Love's Tender Warriors

by Radclyffe

  “Drink some of this, buddy.” Susan slipped an arm behind Drew’s shoulders, raised her up, and held the glass to her lips. “It might steady those shakes. Always worked wonders for me.”

  Drew took a sip and coughed, then another, and finally waved it away. “Thanks. You should...” She coughed again. “Dump...the rest of that.”

  “I was about to,” Susan said with only the barest whisper of regret. She looked at the half-full glass, then placed it carefully aside and reached for the phone, hurriedly punching in her lover’s number.

  Upon Sean’s return, the two sisters wrapped an ice pack around Drew’s leg and covered her with several more blankets. Then Susan built a roaring fire. Sean eased onto the couch and gently settled Drew’s head onto her lap.

  “Sweetheart?” she asked quietly, tenderly brushing her fingers over the sculpted face. “Are you okay?”

  “Cold.” Drew turned her face into Sean’s body and wrapped her arms around Sean’s waist, murmuring, “I’m so cold.”

  Sean rubbed her lover’s back through the blankets and looked at her sister, who was rocking uneasily from one foot to the other. Now that she had Drew in her arms, Sean felt infinitely better. “I’m okay, Susan. Go to bed.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll call you if we need you.”

  Susan leaned to kiss Sean on the forehead. “Ellen and I will be here. I love you, Sean.”

  Sean gave her a tremulous smile. “Thanks,” she whispered. She cradled her lover against her, closing her eyes. Drew’s breathing had steadied into sleep, but her agonized screams still echoed in Sean’s mind. Rocking Drew tenderly, Sean vowed that her lover would carry this torment alone no more.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was just dawn when Sean stumbled into the kitchen, exhaustion stamped into her pale, drawn features. Ellen and Susan were both there, hunched over the oak peasant table, a pot of coffee growing cold beside them. Sean slumped into a chair and accepted the cup Susan placed in her hands.

  “When did you get here?” Sean asked hoarsely of Ellen, lifting the mug in shaking hands.

  “About 1:00—I got here as soon as I could after Susan called. You were both out of it when I looked in on you.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “How’s Drew?” Ellen asked worriedly.

  “Still asleep.”

  “What in hell happened?”

  Sean took a long swallow of coffee, hoping it would focus her slightly fuzzy brain. “We were attacked by three guys a few blocks from the dojang. They had baseball bats. It’s a good thing they didn’t have guns.”

  Susan gasped, even though she had thought she was prepared for the details. “You were so lucky nothing worse happened.”

  Ellen reached for her lover’s hand, squeezing gently but keeping her eyes on Sean. “Robbery?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sean said quietly. “It...it all happened so fast. They said they wanted our wallets, but then they forced us into this alley—” Sean halted and passed a trembling hand before her eyes. “If I had been alone...”

  Susan gripped her sister’s hand. “It’s okay, sis, you’re safe.”

  “Yes,” Sean repeated dully. “I’m safe.” She took a deep breath, forced a shaky smile, and continued. “I was so startled, I wasn’t sure at first what was happening. Drew—I don’t know how to tell you what she was like—she was...possessed.” She closed her eyes, trying not to see the events that insisted on rolling in slow motion through her mind. After a moment, her voice low, she murmured, “They kept coming at her, and she kept fighting back, even when they...even when they hurt her, she never stopped.”

  “Thank God she was there with you,” Ellen said. She looked at Sean, whose expression was dazed and distant. “What else happened out there, Sean?”

  Susan seemed confused by her lover’s question, but Sean met Ellen’s gaze appreciatively. You never miss anything.

  “Drew was going to kill one of them—even when he was no longer any threat. I could see it in her face, in the way her body tensed for the strike. If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have killed him.”

  “Did she frighten you?” Ellen questioned gently.

  “No,” Sean exclaimed, remembering her terror and the seemingly overpowering presence of the men. “But I’m frightened for her. When they finally ran away, she just...crumbled. She was nearly incoherent, and she still wasn’t right when I brought her home. It wasn’t the attack—but I think the attack triggered something for her.”

  “Who’s Dara?” Susan asked quietly.

  “Dara?” Sean echoed dumbly. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Drew kept mumbling something about Dara while I was getting her undressed. She didn’t seem to know where she was. I don’t think she even knew she was talking out loud, she was so wrecked.”

  “I don’t know.” Sean’s face set with determination. “But it’s time I found out.”

  “Now may not be the best time,” Ellen suggested cautiously.

  “It’s way past time,” Sean said flatly.

  Drew groaned and tried to sit up, but she couldn’t move her leg and her left shoulder felt almost as useless. Sean was at her side instantly.

  “Take it easy, tough guy,” she said gently, sliding a supporting arm behind Drew’s back and then easing her into an upright position before sitting beside her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’d better be. I need a bathroom in a serious way.” Drew’s head was pounding, but she couldn’t remember getting hit there. Her shoulder, her leg...Suddenly, her heart turned over in her chest. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Did they tou—”

  “No. They only hurt you.”

  “Are you sure, baby?” Drew demanded anxiously.

  “I’m fine, sweetheart.” Reaching down, Sean pulled a hassock over and rested Drew’s injured leg on it. “You need to keep that elevated. You took quite a beating, though.”

  “Thank God, you’re all right,” Drew whispered, closing her eyes and dropping her head back against the cushions. “I was so afraid when I saw them coming—”

  “I’m okay,” Sean said tenderly, relieved that Drew remembered the events. Leaning forward, she kissed her ear. “Want to try making it to the powder room down the hall?”

  “Yeah, please. I really need to get cleaned up.”

  “Stay put a second. We’re going to need a bit of assistance, I think,” Sean said, starting for the door. “Okay with you if I ask Ellen or Susan to help?”

  “As long as I don’t have to get naked with them.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s my exclusive territory.”

  It took half an hour to help Drew hobble on one leg to the bathroom, wash up in the tiny sink, and get into a clean pair of sweats and T-shirt. Ellen provided the clothes from extras she carried in her overnight bag, since she was the closest to Drew’s height. Finally, Sean got Drew settled once again on the sofa in the library in front of a rejuvenated fire, which Susan rekindled before she and Ellen left them.

  “You hungry?” Sean asked as she propped Drew’s leg back on the footstool and then placed yet another ice pack on her thigh. “You probably shouldn’t have any pain medicine until you eat something.”

  “Not yet. My stomach feels a little rocky,” Drew admitted. She patted the seat beside her. “Stop fussing and come sit down. You look beat.”

  “You’re the one who’s hurt,” Sean said more sharply than she intended. When she saw the quick look of hurt surprise on her lover’s face, she said hastily, “I’m sorry. My nerves are a little frayed.”

  “No, it’s okay. It was pretty bad out there last night. I’m sorry you had to go through that, baby.”

  Sean sat beside Drew and took her hand. “The worst part was watching them hurt you. If anything had happened to you—”

  “Hey,” Drew said lightly. “Don’t think about it. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Sean said
quietly. “You didn’t seem too worried about letting them take a few shots at you. I don’t need you to be a hero.”

  Drew stiffened slightly as she studied Sean’s worried face. Her first inclination was to make light of her lover’s concern, but Sean was too astute for that. “I just wanted you to be safe. That’s all I was thinking about.”

  “I know, but I need you to be safe. It won’t help me if something happens to you.” Sean’s voice broke on the words. “I was so scared when they took you down.”

  “You’d never know it.” Drew slid her uninjured arm around Sean’s shoulders and pulled her close. “That was quite a side kick you landed. Very good technique.”

  “I have a good teacher.” Sean pulled up the bottom of the borrowed T-shirt and laid her palm on Drew’s stomach, comforted by the heat of her skin. She steadied herself mentally and then asked quietly, “Drew, who is Dara?”

  Drew’s intake of breath was audible, and the muscles under Sean’s fingers jumped and skittered.

  “It’s time to talk,” Sean said, unwilling to accept the silence when Drew did not answer. “I know it’s hard, but you have to tell me.”

  “Dara,” Drew said in a voice totally devoid of emotion, “is the woman I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.”

  “Your last lover?”

  “My only lover—before you,” Drew said distantly.

  “What happened? Where is she now?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Of course she is. Why didn’t I know that—why didn’t I guess? The nightmares, your fear of being with me—of being close to anyone. Oh Drew, what happened to her? What happened to you?

  “How long were you together?” Sean started with something easy, something that Drew could handle, because telling this story was going to be traumatic. For both of them.

  “Ten years—a little more—from the time we were in high school. We met in our junior year when Dara transferred from another school.”

  “What was she like?” Sean asked gently.

  Drew smiled faintly. “She was everything I wasn’t—popular, outgoing, creative—she was an artist. She had been painting since she was nine—a child prodigy. Me, I was a troublemaker, a rebel, an angry kid. I always knew I was gay, and I was out about it. It was a rough school, a tough neighborhood. I had to fight to keep from being swallowed up.”

  “So you started training with Master Cho?”

  “Yeah—that’s what I was good at. The training, the discipline—that was good for me, too—kept me from going completely over the edge. I’d already been at the dojang a few years before I met Dara. When she showed up in school that first day, I noticed her right away—she was so different from all the other girls—but I didn’t think I’d even register on her radar screen. Every boy in the entire school wanted to go out with her, and you know what?” Drew glanced at Sean, a far away look in her eyes. “She chose me. She followed me everywhere—bumping into me between classes, sitting with me at lunch, even turning up at martial arts tournaments—bugging me with her constant chatter, refusing to let me shut her out even when I didn’t believe she could really be interested in me.”

  Drew was shaking; Sean could feel it where their bodies touched. She wanted to hear this, and she knew professionally that Drew needed to say it, but it was always a risk uncovering old wounds. And, it was difficult for Sean to separate her own need to know what lay in Drew’s heart from her equally deep desire to shield Drew from pain. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t thought about almost every day for four years,” Drew said bitterly. Then, as if realizing what she had said, she looked at Sean quickly, her eyes shadowed with worry. “I’m sorry—I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want this to come between us.”

  “It’s already between us,” Sean replied softly. “Talking about it won’t change that; it can only help.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” Drew whispered desperately. You don’t know what I’ve done. Will you still love me then?

  “You’re not going to lose me.” Sean wrapped her fingers around Drew’s broad, strong hand. “Tell me about her. Tell me about you.”

  Drew relented, because some part of her had wanted to tell Sean for a very long time. “Eventually, I just gave in and let myself believe she was as crazy about me as I was about her. She made me feel as if I were the center of the universe, that I could do anything. We always said we would be each other’s first and last lovers. As tough as I thought I was, she was braver—she refused to hide that she was dating me, and her father threw her out of the house in the middle of our senior year. My parents weren’t in the picture. I’d already been living with an aunt, and she didn’t much care what I did. Dara and I got an apartment together, and we both managed to finish high school.”

  She paused for a moment, her face lost in memory. “It was really tough—we were both working whatever jobs we could find after school to make the rent and buy food. Janet Cho befriended us—paid me a little to teach a few of her classes. It was Janet who suggested I enlist. I wanted to support Dara and myself, and the military offered me the things I was comfortable with—order, discipline, structure—and I could earn a living. The Marines turned out to be everything I needed. I ended up doing what I do best—teaching combat skills to women. It was perfect. For me.”

  She fell silent, and Sean moved a little closer. “And you stayed together through all of that? That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah,” Drew said with a deep sigh. “And you know why? Because Dara was willing to stay here alone while I went through basic training, and then she followed me around the damn country from one post to the next.”

  “She loved you.” Sean was so relieved to finally learn the secrets of Drew’s past, she found she wasn’t jealous. It was impossible to begrudge the woman she loved something that had so obviously been special to her, perhaps even critical for her survival. Loving that young woman had defined Drew’s life during those years. “And you loved her.”

  “I did—so much.” Drew searched Sean’s eyes for disappointment or distance and found only compassion. “It doesn’t mean I love you less...”

  “I know that, sweetheart.” Sean pressed a kiss to Drew’s temple. “I know. Go ahead.”

  “Well, we were twenty-five when we moved to the last post. Dara hated it there. There was nothing for fifty miles around but the base and a little town. She missed city life and the kinds of artistic things she enjoyed. She was still painting and was being noticed professionally. And I promised I wouldn’t reenlist at the end of that hitch, so we could stop moving around and have a more settled life. We were only supposed to stay a year or so.”

  Drew removed her hand from Sean’s grip and rubbed her sweating palms over the material of her sweatpants. When she continued, her voice was hoarse, tight with emotion. “Somehow, I kept putting off making a firm decision on leaving active duty. I was happy at that base, and I tried not to see how unhappy Dara was.” She stopped and stared at her clenched fists. “I refused to see how goddamned miserable she was. Christ, how I wish I could take it all back.”

  Sean’s stomach clenched at the words, but she reminded herself forcefully that this was not about her and Drew; this was about Drew’s past, and it was a critical part of what made her lover the woman she was today. To know a little of where Drew had been would only allow Sean to love her more fully. “I want to hear this if you can talk about it. If not today, then later.”

  “I need to do this now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to start again later.” Drew’s eyes filled with tears, but she continued, determined to finish.

  “We’d been there a little over two years, and Dara had reached her limit. We were fighting constantly about it. If I stayed one more year, I could name my next location. A year didn’t seem so long to me. But, for her, I guess it felt like a life sentence.

  “One night, it really blew up between us. We had gone to the bar in town—it was the only place we could go out toget
her as a couple. It was late, and we’d been drinking a little—not enough to get drunk but enough to make us...me anyway...say things I didn’t really mean. We started arguing about the whole situation again. I got pretty hot, and so did Dara. She got so angry she stormed out, and I was so pissed off I...I let her go.”

  Tears streaked Drew’s cheeks, but she seemed unaware of them as she relived the night she’d relived a thousand times, desperately trying each time to change the past. “I sat and finished my beer, fuming. Suddenly, I realized it was almost one o’clock in the morning, and Dara was walking around alone. Probably headed for the bus station. I was frantic, but when I rushed outside, I didn’t see her. The streets were empty. It was dark, and it was cold. Jesus, she was out there alone.”

  Drew doubled over, instantly nauseous. She covered her face with one hand and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the images to come. Waited for the memories to plunge her back into the waking nightmare.

  “I’m right here, sweetheart,” Sean whispered, resting her hand on the small of Drew’s back, making firm circles with her palm. Part of her was ready to tell Drew to stop, not to put herself through this obvious agony. Perhaps if she hadn’t heard her lover screaming in the night, she would have. But the therapist and the lover in her knew that whatever Drew was suffering now, it would never abate until she shared it. “I’m here with you.”

  “I heard a muffled noise, from an alley.” Drew’s head was down, her eyes closed, but she reached for Sean’s hand blindly and held on tight. “It was dark, but there was movement in the shadows. I started down the passageway—I don’t know why. I don’t think I heard her, but I dream that I do. I dream that I hear her scream.”

  Sean couldn’t stop her own tears, but she made no move to hide them. Drew couldn’t see her now, and she just clung to Drew’s hand.

  “I just had this horrible empty feeling that she was there. There were five of them down there in the dark. They must have followed her from the bar. I didn’t have much of a chance, but I did some damage—I don’t remember much. I got kicked in the head, and my wrist was broken. Maybe they were...done; maybe the noise of the fight finally scared them off. All I know is that I must have crawled down the alley—my hands and knees got pretty torn up. That’s when I found her. I was told later she’d been beaten and was probably unconscious when they’d raped her. She was already dead when I got to her.”