The old brass bed where he was laying was surrounded with goose-down pillows to support him. He reached out with his left hand, moving it across the old, thin bedspread. His grandmother, Bess Gardner, had made it fifty years ago, and it showed its age. He’d grown up with in on his bed at his parents’ cabin, and on nights when he had nightmares, which wasn’t very often, he’d bundled himself up in it, pulling into a fetal position, clutching the warm, colorful quilt around him like a shield. Then feeling secure, he’d promptly fallen asleep.
He fondly remembered his grandmother. She’d lived to be a hundred and two, with lively blue eyes like his father’s, her black hair streaked with silver. And she’d loved her three grandsons, always giving them big, smacking kisses on the cheek and forehead whenever they came close to her. His mother now had every one of Bess’s quilts. They were heirlooms, precious mementos of an earlier time that Amber wanted passed down through the generations, along with the colorful stories about Gram Bess.
Now, Beau moved his fingers across the thinning cotton, still strong after so many decades. He could remember as a boy when electricity still hadn’t been strung across Black Mountain. Then, they’d used a washboard, washing one section of the big quilt at a time on it.
The rain soothed his rattled mind, his fingers splayed out against the quilt. The cabin was cool, with only a wood stove for heating. Although the April weather was above freezing, the cabin was usually chilly if the wood stove hadn’t been fired up.
In the other room, Callie slept on a couch his father had made for Gram Bess decades earlier. It was a good, long couch, hardly showing any age. The black walnut wood shining from being oiled by hand. Amber had made the comfortable cushions placed across the sofa and had sewn them on a special Singer machine that handled heavy fabric. All was quiet, and he hoped Callie was sleeping well.
Even sighing caused a stabbing pain in his lung. The VA doc told him it was from where the drain had been inserted. In time, the pain would disappear as the wound healed. He looked down at the thick, white dressing across the right side of his ribcage. Callie changed it daily, but it was Poppy Thorn, a Black Mountain hill doctor, who had met them when they’d arrived home, who would provide medical assistance. Her daughter, Baylee Ann Thorn-Griffin, a former 18 Delta Navy corpsman, was also helpful.
The women taught Amber and Callie how to change his dressing daily and how to look for redness, heat, or swelling, which could indicate infection. They also took his temperature several times a day. If infection occurred, they would have to rush him down to the VA hospital in Dunmore to get him emergency treatment. And this happened, Amber was to call Baylee immediately. She and her husband, Gabe, an ex-SEAL, would drive down to the cabin and drive Beau to the hospital. Just knowing this gave them all more confidence that they could handle whatever came up.
Beau pulled his left arm across his eyes, feeling lost. He wasn’t alone, and for that, he was grateful. But the last two weeks had twisted him into a knot. Everyone, since he had come home, walked on eggs around him. Beau could see the anxiety in them, the fear that something might go wrong, throwing him into another life-and-death battle. He ached to have Callie lying next to him, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm across his torso, naked and warm against the hard length of his body. His mouth tightened and he felt hot tears well up, but fought them back.
Beau knew his father was a big believer in men crying. He had taught his sons it was okay to let go. He’d seen his father cry. Tears leaked beneath his short, spiky lashes, trailing down his recently shaved face. Earlier tonight, Callie had shaved him, and he had looked forward to it so much—her tender touch, her smile.
But there was no manual on how to act or feel after you’d survived a near-lethal attack. These days, Beau’s moods were up and down. One hour, he was higher than a damned kite, feeling lucky to be alive and surrounded by so many people that he loved. The next hour, he felt as if he’d stepped off a cliff into a deep black hole. It was those “down times” that Nurse Evans had warned him about. How he hated these moments of deep depression. Beau had never dealt with anything like this before. He had always been a mellow, happy guy, known for his optimistic outlook. Until now.
Anger and frustration thrummed through him. Callie had repeatedly tried to talk to him about how he was doing, but he clammed up. No one knew what combat was like, but she did, having gone through that ambush and escape from the Taliban last November.
A few minutes later, exhausted by his memories of the past and his frustrations in the present, Beau dropped off to sleep.
*
Callie nearly jumped off the couch when she heard Beau cry out. She hurried into his room and saw that the clock on his dresser read four a.m. There was a small night light plugged into the wall, and Beau was barely visible. But she could see that his skin was glistening with sweat and he’d torn off his covers. He wore a set of pajama trousers and his feet stuck out between the rumpled covers. Beau was breathing hard, a moan of pain tearing from between his tightened lips. And he was awake.
“Beau? It’s Callie. You’re okay,” she whispered, moving to his right side, her gaze dropping to the dressing. Bay Griffin had told her to watch for any new, fresh blood stains on that white gauze dressing. If there were any, she was to call her on her cell phone and she’d quickly come down to see what had been torn apart. To her relief, the dressing was white, not red. Reaching out, she saw the agony in his shadowed eyes. She slid her fingertips across his sweaty brow, placing the damp strands back into place. “Nightmare?” she guessed.
“Yes,” he gritted out, shutting his eyes, tensing because the pain was sharp and jabbing in the area of his lung.
“What can I do?” She’d learned from Bay what kind of questions to ask Beau. Otherwise, she’d feel panic instead. She continued to slide her hand over his hair in light, gentle caresses. Her touch always soothed him. She waited. Right now, his eyes were tightly shut as he wrestled with the pain of breathing deeply. His flesh was pasty and she knew that was a sign of deep pain. She’d learned not to blurt out a fix for it, but it was hard not to ask if he wanted medication to dull it.
“Just … nothing,” he rasped, his breath still ragged, his chest heaving.
“Okay,” she soothed. Leaving his side, she pulled up the blankets, settling them over him to his waist, wanting to keep him warm. The cabin was deeply chilled and felt damp. She needed to make a fire in the wood stove to drive it away. Bay had worried about Beau catching pneumonia if he wasn’t in a warm, dry environment and these cabins were poorly insulated.
She smoothed her hand down his right arm, feeling the sweat. He gripped her fingers in his, feeling his anxiety. What had he been dreaming about? The firefight where he got wounded? Most likely, but Callie said nothing except to place her other hand on his naked shoulder to stabilize him.
Beau didn’t want anything atop his skin but a lightweight sheet across his wound area. The weight of blankets bothered him and he couldn’t stand it, pulling them away from his chest. Callie badly wanted to lean over and hold Beau because she knew that’s what he needed, but with that chest wound, she couldn’t. Instead, she continued to move her hand lightly across his shoulder, some of the sweat dissipating, his breathing beginning to slow down. Beau lay against the wall of pillows that kept him upright. She knew better than to try to rearrange them when he was enmeshed in an emotional storm. Bay had urged her to simply be there, remain quiet, and keep her touch and connection with him. That was what Gabe, her husband, had done for her when she’d had flashbacks of her rape and capture by the Taliban. Just his closeness to her, someone she considered safe, helped her reorient and come out of those horrifying memories.
Callie wished she could say or do something, but she knew by now that words didn’t always carry the weight that her touch did. She had never realized just how important it was until now. Beau responded quickly to her hand on his shoulder and he collapsed against the pillows, eyes shut, his breathing slowing down.
He frowned, barely opening his eyes. Rolling his head toward her, he rasped, “I’d give anything for you to lie beside me. I need you, Callie.”
Her heart tore open as she remembered their time together, body-to-body, skin-on-skin, holding him in her bed. “I know, it seems like a dream from the past, doesn’t it?”
Grimacing, Beau rasped, “Yeah, a beautiful dream …”
“Is there anything you’d like that I can bring you, besides me?” she shot him a grin to help lighten the mood. “A drink of water?” Callie knew from past nightmares that he was now grounded and back here with her.
“Yeah. Water, please?”
She retrieved a glass of water with a straw, brought it over to him, and pressed the straw between his lips. He drank in gulps, emptying the glass.
“More?” she asked gently.
He nodded, wiping his mouth with his left hand. Following her with his eyes, he watched her pour another glass of water from a nearby plastic pitcher. “I don’t know what I’d do without your help, Callie. Thank you.”
“I want to be right here beside you, Beau. I love you, and I want to help you as much as I can.” Turning, she held the glass for him and allowed him to drink until he was sated. Color was slowly starting to return to his cheeks, and she felt tiny tendrils of relief.
“Thanks,” he whispered. He watched her set the glass down on the bed stand. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I’m not, big guy. I love spending time with you. Do you want anything else?”
“Yeah, you.” He managed a weak, teasing smile, turning his right hand over resting it on the mattress. “Just you.”
“You have me,” she said. “Always. Meanwhile, are you warm enough, Beau? Do you want me to start a fire in the wood stove?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine. Give me your hand,” he replied, stretching out his open palm.
Sliding her fingers into his, she stood above him and saw the exhaustion shadowing Beau’s face. “How’s the pain level in that lung?”
“Bearable.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Beau, you don’t have to tough this out. You know the doctor said you could take that pain med. You’ll heal up faster if you aren’t in pain all the time.”
She saw his eyes flicker with frustration and knew it had to do with his ego. Baylee had told her that men would always want to tough it out. She’d seen it as a combat medic again and again. Callie appreciated her wisdom and experience. It helped her understand why Beau was being so stubborn about admitting he was in pain. It was the “manly” thing to do, and it made her want to scream in frustration.
She had a sudden inspiration. “How about,” she posed, “if I give you half a pain pill? That way, it won’t knock you out for hours.” She saw him consider it. Sometimes, Callie felt like a horse trader with Beau. Knowing he wasn’t doing it on purpose, that he was still in recovery, and dealing with trauma, she could easily forgive him.
“Well … yeah … that would be okay, I guess …”
She smiled a little. “I’ll be right back.”
Returning from the bathroom, she put half the pill on his tongue and gave him water to wash it down.
“You’ll feel better now,” she soothed, setting the glass aside.
“I want you so damned badly beside me, Callie.”
“I know you do. But until that lung heals up more, I can’t do it. Every time I move beside you I’d be aggravating your wound. You’d never get any sleep, Beau.” She saw his brows draw down, frustration gleaming in his eyes.
“You didn’t sign on for this,” he muttered.
“No, but you didn’t either,” she reminded him. “You didn’t join the Army to get shot.”
“I knew as a Delta operator the potential was there, though.”
Her lips puckered. “Well, I knew when I fell in love with you that as a black ops man, you’d always be in harm’s way, and that you could get wounded, or worse, killed.” She leaned over and brushed his lips. Once she’d kissed him, she drew back, her lips a mere quarter of an inch from his, and added, “And I weighed all of that before I let all my love carry me away to you, Beau Gardner.”
She felt him relax even more. Maybe it was her kiss, her loving him from a distance, or maybe it was the meds. She wasn’t sure. He lifted his left hand slowly, because any movement of his rib cage inspired pain in his wound, his fingers sliding through her thick, crimson strands. She smiled, eyes closed. They both needed this intimacy with one another. It fed them, and kept their hope strong and bright with one another.
“I wish I could love you right now, Beau,” she whispered against his lips. She felt him smile a little beneath her mouth.
“Do you want the truth? I haven’t had one sexual thought since I got hit.”
Easing away, she laughed. “Well, I’m not surprised. Almost dying kind of takes precedence, doesn’t it?”
“I guess,” he grumped. “I’m just not the man I used to be, Callie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I can’t love you. I can’t hold you. You pull down my trousers and briefs so I can pee or poop. There’s just a boxcar load of things I can’t do anymore by myself.”
“But in time, you’ll be able to pull down your jeans and briefs to go to the bathroom, Beau. You will be able to hold me and love me, and I’ll love you back.”
She saw the devastation and loss in his eyes. The meds were indeed starting to take over because he was far more willing to talk with her. She cherished these moments with him. They were too far and few between.
“I guess … I guess I didn’t see this coming, Callie.” He looked up into her eyes, worry in them.
Shrugging, she sighed. “My parents and grandparents taught me there was nothing fixed about a person’s life path, Beau. Things happen, both good and bad, to all of us, all the time. If you hadn’t been in the Army, if you hadn’t been protecting Hope Charity from that Taliban attack, you could have been a civilian instead and gotten into a car wreck.”
“Well, shit happens,” he muttered darkly, “for sure.” Beau didn’t usually curse around her, and she knew he was sinking into a heavy place.
“Hey,” she said, “we’ll work through this together. Like we’ve done everything else.” There was a question in his eyes and she wasn’t sure what that was about. He said the words, I love you, to her, but sometimes, she wondered if he was just saying it and not meaning it. That scared her as nothing else. She wanted to ask him more questions, but Callie knew he was exhausted from lost sleep and desperately needed to get some.
“We’ll tackle it all together,” she promised him softly, leaning over, kissing his brow. “I’m in this with you forever, Beau. I’m not leaving your side. I’m here for the long haul.” Callie’s family had taught her commitment, hanging in through the rough times, and being grateful for the good times. She’d grown up seeing that time and again with the family that surrounded her and Dara.
“That’s good to hear, sweetheart.”
Caressing his cheek, she whispered, “Go to sleep, Beau. I’ll stand here for a bit. Close your eyes, okay?”
And he did. Within a minute, Callie watched him drop off that invisible cliff, his body sag, all the tension draining from him. She slowly loosened her fingers from his and brought up the sheet to cover his chest.
Tiptoeing quietly out of his room, she went back to her couch bed and lay down. It was almost five a.m., but the skies around Black Mountain were still dark. As Callie snuggled down beneath the quilt and sheet, nestling into the goose down pillow, she pretended she was lying next to Beau.
*
&nbs
p; May 15
Beau walked slowly, Callie’s hand around his leather belt to catch him in case he fell. The May afternoon sunlight fell in shadows around the Gardner homestead that comprised ten acres of Black Mountain. They lived on the lower slope of the mountain, the area thick with elm, oak, poplar, and maple. The ground was uneven, sticks and sometimes rocks hidden by leaves here and there. Beau had to walk every hour he was up because it improved his lung function. Today, he wore a bright red t-shirt, his jeans, and hiking boots. On his head, as always, was his frayed Army green baseball cap. She smiled to herself, glad to have his left arm around her shoulders, walking so closely together.
“Someone had to do a lot of leveling out of this slope,” she said, gesturing with her left hand toward the huge five-acre garden, “to make it flat so water would stay in there and soak in.”
“That was my great-grandparents, Sally and Eli,” he told her. “They bought the land and Eli had a team of mules and a plow. It took him two years to take the slope off our homestead,” Beau told her, “and make it flat like we see it nowadays.”
“That had to be a lot of work.”
“It was. He also built the main cabin where my folks live and where we boys were born and grew up.”
“What about that little cabin we’re in?” She lifted her face, feeling the warmth of the sunlight falling upon it. The rain had cleared up in the early morning, the mid-morning temperature now in the high sixties.
“My pa engaged the three of us boys and we built it. He wanted to teach us how to build a log cabin and we learned.”
“What was the purpose of that cabin?” Callie wondered as she felt Beau slow to a halt. Every day he challenged himself to walk a little farther, making his lungs work, and open up to their full capacity to take oxygen into his body.
Hold Me: Delos Series, 5B1 Page 7