by Dana Marton
Trevor said, “I have to do some concentrated psychotherapy right now. I do that in the mornings, then PT in the afternoons. I only have Annie once a week. I wish I could have her every day. I think she could make me better.”
“You’ll get there.”
“You think?”
What did Cole know? He’d only been here two days. “You bet.”
The aura of distress around Trevor faded. His eyes lost some of their jitteriness.
“I like the food here,” he said when Cole moved to walk away. “You think they’ll have cupcakes again tomorrow?”
“If they do, they’ll probably be gluten-free. Made from carrots or zucchini or, what was it the other day? Aubergine.”
Trevor rolled his eyes. “Total bait and switch, man. Sounds like French pastry. Turns out it’s freaking eggplant. Seriously.” He shook his head. “Still, better than MREs.”
“Not saying much, is it?” Dried dog turd was better than Meals Ready to Eat, the standard freeze-dried food packets used in the military.
“Where were you stationed?” Trev asked. “First I was assigned to JTF-Bravo in Honduras, then in Afghanistan.”
“All around. Little bit of this, little bit of that.”
Because the kid clearly needed the conversation to ground him, Cole lingered a few minutes to talk. He only left when more people came in. One of them, Marco, a tall black guy, acknowledged Trevor with a chin lift before limping across the big room to take the treadmill next to the kid.
Shane, a wiry Texan, headed to the weights. He checked his phone. He did that every couple of minutes. His mother had bone cancer, and he liked to keep in touch with her. He put the phone down, then stepped over to the TV in the corner and turned off CNN, which had been showing a Senate session on health-care reform.
“Love my country, hate the damn government,” he said, in case anyone needed explanation.
Cole thought about that while heading back to his room. As he cut through the courtyard, he caught sight of a small shadow under the great willow tree in the middle.
A civilian would have missed it. The branches of the weeping willow nearly touched the ground, making it difficult to see in there. But Cole’s sniper eyes had been trained to pick up the smallest movement.
He grabbed for his nonexistent weapon on instinct. Pain shot up his useless right arm. Then his brain caught up. Rehab. Safe. The tree was unlikely to hide insurgents.
If he were a betting man, he’d bet Annie Murray was in there, communing with nature in the middle of the night. Probably upset over her house.
None of Cole’s business.
They weren’t best friends. Or even friends, loosely speaking. He needed to get back to his room. He needed a shower, then he had a new thriller he wanted to read. And yet he couldn’t help himself. He swept the branches aside and stepped inside the dark cocoon of the tree.
Annie Murray sat with her slim legs crossed, her back against the trunk. She turned her face into the single sliver of moonlight so he could read her lips. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Now what?
Should have gone to the room. Cole shifted on his feet, then silently cursed himself. She was the weird one. So why was he the one feeling strange?
Backing out now without another word would make him look like an even bigger idiot, so he sat down facing her. “Can’t sleep?”
“Can’t stop thinking about the hole in my house.”
Cole nodded. Sitting under the tree with her in the dark felt disorienting. He wasn’t sure what he was doing here.
Chasing the peace of the meadow.
He still didn’t understand what had happened there. Maybe she’d hypnotized him. Only one thing wrong with that theory: he didn’t believe in hypnosis.
“The contractor will fix it.” Tree hugger or not, he didn’t like seeing her upset. He didn’t like seeing anyone taken advantage of. “Want me to come over tomorrow and have a talk with him?”
A tired smile stretched her full lips as she sat slumped against the tree. “Thanks. I should be able to handle it.”
She probably could. She was competent enough, and definitely the Zen type, not one to fly off the handle. Even now, peace hung around her like mist around mountain peaks.
That nap he’d taken with her at the clearing the day before had been a gift, and he wished he could return the favor.
“If you need help, let me know,” Cole said. “You should go to bed and get some rest.”
“You too.”
He nodded as he pushed to his feet. “Just came in to say hi.”
“You didn’t earlier. I thought maybe you’d had enough of me yesterday.”
Had she seen him on the front porch when she’d pulled up? He hadn’t thought so. He’d been in the deep shadows, and she’d been under the parking-lot lights.
Before he could comment, she said, “I saw you standing outside the branches. Your boots sound different on the gravel than sneakers.”
“Not me.” Cole shook his head.
She blinked at him, then murmured something that looked like “Oh Jesus, Joey,” before dropping her head into her hands.
The name rang a bell. “Would that be the stalker boyfriend?”
She looked up. “Ex-boyfriend slash stalker. He really is harmless. He thinks if he keeps reminding me how much he’s suffering, I’ll take him back.” She picked at her pants. “He’s a part-time driver for the laundry service that picks up the linen from the rehab center. But today is not one of his days. I didn’t expect to see him here.”
She stood and brushed off her jeans. “I have to go home to feed my animals. They’re in the garage. I’m allowed in there. Only the house was damaged.”
“What needs feeding at midnight?”
“Babies.”
Cole pictured a basket of orphaned puppies. During their session the day before, she’d mentioned something about needing a bigger backyard.
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’m all right.”
“Gives me something to do other than stare at the ceiling. Can’t sleep anyway.” He shrugged. “Not hearing anything . . . That only works when I have my eyes open. At night, when I close my eyes, I hear the explosions. Over and over.”
He was telling her the truth, but he was also manipulating her sympathies. He didn’t like the idea of her going out in the middle of the night. Not with a stalker ex-boyfriend on the loose. Whose ass Cole was going to kick, free of charge, gratis, if they ran into him tonight. It’d help him work off some of his frustrations. A little ass kicking might be more therapeutic than any of the treatment he’d received so far at Hope Hill.
Annie stopped to make sure he could read her lips. “You don’t take the sleeping pills?”
“Only every couple of days. Hate feeling groggy the next day.”
Her eyes narrowed for a second, as if she might object, but instead she nodded, then walked through the supple willow branches.
He followed her, the leaves feeling like a caress on his shaved head, like a fond goodbye from the tree.
He bit back a disgusted groan at the thought. One ecotherapy session, and he was getting as batty as she was. He needed to watch himself around Annie Murray.
He caught up with her as she left the facilities and headed to her car.
When he popped in on the passenger side, her hand hesitated on the key in the ignition.
“While I try to develop a friendship with my patients, I don’t normally take them home with me.”
“Is there a rule against it?”
“Not officially.” The dome light revealed that her eyes were red-rimmed. She’d had a rough week so far.
Cole had been part of it, no doubt. He’d given her plenty of grief yesterday. He bit back a disgusted grunt. He wasn’t fit for human company, dammit. But he wasn’t going to let her go out alone, in the middle of the night.
“I’ll be on my best behavior. I swear. Consider it therapy. Animals are supposed to help with PTSD. Right?�
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She turned the key in the ignition. The dome light went out. She reached up to turn it back on. Presumably so he could see if she said something, but she drove out of the parking lot in silence.
“When can you go back home for good?” Cole asked when they were on the road.
She turned slightly, enough so he could read her lips. “I’ll find out tomorrow if the house is structurally sound. Apparently, the bathroom studs rotted away from water that’s been leaking behind the shower tiles for decades.”
Her slim fingers tightened on the wheel. “I seriously want to strangle the home inspector who missed that when I bought the place. I paid him to catch problems like this.”
Lips pressed together, she looked like she might be growling.
What would that sound like?
Cole batted the thought away. “I doubt a woman who wouldn’t break a tree branch in the woods would kill a man. I don’t think you’re the type for cold-blooded murder.”
“Nobody said anything about cold-blooded. Believe me, I feel pretty passionate about him right now.”
Her full lips forming the word passionate made him focus on them more carefully than necessary. She had great lips, fuller on the bottom than on top, almost to the point of looking swollen.
Generous lips. He’d heard the expression before but hadn’t thought about what that might look like, until now. Annie Murray had generous lips. No hardship looking at them at all. And he had carte blanche for staring.
He had to force himself back to the conversation. “Still couldn’t do it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know a lot about killers?”
“Takes one to know one,” he said noncommittally.
She paled, which was a pretty good trick since she’d been plenty pale already. Her gaze darted to his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I spent a decade overseas with the navy. We both know I wasn’t baking cupcakes.”
One hundred twenty-five confirmed kills.
They sat in silence as the car rolled through the night, down quaint small-town streets dotted with flower shops and bakeries. The Pennsylvania small town was a lot like Annie: too good to be true, too innocent and untouched.
Cole didn’t trust this kind of purity. It didn’t mesh up with all he’d seen and done in the service. He couldn’t picture belonging in a place like this.
She pulled over on an average-looking residential street, in front of a rancher that looked the same as all the others, except for the construction dumpster that sat by the curb. A yellow DO NOT CROSS tape had been wrapped around white porch columns, and it flitted in the night breeze.
The front yard was the size of a helicopter landing pad. The mailbox looked like it’d met some idiot high school kids with baseball bats. Actually, that last bit made the town feel more real for some reason.
When Annie headed to the two-car garage that stood separate from her yellow house, on the opposite side of the worn driveway, Cole loped after her.
“What’s going to happen to the house?”
“My cousin’s crew tarped the hole, in case it rains,” she said. “Anything more will have to come from a real contractor. Kelly’s guys could remove an interior, non-load-bearing wall or do cosmetic fixes. This is structural. Too big for them. I have a pro coming in the morning.”
She stepped into the garage through the side door, and Cole followed. When she flipped on the light, he stared straight ahead, dumbfounded.
He’d been prepared for orphaned puppies her bleeding heart couldn’t leave at the pound, but reality was so much worse.
“You run a skunk sanctuary?” He stood still on the fresh hay that covered the floor. He barely breathed. He couldn’t have been less inclined to move if he’d suddenly found himself in the middle of a minefield.
“I take in injured animals.” A touch of defensiveness crept into her expression, probably in response to his are-you-freaking-crazy tone.
“Cats and dogs are easy to adopt out once they recover. The cats at Hope Hill came from here. Wild animals go back into the woods, if they can be self-supporting. I find homes for those with permanent injuries.” Her shoulders lifted then fell—probably a sigh. “Nobody wants the skunks.”
Because most people aren’t completely nuts.
He didn’t say that out loud. Maybe he was regaining some of his social skills. Since that was one of the stated goals of his treatment plan at Shit Hill—hey, good going.
“I’d prefer not to get sprayed.”
“They only spray if they feel threatened.”
She moved to the minifridge—shuffling so she wouldn’t step on anyone—warmed milk in the microwave on top of the fridge, and made two bottles. Then she sat on a folded comforter in the corner, and the half dozen juvenile skunks ran over.
She said something that looked like “Come here you little stink muffins,” which made Cole’s lips twitch.
She gently pushed the first few off her lap. “Babies first.” She waited until another half dozen smaller ones made their way to her.
“Two abandoned litters.” She helped them on her lap, one by one. “The mothers were run over on the highway.”
She rotated the bottles among the babies and murmured to them. He didn’t see what, since her face was angled downward. He imagined she was making cooing mama-skunk noises.
Since all the skunks were crowding around her, Cole figured he might be safe now. He looked farther into the garage.
Boxes and baby gates blocked off the area. The light of the single bulb by the door barely reached to the far end. Pens and crates filled the entire place. He’d been so startled by the skunks, he hadn’t noticed them immediately.
Damn drugs. The sleeping pills kept his mind in a haze even on the days he didn’t take them. All the chemicals were piling up in his system. In what universe did he not have complete situational awareness at all times?
In this one, apparently—a whole new world for him. He despised feeling this freaking helpless and useless. Every single day, he knew he was only alive because nobody had tried to kill him.
His shrink, Dr. Ambrose, kept telling him he needed to learn to relax, needed to learn that he didn’t have to be on his guard around the clock anymore. Cole was a civilian now—danger no longer waited for him around every corner. But being a Navy SEAL had been indelibly written into every cell of his body. Telling him to relax was like tossing a fish in the air and expecting it to fly away.
He peered into the darkness where other animals moved, probably making noise he couldn’t hear.
When he looked back at Annie, she said, “They’ve already been fed. They just want to party.”
He gestured toward them with his head and quirked an eyebrow.
She responded with, “Go ahead.”
He didn’t turn on the overhead light, didn’t want to rile up everyone in the middle of the night. Instead, he stepped over a baby gate and waited until his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness.
A tabby cat with a splint blinked at him from a pillow. A black potbellied pig with a newly healed gash in its side rooted around inside a pen. A raven watched him from the rafters, one wing bandaged. Three blue eggs slept in a nest in a cage, under a heating lamp.
Another divider came next. Past that, five emaciated llamas and a one-eyed donkey turned their heads to stare at him. He stared right back for a couple of startled seconds before scanning the rest of the space.
Bags of food for various animals stood piled against the wall. Running the menagerie must cost a pretty penny just in feed.
The llamas and the donkey stuck to their corners and showed no inclination to get to know Cole better. He reached in with his good hand and scratched the pig behind the ears. If there were delighted squeals, he didn’t hear them. He went to pet the cat, but the cat swiped at him.
The raven gave him a squinty-eyed look that said Don’t even try. He couldn’t reach the bird anyway. He went back to Annie.
He found her half-asleep.
“What’s up with the llamas?”
She blinked at him. “People moved and left them behind.”
He glanced back, but that end of the garage was too dark to see the animals. She had saved them in the nick of time. They looked like they were still pretty close to starvation.
“What was the worst you ever had?”
“A tarantula that lost a leg.” A delicate shiver ran through her. “I hate spiders.”
“Did you save it?”
A tragic look came over her face. “A goat ate him.”
A strangled laugh escaped him. “What happened to the goat?”
“Adopted.”
“Do you ever turn anything away?”
She rubbed the head of one of the baby skunks with the back of her crooked index finger. “Not anything, not ever.”
That people like her lived in the world scared Cole a little. Too softhearted, too easy to take advantage of, too vulnerable. Annie Murray needed a keeper. Not that he was volunteering.
He watched as she slid down into the hay, flat on her back, her head on the folded comforter. The skunks were all over her instantly, like love-smitten kittens, snuggled into every nook, a different baby tucked against every curve.
She closed her eyes, the picture of peaceful bliss.
Cole stood against a nearly irresistible pull to lie next to her and be part of the magic she was weaving.
He never thought he’d be jealous of a skunk, but he wanted to be tucked against her breast. She had generous breasts to go with her generous mouth. She was murmuring something to her little charges that he didn’t catch, a soft half smile on her lips.
He wanted to sink into Annie Murray’s earth-mother goodness, dissolve in her peace.
She was the most wholesome person he’d ever known.
He was the opposite—too damaged in too many ways. He was deaf, and his right arm might never fully function again. He had nightmares . . .
He wouldn’t wish waking up next to him on his worst enemy.
In his dreams, either he was killing someone, or someone was killing him.
He was a killer. He’d been a damn good sniper before his right arm had been rendered useless. Maybe as punishment for his sins.
