A Conard County Homecoming Read online

  Tentatively, she called his name. “Zane? Zane, wake up.”

  He groaned faintly but stirred, which she guessed was a good sign. Then he pushed himself upright and looked at her from half-closed eyes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nell let me in. I’m being a nosy neighbor. I was worried about you.”

  “No need.” His speech didn’t sound slurred, and gradually his eyes grew clearer. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” he said when he saw her glance at the beer bottles. “They helped. I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” Much as she hated to leave him like this, he wasn’t asking her to do anything else. “Surely you can find something better than alcohol to knock you out. It’s lousy for sleep and it’s a depressant.” With that she turned to leave.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice challenging, “who made you the expert?”

  She faced him. “My aunt. She died of cirrhosis when she was forty-seven. You’d left by then.”

  Now he was fully awake, his gaze sharp. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “Nobody made her drink herself to death,” she replied frankly. “Certainly a lot of people, me included, tried to prevent it, but...” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s a lousy sleeping pill.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “And I didn’t drink that all today. I’ve been feeling so tired I’ve let things go.”

  It was an apology of sorts. Without asking for permission, she grabbed the bottles and carried them to the sink, where she rinsed them. Then she opened the window over the sink to let in some fresh air.

  “Recycling?” she asked.

  “Don’t have any yet.”

  She supposed it might be a problem for him to get all his bottles, cans and whatever to the transfer station. She imagined him trying to carry large bags to his van. Even if he could manage that, would the guys at the station be willing to unload them? “Want me to take it for you? That is, if you’re not opposed to recycling.”

  For a second it looked like a dark cloud was lowering on his face, but then it blew away and he simply looked weary. “Or Carol could do it.”

  Ashley let it go for now. Carol was his hired housekeeper. Maybe it made him feel better to pay for a service than to accept a favor. She set the rinsed bottles on the counter.

  “I can clean up after myself,” he groused.

  Lovely mood, she thought as she dried her hands on a kitchen towel. “I’m sure you can. I’ll be on my way.” Turning, she closed the window, because there was absolutely no way he could reach it, then started toward the door. Nothing required her to put up with his lousy moods or even intervene in any way if she happened to wonder if he was still alive. Zane could go dig himself a hole and stay there as far as she was concerned.

  But as she stepped toward the door, Nell moved in front of her. She eased to the side, and Nell blocked her again.

  “Come on, Nell,” she said.

  Zane snorted behind her. “I guess she doesn’t think I should be alone.”

  Ashley pivoted. “Do you?”

  For a few seconds, he didn’t move. It was as if everything had stilled in the room, in the air. Then slowly, almost jerkily, he shook his head.

  Was that an invitation? Well, she’d dealt with enough kids in bad moods and with problems to decide that it was, however reluctant.

  Instead of just sitting, she started a pot of coffee, figuring it might help him with the last of the beer coursing through his system. He didn’t say a word even when she placed a mug in front of him and sat with him at the table.

  After downing half the mug of coffee, his gaze focused on her again. “You don’t have to feel responsible for me.”

  “I don’t,” she answered, a half-truth. She’d feel some responsibility for any neighbor having a rough time.

  “I told you I’m not fit to be around people yet.”

  “So it’s been a rough week?”

  “They happen. Trouble sleeping, more than anything. Nightmares. Agitation.”

  She drummed her fingertips against the side of her own coffee mug, then stopped. “Nothing can be done for it?”

  “Yeah, there are pills. I hate the way they make me feel. Not myself.”

  “So beer is better?”

  Amazement struck her as he suddenly half smiled. “Yeah, I make a lot of sense.”

  She smiled back helplessly.

  “There was a time I could run off this kind of feeling,” he remarked. “It’s harder in a wheelchair. Oh, I can do it, but with all the stops at corners and so on, I’d probably have to spend most of the day working up a sweat.”

  “Maybe you need a gym. The hospital installed one a few years ago. Anyone can use it.”

  “I guess I should look into it.” He shook his head a little, closed his eyes briefly, then drew a deep breath. “I remember being a pleasant person, once upon a time.”

  “You don’t think you’re pleasant now?”

  “Hell, no.”

  A very sad self-evaluation. Ashley smothered a sigh and sought a way to make a real connection that had nothing to do with this man’s troubles. The kind of connection she figured he needed a whole lot. The thought of him having no one to distract him in his life...well, she didn’t know much about what he was going through, but she suspected being left alone to brood about it wasn’t helping anything.

  “You need to meet some people who get it,” she finally said. “We’ve got any number around here who’ve come back from war. We do have an active veterans’ group. Sitting here all alone... I know it’s none of my business, but it doesn’t seem like the best way to handle this. Too much time inside your own head.”

  “Which isn’t a very pretty place,” he remarked. “I don’t know. Clearly the hermit thing isn’t going to make it. A gym might help. And poor Nell gets so worried about me. Dang, I don’t even know if I walked her since this morning.”

  “She opened the door for me,” Ashley said a little wryly. “I think if she were desperate...”

  “When I’m not myself, she knows she’s not supposed to leave me.” With that he called Nell and began rolling to the front of the house. The dog trotted happily beside him, tail high. “I’ve been neglecting you, girl,” she heard Zane say.

  Well, he didn’t sound inebriated, Ashley decided. Maybe it was time for her to leave. She’d done enough of the nosy neighbor routine for one night. She followed them to the door. Zane rolled out onto the porch, and Nell took off like a flash, sniffing around the scrubby front yard as if it were full of wonderful secrets.

  The dog’s exuberance was beautiful to behold, and Ashley couldn’t help pausing to watch Nell with a smile. “She sure loves life,” she remarked, then froze as she wondered if she’d said exactly the wrong thing.

  “Yeah,” he answered. Then he surprised her. “Take a seat on the porch swing if you want.”

  She glanced at the swing on the far side of the porch, then at him. “You’ll get cold if you stay out here.”

  “Nell can bring me my sweater or jacket if I ask her. Stay.”

  It didn’t sound like a command but almost like a request, so, hesitantly, she crossed to the swing and sat on it. It creaked a bit and moved. She doubted there was any way he could get on it himself. At least not without help. He rolled his chair over to sit beside her.

  “It’s a quiet evening,” he remarked.

  “It won’t be for long. Once Halloween hits, the kids are officially on the countdown toward Christmas. The excitement winds them up so they’re running all over the place, and of course, their families will be shopping.”

  “The calm before the storm, huh?”

  She laughed quietly. “Tests next week for most of the students. Once those are over, little reins in the excitement.”

&nb
sp; “Did you get excited when you were a kid?”

  “Of course. Didn’t you?”

  “Always. Seems like a long time ago, in a land far away.”

  She twisted to see him a little better and pushed the swing with one foot to sway gently. “Sometimes life hits us so hard that things that happened only recently seem like they were years ago.”

  She heard him draw a deep breath. “Yeah.” Then he surprised her yet again. “Do you decorate for Halloween?”

  “Just a bit. Some phony spiderwebs, a skeleton or two hanging from my tree. Why?”

  “Just thinking about it. It’s better than thinking about anything else at the moment.” He turned his chair a bit so that he was looking right at her. Nell dashed up, apparently done with the yard, and settled right beside him.

  She chewed her lip, a bad habit she’d picked up from her friend Julie, then asked, “You want to do something?”

  “Maybe I should dress up like Frankenstein. Come on, Ashley, what kid is going to want to come up here to take candy from a stranger in a wheelchair?”

  Bitterness laced his words. Her heart winced, but she kept the feeling from her face. “A lot, I’d think. Nell would help, too. She could probably hand out the candy.”

  To her relief he started to laugh. “She probably could.” Leaning to one side, he reached down to pat the dog and stroke her ears. “Gotta do something about that doorknob, though.”

  “She was sure chewing on it.”

  “It’s probably all scratched and covered with tooth marks then.” Again he laughed. “Like I care. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “She’s remarkable.” Ashley decided to plunge in again. “Do you think you could talk to Cadell about what Mikey would need?”

  His face shuttered for an instant, and she had the feeling he was holding some kind of internal conversation. “I’d need to meet Mikey,” he said. “I’d need to know what he can still do and what he wants. And by the way, I’m no expert. I don’t know how the dogs are trained.”

  “Do you know who trained Nell? Maybe Cadell could call him. He’s said several times that he’d like help with training service dogs. His bailiwick is police dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, bomb-sniffing dogs...”

  He interrupted her. “We need bomb-sniffing dogs here?”

  She had to laugh. “No. Not really. But we did have a scare a couple of years ago, and the sheriff started pining for a dog. Which made me think... Have you met Jess McGregor?”

  “I haven’t really met anyone,” he reminded her drily. “Who’s this McGregor?”

  “Jess is the guy who had the bomb scare. He’s a physician’s assistant at the hospital clinic. An amputee. He’d probably be the perfect guy to set you up at the gym. And from what his wife has mentioned, he’s still struggling a bit, too, from the war.”

  Again that stony face returned. Ashley nearly kicked herself. They had been doing all right with casual conversation about Halloween, but she had been the one to bring it back around. The guy had enough to deal with. He absolutely didn’t need additional pressure from her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t press you. If you need anything, send Nell over.”

  But before she could rise, his hand snapped out and gently gripped her forearm. “Stay. Please. I’ve lost my social skills. I fall silent at all the wrong times.” He let go of her immediately.

  “But I’ve been pushing things on you that you don’t want. I shouldn’t do that.” Really, she shouldn’t. She decided she spent too much time being a teacher. Did she want to order the lives of everyone around her? Oddly, though, she missed his touch on her arm.

  “You’re trying to give me stuff to do instead of brooding. You’re transparent, Ashley.”

  She felt her cheeks color and was grateful that it was dark.

  “It’s okay. I need some pushing, I guess. This whole hermitage idea isn’t helping me sleep, it’s not getting rid of the anxiety and it doesn’t prevent me from slipping in time.”

  “I’m sorry.” She stared out into the night for a few minutes, then asked, “Do you ever regret your choices? Most people regret at least some.”

  “No.” The single word was uncompromising. After a minute or so he continued speaking. “I don’t regret volunteering, either for the navy or the SEALs. I still believe we were doing important work. I just hadn’t counted on how it could mess up my head. That was an unexpected...dividend, I guess.”

  “Lousy dividend.” God, this was sad. She remembered so vividly when he’d been the star athlete who seemed to have the world on a string. Now he was a haunted, tortured man who couldn’t even go out for a real run. Life could be so cruel sometimes, like with Mikey. What had that kid ever done except mount a horse to go for a ride as he had many times before?

  “What exactly happened with Mikey?” Zane asked. “I think you told me but I’m forgetful sometimes.” He tapped his head.

  “Thrown from a horse. Like most ranch kids, he was pretty experienced, did a lot of riding. But a snake scared the horse, the horse bucked Mikey off, and I guess we should be glad that both horse and Mikey survived.”

  “That sucks,” Zane said flatly. “Stinking bad luck. In my case I was in a war zone. I was choosing to take the risks. But that kid...” He shook his head.

  She had the worst urge to reach out and take his hand. To find some way to offer comfort even though she couldn’t think of anything that would actually work. “So your paralysis isn’t your biggest problem?”

  “My paralysis is a challenge, that’s all. No, it’s the other stuff.”

  She thought about that for a few minutes. A challenge? The thing she thought might cast anyone into a hellish depression was just a challenge? “That’s a remarkable attitude.”

  “I got bigger problems.” He shrugged. “Lots of people have bigger problems. I’d like to meet this Mikey kid. Think it’s possible?”

  Ashley didn’t hesitate. A man who felt his paralysis was simply a challenge would probably be very good medicine. “I’m sure he’d like to meet you,” she answered. “Want me to set it up?”

  “Yeah. With some leeway in case I have a bad day and I’m taking cover behind the furniture.”

  He said it lightly, but Ashley understood there was nothing light about it. This man inescapably relived things most people would never know. “You’d like Jess,” she said. “We’ve got some other former SEALs and special-ops types around here, too. If you ever want to see a face other than mine, let me know.”

  “Your face is nice to look at.”

  The compliment amazed her. She looked quickly at him and saw he was smiling. “Okay,” he said. “Meet Jess. Check. Bring him over some time.”

  She rose reluctantly. “I have a lot of schoolwork to do yet. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  “I hope you mean that. You’d be the first person in a long time.” But he nodded, gave her again that half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Ashley walked away, feeling as if she had interrupted something by going over there. One of his episodes of PTSD? Maybe. She just hoped it didn’t pick up where it had left off.

  * * *

  Zane watched her walk away before he realized he was getting chilled. Once inside with Nell, he helped himself to some of the remaining coffee while she settled nearby with her bone. The rinsed beer bottles sat on the counter like accusing fingers.

  “Couldn’t wake me up, huh, Nell?” He received her quizzical look. He must have gotten too drunk to respond and she’d given up, even when he’d started to sober up. Not that it was part of her job description to wake him up from an alcoholic stupor.

  The alcohol had silenced the screams in his head, but Ashley had been right—that wasn’t a good way to go.

  Sitting alone in his kitchen as the night con
tinued to deepen, and with a background sound track that wouldn’t quit—the noises of war kept playing—he faced himself.

  The SEALs had demanded more of him mentally, physically and emotionally than he ever would have believed possible. He’d met every challenge, passed every test and performed every mission and duty they had given him.

  So what had happened to that guy? Lack of legs? A challenge, as he’d said. No, something had pried his brain open and let stuff out of the can that he’d never expected to see again.

  But why? That was the thing no one could explain to him. Why? It was a natural reaction to trauma, lasting longer when the trauma had endured longer. But why? Because the brain couldn’t absorb it all in one big chunk? Or was there something else going on?

  He wished he knew, because it would be another tool to use. Damn it, he needed some tools. Drugs took the edge off, but they didn’t get rid of it. Nell did a lot for him, pulling him back from the edge repeatedly.

  But time and again, sometimes for reasons he couldn’t begin to detect, he headed back to that edge. Vets and counselors both had told him it usually eased up with time. It might never go away totally, but it would ease.

  He just sometimes wondered if he could hang on long enough.

  But his thoughts soon drifted back to Ashley. The woman had kind of barged into his life, but he didn’t mind it. Not at all. Very much the teacher, though, pushing him to meet other people. He wasn’t sure about meeting the amputee, Jess McGregor. It sounded as if he’d found the keys to the kingdom already.

  But that Mikey kid. That one grabbed him. Bad enough to be paraplegic and approaching forty. Quadriplegic at nine or ten? Unthinkable. Rolling out of the kitchen, he went to get his laptop computer and bring it back to set on the table. Nell kept happily gnawing away, apparently not sensing that she was needed just now.

  At least he’d managed to get Wi-Fi in this town. The new thing, the installer had told him. He could plug into the router if he wanted to, but the capacity to go wireless everywhere in the house was good. Made his life easier, although he didn’t spend a whole lot of time doing it.