by Irene Hannon
“Nope. I’ll be back.”
“Glad to hear it. With so many people pitching in, I think we might just get this baby done in time for the Mitchell family. I’d sure hate to cancel anyone else’s vacation.” He pushed through the screen door and called over his shoulder, “See you next week.”
Once the door closed behind him, absolute quiet descended in the house. At least while their crew chief had been there, banging and drilling noises had balanced the silence in the bedroom. Now, as Fletch rejoined Rachel, the stillness seemed more pronounced.
He crossed to the ladder. Her back was to him as she continued to paint, and he held up a can of soda. “Can I tempt you?”
She jerked toward him, teetering.
Whoops. Bad choice of words.
A Freudian slip, perhaps?
Shoving one of the cans under his arm, Fletch grabbed her elbow and held tight until she regained her balance.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
As her gaze locked with his, three things registered in rapid succession.
The pulse beating frantically in the hollow of her throat.
The jolt of electricity that made the steamy room even hotter.
The sudden yearning in her eyes that spiked his adrenaline and sent a clear message.
She was, indeed, tempted.
By more than his offer of soda.
Her breath hitched, and she tugged her elbow free. “Thanks.” The word rasped, and she broke eye contact. “I could use a cold drink.”
So could he.
But standing in front of a supercharged air conditioner would be better.
In silence, Fletch handed over the soda.
Rachel fumbled with the tab, the sudden fizz alleviating the pressure in the can.
Too bad there wasn’t some way to alleviate the thrum of electricity still pinging through the warm air in the suddenly too-small room.
As she lifted the can and took a long swallow, revealing the graceful curve of her throat, Fletch forced himself to back away. Otherwise, he might do something he’d regret.
Maybe staying to finish up hadn’t been such a great idea after all.
There was no way out now, though, except to get the job done ASAP and make a fast exit.
He popped the top on his own soda, emptied the can in several long gulps and went back to work, using every mental trick in his repertoire to keep his mind focused on the job.
Fifteen minutes later, when he finished the last swipe with the roller, Rachel was wrapping up, too.
“I’ll close up the paint cans if you want to clean the pan and brushes.” She busied herself gathering rags as she spoke, keeping her face averted.
In silence, Fletch hauled the items to the kitchen sink as Hank had instructed, since a new stainless-steel version was soon to be installed. After stretching out the job as long as possible, he returned to find the room straightened and Rachel poised with her purse slung over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t wait to escape.
Not the best way to end the evening.
Unless they defused the tension between them, Rachel would insist that Eleanor put her on a different work crew—and that wasn’t the outcome he wanted. Getting involved with her might have a boatload of downsides, but there were upsides, too. The spark flaring between them suggested all kinds of interesting possibilities, once they got to know one another better.
But that wasn’t going to happen if she bolted.
The question was, what could he do to put her at ease and build some trust? How could he acknowledge the elephant in the room without getting squashed by it?
To buy himself a few moments to cobble together a strategy, he propped his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and retied the shoe on his prosthetic leg.
His leg.
Could that be his entrée?
His fingers lingered on the shoestring.
Perhaps.
All evening, Rachel had studiously avoided looking at it—even though this guts-exposed model always drew attention. That was the very reason he usually wore it only at home or under slacks. But after Gram had shaken her head at his jeans and warned him about the temperature in the house, he’d made a quick change into shorts without bothering to go through the process of switching legs. Had he known he’d encounter Rachel, however, he’d have taken the time to swap this one out for the more natural-looking version.
But since the leg was the reason they’d gotten off to a rocky start, maybe his choice was providential. It could give him an opening to smooth things out between them and pave the way for next steps. If all went well, it might even open the door to more personal subjects.
Like the attraction crackling between them.
He finished tying the shoe and straightened up without removing his leg from the rung of the ladder. “I would have worn a different model if I’d known you were coming.” He kept his tone conversational. “This one tends to freak some people out.”
Rachel sent a sideways glance toward his leg. An instant later she yanked it away and peered into her purse, digging for her keys.
In other words, she was doing everything possible not to stare and risk ruffling his feathers again.
In light of their history he couldn’t blame her.
But now that he knew her interest wasn’t prompted by some kind of morbid curiosity, he didn’t care if she looked. In fact, he wanted her to. It was part of who he was. If she couldn’t deal with the leg, better to know now.
“Hey.”
At his soft word, she stopped pawing through her purse and lifted her chin, her expression wary.
“Are you one of the people who’s freaked out by this?” He indicated the metal tube.
Rachel examined his leg, looking more curious than repulsed. “No. It seems very utilitarian—and sturdy. In fact, it makes me think of that TV program from the ’70s about a bionic man.”
“That was a bit before your time, wasn’t it?”
She shrugged and gave him a sheepish grin. “I like to watch reruns of old TV series. They’re better than what’s on television now.”
“No arguments there. I’m an old-TV-show junkie, too—but I can’t run as fast as Steve Austin.”
Rachel arched an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. You even remember the character’s name.”
“Watching old TV shows helped pass the days while I recovered from this.” He tapped his leg. “And while I wallowed in self-pity.” No need to mention the gnawing guilt that had plagued him in those early days...and still did.
At his candid comment, she scrutinized him. “How did you get past that?”
Some nuance in her quiet, intent tone told him her question wasn’t just a polite inquiry. It was almost as if she was seeking an answer for herself.
Did she hold traumatic secrets close to her heart, too?
Fletch rested an elbow on a rung of the ladder as he considered how to answer a question he’d never asked himself. “Honestly? I don’t know. For one thing, my medical team didn’t put up with a lot of wallowing. They pushed and prodded and got me up and moving. They also sent recovered vets with worse limb losses than mine to visit me. Guys who’d lost both legs above the knees. Or both arms. Or legs and an arm. Talking to them helped me realize I was more fortunate than a lot of people, and that if I worked at it I could have a close-to-normal life. So I did. And I do.”
Rachel inspected his leg. “You know, I would never have believed you’d lost a leg if I hadn’t seen the prosthesis. But I have a feeling achieving that kind of normalcy involved a whole lot of hard stuff they never showed on The Six Million Dollar Man.”
“It did.” No need to go into detail about the staph infection that had weakened him and slowed his recovery, the hours of prosthetic fittings, the first strugg
ling steps, the rigors—and discouragement—of therapy.
“Since you didn’t attend church with Louise last Sunday, I’m thinking prayer wasn’t part of your recovery equation.”
“Not unless my rantings at the Almighty counted—but those were hardly prayers.” Fletch shrugged. “My faith was a battlefield casualty, mortally wounded long before this.” He gestured to his leg again.
Based on the subtle disappointment in her eyes, that wasn’t the answer she’d hoped to hear. But he wasn’t going to lie. How could a loving, merciful God allow the kind of mental and physical horrors he’d witnessed—and endured—during his years as a SEAL?
“I’m sorry you didn’t have that to rely on. With all the stuff that’s happened in my life, I doubt I would have survived without God in my corner.”
All what stuff, beyond her husband’s tragic death?
But Rachel moved on, putting the focus back on him. “So may I ask what happened to your leg? Or is that an off-limits topic?”
Fletch’s stomach coiled, and he fisted the hand hanging at his side. “I don’t talk much about it. Even my family only knows the basics.”
“I understand.” She edged toward the door and started rooting for her keys again. “I didn’t mean to...”
“But I can give you the highlights—or lowlights—if you’re interested.”
She stopped rummaging in her purse and shot him a surprised look.
The offer took him off guard, too.
Yet if he wanted to build trust, what better way than to share a deeply personal story with her?
“I’m interested.”
He gave a curt nod. “Why don’t we get out of this hotbox and move to the porch? We might at least pick up a breeze.”
Without a word, she preceded him down the hall and waited for him at the front door. He flipped off the lights, pitched their soda cans into the sealed recycle bin in the kitchen and motioned her through the door. After setting the lock as Hank had instructed, he followed her out.
“I guess we’ll have to make do with this.” He gestured to the steps of the concrete stoop that was framed by a jasmine-covered arbor.
Rachel lowered herself in silence, and he sat next to her.
For a full minute, he let the peace of the night settle over him, hoping it would offset the turbulence in his mind. But try as he might, he couldn’t rein in the hard beat of his pulse or the sudden uptick in his respiration.
“I won’t be offended if you want to retract your offer.”
Rachel’s gentle words steadied him.
He could do this.
He would do this.
“No. I just needed a minute to pull my thoughts together.”
Her arm brushed his. Had she moved closer or simply shifted into a more comfortable position on the hard concrete? No matter. The brief contact further bolstered his resolve.
“It happened in the Middle East, as you already know, on a classified advance-force recon mission. I’d done dozens of those. Never easy, always dangerous, but I was used to the drill. On this night, our mission was to set up a surveillance point above a cluster of huts in the mountains, confirm the presence of one of the local leaders and assess his troop strength so a larger force could go in and round everyone up.”
A breeze rustled the leaves of the jasmine above him, infusing the night air with perfume. He drew in a lungful—but the sweet smell wasn’t enough to dilute the bitter memories.
Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his knees and focused on Polaris, bright in the dark sky—a guidepost for centuries to those in need of direction.
If only he had a guidepost like that to help him find his way out of the morass of tangled emotions still lingering from that fateful night.
“It was dark. My partner, Deke, and I were part of a four-man unit. The other pair was a couple hundred yards away. We’d been in position for several hours, and everything was quiet. I was beginning to think our intel was wrong—when out of the blue, chaos erupted.” Fletch gripped his knuckles harder and gave voice to the guilt that had haunted him for two and a half years. “And it was all my fault.”
The caw of a gull broke the quiet night, and he paused to take a slow, calming breath. He hadn’t talked about the incident since the debriefing from his bed in Landstuhl. Not even the shrinks and chaplains who’d visited him at the army hospital in Germany, a world removed from the front lines, had been able to convince him to revisit the horrors once the official interrogation was over.
Yet without even trying, a blonde widow on a barrier island in Georgia had managed better than all the professionals to ease him toward the edge of his emotional cliff.
Go figure.
But the worst was yet to come...and as he hovered on the precipice, his resolve wavered.
Suddenly a gentle hand reached out and came to rest on his knee.
Fletch turned his head. The soft light beside the door behind them left Rachel’s face in shadows, but he didn’t need illumination to confirm it was filled with compassion and kindness—or to know her perceptive eyes were seeing into his soul despite the darkness.
The temptation to cover her fingers with his was strong. Too strong. If he touched her...who knew what might happen? He needed to get through this first.
Calling on every ounce of his self-control, he refocused on the North Star. “It gets worse. You can bail now if you want to.”
“I’m in for the duration.”
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he plunged back into the nightmare. “Earlier in the day, while we were scouting around, two goat herders appeared out of nowhere—an older man and a ten-or eleven-year-old boy. In that area, it was hard to tell the insurgents from the innocent villagers, and there are only two choices in a situation like that: let them go and hope they disappear or take them out on the assumption they’ll run straight to the terrorists and report your position.”
Her fingers tightened on his knee. “You let them go.”
“Yeah. As the squad leader, I made the final call. I had a bad feeling about them, but they weren’t armed, and the rules of engagement were clear—don’t open fire unless fired upon or until you’ve positively identified the enemy and have proof of his intentions.”
A beat of silence ticked by, and when Rachel spoke, her hushed words were filled with horror. “I can’t even imagine being faced with a decision like that. What if you’d decided to...to eliminate the risk, and the old man and child turned out to be innocent?”
“That’s why a lot of soldiers end up with PTSD. It’s mind-bending to fight a war with a hard-to-identify enemy. Make the wrong choice, buddies die. Make the right choice, people still die.” The star shining in the heavens suddenly blurred around the edges. “I made the wrong choice that day, and Deke paid for it—with his life.”
* * *
Sitting beside the ex-SEAL on the steps of Francis House, Rachel attempted to sort through her jumbled emotions.
Yet hard as she tried, she couldn’t come to grips with all he’d told her in time to form a coherent response.
One thing for sure, though.
She didn’t have a corner on guilt.
As the silence lengthened, as regret and self-recrimination radiated from the taut man beside her, she struggled to find words that might console. But only trite platitudes came to mind, and as she knew from experience, they were useless.
“Sorry to dump all that on you.”
At Fletch’s hoarse apology, Rachel shifted toward him. His shadowed face was in profile, his head bowed, his eyes downcast. Misery rolled off him in waves.
“Don’t apologize. I feel privileged that you shared your story with me.” She hesitated, then leaned down and touched the metal tube of his substitute leg with her free hand, leaving the other one on his knee.
<
br /> He froze.
“Tell me about this.” Somehow she knew the loss of his leg was the lynchpin of the story. This was the reason Deke had died and Fletch bore such guilt.
His gaze remained riveted on her hand.
Five seconds crept by.
Finally, he continued. “It was a grenade. There was a momentary lull in enemy fire, and I heard it hit the ground right in front of the rocks we were behind. I lunged for Deke to shove him down and caught the brunt of the blast—blunt-force trauma to the chest and abdomen and a shredded leg.”
He touched the metal rod, his fingers inches from hers. “After I was injured, Deke’s best chance was to try to work his way over to the other two members of the squad. I was out of the fight, and the three of them together had better odds of holding their ground until the helo Deke managed to radio for arrived. But SEALs don’t leave their buddies behind, and Deke was a SEAL to the core.”
His throat worked, and he tipped his head to swipe the sleeve of his T-shirt across his eyes. “The thing is, even with me down, we almost made it. I could hear the bird approaching. Then all at once there was some shouting from the insurgents—and through his night-vision goggles Deke spotted a guy with an RPG.”
It took Rachel a moment to pull the acronym out of her memory from all the news stories she’d read. Rocket-propelled grenade. A weapon powerful enough to disable a tank—or take down a helicopter.
“Deke looked at me, said, ‘Hang tight, buddy. You’re gonna make it,’ and disappeared. A minute later I heard an explosion. The helicopter opened fire, and the insurgents scattered. I found out later Deke had low-crawled over the open ground to take out the guy. He succeeded—but one of the insurgents sprayed the area with his machine gun. Deke caught a direct hit.”
Pressure built behind Rachel’s eyes. Now she understood the depth of Fletch’s guilt. The whole disaster had been triggered by his call on the shepherds—a call he’d made despite his gut feeling the two locals were trouble. All because he’d been trying to play by the rules and spare potentially innocent lives.
But an innocent man had died anyway.
“Deke left behind a wife and three-year-old son. I’m David’s godfather.” Fletch’s voice roughened, and he wiped a hand down his face.