had some good times,” she said. Because they had.
Before the war.
“She used to write home every night.” A long pause as he sipped his coffee. “I would always worry when I didn’t have a note. She tried to explain to me that sometimes, the phones and Internet were shut off because someone had gotten hurt or…”
“Yeah, we’d cut the communications when someone died because we don’t need families finding out about things on Facebook.”
He nodded, then reached for and squeezed her hand. “Thank you for telling me before the Army showed up on my doorstep.”
Sam’s throat closed off, and her eyes burned again. She’d violated the rules that day.
She hadn’t even given it a second thought. She’d been numb, dead inside when she’d picked up the phone in the signal officer’s office that was on the exemption list and placed the call.
“Your mom stayed with me the whole time.” His voice cracked a little. “It was the hardest day of my life. But couldn’t you have gotten into trouble?
”
Her throat was tight, locked shut, making it difficult to speak, to breathe. “Sometimes, breaking the rules is the right thing to do.”
“Yeah, well, don’t go breaking any more rules for me. Melanie wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for her.”
Sam smiled. “No, she’d be mad at me for getting into trouble without her.”
“Yeah, she would, wouldn’t she.” Thomas chuckled. “I wonder where Nan and Natalie went off to?”
She frowned. “Mom said she was running into town for ice cream. Who eats ice cream in December in Maine?”
“Ah, everyone that I know. Ice cream isn’t seasonal. Except for peppermint stick.”
“You know you can’t find that down in Texas. Not the good stuff anyway. Just some crappy brand made with corn syrup. It’s so nasty.”
“Weren’t you going to take Natalie to finish Christmas shopping today?”
She glanced at the old clock on the beam above them. “I was thinking about it…”
“Well if you go, keep an eye on the weather. There’s a nasty storm coming in. Lake effect snow.”
“That’s what I’m hearing. We might wait until tomorrow, honestly.” She looked up, daring to meet his eyes. “How have you been? With everything?”
He scrubbed his hand over his scruffy grey beard, then leaned forward, folding his hands together. “When I lost Mel’s mom, I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever go through. I was wrong.” He looked up at her. “There’s a word for when a man loses his wife. Or a wife loses a husband. There’s no word for what I am now. Orphan parent is the closest thing I can come up with.” He shifted a little. “But I’ll get through it. You just try to keep going, try not to think about it too much because the sadness… Man, the sadness is like quicksand. It’ll suck you down before you even realize you’re sinking.”
Sam looked away. “Yeah.” It was all she could manage.
Thomas sighed heavily. “So what are you and your mom doing this week? And where’s your other half?”
Sam bit her lips, wishing at that moment that Thomas wasn’t as close with her mother as he was. But he knew Patrick. Knew that he’d been there from the start and raised Natalie like his own.
Come Home to Me Page 4
