by Paula Graves
He squeezed her hand. “It’s probably a good thing he called,” he said softly. “Don’t you agree?”
She licked her lips, looking as conflicted as he felt. “Yeah. I do. This is a crazy time and a crazy situation. Not a good time for taking big steps.”
He knew he should let go of her hand and walk away, take her assent for what it was. But there was pain in her eyes as well as understanding, a pain that he felt echoing in the cavern of his chest.
He caught her face between his hands, bending to press his forehead to hers. Struggling to find words that would erase that pain, he discovered that such words didn’t exist. So he just touched his lips to hers in a sweet, undemanding kiss.
A kiss that felt as final as a heartbreak.
Then he hurried to his room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
He walked unsteadily to the bed and sat, pulling out the borrowed cell phone. The contact number for Elmore Gantry was the first thing that came up when he turned on the phone.
Jesse Cooper had said he should wait, not give Gantry time to run. But Jesse didn’t know Elmore Gantry. Evan had spent two years working alongside the man.
There were two possibilities here, as far as Evan saw it. Either Gantry was completely innocent and he’d want to help Evan any way he could—or he was still working with the remnants of MacLear and would meet Evan as part of an ambush. No matter which was true, Gantry would agree to meet with Evan.
Either way, Evan thought, he planned to keep Megan out of the line of fire.
* * *
MEGAN HAD ANOTHER DREAM of Vince. She dreamed of him often since his death, peaceful dreams where he came to her, perhaps at the home they’d shared, perhaps in the backyard while she was playing with Patton. Sometimes he walked with her through the woods in front of their house or sat with her on the bank of Missacoula Creek while she fished for bluegills.
This time, she was standing on the wood bridge over Crybaby Falls, tossing leaves into the falls, watching them spill down into the creek below and eddy away in violent circles. He joined her on the bridge, coming near enough to touch her if he wanted. But he didn’t touch her this time.
“It’s okay to let go.” His voice was gentle, much more so than it had ever been in life. It always sounded that way in her dreams, as if he’d found his peace and didn’t need to struggle so much anymore.
“I don’t want to,” she protested.
“You want to. But you’re afraid.”
“People go their whole lives without finding someone who gets who they really are and loves them for it.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t happen twice. It just doesn’t. And I don’t want anything else.”
“How do you know we really got each other, baby?” His voice remained gentle, but there was a thread of steel beneath, a reminder of the man of strength and action he’d been in life. “We spent more time apart than together. In a whole lot of ways, we barely knew each other at all. We were always more an idea than a reality. That’s what you don’t want to let go of, darlin’. The idea of us.”
Tears ached behind her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“It is true. You know it’s true.” His voice softened again, grew lush with the love she knew he had for her. “I believe we’d have been happy our whole life together, baby. I do. We loved each other. We’d have chewed away at whatever problems came up until we made it work. But you’re letting yourself make our relationship into something it never was.”
“It was magic. We were magic.”
The smile that split his face made her heart hurt. “All love is magic in the beginning. You can find that magic again, you know. You can find something that makes you do things you never thought you could. All you’ve gotta do is let go of what you wanted us to be and realize what we really were.”
“What were we?” She wiped her eyes but the tears kept falling, hot on her cheeks.
“We were a couple of Alabama kids who fell in love, got married and figured we’d eventually get the chance at forever, once all the other stuff in our lives finally got out of the way. We just didn’t get the time.”
“We should have!” she cried.
“I know. We should’ve. But we didn’t. And I’m good where I am. Really, baby, I am. But you’ve still got years to go, and you may tell yourself you’re the kind of person who can live those years happily alone, but you’re not happy, are you?”
She looked away from his earnest gaze, unnerved by the truth she saw in those familiar brown eyes. “No.”
“You buried yourself with me. But there’s not enough room for both of us in that grave.”
Megan jerked awake, her throat aching with grief. She had fallen asleep atop the covers of the motel bed, still dressed. Lifting her hands to her face, she felt tears on her cheeks.
The dream lingered, vivid and haunting.
You buried yourself with me.
Maybe it was true. Maybe the reason she made daily visits to his grave was that it was where she felt most at home. Her time in the world—with her family, with her dog, going to her job and taking care of her house—those were the between times. The time in transit.
Between visits to her graveyard home.
She shuddered at the thought, a flicker of memory from an earlier dream dancing through her head.
You’re just lyin’ with bones.
Her gaze wandered across the room to the adjoining doors. What would Evan do if she walked through that door right now? He’d said all the right things, all the noble things, and she couldn’t help but admire him for it.
But if she made the move, if she removed the barriers, would he let her stay the night?
She felt so alone. And maybe that wasn’t the best reason to push the attraction between them to a more intense level, but she wasn’t sure she cared anymore.
She was tired of sleeping with bones.
She pushed herself up off the bed and walked slowly, deliberately to the adjoining door. Closed her hand over the door knob, twisted it, pulled the door open.
And found another closed door.
She almost laughed at the anticlimax. And while a noisy, desperate voice inside her head told her to consider it a sign, she shoved that voice away and turned the knob of the door on Evan’s side.
It was locked.
She waited, knowing he’d surely heard the rattle of the knob. Would he come and open it?
She waited, beyond all good sense. And he didn’t come.
Releasing a soft breath, she closed the door on her side and leaned her back against the solid wood, feeling like an idiot. He’d made his intentions clear when he’d walked away—he wasn’t in the market for complications. And her loneliness didn’t change a thing. It was her problem, not his.
She stripped off the clothes that still smelled like him and crawled under the covers alone.
* * *
EVAN PAUSED WITH HIS HAND on the phone, realizing that whatever he chose to do next could have far-reaching ramifications. If he ditched Megan at the Wytheville airstrip, she might never forgive him for the betrayal. Telling her he’d made his choice out of concern for her well-being might not be as compelling an excuse to her as it was to him.
Likewise, if he took her with him, she might be walking straight into an ambush.
He quickly dismissed the latter idea. He’d rather she hate him than to see her gunned down in his pursuit of absolution.
That’s what it was, really, wasn’t it? When he pushed away the nobler sounding excuses, like justice and payment for crimes, all that was really left, all that undergirded his actions for the past few years, was a wretched sense of guilt for Vince Randall’s death.
He’d wanted to believe there was evil at work. He’d wanted Vince’s death to be someone else’s fault.
Funny—now that he was almost certain he was right, that Vince’s death had been anything but a simple combat fatality, guilt burned only that much more fiercely in his belly.
A soft rattle drew his
gaze back to the adjoining door. He saw the door knob twist slightly, hampered by the lock.
His heart flew into his throat as he realized Megan must be standing on the other side.
Wanting in.
He closed his eyes. Forced himself to remain where he was, even though his entire body seemed to strain toward the barrier between them.
He’d made his decision.
He listened in silence until he heard the faint whisper of her footsteps walking away from the door. A moment later, he thought he could hear the sound of her bed springs creaking.
He opened his eyes and picked up his phone. Punching in the number Jesse had given him, he waited for Gantry to answer.
A woman’s voice greeted him on the third ring. “Hello?”
Evan fought the urge to hang up without speaking. “May I speak to Major Gantry?”
“May I tell him who’s calling?” the woman asked, wary.
He debated lying but decided to take a gamble. “Tell him it’s Evan Pike. We served together in Kaziristan.”
“Oh.” He could tell by her tone that she recognized his name. He couldn’t say for sure whether her reaction was positive or negative. Apparently not negative enough to slam the phone in his ear. “Hold a moment.”
He held on, trying to figure out his best approach. Ease into the subject with a little small talk about days gone by? Or jump right into it?
He didn’t get the chance to choose. Major Gantry’s slow Texas drawl came over the line a moment later, raw with tension. “Evan Pike. Took you long enough. I reckon I’ve been expecting this call for the past four years.”
Chapter Fifteen
Morning dawned gray with hints of rose in the sky above the mountains east of the Meade Motor Inn. Though the hills here were a little higher than back home in Gossamer Ridge, Megan was used to sunrises taking their own sweet time topping the rise. She was also accustomed to fog, living so near Lake Gossamer, but she didn’t protest when Evan insisted on taking the wheel for the first leg of the trip to North Carolina.
They said their goodbyes to Del and Nola Meade, who’d made a point to be there for the early shift to see them off. Evan had called them the night before to let them know they’d be checking out at dawn.
“Promise me y’all won’t be strangers!” Nola hugged Evan first, then turned to Megan, embracing her like an old friend. “All either one of you have to do is give us a call and we’ll find you a room. Maybe stay longer next time so we can take you hiking up at Kingdom Come State Park.”
Megan glanced at Evan and found him looking at the floor. Was he trying to avoid meeting her gaze?
Stop it. Not everything is about you.
Except, she was pretty sure his discomfort this morning had everything to do with her, with what they’d come very close to doing the night before.
Locking his door had been a pretty blatant no.
He had been careful not to touch her this morning, treating her with the same formal politeness that had characterized their first interactions. Almost back to Mr. Pike and Mrs. Randall.
She should be glad—she’d been in a vulnerable place last night, drowning in loneliness and need. Any decision she’d have made in that state was almost guaranteed to be a mistake. Evan had saved her from herself. She ought to feel grateful.
Instead, she wanted to smack him upside the head for stirring up a part of her that she’d thought was long dead, then walking away, leaving her hot and frustrated.
Their drive east took them for miles along twisting mountain roads, through scenery as wild and beautiful as anything Megan had seen back home in Chickasaw County. They crossed into Virginia about twenty-five minutes into the drive.
“I had no idea how gorgeous this part of the country was,” she ventured after another half hour of silence.
He glanced at her. “Beauty can be deceiving.”
His answer irritated her. “You’re determined to see only the ugliness. Was your life back there really that terrible?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and on the steering wheel, his fingers tightened until his knuckles went white. “Not everyone grows up in a happy family.”
She could see the moment he realized his error. His gaze flashed back to her, looking sheepish.
“I’m sorry. I know your mom left and I don’t suppose that was exactly a sunny moment,” he murmured.
“No.”
“But you had your dad. Your brothers and sisters. You said you had aunts and uncles who filled in the blanks your mother left. I had a reclusive uncle I never saw and cousins I’ve never even met. My dad had no interest in maintaining a relationship with me after Nate died.” He shook his head. “I hear the word Kentucky and all I think about is how easily my brother got sucked into the drug culture in the mountains. My dad wanted us to leave, to go somewhere with opportunities, but my mother was born here and was determined to die here.”
She felt a flutter of pain in the center of her chest, realizing she understood his mother better than he did. She felt that way about Gossamer Ridge. Home was a part of her. She’d lived away from Chickasaw County from time to time, but home always called her back. It had been something else she and Vince had in common.
“You can’t forgive her for it,” she murmured.
“I didn’t say that.”
He didn’t have to. His bitterness was written all over his grim face.
She remembered their earlier drive through the eastern hills, a breathtaking vista spread before them—lush spring growth, towering pines, mist-tipped mountains rolling across the horizon like folds of pale blue velvet. “You see no beauty at all? You don’t get what called to her? What kept her there?”
“Of course I do!” His voice rose with anger. “But I don’t understand why she chose it over me.”
Megan couldn’t hold back a bleak smile. “My mother did the same thing, really. But instead of choosing a place, she chose adventure and her career over us.”
“You don’t blame her for that?” he challenged.
“Do I wish she’d been a loving, nurturing mother? Of course.” Megan had wished for that very thing so many years it hurt to think about it. “But once I grew up and saw how much damage a bad mother can do, I realized my mother did the only thing she knew to do. She wasn’t going to be a good mom to us if she stuck around. She’d feel stifled and angry and resentful, and she’d probably take it out on all of us. Then we’d all be miserable.”
“Why did she have children if she didn’t want them?”
“She loved my dad, and he wanted lots of kids. So she gave them to him.”
“And then split?”
“Did I tell you they’re not divorced?”
He shot her a look of surprise.
“They don’t want to be with other people. They just can’t live together. But she calls him all the time. They’ll sometimes talk for hours.”
“But she doesn’t call the rest of you?”
“I think that’s probably more our fault than hers. We were so hurt and confused, none of us wanted to talk to her when she’d call.”
“But your dad was okay with it?”
“Not at first.” She gazed down the highway, saw the rough-hewn cliffs where the road had been cut through an immovable mountain. Her father had been that immovable mountain. He’d been born in Chickasaw County, and he’d die there. Her mother had been looking for a road out. “I think he realized relationships don’t have to come in the same boring sizes. As far as I know, he and my mother have been utterly faithful to each other.”
“Really.” Skepticism colored his flat response.
“Really.” She couldn’t tamp down a shudder. “And they still have sex when she visits, as I discovered one day much to my mortification.”
That earned her a smile from him. “Ugh.”
“Yeah. But it works for them. Maybe not for any of us kids, but it’s the compromise they came up with so that they would never really lose each other as long as they were both
alive.” She found herself smiling. “It’s kind of romantic, in a weird way.”
“That’s very evolved of you.”
“I think it took being married to a soldier to make me understand,” she admitted. “Vince and I were married three years. We’d dated off and on for a few years before that—off and on not because we were dating other people but because he was in the army.”
“I guess he was away almost as much as he was around?”
“More.” A snippet of the dream she’d had the night before flashed through her mind. “It makes me wonder—” She stopped, not sure he really wanted to hear such a personal thought.
“Wonder what?” he asked when she didn’t go on.
“I just wonder what kind of relationship Vince and I would have had if he’d always been around.”
“You think it might have been different?”
“Well, yeah.” Since he’d sounded interested, she ventured a little further. “Maybe it would have been better—everything we already were, multiplied by all the extra days of togetherness. Or maybe…”
“You’d get on each other’s nerves?” he supplied.
“We did that already,” she said with a smile. “But maybe we’d find out that all we really shared was enough love for moments and days at a time. Not a lifetime.”
Evan shook his head. “You’d make it work.”
“Guess we’ll never know.”
To her surprise, after so keeping such deliberate distance all morning, Evan reached across the truck cab and pressed the back of his hand to her cheek. “You’re a beautiful woman, Megan. You’ve got a lot of love to give some lucky man. You just have to be open to it.”
“Like you are?” The minute she said the words aloud, she clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry.”
He dropped his hand back to the steering wheel. “My life is complicated.”
“Ambition overcoming any desire to settle down?” His years at the Pentagon pegged him as a man trying to rise in the world. She imagined having to compete with all that ambition might be a losing battle.
“I guess.” He didn’t seem inclined to continue the discussion, so she settled back against her seat again, trying not to let the tense silence color her mood.
