Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming (16 page)

She shook her head, then realized that was an ineffective gesture. “No. My parents moved to Florida a couple of years ago, and I hate going there for Christmas. Something about the palm trees makes it feel wrong. They’re off on a Caribbean cruise this year, so I’m spending the holidays at home, by myself.”

“What about your sister? Isn’t she still in Nebraska, near your hometown?”

Beth’s stomach clenched. “You remember.”

“Of course I remember.” She caught his flicker of a smile despite the darkness. “I’m blind, not an amnesiac.”

“I just thought—” She reconsidered, started again. “Her husband is in the air force, I think I mentioned that?” At his nod, she continued, “He was posted to a base in Seoul last month, and she went with him.”

“You don’t sound too distraught at spending Christmas by yourself.”

“I’m not,” she assured him. “This is the second year in a row, and actually I enjoy it. I see my family at other times of the year, when it’s not so expensive to travel, and this gives me a couple of days of quiet to work on research projects or plans for my classes without any interruptions from students or friends.”

After a thoughtful pause, Chris flattened his hands on his knees. “You’re sure I wouldn’t be putting you out?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you know this doesn’t mean that we—that what I said before still—”

“I know.”

He nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Beth drew a bracing breath. It had been a spontaneous offer because it seemed like the right thing to do. Now she had to go through with it. She had to hold it together while the man she cared for most in the world—and the man who had broken her heart more cruelly than anyone before—spent the night in her house.

“It doesn’t look like you unpacked much. Do you want to wait for a minute while I put your stuff back in your bag?”

He shook his head, hauling himself to his feet. “I can do it.”

“Are you sure? I can just—”

“Let me do it,” Chris insisted irritably, and Beth obediently sat back on the edge of the bed without another word.

She watched him brush his hand against the wall and along the edge of the window, orienting himself in the room. Then with slow, cautious steps, he measured his way to the television and knelt to find his duffel bag. He fished around inside and produced a pair of socks and sneakers, then sat down on the floor to put them on.

“Is it snowing a lot out there?”

Beth nodded, then rolled her eyes at herself—she’d forgotten again. “Yeah, it’s pretty heavy. We’ll just make it back to my house before the roads get really bad.”

He zipped and shouldered the duffel, stood up and shuffled sideways to the closet, where he ran his hand along the frame until he found the hanging bar, and then the suit bag where he’d evidently stowed his dress uniform. Without letting go of it or turning around he said, “Ready.”

“Don’t you need a coat?” Beth asked, crossing the room to him.

He shook his head. “I don’t have one. My parents had to bring me all my clothes. I didn’t have anything in, uh, in the hospital,” he explained, muttering the last word with audible embarrassment. “Because I was in Texas, I guess they didn’t think I would need a winter coat.”

That’s when Beth realized she hadn’t known what flight Chris came into Kansas on, or where he’d been since leaving Afghanistan, or even exactly when he’d been wounded. She watched him drape the clothing bag over his arm and hike his duffel higher on his shoulder.

For four days in June they’d shared everything. Now he could barely bring himself to tell her what state he’d been in that morning.

She shook her head ruefully as she took his arm. “All right, let’s go.”

Chapter Three

He shouldn’t be here.

That single thought had replayed in his mind at least hundreds of times over the past couple of hours. As he felt Beth’s car bump over the snowy roads, as she showed him into the spare bedroom, as she apologized for the “girly” sheets on the bed, forgetting that he wouldn’t know if they were patterned with bright pink flowers or camouflage tanks. He shouldn’t be here.

And as, at his request, she walked him through the house, room by room, gripping his wrist as she ran his hand over doorknobs and low tables and high-backed chairs so he had some sense of the layout and the obstacles he faced. After the first room his attention wandered, and the pressure of her small fingers warming his skin through his shirt, the feel of her body beside his, the occasional brush of her hip against his upper thigh distracted him to the point where he left her living room with no idea whether she had one sofa or five.

He recalled one of the more humiliating sessions with the young female psychologist back in San Antonio in which she’d explained that it was completely normal to struggle with sexuality and intimacy after a traumatic injury. She said he shouldn’t worry if he found it difficult to get aroused, or if sex seemed to hold no appeal for him for a while.

If his reaction to Beth’s proximity was anything to go by, that psychologist needed a few more weeks in grad school.

Then again, he thought guiltily as he sat at Beth’s kitchen table, listening to her hum lightly in tune with the radio as she finished fixing dinner, when the psychologist asked whether he was coming home to a wife or a girlfriend, he’d flatly told her no.

He cringed inwardly. He shouldn’t be here.

“Were you able to speak to your parents?” Beth asked, snapping him back to the present.

“Yeah, they made it back to the ranch. For once they’re lucky they’re off-grid because the whole town’s lost power. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave them your landline number in case there’s a problem with the cell service.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” He heard her footsteps approaching the table along with the delicious scents of savory pork and steamed vegetables. “Who did you tell them I was?”

He felt his face reddening, and worried again about how bad his scars must look. “They know about us. I told them before I left. In June.”

Chris sensed her surprise in the sudden pause in the movement of the plates toward the table. After a few seconds he heard the porcelain thud onto the wooden surface and the scrape of Beth’s chair as she sat down beside him.

“Would you care to be more specific?” she asked coolly.

He found his fork and knife and gauged the width of the plate with his thumbs. “I was honest with them. I told them I met a woman I really liked, and I was hoping no one else came along to sweep her off her feet while I was away. And then, later, I told them things were different.”

Beth’s silence broadcasted her opinion far louder than if she’d screamed at him.

“This is my first home-cooked meal in six months,” he said in an effort to change the subject. “It smells fantastic. What is it?”

Her resigned sigh told him he was off the hook—for now. “Pork sausages from the farmer’s market, mashed potatoes, carrots and string beans. There’s gravy if you want some.”

“I do,” he confirmed, his mouth already watering. “Where is it?”

“Oh,” Beth said apologetically, “I can pour it for you if you want.”

He shook his head. “Just tell me where everything is, as though the plate is a clock. I can figure it out from there.”

Or at least he hoped he could. He was still awfully far from mastering most of the techniques he’d been taught at the rehab center in Texas.

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “I’d say your sausages are at nine o’clock, vegetables are at four, and you’ve got a good two hours of mashed potatoes from eleven to one. Water at two o’clock, and gravy’s at high noon. Did you want a beer? I have some bottles in the fridge.”

He hadn’t had a cold beer in— “I’d love one.”

While Beth made the trip to the fridge, Chris carefully stacked his fork full of food and brought it to his mouth, his anxiety easing slightly when he managed not to spill anything. Feeding himself was still a tricky process, but he’d rather go hungry than let Beth see him struggle.

“Frosty brew at about two-fifteen, next to your water glass,” she announced, dropping back into her seat.

Chris took a long, grateful sip from the chilled bottle. The hoppy, full-bodied pale ale perfectly washed down Beth’s cloud-light, buttery mashed potatoes. The kitchen was warm and full of the comforting scents of cooking, and the radio played slow-paced country songs at a volume just high enough to compete with the blizzard moaning outside. It was three days before Christmas, he was a commissioned officer in the army’s famous 1st Infantry Division and he had a pretty, good-hearted, blue-eyed Nebraska girl at his side. This was every inch the blissful Midwestern fantasy he’d entertained since he was young, the same place where his daydreams had wandered during long, boring briefing meetings and what he’d imagined when he closed his eyes on all those lonely nights in the desert.

Except he couldn’t see what Beth was wearing, or how deep the snow was, or his hand in front of his face.

“I hope this is an improvement on hospital food,” Beth joked, but he could hear her slight concern that maybe it wasn’t. He resisted the urge to cluck his tongue disapprovingly—when would she realize what a catch she was? Any man who caught her eye should consider himself extremely lucky, just as he had.

He supposed someday there would be someone else sitting in this chair, tucking into Beth’s cooking, enjoying her lively conversation and calm presence. And as much as he rationally understood that was what she deserved—to be protected and supported and treasured by someone who could make her happy, not shackled to a worthless, battle-maimed soldier who, at thirty, had never had any job other than the one he was no longer fit to do—the wave of bitter, possessive jealousy that washed over him made him clutch his silverware so hard that it dug into his fingers.

“You have no idea,” he said truthfully, taking another slug of beer. “Just being in a real house, as opposed to a medical facility, or a temporary camp, or a barracks where you’re surrounded by men snoring and shouting and playing awful music is a relief I’m not sure I can describe. I really appreciate your putting me up, Beth. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to thank you.”

He could hear her smile, he was sure of it. “Don’t worry about it. Consider it part of my patriotic duty.”

Dinner proceeded companionably, and the conversation that had always flowed easily between them did so again as they talked about her research, her students and K-State’s upcoming Bowl game. Chris ate with an appetite he hadn’t known since before he was wounded, and it was only when Beth informed him that for his second helping of homemade pecan pie she’d given him two scoops of ice cream, at two and four o’clock, that he realized he may be eating more than his fair share.

“I hope you’re not letting me clean out your refrigerator.” His fork hovered over his plate. “You probably weren’t expecting to feed a dessert-starved soldier when you did your grocery shopping.”

“Not in the least,” she said breezily. “I made a couple of pies to take in to the international student center, for all the kids who hang around campus during the holidays, but I doubt the center will even be open in this weather. Anyway, it’s much more satisfying to sit here and watch someone enjoy my baking than to just drop it off and drive away. I could make another one tomorrow, if you want, or I have the ingredients for an apple pie.”

“Apple pie?” His mouth watered at the very thought.

Beth laughed, a sound as pretty as birdsong on a summer morning. “I’ll throw one together for you. Maybe I should write a letter to my senator about the quality of food in military hospitals. You’re so skinny, you’d think you hadn’t eaten in months.”

“Am I? I did think those dress trousers seemed a little big.” Chris ran a hand down his stomach. The clothes he wore had come from a store in San Antonio, so he didn’t know whether they would’ve fit his pre-deployment body.

“Don’t worry, you still look good.” He could imagine the playful smile that tugged at her mouth. “It’s scrawny chic—no woman could resist.”

“Thanks,” he replied dryly as she cleared his empty plate. “It’s a good thing the way to my heart is through my stomach, or I might be deeply offended.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied brightly from a few feet away. Chris smiled and stretched his legs in front of him, leaning back in his chair.

“And have any scrawny-chic men looked your way recently?”

It was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Blaming the beer, and reminding himself sternly that it made no difference whether she’d met someone else or not, Chris braced himself for the answer.

Beth had reached her chair, but she didn’t sit. “If they have, I didn’t notice,” she said quietly. She took a step forward. He could smell the soap she’d just used to wash her hands, and he turned toward where she stood.

“Even wounded officers get stuck with the high and tight, huh?” she asked, referring to the severe regulation haircut she knew he hated.

“It’s worse than that, now I can’t even see to argue the length. I have to take the barber’s word for it.”

“I think he’s gifted you half an inch for Christmas,” she murmured, running her fingers through the short hair at the top of his head.

At the touch of her hand, something deep within Chris’s rib cage that had been painfully, restrictively taut snapped in two, and the next thing he knew his hands were groping for Beth’s waist, his fingers finding the belt loops on her jeans and pulling her close. She stumbled with the force of his tug and planted her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He pressed his face into her stomach, closing his eyes against the soft cotton hoodie she wore, breathing in the warmth and scent of the woman whose face he’d longed to see again on so many of those never-ending, anxious nights in Afghanistan. If he kept his eyes closed, he could pretend that was the reason for the darkness and imagine just for a moment that when he opened them he would see her, he would gaze into those sky-blue eyes and brush a piece of pale hair from her forehead, and take her chin in his hand and tilt her face to his, and then—

Beth’s breath hitched beneath his hands. Her hands rose to either side of his face and he flinched, immediately conscious of the smooth, raised scar tissue she would feel there. He dropped his hands from her hips and jerked out of her reach, gripping the edge of the table in a desperate attempt to anchor himself somewhere in this bewildering, tumultuous new world.

He heard Beth’s telltale sniff, and his resolve hardened. “Don’t cry on my behalf,” he snapped, deliberately harsh. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

There was no mistaking the disgust in Beth’s sigh. “I’m not upset because I pity you. I’m upset because I miss you.” Then her footsteps were rapidly retreating from the kitchen, followed by a slammed door down the hall.

Chris propped his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. Sending that final email to Beth had seemed almost impossibly difficult at the time, but it was nothing compared to this.

Tomorrow he would leave, no matter what the weather was like. He would say goodbye to Beth once and for all. He would let her go—he would give her the freedom she deserved.

It would be hard, and it would hurt, but he was used to that now, used to pain and loss and devastation. His body was already battered, his eyesight gone—why bother trying to save his heart?

* * *

Beth lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if she would ever sleep again.

Although she would be the first to admit she was no expert on relationships, having been in only one or two serious enough to involve the word
boyfriend
, nonetheless she was surprised that her judgment in this situation had turned out to be so incredibly bad. If anything, she usually erred too much on the side of caution when it came to men. So how had she managed to fall so hard, so quickly, for someone who clearly didn’t feel the same?

Of course there had been a plentiful population of naysayers when she first told her friends and family about the handsome officer who’d burst into her life only a few days before his deployment. Her sister had been skeptical, relaying stories from her husband’s air force unit about the irrational, self-destructive things soldiers did before they shipped out. Her best friend from her hometown had paused on the phone, choosing her words carefully before asking whether Chris had ever tried to borrow money. And her closest colleague in the History Department at K-State, Shauna, had simply wrinkled her nose and asked, “You’re dating someone from the fort?”

But she’d brushed off their concerns without a second thought. They weren’t there in those four days, they hadn’t met Chris, so how could they possibly understand the instantaneous, undeniably real connection between the two of them? Any seeds of doubt that might have found root in Beth’s brain were dispelled when Chris’s emails began to roll in, just as he said they would. They weren’t short or cursory either—they were long, thoughtful and substantive. He wrote about everything from the levels of chlorine in the water in the shower, to the alienating experience of walking through a bazaar in full combat gear, to his meditations on good and evil, fear, and death when he came back to base after a firefight. In her replies she admitted to feeling like the tales from her daily life seemed trivial compared to his, but he encouraged her to keep him up-to-date, always asking about her job, her friends and the general goings-on of a small Midwestern college town.

Her stomach was in knots all day on the date of their first planned phone call. Because of the time difference she had to take the call in her office, and she closed her door with her heart in her throat, positioned her cell phone in the center of her desk and sat down to stare at it. When it rang six long, nerve-racking minutes after the appointed time Beth snatched it up, and the sound of Chris’s voice took her breath away. He was every bit the charming, articulate, sincere man who had shared her bed for just a few brief nights, and she found herself pressing her fist into the center of her chest as though she could catch the heart that was already tumbling down a well of dangerous attachment.