The Soldier's Redemption

by Lee Tobin McClain

  Thinking of the dinner they’d just had, he smiled. It wasn’t the normal thing they would do together, wasn’t something to be repeated often, but they’d made the most of it and they’d had a blast. He wanted that to be the case again, in other contexts. How would she like a rafting trip? A museum? A specialty food tasting? Marge’s sled dog show?

  He had the feeling that, with Kayla, anything would be fun.

  “Leo’s out,” Kayla said and settled more deeply into her seat, facing forward. “He was exhausted. Thank you again for stopping to pick him up.”

  “I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the whole evening.”

  “So did I.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air between them, floating on soft notes of music. They hadn’t gotten to discuss what he’d wanted to—whether she wanted to explore the connection they were feeling—but he’d read interest, at least, in her eyes.

  He reached out and squeezed her hand, and the petite size of it in contrast to his own big paw, the mix of soft skin and tough calluses, moved him and made him want to explore her contrasts further.

  They had a lot of ground to cover, a lot of background to reveal. He needed to tell her about what had happened with Derek and Deirdre. And he needed to know more about what had happened in her past, what had caused the bruises on her arms when she’d first arrived, what made her jumpy.

  Needed her to know that he’d protect her from harm like that in the future.

  He eased the truck through a narrow part of the road and came out onto a broad, flat stretch lit by moonlight. Pines loomed on either side of the road, casting shadows in the silvery light.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said softly. “I’ve never been in a place so beautiful.”

  “I love Colorado. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.” Then he realized that sounded inflexible. “Though, I guess, for the right reasons—”

  “No,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “You fit with this land, and that’s a good thing. You’re an important part of this community. You belong here.”

  She got that about him? He drew in a breath and thought he caught a whiff of the flowery scent of her hair. He wanted more than that, though; he wanted to bury his face in its softness, the softness she’d revealed tonight.

  Be careful, some part of his mind warned his heart.

  They were coming into a section of driveways and houses now, not exactly heavy population, but heavy for this area. Automatically, he slowed.

  Suddenly, from a driveway, a car backed out in front of him. Right in front of him, going fast.

  He slammed on the brake and veered left. He had to avoid the hit at any cost, because if they collided with another car...

  Crash.

  It was a slight crash, but it made a loud, metal-on-metal impact, and as the car rebounded back and started to rotate, he heard a scream behind him. Leo. Then it was joined by a higher-pitch female scream as the car hit a patch of loose gravel on the road and spun faster.

  He kept steering into the spin, his instincts carrying him as his heart and mind freaked out.

  It’s happening again.

  They’re going to die.

  It’s your fault.

  He pulled his mind out of that abyss and back into the present. He saw the cliff’s edge coming at them fast, and with superhuman effort, he steered the car away. Time slowed down. They were just a few feet from the edge.

  Inches.

  Millimeters.

  A hair’s breadth from the drop-off, the car stopped.

  Kayla unsnapped her seat belt and turned to the back seat, basically crawled right over. “Leo. Baby. Baby, it’s okay.”

  She was speaking coherently, so that was one difference.

  But Leo’s sobs...

  He couldn’t look back to see what was happening to Leo. Had happened.

  There was a knocking sound beside his head, but he couldn’t turn to look at it.

  He was somewhere else, in another car on another road at another time.

  More knocking, then shouting. “Sir! Sir, are you all right?”

  “Man, I’m so sorry... Oh, no, Dad, there’s a kid in there.” Some disassociated part of him heard the hysteria in the adolescent boy’s tone.

  There were noises. Someone opening the back car door. Voices: Kayla’s. A stranger’s.

  In the distance, the sound of a siren.

  His heart was still thudding hard in his chest. Sweat dripped down the middle of his back, soaked his palms that still clenched the steering wheel in a death grip.

  With a giant sigh, he let his hands and his shoulders go loose. And then he couldn’t hold himself up, or together, anymore.

  Finn put his head down on the steering wheel and surrendered to the darkness.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, Kayla walked out onto her cabin’s porch, coffee in hand, watching the sun break through a bank of clouds and cast its rays over the valley. Gratitude filled her heart.

  They were okay. They were all okay.

  Leo had a temporary cast on his wrist, and Kayla had a painful, colorful bruise across her shoulder and chest where the seat belt had dug in. She’d been terrified, of course, all through the ambulance ride to the hospital, until the doctors had reassured her that Leo had suffered no ill effects.

  As for her resilient son, he’d loved the ambulance ride, the lights and the sirens. Future fireman or EMT, one of the guys had said, laughing as Leo begged to be allowed to sit up front and look at all the buttons and switches.

  Finn seemed fine, physically, although he’d made himself scarce at the hospital, after a brusque question about whether she and Leo were all right. But that made sense. Delayed shock reaction, most likely. She couldn’t wait to see him today, to talk to him about what had happened. During the car accident, but also beforehand, at the restaurant.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, unable to restrain the big smile that spread across her face.

  He liked her.

  Finn, a real, honorable man, wanted to—how had he put it?—pursue a relationship. With her!

  They had a lot to talk about. She was going to have to tell him the history with Mitch, let him know why she’d initially been so guarded. Now that she knew him better, she was pretty sure he would understand.

  Behind her, she heard Leo call out, “Mom!” Footsteps pattered and then Shoney’s tail thumped. She barked a happy greeting to her boy.

  So the day was starting, Kayla would get Leo’s breakfast and then help the ranch put on an amazing open house. There was so much to do, and she’d normally have been stressed out about it, but the events of last night had put it all in perspective.

  She lifted her face to the sun’s warmth and said a silent prayer of thanks: for their safety last night, and their freedom from Mitch, and for the fact that she and her son had found a home.

  * * *

  The day was a whirl of activity. They had almost double the number of visitors as they’d expected, due in part to their social-media sharing and in part to the word that had gotten out after the presentation last night. Everyone had to pitch in. Willie noticed that supplies of hot-dog buns and cola were running low, and took off in the truck to buy more. At the kennel tour, Long John talked up the dogs so positively that people started asking about adopting them. So Kayla set him up at a table with forms to handle that unexpected bit of new business.

  Kayla led tours of the ranch, and Finn talked about the veterans’ side of it. Penny, who’d just arrived back in town late last night, explained the organizational structure. They all pitched in to keep the free food and drinks coming.

  The whole time, people kept coming up to Kayla and hugging her and telling her they’d heard about the accident, and were glad that she and Leo were safe.

  When she got a free moment, she asked Missy
how everyone knew about the accident.

  “Small town,” Missy explained. “And Hank Phillips kept telling everyone over and over about it.”

  She nodded. “He felt awful, and so did his son.” The boy, backing out of the driveway on a new learner’s permit, had stepped on the gas instead of the brakes, and the car had shot into the road right in front of them. He’d apologized over and over, and had barely managed to restrain tears. “The outcome could have been so much worse. I hope that poor kid doesn’t stop driving forever.”

  “You’re such a sweetheart, Kayla,” Missy said, hugging her. “A lot of people would be angry. You’re really generous, being so understanding.”

  Kayla waved away the praise, but she felt it. Felt like she and Missy might become friends.

  Leo spent much of the day running around with his buddies from camp and church, making siren sounds and crashing into each other, reenacting the car accident. After a few efforts, she stopped trying to keep him still. Play was his way of processing what had happened, and even though he was fine, it had been a scary thing for all of them.

  She hoped for an opportunity to talk with Finn about it, but every time she got a free moment, he was busy. And her own free moments were few, because in between tours, she was creating live videos and posting them.

  When people finally started leaving, Penny beckoned her into the offices. “Check it out,” she crowed, clicking into the crowdfunding page on the old desktop computer. She spread her hands, pointing them toward the full-to-the-top fund-raising meter. “Ta-da! We have enough to pay the back taxes and more!”

  They hugged and did a little jig, taking it out into the driveway, where Leo and other kids saw and laughed and joined in. Then they all escorted the few remaining visitors toward the parking area.

  Finally, Finn walked up to her and she started to open her arms. Everyone was hugging, right? But something in his face stopped her.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “Um, sure.” Some of her excitement seeped away as her inner danger alert sprang to attention. “We made a good amount fund-raising. Plenty to pay the taxes.”

  “Good. Let’s walk.” His voice was flat, his face without emotion.

  She watched as he started away from her, leaning heavily on his cane. Something was different about him. His usual calm now covered over an intense energy.

  “Did you get the response you hoped for from the veterans in the group?” she asked his departing back. Hurrying after him, she kept talking. “There were more of them than I expected. All different ages, too.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot of the others, he turned to her. “Look, it’s not going to work between us.”

  She tilted her head to one side as her heart turned to a stone in her chest. “I don’t understand.”

  He didn’t look at her. “It’s not complicated. I thought about it and I realized that this—” he waved his hand back and forth between the two of them, still without looking at her “—that this isn’t what I want.”

  The old interior voices started talking. Of course, a man like Finn wouldn’t want to be with a woman like her. It had been too much to expect.

  But, she reminded herself, she wasn’t that unwanted girl. She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t bland and boring. People in Esperanza Springs liked her. People here at the ranch, too: Penny, and Long John, and Willie.

  Finn still wasn’t looking at her. Why wouldn’t he meet her eyes? “Talk to me,” she urged him. “Let’s try to work it out, whatever happened.”

  He shook his head and looked off to the side. Like he didn’t even want to see her face. “No.”

  Confusion bloomed inside. She couldn’t understand what had caused him to erect this sudden wall, to refuse to share what he was feeling even though they’d been getting closer and closer these past weeks and especially last night. “Why are you being like this?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not going to work.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “We have something, Finn! What we felt at the restaurant last night, what we’ve been feeling for a while now, it’s worth exploring. You’re a good man—”

  He held up a hand like a stop sign. “It’s not real.”

  “Did someone say something today? One of the visitors?” She couldn’t imagine what might have been said, nor that Finn would be so sensitive about hearing it.

  “No. The guests were fine.” He drew himself up, wincing slightly as he straightened his bad leg. “Look, you did a good job helping with the open house. We worked together, probably more than we should have, and it led us to think we had feelings for each other. That’s to be expected.”

  Tears pressed at her eyelids as she tried to recognize the man she cared about in the squared jaw, the rigidly set shoulders. “Why are you doing this?” she choked out.

  “Mr. Finn!” Leo came running up and stopped himself by crashing into Kayla, then bouncing off her to Finn. “Look at my cast!”

  Finn closed his eyes for the briefest moment. “I don’t want to look at it.” He turned and started to walk away, his limp pronounced.

  Leo ran a few steps after him. “But, Mr. Finn, I want you to sign it.”

  “No!” He thundered out the word.

  Leo stared after him and then looked back at her, his face sorrowful. “Why is he mad at me, Mommy?”

  Kayla sucked in her breath and tamped down the loss that threatened to drown her. “It’s okay. Come here.” She knelt and opened her arms, and Leo was enough of a little boy that he came running and buried his face in her shoulder. Her bruised, aching shoulder, but never mind. She clung to him fiercely.

  Finn had seemed to be different from other men, but apparently, he wasn’t. In the end he didn’t care enough. The abrupt way he’d pulled back stabbed her like a dull knife to the chest. She might not have believed him, might have thought he was covering something up, except he’d been mean to Leo.

  That wasn’t the Finn she knew. But maybe she hadn’t really known him at all.

  She didn’t understand it, but she was a person who accepted reality when it stared her in the face. She’d never believed in fairy tales, like some of the girls she’d known in school, imagining knight-like boyfriends who’d sweep them off their feet, visualizing wonderful, romantic wedding days.

  But Finn was romantic and wonderful last night, a sad little voice cried from deep inside her heart. He wanted to pursue a relationship. What happened to that?

  She shook off the weak, pathetic questions so she could focus on the real one: how to go on from here. Should she stay in the best community she’d ever known? The community where Leo had relaxed out of his hypervigilant ways and learned to be a kid again? The place where she’d started to feel at home for the first time in her life?

  Could she stay, seeing Finn every day and knowing the brief flame of their relationship was doused for good?

  * * *

  Two days later, Finn still hadn’t gotten over the awful feeling of rejecting Kayla and Leo. Pushing Leo away had been like kicking a puppy. Pushing Kayla away...that had just about ripped out his heart.

  But that pain didn’t even compare to what he’d felt when the car had spun out of control, when he’d heard Kayla’s gasps and Leo’s screams.

  He’d spent the past two days driving himself hard, getting the kennels cleaned before Kayla got back from dropping Leo off at his camp. When she was around, he made himself scarce by painting a couple of rooms at the main house, mowing grass, even exercising the two horses.

  His leg was so bad he couldn’t walk without an obvious limp, but he couldn’t stop moving. The shame of what he’d started to do—the way he’d almost put another family at risk—just kept eating at him.

  Now, near sunset on Monday, he felt a mild panic. Two hours of daylight left and he was out of chores. His leg was throbbing, and he should rest
it, but to stop moving would let the thoughts in.

  He noticed the old shed behind the main house. They needed to pull it down, build something new on the slab.

  He would do that now.

  He got his chain saw and carried it around the shed, planning his work. It wasn’t hard to see the symbolism: you’re real good at ripping things down, breaking things apart.

  And that’s all you’re good at.

  He destroyed everything he touched.

  The last person he wanted to see was Carson Blair, the pastor, but here he came in his truck, down from the direction of Kayla’s cottage. Jealousy burned in Finn. Had she replaced him so quickly, so easily?

  “Need some help?” Carson climbed out of his truck and Finn saw he was dressed in work boots and carrying a pair of gloves.

  “No. I got this.” He revved the chain saw.

  “That’s not what I heard.” Carson crossed his arms and watched Finn as if he could see into his very soul. He probably could. Wasn’t that in the job description of a pastor?

  Finn started on the posts that held up the shed, taking satisfaction in the harsh vibration as he cut through them. Once he’d gotten through one side, he pushed at the shed with his foot.

  “Hey, Finn!” It was Penny, calling from the back door of the main house. “I want some of that wood,” she continued as she walked down toward Finn, the pastor and the shed. “It’s weathered real nice. Got some things I could make out of it come winter.”

  “As a matter of fact, I know someone who’d like that door,” Carson said. “Mind if I pull it off?”

  Finn’s intended task, a solitary demolition, was turning into a community event. Fine. He started pulling off some of the boards that were in good shape. “I’ll get these cleaned up and bring them over,” he said to Penny, hoping she would leave.