“Damn right he is,” Liv said. “He’s the only person who can pull it off in less than four months.”
“Four months… argh!” Emma said. “That doesn’t leave much time for planning your bachelorette party in Las Vegas!”
Liv blinked. “Vegas?”
“Yeah,” Jenny chimed in. “Why should boys have all the fun and the wild parties? Let’s go and gamble and dance and drink far too much!”
Kat was quiet.
I’m going to be long gone by then, for sure. In fact, since things with Jenny and Chris are going so well, I think I’ll be out of here by the end of April. But damn, I’ll be sorry to miss Liv’s wedding.
“Sounds great,” Kat said with great effort. “Vegas, baby!”
“Yeah, but, Em,” Liv said. “What about you? You really think you’ll be up for a party weekend in another state?”
“Well, actually, I have some good news of my own,” Emma said.
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Dean took me for some follow-up tests two days ago, and I got the results back today. Turns out, the stem cell transplant has been successful: I’m responding to the chemo now.”
“Oh, Emma,” Jenny breathed. “Really?”
“Really. It’s too early to tell for sure, of course, but things look good. If I keep responding this way, I’m looking at remission. Maybe as soon as the fall.”
The other women looked at her beaming face and as one, they all got to their feet to hug each other.
“A wedding, good health news, Jenny’s doing well,” Kat said. “Looks like you guys are going to be OK.”
And that means I can leave soon… with no guilt or worry.
Since they all had tears in their eyes, Kat’s own crying was easy to pass off as happiness. But really, it was the beginning of grief, of loss. Of loneliness and fear and starting over, all alone. Again.
God. I’m going to miss them.
Chapter Nine
One month later
“Hey, Jenny?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you really learn how to cook at your Dad’s Polish restaurant?”
She raised her head off Chris’ bare chest, surprised. “How did you know that?”
His amazing eyes gleamed down at her in the semi-darkness of her bedroom. “I read some magazine articles about you.”
“Oh, right.” She smiled. “Yeah, I did talk about that in a few interviews.”
Chris stroked her long hair. “So tell me about it… how you went from working in a family place to becoming the owner of one of the hottest restaurants in the country.”
She laughed. “Is it? One of the hottest?”
“According to the foodies? Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But it is a long way from Polish fare, huh?”
“So… how’d it all happen?”
“Well, my Dad’s not Polish, as I’m sure you know. My Mom is. They met when he was at a culinary school in Chicago. Dad was doing well, but he was really struggling with finding his own unique style of cooking.” She looked at Chris. “Cooking is like anything else artistic or creative: you have to find your own voice. Dad just couldn’t find it with French cuisine, or Italian, or Greek, or any fusion of any of them. He just wasn’t passionate about the foods or flavors, even though he cooked them beautifully.”
“And your Mom gave him that passion?”
“She did, but indirectly. They met and he started going over to her family’s place for meals. My grandmother is one hell of a cook, but she only ever makes traditional Polish food. You know, borscht and perogies and cabbage rolls. Real Polish cheesecake – called sernik – and apple pie. She even makes her own paczki.”
“Those doughnuts?”
“Yeah.” Jenny sighed. “Physically, I take after the Polish side of my family, you know. The peasant’s body with big hips and thighs, a wide butt. What my Mom’s always called ‘a breeder’s body’. But I have to say, all those years of eating Polish food and desserts didn’t help matters. And working around food all day, every day, just makes me fatter.”
Chris went very still. “Your body is beautiful, Jenny. I love it.”
“You do?”
He ran his hands over her back. “It’s curvy and luscious. I adore it. I love having my hands all over it. I can’t stop touching you, as you may have noticed.” He kissed her. “I don’t want you ever to put your body down again. You hear me?”
She looked away from the intensity of his gray gaze.
“Jenny?”
“Yes, OK. I won’t.”
“OK, baby.” He held her tighter. “So… your Dad got in to Polish food?”
“Yeah. He spent hours and hours with my grandmother, learning all the recipes, and he was so happy and inspired. He loved everything about the cuisine, and when he and Mom got married, her parents gave them money to start a restaurant.”
“Wow.”
“I know. Dad and Mom started from nothing, and they worked twenty-hour-days for a while there, Dad in the kitchen and Mom out front waitressing. They got bigger, they expanded, they hired staff. Then when I was born, Mom went straight back to work and brought me to the restaurant with her.”
He laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She breastfed me in the bathrooms and then went back to serving customers. The staff traded me off, and I was often asleep in my bouncy chair next to the cash register. I was literally raised among the sounds and smells of a restaurant.”
“I guess it was inevitable that you’d love cooking.”
“Not just cooking, but also cooking for others. There’s something so…giving about feeding other people. You know? Giving them something that they need. It’s amazing, really, if you stop and think about it.”
Chris nodded.
“So when I was a kid, I was always at the restaurant after school, and I learned how to run the business side of things. I got to help Dad and the other chefs in the kitchen, and I just went from there.” She traced the muscles in Chris’ chest. “Over time, I developed my own style of cooking, and it’s pretty far removed from traditional Polish, mostly. The one aspect I’ve really kept of it is in the desserts that I make.”
“They’re Polish?”
“No, not strictly. But the flavors – apple, plum, rose, poppyseed – are traditionally Polish.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “I remember having a piece of layered cake with rose jam in it at your restaurant… it was really unusual.”
“Yeah, I love using rose in my baking. It’s probably my favorite flavor.”
Chris was quiet for a minute. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“How did – I mean, what happened to you six years ago… how did you manage to keep working after that? And why did it not hit the press?” He touched her cheek. “You were known then, at least locally, but I never read one word about what happened. How’s that possible?”
Jenny closed her eyes.
“Jenny? You OK?”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes again. “Well… I kept working because I literally couldn’t do anything else. I was scared to stay home, I was scared to go to sleep. God, I was scared to even get in to a bed, and I slept in a closet with a flashlight for almost two years after the attacks.”
Chris froze. “You what?”
“Yeah. It felt – safe. I could close the door and nobody could sneak up on me. Getting back in to a bed, in a bedroom? I had to relearn that. Zoe helped.”
“Jesus Christ, baby,” he said softly.
“Anyway, I felt safe in the closet, and I felt safe in the kitchen. It was… my domain. You know? My home turf where I had total control. And I could just focus on small things: ingredients, steps in recipes, individual dishes. I could handle all of that. It was soothing, and it was
like being home.” She shrugged. “I took a month off to get over the worst of the physical injuries, then I went back to work. The story that my parents and I put around was that I’d been in a car accident. That explained the bruising and my limp.”
“And that’s why the press never got a hold of it?”
“Partly. Also, remember, it never went to trial.” Her eyes were cold. “It was all plea bargaining and deals between lawyers. I wasn’t a reliable witness, and the four guys all turned on each other, and it was a mess. The DA just did the best he could and it all went away pretty fast. The whole thing was resolved before the last of my bruises had faded.”
Chris shook his head, mute.
“And I was actually really fine at work right after. I worked like crazy – anything to avoid going home and having to face everything – and before I knew it, the restaurant was doing amazingly well. And it’s been great ever since.”
He ran his hands over her shoulders. “And being around men at work? It’s OK?”
“I have no real problem being around men in public,” she said slowly. “The struggle is when I’m one-on-one. When I’m alone with one man, it feels too – close. Immediate. Harder to get away and impossible to hide. Way scarier than a large group of men at a table, for some reason.”
He lifted her chin and kissed her, his mouth lingering on hers. “You’re amazing.”
She blushed. “Thanks.” She smiled up at him. “So… can I ask about you now?”
“Sure you can. My life’s an open book.”
“OK. How’d you end up in the military?”
“Because no way my family could afford to send me to college. I enlisted to get an education, but before I could finish, I was sent off to train as a Ranger.”
“Why’d you want to be one?” she asked. “Isn’t that some of the most intensive training out there?”
“Oh, yeah. But I wanted that training, that discipline. I’ve always wanted to be excellent at something, but I never found that at school. I mean, I was a good student, but not a great one.” He intertwined his fingers with hers. “All I was ever really good at was fixing cars and bikes.”
“Who taught you?”
“My Dad has his own garage. And I learned a lot on my own, just messing around with junk cars at the weekends, and my shop class at school was pretty good.”
“So why didn’t you start working as a mechanic right out of school, then?” she said.
“Oh, I thought about it. But I was physically tough and strong, and I really wanted to do – more. Something bigger. Being selected for Ranger training was something I’d never imagined I’d be asked. To be invited in to something that elite? Me? The mechanic’s kid from Jasper, Vermont?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I get it.”
“So I got through Basic and I got through Rangers and I got through Afghanistan. Not unscathed, of course. But… I got through.” His voice was hollow.
She looked at him now, alarmed at the look on his face. “Chris? What happened over there?”
He focused on her now. “Oh, Jenny. So many things happened over there, so few of them any damn good.”
Jenny ran her finger over his lips. “You want to talk to me about them?”
“No, baby. No.” He shook his head. “What we’re doing here isn’t about me, right?”
“Why not?”
He paused. “What?”
She sat up. “Why is it always just about me? What about you?”
“Because… because…” He fell silent.
Because if I start to talk, everything's going to spill out, everything about how I feel about you. And you can't handle that, Jenny. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Maybe it’s time for us to talk about the link between physical closeness and emotional closeness.”
He blinked at her no-nonsense tone. “OK.”
“I love being close to you, like this.” She kissed him. “I love touching you, giving you pleasure. We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for a month now – usually with you completely naked, I might add – and I’ve loved every second of it. And you just said that you like touching me.”
“I do.” His voice was rough. “I also like sleeping with you.”
“But I want to be emotionally close to you too, Chris. I want to – talk to you. And I don’t mean that I do all the talking and you just listen. That’s part of it, yeah. But that’s only half of it, I think. I want to know you too.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do.” She smiled at him. “I like you. And the more time we spend together – and I don’t just mean in bed – the more I like you.”
“You do?” he asked again.
“Yes. I do.” She lay down and curled up against his side. “So… talk to me, OK?”
He took a deep breath. “OK.”
“So… what do you want to tell me?”
“About Afghanistan?”
“About anything.”
Chris was quiet for so long that she started to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. Finally, he said, “A man died over there because I made a mistake. A good man. A father. He died, and it was all my fault.”
Jenny propped her chin on his broad chest and looked up at him. She waited.
“He – he was in my unit. Well, not my unit. Dean was the LT, but I was in it with Jim. And with Tiegert.”
“Tiegert?”
“Yeah.” His voice was soft. “Billy Tiegert.”
He stopped again. She was suddenly very aware of the tension in his whole body, the prairie distance in his gray eyes. Whatever had happened, it was obviously something that Chris didn’t talk about easily.
Maybe he doesn’t talk about it at all.
“He was an experienced Ranger, but he was new to Afghanistan. Tiegert had done all his tours in Iraq, and the man had raided compounds and protected Embassy workers and generally kicked ass all over the place, wherever he was asked to go.” Chris sighed. “And he was a nice guy. You know? Like, the kind of guy who’d hand you his shirt and shoes if he thought you needed them. No questions asked.”
Jenny nodded.
Chris ran his hands up and down her back, finding it soothed him to touch her. “He’d been with our unit for about a week, no more than that. And he and I went out on patrol in a known Taliban-stronghold neighborhood. Not unusual, not even really alarming. We’d always found that grid pretty quiet – families, mostly, and even though we knew where their loyalties lay, it was lots of women and kids. Nothing to get too worried about. And so I was complacent, not as alert as I was usually.” He swallowed. “Lazy, even.”
“Tiegert followed my lead, of course. When he saw how relaxed I was, he lowered his guard, too. So when the woman in the burka approached him, he didn’t even think about it twice.”
Jenny paused. She hated to show her ignorance, but she honestly didn’t know what a burka was. She asked him.
“The burka is the most concealing thing a woman can wear,” he told her. “The hijab is a headscarf that allows you to see the whole of the woman’s face, and the niqab has a veil that covers the face, but you can still see her eyes without any problems. The burka, though… it hides everything. The woman looks through a mesh screen, and you can’t see her at all. Even up close, you can’t make any real eye contact.”
“Got it,” she said. “So a woman who was totally covered up talked to Tiegert?”
“Yeah. And it was weird, because in that neighborhood, women never wore burkas. Every woman I’d ever seen was in a niqab. Plus, no woman ever approached us first. Even the women who knew us from our patrols and who were friendly never acknowledged us that directly. But here was this woman – covered from head to toe – walking straight over to Tiegert like he was her best damn friend in the world.”
“I saw it all happen, and I didn’t even really twig. I mean, I knew this nei
ghborhood; I knew these people. The kids liked us, knew my name. No trouble there, not even once. The patrols were more a formality by that point, and I’d told Tiegert that when we headed out that morning.”
“He was talking to her and smiling, and I turned away to scan the street behind us. That was when the bomb went off.” Chris turned on his side now, touched his upper back. She’d seen the scar tissue there, of course; she’d kissed it, run her tongue over it. But she’d never once asked him how it had happened. “I was thrown backwards about twenty feet in to a parked car. The windshield shattered and cut me badly. When I managed to get to my feet, it was all over. Tiegert was gone, the woman was gone, an entire row of shops and homes was gone. Dead kids, dead women everywhere. Blood and blown-off limbs and… toys.”
Jenny gasped. “But why would she want to hurt anyone besides you and Tiegert? Why hurt kids? Fellow Afghans?”
“Because this neighborhood had become a bit too friendly with us. It was a message: don’t be too nice to the Americans. And the message was received, loud and clear. That day there were three more suicide bombers in burkas blowing up American soldiers in formerly-friendly neighborhoods. It was coordinated and planned well and the warning was as clear as a fucking bell.”
“Dean and Jim and my unit showed up within about three minutes, and we all did what we could for the wounded, but the locals wouldn’t let us do much. They knew who’s fault this all was.” Chris shook his head. “The women screamed at us when we tried to touch the kids, and the old people screamed at us when we tried to help the women. In the end, all we could do was stand there and stand guard. Look for a second wave.”
“You mean a second bomb?”
“Yeah. The way it usually worked was that there was one bomb, then once help arrived – the Americans, medical services – they detonated a second one. The second bomb always yielded more casualties… and better ones. More targeted and valuable.”
Jenny felt sick.
“Anyway, we stayed until the ambulances arrived and we escorted them to the hospital, and that was all we could do. I went back to base to get patched up and then I had to sit down with Dean and file a report about the incident. I had to look my LT in the eye and tell him that I’d fucking failed in my duty. I’d – I’d let an unknown approach a fellow Ranger, and I didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.” He tightened his arms around her. “I didn’t say one word to Tiegert about backing up. I didn’t even fucking think to tell him to watch out.”
Enemy Mine (Unseen Enemy Book 3) Page 11