by Rachel Lee
“Oh, my God.” The words slipped out under her breath, and her entire chest tightened. “How can people be so vicious?”
“They just can,” he said. “You know that.”
She did, but she didn’t like it when she saw it or heard about it.
“Anyway, I liked that guy. The three idiots backed off and he offered me a lift on his truck if I was headed west. Nice guy.”
“I would say so.”
He fell silent, perhaps lost in the memory, and when she glanced his way, she saw his hands were still bunched into fists. Instinctively, she reached out to lay a hand over one of his. She didn’t say anything. She figured words were utterly inadequate right now.
She felt something like a tremor run through him, then his hand relaxed beneath hers. A minute later and he turned it over to clasp her hand.
“So what had you been eating? Things from convenience stores?”
“Pretty much. Or fast food. I could remember how to order a burger and fries.” He surprised her with a chuckle. “Work-arounds, like you said. I learned a few of them on the road.”
To her, it sounded awful, but when she paused to think about it, she had to admit he’d done very well for someone who couldn’t read, and admitted he had trouble following through without a list of some kind. He’d made it all the way to her front door.
Then she pondered how it must have impacted him emotionally to be treated that way. No wonder he didn’t seem keen on going to town. When she thought of the courage it must take to risk that kind of scene again, her throat tightened. No wonder he was willing to stay at her ranch. There, at least, he didn’t face scorn.
A proud warrior brought low in service to his country shouldn’t have to face that kind of treatment. She glanced at him again, pained to think of the transformation he had undergone, the transition he had to make to a new and different life. And how many tens of thousands of others were faced with the same changes, the same problems, the same adaptation? She couldn’t bear to imagine it.
It was hard enough to see in Liam, and she hadn’t known him before. But she had known Chet, had known how capable and confident he’d been in most things. If he were facing this...
She thought she had a pretty good idea of how Chet would have felt about it. How hard it would have been for him to adjust to the fact that he could no longer do things he had once taken for granted. She could well imagine his frustration and anger.
So maybe that was a large part of what Liam was experiencing. Maybe his emotions were driven by a clear-cut delineation, the realization that he was no longer the person he used to be, no longer capable of many things he had once done easily. It would be crazy-making, for her, anyway. The more she thought about it, the more she felt Liam was coping remarkably well.
“Are you up to lunch in town?” she asked. “If not, I’ll just run in and pick up something to go.”
“I thought...” He paused. “I seem to remember you saying you needed a change of scenery.”
“I can get that in a lot of ways. I’m asking if you want to deal with the diner. You don’t have to.”
“Let’s get lunch,” he said with a decisiveness that pleased her. Evidently, this was one more hurdle he wanted to get over.
Then he said wryly, “You can always protect me.”
She almost laughed because of his tone. “Count on it.”
“That’s the way I had you figured.” Then he sighed. “Let’s see how much of that menu I can figure out. You’ve been working hard enough on my reading.”
“You’ve been doing all the work.” As she spoke, she realized how true that was. He had been doing all the work. All she’d really done was give him space to figure things out, and a little help from time to time. “I’m not taking any credit for your accomplishments.”
Whatever his deficits, Liam had enough strength and determination for any ten people. He just didn’t quit. Well, except for the times when he’d walk away because the frustration and anger needed to be contained. But that was a coping skill, too, one that had to be tough.
Summer had reached its peak, and they hadn’t had any recent rain. The streets were quiet as they entered town, and seemed almost to be baking under the sun. Maybe Maude’s wouldn’t be too busy.
No sooner had she stepped inside when she realized she might have made a mistake. A few teachers were there, friends of hers, and they immediately waved her over. She looked at Liam and received a brief nod from him. So he was willing to walk into this with her. Three other women must seem like a mob to him.
“Howdy, stranger,” Alice Shepling said, sliding her chair down to make room for them. Cassie Blair, who had recently married a local rancher after coming here from Tampa, also shifted to make more room. Connie Jepson, the eldest of the group by far, studied Liam speculatively.
Sharon introduced him as an army buddy of Chet’s, who was helping her out. They welcomed him warmly, and he responded with a nice smile. When the menu came, though, he didn’t try to read it. Instead, he ordered exactly what he’d had last time. Nice cover, she thought.
“We’re talking about the anti-bullying program Cassie and Linc started last year,” Alice said. “We need to expand it and improve on it. All ideas are welcome.” She smiled at Liam, including him in the discussion.
“We had a really bad bullying case last year,” Alice went on to explain. “A group of students ganged up on one boy, and by the time we knew what was happening...well, he attempted suicide.”
Sharon felt Liam tense beside her. Not the best topic of conversation given what he’d experienced. She started trying to imagine reasons to get up and leave, but they’d already ordered. Damn!
“That’s terrible,” Liam said quietly.
“It went beyond the student, though,” Connie added. “Cassie here was being bullied, too, by a parent who was mad at her for reporting the problem.”
“You were bullied?” Liam looked at Cassie.
“Yes. I suppose that’s exactly what it was. Although he went beyond what most people would think was bullying.”
“He most certainly did,” Alice said indignantly. “Threats, property damage and finally an attack on you. And let’s not forget that some of the supposed adults around here bullied you a bit, too. It was all very ugly, and could have cost a student his life. Hell, Cassie could have been killed. So we’re determined to start a program as early as kindergarten to teach the children that this kind of behavior shouldn’t be tolerated.”
“Social pressure does a lot,” Liam offered.
Sharon was delighted that Liam was joining in and seemed to be relaxing. When Maude slammed his plate down in front of him, he barely twitched a muscle. She was almost ready to jump out of her skin, wondering how this would go.
“Positive social pressure,” Connie said. “We don’t want it to get negative unless it has to.”
Liam simply nodded and began to eat. Sharon dug into her salad, mostly listening to the others while remaining alert for any distress from Liam. He seemed okay, though, listening to everyone, nodding from time to time, and when the conversation drifted on to more mundane things, he appeared to enjoy it. He didn’t say much, though. She wondered if he was afraid he’d come out with the wrong thing if he talked too much.
Just as she thought lunch was winding down, and that they’d skated through a minefield fairly well, Alice asked, “Liam, are you home on leave?”
Sharon tensed. She started to answer, but Liam replied first, and bluntly. “Discharged,” he said flatly. “Traumatic brain injury.”
The gasps came from all around the table. Sharon considered throwing thirty bucks on the table and getting up to leave right then. She looked at her friends, hoping they wouldn’t ask too much more, especially since they’d already gotten more than they’d been expecting. Their faces, at first frozen, began to melt into sympathy.
“Oh, my God,” said Alice. “I’m so sorry! I can’t imagine the hell that must be for you.”
“It
isn’t exactly fun,” Liam said. Apparently, he was not going to pull any punches, either because he couldn’t or because he didn’t give a damn. “I make do. Sharon’s a big help.”
“She would be,” Cassie said quietly.
“Liam’s been a big help to me, too,” Sharon said quickly. “He painted that whole darn barn for me, and has repaired a bunch of other things.”
Alice spoke dryly. “You mean you’ve finally resurrected the old gray elephant?” She leaned toward Liam. “That place was in terrible shape. In a few more years there’d have been nothing left to paint.”
Sharon took the opportunity to redirect by making a joke. “Hey, I liked the silvered wood.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “See? She needs rescuing.” She winked at Liam.
He surprised Sharon by smiling.
“It was,” Alice said, turning back to Sharon, “getting to the point where you might have been able to make a small fortune selling old wood for picture frames.”
That set off a gale of laughter and the tension seeped away.
Twenty minutes later, farewells were said, and Liam had been invited to come back to lunch next week. “It’s important,” Connie said. “We call ourselves the Lunch Bunch, and Sharon used to come all the time. You make sure she comes again.”
Then Sharon and Liam were standing alone on the street beside her truck.
She looked at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into that. Was it too bad?”
“I enjoyed it. You have nice friends.”
“I wondered because you were so quiet.”
“Since I started coming sideways at things, I’ve learned that’s often best. Look what happened when I mentioned my injury. It was like I threw a stink bomb in the middle of the table.”
“Not for long.” Thank God.
“So you used to lunch with them every week?”
“When school is out. During the school year it’s one Saturday a month. The group can vary. Sometimes huge, sometimes just a few.”
“It’s nice.”
“Well, I’m still sorry I forgot about it.”
“I’m not. And maybe you didn’t really forget.”
That sparked her temper a bit. “I did forget. I knew it would be hard for you to meet so many new people. Maybe stressful. I wouldn’t have deliberately walked you into that.”
“Maybe not. Or maybe like that shrink in rehab used to tell me, you’re smarter than you think. You forget all about it, but at some level you get prodded to do what you need.”
“I was fine!”
“I’m sure. You also needed a change of scene and went right back to something you used to love to do. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
She started fuming. “I don’t like that. If that’s what I wanted I could have come to town by myself.”
“You could. But maybe that’s not all you needed.”
“Damn, don’t analyze me!”
He surprised her by starting to smile. “Time for me to shut up, I guess. I sure know how to light your fire.”
“Sheesh,” she said, and unlocked the truck so they could both get in. “I don’t need a shrink.”
“I’m not saying you do.” He slid in and buckled up while she turned on the ignition. “Sorry you were so worried about me. I hope I didn’t embarrass you or ruin your lunch.”
“Aw, hell,” she said. “Don’t even think that. You were fine.”
“I didn’t know teachers cussed so much.”
She glared at him, but as she caught the twitch at the corners of his mouth, her annoyance evaporated. “You’re a handful,” she said finally, on a laugh. “Dang, I can’t stay mad at you.”
“Good. Where to now?”
Good question, she thought. They were still parked near the diner and Conard City wasn’t exactly overrun with amusements. There was a bookstore, but she couldn’t think of anything less likely to entertain Liam than that.
“I don’t know,” she admitted frankly.
“Got a man you can see about a goat?”
He seemed fixed on that, she realized. But then, she’d told him it was a dream of hers. “Yes,” she said, decision made. “Let’s go see Dr. Windwalker.”
As they were driving toward the veterinary clinic and kennels on the edge of town, Liam asked her point-blank, “Did you give up your lunches because of Chet?”
“I wasn’t much interested in socializing.”
“Maybe you should start them again. You don’t have to take me along. A guy at a ladies’ gabfest would be kind of a drag.”
“They’re not that kind of gabfest, and sometimes we have men come. They didn’t mind you being there, Liam.”
“They didn’t seem to.”
But now the tongues would be wagging, she thought. Too bad they’d be wagging about something that wasn’t even going on. Hanged for a scarlet woman when she was still living like a nun. A giggle escaped her.
“What’s so funny?”
She just shook her head. That was something she definitely didn’t want to share with him.
* * *
“Goats are cool,” Mike Windwalker was telling her a short time later. “They’re fun, they’re curious and they’re independent. They can also be a headache with their mischief, but that’s part of their charm. Are you thinking of them as pets?”
“Pretty much,” she admitted. “I’m in no position to take it up as anything else.”
“Then talk to Ransom Laird. He’s got a few he keeps mostly as pets, and he’s got a couple of kids he might be willing to part with as long as they’re not going for meat. He can help you with dietary requirements and care.”
“Dietary requirements?”
Dr. Windwalker smiled. “Everything has dietary requirements when it’s penned in. Anyway, he’ll know the ins and outs better than I do. I mostly see them for immunizations or when they get sick.”
After a stop at the grocery for odds and ends, they headed home as the afternoon turned golden.
“Did you get enough of a scenery change?” Liam asked her.
“I did,” she answered. “How about you?”
“I enjoyed it. More than I thought I would.”
Then he astonished her by reaching out to rest his palm on her thigh. The touch was warm, friendly, not in any way sexual, but rather intimate, as if they were growing closer.
Sexual or not, she found it hard to concentrate on driving with the weight of his hand resting so casually on her leg. It wasn’t getting any better, she realized as warmth began to pool between her legs. No better at all.
At some level she apparently had thought that if she could just ignore the attraction she felt for him, it would go away. The couple of kisses they had shared had been just kisses, and when he had made no further move, she assumed that much as he said he wanted her, he’d made up his mind on the subject.
Now she wondered, and wondering broke down all the walls she’d been trying to build. She was no fool. She knew she’d been alone for a long time. She knew she might be susceptible for reasons that had nothing to do with Liam and everything to do with her. In short, she might be weak and unable to choose what was best for her.
But she realized as they steadily approached her ranch that she hardly cared any longer. She was tired of trying to quash normal needs and feelings out of some misguided sense of...what?
She didn’t even really know why she was fighting it so hard, suppressing her longing as much as possible. What was she afraid of? That a brief fling could wound her irrevocably? That Liam might move on and leave her grieving yet again?
That last question caused her to stiffen. That was it, wasn’t it? She was afraid of living. Afraid of risking a repeat of the pain of losing Chet. She was sublimating entire parts of herself in the hopes of avoiding pain.
Was that any way to live?
The question nagged at her almost as much as an almost breathless sense of anticipation. She had to fight to keep her eyes on the road, but Liam’s ha
nd, heavy on her leg, seemed to have become the focus of her universe. Did that touch mean something? He didn’t touch casually, she had noticed. Maybe because of all his years in the army. Maybe because he wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person.
But it remained that other than a kiss, this was the first time he had deliberately touched her. It felt freighted with meaning. Had he reached some decision? She hoped he had, even as she wasn’t sure she had herself.
What was she getting into here, anyway? She liked Liam, of that she was sure. And sometimes she wondered if she didn’t care for him a little more than that, because of the way she ached for him when he struggled with his frustrations and limitations.
Was she sure she just wasn’t feeling overwhelming sympathy? That could be dangerous. But as soon as she tried to think about it, she knew that wasn’t it. Maybe in the first few days, but not now.
There was nothing pitiable about Liam. She’d figured that out. He hadn’t quit trying, even though he had plenty of excuses to. In the right setting, he was still perfectly competent, and she was finding that his cognitive impairment didn’t trouble her at all. She was getting used to it and didn’t feel, as she had initially feared, as if he constantly needed guidance.
She’d watched his confidence grow as he’d attacked various jobs and found that he could either still do them, or could figure out how to do them, sometimes with a little help. And it had been rewarding for both of them.
But where did that get her? That she wanted him for the right reasons, or that she wanted him for the wrong reasons? Maybe she needed some time to sort out her own tangled emotional skein before she got into something she might not be ready for.
But wanting was not the same as loving. She knew that to her very core. She had loved once, and she wouldn’t mistake desire for that deep and enduring emotion.
