by Dale Mayer
“Well, that’s great,” she said. “You want to go inside? I’ll put on some tea or coffee.”
“A cup of coffee would be great, but, if it’s too late for you, I’m happy with tea too.”
She smiled. “Remember how we used to make tea from the herbs we found on the side of the road?”
“Yeah, I was into the prepper thing back then too at one time, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” she said. “You were adorable.”
He snorted at that. “I was one messed-up kid. I don’t even know how you saw something to like.”
“I found lots to like,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I understood you better than you understood yourself.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I still don’t quite see what you ever saw on me.”
“All the girls were after you,” she said in the teasing voice. “It wasn’t just me.”
“Yeah, they were.” He sent her that lopsided grin. “That was kind of cool.”
She laughed out loud. “Everybody loves to be a heartthrob.”
“Didn’t matter to me so much,” he said. “You’re the one I wanted to be with.”
“I know,” she said. “We were both obviously young and naive. At least I was,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He chuckled and said, “Yet look at the job you did,” he said. “Jeremy’s fantastic.”
“He is,” she said with a big smile. “Of all the things that I feel good about in my life, he’s the big one,” she said with a bright smile. “No regrets in having him at all.”
As they headed back into the kitchen, he left the porch door open and slowly dropped Sabine’s leash.
“Is that safe?” Laurie Ann asked from the kitchen, as she measured the coffee.
“Let’s find out.”
At that, the dog immediately walked to the doorway’s edge, as Kurt stopped and watched. Then Sabine walked the perimeter of the fenced yard and came back again, where she sat down in front of the open door.
“I guess she’s not used to being inside, is she?” Laurie Ann asked in sudden understanding. “That’s why you left the door open.”
“I don’t want her to feel pent up or captured,” he said. “She needs to know that she’s been rescued and lifted up out of her ugly life. I know it seems like it’s a minor difference, but it’s one that matters.”
“All of it matters,” she said quietly. “I certainly understand the need not to feel caged.”
“Right,” he said, “that’s how you felt when you found out you were pregnant.”
“I did,” she said, staring at him. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s how I felt when I was here in this town,” he said. “I needed desperately to get out. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know how. I just knew I needed to leave.”
“And, in my case, I knew I needed to have Jeremy. I just didn’t know how or why or what it would entail,” she said. “The hardest part was my parents.”
“I understand,” he said. “And I have to deal with the fact that I wasn’t there for you all these years. It’s easy to say, I didn’t know, but, at the same time, neither did I check. So I have to live with that too.”
“Well, why don’t we just start fresh?” she said. “I’m totally okay to do that.”
“That sounds like a deal,” he said. “You’re very forgiving.”
“I’m still me,” she said. “Whether you remember all the nuances of the life that we shared back then, I was always a very forgiving person.”
“I do remember,” he said. “You’re also very loving, very loyal, and extremely defensive of me.”
“Well, an awful lot of people out there wanted to bash you. The more they did, the more I went against them,” she said, chuckling. “If only they knew that.”
“Your parents would have had a heart attack if they understood that,” he said with a grin.
“So it’s a good thing they didn’t,” she said, “because Jeremy is still well worth having.”
“I agree,” he said. He looked around and said, “And I know you said there were leftovers, but, if there aren’t enough, I’m quite happy to order in.”
“What would you order?” she asked curiously.
He frowned and thought about it and said, “Well, I would probably order in burgers and a few spare patties for the dog.”
“Right,” she said, looking over at the opened door, where the shepherd lay. “She hasn’t eaten, has she?”
“Not a whole lot, no,” he said, “just the treats.”
“Well, we have to fix that.” She went to the fridge, opened it up, and said, “I’ve got leftover roast beef.”
“Do you have any bread?”
“Yes, of course.” She looked over and asked, “Why?”
He said, “I’ll have a roast beef sandwich, and, if there’s enough for the dog, I’ll split it with her, depending on how much there is. How about you?”
“I’m not sure I can eat yet. My emotions have my stomach stirred up. But I may eat something later.” She pulled out a good-sized slab of roast beef, and he nodded.
“Was this designated for another meal?”
“No,” she said, “not at all.”
“Since you’ve got bread, I’ll make it.” When she brought out a loaf of French bread, he nodded with a big smile. “And that’s perfect,” he said. He quickly cut several slabs and then sliced the roast beef paper-thin.
“Are you just having an open-faced sandwich, like that?” she asked.
“Yep, I sure am,” he said. “I love it this way.”
She smiled and watched as he very capably cut up the bread and the food, and then she asked, “What about Sabine?”
“Do you have a couple bowls or plates for her?”
“Yep.” She got down two large wide bowls.
He immediately chopped up some roast beef and put it in one.
“She shouldn’t have just straight meat, should she?”
“You had any leftover rice, some carrots, some cooked veggies?”
She brought out more leftovers and then watched as he put a bunch together, mashed them up, added a little bit of butter, and put that all in the other bowl. He set that down first for the dog. The dog looked at him, not too impressed, but she hadn’t eaten very much lately, so she dug in. When she’d eaten half of it, he dropped the roast beef in on top of the rest. She immediately devoured the rest of the bowl. “Wow,” she said, “that was pretty tricky.”
“Well, Sabine’s smart, and it won’t work all the time,” he said. “But she’s so hungry and tired, and she’s done without enough that, right now, she’s quite happy to eat whatever we give her.”
“We have to put dog food on the grocery list,” she said.
“I know. I’m just not sure I want to take her out too much to many public places yet,” he murmured. He reached over and gently stroked the shepherd. She took a few steps to come closer and leaned against his leg.
“I love to see that,” she murmured. “Already a bond has formed between the two of you. Have you considered the implications of that?”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it,” he said. “Can’t let her go now.”
“So you can keep her?”
“I think so,” he said. “I’ve talked to my bosses about it.”
“I don’t know where you live,” she said and then shook her head. “I haven’t even asked you about any of that, but can you have a dog?”
“I’ve been living in New Mexico in a rented apartment temporarily, while I decide on my new future. As to keeping her, I’ve been trying to figure out where I’m going with my life.”
“Did you figure it out?” she asked with a smirk. “Because, if you did, maybe you could help me figure mine out.”
“You know exactly where you’re going,” he said, looking at her. “You’ve got a beautiful son. You’ve got a beautiful home, and you have the career you’ve always wanted.”
“I do,” she said with a smile. “But somehow it st
ill feels a little on the empty side.”
“That’s because I’m not in it,” he said with a bright grand smile.
She laughed. “Unfortunately you could be right.”
Kurt sat down with his roast beef sandwich. The dog sat at his side and watched him hungrily.
“Could she still be hungry?” Laurie Ann asked. She hopped up and brought over a bowl of water. The dog barely looked at it.
He smiled and nodded. “After so long without food, she’ll probably overeat for quite a while, until she figures out that there’ll be a continuation of food in her world.”
“I can’t imagine what she went through,” she murmured.
He took another bite. Once he swallowed, he said, “And that’s what makes you so special too.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t feel like it,” she said, sitting down beside him. She sighed, looked over at him, and said, “Any thoughts about moving here permanently?”
“Well, there weren’t before I came,” he admitted, “but now I can’t think of anything else. I gather you don’t want to leave this area?” he asked.
“I’d just as soon not,” she said. “It’s taken me a long time to build up the business, to get the jobs at the clinics that I have,” she said, “to have patients who count on me, but I can also see that you have a problem with your history here.”
“Yes, but we don’t have to let that stop us from having a life here.”
She looked at him with a gentle smile. “It seems like it stopped us a lot over the years.”
“No longer,” he said. “The thing is, just like back then, I’m still not a good prospect.”
She stared at him in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“Your family will be quick to point out that I don’t have a real job. Don’t have any job as far as they’re concerned. No way to support you or to look after you.”
She shook her head. “You’ll fix that,” she said firmly.
He burst out laughing. “Maybe,” he said, “but that does not mean that I have an answer right away.”
“Maybe not,” she said, “but you currently are working, even if it’s unpaid, which I understand is more of a volunteer position.”
He nodded.
“And I appreciate the fact that you’re doing that because of the War Dog,” she said, looking down Sabine. “So that’s not a negative in my book.”
“Not in your book maybe, but in a lot of people’s books,” he said. “Although I have a few ideas about what I want to do with my life, but I haven’t exactly locked anything down. Plus, your family will also consider me a washout because I got injured. So they’ll be afraid that you’ll spend your life looking after an injured man who is incapable of supporting himself.”
“Which would all be lies,” she said. “You’re not the kind to sit on the couch and play video games, while your wife works.”
He didn’t say a word about the wife part, but she was right. He wasn’t, but her trust in him was touching. Misguided, because she didn’t really know who he was anymore, but still very touching. “They’ll still scream.”
“They can scream as loud and as hard as they want,” she said. “I don’t have anything to do with my parents anymore. And I gave up trying to please them a long time ago.”
“Good,” he said, “but, for the purposes of keeping peace in the family, you know very well how hard it is to go against all that.”
“I am only close to my sister, and as long as I keep her in my life, I think you’re right. I’m sure she’ll come around.”
“If I had a good job,” he said with a smile, “then I’m sure she’d be easier to come around.”
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” she said.
“No, it’s called love. She worries about you. You’ve been in a tough spot before, and she doesn’t want to see you in that same spot again.”
“I know,” she said, “and I love her for it. At the same time, it’s frustrating.”
“That’s family for you,” he said, chuckling.
She smiled and nodded. “Have you thought about what you want to do?”
“Like I said, I have a few ideas,” he said easily. “But I don’t have anything locked down because I was thinking about what I would do in Santa Fe.”
She winced at that. “I guess I hadn’t considered that. If you move here, you have to start all over again, don’t you?”
“Which, in a way, is the right time to do this then because I’m basically starting all over again anyway.”
She nodded and smiled. “So any time you get any ideas about what you want to do, I’d love to hear them.”
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you’ll know,” he said, keeping a close counsel, because he really didn’t have a clue. Not here. Not now. He knew the detective had pissed him right off, and that would be a bit of an issue, but he didn’t know if law enforcement was something he wanted to do and whether he could even do it physically.
“What about working with the dog?” she asked, looking down at Sabine.
“Maybe. I don’t have the same training that her handlers had,” he said, “but it doesn’t mean that I can’t get it.”
“Oh, I never even thought of that. I guess you do have resources, benefits, don’t you?”
He smiled and nodded and said, “I have a lot of resources. If I want to go back to school, I can. If I want to get extra training, I can.”
She brightened at that. “That’s a huge gift then.”
“It is, as long as you know what you want to do,” he said in a droll tone. As he picked up the last piece of his sandwich, Sabine barked. He looked down at her, raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Was that a question, or was that a request?”
She barked one more time, and her tail started to wag. He took the roast beef off the bread and held it out to her. Totally ignoring the ketchup, she wolfed it down and then dropped her chin on his knee, while he popped the bread into his mouth. He reached down and gently scratched her.
“She’s already such a character,” Laurie Ann said in wonder.
“That she is,” he said with a bright smile. “We just have to see what kind of character she’ll end up being.”
“But you’ll keep her regardless, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I will.”
She beamed. “Good.”
“Well, that answers that question,” he said. “I was afraid to ask how you felt about it.”
“Well, of course, we want to keep her,” she said. “How could you possibly let her go now?”
He looked at Laurie Ann, wondering how he’d ever thought that leaving her was a good idea. He shook his head. “I do get upset when I think about all the time we’ve wasted,” he murmured. “I don’t even know how we’re back here again—as if all the years, the goodbyes never happened.”
“Don’t think about it,” she said. “That’s the path for disaster.”
“Well, I can agree with that,” he said. “I just don’t want to miss any more.”
She held out her hand. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed tight. “I guess something about living and dying makes you really question life, doesn’t it?”
“When I lay in the hospital bed, and I was all alone,” he said, “I did wonder for a long time if anybody in this world would give a damn if I was no longer on the planet. It’s very sobering to come to that realization that there really wasn’t anyone. Sure, I had teammates and people I’d helped in the world, and they would have given a thought and maybe been sad and sorrowful for a few minutes, and that would have been it,” he said. He could feel some of that pain still inside. “When you realize that nobody really loves you, that you really have nobody to love, and that nobody cares one way or the other if you’re here,” he said, “it sure makes you take another look at life.”
“And it’s given you another chance at life,” she murmured.
He smiled. “So true. And I’m determined to make the best of it.”
“Sounds good to me, but we have to get rid of this asshole who’s trying to crawl into my house. So we can see what we have between us.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, “I want to take a cup of coffee upstairs and peruse where he would come inside and what we can do about that.”
She immediately hopped up and poured two cups of coffee, and, as he stood, the dog immediately bounced to her feet, her gaze watchful.
“So, is she watching you to see if you’ll leave her,” Laurie Ann asked, “or is she watching to see what we’re doing?”
“In this instance,” he said, “both. She’s been left before. I think she’ll probably have abandonment issues for quite a while, until she learns that she’s secure and healthy and happy and that life will be good again.”
“Well, let’s hope she gets there fast,” she murmured.
“Yep, I hear you.” As they walked up the stairs, she led the way and said, “The master’s right here, and this leads into the master bathroom but also to the closet.”
He stepped in behind her, noted the large space, and said, “This is a decent-size room.”
“Isn’t it? It’s one of the reasons I loved it,” she said. “All the time I was living with my sister, Jeremy and I had two very small rooms and a bath, and it really got to me after a while,” she said, “so it was one of the advantages of this master.”
“I like it.” He walked over to the deck door and pulled open the slider. “At least this makes enough noise that you would think it would wake you in the night.”
“I’m a heavy sleeper,” she confessed, “and often I don’t even hear my alarm in the morning.”
“In other words, he might have made it inside without you knowing.”
“I’m afraid so.” And she really was worried about that.
He could see it on her face. “Well, it’s a good thing that I’ll be here tonight.”
She said, “Yeah, and then what about tomorrow night?”
He looked over, grinned, and said, “How do you feel about a permanent house guest?”
She snorted. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”
“Nope, but,” he said, “nobody’s coming after you while I’m around,” he said, “so we need to come to some arrangement. What other rooms do you have here?”