“Come on,” the nurse urged, shaking the little paper cup at him. “Last dose today. I think you’re doing better.”
Kale tossed the pills back and accepted the water she held for him. “Good enough to get out of here?”
She made a skeptical face. In a weak moment yesterday, he’d shown her the simple blue diamond he’d bought in Japan and carried through all his missions since. She’d been sympathetic, had given him a little extra attention to help him battle the infection, but she also kept telling him to manage his expectations.
“We’ll see how you are tomorrow.” She patted him on the shoulder and flipped off the light on the wall behind him. “Night, Captain.”
“Night.”
The sedative that was part of his nighttime dosage took effect quickly, pulling him down, down into dark nothingness. Next thing he knew he was standing in bright sunlight.
He hadn’t seen Amber in weeks, and he ached at the sight of her running across the grass toward him. She slammed into his body, his arms wrapping around her and lifting her off the ground. He tasted salt, her tears cool on his cheek, but the kiss was hot and hungry. A command shouted by another officer interrupted the kiss. Kale stood with his unit, his parents, and Amber on the other side of the parking lot. Hundreds of duffel bags were lined up next to the curb. Soldiers’ names were called and responded to.
“Riker.”
He didn’t want to go. But then he was inside the building, his backpack over one shoulder, surrounded by the men and women who had become his new family. Then outside again, standing alone while people wept and murmured and shouted around him. He had to find Amber, say his final goodbye, assure her they could get through this. He’d be in contact as often as he could. They’d write, they’d plan their future. Spend every leave together. He had to find her. Tell her he loved her. Make sure she knew. Make sure she’d wait for him.
She had to wait for him.
Kale looked out the window when he woke again, checking the position of the sun before he looked at the clock. Hard to tell from here, but he’d slept a lot today, so it had to be afternoon. Yeah, after three. He needed to talk to the doctor before he was gone for the day.
First, though, he took inventory. He maneuvered his hand around IV tubes and monitoring lines to lay his palm on his forehead. Dry. And miracle of miracles, cool. His mouth was a little gummy, but his throat wasn’t stuck to itself like it usually was when he woke up in here. He bet his breath was deadly, but that didn’t matter now. His stomach rumbled, and Kale smiled. Hunger. First time he’d wanted food since he got here.
Now for the real test. He fumbled for the bed controls and held his breath while he raised the head of the bed into a full sitting position. His side twinged, but he didn’t have the burning, gut-deep pain from before. He forced himself to keep breathing while he tossed off the blanket and swiveled, much more carefully than the first time. When he pushed to stand, everything stayed right where it was supposed be.
Oh, yeah. He was getting out of here. Now he just had to convince the doctor and the OIC.
…
Two days before Christmas, and Amber couldn’t figure out what to do with herself.
Tonight, miracle of miracles, no one needed her. Everything on her to do list was done, and she was free until it was time to put on her red velvet Santa’s helper costume and hand out presents. But the emptiness of her house made her all too aware of the space inside her, so she dragged Rina out to Murphy’s, the downtown pub, hoping the company Christmas parties and celebrating singles would distract her. At minimum, it was an acceptable place to drink herself stupid.
“You’re a great friend,” she told her cousin, who had endured dozens of whinefests over their decades-long friendship. “Thanks for coming along and not being all psychologic-y and stuff.” She pulled some of her frozen Brandy Alexander—her third—through a straw. Kirby, Murphy’s bartender, really knew how to make the best drinks, especially the kind that let you get drunk without trying.
“Don’t thank me yet. It’s early.” Rina twisted in her tall chair to survey the crowd. “You see any out-of-towners? I don’t want to waste this dress.”
“It’s a good dress,” Amber agreed. The plunging, overlapping neckline of brilliant blue silk showed off Rina’s assets without looking trashy. Rina slung a long, smooth leg over the other knee and let her matching stiletto hang off her toes. “You have sexy-approachable down pat. Wish I could do that,” she grumbled.
“No, you don’t.” Rina smiled at a guy at the bar, but then sighed and turned back to the small round table. “Damn, that’s Fireman Fred.”
“So?” Amber tried to squint past a group of women from the software company up the street.
“Been there, yada yada.” Rina pulled a mozzarella stick from their basket and bit off a chunk. “He’s okay in bed, but too eager. Needs a lot of encouragement. I’m too tired for that.”
Amber had forgotten who they were talking about. Oh, yeah. Fireman Fred, assistant chief of the west side fire company. He bought jeans from her sometimes.
Rina checked her watch and leaned her head on her hand, elbow on the glossy table. “Look, I know you said you don’t want psychologic-y stuff, but you know you have to talk about this, right?”
Amber stirred her drink with her straw, watching the air bubbles in the slush slide into different patterns. “Talk about what? It’s the same old stuff as every year.”
“No, it’s not.” Rina met Amber’s gaze, and her eyes were kind, sympathetic.
Crap. “You talked to Danny, didn’t you?” She didn’t wait for Rina’s nod. “I’m not talking about that.”
“Okay.”
Some of the tension inside Amber eased when Rina didn’t push her. She shoved her straw deep into the curvy glass and sucked hard. The sharp, creamy cold hit her tongue and eased down her throat. “He deserves more than to be second best. He deserves someone to love him like I lo—” She stopped, infuriated by her inability to choose a verb tense.
“Like you love Kale,” Rina said easily. “Or are you starting to question that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay then.” Rina shrugged. “But somehow I don’t think that’s why we’re at Murphy’s tonight.”
Amber looked miserably around the bar. Murphy’s was more than a place to drink and hook up. It had the best comfort food in Hempfield, and everyone came here. “I can see at least four people who told me this week that I should give up on Kale and move on with my life.”
Rina shrugged again and ate the rest of her cheese stick. “Moving on doesn’t have to mean with Danny.” She chewed slowly, savoring, and swallowed. “It could just mean to stop waiting.” Her casually bored air disappeared and she studied Amber. “You’ve been in a holding pattern for a long time, now that I think about it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Amber drank until her glass was exactly half-empty. Her head had gone swimmy, a nice change from the hard, intense circle of thoughts she couldn’t escape. If I can finish it before anyone else gives me advice…
“Of course you do.”
A tall, lanky guy in a trucker cap and red-and-green flannel button-down took a few steps in their direction.
Rina turned her back. His shoulders drooped. He sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets, and continued on to the bar. Amber hid her smirk in her melty brandy cream.
“What were you going to do with your degree when you graduated from college?” Rina asked her.
Amber frowned. Her degree was in merchandising with a minor in business. She’d interviewed at a couple of small chains and one major independent store in various cities, but had no job offers before her parents were killed and she had to come home. “I hadn’t decided. But what does that have to do with Kale? We weren’t together then.”
“I know. But that’s actually when you went into the holding pattern, wasn’t it?”
“No. I just changed my goals, that’s all.”
&
nbsp; Rina straightened, her eyes glinting. “Yeah. Changed from long-term, big-world goals to small-town, get-what-I-can-get goals. Right?”
Amber wanted to deny it, but Rina had her. “Okay, yeah. But it doesn’t matter. I’m happy here. I have tons of friends, people I care about, who I’ve known all my life. If I can’t have true family, that’s the next best thing.”
“But what do you also want that you can’t have here? And don’t say Kale.”
She hadn’t been about to. But she was a little stunned that the answer came so easily. Rina gave her a knowing smile when she didn’t voice it, and she knew she didn’t have to. She just needed to know it.
This wasn’t the life she’d be living if things were different. Her shop was fine. It made her enough money to live on, since her parents’ house was paid for and the cost of living here was reasonable. But it wasn’t a challenge anymore. Planning, launching, and running a business had been great, but there was nowhere else to take it.
If she accepted the common belief that Kale was dead, what would she do with her life? Not her romantic life, but her life life?
She wouldn’t stay in Hempfield.
It didn’t free her. There was no miraculous lifting of weight or swelling of hope, because she didn’t accept the common belief. Okay, yes, her resolve had been battered by the negative viewpoints of everyone around her. Their certainty that Kale was gone made her question whether she was being stupid, putting so much faith in something so unlikely.
But this wasn’t their lives. It was hers, and what Rina just made her consider was likely to make life after Kale’s return easier, not harder. With the clarity of the nearly drunk, she found that central core of faith and clutched it with both hands.
“Have I told you how much I love you?” she asked Rina, who grinned.
“You going mushy on me now?”
Amber shook her head. “No. I just really, really, really appreesheeate you.” She scowled. That word had sounded funny. She peered into her empty glass. Whoa. That went fast. She blinked up at the twinkly lights around the perimeter of the bar. They hadn’t been twinkly when they came in. “I think I shhhould probly eat shomething.”
Rina pushed the appetizer a few inches toward her. “Have at it. But isn’t getting sloppy in the head the reason we’re here?”
Amber nodded and tried a cheese stick, grimacing at the rubbery texture. They were too cold, but the bite hit her stomach and suddenly she was ravenous. She signaled the server and ordered a cheeseburger and side salad. And a glass of water, to head off tomorrow’s hangover.
“So what are you thinking now?” Rina asked. “About Kale.”
“I don’t know.” Amber sighed and suppressed a burp. She hoped the kitchen was quick with that burger. “I guess we’ll shee tomorrow night.” Her words were still shlurry, and she had the vague sense that her thoughts were, too. But who cared? She felt better than she had yesterday. Better than today, when the mail carrier hung out in her store for ten minutes. He’d gone on and on about all the guys he knew who’d been messed up in the Iraqi and Afghan wars and hinted how much better off she was that Kale hadn’t come back.
Who knew how she’d feel tomorrow? Especially when they did the Santa thing with the kids. She could get overwhelmed again. Despair was relentless, really. Wasn’t that why Kale’s parents had given in? Just like the townspeople. Amber knew they cared about her. That was why they were pushing her so hard. They wanted her to be happy. Or…no, that wasn’t right. How could she be happy if she thought Kale was dead? So they wanted her to accept that he was dead because it was…healthier?
She narrowed her eyes at LaDonna, the flower and gift shop owner from across the street. She and her husband had passed Amber and Rina when they arrived. LaDonna had patted Amber sympathetically on the arm and told her she’d talked to Kale’s mother a couple of days ago, and how sorry she was about his death. She’d clutched her husband’s arm pretty damned tightly when she said it.
“Is that why they’re ganging up on me?” she said aloud, snapping her back straight and almost toppling off the stool. She caught herself and held up a reassuring hand. “I’m good, I’m good. But seriously, is that why? Because they’re trying to hide their own fears and securities?”
Rina laughed. “I think you mean insecurities, and I have no idea what train that thought traveled in on. But here’s your food. We can debate small-town philosophies tomorrow.”
Amber sprinkled salt on the cheesy patty and dug in. She probably nodded at Rina, because her cousin turned her attention to the trucker cap guy she’d blown off earlier and spelled something in the air with her finger.
Tomorrow might be worse, if she was hungover and depressed and the Relentless Relentertons kept on her. If Kale’s parents called from their cruise and sounded at peace despite deciding to grieve their only son. If that meant Amber was even more alone in the world than she thought she was. And it might be worse if tomorrow was the day the U.S. Government came clean about what they’d done to one of their best men. Or if Kale finally showed his face and it was full of regret and “I’m sorry but I found someone I like better.”
But tomorrow wasn’t here yet.
Chapter Five
Kale stared at the seemingly endless flight of aluminum steps leading to the fourth and smallest airplane he’d been on in the last twenty-four hours, and had the thought that it was always the simple things that were hardest to overcome.
He’d convinced the doctor to release him to finish his recovery at home, and negotiated with DiPaolo to allow him to handle his own travel arrangements instead of waiting for a medical transport that wasn’t scheduled for three more days.
It had started off fine. He’d heeded all the instructions to take it easy and used care getting on and off of two military transports and onto a major commercial flight. The problem came when that plane was grounded right before takeoff, and he’d had to rush all the way across the massive airport to his new plane. Running with the wound he had wasn’t smart in the first place, and dodging an oblivious toddler had been his final downfall. He’d tripped over someone’s carry-on, knocked into a recharging station, and gone down on one knee to avoid kicking an old lady’s walker out from under her.
He’d made the flight but spent half of it in the bathroom, trying to stop the blood that kept oozing out of his side.
Now he stood on the tarmac outside some rinky-dink municipal airport somewhere in the States. He couldn’t remember where he was. In the South, probably, since there was no snow and he was sweating his ass off. He had a vague awareness that it was mid-morning on Christmas Eve, with a three-hour flight to Boston and then a way-too-long drive to Hempfield still ahead of him. And he couldn’t even manage to get up a couple dozen steps.
“Can I take that for you, sir?” A flight attendant in a snug blue skirt put her hand on his rucksack. Kale tightened his grip on the strap. He hadn’t relinquished it to anyone the whole trip.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” He braced his legs to keep from swaying backwards and proving himself a liar. The attendant smiled and reached for the ticket in his hand. Kale took a deep breath and grabbed the aluminum rail. The hot sun reflecting off it seared both his eyes and his hand, but he ignored the insignificant pain and let the attendant slide his ticket between the fingers folded over his bag’s strap.
“Your seat is in the rear of the plane, sir, right side, window.”
Of course it was. “Thank you.” Kale gritted his teeth and lifted his right leg. Salty sweat stung his eyes, but the real battle was fighting the hot poker stuck in his side. The left boot was easier. He pulled it up from the ground to the next step and pushed his weight upward. There. One down. All he needed was a rhythm. The attendant’s sympathy and concern saturated the air even more than the humidity did. Kale ignored it. When it turned to impatience halfway up the steps, he ignored that too. Eventually he made the doorway and unclenched his jaw to breathe in the blissfully cool air in the plane’s cabin.
The flight was packed. He stared at the empty seat waiting for him in the rear, but a sinking dread filled him the closer he got. That space wasn’t even big enough for his left nut. How the hell was he going to cram himself into it in this condition? He’d be lucky if he didn’t pass out before he sat down.
“Excuse, me, sir?”
A different attendant placed her hand on his arm. He turned and tried not to bark at her. “Yes?”
“One of the passengers up front has offered to switch seats with you. The bulkhead seat has extra space.” She held out her other hand and tugged his elbow back toward the front of the plane.
“Oh. Uh, thanks.” He swept his gaze around the plane but couldn’t spot the Good Samaritan. “Who is it?” He owed them a huge thank you.
“They prefer to remain anonymous.” She took his rucksack and, with surprisingly graceful strength, heaved it into the overhead compartment, which she then snapped closed. “There you go, sir.” She nodded at the empty seat. Kale eyed the passengers, every single one of whom was watching him, and nodded.
“Thanks,” he cast out at large. “I appreciate it.”
“No, thank you,” someone said, and applause swept through the cabin.
Kale smiled awkwardly and sat, his reaction more embarrassment than gratitude. If they knew the kinds of things he’d done in the last three years, few of them would applaud. They’d bought the line that every service member was committed to fighting for their freedom, and in so many ways they were. But the concept of dying by IED so those at home could buy giant SUVs and eat sugary breakfast cereal took it too far. They didn’t know him, didn’t know what he was capable of. Whether he was more worthy of a comfortable seat than the person who’d given it up.
Kale buckled his seatbelt, then sighed and closed his eyes, barely listening to the attendants’ hurried preflight instructions. Forget comparing his worth to that of a random, kind stranger. The real question was if he was worthy of Amber anymore.
If You Believe in Me Page 4