Snowbound (17 page)

She laughed, as if she was too giddy to prevent it. Wellboth.

Thanks, he said wryly, and she laughed again.

He ran his knuckles down her cheek, stunned by the amazing softness and by the trusting way she tilted her face to meet his touch. You busy? His voice emerged gruffly, and he nodded toward the laptop open on her table. I could come back

Dont be silly. Fiona grabbed his hand and drew him into the living area. Do you want coffee? Soda?

He shook his head as he sat on the couch.
You. Only you.
I just had a
latte grande.
My equivalent of a drink for courage.

Well, then. Fiona sat, too, on the middle cushion so she was close enough to touch. She tucked one foot under her and turned to face him. You really just packed up and went to Portland for two weeks? Did you close the lodge?

No. He shook his head in remembered bemusement. My younger sister, LizI told you about her.

She nodded.

Liz grew impatient with me. She came for a visit. So I thought. Turns out shed gone so far as to make me an appointment with the psychologist, and to take two weeks of vacation herself. She gave me the key to her condo, told me if I wasnt comfortable staying at Mom and Dads I could go there and sent me on my way.

Just like that.

Id gotten those e-mails from Tabitha and Dieter not long before. Because he couldnt help himself, he reached out and took her hand. I was scared. Which meant I was ready.

Was it hard? she asked, her eyes meltingly soft. Talking to the counselor?

Even remembering was enough to bring a shadow of the tension that had made his body rigid. Yeah. He moved his shoulders, trying to release the strain that memoryand the knowledge of what he still had to say to herhad brought to his body. Yeah, I wanted to run out of there so bad I could taste it.

But you didnt.

No. He looked down at their linked hands, where his thumb was tracing circles on her palm. I thought about you. Over and over again.

Her smile was tremulous. Ive tried so hard
not
to think about you. And failed. Over and over again.

I thought youd put me out of your mind, he admitted. Hope wasa little hard to hold on to.

Her eyes shimmered with tears again. Yes. It is.

There are things I need to tell you, Fiona.

You dont have to right now. Maybe I shouldnt have put that kind of pressure on you

He was shaking his head before shed gotten half way through her speech. No. You were right. I need to get this out of the way. I think I locked it away for a lot of reasons. One was that I felt so guilty, on some level I didnt think anybody wouldor
could
love me once they knew how arrogant Id been, how I risked the lives of a bunch of kids.

She stared at him with wide, now wary eyes. She had to wonder what in hell he was going to tell her.

He cleared his throat and began. Somewhere I read recently that there may be personality types more at risk
of developing posttraumatic stress disorder. I think Im one. I mean, I didnt handle war very well from the beginning. The things you see. He looked down, startled to realize his hand had tightened on hers to a point that had to be painful, and muttered an oath. Letting her go, he said, God, Im sorry!

Fiona shook her head. No, its okay. Really. She touched his thigh in reassurance.

He kneaded the back of his neck. I probably would have come home a normal, screwed-up vet if it werent for this. He gestured at his scar and all it symbolized. Maybe Id have had nightmares. Some pictures in my head I couldnt get rid of.

The compassion on her face was almost his undoing, but he forced himself to continue. But me, I decided I could do some good while I was there. He gave a harsh laugh. Prove that Americans were decent.

He told her about the nearby field, if you could call the bare, dusty ground a field. About the makeshift goals that had caught his attention. How there were often boys there, kicking soccer balls around.

Expression arrested, Fiona said, Thats why it upset you so much when Hopper asked if you had a soccer ball.

Yeah. Having them around awakened enough unwelcome memories. Having them heading a soccer ball He almost shuddered, even now.

Did you start playing with the boys?

He nodded. Id played in college, soWe worked on skills. Eventually I organized them into a team. We started playing some games with other teams. Nothing
official, not like a league. Just pickup games. He tried to smile, God knew why, maybe still deluding himself that it was possible to lighten the tragic results of his heedlessness. Word got around. An American soldier was coaching Iraqi boys.

Were they Sunni or

A mix. I was never really sure. I have no doubt they were awarehow could they not be, these days?but the neighborhood was integrated and theyd grown up together. In the end, it didnt make any difference. They were justconvenient material for a lesson.

Oh, John, she whispered, awakening horror on her face.

He went on and told her the grim story. Theyd been talking, doing some warm-up exercises while they waited for the other team to arrive. Hed turned, aware of the approach of a woman in the dark, enveloping robe and burqa. The sensearticulated too latethat something wasnt right. The Oh God, what have I done? moment.

The warning, never uttered.

He told it as unemotionally as he could, trying not to be graphic about the sights that had met his eyes when hed lifted his head afterward and peered through the blood that bathed his face. Even so, she had one hand pressed to her chest and the other to her stomach, as if to quell both horror and nausea.

Children, she whispered once.

Object lessons, he repeated. Do not consort with the enemy.

I dont know how you survived.

He knew she didnt mean physically. He still wasnt altogether sure he
had
survived emotionally. But maybemaybe he would make it. Because of her.

I was able to visit the survivors in the hospital. Except for one. He, uhIt was touch and go. I guess he did make it. I dont know if thats such a good thing. He lost his eyes, and his face is just God. He was touching his scar again.

Oh, John, she whispered again, and this time she took his hand.

I screwed up bad. I was so full of myself that I didnt listen to warnings.

You were trying to do something very, very good.

Was I? he asked out of anguish and a painful need to be honest. Or was it all arrogance? Was I doing it for me? So I could go home filled with pride because Id left a mark, Id somehow changed the path of history. How bad can Americans be? he mocked himself. That soldier, he was great with the boys. The boys are the best, theyre champions, because of him!

Now she had both his hands. She squeezed until he met her eyes, his own undoubtedly revealing more of himself than hed ever meant to bare.

Was that it? she asked. Or did you need to feel human? To have something outside the suffering and the politics and the hate? To offer that to them, too?

He stared at her. Yeah, thats what the boys had been to him. A slice of something remembered, something enjoyed. Adults sharing their skills, boys challenging each other for their places in the pecking order, preening for girls, thrilling to demonstrate their supremacy on a field.

Just like that, he bent his head and wept. Fiona scooted closer, wrapped her arms around him, and held him.

They weresuch great kids, was the only coherent thing he said.

You would have done anything to protect them, she murmured as she held him. They knew friendship when they saw it. Even their parents must have known it, or they wouldnt have let them come.

Why? he begged. Why, God? Why?

She was silent for a moment, the hand that had massaged his shoulder pausing. There arent always answers, she said at last. But that doesnt mean you have to bear total responsibility, either. That kind of hatred isis unknowable, I think. To us, at least.

Her simple, sad words touched a chord in him. Was it possible to accept that he never would understand in any way he could get his mind or heart around? That he could live anyway, even find happiness despite guilt and grief that he might never quite lay to rest?

Was she offering him that happiness? Was that what her kiss had meant? What shed intended when she said her offer would remain open, Even if it took forever?

John wiped his face roughly with his shirtsleeve, then asked, Can I use your bathroom?

Second door on the left.

Washing his face didnt improve materially how he looked; his eyes were still too swollen and bloodshot. But, hell, he couldnt hide in here, not like hed done on her last night at the lodge when hed awakened to
the hoarse sound of his own yell. Then, he hadnt been able to risk sharing his past with her. At least hed come that far. Now he needed to find out if she was willing to consider a future with hima man whod taken only a few baby steps toward recovery.

She was still sitting where hed left her on the sofa. Her anxious gaze went immediately to his face. Starting to stand, she asked, Are you all right?

Yeah. Im, uh, beginning to get used to this. Ive cried more these past two months than I have since I was five years old.

She smiled, as hed intended her to, but her eyes kept searching his.

Get right to it, he thought. Prolonged suffering was something he knew too well. A clean, sharp hurt was better.

He stopped a few feet from her. I love you, Fiona. But Im probably not going to be ready to go back to any kind of life we can share, he gestured vaguely to take in her town house, including in it her job, her graduate schooling, everything hed asked her to give up. Not for a while, anyway. I get pretty stressed when Im back in Portland. But you were right. He tried out a smile, probably a poor excuse for one. Im not meant to be an innkeeper, either. Im thinkingmaybe another year. I could stop by regularly. You could come up on school breaks. If His voice failed him. If youre willing.

Oh, John. Her voice cracked, too, and now
her
eyes filled with tears. Of course Im willing!

Somehow he cleared the coffee table to take her in his arms. They kissedNot simply thankful to be together. But rather with desperation, as if theyd never expected to have the chance again.

They got to the bedroom, too, and made love the same way. But at some pointbefore he stripped her of her clothes and she stripped him of hisshe told him she wouldnt just be coming up to Thunder Mountain on breaks. She would take a years leave of absence from Willamette Prep. She wanted to be with him. She could finish her masters degree long-distance, and be an innkeepers wife.

Sometime
after
they made love, she also told him Willows father had agreed to make a reservation for one of the cabins the same week Dieters parents had already booked another one. And I was thinking, she said.

That we could invite all the kids to come? Their families, too?

Something like that, I guess.

What do you say, he suggested, that we hold our wedding then? Where we met? The lodge is big enough to house our families, our friends

Fiona cried again, but from happiness.

And in between her offer to bury herself in the wilderness with him, and his idea of a summer wedding, they did make love. In those moments, as close to her as it was humanly possible to be with a woman, John knew for sure he, too, could be happy. It was even possible that what he felt now was richer, because it hadnt come easily.

Wouldnt come easily in the future.

Im going to backslide, he warned, holding her
sprawled atop him, a few curly strands of her hair wandering to tickle his nose.

Um, she murmured in agreement, seemingly undisturbed. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, then lifted her head to smile at him. But, you see, it wont be the same. Because Ill always be there to catch you.

She couldnt have offered a declaration of love that meant more to him. Johns heart squeezed and he closed his eyes, wishing the boys could know.

Wondering if they did.

* * * * *

Look for Janice Kay Johnsons
next books from Superromance!
SOMEONE LIKE HER
April 2009

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THE DIAMOND LEGACY
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December 2009

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