Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming (19 page)

His future was salvageable. He was going to be okay.

“Here we are,” Beth announced as she cut the engine. “We’re at Radina’s,” she specified, naming the downtown coffee shop that was popular with the university crowd. “Their sandwiches are good and I figured it wouldn’t be too crowded. Do you want to bring your cane?”

Chris wrinkled his nose. He hated that thing—although he supposed he’d have to get used to it eventually.

“I’d rather take your arm, if you’re offering.”

“I’m at your disposal.” Soon she was guiding him over the slippery pavement to the door, and then into a seat. The coffee shop was warm and aromatic, as scents of roasted coffee beans, peppermint hot chocolate and what he assumed must be a small Christmas tree combined to create a festive atmosphere. From the low din of conversation it seemed like plenty of locals had braved the post-blizzard streets. He caught fragments of discussions about shoveling driveways, delayed flights and what still needed to be bought, wrapped and stowed under the tree. It all seemed so comfortingly ordinary in comparison to the state of suspension he’d felt down in San Antonio, where he’d hung between being back from Afghanistan yet still cut off from any semblance of normal life.

“Is this okay?” Beth asked.

“Fine with me. What’s good for lunch?”

“It’s hard to go wrong.” He heard her drop into the seat opposite his. “Do you want me to read through the menu for you?”

“Just order two of whatever you want,” he said, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his billfold. “Everything tastes good to me at the moment.”

Chris opened his wallet to count through the bills he’d been taught to fold according to denomination, when he realized he had no idea what the prices were.

Beth must have seen him falter because she said, “Oh, no, I’ll get this.”

He shook his head. “Definitely not. This should cover it.” He decided to err on the side of caution and pulled out forty dollars. That had to be enough.

She went to the counter to order, and when she came back she hovered beside him as she counted out his ample change into his open palm. As he pocketed the money, she leaned down and brushed a kiss over his temple.

“Thanks for lunch, Captain.”

“Anytime.” Emboldened by her affectionate gesture, he decided this was as good a time as any to share the thoughts that had been swirling around in his brain ever since he’d gotten up from the kitchen floor.

“I know I haven’t given you any real reason why I sent that last email,” he began, flattening his hands on the table. “And that’s because I don’t have one. I sent it right after I arrived at the hospital in San Antonio, when the doctors confirmed that the damage to my vision was potentially irreparable.”

He drew a bracing breath and continued quickly, not wanting to give her a chance to interrupt his confessional. “In the few days before the bomb, I was trying to figure out how to tell you that I was falling in love with you. I was worried you wouldn’t believe me, or think I was trying to manipulate you. I mean, who falls in love after four days together and a couple of phone calls?” He shrugged. “I do, apparently. But after the explosion, when I was stable enough to think coherently about my future and the implications of my injuries, I decided it would be unfair to burden you with my situation. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to be with me, and I didn’t want you to be held back by someone who was so helpless and dependent. I hoped you would never find out that I was wounded, and that you would simply write me off as a jerk and a bastard and move on with your life. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.”

Beth was silent on the other side of the table, and Chris wished he could see her face, so he could gauge her reaction and speak accordingly. Instead he had to stumble forward in love as blindly as he did in day-to-day life.

“You don’t have to say anything today, or ever,” he said quietly, clenching his hands together. “If I hurt you too badly, or you can’t trust me after what I did, or you just don’t want to tie yourself to someone who needs so much extra help, I understand. I really do, and I won’t judge you for it. I’m not sure what I would do in your situation, to be honest. But if you think you might want to give me another chance...” He raised his head, hoping he was looking in her direction, “I would be very grateful, and I would do my best to make you happy.”

He dug one hand into the other, feeling more vulnerable in his sightlessness now than he ever had before. For all he knew Beth could look horrified, or disgusted, or be about to slap him again.

He heard her inhale and steeled himself for her response, when two sets of footsteps marched up to their table.

“Beth! I thought that was you,” exclaimed a female voice. “Jim, this is my colleague Beth Tate, from the department. This is my brother, Jim, the one who lives in Seattle.”

“Nice to meet you,” a male voice chimed in.

“And you,” Beth replied. “Chris, this is Shauna Byrne, whose office is next to mine. Shauna, Jim, this is Chris Walker.”

“Hello,” Chris said briskly, praying they hadn’t stuck out their hands to shake.

“Chris Walker,” Shauna repeated, broadcasting her recognition without a hint of subtlety. “This is the guy who—”

“My boyfriend,” Beth said firmly, and his heart squeezed in his chest. “He’s back from Afghanistan and he’s staying with me for a few days before Christmas.”

“I see,” Shauna said, clearly unconvinced. Chris sensed she was about to say something else, but luckily the barista chose that moment to bring their plates to the table.

“We’ll let you two eat your lunch. Call me, okay?” Shauna urged in a low voice before she and her brother took their leave. Under any other circumstances, Chris would have sat there ruing how much silent communication he missed out on without being able to see, but he was so elated at Beth’s declaration that for once he couldn’t care less.

“Your boyfriend?” he asked, abandoning any effort to keep the excitement from his voice. “Did you mean it?” He slid his hand across the table to grab hers, but she jerked it away as soon as their fingertips touched.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I need to think about it,” she muttered, clearly troubled.

His heart sank, and his optimism deflated like a leaky balloon. “Of course,” he said with more enthusiasm than he felt. “That’s completely fair.”

“Let’s take this one step at a time, okay?”

Chris was so sick of that phrase—it was one of the medical professionals’ favorites.

He forced a smile. “Absolutely.”

* * *

After the strained atmosphere during lunch, Beth was grateful when Chris asked whether she minded if he put a football game on the TV. Soon he was stretched out on the couch, and although she found it slightly eerie that he lay facing the ceiling instead of the actual television set, she took advantage of the time to herself to slip back into her bedroom and open her laptop.

Unsurprisingly, at the top of her inbox was a message from Shauna. “
What is going on???
” asked the subject line, and when Beth clicked to open it she didn’t get past “
You didn’t tell me he was BLIND!!
” before signing out of her email.

She flipped through a few more articles on PTSD, zeroing in on the first-person accounts of their experiences living with soldiers who suffered from the illness. After about ten minutes she realized she wasn’t absorbing anything she read, so she shoved the computer to the side and flopped back on the pillows.

Two months ago, Chris’s revelation that he was falling in love with her, that he’d never tire of her and was only trying to do what he thought was right would’ve been so welcome it might have brought her to tears.

Now, though, she hesitated. What if she agreed to be with him, only to have him change his mind again in a few weeks? Could she believe that he’d only broken up with her because of his injuries? What if that was just an excuse? Maybe he was worried that no woman would go out with him now that he was blind, so he might as well take what he could get.

Then again, she considered as she turned over onto her side, what if he had told her immediately? What if she’d gotten that call from the hospital and heard, in a voice thick with drugs and exhaustion, that he’d survived an explosion and he might never see again, that he loved her and that he was coming home soon.

Just the fantasy of those words coming from his mouth—that he loved her—was enough to make Beth clamp her eyes shut and clutch her fists to her chin.

She knew with complete certainty that she would’ve been on the first plane to San Antonio. She would’ve exchanged awkward introductions with his parents in the hallway and then sat by his bedside as long as she was allowed, holding his hand, touching his bandaged face and telling him it didn’t matter, they’d find a way to get through this because she loved him more than anything.

But he didn’t call her, she reasoned as a cold, hard shell of detachment came over her. And she’d spent many long weeks working to dislodge every last scrap of him from her heart.

Did she love the man lying on her couch? She was afraid of giving herself permission to find out.

Beth walked out to the sitting room. Football players still chased each other across the screen but Chris had turned onto his side, and from the rhythm of his breathing she could tell he’d fallen asleep. She sat down in the narrow space between his back and the edge of the cushions and, on impulse, put her hand on his shoulder.

He stirred slightly, and she ran her palm down his chest. With his damaged eyes closed and his scars pressed into the sofa, Beth got a glimpse of the man she knew, and of what might have been for the two of them.

With his eyes still closed, Chris reached up and covered her hand with his, pressing her fingers against the fleecy material of his pullover. She ran her other hand idly through the tufted hair over his forehead, wondering how he would look if he left the army and gave that soft, thick brown hair a chance to grow in.

“Are you awake?” she murmured, and he nodded.

“I’m going to shovel the driveway. If you wake up and I’m not in the house, I’m outside.”

Chris yawned and stretched, rolled onto his back and fixed her with that blank, clouded stare. “I’ll come out and help you. I was just dozing.”

“You don’t have a coat or boots. Stay in here where it’s warm. I won’t be long.”

He pulled himself to a sitting position and yanked her onto his lap so unexpectedly that she squeaked as he wrapped his arms behind her.

“Let me help you,” he implored, brushing a kiss across her lips. Her heart began to pound in her rib cage.

Hold it together
, she told herself sternly.
Don’t get carried away.
You haven’t made up your mind about him yet.

He twined his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck, sending delicious tingles running across her scalp.

“Your hair is longer than it was in June,” he mused, rubbing a lock between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’d just had it cut then.” She gave in to her need and laid her palm across his cheek, barely noticing the scars beneath her fingers.

“Is it the same color? You haven’t dyed it or anything, have you?”

“Still that dirty dishwater blond, I’m afraid.”

He tsked his disapproval. “Don’t say that. It’s a beautiful blond. It reminds me of grain ready for the harvest.”

She snorted derisively, but her throat was tightening with emotion, and she had to force her voice not to waver. “I think your memory is taking some artistic license.”

He shook his head, shifting his hand to cup her cheek, running his thumb over her lower lip. “I remember it perfectly. I remember every inch of you.”

Beth’s breathing hitched, and she buried her face in his shoulder, closing her arms tightly around his broad chest as she fought a wave of despair. No man had ever looked at her like Chris did, or made her feel as sensual and gorgeous—why did that have to be taken away from her? Why did she have to worry about whether he was going to have a nightmare and strangle her in her sleep, or have a mood swing that left him storming through the house smashing anything he could get his hands on? Why couldn’t he just have come home, all in one piece, every bit the same man she’d said goodbye to six months earlier?

It felt so good to be crushed against his chest and wrapped up tightly in his embrace, and Beth tried to focus on that. Everything else would fall into place, one way or another.

She scooted higher in his lap and her slippered foot accidentally caught the remote control and sent it crashing to the ground. As it bounced off the wood floor the channel jumped from the low-volume chatter of the football game to the middle of an action movie, where guns blazed and explosions peppered the soundtrack.

Beth felt Chris startle beneath her and she threw herself after the remote, punching the power button and silencing the television. She glanced up at Chris from her place on the floor.

“It was just the TV,” she assured him, scrambling back onto the couch beside him.

He stretched his arms languorously. “Let’s shovel.”

Chapter Six

“I think we can safely assume he never fell asleep on watch again,” Chris said with a flourish, enjoying Beth’s lighthearted laughter as she led him back into the house through the garage.

“You’re so mean,” she chided him playfully. “You’re lucky you just did an exceptionally good job shoveling my driveway, or I might have to call up to the fort and tell them you’re not upholding an officer’s standard of behavior.”

Now it was Chris’s turn to laugh. “You clearly haven’t met many officers.”

“I’m going to make some hot chocolate,” she announced, placing his hand on the kitchen counter so he knew where he was. “Do you want some?”

He nodded. “In a minute, I’ll just try my folks again to see whether anything’s melting up their way. If they’re driving down tomorrow they’ll want to start out early, and they’ll be anxious if we don’t have a plan in place tonight.”

“Mine are the same way,” she agreed. “I won’t pour until you’re back.”

Chris found his way to the guest room with a smile on his face. He felt invigorated from shoveling snow, which was probably the most outdoor exercise he’d gotten in months. Recalling the advice of one of the rehab therapists, he tried to focus less on what he couldn’t see and more on the senses he still had. After a couple of false starts he figured out a way to line up the edge of the shovel with the bump that delineated the sides of the driveway, and move forward along a mental grid to create clear-cut rows. Precision and repetition were two skills that had long been honed by his army service, and after a while he heard Beth’s shovel clunk to the ground.

“Why am I even bothering?” she wondered aloud. “You’ve done twice as much as me in the same time.”

Even without a coat the exertion had warmed him to the point of sweating, and he yanked off his pullover as he dropped onto the bed, stripping down to the T-shirt he wore underneath. He flexed his arms before reaching for his cell phone. They were a little bit sore, the muscles slightly fatigued. His grin widened. It felt good to be useful.

His parents’ landline rang so many times he almost hung up and tried one of their cell phones, even though the signal tended to be unreliable so far out in the country. His finger hovered over the button when someone picked up the line, and a child’s voice asked, “Hello?”

Chris frowned, at first wondering if he’d dialed the wrong number. Then he had a pang of recognition.

“Gabe, is that you?”

The pause was cautious. “Who is this?”

“It’s your cousin, Chris.” Or second cousin, or whatever they were—Gabe was his cousin Tina’s son. He was sure his mom hadn’t mentioned that they were coming up from Oklahoma—was this a last-minute thing?

“Cousin Chris!” Gabe exclaimed. “We came for your parade. Are you coming to dinner tonight? I brought my new tank to show you.”

A lead weight seemed to settle in Chris’s stomach. “What parade, Gabe?”

“Because you’re a hero,” the boy answered. “Because you got blinded.”

Chris scrubbed a hand over his forehead as an ominous comprehension passed over him like a thundercloud. So that’s why his mother had been hysterical about the blizzard, why his parents had encouraged him to bring his dress uniform back to Kansas and why his brother Joe had been even more callous than usual. Did they really expect him to willingly star in a surprise parade celebrating the fact that he’d emerged from a war zone with only one major, life-altering injury? Was this their idea of something he might enjoy? He knew his parents were proud of him—that the whole three-hundred-person town had been pulling for him since the day he was wounded—but that didn’t mean he wanted to be the center of a spectacle.

He sighed heavily. He understood that his parents had been through hell right alongside him, and that they probably saw this as an honor. But there was no way he could go through with it.

“Gabe, can you put your Aunt Linda on the phone for me?”

Ten minutes and floods of maternal tears later, Chris groped his way back to the kitchen. He lingered in the doorway, listening to Beth pour the hot chocolate, hoping his expression didn’t look as sheepish as it felt.

“So,” he began, “How would you feel about billeting a soldier for Christmas?”

Within minutes he was seated at Beth’s kitchen table, his hands wrapped around his mug as he explained the situation.

“I know they mean well,” he concluded, “But I can’t let it go ahead. Three men in my command died that night—my survival was down to pure chance. There’s nothing heroic about that.”

“It’s just the principle that bothers you, then?” Beth asked. “Not the crowd, or the sirens, or anything like that?”

Chris frowned. Had he said something to give her the impression that he hated big gatherings of people?

“No, that’s all fine—and even if every citizen of Stanfield, Kansas turned up to attend, calling it a crowd would be an exaggeration. It’s the idea that I’ve somehow earned this recognition, that I’ve done something to deserve it.” He shook his head. “All I did was get out of bed after someone shook me awake.”

Beth’s pause was thoughtful. He tried to imagine how she looked in that moment, her smooth, high forehead slightly pinched in concentration, her rosy lips pursed. Had a few locks of hair fallen forward over her shoulders? Were her hands resting on her mug or had she moved her arm so she could prop her chin on her palm? Were her blue eyes staring unfocused through her glasses as she considered, or was she looking straight at him, running her gaze over the lines of his face? He often longed to touch her when they chatted like this, to hold her in his lap or lace his fingers through hers, anything that might make him feel more connected to the shared moment than when he sat apart, adrift in the shadows. Maybe someday she’d be comfortable enough to let him do that.

Maybe.

“This isn’t what you want to hear,” she said finally, “But I think you have to go. I think you have to suck it up and be in the parade.”

Chris winced. “Why?”

“While I completely sympathize with your ideological objections,” she said kindly, “They’re a little too subtle to justify calling the whole thing off. If you couldn’t be in the parade because you broke your leg, fine—everyone would understand. But to cancel it at the last minute because you don’t feel you deserve it just isn’t going to fly in a little Kansas farm town that’s eagerly looking forward to welcoming home its favorite son. Plus,” she continued, “It’s important to your parents, your extended family’s come all the way from Oklahoma and the irritation you experience will be minor compared to the thrill they’ll get from seeing it all come together.”

“Even though it’s all a lie?” he countered. “Wouldn’t it be wrong to allow myself to be represented in a way I know is false?”

“Heroism is subjective,” Beth replied matter-of-factly. “You may think heroism is risking your life to save a comrade, but for some people, just joining the army knowing you could be sent into combat on your country’s behalf may be enough.” She pried his hand from the handle of his mug and gripped it tightly. “And other people might think that a man who loves a woman enough to push her away in order to protect her from hardship, a man who would make that sacrifice and go that far to save the woman he loved from being in pain, is pretty damn heroic in his own right.”

“Come with me,” he blurted, the words leaving his mouth before he knew they had formed. “Come up to Marshall County and watch this stupid parade. Have Christmas Eve dinner with all my noisy relatives. We can stay in my room up in the attic, no one will bother us. Or, I mean, you could stay there,” he fumbled, putting on the brakes way too late. “I can stay in the guest room. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“I don’t know,” she balked. “I think your family probably wants to spend time with you, alone. I’m a stranger—they don’t want me barging in unannounced.”

“Actually, they’ve heard a lot about you,” he reminded her. “And even if you decide we shouldn’t be together, it will alleviate my mother’s fears that I’m such damaged goods that no decent woman will ever want to be with me.”

“Did she say that?” Beth asked, astonished.

“Not in so many words,” he acknowledged. “But she keeps mentioning things about dating websites for people with visual impairment, and she asked the hospital shrink how many of her patients were single when they were wounded, and whether many of them went on to get married.”

He could hear the cringe in Beth’s voice. “Ouch. But that sounds like a conversation you need to have with her. You can’t just haul me in as a decoy.”

“You know that’s not why I want you there.” He squeezed her hand.

She sighed. “I’ll drive you up in the morning, how’s that? And I’ll think about whether or not I want to drive straight back down. Deal?”

It took everything in him not to punch the air. “Deal.”

* * *

Dinner had been effortlessly conversational, peppered with flirtatious jokes and lingering touches. When Chris finished devouring another few slices of pie, they flopped on the couch to watch—or in Chris’s case, listen to—television. As soon as they were settled he slid his arm around her and tugged her into his side, and it only took about twenty minutes of the heat of his body and the weight of his grip for her to doze off.

She awoke to the feeling of being hoisted and jostled, and when she opened her eyes she discovered that Chris was carrying her through the house, cradling her like a baby.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I know where I’m going.”

True to his word, he slowly but safely navigated down the hallway and into her bedroom. She could tell that he was mentally counting and measuring his steps, and when he paused in her bedroom doorway she gently told him the bed was three steps forward, two steps right.

Moving confidently, he laid her down on the bed, pausing to tuck her hair behind her ear and skim his lips over her temple.

“Good night,” he whispered. She closed her eyes and listened to him turn and find his way back out of her room, shutting the door behind him.

She expected to instantly resume her momentarily interrupted sleep, but an hour later she felt more awake than ever.

They were moving way too fast. This time yesterday he was still hell-bent on pushing her out of his life, and now he wanted her to spend Christmas with his family? That was a huge step, and not one she’d ever taken with any of her ex-boyfriends. Throw in the facts that he was a wounded soldier returning to see his extended family for the first time in months, he was all set to star in his very own homecoming parade, she’d been out of his life since he was wounded and it was arguably the most significant family holiday of the year? No way—it was an absurd idea.

And yet some part of her fervently wanted to believe in him—in the sincerity of his request, in the honesty of his insistence that he’d been falling in love with her. Was he still? Could she really be this close to recapturing what she was so certain had been ripped away from her forever?

It was warm under the duvet on her bed, yet she shivered. She felt like she was standing on a tightrope stretched across a canyon. If she toppled off to her right, she found love with the only man she’d ever truly cared for. And if she tumbled to her left, she dropped back into the pit of agonizing, despairing heartbreak she still hadn’t fully climbed out of.

Either way she was bound to fall.

She was only three lines into her mental list of reasons not to let things with Chris get any further when she heard something thud to the floor in the guest room, and she was out of bed and padding down the hall before she knew what she was doing. Was Chris having a nightmare? Had he bumped into something and hurt himself? She was forever chucking extraneous knickknacks and books and papers she couldn’t bother to file in the guest room—it was probably a total minefield for a blind person. With her thoughts racing at top speed, she threw open the door without bothering to knock.

Chris was kneeling beside the bed in boxers and a T-shirt, fanning his hands out across the floor.

“Sorry,” he apologized without looking up. “I must have left my cell phone on the end of the bed, and it fell when I turned over.”

Beth spotted the phone on the floor, about an inch away from his outstretched fingers.

“I see it.” She leaned down beside him. “Get back in bed, I’ve got it.”

As she swept up the phone and placed it on the bedside table, Chris obediently slipped between the bright purple sheets, the old box springs groaning under his weight.

Beth looked him over as he pulled the duvet back into place. She took in the long, muscular legs extending below his paisley-patterned boxers, the torso that broadened until it filled the top of the gray T-shirt emblazoned with the word
ARMY
in bold black letters and the dull, hazy eyes that might never again twinkle with mischief, never flash with surprise, never widen in sensual admiration until she thought she might drown in all that blue.

So he might never look at her like that again. But she felt a sudden overwhelming gratitude that he had ever looked at her at all, and that he was still here, not quite the same man yet maybe not so changed either.

Without another thought she closed the distance to the bed, lifted the duvet and climbed in beside him.

“Hello,” he murmured in pleased surprise as he drew her to him, pulling her away from the edge of the narrow single bed. The sheets were warm from his body and full of his scent. Beth closed her eyes and breathed it in, that intoxicating fragrance that reminded her of crisp stalks of straw and leather saddles and the cool, shady interior of a barn on a hot day.

She opened her eyes and looked at his gently curving smile, his expression clearly broadcasting his sheer, contented happiness at having her beside him and his lack of expectation of anything further. It was hard to imagine him barking orders at a platoon of soldiers, or hurling a grenade or limping back to a desert camp in full combat gear, streaked with blood and dust.

She squeezed her eyes shut against those images and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was safe, he was here with her and nothing else mattered.