by Hinze, Vicki
“No problem.” Ashley didn’t push. “I’ll be back in an hour with the treasures—and with a hamburger and a Coke. It’s been a couple hours, and I’m sure your low-level light is on.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “Be ready for your transformation. We’ll do your hair then.”
Katie couldn’t seem to eat enough hamburgers or drink enough sodas, and her low-level light was on. She smiled. Ashley had to be at least half as psychic as Katie’s mother—another person in her life they wouldn’t let her talk to until all their debriefings had been completed. Excitement bubbled in her stomach. “Thank you, Ashley. I—I—” Overwhelmed, she couldn’t find the words.
“My privilege and pleasure,” she whispered low and soft. “These doctors just don’t get it. A woman looks good, she feels good.” Ashley winked. “We’ll forgive them, though. They do have other assets.” She lifted a fingertip. “Take a little nap. You’re in for a busy afternoon and you’ve got to still be feeling the jet lag—oh, and I’ll bring more water when I come back, too.”
“Thanks.” Ashley had kept two mugs filled for Katie all the time, apparently because Katie had gotten upset. She lay back against the pillows and wracked her brain, but she didn’t remember ever being upset about water. Still, she must have been… It had to be the jet lag. Between it and all the medical tests and the constant debriefings, it had to be that she just didn’t recall it because when it was over, it was over. She’d dumped it in the shuffle. It was a pretty insignificant thing, considering the scope of everything going on around her. “I appreciate it. Being in the desert turned me into half-camel.”
“No problem.” She smiled. “We’ve got plenty.”
Katie nodded but she was far too wired to sleep. C.D. was alive and here. Tears welled in her eyes. Sam was coming at four, and after his visit, she would be allowed to phone her mother. All that after such a long dry spell of no interaction with those she loved… It was just too much, the joy inside her was bubbling over; she couldn’t hold it all. And the for some reason, Ashley reaching out to Katie, doing more for her than anyone other than General Amid had in six years… Well, sometimes even an imperfect life was good. And after a long stream of tough, bad times mired and bogged down in imperfection, today would be a very good day.
A chill raced up and down her spine.
Rubbing at her arms, she checked the thermostat. Seventy-eight; it was freezing in here. How long would it take her body to adjust to non-desert conditions? Unsure, she cranked the thing up to ninety then crawled into bed and snuggled down under the covers to get warm.
C.D. was alive. Sam would soon be here. She would soon hear her mother’s voice. And later she would see Molly and Jake…
These things rolled over and over in her mind and heart—and had dragons breathing fire in her belly because she didn’t have a clue what to expect from them, or a clue what they would expect from her. Would they be happy to see and hear from her?
Surely they would. How could they not be thrilled she wasn’t dead? They couldn’t be, could they?
Oh, these reunions were going to be so sweet. She’d prayed for this for so long, through bouts of shaky and no faith and ones where it was the tiniest spark buried deep inside, and finally, finally, those prayers had been answered and they really were going to happen…
Thank you.
It was the tiniest of prayers but by far the most heartfelt she’d ever uttered.
* * *
Ashley shook Katie’s shoulder. “Wake up sleepyhead. I’ve got food, drink and treasures.”
Katie was wide-awake the moment Ashley had opened the door. Be always aware, so you see attacks coming. Silently, she sat up in bed then brushed her hair back from her face. The hamburger smelled like heaven.
Ashley passed it and the soda first. “You eat. I’ll show you all your stuff.”
Katie opened the bag then the wrapper and finally sank her teeth into the first bite. The tang of tomato, the crunch of onion, the taste of decent bread—she savored each texture and flavor separately. “Oh, you remembered extra mustard.” Katie let out an appreciative groan.
“Of course, dahlink. You’ve gone through a quart of the stuff in two days.”
“Am I being a glutton?” Katie frowned, covering her mouth with her fingertips to hide her chewing.
“No, not at all.” Ashley gave her a tender look and then pulled clothes and underwear from bags and tossed a shoebox onto the foot of the bed. “Shopping sprees are so much fun.” She smiled. “There’s a purse to match the shoes, and this.” She passed a purple velvet bag.
“What is it?”
“Essentials for non-hags,” Ashley said, a pleasant lilt in her voice. “Makeup and cologne, a hairbrush, lipstick, two bottles of conditioner, and all that fabulous girlie-girl stuff we love so much.”
Two whole bottles of conditioner. Two. Katie choked then laughed joyously from deep in her throat. “You’re something else. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Be well and happy, Katie.” Ashley said, fingering the lilac dress she’d just bought. “With your silver hair, this dress is going to look great on you. It’s the exact same color as your eyes, and the fabric is to die for. Feel it.” She stepped closer.
Katie touched the dress. “It’s so soft. I love it.”
“Well, I can see I’m not needed here.”
Katie looked over at a doctor standing in the doorway. He was about forty, blond, thick and gentle-faced. “Who are you?”
“Dr. Firestone.” He nodded. “Dr. Muldoon thought you might like a chance to chat with me.”
“Why?” Katie dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.
Ashley whispered to her. “He’s the resident psychiatrist, Katie.”
Firestone ignored her question. “I understand you won’t discuss what happened to you, Colonel Slater.”
“Not true. I’ve discussed all I care to discuss,” she said, bristling from his approach. The man could learn a thing or two about bedside—in this case, door-side—manner. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’m not in denial.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She nodded to pause to savor a tart bite of pickle. “In six years, I’ve had a lot of time to cope with my situation and circumstances, and I have. I’m on my time now, and I’m not wasting a second of it focusing on anything I can’t change.”
“Sounds healthy to me.” Leaning into the frame, he gave her a lopsided grin that transformed him and her opinion of him.
Liking him, she smiled. “To me, too.”
“I wouldn’t mind a chat, anyway.” He hiked his eyebrows. “To ease my mind that your form of dealing with it is somewhere in the neighborhood of my form of dealing with it.”
“Sorry.” She didn’t dare. “I don’t deliberately revisit. It clouds my aura.” She wrinkled her nose.
He laughed. “Gotta protect that zen.”
“Exactly.” She exaggerated her nod. “I appreciate your concern, but I have what I need to move on with my life—at least, I will, once I’m permitted to see my family—and I’m sure you have patients to see who really need you.”
He seemed a little surprised but not offended; his eyes warmed. “I believe you might be right, Colonel Slater.”
“Katie Slater,” she corrected him. “My tour of duty has expired. And I’m fine.”
“I have to admit, you do seem fine.”
“I am. Are you a surgeon?”
“No, why?”
She grabbed a hank of hair. “I need a haircut.”
He laughed. “Sorry.”
“No problem. I’ve managed before and will again.” Katie forced herself to look back at him over her shoulder. If little else, she’d learned well to mask her fears. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to get gorgeous for a long overdue reunion with my husband.”
“Ah, the essential girlie-girl stuff.” His eyes twinkled. “Got it. I’m dismissed.”
“Afraid so.” She lifted a hand, motioned from her head to toes. “As you can c
learly see, it’s going to take some time to create that much magic.”
“Less than you think, Katie Slater. But I’ll leave you to it.” Still smiling, he closed the door.
Ashley gasped. “Oh my stars, Katie. I can’t believe you talked to him like that. He’s a virtual god around here.”
She looked at the gray shoes. They had a heel. Could she still walk in heels? Probably not. Honestly, she never had walked well in the trying things. “Not to me.”
Ashley patted her on the shoulder and grunted. “You know, you probably did him good. Not that he’s a bear or anything. He’s actually pretty nice. But it doesn’t hurt to remind virtual gods that they’re not the God, you know what I mean?”
Katie did know. During their marriage, Sam had often told her that she kept him grounded and humble. Turning the topic, she swallowed her last bite of burger and washed it down with a healthy swig of soda. “Okay, I’m ready.” She crawled out of bed. “Give me your best shot. How you’re going to transform this scrawny body into anything resembling gorgeous—well, forget magic. It’ll take a miracle.”
“Believe, Katie.” Ashley giggled. “Miracles happen every day. I see them here all the time, and you’re here, right?”
That really was a miracle. “I am. Which is why I don’t dare ask for or expect another one.” She stretched and grabbed her water mug, squelching a twinge of panic at it being out of reach. “That’d be exceedingly greedy, wouldn’t it?”
“Nonsense.” Ashley shook out the dress, then laid it on the bed and smoothed the wrinkles from it. “Miracles aren’t rationed. They’re tons of them just waiting for anyone with the guts to ask for them.”
It wasn’t as simple as asking. You had to have enough faith to believe they exist and enough wisdom to recognize a miracle as a miracle when you saw one. That’s where things got iffy. Fear and doubt sink in, and truthfully, sometimes we just don’t see as well as we think we do, and what we see as a miracle is actually a catastrophe in the making. Sipping through the straw, Katie kept her thoughts to herself on all that and still hoped Ashley was right. The dragons filling her belly with fire were sprouting wings. She so wanted Sam to be thrilled to see her. To feel she looked beautiful; she needed the confidence that came with that.
So did that mean she wanted one miracle or two?
Did it matter?
Not if they weren’t rationed. “Okay, Ashley. You’d better be right about this multiple miracle business.” Her heart felt light. Odd—it’d been so long—but light. Did she dare admit it felt really good? “I’m asking…” Why not? It was a great day and it should be celebrated.
“You laughed!” Ashley’s mouth rounded in an O. “Now, that’s a miracle!”
It was, and Katie laughed again.
* * *
She stood before the full-length mirror at the nurse’s station and stared at herself. The lilac dress fit well enough, but she was a good twenty pounds too light. The shoes felt strange after six years of flight boots and bare feet, but they didn’t pinch. Though the heels were low ones, she felt off balance but resisted the urge to reach for something to hold onto to stay steady on her feet. She’d adjust. Hadn’t she’d learned to quickly adapt to whatever conditions she landed in? She had. She was alive, right? Of course, she had. She could do it again.
“Gorgeous.” Ashley met Katie’s eyes in the mirror and beamed. “Well, Katie Slater, you got your miracle.”
Katie smiled. Tapped her hair. Straightened her skirt.
Ashley checked her watch. “Oh, shoot. Hurry. Sam will be here any second.”
“My water.” The twinge of panic returned and she turned clammy. “Where is my mug?”
“Right here.” Ashley passed it to her.
Relieved, Katie clasped it, took a sip and then a last look in the mirror. She looked good and felt good, and hurried back to her room. Oh, please, don’t let anything mess this up. Don’t let me mess anything up.
* * *
“Hi, Katie.”
Sam stood near the door. His brown hair was tussled by the wind, his face flushed. He’d gained weight, aged easily. All signs of the boy in him had disappeared and given way to the man. His eyes were red, and he was blinking hard.
“Sam.” She choked out his name and rushed to him, closed her arms around his neck and pressed close. The sobs she never allowed herself tore at her throat and she swallowed hard and fast but couldn’t keep that soft mewl from escaping.
He held her close, squeezing her to him. “Oh, God, Katie. I can’t believe it. You’re really here.” He sobbed against her shoulder, his whole body shuddering, quaking. “You’re really here.”
“I can’t believe it, either.” She pulled back enough to smile up at him.
He wasn’t smiling.
Dr. Muldoon came into her room, whispered something to Ashley and she went pale.
“Sam?” Katie looked back at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything is going to be all right.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Come sit down.”
Going to be all right. As in, things are not all right now. Something was definitely wrong. Something serious. Ashley still had no color and Dr. Muldoon looked as tense as if he were having a root canal without anesthetic. Wary and uneasy, Katie walked to the bed and sat on its edge, stiff and nearly as afraid as she’d been in the prison camp. There, she’d known to expect the worst. Here, she had no idea what was coming, but it had Sam’s hands shaking. That wasn’t something a surgeon did easily.
He sat on the chair beside her. “I’m very happy that you’re alive, Katie. The news was just…”
“Shocking?” She finished for him.
He nodded. “But good.” He clasped her hand, squeezed it hard. “Very good.”
She wanted to pry whatever was coming out of him. He was being so careful, casting worried looks to Muldoon, silently asking permission to go on, and Muldoon was responding with equally subtle gestures. Ashley, while still pale, didn’t look dead anymore, just as if she wished she were. Whatever was coming, it was worse than serious. Katie felt it down to the marrow of her bones.
She steeled herself for certain devastation.
“It is so amazing to be sitting beside you,” Sam said. “I keep thinking about your funeral and how distraught I was that day. I prayed so hard for just one more look at you. One more chance to tell you how much I loved you.”
Her heart filled with hope and the need for reassurance suffused her. “Then my coming home is a miracle for you, too?”
“Of course, Katie. You’re the mother of my children.”
She tried a smile, but he didn’t return it. Just blinked fast, as if he was a hitch from tears. Emotional was expected, but this kind of tension between them wasn’t. She couldn’t peg the cause. “How are the kids, Sam? You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed them and you. You guys are all that kept me going.”
That remark generated another worried look at Muldoon, and another subtle message to continue. “I, um, brought some photos. Dr. Muldoon feels it’s best for you and I to come to terms before the kids actually come see you.”
“Come to terms?” Odd language. She was the mother of his children, but also his wife. He hadn’t considered her coming home a miracle for himself. Just for the kids. But he was nervous and upset, too. She couldn’t blame him for that. She was a nervous wreck herself—and making too much of his statement. Let it go. “What do you mean, come to terms? With what?”
He looked at her and a tear rolled down his face. “Um, here’s a photo of Jake.” Sam passed it to her, ignoring her question.
Stunned, she snagged the photo and devoured it with hungry eyes, then let out a groan. “He’s so big. Oh my, Sam.” She stroked the photo, sliding a fingertip down the slope of Jake’s nose, just as she had the photo that had been with her in the prison. “He’s all grown up.”
“He’s twelve.”
She tore her gaze from the photo to look at Sam, let him see the agony of all she’d missed
in her eyes. “I know.” How could he think she wouldn’t know the age of her own children? Something odd nagged at her, hovering just below the surface. She glanced back at the photo and chased it to see if it would reveal itself. “How long was I gone, Sam? Do you know?”
“Over six years.”
“How much over?” Katie pushed to make her point.
“A little. I don’t know exactly.”
“Six years, two months, one week and one day,” she said. “That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen you and the kids.”
He blew out a shaky breath that had his chin quivering. Swallowed hard enough to bob his Adam’s apple. It bulged in his throat. “Here’s one of Molly.”
“She’s nine,” Katie said, taking the photo. She smiled at it. Molly looked happy, ponytails and blue ribbons that matched her dress. “She has your eyes. And your nose.” Katie smiled. “God, she’s beautiful, Sam. She’s… so beautiful.”
He didn’t smile back. “Um, here’s one of the three of us.” He shrugged, increasingly uncomfortable and less able to hide it. “I tried to find the most recent ones.”
This was taken outside someone’s home. But it wasn’t their home—no garden—and it wasn’t a house that she recognized. “Where is this?”
“Our new house.”
“You moved?” The first shaft of pain sliced through her heart. “Why?”
Again with the look at Muldoon. “We, um, needed a change.”
A change? “You left my garden?” They’d planned to stay there forever. She’d worked so hard on it. Prepared every bed, pulled every weed, planted every bulb. She’d spent six months just planning it, and two years getting everything in place so they’d have color year round. Now it was gone? He’d sold it as if it had meant nothing? “Oh, God.”
“I’m sorry, Katie,” Sam said. “There were so many memories…” His voice hitched. “We just needed somewhere we could have a fresh start.”
“A fresh . . . start?” She’d clung ferociously to memories of him and the kids. He’d shunned memories of her. And knowing it hurt.