Lakeside Cottage (29 page)

She glanced at JD and was completely taken aback by the expression on his face. Instead of being impressed by the sight, he looked…guilty.

I’m the world’s worst journalist, she thought.

The news crew seemed to be doing another take on their taping, this time with the reporter talking into the camera as she strolled along the railing. Aaron and Callie, along with a trail of other passengers, found it all fascinating.

Then, as she tried to figure out a way to ask JD some hard questions, someone screamed. At first, Kate thought
it was the cry of a seagull, but then she recognized a woman’s frightened voice.

The news crew was drawn to a commotion at the rear. Kate grabbed JD’s arm. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. We’ll be getting to the dock any minute. Let’s go back to the car.”

“Don’t you want to check it out?”

“Couldn’t be less interested.” He headed for the stairway that led down to the car deck.

“Well,” said Kate under her breath, “speak for yourself.” She broke away and joined the crowd, grabbing Aaron by the hand. “Hold on there,” she said. “Where’s Callie?”

“I dunno.” Aaron climbed up on a green-painted bench to get a better look. “Check it out, Mom. This guy’s sick or something.”

She stepped up next to Aaron. The portly businessman she’d noticed earlier lay on the deck, his face ashen. He didn’t appear to be breathing.

Kate yelled to JD at the same moment as an announcement over the ferry’s PA system, requesting the assistance of a doctor. JD was already at the stairway when she called to him. He didn’t hesitate to return, but the look on his face was one of pure reluctance.

It was Callie who carved a path for him through the crowd. “Move,” she ordered in a voice that unexpectedly rang with authority. “This guy’s a paramedic.”

That proved to be the magic word. The crowd, with the exception of an aggressive cameraman, melted away, leaving a circle around the fallen man.

“What happened?” JD asked, breaking into action. “Did anybody see what happened?” As he spoke, he took off his dark glasses and dropped to his knees. It was a persona Kate had glimpsed before, the night of
Callie’s emergency—confident, sure of himself and in control of the situation. She found it both thrilling and comforting at once.

“Is there a defibrillator on this boat?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he undid the man’s tie and shirt, baring a barrel-shaped chest sprinkled with salt-and-pepper hair.

“He just collapsed,” said one of the tattooed teenagers. “He was on his phone, and then he keeled over.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s by himself.”

Aaron stood on tiptoe and craned his neck. Kate grabbed his hand but didn’t take her eyes off JD. No one did. The whole boat, including the TV news crew, was spellbound. She had never seen skin quite that shade before. It was the color of cold ash.

“Is the guy dead?” Aaron asked.

“JD’s working on him,” she said.

The answer on the defibrillator came back negative. JD had probably expected that. He was already at work administering CPR. A crew member showed up with a big red box. JD pulled a stethoscope from it and went back to work.

A peculiar energy zipped through the crowd as the emergency unfolded. There was a sense of breath-held tension and a collective spirit that seemed to be willing JD to save the man. Several dozen cell phones were already out as bystanders called 911. The
Eyewitness News
cameras kept rolling. JD didn’t look up, didn’t break his concentration as he kept working.

Kate heard the ferry’s engines kick in as the boat sped up. Even before it reached the dock, she could see the lights of emergency vehicles flashing onshore. Fortunately for the victim, there was a fully equipped fire
station located right at Colman dock, where the ferry would pull in.

JD didn’t let up, not for a single second. Kate noticed something peculiar about the observers gathered around. Incredibly, some of the onlookers took pictures. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was in unbelievably poor taste. What was wrong with these people?

She kept hold of Aaron’s hand. She didn’t see where Callie had gone, though she doubted the girl would stray far from the action. As the ferry arrived, announcements blared over the PA system. Drivers and passengers were requested to keep all stairways and exits clear. Docking the boat seemed to take forever.

By the time a team of EMTs arrived, mass hysteria had taken hold. Covered in sweat, his chest heaving, JD stepped back to let the EMTs take over while he filled them in on what had happened. There was too much noise to hear the words exchanged. But the outcome was clear when two of the rescue workers got to work strapping the man to a backboard.

The third rescue worker exchanged a few more words with JD, then shook his hand. With the paddles ready, the emergency crew whisked the man to the waiting freight elevator.

One of the news-crew cameras went along with them. Kate expected the crowd and the rest of the crew to follow. Instead, the strangest thing happened.

JD got mobbed.

That was the only way she could think of it. People pressed in on him, clamoring for attention; cameras were aimed at him from all directions. Shouts of “Sergeant Harris” filled the air. He seemed to be drowning in a sea of people.

“What’s going on?” Aaron tugged at her hand.

She didn’t reply, but stepped down from the bench and tried to get to JD. The crush of the crowd was intimidating. She was not the type to go crashing through a mob. She circled the mass of people, looking for a way in. She nearly tripped over the news crew’s power cords. She could hear the reporter saying: “…live breaking news from the MV
Wenatchee.
Just moments ago, Sergeant Jordan Donovan Harris stepped in to save yet another life…”

Thoroughly confused, Kate called out to JD but she doubted he could hear her. She passed the woman with the stroller and all the kids, who said, “You know, I thought I recognized him. He looks totally different as a civilian.”

Kate felt as though she was losing her mind. Why was everyone calling him Sergeant Harris, as if he was— She froze, still clutching Aaron’s hand.

Sergeant Harris. Sergeant Jordan Donovan Harris.

Kate felt herself go numb, as if someone had given her a shot of Novocain.

What if he wasn’t the person she thought he was? She had accepted without question that he was a friend of the Schroeders. That he was on hiatus from his job as EMT on the East Coast and that he intended to go to medical school. She had not doubted any of his claims, not for a single moment.

“Mom, are we going back to the car or what?” Aaron asked.

Callie showed up from somewhere. In one glance, Kate understood that the girl knew exactly what was going on.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he somehow managed to break free. The reporter trotted along beside him, peppering him with questions. Onlookers thrust
pens and scraps of paper at him, begging for autographs. He ignored the requests, shaking them off. The man who walked toward Kate, his eyes dark with determination and anger, looked exactly like JD. But everything was different now. He wasn’t JD. He had never been JD.

What do you know? she thought, still insulated by the numbness of shock. I’ve been sleeping with America’s hero. She’d been with him all summer long as he hid in plain sight. She’d never questioned his skills, not just as a paramedic, but his knowledge of orienteering, engineering, his ability to speak perfect French. All top-level Special Forces medics had to have those skills, but she had simply accepted him at face value.

Now she found herself in a surreal situation. The man walking toward her was Sergeant Jordan Donovan Harris, hero to a nation, complete stranger to Kate.

O
f all the luck, JD thought in disgust as he headed down to the car deck, an unwilling Pied Piper followed by an instant fan club. Short of diving over the side, there was no way to elude the crowd or the probing lens of the camera. They followed him en masse to Kate’s Jeep. A barrage of shouted questions rained down on him. Even after the four of them reached the Jeep and got in, people wouldn’t leave them alone.

“Lock the doors,” he ordered Kate.

“What—”

“Just lock the damn doors,” he repeated.

She wasn’t quick enough. Somebody opened the rear door beside Aaron.

“Sergeant Harris,” someone yelled.

He twisted around and slammed the door shut. This time, Kate hit the lock button. The dog was in a frenzy, barking his head off at the curiosity seekers. It was excruciating, sitting there trapped like a fish in a bowl, waiting for the ferry to empty out while people swarmed the vehicle.

When the line of cars finally started to move, Kate glared straight ahead at the exit ramp and said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Even the ferry workers, who were supposed to be directing traffic, waved wildly at the Jeep as it passed.

“That’s why,” he said grimly.

“It’s so cool that you’re him,” Aaron said. “We read an article about him—about you—in
Weekly Reader.
” He bounced up and down in his seat.

Callie rested a hand on his shoulder. “Chill, kid, okay? Put on your seat belt.”

Aaron stopped bouncing. “Yeah, whatever,” he said, imitating Callie’s bored tone.

“Someone will probably try to follow you,” he said to Kate. “You might want to take an indirect route.”

“This is crazy.”

He didn’t reply.

“These people are crazy,” she added. “I’m not going to be intimidated by them.”

Great, he thought. Early on, he used to feel that way—defiant, unwilling to compromise his personal liberty. It hadn’t taken long to discover the reality, though. Defiance never worked with a mob.

As they left the ferry and headed up an elevated ramp, a black SUV closed in on them.

“Oh, Lord,” Kate said, checking the rearview mirror, “I take that back. I
am
intimidated.”

“I’m sorry about this, Kate.”

“I’ll just bet you are,” she murmured.

He understood her anger, her sense of betrayal. He would do his best to explain, but his situation was so bizarre, he wasn’t sure he could make her understand.

“Hey, JD,” Aaron said. “Do I still call you JD?”

“Sure,” he said. “That’s what my friends have always called me.”

“So that guy tried to blow up the President, right?” Aaron said. “I can’t believe you were there. What happened to the guy, huh? Was he a terrorist? Did you blow him away?”

“He wasn’t…no. He was a confused, stupid guy who wanted attention.”

“And instead, you stopped him,” Aaron said. “That’s cool.”

Inevitably, Kate noticed Callie’s uncharacteristic silence. She flicked a glance in the rearview mirror. “Did you know about this?”

“Yes,” Callie said in a quiet, confessional voice. She was obviously relieved to get it off her chest.

Kate’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You told her and not me?” she asked JD.

“I figured it out on my own,” Callie said in exasperation. “Jeez.”

“It would have been totally cool if I’d known,” Aaron said. “You should have told us.”

JD felt a familiar creeping exhaustion, the dull surrender that had driven him underground and made him want to lose himself in anonymity. He thought of a dozen things to say, none of them adequate, so he said nothing. The dispute stayed open, hanging over them like a thundercloud as Kate drove across the twisted arch of the West Seattle Bridge and down into a neighborhood of cozy, pastel-painted houses and streets lined with too many parked cars.

He checked the side-view mirror out the window. He was fairly sure they hadn’t been tailed, but that hardly
mattered. Kate’s address could be traced in a matter of minutes by anyone who had jotted down the tag number of the Jeep.

Everything had shifted by the time Kate turned down a quiet, bluff-top cul-de-sac lined with big-leaf maples. This was Callie’s homecoming, JD reminded himself. Regardless of what had happened on the ferry, they had to shift gears and put Callie first. He hated that his notoriety had taken the focus off of her, but fame had a nasty way of doing that. Kate seemed as determined as he to regroup. Without even having to discuss the matter, they put aside the drama on the ferry and shared a common goal—to make Callie feel good about her new foster home.

As soon as he saw Kate’s house, JD knew he needn’t have worried. Just like the lakeside cottage, this house resembled something out of a storybook, a neat clapboard bungalow with a white picket fence and latticework up the sides entwined with roses. It was one of four houses on the cul-de-sac. The others were equally charming, and across the way, a neighbor came out and waved, welcoming Kate home.

Callie took it all in with shining eyes, this new world that was to be hers. There was such needy hunger in her gaze that JD wanted to caution her not to get too caught up in all this. He knew something about the unattainable, the futility of hope and the way it hardened into disappointment. But he knew his life experience would fall on deaf ears when Aaron grabbed Callie’s hand and ran to the house, eager to show Callie his world.

“Hurry up, Mom,” he said. The dog jumped up and scratched at the door.

Kate unlocked the house and let Aaron burst inside, bringing Callie along with him. Filled with nervous energy, Kate went around opening windows to let in the late-summer breeze, passing through rooms filled with framed family pictures, books, all the comforts of a well-kept house. “Do you think Callie will like it here?” She caught the look on his face. “What?”

“You live in a Disney movie, Kate. What’s not to like?”

“He’s right,” Callie said, coming into the room.

JD winced, wishing she hadn’t overheard.

She didn’t seem offended, though. At the moment, she simply looked wide-eyed and full of hope. He felt a wave of admiration for this kid. Even after all she’d been through, she held on to hope.

“It’s great,” Callie said. “Totally fly.”

“Really? It’s fly?” asked Kate. Her face lit up, and JD felt a physical pang of love.

“Totally.” Callie shuffled her feet. Suddenly she looked her age, young and awkward. “Um, I’ve been meaning to tell you guys something. Now that you’re here together, I feel like I should speak up.”

Kate’s smile faded to worry. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure. That’s the thing. See, what happened this summer, my getting sick and all, well, at first it was like the disaster of the century. I figured my life was pretty much over, that everything was going to basically suck from here on out.”

“Callie—” Kate stepped forward but then stopped as though afraid of what would come next. JD wanted to reassure her, but he knew Callie’s next words would do that.

“Anyway,” she said, “it didn’t turn out that way at all.
I won’t kid you and say I’m glad I got sick. The truth is, I hate having this disease. I hate having to monitor myself, and eat on a stupid schedule. I hate not having sugar and not being able to eat like a regular kid. I hate aerobic exercise and lifting.” She paused, because her voice cracked. A pained expression shadowed her face as she swallowed. “But here’s the thing. If all that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have you.”

JD knew how hard it was for her to say these things. And how necessary. He suspected Kate and Aaron had given her the same things they’d given him—the sense of what it was like to be a member of a family and a vision that life could be better.

Callie took a deep, unsteady breath. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say. That, and…thank you. And don’t get all teary-eyed on me, or it’ll just be weird.”

“Deal with it, then,” Kate said, teary-eyed as she pulled her into a hug. “Ah, Callie. Remember what we talked about? It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

Though meant for the girl, the words struck JD hard. Yes, he thought.
Yes.

Aaron, who had been watching from the doorway, looked a little queasy. “Can we go outside?” he asked.

“I’ll go with you in a sec.” Callie stood back and dried her face. She hugged JD, though they both felt a little ill at ease. “My medical bills were paid by your foundation, weren’t they?”

“That’s what it’s for.” He expected nothing in return from her, but she gave it anyway. A look of gratitude came from her heart, springing up like a flower, lighting her face.

“It doesn’t matter to me, all that stuff about you being America’s hero. You’re my hero.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, then stepped back. “And now I’d better
go hang out with Aaron before someone else goes into a diabetic coma from all this sweetness.”

Kate burst into soggy laughter and reached for a Kleenex. After Callie and Aaron were gone, she said, “You have a foundation.”

“Yes.”

“Darn it, JD, don’t you understand that I won’t tolerate this anymore? I don’t want any more evasive one-word replies from you.”

“That wasn’t evasive. It was straightforward. I said yes, I have a foundation.”

“Now you’re being a jerk, willfully.”

“What do you want from me?” he demanded.

“Answers,” she said. “Explanations. Oh, here’s a concept. How about the truth? Or don’t I deserve that?”

“What you deserve, Kate, is so much more than I can give you.” The admission had the bitter taste of truth. There was a cost to the way he had grown up, raising himself without a safety net, and this was it. He simply did not know how to be what a woman like Kate needed, what she deserved.

“Why on earth would you say something like that?”

“Because it’s true. I don’t know how to be anything but a medic. If you’re looking for husband material, you won’t find it here.” The words came out on a wave of panic and uncertainty. He could see the truth hit her like a blow. God, she didn’t get it. How could he explain that he had no idea how a man turned himself into a husband, a father? That he would rather walk away now than hurt her and Aaron? “What happened today on the ferry…it means I need to go away for a while longer. I don’t know what else to do. I just know I can’t live like that.”

She wrapped her arms around her midsection and stepped back. “That’s why you were so horrible to me
about Callie’s article.” Hurt drained her face of color. “You thought I would go public with you. You didn’t trust me. That’s why you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone. I was sick of myself. Sick of being this media creation.”

“You could’ve trusted me.”

“I didn’t trust anybody.”

“But you had no trouble sleeping with me,” she said.

A terrible silence stretched out between them. He had the sensation of watching a wreck in slow motion, with the sound turned down. He had damaged them beyond repair, destroyed them. What lay between them was unsalvageable. And it was, he realized bleakly, just as well for her, though she didn’t realize that yet. “Kate,” he said, trying to offer the explanation she deserved, “I can’t be what you need me to be.”

“How do you know what I need?”

He gestured at the perfect house, the
Pleasantville
neighborhood visible through the picture window in the front. “My life is crazy. I have no idea where I’ll end up.”

“You act like there’s no way to deal with fame,” she said. “People do it every day. Look at Tiger Woods or John McCain—”

“There’s a big difference between them and me,” he said. “They asked for their fame and recognition. They worked for it and strove for it. I never wanted any of this, and I promise you, Kate, you don’t want it, either.”

“There is only one reason you’re saying these things,” she said. “You’re scared.”

He felt her anger dart into him. He hated this, and he hated the old pain and shame of what his mother was. He needed to get out of here before the media figured
out where he’d gone. Maybe there was still a chance Kate could stay anonymous. “I’ll call for a taxi. I can catch a flight to L.A. today rather than waiting until morning.”

“Just like that?” she asked in a low, pained voice.

“I’ll go standby,” he said, then realized what she was asking. Didn’t he want to stay and fight for her? Hell, yes, he did. But what he wanted mattered less than doing the right thing. “I need to talk to Aaron and Callie, and then it’ll be time to go.”

They stood on opposite sides of an unbridgeable gap. He found himself thinking about the day she’d ripped a fishhook out of his thumb. Be quick and I’ll survive, he’d said. She wore the same expression now. A few seconds ticked by. Then he went to find the kids.

“You said you’d never leave me.” Aaron threw the baseball hard. Lacking a glove, JD caught it bare-handed. The leather stung his palm to the bone.

“I meant in the woods that day,” he said, tossing the ball back. Playing a game of catch in the front yard was the only way he could get Aaron to listen. The taxi would be here any minute to take him to the airport and he was running out of time. “I’d never leave you alone in the woods.”

“Big deal. That’s no kind of promise. Anybody would say that to a kid.” He drilled the ball back at JD. Bandit watched with bright-eyed intensity, ready to pounce if the ball came his way.

“Poor choice of words,” JD admitted, making the catch and then flexing his fingers. The kid had some arm. He knew he’d carry the ache of this game of catch around for days. “I should have explained that.”

“It’s dumb that you’re just taking off.”

Probably, thought JD as he threw the ball back. Aaron
missed the catch, and the baseball went bouncing along the edge of the fence, both the boy and the dog in hot pursuit.

A green-and-white taxi pulled up to the curb. Aaron straightened up and the beagle trotted off with the baseball. Aaron turned to JD, keeping his eyes steady as he called out, “Mom, he’s leaving.”

Kate and Callie came outside, and JD found himself wishing he knew of a way to stay.

“Take this,” Callie said, handing him a thick envelope. “Some reading for the plane.”