by Soraya Lane
Right now all she cared about was seeing his large frame walk back up her lawn. Seeing his shadow move behind the blind in the cabin. Or hearing his knock at the door.
She’d locked it, for safety, but she was ready to open it if he arrived home.
Home. It was a word she knew well. But she knew the same could not be said for him. It hurt her knowing that he had no one and nowhere to call on.
This was a man who had turned up on her doorstep looking for her. A man who had seemed so traumatized that there was no hope for him. But she’d seen a transformation firsthand. Seen the change in him when Lilly started to talk to him. Felt the change in him when they were together, just like she’d felt it within herself.
As Lilly had found her words, so Alex had seemed to start finding himself. Whoever that might be. She liked him whatever way he came, because she knew that deep down he was a kind, brave, honest person. He was just hurting. And she wanted to help him.
Her heart continued its steady thump against the wall of her chest. She tried to swallow but her mouth kept drying out.
She went to check on Lilly again. Her little girl was snoring, ever so lightly. Boston raised his head, then tucked back into her.
Before William’s passing Boston hadn’t been allowed on the bed. Now he slept with Lilly every night. If it brought her daughter comfort she was happy to turn a blind eye to the hair he left behind.
Lisa walked to the window one last time. She pressed her forehead against the glass and conjured an image of him. Of Alex.
He was a soldier, she reminded herself. That meant he could survive.
And when was the last time a human had been taken by a bear in these parts? Plenty of people camped in the National Park.
She quickly rid her mind of thoughts of camping. The average tourist stuck to the camping grounds. They didn’t just take off and set up camp wherever their feet stopped walking.
Lisa pulled her eyes away. It was so dark out she couldn’t see a thing anyway. The lights on her porch didn’t filter light out that far.
She went downstairs and pulled her wheat bag from the bottom drawer. She put it in the microwave to heat it.
Lisa watched as the numbers counted down from four minutes. That was as long as she’d give herself. Four full minutes until the bag was hot, then she was turning in for the night.
There was nothing she could do to help Alex except try and make him see reason when he eventually turned up again.
She was no use traipsing off into the forest with a torch. She couldn’t even call the local park ranger. Their trainee had left a few months back, and the ranger who had served the area for two decades had suffered a heart attack. Right now it was just a group of townsmen who’d banded together to take turns until a replacement was found.
Her brother-in-law was one of those men. She wasn’t going to wake her sister up at this time of the night.
All she could do was wait it out.
William. She called him in her mind. He would never have done anything silly like this—walking off into the forest and staying out after dark. But then William hadn’t been troubled like Alex. William had been a talker. Had grown up with love and without pain.
She liked that both men were so different. It helped her to know she wasn’t trying to replicate what she’d had with William.
Alex had shown her she did want to love again.
If only he’d come back and give her the chance to tell him that.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE door to the cottage was open. Alex fought against the clench of his jaw and forced his feet up the steps. His entire being felt shattered. Exhausted. More emotionally wrung out than he’d ever been.
His back ached, his mind was drained, and all he wanted to do was have a hot shower and rid himself of any memory of the hours he’d walked or the night he’d spent sleeping rough.
He had expected a mess. He had wondered if Lisa would throw all his things in a heap or politely have them waiting for him in the car. Thought she would have become angry, furious with him for what he’d done.
He was wrong on both counts.
Lilly was sitting on his bed. So was Boston. He ignored the dirty paw marks and levelled his eyes at Lilly instead. “Hi.”
She gazed up at him. He could see questions in her eyes, things she wanted to ask, but he didn’t push her. He didn’t want to. He didn’t even think he wanted to know what the questions were.
“Alex,” she answered.
He hadn’t got off as easily as he’d hoped. His head ached—an insistent, dull drumming of pain that banged at his forehead. He dropped to the seat across from the bed and looked at the little girl.
The last thing he’d wanted was to get close to her. In some ways he still felt nervous about how to talk to her, what to say, what to do around her. But other times it just seemed so natural to hang out with her and help her through her not speaking. Like they were connected by what had happened. But when he looked in her eyes he still saw what she’d lost. And it hurt.
“Alex, I know you’re not my daddy, but sometimes I wish you were,” she said in a small voice.
His eyes snapped shut. No. No, no, no. This was why he couldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be here.
He wasn’t her father. He could never fill that role. And here she was, saying words that she didn’t understand. Not knowing what had happened over there. Why her father had died and under what circumstances.
“Lilly…” He could barely whisper her name.
“I think Boston would like you as his dad too,” she continued.
Alex crushed the fingers of his left hand with his right, and tried to control the tic in his cheek and the pounding of his heart. It felt like his pulse was about to rupture from his skin.
She jumped from the bed with Boston in pursuit. “Want to come fishing?”
Alex shook his head. “Not right now, Lilly.”
She shrugged and ran off.
He tried to put his mind back together, like a tricky puzzle missing some of its pieces.
A knife had just been turned in his heart, giving him a fatal blow, so how was it he was still breathing? Why was it that the idea of being a daddy to that little girl had fired something within him that he hadn’t even known existed?
He heard laughter, and then muffled talking from outside. Alex rose to close the door, then lay back on the bed.
He had no idea what to do.
He’d fought getting too close to anyone, being part of a family for so long. Now he felt as though he was on a precipice, dangerously close to the edge. One wrong move and he was lost.
“Alex?” Lisa tapped at the door. Her knuckles fell softly against the timber as she called.
A noise made her step back. She didn’t want to be too in his face—not after how he’d acted last night. Not when she didn’t know what was happening inside his mind.
But at the same time she wanted to scream. To yell at him and tell him how worried she had been, how she’d lain awake all night and prayed that he’d survive the night and then come back to her.
The door swung open. Relief hit her in the gut and stole the breath from her lungs, left her throat dry.
He looked terrible. Like a man who’d been out on the town for nights on end. Only she knew he hadn’t. The darkness under his eyes was from the never-ending cycle of guilt and anger that she was determined to dispel. Even if she hated that he’d walked away, wanted to shake him and curse at him, she still wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him tight and beg him never to leave her like that ever again.
No matter what happened between them she wanted to help him. And there was one way she could do that. Without telling him anything, without letting her emotions take hold and make her say or do something she could regret, what she needed to do was show him something.
“Alex, I wondered if you might come somewhere with me?”
He looked wary. She understood. He’d expected her to be angry with him, to blame him,
to shout back at him, but she didn’t. She’d known William too well for that. If he’d decided to put himself in the line of fire to save another man—well, that had been his choice and she admired him for it. When it was your time to go, it was your time. Alex had had nothing to do with that. Just like as a boy he’d played no part in his parents’ death.
She also didn’t want him to know that she’d noticed his absence while he’d spent the night camping. Noticed it as if one of her vital organs had been slipped from her body for an entire night.
He just stood, watching her still, his eyes unfocused yet looking at her.
“Please?” she said.
He shifted his weight, then went back inside. She waited. He emerged maybe four minutes later with his boots on, hair damp from the quick shower he’d managed.
“Where are we going?” Even his voice sounded husky, like he was hungover.
She smiled at him. “You’ll see. Go get in the truck and I’ll grab Lilly.”
He waited. He let his forehead rest against the butt of his hand as he leaned on the door. It was as if all his energy had drained through his feet and left them heavy with the residue of it.
He saw movement and looked up. Lilly was holding her mother’s hand as they crossed down and over to the car. She jumped up beside him and sat in the middle of the bench seat before Lisa jumped behind the wheel.
“No Boston today?” he asked, trying to make normal conversation.
Lisa shook her head. “He’ll be fine here for a little while. We’re not going to be that long.”
He looked back out the window. He had no idea where they were going and he didn’t much care. When they got back he was going to leave. He couldn’t stay.
They rumbled along the road in silence. Even Lilly stayed quiet.
Alex sat there and observed. That was all he could do. There was nothing he could say, nothing he wanted to say, and Lisa had turned up the radio—presumably in an effort to avoid conversation.
They pulled up outside a nice enough single-level home. It was set back off the road and sported a rustic feel, like most of the places they’d passed on their way here.
“We’ll just be a minute,” Lisa said.
Lilly reached out and skimmed her fingers against his, before smiling at him and following her mom out the door.
A lump formed in his throat but he pushed it away. He didn’t want to watch them but he had to. Couldn’t drag his eyes away if he tried.
He saw Lisa’s sister emerge from the house. They embraced and Lisa kissed her cheek. Her sister placed her arm around Lilly and led her inside.
Lisa started to walk back to the car. He was pleased her sister hadn’t acknowledged him—it was, after all, what he deserved—but then maybe she hadn’t even seen him.
She got into the cab and started the engine. They pulled back out onto the road. He wanted to ask her where they were going but he didn’t.
She could take him wherever she liked.
The silence in the car became knife-edged. Although she hadn’t really needed confirmation to guess that he wouldn’t like cemeteries.
Every time she came here she thought of the funeral service. Now she wished Alex had been there to say goodbye to William too. Maybe it would have helped him find closure.
The memory of the jolt that had run through her body when the guns were raised and fired in a final salute still hit her spine every time she visited, but it was less pronounced than it had been the day of the service.
Full military honors and nothing less, and it had been very fitting for her husband. She’d taken home the flag passed to her by his commanding officer and tucked it in a special box in Lilly’s wardrobe, there for her to have when she was old enough to appreciate it. Along with his uniform.
She cut the engine and turned in her seat to face Alex.
“Come with me,” she instructed.
Alex wouldn’t look at her.
“Alex?”
“No.” He threw the word at her.
“I need you to come with me,” she said firmly. She opened her door and took a punt that he’d follow her. Eventually. She traced the path to William’s headstone, standing white, tall and proud amongst many older ones.
Lisa came here every week. Every Sunday she usually came with Lilly, and they ran a rag over the stone to clean it and placed fresh flowers in the grate.
It didn’t hurt her coming here—at least not the sharp pain it had been to start with. Now she just wanted to make William proud by looking after him, looking out for him even in death. To show him that she loved him still.
Lisa felt a presence behind her. She didn’t turn to look. She knew Alex was there.
“William was a great man,” she said, forcing her voice to cooperate. “But he had many different roles.”
Alex stood still behind her. She could feel the size of him, the warmth of his body, as he stood his ground. This had to be uncomfortable for him, but she hoped he wouldn’t walk away.
“William was a son, a husband, a father and a soldier. He valued each role, but his life was the life of a soldier, and we all knew and accepted that. I accepted that.”
She studied the headstone and hoped William could hear them. He had been a good man. She wasn’t just saying it because he wasn’t around to defend himself. He’d been great at everything he’d turned his hand to, but the role he’d been most destined for had been that of a soldier. He’d been a patriot, had strongly believed in serving his country, and she had never, ever resented that. Even now that he was gone she wouldn’t let herself feel that way. She’d loved that he believed in serving and protecting. Apart from missing him when he was away, he had been the husband she’d always dreamed of.
“William was a soldier because he believed in fighting for what was right. He was the type of man who would jump into a lake to save another human even if it meant he could drown himself. And that’s why he saved you that day, Alex. Because that’s the type of man he was.”
She turned then. Let her feet swivel until she was facing Alex.
He didn’t look any better than he had earlier, but she knew he’d listened. He could look her in the eye now, and that was more than he’d been able to do earlier.
“What I’m trying to say,” she said, slowly reaching her arms up until her hands rested on his shoulders, “is that he couldn’t not have saved you. It wasn’t your fault that he died. He would have saved whoever was in the line of fire, and that day it just happened to be you.”
Alex looked like he was going to cry.
In all her years as a married woman she had never, ever seen a man cry. William had smiled, laughed, shown anger on the odd occasion. But not even when Lilly was born had he cried.
She pulled Alex into her arms and held him as tight as she could, as if he were Lilly and needed all the comfort in her mother’s heart. Alex resisted for a heartbeat, before falling against her. Clinging to her.
He buried his face in her hair and held on to her. Hard.
“William wouldn’t judge us, Alex. He wouldn’t. If I thought I was disrespecting him I never would have let anything happen between us. I admit that it took me a while to feel that way, but I do honestly believe it now.”
His hold didn’t change. She had thought he might shed some tears, but he was holding them firmly in check. She almost wished he’d let it go. She knew that holding tears back did nothing to help. That to move on sometimes you had to let go.
Alex straightened and cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry you feel like William’s death was your fault, Alex. I really am. But I don’t blame you, and I never will. You need to stop blaming yourself too,” she said.
She didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead she turned around, closed her eyes, and whispered a silent prayer. It was the same one she said every time.
Alex still stood behind her. He hadn’t moved.
“I’m going to go back to the truck now,” she told him.
He nodded. “G
ive me a minute, okay?”
She walked one step toward him, stretched to whisper a kiss on his cheek, then left him.
This was what she’d hoped for. That she could bring him here, tell it like it was, and leave him alone to make peace with William.
She got in the car and watched him.
Alex had crouched down. His long legs buckled under him as he squatted in front of the headstone, reading the words, then he sat back on the grass.
Lisa wanted to look away, to give him privacy, but she also wanted the chance to watch him while he couldn’t see her.
The night before last had been incredible. Even if he had woken up troubled about what they’d done it had been amazing. Being in Alex’s arms, being caught up against his skin, had been more than she’d ever experienced. Made her realize how different he was from William and how much she appreciated that.
His touch had filled every vein within her body with fiery light, made her want to keep him in her bed and never let him out. But it had been more than just physical. For the second time in her life she had fallen in love. Truly fallen in love.
She almost felt guilty. How was it that she’d had the privilege to fall in love twice? To have two amazing men come into her life and be able to love them both? She felt incredibly lucky, so special. She’d thought it would feel wrong, that it would trouble her, but it didn’t at all.
Alex fought the urge to sink to his knees. He wished the ground would open up and swallow him in William’s place, but he pushed the thought away.
He needed this. He needed this so badly—to say goodbye and ask William for forgiveness.
While they had been friends in real life, after leaving the army their paths might never have crossed again. Yet now their lives had intertwined in a way that neither of them could ever have imagined.
I’m sorry, William. He closed his eyes and reached one hand out to the tombstone, the cold hitting his palm. I wish I could make things different, but I think I’ve fallen for your wife.