In Love and War

by Tara Mills

  Nuzzling against his neck and shoulder, she made a suggestion. “Why don’t you stand?”

  He looked surprised then kissed her and rose to his feet. She didn't want to rush this. In her eyes, Dylan was the living embodiment of masculine beauty, every inch of him. He deserved some admiration. Following along his shaft with the sensitive pads of her fingers, her heartbeat spiked with excitement when it jumped as she reached the end.

  “I take it you like this?” She cupped him with her other hand, knowing she was in control.

  “Yes.” His eyes slowly closed and a deep rumble of pleasure escaped him. Water splashed off his shoulders and coursed down his chest and torso in rivulets.

  Ariela leaned forward and kissed him, just the tip. When she looked up, he was watching her, every muscle in his body locked with tension. Emboldened, she gave him a little lick next. His flavor was so faint, she could barely taste him. There was a quiet, desperate look in his eyes when she glanced up now. She’d toyed with him long enough. This time she didn't tease, she didn’t retreat. When her mouth closed around him, Dylan’s fingers burrowed into her hair. He cupped her head, his breathing labored, audible in the enclosed shower.

  She knew he was close when his arms shot out. He planted his hands on either side of the shower for support as he shuddered and shook.

  Feeling pleased with herself, Ariela gave him one final kiss then rose to her feet. Dylan wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back, her bottom. Ariela stretched to shut off the water and he kissed her neck, her jaw, and finally her mouth.

  “Thank you.” His eyes were dark with emotion.

  “My pleasure. You’ve been so good to me. I thought it was time I returned the favor.”

  “I’ll never push the issue, but I appreciate that you offered.”

  Ariela pressed herself against him and her smile wavered when she realized she’d just expressed her love for him for the first time. That act, freely given, spoke volumes even if she refused to voice the words. It wasn’t clear if Dylan was aware of the fact. Doubtful. But she felt better, lighter now, because at least she was ready to acknowledge the truth to herself. She’d fallen for the guy, hard, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

  “Come on,” said Dylan, breaking into her thoughts. “We really should put something in our stomachs. I’m sure Max is looking for food too.”

  While Dylan called for pizza delivery, Ariela went into the bedroom and pulled on his discarded shirt. She loved the scent of him and wanted to wrap herself up in it. However, that was all she put on.

  Dylan turned when she walked out. He raked his fingers through his damp hair and gave her a flicker of a smile. “Ariela, I’ve got news.”

  Sensing his uneasiness, she took a deep breath. “I’m…I guess I’m waiting.”

  “I’m going back to Iraq.”

  Her eyes went wide with alarm. “You’re what?” she asked sharply.

  “I got a call I never thought would come.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How long have you known?”

  “I was on the phone when you came in,” he admitted quietly.

  “And you didn’t say anything?” She was hurt and angry.

  He threw up his arms, looking wretched. “Because I knew how you’d take it. Can you blame me for wanting to put off a fight?”

  “Yes! Yes, I can blame you. You lied, Dylan. You led me to believe you were through covering conflicts like Iraq.”

  “I didn’t lie. To my knowledge, I was done. The possibility that I might be pulled back in was remote. It wasn’t worth mentioning.”

  “Withholding information like that is the same as lying from where I’m standing.”

  “Ariela, please, you need to hear something. Then you’ll understand why I have to go. Would you listen? Please?” He reached for her, but she pulled away.

  “Don’t touch me.” Ariela crossed her arms and glared at him. “I’ll listen, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you again.”

  “Just hear me out then decide. Maybe you should sit down.”

  He gestured toward his desk chair and she backed up to it and spun it around, slowly lowering herself onto the seat.

  He began to pace, his hand squeezing the back of his neck. Tension radiated off of him like heat.

  “When I went to Baghdad in 2003, a colleague introduced me to Khalid Gouda. He was fresh out of engineering school, with a young wife, and a new baby. He needed to work and I needed a translator. We hit it off right away. Working so intimately with someone like that, day in and day out, you grow really close to them. I shared many meals with Khalid and Hanna. I played with their son.”

  Then Dylan stopped and turned, his face haggard. “Five months ago, he’d smuggled someone to me at my hotel. The interview went long. After taking the man back, Khalid was hurrying home, trying to beat the curfew, when he came upon a random checkpoint. They saw his speed—he probably didn’t know if it was even safe to stop—and they shot him through the windshield before he could reach them. Everyone’s grown jumpy after so many bombings. Just one more regrettable incident among hundreds.”

  Ariela sniffled, holding herself back from going to him, even though she yearned to comfort Dylan for having to experience the grief all over again.

  “What do you know about honor killings?” His question surprised her.

  She frowned. “Nothing.”

  “A law was passed when Saddam was in power, outlawing the practice. That didn’t mean it stopped entirely, but it happened less frequently. But since Saddam was overthrown, there’s been a huge jump in honor killings. Women can be condemned without proof of sexual impropriety. Just the suspicion she’s had sex before marriage, or outside her marriage, can be a death sentence.”

  “What does this have to do with you? With your friend?”

  “Hanna’s in hiding.”

  Ariela stared at him, horrified. “Why?”

  “A good friend of Khalid’s visited her after his death and left money for their son. Hanna’s family immediately assumed he’d paid her for services rendered.”

  “How could they?” Ariela’s temper flared at the indignity and injustice.

  “You don’t know the culture. They believe she dishonored the family so she fled with the boy. Friends have been sheltering her for two months.”

  “I still don’t understand how this involves you.”

  “Hanna knew I was trying to write a story on this very thing when Khalid was killed. She wants to tell it. But she’ll only talk to me.”

  “Won’t she be in more danger if she meets with you?”

  “We’re taking precautions to minimize the risk to all of us. Hanna’s in danger every day of her life now. Maybe there’s something I can do to help her. I have to try.”

  Ariela stood. It was time he understood where she was coming from. “My turn.”

  ***

  Dylan didn’t know what to expect when she squared her shoulders and looked back at him, her eyes as haunted as his probably were. He knew that look. He’d seen it a million times already, in a million different faces. Pain was universal.

  “When I was twelve, I came home from school and there were cars in front of our house, in our driveway. Two of them were squad cars. I saw my grandma’s car and I remember peeking in the backseat. I wondered if she’d brought me anything.”

  Her eyes were glittering when they met his and she covered her mouth for a second, as if holding back a sob. He took a step toward her, but she shook her head and waved him back.

  “Don’t. Not yet.”

  Dylan nodded. “Okay.”

  “Everyone was in the living room when I went inside. My mom looked white. I’d never seen her like that. My dad’s partner, Ryan, was sitting on the coffee table with his elbows on his knees. He was leaning over, holding my mom’s hands. He was crying, Dylan. He was crying. It terrified me. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could tell my mom wasn’t hearing it either. She was in shock.”


  Now Ariela’s tears flowed, one after another, and he watched, feeling helpless because she wouldn’t let him any closer.

  “There are tissues behind you, on the desk,” he reminded her.

  “Thank you.” She turned and yanked a few out of the box. “That’s when my grandma finally noticed me. She tried to steer me away from the living room, but I wouldn’t move. I fought her. She had to pick me up and carry me to my room. It was too late. I knew what had happened. I’d seen my mom’s face. It was like a bowling ball fell right through my chest. It wasn’t until the funeral that I learned the whole story. A stupid gas-station robbery. My dad pulled a woman out of harm’s way, just in time…for her. He took the bullet. They called it an honorable death.” She snorted. “As if that’s supposed to make us happy and proud. It didn’t, not really. All we knew was suddenly there was this gaping black hole in the very center of our lives.”

  She blotted her eyes and sniffled into the wad of tissues. “I couldn’t go up to the casket. I could barely make it through the service. My older cousin took me out and we played jacks in the lobby of the funeral home. She let me keep them afterwards.” She gave Dylan a bleak smile. “My mom never recovered. She didn’t want to. She was barely a shadow of herself. I never heard her laugh again. Never saw her smile. I had to remind her to eat, to get out of bed, to bathe. She cried—all the time. I was so grateful when the doctor prescribed sleeping pills. I couldn’t handle her grief. I thought she’d get better. I never dreamed she’d take all those pills at once after I left for school. She simply couldn’t face life without him.”

  Turning to grab two more dry tissues, she was blinking back fresh tears when she faced him again. “My grandma picked me up later that day and took me to live with her. I lost my dad, my mom, my home, my friends, and had to start over in a new school where no one understood why I was so quiet. No one understood me.”

  Dylan was crying when he pulled Ariela close and held her tight. “I understand.”

  He closed his eyes in relief when she grabbed him around the waist, holding onto him just as hard.

  “I don't want to lose you,” she whispered into his shirt.

  “That’s the last thing I want too.”

  “And I’m still pissed at you, but I understand a little better now. I feel so selfish. I hate it.”

  “Give me seven days, ten tops. I’ve got someone already on the ground setting things up before I even get there.”

  “And you’ll be careful?”

  He stroked Ariela’s hair, needing to commit everything about her to memory. “I’m always careful. I don’t take stupid risks.”

  There was no reason to bring up calculated risks.

  ***

  Ariela agreed to stay with Max at Dylan’s this time. He’d probably handle Dylan’s absence better if he weren’t uprooted too. Naturally, Ariela refrained from mentioning she’d most likely cope better if she were here with Max as well. It might prove more comforting if she could sense Dylan around her, smell him on the sheets in the bedroom.

  Then Dylan was back on the phone, checking his flights and arranging a rendezvous with his friend Jim, who was covering political demonstrations in Adana. They would hook up in Amman and hopefully catch a flight across to Baghdad. They didn’t want to face a fifteen hour, high speed race across the dangerous desert if security precautions temporarily closed Baghdad International Airport again. If that happened, there would be no way he’d be done and back in a week’s time. Ali Hadad, their new translator, would meet up with them in Baghdad.

  Ariela stood helplessly by while Dylan packed his carryall. He made sure to include extra batteries and blank tapes for his small recorder. Afterwards, he gave Max ten minutes of all-out play on the carpet, wrestling with the dog and rolling around like a big kid. Watching them, her heart melted even more.

  Climbing to his feet, Dylan bent over his desk and jotted something down for her. “This is my satphone number. Cell coverage is spotty in some areas, non-existent in others. I don’t know the details of where I’ll be once I get there so I can’t make any guarantees, but I should be able to send an e-mail regardless. As long as I can lock onto a satellite signal. This number is for emergencies only. I have to conserve the battery, so it won’t be on unless I’m looking for a link.”

  Then it was time to go. They took Dylan’s car. He was clearly surprised when she asked him to park instead of pull along the loading and unloading curb.

  “You don’t have to come in with me,” he told her.

  “I know. But I want to.”

  He gave her the keys as they walked inside together.

  Ariela wondered how her world-record happiness had spun off course so fast. There was no way she was bringing Dylan down after their talk had supposedly settled everything, yet she couldn’t get her emotions under control.

  One week, all he asked was one stinking week, and she felt like a woman in mourning. If she could be strong through this last assignment, she would prove to herself she wasn’t a mess of anxiety and show him she wasn’t going to be an obstacle in his career. She wanted to be supportive, but she’d rather see Dylan heading off to Washington for a few days instead of picturing him ducking bullets. Last time, last time, last time, she chanted in her head like a mantra. It helped her put on a sunny smile for his benefit.

  She walked Dylan to the airport-security checkpoint, and they kissed good-bye outside the cordoned area. Ariela remained behind, watching as he worked his way forward in the line. Cleared through the metal detector, he grabbed the strap of his bag on the other side. Sliding his feet back into his shoes and his wallet into his pocket, he looked over and found her. She smiled when he nodded to her.

  “I’m shooting for Saturday, maybe Sunday,” he called. “I’ll get a message to you somehow and let you know if that changes. Watch for it so you’ll know when I’m due in. I expect you to pick me up. You have my car.”

  They both laughed—though hers was bittersweet.

  “I’ll be here,” she promised.

  He gave her a final wave before being swept away in a sea of travelers. Seeing no reason to linger, Ariela turned and made her way out. She opened her phone as she walked and dialed Jean.

  “Hello?”

  “Jean?” Ariela’s voice broke with emotion.

  “Ariela? My god, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m in love and I’m flipping scared, that’s what’s wrong.” She broke into tears, ignoring the curious looks she was drawing as she walked out into the night.

  “Come home.” Jean was balm on a burn.

  “Okay,” Ariela mumbled then shut her phone with a sniffle.

  ***

  Back at their apartment, Jean set a brand new box of tissues on the table between them and the friends clasped hands. Ariela felt lost in a jumble of emotion as Jean looked on with sympathy.

  “This has to do with your dad, doesn’t it?”

  Ariela dabbed at her tears. “Probably. It’s all related now.”

  “I think you’re afraid of losing anyone else. I think you’re even more afraid to identify with your mom.”

  Ariela shivered and remembered the blank stare of grief she’d come to associate with her mother before she took her own life. “I’m not my mom.”

  “You’re right; you’re not. Remember that. And Dylan’s not your dad.”

  “I couldn’t protect myself from him. I had a rule, but I guess I wanted him more. How stupid is that? Maybe if he’d told me there was a chance he’d wind up putting himself at risk again, I might have stood my ground. Oh, who am I kidding? Shit!” she pounded the table. “I would have done the same damn thing. I just…I just couldn’t seem to help myself.”

  “And now you’ve fallen in love with him.”

  “I should have avoided Dylan like the plague.”

  Jean dropped her cheek into her palm and sighed. “But even if he just sticks to flying all over the country and into Europe, are you telling me you’d be fine?”

  Ar
iela nodded.

  “Bull,” Jean said flatly. “You would have gotten all freaked out about airplane crashes or something else. You look for reasons to close yourself off, but honey,” she squeezed Ariela’s hand, “there are no guarantees in life, period. You just have to leap at chances when they come along, and savor every moment you can. You said yourself your parents were happy.”

  “They were,” Ariela whispered. “Very happy.”

  “Maybe opening yourself up to what your parents had wouldn’t be such a bad thing. That kind of happiness is a rare and precious gift.”

  “Need I remind you my mom killed herself after my dad was shot? She took pills and left me too, barely two months later. I lost both parents! What if I find out I can’t cope, either? What if I grow to love Dylan so much I can’t face life without him?”

  Jean looked her in the eye, steady as a rock. “You’ve already coped with loss, and you survived. Would you rather not have known your parents at all?”

  Ariela blotted her eyes and sniffled. “No, I loved them.”

  Her mind drifted back to that tragic morning again. Her dad’s arms were wrapped around her mom as she rinsed their dishes in the sink. He swayed with her from side to side, kissing her neck until she laughed. Ariela could still hear it, her mother’s very last laugh. She’d been a byproduct of all the love they’d felt for each other. There was so much of it that it spilled over onto her. She’d never felt shortchanged.

  Ariela came back to herself when Jean reached out and hooked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “Are you okay? You were a million miles away just now.”

  Ariela sighed miserably. “I wish I wasn’t behaving like this. At least Dylan didn’t see it. I’d be so ashamed.”

  “Have you told him any of this so he’ll understand?”

  “Yes. A lot of good that did me.”

  Jean smiled despite the mood. “He deserved to know.”

  Ariela nodded, sulking.

  “Where are you sleeping tonight?” Jean asked.

  “At his place. Max is waiting for me. I just wish it was Dylan instead.”