Strangers When We Meet

by Rebecca Winters

  Just then Nick raised his head, and a pair of black-lashed, flame-blue eyes no length of time could ever change sought hers over Cody’s shoulder. The secret smile he’d always reserved for her alone shone from his face.

  His remembered smile conjured up a myriad of emotions from their frozen prison, and now they nearly overwhelmed her.

  “Nick…” she cried, reaching blindly for him.

  He met her halfway, clutching her to him so hard she could feel his ribs through his uniform—graphic evidence of the inhumane treatment he’d received in captivity.

  His body quaked. “If you hadn’t been here waiting for me, I would have died before my feet touched the tarmac.”

  That solemn pronouncement of truth shook her to the core. If she and Zach had extended their trip one more day—

  “Rosie…” His deep voice broke. On a low moan, his mouth closed over hers.

  How many times had she known her husband’s possessive kiss? How many times had she been swept away by his passion, brought to tears by his tenderness? Who could count all the ways his mouth had brought her infinite pleasure, the times he’d made her feel immortal, no matter the hour, mood or situation?

  Yet this kiss was different from the others.

  His soul was searching for hers, seeking to ascertain that it still belonged to him, that there were no secrets, no shadows.

  Not completely satisfied, he deepened their kiss. When Nick went in pursuit, his instincts never failed him.

  Her body, that tangible conduit to the soul, started to tremble.

  His body went perfectly still before he relinquished her mouth. In his eyes she glimpsed unspeakable pain, and had to look away.

  He knows, her heart groaned.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “NICKY—WHAT HAPPENED to your hand?”

  The undisguised horror in Janet’s voice, coupled with a muffled cry from George, filled Rosie with unnamed dread.

  She eased herself far enough away from Nick’s chest to see his hands. He glanced down. Out of the others’ hearing, he said, “It appears we’ve both mislaid our wedding rings.”

  Staggering guilt and pain knifed through her body before she saw what the others had seen—there was a bandage where his left hand had been. In the next instant, graphic pictures of combat scenarios flashed through her mind.

  She started to weave.

  Don’t scream out loud, Rosie.

  Through narrowed eyes, Nick registered her horrified reaction before she felt him shut her out and turn to Cody.

  “As I told my boy—” he tousled the dark hair with his right hand “—I’ve gotten along just fine without my other hand, but I’ll check out the latest hardware to see about making some improvements.”

  The mocking tone, perfectly gauged to alleviate their son’s fears, devastated her. In desperation Rosie put an arm around Cody’s shoulders, as much out of a need for his physical support as the desire to reassure her son. He was fighting a losing battle to hold back the tears; obviously, fresh shock over his father’s loss had begun to settle in.

  Her in-laws fared no better. George was ashen-faced and Janet had broken down sobbing. All Rosie and Cody could do was stand by helplessly and watch the reunion between Nick and his parents, two of the most devoted generous people in the world. People who’d steadfastly refused to believe their only son was dead.

  Her heart underwent another convulsion. She couldn’t get over the cruel irony that after seven years of unutterable suffering to both body and soul, Nick had to be the one comforting all of them.

  In that regard, he hadn’t changed. Her husband had always been a take-charge kind of man, watching out for everyone else, never worrying about his own needs.

  Early in their relationship, she’d come to cherish that unselfishness in him; she’d considered herself blessed to be his wife.

  She still did, didn’t she?

  He hadn’t died. He was alive. His flesh-and-blood body was here, just two feet away. His spirit animated his body.

  Then why did it seem as if they were standing on opposite sides of a transparent glass wall, able to see each other but unable to break through and make contact?

  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Nick had gently disengaged himself from his mother’s clinging arms to beckon the thin soldier Rosie had seen leaving the plane first. He’d been standing a good distance away. She hadn’t even realized he was still waiting at the airfield.

  “R.T.? Come here and let me introduce you.”

  R.T.? Rosie vaguely remembered the name from Nick’s early days in the army reserve, the seemingly safe route he’d chosen to help pay for his undergraduate schooling.

  The other man shook his head. “I don’t want to intrude, Sergeant.”

  Rosie saw Nick’s jaw harden. “You’re not intruding, and the days of calling me Sergeant are over. We’re civilians now,” he asserted in an authoritative voice. “Everybody, say hello to R. T. Ellis. He was named Rutherford Topham for his grandfather, but nobody knows that except me.” Nick grinned.

  “He lost an eye when our truck hit a land mine, but that didn’t stop R.T. We managed to walk a good fifty miles and give an Iraqi patrol fits before they picked us up and moved us to an underground bunker. The rest is…history.”

  R.T. gave a solemn nod to everyone. “The sarge lost his hand in the same explosion. Since the Iraqis don’t give medical care to prisoners, we were lucky the blast burned us, because it cauterized our wounds so there wasn’t any infection. The doctors in Denver cleaned us up with a little surgery before sending us home.”

  Nick nodded. “Our superiors at the base told us there’d been word that a few isolated soldiers had been taken prisoner for negotiation purposes in case Saddam Hussein wanted to start another war later on down the road. Our incarceration just lasted a little longer than we’d expected,” Nick joked. “You could say we’ve adopted each other. Since his wife and aunt don’t know he’s back yet, I’ve invited him to stay with us.” As he spoke, Nick’s eyes focused on Rosie. The message was clear and unmistakable.

  Whatever’s wrong between us, for the love of God, don’t let me down in this.

  She started shaking and couldn’t stop. The fact that R.T.’s wife—let alone other members of his family—hadn’t shown up could mean anything. But Rosie couldn’t help fearing the worst; she sensed the same was true for Nick.

  Galvanized into action, she threw her arms around R.T. and hugged his stiff form. “Welcome home, soldier. Thank heaven you and Nick had each other.” She kissed his wooden lips in salute.

  “Thank heaven is right,” he whispered. His body suddenly relaxed and he hugged her back. “As far as I’m concerned, your husband walks on water. He thinks you do, too, but I guess you already know that.”

  “I do.” She couldn’t dislodge the boulder in her throat. “Apparently he feels that way about you, too.”

  Following her lead, Nick’s parents took turns hugging the soldier, showering him with genuine affection because he and Nick had helped each other stay alive. That made him family, and it was good enough for them.

  R.T. shook hands with Cody and put his garrison cap on him, easing any awkwardness there might have been. “You and your dad are spitting images of each other, you know that?”

  “Yeah.” Cody’s smile wreathed his whole face as he stared at his father with open worship. He’d attached himself to Nick’s side once more; Rosie guessed he’d stay there for the duration.

  “Why aren’t you boys wearing your Purple Hearts?” George wanted to know.

  A trace of a smile curved R.T.’s lips. “We’re no heroes. We should’ve looked where we were going.”

  “You can say that again,” Nick added with a rueful grin.

  George shook his graying head, which had been as dark as Nick’s and Cody’s, his eyes suspiciously bright. “That’s a matter of opinion, R.T.”

  “Do you have a Purple Heart, Dad?” Cody asked.

  “W
e both do. It’s given to all soldiers wounded in the line of duty. When we get home, you can go through our stuff all you like. How about that?”

  “Awesome. I’m going to take everything to school and show my friends.”

  “By the way, where is home?”

  Again his gaze shot straight to Rosie, his eyes asking more of her than his words. No doubt he’d tried to reach her at their old apartment in the Sugar House area and found it no longer existed….

  Telling Nick about the changes in their lives was like teaching a child about the world. But it was an infinitely more difficult task because Nick wasn’t a child eager to explore his new world for the first time. He was a thirty-two-year-old man whose memories were being tainted, one by one.

  She couldn’t bear to add to his pain, but she knew it was inevitable. None of them had been given a choice, another brutal side effect of war.

  “With money from a couple of excellent investments you made as a stockbroker, plus your monthly government stipend, I was able to get into a house up by the Hogle Zoo,” she explained. “It’s in a neighborhood with a lot of boys Cody’s age.”

  Nick blinked, his keen mind assessing every piece of information. “That means Clayton Junior High and East High. Was their football any good last year?”

  This from a former all-state linebacker for Skyline High, one of East High’s arch rivals. Nick’s old year-books showing his football feats sat in Cody’s room and were pored over on a regular basis.

  “Yeah, they had a great season. They’ve rebuilt East so it won’t collapse if there’s an earthquake. You should see the brand-new football field. Lights, bleachers, everything—” Cody rattled on.

  “He’s the first-string center for the Eastside junior team over at Sunnyside,” George interjected with grand-fatherly pride.

  “Center, huh? That’s one tough position. I’m proud of you. We’ll have to rustle up a game.”

  “How about this afternoon? I’ll call the team as soon as they get home from school!”

  “Cody!” Rosie and Janet cried at the same time. His naïveté at such a fragile precarious moment in their lives stunned them both, but Nick paid no attention.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth. There’s nothing I want more than to meet your football buddies.”

  Suddenly Cody gave his father a fierce hug. “I love you, Dad. I’m so glad you’re back. Don’t ever go away again.”

  Nick put a consoling arm around his son, allowing him to shed tears of sheer happiness.

  No matter how much Rosie had heard or read about a boy needing his father, no matter how well she thought she’d understood the importance of a male role model, it didn’t hit home until now.

  No wonder Zach hadn’t been able to get anyplace with Cody.

  While she stood marveling at the indestructible bond between father and son, she caught sight of the private look Nick flashed R.T. In that brief glance, she read need. Obviously they’d grown so close in prison they were in the habit of turning to each other for emotional support.

  Like the harbinger of bad news, Nick’s silent exchange with R.T. seemed to warn her there was more grief on the way.

  To think there was a time when Nick had shared everything with her.

  Nick answered his son. “We’re not going anywhere, Cody. Are we, R.T.?”

  R.T. picked up his hat, which had been blown to the ground by the wind. “Hey, Cody?”

  The boy lifted his head.

  “You know the song, ‘Oh, Give Me a Home’?” “Yeah?” He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.

  “Well, your dad and I kind of rewrote it. His part goes like this—’Oh, give me a home, where my Cody can roam/where the Jazz and the Trappers do play/where the wife I adore, feeds me barbecue galore/and the sky isn’t cloudy all day.’”

  At that point Nick had joined in, his voice as off-key as R.T.’s “’Home, home to the West/where the parents I love still reside/Among mountains so high, that’s the place where I’ll die/my beloved close by my side.’”

  While the words drove another shaft through Rosie’s heart, George cleared his throat and clapped. “Change the name of our city baseball team from the Trappers to the Buzz, and you’ve got it.”

  “The Buzz?”

  “The team got sold, so they gave it a new name, Dad. You know—’cause we’re the Beehive State! ‘Cause the Pioneers brought bees here.” All of this was said on one breath.

  Both men smiled.

  Janet made a nervous gesture with her hands. “I think it’s time we left for Salt Lake. What would you like to do first, son? Are you hungry? Shall we stop for breakfast on the way?”

  Rosie nursed another hurt when she detected the invisible line of signals running between Nick and R.T.

  “I think we’d like to go straight home. Did you all drive up in one car?”

  “No.” Rosie shook her head. “Cody and I met your mom and dad here.”

  Nick eyed his parents. “If you’ll let R.T. ride with you, I’ll drive my family home.”

  “But you haven’t driven for so long! And you don’t have—”

  “Good plan,” George interrupted his wife, who hadn’t recovered from seeing her son minus a hand. In this circumstance, however, she’d voiced one of Rosie’s concerns, yet had been overruled.

  She and Janet shared a legitimate fear. George probably felt it, too. Nick didn’t really need both hands to drive an automatic. But he hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car for seven years, and the freeway was more crowded than ever. After such a long confinement, she wondered if his nerves could take the stress.

  In the past, Nick had always done the driving when they’d gone anywhere together. For the last seven years, Rosie had been getting herself around without his help, but…he was back home now.

  Before he’d left for the Middle East, Rosie had never given a thought to such things as who would drive. That had never been important one way or the other, not when their marriage had been based on a solid partnership.

  It wasn’t important now. Yet all she seemed capable of comprehending were the changes, the differences…

  “Come on, R.T.” George fought valiantly to maintain a semblance of calm. “As soon as we’re on our way, I want to hear your version of that song.”

  “It’s lousy, sir.”

  “Let us decide that.” George grabbed R.T.’s duffel bag, and the three of them began walking toward the parking lot.

  Cody, strong and tall for his age, paced his stride to match Nick’s, determined to carry his dad’s bag to the car without help. Judging by the struggle, it had to be heavy.

  Their son was trying hard to prove he’d become a man in Nick’s absence. It was a wise father who knew better than to interfere. Rosie could only stare at Nick in wonder for knowing exactly how to handle Cody’s feelings.

  Needing to do something before the feelings inside her exploded, she hurried ahead of them to unlock the doors of her Nissan with the automatic device, then open the trunk with her key.

  “Rosie?” Nick prompted. He was standing right behind her once Cody had tossed the bag inside.

  Her head jerked around. Their eyes met. In those blue depths she saw anger, bewilderment, disillusionment. She saw pain. Oh, yes. Excruciating pain.

  They stared at each other almost as if they were adversaries locked in a strange room, reluctant to begin engagement because they didn’t know the rules. Every question of his, every comment of hers, seemed to turn into a weapon capable of inflicting more pain, more confusion.

  I’m not your adversary, Nick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.

  “Do you want to give me the keys?”

  “O-of course.”

  He put out his left arm to reach for them, but at the last second, put out his right.

  Was it an unconscious gesture on his part, or was this his idea of forcing her to face what had happened to him and deal with it?

  Either way, she couldn’t stand the sight of his bad a
rm. Not because of its physical reality. She was grateful the explosion hadn’t taken the whole limb.

  The loss of his hand could never rob Nick of his appeal. If he’d come home with no arms or legs, he would still be that handsome man, exuding a powerful masculinity undiminished by the cut of his hair, his weight loss, his pallor or the severing of one of his extremities.

  If anything, the years had brought him new stature, a new wisdom and maturity, all of which she was discovering made him attractive in ways she’d never been obliged to consider.

  No. She hated his bad arm because of the horror it must represent to Nick.

  How could he ever rid his mind of the blackness of those years when he had to live with such a reminder for the rest of his life?

  He’d been in combat and been taken as a prisoner of war. He would suffer post-traumatic stress disorder until the day he died. So would R.T., she mused heavily. It was every soldier’s nightmare, every wife’s.

  Now it was hers.

  Rosie needed someone to talk to. Ironically her first instinct was to turn to Zach, which was out of the question. Yet he’d been her rock for so long….

  Darling Zach. The pain he had to be in…

  But all their pain combined would never match Nick’s. Only someone like Linda Beams, head of the family support group for the Ninety-sixth Regional Support Command at Fort Douglas, would be able to help Rosie understand what her husband was going through. Linda had been there for Rosie when the news had come that Nick was missing in action.

  Rosie needed her right now.

  NICK LOVED the feel of the steering wheel in his hand. He loved the sensation of speed, and the power that came from being in control of his life again. To be able to go where he wanted, when he wanted, was something he’d never take for granted again.

  “The car’s a little beauty, Rosie.” A gleaming white exterior of classic style and clean rounded lines, with an interior that, thanks to the sunroof, felt airy and un-confined. After being forced to live in darkness for so many years, he craved the light. “I like it. I like it a lot.”