Harlequin Special Edition July 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Widow of Conard CountyA Match for the Single DadThe Medic's Homecoming

by Rachel Lee

  “I feel like I’m coming out of a long, dark tunnel. It hurts sometimes. But you’re helping.”

  “Are you talking about the sex we had earlier? Because if you were, don’t. It was just sex.”

  “Just sex?” She hopped up from the table, fury blazing in her eyes. “If that’s all you think it was, Liam O’Connor, you can leave right now.”

  He listened to her run up the stairs and slam her bedroom door. Well, that had really cut it. Count him seven kinds of idiot.

  He looked toward the door where she had vanished, fighting an urge to smash something.

  Never had he hated the man he had become as much as he did right then.

  * * *

  Just sex? Sharon paced her bedroom in fury. Just sex. No way. It had been something more, and it had torn the shell around her heart wide-open, exposing raw nerves she hadn’t even been aware of. And no matter what Liam said, after the way he’d held her afterward and comforted her later out in the field, she figured it wasn’t just sex to him, either.

  Or maybe she was building another castle in the air, she thought bitterly. She seemed to be good at that. Did that one act imply permanence? No, she wasn’t that foolish, but two hearts had touched, however briefly, and to hear it dismissed as just sex was maddening.

  After the glow had worn off and the night had brought solitude, she’d come face-to-face with some very painful, possibly ugly feelings in herself. Liam was right, she had known what she was getting into when she married Chet. She had married a soldier, after all.

  The problem was, knowing in advance and actually experiencing it had turned out to be two different things. She supposed that was a basic truism of life, but at the beginning, while she had known it would hurt when he was away, she hadn’t guessed how much she’d eventually come to resent it. There was nothing like actual experience to wipe away rosy imaginings.

  But just sex? Fury seethed in her. She’d been ripped wide-open by the experience, laid naked to all her games and delusions and pretenses by the simple, straightforward reawakening to her own vitality, and he could dismiss it like that.

  God! Had that been all it had meant to him? A quickie in the late afternoon? No earth-shattering, gut-wrenching realization that life could be good again? That maybe it could be even better?

  She heard the knock on her door and wanted to ignore it, but she knew this house well enough to know that he had been able to hear her pacing. No chance he would think she was asleep.

  “What?” she demanded querulously.

  The door opened and the man himself stood there. “That came out wrong.”

  “Oh, really?” She folded her arms and glared at him. “I get that you can’t promise a future, but don’t you dare dismiss something so wonderful and intense as just sex.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Sharon. Honest to God.”

  “Then how did you mean it? Explain it to me, Liam. I’m listening.”

  “Help me here,” he said after a moment. “I’m not saying it wasn’t wonderful, but it sure as hell wasn’t helping you.”

  “I never said it was.”

  “No,” he agreed. “That’s where I blew it. It was top on my mind and out it came.”

  Her anger eased just a bit. “Top on your mind?”

  “Damn, it was good, Sharon. Dangerous, but good. I don’t want you getting hurt because I can’t control my lust for you. Looks like we got to the hurting part, anyway.”

  His lust for her? A shiver of pure sensuality rippled through her, dampening her anger even more. No! She fought it down. No more of that. Lust was just lust. About that much he was right.

  “What happened?” he asked. “I get the feeling that us having such a good time together opened wounds. I never want to do that to you.”

  Her lips felt stiff as she answered, forcing herself to be uncomfortably truthful. “Sometimes wounds are festering under the scar tissue. Lancing them is good. That’s what happened.”

  “Because we...?” He didn’t finish the question.

  “Yes, in part. I felt alive again. I realized I wanted to live again, and enjoy everything again, and then I got to thinking about all I’d missed. It all just backed up like a sewer.”

  Several heartbeats later, he spoke. “I guess that’s good?”

  “I don’t know. It sure hurt. But I need to face it and sort it out.”

  “I get that,” he said after a moment. “Facing things can be tough. I guess I should leave you alone. I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean to be insulting. It was special to me. I just didn’t think it was helpful.”

  “Maybe it was, for me.”

  “Okay.” He paused, then started to turn away, but she stopped him.

  “Did it help you at all, Liam?”

  He hesitated. “Not really. Not if by help you mean something good, but I guess you don’t since it managed to rip you wide-open. I guess that’s something we should avoid.”

  He was going off on his own tangent again. Part of her said to let him go, but part of her refused to let it drop here. Maybe she was naive enough to need to believe it hadn’t simply been mechanics and biology for either of them.

  “Something bad happened to you after we were together?” she asked quietly.

  “Not exactly.” He sighed. “It’s hard to say. I guess I felt lonely later. I never had what you and Chet had. I always figured it would come someday, but...well, I just never had it. And now it looks like it’ll probably never happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look at me, Sharon. Look at the million little things you do for me to keep me going through a day. I’m broken, damn it. Yeah, I keep finding out I can deal with some things. I can paint a barn. I can follow decent directions if I can sort through them. You’re helping me to read. But there’s no telling how many more ways I’m broken that I don’t even know yet. I guess I’m going to find out. Who’s gonna want to put up with that and my moods? What if I lose it and go ballistic? I can’t even promise not to do that. Push me hard enough, and I probably will.”

  “Go ballistic how?”

  “Rant, throw things, smash things. You think any woman wants to live with that kind of time bomb? Or even consider having kids in that situation? I’m not sure that I’ve got a tight tether on myself.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “you didn’t kill those guys in the parking lot.”

  “Because that guy stepped in.”

  “Have you considered that even though he stepped in, you could have still acted out?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You didn’t have to stop just because one guy spoke up for you.”

  He just shook his head. “You don’t know how many times a day I just want to smash something. It’s not as often here. I don’t feel pushed by much, but I still feel it. And I get so damn mad at myself.”

  Then he shook his head again. “I came up here to talk about you, not about me.”

  “Right now it seems to be the same subject. I wonder if that hot chocolate is cold.”

  “Probably.”

  “Then I’ll heat it up. Let’s go downstairs.” She drew him out of her room, away from the bed she had shared with Chet that suddenly seemed too damn inviting. Look at the two of them, she thought to herself. They were likely to use each other as a bandage if they weren’t careful.

  The kitchen seemed ever so much safer, although considering what had happened on the counter only a few hours ago, that was open to question.

  She poured the cocoa back into the pan and put it on simmer, stirring gently so a skin didn’t form. She listened to him pace behind her, but eventually he settled on a chair.

  She refilled the mugs and returned with them to the table. “We’re a mess,” she announced.

  “You’re not that much of a mess,” he argued.

  “That’s debatable. When you walked up that driveway I was just trying to shake myself out of the paralysis I’ve been dealing with since Chet passed. Everything around here was goi
ng to hell, and I knew I needed to do something about it, but I couldn’t make myself. Then you came, and things around here are getting fixed.”

  “What little I can do.”

  “Stop knocking yourself. And for God’s sake, don’t hate yourself because you were wounded. I can understand being frustrated and angry, but there’s no reason on earth to hate yourself for it. It’s beyond your control.”

  “But I remember,” he said tautly. “I remember how I used to be. That’s part of what’s so frustrating, being able to remember what I used to be able to do, and not being able to do it now.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I know. Lots of people have to face that, and it stinks. I had a student in one of my classes who was paralyzed in a fall. When he came back to school, he was angry as hell. I couldn’t blame him for that at all. Real people aren’t Tiny Tims.”

  He furrowed his brow. “You mean from A Christmas Carol?”

  “Yeah, that kid. Anyway, real people have to get over a whole bunch of stuff when something bad like this happens. Anger is part of it.”

  “It’s grief, they told me.”

  “It probably is, but it’s probably a whole lot more, too.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t, either,” she admitted. “I’m not an expert. Look at me. I’ve had almost a year and a half to get used to losing Chet, and I’m still coming out of some kind of fog. I was even having a temper tantrum out there earlier tonight. I’ve never done that before.”

  “You’ve never had a tantrum?”

  “Not that kind, not since I was little. But there I was, beating my fists on the ground.” One corner of her mouth lifted. “It helped. So if you feel a need...”

  “I’ll try to beat on the ground, not the walls.” He shifted, then drank some cocoa.

  She waited, giving them both some space. All in all it had been a pretty intense evening. She visited places she hadn’t even imagined existed inside of her. Feeling cheated, not just by Chet’s death, but by their whole marriage. Such a thought had never crossed her mind before.

  He spoke. “There’s a kind of unspoken practice in combat. After you’ve lost a couple of buddies, you decide not to make any new ones. Not really. You develop a shell and don’t let the new guys get close.”

  She nodded.

  “You were doing that, weren’t you?”

  “I guess so. Exactly that.”

  “Well, I have been, too. I let you get close. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

  Then he rose and walked out the back door.

  Here we go again, Sharon thought. She stared down into her mug. He had even more reason than she to keep that carapace over his heart. His losses were a whole lot bigger.

  After all, he’d lost Chet, too, and they’d been buddies for over twelve years. Even she couldn’t claim that. Had he grieved? Of course he had. He probably still did.

  Then there were his cognitive deficits, truly hard to deal with, something that could jump up and bite him at any time. He had a plate far fuller than her own.

  From what he had said, she gathered that their sex earlier had wakened longings in him, too, longings for the kind of life he’d once imagined would be his, but now felt he was denied forever.

  That was even worse than what she was feeling. She had to deal with the past while having the future wide-open to her. He felt his future was narrowed, possibly completely, because nobody would want to put up with him.

  She considered those outbursts, although she hadn’t seen one, only seen the effects when he strode away, and wondered if he could even hold a real job if he needed to walk away when the pressure got to be too much. Maybe not.

  Although he was doing just fine here. As far as she was concerned, he could stay forever if he wanted.

  Then a shock ripped through her. He was going to leave. Soon. He’d just said he shouldn’t have let her get so close.

  Oh, God! All of a sudden she wondered if she could bear that.

  She jumped up and ran to the door, stepping out onto the small back porch. Even with the brilliance of the frosty moonlight, she couldn’t see him anywhere. No sign of a shadow striding across open fields. The barn, perhaps?

  But just as she started to take a step, she stopped herself. He needed space. She couldn’t deprive him of that.

  But, God, he’d better come back, because she didn’t know how she would handle it if he didn’t.

  She was in deep trouble, she realized. Returning inside, she sat at the table and waited. It was going to be a hell of a long night.

  Chapter Ten

  Summer dawns came early in these parts. The eastern sky had turned fiery red by the time Liam returned to the house. Sharon had sagged over her mug, having switched to coffee from hot chocolate hours ago. She turned as he entered the door, her face haggard, her eyes rimmed purple with fatigue.

  “You didn’t stay up all night?” He sounded shocked.

  “I was worried,” she admitted.

  “I’ve been in far more dangerous places than your grazing land.”

  She didn’t even smile. “I’m sure.”

  “You need to sleep.”

  “I will. Later.”

  So he grabbed a coffee and sat at the table with her. “When’s that paint coming for the barn?”

  “Maybe today. Impatient?”

  “I need the hard work.”

  She nodded, then looked down at the table again.

  “Does that red sky mean rain today?”

  She shrugged. “Probably not. That old sailor’s saw doesn’t work well here. Unless we’re overcast.”

  “Didn’t see any.”

  She didn’t say any more. The questions foremost on her mind had to do with what he had been thinking about while he strode through the night. She knew what she’d been thinking about, and a lot of it was scary.

  “You weren’t really worried about me.”

  At his statement she looked at him, feeling a tired irritation. “Oh, really? I stay up all night when I’m feeling great?”

  “Then why don’t you talk to me about it?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what set you running off into the night? What worries you?”

  They exchanged stares, then the quiet extended, an enveloping blanket of tension. Finally, Sharon could take it no more. “You’re such a damn sphinx. You talk about some things, but not really about how you’re feeling about anything. It’s like you analyze yourself internally and leave me wondering all the time. Whatever leashes they told you to put on yourself have turned into a cage, Liam.”

  “Maybe for good reason.”

  “Maybe. How would I know? All I know for the most part is what I see of you. Not what you think about anything. Not what you feel about anything.”

  “Why do you need to know all that stuff?”

  She bit her lip, feeling again the ache he aroused in her all too easily, the yearning for things she didn’t dare name. It wasn’t just sex anymore, and that scared her. “Because I care,” she admitted quietly.

  He swore. “Is that wise? Well, hell, I care about you, too, but I still have to ask if that’s wise. I can guarantee there’s no future I can offer you.”

  “Why? Because you’re broken?”

  “Because I haven’t even figured out who I am yet. The new and not-so-improved version of me, anyway.”

  “I think you have the same values you used to.”

  “God, I hope so. But in the past I never would have just blurted out that I wanted in a woman.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” she demanded. “Is it better to conceal it in subterfuge?”

  “Subterfuge?”

  “Yeah, dinners out, long walks holding hands, flowers and candy. Isn’t that where it always starts? Why not just be honest?”

  “Because that’s not the kind of thing a guy is supposed to say. Not out of the blue like that. If that doesn’t give you an indication of what’s wrong with me...”

  “I’m tired o
f hearing what’s wrong with you. How about what’s right with you?”

  He looked flummoxed.

  “See?” she said. “They filled your head with all these warnings about everything that’s wrong with Liam. Well, I don’t see a whole lot that’s wrong with you. Yeah, you’re moody. So? You can’t read much. So? You can sure paint a barn. You can even straighten one up. I bet if I got a damn goat you’d learn every bit as fast as me how to take care of it.”

  “If I didn’t forget.”

  “I might forget a few things until they become habit.”

  He just stared at her with something like amazement. “You haven’t seen it all.”

  “I haven’t seen you smash anything. I’ve sure watched you stomp off by yourself often enough. What else?”

  “I have freaking nightmares. Sometimes I don’t exactly remember where I’m at.”

  “Flashbacks?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I just can’t remember where I am in time or space. That’s real useful. It’s part of the reason I need to stay busy. If I’ve got something in my hand, if I’m talking to myself, I’ve got an anchor. That would make anyone crazy to put up with for long.”

  “It’s not bothering me.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “What I’ve said before. Start thinking of the good things about who you are now. For heaven’s sake, you hiked across the country to deliver a letter, and now you’re helping me out with things I could never have done otherwise.”

  “Even when you have to help me?”

  “The odd thing is, I don’t mind. It makes me feel useful, too. I’m not just standing around watching some man fix my property. I’m helping, too.”

  He stared at her. Evidently he wasn’t buying that it was that simple. “And what about you?” he asked.

  “What about me?”

  “What are you looking for? Just getting the place fixed up?”

  That hurt. It hurt so much that she had to look away and swallow a few times. That wasn’t it at all, but she couldn’t explain the reasons she wanted Liam to stay because she didn’t fully know why herself. Had she just been lonely too long? Or was it something more? She feared the latter. That way lay the worst pain of all.