by Dale Mayer
She shook her head. “I don’t understand why they’d shoot their own men,” she said, her voice pained. “They were already injured.”
“They were a liability. The fact of it is, we are where people do some of the worst things possible to each other.”
“If that’s the case, I’m worried about humanity,” she admitted. “I wonder how we could possibly survive, if we even should survive as a species, given all we do to each other,” she said painfully. “There is no need for any of this.”
“No, but somebody has to stand up for all the people who have been annihilated by groups like this. The carnage has to stop somewhere, and it takes people like us to stand against them. To let them know they can’t just kill whoever they want because they decide to.”
She fell silent. And he knew there was really no point in discussing it. Wars happened all over the world. He didn’t know a time when there wasn’t one somewhere. He was doing what he could. He had to focus on that and to let the rest go.
Another forty minutes passed. He’d been walking between the two, keeping them strong while ensuring they weren’t being followed. “We’re almost there,” he said.
“Thank God for that,” Caitlyn said in a fervent whisper.
“About a half mile to the rendezvous.” He offered her a drink from his bottle of water, and she took several gulps before passing it back.
“We haven’t seen anybody along the way, so I assume we’re safe,” Dr. Robertson asked, his voice tired, worn out.
“We’re safe enough. The rest of the units have taken out the rebel camp.”
He watched Caitlyn. She nodded. It seemed she understood that likely dozens of men had just died in the fight behind them. “It’s so sad.”
Maybe because he agreed with her, or maybe because he was tired of thinking about all the things wrong in the world, his tone was harsher than he meant when he said, “So many things in life should change. We change what we can, and we have to accept it might not be enough.”
“And maybe this is as good a time as any. I might never get another chance.” She took a deep breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”
The doctor walked at their side, slightly ahead. He didn’t appear to be listening to the conversation. He struggled to put one foot in front of the other. Still this discussion was personal, and Ryder really didn’t want anyone listening in. He let Dr. Robertson get slightly ahead.
“How could you not expect to hurt me? The fact that you just stepped out of my life after twenty years of friendship …” He shook his head, letting his voice trail off. “It made no sense. I told you how I had loved you. Always. And you never talked to me again.”
She sighed heavily.
He wasn’t sure how much was fatigue or the discussion.
“I was so confused.”
He snorted. “Really? That’s your excuse?” He shook his head. “There’s confused, and then there’s walking away from a twenty-year friendship.”
“And that’s why I was so confused,” she said, trying for honesty.
At least he thought she was trying to be honest. He studied her face, seeing the fatigue and the earnestness. “Explain.”
“What we had was so much more. It was just almost too much. You shocked me. The weekend shocked me, and my feelings were overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.”
“Ran? Why would all of that have been too much?” He didn’t get it.
“Because, up until then, my relationships hadn’t the depth I thought they had. Which had also been my ex-husband, George’s, complaint. But I hadn’t realized it until I spent the weekend with you. Somehow that twenty years of friendship had morphed into something so much more. Yet, I wasn’t ready to accept that realization. There was a richness, a complexity between us that added to what we had, and I didn’t understand that beforehand.
“At the time I wasn’t dealing well with the aftermath of my divorce. Instead of grieving for that relationship, you showed me how that relationship was much less than I thought. That George was actually correct in his complaints,” she exclaimed softly. “I see now that what I felt was nothing but a childish infatuation, real enough at the time, but … I felt like I’d hurt him because I hadn’t known better. In my defense I thought he was the one for me. I didn’t understand that my feelings for George were so … thin. But after I’d seen the depth of the feelings between you and me, I realized I hadn’t been there for my husband. I’d cheated him. I couldn’t give him a real and mature relationship.”
Ryder almost came to a dead stop at her words, but he forced himself to keep marching. Keeping them in the shadows as he led them to safety, he took a deep breath and responded, “That makes no sense.”
“I know,” she admitted. “At the time it didn’t to me either. It took me weeks, if not months, to fathom my way through it all. I felt so damned guilty. I’d been devastated over the breakup with George. And yet, that weekend with you was like a complete paradigm shift. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had to figure it out.”
It was not what he’d expected to hear, but it was an interesting explanation to consider. One he had never contemplated for sure.
She looked at him. In a hesitant voice, she asked, “You didn’t feel the same?”
“The same as what?” he asked with a quick glance at Dr. Robertson. But the doctor was in front, still putting one foot in front of the other. He could be listening, but, if so, he was keeping his thoughts to himself.
“About your previous relationships?”
He shook his head. “No. I had deliberately kept my relationships light, knowing I was going on more and more missions and one day might not come back.”
There was silence after that point.
After a long moment, she said, “So that part was easier for you than it was for me. That slap of awareness was harsh. I didn’t like myself much. I felt like a heartless fraud. And no way would I show up in a relationship with you when I was such a mess. I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I had to find something inside me that was better.”
He shook his head, completely dumbfounded. “So you didn’t talk to me again because you felt you weren’t worthy?”
There was silence again, and then, with a broken laugh, she said, “It sounds stupid when you put it that way, but I guess maybe that’s exactly how I did feel. As if you showed me how much of a fake I’d been. I really hated myself afterward. Maybe I had been too young, like George had suggested. I certainly hadn’t shown up for the relationship. Not fully. Not as I would now. If I was less of a person with George, had I been less of a person with you? I really cared about you. But I didn’t want to shortchange you, and I couldn’t be sure I was ‘all in.’ You deserved better.” She shrugged. “Now that I look back on it, it seems stupid in so many ways. But it was very real to me.”
He tried not to keep staring at her, but it was hard when these revelations were not making much sense. “Did you ever explain any of that to George?”
“No way.” She shrugged. “I might tell him down the road. Let him know he was right about me. He kept saying things—like he didn’t feel we were connected on a deep-enough level, that he didn’t think I was there for him. At the time I had been insulted and upset, thinking he was taking my love and tossing it away.” She snorted. “But he was right. I had nothing to give because I just didn’t realize so much more was inside me to actually give. I didn’t even know until I spent that weekend with you.”
“Well …” The word clipped out on an exhale. He had no more.
“Is that all you can say?”
“I’m trying,” he muttered. “Of all the reasons I came up with about why you never talked to me again, none of this was ever one of them.”
“How could it have been? You couldn’t have seen the real me because I hadn’t let the real me show up in any relationship—including the one with you,” she said quietly.
“Not true. I knew who you were inside and out. I watched you grow from pigtails
and freckles to a beautiful young woman. I assure you that I understood who you were before and after our weekend. If the after person, who put me through hell is the authentic you, I might prefer the earlier model.”
She shot him a strange look. “That would be too bad. Because that woman is gone.” She hurried her steps and caught up to Dr. Robertson.
He could see the US military trucks racing toward them and guessed this was the end of their conversation.
Still, it would take him some time to figure out how he felt about her explanation. And what that meant for them now.
Chapter 9
She couldn’t put into words her overall sense of relief as she was welcomed back into the main camp. Even after being picked up at the rendezvous point, the drive had taken hours. She was happy to hear she wouldn’t return to the outpost. At the base camp, the other nurses quickly ushered the two kidnap victims into a medical tent where they were checked over. That’s when she realized she was covered in blood. It wasn’t her blood. It was blood from the man with the gunshot wound in the spine.
She explained how they’d been trying to help one of the rebels, and that’s why she was bloody. Still, she was exhausted in more ways than one. Not just from being kidnapped, held hostage and the panicked escape, but also because of a deeper internal exhaustion from the emotional release of finally telling Ryder about why she’d walked away. Something she should have done a long time ago. Although she wasn’t sure she had gotten to the bottom of it all even now. It had taken her a lot of personal introspection to get this far. Sometimes answers came as she woke, and other times she found nuggets of illumination at odd times during the day.
With tears threatening, she finally made it to her tent. She’d only been gone a few days, but it felt like a fine homecoming. She stared at her bed with longing. If only she could just collapse, but a shower had to come first. She grabbed her bags, pulled out a change of clothing and walked to the showers. She took close to a half hour under the heated water. Her hair required two shampoos and a lot of conditioner to untangle, plus, she still had her stitches to watch out for.
She was also hungry, but she didn’t think she could get anything down right now. As she headed back to her bed, her steps faltered as she looked up to see Ryder standing in front of her tent.
He studied her quietly. “How about food first?”
She wrinkled her face at him. “I’m not sure I can keep anything down.”
“Won’t hunger wake you in the night?”
Memories of those particular hot nights shared with him flashed through her mind. How well he knew her. How intimately he knew her evenings, at least the three they’d spent together. She took a deep breath and shook her head. “I doubt anything will wake me up.” She glanced at her watch and sighed. “Probably have to be up in a few hours anyway.”
Which was too bad as she wanted to go with him because time with him was precious.
“I doubt it. Carbs and protein right now will help you sleep better.”
She dropped her dirty clothes in the laundry bag, hung the towel at the end of the bed and turned to him with a smile. “All right, let’s try to get a little bit down.”
He smiled and held out a hand.
She stared at it in wonder. “Does that mean you forgive me?”
He frowned. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’d like to think so. So how about we take a few steps toward each other and see if we can make this work?”
“Make what work?” She casually reached out and placed her hand in his, loving the feeling as his fingers closed around hers. But she was jerked forward, hard, up tight against his chest. Being in his arms was foreign yet … not. Lord, she wanted to be part of Ryder’s life again. His firm body at her fingertips just made her want so much more. She peered up and stared into his eyes. The darkness that told her nothing. “I really didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He gave her a quick nod. “That I believe.” Then he turned with an arm around her shoulders, walking her toward the food. “I still don’t understand how any of what you said caused me to lose my best friend for so long.”
She smiled at still being called his best friend. They’d been the best of friends for so long. She wanted to be more. But she’d take what she could get for now. She was so damn grateful for a lot of things in her life, and Ryder was one of the biggest. At the same time, she had to admit to the hope she found in her heart at his words. She had missed him. For more reasons than she could ever have counted. With her arm around his back, she squeezed him close. “Because I’m an idiot. I’ve hated every day we’ve been apart.”
“So I suggest we turn back the clock and start again.” He laughed. “How about it?”
She gave him a surprised smile. “Okay,” she said slowly. “That might work.” He still hadn’t mentioned that weekend between them except in passing. The weekend she could never forget.
“It’ll work if we want it to work,” he said with spirit. “So fill me in on what I missed. What have you been up to?”
In friendly neutral territory, she slowly brought him current on her life, not that there was much to report. She’d spent a lot of it alone, a lot of it with Mac—platonically—and a lot of it at work. She hadn’t had another relationship since him. Although she’d tried. She didn’t tell Ryder about that though. At the same time, she didn’t want to bring up Mac’s name either, not when she and Ryder were on a more friendly footing. “I should have contacted you earlier,” she said abruptly.
“It would’ve been nice if you had,” he said quietly. “But it’s all good.”
And she remembered that about him. That easygoing, laid-back, everything was always good mentality. Now at the mess tent, she stopped, wishing she didn’t have to go in. She was too tired to eat.
Ryder wrapped an arm around her again and tugged her closer. “It’s okay. If you want to take it back to your tent, we’ll do that.”
Once again memories broke through her consciousness. She shook her head. “No, let’s just grab something fast.”
In line with a tray in hand, she walked down the short aisle. She didn’t think she could handle anything too greasy. A comfort food for her was oatmeal.
Thankfully one of the cooks knew what she had been through, and he asked her if he could get her something.
With a wan smile she asked, “Any chance I could get a hot bowl of oatmeal?”
His eyes lit up. “Absolutely. Back in a minute.”
She didn’t know where he got it from, but in a few minutes he came back with a very large bowlful, likely two times as much as she could possibly eat.
The top was covered with raisins, nuts and coconut. He gave her a little bowl of brown sugar and a cup of cream. With a smile he said, “This should help fix you up.”
She shook her head. “There is enough here for both of us.”
The cook nodded toward Ryder and the large tray he’d filled. “Only if he eats that tray full as well. Otherwise, he’d starve on half a bowlful.”
She walked over to the coffee corner and stood, staring at it. But her mind was too tired to function. Ryder came up beside her and nudged her away. “Forget about the coffee. We don’t want you staying awake.”
“Right.” She knew that. But, in her state of her mind, she couldn’t quite fathom her way through it all. At his urging, she kept going until she reached an empty table. She sat down with a heavy thunk and stared at the bowl. It seemed to get bigger the longer she looked at it. “No way I’m eating all this.”
He reached over, placed a spoon in her hand. “Just start,” he urged.
She shot him a look, raised the spoon and took her first bite. She added a bit of the brown sugar and the entire amount of cream. She smiled. “It looks so much better with cream on it.”
“As long as you can eat it, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. You need food.”
She watched as he dug into a plateful of protein—sausages and eggs and bacon. She shook her head. “How can
you possibly eat that much right now?”
He laughed. “I’m not crashing for a few hours yet.” And he picked up a whole link sausage, and, in three bites, it was gone.
She stared. “I shouldn’t be surprised. But, for some reason, I find myself shocked.”
He tilted his head and grinned. “Don’t you remember?”
She flushed. Of course she remembered. They’d spent many a meal feeding each other, teasing each other. All as best friends. Not understanding, at the time, it had really been years of foreplay. She had lots of fun memories. And, when they’d been in bed together, things had been different. They’d raced past friendship and fun into intimacy … and love. Why had she let it get her so out of sorts? Why had she let it drive them apart? Something like that should’ve brought them together. Instead, she had let it come between them and had rejected him when that was the last thing she’d wanted to do. But he had no clue about that as she’d never talked to him again until now. How horrible. He had bared his soul, and she had walked away, shattered for all the wrong reasons.
She was too tired now to work it out. As if in auto mode she filled her spoon, took it to her mouth and ate. When she slowed down, he urged her again.
She made it through three-quarters of her meal and put down her spoon. “I’m done. In more ways than one.”
He’d eaten all his food and sat eyeing her bowl.
She laughed. “Do you want the rest of mine?”
“Nope.” He pointed at her bowl. “Eat the last nuts off the top to get a bit more protein.”
She groaned. “Damn. All right.” She picked up her spoon, scooped the nuts off the top and popped them into her mouth. She laid her spoon back down. “That’s it. No more.” She stared at his plate. “Do you need more?”
He shook his head. “I’ll wait until lunch.”
She struggled to get up. “I really have to lie down. I’m almost too exhausted to walk.”
He hopped up and came to help. He pushed her chair out of the way and gave her his arm to hold on to. They went out the back, and, within minutes, she was at her own quarters. She didn’t think she’d ever had any sense of relief like she did when she collapsed on top of her bed.