Love's Tender Warriors

by Radclyffe

  “Oh, Suse,” Sean whispered despondently. She cradled the pillow in both arms, shifting her cheek away from the damp residue of her tears. “I’ve gotten myself into a mess.”

  “What? Jeez, just tell me—what?”

  “I’ve fallen in love with someone who doesn’t care about me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Drew doesn’t want to see me again.”

  “Oh, hell.” Susan picked at the bedspread. “Sean? Are you sure you’re in love? I mean, you know, it’s the first time and all. Maybe it’s just that it’s new?”

  “It hurts, Suse—that I can’t see her, that I can’t touch her.” Sean rolled over onto her back and regarded her sister somberly. “I’m not a teenager. I know the difference between a crush and the real thing. I might be a little crazy over the physical part, but I know what I feel.”

  “I didn’t mean to put down your feelings. I know things between you and her have been building for a long time,” Susan said quietly. “I just don’t want you to hurt like this.”

  Sean sighed. “Not much chance of that, at least not for a while. I close my eyes, and I see her smile and the way her eyes get when she looks at me. I’m lying here aching to touch her.”

  “Oh,” Susan said, the small sound almost a gasp. “I’m sorry, Sean, really.”

  Sean grasped her hand, squeezing it as she sat up and forced a smile. “I know you are.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You’re doing it. You’re here. You’re listening. You’re not telling me to get over it.”

  “Ha,” Susan said without humor. “I’m the last one to tell you to get over her. I wouldn’t even know how to start. We don’t seem to love that way.”

  “How in hell have you been managing?” Sean asked bitterly. “I don’t think I can stand it, and I’ve only known her a couple of months.”

  “You may have noticed that I didn’t manage very well.” Susan shrugged. “Now, as they say, I’m just working on one day at a time.”

  “Well, you’re my hero.”

  Susan looked wide-eyed at Sean, clearly astounded. “You’re nuts. But I love you. Besides, how can you be so sure that Drew doesn’t feel the same way you do?”

  “Because I pretty much asked her that a few hours ago.” Sean blushed as she recalled her impromptu arrival on Drew’s doorstep. “She was as kind as she could be, but she made it pretty clear that we weren’t going anywhere.”

  “Damn. I have to say, I’m surprised.” Susan tilted her head. “I’ve only seen you two together a couple of times, but I saw the way she looked at you, and I’m usually pretty good at reading those kinds of looks.”

  “Not this time, apparently,” Sean remarked grimly. “What’s worse, she’s leaving the city.”

  “For good?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t seem real sure, either.”

  “Something’s off here. She just moved back a few months ago, and now she’s thinking of leaving?” Susan frowned. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “There’s a lot going on with her that she doesn’t share,” Sean said sadly. She realized that now she would never have the chance to know what secrets Drew kept.

  “I wouldn’t be so certain that things between the two of you are over.”

  “At this point, there isn’t anything I can do about it.” Sean pushed her hands through her hair, feeling tears threatening again and trying to stave them off. “I don’t even know how I’m going to stop thinking about her. I don’t know...what to do.”

  “Just keep doing what has to be done. Go to work, go to class—”

  “Oh God, I don’t think I can go back to the dojang right away.” She began crying again, despite her efforts to stop. “When I walk into that room and she’s not there, I’m afraid I might fall apart.”

  “You have to go back,” Susan whispered, lying down beside her sister and pulling her close. “You have to, because you need whatever it is you get there—peace or strength or something that I’ve never been able to figure out. But I don’t need to understand it to know it’s important to you. And you can’t heal if you give up the things that matter.”

  “You’re right. I’ll try,” Sean murmured, wondering how she was going to fill the void within herself that, for a few hours, had been filled with the joy of loving Drew.

  Chapter Eleven

  A little before midnight, Drew found herself standing outside a bar on a nondescript street in a nondescript town in the middle of nowhere, wondering how she had ended up there. After ten days on the road, driving aimlessly at first, or so she’d thought, she’d checked into a roadside motel on the outskirts of the one place she’d thought never to see again. Except in her dreams.

  The town itself—a sprawling burg whose biggest source of revenue was the military base twenty miles away—offered little in the way of entertainment other than the scores of roadside taverns where off-duty personnel could find a variety of diversions. The entire place should have been a wholly forgettable piece of her past.

  But it was far from that. It was the scene of her nightmares, where four years before she had stepped out the tavern door in front of her now into a dark, starless night which would change the course of her life. Four years of hell, and it still feels like yesterday. What am I trying to prove by coming back here?

  She hesitated only a second, then pushed her way through the blank wooden door with its small grime-streaked window and walked hurriedly past the bouncer. She headed directly across the crowded dance floor toward the bar on the far side of the room. At first, she didn’t look right or left. The air in her chest hurt all the way down, and her stomach churned.

  She was afraid if she turned her head fast enough, she’d see it all just as it had been that night. Maybe that’s why she had come. If I could only turn back time. If I could only...say I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

  After reaching the relative safety of the long bar, she straddled a stool and stared at her reflection in the mirror behind the rows of bottles opposite her. Meeting her own troubled eyes, she realized with a shock that she no longer knew who she was most sorry for hurting, Sean or...

  No! Do not think about that.

  With her heart pounding, she quickly pivoted, putting her back to the bar while she scanned the room, searching for the past. The table where they’d sat was still there, pushed into a dark corner beneath a flickering beer sign. The pool table still occupied the opposite end of the room, and the usual regulars leaned against the walls nearby, waiting their turn to rack. The jukebox played Patsy Cline. Smoke drifted lazily in the thick air. Time warp.

  But not quite.

  She isn’t here.

  Whatever ghosts Drew had expected to see were long dead. But I knew that. Didn’t I?

  On closer inspection, now that her vision had cleared, Drew could make out that none of the old faces remained. As her pulse slowed, she forced herself to see the present. The decor wasn’t much different—the place still looked a bit dingy. Still, it was filled with laughing women, relaxing after a long week of hard work.

  It wasn’t hard to spot the marine recruits. This was most likely their first time out of uniform and off the base in weeks. However, she didn’t recognize the bartender, or the woman seated by the door checking IDs either. Life on and around a military base was transient—so many people just passing through. Drew, having lived here for nearly three years, had actually been one of the more permanent residents at the time.

  Nothing’s changed, and everything is different.

  “Beer,” she rasped when the bartender tapped her on the shoulder and asked, “What are you drinking?”

  When it came, she raised the glass mug slowly and glanced sideways up and down the bar. It was strange being here; she had expected to feel something besides this odd detachment. She had replayed the events of that night so many times—from here in this bar to the street where it had ended—that she expected the room to be filled with specters calling her name.
But it seemed that, while her memory held onto those events with perfect clarity, the years had tarnished the reality. There were no condemning voices, no demands for retribution, no restless souls here—none other than her own.

  Sighing, she drained the glass, turned to the bar, and set the empty down.

  “Drinking alone?”

  Drew flicked her gaze to the mirror, and her heart jumped when she found a pair of deep green eyes staring back at her. In the dim light, the dark, ruffled hair and willowy figure in the murky glass reminded her of Sean, but it was the eyes that held her captive. So like Sean’s.

  But not Sean’s.

  Without answering, she lowered her gaze to the scarred, stained wood, feeling the disappointment slash through her, a knife in some vital spot. It isn’t Sean; it isn’t going to be Sean—not now, not ever. Cursing herself for giving in, just that once, to the aching need to touch those silky black strands, to hold that slender body, to kiss that sensuous mouth, when all she’d meant to do was comfort.

  “Do you mind?” the woman asked as she slid onto the stool beside Drew and signaled the bartender for another round.

  “Go ahead,” Drew replied without looking at her again.

  Another beer slid neatly into Drew’s grasp. She lifted the glass and sought another swallow of forgetting. But she couldn’t seem to forget Sean or the sensations she evoked. It made no sense to be drawn to her, to want her, but it felt right. The tenderness and strength in Sean’s calm green eyes had been a soothing caress to her weary soul from the very first night in the dojang. Then seeing her night after night in class, watching her move in that fluid, graceful rhythm, Drew had reveled in her presence. She’d refused to listen to the warning sounds in her head, surrendering, irrevocably, to her desires.

  And now she was haunted—haunted by visions she was helpless to stop—but unlike her other ghosts, this was a very different kind of torment. She didn’t even need to close her eyes to see Sean with her head tipped back, eyes half-closed, accepting her kiss, accepting her hands, rising to her touch as she entered her. Sleep was elusive, while night after night, her flesh burned with its own special sense of recall. Nothing she could do would satisfy the longing. When totally exhausted, she’d slip into uneasy slumber. Then the images of Sean lying bruised and bloodied would flood her dreams, and she’d awaken with a cry, trembling and shaken.

  I could stand the nightmares, if that’s all it was. Being with Sean would be worth a thousand nights of lost sleep. But I can’t do it to her. Not when she has no idea what I’ve done. Jesus, it should have been me.

  Drew twitched as the woman beside her spoke again. She’d forgotten about her. Christ, I’m really fried.

  “Your glass is empty again. Can I buy you a refill?” the stranger asked. Her voice was harder than Sean’s, without the mellow timbre that Drew found so soothing.

  “No, thanks,” Drew said. “I’m good.”

  “Are you?”

  Her voice was softer now. Still not Sean’s, but if Drew just glanced at her quickly out of the corner of her eye, she could almost believe the dark hair and green eyes were Sean’s. The long nights of little sleep and the alcohol helped to perpetuate the deception. Her heart beat a little faster.

  “What?” Drew asked, remembering there was a question between them, shaking her head a little to clear the fog.

  “Are you good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you say so.” The woman tilted her head, studying Drew with a small smile. “I know you from somewhere. You’re an NCO, right?”

  “Was,” Drew replied. “I’m out now.”

  “So why are you still hanging around this godforsaken hole?”

  “Just passing through.”

  “Nobody just passes through here,” the woman said with a humorless chuckle. “You visiting old friends?”

  It was Drew’s turn to laugh, and the sound echoed hollowly in her ears. “Something like that.”

  “I remember now. I saw one of your training sessions out at the base a couple years ago—the hand-to-hand knife defense. You were quite impressive.” The woman put out her hand. “I’m a drill instructor—Mary Burger.”

  Drew shook the extended hand, faintly registering the firmness of her grasp. “Drew Clark.”

  Mary stood as if realizing that nothing more was forthcoming in the way of conversation and placed a hand on Drew’s arm. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  Glancing at the fingers curled lightly around her wrist, Drew felt a wave of weariness pass over her. The night she had spent with Sean had thrown her world into turmoil. For so long, she’d kept her feelings carefully contained in some manageable corner of her mind so that she could continue to function. She hadn’t needed anyone, hadn’t let anyone need her.

  Then, suddenly, there had been Sean—and almost before she’d known it, her heart and body had been awakened. She had run from that, only to find herself face to face with her demons, back in full force. Without Sean, she was a victim of her own needs, loosed with a vengeance after years of being denied. Not only didn’t she have the comfort and tender joy of Sean’s presence, but the wounds of her past bled freely again as well.

  “What do you say to forgetting for a while?” the low voice asked, as if Drew had spoken her feelings aloud.

  Drew was cold, deep inside, and the place where the other woman touched was the only warm spot on her body.

  “Okay.”

  Drew walked slowly to the edge of the dance floor, turned, and Mary stepped into her arms, fitting herself with practiced ease against Drew’s tall form as she wrapped one arm around Drew’s waist and the other across her shoulder. The heat of the fingers brushing the back of Drew’s neck barely registered in her consciousness as the shock of feeling the woman’s body pressed to hers catapulted her back in time.

  She’d danced here before, hundreds of times, but strangely, that wasn’t what she remembered. She felt Sean in her arms, recalling the way the press of Sean’s breasts and thighs had stirred a fire that wouldn’t be extinguished. Pulling Mary closer, burying her face in the soft, fragrant hair, Drew shut her eyes and danced with her memories, Sean’s face fluttering in her mind.

  When they held onto one another into the next song, Mary tilted her head back and studied the haunted eyes in the handsome face. “How come I get the feeling that it isn’t me you’re dancing with?”

  “I’m sorry.” Drew blushed and stepped back an inch, putting distance between their bodies.

  “Hey, I don’t mind. But you feel like you’re on fire.”

  “No. I’m just a little tired, I guess.”

  Mary nodded sagely. “Uh-huh, and I’m a major general. It’s okay...no apologies required. I like the way you move, though. I was hoping you might be interested in more than a dance?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Some other time, maybe,” Mary replied with a rueful shrug.

  “I won’t be back,” Drew said softly.

  “Does she know how lucky she is?”

  “Lucky? No. Not so lucky.”

  *

  Sean looked up curiously at the sound of a key in the lock of the small room she and Ellen used for the business aspects of their practice. A second later, Ellen, in jeans, a faded Bryn Mawr T-shirt, and a fleece-lined denim jacket, entered with her briefcase and an armload of papers. For an awkward second or two, the two of them just stared. They hadn’t been alone together for more than a few minutes since Susan and Ellen had separated.

  “What are you doing here so late?” Ellen dumped the files she was carrying onto the end table. “It’s after midnight.”

  “Catching up,” Sean replied tiredly. “What about you?”

  “Same here. I’m weeks behind on my insurance submissions.”

  Sean pulled another file toward her as Ellen stretched out her lanky form in the one overstuffed chair and propped her feet on the wastebasket across from the desk. For just a minute, until Sean remembered that everything had changed, it felt li
ke old times. Unexpectedly, tears swam in her eyes and threatened to overflow.

  Oh God, not again. This has got to stop.

  “What’s wrong, Sean?” Ellen asked, her tone unexpectedly gentle. She had never quite gotten used to looking at the woman who was the reflection of her lover—ex-lover, she reminded herself. The same fine features, the same ocean deep eyes. She loved them both for their generous and loving natures, but it was Susan who had stirred her passions.

  She’d often wondered if anyone could stir Sean’s heart because, unlike Susan, Sean had always seemed a little removed, observing the passions of others but never giving freedom to her own. Ellen imagined it would have been terribly lonely had Sean been aware of her isolation, but, until now, there had never been any sign that she was unhappy. Something had clearly changed.

  “You look really...miserable.”

  Sean glanced up, her eyes still brimming with tears. “It shows, huh?”

  Ellen nodded. “Not to mention exhausted.”

  Sean shook her head, not trusting herself to speak just yet.

  “I’m sorry. I have to ask,” Ellen said tentatively, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. “Is something wrong with Susan?”

  “Not this time,” Sean replied without anger. It was good to know that Ellen still cared.

  “So why are you sad?”

  “Sad?” Sean echoed. Is that what this is—this empty, aching desolation? This feeling of being severed from all the joy and laughter in the world? Cut off from the peace of my own heart?

  “I’m not sad, Ellen—I’m completely lost.”

  The flat acceptance in Sean’s voice unnerved Ellen. She had heard the tone before and knew it went hand in hand with deep pain. “What’s happened?” she asked kindly.

  Sean wondered where to begin as she pushed her chair away from the desk and stared down at her lap. The tears that finally escaped felt like old friends.

  “I met a woman, and I fell in love with her.”

  “Drew?”