Crazy Love

by Lee Kilraine

  Lu nodded and watched them all leave while her brain churned their entire conversation over and back again. They all talked like they weren’t worried, and lord knew Tynan was a capable man, but there had been an undercurrent of tension running through each of them.

  The man was trained in special ops. Like every military service member, he’d had survival training, and had stayed alive during the war by using those skills. Common sense said Tynan would be fine. He had probably just decided to camp an extra day. He did have a lot of stress in his life.

  She winced, knowing she’d been a big part of his stress, but she couldn’t take any of that back now. He’d yet to listen to her apology, so she’d just say a prayer for him and hope he was getting the peace and quiet he needed. Using nature to recharge and center himself. She hoped Tynan was sitting in some lotus position in the middle of the woods, getting his chi back.

  Two things kept gnawing at her, though. First, she wasn’t sure if Tynan knew about the storm. Her common sense rationalized that his training and experience would carry him through that. Heck, she and Joe had hiked and camped plenty of times during high school when a summer squall or a high-altitude winter storm had hit clean out of nowhere. Experienced hikers knew how to handle bad weather. He’d be fine.

  The second thing wasn’t as easy to dismiss because the twenty-first of November was a day that loomed over her too. A day that churned up the pain, emptiness, and anger and cracked open space for doubt to slither in and wreak devastation all over again.

  It had to be just as bad, if not worse, for Tynan. Although that was exactly what his annual hiking trip into the woods was about, right? Right. He was too strong and too darn stubborn to let doubt rule him.

  Just as Quinn said, Tynan would probably stroll in through the diner doors today or tomorrow, grinning and flirting with every woman with a pulse. Except her. She’d most likely get his grumpy-faced scowl and a grunt. She really shouldn’t be attracted to the man, but she couldn’t stop her lips from sliding into a grin or keep the butterflies from flitting around the pit of her stomach.

  With a wave to Renee and Dave, she left the diner. There was no rain yet, but the wind was already gusting in strong bursts even though the storm was still more than a day away. She had to wrap her fist around her hair to see where she was walking. Just to be safe, she’d stop at the grocery store to pick up a few staples for Beatrice and Agatha. Knowing Beatrice, she’d probably been baking up a storm all morning.

  The weather report on her car radio hadn’t changed. The hurricane was still a Cat 1, on track to skirt the east side of town before moving into the center of the state. She punched her radio buttons until she found one with music and drove her little self to the grocery store, singing along as she went.

  An hour later Lu had put the groceries away in the kitchen and was relaxing with one of Beatrice’s lemon drop cookies while the three of them listened to an update on the storm. Then they were going to watch a crime show. She wasn’t sure which one because the sisters watched them all, and all the shows sort of blended together after a while.

  “Thank goodness.” Beatrice let out a sigh. “The hurricane has just been downgraded to a tropical storm.”

  Lu stood up to look out the window. You couldn’t tell it was early afternoon with the dark clouds overhead. No rain yet, so that was good.

  She was about to turn away when something caught her attention out in the yard. Well, heck. It was that damn dog again. Tynan’s dog was sitting in the yard, staring in at her. The dog was stalking her. “Do either of you ladies have Kaz or Quinn’s phone number? Tynan’s dog is sitting out on your front lawn.”

  Agatha jumped up to look. “Goodness, that’s a sad-looking dog. I’ll go call Kaz right now.”

  Beatrice stood next to her, frowning out the window. “Poor thing.”

  Lu narrowed her gaze on him. Poor thing my tush. The dog was as ornery as his owner.

  Agatha returned from the kitchen. “Kaz asked us to take care of the dog. And the cat. He’s over at Cecelia and Seamus’s. A strong wind gust knocked their beautiful old oak tree clean across the driveway not a half hour ago.”

  “Oh my.” Beatrice gasped. “Is everyone all right?”

  “Yes, but it’s a large tree. Kaz is going to help Bob Handley clear it. No telling how many other trees we’re going to lose around town. Anyway, I said we’d take care of the animals and for them not to worry.”

  The three of them stood staring out at the pair.

  “Oh, okay. Sure.” Tynan’s animals liked her about as much as he did, so Lu figured this would be as fun as a trip to the dentist. “I guess I’ll bring them in.”

  She opened the front door and stood on the porch, holding the door open for them. Neither one moved. “Come on in, guys. It’s nice in here. Come on. Here kitty, kitty. Cat, if you come in, maybe Houdini will follow.”

  The sisters stepped outside and stood beside her, cooing to the animals, trying to coax them inside.

  Houdini growled low in his throat.

  “Lu, walk down off the steps and then move toward the driveway.” Beatrice shooed her off the porch.

  The dog’s head tracked Lu. When she stopped moving he growled again.

  “I don’t think that dog likes you, Lu,” Agatha observed.

  “Just like his owner,” Lu mumbled, then jumped when the dog suddenly barked at her. She backed up a step when the dog moved forward until it stood five feet away from her. “I think he hates me.”

  He hopped over behind her and Lu stood frozen, not even breathing. Wasn’t that the emergency step when some wild, ferocious animal has you in its sights? The dog had the nerve to nudge her in the butt with his nose. He pushed so hard, she stumbled forward a few feet. If it hadn’t been for her car, she would have fallen flat on her face. She spun around and growled at the dog. “That’s enough of that, buster.”

  Houdini barked at her again, and she plastered her back up against her car.

  “He’s trying to scare me.” Just like his owner, dammit.

  “No, no. I do believe he wants you to drive him somewhere.”

  Lu glanced away from the dog just long enough to look over at Agatha. She didn’t look as if she’d gone crazy. “Drive him somewhere? Where would he want to go? The movies?”

  The dang dog barked again. And kept barking. Out of pure frustration, Lu grabbed the handle of her car door and flung the door wide open.

  “There. What is your deal, dog?”

  Darned if the dog didn’t hop up into her car, with the cat jumping in right behind it. They sat in the passenger seat together and stared at her. Houdini and his diabolical assistant.

  Lu fished the keys from her pocket and set them down on the driver’s seat and narrowed her eyes at the animals. “There you go. Have fun.”

  She backed up a step and the dog began with the barking again, only this time he was scary serious. “Look, even if I did drive you around, I have no idea what you want.”

  “Lu, just drive them around and he’ll tell you where he wants to go.” Beatrice’s high-pitched voice sounded darn excited for someone who wasn’t chosen to taxi around Cujo. “Isn’t this fun? It’s a real-life mystery.”

  Agatha came running with Lu’s purse. She winked at her as she handed it over. “Just in case he wants you to buy him some beer. Make sure you call to tell us where he wants to go.”

  “I’ll be sure to call.” This town was crazy. How was this normal? She slipped one leg in and slid carefully onto her seat, ready to jump out of her skin at any moment if the dog got snippy again. She looked out her window for a last glance at the sisters. They’d seemed perfectly sane when she first moved in. Releasing a breath, she started up the car and glanced over at the passenger seat. “I refuse to drive you to a strip club, so you two get that idea out of your minds right now.”

  She backed her Beetle down the driveway and headed down the road. Searching for something. It felt like she was in a Disney movie, but if that was the
case, the dog and cat would be talking to her. Like for real, in real voices, and they’d be trying to get home.

  After driving around for an hour Lu had come to two conclusions. One: Someone needed to change the dog’s diet because holy mother of God, her car would never smell okay again from the gas he was passing. And two: They wanted Tynan. Everywhere she drove them—and she really did mean everywhere—the two would scan the area, checking in every direction. The cat even placed its paws up on the window for a better view. Once he was done, having managed to slobber on every window in the process, Houdini would bark at her in that really annoying, hurry-up-human way and only cease barking when she drove on.

  Lu finally pulled the car over and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She rotated her head to the side, where the animals sat staring at her. She’d read that animals didn’t feel emotions like humans did, but lord these two looked so sad . . . like they’d lost their very best friend. “You guys are looking for Tynan.”

  She got it; she could use a Tynan fix right now too. And sitting around worrying about him wasn’t helping, especially not with the anxious faces next to her. What were the odds the stubborn man had gone back to the cabin one last time before she took ownership? Lu knew exactly where it was because she’d sat in Barbara’s office and examined the maps associated with the property.

  Houdini whined and leaned over and licked her face. The cat put a paw on her leg and blinked up at her. “You two are crazy, you know that? I’m crazy. I’m sitting here talking to animals that hate me. Worse than that, I’m actually contemplating driving off into the woods to find a man who also hates me. That’s not even mentioning the little tiny thing . . . what was that . . . oh yeah . . . a tropical storm is bearing down on us.”

  Turned out dogs and cats didn’t do guilt. Or sarcasm. “Every able-bodied person we know is helping the town prepare for the storm. So it’s just the three of us. I refuse to drag two octogenarians off on a wild goose chase, no matter how much they would love it.”

  They blinked at her, as if, so far, they were cool with everything. “So here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s go to your house and see what supplies Tynan has. First aid, a rope, a flashlight, all the important safety stuff. Here’s something you’re not going to like hearing—we can’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

  The cat hissed.

  “Hey, we’d lose the light before we even arrived. It’s an hour drive there, you know. And we’re only looking for him at my cabin—”

  Houdini growled.

  “I bought it, fair and square. So we’ll leave an hour before sunrise, check the cabin, drive the hour back. We’ll be home before Beatrice and Agatha even wake up—long before the storm hits. Then you two can get off my back. Okay? That’s the plan, take it or leave it. Bark now or forever hold your peace. . . .” Lu looked from the dog to the cat and back again. They stared at her quietly. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go pack.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  All Tynan heard was the sound of the rain hitting the ground like tiny pellets, and the creek rushing, swollen with rainwater, behind his head. No bear. He collapsed on the ground, face up to the sky, loving the fact that he was still alive and could feel the rain pummeling his face.

  He lay still and took inventory of his situation. His body was bruised and battered. Some scrapes and cuts stung under the rain. Moving his arms, nothing felt broken—bruised, but not broken. His tailbone smarted. He’d twisted his right ankle in the fall, and the fact that it was already throbbing and swollen was going to make it hard to walk. The thing that worried him the most, though, was the bump on the back of his head. When he’d finally landed his head had smacked the ground hard. He hadn’t lost consciousness, so that was good, but the nauseous feeling didn’t bode well. Of course, near death by bear would make anyone feel nauseous, right?

  “Okay, here’s the plan. First, from now on I make noise, because... bears. Second, I’ll get up. And C, I’m going home to my dog, my cat, and the pixie. Not in that order. Ready? Here we go.” Tynan rolled onto his side and used the momentum to keep rolling until he was on his hands and knees. From there he pushed up with his hands until he was on his knees. Ow. He swayed and then bent over and threw up. Fuck. That wasn’t good.

  He hoped to hell that was from the pain in his ankle and not a concussion. Very carefully, he rotated his head, looking around. He needed to find his backpack and the gun. The backpack had dropped straight down in the fall and sat against a boulder.

  “Bingo. Now I just need the gun.” He leaned forward on his hands again, thinking to push himself up to a standing position. That was when he noticed the gun was still in his left hand. Perfect. And then he threw up again.

  “Okay. New plan. I’m going to low crawl my ass over to the backpack, sit up against the boulder until the nausea goes away, and blow my rescue whistle. Maybe the bear will come back and save me.”

  After checking the safety on the gun, he tucked it against his lower back and proceeded to crawl his hands forward until he was laying belly down on the ground. Then he army crawled forward using his forearms and one good leg to drag himself over to the boulder. Every time his right foot touched the ground pain shot up from his ankle. He was close to throwing up a third time by the time he leaned his back against the cool rock surface.

  His gaze landed on his ankle. He’d had plenty of broken bones, and he didn’t think it was broken. It was definitely sprained and swelling. Keeping his hiking boot on and tied tight for now would help limit the swelling. If he stopped throwing up and almost blacking out, he would crawl down the twenty feet to the river and stick his foot in the cold water. There was no point in building a splint and trying to walk out of here until he knew he wouldn’t pass out.

  Aspirin. He needed aspirin for the pain and swelling.

  Pulling the backpack toward him, he rooted through it until he found the first aid kit and the emergency thermal blanket. He grabbed the aspirin from the kit and swallowed four of them. Damn. Forgot the water. Fishing his hand in the pack again, he came up with a water bottle. Next, he spread the emergency blanket around himself in an attempt to retain his body heat in the driving rain. He was lucky it was unseasonably warm or he’d have to worry about hypothermia.

  Last but not least, his whistle. He pulled it out of the side pocket of his jacket and looped it around his neck. Thirty minutes later, once he’d given the aspirin time to work, he attempted to put weight on his ankle again and almost blacked out from the pain. Or maybe he did pass out. He wasn’t sure. When he remembered he blew the whistle in bursts of three.

  Rain came down in bands, falling for thirty minutes at a stretch before letting up. Wind gusts tossed pine needles around and they fell like minijavelins from up high. The overcast skies had made it hard to keep track of the time all day long, but based on his watch, night was about to settle in.

  Rather than attempting to make his way in the dark and risk another fall, he decided to stay put for the night. Heck, he’d been planning to camp tonight anyway, but he was in too damn much pain to go about making a fire in the rain. He could do it if he had to, but he wasn’t in any danger of freezing tonight.

  He leaned against the rock and ate two protein bars and some beef jerky. He’d taken the last of the aspirin hours ago. Hopefully it had done its stuff and he’d wake up in the morning with significantly less swelling and pain. He’d really love to walk out of here tomorrow.

  The illuminated face of his watch caught his attention. Well, what do you know? It was the twenty-first. He’d known it, it was just that between trying to out-hike his thoughts and then the bear incident, the day had gotten away from him.

  “The bear incident.” It sounded like a foreign film: The Bear Incident. If his men had seen him, they’d never let him live it down. His men. Kids. That’s what his men had been really. But they’d been old enough to understand what they’d agreed to. Brave enough to face evil. Strong enough to protect the weak. But still so young.
They’d barely experienced all life’s pleasures. So much life spread out in front of them, still to go. And it was cut off, abruptly and painfully.

  He missed them. Every damn one of them. For the past three years, as the anniversary crawled closer like a stalking leopard, he’d found it harder to be around other people. Harder to breathe in and out. Harder to watch people go about their everyday lives, as if something big and tragic hadn’t changed those men’s lives forever.

  And as tragic as their losses were, it seemed the people left behind—the ones who loved them—had it worse. The other men in their unit. The parents, the sweethearts, the best friends, the siblings, the children . . .

  To be completely honest with himself, ever since the wedding this year’s anniversary had been shaping up to be the worst. The wedding had knocked his world off its axis.

  He’d done a lot of soul searching the last few months. Run through a lot of what-ifs, could’ves, and should’ves. And none of the answers were good. He couldn’t find a good reason for any of it.

  And then Lulubelle Swan had walked into his life, and she’d damn well twisted his axis into a pretzel. What made him so special that he couldn’t deal with the death? No, that’s not accurate. He could deal with death. He had dealt with death. Too damn much of it. It was dealing with living—being one of the survivors—he was having trouble with. Lu had had to deal with it. Lots of other people had. Lu had said she’d tracked him down to see how he’d moved on. Because she was a fighter. When she’d finally grieved all she could she’d pulled herself together and fought to have a life she could enjoy again.

  He’d finally decided, after watching the effort Lu had put into putting her life back together, that finding a way to reach for happiness was the harder path.

  To find some traction in that empty space when letting go was all too easy. Lu deserved every happiness she could get. The question was, was he strong enough to walk that path with her?