Reunited with Her Army Doc

by Dianne Drake

  “But you’re not me,” she said, stopping about a hundred yards up the path and then turning to face him. “You had a goal. I don’t. For you, it’s been about your son. For me, it’s been about—me. Big difference, there, Caleb. You have someone in your life who counts. I have...” Her voice trailed off because there was nothing to say. She had no one.

  “You have your dad, even though that relationship is a little rocky. And you have a hospital. There are also people in town who’d love to see you come home and stay.”

  “Which isn’t enough. Nothing’s ever been enough, Caleb. My job. Eric. Living in Marrell. What difference does any of it really make?”

  He started to walk up the path toward her, but stopped halfway. “That would be a question you have to answer. In my life I found my answer, which is why I can live here again. And even be happy. It’s all about having someone to live for.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But maybe some people aren’t meant to be happy, no matter what’s going on in their lives.” She hadn’t used to be so cynical, so pessimistic, but something was chewing at her, dragging her down. And Caleb seemed to be a reminder of everything she didn’t understand. It was frustrating. “I don’t have any place to look for answers the way you do.”

  “You look inside yourself, Leanne. I didn’t when I was a kid, when you were being brutal to me. I wasn’t mature enough. But after I became an adult, when everything in my life changed, I had to find my way back or find something new. And there was nobody out there pointing me in the right direction. I had to find it, and acknowledge it on my own.”

  “Was I that brutal, Caleb?” A part of her wanted to know, yet a part of her didn’t. And she was feeling so discouraged, so emotionally tired, all she wanted to do was drop to her knees in the middle of the path and cry. But that would leave Caleb to pick her up, and she didn’t want that because she truly didn’t want to hurt him again, or involve him in her life in a way that risked disappointment and failure. And that’s all she felt right now...disappointment and failure.

  “Not all the time. Especially when we were younger. But as we got older...yes, it was brutal. I was an easy target for you and you took advantage of that.”

  She sighed heavily. Shook her head, brushed back the tears that were welling in her eyes. “Why would that cause childhood amnesia when you were the one being traumatized?”

  He started walking toward her again, and when he caught up he simply stood in front of her. No effort to get close. No effort to touch. “I’d like to think you blocked it out because you didn’t like being that way. But that’s just me, and a whole lot of wishful thinking. Maybe it was about you being unhappy with just about everything in your life, and I was the convenient scapegoat. The people closest to us are often the easiest to pick on, and we were close for a lot of years.”

  No. That wasn’t it. She knew that wasn’t it. “I’m considering counseling. Actually, I’ve decided to do it when I go home. No more speculations, Caleb. I have to know. But on my own. Not from anybody else.” She stretched up and kissed him lightly on the lips. A lingering kiss, with just the tiniest flicker of passion. Snaked her hand around his neck to hold him there even when the kiss ended, and looked straight into his eyes. “Whatever happens, you’re being a lot nicer to me than I probably deserve.” And maybe they could start again, with a real beginning. She hoped so. Because she cared for him so deeply, and in Caleb she saw a flicker of hope, maybe the first one in her life.

  But the reality was, maybe this couldn’t be fixed. She didn’t know because...she still didn’t know. And that’s what bothered her the most. Something was badly broken, something that needed to be fixed, and she didn’t know what it was.

  As she began to lower her hand, he caught her hand and held it against his cheek. “We all have things we don’t like about ourselves.”

  “But what I don’t like about myself is what I did to you. And you won’t tell me what it was, will you?”

  “Not the specifics,” he said, kissing the palm of her hand. “I spent a lot of time trying to get past it. Broke windows on half a city block because of it. Set fires. Went to jail. Joined the army. There’s nothing about any of that I want to relive.”

  “Yet you’ve forgiven me.” Finally, she pulled her hand away, yet when she dropped it to her side he took hold of it.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  She blinked her surprise. Jerked completely away from him. “But I thought...”

  “You thought I was over it. But what you did...it changed my life. For a long time, and not for the better. I’ve moved beyond that, found something that gives my life real significance. But you hurt a fundamental part of me, Leanne, and it turned me into a different person for a long time. I like who you are now. More than I ever thought I would. In fact, there’s a possibility that I’m falling in love with you again...and don’t ask me to explain that because I can’t. But the bottom line is I’m not over who you were back then.”

  Now her head was spinning. She didn’t know what to do. What to say. “I’m...um... I’m going back to Seattle first thing tomorrow. I think it’s for the best.” The pain of rejection...it was stabbing her now. Not the way it had when her dad had rejected her. Or Eric. It was a different pain. One that robbed her of the tiniest vestige of the hope she was desperately clinging to. One that left her numb. Was this how Caleb had felt all along? Was this what she’d done to him? Dear God, she hoped not, because what she was feeling right now was the very definition of falling into the pit of despair. It was deep, and she didn’t know if she could, or even wanted, to climb out. Not if Caleb couldn’t forgive her.

  * * *

  Three weeks. Three long weeks, and this was the first time he’d had to kick back and relax. Alone. Leanne was gone. Back to Seattle, maybe back to her old job—he didn’t know since his few attempts to get in touch with her had failed. No responses to texts, phone calls, emails... After about a week of that he’d stopped trying. The next move, if there was to be one, had to be hers.

  And Matthew. He’d settled into Schilling’s school a week ago. Caleb stopped by every day to see him, but it wasn’t the same as having his son home, and he was filled with all kinds of doubt and guilt, letting his five-year-old son live at a boarding school. But Matthew was happy so far. He loved practicing on a concert grand, loved that his schedule was centered around his music, loved the horses in the stable, loved taking pictures of everything and posting them to the internet. He was fitting in, too, despite the age difference between him and most of the other kids, because this was a place where kids like Matthew had control of their world. There were no bullies. There were no threats. Best of all, Caleb didn’t have to worry continuously about how his square-peg son would fit into the round-hole world, because at Schilling’s he fit in beautifully.

  But he missed Matthew. The nights seemed so empty and long. And lonely. It amazed him how one little boy took up so much space in his life. On nights like these, though, when he missed him to the point of aching, he did find some comfort in knowing that Matthew was happy. In his life, that’s what mattered most.

  But Leanne mattered, too, and he missed her. Didn’t want to, didn’t mean to. But he did. So, sinking down into his leather sofa, with a bottle of beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other, he considered calling her again. Just to hear her voice on the voice mail. He’d done that a couple times. Made the call knowing she wouldn’t pick up or call back. Hoping these stupid feelings would go away. But they didn’t. In fact, as the days dragged on, they only intensified.

  Caleb sighed, kicked off his boots and shut his eyes, hoping he could rid himself of her image just this one night. What he wanted was to drink his beer, clear his mind and breathe. What he got, though, was a phone call from Hans Schilling.

  Matthew was missing.

  * * *

  It was six hours into the search and practically everybody in M
arrell was out looking for Matthew. And while Caleb was trying to present a cool, collected and optimistic front, he was falling to pieces inside. He’d been on foot for all of those six hours, stumbling around in the dark, like so many people were, knowing that he could practically step right over his son and not see him. No moon, no stars tonight. It was dreary, overcast, threatening rain. So far, it was holding off, but for how long?

  “Drink the coffee, rest for an hour, then go back,” Henry instructed him, as Caleb dragged himself back into the hospital cafeteria a little after midnight. This was where they’d set up the search and rescue headquarters, where people were gathered, waiting for news, trying to be helpful. Where his mom and dad and grandmother were huddled off in a corner, clinging to each other, trying to put on a brave front—a front he himself could not put on because there was nothing brave about him tonight. He was scared to death. Worse than he’d been when he’d been arrested that night. Worse than he’d been when he’d almost died on the battlefield.

  “Can’t rest. Got to get back out there,” Caleb said, giving a weary sigh. “I’ll take a coffee to go, but...” The urge to scream was closing in around him. Scream, cry...it all had to wait. He had to go find Matthew because even these few minutes away were killing him.

  “But what, Caleb?” Henry asked him. “Seriously, it’s going on to 1:00 a.m. People are coming back in now. They need to rest before they go back out tomorrow.” He laid a comforting hand on Caleb’s shoulder, but Caleb shook it off. “You need to rest, too.”

  “I can’t, Henry. I have to...” He stopped, shook his head, steadied himself with a deep breath before his emotions got the best of him. “I have to be out there, doing something. I can’t just sit around here, waiting.” Feeling helpless and hopeless.

  “Everybody in town is doing what they can,” Henry reassured him.

  “I know, and I appreciate that. But I’m his dad. I have to do more.” He glanced across the room at Hans Schilling, who was beside himself with worry. Under different circumstances, he might have tried to comfort the man, told him it wasn’t his fault that Matthew had disappeared from under his care. But he wasn’t feeling that sympathetic or generous yet. Wasn’t feeling anything except numb. “Look, I’ll take that coffee with me, but I’m not going to hang around. I’m heading back to my cabin to see if he’s shown up there, then I’m going to walk the road from there over to Schilling’s school again. Matthew knows that route, so he could he heading one way or the other.”

  “I hope he is, son.” Henry glanced over at Dora, who was pouring the coffee for Caleb, then glanced back at Caleb. “If he hasn’t shown up by morning, Dora and I are going to take the boat out on the river...not that we think he might be down there but that will give us a different vantage point, and maybe we’ll see something on the shoreline.”

  Caleb didn’t even want to think in terms of Matthew being anywhere near the water, but he knew that, at some point, they’d have to look at that as a real possibility. He wasn’t ready, though. Not yet. “I appreciate that,” he said, taking the coffee from Dora, then heading out of the cafeteria to the hospital’s front door, where the always stolid Helen McBriarty wiped tears from her eyes and gave him a hug. No words spoken, just a hug. And he appreciated that. Appreciated all the hugs he’d received in the past hours, and all the good wishes, and all the promises to help. For the first time in his life, Marrell felt like it was home to him. A real home. For him, and Matthew...

  “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” Leanne said. She ran straight to Caleb and threw her arms around him as soon as he approached his truck. “I chartered a plane and flew in as soon as I could after I got your message. Caleb, I...” She hugged him tighter. “What can I do?” she whispered.

  He hugged her back, harder than he’d ever hugged anybody in his life. Glad for the feel of her, the comfort of her. “Thanks,” he choked, on the verge of breaking down. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “How could I not? I love that little boy, Caleb. And I love you, which is complicated, and confusing, and this isn’t the time to talk about it. But this is where I have to be.” She brushed tears from her eyes. “With you.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said, relaxing into her. Just having her there made things better. Made him feel...hopeful.

  “I’ve missed you, too, and I’m sorry this is what brought me back. Sorry I haven’t kept in touch, but...” She sniffled. “So, what happened? How did he disappear?”

  “Nobody’s sure. He was around all day, went to all his classes, hung out with some of his friends. But then he didn’t show up for dinner. Several of the instructors went looking...he just wasn’t there.”

  “Which was how long ago?”

  “Almost seven hours. They called me as soon as they knew he was missing, and I’ve been out hunting ever since.”

  “Did he take his jacket?”

  “No. It was still in his room when I looked. And he’s so small...hypothermia. Wild animals, cliffs, the river, God only knows what else...”

  Leanne took him by the hand and led him to the passenger’s side of the truck, opened the door for him, then laid her hand on his chest. “Stay positive, Caleb. There are a lot of places in the woods to hunker down for the night, and when Matthew gets too cold, I’m sure he’ll figure that out. Or has already figured it out. And the animals...we both know that unless he bothers them, they’ll probably shy away from him. No one that I can recall has ever been attacked by a wolf or anything else around here. So...” She gestured to the seat. “Get in. I’ll drive.”

  “To where?”

  “Wherever you want to go. No arguments. Let me help you do this.”

  “No arguments,” he said, climbing in.

  She did likewise on the driver’s side, but before they took off she turned to him, brushed her hand across his cheek and said, “When this is over, when Matthew is back home, safe and sound...we need to talk.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “So, where are we headed?”

  “Back to my cabin first. Then I want to walk the road to the school.”

  “Did he take his camera, Caleb?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I should have looked, but I didn’t think about it.” He’d been too frantic. In too much of a hurry.

  “Then let’s stop at the school first. Because if he took his camera...he texted me yesterday about some places he wanted to get pictures of. I told him we would, as soon as I got back to Marrell.”

  “You texted him?” Caleb asked, quite surprised. Also, quite surprised she’d told Matthew she was coming back.

  “Of course I did. Pretty much every day. Looked at some of the photos he was sending me, too. Which is why I think we need to find out if he took his camera. Because if he did, he had a specific destination in mind.”

  Caleb blew out an anxious breath. “Which means you might know where he is.”

  “Which means I might know one of the ten places he wanted to go.”

  Too much to hope for. Too much to hang on to. But it’s all he had. That, and Leanne. And he wasn’t sure about any of it right now.

  * * *

  “It’s not here,” Caleb said, crawling out from under Matthew’s bed, empty-handed.

  “I called Hans Schilling and he told me one of the little girls said Matthew likes to go out in the evenings, just before dinner, and take pictures. She said he likes the sky.”

  Caleb stood, took one more look around Matthew’s room and stepped over to the desk. “Do you think he might have downloaded something onto his computer that would give us a clue?”

  “Give me a second,” Leanne said, sitting down at the desk and flipping open Matthew’s laptop. “He’s using the photo editing program I bought him, so...” She clicked a couple of commands and popped right into the site where Matthew’s photos were stored, and there were hundreds of them. “Looks lik
e he’s been busy.” She clicked into the folder that seemed to hold his latest photos, and started to scan through them, until she came to one that caught her attention so much she enlarged it. “It’s an eagle,” she said. “Light angle shows it’s near dusk. He’s got all these photos, but...” Leanne went quiet and scrolled quickly to a very long slide show of nothing but eagle shots. “Six days, Caleb. He’s been shooting this eagle for six days straight.”

  “From the same place?” he asked anxiously.

  “No. It’s mostly a sky shot, but I can see some treetops in the background, and it looks to me like he’s tracking it from a different place each time.” She looked up. “Getting closer, each time, to the trees. I think he’s trying to follow it back to its nest.” She took one more look, then turned off the laptop. “It may be the same bird, Caleb. I think he’s onto her nocturnal pattern, and that’s why he goes outside with his camera every evening before dinner. He wants to get closer to her. Wants to get her in her nest. Like we talked to him about that day, going up to—”

  “Eagle Pointe?” Caleb gasped. “But that was the first place we searched.”

  “And the next,” she said. Leanne stood up, walked over to the window and looked outside. “But going back up there now...” She closed her eyes to visualize Eagle Pointe. He had to be there. It was the place he’d associate with the nest. The nest, the vantage point... The vantage point. She sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you remember Devil’s Cave?” she asked. Named as such because it was said that only the devil himself could get down to it. The devil, or someone such as herself, with the climbing skills it took.

  Caleb cringed. “Yes,” he said, his voice on edge. “You used to take a rope, and it was a sharp, steep drop over the edge. What was it, about twelve or fifteen feet down?”