A Broken Christmas

by Claire Ashgrove

  “Won’t be the first.” Giving him a teasing grin, she poked him in the middle of the chest. “I’m a soldier, remember?”

  “Yeah, but those didn’t come from me.”

  Aimee pressed her lips over his mouth. “Hush. I’m not the first nightmare victim. I doubt I’ll be the last.” She changed the subject before regret could carry him back to that unreachable place he retreated to. “I’ll fix us something to eat. You want to come down or stay up here?”

  His chuckle skittered her hair across her cheek. “I don’t really have a choice today. I can hardly move my leg.”

  “Okay. You stay here. I’ll fix you breakfast in bed. Then, I have some last minute shopping to do if you’ll promise you won’t try the stairs.”

  The first genuine grin she’d seen in a long time lifted one corner of his mouth. He marked an imaginary X over his chest. “I promise, Doc.”

  Reluctantly, Aimee wriggled out of his embrace and left the bed. Progress. She had finally made unmistakable progress with Kyle. The reminder gave her the ability to leave the haven of their bedroom and put aside the fear that she might never again wake to find him lying beside her.

  Now, if she could only break through the last of his walls and understand what had brought them to this dark place. If confronting his physical inabilities had brought him this far, only one other thing could drag him the rest of the way—Conner.

  Rather, Conner’s mom.

  Chapter Twelve

  With Kyle resting in bed, a tray full of snacks on the floor at his side, Aimee grabbed her coat off the peg behind the door and dashed out to the Jeep. The bright sunshine was an illusion. Frosty winter air blasted through her clothes, making her teeth chatter as she unlocked the driver’s side. She climbed in, keyed the engine, and turned the heater on high. While she waited on the frost to clear off the windshield, she rubbed her hands together to generate warmth.

  Winter was one of her favorite seasons, but mornings like this she could do without. Twenty-six degrees, with wind gusts at thirty miles an hour bringing in more snow overnight. Perfect for Christmas. Terrible for shopping the day before.

  More than anything, however, the deep chill reminded her of growing up in Northern Maine and holidays spent wondering whether her father might show up or not. The cold was second nature. Kyle, however, had made the season bright.

  When her teeth stopped chattering, she backed out of the driveway, put the Jeep in four-wheel drive, and navigated down the snow-covered street. At the bottom of the hill, Aimee turned east, heading across town.

  What she was about to do might border on unforgivable in Kyle’s book. But if it helped him heal, she was willing to take that risk.

  Twenty minutes later, she nosed into Mom Walsh’s ranch house driveway, right behind Conner’s dark blue SUV. She frowned at his back window. He wasn’t supposed to be here. In typical Conner last-minute fashion, he was supposed to be shopping. She’d been more prepared to run into him at the mall than at his mother’s house.

  Aimee turned off the engine, debating the wisdom of going to the door. Conner wouldn’t make this easy.

  To hell with it. Conner could fight her all he wanted; she didn’t intend to walk out of Mom Walsh’s house until she achieved what she came here for.

  In long, determined strides, Aimee crossed the sidewalk and stepped onto the covered front porch. Nervously, she pushed the bell. Listened to the echoing tone beyond the door.

  “Coming,” Mom Walsh called.

  “I’ll get it, Mom.” Closer, Conner’s voice resonated through the side-panel glass.

  Aimee muttered a curse beneath her breath. Maybe she could find a way to coerce him into leaving for a while. In the last several months, Conner had become her best friend, but that was precisely why she didn’t want him here. He’d call her plan foolish. Accuse her of not thinking things through.

  The door swung open. Sandwich halfway raised to his mouth, Conner’s eyes widened. “Aims. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to Mom.” Without waiting for an invitation, she ducked around Conner’s broad shoulders and let herself inside.

  “Come in, why don’t you?” Laughter fringed his words.

  She flashed him a grin. “Thanks, I think I will.”

  “Aimee? Is that you?” Mom Walsh called from the back of the house.

  “It’s me!” She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over the back of a recliner chair. Then, she turned a sugary sweet smile on Conner. “Why don’t you go away for a while? Fetch me some Starbucks or something.”

  Baby blues twinkled as he gnawed off the corner of his ham and Swiss. “That’s a little obvious, don’t you think? Mom’s finishing up laundry. She’ll be out in a minute. Want a sandwich?”

  “No thanks. Late breakfast.” Grumbling, Aimee followed him up the stairs into the kitchen. So much for excerpting Conner out of this conversation. Well, he’d just have to deal with all the things he wouldn’t want to hear…and she’d just have to accept she had a fight ahead of her.

  At this rate, she should buy stock in boxing gloves.

  Conner passed her a cold can of Pepsi. As she accepted, he gestured at the dark spot under her right eye. “Fighting over a gift at the mall?”

  “Um. No.” She popped the top and took a long drink.

  “No?” One rascally eyebrow arched. “What gives, Aims? You’re awfully secretive today.”

  Aimee sighed. “Kyle nailed me while he was sleeping.”

  “Kyle hit you?” Though his voice rose, his mouth twitched with unspent laughter.

  “Kyle Gardner hit you?” Mom Walsh repeated from behind Aimee, her question nowhere near the teasing nature of Conner’s.

  Aimee turned around in a hurry. “Yes, but it’s not what you think. He was asleep. Dreaming.” Her gaze slid accusingly toward Conner. “About Denton and whatever you won’t tell me.”

  “I think that’s my cue to get more firewood.” Conner stuffed the last of his sandwich in his mouth and grabbed his jacket off the kitchen chair.

  Aimee shot Mom Walsh a pleading look and jerked her head toward the front door. “Make him leave,” she mouthed.

  Mom Walsh patted Aimee’s shoulder as she slipped past her son and went to the cupboard for a stoneware mug. “Conner?”

  “Yep?”

  “I really need a can of cherries before the store closes.”

  Conner’s attention jumped to Aimee. Though she tried to keep her smirk from registering on her face, she felt the corner of her mouth twitch. Score one for Mom. Conner would get even later, no doubt about it, but this conversation wasn’t meant for his ears.

  The threat of retaliation glimmered in his narrowed eyes. He pulled his coat on slowly. “I’m going. But I want to know what this is about. What are you plotting now, Aims?”

  She gave him her brightest, most innocent smile. “Just Christmas. Now shoo.”

  “We’re not coming over,” Conner called as he headed for the door. “Kyle doesn’t want us around, Mom. This is a bad idea.”

  Aimee held Mom Walsh’s concerned gaze as Conner left the house. Breathing easier with him out of earshot, she sat down on a tall bar stool at the island and spun her Pepsi between her hands. “I need some advice.”

  Conner’s mother pulled a stool close, sitting opposite. A leathery hand reached across to cover Aimee’s. “You know I have plenty of that, Aimee.”

  The lighthearted remark eased Aimee’s apprehension. She nodded, twirled her can once more, then sipped. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but Kyle’s locked up like a safe. Every time I think I make progress, he doubles his armor. He’s still not talking to me about whatever happened over there. Has Conner said anything?” Even as she asked, she knew Conner had told his mother nothing.

  Mom Walsh shook her head. “Not a word.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s eating Kyle alive. Nightmares keep him awake. I catch him staring off into space now and then. His leg…” Aimee trailed off on a heavy sigh. “L
ast night he said he needed to hold me—that was the old Kyle, Mom. He fell, and somehow that cracked through layers. I don’t know how to get through the rest. If he’d just tell me…”

  The freckled hand atop Aimee’s squeezed before Mom Walsh slid off her stool to fill their coffee mugs from the gurgling pot. “I want to ask you something. I don’t mean to pry, but have you slept with Kyle?”

  A shock of embarrassment heated Aimee’s cheeks. She ducked her head, hiding her face with her long hair. Over the years, Mom Walsh had come to replace Aimee’s own mother in many respects. In many more, they were even closer. But she’d rather talk about sex with Conner, than with his mother.

  “Come now.” Mom Walsh laughed. “You’re a grown woman. You think I haven’t been around the block a few times, Aimee? I could hardly keep my hands off Conner’s father. I might be sixty-three, but I’m not dead yet.” She returned to the island and slid a steaming mug beneath Aimee’s nose. “So. Have you?”

  Aimee squirmed as she sipped from the cup. Doing her best to avoid Mom Walsh’s searching gaze, she looked at the wall behind her reddish-grey head. “That’s, ah, not the problem.” Well it hadn’t been until last night. Aimee frowned.

  “So you have then.”

  “Yes…” With the ice-broken and the obvious stated, it became easier to meet her surrogate mother’s compassionate blue eyes. She took a deep breath, released it. “But last night he pushed me away. Before he fell. Before I woke up with a bloody nose, and he asked me to stay with him.”

  “After the nightmare?”

  Aimee nodded.

  A long moment of thoughtful silence passed as Mom Walsh studied the flecked paint on her coffee mug’s handle. Her wiry brows puckered, she chewed on a thin lip.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Men connect through sex. I’m thinking Kyle reached out to you, but there’s something he’s afraid of. Have you told him you want children?”

  Aimee blinked. Do what? “Kyle’s not ready for that discussion. He’s got so many other things on his mind. Besides,” her voice dropped as disappointment filtered into her veins. “He was awfully relieved when he thought I was still on birth control.”

  “You haven’t told him that you aren’t?”

  “No. You know how he is. He’d freak.”

  “Maybe not.” Draining her mug, Mom Walsh pushed away from the island. “Maybe that’s the thing you’re missing. All this came about after your miscarriage. Do you think he might have been afraid to tell you what he really wanted?”

  Aimee pulled her hair back and twisted it into a knot. “What difference does it make now? Even if that solved one thing, it doesn’t help with understanding what’s haunting him now. He can’t be a father, no matter how much he might want to, if he can’t put that behind him.”

  “So you have to pry him open.”

  “But how?” Frustration raised Aimee’s voice. “I’m out of ideas—except one. Make him confront the things he doesn’t want to, the most.”

  Slowly turning around, Mom Walsh leaned against the countertop and cradled her newly filled mug in both hands. “You mean Conner.”

  Aimee bobbed her head, prepared to hear a flat refusal. Mom Walsh would bend over backwards for any one of the three of them, but her natural ties to Conner created loyalty Kyle and Aimee didn’t share. If she thought Conner couldn’t handle the confrontation, she’d refuse without hesitation.

  “For Christmas dinner? Do you think that’s the best idea?” She pulled on a long red-grey pigtail braid. “It is your holiday. Quite possibly your last if this fails. Is that how you want to remember Christmas?”

  In a near whisper, Aimee answered, “I’m willing to take the risk.”

  A soft sigh echoed through the wide kitchen. “I don’t know if I can get him there. He’s pretty adamant that Kyle come to him. I can’t say I blame him either—he really tried to be there for Kyle during his recovery. Kyle pushed him away the same way he did to you.”

  “I know. And I know Conner doesn’t have any desire to see Kyle either. But my gut says this is right.” She gave Mom Walsh a pleading look. “Will you try?”

  “No.” As the answer hung between them, a mischievous smile spread across Mom Walsh’s face. “I’ll make sure he shows. Conner’s had it easy these last few months of leave. I think he needs a little excitement.”

  Excitement was surely one way to put it, but Aimee wasn’t about to argue semantics when Conner’s mother was willing to throw him to the savage wolf. She gave in to a grin. “They might hate us both after.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be the first time my son decided not to speak to me.” Her face crinkled with delightful humor and she winked at Aimee. “He has to love his mother.”

  But Kyle didn’t have to love her—doubt sent icy fingers running down Aimee’s spine. She shivered with the sudden chill and swallowed down a rising lump of dread.

  “So what do you want me to bring to dinner tomorrow?”

  The question had barely left Mom Walsh’s lips when Conner stomped through the back door. Though the grocery store was only a block away, he must have doubled the speed limit to return so quickly. Aimee watched him from the corner of her eyes as she answered, “How about that broccoli casserole? Kyle loves it.”

  Conner dropped the heavy sack on the countertop near Aimee’s elbow. Mouth pursed, he gave her a hard stare. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “For me, or you?” Aimee blinked, the question having popped free before she could stop it.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine. I might kill him, but I will be fine. You on the other hand—how far are you going to get in repairing your marriage if you push Kyle where he doesn’t want to be?”

  “Conner.” Mom Walsh’s sharp voice cut through the air. “Aimee thinks this is what Kyle needs. She knows him better than even you. Let’s trust her.”

  “What he needs is to forgive himself.” Conner thumped a closed fist on the island. “You can’t force that, Aimee. You think I don’t know why he doesn’t want to see me? I’ll tell you why. I saved his ass, that’s why. I’m a reminder of not only everything that happened over there, but everything he is right now.”

  Aimee drew back with a gasp. For the first time since Conner came home on leave, he’d inadvertently slipped and given her insight. Conner had saved Kyle’s life. He hadn’t just helped an injured man get to safety, he’d done something to prevent his death. Two drastically different things to a man like Kyle.

  She curled her fingers into her palms so tight her nails bit into her skin. “What happened over there, damn it?”

  As Conner realized his slip, he snapped his mouth shut and turned his back on her. Circling the island, he dragged the grocery sack over the counter top and gently deposited it in his mother’s lap. “You better add a cherry pie to broccoli casserole if you expect me to stay through dinner.” Turning on his heel, he strode from the room without so much as a glance in Aimee’s direction.

  “Conner, wait,” Mom Walsh called after her son.

  “No, it’s okay. Let him be. I should get going—I’ve got to get to the mall yet.”

  Mom Walsh stood at the same time Aimee did. Catching her by the wrist, she pulled Aimee in to a surprisingly tight hug for her tiny frame. “You hang in there, kiddo. What time do you want us there tomorrow?”

  Aimee gave her a grateful smile. “One. Like usual.”

  “Will do. Go get your shopping done. I’ll talk to Conner.”

  Nodding, Aimee embraced her once more and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She left the house more uncertain than when she arrived. What Conner suggested cast Kyle’s struggle in a wholly different light. They both knew Kyle well, but Conner understood a different side of him. Maybe he was right. Maybe forcing a confrontation would only make things worse.

  Nibbling on her lower lip, she climbed into the Jeep. Well, if it was a mistake, she’d find out soon enough. God willing, Kyle wouldn’t ship her off on the next plane to San
Antonio.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the afternoon sunshine faded into evening’s dreary grey, Kyle stretched beneath the heavy down comforter. Sleep had finally left his body, but the bed’s comfort held him captive. Along with the faint perfume that clung to the pillows and marked Aimee’s presence. How easy it would be to settle into routine. To pretend he could spend the rest of his years not needing someone he could confide in. Someone who was strong enough to share his darkest secrets.

  If he thought for one minute he could find satisfaction in a half-empty marriage, he’d stay in a heartbeat. He loved holding her, treasured the incredible way her gentle kiss could make him forget all the horrors he’d seen. All the death he’d not only witnessed, but also created. Last night he knew that safe haven. He could experience it again, if he were willing to sacrifice his own needs. And while there were many things he would give up for Aimee, the months after her miscarriage, when he had swallowed his worries and the danger he confronted every waking minute—he had learned he couldn’t exist that way.

  Which made the conversation he must have with her tonight all that more unavoidable. He needed her to realize they didn’t have a future. Needed her to understand he could never be the person she married six years ago. Beyond his injuries, Denton had permanently damaged him. Kyle had murdered. Not in the name of war. Not as a means of providing security to his country. He had killed his friend outright, and justified it as merciful.

  Worse, his lapse in judgment had brought two others to their death and injured Conner as well.

  Hours of drifting between sleep and wakefulness led him to one conclusion—the only way to make Aimee comprehend and stop pushing for a reconciliation was to tell her the truth. Walk her through that afternoon in Saif’s home and make her see, once and for all, even if his career was destroyed and he didn’t need the outlet he once had in his wife, he didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

  Bells tinkled downstairs, signaling the opening of the front door. Kyle muttered, not wanting to leave the downy comfort, but knowing he must. He grimaced as he pushed himself into a sitting position. His right leg still ached, his knee protesting any position but fully extended. He leaned over to massage the offended joint.