by Pat Warren
Sure they did. Her heart went out to the boy he’d been, the one who’d known neither a father’s love nor a mother’s. She searched her mind for a change of subject. “I don’t suppose if you were back in Sedona that you’d be bothering with a tree. Thanks for going to the trouble for me.”
“It’s an experiment, really. I want to see what you can come up with in the bordello bungalow to decorate this thing.”
Terry smiled up at him. “Just you wait and see.”
She surprised him with her inventiveness. She’d strung together popcorn on one line, cranberries on another. She’d clipped pictures with unusual shapes from magazines and fastened them to the branches with bits of thread from a sewing kit she’d found. She’d cut strips of red satin cloth found in the same kit and made them into streamers for the tree. She’d found a holly bush and added sprigs from that. And she’d fashioned a big silver star from aluminum foil for the top. In lieu of lights, she’d propped his high-beam flashlight so that it shined on the tree.
“There, what do you think?” she asked, standing back.
Hands crossed over his chest, he surveyed all sides of the tree, his brow furrowed. “Best damn tree in all of Big Sur. Maybe in all of California.”
Terry gathered up the remnants of her decorations. “You’re making fun of me.”
“No, actually, I’m not.” He stopped in front of her. “I like it far better than those professionally done trees. Your tree has meaning. It has…” He paused, searching for the right word.
“Heart,” she offered, because that’s what homemade trees meant to her. “My mother’s tree has all these ornaments all four of us made in school when we were little. Rice Krispies dyed and glued together in the shape of stars and wreaths. Reindeer made from pipe cleaners. Cotton pasted on as a beard for Santas cut out of red cardboard. She saved them all.”
His eyes warmed as he looked into hers. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.” He took the trash from her and went outside to dump it.
Terry stood looking after him, wishing she could have gotten him a Christmas gift, something small but meaningful. She had a feeling Luke hadn’t had many meaningful gifts in his lifetime. He was a paradox, this hard man who would deny having any soft feelings. Yet he had them and he craved them in return, she was sure of it.
But would he ever acknowledge what he thought of as a weakness?
Emily removed John Ryan’s shoes and heard him grunt a response as she maneuvered his legs up onto the bed. Gently she pulled the blanket up to cover him, then stood looking down at her husband of over thirty years.
Ten-thirty on Christmas Eve and he was passed out drunk. This hadn’t happened on a holiday since the year Kathleen had died. Emily knew why John drank these days. But she could do little to lighten his sorrow. She had her own fair share to deal with.
John let out a deep snore and shifted in his sleep. Would he ever be the same, either way? Emily wondered. This stress wasn’t good for his heart. Would another attack take him before long? He hadn’t been drinking, at least, not until tonight. He also hadn’t been eating well and he’d lost weight.
With a heavy sigh, Emily switched off the bedside light and left their bedroom. She’d sent the kids on to mass, telling them she’d be along. Wearily, feeling older than her fifty-four years, she went to the closet for her coat.
Only in prayer, it seemed, did she place any hope or find even temporary peace.
It would come over her at the oddest moments, Luke noticed. Terry would get that faraway look in her eyes and he knew she was remembering. Her family, her friends, the life she’d had to give up. Sometimes she’d go to the bedroom and listen to her Walkman until the mood passed. Other times she’d curl up on the couch, unaware he was watching her, and the trembling would take over. She’d hug her knees tightly while she stared into the fire, seeing other scenes, he was certain.
All were symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He’d been taught how to help someone through those episodes, by talking soothingly to them until the spell passed, or holding them until they could fight their way back, and even walking with them with an arm around a shoulder, letting them know someone understood. But, except for that evening she’d let him hold her, Terry didn’t appear to want his help.
That was his fault, more than likely. The one time he’d reached out to comfort, he’d soon been touching her in a way that had nothing to do with comfort. Probably she was afraid of allowing him too close for fear she’d find herself in a situation she was too bruised to be able to handle. He couldn’t blame her.
She’d managed to make it through the holidays, but two days after Christmas, he noticed she was pacing in that restless way that preceded a bout with her disturbing memories. He’d spoken with Bob Jones earlier, hoping he’d have some good news that he could pass on to Terry. But, although a judge had been assigned, the trial date was yet to be decided. That news had depressed her. But maybe he could come up with a diversion and get her mind off her troubles.
He walked over to where she was standing looking out the window. “What do you say we pack a picnic lunch and go for a hike up one of the mountain trails? I think we’re both getting cabin fever from being cooped up so long.”
Terry shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. “I don’t know.” She frowned at the distant hill dotted with shrubs and manzanita. What if someone was out there waiting for her with a high-powered rifle?
“It’s a beautiful day. Come on. The exercise will do us both good.”
She watched a blue heron land in the top of a pine tree, its wingspan awesome. She’d always enjoyed nature, enjoyed hiking the trails in Phoenix, though the California mountains were much higher and more rugged. Back then, she hadn’t been afraid of anything. Now she jumped at shadows, cringed at sudden noises, cried out in her sleep. “I’d like to, but… ”
Luke turned her to face him. “Terry, I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you trust me?”
She did, as far as that went. But no one man could think of everything, be everywhere. And did she trust herself not to fall apart up there if the fear took over? “Yes, I trust you. And I am tired of being inside, but I can’t help being afraid. You told me any stranger might be a hired gunman.”
He had told her that to keep her from being careless, to get her to follow orders. But what good would staying alive be if her mind cracked from the strain? “We’re not apt to run into anyone up this almost-deserted mountain. I’ll be armed as always. We won’t go far, just up around the other side, where we can see the ocean. All right?”
In the end, she agreed, and later, as they sat on a plaid blanket from the van and drank coffee from the thermos and nibbled on cold chicken, Terry was glad she’d allowed Luke to talk her into going. Her hands curled around the warm mug, she drew in a deep breath of clean, salty air and watched the distant waves bounce against the rocky shoreline. “It is beautiful up here. The sea’s more hypnotic than staring into a fire.”
Stretched out and braced on his elbows, Luke watched several pelicans prance along the frothy water. “I can’t blame you for wishing you lived up here.” His glance took in the area surrounding them. “I wonder where all the homes are.” They hadn’t passed but one on the way up, and that one was near their own cabin. Through his binoculars, he’d seen an older man wearing overalls outside that sprawling house. He’d been carrying what looked like a BB gun that he used to take pot shots at a flock of noisy crows.
“You couldn’t wish for a more private area.” She watched a sandpiper land in the golden grass near a scrub California black oak and begin scavenging for food. “It’s so peaceful up here. You can almost forget that that highway leads to all manner of rotten people just waiting to hurt others.”
Luke shifted to study her face and saw the unmistakable signs of stress. He saw also the two areas of scar tissue that would need more plastic surgery. He’d tried to bring that up again recently, but Terry had refused to consider anything to do with doctors right now. He�
�d wanted to press, had been told by her last doctor that there would be less corrective work necessary if she didn’t wait too long. But he also understood her reluctance to face more pain after all she’d been through. It would be easier once all this was over.
He searched for words that might make her feel better. “Terry, I know you don’t think so now, but one day, all this will be in the past, a terrible nightmare but one you got through. You’re a survivor. You’ll be all right. I know because I’ve been through this with a lot of other people.”
She turned to look at him. “And they all came through with flying colors, all walked back into their former lives and picked up the threads as if nothing had happened?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy, but in time, it will be over.”
“Did anyone you had in the program ever just decide to drop out, to take their chances?” She’d been wondering about this for some time.
Luke sat up, the image of Jill Hastings appearing in his mind’s eye. “Only one that was under my protection, a woman.”
“Had she been on the run with you like me, moving from place to place at a moment’s notice?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
He poured more coffee into his mug. “About four months.”
Terry angled her body around so she could see him better. “Did she just decide to walk away one morning?”
“Not exactly. It’s a long story.” One he didn’t want to tell nor even remember.
She touched his arm, something she rarely did. “Please tell me. I need to know.”
Under the circumstances, she was a hard woman to refuse. He took a sip of his coffee, wondering where to begin. “Jill Hastings was her name and she was a registered nurse on private duty at the home of this wealthy California politician, Charles Greenway. She was in her late twenties, blond, attractive. He was considerably older, had had a mild heart attack, and she’d been hired to nurse him back to health.
“Everything was fine until the day she overheard Greenway congratulating a couple of his men on killing a zoning inspector, who’d refused to cooperate, at his orders. Jill ran out and got away, calling us from a phone booth. Like with you, we took down her statement and put her in protective custody because Greenway had a lot of powerful people in his pocket. We’d been watching his activities for a long time, but couldn’t pin anything on him. But suddenly, we had him.”
“And you were assigned to protect Jill?”
“Right. I was green, on my second assignment. I was young and stupid, despite all my training. We were on the run and it was exciting, adrenaline pumping, living on the edge, you know?”
“You fell in love with her,” Terry guessed. He was quiet so long, staring out to sea, that she wondered if he was going to continue.
“I thought I did, I suppose. Since then I’ve decided it was probably hormonal.”
“Are you just saying that because she hurt you?”
He looked at her, a little surprised at her astuteness. “Maybe. At any rate, it never would have worked out.” He saw no point in detailing the actual involvement. “Jill hated being confined, became restless quickly, threatened to walk away countless times. Finally, she made good and left one night after dark when I thought she was asleep. We were staying in a cabin in a remote area of Colorado. It wasn’t snowing, but it was damn cold. I called HQ for backup and went looking for her.”
This was hard for him, she could see, so she waited and let him tell it in his own way.
“It was early morning, scarcely dawn, when I finally spotted her on one of the trails some distance from me. But what I didn’t know was that one of Greenway’s men had located us, too. I also didn’t realize that the backup the home office had sent, Bob Jones and another agent, had caught up with us. The area was thick with fog and visibility wasn’t good. I called out to Jill, telling her to stop, that we’d go down the mountain together. She turned and I know she saw me, but she kept on going. I ran after her. I’d just rounded a bend when I spotted this guy with a gun behind a tree, taking aim at Jill. I yelled to her and lunged forward. But Jones was closer to her, his reaction faster. He threw himself in front of Jill and took the bullet meant for me.”
She frowned at his face, grim from the telling. “The bullet had been meant for Jill, not you or Bob.”
“But Bob took it when I should have been there protecting Jill. She’d been my assignment, my responsibility. If it hadn’t been for Bob arriving at just that moment, I would have taken the bullet that hit him.”
Terry shook her head. “That’s crazy, Luke. It was circumstances, that’s all. And obviously, Bob’s wound wasn’t fatal.”
“No, but it could have been.”
She wasn’t going to debate that with him. “What happened to Jill?”
Luke drained his tepid coffee. “She was taken back and eventually testified. And we picked up the gunman as well, so the case was wrapped. But it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth. I should have watched her more closely. I shouldn’t have had to call for backup. And I never have since then.”
“I guess sometimes we have to learn our lessons the hard way.” Terry got to her feet, shivering in the cooling air. “It’s getting late and getting cold. Let’s go back.” She gathered the rest of their things into the picnic basket.
Luke rose and folded the blanket. “You see how much trouble Jill Hastings caused by leaving the program too early?”
Holding the basket in front of her with both hands, she angled her head and met his eyes. “I wonder if you’re upset because she left the program or because you lost someone you cared about?” She held his gaze, trying to ascertain what was going on behind those pewter gray eyes. “Or are you too stubborn to admit you loved her?”
“What makes you think I did? You weren’t there.”
“No, but your reaction even years later reveals a great deal. And because I know that the worst part of loving is the void it leaves when it’s over.”
He raised a questioning brow. “Then you’ve been in love?”
“I haven’t exactly lived my life in a vacuum. And yes, he hurt me, too. But I got over it.”
His interest was immediate. “Who was he? Did you care a great deal for him?” The thought of her deeply involved with someone bothered him more than it should have.
Terry drew in a breath, not really wanting to go into all that. “He was a lawyer. The Gazette was doing a feature on him and I went along because the editor wanted several sketches instead of pictures. Up-and-coming mover-and-shaker and all that. Did I care a lot? I must have. A month later, I moved in with him.”
Luke was annoyed at the disappointment he felt. “But he’s not in the picture anymore?” He saw her shake her head as she shifted the picnic basket to her other hand. “What happened?”
“We had a quarrel. I left.” She glanced up at the darkening sky. “We’d better go.” She turned, starting back.
He didn’t want to react, but he couldn’t help it. “You left him after a quarrel, just like that? You walked out after a minor little disagreement?”
She heard the change in his voice and knew exactly what he was thinking. Slowly, she swung back to him. “It wasn’t a quarrel over whose turn it was to take out the garbage or who left the top off the toothpaste. You’re certainly quick to judge without knowing the facts, aren’t you?” She could see his mind working behind that hard, immovable face. He was lumping her with his mother, his grandmother, and this Jill person—all women who walked away from him. How could he think like that?
“All right,” Luke said in what he thought was a very reasonable tone. “What are the facts?”
She cocked her head at him. “It’s none of your business, you know.”
“I know that. But I just told you about Jill and… ” He stopped, knowing he had no right to press her, wondering why he wanted to.
He was like a dog with a bone. She could refuse, just turn away. But maybe he needed to know that men weren’t alw
ays in the right and that there are some damn good reasons why women leave. “We quarreled because he wanted me to quit the paper, to stay home. He said he was making enough money for both of us and I didn’t need to work. But I enjoy working and I was just getting somewhere. I refused.” She waited, watching him.
He was trying to understand. He really was. “So the first time you didn’t get your way, you walked out.”
“Damn it, no! It wasn’t like that. You’re so blinded, so sure you’re right. You don’t know shit.” Furious, she whirled around and started to march off.
Luke sucked in a gulp of mountain air. “Why are you so angry? You did leave, didn’t you?”
She halted, waiting until she could catch her breath before swinging back to glare at him. “Yes, I left. But not until he hit me. Twice, across the face, both sides. Hard. Happy, now?” She turned, wondering how in hell she’d allowed herself to be drawn into such a reaction.
He was at her side in seconds, turning her around, calling himself six kinds of a fool. “I’m sorry. Jesus, Terry, I’m sorry. Sorry that bastard hit you, sorry I jumped to conclusions. It’s just that I…”
“It’s just that you think all women are the same, all walk away when the mood strikes, for whatever frivolous reason.” She felt drained, weary. “When are you going to stop judging every woman by the few who’ve hurt you?”
He dared touch her face, his palm cupping her cheek. “I was wrong. You were right to leave him. You should have had someone beat the hell out of him.”
Now, years later, she could almost smile. “That’s just about what happened. I asked my brother, Sean, to get my things. Chuck came home while Sean was packing my bag. Sean told me later that he beat him up pretty good.”