Heroes In Uniform (161 page)

Grif knew that Pulaski’s first wife and their son had been seriously injured in a house fire on base. He’d been about six at the time, and remembered the firetrucks and ambulances. Both Mrs. Pulaski and Will died of their injuries after agonizing weeks.

“You’ve got a lot of your mother in you.”

An answer was clearly expected; Grif gave his carefully. “I’ve always been told I resemble my father.”

“You look like him. But hasn’t anybody ever told you looks aren’t everything.”

At The Heart’s Command: Chapter Eleven

“Ah, baseball in Wyoming,” said the mother of one of Ben’s teammates from three rows behind them on the bleachers at Veterans Park. Her voice was muffled by a scarf wrapped around her face against the raw wind.

“At least we didn’t have to shovel the field,” remarked another. “And thank heavens it’s the last inning.”

From beside her, sharing two woolen blankets under them and a comforter over them, Grif chuckled.

“Grif, you don’t have to stay,” Ellyn said. “Ben would understand if you’re not here after the game.”

He faced her. “Would he?”

No, but as it was,
she
didn’t understand, and at least Grif leaving would remove the constant reminder of that, like a burr under her saddle. Which made her a horribly selfish mother.

“You know he’s thrilled you’re here. I just don’t want you to get sick again.”

Heat glittered his gray eyes to silver. “That wasn’t all bad.”

There – that was exactly what she didn’t understand.

For these past ten days, he would make comments like that and then just as abruptly he’d withdraw behind his wall so completely she wondered if he might die from lack of oxygen. He would give her looks like the way he was looking at her now, and then he’d only worked on the path up the ridge when she was gone or when the kids were around, too.

Oh, she knew he would leave. That had been clear from the start. After all, the
Iron Warrior’s
true love was the army. And it could beckon any time now.

But dammit, she wasn’t going to passively wait for him to announce his departure date.

“So, Grif, when is your leave up?” Not subtle, but it did the job.

For a moment she thought he didn’t hear her, or was going to pretend he didn’t. Then he slowly turned his head. When he still didn’t answer, she pushed a little harder. “When do you leave?”

“I don’t.”

She gaped at him. “You ... you don’t?”

“I’m staying when my leave’s up.”

“But ... how?”

“I’m taking over command at Fort Piney.”

“Piney?”

“Not so loud. They made it official this week, but I’d rather the army makes the announcement,” he said with a touch of wry humor.

“I don’t understand. It’s such a small post.” His brow started to rise, and she amended that. “It’s not small to us – Piney’s the center for a lot of activity around here, After ranching, it’s a big part of our economy. So a new commander’s a big deal to us, but it
is
a small post. I wouldn’t think there’ll be potential for a man with your ambitions at a place like Piney.”

Grif seemed suddenly intent on the field, even though the only action was a player clad in multi-layers moving toward the plate.

“Depends on what those ambitions are.”

The man made no sense. He didn’t believe in a future for them, but he was going to tie himself to a go-nowhere job? Before she could digest that, he was adding words that she had no trouble understanding.

“Small post or not, it’s going to keep me busy. Very busy. Once I report, it won’t be the sort of regular hours I had most of the time you knew me in Washington. There’ll be a lot of demands on my time.”

“Okay, Grif. You’ve always made it clear that the Army comes first. That you want – ”

“
Want
? What I want has nothing to do with it.”

Stunned at the vehemence of words spoken so low she barely heard them, it took her an extra beat to recognize them for what they were – a crack in his wall. “What does it have to do with, then?”

“Reality. The way things are. I’ve seen ...”

She prompted, “You’ve seen what, Grif?”

He shook his head. “None of this makes any diff – ”

“You’ve seen what, Grif? I think I deserve at least that much, don’t you?”

She saw that landed a blow. One he didn’t try to shake off. “I’ve seen what happens when a man like me tries to mix with a woman like you.”

She froze, Dale’s voice overlapping Grif’s.

A woman like you just doesn’t understand that a man needs more in his life than this. He needs excitement, variety!

“A woman like me,” she echoed.

“Yeah, a woman like you.” Something had stripped Grif’s voice of its usual patience. “A woman who should have the kind of life we all dream about – not worrying about having enough for your kids, not trying to make a rattletrap last another five years, not making do in a house that isn’t your home – ”

“You don’t consider Ridge House a home?”

“You could make a home out of a shoebox. But you deserve better. You deserve a place that’s yours for good. A place where you and the kids can put down roots and never worry about leaving.” His voice dropped again. “You deserve the best.”

Ellyn scrambled to try to sort this all out. Remembering. Putting together phrases, impressions. Coming back to the same conclusion. He considered
a woman like her
a compliment, not a jibe.

I’ve seen what happens when a man like me tries to mix with a woman like you.
That’s what he’d said, so if he considered
a woman like her
to be a compliment, what could the rest of it mean?

“Grif.” She took hold of his arm with both her gloved hands, only then realizing that he’d stood, as had everyone else in the bleachers. The game was over. Blankets were being folded, stiff limbs shaken out. “What did you mean, a man like you?”

Faint surprise crossed his eyes for a flash before their gray turned an impenetrable leaden shade. His voice crisp and distant, he answered as if her question didn’t interest him. “Ellyn, you know what kind of man I am.”

She thought she did, but did
he
?

* * *

“I thought it went well,” Kendra volunteered as they left the school after a program on journalism for Meg’s class.

Ellyn looked at her from the corner of her eye. “You were nervous. I can’t believe it – a former network TV reporter, and you were nervous talking to a class of fourth-graders!”

“Hey, I didn’t want to embarrass Meg.”

“No, that’s a mother’s job,” Ellyn said, getting into the passenger seat of Kendra’s car for the return to the
Banner
.

“You must not have done so bad, I saw her give you a hug – in public no less.”

“I know. It’s so nice to have a break from the world-weary twenty-seven-year-old who’d been living in my house. If this recent bout was a preview of her as a teenager, I think a convent might be the only answer.”

“For her or you?”

“Me!” They both laughed, then Ellyn turned serious. “At the start I thought Ben missed Dale more. But his sadness seems to be easing – Grif’s helped. But Meg ... Meg still has a lot of anger about losing her father. I suppose I should be glad she’s letting some of it out instead of holding it all in. I know how bad that can be for a kid.”

“Is that what you did?”

Ellyn looked at her friend, surprised. So much of this past year-plus of living close had been sharing the daily travails of kids, work and house. That had started to change when Daniel arrived, and Kendra began opening up more, including to her friends. But sometimes this new aspect to their friendship caught Ellyn unprepared.

“Yes, it is. That’s why I hope letting it out helps Meg.”

“And now? How about holding in what’s going on with you and Grif?”

“Grif? What makes you think something’s going on?”

“Maybe,” she suggested, “because your voice just visited both ends of an octave. Maybe because you and Grif spend so much energy trying to convince yourselves and the world that nothing’s changed between the two of you that I’m amazed you don’t both fall over in a heap like people at the end of a marathon. Maybe because I saw you two kissing, Ellyn.”

“That must have been some time ago. Grif hasn’t kissed me in weeks,” she said with remarkable calm.

“So that’s why he’s so cranky.”

To her own amazement, Ellyn laughed a little.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kendra asked.

“Why does it have to be with him?”

“Because I know my cousin. And because he clearly has been nuts about you ever since we were kids. Maybe the amazing thing is that he let down his guard to act on it at all, after he’d spent so long pretending it didn’t exist. Unless... Of course!” Kendra’s face, always beautiful, became almost beatific with the beaming smile spread across it.

“Of course what?”

“He had his defense against what he feels for you all nicely fortified during those years in Washington. But then you two were apart for more than a year, and the old friendship facade got a little porous. It couldn’t hold up against the assault of seeing you so suddenly and so often. Now he’s back there trying to shore the thing up, Trembling in his boots,” Kendra concluded happily. “So, what do you think?”

“You mean other than the fact that you make me sound like a cross between a virus and an invading army? I think this was the result of a complicated set of circumstances, not because Grif really wanted – ”

“You know, one thing I’ve learned from getting together with Daniel is that sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.” Kendra planted her zinger as they walked into the building where Ellyn would have no chance to respond, “Sometimes we do things not for all the complex reasons we tell ourselves we did it, but because, in the end, it’s what we wanted.”

* * *

Ellyn got two surprises at work the next day. She could have done without both.

The first was literally running into Grif as he and Kendra headed toward the main door to go out to lunch.

She hadn’t known that’s where they were headed. She hadn’t even known he was in the building when she walked out of her office door and collided with the hard, male body. It was frightening how quickly her body recognized it as
Grif
’s hard, male body. Their tangle was a near duplicate of when they’d been doing dishes at her house. Except now, they both knew what it felt like when such an alignment of hips and chest, such an interlocking of arms and legs, was anything but an accident. And the knowing was like a crackle of electrical charging through her nerve-endings.

The second was when Larry came bustling up, with her and Grif no longer touching and looking anywhere but at each other, while Kendra barely stifled laughter.

“Hey, Grif! Great news about you being named CO at Fort Piney! What a story! I’ll go through channels, but I’m going to want a nice long interview.” Larry looked around, apparently reading some of the sudden tension. “It’s not a secret, is it?”

Grif gave her a hard look, and Ellyn returned it.
Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell a soul.
Even now she wasn’t saying anything, leaving Grif room to deny it if he chose.

“Not anymore,” he said sourly.

“Grif’s been away so long,” Kendra interposed, “he’s forgotten how anyone’s business is everyone’s business in Far Hills.”

“Especially when you work for the newspaper,” Larry added.

“Or when the army has an inveterate gossip like Helen Solsong working in its commissary.” Kendra frowned significantly at Grif.

“I’ve got to say,” Larry was going on, “I won’t be sorry to see Lieutenant Colonel Reardon going, especially being replaced by somebody like you. Somebody who did a lot of his growing up around here – a native!”

“Having family and ties around here won’t change any orders I get,” Grif said bluntly. “Orders are orders in the Army.”

Ellyn turned toward him. He shifted so Larry Orrin blocked her line of sight, as Larry concluded, “I don’t mind the orders – I just want to know about ‘em.”

* * *

Ellyn answered the knock at the back door at ten o’clock Friday night already knowing it was Grif.

She’d had no reason to expect him to come. She’d only had hope.

The kids were at separate overnights, and he reported to duty Monday as CO at Fort Piney. If they were going to sort out what had been happening – and not happening these past weeks – this seemed a good time to try.

When she opened the door, the first thing he said was, “I shouldn’t have come.”

The urge to soothe and the urge to rant hit her simultaneously. She compromised. She didn’t slam the door on him. “Then why did you?”

“Because I owe you an apology.”

“Fine. Apologize.”

For the first time, he seemed to take in her mood. And then he gave a half smile. “Don’t rush me. I’m new at this.”

She fought down her responding smile. “Maybe we should sit down.”

She led him into the living room, where he sat beside her on the couch.

“I shouldn’t have doubted that you’d keep your word about not telling anyone about my assignment to Fort Piney, Ellyn. I know you better than that.”

She looked up as he finished. His direct gray eyes were on her. He
did
know her. All of her. In ways no one else did or could. The strengths and the weaknesses. The successes and failures. And he accepted all that in her. A strangely fierce satisfaction swept across her like a fine mist of heat. It took another instant to realize it was the recognition that
she
accepted all that in herself.

She supposed the new Ellyn was largely a product of that acceptance. But it had taken the mirror of Grif’s eyes to see it.

“Yes,” she said with deliberation. “You know me better than anyone else.”

“So you have a right to wonder why I was such an ass.” He grimaced. “Oh, hell. I think I just wanted to take it out on you after running into you, holding you like that and feeling ...”

“I suppose we’re both still feeling our way with this ... this.” She spread her hands to encompass both of them. “These are new feelings for us – ”