Missing

by Sharon Sala

  Suddenly someone grabbed him under the arms and pulled him to his feet.

  “Wes. Wes! Look at me, man!”

  Wes heard the voice—knew he’d heard it before—and tried to focus. He could see a face—a man’s face. The large jaw and long nose looked familiar.

  “Wes! It’s me, Harold.”

  Wes shuddered. Harold. He knew a man named Harold, only Harold didn’t belong in Iraq. Slowly he reached out and touched Harold’s face, expecting it to disappear. When he felt solid flesh, he actually flinched.

  “Harold?”

  Harold James shivered. He’d seen men like Wes before, after he’d come home from Vietnam.

  “Come on, man. Let’s go back into the store and wash the smoke off your face, okay?”

  Wes shook his head, like a dog shedding water, then covered his face with his hands. A long, silent moment passed, during which Harold James wanted to cry. Instead, he waited for Wes to pull himself together. Finally Wes dropped his hands and looked up.

  “I lost it, didn’t I?”

  Harold grimaced, then pointed to the wreck.

  “Naw, man, you helped save those men’s lives.”

  Wes turned and looked, and as he did, felt the ground shift again, but this time only slightly.

  “It was the smoke…maybe the fire…or the screams. Who knows,” he mumbled.

  Harold put a hand on Wes’s shoulder.

  “What branch were you in?”

  Wes sighed. “Army. Special Ops.”

  “What got you sent Stateside?”

  Wes tried to form the words, but to his dismay, he couldn’t say them.

  Harold thumped Wes on the back, then cleared his throat to steady his voice.

  “It don’t matter none,” Harold said. “You’ll get better. It happened to all of us in one way or another.”

  As they stood, a drop of rain landed on the toe of Wes’s shoe.

  “See, I told you it was gonna rain,” Harold said. “Come with me.”

  Wes felt disoriented. He could hear Harold’s voice, but it sounded as if he were at the other end of a long tunnel.

  “Where are we going?” he finally asked.

  “I’m taking you home,” Harold said. “I think you’ve earned the ride.”

  Ten

  Before they were halfway home, the rain began to fall in earnest. Harold glanced nervously at the man in the passenger seat, then kept his gaze on the road. Even in the best of weather, the two-lane dirt road wasn’t easy to navigate. Driving it in a thunderstorm took some nerve and a lot of attention.

  “You wanna talk about it?” Harold asked.

  Wes shivered. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to swallow. How in hell was he supposed to talk? He shook his head.

  But Harold wasn’t ready to quit. He eyed Wes again, this time taking into account his age and bearing.

  “You were an officer, weren’t you?”

  Wes managed a nod.

  “Get yourself a Purple Heart?” It was Harold’s way of asking if Wes had been wounded.

  Wes leaned his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes.

  Harold knew he’d said enough.

  Wes never knew when they passed the Monroe house and only realized they’d arrived at Dooley’s house when the motion of Harold’s truck stopped.

  “We’re home,” Harold said.

  Wes sat up, then opened his eyes. Home? This little toadstool of a house wasn’t his home. He didn’t belong here. Truth was, he didn’t know where he belonged.

  “Thank you for the ride,” he said, and got out of the truck.

  “Don’t come to work tomorrow if it’s still raining,” Harold called. “No need to walk all that way in the mud and rain.”

  Wes gave no indication that he’d heard as he kept moving toward the house. The rain was hammering against his face and body. He thought about running but knew he would fall. He heard Harold turning around. Politeness would require at least a wave of thank-you, but he couldn’t manage anything more than just getting to the house. When he finally reached the front door, it took three tries to get the key in the lock. When he stepped inside, the sudden absence of rain was a blessing.

  He shivered as he closed the door. The little house was just as he’d left it this morning. If only he could say the same about himself. There was a faint scent of coffee and cold grease from the eggs that he’d fried, but the sound of rain on the roof was muffled by the presence of the overgrowth of vines.

  He turned on the lights, stripping his wet clothes off as he went and dropping them in a pile in the kitchen. His legs were starting to shake, and he felt his belly roll. He made it to the bathroom in time to throw up and was sweating profusely by the time he was done. A cleansing shower would be welcome, but he wasn’t sure he could stand up long enough to get clean. Instead, he gave himself up to the memories he’d been fighting, letting the same old sick feeling of loss flow through him, pulling him deeper and deeper into the darkness of his mind.

  He wanted to die, but would settle for the blessed forgetfulness of sleep. He thought of the bed across the hall, but his legs wouldn’t move. Slowly, he slid downward with his back to the wall. By the time he reached the floor, the darkness had come, shadowing reality and pulling him under.

  Harold felt guilty driving away. He could see that Wes was in a bad way, but they were strangers. Wes needed help Harold wasn’t capable of giving. Still, Harold’s conscience continued to prick until he came upon the driveway leading to the Monroe property. That was when it hit him. Ally Monroe had recommended Wes. Maybe she could help.

  Harold wasn’t the type of man who got involved in people’s business, but there was something about Wes Holden that touched his heart. He hit the brakes and turned up the driveway before he could change his mind.

  Ally was taking a cherry pie out of the oven when she heard the sound of a car coming down the driveway. She glanced up at the clock and then frowned. It was too early for her father, and because of the weather, Danny and Porter couldn’t start work and had gone into Charleston for the night. She set the pie down on a cooling rack and was wiping her hands when someone knocked at the door.

  She hurried into the living room as a knock sounded again.

  “I’m coming,” she called, and then opened the door. “Why, hello, Mr. James. Come in. Come in. The rain is really coming down.”

  Harold took off his hat but stayed where he was.

  “Thanks, Ally, but I need to be getting on home.” At this point, he wished he’d just kept on driving and minding his own business. “Look, I may be out of line here, but I was thinking that maybe since you rented your uncle’s house to that Holden fellow, you two might be friends.”

  Ally felt the blood running out of her face, but for the life of her, she couldn’t speak. She reached for the doorframe to steady herself as Harold continued to speak.

  “There was a real bad wreck in town today and—”

  Ally swayed on her feet. She had to ask. She had to know now.

  “How badly was he hurt?”

  Harold frowned. “Oh, no, no…I didn’t mean to make you think it was him. He wasn’t in the wreck, but he helped save the drivers who were.”

  Ally’s legs went weak.

  “Thank goodness. You scared me.”

  Harold fidgeted with his hat. He wasn’t good at this.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Then he’s okay?” Ally asked.

  Harold’s frown deepened.

  “That’s just it. I don’t think so. What do you know about him, anyway?”

  “Not much,” Ally said. “I don’t think he has any family. I asked once, and all he said was that they were dead.”

  “He was a Special Ops officer in the army. It showed when he jumped right in the middle of the fire and smoke at the wreck as if he knew what he was doing. Afterward, I asked and he admitted it. The deal is, he put out a fire and kept the logging truck from blowing up and killing both drivers,
but right afterward, he sort of had a meltdown.”

  Ally felt sick. “What do you mean?”

  Harold eyed Ally carefully. “Ever hear of PTSD?”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder?”

  Harold nodded. “I’m no doctor, but I saw a lot of it after Vietnam. I don’t know what’s happened to him, but I’d bet money that the wreck triggered some kind of flashback.”

  Ally felt sick. “What should I do?”

  Harold shrugged. “I’m not saying you should do anything. He’s not your responsibility, but I figured if you were friends, you’d want to know.”

  Ally nodded. “Thank you, Mr. James.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Harold said. “That’s not news I’d want to hear.”

  “No…no…I appreciate it, I do,” Ally said. “Be careful driving home.”

  “Yeah, that I will.”

  Ally watched until he’d driven away; then she rushed into the kitchen and turned off the stove. The stew was on the back burner and warming. The pie was cooling. She didn’t know when her father would be coming home.

  When the phone suddenly rang, she flinched, then hurried to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Ally, it’s me.”

  Her father’s voice was oddly reassuring.

  “I was just wondering when you were coming home.”

  “That’s why I called. I’m staying in town for a while. One of my lodge buddies was in a bad wreck.”

  “Oh, no, who?” she asked.

  “Pete Randall. Brakes went out on a loggin’ truck, then it slid right into Pete’s car. Happened right in the middle of town. I’m goin’ to the hospital and sit with the family ’til we know more about his condition.”

  “All right,” Ally said.

  “It will probably be late. Oh…uh, don’t hold supper. I’ll eat in town.”

  Thank goodness. “Give my regards to the Randall family.”

  “I’ll do that,” Gideon said, and hung up.

  Ally needed a vehicle, but both of them were gone. She knew that with her leg like it was, it would take forever for her to walk up the mountain in the mud and rain. Then she remembered Porter’s four-wheeler ATV. It wouldn’t keep her dry, but it would get her where she needed to go.

  Without thinking of the consequences, she ran to her bedroom to change her clothes and shoes, pulled one of Danny’s hunting ponchos over her jeans and shirt, and hurried to the barn. Within minutes, she was wheeling up the road, slinging mud and water behind her as she went.

  She didn’t think of what disaster she might find, or if her appearance would make Wes Holden angry. All she could remember was the lost, lonely look in his eyes.

  Despite the wind and rain, she made it up to her uncle Doo’s house in just under fifteen minutes. She stopped the ATV near the porch and pocketed the key as she ducked under the small stoop. It wasn’t until she started knocking on the door that she realized she might have made the trip for nothing. If she was locked out and he wouldn’t answer, she wouldn’t be able to get in. She had an extra key to this house, but she hadn’t thought to bring it.

  With a prayer on her lips, Ally knocked on the door. She waited and waited for what seemed like forever, then knocked again, and still no one came. But to her relief, when she tried the doorknob, it turned. She stepped inside, pausing in the doorway, and called out, “Mr. Holden! Are you home?”

  No one answered.

  She called again.

  “Mr. Holden?” Then, finally…“Wes?”

  Still no answer.

  She took off her muddy boots and poncho, and dropped them at the door, then started through the house, calling Wes’s name as she went.

  The first place she looked was the kitchen. She saw a pile of wet clothes near the back door and stopped. He’d been here. But where was he now? She turned around and started down the hall.

  “Wes…it’s me, Ally. Mr. James was worried about you. He stopped and asked me to—”

  The bathroom door was open. Words ended when she saw him naked and curled up on the floor with his arms over his head in a gesture of defeat. She ran to him, then knelt.

  Although the house was stuffy, almost hot, his skin was cold to the touch. She laid a hand at the back of his neck.

  “Wes, it’s me, Ally Monroe. I’ve come to help.”

  He didn’t answer, but she’d felt a muscle jump beneath his skin where she’d touched him. Quickly, she got up and ran across the hall, turning on lights as she went. She yanked the bedspread off the bed before rushing back to Wes.

  The new and healing scars on his back and legs were horrifying when she thought about how they’d come to be there, but there was an even uglier one that ran from his right shoulder to the middle of his spine. He’d been so terribly hurt. It didn’t seem right that he should still be suffering.

  She draped the spread around him, then rocked back on her heels. She needed to get him up and in bed, and for the first time, she wished she’d told her father, even though it would have made him furious to know she’d let the place to a stranger. At least she would have had help. But since that hadn’t happened, she was going to have to deal with it herself. She braced herself firmly as she took hold of his arms.

  “Wes, you have to get up. Do you hear me? You have to get up now!”

  Something in the tone of her voice registered. Wes shuddered.

  “You can do it,” Ally urged as she pulled with all her might.

  He rolled onto his hands and knees, taking the cover with him.

  Ally shifted her hold again and braced her feet on the floor.

  “Come on!” she said. “Get up. You can do it!”

  Wes was trying to focus. The voice was louder now—telling him to move, to get up. Concentrating all his efforts toward obeying the command, he pushed himself up as hard as he could.

  Ally saw the muscles bunching in his shoulders and knew he was trying. She tightened her grip and gave him one more pull. Moments later, he came up, but the bedspread went down.

  She made a frantic grab and once again pulled it close around him. Once she was sure he was covered, she slipped under his shoulder and put her arm around his waist, steadying him on his feet.

  “Good job. You did it! Now just a few more feet and you’ll be in bed. Lean on me. It will be all right.”

  Wes felt her strength first, then heard the promise. Lean on me. He didn’t think he knew how.

  Despite her fragility, Ally managed to get him into bed. With each passing minute, Wes was regaining his sense of self, and being naked in front of a woman who was little more than a stranger was making him uneasy. He pulled the bedspread tighter, then sat up.

  “Do you think you should be getting up just yet?” Ally asked.

  “What I think is that you shouldn’t be in here.”

  Ally felt as if she’d been slapped. She straightened, then turned away.

  “I apologize for the intrusion. I meant no harm.”

  The moment she turned away, Wes knew he’d hurt her. It was the last thing he’d meant to do.

  “Miss Monroe…Ally…wait.”

  Ally stopped, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  “Would you wait in the living room…please?”

  She walked out of the room without answering, but when he didn’t hear the front door open or close, he took it as a good sign, and quickly dressed in clean jeans and a shirt.

  His legs felt weak, as if he’d been running for miles, but the worst of the flashback was gone. He shoved his fingers through his hair to comb it away from his face, then headed for the living room.

  She was standing near the window. She looked up when she heard him come into the room. There were tears on her cheeks. Just the sight of them made him sick.

  “Oh, hell…please don’t cry.”

  It was the only thing he could think to say.

  Ally swiped at her cheeks. He saw her hands trembling as she bit her lip to keep the rest of the tears at bay.

  “I d
idn’t mean to be rude,” Wes said. “It’s just that I’m…I, uh, don’t know how to cope with this…It’s difficult for me to—”

  “Stop,” Ally said. “You have nothing to apologize for. Mr. James obviously cares about you. He felt concern, mentioned it to me, and I jumped to conclusions. I’m the one who must apologize. I promise I will leave you alone.” She ducked her head and looked away, then made herself face him again. “It won’t happen again.”

  Wes sighed. Even as she was saying it, he knew he didn’t want to be left alone.

  “Does this mean no more ham biscuits?”

  Ally blinked. Was he kidding with her? Did this mean it was okay?

  Despite the fact that he was the one who’d demanded distance between them, Wes was the one who moved toward her. When he was close enough to see his reflection in her eyes, he stopped, then held out his hand.

  “Truce?”

  Ally stared, first at his hand, then at him.

  “You aren’t mad at me?”

  Wes heard the question. He would have answered right then, but he’d seen a slight tremble in her chin and felt sick that he was the one who’d caused it. Finally he realized she was waiting for an answer.

  “No. Not at you. I guess I’m more mad at myself. It’s difficult for a man like me to admit…even to himself…that he’s weak.”

  “You were a soldier, weren’t you?” Ally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you…do you…?”

  “I’m not dangerous…to anyone but myself,” Wes said. “But if I make you uneasy, I’ll leave.”

  Ally frowned, and grabbed his arm before she thought.

  “I’m afraid of a lot of things in this world, but you’re not one of them,” she said fiercely. “You don’t leave this house…not until you’re good and ready. Do you hear me?”

  Wes almost smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I hear you just fine.”

  Embarrassed by her own ferocity, Ally blushed. “All right,” she muttered, then suddenly turned on him, fixing him with a hard, studied look.