Uncharted Passage

by Julie Cannon

  It was a beautiful day and she decided to postpone making her report. Instead, she drove to Grant Park in the center of the city. The park was located on seven acres of prime real estate and was often the topic of debate. The city wanted to maintain the green space, developers wanted to buy the land, and hungry taxpayers wanted the land sold and the money put in the local coffers to lower their taxes.

  Hayden chose a spot not far from the playground and sat under a tall ficus tree. The sun was warm and her mind drifted. She hadn’t been sleeping much lately and in a matter of minutes she was lulled into half-wakefulness. The sounds of children laughing and playing tickled the edges of her consciousness and she smiled, remembering Jake and Victoria and how bravely they’d faced the days after the tsunami. She wondered if they were reunited with their parents or orphaned by the disaster.

  A shadow crossed in front of her, blocking the sun’s warm rays. After a few moments when it didn’t move, Hayden looked up, directly into a pair of familiar brown eyes and her heart seemed to spasm in her chest. She drew an uneven breath. Emily was more beautiful than she remembered. But she looked pale and uncertain. Hayden’s stomach knotted.

  “I never thought I’d see you again.” Emily’s voice shook.

  “Neither did I.” Hayden’s mouth was so dry, she had trouble forcing out the words.

  She blinked several times and resisted the urge to jump up and grab the woman standing over her. She almost expected her to disintegrate like she did in every dream. But this was reality, even if Hayden doubted it.

  “We’ve never been properly introduced. I’m Emily Bradshaw.”

  Emily’s hand shook when she held it out in greeting. She still couldn’t believe Hayden was sitting right in front of her. She’d brought the kids to the park after lunch and was stunned to see her on the bench across from the playground. At first she’d started to pack the kids up, determined to escape before she was noticed. But then she realized that she simply couldn’t walk away without saying a word.

  Hayden stood and removed her hat. Grasping Emily’s hand, she said, “Hayden Caldwell.”

  Hayden practically jumped at the contact. The electricity between them sparked where their palms connected. Heat coursed through her body, from her hand to her heart. It responded by racing crazily.

  “Don’t you mean ‘Lieutenant Colonel’?” Emily’s gaze fastened onto the insignia on her collar.

  “No.” Hayden was in uniform, but this was not official business where she would use her rank in her introductions. This was personal. Very personal. She smiled faintly. “You know my rank.”

  “The police told me when I asked who bailed me out of jail. How do your bosses feel about your generosity?”

  “I don’t discuss my personal life at work.”

  “No, I’m sure it would be a problem if you did.” Emily didn’t wait for a reply, but asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Hayden hesitated. “I like walking here. It clears my head.”

  She was still holding Emily’s hand, but Emily wasn’t resisting. Her gaze lifted to the scar above Hayden’s left eye, and the concern in the depths of her eyes seemed to caress the mark. Her lips parted and her voice was almost wistful when she spoke.

  “How have you been, Hayden?”

  Distracted, Hayden said, “Fine.”

  She was transported back to their one night together. To the deep, endless kisses and the warm wetness that enfolded her. She tightened her grip on Emily’s hand, unable to let go. She wanted to ask why Emily hadn’t tried to find her. And why she’d slept with her when she had a girlfriend. Why fidelity and honesty didn’t matter to her. Why she’d captured Hayden’s thoughts and subconscious like she had. Did she ever think of her, or was Hayden simply a fling, explained away as a natural reaction to surviving a tragedy?

  Emily watched a myriad of emotions and questions dance on Hayden’s face. She had many of her own. Why did she leave without saying good-bye? Did she think about all that had passed between them? Was it as special for her as it was for Emily? Did she want them to see each other again? She finally spoke.

  “I never got the chance to properly thank you. For saving my life.”

  “You don’t have to. It was what anyone would have done.”

  Emily squeezed Hayden’s hand gently. “Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

  She was rewarded with a small smile. “We talked about a lot of things.” Hayden’s eyes were deep and searching, as though probing her soul for answers. She started to say something else, then stopped and cleared her throat. Releasing Emily’s hand, she asked, “Is your leg all right?”

  Bereft of Hayden’s warm, safe grasp, Emily felt like she was drifting, losing the lifeline that had saved her so many months ago.

  “It’s fine,” she said automatically. She’d answered the same question a hundred times since January. “Just a few stitches. You can hardly see the scar.”

  “I looked for you,” Hayden said. “But I didn’t know your last name and there were dozens of places to check. You weren’t on any of the lists.”

  “Oh.” Emily didn’t know what to say. She took another quick look at the kids, automatically counting heads.

  “I found out later that they didn’t include people whose families had already been notified,” Hayden said.

  “They flew me back home pretty quick.” Emily wanted to say more, needed to say more, but her mind and mouth were not in sync. Her heart was thudding so loudly in her ears that she was afraid Hayden could hear it. Butterflies danced in her stomach and tickled her arms and legs. She wanted to feel Hayden’s strong arms hold her and her lips caress her mouth. She felt herself swaying into Hayden. “I tried to find you, too. After I got home. But…”

  “I’m sure you had enough distractions.” There was a faint edge in Hayden’s reply, and a flash of cynicism tightened her mouth.

  Puzzled by the distance she sensed all of a sudden, Emily reverted to a more general topic. “The media hounded me for a week or two, then the novelty wore off. How about you? How was it when you came back? I mean, did everybody want to ask you questions?”

  “I don’t know too many people here. I’d only been at Fort Tanner for a few months before the trip.”

  There was plenty Hayden could add, but why get into it? Nobody had given a damn when she came back. There was no one at the airport, no parents or siblings to grab hold of her and bust into tears. She’d seen those welcomes for a few of the other survivors in her flight. Emily probably had a similar reception—thankful parents and an ecstatic partner. Michelle.

  She met Emily’s eyes and waited for her to say something about the people waiting for her. Here was the perfect opportunity to mention her relationship, by way of signaling that she wasn’t free to date, just in case Hayden was planning to ask. Which she would have been, under different circumstances.

  Instead Emily’s eyes pooled and she said, “We never got to say good-bye.”

  “No, we didn’t.” Hayden waited. She could sense something rising up in Emily, but just as her lips began to form a word, a squeaky voice dragged them both back to reality.

  “Miss Bradshaw, I have to go to the bathroom.” A child shifted from foot to foot in front of them.

  Emily shook herself, as though to regain her bearings. “This is one of the children I teach. We come here after lunch. I have to go.”

  “Of course.”

  Hayden didn’t know if she felt relieved or disappointed, but she definitely felt something. She didn’t want Emily to go, but she couldn’t ask her to stay. Emily had responsibilities. And a home to return to at the end of the day. Tonight she would get into bed with another woman. Hayden was trained to keep her emotions off her face, and did so now.

  “It was good seeing you again, Emily,” she said in a friendly, but impersonal tone. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

  Emily’s heart jumped at the sound of her name coming from Hayden. The last time she’d heard it was in the
heat of passion, just before Hayden came in her mouth. She would never forget what she heard and felt that night. It sounded like Hayden didn’t intend on seeing her again, but the message in her eyes was saying something different. Hope rolled through her like a warm tide and she smiled.

  “It was good to see you too, Hayden.” After a brief hesitation, she turned and headed back to the playground.

  As Emily walked away, Hayden felt as though the midday sun had slipped behind a dark cloud. Her hand was still warm from holding Emily’s, and her blood boiled from the long look Emily had just given her. She followed Emily’s progress toward the restrooms. The sight of her holding the little girl’s hand reminded her of Thailand, of watching Emily with Victoria.

  Hayden was still stunned by the turn of events today. She wondered how many times Emily had been in this park while she was also taking a walk here. It was incredible that they lived in the same town, yet they had only met on the other side of the world when they both happened to be in Khao Lak at the same time.

  What kept bringing them together? Mother Nature was responsible the first time, and they’d needed each other to survive. Then Emily was protesting at the base, and now their paths had crossed once more in this park. Was it fate that kept bringing them together, or simply sheer coincidence? They were strangers when they met, connected by a moment in time. What were they now? Neighbors? Adversaries? Survivors? Lovers?

  She put her hat back on and watched until Emily stepped into the restroom. As she returned to her vehicle, she was in such a trance she almost walked into a man snapping photos of the park. Apologizing, she continued on her way. She was thankful they’d had a chance to say good-bye. Maybe now she could look forward to some peace of mind.

  *

  “Are you going to eat that or just push it around your plate?”

  Emily looked up. She and Julia were having their weekly dinner at Sombrero’s, a little hole in the wall with the best Mexican food Emily had ever tasted. Tonight, she hardly ate anything. “I saw Hayden today,” she said simply.

  “You did?” Julia’s voice rose an octave.

  Emily nodded. “She was at the park by the school.”

  “What was she doing there?”

  Emily gave up pretending to be hungry and put her fork down. “She said she likes walking there to clear her head.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Emily looked hard at her friend. They’d known each other since they were in college, and Julia still had the same skeptical attitude almost fifteen years later. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Come on, Em. Don’t you find it kind of odd that she just happened to be sitting where you take your kids to play every day?” Julia sipped her margarita.

  “Let’s not assume a conspiracy theory, for heaven’s sake. It was a beautiful day and she stopped at the park. Just a bizarre coincidence.”

  “Uh-huh.” Julia rolled her eyes.

  Emily’s patience with the topic was already running thin. Seeing Hayden again, and saying the good-bye they owed each other, hadn’t left her feeling resolved. If anything, she was even more unsettled.

  “Don’t you think it’s little more than coincidence that you keep seeing her?” Julia continued. “That’s what now, twice in two weeks? Don’t you think that’s a bit more than fate?”

  Emily did, but she flatly refused to consider the word that kept jumping into her mind: Destiny. She folded her arms across her chest. Were some things meant to be? After finding herself hauled from certain death, one of the few on that Khao Lak beach who survived, she didn’t know what to think. Fate, on that day, seemed completely random and cruel. Mothers died and their children somehow lived. Fine, decent people were killed and would-be rapists and robbers survived to troll the disaster area for victims afterward. She would make herself crazy if she tried to find any special meaning in events that were, by definition, insane.

  “I didn’t give her the third degree, Julia. We talked, that’s all. Don’t even start thinking she’s stalking me.”

  Julia wasn’t ready to let it drop. “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing much. The usual stuff. What happened back then and how we’re both doing now.” Emily kept her emotional reaction to herself. At least for the time being. Even now her body still tingled.

  “Sounds like a deep, meaningful conversation,” Julia responded sarcastically.

  “Stop it, Julia.” Emily couldn’t hide her frustration. “What did you expect? Neither one of us expected to ever see the other again. It wasn’t as though we’d rehearsed what we were going to say to each other, when and if we happened to meet.”

  “Baloney. I know damn good and well you’ve thought about what you would say to her.” Julia didn’t buckle under Emily’s withering look. “I’m your friend. I know you better than you know yourself. Didn’t I tell you Michelle was not the one for you? Wasn’t I right about you getting out from under the thumb of your parents? I could go on, you know.”

  “Trust me, I know.”

  “Something happened between the two of you out there on that beach,” Julia said emphatically. “So you can stop pretending it didn’t.”

  Emily gave up trying to hide the obvious. “We made love. The last night before we were found.” Julia didn’t say anything, so she continued. “It just happened. It was building almost from the first moment I saw her. And not having any clothes on didn’t help matters. Here I was, in a life-or-death situation, struggling to get back to civilization, and I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”

  Emily caught her breath as an image of Hayden’s fabulous body flashed in her mind.

  “So she’s hot,” Julia said.

  “It wasn’t just physical.” The words were out before she fully registered their meaning. Trying to avoid explaining herself, she presented Julia with a glowing account of Hayden’s heroism and admirable qualities. “She was unbelievable. She really cared about me and the children. We always came first. We had most of the food and drink. She had to be thirsty, I certainly was. But she never complained. I know we slowed her down. She could have just left us for the Red Cross to find, but she stuck by us. She was…incredible.”

  Emily stopped, self-conscious that she could easily keep gushing about Hayden now that the floodgates were open.

  “Do you think you’re suffering from a case of hero worship?” Julia asked quietly.

  Emily thought before replying. The possibility had occurred to her. After all, who wouldn’t sing the praises of someone who saved her life? “I don’t know. Jesus, Julia, I hardly know her but I can’t stop thinking about her. And she’s a colonel in the U.S. Army, for God’s sake.” Emily put her face in her hands. “Maybe I am just so grateful to be alive that I can’t figure out what I really feel.”

  Julia searched her face. “Girl, you’ve got yourself one big mess.”

  “Yes, and what am I going to do about it?”

  “Sleep on it,” Julia recommended.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hayden waited nervously outside General Foreman’s office, having been summoned to provide an update. She had no good news to give him about the case against Emily, and she was furious that she’d allowed Emily to affect her yesterday when they met at the park. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She needed to pull it together before Foreman started grilling her.

  She’d had the opportunity to practice with her father at dinner last night. He was a lot like Foreman. They shared the same derogatory opinion of people who protested over things they knew nothing about. He had pontificated for several minutes before her mother calmed him down and served coffee. What would he think if he knew everything that had happened on Khao Lak Beach?

  He had told her how proud he was of her actions. They’d talked about her trek back to civilization with Emily and the Hight children. She had served the Army well, he kept repeating. The more Hayden thought about it, the more she realized that he never said he was proud of her. Just that she had made him and the Army proud.
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  Foreman’s door snapped open and he motioned her in and plopped into the chair behind his massive desk. Hayden often wondered where the big desk came from. It certainly wasn’t standard military issue.

  “What’ve you got for me?” He didn’t even try to be civil.

  Hayden braced herself. “Nothing yet, General.”

  “Nothing? What in the fuck have you been doing all this time? Knitting?” His face reddened. “I want you to find out everything you can about that woman. I want to know who she is, where she works, and what she had for breakfast. I want to know who she’s sleeping with and how often she fucks him. I want to know everything.” Foreman had broken out in a sweat, he was so agitated.

  “General, I don’t think that’s a wise course of action to take,” Hayden replied cautiously.

  “If I want your opinion, Caldwell, I’ll give it to you. Now get on it.”

  “It’s going to take some time to get this information. Unless you want the entire department of military justice breathing down your neck.” It was a stretch, but Hayden knew Foreman would buy it. He wasn’t smart enough to know otherwise.

  “God damn.”

  Hayden stood patiently while Foreman ranted and raved about the inadequacies of civilian laws. She didn’t understand why he was so wound up over the protest and dared not ask. When it was clear that he was showing no signs of letting up, her mind began to wander. The images were all of Emily. Emily reaching for her from the water. Emily’s firm, round breasts moving rhythmically up and down while she dozed in the tree. The way she looked bathed in moonlight the night they made love.

  “Caldwell!” Foreman barked.

  “Yes, General?” Hayden replied far more calmly than she felt.

  “I said I see your point. I want something we can use to discredit that woman. But I don’t want my balls busted because of it.” He swiveled in his chair turning his back on Hayden, effectively dismissing her. “Carry on.”