by Lori Wilde
No clue. He had no clue what to do.
Better damn well get a clue. And fast. Kimmie was here and her mother was not and he wasn’t about to turn his niece over to Child Protective Services. He knew firsthand what happened when they took you away from your mother. He couldn’t allow that to happen to his niece.
“Kimmie, you better hurry and eat your green beans,” Jane teased. “Ben is going to beat you.”
“What?” Kimmie straightened, swiped the tears away.
“He’s almost done with his green beans. I bet you can beat him if you hurry and you’ll get your candy first,” Jane coaxed, gently shifting Kimmie’s attention off her missing mother.
“No way, Jose!” Ben exclaimed and gobbled his beans.
“I gonna beat you,” Kimmie cried in a singsong voice, and stuffed green beans into her mouth.
Jane looked at Hutch. “Maybe it’s not the optimal way to get kids to eat their veggies, but . . .”
He got it and thought she was doing an amazing job.
“I win!” Kimmie mumbled past a cheek full of food, bits of green bean sticking to her lips, and raised her arms over her head.
“Nuh-unh.” Ben protested.
“It was a tie,” Jane said diplomatically. “The candy is in the pocket of my uniform on the bed—”
Before she could finish, the kids were out of their chairs and tearing up the stairs. Jane dropped a small smile and turned in her seat to watch them.
“Ben and I are really going to miss Kimmie,” she said.
Hutch tried not to hear her wistful note, but while he might be Delta Force–trained, he wasn’t made of stone. She cared about Kimmie and he needed help. Hard as it was for him to ask, it was time to choke down the pride. He levered himself up from the table, and left the kitchen.
“Hey, I know I’m no gourmet cook, but my mac and cheese isn’t really that bad, is it?” Jane called after him, her tease barely hiding the anxiety slathered underneath.
Hutch went to the foyer, closed his hand over the Magic Slate. Did he really want to get tangled up with a woman he knew nothing about?
But Kimmie liked her and, really, how many options did he have?
He caught a glimpse of himself in the oval wall mirror mounted above the foyer table. The mirror, decorated with fake plastic mistletoe, reflected unkempt black eyebrows standing out starkly on his forehead, bleary bloodshot eyes, a bristle of beard dusting his jaw, angry scars puckering the skin of his throat.
Yeah. Not a prize. Slice it any way you like. He was not on anyone’s list of most desirable roommates.
He wouldn’t blame her if she refused his proposition. Most likely she would refuse it. Any sensible woman would. She would never understand how much it cost him to do this, to grovel. This was for Kimmie.
If there was any other way, he’d take it, but his bag of tricks was empty. She was all he had.
Surprised to see that his hand was trembling slightly, Hutch picked up the stylus, wrote I NEED YOU on the Magic Slate, and took it back to her.
I NEED YOU.
Meredith stared at the words scribbled on the pad, and for one startled second thought he meant sexually. Worse, her body instantly lit up. Nerve endings tingling, stomach tightening. She got warm down there.
Oh no. She looked up at him, blinked, and as soon as she met his harried eyes, she realized he was talking about Kimmie. He needed her help with his niece.
I NEED YOU.
Looking at those words unnerved her. She lifted the filmy top sheet of the slate, making the writing disappear, and handed it back to him. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears.
His hands were clenched, his jaw tight; a muscle at his eye twitched. Asking for help didn’t come naturally to this man. He was used to being in control, in charge, and he hated being in this inferior position.
It had taken a lot for him to write those three little words.
He didn’t return to his seat at the head of the table, but instead remained standing, forcing her to crane her neck up at him. The children came charging back into the room, unwrapping their mini chocolate bars and talking so fast she could barely make out that they were discussing Santa, oblivious to the tug-of-war tension pulling between her and Hutch.
Meredith got to her feet. “Let me get the kids ready for bed. Then we can talk. You take it easy. Watch TV or something.”
Honestly, it was a little soon to put the children to bed, but she needed to get away from him in order to process his proposal and how she felt about it.
It took her over an hour to get the kids bathed and settled down for their nightly bedtime story. Kimmie insisted on The Magic Christmas Cookie, but Ben begged for The Polar Express. Meredith compromised and read both.
Yes, it was an avoidance technique, she knew it, but for that lovely space of time, it felt good to snuggle in bed, a child tucked on either side of her as she read. Kimmie fingering her blankie, Ben sucking his thumb.
Ever since Ashley had taken off, Meredith had allowed both children to sleep in her bed. It was probably not a great habit to get started, but how could she leave little Kimmie alone in her room on the first floor? And how could she let Kimmie share the queen-sized bed with her and not Ben?
Just before eight o’clock, both children fell asleep and Meredith tiptoed downstairs. She wished she was wearing something more flattering than ragged jeans and a worn-out sweater, but what else would she have put on? It wasn’t like she had a fashionista wardrobe. And why would she change for him anyway?
The living room was empty. The TV turned off.
Where was Hutch?
She went into the kitchen to find the dishes washed and stowed away. The mp3 boom box player on the window ledge was turned on so low she could barely hear it. She normally kept it on soothing mood music but the station had been changed. She cocked her head, recognized the mournful melody, “Hero of War” by Rise Against. The heart-stopping song of an irreparably damaged soldier raised the hairs on the nape of her neck.
Was the song on his preprogrammed playlist? Or was it a random play of eerie coincidence? Either way, the lyrics made it clear Hutch was not all right. How could he be okay with all he’d gone through, everything he’d seen? How could any soldier who’d been in the thick of battle?
But instead of being afraid as she thought she should have been, deep sadness and empathy moved through her and she had the craziest impulse to find him, gather him in her arms, and promise him everything was going to be all right.
Irrational impulse. Empty promise. She had no power to make it true for herself, much less for him.
Meredith blew her breath out through her mouth, and the sound whispered around the room. She switched off the music and moved to the sliding glass door that opened out onto the deck, drew back the drapes, and pressed her face again the glass cooled by the damp December air.
Mist rose up from river, twining smoky over the deck as in a film noir. The glass fogged. She drew a peace sign. Breathe.
From out of the pea-soup darkness, he stepped, looking like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, the vapor swirling and shifting, then closing ranks behind him again as he moved through the ephemeral veil.
She jumped back, startled by his otherworldly appearance.
He opened the door and strolled right in, the cold rolling in with him. Water droplets clung to his skin. The tops of his ears and tip of his nose reddened. He was coatless, his T-shirt sticking to his chest. He closed the door behind him without turning around, drapes swaying as he tugged them shut as well.
His forearms were meaty, his wrists firefighter thick. He offered her a small smile, a simple pearl that shone brightly for a second but faded quickly. He possessed pretty teeth, straight and white.
She waited for him to say something, forgetting for a moment that he could not speak. “The kids are asleep.”
An imperceptible nod.
“Where should we do this?” she asked against the same kind of inexplicable dread she felt w
henever she had a dental appointment.
He held out his hands to his side, waiting for her to choose. The Magic Slate was still on the table where she’d left it, the ghost of his words still faintly visible. I need you.
The kitchen seemed too casual for this conversation. She went into the living room. He followed.
She selected the sofa and immediately worried he was going to sit next to her, but he settled into the recliner near the window several feet away.
They glanced furtively at each other. He shifted his feet against the rug. She folded her hands together in her lap, pretended she wasn’t nervous. He took a comb from his back pocket, ran it through his damp air, slicking it off his forehead.
She moistened her lips.
He picked up the tablet, wrote for a long moment, and then leaned forward to pass it across the coffee table to her.
She caught the smell of him, rich and manly mixed with the scent of outdoors. She peered down at the tablet. To get his words on the small page, he’d crammed the letters up small and she had trouble reading his handwriting. She squinted. He turned on the lamp beside the recliner.
Ah, illumination. She read the first line.
I NEED HELP.
Great first step, right? Admitting that you need help. She eyed him through the fringe of her lashes. He was staring at her. She dropped her gaze, kept reading.
I HAVEN’T SEEN KIMMIE IN A YEAR. SHE HARDLY KNOWS ME. BONDED WITH YOU AND YOUR SON. COULD YOU STAY HERE UNTIL ASHLEY COMES HOME? I’LL PAY YOU & FREE ROOM AND BOARD.
While she gathered her thoughts, she kept her head down so he couldn’t see what she was thinking. Honestly, she had nowhere to go and no money to float a move even if she did.
But the notion of staying in this house with him was a bit terrifying. Not because she was wary of him, but precisely because she wasn’t. She should be wary of him. She’d learned to distrust all men. You never really knew what they were capable of. One look at Hutch—all silent and burly and battle-scarred—and any ordinary woman would be at least a little wary of being alone with him. After all she’d been through, why wasn’t she wary of him?
Maybe it was because he’d looked so brokenhearted when Kimmie had screamed at her first sight of him. Maybe it was because her son had so readily accepted him. Maybe it was because he’d washed the dishes while she put the kids to bed.
Maybe it was because she had finally healed enough to take a few tentative steps toward trusting again.
Or maybe it was the two words that had flashed through her head when she’d caught him standing in her bedroom after his shower—hair damp, T-shirt stretched across those broad, powerful shoulders, relaxed stance. Those two words, startling in their impact, lit up her brain.
True North.
Beyond the effects of pepper spray, she could see the underlying symmetry in his face, an appealing balance of eyes, nose, lips, and chin. He was a handsome man, but the feelings churning inside her were about much more than good looks.
Strength of character emanated from him. There was a genuineness about him that said, I am credible. You can believe in me. An honesty that was almost palpable.
When she was a little girl, she loved hearing the story of how her mother met Meredith’s father. How her mother had known he was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
Her mother would pull Meredith into her lap, and run her fingers through Meredith’s hair in a soothing gesture, a beatific smile on her face. “We met when he came to the Albuquerque balloon festival. I was piloting my first balloon. It was a simple balloon because it was all I could afford. I’ve shown you pictures of Old Blue. Your father, however, was flying the motorcycle-shaped balloon and it made me think he was a cocky hotshot. Which he was.” Her mother would always laugh at that.
“What happened next?” Meredith would clasp her hands underneath her chin and lean against her mother’s chest.
“We got caught in the box on the same current,” she said, referring to the wind phenomenon that made Albuquerque so excellent for ballooning. If conditions were right, balloonist could take off at a low altitude and the wind current would take them south, then as they gained altitude, they caught the northerly current that would take them back in the direction they’d come. In this situation, a balloonist could go up and down, back and forth for two hours. “As luck would have it, our balloons stayed together the entire time. We stared at each other, flirting with our eyes. When we landed, your father came up to me and said, ‘You’re my True North.’ While I was thinking the exact same thing about him.”
Meredith would sigh happily, safe and secure in the romantic story of her parents’ love.
“True North,” her mother would say as she wound up the story. “Never settle for less than your True North.”
In spite of the great story, she hadn’t really understood what that meant and she’d been led astray by what she thought was her True North.
But this feeling was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She had been so thrown by it, she’d snapped at him for being in her room.
And that True North sensation was back again, urging her to trust him.
Don’t, don’t, don’t, chanted the part of her that knew just how disastrous trusting the wrong man could be.
But this wasn’t just about her. She had Ben to consider. In just a handful of weeks, Ben had come to love Kimmie like a sister.
It was all the more reason to get out of here. The longer she stayed, the more attached her son would become to the little girl. Meredith closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. Daily yoga practice for the last five years had taught her to quiet her thoughts and listen to her body. She exhaled slowly. Took another deep breath and then another.
There was no tension in her body. Her muscles were relaxed, her lungs full, her heart warm, and her stomach settled.
The same sense of panic that had overtaken her that afternoon, when she first spied his truck in the driveway, crawled across the back of her brain like a black widow spider. Was it gut instinct or intellectual reasoning driving the fear? Would saying yes to his proposal bring her closer to the emotional healing she so desperately wanted? Or could it place both her and her son in a dangerous situation?
She raised her head, opened her eyes.
He hadn’t moved.
She lifted the top sheet of the Magic Slate, erasing his plea, set the tablet on the coffee table, and cleared her throat.
Hutch leaned forward in the chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, the index finger of his right hand rubbing the seam of the healing scar where his left index finger used to be.
“Phantom pain?” She nodded at his finger.
Chagrin passed over his face, but quickly disappeared like the words from the Magic Slate, but the emotions were still buried below, the same as the words trapped in the wax blackboard beneath the filmy gray top sheet. Unseen, but etched deep. Embarrassment. Shame. Resignation. Defeat.
I need help.
I need you.
Once upon a time, she’d been so trusting, so eager to help. Generous to a fault, her friends described her. “Meredith will not only give you the shirt off her back, but her pants and shoes too.” But when you gave someone else your clothes, that left you naked and exposed.
“Boundaries,” said Dr. Lily Gardner, the counselor Meredith had first started seeing three days after her honeymoon, when she realized she’d made a horrible mistake. “You keep giving away pieces of yourself and there will be nothing left of you. You need to learn to set healthy boundaries in order to have healthy relationships.”
At the time, Meredith hadn’t really understood what that meant. How could she set boundaries and still be intimate with someone?
It was only later that she came to fully understand that she could not truly be intimate with someone until she had established boundaries. Set up the ground rules. Made it clear what lines she would not cross. Hold strong to which behaviors she would and would not accept from loved ones. Lovin
g unconditionally did not mean surrendering herself to someone else’s will.
Unfortunately, those lessons had come far too late.
Hutch wiped a palm over his mouth. A slight sheen of sweat pearled on his forehead. His eyes were steady, but the pulse at the hollow of his scarred neck jumped rhythmically. He was nervous. Afraid she’d say no.
She cleared her throat.
He straightened, his spine military-stiff.
“I have conditions,” she said.
He sank back against the seat, let out a long-held breath, his lips lifting in a relieved twitch.
“This isn’t a yes.” She injected steel into her voice and pointed a strict finger at him. “Not until you agree to my conditions. I have ground rules.”
His right eyebrow shot up, and he cocked his head, giving his face an oh-yeah-Little-Red-Riding-Hood mien in the spill of lamplight.
“One.” She pulled her left index finger back with her right. “You’ll need to move downstairs to the first floor. Kimmie’s bedroom is down here and she doesn’t need to be on the first floor alone. Plus, Ashley and I already have an agreement. The top floor is mine, and other than the kitchen and living room, which we deemed as communal areas, the bottom floor and garage are hers. Although to ease your mind, in case you were wondering if I’ve been snooping, I have not been in your room. I respect other people’s privacy. I expect nothing less from you.”
He gave an accepting nod.
“Two.” She ticked off her second finger. “No swearing. As a soldier your life has been rough and hard and I’m sure it’s natural for an alpha he-man to use every cussword in the book, but do all that away from me and the children.”
He touched his mouth, held up his hands, shrugged, smiled.
Her face heated. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting you can’t talk, but cursing is part and parcel of angry impulses. Even if you can’t swear, you’ll still be mad over whatever it was that made you want to curse. So if you’re having anger control issues, please see a counselor. And while it’s human to get angry, it’s not acceptable to act aggressively because of it.”