Wounded Heroes Boxed Set

by Judith Arnold

  Bonnie smiled crookedly, surprised that her voice had betrayed her. Placing the photographs back on the mantel, she shrugged. "He was an excellent tactician and a good sounding board for Gary. But personally...I always felt he was a lecher. He was always surrounding himself with groupies."

  "Groupies?"

  "Back in those days," she explained, reminding herself for not the first time that Kevin was from a different generation than her own, "prominent anti-war activists were idolized just like rock stars. Gary wasn’t interested in groupies, but Tom courted them at every opportunity. When he wasn’t busy hammering out strategies he was bed-hopping and notching his belt."

  Kevin wrote furiously. "And Gary never succumbed to temptation?"

  "Gary," Bonnie said firmly, "loved me as much as I loved him."

  She heard the heavy clomp of footsteps on the stairs and spun away from the mantel, bracing herself for yet another interruption courtesy of Shane. He appeared in the living room doorway, smiling sheepishly. "I just got off the phone with Matt," he reported. "He says we can come over any time after dinner to pick up the bike."

  "Did you tell him you hitch-hiked home?" Bonnie asked.

  His grin expanding, Shane nodded.

  "It was a stupid thing to do," she said, aware that she was nagging but unable to stop. Her anger arose partly from a genuine fear of the tragedies that too often befell youngsters who hitch-hiked nowadays, and partly from the frustration of knowing that the world had changed drastically since her own youth, that strangers could no longer trust each other, that everybody had to practice a certain self-protective paranoia, that life would never be the same as it had been during those idyllic few years when she and Gary had been together, when they’d loved each other and married and had a son, when anything seemed possible if you believed hard enough.

  She felt the sting of tears forming in her eyes and averted her face before Shane or Kevin McCoy would notice. Most of the time she was strong; most of the time she didn’t miss Gary in a conscious way. He was a part of her, an eternal flame burning in her memory, and she was content.

  But today, as she stared at the photographs of him lining the fireplace shelf, she felt bereft. It wasn’t fair that he’d died and abandoned her. It wasn’t fair that he was smiling in so many of the pictures, when his life would be ending so soon.

  It wasn’t fair that, for the first time in the ten years since he’d been killed, Bonnie could look at his pictures and find herself thinking not of him but of the tall, dark-eyed man who wanted to build a monument to everything her husband had abhorred, everything he’d fought against. It wasn’t fair that one brief encounter with Paul Tremaine could make Bonnie so painfully aware of how very alone she was.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  EMERGING FROM ONE of the greenhouses, Paul spotted Shane loitering near a row of cherry trees at the edge of the parking lot, sitting astride a ten-speed bike. Paul wiped his hands on a rag, stuffed it into the hip pocket of his dungarees, and sauntered over. "How’s it going?" he greeted the boy.

  Shane turned and grinned, then shoved an errant lock of sandy-blond hair out of his eyes. "Hey, Paul."

  "I see you got the tire fixed," Paul observed, inspecting Shane’s bicycle. It was old and weather-beaten; the cross bars were speckled with mud, the saddle was worn and the chrome no longer gleamed.

  Shane twisted to glance over his shoulder at the rear wheel. "Yeah. I patched it this morning."

  Paul studied the boy for a moment, recognizing the oversized high-tops and artfully torn jeans as the same items Shane had had on the previous day. He was also wearing a baggy tee shirt and a necklace of braided leather. His neck and forearms showed preliminary signs of mature fullness, but his face was still young and innocent, his complexion fair and his eyes sparkling with facets of silver and gold.

  Just like his mother’s.

  Not that Paul needed anything to remind him of Bonnie. He’d been thinking about her ever since he’d driven away from her house yesterday: her iridescent eyes, her magnificent hair, her stubborn chin and gaunt cheeks and her tall, slender body. He’d been thinking about her bearded friend on the porch—trying to figure out what his relation to her might be—and about her fatuous little speech about how books were alive...and about her sweet, apologetic smile when she’d made that speech, as if she’d known she was coming across as a sanctimonious prig and hoped Paul wouldn’t hold it against her.

  "How’s your mom?" he asked Shane with deceptive nonchalance.

  The boy’s smile faded and he turned to examine one of the cherry trees. "Don’t ask," he muttered. "She’s really steamed at me."

  "Why?"

  Shane gave a how-should-I-know shrug, then proceeded to prove that he did know, quite well. "Well, first because I hitched, and then because I got the flat tire when me and Matt went riding down through Breaker Gorge. There’s lots of major hazards there. That’s part of the fun, you know? But she got real ticked off about it. I probably should have lied to her about where we were riding, but..." He offered another eloquent shrug. "So then we had to drive to Lowell this morning to get a patch kit for the tire, and that screwed up her grocery shopping, and..." He drifted off. "I don’t know. I guess I really blew it."

  Paul regarded Shane, wondering whether he should risk fishing for information about Bonnie. "What does your dad think about your hitchhiking?" he asked.

  Shane turned back to him. "My dad’s dead."

  It took Paul a full minute to digest the news that Bonnie Hudson was a widow. The concept of young widowhood usually put him in mind of sobbing black-clad women with babies on their hips, poor and stranded and helpless. He sensed nothing helpless about Bonnie, however. His reflexive pity was supplanted by a healthy measure of respect for her. She had a career, a nice home, a healthy teenage son and a flinty disposition. She wasn’t the sort of woman a man should feel sorry for.

  Nor did her son seem to be in need of sympathy. "I’m sorry," Paul said because it was the right thing to say. "That’s a tough break."

  "Yeah, well..." Shane mumbled, apparently embarrassed. "Anyway, so my mom’s been real crabby. It’s like everything’s rubbing her wrong. What I thought was—" he gazed hopefully at Paul "—maybe I could give her a tree."

  "A tree," Paul repeated uncertainly.

  "Yeah." The idea obviously invigorated Shane. "A new tree for the front yard," he explained. "Like, there’s this dead tree in front of our house."

  "The dogwood," said Paul with a nod. "I noticed."

  "Yeah, well, it’s been dead since we moved into the house. Mom says it’s supposed to have flowers on it, but it’s never had any. This year it didn’t even get any leaves. I mean, the thing’s defunct, you know?"

  Paul grinned at Shane’s choice of words. "It certainly didn’t appear to be in the best of health."

  "So anyway," Shane continued, "I was thinking maybe it would cheer her up if I bought her a new tree to take its place."

  Paul shook his head in amazement. At Shane’s age, he would never have considered trying to pull his mother out of a funk by buying her a tree. "I bet she’d like that," he said, trying to keep his astonishment hidden. If Shane realized what an extraordinary gesture such a gift would be, he might back off from it.

  "Yeah, well, I’ve got about fifteen bucks," Shane told him. "These trees are really nice, Paul. How far would fifteen bucks go?"

  "Not far enough," Paul said ruefully. The prices on the nursery’s adult cherry trees ran upwards of a hundred dollars.

  Shane’s expression fell. He stared longingly at the lacy pink blossoms dappling the lush branches of the tree nearest him, then sighed and shaped a brave smile. "Well, like, what would fifteen bucks buy?"

  An honest answer might crush him, so Paul didn’t bother to provide one. "Why don’t you check out those white birches over there?" he suggested.

  Shane’s gaze followed Paul’s outstretched arm to the rows of slender white birch trees already wrapped for sale
. The smallest among them were priced at fifty dollars, but Paul wasn’t above taking a loss on one to help Shane out.

  Shane dismounted from his bike and walked it across the lot to the birches. He read the price tag wired to one of the branches and grimaced. "I haven’t got that kind of money."

  An idea took shape inside Paul’s head. "I can lend you the difference," he suggested. "And then you can work off the debt."

  "Work it off?" Shane looked intrigued. "How?"

  "Odd jobs here at the nursery. Coiling hoses, sweeping the greenhouse floors, whatever." During his teens, Paul had worked weekends at the nursery helping his uncle. The chores had been tedious, but he’d enjoyed the money his uncle had paid him, and the job had kept him out of trouble. "We’ll figure something out. Are you interested?"

  "Yeah," Shane said enthusiastically. "Yeah, sure. That’d be cool. I’d have to check with my mom, though."

  "Of course." Paul would have to check with Shane’s mom, too. He would have to present himself as a reputable employer, someone who would treat her son well. He liked Shane, and knowing that the kid had no father made Paul feel protective toward him. If Bonnie agreed to let Shane work at the nursery a couple of hours every weekend, a lot of good could come out of it.

  Not the least of which was that she’d have a beautiful white birch tree taking root in her yard, instead of a dying dogwood—and Paul would have an excuse to get to know her better.

  ***

  THE CRUNCH OF TIRES against the gravel driveway distracted Bonnie from her reading. The May afternoon was warm and sunny; after she’d finished putting the groceries away and straightened up the house a bit, she’d settled on one of the porch rockers with a tall glass of lemonade and a book. She was dressed in her standard weekend attire—jeans and a baggy man-tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and the tails tied in a knot at her waist. She’d pinned her hair back from her face with a tortoise-shell barrette, but a few fine ash-blond strands had escaped from the clasp and drooped against her cheek.

  Brushing the stray hairs back from her face, she spotted the green pick-up truck, with "Tremaine Nursery" painted in white block letters across the door, cruising up her driveway. This time, she knew, Paul wasn’t delivering her hitch-hiking son. Shane had arrived home on his bike over an hour ago, mumbled that he had something he wanted to discuss with her later, and then vanished upstairs into his bedroom.

  Her gaze traveled to the rear of the truck, where she noticed several leafy branches of an otherwise invisible tree protruding above the tail gate. Looking back at the cab, she saw Paul Tremaine swing open the door.

  She braced herself against the sudden ripple of heat that coursed down her spine at the sight of him. The man made her uncomfortable, not only because he wanted to construct a second war memorial on the green when one was more than enough, but also because there was something about him, something so disturbingly...male. It wasn’t as if Bonnie hadn’t known any men in the years since Gary passed away. But Paul Tremaine could make her want him, and that frightened her. She didn’t want to want anybody—certainly not him.

  Relax , she admonished herself, acknowledging him with an impassive smile as he ambled around the truck and across the front lawn. Just because the blue denim of his jeans clung to his legs and hips in a way that hinted provocatively at the athletic contours of his physique, just because the collar buttons of his Tremaine Nursery shirt were undone, displaying his strong neck, and the sleeves were rolled up to reveal the traces of dark hair along his sinewy wrists and forearms, just because his jaw was hard and his lips were thin and firm, and his eyes seemed able to pierce her defenses, and his hair was so very black and thick, curling over his ears and collar...

  She slid a bookmark into the pages of her book, closed it and balanced it on the railing. "Hello, Mr. Tremaine," she said in an impressively calm voice. "What can I do for you?"

  He arched his eyebrows, and one corner of his mouth quirked upward in a lopsided smile. "You could call me Paul, for starters," he said, his deep, sonorous voice sending another hot shiver down her spine and making her resent the hell out of him for having this ridiculous effect on her.

  "Paul," she obliged, refusing to shift her eyes from him.

  He propped one foot on the edge of the porch and rested his arm across his knee. All that separated him from her was the railing and a few feet of space. Bonnie focused on the sharp line of his nose; it seemed safer than meeting his gaze. "You ought to do something about the grass," he commented.

  She wondered whether he had driven all this distance to sell her some lawn-care product or service. "What ought I to do about it?" she asked warily.

  "Water it, for starters. Your lawn’s dying of thirst."

  "Watering the lawn is Shane’s job. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always remember to do it, and I don’t always have it in me to get on his case about it."

  Paul surveyed the wilting grass, then stared for a minute at the lifeless dogwood tree next to the driveway. When he turned back to Bonnie, his smile seemed suspiciously friendly. "I’ve come to talk business," he announced. "Have you got a minute?"

  "If you expect to change my mind about your stupid memorial—"

  "Not that business," he cut her off, his grin waning. "It’s about Shane."

  "Shane?" She peered toward the front door, grateful for the excuse to turn from Paul. "I think he’s in his room. Should I get him?"

  "No, don’t bother."

  She turned back to Paul. "What happened? Did he damage your truck yesterday?"

  To her surprise, Paul laughed. "No—although that’s something of a miracle. The directions he gave to get here me included a roller-coaster ride down Pond Road. That road ought to be barricaded until somebody repaves it. I was sure I was going to crack an axle on it."

  Bonnie permitted herself a smile. "Shane and I are used to it," she said. "In fact, we view it as one of the great challenges of life."

  Paul’s laughter faded into a warm, blessedly unthreatening grin. She liked the way it gentled the harsh lines of his face and infused his eyes with warmth. "What I wanted to discuss with you is the possibility of Shane working for me."

  "Working for you?" She was astounded. "Doing what?"

  "Odd jobs, helping out at the nursery. I was figuring, maybe three hours every Saturday morning—"

  "Of course not. Absolutely not." Frowning, she rose from the rocker, pleased by the height advantage the porch gave her. "He’s only thirteen, Paul. He’s much too young to take a job."

  "He’s already got a job," Paul pointed out. "Watering your lawn."

  "And you can see for yourself how irresponsible he is about it. No, Paul—I’m sorry, but a job at your nursery is out of the question." She tried to convince herself that her adamant rejection of the job offer was solely for Shane’s sake, that it had nothing to do with the man for whom he’d be working.

  Paul turned away to glimpse his truck. He exhaled and turned back to her. "Then we’ve got a real problem, Bonnie," he drawled. His lips cut a grim line, but she detected amusement in his eyes.

  "What problem?"

  "You see that tree in the truck?" He angled his head toward the leafy branches peeking out over the walls of the truck bed. "Shane bought it for you."

  "What?"

  "He came by the nursery this afternoon and bought it. He said he wanted to replace your dead dogwood. He thought that would cheer you up."

  Bonnie closed her eyes. Shane was full of surprises these days; to her dismay, most of them were bad. Yesterday he’d surprised her by hitch-hiking. Tomorrow, she was certain, he’d spring some new horror on her: piercing an ear or asking her to pick up some condoms at the drug store for him, or something equally dreadful. Surprising Bonnie seemed to be one of Shane’s greatest talents.

  But to go out and buy a tree for her...

  A few tears filtered through her lashes. Swallowing, she gazed past Paul at the tree in the truck. "Where on earth did Shane get the money to
buy a tree?" she asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound as scratchy as it felt.

  Paul tactfully didn’t comment on her weepiness. "That’s the thing, Bonnie. He didn’t have enough money to buy it. He and I got to talking, though, and I told him that if it was all right with you, he could work off the cost of the tree. I’m figuring, maybe five or six weeks, just a couple of hours every Saturday morning, and we’ll call it even."

  She turned to Paul, her eyes round. "That’s awfully kind of you." She contemplated his explanation, then frowned slightly. "Is it legal?"

  He shrugged. "It’s a barter, Bonnie. I don’t think we need to file papers with Social Security." Evidently, he could tell that she was still unpersuaded. "I’m not going to have him doing anything dangerous or difficult. It’s mostly just picking up around the place, sweeping up the dirt and carrying sacks of fertilizer to the customers’ cars. I used to do the same stuff when I was his age." He gave her a moment to consider, then continued, "It’s all pretty straightforward. He works eighteen hours, and the tree is his."

  "But—but you’ve already brought it here."

  "Think of it as a loan. No sense waiting for that dogwood to keel over. We’ll plant the birch now, and after Shane’s put in his eighteen hours, it’ll officially belong to him."

  She struggled to clear her mind. Paul’s offer was much too generous. She couldn’t believe that a mere eighteen hours of minimum-wage labor would pay for a birch tree. "Shane is young," she repeated, thinking out loud. "I don’t know whether he’s ready for this sort of responsibility. I can’t even get him to help me around the house."

  "You’re his mother," Paul pointed out gently. "You say black, he says white. I think it’ll be different with me."

  She considered his boast presumptuous, even though he was probably right. Perhaps Shane would behave differently with Paul; perhaps he would rise to the occasion. Perhaps a little structure in his life would do him some good. If he was willing to sacrifice a few hours each week to pay off a debt, Bonnie shouldn’t discourage him.