A Forever Family

by Jamie Sobrato

  “Oh right, your family property. I remember visiting your brother at that place when we were kids.”

  “We’re living in the guest cottage behind the main house, so if you’re coming to the beach, feel free to knock on our door and see if we’re around.”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling. “I’ll do that.”

  Emmy tried not to grin too widely. She wasn’t used to flirting with men anymore. She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the sky.

  “I think I’m going to cool off in the water,” Devan said and stood.

  The sun warmed Emmy’s skin to the point of stinging, a sensation she’d always loved in spite of being afraid of sunburn. She didn’t want to get in the water yet—she’d wait until she was drenched in sweat and couldn’t take the heat any longer. She lay back on the towel, still aware of the humming in her body.

  Nearby, Max was splashing in the water, and she could hear Devan joking around with him.

  She needed a man. Well, no. That sounded awful. She didn’t need a man. She needed physical intimacy. And perhaps a little emotional intimacy. Maybe some grown-up conversation, or even some clever pillow talk would be fine with her.

  Okay, she needed to get laid, pure and simple.

  Casting a lingering glance at Devan as he stood with his back to her, waist-deep in the water, she tried to picture herself getting it on with him. He was young and gorgeous and was probably blessed with incredible stamina.

  The image didn’t create any wild frenzy of desire in her, but there were definitely stirrings of…something. The lack of frenzied feelings was probably because she needed to get to know a guy before she really knew if she was attracted to him.

  She could certainly do worse than getting to know Devan.

  Maybe…Maybe he could be the one to end her long sexual drought.

  An image of Aidan invaded her thoughts, and she tried to banish it, but it wouldn’t go away. Aidan, that unwanted ghost from her past. Why had he come back into her life now, when she was trying to get a fresh start?

  Perhaps the answer to that question was obvious, but she didn’t want to ponder it. Her therapist in San Francisco would have said she had unfinished business with him, and she would have been right.

  That didn’t make the business any easier to finish, or her desire for him any more appropriate, given the circumstances.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Pain, when endured over many hours’ time, becomes an exercise much like meditation. There is a constant training of the mind back toward a place of not responding. During the first hour or so of torture, the mind must adjust to the reality of the pain, the constant presence of it, and once that mental adjustment has been made, it’s easier to disassociate oneself from the experience. I did not have any of the information our captors wanted from us, but it took them many hours to figure that out.

  From Through a Soldier’s Eyes

  by Aidan Caldwell

  SATURDAY MORNING, Aidan felt hung-over from an especially crappy night’s sleep. He’d had a particularly vivid nightmare that he’d never quite gotten out of his head, and now he caught himself lying in bed, staring out the window again. It afforded him a view of the guest cottage—or more importantly, Emmy’s comings and goings from it—and staring at it too much made him feel like a pathetic stalker.

  Especially when he couldn’t even get out of bed to do his stalking.

  He had tried keeping all the blinds closed, so that he wouldn’t be tortured by the sight of Emmy and her kid all day long. But it didn’t help, because he could still hear them, and even when he couldn’t, he still knew they were there.

  Also, sitting in the cabin all day with no natural light was a recipe for insanity. Even he knew that he needed the little bit of light he was getting while staying indoors all the time.

  So he kept the blinds open, and he obsessed over looking out the window.

  He got up and went to the bathroom, then paced out of the bedroom to the kitchen, where he intended to make a cup of coffee, until he realized he’d forgotten to request more coffee in his last bag of groceries. He stared dumbfounded into the cabinet where the fresh package of coffee should have been, but instead, there was only an empty space.

  Coffee. How could he have forgotten? He didn’t function without it, especially not since he’d started sleeping so badly.

  He. Needed. Coffee. Right. Now.

  Like a true addict, his heart started racing as he realized the supply of his chosen drug was gone. His mouth went dry, and he broke into a cold sweat. The grocery bag he’d unloaded yesterday afternoon still sat on the counter, empty now, but he went to it and stared into it again as if a half pound of French roast might appear out of thin air.

  He went to the refrigerator next, where he sometimes kept open packages of coffee to keep them from going stale, but as he’d known, there was none there either. His hands shook as he moved aside milk and orange juice cartons.

  He slammed the refrigerator door and opened the coffeemaker to see if he’d left any used grounds in the filter from yesterday. None. It had been cleaned out.

  Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

  He’d have to place another delivery order. But it was Saturday. No grocery deliveries on Saturday.

  Then he’d have to ask Emmy for coffee. Which would mean leaving the house, unless he could catch her on her way out. Then he remembered, she might be gone all day if he didn’t catch her soon.

  Although Aidan didn’t read the local paper—or any newspaper these days, for that matter—he knew today was the first day of the annual town festival, thanks to a flyer the grocery store had stuck in his bag of groceries. And surely Emmy would be going to it.

  He remembered going to that very same festival with Emmy during their college days. They’d drunk beer until their heads swam and danced barefoot on the grass to a live band and had a great time.

  He could not recognize that carefree, crazy-in-love version of himself anymore.

  He was, at best, a ghost of that person.

  Back in the bedroom again, his body still panicking over the lack of coffee in the house, he could see through the window that Emmy was outside now. She sat in a lawn chair, not looking like she would be hurrying off to the festival at any moment. So he had time.

  Except, well, his body wanted coffee now, not however long from now it took for him to work up the courage to open the door and call out her name, and for her to go to the store and bring back the—

  His gut wrenched at the realization of what he’d be asking her to do. Get in her car with her kid, drive the ten minutes into town, buy him some coffee, and then drive it back to him. As soon as possible.

  Could he really ask someone—particularly this woman he’d been estranged from for most of his adult life—to do him such a pathetic favor? All because he was too much of a head case to leave his own house?

  His pride screamed, hell no. He’d already humiliated himself in front of her too many times. He couldn’t bear another insult.

  Standing near the window now, he watched transfixed as he took note of her nearly naked body in the lawn chair. She was wearing a crocheted red bikini, like an X-rated doily, and she looked insanely hot in it. He’d seen her the day before in a modest blue tank suit that, while it wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, did show off her curves nicely. But now she had this other suit on as she sat outside in the sun reading a magazine and she looked better than he’d ever seen her in her life.

  The kid was playing with the water hose’s sprinkler nozzle, watering himself and the plants in the garden, but every so often he’d turn the hose on his mother and give her a good soaking. She’d squeal and tell him to stop, and he would, but soon enough he’d be doing it again.

  Finally, fed up, she set the magazine aside and started chasing him. Aidan’s gaze followed her hungrily around the garden as she ran, her womanly body firm but swaying deliciously as she moved.

  When she caught the kid, she grabbed the ho
se and turned it on him until he was soaked and giggling uncontrollably, then she gave him a squeeze and set him free. He ran off, shaking like a wet dog, toward the redwoods.

  Emmy went to the side of the cottage to turn off the faucet, then grabbed a towel from her chair and dried off as she watched her son. Aidan’s gaze lingered a bit too long on the lovely curves of her ass, barely concealed in the low-cut bikini bottom, until he could feel himself getting hard. Pretty soon he was going to go insane from sexual frustration, if the agoraphobia didn’t get him first.

  Okay, think. If he couldn’t ask Emmy for help, then what was he going to do? Maybe he could find out if she happened to be going to the store anyway…

  No, that was as pathetic as asking her outright for help.

  Maybe she had some coffee that he could borrow. He felt stupid for not having thought of it in the first place. Of course. Everyone kept coffee around.

  So he simply had to open the door and ask her.

  Open the door.

  And ask her.

  Aidan glared at the door that stood between them, then looked away from it. Why did the simplest things have to be so difficult?

  The kid came wandering back now that his mother was no longer in possession of the water hose. He got interested in something on the ground, and Aidan heard Emmy say to him, “Ten more minutes, Max. Then we have to get ready to go to the festival.”

  Ten more minutes—that was how long he had to open the door, and talk to her. It should not have seemed so damn impossible.

  Aidan tried to swallow the dryness in his mouth, then realized he needed a drink of water. He went to the kitchen, tried to down a glass of tap water, but his stomach was too knotted with tension to accept more than a small sip.

  Sighing at his own idiocy, he closed his eyes and leaned against the kitchen counter. He told himself to think calming thoughts, and the first image that came to his mind was the canopy of trees outside the cabin.

  The very environment he was so afraid to step into.

  He imagined the crystalline blue sky, the warm breeze, the calls of the birds, and he knew he had to go out there. His last shred of self-respect depended upon it.

  So before he could freak out, he walked straight to the back door and unlocked it, swung it open and forced his feet to propel him onto the steps.

  Emmy looked up from her magazine, startled to see him, while Max scampered off into the woods chasing a butterfly, oblivious to the adult drama playing out nearby.

  “Hi,” she said tentatively.

  Aidan forced his mouth open and croaked out a greeting.

  “Gorgeous day, huh?” she said, setting her magazine aside.

  “I—I need some coffee,” he said dumbly.

  Way to save his pride—by sounding like an idiot.

  “Excuse me?”

  He couldn’t stand here frozen like this. He had to move.

  Now.

  One foot in front of the other, down a step, and another, then forward, across the stone path, one foot, and the other. One foot, and the other.

  And there he was standing next to Emmy’s chair. A second one faced hers, presumably set up for the kid. Aidan sat on it and forced himself to breathe.

  Emmy seemed to be struggling over whether to comment on his emergence from the cabin. In the end, she opted not to. She just smiled gently at him instead, as if he were the guy with the knife who’d just escaped the mental institution.

  “Did you say you need coffee?” she asked.

  He nodded, hearing exactly how ridiculous he sounded. He closed his eyes so that he could savor the feel of the breeze against his skin. Even the sun, already hot for so early in the day, felt good burning his face.

  “I don’t have any, I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Aidan opened his eyes again and looked at her as disappointment settled in.

  “I don’t drink coffee anymore.”

  “But…”

  “You came all the way out here to ask me for a cup of coffee?”

  “I was hoping to borrow some from you. I’m all out, and I can’t write without it.”

  “Oh, well, I wish I could help.”

  “I could give you some money if you don’t mind stopping at the store for some.”

  She looked at him oddly, but finally said, “Sure. I’ll be in town again later today—I already went in this morning to pick up some milk and stuff. Too bad you didn’t ask me first thing.”

  “Later? How much later?”

  She shrugged. “We’re leaving soon but I’ll probably be there most of the day.”

  Okay, so that’s what he’d have to do. He’d have to somehow survive the day without coffee until she got back. He could do that, couldn’t he?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  “It’s really great you’re getting outside a little,” Emmy said.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He scowled out at the lake, almost hating it for being so beautiful. It tormented him and made his confinement seem all the more ridiculous. But no one really understood. Aidan wasn’t even sure he understood.

  It wasn’t the first time something beautiful had made him angry. It was as if places like this made a mockery of the ugliness he’d seen in Sudan, just by their existence on the planet. How could such horror and such beauty exist simultaneously on the same earth?

  Why did it feel like horror could decimate beauty, but never the other way around?

  He’d tried to work through those questions in his book, but the answers eluded him. Whenever he got close to the truth, he was tormented by the simplicity of it just out of his reach.

  “Did you get a chance to call that therapist?”

  “No.” He didn’t want to be reminded either that Emmy was a witness to his lunacy, that she’d felt compelled to seek out mental treatment options for him.

  Aidan started to stand, to retreat to the cabin again, but Emmy reached out and placed a hand on his where he held onto the arm of the chair.

  “Please don’t go,” she said. “I’m sorry if I brought up a touchy subject.”

  He would have ignored her except that the contact of her hand on his sent a shock wave through him, and he had no choice but to sit back down. He thought of the way it had felt to kiss her, and he wanted badly to take her to his cabin and touch and kiss and savor every inch of her, to bury himself safe, deep and warm inside of her until they both forgot about the painful ugliness and beauty of the outside world.

  Instead, he expelled a ragged sigh.

  “One more thing, and don’t answer me right away, just think about it. I could make an appointment for you, for the therapist to come here, I mean.”

  Her hand was still covering his. He stared at it, long and delicate, the skin just beginning to show the slightest wrinkling. There, around the knuckles, was the physical evidence of time passing, of Emmy, like him, growing older every day and slowly, slowly, slipping away from life on this earth.

  Was this how he was going to spend the precious little time they had? Locked away in a dark cabin, haunted by ghosts of the past? When he had a very real life here left to live?

  Here was Emmy, her hand on his, older now than when he first loved her. And maybe she was here for a reason, here so that they could have a chance to undo mistakes of the past, or perhaps here to remind him that he shouldn’t waste this precious bit of life he had.

  She eased her hand from his, and he looked at her to catch the worried expression on her face.

  He nodded. He would let her make the appointment.

  “Does it matter what day?”

  “No. I guess the sooner the better.”

  “Good,” she said. “Thank you for letting me help.”

  For the first time in months, Aidan felt the slightest weight lift from his shoulders, and he wondered for a moment if what he might have been feeling was hope.

  THE SOUNDS of the festival carried across the lake, tormenting Aidan almost as much as his caffeine with-drawal. He pac
ed around the cabin half-crazed, unable to write, unable to focus, unable to think about anything but the noise and the fact that he’d give just about anything for a cup of goddamn coffee.

  He needed to work. He needed to get this book done. His agent had nearly given up on nudging him about it, but Aidan felt the pressure more and more every day that passed, nonetheless. And oddly enough, since Emmy and the chaos she’d brought with her had arrived, he’d found himself able to work again. At first just a little, but he’d built up momentum every day until today—the first day he’d been unable to write a damn word.

  And it was only noon. If Emmy was planning to be at the festival all day, he’d have hours to wait until she brought the coffee for him.

  His nerves were shot, and he was pretty sure he’d lose his freaking mind before she came home.

  He’d have to go get the coffee himself.

  As soon as the thought formed in his mind, he knew he was going to do it. And he was terrified of doing it. But hell, he’d managed to leave the cabin twice in the past two days. He could get on his motorcycle and drive to town, walk into a store, buy some coffee and drive home again.

  He could do that.

  He was going to do it.

  His stomach pitched, a cold sweat broke out on his face, and he realized he was about to throw up. He ran to the bathroom and lost his lunch in the toilet.

  After another few minutes of retching, the sensation passed and he rinsed his mouth, splashed water on his face and dried off.

  Okay, so he wasn’t going to be able to go anywhere if he didn’t relax.

  Somehow, he had to calm the hell down.

  His gaze fell on the nightstand as he left the bathroom, and he saw a book that he hadn’t cracked open in a while stuck under it. Mindfulness Meditation was the title, and someone had given it to him after he’d returned from Sudan, as a way to help him heal from the ordeal.

  He’d tried the meditation techniques in the book before, and they’d certainly helped, on the rare occasions when he’d managed to sit still and do them for more than a minute or two.

  No way in hell was he going to be able to sit still and meditate right now, but maybe…maybe he could at least settle his mind a little, using some meditation chants or something.