A Forever Family

by Jamie Sobrato

  The one thing he’d learned for sure from watching grown-ups was, when you wanted something bad, you were supposed to act like you didn’t really care.

  But then he ruined the whole thing by saying, “Tomorrow? Do you think we can go on a nature walk tomorrow?”

  Aidan looked like he was tasting something gross for a second, and then he smiled again. “Sure, let’s shoot for tomorrow, if your mom says it’s okay.”

  Max stood and ran toward the cabin. He wanted to ask his mom before Aidan changed his mind.

  “Hey, where you going?” Aidan asked, but Max didn’t answer.

  He knew better than to give any grown-up the chance to disappoint him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Only after we’d escaped the house where we’d been held hostage did I understand how weak I’d become physically. I had several unhealed wounds, and a staph infection in my leg was close to killing me just as efficiently as a bullet to the head.

  From Through a Soldier’s Eyes

  by Aidan Caldwell

  EMMY HEARD a knock at the door, and she looked up from her work wondering who it could be. Max was busy coloring pictures for his treasure-hunting book, and it was a Saturday, so no work on the house was happening.

  When she opened the door and saw that it was Aidan, she wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or annoyed.

  “Hey,” she said. “Come on in.”

  “Oh, I was just, um, stopping by to see if Max still wants to go on a nature walk with me.”

  “Yeah! Do you want to see my book first?” Max chimed in without missing a beat.

  Aidan cast another glance at Emmy before entering the cottage. Inside, he looked around at the clutter of two people trying to live in what amounted to a hotel room, and he looked embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This place has been way too small for you two, hasn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “It’s fine. We’ll be moving out soon anyway, so no worries.”

  In spite of the inconvenience and clutter, she’d gotten used to the tight quarters, though she thrilled at the thought of living in the new cabin soon—in a space she’d designed herself, no less. The thought intoxicated her. She’d spent her whole life imagining spaces in which to live, and now, after focusing on designs for other people, she’d finally see her imagination come to life for herself.

  And in a matter of weeks, as soon as the interior work was done.

  Aidan stood behind Max’s chair, bent over examining the treasure-hunting book. “Great work,” he said. “You’re quite the illustrator.”

  “This is where the treasure chest was found, only, I had to draw a house there since our new cabin will be over the burial site,” Max explained.

  This was the first time Aidan had actually entered the cottage since they’d moved in. She observed how he filled up the space, his powerful energy drawing her eyes to him.

  Since the night they’d spent together, she’d been feeling as if her body still hummed with Aidan’s energy. She could hardly sleep at night because of it. Ironically, the stronger the pull she felt toward him, the more she resisted it. She knew it would be far too easy for them both to get lost in the intensity of a relationship now, when the last thing either of them needed was more emotional upheaval.

  For all the reasons she listed to herself countless times, she couldn’t let herself get involved with him. As much as she might desire him, she did not have the emotional reserves to help him heal and still give her son, her business and herself the attention they deserved.

  “Impressive work, little man,” he said to Max, and for the first time Emmy heard affection in his voice.

  She imagined it was difficult for him to accept that Max was her son with Steven, and that was surely why he’d been distant toward the boy. But the way he was looking at Max now, she had a sense that maybe he’d overcome his reservations.

  “What’s this?” he said, looking on the bookshelf at the small-scale models of the cabins she’d designed.

  “Those are models I use to show people what the finished cabins will look like. I take them to trade shows and festivals. I had a booth set up at the Promise Festival, too.”

  “So these are the different kinds of siding?” he asked, picking up a sample board that showed exterior finishes.

  “Yes. They’re all chosen to complement the natural landscapes they might be placed in.”

  “Since your designs are prefab, are you going to sell them on the Internet, too?”

  “I’ve got a Web site set up, but I haven’t had any orders from it yet.”

  Max was listening to their exchange. When there was a pause in the conversation, he said, “Are you going to live in Grandpa’s cabin forever?”

  Emmy watched the way Max was looking at Aidan, all wide-eyed and dreamy, and she felt sick to her stomach. He was getting attached to Aidan, even though they had barely interacted.

  “No, just until I finish my book.”

  “When are you going to finish it?” Max asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe by the end of the summer.”

  “When is that?”

  Aidan shrugged. “Another month or two? It’s hard to know when a book is done, and this is the first one I’ve ever written.”

  “We’re writing our first books at the same time,” Max said, thrilled at the idea.

  “Looks like you’re a much more efficient writer than I am,” Aidan said.

  “Can we go now?” Max said, dropping the subject.

  “Sure, we’d better get out there on our walk before the day heats up too much.”

  “Thank you for taking him,” Emmy said, as they headed for the door.

  She watched them leave, and she felt old pangs of desire for Aidan mingled with fear, and dread and something new—pangs for Max to know a man in his life who would be steady and true, a man who’d always be there when he needed him.

  That man was not Aidan, she knew, but some little part of her wished it could be, wished she could erase their history and make them over all anew.

  “DON’T YOU EVER want to go swimming?” Max asked Aidan.

  They’d been walking around the edge of the lake for a really long time, and Max felt hot and tired from the sun beating down on them. He wanted more than anything to jump in the water and cool off.

  “I don’t have any trunks with me. Why don’t you jump in?”

  Max didn’t need to be told twice. He wore his swim trunks all the time now, so all he had to do was pull off his shoes and socks and T-shirt, and he was ready to swim. He undressed and took a running leap into the water. It felt so good, he couldn’t help but squeal when the cold water covered his body.

  Down below, his feet squished in the mud at the bottom of the lake. It felt gross, but kind of neat, too. Sometimes in the lake he was sure he could feel a fish brushing past his legs.

  He looked back at the beach, where Aidan was sitting now. He was smiling, as if he liked watching Max play or something.

  It made Max think of his dad and how he looked at him, which Max didn’t like to think about too much. He flung himself forward in the water and practiced his doggie paddle, first toward the middle of the lake, then toward the shore until his knees were brushing the bottom. Out of breath, he stood and walked across the beach to where Aidan sat.

  “You’re a good swimmer,” the man said.

  “Yeah, I practice every day. My dad taught me how.”

  “Do you miss your dad?”

  Max thought this was a dumb question, so he didn’t say anything.

  “Sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool.”

  Max sat on the ground throwing rocks into the water for a few minutes. Then he said, “My dad’s in Tibet.”

  “Wow. Do you know where that is?”

  Max nodded. “I have a map, and I look on Google Earth, too.”

  “You must be pretty tech-savvy.”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, you must be good at using
the computer.”

  “Yeah, when my mom lets me anyway. She says the computer is bad for my brain.”

  Aidan laughed, and Max looked at him out of the corner of his eye. He liked sitting here talking to him. He wished they could do it more.

  “Hey, I know sometimes it’s nice to have a guy around to do things with, so, you know, whenever you want to go on a nature walk, or your mom’s too busy to take you swimming, or whatever, you can come knock on my door.”

  “I thought you had to finish your book.”

  Aidan nodded. “I do, but I become a pretty dull person when I don’t take a break and get outside sometimes.”

  “My book’s almost finished,” Max said. “You can read the whole thing when it’s done.”

  “I’d really like that,” Aidan said, and he sounded like he meant it.

  Max looked in the man’s eyes to see if he was kidding him the way grown-ups liked to do. But he looked serious.

  And this made Max feel happy, the same way jumping in the lake made him happy, with no sad feelings mixed in to mess things up.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Soldiers were never meant to be peacekeepers. We train for war. We are trained to disrupt the peace, not keep it, and while I found myself often conflicted by my purpose as a soldier, I couldn’t deny reality. As I rolled through Darfur on any given day amid increasing chaos, the impossibility of our situation became more and more clear.

  From Through a Soldier’s Eyes

  by Aidan Caldwell

  EMMY WOKE in the middle of the night with her heart pounding. She blinked into the darkness and tried to orient herself. Her face was damp with sweat, and the room seemed eerily quiet except for the low hum of the fan on the dresser.

  She couldn’t hear Max’s noisy breathing. Only after she jumped up from her bed to check for him on the sofa did she remember that he’d gone for another sleepover at Jordan’s house.

  She sighed and sank onto the edge of the empty sofa as she stared out the window into the moonlit yard.

  Her dream, the reason she’d woken, came back to her. Or, rather, her nightmare, in which she’d been forced to move back to San Francisco a failure, bankrupt and penniless. The worst part of it had been that she’d lost Max. He’d gone to Tibet to live with his father, because she could no longer afford to support him.

  No need to look very deep to figure out the meaning of that one. Financial stress had been plaguing her constantly lately.

  That, and the general fear of failing. She hadn’t counted on how terrifying it would be to strike out on her own, with her own business, and the closer her bank account got to a zero balance, the tenser she became.

  She wasn’t even sure if she was going to be able to swing the tuition at Max’s school in the fall at this rate. If she didn’t get a few more clients soon, she was going to have to consider some kind of day job to keep her solvent until her business solidly took off.

  If her business ever took off.

  She hadn’t allowed herself to consider the possibility of failure before. Which had been naive.

  Aidan’s presence right next door amplified that fear for her. His words upon their breakup had rung a little too true for her years ago, and she’d never forgotten them. Having him back in her life at this vulnerable time served as a constant reminder of his painfully accurate assessment of her character.

  Spoiled little princess. Impulsive, foolish brat.

  Maybe he hadn’t slung the accusations in that order, or even used those exact words, but his meaning had been all too clear. He didn’t believe she could stand on her own two feet, and maybe he’d been right.

  Emmy went to the sink and got a glass of water, then gulped it. She didn’t have bad dreams often, and thanks to this one, she felt wide awake. The night was a bit warm, more humid than usual, and the house had never fully cooled off.

  She was sweating, partly from her nightmare and partly from the warm air in the cottage, so she tugged off her tank top and stood in front of the fan in nothing but her boxer shorts, trying to cool off.

  Her shoulders were stiff, her entire body tense, and as she became aware of the tension, she also began to realize how little she’d been taking care of herself since she moved to Promise. She had let her yoga practice slide, stopped seeing her therapist, stopped exercising regularly, stopped thinking about caring for herself at all, really. Other than her awareness of the need for a sex life, which she wasn’t so sure qualified as caring for herself at all, given the sort of emotional entanglement sex inevitably brought with it.

  She had tried her best to put the night with Aidan out of her mind, but it lurked in a dark corner, always halfpresent, reminding her that she still, against all odds, wanted him, at least physically.

  And now here she was alone again, thinking about Aidan.

  It only went to show how incapable she was of choosing healthy relationships.

  And wasn’t this relocation supposed to be about fresh starts, about taking care of Max and herself, giving them a happy, healthy life together?

  If that was her goal, then she had to stop stressing out about her financial situation and start taking steps every day to make sure their lives were happy and healthy. She’d done okay for Max, but she hadn’t done well for herself.

  She made a mental vow to change that immediately.

  She longed to be outside, away from the stifling air in the cottage, and then she thought of taking a walk to the lake now. That was a healthy, self-caring thing to do, so she would do it.

  She dressed in a pair of jeans and a tank top, put on her running shoes and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Then she stepped out into the night and took a deep breath of fresh air scented by pine needles and damp earth.

  Immediately, she felt a little better. She did a few stretches to get the tension out of her body, then spotted the glow of a computer monitor on in Aidan’s bedroom.

  He was awake and writing at this time of night?

  She had the sudden urge to tap on his door and say hello. That they were both in this quiet place in the redwoods, awake in the middle of the night, seemed like a bond they shared. Which was ridiculous.

  On second thought, she knew exactly why she wanted to knock. Her desires were terribly predictable that way.

  Instead, she took off down the path toward the lake, but she hadn’t made it five feet before her foot made contact with something hard and solid, and she went falling forward, landing painfully on her hands and knees. She muttered a string of curses as she picked herself up.

  Further inspection revealed a large rock Max had rolled all the way from the lakeshore to the cottage. But he’d apparently run out of steam here in the middle of the path and had failed to place the rock someplace safe and out of the way.

  No serious harm done, she dusted off her hands and knees and set the rock aside, then headed for the lake.

  Her walk was like a meditation, the quiet of the woods lulling her into a much-needed sense of peacefulness. Once she reached the water, she sat beside it to listen to its quiet lapping against the shore.

  She didn’t hear anyone approaching her from behind, so when a voice said, “Hey,” she started and gave a yelp.

  Emmy turned to find Aidan standing behind her. He took a seat next to her on the sand.

  “Nice night, huh?”

  “Yeah. I woke up hot and stuffy, so I thought I’d get some fresh air.”

  “I heard you taking a nose dive on the path.”

  “Oh.”

  Damned open windows kept her from being able to sneeze without Aidan knowing about it.

  She was painfully aware of his physical closeness now, and she suspected he knew exactly what he was doing in following her out here and sitting next to her—only inches away.

  She’d already demonstrated how incapable she still was of resisting him when he was this close.

  “Max is gone for the night?”

  “To his friend’s house again.”

  “Hmm,”
he said, and it was the most loaded nonword she’d ever heard spoken.

  If she had even an ounce of self-protective instincts, she’d have gotten up and left at that moment. Instead, her lower abdomen—and lower still—was turning all liquid and warm, and the sight of Aidan’s muscular arm so close was giving her the desperate need to reach out and touch him.

  She didn’t. At least she could control herself that much.

  “I like that kid, you know?”

  “You’re both writers.”

  Aidan laughed. “It must be amazing, having a kid of your own.”

  “It is,” she said quietly, but she had a feeling the conversation wasn’t really about Max.

  It was about Aidan trying to extend himself, trying to say he wanted to be a part of her life.

  She willed herself to get up and walk away before things got any more complicated. But when she started to move, he reached out and placed a hand on the small of her back.

  “Stay for a minute,” he said. “I just want to sit here with you.”

  That mere touch undid the last of her defenses. Instead of standing up, she moved closer, against him, onto his lap. She straddled his legs and grasped his shoulders and kissed him with all the hunger that had been building inside her for years.

  Aidan didn’t need any encouragement. In a matter of seconds they were undressing, rolling on the sand together, their limbs and desires all tangled up until it was impossible to tell which belonged to whom.

  But the sand was getting everywhere, and the rocks and pebbles mixed into it poked at them. Aidan stopped and made a mat for them with their clothes, then he pulled her onto it and turned her around.

  He kissed her neck, pressing himself against her backside, massaging her breasts, and the cool night air did little to cool their desire.

  Then he bent her over, and when she thought she couldn’t take another second of waiting, he entered her from behind, not bothering to be gentle. It didn’t matter because she was already slick with desire. He was just as crazy with need as she was—a need as intense as any she’d ever felt…like starvation, or thirst, or loneliness.