“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Did you have a girl who was special to you?”
“I met someone in Kuwait and we talked for a while, but there were too many differences. And way too many barriers.” His words were delivered even closer to her now, and she caught a hint of mint in his breath.
She swallowed. “Other than her?”
“Other than her, my only close friends were the ones in my unit. I had three guys that were practically brothers to me while we were together. They were the ones I confided in while I was gone, while we were all together.”
“Did they know about me?” she asked, and then wondered if that was too personal a question or if it sounded as though she thought too much of herself. But Landon didn’t hesitate in his answer and didn’t sound as though he minded her curiosity.
“Yes,” he said. “They did.”
“What did you tell them? About me, I mean?”
“I told them the truth. That I never got over losing you, Georgie.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. But the awareness that he’d confided something so personal made her realize that Landon now had vital people in his world that she’d never even met. They’d grown up knowing everything about one another, all about each other’s friends and practically everything about what they’d both seen or done during their formative years in Claremont. But now there was a gaping hole in their history, and she wanted to know more about the people who were an important part of his world while she wasn’t. “Your three friends. Are they still overseas? Or are they back home too?”
“Neither.” He paused, waited a moment more and then added, “They didn’t make it back.”
Awareness gripped her heart. “All three of them?”
“All three of them,” he said. “I have a tattoo on the inside of my left wrist that reminds me of them, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look at that tattoo, think about their lives and realize that my name could’ve easily been inked on someone’s wrist as well. We’re all so close to death when we’re over there. At all times, we’re close. We don’t think about it, don’t really realize it, until we lose a brother in battle.”
“I’m so sorry, Landon.” Emotion overtook her. Those three were brothers to him over there, and now they were gone.
What if something had happened to Landon, and she’d never had a chance to be with him like this again?
He cleared his throat. “It was hard, but I dealt with it.”
She wanted so badly to see his tribute to his friends. And she wished she could have been with Landon to help him through the grief. “What is the tattoo? What does it look like, and what does it say?”
“It’s a rifle stuck in the ground behind a pair of boots with a helmet on top of the rifle. Dog tags hang from the trigger guard. Mike and John were killed by an improvised explosive device, or what we’d call an IED. Basically a car bomb. Their tattoos state their rank, name, unit, date they were killed and then simply Iraq. Calvin was a former soldier of mine who later went Special Forces. His tattoo has his name and rank, the province in Afghanistan where he was killed, as well as the Special Forces motto. He was killed in a firefight.”
“That had to be horrible, losing all of them.” She couldn’t even imagine the pain of losing friends that way.
“It was,” he said, his anguish evident in his tone. “I was supposed to have been with Mike and John that day, but it was just two days after I got hit in the shoulder, so I wasn’t with my unit.”
Her heart stilled. “Two days after you were shot, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“So if you hadn’t been shot, then you would have been killed in that car bomb,” she said, the power of the statement sending chills down her spine. “Is that right?”
“If I hadn’t been shot, then yeah, I’d have been with my guys.”
Landon could have died, and she wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to him again and to tell him how much she cared. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
“Georgie, it was a long time ago, and I’ve dealt with it.”
She said a silent amen then said, “I was praying. Thanking God.”
“Thanking Him for what?”
“For letting you get shot.”
There was a tiny pause of silence, then Landon’s laughter echoed through the trees, rolling out with such force and such abandoned happiness that Georgiana couldn’t help but join in. “S-sorry,” she said, holding her side. “That didn’t come out right.”
“It’s okay.” His laughter filtered through his words. “I’m just thinking that if I’d have been recording you when you said that, I’d probably have a million hits on YouTube.”
“Very funny. You know what I meant.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “And it’s very sweet that you’re glad I got shot.”
“Landon, that isn’t what I meant.”
“I know. But you have to admit, it’s pretty funny. Can’t wait to tell John.”
“Great,” she said. “Now I can look forward to him ragging me whenever I run into him.”
“Just like old times.”
She nodded, remembering how much fun all of them used to have, the Cutter boys and Georgiana, riding horses, running through the fields, teasing each other nonstop and enjoying a simple life. Before the world intervened with all of the complications and trials it had to offer.
The thought of complications and trials reminded Georgiana of something her mother had told her before Landon returned home, that John Cutter had been working three jobs and had seemed to be having a tough time on his own raising Casey and running the farm. And Landon was working at the feed store, when she would have thought he’d have come back and merely run the farm, the way his father had done when they were growing up. “Landon?”
“Yeah?”
“Are things okay with your farm?”
He audibly inhaled, then thickly exhaled. “I know you always seemed to be able to read my mind back when we were in school, but what made you ask that? Because I’m trying my best not to think about it, but yeah, there’s a lot going on with our farm.”
“Just thinking about how things have changed since we used to sit up here and talk, and mom had mentioned John working three jobs, and now you’re working at the feed store and trying to run the farm too, right? Is everything okay?”
He cleared his throat. “Not yet, but it will be. We’ve just got to figure out how.”
She could tell he was trying to make it sound better than it was, and if they were working that much and trying to run the farm on their own, things weren’t good. “Maybe I can help you figure something out. We used to be pretty good at talking through things together.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but that was typically homework assignments or how to win the homecoming float contest, not quite the magnitude of saving a farm.”
Saving the farm? Georgiana frowned. It was worse than she suspected. “What have you got to do?”
“Come up with a business plan, one that shows how we can turn the farm into a profitable business, in a month. And show that we’re working toward putting the plan into place.” He sighed, then added, “We’ve got six months to get our debts caught up, or we’ll lose the farm.”
Her gasp was instant.
“But we aren’t going to lose it,” he said emphatically. “We just haven’t figured out how we’re going to keep it yet. John had an idea about starting a dude ranch.”
“Yeah, and I think that’s the problem. Andy Cothran said it’d never fly. John feels pretty certain it would, and he’s even been talking to some woman from Chicago that he thought could help us get it started.”
“I know Andy. He’s been at the bank forever, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, and he isn’t exactly open to change.”
“No chance of convincing him to go with a dude ranch?”
“Not in four weeks,” Landon said. “But I suspect John’s going to keep pecking at the idea. In the meantime, though, we have to come up with something that we know will make money and put that idea in a business plan for the bank.”
“I’ll think about it, and I’ll talk to mom. Surely with all of us putting our minds to it, we can come up with something.”
He touched her cheek, and she didn’t jerk away. She hadn’t known he was going to touch her, but she felt so secure here, so comfortable beside him, that it hadn’t scared her at all.
“Thanks,” he said, “for offering to help. And for listening to my troubles. That wasn’t exactly what we came up here for.”
“Now, I don’t know about that. We always talked about our troubles up here.”
“I guess we did, didn’t we?” He paused then continued, “Georgie, I’ve told you a lot about what happened to me while I was gone and even what’s going on in my life right now. Do you think you could at least tell me a little about what happened with you?”
She’d known this was coming, but even so her nerves were a tangled mess. She took a deep breath, let it out and focused on relaxing against the cool flat rock.
“Still can’t talk to me?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It isn’t that. I’m trying to figure out where to start.” Then she remembered her mother’s words. Start where you left off. And she knew exactly where they’d left off.
“That day in the church, when you came to see me,” she said, “and when I ran away.”
“Yeah.” His voice had grown husky, and she could tell for certain that he looked directly at her. Odd how she still felt the anxious feeling of knowing a guy was looking at her even when she couldn’t see.
She gathered her courage. “I never told you why I left the church the way I did.”
“I assumed you were trying to get away from me,” he said, “and then that caused your wreck.”
She should have known he blamed himself, even if he didn’t know everything about the reason she ran. She shook her head. Landon thought she was running from him, when in fact, she’d been running to him. “I had to drive, had to think. I thought I would ride around town for a while and then find Mom, talk to her and see what she thought about what I believed I simply had to do.”
“What you had to do?” he asked. “What did you have to do?”
“Cancel the wedding.”
Chapter Eleven
Landon’s mind reeled. Georgie had planned to cancel her wedding? Because of him? But that didn’t make sense, not with what she told him back then.
“After the accident, when I came to see you in the hospital, you said you never wanted to see me again. You said what happened in the church was a mistake.” He knew he had his facts right about her words, because each and every one of them had haunted him over the past eight years.
“I know what I said. And if I could go back and do any time of my life over, believe me, that’d be the time.”
“So that wasn’t the truth? You didn’t want me to leave?”
“When I woke in the hospital and realized that I’d had that accident leaving the church, I believed it was God’s way of showing me that what I was planning to do was wrong. I was putting myself before everyone else. All of those people who had come to town for the wedding and were in that hospital praying for me, all of the families and friends who were expecting me to marry Pete, and then there was Pete.”
“Pete,” Landon repeated.
“He hadn’t done anything to make me not want to marry him. At that time, he’d done nothing but tell me how much he wanted to be my husband and to stay together for life. Grow old together, that’s what he said.” She shook her head, her strawberry curls shifting against her cardigan. “I couldn’t let everyone down. I just couldn’t. And I couldn’t let Pete down. I’d promised to marry him.”
“But you weren’t married yet.”
“No, and I shouldn’t have gone through with it, I know that now. I was having doubts about it even before you got to the church. But I couldn’t back out. I couldn’t.” She turned her face toward the treetops, away from Landon.
“How was he, Georgie? Pete? When the blindness happened, how did he handle it? You said you’d only been married a few months.”
She seemed to contemplate what to say. “It was hard for him. He’d expected this perfect marriage,” she said, then added, “a perfect wife.”
Landon couldn’t handle her making excuses for Pete. “He married you for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Those were the vows he took.”
“I couldn’t blend with the other wives from his office. He wanted to be involved, be active, participate in things the way a normal newlywed couple would do. But I got pregnant within weeks of the wedding. Then we realized that my blurred vision wasn’t something that was temporary, and then it quickly got worse.”
“And Pete didn’t handle that well,” Landon said, remembering his quarterback’s love of “perfect” things.
“He didn’t see me as desirable anymore,” she said, her mouth tightening with the statement as though she were fighting tears.
Landon clenched his jaw. If Pete Watson wasn’t a fool, he’d have spent every waking moment reminding her just how desirable she was. “Georgiana, you’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful, and you’ll always be beautiful. Inside and out.”
Her hand moved to her chest, eyes looked so focused on him that he would almost believe she saw him. “You don’t need to say that, Landon. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”
“I was only stating the truth.” He reached toward her face and tenderly ran a finger along her jaw. She didn’t flinch and in fact seemed to turn toward the touch.
“Landon?”
“Yeah?”
“How do I look now?” She frowned slightly. “I mean, my mother says I still look like I did in high school, but I wonder if she isn’t fudging the truth a little to keep me from getting down. And Abi’s like any little girl; she isn’t going to say anything negative about her mom. But you know, I often wonder. The doctor said my eyes still look the same, but I can’t understand how that could be. And I have all of those girly fears. Am I starting to go gray? Are my freckles darker than before? Is my skin healthy looking, or too pale?” The frown slid up a bit. “I know, I shouldn’t care. But I can’t help it.”
Landon felt like an idiot. She hadn’t had anyone to ask about her physical appearance? “Pete never told you how you look?”
“He told me that I looked fine and that I shouldn’t worry about it. Kind of the same thing my mom always says. But I do worry about it. I think that’s human nature to wonder, don’t you?”
“Definitely.” He thought of wounded soldiers, particularly those with facial lacerations, asking about the extent of their injuries. Each one wanted to know how he appeared to others, how he would appear to his girlfriend or wife when he returned home; Georgie was no different.
“So, will you tell me?”
He rolled up h
igher on his side, so he could truly study her features. Then he began to describe every detail of the only woman he’d ever really loved. “Your hair is the same shade as in high school, red with blond intermingled through the curls. A true strawberry blonde if there ever was one.”
“Abi’s hair is the same color, right?”
“Yes. In fact, she looks just like you did when you were that age.”
“That’s what Mom says.”
“Well, she’s right. I remember you back then, and Abi is the spitting image.”
“I like knowing that.”
He let a soft strawberry curl slide through his fingers. He wanted to tunnel his fingers through the entire length, cradle the back of her head and ease her face closer. But he needed to take his time. Pete had hurt her, and Landon wanted to slowly and steadily show her she was worthy of a man’s love, worthy of his love.
“Any gray?” she whispered.
He smiled. “There isn’t a gray hair to be seen, and your skin is still healthy, not too pale at all.”
“That’s good. Not that I mind gray hair, but I’m not quite ready for it yet.”
Landon grinned. She looked as though she was feeling better about herself already, and he was thrilled to be the cause of the transformation. “Abi’s freckles are a lot like yours too, sprinkled across her nose—” he moved a fingertip to the bridge of her nose, then slid it over the adorable sprinkle of freckles on her right cheek “—and then a little lighter on the cheeks.”
Her eyes fluttered closed in response.
“Yours are still the same hue as high school,” he continued, “a pale copper that only brings more attention to the gold flakes in your eyes.”
She opened her eyes, and he saw those specks of gold. Have mercy, she really was beautiful. He hated that she doubted the fact.
“Do my eyes really still look the same, Landon? Tell me the truth.”
He looked directly into the hazel depths, and his heart ached that she couldn’t return his gaze. “They look the same,” he said, but wouldn’t lie to her by withholding the obvious, “but different.”
Love Reunited Page 14