Back in the Soldier's Bed

by Donna Alward

  “Then I’m glad. I should get home.”

  “See you around.”

  She gripped the pizza box with one hand and looped her key ring around the index finger of her other. “Goodbye,” she replied, surprised to feel her throat tighten.

  It would have been easier if he’d just stayed away. She could have kept her memories of their idyllic months together untarnished. Now they were book-ended with an image of a colder, harder man who seemed familiar, yet a stranger.

  She didn’t need a man. She’d proven that. But if she were to choose one, it would be someone devoted, dedicated, and above all, present. Committed.

  She couldn’t imagine Jonas any of those things.

  The leg press moved smoothly, up, down, up, down. Jonas grimaced at the weight on the bar. Ridiculous. It was half of what he’d been able to press only a year ago. He had enough reminders of what had happened to him without dealing with his body giving out.

  He set his teeth and stubbornly added five more reps to his set, until the muscles quivered all the way up to his hip.

  Tomorrow was his next physio appointment, and he was determined to have made progress. Everyone said his expertise and experience were beneficial to the training program here. But he knew the real reason he was back. He could no longer work out in the field. People called him a hero. He knew better.

  He knew it was his fault.

  Jonas slid off the black vinyl seat and sat on the mat, his legs spread out in a V. Slowly he leaned forward, stretching out the muscles he’d just worked, gritting his teeth against the pain.

  He hadn’t expected to see Shannyn, that was for sure. Even though he’d done nothing but think of her as the transport came in on final approach. He’d only been in the Fredericton area for basic, then sniper school. A small wedge of his life so far. But during that time…Shannyn had been a big part of that, and he wasn’t immune to remembering happier days. She’d never been far from his mind.

  But that was before. Before war, before deployment, before everything. Before the pervading taste of dust and blood. He could offer her nothing now, and he didn’t want to. That part of his life was over, and he was moving on in the only direction he knew how. Within the army. His home.

  He lay down on his back, crossed one ankle over his knee, and drew the knee in, stretching out his hip. They’d run into each other twice already, and he’d been back less than two weeks. A clean break was better, like they’d had the first time.

  Switching legs, he sighed. Tomorrow he’d go to his appointment, and then he’d see about switching therapists, go to another office. The less they saw of each other the better. For both of them.

  Chapter 2

  Jonas arrived for his appointment a few minutes early, providing the receptionist with a letter before seating himself in the waiting room.

  “Shannyn?”

  Shannyn shook her head, diverting her gaze from the back of Jonas’s head to the cheerful face of their receptionist, Melanie. “What is it?”

  “It’s Sergeant Kirkpatrick’s letter. He wants his file sent to another clinic. He wants to switch therapists.”

  Shannyn took the file. “Thank you, Melanie. I’ll take care of it.”

  Her even tone betrayed nothing of what she felt. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure of it herself. Part of her was disappointed he wanted to go somewhere else, but mostly she felt relief that she wouldn’t have to see him on a regular basis. The more she saw him, the more apt she was to see reminders of how she’d cared about him. Cutting down the risk could only be a good thing, right?

  Then why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?

  Shannyn unfolded the paper and stared at the writing. When she reached the end, she looked down at him in the waiting area and at that moment he turned, meeting her eyes. His face was unreadable. She wondered if they taught how to perfect that look in the army. In his letter, he hadn’t offered any explanation or reasoning for the switch. But then he didn’t need to, did he? She got the message loud and clear. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her.

  The question she did have, the one that she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind, was wondering what had happened that made him only a whisper of the man he’d been six years ago. Where had that gung-ho, save-the-world optimist gone? Where had Jonas left him behind?

  His file was already pulled for his appointment, and she went to retrieve it. It might be her only chance to discover what had really happened to him, and more than anything, before their brief contact was cut off, she wanted to know.

  She opened the beige covering, staring at the documentation. So little information, just fact and figures and terminology that said very little about what had happened to the man.

  He’d sustained his injury eleven months ago, but his file didn’t say where or under what circumstances. The absence of data only made her more curious. He’d been stabilized, but the location had been blacked out. She’d had no idea there’d be such secrecy and she looked up again at him sitting in the waiting room.

  Where have you been, and what have you been doing that’s so dangerous it has to be classified?

  She continued reading. The file only stated that he’d been airlifted to Germany where he’d had surgery for a broken femur. Spent time there before being sent home to Canada for recuperation and rehab.

  She read further, absorbing notations about the complicated operation to repair the bone and also about an infection that had delayed recovery.

  He hadn’t had an easy go of it.

  It was probably enough to change a man. If combat hadn’t changed him first. She couldn’t shake that nagging thought from her mind.

  “Sergeant Kirkpatrick?” Even now the name seemed that of a stranger. She took a deep breath. “May I see you for a moment?”

  His uneven gait carried him back to the counter. “Yes?”

  Shannyn forced her voice to remain professional, even as she looked up into his face. He looked the same as he had last week with that inherent neatness and military bearing, despite his disability. She had the irrational longing to reach out and lay her hands on his lapels, straightening an imaginary crease. She shook off the silly urge. It would serve no purpose. If she were sure of one thing, it was that Jonas wouldn’t stay around. She’d been burned by him before. There was no way she’d let him do it to her again.

  She gripped the papers in her hand. “There are a few things I need you to authorize before I can sign off on your file and send it to the office you’ve specified.”

  She handed over the proper papers and a pen. “You should be fine there, although I think Ms. Malloy is the best physiotherapist in the city. Still, once this is taken care of, all you’ll have to do is call and set up your first appointment at the new clinic.”

  Jonas’s hand paused over the papers.

  “Why you? I thought you were the receptionist.”

  She smiled thinly. When he’d been sent to Edmonton, she’d just enrolled in business school. “I started out that way. Now I’m the office manager. Any paperwork needs to be signed off by your therapist and by me.”

  “Sergeant Kirkpatrick? I’m ready for you now.” Geneva Malloy called him in.

  His eyes darted up to Shannyn’s, but she didn’t let her gaze waver. She wanted him to sign the papers and be free to go on his way. On the other hand, they were running behind schedule, and she didn’t want to keep Geneva waiting. “I’ll hold on to these,” she said brusquely. “You can sign them after your session.”

  He handed her back the pen. She tapped the papers into an orderly stack and laid them on top of his file.

  “Thank you,” he replied politely. For a flash, his eyes betrayed him, and she felt he wanted to say something more. Why, after all this time, did her heart still leap every time her gaze met his?

  Then the look was gone, and he limped his way to the facilities in the back.

  She left his paperwork on the desk behind the counter and turned her attention back to her computer. This was h
er job and had been for a long time. She’d done just fine, going to school, making a new life. She’d told him the truth—she’d started by answering phones and had gone on to manage the entire office. It was a good life. It was real and it was permanent and those were two things that Shannyn rated highly.

  She turned her attention to her work while he was with Geneva. Checking her watch, she realized he’d been in there nearly an hour and her spreadsheet was complete. She sat back in her chair and sighed. Shortly he’d come back out, walk out the door and unless by extreme accident, she hoped she wouldn’t have to meet up with him again. Being near him at all stirred up too many feelings she’d tried hard to bury.

  Switching physiotherapists was a godsend. She could get on with her life, and he’d never know the difference. Even as she thought it, a slick line of guilt crawled through her. Most of the time she was successful in not thinking about what she’d done. But deep down she felt some remorse at keeping her secret.

  The door to the back opened and she heard his voice talking to Geneva, thanking her politely. Shannyn turned her head towards the sound, only to snap it back abruptly as the front office door swung open carrying laughter with it.

  “Mommy!”

  A charged bundle in jeans and a red T-shirt barreled across the floor towards Shannyn’s desk, bouncing to a halt and grinning up precociously. “Surprise! I came from kindergarten!”

  Jonas released Geneva’s hand as he turned, his heart stopping for a brief moment as the girl wrapped her chubby arms around Shannyn’s neck.

  I have a daughter. The thought struck him like the sure aim of a bullet.

  As if she sensed something was off, the girl turned her head and their eyes met, green to green. Every muscle in his body tightened with the impact of the truth. This is Shannyn’s daughter. She’s in school. I left six years ago. She has my eyes.

  Shannyn’s cheeks colored; the blatant guilt on her face and the way she shifted in her chair seemed to confirm his suspicion. This was his daughter, one Shannyn had kept hidden from him all this time. A tiny poppet who looked eerily like the pictures of himself he remembered from his grandmother’s photo album.

  All of it left him gutted. How much more could he lose? He clenched his fingers. It wasn’t enough to have the life he’d made for himself ripped away in the space of a moment. Now he had to find out he had another, separate life that he hadn’t even known existed.

  It took every ounce of his self-control to not go to the little girl, to kneel before her and demand to see her eyes again. Moss green eyes. His eyes in a miniature of Shannyn’s delicate features. But what would that accomplish beyond frightening the child? She wouldn’t understand. He didn’t understand. No, it was Shannyn who could clear everything up.

  That overriding thought filled him with tense rage. And clear it up she would. She’d known. Known all this time and hadn’t told him he had a daughter. For six years he’d been a father. She’d deliberately kept it a secret, and then when he did return to town, said nothing, even though she’d had opportunity. This was the third time they’d met and still she hadn’t breathed a single word of it to him.

  Shannyn felt like her head was moving in slow motion. First her daughter’s happy, smiling face looking up at her. Then she turned her head a few degrees and caught Jonas watching her with a startled expression blanking his face. Emma turned to see what she was looking at and lifted moss-green eyes to the man standing across the room.

  Her heart raced even as the moment froze. He would know now for sure. There was no mistaking those eyes. Her own were aqua blue, and the only reason her lashes were dark was because she’d put on mascara that morning. Emma’s eyes were his. Green and with lovely thick dark lashes that curled naturally. Just like the brown curls that rested on the tips of her shoulders, the same sable colour as his short spikes. She could almost see him mentally counting back six years.

  Emma looked from Shannyn to Jonas and then to her babysitter, who stood in the doorway looking confused.

  “Why’s everyone standing so still?” Emma’s voice piped up curiously in the silence that had fallen.

  Shannyn shook herself out of her stupor. She forced a cheery smile to her face, the skin tightly stretched under the false expression. Right now she had to ignore Jonas and deal with Emma. Lord knew Jonas would have to be dealt with later.

  “What brings you here in the middle of the day, pumpkin?”

  “I told Melissa that I wanted to see you when she picked me up from school.”

  Shannyn reached down and lifted Emma up so that she was on her knee, aware of Jonas’s eyes on them constantly. “And how was kindergarten today? Did you have fun? Learn the secret of astrophysics? Solve the mystery of the dinosaur?”

  She made jokes but her stomach churned with anxiety. He must have put two and two together by now. If not, he would have left the office. No, he knew exactly what the deal was. That they had a child, and she hadn’t told him.

  He would hate her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen at all. He was supposed to be switching therapists. Out of her sphere of existence. So she and Emma could live their lives as they always had.

  “Mommy, that’s silly.”

  She forced a smile as Emma’s bright voice brought her back to the present. “And so are you, girly-girl.”

  “Can you come home?”

  Melissa, Emma’s sitter, stepped forward, holding out her hand for Emma to take. “I thought you were coming to run errands with me? We need to let your mom finish work.” Melissa had sized up the situation and had ascertained something was wrong. “We’ll meet her at home later.”

  “Give me a hug, honey,” Shannyn said, squeezing the tiny waist tightly against her. She blinked back the tears that threatened, already sorry for the changes she knew were coming to Emma’s life. She’d hated the upheaval she’d experienced as a child; had tried to protect Emma from going through the same thing. Now, in the space of a few minutes, all her intentions disintegrated. She gave Emma a little squeeze, wanting to hold on to her and keep the inevitable from happening. “Thanks for coming to see me. I’ll be home soon, okay?”

  The response was a smacking kiss on the cheek. “See you later, alligator.”

  It was Emma’s latest funny and she never seemed to grow tired of it. “In a while, crocodile,” Shannyn called back, her throat tight.

  When the whirlwind had departed again, Shannyn braved a look up at Jonas.

  “We need to talk.” She heard his voice and the tight quiver of anger it carried. Trembling, she made her gaze remain on his, no matter how his tone intimidated her. He ignored the other faces in the waiting room, his eyes piercing hers, accusing. She’d lied to him, and right now she knew that was all he could see.

  “We need to talk, Shannyn, right now.”

  Shannyn’s heart quaked. It would have been too much to ask that he not see the resemblance. She’d spent so much time denying to herself that he’d find out that she wasn’t prepared for this conversation.

  “I’m working. We can talk later, Jonas.”

  His voice was nail-hard as it bit back. “We can do this here, with all these people around, or we can go somewhere more private, but Shannyn—we’re talking now.”

  Carrie stood behind her, and Melanie picked up the phone that jangled in the stillness, shattering Shannyn’s nerves. There was no way on earth she and Jonas could talk here. And by the way his lips were thinned, she knew prevaricating further would be a mistake. Plain, unvarnished truth would be the only way to explain. They had to get out of here, somewhere neutral. She looked into his face, all hard angles and unrelenting anger. He was furious, and she knew she didn’t want to be completely alone for this conversation. She needed the protection of somewhere public if she were going to make him listen to her.

  “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off,” she said to Carrie in an undertone. “If you need anything over the weekend, e-mail me.”

  “You go,” Carrie murmured back
. “And call if you need anything. I mean it, Shan. Anything.” She looked over her glasses meaningfully at Shannyn.

  Shannyn grabbed her purse and nodded at Jonas. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off.”

  He followed her out the door.

  They stepped out in the June sun and Shannyn squinted against the glare. She’d left her sunglasses on her desk, and she could really use them now, both to cover her eyes and to put some distance between her and Jonas. Hostility was fairly emanating from him, and she had no idea how to defuse the situation so they could actually have a conversation. One where he might understand why she’d done what she had.

  When they reached the sidewalk, he grabbed her arm none too gently and guided her across the street, past the old barracks and down to the Green.

  Shannyn shook his hand off when they reached the grassy expanse, taking a few steps away from him. He hadn’t hurt her. But her hopes at an amicable conversation had evaporated when the firm grip of his fingers dug into her skin. Even though he wasn’t holding her arm anymore, she felt his animosity. His jaw was clenched tightly, and he walked—no, marched—across the grass, assuming she’d keep up with him.

  He was angry and had every right to be. Right now, she had to pick her battles. How she dealt with him now would affect everything that happened from this moment on.

  He stopped beneath an elm, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stared out over the glittering water of the river. Shannyn held her breath, waiting for the explosion, not knowing what to say, wondering what his first words would be. She was forever grateful that they were in a public place. It would preclude a shouting match and perhaps the presence of others would make him more willing to listen. If she were lucky.

  But the words wouldn’t come. When she remained silent, he spoke. Not with anger, not with a shout. With a quiet certainty.

  “She’s mine.”

  Shannyn nodded, surprised at the sting of tears that filled her eyes at the simple statement, the moment of truth. This was the father of her baby. A man she’d once loved. A man who was all but a stranger now. She tried to focus on the sailboat gliding down the river, but the image blurred.