Familiar Stranger

by Sharon Sala

  “I see you have a sweet tooth,” Macie purred, and then lowered her eyelashes to half mast.

  David assumed she thought it was sexy, but he could see they were false and wondered if she knew one was coming unglued.

  “You know what they say about men who love their food,” she whispered.

  David grinned. “Yeah, they get fat. Listen, it’s been nice talking to you, and I’ll be sure and tell Cara you said hello.”

  Macie looked irritated. “Yes, well…you do that,” she muttered, and then walked away.

  David didn’t bother to watch. He’d spied a box of cereal that he might want to try and tossed it into the cart.

  “Milk. Milk. Remember to get milk,” he muttered, and kept on going.

  By the time he got to the checkout stand, he’d covered the entire store. He now knew where the toilet paper was shelved and where he could find aspirin and cinnamon, as well.

  The checker, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, rang up his purchases, eyeing him curiously as she did. When he handed over a ten and a twenty to pay for his purchases, he caught her staring at him and he winked.

  She blushed all the way to the roots of her hair and dropped a dime of his change.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, as she dug another out of the drawer and handed it to him. “Thank you, and come back again.”

  “Yes, thanks, I will,” he said.

  “Do you need any help carrying those out?” she asked.

  “Are you offering?”

  She blushed even harder. “Why, no, sir, but I could call a—”

  David grinned. “No, thanks. I don’t need any help. I was just teasing you.”

  She grinned then, a little more sure of herself.

  “Well, I was staring. I suppose I had it coming.” Then she added, “Are you new here, or just passing through?”

  He hesitated and then smiled. “New.”

  “Then welcome to Chiltingham,” she said.

  The innocence of her remark took him aback and then touched him greatly.

  “Thank you. The longer I’m here, the more certain I am that it’s just where I belong.”

  As he left the store, he had the feeling that he’d just made another friend. Dr. Marvin Edwards had welcomed him home from Vietnam and now this girl, barely past her childhood, had welcomed him to the town. Damned if he wasn’t taking a real liking to normal living.

  He put his purchases in the trunk and then drove out of town, anxious to get back home. He thought of the pie that Cara had been baking when he left and wondered what other surprises she had in store for him. Whatever they were, they were bound to be good.

  Chapter 7

  David pulled into the driveway of Cara’s house and parked. Before he could get out of the car, she came out the door to meet him. He waved as she circled the car and gave him a welcome-home kiss.

  “I got the milk,” he said, as he popped the trunk of the car.

  Cara peeked over his shoulder and stifled a grin.

  “It’s sort of difficult to see it among all the other stuff you bought, so I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  “Do not chide the hunter who brings home sustenance,” David said.

  This time she let her grin show.

  He handed her one grocery sack and then took the other two himself, closed the trunk lid with his elbow and shifted the sacks to a safer position within his grasp.

  “Lead the way,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

  All sorts of wonderful scents assailed David as they entered the house. He could definitely smell that apple pie she’d been baking when he left.

  “Smells good in here,” he said, as he sat the grocery sacks on the counter.

  “I haven’t had this much fun cooking in I don’t know when,” Cara said.

  David took the grocery sack from her and then took her in his arms.

  “Yeah, and I don’t know when I’ve had this much fun, period.”

  She smiled and combed her fingers through his hair.

  “You’re too easy to please,” she said softly.

  “It’s not that. It’s the woman who’s doing it.”

  She gave him a quick kiss. “Save that for later. I want to see what the hunter has bagged.”

  “Just stuff,” he said, and dug the milk from a sack and put it into the refrigerator.

  “Is there anything else in these that needs refrigerating?” Cara asked.

  “A couple of things, I guess.”

  “Like what?” she asked, as she started digging through the sacks.

  “Well…like this…and for sure this, and I think this would spoil, too.”

  Her eyes widened, then she started to smile as she watched him pull out a half gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, a package of hot Polish sausage and a carton of dip to go with the enormous bag of chips in the other sack.

  “This looks like the groceries Tyler used to bring home.”

  “He’s the youngest, isn’t he?”

  Cara nodded. “And my only son. He’ll be thirty on his next birthday. You’ll like him.”

  David stilled, watching as Cara began putting the items away that he’d purchased.

  “Saw Ms. Macie at the supermarket. She said to say hello.”

  Cara turned. “And you would be lying to me now.”

  He nodded. “Well…she definitely said hello to me.”

  “She’s a snake,” Cara muttered.

  “More like a barracuda,” David offered.

  The simile made Cara smile.

  He handed her a couple more items from the grocery sacks, which she put on the refrigerator shelves, then moved to the pantry to store the rest.

  As she worked, she realized David had gotten very quiet. She turned and looked at him, trying to judge what he was thinking against the expression on his face. As usual, it was impossible to tell.

  “Well,” she said. “Are you going to tell me, or is this going to be another game of twenty questions?”

  “This life is so simple—so ordinary. I keep worrying if I’ll ever fit in. And your children… I’m trying to put myself in their places when confronted with someone like me. I’m not so sure this is going to be good. If I was them, I don’t think I would like me.”

  “Well…I like you, which is all that matters. Besides, you don’t know them or you wouldn’t be worrying,” she said, and handed him the ice cream. “Put this in the freezer, please.”

  He did as she asked.

  “Now go wash up, super shopper. Supper is ready.”

  David sighed and then headed for the bathroom. For a man used to being the one giving orders, this was a definite change in his routine, but one he could get used to.

  He paused at the doorway and looked back. Cara was already at the stove, dishing up the food.

  So beautiful. Then he shook his head and then hurried down the hall, anxious not to waste another moment of his time with her.

  By the time he returned, she was carrying the last of the dishes into the dining room. He followed, his eyes widening with appreciation as he entered. The cherry wood table was set with china instead of the stoneware she used every day. There was a bouquet of her own flowers in the center of the table and lit candles on the mantel as well as on either side of the flowers. He thought of all the lonely days and nights of the last forty years and words failed him. When Cara turned, she saw him standing in the doorway and held out her hand. He took it, kissing it twice—once on the back, then again in the center of her palm.

  “For you,” Cara said softly. “For all the meals you ate alone.”

  He took her in his arms, too overwhelmed to speak. Cara was the first to move.

  “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

  He seated Cara and then himself, missing nothing of the elegance. Everywhere he looked he saw beauty, and all for him—all in the name of love. Cara handed him the carving knife, indicating that he carve the roast she had cooked.

  He looke
d at the long, thin-bladed knife, trying to relate it to serving food, but the images it evoked were deadly and ugly. Almost immediately, he laid it down.

  “There’s something I need to do first,” David said, and took her by the hand. His thoughts flashed to Frank, lying in his own blood, and he shook his head as if clearing away the ghosts.

  Cara waited.

  David bowed his head, uncertain how to proceed, but the need to acknowledge a greater power was, at that moment, overwhelming.

  There, in a deep, quiet voice, David Wilson asked a blessing for the food and the woman who had cooked it, ending his awkward plea with a soft amen.

  Cara squeezed his hand. “Thank you, my darling, that was wonderful. Would you carve?”

  This time when David picked up the carving knife, it didn’t feel lethal in his hands.

  “I would be honored.”

  After that, time passed in a series of moments that would forever be in his heart.

  The flickering candlelight softening the passage of time on their faces.

  The dark, blood-red wine as he filled their crystal goblets.

  The purity of the clink as they toasted their future.

  The look of joy in Cara’s eyes when he took his first bite of roast.

  The sensation of crisp, sugary crust, warm, cinnamon apples and the cold, silken sensation of vanilla ice cream as they ate the dessert, apple pie à la mode.

  Finally, David pushed back his dessert plate with a groan.

  “I have never had such wonderful food in my entire life.”

  Cara beamed, then held out her hand. “Come with me. The evening isn’t over yet.”

  He groaned again. “Whatever it is, I better not have to eat it.”

  She laughed. “Come on. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.”

  They got as far as the living room when Cara ordered him to take a seat.

  “Just remember to save room for me,” she said, and headed for the television across the room.

  While David watched, she slipped a video from a case and put it into the VCR, then took a seat beside David on the sofa and punched the remote.

  He grinned. “What’s playing?”

  “Your daughter’s life.”

  The grin slid sideways. “They’re videos of Bethany?”

  She nodded. “And later Valerie and Tyler will be in them, too.”

  He looked at the screen, his expression fixed. When the first images appeared, she heard him grunt as if someone had just kicked him in the belly. It was easy to see why. Ray had taken it the day of her release after giving birth to Bethany. A nurse was wheeling her out of the hospital with the baby in her arms.

  “Oh, Lord, I always forget how long my hair was then,” Cara said, but words were beyond David.

  He saw the sadness of her smile and knew it was because of him. Then the camera panned to the baby she was holding. The focus was bad and the picture kept bouncing, as if the photographer was walking as he filmed, but there was no denying the tiny little face peering out from the blankets, nor the dark wisps of hair framing her features.

  “Even then, she looked like you,” Cara said. “It was at once a blessing and a pain. She was a constant reminder of how much I loved you and how much I’d lost.”

  “Lord,” David muttered.

  Cara rubbed her hand across his shoulder in a comforting motion.

  “It’s okay, honey. Just watch. If you have questions, ask. Otherwise, most of the stuff is self-explanatory.”

  He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. For the next two hours, he was virtually mute. When that video was over, he looked up with a start, like a man who had been rudely awakened.

  “That’s not all, is it?”

  He’d only seen the first year of her life. She had just been learning to walk.

  Cara was already up and changing the tape.

  “Oh, no. There are far more than you could possibly watch in one night. You haven’t even gotten to the part where she finally gets a whole spoonful of cereal into her mouth without spilling it.”

  “You have that on tape?”

  “Yes, thanks to Ray.”

  He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “It seems I have a lot to thank Ray Justice for.”

  “Don’t be sad, David. I couldn’t bear it if this hurt you. I only wanted you to see the little milestones in her life. They weren’t all caught on tape, but enough were so that you will see part of her growing up.”

  “Not sad. Just so damned sorry.”

  She hesitated before putting the next tape in the VCR.

  “No regrets, remember?”

  He sighed. “I remember.”

  “Okay. Then here goes.”

  And so David sat, reliving his daughter’s life in silence, from birthday parties and swimming lessons, to learning to ride a bike. When the camera caught her taking a spill, David flinched. He watched her get up crying—saw a tiny trickle of blood on her knee and the pain in his chest was so great he thought he would die. She’d hurt and someone else had wiped away her tears.

  He saw her hit a home run at a softball game and the joy on her face as she rounded third base to home made him laugh aloud.

  Cara hugged him, her cheek against his shoulder, but she remained silent, answering questions only when he asked, letting him see and accept this in his own way—in his own time.

  Bethany’s life unfolded beneath his gaze, from the gap in her smile when she lost her first tooth to her first date. He saw it all, unaware that Cara had fallen asleep beside him. When the tape in the VCR ran out, he glanced at his watch, then at Cara. She was asleep on the sofa beside him, and no wonder. It was ten minutes to three in the morning.

  He switched off the TV then picked her up and carried her to their bed. As he laid her down, she roused briefly.

  “Ssh, just sleep,” he said softly, as he took off her shoes.

  She rolled over with a sigh. He pulled a sheet over her shoulders, not bothering to help her undress. He’d slept many nights in his clothes and it hadn’t changed the gravity of the earth. She could surely do the same. But when he started to undress and get into bed beside her, he hesitated, then stopped. Knowing himself too well, he knew there was no way he would be able to sleep. Not after the evening he’d just had.

  Instead, he moved quietly through the house and began to clear the dinner dishes from the table. There in the quiet of the house with the memories of his baby girl’s face in his heart, he washed the dishes from the meal that Cara had prepared. The hot soapy water felt good on his skin, cleaning the ugliness of his past just as he cleaned the china. Uncertain where to put the things he had washed, he left the china in neat stacks on the kitchen counter instead, then hung up the dish towel and turned out the light.

  As he exited, he stopped in the doorway and turned, looking back at the room to make sure he’d left nothing undone. The table was clean. The dishes were shadowy stacks against a darkened counter—the curtained windows like judgmental eyes looking back at him. He shuddered, and as he did, sensed he wasn’t alone in his inability to sleep. Somewhere, his brother was also awake—and thinking of ways to kill him.

  Frank Wilson was a haunted man. The past year had been one disappointment after another, and with each failure to get to David, his frustration had risen, multiplying into a dozen different symptoms.

  Spicy food made him nauseous and he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t had a headache. He had intermittent bouts of insomnia that would often last for days and when his body finally gave out and he could sleep, it wasn’t rest. Instead, he seemed destined to relive the failures of his past.

  Inevitably, the dreams always spiraled into one horrible, recurring nightmare—of fire and burning flesh, of the mind-bending pain that came afterward. His brother’s traitorous face was etched in his brain and he would know no peace until David was dead.

  Tonight wasn’t any different. The silhouette of the Colorado Rockies were visible from his hotel room. They r
ose above the landscape like jagged rips in the horizon. But the grandeur of the presence completely missed him. He rubbed a weary hand across his face and wished for peace.

  At night, without his wig and mustache, he couldn’t hide from himself. The face looking back at him in the mirror was the same man who was on the run, not the cocky New York cop he was pretending to be. He hated that face. He hated the man behind it.

  He paced before the windows, ignoring the traffic on the street below for the blanket of star-littered sky. It was nights like this that he missed Australia. It seemed that the sky there was larger and the stars closer. Martha had loved to camp out with him, lying on their bedrolls beneath the wide open spaces and sleeping beneath the stars.

  His chin jutted angrily as he slammed a fist against the windowsill.

  Get over it, sucker. Those times are gone forever.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, and sank onto the side of the bed, then covered his face with his hands, unconsciously tracing the road map of burn scars with his fingertips.

  A car horn sounded on the street below, and in the distance, he could hear approaching sirens.

  God, but he missed the quiet of the outback. Maybe retiring to Florida wasn’t such a good idea after all. Quiet would be the last thing he’d find in such a place.

  Swamps and alligators—oranges and hurricanes.

  Hundreds of thousands of people whose first language was not English.

  Old people who’d moved there to live out what was left of their lives.

  He sighed. Damn it all to hell, wasn’t there a place left on earth to which he could belong?

  He laid back on the bed and closed his eyes, and while he was feeling sorry for himself, exhaustion came and wrapped him in a blanket of deep, dreamless sleep.

  The unexpected night of rest had given Frank a whole new outlook on life. He awoke with the feeling that he could conquer the world. For the first time in months, he was confident of what he was doing. As he dressed, he began to lay out his plans for the day. Maybe another round of practice at the firing range, a good meal around mid-afternoon; after that, find a good travel agent. Another night or so here in Denver and it would be time to move on.