“Where were you stationed?” Finn asked. “And I didn’t hear you say your dates of service.”
Mitch looked away. “I was on special assignment.”
Right. Finn looked over at Kayla and Leo. Kayla met his eyes, her own wide and concerned. But Leo was talking excitedly, explaining how he had climbed out the bathroom window.
Good. The boy wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to learn about his father’s deception this way.
Willie clicked off his phone. “They never heard of him.”
“He’s not in this record, either,” Long John said, scrolling through his phone’s screen.
Finn glared at the lowlife cuffed in the chair. “Stolen valor is a pretty serious offense.”
“Especially when you’ve been getting veterans benefits for years,” Kayla said from the corner, her voice indignant.
Willie drew himself up to his full height—about five-five—and glowered at Mitch. “Between that crime and what you tried to do to this woman and child, young man, you’re going to be behind bars for a good long time.”
Penny fussed over Kayla while Willie called the police and Long John tended to some scratches Leo had gotten jumping out the bathroom window.
As for Finn, he sat off to the side, against the wall, his mind reeling.
Something terrible had almost happened, and together, they’d managed to stop it. Kayla and Leo were safe. And he made a decision: he wasn’t going to waste another moment.
Whatever Kayla felt, he knew his own heart.
But when he turned and really studied her, he noticed she was holding her arm tight to her side. “Do we need an ambulance?” he asked Penny, who was kneeling beside Kayla, running her hand over her shoulder, arm and wrist.
“Not for me,” Kayla answered promptly.
“Maybe a quick visit to the ER or the Urgent Care,” Penny said. “I don’t think your arm is broken, but it’s definitely sprained. Here, let it loose.”
As Penny held Kayla’s arm straight to examine it more carefully, Leo watched with a little too much concern in his eyes. “Hey, Leo,” Finn called softly, and the boy looked his way. “You did a real good job today.”
A smile tugged at Leo’s mouth. And then he ran and jumped into Finn’s open arms.
Finn’s heart swelled almost to bursting as he held the wiggly little boy, then put him down to hear, again, the story of how Leo had screwed up his courage and climbed out through the window to find help for his mom.
Leo was hungry for praise; well, Finn was glad to give it to him, because what he’d done had been more than praiseworthy.
Finn had a hungry heart, too, and talking to the little boy, commending his quick thinking and agility, seemed to fill it up a little.
He and Leo might be good for each other, he reflected. And as he distracted Leo from the distressing sight of his father being led away in handcuffs, as he talked about ways Leo could help his mom while her arm healed, he felt like he’d been given a second chance.
If only he could convince Kayla to take a chance with him.
* * *
A week later, Kayla strolled the midway of the county fair, with Leo holding her hand and Finn beside her.
She wondered what to do.
Rather than packing up the car and moving away, she and Leo had stayed around, at first to give evidence against Mitch, and then to let her arm heal a bit, and now...
Now it was decision time. Tomorrow would be the back-to-school information day. All the kids at Leo’s camp were talking about it—the start of first grade was a big deal—and Leo wanted to know: Would he go to school here, or were they moving somewhere else?
She didn’t know the answer.
They’d fallen back into their routine here. Leo had been attending camp. Kayla had helped with the dogs as best she could, given her wrenched arm. Shoney had come back, first for a visit, and then an overnight to sleep in Leo’s bed, and now somehow she was back to living with them again, her old accepting, ecstatic self.
Finn had been friendly and helpful, but a little guarded. They hadn’t really had the chance to talk in depth, because Leo, understandably, was sticking pretty close to Kayla’s side.
Mitch had gone to jail, then gone before the judge, and then somehow managed to post bail. With no contacts in Colorado, and forbidden to see Kayla or Leo, he’d gotten permission from the court to go back to his job in Arkansas. Kayla suspected he would also try to destroy evidence of his fraudulent claims of military service, but the likelihood was that he’d be charged with a federal crime. That was because he’d received benefits and discounts he wasn’t entitled to.
She still worried about him, and would until he was behind bars. But with Finn, Penny, Long John and Willie on high alert—and friends back in Arkansas reassuring her daily that Mitch was there, going about his routines—she found she was able to relax.
She wouldn’t go back there, but she might move on. She liked mountain living, but there were plenty of places, especially here in the West, where she could have it.
The problem was, Finn wouldn’t be there.
Penny had talked to her about taking on some additional duties as they worked to expand the ranch. They’d need cleaning and cooking help if they were to open the old bunkhouse.
Everything in Kayla longed to stay in this community where she’d made friends and felt valued, where Leo was happy and social, where the mountains loomed good-heartedly over the flat bowl of the valley, reminding her on a daily basis to look up to God.
But if staying meant watching Finn move on, take up with other women, become a distant friend, she didn’t know if she could bear it.
Too much thinking. She squeezed Leo’s hand and inhaled the fragrances of cotton candy and fry bread.
“Mom! There’s Skye and Sunny!” Leo tugged at her hand. “Can I go see them, please?”
“I’ll come with you,” she said and then looked questioningly at Finn. “Want to come along?” They’d basically ended up together at the fair by accident, and she didn’t want to assume he intended to stay with her and Leo.
But he smiled amiably. “Whatever you two want,” he said and followed along.
That was how he’d been acting. Like he wanted to do things with her and Leo; like he cared. But there was a slight distance. They hadn’t talked about why he’d pushed her away before, and it kept a wall between them.
“Leo!” Skye called as they approached. “We’re going to go do the pony rides. Can you come?” She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked up at her father. “Oops. I’m s’posed to ask first. Daddy, can Leo come with us?”
Carson fist-bumped her. “Good job remembering, kiddo. And of course Leo can come.”
“Can I, Mom?”
Not can we go, but can I go. He was growing in independence and she was glad and sad all at the same time.
“I’ll watch over him,” Carson said. “It’s run by folks in our church and it’s supersafe.”
“Sure,” she said, and instantly the three children ran toward the other side of the fairgrounds, Carson jogging after them, calling for them to wait.
That left her and Finn, standing together. It felt awkward to Kayla, so she looked out across the valley. The sun was low in the sky, just starting to paint the tips of the mountains red. God’s reminder that He lingered with them, even in the dark of night.
“Do you want to ride the Ferris wheel?” Finn asked abruptly. “Over there,” he added, gesturing toward the little midway.
How did she respond to that? Yes, I want to do that because it seems incredibly romantic? No, because I don’t want to get closer right before we go away?
“Scared?” he asked, his eyes twinkling down at her. “I’ll hold your hand.”
That sent a shiver through her. She wanted him to hold her hand, not just now but into the future. He wa
s looking at her funny, and she almost wondered whether he was having the same thought.
But then, as they headed toward it, he kept looking at his watch. Was he bored? Eager to get back to the ranch?
“The line’s kind of long,” she said, giving him an out in case.
“That’ll give us the chance to talk.”
Oh. He wanted to talk. Kayla tried to ignore the tremor in her core.
As soon as they got in line, he turned away from the loud family group in front of them. “Why didn’t you tell me about Mitch?” he asked quietly.
She looked up at him. “I asked myself the same question, when I thought he’d got us trapped for good. I...I should have. But Airborne Rangers are so loyal, and I’d bought into his story.”
Finn’s mouth twisted. “Beneath contempt. All of it.”
“I know. I still can’t believe he maintained that lie for so long. And I feel like a fool for buying into it.”
“You had no way of knowing.” He shook his head. “Those guys...they’re good at concealing what they’re doing. He’ll pay for it. But, Kayla.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Even if he had been a military brother, I would never choose someone else over you.”
Kayla’s throat tightened and she felt the tears glitter as she looked up into Finn’s eyes. He was being sweet; he was being kind.
But she couldn’t quite trust his kindness. “Why’d you push me and Leo away, Finn? That really hurt.”
He nodded, studying her face. “Do you have some time?”
A half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “The line’s moving pretty slow.” The group ahead of them was playing a guessing game now, Mom and Dad obviously trying to keep their young kids occupied. Behind them, a pair of teenagers stood twined together, clearly focused only on each other.
Finn drew in a deep, slow breath. “You know my family died in a car accident.”
She nodded.
“Well, I...I was driving.”
“Oh, Finn.” She stared at his troubled eyes as the implications of that sank in.
No wonder he was so mired in it—tortured, even. How would you recover from something like that? She took his hands and squeezed them. “I’m so sorry. How awful that must’ve been.”
He nodded. “I was officially exonerated, but...” He shook his head slowly, meeting her eyes briefly, then looking away. “I’ve lived ashamed for a long time.”
His dark sadness, the way he drove himself, all of it made more sense now. Of course Finn would beat himself up, even over an accident that wasn’t his fault. He was a protector to the core, and to not be able to protect his family, to have been driving when they were killed... Wow. She put an arm around his waist and squeezed, because she couldn’t find anything sufficient to say.
“Next!” The attendant barked out the words.
Finn helped Kayla climb into the narrow-seated cart, and then turned back and spoke to the attendant in a low voice. The attendant looked at him, looked at Kayla and then shook his head.
Finn moved and reached for his wallet. She couldn’t see what he was doing. Paying the attendant? They hadn’t gotten tickets, but she’d thought rides came with the price of admission.
“Let’s get a move on,” somebody yelled from the line, the voice good-natured.
Finn climbed into the seat beside her and fastened the bar over them, carefully testing it for security.
“Were you giving that guy a hard time?” Kayla asked.
Color climbed Finn’s neck. “You could say that.”
As the Ferris wheel slowly filled up, and their car climbed incrementally higher, Kayla looked out over the fair, the town and the broad plain, sparkling with a few lights from far-flung homes and ranches. Her heart gave a painful squeeze.
She loved this place. She loved the land and the people and the discoveries she’d made here, the strength she’d found.
The trouble was, she loved Finn, too. And to stay here loving him... Well, that would be hard and painful. Not just for her, but for Leo, who had also come to care for the big, quiet soldier.
Most likely she couldn’t stay, but that made her reckless. “Tell me about the accident,” she said. “What happened?”
He took a breath and looked around as the Ferris wheel jolted them to the next level. “You really want to know?”
Something told her that for him to tell it was important, was maybe a key to his healing. If she couldn’t be with him, she could at least do that much for him. Be a true friend. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I want to know.”
He looked down at their interlaced hands. “So I was driving, and we were having a fight. What it was about doesn’t matter now.”
She nodded, sensing that he needed to tell it his own way, at his own pace. The twilight, the small passenger car, the separation from the noise of the fair, made it seem as if they were alone in the world.
“She took Derek out of his car seat.”
“While you were driving?” She stared at him. “What mother would do that?”
“She wanted to get out, wanted me to stop. But it wasn’t safe, because there was no shoulder to the road. So I kept driving. I was yelling at her to buckle him in again, to fasten her own seat belt, but instead, she grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it.”
“And that’s what...” She looked at his square, set jaw, the way he stared unseeingly out across the plain, and knew he was reliving what must’ve been the worst moment of his life.
He cleared his throat. “We went straight into a semitruck bobtail.”
“And they were both killed.” She said the last word steadily, because she sensed that it all needed to come out into the open.
“Instantly.” He hesitated, then met her eyes. “I was buckled in. I came out of it with barely a scratch.”
“Wow.” She’d been holding his hand through the whole recitation, but now she brought her other hand around to grip it, to hold his hand in both of hers. “That must have been so, so awful.”
“I wished I had died. So many times. What kind of a man lets his family be killed while he walks around healthy and whole?”
She hesitated, looking up at his face. Around them, the noise and lights seemed to dim. “I don’t want to speak ill of someone I don’t know, someone who’s dead, but it does sound like she caused the accident.”
He nodded. “That’s what the police report concluded, and I know that in my head. In fact, I’m still angry at her for taking Derek out of his car seat. If he had been buckled in, most likely...” He looked away, his throat working.
“Yeah.” She remembered how she’d felt when Mitch had upset Leo, how she’d worried that the hurting would become physical. That was really what had prompted her to leave. But to have a partner actually cause your child’s death... Her own throat tightened, and she cleared it. “Nothing I can say can make that better, but I am so sorry.”
“It doesn’t make you hate me?” He sounded like he really thought she might.
“Of course not!” To see this big, experienced soldier look so insecure, so torn apart... All she could do was put both arms around him. Not as a romantic thing, but for comfort. Friend comfort. It was a short hug, and then she let him go so she could meet his eyes. “If we were blamed for all the awful things that happened to us, nobody would escape unscathed. Look, I know I’m not to blame for being abused by Mitch. At the same time, I made a bad choice in marrying him. Maybe you made some bad choices, too.” She reached up and ran a finger along his square jaw, feeling the roughness of his whiskers. “You’re human, Finn. Just like everyone else.”
He closed his eyes, nodded slowly and then looked at her. “I’ve started to make my peace with it.”
“The men’s Bible study?”
“That, and the pastor, and some thinking and reading I’ve been doing.”
&n
bsp; “I’m working on making my peace about Mitch, too.” Finn would understand that. He would know that resolving such big issues in your past didn’t happen all at once. It was a process, one that would never be fully completed, not in this world.
She’d barely noticed that the Ferris wheel had filled up and that they were moving fast now. But as they went over the top and sank down, her stomach dropped and quivered. She wasn’t sure if it was the Ferris wheel or the company, but she squeezed Finn’s hand and giggled when it happened again.
He put an arm around her. “You are scared,” he said. “Chicken!”
“I’m not!” she said with mock indignation. “Look at this.” She lifted her arms high in the air.
“Whoa!” He grasped her hands and put them back firmly on the bar in front of them. “Don’t do that to me.”
So she put her head on his shoulder as the ride continued, then slowed and finished. The cars jerked as people exited the Ferris wheel, but when it was their turn, the operator skipped past them.
“Hey, you missed us,” she called back to him, but he didn’t seem to be listening.
Oh, well. She didn’t mind being here with Finn for a little longer. She looked up at him and noticed beads of sweat on his upper lip. Was he the one afraid of the Ferris wheel? Somehow, with his life experiences, she didn’t think so.
Now they were back at the top of the Ferris wheel, and it creaked to a stop. She leaned over the edge and looked down. The whole wheel was empty except for them. “Hey,” she yelled down. “You forgot us!”
“Kayla.”
She jerked around to look at Finn, because there was something strange in his voice.
“Kayla,” he said quietly as he took her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “Kayla, I’m no good at this, but I...I...”
She cocked her head to one side, staring at him. “What? Finn, what is it?”
“It’s not a spot to get down on one knee, and anyway, I can’t do that too well, not with my bad leg. But...” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Opened it and then looked into her eyes. “Kayla, I don’t want you and Leo to leave. I want you to stay, and not just stay as a coworker. I know it’s fast, and I know a lot has been happening in your and Leo’s life, but...”
The Soldier's Redemption Page 17
