Battle for the Soldier's Heart

by Cara Colter

  “Something for you to remember,” she said, pretending haughtiness.

  “And that you were suspended for it. That’s funny. You suspended.”

  “Despite the fact you think you know everything about me, I am not the Goody Two Shoes you think I am.”

  “Uh-huh.” With utter disbelief. “Tell me something about you that would surprise me.”

  They were taking the exit now and she could see the dark blue waters of Lake Okanagan blinking under the sunlight in the distance.

  She didn’t just want to surprise him. She found herself wanting to shock him. So, feeling bold, she said, “I’ve skinny-dipped in this lake.”

  His laugh was derisive. “Oh, sure. By yourself at midnight.”

  “It wasn’t! It was at a coed party.”

  “Oh,” he said dryly. “Coed. Boys and girls at the same party. And how many beers did you have to have before you went in? I bet you’re completely soused on two. And I’ll bet it was completely dark and you raced down to the water’s edge wrapped in your towel and didn’t take it off until the last possible moment. And then you stayed in the water freezing, scared to come out and were in bed sick for a week after.”

  She stared at him, aghast at how accurate his portrayal of the one racy event of her entire life was. Obviously, he and Graham had talked about her way too much!

  “So,” he said, satisfied by her fuming silence, “I know just about everything about you, and you, on the other hand, know nothing about me.”

  But that wasn’t exactly true. A memory of his house came to her mind. When he had moved in, the house his family had occupied had been the only rental on their block. Everyone else owned their properties and had been in them for years, forming a family as much as a neighborhood.

  And then the Adamses had arrived and moved into a neglected two-story down the street from her own house. The neglect, as she recalled, was not improved by his family’s possession.

  Outside, paint peeled and fences sagged, and inside curtains drooped and burnt-out lightbulbs were not replaced. The lawn sprouted weeds, an occasional motorcycle, newspapers tangled in the shrubbery. One old, dilapidated car replaced another in the parking spot in front of that house.

  Somehow, even though he had challenged her that she knew nothing about him, Grace could not bring that up. She could not tell him that he was a long, long way from his humble roots.

  But he glanced at her face, and she was shocked by what an open book she was to him.

  “Oh, wait,” he said, slowly. “You do know a thing or two about me. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”

  “You lived on the same block as me!”

  For a moment something in his face closed, he became intensely focused on driving the car as they entered the first of the twists in the road that ran in a serpentine around this edge of the lake. When he finally glanced at her, a small grin was on his face. “Don’t kid yourself, Gracie-Facie. Same block, different worlds. The Cleavers meet the Osbornes. Only, the poor version.”

  The grin was a fake. It said it didn’t matter. It said it didn’t bother him, but there was something guarded in his eyes, daring her to judge him.

  She wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, but she remembered all too clearly the police cars arriving on their quiet street, the shouting from inside their house, a rather memorable occasion when his mother had stumbled out onto the street drinking straight from a wine bottle.

  And she remembered the dignity with which he had handled that, the pride flashing in his eyes as he had retrieved his mother from in front of all her neighbors, walked her back into the house with straight shoulders, his hand on his mother’s elbow, never glancing back at the assembled neighbors.

  “You know something about growing up in a house like that, Gracie?”

  She knew he was trusting her with something, and that this was not something he did often. The grin was completely gone.

  “When you grow up in a war zone, you never expect anything good from life. That bred-into-the-bone cynicism made me a born soldier. And it always made me feel I had a leg up on those who did expect good things.”

  She had to admit, he had something there. Look at her, going through life like Pollyanna, her dreams broken at every turn!

  But still, there was something about him not expecting good things that made her sad.

  “When you expect the worst,” he said, his voice grim, “you are rarely disappointed.”

  “And what happens when the best happens?” she asked. “What happens when the boy from the wrong side of the tracks ends up in the red Ferrari?”

  “Don’t forget the part about the girl next door being with him,” he added, and the grin was back, devil-may-care, daring her to see beyond it. The thing was, she could see beyond it.

  “I’m being serious!”

  “Are you ever anything else?”

  “Occasionally! But not now. What do you feel when the best happens instead of the worst?”

  “Oh, that word again. Feel.”

  “As uncomfortable as it makes you, could you answer the question?”

  “When good things happen, I enjoy every second of them. Without any expectation that it will last.”

  He was telling her something, and she was aware she needed to pay attention. He wasn’t the staying kind. He wasn’t the lasting kind.

  And what did she care? She would never think of Rory Adams like that.

  Only, a secret part of her always had. And she was suddenly aware that secret part probably always would.

  He would be such a foolish choice to fall for.

  But he was right. She was being way too serious. She reminded herself it wasn’t in her new life agenda to fall for anyone. The exact opposite, in fact.

  Besides, Rory hadn’t proposed they spend their lives together. He was giving her a day. And a dream.

  And even if he was maintaining his own cynicism, she just needed to enjoy it, for this to be her occasionally, for this to be the day when she was not so serious.

  When was the last time she had just had fun? A carefree day? A long, long time ago, certainly not since her brother had died.

  She was accepting this as the unexpected gift it was. She was not even allowing herself to think that there might be a price to pay later.

  “Rory?”

  “Um?”

  “Could you go a wee bit faster?”

  He laughed and complied and she felt the thrill of both things: his laughter and the adrenaline of moving fast, a little closer to the edge. And Grace was aware his laughter brought that as surely as the power of the car did.

  “Tell me about the car,” she called over the roar of the engine and the wind in her hair.

  “This is a 2011 Ferrari, a 458 Spider with a V8 rear engine.”

  “Somehow I don’t think they rent these to just anybody,” she guessed dryly. “In fact, where do you rent a car like this in Mason?”

  “It’s not exactly from Mason,” he said, a little uncomfortably. “I had to make special arrangements to get it.”

  “First cowboys and now a Ferrari. If I ever need a rabbit pulled out of a hat, I guess you’re my go-to guy, hmm?”

  “If you ever need anything, Gracie,” he said quietly, “I’m your go-to guy.”

  The simple statement, said so matter-of-factly, made her turn her face away from him so he could not see how deeply it affected her.

  He was a man who said what he meant and meant what he said. And those simple words—that promise she could have someone to count on—filled her with unexpected emotion.

  Dumb, since after Harold she had been so resolute in her intention not to rely on anyone for anything. Her plan now was to be one of those independent women who scoffed at need. She would hang her own pictures and refinis
h her own floors. When she came across a project she couldn’t do, she would hire someone.

  After Harold, she had been resolute in her intention not just to be independent physically but also to be that way emotionally. Not to rely on anyone to make her feel anything anymore, and so the emotion clawing at her throat and stinging at her eyes because of his simple words, I’m your go-to guy felt as if it could swamp her whole plan for her life!

  But riding in the car was a much-appreciated distraction from the unexpected meeting with her own secret longings, and she made herself focus on that. She might never, after all, experience something like this again!

  She took off her jacket and threw it behind her seat.

  And, after a while, she allowed herself to appreciate these moments with Rory. She liked the way one of his hands rested, light and confident on the wheel, the other on the gear shift. She liked the look on his face, relaxed but alert. Ready.

  And she liked the way he drove. Many men would have gone crazy driving a car like this, but Rory drove without aggression, playing with the power but not unleashing it totally. It was as if he was riding a high-strung horse and he was in perfect control.

  He put a CD in and the raspy tones of an old rock-and-roll band that had stood the test of time and could still fill stadiums filled the car.

  The choice of music. The way he drove. The house he had come from. If you ever need anything, Gracie, I’m your go-to guy. How could he think she did not know anything about him?

  She leaned back into her seat, felt the wind play with her hair. And surrendered.

  * * *

  Rory sat across the white linen tablecloth and watched Grace. The view of the lake from where they sat on the marble outdoor terrace of the Blue Water Resort’s restaurant was amazing. Grace had already told him, her eyes sparking with excitement, the transformations she planned for this space when the Warrior Down fundraiser was to be held here in the last days of August.

  He had talked her into a glass of wine from a local winery, while refusing one himself.

  “You’re not going to have one?” she asked.

  “No. You don’t drive a car that powerful and that sensitive with anything in your system that could impair your judgment.”

  He could tell she liked that, that his attention to safety appealed to her.

  But there was a deeper truth behind his refusal to join her for a drink—and it wasn’t just that he wanted to prove himself right that she would be soused on two.

  He had long ago come to rely on his instincts. There were times his survival and the survival of others had depended on that. Now, he rarely ever did anything that made those instincts fuzzy. He had not had a drink in at least five years.

  Was it just about his instincts being muddied? Or was part of it about his family’s history with alcohol, trying to divorce himself from that completely?

  And he was acutely aware there was already something about being with her that had impaired his judgment.

  He didn’t talk about his family, ever, and he tried not to think about them. What had made him bring it up? Just the fact she already knew? The fact she had grown up just down the street from the ongoing circus that had been his family life?

  No. More than that.

  He had trusted her with something about himself he did not trust everyone with.

  “What happened to your fiancé?” he asked. For a guy who prided himself on his instincts, it was probably the wrong question. The door of camaraderie that had been opening between them snapped shut.

  Or maybe that was exactly what he wanted to happen.

  “What do you know about my fiancé?” she asked warily.

  “Graham talked about your engagement when it happened. He didn’t much care for, um, Herbert.”

  “Harold.”

  “So, what happened?”

  She was so silent that for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to tell him. She looked out at the lake, where children were playing on a float. Pushing each other off it, their splashing and laughter shivering on the air.

  But when she looked back at him, he saw she was struggling to contain her emotion.

  He was not good with emotion.

  He wished he hadn’t opened this kettle of fish. That door of camaraderie that had squeaked shut, was suddenly flung open, wider than before.

  “He left me,” she said bravely, tilting her chin up as if she didn’t care. Her eyes told a completely different story, and he was aware he was seeing Gracie at her most real and her most raw.

  And that she was trusting him with that.

  Just as he had trusted her.

  He waited.

  “He left me because he couldn’t stand the grief. He said it was time to get over it. He said it was time to be who I was before.”

  Rory felt a ripple of pure fury that he was very careful not to show her. In fact, his voice was very measured when he spoke. “Gracie?”

  She looked at her hands.

  “He was wrong. You never get over it. You’re never who you were before.”

  She looked up at him, and the gratitude in her eyes was so intense it shook him. But he understood then, that the death of Graham was a bond between them. Unbreakable. They, alone, understood what it was to lose a man like that, how it changed the world forever for the worse.

  “I hope I never meet old Herbert,” he said, getting the name wrong deliberately, letting her know the name was not important. The character of a man was important.

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “Because I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

  He thought she would reprimand him for his insinuated violence. Maybe he even hoped for it: to close that open door again. That something about showing her this little flash of who he really was, how quickly he could go to the dark side, would frighten her just a little bit.

  He was not sure he was ready for her trust.

  Yes, she could rely on him to be her go-to guy; no, she could not rely on him to handle things her way, which would be all sweetness and light.

  He was aware, again, of having darkness in him that could snuff her light.

  But instead of her seeing that, instead of her being properly wary of him, she said, ever so softly, “Thank you.”

  Still, the intensity of that moment must have shaken her nearly as badly as it shook him: how fiercely protective he felt of her, how joined to her.

  Grace changed the subject abruptly. “Tell me about your business, and what you’d like to do for Warrior Down.”

  Or maybe it was the most natural of segues, thoughts of her brother turning to ways that they could both honor his memory.

  Rory was more an action guy than a talker, so it surprised him how easily he opened up to her.

  “When I first enlisted, my brother, Sam, was just getting out of high school. He was a really talented artist and he wanted to get into graphics. I didn’t have much to spend my money on, so I invested in him. In his education, later in his idea for a company.

  “He got his big break doing graphics on a car for Saul Bellissimo. Do you know that name?”

  “A race-car driver?” she ventured.

  “The race-car driver of the past few years. Anyway, he did Saul’s car, and that got him all kinds of other jobs and publicity. Sam just kept pushing the envelope, first graphic wraps for race cars, then he got the contract to do some buses.

  “He’s an artist, and to everyone’s surprise I’m good at business.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Tell me more.”

  It was another moment where something shivered along Rory’s spine. It was as if Grace saw things in him that others didn’t. And her interest in him was genuine. He should not allow himself to be flattered, but he did.

 
; “Because of good access to the internet most of the time, I could even keep involved while I was overseas. When I decided to leave the service, I was a little astonished to find myself the CEO of a pretty viable company. In the past couple of months we completed our first contract for an airline company, graphic-wrapping their planes. In the next month or so, we’re going to do our first graphic wrap on a building.”

  “A building?” she said. “Where?”

  “Melbourne, Australia.”

  “My goodness, Rory, you’re an international mogul!”

  He felt the danger zone he was in. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks basking in the admiration of the wholesome girl from next door.

  Enjoying her admiration in no way meant it was going any further.

  He scrambled to keep it impersonal. “It all puts us in a pretty good position to sponsor something for

  Warrior Down.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I went on the internet and looked at your outline for the event. It sounds great. Dinner. Dance. Silent auction, everything set up here on the edge of the lake. I thought we might contribute something to the silent auction.”

  “Like?”

  “What if we thought outside the box? Something like ‘A Perfect Day.’ A helicopter ride to the top of a mountain for a champagne lunch, something like that? Or maybe a ride in Saul’s car, a turn or two around the track. Or maybe both.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  It was wrong to be so darned pleased that she was so darned pleased. It was wrong to want to bask in her admiration all afternoon. Still, a man was allowed a few weaknesses, wasn’t he?

  “What’s your perfect day?” he asked her. “Because we could do anything—an elephant ride in Thailand, bungee-jumping… Literally if you can think of it, we can do it.”

  Now he was just showing off, plain and simple. He thought he’d better buy Bridey some flowers tomorrow, since she’d be the one executing whatever scheme they came up with.

  “Oh.” Grace looked flustered. “I thought I was a bit of an expert on perfect days, but my mind doesn’t even begin to work like that. Elephants in Thailand?”