Gifts of Honor: Starting from ScratchHero's Homecoming

by Gail, Stacy

  They’d met six months earlier at the Cavalry Museum out at Fort Riley. His apologetic, sheepish smile had softened his rugged features as he unlocked the door from the inside, introducing himself and explaining that the archivist was having car trouble.

  “I don’t suppose you know anything about cataloguing Civil War–era documents, Captain?” she asked with a nervous laugh as he fumbled through the key-laden ring to find the right one for the temperature-controlled archives. She was always anxious and shy around new people, but this six-foot-something officer’s dark-haired, blue-eyed good looks made her feel even shorter and more ungainly by comparison.

  “Not really my area of expertise,” he admitted in the twanging accent of a native Kansan. “I shouldn’t even be on duty—I’m on my last few days of R & R before I head back to Afghanistan to rejoin my regiment. I only came in to do some paperwork, and the next thing I know I’m on the other end of a frantic call from a man panicking about a professor from the university.”

  Beth smiled tightly. “The beauty of being a historian is there’s never any need to panic. We only care about things long after they happen.” To her surprise, the gaze that swept over her was boldly evaluative—and satisfied with its findings, judging from his resultant grin. She remembered clutching her notebook more tightly to her chest, as if to ward off the warm flush of desire already spreading through her.

  Beth squeezed her eyes shut and slapped a bracing hand on the kitchen table as her mind reeled with images—his easy posture as he lounged against the shelf and asked her to dinner, the scrape of the chair in the restaurant as he pulled it out for her, the sudden, decisive way he took her hand as he walked her out to her car, his unexpected appearance in the doorway of her office on campus the next day and his thoughtful, inquisitive silence as he flipped through a book on her desk while she gathered her purse.

  That first kiss, pressed against a brick wall in broad daylight, interrupted by the encouraging whoops of a passing car full of fraternity brothers.

  And that night, and the one after, and the one after that—filmy bedroom curtains tossed by the gentle summer breeze that floated through the open window, the tangled limbs, the press of skin against skin, the slow, tender explorations and the fevered, impatient, hungry caresses.

  On the last morning, she’d turned his ID tags over in her hand as he got dressed.

  “Walker, Christopher N,” she read aloud. “O negative, Catholic. Not too strict a churchgoer, from what I can tell.”

  “Don’t tell my mom.” He reached for the tags and draped them around his neck, tucking them under his shirt, and then eased down on the bed beside her.

  “Can I email you?” he asked, his tone stripped of its usual confident charm.

  “Of course,” Beth exclaimed with what she instantly realized was far too much eagerness. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to—I mean, I didn’t expect you to. I would understand if you didn’t,” she backpedaled.

  “I never do this.” His mouth quirked in a half smile. “I guess everyone says that. But I’m serious—I’ve never gone for that whole last chance saloon, pre-combat fling thing.”

  Beth bit her lip. Though not totally inexperienced, she was about as far from the sexually savvy, assertively sensual, one-night-stand type as a woman could get. These were uncharted waters and she decided that flippancy was probably her safest bet. “This doesn’t have to be anything specific,” she offered. “I can be whatever you want.”

  Chris clucked his tongue, lifting her chin so he could look into her eyes. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re no one’s fling. If you decide to give me the time of day after that front door shuts behind me, I’ll consider myself unbelievably lucky.”

  At the memory of those words, Beth lurched to her feet in the kitchen, taking a shuddering breath as she forced herself to hastily stow the cookie dough she’d been mixing when the phone rang and wash the rest of the flour from her hands.

  It was the way he’d looked at her. As if the blond hair that was perpetually falling out of her ponytail and her underwhelming, slightly stocky body were the most beautiful things he’d ever laid eyes on. As if he couldn’t wait to hear what she said next, to learn more about her thoughts and her opinions. As if she was all that he could see, all that he could ever want to see.

  Those intent blue eyes, fixed wholly on her. That’s what had kept her upright and breathing through four long months of regular emails and the occasional phone call—and what had brought her to her knees when, without the slightest warning, he cut her loose.

  Until now.

  “Maybe I’ll finally get some answers,” Beth coached herself as she glanced at her reflection in the microwave, swiping at a streak of flour on her cheek. She grabbed her car keys and cast a quick look out the window. The snow was coming down steadily now, but it wasn’t sticking yet. She pulled on her shapeless but warm winter coat, regretting that she didn’t have time to change into something more appealing than her jeans and K-State hoodie.

  She stood back, put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin defiantly. She turned back to the woman in the microwave, the woman with a Ph.D and a mortgage and a recent thirtieth birthday sitting comfortably in her rearview mirror. The woman who’d learned a hard lesson in the few months between that day in the archives and the unexpected arrival of a two-line email suggesting they go their separate ways. The woman who had always been just fine on her own and didn’t need anyone—especially not an indecisive soldier—to make her life complete.

  “Then again,” she told herself, “Maybe I don’t want any.”

  * * *

  Chris sat perfectly still amid the bustle and chaos of Manhattan, Kansas’s small regional airport. The normally quiet building, which consisted of little more than a check-in desk, a waiting area and a single departures gate, was teeming with holiday travelers delighted to have made it onto what would probably be the last flight to arrive before the blizzard dumped a predicted two feet of snow on the eastern part of the state.

  Two children fought over a handheld video game. Their hassled mother halfheartedly scolded them, but she was preoccupied with wondering aloud what was taking her sister so long to arrive to retrieve them. A group of soldiers discussed the trip to Washington, D.C., from which they were returning, and the marksmanship exhibition they’d taken part in there. Meanwhile another family—mom, dad and a young son—were walking toward him. He guessed from their earlier conversation that both were high school teachers in Dallas, returning to their mutual hometown for Christmas. Their voices hushed as they approached, and soon they came to a halt directly in front of him.

  The father cleared his throat. “We just wanted to thank you for your service. We appreciate all that our military does for our country.”

  Chris nodded stoically. He knew he shouldn’t be ungrateful, but ever since he’d come back from Afghanistan he absolutely loathed the attention his uniform attracted. He hadn’t even wanted to wear his Army Service Uniform, but the hospital staff had encouraged him to wear something official in case he needed assistance and had to identify himself as military, and he couldn’t bring himself to put on his combat fatigues.

  “That’s very kind, thank you.”

  There was an awkward pause, and then the father continued, “Well, you have a merry Christmas.”

  “You too,” Chris replied, and the family moved away.

  As soon as they were behind him, Chris heard the boy ask, “Why didn’t he want to shake your hand, Daddy?”

  And in a whisper his father explained, “He just didn’t see it. He’s blind.”

  Chris gritted his teeth against what was becoming an all-too-familiar sense of humiliation. Cringing, he let his sightless, useless eyes momentarily fall shut.

  The hassled mother’s sister arrived. Chris heard the stress melt from the woman’s voice as she greeted her fami
ly, and he felt a twinge of jealousy. He’d insisted that he could travel home from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio by himself, and had dismissed his parents’ offer to fly down and meet him there. He’d taken the two short flights from San Antonio to Dallas and then Dallas to Manhattan with no problem, needing only minimal assistance, and was feeling triumphant when he came through the arrivals gate in Kansas. It was only as he stood near the baggage claim, waiting to hear his name called in a familiar voice or for the recognizable scent of his mother’s perfume to waft up to his side that he began to feel uncertain.

  Then his phone had buzzed in his pocket and he took his mother’s borderline hysterical call, in which she tearfully explained that the pickup was stuck in a snowbank somewhere near Route 77 and the roads going south were quickly becoming impassable. He’d assured her that he was fine, everything would be okay and he’d get himself to a hotel in Manhattan until the weather cleared. Then he stood stock-still, wondering what the hell he was going to do, for so long that an airport employee eventually came over and asked if he’d like to be shown to a seat.

  Calling Beth had been inevitable from the moment he hung up with his mother, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent a solid half hour racking his brain for any possible alternative. He couldn’t bring himself to call anyone from Fort Riley, not yet—he couldn’t bear the shame of his disability, his colleagues’ valiant efforts at concealing their pity or his own guilt at having survived an attack that claimed the lives of three men under his command. He didn’t know anyone else in town and the thought of asking airport staff for a taxi number, having to find the right bills to pay the driver and then navigating a hotel lobby on his own was simply too daunting after the two plane journeys he’d already undertaken that day.

  And—if he was really, cruelly honest with himself—he wanted to be with Beth again, even if only to sit beside her in hostile silence for a ten-minute car ride. It would be as close as he would get to saying goodbye.

  After the suicide bomber had penetrated the compound, after the days lost to anesthesia and painkillers, after he woke up to discover that his world had shrunk to a shifting palette of grays and shadows, he’d known he had to hurt Beth to protect her. It was only fair—they’d spent less than a week together, and he couldn’t ask her to tie herself to him and take on the burden that he had become, especially since he knew she would unhesitatingly, ungrudgingly say yes. He knew this decision would have consequences, and he comforted himself with the knowledge that he was doing the right thing by letting her go.

  “Chris?”

  As if on cue, the voice that had haunted his waking hours for months was behind him, accompanied by the soft swish of a heavy coat and the scent of vanilla. He swallowed hard against a rush of nerves as he hastily brushed off the front of his uniform, although he knew full well that if anything was seriously amiss with his clothing he would be the last to know. He ran his hand through his hair, picked up the collapsible white cane he hated more than anything from the chair beside him and wished for the millionth time that he could see for himself whether the facial scarring was really as minimal as everyone assured him.

  Then he stood and turned to face the only woman who’d ever mattered.

  “Sorry that took a little longer than I thought, the traffic was—oh my God,” Beth’s voice faltered. Chris stiffened his spine, bracing himself for her reaction. Would it be fury? Disgust? Pity? Or would she simply turn and walk away, abandoning him to his murky darkness?

  He cleared his throat. “I appreciate your coming on such short notice. My parents’ pickup got stuck—”

  Her small body slammed into his with such force that he lost his balance and had to take a stumbling step backward. Then her arms were around his neck, squeezing so tightly he almost struggled to fill his lungs, the scent of vanilla and the warmth of her body seeming to soak through him until his muscles relaxed, his hands slipped behind her back—and then she jerked out of his grasp as suddenly as she’d leaped into it. Quickly he pulled his arms back to his sides and shifted his weight.

  “I’ve only got the one bag,” he indicated the duffel on the floor. “Did you park in the lot or—”

  She slapped him, hard and fast and utterly without mercy.

  It was a good slap, he thought as he registered the hot, stinging pain across his cheek. It was full-palmed, decisive, strong and passionate, with excellent follow-through. It meant the fiery spark buried deep beneath her shy, reserved exterior hadn’t gone out in the past six months. And it meant she didn’t instantly pity him, not even a little bit. Despite himself, he smiled.

  “Thanks for that.” He raised a hand to his jaw, ignoring the horrified gasps of the people around them. “There were still a few pieces of shrapnel lodged in the bone, but you’ve probably just sent them flying.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she seethed. “I called Fort Riley, I called the Wounded in Action Branch hotline, I even called the damn Department of Defense. And what do I get for my trouble? A two-line email that says things aren’t going to work between us and I should move on. A two-line email, Chris?”

  There were tears in her voice, which was growing in volume. He heard footsteps to his right, and then the deep male notes of what he assumed was a security guard asked, “Sir, is there a problem here?”

  Chris shook his head. “Not at all, but thank you.” He turned toward the sound of Beth’s arms crossing over her coat. “We can talk about this in the car, okay?” He held out his hand to her.

  She didn’t take it.

  * * *

  As the airport security staff member continued to glare at her, Beth realized exactly what she’d done—she had just slapped a visibly wounded member of the armed forces in the face, three days before Christmas, in a room packed with holiday travelers.

  A hot flush rose in her cheeks. “Fine,” she muttered. “Get your bag and let’s go.”

  He stooped and felt around briefly for the strap before pulling it over his shoulder, except when he straightened, he didn’t move.

  Beth sighed, planting her hands on her hips. “Well?”

  Chris’s jaw tightened. “You need to help me out to the car.”

  “Isn’t that what the cane is for?” she replied testily. Did he think he could summon her at a moment’s notice after months of silence and then expect her to be his nurse as well as his chauffeur?

  “I’m still a little new to the white cane navigation system,” he shot back acidly. “I can try, but if we want to get out of here sometime in the next hour I may need your help.”

  She looked at him then—really looked at him, not the quick once-over she’d given him when he first turned around, not the evaluative up-and-down sweep of the first few minutes.

  She’d seen straight away that he was blind—the white cane and the opaque cloudiness obscuring his once-bright blue eyes had given that away immediately. What she saw now, for the first time, was the puckered line of red scar tissue along one side of his jaw, the narrower but longer scar that cut from his temple to his cheekbone, running dangerously close beside his right eye, and the fine, almost filamentlike scars that spread down his neck from beneath his ear, fanning out like bristles on a paintbrush.

  He shifted his weight, and she looked back up to the eyes that stared but saw nothing.

  And she realized she had absolutely no idea what this man had been through.

  “Okay,” she said more gently. “Tell me how to help you.”

  “Just take my arm,” he said gruffly, as if he was somehow embarrassed or made uncomfortable by her softer tone. He proffered his elbow as though he was about to escort her to a dance. “And warn me if there’s a step or a door.”

  Beth linked her arm through his and began to lead him toward the exit. It felt strange to be back beside his big, strong body after so long, and to be guiding his tall form as h
e took hesitant, cautious steps.

  “We’re at the door. I’ll hold it open and you can follow me through, does that work?”

  He nodded, and they carefully made their way across the increasingly snowy parking lot to her car. She led him to the passenger side and got him settled, threw his duffel in the back and then hurried into her own seat.

  “Right,” she announced as she pulled the door shut. “Where to?”

  “I’m not sure.” He took off his hat and placed it in his lap. “A hotel, I guess. Pick one, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  She turned to look at him and caught a whiff of a scent she’d fantasized about for six months. Beneath the smell of the crisp, outdoor air that had followed them into the car and the slightly musty, woolen scent of his dress jacket, it was there—that fresh, slightly summery fragrance of clean cotton and new hay that was quintessentially, unmistakably his.

  A lump formed in her throat. Could she bear to be this close to him—and only this close to him? She shouldn’t be here—she should’ve told him to take a taxi. She was nowhere near as ready to see him as she thought she was, and now she wasn’t at all sure she could get through the next half hour in one piece.

  “How bad are the roads?” he asked, jolting her out of her reverie.

  “Oh, um, not terrible, but not getting any better.” She turned the key in the ignition. “Would you rather I took you somewhere downtown, so you can get to all the stores and restaurants?”

  He shrugged. “It really doesn’t matter—I’ll probably just order room service and flick through the television. I’m pretty tired.”

  That sounded like a miserable way to spend the evening, but that was his problem, not hers. Beth pulled out of the parking lot, sparing a wondering thought at how callous and angry she’d become, and decided these probably weren’t traits she wanted to carry into the New Year.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” she asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. “Or was your idea just to get a lift and then go our separate ways? Tell me the truth—you owe me that, at least.”