by Geri Krotow
“Hey, you can’t blame me for caring. Maeve’s my niece. I’d die without her and Krista.”
“As they would without you.” Winnie and Robyn had grown so much closer through the aftermath of Tom’s death, and Krista had bonded with Robyn as the safe, loving auntie. Maeve loved Robyn and her husband, Doug, but was more interested in the antics of cousin Brendan.
“So, are you going to do it?” Robyn’s persistence was almost worse than sitting in Max’s kitchen this morning, wanting to tell him, yet keeping her secret hidden.
“Do what?” She deliberately ignored her sister’s urging.
“Come off it, Winnie! Are you going to stop at Max’s on the way back?”
She put down her container. “No, not today. He’s going to have Sam this weekend. That’s soon enough, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t. But you’re going to do it your way no matter what I tell you.” Robyn cocked her head, and Winnie heard her nephew’s crying over the baby monitor.
“He’s awake!” they both chimed in unison, then laughed.
“I’ll say hi to the little guy and then I’ll be going. Thanks for the lunchtime talk—I think.” Winnie figured if she ignored Robyn’s pointed looks, she’d be able to drive home without any temptation to stop at Max’s home.
* * *
MAX GRUNTED AS HE BENCH-pressed half his weight. It still bugged him that he couldn’t do as much as before, but he’d come far in the past few months. After the shock of losing his physical strength and fitness, he’d accepted what he had to do, even embraced it.
Work out harder than he ever had in his life.
He put the bar back in its notches and sat up, his breathing labored and his heart pounding. Both were a comfort to him when he worked out, a familiar reaction.
Unlike the cold sweats that woke him and left him unable to catch his breath.
Yeah, he preferred a tough workout in the gym to his night terrors any day.
He used the gym’s towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead before he lay back for another set. He raised and lowered the bar and, beyond that, focused on a small spot in the white tile ceiling.
A huge shadow obstructed his concentration.
“Boss!” The unmistakable voice of Chief Warrant Officer Miles Mikowski echoed through the weight room, and Max sat up. He offered Miles his hand.
“Warrant!”
Max was a Navy Commander, an officer, and Miles was former enlisted. The two of them were bound by a fellowship no one wanted to be part of—that of injured warriors. Max liked Miles because, like him, Miles was a survivor and still believed that he’d held the best job in the whole world as a U.S. Navy sailor.
“What are you doing, boss?” Miles looked at Max with one brow arched, his gaze raptor-sharp as usual. Max knew his friend didn’t miss a thing, from his sweat-stained gray T-shirt to the amount of the weights on the bar.
“Weren’t you in here yesterday, too, boss?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to burn some more today.”
Miles always called him “boss,” even though he’d never worked for Max. It was a sign of respect that humbled Max. Miles had lost more than he had in the war.
“You should be doing cardio, boss. Too much lifting’s not good, you know that.” Miles might call him “boss” but Max heard the tone of an older brother in his voice. They were close to the same age—Max guessed that Miles was around thirty-eight, four years younger than he was. Miles had come into the Navy later in life, after college. But he hadn’t originally sought a commission—since he’d wanted to become an expert in all aspects of Explosive Ordinance.
Miles and Max had gone through much of their reentry therapy together and they both knew that pushing too hard wasn’t part of the combat recovery process.
Max was well aware that breaking down his muscles more than he needed to wasn’t recommended by any medical professional. He knew the risks of wearing down his immune system. But he wasn’t overdoing the weights, no matter what Miles thought. And even if he was, that was better than ending up with a panic attack over Winnie’s reappearance in his life.
She’s got another kid, for God’s sake.
“I’ve got some extra steam to blow off. What are you doing here?” Max looked pointedly at Miles’s weight belt. “You sure you put the right leg on?”
Miles gave him a wide grin and tapped his prosthesis. He’d lost his left leg on the same day Max had intercepted the suicide bomber. Also in Afghanistan, but Miles had been in a remote area conducting land-mine removal ops. The military medics were the best in the world but even they couldn’t save a leg an IED had blown to bits.
“I’m trying this one out for the lab techs. The walking one is great, and the running leg lets me go for a good couple miles before I need to give it a rest. But I needed something sturdier for the weight room.”
“You’ve got a bigger selection of legs than I do sunglasses, Miles.” They smiled at each other. Miles had been Explosives Ordinance and Max an EA-6B pilot, but that didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that they were both still here.
If you tell yourself this every morning and click your heels together three times, maybe one day you’ll believe it.
“What’s got you worked up, boss?”
“Not going to drop it, are you, Warrant?”
“I wouldn’t be a very good sailor if I let my shipmate get away with doing the absolute worst thing for himself.”
“There are worse things than overworking muscles.”
“I’m not worried about your muscles, boss. It’s your head I’m thinking about. What aren’t you dealing with? More nightmares?”
Max sat up and looked across the weight room at the reflection of himself in the wall mirror. The image was familiar, but still fresh to him. It was the “new” Max, the one with more gray than brown in his hair and less body mass, as evidenced by the scrawny legs that straddled the bench. He’d never be as fit as he once was. Not just because of the war but because he was getting older. He wasn’t twenty-five anymore.
Still, did forty-two have to feel so old?
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I did have a conversation with someone who knew me before.” His voice cracked on before and he cleared his throat. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I was, well, since before I went to war.”
“How’d she act toward you?”
“Fine. No different, really.”
“Can I ask, boss, is this a former girlfriend? A wife?”
Max forced a smile. “You know I’ve never been married. And Winnie, well, she’s my best friend’s widow. We lost Tom five years ago—EA-6B Prowler crash. I was the CACO.”
Miles shook his head and let out a low whistle. “Sorry, boss. That sucks.”
“It’s part of our business, isn’t it?” Max rubbed his chin. “It did look like there might be something between us a while back. But it was just a lark.” Images of that Air Show weekend had been flashing across his mind ever since Winnie drove off with that dog.
“How long ago was that?”
“Ahh, let’s see. That was the summer before I took the squadron on deployment, so…” His mind leaped onto an unexpected tangent with lightning speed.
No way.
“Boss, you okay?”
Not possible.
“Yeah, I’m…just figuring something out.”
One of the condoms broke. Did you forget that?
Miles’s strong hand wrapped around Max’s upper arm. “Buddy, you sure as hell don’t look okay.”
How old is her daughter? What’s the timeline?
“I think I’ve done it again, Miles. I’ve been shoving so much down—”
“And now your gut’s spewing emotions everywhere, isn’t it?”
Max couldn’t help laughing. It eased the tightness in his chest, a tightness that had nothing to do with bench presses and everything to do with what Winnie had revealed to him.
And what she hadn’t reve
aled.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He wrapped his towel around his neck. “I’m good, Miles. Thanks for sitting with me. Now I’ve got to go burn this off in a healthier way. You’re right about that.”
“Anytime, boss, anytime.”
Max walked out of the weight room with a feeling he hadn’t had since before the suicide bomber leveled the spirit he’d taken for granted. He didn’t have to report to anyone else, didn’t have to ask what he needed to do. He knew his next move.
He was going to Winnie’s. He’d get her address and if it was unlisted, he’d drive through Coupeville house by house if he had to.
Winnie had some explaining to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
“STOP IT, MAEVE, THOSE ARE my chicken nuggets.” Krista’s tone resembled a mother’s more than an older sister’s as she chastised eighteen-month-old Maeve, who had a penchant for stealing food off her older sister’s plate.
“Mine!” Maeve’s baby voice was irresistible to Winnie but annoyed Krista.
“No, these are mine.” Krista covered her plate with her hand and pointed with the other. “And those are yours, on your Fancy Nancy plate.”
“No!” Maeve screeched the word and her lower lip jutted out in warning.
“Krista, knock it off. We use our dinner manners now. Right, Maeve?” Winnie fought to keep from smiling as she stared at Maeve.
Maeve’s huge blue eyes reproached Winnie and, not for the first time, Winnie felt Max’s presence reach out through his daughter’s eyes.
You blew it today. You should’ve told him.
She had told him too much about her life—without telling him what she should have.
She tried to convince herself that she’d wanted to avoid his questions until he wasn’t so upset. That she thought it was better to wait.
That was all crapola and she knew it. Not only was she betraying Max, but each day she kept him from the truth, she kept Maeve from knowing her daddy.
Maeve.
Maeve needed her father, a father who wasn’t dead like Krista’s. He’d survived a war, for God’s sake, and was living and breathing just a drive up the road.
You are a class-A chicken.
“Maeve, don’t look at Mommy like that. You have to be a good girl and eat the food on your own plate, not Krista’s.”
Maeve’s expression reflected her inner-toddler struggle. Winnie knew she was hungry, and the cut-up chicken nuggets on her Fancy Nancy plate were just as tasty as her sister’s. But it was so much fun to annoy Krista and to get her attention. Tears shimmered in Maeve’s luminous eyes and her chin worked frantically to keep her lower lip in a pout.
No doubt due to Maeve’s hunger, sanity prevailed and she picked up a nugget from her own plate and shoved it carefully in her mouth.
Winnie expelled her breath. It’d been a long afternoon with both girls arriving home in cranky moods.
These days she was never sure who’d have the bigger fit after school—Maeve or Krista. At thirteen, Krista had started wearing a training bra this past summer and she’d shot up three inches since Christmas. She wore the same shoe size as Winnie, although Winnie didn’t think that would be for long. Krista was going to be long and lean, as Tom had been.
Maeve, however, was Winnie’s “mini-me,” except for the shape and color of her eyes and her mop of straight brown hair—clearly inherited from Max.
He’s going to know she’s his the minute he sees her.
“Krista, how much homework do you have tonight?” Her voice shook and she knew that her anxiety wasn’t going away. Not until she came clean with Max.
“I already told you when I came in, Mom. I finished it on the bus.”
“Good.” Krista probably had told her, but Winnie had been distracted since she walked through the door. Her thoughts had stayed in Dugualla Bay… .
The same sense of inevitability she’d had once she’d started labor with each of the girls filled her stomach with dread. Now, just like then, there was no escaping the pain to come. No going back. Then, it had meant the baby was on her way out; now it was the truth emerging.
With no guarantee of a happy outcome as far as Max was concerned.
Life doesn’t come with a warranty.
She’d betrayed Max, the one person who’d seen her at her best and her worst, from her and Tom’s life together, through the crash and then her short stint as a psycho-widow, when she’d tried to pick up an addiction. Any addiction—she hadn’t been fussy.
Drinking, men, shopping, whatever would take “hold” she’d tried to cling to. But Max had stepped in before anything could consume her and tear her from her life with Krista. His words to her the night he’d dragged her out of an Oak Harbor bar and dumped her back in her house had ended her quest for self-destruction.
“You can abuse yourself all you want—the hurt will still be there, and Tom won’t. He’s not coming back, Winnie. You have a daughter to raise. This isn’t the time to let Tom down.”
He’d left her alone in her empty house. Her parents had taken Krista for the weekend, which was the pattern for the first several months after Tom died, to give Winnie a break and Krista time with other family. Instead of using those free hours to heal, Winnie had been hell-bent on dousing the firestorm of pain.
Max had saved her. Ultimately, he’d saved Krista, too.
He’d never mentioned that time again. Wouldn’t comment on it if she brought it up, either.
Even today, when he was spitting angry at her stupid comment about his being a charity case, he hadn’t reminded her of when she’d been in need of charity.
Of all the people to deceive, she’d picked Max.
Crap on a cracker.
“Okay, Krista, could you play with your sister for a few minutes while I get the dishes done?”
“C’mon, Maeve, do you want to play kitchen?” Krista expertly unsnapped Maeve from her booster seat and lifted her down to the hardwood floor. Maeve took off with a squeal, her bare feet slapping the oak planks.
“Slow down, Maeve,” Winnie admonished while she cleared the table and took the plates to the sink. She looked through her garden window and sighed. The clouds were just as gray and the trees bent—almost as though they were doing yoga. The windstorm promised to continue all night.
The first time she heard a rapping out front, she thought it might be a branch. But the second time, Sam barked and she realized someone was at the door. She looked at the clock. They weren’t used to visitors this late on a school night.
“Keep an eye on her, Krista.” She glanced at the scene of domestic tranquility. Krista was helping Maeve make plastic pies and cakes in her toy microwave.
“I am, Mom.” Krista’s tone had changed overnight into that of a know-it-all teenager, and Winnie didn’t like it one bit. She missed her easygoing daughter, who’d delighted in the simple things like baking cookies and fitting a jigsaw puzzle together.
Sam trotted to the door with her, but instead of his usual bark he stood still and wagged his tail. He gazed at the door with a look of expectation.
Winnie peered through the beveled glass and recognized the shape of a man. A man who immediately made her stomach tense.
She opened the door to a rush of wind—and Max.
“May I come in?” It wasn’t really a question, since he’d already walked into her foyer and shut the door behind him. He wore a hoodie, and his T-shirt underneath was sweat-stained. His hair was damp and his eyes—oh, his eyes.
“Sam.” She started to command Sam to remain in place but she didn’t have to. He’d sat down and waited patiently for Max to acknowledge him with a pat.
“Come on in, I’ll make us some tea.” Winnie spun on her heel and headed toward the kitchen in her stockinged feet. But Max was quicker.
His hand wrapped around her wrist. “Not yet. We need to talk.”
Winnie looked down at her arm, and at his hand. In spite of her heightened anxiety, his touch elicited a warm throb of excitement. S
he dared to look up at Max’s face.
His eyes blazed and his mouth was set in a straight line. The years seemed to fall away as she looked into his eyes.
“Of all people, you were one I thought I could trust.”
She eased her body around to face him and leaned her back against the wall. She couldn’t trust her legs. She willed herself to meet his eyes and to answer him truthfully. No matter what he asked.
“And now?”
“Where are the girls, Winnie?” He stared at her but not at her. He was obviously distracted by his inner demons.
“In the family room. But don’t you think we should talk about this first?”
He gave her a look of derision and released her wrist. But he didn’t move. She felt the nearness of his body, the scent that was uniquely Max. She remembered him like this from before, the night they’d made love.
And made a baby.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me before I walk into that room, Winnie?”
She swallowed. “Apparently I don’t have to.”
He leaned in and she thought, maybe some part of her hoped, that he was going to kiss her. Erase the years, the trauma, all of it. With a kiss.
“What you’ve done is unforgivable, Winnie.”
Shivers shot down her neck and spine as his breath swept across her ear, but the desire she’d felt fled as quickly as it had come.
He’d hate her forever.
* * *
MAX PUSHED BACK FROM the wall and strode down the hall, pausing at the entry to the family room. She heard the girls’ voices in their singsong play and Maeve’s giggles, which she saved for her time with Krista.
It was impossible to take her gaze off Max’s profile. Max, the warrior, who stood on the threshold of his new life. Once he walked into that room and got a full look at Maeve, he’d know the truth.
That he was a father.
From her own experience, Winnie understood that when you became a parent, any previous presuppositions, ideas, intentions, were irrelevant. All that had mattered to her was her child. Max would be no different. It wasn’t in him to do anything halfway, regardless of what she’d said to Robyn.
“Maeve, do you want to wash the dishes now?” Krista asked.
