by Geri Krotow
“All right. But if your day turns out differently, come and meet me for lunch, okay? We can get takeout and eat it while Brendan naps.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Winnie turned off her phone with a sigh of relief.
Thai takeout in front of Robyn’s woodstove sounded like pure bliss. But the chances of there being enough time to drive up to Anacortes, the town north of Whidbey Island, and back again to get the girls from school in Coupeville, were slim.
She still had to finish her fiber inventory. Whidbey Fibers’ success wasn’t an accident. She’d taken the energy she’d focused on her marriage and put it into the corporation, client by client.
The farm-owners were, for the most part, great at raising livestock and producing viable quantities of fiber, but getting it spun into usable yarn was another story. Drawing on her business background, Winnie had recruited machine- and hand-spinners across the Pacific Northwest and became the liaison between the farmers, spinners and yarn shops. She’d begun receiving orders from Europe and Australia within eight months of start-up.
Her business model was unique in that instead of simply purchasing the fiber outright, she shared the profits of the finished product with the farmers. This increased their motivation to produce and created a camaraderie in the Whidbey Island fiber community that hadn’t existed before. Instead of competing, each farm benefited from the success of all the farms. She also employed hand- and machine-spinners who transformed the fresh fiber into usable yarn.
As she walked by bin after bin of sheared wool and alpaca and checked off her inventory master list, Winnie’s mind drifted back to her other commitment for today.
Her therapy-dog visit.
Max.
She’d accepted the assignment knowing full well that she risked losing the secure life she’d built for herself and the girls.
Self-recrimination washed over her. She took a ball of alpaca out of its bin and held the soft wool to her cheek. She should’ve told Robyn who her client was. When Robyn found out, and she would find out, she’d be furious that Winnie hadn’t told her she was finally going to tell Max about Maeve. Rightfully so, as Robyn had been her support and anchor through the past five years. She’d never judged Winnie and had kept her deepest secrets secret.
Ever since Winnie learned she was pregnant, Robyn had been adamant that Winnie needed to tell Max he was a father. And it wasn’t that Winnie disagreed. The timing had been hell, with Max headed to war. She’d planned to tell him when he returned, but then his deployment was extended.
Risking such a huge emotional upset to a man at war was not something Winnie would ever do.
Shivers of apprehension chilled her as she looked out the back window of her fiber studio onto Penn Cove. The gray sky covered the white-capped bay and she knew the waves on the western side of Whidbey would be even more powerful.
A spring storm was coming in from the Pacific. She hated making the drive up to the Naval Air Station on the slick black road, but her volunteer time at the base was one of the few sacrosanct commitments in her life, besides the girls.
She loved her daughters and wanted to cherish each moment with them. But she also relished her work and needed time alone to think about how to manage her burgeoning career without the neediness of a teen and toddler weighting her every move.
As she prepared to leave the studio, she paused in front of the window that overlooked the street. Her building sat in between the rocky narrow coast and a side road off Coupeville’s Main Street. Winnie watched the rain begin to fall. When she came back from this afternoon’s therapy visit, everything would be different.
She leaned her head against the studio’s front door and closed her eyes. She tried to let the rain pattering against the window panes of the century-old building soothe her.
It hadn’t been her choice to be a single parent to Krista. A mishap on an aircraft carrier had dealt a devastating blow to her life when it killed her husband and Krista’s father, Tom, more than five years ago.
She’d had a choice, however, in how she made a family for Maeve, her baby. She’d deliberately refused to tell her family, except for Robyn, who Maeve’s father was. Her parents had wondered if she’d used Tom’s frozen sperm. She’d assured them that wasn’t the case, but as they became more persistent she let them think whatever they wanted.
She’d told Robyn about Maeve’s father—with instructions to tell Max if anything happened to her. But she needed to tell Max herself; he deserved to know before anyone else did that he was Maeve’s father. Unfortunately she’d learned that a life can end with no notice, and that included her own.
While her parents had no idea who’d fathered Maeve, it was pretty clear soon after she was born—with dark, straight hair—that she had a different father than Krista, who shared Winnie’s curly blond mane.
Maeve’s father had moved back to Whidbey Island two months ago. In spite of her best intentions to tell him he was a father as soon as she could, she’d still procrastinated.
It’d been two years, three months and five days since she’d last seen U.S. Navy Commander Robert “Max” Ford. It seemed more like three minutes.
Especially when she looked at her beautiful baby daughter.
* * *
COMMANDER MAX FORD, United States Navy, sat on the deck of his dream home and stared out at Dugualla Bay. The Cascade Mountains were snowcapped, as they’d remain for most of the year.
As a junior officer, J.O., he’d idolized the Commanding Officer of his squadron who’d owned this place. When his Commanding Officer got divorced and the house was sold as part of the settlement, Max bought it. He’d rented it out while he was stationed in Florida, and eagerly returned to his prized home just under two years ago, when he took the Executive Officer/Commanding Officer, XO/CO, job in his squadron. He’d had his Change of Command party here last year and the world seemed to be his to conquer.
He’d been so much younger only a year ago. His Aviation Command of Prowler Squadron Eighty-One had been in front of him. He’d led over two hundred men and women into battle over Iraq and Afghanistan. They’d all come home intact.
Except him.
He raised his arms overhead to stretch his back, as the physical therapist had taught him. The shrapnel had been removed and the scars were healing.
Too bad his brain couldn’t get stitched back up so easily.
“You have PTSD. You know the drill, Max. You’re one of our Navy’s finest. We’ll get you a great job on Whidbey, shore duty, and give you time to heal. Then we’ll see where it all falls out for an O-6 command.”
His boss, the Wing Commander, had done everything Max would have done for one of his own charges. He’d been compassionate, honest, strong.
But having been a commanding officer himself, Max saw beyond the clichéd promises.
Max had seen the look of resignation in his boss’s eyes. He didn’t expect Max to return to a real Navy job. His operational days were done. No one came back whole from what he’d seen—the monster who’d appeared in the form of the suicide bomber he’d prevented from killing hundreds of fellow servicemen and women.
Instead of preparing his squadron for another deployment, during which they’d become the well-honed warriors they’d signed up to be, he was sitting on his deck, staring at the Cascade Mountains, waiting for some volunteer social worker to bring over a dog.
A dog.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like dogs. Max planned on having several once his Navy days were over. Hell, since he was on shore duty indefinitely, he could even consider going to the animal shelter in Coupeville and adopting himself a real dog. Something big and furry. He’d never been a tiny-dog fan. If the dog handler showed up with anything smaller than a bear cub he wasn’t going to work with it.
His problem wasn’t with the dog per se. Max’s problem was with still needing therapy. He’d accepted the weekly meetings with the on-base counselor. He’d me
t with the PTSD support group and shared his feelings. Yet his therapist thought he’d benefit from some dog time. Dog therapy time.
He blamed himself for asking what else he could do to help the other sailors. It was getting too painful to go back to the base day after day and not be able to walk into a hangar that he’d practically owned. Not to face a squadron of courageous young men and women and know that he was leading the best team on the planet. Know that he was the CO they could count on to lead them through hell and back.
His therapist had suggested canine therapy.
“Do you mean so I can give therapy to other vets?”
“No, Max. So you can get some healing from the dog. The caretaker isn’t a therapist, just a handler. You and the dog form the bond.”
“But you mean I’ll do this so I can then provide the same service to others, right?”
Marlene Goodreach, his therapist, had shifted in her seat. Her face was lined, no doubt because of the countless tales of horror she’d helped sailors like him unburden.
“Max. This is about you. You’ve done brilliantly—your physical wounds have healed, your memory is back. But you’re still resistant to facing your own anger and disappointment over the change in your career plans. I think working with a therapy dog would help the tension you still have in your gut.”
Max had learned that the price of throwing himself into his recovery and hoping to eventually help others was that his therapist got to know him too well. He didn’t have the option of keeping his emotions from Marlene.
At least the counselor had agreed to let him meet the dog and its handler on his own turf, away from the looks of pity on base NAS Whidbey Island.
He clenched his hands around the porch railing. Only when his grip became painful did he force himself to breathe and release his grip. He despised the well-meaning comments, the compassionate glances, the fatherly pats on the shoulder.
“Take care of yourself, Max. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Hey, you’ve had command, you brought the team home, relax.”
“You’ve earned this shore tour. Enjoy it.”
“Why not retire after this, take some time for Max? You’ll make O-6, what’s your worry?”
He didn’t even like working out on base anymore. Too many familiar faces. He flexed his feet. The soreness in his calves was a testament to the extra-long session he’d put on the spin bike he’d bought. He kept it on the glassed-in deck upstairs, so he could watch the sun come up as he rode in place.
He saw the sunrise every day. Sleep wasn’t a given for him anymore.
The dark clouds threatened rain but so far only gusts of tropical warmth rustled the underbrush under tall firs that waved with the wind. Spring on Whidbey meant chaos as far as the weather was concerned.
He saw the approaching car before he heard it. A compact station wagon. As it neared he recognized the larger shape in back—the dog.
The woman in the driver’s seat made him catch his breath.
No.
It was the same honey corkscrew hair, the same generous mouth under the too-round-to-be-classic nose.
Was this some kind of joke? The very woman he’d guided through the fires of her own hell when Tom died was here to reach a hand into his purgatory?
More importantly, the woman who’d rejected him and whom he’d avoided since his return.
He stood as she brought the car to a stop in front of his house. She stepped out and walked straight to the back. There was no mistaking her graceful gait, her purposeful stride.
Winnie always knew where she was going, save for that brief tortured time after Tom’s death.
She opened the back of the wagon and commanded the dog down. It was a big dog but not a fluffy soft breed. The mostly black coat ruffled a little in the strong breeze.
Not a tiny dog, at least.
Max let out a sigh. The dog appeared to be tough and knowing as he trotted next to Winnie up the driveway.
She drew closer and he tried to stay focused on the dog, Winnie’s muddy boots, her barn coat, her jeans. Anything but the face he had trouble forgetting… He’d prided himself on staying away from her since his return to Whidbey two months earlier. He hadn’t even checked to see if she was still on the island—he assumed she was, or nearby, since her family lived in the vicinity.
But he’d kept her out of his life, away from the mess his mental state had made of it.
Until now.
She stopped a few feet away, close enough for him to make out the almond shape of her long-lashed amber eyes, yet far enough not to invite physical contact. No hello hug.
“Max.” She’d known it was him; he saw that in the resigned line of her mouth. But she hadn’t called first, hadn’t given him fair warning.
Hell, why should she? She made her feelings clear when she didn’t return your calls over two years ago.
He’d last seen her just before he’d taken the one-year position of Executive Officer, which had led into his next tour, also one year, as Commanding Officer.
“Winnie.” He stood at the edge of the drive, his hands in his pockets. Her hands were busy, too—one thrust in her pocket and one on the leash.
He’d always loved her hands. They were warm, long-fingered, elegant.
If he thought the PTSD had robbed him of his sex drive, he’d been mistaken. The familiar surge of need he associated with Winnie made him clench his hands inside his jeans pockets.
Winnie seemed unmoved by their reunion except for the way she tossed a stray curl out of her face. He saw her do that just a few times before. When she’d heard Tom’s will read by the Navy JAG, when he’d stopped by her house in the weeks after Tom’s death and two years ago, when she’d agreed to meet him for a beer at the local microbrewery after the Air Show. If only one of them had said no that night. If only he hadn’t given in to the surprising yet delightful sexual attraction that sprang up between them. If only they’d preserved their basic friendship, this inevitable meeting might not be so bone-scrapingly painful.
“This is Sam.” She turned to Sam. “Good dog, Sam. Greet Max.”
The dog sat and wagged his tail, an expectant look on his dark face. As Max leaned lower he could see the blond eyebrows and wisps of blond coming out of Sam’s ears. He reached out his hand. “Hi, Sam.”
Sam sniffed inquisitively before he licked Max’s open palm. The dog sidled up to him and sat down next to Max’s sneakered foot.
“He likes you.” Winnie smiled at Sam while she avoided eye contact with Max.
His memory of that night two years ago was intact, always had been. She’d enjoyed their lovemaking as much as he had. She could have called him. But Winnie hadn’t, as he’d known she wouldn’t—it wasn’t her style. She’d probably been embarrassed that she’d revealed so much to him that night. Physically, anyhow.
He’d already seen her inside and out on an emotional level when Tom was killed and he’d been her CACO, her Casualty Assistance Calls Officer. He’d been the one, along with the base chaplain, to knock on Winnie’s door at six in the morning, to inform her that Tom was dead. He’d taken her through all the paperwork, the life insurance forms, the burial arrangements. He’d found child care for Krista when it was needed, when the proceedings were too grim for a seven-year-old child to partake in.
He’d seen sides of Winnie he’d never expected. The whiny wife he’d chalked her up to be, the woman who always wanted Tom to get out of the Navy, turned into a strong widow before his eyes. She didn’t blame the Navy or Tom for his untimely death. Through the devastating grief, he watched her accept the unwelcome change in her and Krista’s lives with dignified grace.
Her grace was one of the many things about her that attracted him. A more serious relationship with Winnie, however, had never been a remote possibility. His first allegiance was to Tom and the Navy, and he planned to keep it that way.
He had more work to do, as the counselor said. And not all of it concerned his PTSD.
&n
bsp; “I have hot water for tea,” he said. “Would you like to come in?”
Winnie lifted her chin and her gaze finally met his. The sparks in their brown depths took him back to that night with her, that one great night.
Before his life as a Navy pilot had been shattered.
“Okay, thanks.” She offered him a smile, but it didn’t come close to reaching her eyes. “We won’t stay too long, just enough to make sure you’ll be comfortable with Sam this weekend.”
* * *
THE KITCHEN WAS SLEEK and modern, as she remembered. It had been “the” house when they were all so much younger. Before death had cast a long and early shadow across their lives. Winnie watched Max pour hot water from the stainless kettle into the iron teapot. She didn’t dare look at his face. But then, staring at his masculine hands was awkward, too; as she remembered the last time she’d seen him.
When those hands had been all over her.
She sighed. Not dating was the only option for her at the moment but it had its drawbacks. Being acutely aware of her sexual attraction to Max was one of them.
“How’s Krista?” His deep baritone broke the silence of the square house.
“Krista’s great, fine. She’s in middle school.”
Her reply was as bare, as unadorned, as the house. She knew it and, judging by his raised brows, so did Max.
“She’s a great kid. Tom would be proud of her.” Her cadence was still too clipped. He was going to wonder why.
Stop it.
“I’m glad. Has she—” Max pulled out a strainer for the tea “—adjusted okay?”
“It’s been almost six years, Max. It was a horrible time for her, but she doesn’t remember as much of the awfulness of it as we do.”
He poured the tea with practiced ease.
“I forgot you’re a tea drinker.” She’d grown up in Washington State where coffee was a staple. But Max’s mother was from England and his father a Harvard law professor; tea was the drink of choice in his childhood home. Years ago, Tom and their aviation friends had teased him mercilessly about it.
