On Lavender Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  “Which you do.”

  “I worry because I know that he’d have to be superhuman not to have some unresolved issues, and I worry that ignoring them so he can concentrate on you might put him at more risk for PTSD-related problems.”

  “Surely not everyone who returns home from a war suffers from PTSD,” Madeline said.

  “No. Of course not. But Sax does a lot of advocacy work with veterans’ groups, and a recent study suggests that twenty percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have PTSD. Though even one would be too many.”

  “I suggested he might have problems to Gram. But she wasn’t worried.”

  “Neither am I, really. Though I do suspect that part of the reason Duncan Chaffee decided to retire when he did was because he’d begun to get worried about Lucas. Sax said his e-mails were sounding more guarded. And the fact that he wasn’t sharing stuff the way he always had suggested he was having more and more trouble dealing with it. Especially when you think about it, a SEAL medic isn’t exactly called upon to do his work when things are going well.…

  “But they’re doing better testing on returning troops, and forcing them to take a decompression time before getting out, so that’s encouraging. Plus, he has a great, close support base with Cole and Sax and now Gabe. And Sax’s dad served in Vietnam, so he’s another resource.”

  “And then there’s Scout,” Madeline suggested.

  “Absolutely. That dog’s proving to be a big help. Especially since she needs Lucas’ help with her own problems. So I don’t think you need to be concerned about him going off and doing anything dangerous.

  “The reason I wanted to talk with you is that I suspect he’s going to go overboard trying to prove to you how normal he is. Which means that you might not really get a handle on how much he’s changed since that twenty-year-old college sophomore who broke your heart.”

  “I guess everyone knows about that?” Madeline was getting used to the idea that no one anywhere had a private life anymore.

  “Not everyone. But you know how small towns are.” Kara shrugged. “Everyone pretty much lives in everyone else’s pockets. Which has both its good and negative points.

  “Getting back to Lucas. Of course, I have no way of knowing most of what he’s experienced. But Sax did tell me about a time when they were on a mission in the Afghan mountains. Apparently, it was a ridiculously risky operation. Since they’d gotten delayed for various reasons, if they’d landed in the planned location, they would have been climbing the mountain in the dark.

  “So, rather than delay the mission—which was to take out an al-Qaeda stronghold—overnight, the command decided they’d land on the top of the mountain. In the dark.”

  “Which had to be riskier,” Madeline suggested, shivering beneath her pretty new cardigan as she imagined a moonless sky and the wind wailing through the desolate mountaintops. She’d always thought she was tough. Not only had she survived her parents dying suddenly, but she’d had her heart broken, toured Europe while still a teenager, and then established a career in the testosterone-driven culinary world.

  But she could not imagine doing what Kara had just described.

  “Lucas was the medic on the Chinook. Which also included, along with the SEAL team, Marines, Rangers, and some CIA operatives. Oh, and an Air Force Special Forces guy and the Army SOAR pilot. SOAR’s like special forces, so we’re talking a very elite team.

  “Sax told me that Lucas was the most amazing special-ops guy he’d ever teamed up with. If there was any army, anywhere in the world, that had better equipment or drugs than the U.S. Army did, Lucas would track it down and make sure he had it in his overloaded Mike bag.”

  Cooking had a language all his own. But hearing Kara use a military term for what she guessed must be a medical supply kit, had Madeline thinking, as she suspected the other woman wanted her to, what a different life he’d been living these past ten years.

  “Anyway, the Chinook was shot down. And although the safer thing would’ve been to stay on board until a rescue copter could come in, there were terrorists on the ground shooting at it, plus it started to catch fire.”

  She briefly closed her eyes and shook her head in a way that had Madeline suspecting that Sax had given her more details. And that they were very, very bad.

  “The first firefight, as they evacuated the Chinook, lasted nearly thirty minutes. The Rangers, because of some stupid ‘Lead the way’ creed, charged off the copter, blasting away, as Sax described to me, like they were reenacting the shoot-out at the OK Corral. Unfortunately, they ran straight into a barrage of bullets, grenades, and RPGs that were pouring in at them from a camouflaged bunker they hadn’t been able to see from the air.”

  “Oh, my God.” Madeline’s blood chilled.

  “It got worse when the Marines followed. Sax said that if they’d been on Omaha Beach instead of a snowy Afghan mountain, it would have looked like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.”

  “I hated that movie.”

  “You’re not alone there. Naturally, they called for an evacuation, but since they were just a small cog in a larger wheel, the commanders decided that to try to get another copter into a hot zone would be unsafe and unsound.”

  “You’re kidding.” Madeline waved away that question. “Never mind. It was rhetorical. So, they left the survivors up there? All alone?”

  In the dark? And the cold? In one of the most dangerous places on the planet?

  “They dragged the wounded into the bunker after clearing it out.” Madeline knew that couldn’t have been as simple as it sounded. She’d seen enough war movies to imagine the shouting, the shooting, the blood. “Then they hunkered down for the night.

  “Of course, when the sun came up—and Sax said it was appropriately bloodred—they realized that they were sitting ducks if they stayed there. But they were also in the midst of a blizzard, and since the pilot was badly injured, taking him out of the bunker would risk him dying of hypothermia. Unfortunately, once again command wouldn’t send another Chinook into that spot until nightfall, and Lucas determined the pilot wouldn’t last the night.”

  “So what did they do?”

  It was strange, Madeline thought. Like watching a movie or reading a novel. She found it nearly impossible to think that the young man who’d bought her taffy then kissed her at the seawall, who’d made love to her in a cave that sparkled like diamonds, and even had flirted with her in her grandmother’s kitchen could have experienced anything like this. Not just the battle and the snow and the danger. But the immense responsibility he’d taken onto his shoulders.

  Kara had mentioned wounded. Which meant more than merely the pilot. And it had been up to him and his Mike bag to keep them all alive. What were the odds of everyone surviving?

  “A CIA guy who’d come along on the mission knew about a medical relief camp that had been set up after a recent earthquake. To get there would take four to five hours. Straight up.”

  “And straight into enemy territory,” Madeline guessed. When she realized she was holding her breath, she had to remind herself that Lucas had obviously survived the mission or he wouldn’t be here in Shelter Bay. As had Sax.

  “Worse yet, the camp was on the Pakistan side of the border.”

  “Were they even allowed to go there?”

  “Not then. The rules of engagement were changed later, but at the time, if they crossed the border, they’d be risking headlines, congressional hearings, and court-martials. And if that wasn’t bad enough, as you pointed out, the al-Qaeda and Taliban holed up all over the mountains weren’t all that hospitable to outsiders.”

  “Especially ones wearing the uniform of the U.S. military.” Madeline took another big bite of cheesecake.

  “Especially. Sax said it was a classic military catch-22—that by trying to save the life of the pilot who’d saved theirs with what he said was a near-miraculous landing, they could end up getting him, along with the rest of the survivors, all beheaded on Arabic television.�
��

  “But they went for it.” Of course they did.

  “They didn’t hesitate. Lucas triaged the guys who’d be okay to stay behind; then they got the few Rangers who remained behind to pull the wounded up the mountain on SKEDs—that’s like a stretcher on skis. Lucas managed to keep the pilot alive the entire time, despite what Sax said involved many more firefights even worse than the first—though, blessedly, he didn’t describe it in detail.”

  “Dammit.” Madeline pressed her fingers against her temples. “Of course Lucas kept him alive. Because that’s what he does. He takes care of people.”

  “Like he was trying to take care of you that summer,” Kara guessed what had just dawned on Madeline. “I realize how you might think he was trying to control your behavior, and yes, he was. But he really was trying to do what he thought was best for you. In his stupid guy way.”

  “I hate this,” Madeline muttered. “I hate that he’s spent the past ten years in war zones. And I also hate that now I’m going to have to apologize for hitting him.”

  Kara’s brows rose. “You hit him?”

  “Well, I didn’t slug him. But I did slap him.” She held up a hand, forestalling any comment. “And I know it’s a cliché.” She sighed. “But I was so damn mad that he thought he had any right to take away my choices back then. Then Scout got horribly scared because I guess the slap sounded like gunfire—”

  “And she hit the floor.”

  “Actually, she hit the floor, then crawled beneath the table.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kara laughed. “For someone who probably came back to town for some much-needed R and R, you’ve certainly landed yourself in a lot of activity.”

  “Tell me about it.” Madeline pressed the tines of her fork on the now nearly empty plate, picking up the last of the Oreo crumb crust.

  30

  After all Kara had shared, Madeline wasn’t prepared to meet with Lucas this afternoon. Not until she had time to think about what he’d been through. Process the changes in the boy she’d known back then and the man he’d become. She called the cell number he’d given her, only to be put into voice mail. Which suited her fine, since, if she were to be perfectly honest with herself, she’d have to admit that he was a difficult man to say no to.

  After leaving a message to put off the meeting until tomorrow, she called her grandmother so Sofia wouldn’t worry, and told her that she was going to take a little drive along the coast road to clear her head.

  “Your husband called looking for you,” Sofia said, her voice dripping with vinegar. “I told him I had no idea where you were. Which just happened to be the truth, since I didn’t know if you were still at the Sea Mist. Or perhaps with someone else.”

  Someone meaning Lucas.

  “The meal part of lunch was cut short,” Madeline said. “Charity had surgery. But Kara and I stayed and talked. Caught up on what’s been happening since we last saw each other.”

  Which wasn’t precisely what the conversation had revolved around. But close enough.

  “How nice for you. Kara’s such a lovely young woman. And she seems to have settled into her father’s sheriff’s role as if it were created for her. She’s also a wonderful mother. And, of course, you nearly have to wear sunglasses whenever you’re around her and Sax Douchett. There’s just the brightest aura around them.”

  “Aura? Since when did you get into that woo-woo stuff?”

  “Oh, I’ve always been aware of spirits. Some of the places in the jungles Joe and I visited searching out our herbs are just alive with their presence. But I’ve definitely been more aware since Joe’s death, because he still shows up to be with me.”

  “Really?” Madeline didn’t exactly disbelieve in ghosts and spirits and things that went bump in the night, but neither had she experienced them. Her parents certainly hadn’t shown up to help her through her grief over missing them.

  “I never would have gone ahead with the restaurant idea without his encouragement,” Sofia confessed. “It was just like old days again, walking through the garden, turning over the soil for spring planting, chatting with him about plans and dreams.”

  “That’s nice.” Even if her grandfather hadn’t actually somehow managed to come back from beyond wherever death was, Madeline was glad her grandmother had found a source of comfort.

  “I realize a great many people might just write it off to hopeful thinking or an overly active imagination, but he’s as real as you or Winnie. Who, by the way, also seems to see him, because she wags her stubby little tail whenever he visits.”

  Okay. That got to her. Madeline felt her eyes beginning to moisten.

  “I’m really happy for you, Gram,” she said. “Oh, not that Grandpa died. But that he’s still with you.”

  “To tell you the truth, darling,” Sofia confided, “I wasn’t the least bit surprised, since we always had a wonderfully strong bond. Which is what I’ve always hoped for you.”

  “Which you didn’t believe I’d found with Maxime. Which is why you asked me twice before the wedding if I was sure marrying him was what I wanted.”

  There was a pause. Long enough that for a moment Madeline thought her phone might have dropped the call.

  “I understood the man’s appeal,” Sofia finally said carefully, obviously wanting to choose her words wisely. “He was older, powerful, forceful. I’m sure he could be a very strong mentor.”

  Another pause. “But, no, I didn’t envision him as husband material. At least not for you. But”—Madeline heard the shrug in her grandmother’s voice—“you were a grown woman, capable of making your own choices. And your own mistakes.”

  “Well, that one turned out to be a whopper.”

  “We all make mistakes, darling. Which is how we learn.”

  “You didn’t make a mistake with Grandpa.”

  Sofia laughed softly. “Perhaps because I didn’t have any time to think about all the pros and cons. The day I met Joe, he told me he was going to marry me. Oh, I was so sure I was going to spend the rest of my life being a culinary Margaret Mead. I had no need for a man. At least not on a permanent basis. Besides, I thought that was an obnoxiously brash way to treat a woman. Staking a claim on me, as if I were some Hereford he could brand.”

  Madeline laughed at that image. “I’d like to see anyone try.”

  Her grandmother had always been the most independent woman she’d ever met. Then again, she reconsidered, her grandfather had also been a force of nature, as that story she’d never heard demonstrated. Yet together somehow they’d worked out a balance that, at least from the outside, had always seemed perfect.

  “So, obviously you said yes.”

  “I didn’t have any choice.” Sofia sighed. But it was a happy sigh obviously replete with memories. “He just wouldn’t give up, and swept me off my feet. We were married less than a month after we met. Then I got pregnant on our honeymoon, and your mother was born early, eight months after our wedding, in a palm-wood house with a thatched roof in an Asurini do Tocantins village in the Brazilian jungle.

  “Your poor grandfather was going crazy because he was forced to stay outside the house while I was giving birth, with the help of the other women and a midwife, because it was taboo for any male to come into any contact with the blood of a female giving birth. After your mother was born, the midwife painted her with genipap so she’d grow faster. And your grandfather was instructed to sing to her every day, for the same reason.”

  “That’s a wonderful story.” And one Madeline had heard from her mother, but once again it brought home how much those two adventurous individuals had given up when they’d settled down to raise their orphaned granddaughter. “I love you, Gram.”

  “I love you, too, darling. Now, don’t worry about getting home in time for supper. There’s always something we can warm up. You just enjoy your drive.”

  Which she did. She drove along the winding coast road, stopping for a bag of taffy in the same store where Lucas
had bought her that special one on a day she’d never forget. She ate it sitting on the same seawall where he’d kissed her and watched the kayakers and beachcombers down below. Wildflowers covered the hills and cliffs, brightly colored kites flew high above the water, and sea lions lounged on the rocks with their newborn pups, making a racket.

  It had been a good day, and as she walked on the long expanse of beach, the sand glistening with sea foam and crushed shells, she could feel the knots in her shoulders, which had locked up in that Omaha department store, begin to loosen.

  She was just congratulating herself on turning a corner when her cell rang again.

  Recognizing the number on the caller ID screen, she was tempted to throw the phone into the waves. But instead, knowing that there were details to attend to that weren’t going to go away on their own, even as she damned the timing, she answered.

  “Hello, Maxime.”

  “Hello, Mad-eh-Leen,” he said in the heavy accent that had once had the power to melt her bones.

  She so didn’t need this. “Cut the French crap Maxime, and just tell me what you want. And if it’s money, you’re flat out of luck. Because all of mine seems to be tied up in your overpriced restaurants, where you never met a cow that wasn’t corn-fed in a feedlot. Actually, I’ll bet you’ve never met a cow up close and personal in your life. Because you have people to do that for you.”

  “I did not call to get into an argument about classic versus sustainable cooking,” he said.

  “Trust me, both can be done. So, why are you calling?”

  “I need a divorce.”

  “Well, imagine that. We have something in common.”

  “I mean soon.”

  She could hear the stress in his tone. Interesting.

  “Soon as in…?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Sorry. Yesterday’s already in my rearview mirror. Try again.”

  “If you would sign the papers, you could be a free woman within a week’s time.”

  “And where would I have to go to pull off this quickie-divorce feat?”