A Soldier's Redemption Read online

  “I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or a criticism.”

  “Neither. Just an observation.”

  “Do you ever get afraid?” As soon as the words were out she realized she might have trespassed too far again, but it was too late to snatch them back. She almost held her breath, wondering if he would turn and walk away.

  Instead, he astonished her by answering. “I’m human.”

  Sideways, but still an answer. She relaxed a bit and looked around, taking in the old trees that lined the street, their leaves rustling ceaselessly in the summer breeze. Nobody else seemed to be out and about, but that wasn’t unusual. Here, as everywhere, most couples both needed to work.

  “In the evenings,” she remarked, “there will often be people sitting out on their front porches. Different from where I used to live. Most of the neighborhoods around me back home were built relatively recently, when it was important to have a privacy-fenced backyard. You’d almost never see anyone out front unless they were doing yard work.”

  “In most places in the world where I’ve been, a house is where you sleep or shelter from the elements. The rest of life happens in common areas, on the street, in front of the house. Not for everyone, of course. There are always some who want to keep the unwashed masses away. And in some cultures an enclosed courtyard is considered necessary, but given that several generations of a family live together, it’s not exactly isolation.”

  That was practically half an encyclopedia coming from this man. “Do you think we’re losing something with those fenced backyards?”

  “Depends on what you want out of life. But once you build that fence, if you’re having a barbecue you’re not going to have a neighbor who might drop over for a chat and bring a six-pack, and wind up staying on for dinner.”

  “True.” She turned that around for a few seconds. “I don’t really know how different it feels to live in a place like this,” she finally admitted. “Basically, when I come home from work I pass all these probably very nice people on their front porches and go inside and lock myself in.”

  “Maybe you have good reason.”

  Maybe she did. Or maybe she’d been acting like a wounded animal that wanted to be left alone in its burrow. The whole point of the Marshals moving her here had been so that she didn’t have to live this way. Another sigh escaped her.

  “I thought,” she said reluctantly, “that I was breaking out of the cycle earlier today. I even told myself to go take a walk.”

  “But?”

  “But then I realized that I’d just been distracted. That despite everything, I’m still worried at some level because of that call last night. Oh, I can’t even explain it to myself.”

  They reached the park and found a bench not far from the sidewalk. Nobody else was there, so Cory’s hope for distraction was disappointed.

  Wade let the silence flow around them with the breeze for a few minutes before he spoke again. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “we get confused because we’re changing.”

  That made her look at him, and for an instant she wished she hadn’t because she felt again that unexpected, unwanted attraction. What was going on with her? Why did she suddenly have the worst urge to put her head on the shoulder of a stranger? To feel his arms close around her?

  She jumped up from the bench and headed home. Walking it off seemed like the only sane course available to her. “We need to start dinner,” she said, the sole explanation she could offer for her behavior. Because there was no way she could tell him that the feelings he awakened in her were nearly as frightening as that phone call had been.

  Despite her sudden takeoff, he fell in step beside her before she had made two full strides. Glued to her side. Part of her wanted to resent that, and part of her was grateful for it. Confusion? She had it in spades. At least her fear and grief had been clear, so very clear. No questions there.

  Now the questions were surfacing, the conflicting feelings, all the stuff she’d avoided for so long. She forced herself to slow her pace to an easier walk. She’d been running again, she realized. Had she forgotten every other mode of existence?

  “Darn,” she said under her breath. All of a sudden it was as if someone had held up a mirror, and painful or not she had to look at herself. She wasn’t seeing a whole lot that she liked, either.

  “Something wrong?” Wade asked mildly.

  She stopped midstride and looked at him. Mistake, because the truth burst out of her and she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. What did she know about this guy after all? “Has something ever made you stop and take a good look at yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if you don’t like what you see?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just started walking again. She didn’t expect an answer, frankly. It wasn’t the kind of question anyone else could answer.

  But he surprised her. “You make up your mind to change.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Always.”

  Some inner tension uncoiled just a bit. Change? Why not? After all, she’d allowed herself to be changed by life, had just rolled along like a victim. That did not make her feel proud. “Sometimes,” she said more to herself than him, “you just have to grab the rudder.” She hadn’t done that at all since the shooting. Not at all.

  “Grabbing the rudder is easier to do when the seas aren’t stormy.”

  She glanced at him again. Oh, there was a story there, and she wished she knew what it was, but she didn’t dare ask. This man could disappear even in plain sight, and she didn’t want him to disappear again. At least not yet.

  For some reason the invader had ceased to be an invader. Maybe just his presence had reminded her that she still had a life to live. Maybe his obvious protectiveness had made her feel just a little safer. Or maybe the attraction she felt was overcoming all the walls she’d slammed into place. Because she had slammed those walls into place. She hadn’t built them brick by brick. No, she’d put up the steel barricades almost instantly in the aftermath. Huge parts of her had simply withdrawn from life, no longer willing to take even small risks, like making a friend.

  She stole another glance at Wade and wondered at herself. If ever a guy looked like a bad risk for even something as simple as friendship, he was it. Yet for some reason she was opening up to him. Not much, but enough that she could get herself into trouble if she didn’t watch her step.

  She ought to be afraid of him, the way she was afraid of everything else. Instead all she could do was notice how attractive he was. Wonder if that hard line of his mouth would feel as hard if he kissed her. What that hard body would feel like against her soft curves.

  Ah, she was losing her mind. For real. It had finally snapped. After a year of inability to feel anything but grief and anguish, she had finally broken. Now she was looking at a virtual stranger as a sex object.

  Way to go, Cory. Very sensible. Clearly she couldn’t trust herself at all anymore.

  Two cars came down the street toward them as they rounded the corner right before her house. She lifted her hand to wave, deciding it was about time to make a friendly gesture. The woman in the first car smiled and waved back. The man in the second car didn’t even glance at them.

  They reached the door and went inside, resetting the alarm. Without a word, he followed her into the kitchen, evidently ready to get his first cooking lesson. She started pulling things out, preparing to make a dish with Italian sausage and pasta and fresh vegetables. The recipe was one that had emerged one day from a scramble through the cupboards and the realization that the only way she could put together dinner was the stone-soup method.

  “I can’t trust myself anymore,” she muttered, at first unaware that she was thinking out loud. When you lived alone long enough, having conversations with yourself often moved from the mind to the mouth. “Everything’s been so screwed up for so long. But then how do I know my thinking wasn’t screwed up before? I was living in some kind of enchanted universe before. A place
where bad things didn’t happen.”

  She turned from pulling a package of frozen Italian sausage from the freezer and saw Wade standing there, arms folded, watching. And that’s when she realized her muttering hadn’t been private. Her cheeks heated a bit. “Sorry, sometimes I talk to myself. Bad habit.”

  “Don’t mind me.”

  “Well, you don’t want to hear it. And I’m not sure I want anyone else to hear the mess that’s going on inside my head.”

  “I can go upstairs if you like.”

  She shook her head. “Stay. I promised to teach you some cooking, and this is a great dish to start with.” She passed him the package of frozen sausage. “Microwave, hit the defrost button twice, please.”

  He took the sausage and did as she asked. Soon the familiar hum filled the kitchen. Green peppers and tomatoes were next, a true luxury these days, washed in the sink and readied for cubing. “Do you like onions?”

  “Very much.”

  So she pulled one out of the metal hanging basket and peeled it swiftly before setting it beside the other vegetables. As soon as she reached for the chef’s knife, though, Wade stepped forward. “I can slice and dice. How do you want it?”

  “Pieces about one-inch square.” She passed him the knife and as their hands brushed she felt the warmth of his skin. All of a sudden she had to close her eyes, had to batter down the almost forgotten pleasure of skin on skin. Such a simple, innocent touch, and it reminded her of one of the forms of human contact she absolutely missed most: touch. Even simple touches. She almost never let anyone get that close anymore, certainly not a man.

  A flood tide of forgotten yearnings pierced her, and she drew a sharp breath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He was so near she felt his breath on her cheek. Warm and clean. A shiver rippled through her as she fought the unwanted feelings, and forced her eyes open, ready to deny anything and everything.

  But the instant her gaze met his, she knew she could deny nothing. His obsidian eyes darkened even more, and she heard him inhale deeply as he recognized the storm inside her. There was a clatter as the knife fell to the counter, and the next thing she knew she was wrapped in his powerful arms.

  He lifted her right off the floor and set her on the counter, moving in between her legs until she could feel his heat in places that had been too cold and too empty for so long. This was not a man who hesitated, nor one who finessed the moment.

  He swooped in like a hawk and claimed her mouth as if it were rightfully his. An instant later she learned that thin mouth could be both soft and demanding. That his hard chest felt every bit as hard as it looked, and felt even better as it crushed her breasts. His arms were tight and steely, and she should have been afraid of their power, afraid of what he could do to her whether she wanted it or not.

  But all she could feel was the singing in her body as it responded to needs more primal than any she had ever imagined. Somehow the dissenting, cautious voices in her head fell silent. Somehow she lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck, holding on for dear life.

  Because this was life. Here and now. Like Sleeping Beauty awakening from a nightmare, she discovered she could want something besides freedom from terror and pain, and that good things were still to be had despite all.

  Her body responded to life’s call as her mind no longer seemed able to. His tongue passed the first gate of her teeth, finding hers in a rhythm as strong as her heartbeat, a thrusting that echoed like a shout in a canyon until it reached all the way to her very core and came back to her in a powerful throbbing.

  A gasp escaped her between one kiss and the next. Her legs lifted, trying to wrap around his narrow hips, trying to bring her center right up against his hardness, trying to find an answer to the ache that overpowered her. Any brain she had left gave way before the demands of her body for more and deeper touches. Her physical being leaped the barriers that had existed only in her mind.

  He moved against her, mimicking the ultimate act, not enough to satisfy, but enough to promise. She wanted every bit of that promise. Every bit.

  He drew a ragged breath as he released her mouth, but he didn’t leave her. No, he trailed those lips across her cheek, down the side of her throat, making her shiver with even more longing, causing her to make a small cry and arch against him. One of her hands slipped upward, finding the back of his head, pressing him closer yet. She wanted to take this journey as never before.

  Then the microwave dinged.

  All of a sudden, reality returned with a crash. He pulled away just a couple of inches and looked at her, his eyes darker than night. She stared back, hardly aware that she was panting, suddenly and acutely aware of how she had exposed herself.

  As if he read her awareness on her face, he stepped back a little farther. The absence of pressure between her thighs made her ache even more, made some part of her want to cry out in loss. But with the return of awareness came a bit of sense.

  He didn’t pull completely away, as if he knew how sensitive this could become. How dangerous for her, and maybe for him.

  Instead, even as she let her legs fall away, he reached out to gently brush her hair with his hand.

  “You’re enchanting,” he said huskily.

  Enchanting? No one had ever called her that. She remained mute, unable to speak, knowing that her eyes, her face, her breathing must be telling a truth she didn’t want to hear herself say. Not yet, maybe never.

  “I forgot myself.”

  He wasn’t the only one. She didn’t know what to say, could only stare at him, torn between yearning, loss and the returning shreds of common sense.

  He leaned forward, giving her the lightest of kisses on her lips. “I think,” he said, “that I’d better cut those vegetables.”

  She managed a nod, awhirl with so many conflicting feelings she doubted she could ever sort them out. He turned to pick up the knife, and moved down the counter about a foot to the cutting board and vegetables.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said, his voice still a little thick. “I’ll behave.”

  Another odd choice of words. As she fought her way back from the frustration of awakened, unmet desires, she tucked that away for future consideration. Right now, the thing she most needed was some equilibrium. Thinking could come later.

  Wade, just about to start slicing the vegetables, put the knife down and turned toward her. He gripped her around the waist and set her back on her feet. “Sorry,” he said. “Should have thought of that.”

  She could have slid off the counter on her own, but hadn’t because she still felt so shaky. Unable to tell him that, she mumbled her thanks and turned desperately in another direction, away from him, seeking something to keep busy with. This was a simple meal, and he was about to do the major part of the work.

  Finally she measured out the penne into a bowl, then walked around him to get the sausage from the microwave. Just act as if it never happened, she told herself. Maybe it never had.

  But her traitorous body said otherwise. Oh, it had happened all right, and she suspected the internal earthquakes had just begun. Even the light brush of her own clothing over her skin, especially between her legs, reminded her that something primal had awakened.

  She coated the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil, then began to slowly cook and brown the sausage on medium heat. Her hands still shook a little when she pulled out the stockpot she used for cooking pasta. A cheap pot, it wouldn’t have served well for anything that wasn’t mostly liquid, and she found herself pausing, suddenly locked in the most ridiculous memory of her previous pasta cooker, an expensive pot with a built-in colander and a smaller insert for steaming vegetables.

  It was an odd memory, coming out of nowhere. She had long since ceased to care about the things she had lost during her transition to this new life, but for no reason she could almost feel the weight of that pot in her hands and with it the tearing edge of memories, ordinary memories, the simple kinds of thing
s that should hold no threat whatever. It wasn’t a memory of Jim, of their life together. It was just a memory of a damn pot, one she had bought long before she married Jim. Nothing but a memory from the life of a woman who had once slowly built up a kitchen full of all the best cooking utensils because she loved to cook, and part of that expression was using the best of everything.

  On a teacher’s salary, many of those items had truly been an indulgence. She had scrimped to buy them, until she had had a kitchen that would have pleased a world-class chef.

  And now she was using a five-dollar aluminum stockpot and a chef’s knife she’d bought on sale at the grocery store.

  How odd, she thought, looking at the pot. How very odd what had once seemed important to her. And how little she usually missed those things now that they were gone. In fact, even had she been able to afford them, she doubted she would have replaced them.

  They didn’t matter any longer. Who had that woman been, anyway? Had she ever known? She certainly didn’t know who she was now.

  A faint sigh escaped her, and she put the pot in the sink to fill it with water. Indulgences. Her past life had been full of them, her new life was empty of them. In the midst of the storm, all she could say about it was that she had never known who she was? Had no idea who she had become?

  When she started to lift the heavy pot full of water, Wade stepped in and lifted it for her. “Don’t call me a pig,” he said. “I’ve just been trained to act a certain way.”

  She arched a brow at him. “So a woman can’t lift anything heavy?”

  “Why should she when I’m standing right here?”

  Once again she was left wondering how to take him. But this time she asked, emboldened, perhaps, by the fact that he had called her enchanting. “What exactly do you mean? That I’m too weak to do it?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  That awful answer again, the one that told her nothing. “Then what?” she insisted, refusing to let him get away with it.

  He put the pot on the stove. “Would it make you feel better if we had an argument?”

  That yanked her up short and hard. Was that what she was doing? Trying to get angry so she could forget the other things he made her feel? Or was this some kind of insistence on independence that actually made no sense? She bit her lip.