Battle for the Soldier's Heart

by Cara Colter

  “Drove a race car!”

  She smiled, but Grace could see she was exhausted and that her genuine happiness for Tucker’s happiness was mixed with something else. “Fun, huh?”

  “The most fun ever,” Tucker said.

  “Well, they’re gonna keep your mama here for a while. I don’t want you to worry. I’m tough as an old mama grizzly bear and harder to kill.”

  “You don’t have to worry, either. Slim is taking the ponies to his pasture.”

  “Slim, huh?” Again, there was some expression, deep in her eyes, that Grace could not completely understand. “You go have fun. I’ll be back to my rootin-tootin’ self in a couple of days. Enjoy your auntie.”

  “My auntie?” Tucker said.

  “Pretty sure that lady right there is your daddy’s sister.”

  Tucker turned and eyed Grace; she saw that dislike again, naked in his face. Or maybe it wasn’t dislike. Fear. Why would he be afraid of her? Why would he be afraid that she was his auntie?

  She glanced at Rory to see how he was taking the news. He looked like thunder.

  He obviously wanted to say something, skepticism was stamped on his features. But he looked off for a moment, glanced at Tucker, marshaled himself and then he turned on his heel and left the room.

  “I gotta go with him, Mama. We’re gonna eat hot dogs till we puke.” Tucker stopped and went very still. “Unless you want me to stay. I’ll stay right here if you want me to.”

  “Nope. I already told you. Go have fun with your kin.”

  Guilt and desire warred on his face. “Can we bring you a hot dog?”

  Serenity made a face. “Maybe, later, if you think of it, smuggle me in a little ice cream cone, the kind dipped in butterscotch.”

  Grace could clearly see Serenity was not up to eating an ice cream cone, she had given her son a little chore to do for her to relieve his guilt. And it worked.

  “Hey, Rory, wait up,” he called and darted from the room.

  But Grace was not so quick to follow. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “You do think he’s Graham’s,” she said softly.

  Serenity closed her eyes. “Oh, yeah. I do.”

  “But why now? Why tell me now?”

  “Why not?” Serenity said, something angry in her tone. She opened her eyes, challenging Grace.

  “But why didn’t you tell Graham?”

  “Do I look like the type of person your brother, Mr. Squeaky Clean, would have been happy to know he had a kid with?”

  Grace was silent.

  “He probably would have tried to take him away from me if he knew. I’m tired now. Just go away.”

  The words seemed harsh, but there were tears shining behind Serenity’s eyes.

  When Grace didn’t move, she closed her eyes again. Softer, she said, “Please?”

  Grace got up and left the room without another word, aware that even as she was troubled, something was blooming inside her.

  Hope.

  And love.

  Tucker was Graham’s baby, and it was like the light flickered back on in her world.

  She skipped down the hall to find her nephew and Rory. Rory took one look at her face and his look of displeasure deepened.

  But she didn’t care.

  “This is a moment to celebrate,” she told him.

  “Don’t be so sure, Grace.”

  “Don’t spoil this moment with your cynicism.”

  He drew in a deep breath, as if she had slapped him across the face. But then he smiled, the smile she had come to recognize as the one that hid what he was really feeling.

  “Gracie-Facie, that’s what I do. I put out the sunshine in girls like you.”

  “Well, I’m not a little girl and I don’t believe you have power over light and darkness.”

  He sighed, ran a hand through the thick silk of his hair. “Don’t count on that,” he muttered.

  “I’ve said before that you are unnecessarily cynical,” she said. She was aware they were bickering. This was how badly she had fallen: she loved bickering with him.

  “I told you there’s no such thing.”

  “Are we going to eat hot dogs?” Tucker demanded.

  “I guess we are,” Rory said. “I guess we are.”

  And for some reason, he backed off on his cynicism. He looked at her long and hard, and then at Tucker. “I happen to know where the world’s best hot dogs are.”

  She recognized it as a surrender, even if Rory didn’t.

  “You do?” Tucker asked, reverent.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  * * *

  Rory watched Tucker eating hot dogs. The little boy claimed he would eat six, but he was petering out after three.

  The kid obviously had not had a decent meal in a long time. And then there was Grace. That little smile hadn’t left her face since Serenity had announced she was Tucker’s aunt.

  So everybody was happy.

  Why did happiness make him so deeply suspicious? He had a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  And the thing was? He didn’t believe Serenity. Even after Grace had taken him aside and told him Serenity’s

  reasons for not telling Graham that Tucker was his, Rory had serious reservations.

  But he’d have an answer in a few days. He wouldn’t have to take Serenity’s word for it and that filled him with relief.

  It occurred to him, he’d had the perfect opportunity to tell Grace about the DNA test. But he hadn’t. He had let that moment pass. Why? Because she believed he would not bring darkness to her world, despite the fact she had been properly warned.

  And maybe he wouldn’t have to. Maybe that DNA test was going to prove exactly what Serenity had said, and he could relax.

  And until then, was there any way of preventing Grace from getting completely attached to that kid?

  He doubted it. He was already feeling kind of attached to the spunky little fellow himself.

  So, he couldn’t prevent her from getting attached, but maybe he had to stay near. Watching. Waiting. Being there when that other shoe dropped.

  She had asked him not to spoil everything with his cynicism. Okay, then. He’d do his best to hide how he really felt.

  Maybe he’d even give himself permission to enjoy giving that kid a few things that he’d never had before.

  But unlike her, he would expect the worst, and he would prepare for that. It was how he’d gone through his whole life. It was what had protected him from the disappointment he could see Grace headed toward at breakneck speed, as if she had her foot down hard on the gas pedal of that little yellow Ferrari.

  The truth was he had a million things to do today.

  The truth was he was losing a bit of control here. Because he wanted to be with them.

  “Do you want to go to the beach this afternoon?” he heard himself asking.

  “I don’t have swim stuff,” Tucker said, not enthused.

  “We can go out to where you’re staying and pick it up,” Grace said.

  “You don’t get it. I don’t have that stuff. Swim trunks. A beach towel.” This was said with a certain defiant pride.

  He saw Grace absorb that. Felt himself absorb it.

  “That’s easy to fix,” Rory said. “Ask Grace.”

  She actually blushed. Rory found himself hoping that if they went to the beach, she would wear her new bikini again.

  A little more of that control felt as if it w
as slipping away from him.

  “I don’t know how to swim,” Tucker said.

  “It’s not rocket science,” Rory said. Unlike Grace, he could feel the pressure of a time line. Within days they would know the truth. Was that enough time to give this kid a taste of a childhood? Something he could hold inside himself when it all went to hell in a handbasket?

  Rory wondered if he was kidding himself.

  Was this about Tucker, or was this about him?

  Since he was Tucker’s age he had yearned for normal things. For a normal family. For a normal Christmas.

  For a normal dinner around the family table. To go to bed at night and not hear raised voices and things breaking, his mother crying. Not to feel that sense of helplessness as he watched his mother unravel; not to feel that sense that he was failing her every single day. Failing to protect her from his father’s temper, from her own impulses, from the life that she seemed so disillusioned with.

  All his life, he had fought that yearning just to be normal.

  Especially when he had met the Day family. He’d liked hanging with Graham, but he had steadfastly refused the invitations to the cottage, for Christmas dinner, the invitation to experience this thing called home too deeply.

  At some level he feared that if he ever got what he wanted most, it would destroy him. It would make him weak instead of strong. It would make him squander his moments chasing after something he couldn’t have.

  And so he had scorned it instead. Held himself aloof from it. Told himself other men needed home, family, but he did not.

  Every marital breakup among friends, every Dear John letter, Rory had taken as evidence that he lived in reality.

  He had congratulated himself on seeing through the illusion, on walking away from it.

  And so Rory Adams was startled to find he had no strength left to fight this thing. Ever since he had told Grace the truth—that he had failed her brother—and she had refused to see it that way, he had felt this weakness growing in him.

  And wasn’t that his greatest fear, that love made a man weak instead of strong?

  Love. Where had that word come from? The word he had avoided his entire life? That he had rarely spoken, and when he did, only in the most casual of contexts, as in I love pizza with feta cheese on top of it.

  But the truth was what he was feeling for Grace was a whole lot different than what he felt for a pizza, even with feta cheese on top.

  Stand down, soldier, he ordered himself.

  But his heart wouldn’t listen. His heart was prepared to mutiny.

  * * *

  “You’re going too fast,” Grace called, gasping. “You have to slow down.”

  She was breathless with laughter and the effort of pedaling her bike up a huge hill. Now Rory and Tucker were swooshing down the other side, speed demons, both of them.

  “Tucker, stop it! You just learned!”

  But he was already too far away to hear her, and maybe that was a good thing. The last thing he needed was to have the enjoyment of the moment overshadowed by her sense of caution.

  She stopped to catch her breath and to watch them.

  She acknowledged it had been the best week of her entire life. She loved being with Tucker. She loved being an auntie. It was as though she had lived for this.

  But, of course, it was more than being an auntie to Tucker.

  Far more. It was the magic of all of them being together. She had let Beth take over the whole office for the past days. Rory must have done the same. Because they were like a family on holiday.

  She had lived in the Okanagan Valley her whole life and she felt as though she had never seen it before. She felt as if the scales had dropped from her eyes.

  She lived in a state of discovery as they explored and went on picnics and discovered new beaches.

  She must have seen sunsets before, but had she ever felt their warmth shimmering along her skin like a living thing?

  In the evenings, after the days jam-packed with sightseeing and the headlong pursuit of fun, Tucker’s favorite thing was playing video games at Rory’s apartment on a state-of-the-art gaming system.

  Even she had to admit it was way more fun than board games. She particularly liked the one where you could virtually go bowling, or golfing or play baseball. The laughter they shared at her ineptitude at each of those sports would live with her forever.

  They were managing, two or three times a day, to get to the hospital. After that first butterscotch-dipped cone, they always brought Serenity something, made her part of the circle. They gave Tucker a camera and he took a zillion pictures, would climb onto the bed with his mom and share them all. Once they sneaked the gaming system in, and laughed so hard that a nurse came and banished them for the evening and the machine for good.

  But, despite a softening in Serenity, at a deeper level, Grace could feel something haunted her? What was it?

  Somehow, they were becoming a family. Not a family that met any kind of definition of family, but a family all the same. Grace and Tucker were still staying at Rory’s apartment, living in separate rooms, but still, how could you not feel like a family when you were sharing the same space, eating off the same dishes, arguing about what television show to watch, what game to play, thinking about what surprise to cook up for

  Serenity that day? They were becoming wonderfully good at dreaming up ways to make her smile.

  Even Rory seemed to be overcoming his suspicion of her. It was his idea to bring one of the ponies to the front lawn of the hospital where Serenity could see it from her window. Slim delivered it in a trailer. Tucker stood outside waving and grinning. The pony wore a banner that said, Get Well Soon.

  But, as exquisite as each day was, and as much as Grace enjoyed every moment of laughter and discovery and togetherness, there was a moment in each day that she looked forward to like no other.

  That was when Tucker fell into bed, exhausted. He would call his mom on the cell phone Rory had lent him, and then fall into a deep, deep sleep.

  And then Grace and Rory were alone.

  There was always one suspended moment when it was suddenly silent. When they would look at each other as if they were thirsty people drinking cool water.

  That moment would pass, but the awareness would continue to sizzle softly between them.

  It was there as they decided what music to listen to, or what drink to share as they sat out on his deck watching night claim the lake.

  It was there as they talked, the comfort level between them constantly growing, evolving, becoming. They remembered Graham, now, not with pain, but with affection, and those memories brought them comfort and drew them yet closer together.

  Without either of them saying a word, somehow Grace and Rory had become a couple. It had started with his hand resting casually on her shoulder or around her waist on some of their excursions.

  Encouraged by his easy familiarity she had started taking his hand in hers.

  In the evenings now, they shared the couch, closer and closer, together, legs brushing, shoulders touching.

  Finally, they had kissed.

  It was an intentional kiss, the sun setting, bathing them both in golden light, her shoulder touching his.

  And then he had turned and looked at her.

  And moaned low in his throat, a sound of surrender, of almost animal wanting.

  He had dropped his head over hers, sought her lips and then her throat and then her eyeli
ds, and then she had drawn him to her lips again, hungry for his taste.

  And he had tasted of everything he was: strength and power, masculine self-certainty, confidence.

  But underlying that, she had been amazed by the pure sweetness of him. That was the taste that lingered after all the others were gone.

  In his kiss, he had revealed finally, holding back nothing, who he really was.

  And that was a man so genuinely good it brought tears to her eyes.

  It was a kiss that there was no mistaking the intention of. It was not Thank you for a lovely day. It was not a casual brush of lips where either of them could go oops, how did that happen?

  No, it was a kiss that said, I see you.

  It was a kiss that said, I know you.

  It was a kiss that said, My heart and yours have begun to beat together.

  It was a kiss that said, I loved today. I cannot wait for tomorrow.

  In other words it was a kiss that embraced the future.

  But then, as if to deny everything that kiss had just said, he had broken away from her, vaguely troubled.

  “Good night, Gracie.”

  And she had been left on the deck, standing in the dying light, so aware that things were not defined between them. It was as if they had become a couple by default, without a conscious decision.

  She was afraid if she asked for a conscious decision, if she did anything to disturb the balance, it would end as quickly and casually as it had started.

  Now, watching Rory ride his bike down the hill, his hair tangling in the wind behind him, she felt breathless again. Not from riding her bike but from knowing her own heart.

  She loved Rory’s easy strength, his laughter, his camaraderie with that little boy. She knew she had to find the courage to tell him the truth. She would tell him soon, waiting for the perfect moment.

  She would tell Rory Adams she loved him.

  It wasn’t the cautious thing to do.

  But in the past few days, she had become the girl she always wanted to be. A girl who had carried a picture of a red sports car in her wallet without knowing why.