by Alicia Scott
He hovered on the edge of the dream, at once fighting it and urging it on. He needed to remember; he hated the memories. His hands wrapped unconsciously around the sheets, his huge body straining as his sleep-drugged lips muttered words his waking mind didn’t want to know. Then instantly, he was there.
* * *
Fire leaped around him, clutching at his skin, licking at his face. He could feel the searing heat rippling like waves around him. The smoke stung his eyes, and the water creased down his heat-parched cheeks without his notice. His attention was all on the flames, and once more the ax rested in his hands. He lifted it hacking his way closer to the fire.
He could hear the voices of people pleading for help, hear the whiz of gunfire at his back. Somewhere to his left, a man cried out and he knew without looking that a bullet had hit its target. Suddenly, as if feeding off the pain, the fire leaped in front of him. He had reached out a determined arm to shove the burning wood aside, then heard the warning creak above his head. Too late he realized the real danger, the trap the fire had laid.
The burning rafter crashed down upon his head, burning his arm, melting his clothes into his skin. His throat corded with his roar of pain, but no sound penetrated through the wicked crackle of the laughing flames.
The next thing he knew, he was out in the open, the sky clear and star-studded above him. In the distance, he could hear the nightly sounds of mortar fire and the corresponding explosions of walls toppling down, windows shattering. Here, the sounds were as familiar as a cricket’s song, and only silence caught you off guard. He tried to move, and the pain that rocketed up the side of his body made his lips curl.
Abruptly, a woman’s face appeared, her cheekbones wide and slanted through her long, dark blond hair. Zenaisa. She fretted over the bandages of his arm, then all of a sudden realized he was awake. She sat back then and smiled at him with her eyes, her whole face softening. Zlatko appeared, placed an arm around her shoulders and peered down at Garret.
“The patient heals?” he asked.
“The mule heals,” she replied and once more she was smiling at Garret. He felt a painful grin crack his lips.
“Takes more than fire to stop me,” he croaked out.
Zlatko waved a dismissive hand. “Bah. It’s only because your hide’s so thick not even flames can penetrate.”
He sounded gruff, but Garret had known him too long not to see the concern around his soot-rimmed eyes. He offered his friend another grin. “I told you someday it would be your turn to pull me from the flames.”
Zlatko merely shrugged. “I only saved you for the women’s sake. I didn’t want to hear their tears all night if their favorite pet died. Besides, Zenaisa would beat me.”
At the last minute, the man winked at his wife, a gesture completely at odds with his stoic face and oversize hands. As she smiled back at her husband, Garret could see the exhaustion fall away from her face and a glimpse of the woman she’d once been shine through. Just for a moment, he felt like an intruder between the two, and as he did so often, he turned away.
Then he remembered the last sound of sniper fire.
“The Chetniks?” he whispered.
The laughter fled from Zenaisa’s face, and Zlatko looked down at the ground. Garret knew the rest without being told. “Kemal” was all Zlatko said, and in an instant Garret could see the intense, brooding nineteen-year-old in his mind’s eye. He nodded, and his burned limbs flared with anguish.
“The funeral?”
“Yesterday, my friend. You have been unconscious for a while. You are big man to drag from a building, no?”
Garret nodded and felt the pain in his chest. Another gone, another part of the team dead. If only he’d had more time to train them. If only they’d had better supplies…
“You rest,” Zlatko said softly, and Garret opened his eyes long enough to see the quiet sadness in his friend’s eyes. “Zenaisa will take care of you, and you will heal. We need you, friend. For all the fires to come.”
Once more he nodded and felt the blackness of sleep descend even in his dreams. His last thought was of Zenaisa standing in Zlatko’s arms. She comforted his friend, as she comforted them all. In her hands, he would be all right, and one day soon, he would again lead them all into the flames…
Garret jolted awake, Zenaisa’s face still fading out of his mind. At once he was aware of the burning in his back mixing with ghostly pains in his arm and leg. His heart pounded in his chest, while the sweat rolled down his cheeks.
Zenaisa and Zlatko. He’d worked with them in Sarajevo. Worked with them, lived with them, and for a while, been part of their world. Because…
The reason ducked again behind the fog in his mind.
Until…
The black mist clutched the next scene tightly, leaving only the dread to pervade his mind.
And he knew deep within his stomach that whatever came next, he really didn’t want to know. But even as he thought it, he saw the faint, abstract images of the ravaged camp, the circling birds…the bodies.
And he felt once more the weight of the ax in his arms.
Chapter 6
Suzanne was just coming down the stairs in the morning when she heard the telltale sound of banging cupboard doors. She froze on the staircase, her hand going self-consciously to her rumpled hair and old clothes. It was only five-thirty in the morning, early for Garret to be up. She worried her lower lip, glancing down at the baggy sweatpants and oversize T-shirt she always wore for her five-mile walk. She’d never really worried about how she looked in the old clothes, but then, she’d never encountered a man like Garret this early in the morning, either.
She squared her shoulders and descended the last two steps. It was ridiculous to consider her appearance now, she told herself sharply. She looked like someone about to go exercise. End of story.
Still, she was holding in her stomach when she walked into the kitchen. Garret glanced up with a scowl, then did a quick double take at her outfit, which didn’t help matters. Her chin came up another notch.
“Rather early for you, isn’t it?” she asked primly, getting down a glass from the second shelf as casually as possible. Stretching up made her stomach flatter, but she quickly disregarded that as a reason for her actions. She poured herself a glass of iced tea, even though she rarely drank before walking.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Garret said tersely. “You got anything to eat around here?”
She looked at him closely, noticing for the first time the shadows beneath his eyes and the tightness in his face. He moved like a man on a wire, pacing the old kitchen with too much energy for five-thirty in the morning. His hair was still disheveled, his blue chambray shirt unbuttoned and open over his new denim jeans. For one moment, Suzanne’s gaze rested on the golden expanse of his bare chest, and she found herself thinking he looked considerably more sexy in a rumpled state than she did.
Quickly, she averted her gaze to the safer site of her old, cracked kitchen table.
“There’s cereal in the pantry,” she suggested.
He nodded and headed straight for the walk-in area. After muttering and cursing under his breath, he emerged with her lone box of raisin bran. Experimentally, he shook it and heard the sound of a nearly empty box. He scowled once more.
“There’s eggs if you want to fry ’em,” she said with a shrug. “Or maybe SEALs drink them raw.”
The look he gave her explicitly registered his thoughts on her sense of humor. She merely returned it with a calm, arched eyebrow, finding his uncharacteristic frenzy an intriguing change of pace. But then he reached up for a bowl and instantly winced as the motion pulled the scab on his back. Immediately, she was at his side.
“Here, let me get it for you.”
“Damn it, I can get the bowl myself!”
She handed it to him anyway and felt her skin practically blister from the heated anger in his look. “It’s just a bowl, Garret,” she told him quietly, her hazel eyes soft.
T
he rage drained from his face, leaving his eyes suddenly looking haggard, haunted. He held the bowl against his bare stomach, then without saying a word, turned away.
“You remembered something?” she guessed.
He picked up the box of cereal and dumped the last of its contents into the green ceramic bowl. He looked at the pile of bran flakes and sugar-dusted raisins then finally, slowly, he nodded.
“Want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Talking sometimes helps,” she said casually, placing her glass in the metal sink. With a practiced touch, she banged the faucet twice and was rewarded with hot water.
“I’m fine,” Garret said tightly. He opened a drawer with more force than was necessary, then grumbled a few harsh words when it didn’t reveal any silverware.
“As you wish,” Suzanne said simply. She opened the drawer beside the sink and handed him a spoon.
He took it, but his jaw was clenched and his eyes glittered dark fires of futility and anger. “I’m not one of your damn charity cases,” he muttered. “Don’t forget that.”
Her hand stilled on the cracked Formica countertop, his words wounding. She turned around slowly and gave his cereal a pointed look. “As you said.”
His face darkened, a vein pounding dangerously in his forehead. But now, she was angry, as well. She hadn’t asked for any of this. She hadn’t asked him to leave her at the bus stop, just as she hadn’t asked him to return even more attractive than she remembered and just as determined to go. To hell with him anyway.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” she found herself saying, unable to hold back. “It bothers you to need someone, to need me.”
Suddenly he moved, and she took an automatic step back against the kitchen counter as he stalked forward. He swiftly placed his hands on either side of her, pinning her with his body and with his eyes.
“Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, to me,” he said with deceptive softness. His jet eyes gleamed with unholy fire.
Her hands began to tremble, but she kept her eyes level on his face. “Just what do you mean?”
“Need, Suzanne. We’re talking need here. You say I don’t like to need you. But I’m not the one searing you with hungry glances all day, then backing away the first time you make a move. Let’s talk about that need, Suzanne.”
“That’s entirely different,” she retorted flustered, her cheeks burning bright red. One of his hands came up to caress her soft skin and she flinched. His eyes mocked hers.
“It’s need, Suzanne. Pure and basic and primal. And when you look at me like you looked at me yesterday, hell yes, I need you.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she explained again, but the breathlessness of her words wasn’t helping matters. “That’s just, just…”
“Lust? Desire? Animal attraction? Primitive passion?”
She nodded furiously, her cheeks burning.
He traced the curve of her cheek with a rough finger. “You’re thirty-two years old, Suzanne. Surely you don’t need to dress it up anymore. And surely you can admit to something so simple, so basic, as human need.”
His words were softer now, beguiling, but no less dangerous. They cut the ground right out from under her, shaking her to her very foundation. Because suddenly she was thinking of how she’d looked at his bare chest and felt the need all the way to her stomach. Worse, she was thinking of the bus stop all those years ago and how much she’d needed him to give her something to believe in. How much she’d needed him to stay. What was so basic, so simple about that?
She licked her lips and fought for the rigid backbone and steely strength that had gotten her through the years. “Maybe that’s exactly the point,” she challenged boldly, keeping her chin up and her hazel eyes steady. “It’s basic, and it passes. You’ll admit to lust, Garret, because it doesn’t tie you down. There are no obligations. I know how much you like that.”
Her words must have hit home, for his jaw clenched. If she thought she had him, however, she was mistaken. Garret had always been sharp. And he’d always seen more than she’d wanted.
“And what about you, Suzanne?” he prodded, his eyes hard. “The kindergarten teacher, the community adviser. You took care of your mother and your sister. Now you take care of the whole damn town. But who do you need, Suzanne? Who do you ever allow that close?”
Unexpectedly, her throat tightened, and she had to fight against the sudden burning in her eyes. But she’d be damned before she’d ever let him know the answer to that question.
“I have friends,” she said stiffly. “I belong in this community.”
“But who do you need, Suzanne? Who do you need?”
The intensity in his voice caged her in, making her feel trapped. At the last minute, she lashed out fiercely, her hazel eyes suddenly snapping fire. “I don’t need anyone, all right, Garret? And I certainly don’t need you pacing my kitchen like a damn beast simply because you’ve had a bad night! Lots of us have bad nights!”
Immediately, he backed away, but his eyes were assessing on her face. Her eyes had turned a molten gold, her cheeks a healthy red. That prim, efficient look was gone, and suddenly she no longer reminded him of rain, but of fire. It suited her more than he would have guessed. “I like you angry,” he said.
“I like you unconscious.”
He grinned, the mercurial change in mood catching her off guard. “You look good in sweats, too. Gives you sort of a soft, rumpled look.”
“You’re trying to drive me crazy.”
“If you can’t beat ’em, sweetheart, you might as well join ’em.” He laced the flippant words with a fine irony she immediately understood. Her stance relaxed. She placed a hand on his arm.
“Give it time, Garret. Give it time.”
“Yeah, well, it seems I don’t have much choice in the matter. Wonder if any of the tools Cage and I hooked up actually work.”
“Probably. But please don’t burn down the shed.”
“Don’t think I could, sweetheart. Seems I might know something about fires.”
“What do you mean?”
He laughed, a dry, humorless sound, and raked a frustrated hand through his black, wavy hair. “If only I knew. If I only I knew.”
He turned and simply walked away, leaving her alone in her kitchen and very confused.
When Suzanne came back from her walk over an hour later, she found Garret facedown on the tiny love seat, his lumbering body splaying off onto the floor. The discomfort of the position underlined his exhaustion, so she crept past the living room archway as silently as possible. Perhaps sleep would dull his relentless edge and provide her with a measure of peace.
Upstairs, she showered quickly and, with a sigh, donned her gardening clothes. As a child, she’d never had any dresses like the other girls. Her and Rachel’s clothes were cast-off jeans from the other schoolchildren, and a constant source of shame. From the time she started making her own money, she’d also started acquiring her own collection of beautiful dresses and skirts. However, there were definitely activities where only pants made sense. Walking was one, gardening the other. So she pulled on an old pair of brown polyester pants she’d bought from Goodwill and matched it with a long, pale yellow man’s shirt that was splattered with white paint. With black rubber boots on her feet and an old straw hat on her head, she looked like a gardener.
Or maybe a scarecrow.
Funny how she’d never given the outfit much thought before. Cagney had seen her in it; most of her friends had caught her wearing it a time or two. But the thought of now going downstairs left her staring gloomily in the mirror. With a determined sigh, she set her shoulders. She was not going to care what she looked like. She was not going to alter her plans one whit for Garret Guiness. He was simply an old acquaintance, and by God, she wanted to work in her garden and so she would.
That, of course, didn’t quite explain why she crept so silently back down the stairs. In
the back hallway, however, right as she was reaching for the doorknob, he caught her.
“Garden?” came his low, masculine voice from the doorway behind her.
Without turning, she nodded her head.
“Need some help?”
She heard the sound of his approaching footsteps and quickly shook her head. “You should rest,” she blurted.
“Nah. I’ve slept enough already. Besides, I checked out the garden yesterday. The raspberries are definitely ripe.” She whirled around to find him grinning at her nonchalantly, his shirt still unbuttoned. “Nice hat,” he added.
“Have you been eating my berries?” she accused, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Her garden was her territory. Everyone knew that.
He held up two hands as if to ward her off, then tried another grin. When it had no impact whatsoever, he switched to the somber approach. “Sampled would be a far kinder word. Just one or two.” Or three or four. “I swear.”
“I’m going to make jam with those berries.”
Her face was so intense, he found himself grinning again. His mother had been the same about her garden all those years ago. Not that she managed to salvage much from five wild children. Of course, Jake was the one who came up with all the best infiltration ideas—though dressing up like a scarecrow might have been a bit much.
“Honest,” he said now. “I’ll help. We’ll consider it a raspberry tax.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted him in her garden. She wasn’t sure she could handle more time in his broad-shouldered presence. But he looked sincere, and perhaps it was rude to turn down a genuine offer of help. Finally, she relented with a nod. “But we’re picking berries,” she reiterated. “Picking, as in putting the berries in a bucket, a plastic bucket.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” he affirmed, smiling as she muttered something less than complimentary under her breath. Whistling tunelessly to himself, he followed her out the door.
