by Rachel Lee
He paused in the foyer, hearing the sound of light steps, and looked up the stairs. Lacy was descending, wearing a blue fleece jogging suit and big fuzzy slippers that somehow touched him. The child in her peeking out.
“Something wrong?” he asked. At least this time he didn’t feel an internal lurch because Sara wasn’t right behind her.
He waited, seeing her pause as she took in his missing leg. Then she astonished him with a smile. “Decided to get comfortable?” she asked as she came down the rest of the way.
“Yeah,” he answered, leaving the pain out of it. “You?”
“I slept a little, then the wind woke me. It feels so restless tonight. Or at least I do. Can I make some coffee?”
“Sure. I don’t think I left much.” He held up the mug he carried in his free hand.
“Don’t let me keep you up.”
“You aren’t. I was about to go settle for a bit in the living room.”
“Want some fresh coffee?”
“Might as well. Thanks.”
He watched her as she walked away, then settled himself lengthwise on the couch so that his good leg was on the outside. It made it easier for him to move quickly. Funny, he hadn’t thought about that in a while. That note had changed things, whether he wanted it to or not.
He appreciated her reaction to seeing him without his leg. After a moment of surprise, she’d ignored it. Nor was she acting at all troubled by it. Of course, she might feel differently if she saw the scars. He’d had plenty of time to get used to them, but he knew they were ugly.
The TV continued to run warnings, now predicting two days of this cold and continued high winds. They might as well be shut off from the world.
Good. That note, now that he had looked at it again, continued to trouble him. Found who? He didn’t think anyone was looking for him, so that left Lacy, and the idea that she might actually be stalked by someone who intended her harm made his gut twist.
He might not know her that well, but she’d been important to Sara. Extremely important, and that made her important to him in ways beyond the casual friendship that had grown between them over the years. Sara had been the apex of a triad, with two people who loved her dearly. She had brought them together, had sealed them with the bond of her love.
For Sara, if nothing else, he was going to make sure nothing bad happened to Lacy. Not if he could prevent it. The image of himself as a knight in armor wasn’t quite making it, not with less than half of one leg. He could have laughed at himself.
But he didn’t because he’d seen guys in far worse condition perform feats beyond imagining. Amazing what a human being could be capable of when it was necessary.
He hoped it wouldn’t become necessary, though. Lacy had dealt with enough fear. She needed to feel safe again, and if someone struck out at her here, he wondered if she would ever feel safe again anywhere.
That thing she had said about numbers kept dancing through his mind, too, convincing him Lacy harbored a secret of her own, a reason to distrust. He had to be very careful not to give her a reason to distrust him.
So of course he’d hidden that note from her. If she found out about that...
Smothering a groan, he let his head fall back against the arm of the couch. Great way to start, Jess, he scolded himself. Nobody built trust by hiding things.
Too late now. With his eyes closed, he wondered how he’d deal with it if she found out, hoping like hell she’d never learn.
“Here you go.”
He raised his head and saw Lacy standing over him, mugs in hand. He pushed himself up and reached for one, cradling its warmth in both hands. She went to sit in the rocking chair.
“I can see why you like this chair,” she remarked with a smile and sipped her coffee.
Easy to get out of, but he didn’t say that. It was comfortable enough. He could rise from it with his arms and one leg, which mattered to him sometimes. Right now, getting off the couch would require the crutch propped nearby.
He’d adapted, but sometimes he hated the adjustments he was constantly making. Another round of self-pity? Sour amusement filled him. Bad time for that.
The storm outside grew noisier for a few minutes, penetrating even the thick curtains with its fury, then settled again. He realized he was staring at Lacy, enjoying the sight of her so near. Far from feeling like opening an old wound, it felt right and good. Plus, she was some serious eye candy, and it had been a while since he’d been interested in even scanning the possibilities. That part of him had seemed to die with Sara...until Lacy arrived. Great time to discover he still had a man’s desires. Lacy probably thought of him like a brother.
“I like your house,” she said, evidently seeking a topic of conversation. “It’s snug and friendly, and not too big.”
“There was an extra wing when I bought it, probably an addition to house a passel of kids. I don’t know. Regardless, it was in such bad shape I had it razed. I like it the way it is now.”
She nodded, sipping her coffee. “Me, too. Cozy.”
“I need to do a lot of work upstairs yet. Sorry about that.”
She gaped and then laughed quietly. “Sorry for what? It’s fine. I like the old bathtub, and the shower works.”
“I suppose.” He’d concentrated his efforts down here because it was where he lived, but he was regretting that a bit now. Lacy was upstairs looking at ancient wallpaper, outdated lighting fixtures and some drywall that bowed a bit, as if it had gotten wet once upon a time. But working upstairs would create additional problems for him, too. He’d need some help because of the damn stairs.
Rather than look at her, which was beginning to turn into a contest of wills between his sense of what was right and Lacy’s desirability, he stared into his mug and at the TV screen. Damn, not since Sara had a woman awakened his hungers the way this one was. It would be so nice if he could just go for it, but Lacy was afraid, and Sara stood invisibly between them. A past neither of them could forget. Or even wanted to.
“I always wanted to fix up a house,” she said. “Are you enjoying it?”
“For the most part. It’s a great hobby.”
“I was never sure that I knew enough or could learn enough to do it. And it’s a huge commitment.”
“Huge,” he agreed, wondering if that was another clue to her. “But I’ve got plenty of time.”
“I used to think I would,” she answered. “I even looked around at a few places in Dallas. Now it’s a pipe dream.”
“Only temporarily. And you can practice on this place if you want.”
She brightened. “I did enjoy putting up those tiles this afternoon. And they’re so pretty.”
“You seem to have a knack for it.” He waited, wondering where this was going, or if she was just filling dead air with casual conversation. Funny, before she’d arrived he’d thought he knew her. Now he had more questions than ever.
She spoke again. “Was this something Sara wanted to do, too? Remodel a house? I don’t recall her ever mentioning it.”
He paused, surprised by the question, finally answering truthfully. “I don’t know. We never talked about it. Seems odd, doesn’t it, that in eight years we never plotted the future in any detail?” A shadow moved through him. “Hell.”
“What?”
“She wasn’t sure there’d be a future for us.”
Lacy’s eyes widened. “How can you say that?”
“Because. Because I was gone so much. Because there was always a chance I might not come back. We had only vague ideas about the future, as if neither of us wanted to plan for something that might never happen.”
“Oh my God,” Lacy breathed. Her entire face saddened, and for long minutes neither of them said anything. Then she added, “She never talked to me about fears like that.”
“But how often did she mention ‘someday’?”
Lacy closed her eyes, clearly searching her memory. “Not often,” she finally admitted in a small voice. “Once in a while she’d talk about things she wanted to do when you came home, but never any farther down the road than that.”
He nodded, absorbing the blow. Sara had been afraid. The whole damn time she’d been afraid to plan because she’d feared she’d lose him. The tables had turned, though, and he’d lost her instead.
He saw Lacy shiver. “Cold?”
“No. I was just thinking...” She shook her head quickly. “Never mind.”
“Just say it.”
She shook her head and for a minute he thought she was going to be stubborn. He hated it when someone started a thought and then just left it dangling. He doubted anything could be as bad as leaving him to wonder if she knew something about Sara that he didn’t.
“It was just a crazy thought,” Lacy said finally. “Just that it’s like maybe the two of you had some kind of premonition. Given your job, though, it’s probably likely that neither of you wanted to tempt fate.” She gave a little laugh. “That was one superstition my mother managed to pass on to me. Don’t tempt fate. Knock on wood.”
He smiled almost in spite of himself. “Sara knocked on wood.”
“We both did. It’s a silly superstition, but a hard one to overcome.”
He’d run into plenty of superstitions, some utterly new to him, when he’d been with combat units. Some were personal to an individual, others were cultural, but nearly everyone possessed a “lucky” object of one kind or another. But this was different. Thinking about how he and Sara had skipped all the talk of “someday” left him wondering if he’d failed her in some important way. How would he know? He’d only been part of one couple.
“Sara was strong,” Lacy said unexpectedly. “Really strong. She took your absences in stride. She missed you, I know she did, but she didn’t focus on it, Jess. She had a great ability to exist in the moment. Maybe that’s part of the reason you never made long-range plans. She was very much a here-and-now kind of person. Maybe that’s why she managed your absences so well.”
He lifted one corner of his mouth. She was right about how Sara had lived very much in the moment. It was one of the things he had loved about the woman. He could come home on leave and the days wouldn’t be shadowed by his eventual departure. Not for her, anyway. She seized the moment and enjoyed it.
“I wish I could be more like her,” Lacy remarked.
“There’s nothing wrong with the way you are,” he objected.
“Sure, there is. Can you imagine Sara spending all these months looking over her shoulder? Not her style at all.”
He couldn’t deny it. “And maybe that wouldn’t have been wise,” he said after a beat. “I’m not going to argue that there’s no reason for you to be concerned. And since you are, we’ll deal with it. There’s an instinct I learned never to ignore when I was overseas. The feeling of being watched or stalked. You’ve got that feeling. Nothing could make me ignore it.”
“But was it always right?”
“How often does it have to be right to be valid?” Damn, that note was practically burning a hole in his brain, but he didn’t want to tell her about it. Without something else to go on, it was useless and pointless. But maybe he was getting soft. He’d wondered that earlier today. Maybe he should wonder harder.
“Interesting way to put it. More coffee?”
His smile widened a bit. “You planning to sleep tonight at all?”
She flushed, and he instantly felt bad. She asked, “Am I keeping you awake? I can go back upstairs.”
“That isn’t what I meant at all.” With his arms he turned himself on the couch so that he was sitting upright. “I just wondered if you wanted to stay awake. You were so tired earlier. But I’m not ready to close my eyes by a long shot. It’s nice to have company. Usually I’d be sitting here, listening to the wind.”
She tilted her head a little, studying him. “Do you have trouble sleeping? Or is something bothering you tonight?”
That drew a laugh out of him. “That’s what I was going to ask you. Okay, me first. Usually I sleep well enough. Tonight, I’m hurting.”
“Phantom pain?”
“None other. Now what about you?”
She paused as if considering the question. “I used to sleep well. Not so much since this whole crime blew up. I tend to wake up a lot and wander around. I lost count of the nights I played Solitaire. I think I drove my agents nuts with it. It was as if they were always worried I’d try to slip their cordon, so they never relaxed when I was stirring.”
“Would you have?”
She shook her head. “I’m more cautious than that. Anyway, uninterrupted nights are rare. And tonight the storm seems to be making me edgy. It’s noisier upstairs.”
He hadn’t thought of that, but he could believe it. Upstairs there were no nearby trees or shrubs to slow the wind. “Maybe you should try to sleep down here. The couch isn’t bad.”
“If I get sleepy. Right now I feel wired.” She rose from the rocker and walked around the room slowly, carrying her coffee. With each of her movements, fleece moved against her, delineating her curves, reminding him she was all woman. Hell.
She spoke again. “It’s amazing how fast life can change, leaving you permanently altered. Sara, your wounding, the announcement that someone wanted to kill me...” She faced him, standing in front of the stove. “There’s no way back, Jess.”
“No,” he agreed. No way at all. If he’d had a magic wand...well, he didn’t. Time flowed in only one direction for mortals. Of that much he was sure. For a long time he’d have given anything in the world to have Sara back. But with time he’d accepted one thing: she was probably better off without him. If he’d thought his mother had been ripped up by his injuries, he hated to think of how Sara would have responded. And worse, he wouldn’t have been able to send her back to France during the time he had been so antisocial. He didn’t want to imagine how much hurt he might have inflicted on her with his rage and self-pity. His refusal to talk. He hadn’t been a nice person for a long while there. He’d just wanted to be left alone.
Look at how he’d turned Lacy away. Wouldn’t let her visit, wouldn’t take her phone calls for the longest time. If he had treated Sara that way... He shuddered to think.
Lacy had forgiven him, but she hadn’t been vulnerable to the kinds of scars he could have inflicted on his wife. There was a mercy in that, painful as it was to face it.
Lacy sighed and started to walk back to the rocker. Impulse seized him and he patted the couch beside him. “Wanna sit here? It’s softer.”
She hardly hesitated, but settled on the cushion beside him. He could feel her warmth, detect her lovely scents, and for a few minutes pretend he was just an ordinary guy. Maybe not fair to her, but she’d never know.
She leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees, her cup cradled in both hands. A strangely closed posture when she had been willing to come so close.
He finally spoke. “Wanna talk more about why you’ve been so on edge? I get that it’s hard to shake the idea that you’ve been threatened, but has something else been going on?”
“You mean have I seen something? Nothing I could report. I mean, I kept seeing this one guy around, but you know how that is. If you start watching, you see the same faces pretty often even on a busy street. People who commute along the same route, people who go to work in the same or nearby buildings, people who use the same grocery store. I called the FBI, and they reassured me. They’re certain that they unraveled the whole operation. They’d know, wouldn’t they?”
He answered cautiously. “You’d think.”
“Yeah.” She sighed and at last leaned back. “I’ve become a paranoid nut. I need to get over
it. Then I need to find a job, maybe some other place besides Dallas. A place where I won’t have a history. I’m assuming, of course, that my former employer wouldn’t dare give me a bad recommendation.”
“Doing so, under the circumstances, might be grounds to sue them. Isn’t there whistleblower protection?”
“Not for this kind of thing. It’s all right. I’ll find work again, I’m sure. Or maybe open my own accounting practice, although going back to small business accounting doesn’t really appeal to me.” She turned, giving him a rueful smile. “I was working with the big boys, lots of money, lots of accounts. Auditing books for local government agencies and big corporations. Having my own business would probably be mostly dull by comparison.”
“But safer.”
“Unquestionably.” At last she relaxed enough to laugh briefly. “I’m not without options. I just need to remember how to relax.”
Impulsively, he stretched out his arm and drew her closer to his side. She didn’t stiffen, but leaned into him as if she needed the human contact as much as he did. For a while they just sat, listening to their own thoughts, to the occasional burst of wind, to the muffled crackling of the fire in the stove.
After a while he asked, “Did you leave a boyfriend behind?”
“I was dating someone at the firm. Casually. He bailed the minute I became tainted. I can’t blame him. It must have seemed as if I had the plague.”
“I’d blame him,” Jess said. “Most definitely. People who run from trouble aren’t good bets.”
“Well, it was just casual. I shouldn’t have dated him anyway. Dating in the workplace can create problems. But you know, we were all workaholics. Come tax season, we were up to our eyebrows, working round the clock. Then there was the second tax season for all the delayed filers. And a lot of companies had different fiscal years. So we had our lists of clients, and when we weren’t working with them we helped others.”
