“It’s really good,” she mumbled, her mouth already half full of fish.
The question of whether she liked fish was put to rest. They had already gone through a second pan of rice also. She chased the last kernel of rice across her plate with her fork. It did not get away. This woman was feeling better. A lot better.
Despite her black eye and bruises, she had a very pleasant face tonight. She wiped her mouth and fingers with a paper towel and tucked the towel into the elastic on her sweat pants. That made him smile. Those pants were way too big—for now. The way she was eating, they wouldn’t be too big for long.
“Whew.” She scrunched her shoulders when she caught him looking. “I like fish.”
“I see that,” he smirked. “You like rice too.”
“I do.” She nodded, a mischievous light in her eye. “Sorry, but I was really hungry. All I need now is a piece of chocolate.”
“I almost forgot.” He jumped up and went quickly into the cabin for his backpack, returning with a couple of mini-chocolate bars. He offered one her. “I always bring a couple of these when I’m hiking.”
She took the closest. “Thanks. I was just kidding, but this is a nice treat.”
“Will one be enough?” he teased. She wasn’t really kidding. He knew a hungry woman when he saw one.
“Yes.” She ripped the end of the wrapper with her teeth and expertly removed the bar. At the first bite, she closed her eye, savoring the morel as she slowly chewed. “Mmm. I like chocolate too.”
“You are feeling better, aren’t you?” Listening to her moan over a piece of chocolate made him smile. Kelsey was definitely going to live.
“Don’t you feel like you just need a teeny piece of chocolate after you eat?” She finished the chocolate with a satisfied smack of her lips.
“Nope. That’s a girl thing.” He sat on the steps with her. “Us guys just need meat, huh, Whisper?”
The big dog had made himself comfortable right between them. They sat in silence as the fire crackled and popped. She sighed, and even that little sound made him smile. Daylight still shone at the tops of the giant pines, but shadows deepened in the forest. Smoke tendrils from the campfire smelled good, Alex had food in his stomach, and he was feeling pretty mellow. It was a comfortable moment, but he could tell she was becoming nervous again. She fidgeted with her napkin and wiped her puffy eye.
“Since I can’t tell you a whole lot about me, maybe you could tell me something about you?” She glanced at him sideways.
Alex leaned back on his elbows, stretched his legs down the steps and contemplated an answer. Her anxiety was back. It seemed to come and go. Food obviously made it go. Mental note to self—catch more fish tomorrow.
“What you really mean is who the hell am I?”
“Maybe.” She ducked with a shy smile.
“Okay, so you already know my name and my dogs’ names. What else would be interesting?”
“Maybe like where you live when you’re not at your cabin?”
“That’s easy. Alexandria, Virginia.”
“Is that very far away?”
He smirked at her innocent question. Even the best answers didn’t mean much to an amnesiac.
“It’s a couple thousand miles that way.” He pointed east. “I try to get out here every June to do a little fishing. My old man left me this land a long time ago. This time, I got a little sidetracked.”
“Sorry.” She blushed again. “Guess that’s my fault.”
“Nah.” He waved it off. “Just glad I was here to help.” He couldn’t believe the lie that just rolled off his lips, but it sounded true. He acknowledged it. He was glad he had helped her.
“Where is here?”
“Well, we are in Washington State—”
“That much I know. It’s funny. I do remember some things, like I know I live in Washington. I just don’t know … where.”
“The official post office address for this place is Spanaway.”
“I guess that’s helpful once I remember where Spanaway is.” She giggled very quietly. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny. I mean, look at me. I’m all beat up, and I look like heck, and you’re trying to help. It’s just that ….” She scrunched her shoulders again. “I don’t know, it just feels good to laugh, you know? For some reason, it feels really good.”
Alex sobered at the knowledge he possessed, and she did not. There was a reason laughing felt good to Kelsey. Her laugh had a sweet, musical quality. She should do it more often.
He debated telling her about the Amber Alert and her own endangered status, but it felt too soon. Too cruel. How do you tell a woman who is just getting on her feet that her husband is trying to kill her? That he may already have attempted murder? How do you knock her back down? He couldn’t do it. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow ….
“So tell me more. What’s in Alexandria, Virginia?”
Her question jolted him back to safer topics. “Work. Started a business. Needed a break.”
“Cool. So you’re a savvy businessman then?”
Alex snorted at her very kind description of himself. Here he was sprawled out in dirty jeans with an old flannel shirt. He had a baseball cap on his head and probably had hat hair for sure, plus he hadn’t showered yet today. Savvy was the last thing he was. “Let’s just say I started a business. Right now, it seems to be running me.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s a long story.” He watched the fire. “Thought I had a good idea awhile back. Even got a surprise benefactor to ante up the cash to get it off the ground.”
“It’s successful then?”
“The demand’s greater than I anticipated.” He shrugged as the gloomy predicament of his business invaded his thoughts. Success should make a man feel a whole lot better than he felt. That it didn’t was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. The old adage that money wasn’t everything annoyed him, like he didn’t already know that? That lesson had been stamped indelibly into his heart exactly four years ago when he had lost—them.
“Cool. So you’re making lots of money, and you’re successful. That’s supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it?” Her face lit up with her cheerful summarization of his life.
“I guess.” He stared at the dying embers, not wanting to share anymore.
“But it’s not?”
“Let’s just say it’s not what I expected.” Alex stood and stretched before he tossed a couple more logs in the fire pit. He settled back on the steps by Whisper, hoping she would stop asking questions. She didn’t.
“What? You don’t like to work or something?”
He noticed no recrimination in her voice, amazement maybe, but no judgment. She just wanted to know.
“Just didn’t think I’d get stuck behind a desk all day.” He suppressed his impatience. “Maybe when I get a few things figured out, I’ll be able to spend more time with my agents. That’s what I’d rather do.”
“Agents? Like insurance agents? Secret agents?” Kelsey fidgeted with her broken fingernails as she listened. “What kind of business did you start anyway?”
Again, Alex deliberated how much he should tell her, so he gave her the simplified version. “I’m an ex-Marine. Once I left the Corps, I didn’t fit in civilian life. Most people don’t realize how hard it is for a guy to leave the service, especially in my line of work. Anyway, a lot of good men are coming back from overseas. I needed something to do, and they needed work, so I started a covert surveillance business.”
She studied him intently. “What’s covert surveillance?”
He studied her, not sure how much information her brain could process right now. She seemed to have some capacity for remembering. He just didn’t want to overload her the first moment she felt halfway decent.
“It’s not a big deal,” he muttered. “We do undercover work. Most of it’s just a game of watch and report, kind of like the work private investigators do. For instance, think about the drug trade in Afghanistan. I’ve got a contract on my desk
for two agents to do surveillance over there. All the State Department wants is to understand how heroin is impacting that country.”
“Okay. That’s interesting.”
“And we’re all ex-military snipers.”
Kelsey blinked hard. “Snipers? You’re a sniper?”
“Do you know what a sniper is?”
She nodded rapidly. “You shoot people.”
He couldn’t help the smirk on his face. “Not always. We were all in special ops. I’ve got two vets from the Vietnam era and a couple from Afghanistan and Iraq. I haven’t hired a Navy SEAL yet, but it could happen. We’re trained professionals, and we try real hard not to shoot people. We do good work.”
She gulped, but he wasn’t sure if she understood what he had just told her or not.
“Not what you were expecting?”
“No, it’s just that I ….” Kelsey stared at her fingers.
“A lot of folks don’t understand guys like me. You’re probably thinking you’re out in the woods with Hannibal Lecter, huh?” The moment he used that descriptor he wanted to call it back. Damn it, Stewart. Think before you speak. Just once. Think. After all she’s been through….
“No.” She spit the word out. “I was trying to say that a very nice man, and you’ve been taking care of me, and feeding me. Besides, you have two dogs that love me. I don’t think a murderer would be as nice as you are. I don’t think ….” She paused, looking directly at him. “I’m not afraid of you. I was this morning, but … I’m not now. You’ve helped me. A lot. And, umm, you keep feeding me.”
He grinned. Food did seem to be an integral part of the conversation. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have teased.”
“I feel safe with you,” she declared, “and you aren’t creeping me out with that scary question either. I never thought you were like Hannibal Lecter. Sheesh. What a question.”
For some odd reason, his stupid heart flipped at her scolding. Kelsey was comfortable to be around tonight. Even as beat up as she was, she trusted him. Glancing out of the corners of his eyes, he felt drawn to her. There was something familiar he couldn’t place, like he had known her a long time ago.
“It’s odd though.” She stretched her fingers in front of her. “I can remember someone like Hannibal Lecter, but not my last name.”
“You’ll remember. Don’t worry.” That familiar pang of recognition poked him again.
“So, anyway.” She changed the subject as she ruffled Whisper’s mane. “Tell me about your dogs. They’re beautiful. Where’d you get them?”
“A friend left them to me in his will.”
“His will?”
“Yes. Max was an old Army canine handler. He used to adopt the dogs he worked with when he got the chance. One night, he showed me how smart they are. Little did I know it was a job interview. Long story short—Max got cancer last year, died and left me his dogs.”
“They’re such good boys.” She stroked the sleeping black mutt beside her. “Max gave you a special gift, didn’t he?”
“Guess so.” Alex smacked Smoke on the butt as the dog strolled by. Smoke was instantly ready to play. “They’re good company. Smoke’s the clown. Whisper’s the thinker.” Alex wrestled with Smoke a couple minutes longer. Whisper just as ready to join in, but Alex gave them a quick command, and they settled down.
“Sounds like you live a very interesting life.”
Yep. That was him all right, interesting to the bone.
Kelsey grimaced as she fingered the back of her head. “Ouch. Would you mind if I warm a pan of water when we go in, so I can wash my hair? It’s really gross.” She made another funny face, and again, his heart kicked into overdrive. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time.
“Let me do that for you.” He offered his arm as they stood to go into the cabin. It was not a big deal. He had done this a thousand times with women of all ages. It was just the polite thing to do, but when Kelsey said, “Thanks,” and took hold of his arm right at the bend of his elbow, it was an entirely new feeling. He looked down at her, still so battered that she could only see out of one eye, but he felt like he was looking at a woman of royalty. There was a quality about her he couldn’t see or touch, yet it was there. She glanced up at him, blinking shyly like she didn’t want him to look at her. He couldn’t stop.
Opening the door, he stepped back so she could enter first. He brushed the nonsensical feeling away, retrieved his rifle from its resting place and went into the cabin behind her. After he replaced his weapon on the high kitchen cupboard top, he filled a large pan with water, and set it on the camp stove to heat. She sat waiting on the cot while he set up a makeshift washbasin on the counter for her use.
“You’re quite the gentleman, aren’t you?” she asked shyly.
“Nah.” His cheeks warmed at her unexpected compliment. “I picked up a clean shirt and some shampoo for you when I was out this morning, and a hairbrush, too. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Alex headed for the door, intending to clean up around the fire and take the dogs for a quick walk. He didn’t get far. As soon as he glanced back, he knew she would need help. She stood gripping the counter for support. The last thing he needed was for her to get a cracked skull on top of everything else.
“On second thought, how about if we do it this way instead?” He stepped back to her side and moved everything to the table. Leaning the only chair in the place against the table’s edge, he made a small flourish with both hands toward the improvised beauty salon. “You sit here. I’ll tip the chair back and wash your hair for you. Last chance offer, ma’am.”
“Do you call all women ma’am, Mr. Stewart?” she asked timidly.
“Only ladies.” He winked, and she blushed again. “Please call me Alex.”
Kelsey turned away from him, a shadow darkening her face. “No, it’s okay. I’ll figure something out.”
“Come on now. It will only take a couple minutes. We’ll be done before you know it.”
“Well.” She glanced at him and then the chair, biting her lower lip in uncertainty. “If you really don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He held the chair while she made herself comfortable. Within minutes, he had her tilted back and was pouring warm water over her head and into the washbasin. He poured a small bit of the baby shampoo onto his hands, and then worked the shampoo through her long dirty hair. Instantly it transformed into fudge-colored silk. Alex felt Kelsey relax when he massaged her scalp. With a sigh, her nervousness faded, and just as quickly, he relaxed, too. The clumps of dried blood and dirt dissolved. Very gently, he traced the cut at the back of her head with his fingertips. Jagged, nearly two inches long, it sat just above her neck. Overall, she was lucky she hadn’t gone into shock considering all she had been through.
“I’m not hurting you, am I? You’ve got a good sized cut back here.”
“No, it feels good.” She sounded sleepy. “So tell me more. Are you married? Any kids, or are those dogs your kids?”
It was an innocent question that he had certainly answered enough in the past. Why it affected him differently tonight, he didn’t know. Something about Kelsey made him want to explain. “Three times. Once for love. Twice for nothing. One daughter.”
She didn’t respond, so he focused on rinsing her hair thoroughly. He lathered her head again, determined to keep his mouth shut, but then he thought maybe talking about his daughter might help her remember. He couldn’t get the pictures he had seen of Tommy and Jackie out of his mind.
“Her name was Abby.”
He squeezed the suds through her hair and concentrated on working it around her face so he didn’t get soap in her eyes. With his hands full of suds and chocolate silk the cabin transformed into a time machine. Before he knew it, he was lost in recollections of his perfect daughter. The smell of baby shampoo took him to a different place and time when little feet pounded down the hall to his and Sara’s bedroom in the early morning hours, when any garden spiders that might have wander
ed into his house were deaf from little girl screams of, “Pider, Daddy. Pider!”
Once more, Alex smelled his child’s sweet breath in his nose and felt the softness of baby kisses on his cheek. He always called them butterfly kisses. Her little-girl hugs were the magic balm that took away every care in his tough military life. Abby was sunshine and joy, everything good in his miserable life. He could almost hear her squeal, “Daddy!” She had loved him. He adored her. It felt like yesterday.
Another memory demanded revelation, so he shared it. “She was so tiny when she was born. The minute the nurse handed her to me, that little girl snagged my shirt like she was gonna punch me for pulling her away from her nice warm mama.”
“And?” Kelsey asked, and Alex couldn’t refuse her any more than he could stem the tide of love that had swelled inside.
“I spoiled her. Honest. If she wanted a sucker, I got her a sucker. If she wanted a kitten, we got her a kitten. That little girl ….” He sighed. “Here I’m supposed to be leading men into battle, and she could turn me into breakfast mush.”
“I can see that side of you.”
“You should’ve seen me trying to give her a bath the first night we brought her home. Sara was tired. I thought I was hurting Abby. It was like bathing a fish. Heck, I didn’t know babies don’t like water on their faces.”
Alex stilled as he played with Kelsey’s hair the same way he used to play with Abby’s, his fingers full of chocolate loops, tangles, and bubbles. Leaning relaxed against the table, he didn’t want the moment to stop.
“She got bossy when she turned two. So she’s standing in the bathtub telling me she’s in charge of the bubble bath. She was so dang cute.” He poured another cup of rinse water carefully over Kelsey’s head. “She kept hollering, ‘Me do it. Me can do it.’”
“I’ll bet you had tons of bubbles that day.”
“Tons.” Once again, his blond angel peered up at him through the mounds of frothy bubbles with the same Popsicle grin on her bright, shining face. Memories of Abby flooded through him. They filled his heart with peace, and for a moment, he was happy. But, just like that, regret sucker punched him—hard. His voice cracked. He pulled away from the table, stood straight, and faced the empty hole that was his real life. “That was a long time ago.”
Alex (In the Company of Snipers) Page 6
