by Soraya Lane
“The thing was, I was very scared. And very sad,” he said.
He watched her little head nodding. “Me too.”
“And, just like you, I stopped talking,” he admitted.
She dropped her rod then. He scrambled to grab it. “Just like me?”
He passed her back the rod and waited for her fingers to clasp it. “Yep, just like you.”
They sat there in silence, bodies touching. She felt so tiny next to him. So vulnerable. Alex’s chest ached. The pain of memories that he’d long since put to rest was bubbling in his mind, but he had to help Lilly if he could.
“It was different when I wouldn’t talk, though. Do you know why?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Because you have a mommy who you can still talk to. I had no one. So when I stopped talking I didn’t say a word to anyone. I had no one to talk to. You are very lucky, because your mom loves you and you can talk to her,” he said quietly.
She sighed and let her head rest against his arm. “But I don’t want to talk to anyone else.”
“You talk to me.” He whispered the words, conscious that maybe she hadn’t actually thought much about the fact that she spoke to him.
“Something’s different about you,” she whispered back.
Alex wished her therapist could hear all this. Maybe to a professional it would make more sense. “Why? What’s different about me?”
“You make me think of Daddy.”
A hand seemed to clasp around Alex’s throat. Squeezed it so hard he couldn’t breathe. But this was Lilly. This was the child he was trying to help. He couldn’t stall on her now. She was waiting for him to say something.
“Is it…ah…okay that I make you think of him?” he asked.
She gave him a solemn nod. “It’s nice.”
Damn it! The kid had pulled out his heart and started shredding it into tiny pieces. “So, when do you think you’ll start talking again? You know—to other people?”
She shrugged. “When did you start talking?”
He didn’t let his mind drift back to where it wanted to go. Couldn’t. He had been forced to talk again. Forced to deal with the fate life had handed him.
Being picked on and bullied had been bad enough. But being the kid who didn’t talk? That had made life even worse in the first foster home he’d been put in. But he’d been tougher by the time it came to the second home. Harder. He’d had to find his tongue again in order to stand up for himself, although he’d kept his voice to himself most of the time. Tough kids talked with their fists, and he’d had to learn that type of communication too.
Alex had gone all his life wondering what it would have been like if someone had genuinely tried to help him. Had talked to him and wanted to help make it right. The army had been like family to him up until now, but those men he’d served with had all had someone to go home to. They had been there for one another, and he’d known true support and compassion and camaraderie, but it wasn’t the same as having a real family.
He let his arm find Lilly again and drew her close. It didn’t matter how hard this was for him—he had to do it for her. “No one can tell you when it’s the right time to talk again, Lilly.”
She snuggled in. Alex’s heart started pounding loud in his ears. Beating a rhythm at the side of his neck.
“When you see someone like your grandma do you want to talk to her? You know? When she talks to you first?”
“Yes.” It was tiny noise, one little word, but it was honest.
“How about next time one of your grandmas or your Aunt Anna talks to you, you take a big breath, give them a big smile like I know you can, and think about saying something back?” he suggested. He could almost hear her brain working. Ticking. Processing what he’d said. “If you can’t say anything, that’s okay, but if you think hard about what you want to say back, and try really hard to say it, it might work.”
“Will you help me?” she asked softly.
He put his fishing line between his feet to hold it and hugged her, tight enough to show he meant it. “I’ll be here for you, Lilly. You just be strong.”
“Aaaaggghhhhh!” Her squeal pierced his eardrum.
If he hadn’t been so focused on Lilly, so consumed by his own dark thoughts, he probably would have seen it coming. The dog had leaped out of the boat, which now rocked precariously and tipped before he could do anything about it. Alex kept hold of Lilly, more worried about her than the fact the boat was turning over. They hit the water hard, but he still had hold of her. Had Lilly pressed tight against his chest, her forehead against his chin.
Alex instinctively started treading water. He could do it for hours if he had to. “You okay?” he asked urgently.
His eyes met laughing ones. Lilly looked like they were on some sort of adventure, not as if she could have drowned!
“Boston saw a duck!” she spluttered.
He followed her gaze. Sure enough, Boston was paddling fast towards a few ducks that were lazily swimming in the other direction.
He could have killed the dog!
“Mommy told you he liked ducks,” Lilly laughed.
Hmm, so Mommy had. Alex shook the water from his eyes and swapped Lilly into his left hand, so he could use his right for swimming. He hoped for Boston’s sake he wasn’t feeling quite this annoyed when the dog showed up on solid ground.
What on earth…? Lisa almost turned away just to look back again. Why were they both soaking wet? She ran to get dry towels and headed out the door.
“What happened?” she called as she ran. Her heart was pounding. Talk about giving a mother a fright!
She watched as Alex gave Boston a dirty look. The dog was soaking wet too. Standing on the riverbank.
“Oh, no. Did he…?”
“Leap out of the boat and capsize us?” Alex was at least smiling, if somewhat wryly. “Yup.”
Lisa laughed. She couldn’t help it. She held out her arms to Lilly. “Come here, my little drowned rat.”
Lilly scuttled into her arms and Lisa wrapped her in a towel. Then she passed one to Alex.
“He saved me,” her daughter said proudly. “Alex grabbed me and swam me in, and then he went back for the boat.”
Lisa smiled at Alex and mouthed thank you. He just shrugged. She turned back to her daughter. “Lilly, if I’d known you were taking Boston in the boat I would have been able to warn Alex. You know he isn’t usually allowed in without a lead.”
“Lilly Kennedy, did you forget to tell me that?” Alex asked incredulously.
Lilly looked sheepish.
“Off with you!” He ruffled her hair to show he wasn’t cross with her. “And take that filthy mongrel with you.”
“He’s not a filthy mongirl!”
Lilly’s struggle with the word had Alex and Lisa both in hysterics.
“Well, he is filthy, so off with both of you,” Lisa finally managed to say.
They watched her run off after the dog, still wrapped in the towel.
“I think there’s a hot shower with your name on it,” Lisa hinted.
Alex grinned. “Good idea.” He started to walk off.
“Thank you, Alex.”
He turned back to her. “What for?”
She wanted to stay like this, in this moment, forever. He was so different, happy. Open.
“For saving her, for taking the time to talk to her. It means a lot to me,” she elaborated.
“She’s not exactly a hard kid to be around.”
Lisa knew that. When Lilly was happy and talking she’d draw anyone in with her smile and chatter. These last few months it had been like having a nervous, tiny shadow of her daughter—a sliver of the fun little girl Lilly used to be. Her father had been away for a lot of her young life, but she had loved every minute with him when he’d been home, and had lived and breathed the excitement of having him return home one day for good once his term was over.
Now this stranger, this soldier, had turned up, and it was l
ike Lilly’s inner dragon had started to breathe fire within her again. Lisa couldn’t thank him enough for that.
She stood and watched as Alex made his way inside. He might not say a lot, but when he did his words counted.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“ALL I’m saying is that it’s hard to meet someone who’ll take on a woman and a child,” Marj said calmly.
“Great—thanks, Mom.” Lisa scowled at the phone. “So you’re likening me to used goods?” She scribbled down the final ingredient in a recipe and dropped her pen. Having her mother on speakerphone was not helping.
“Honey, you know I don’t mean that,” Marj protested.
Did she?
“I’m just saying that he must be a good man.”
“Mom! For the last time, there is nothing—nothing—going on between me and Alex,” Lisa said through gritted teeth.
“Well, what I’m saying is maybe you should give the guy a chance,” Marj said.
Would it be so bad, moving on from William? Lisa heard a shuffle of feet and hit the hand control. She didn’t want anyone else hearing this conversation. And she didn’t want to discuss moving on. She still loved William. Period. What she felt for Alex was just attraction. A natural reaction for a lonely woman with a handsome man nearby.
“Honey?”
“Mom, I appreciate the support—I do. But I just need a little more time.” She sighed.
She could feel his presence. Sure enough, within a handful of seconds Alex appeared in the living room.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll come by soon.” She hung up the phone. “Hi,” she greeted him a little nervously.
He raised a hand in a casual wave. “Hey.”
She tried not to let him see she was rattled.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he said, when she didn’t say anything more.
“Don’t be silly. It was just my mother. And I told you—the door is always open,” she said in a rush.
He nodded. “She keeps a close eye on you, huh?”
“More like she’s nosy. Her and Anna,” she muttered. But she sensed he didn’t really want to talk about her family. Well, that was fine. Neither did she.
“I’m about to head into town to run some errands,” she told him.
Something crossed Alex’s face that she couldn’t put her finger on. Then his expression changed.
She waited.
“Would you…ah…like me to drive you?” he asked tentatively.
Lisa smiled. She’d love the company. “Sure—that’d be great.” She watched as his face softened, like he hadn’t known how she was going to react to his offer. “Let me grab a few things and we’ll go.”
“Am I okay like this?”
He looked down at his attire. She followed his eyes. What about him wasn’t okay? Long legs clad in faded jeans. Tanned feet poking out below. Bronzed forearms hanging loosely from a fitted black T-shirt. Her gaze reached his handsome face and went down his gorgeous body again before she finally managed to wrench it away.
It was just an attraction. A natural reaction to a good-looking, fit, healthy male. It would pass, she told herself fervently.
“You look good. Add a pair of shoes and you’ll be good to go,” she said.
He wriggled his toes. She saw it. Which meant she was still watching him. Darn it if her eyes weren’t like magnets drawn to him!
“Let me get Lilly and my handbag and I’ll see you at the car.” Lisa forced herself to move. To walk away from him. She could feel him. Sense his big masculine presence. It was like when William had been home on leave, or between postings. The house had felt different. A feeling in the air. Only William had been a comfortable change. Solid, dependable. With Alex it was electric.
Lilly made the house feel alive, kept Lisa from ever feeling truly alone, but she couldn’t deny that there was a sense of security, of strength, in a house when there was a man in residence. She dug her nails into her own hand. It was William’s residence. Alex was just a visitor. Passing through.
But, wrong as it may be, there was definitely something comforting about having a man in her home. Even if it wasn’t the man she was supposed to be sharing it with.
She looked at Lilly’s closed bedroom door. There was a little thump and lots of giggling. Then there was a woof. Lisa guessed what was going on. Boston would be lying on the bed, on his back, legs in the air. His head would be settled on the pillows. Lilly would either have a bonnet on his head, socks on his feet, glasses on his nose, a blanket tucked around him, or all of the above. She treated the dog as if he was a living doll.
“We’re going into town soon, honey,” Lisa told her through the door.
“Can we take Boston?” Her voice was slightly muffled.
“Yes, we can take Boston.”
Lisa let her forehead rest on the door. She owed a lot to that dog. Without him, Lilly would have been even worse. Would have been even more lost over William’s death.
She heard a bout of giggles again. Lilly was definitely getting back to her old self. It was nice to have a daughter who was slowly filling up with fuel for life again.
“Get a wriggle on, girl. Two minutes!” Lisa warned.
Lilly didn’t answer.
Strange as it might be, it was almost like things were getting back to normal again. Or as normal as life had ever been being a soldier’s wife. Having Alex here felt right. In some ways. But deep down she didn’t want it to be right. If she could wish for anything in the world, it would be to have William back.
So where did that leave her feelings for Alex?
Alex looked out the window as they chugged along. He didn’t look at Lisa. He couldn’t. Even though he’d intended driving her in, she’d laughed, told him to enjoy the scenery and jumped in on the driver’s side herself.
Seeing her behind the oversize wheel of the baby blue Chevy had been bad enough when she’d waved him over before they’d left. There was something about her that just got to him. The casual ponytail slung high on her head, the way she wore her T-shirt, even the way her fingers tapped on the wheel to music.
He wound down his window and let a blast of air fill the cab. Boston straddled him and let his tongue loll out the window, nose twitching. Lilly wriggled next to him on the bench seat.
“Tell me again why Boston couldn’t ride in the back?” Alex wanted to know.
Lisa laughed. Loud.
Relief hit him. Hard. Like a shock to the chest. He’d wondered if they were ever going to get that easy feeling between them back again. He’d missed it.
“Lilly won’t have him in the back,” Lisa explained.
He looked at the kid. She shook her head. Vigorously.
Alex pushed Boston back and wound the window up. He liked dogs, but four of them squished up-front seemed a bit—well, ridiculous. He went back to scanning the landscape. He might be biased, given the years he’d spent seeing sand and little else when he was deployed, but Alaska was beautiful. Incredible.
He’d dreamed of wilderness and trees and water every night before coming back to the US. Now he was here. In a part of the world that seemed untouched. It was the postcard-perfect backdrop he would have sketched when he was away. The idyllic spot he’d hankered for. As a child, he’d always dreamt of what his life could have been like, the kind of place he could have lived in with his family if they’d been around, and if he could have chosen anywhere Alaska would have made the list.
Even without Lisa and Lilly this place was perfect. Although they sure did add to the appeal, a little voice inside him whispered insidiously.
They’d only been driving maybe five, seven minutes before a stretch of shops appeared. They had an old-school type of quality—a refreshingly quaint personality. He’d driven into Brownswood this way, but he’d been so focused on following directions, on finding the Kennedy residence, that he’d hardly even blinked when he’d passed the row of stores. There was every kind of store here a person could need.
Lisa gave a toot
and waved to an older woman standing on the street. She turned down the radio a touch and rolled down her window. “Hey, Mrs. Robins.”
A few other people turned to wave. Small-town feel, small-town reality. The thought suddenly worried him. Was his being with her going to affect her standing? Surely she wouldn’t have agreed to him coming along if she’d had hesitations? But still… He knew firsthand how small-town gossip started. And spread. When his parents had died it had been as if everyone had been talking about it. Pitying him. Whispering. But no one had stepped up to help him or take him in. They’d just watched as Social Services had taken him away.
Alex started pushing the painful memories back into the dark corners of his mind, like he always did. Just because he’d been doing better these past few days it didn’t mean he was ready for this. Didn’t mean he wanted to be seen or have to interact with anyone.
He did enjoy Lisa’s company, he had to admit. That didn’t mean he was ready to brave the world again, though. It had taken him years to learn how to force unwanted feelings down. To push them away and lock them down. But now that he’d left the army after ten years he was struggling. Because he didn’t want to be alone.
Having company again was kind of nice.
Lisa wasn’t going to hide just because she had Alex with her. She had to keep mentally coaching herself, reassuring herself that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but it was hard.
These people had known her since she was a little girl. Known William since he was in diapers. Not to mention known them both together as husband and wife for a good few years. And the worry, the guilt, was eating at her from the inside. She cared about what people in her community thought about her. Plus she cared about her husband. She didn’t ever want to be disloyal to him, or to his memory.
For some reason, though, it felt like she was.
But Alex was a friend. A friend. There was nothing wrong with having a friend who was a man. Nothing wrong at all.