9
Fifteen years ago, screaming had erupted through the woods, and Ben and Kacey had tracked it down just in time to see a grizzly take his final swipe at a hiker. With a punctured leg, a broken collarbone, and a gash that opened up his skin along his back to the bone, the man was close to perishing on the side of the trail.
Thankfully, Lulu Grace had also heard the screaming. With the twilight deepening the layers of danger in the forest, she’d found them and convinced them to bring the man back to her cabin in the woods, let her doctor him, then wait out the night in case the bear decided to turn them all into prey.
That night, Ben had seen for the first time the side of Kacey that made her not only a soldier but a rescuer.
No one stood between Kacey and someone in need of saving.
No wonder she’d earned a medal.
Now, Ben watched as she knelt next to the injured hiker they’d finally tracked down a half mile up the trail. His wife—Ben placed her in her early seventies—paced the trail behind her injured husband, shaking.
Ben stood up, walked over to her, and without thinking, simply drew her into a quick embrace. “He’s going to be okay. It looks like a broken ankle.”
“He has a heart condition,” she said softly.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Mary Beth. And this is Howard.”
Howard wore a Glacier Park baseball cap, a yellow sweatshirt, and a pair of rain pants, and his face grimaced in pain. Kacey had already draped her blanket over Howard and was now taking his pulse.
“Mary Beth, why don’t you sit down?” Ben went over to his pack and pulled out his blanket. He tucked it over the woman’s shoulders, just in case the trauma of seeing her husband fall into the river and nearly get swept away sent her into shock.
“How did this happen?” Ben said quietly, holding her hands. Her skin felt paper thin, soft. She too wore hiking attire—Gore-Tex pants, boots, a windbreaker, a pair of binoculars around her neck.
“We saw a ruby-crowned kinglet, and Howard wanted to get a picture, so he climbed down onto one of those boulders and slipped.”
Ben didn’t want to tell her how many people slipped, fell into the froth, and drowned, especially now with the rivers swollen.
“I think he wedged his foot on a boulder. How bad is it?”
He had taken a look at the leg, seen the angle of the foot, the swelling around the ankle as Kacey worked off his boot.
Bad.
“I don’t think he can walk on it,” Ben said. “Stay here—let me take a look.”
He left her on the boulder, glanced at the darkening sky, and for a second wished Lulu might miraculously show up.
But they weren’t fifteen and alone. Surely Kacey knew how to save lives, and Ben could pull out his rusty first-responder skills. Besides, this injury didn’t look nearly as bad as Nate’s had been.
Ben knelt beside Kacey as she searched for a pulse in Howard’s ankle, her voice calm. “So, you’re a birder,” she said. “Did you know that Glacier has the largest concentration of Harlequin ducks in the Lower 48?”
“Yeah,” Howard said, his breath tight with pain. “We were hoping to get a glimpse of a nesting Black Swift.”
“They roost behind waterfalls,” Ben said. Kacey had taken off Howard’s sock, and now Ben pressed on the appendage, watching the refill. “It seems to be getting blood,” he said quietly. He turned to the man. “Can you feel that, Howard?”
He nodded.
“Wiggle your toes for me,” Kacey said.
He winced but managed movement.
She leaned back on her haunches. “I don’t think it’s broken, but there is no way he can walk.”
Ben dug around his pack, found the ice pack, and snapped it into use. He wrapped it around the man’s ankle, keeping it gentle as he heard Howard groan. “Sorry, pal.” He secured it with the Ace bandage.
“Maybe one of us needs to hike out, get help.” She looked up at the sky, then checked her watch. “I can do it.”
“You should stay here with him. You have more medical training.”
“I can fly the chopper out.”
“In the dark?”
She gave him a look.
“Listen, I get that you flew all over the mountains of Afghanistan, but this is Glacier, with its own weather patterns. Besides, I don’t like you walking alone this time of year—we haven’t seen a grizzly yet, but twilight is not the time to hike solo. Besides, we’re hours from civilization—even if you hike out to the road, the Logan Pass Visitors Center closed an hour ago. There’s not going to be any traffic until morning.”
She sighed, nodded as if his words made sense. She glanced over at Mary Beth. “She’s really upset. And his pulse is high. We need to get them to some shelter. It’s still early enough in the season for the temps to drop into the low thirties.”
He dug into his pack, pulled out his windbreaker, rolled it up. “I’m going to splint it.”
He bent down, moved the jacket under the man’s foot, easing the foot into a ninety-degree position. Kasey handed him lengths of medical tape, and he secured the jacket to the foot and leg.
The sun had dipped below the ridgeline, and fine gooseflesh raised on his arms.
Kacey glanced at his bare arms. “It’s going to be cold out tonight.”
“We’re going to Lulu’s cabin.”
She caught his gaze, as if assessing his words. Then, “Yes. Can you carry Howard?”
He put the man at about 180 pounds. “Do you remember the way?”
“I dunno.”
“We’ll find it.” He winked then, and the look she gave him came with so much hope that he felt as if they’d tunneled back to a time when she actually believed in him.
He and Kacey helped Howard to his feet, then he bent and Howard climbed on his back.
Ben wrapped his arms around the man’s legs. “Can you hang on?”
“Sorry about this, son,” Howard said, something sheepish in his tone.
“It’s all good. It’s what we do.”
When Kacey glanced at him with a smile, he felt he could have carried Howard to Canada and back.
The shadows lengthened, drawing out from the forest as night settled around them. With it came the chill of the mountains, gathered in the forest, borne on the spray of the river, the breath of the wind scurrying down the mountains into the gorge. He longed for his head lamp, but Kacey pulled out a mini Maglite and held it out for him as they walked.
To his recollection, Lulu’s cabin was a half mile beyond the Avalanche Creek Bridge, just off the path near the northwestern edge of Lake McDonald. But the forest was overgrown, and as he passed the roar of the falls, somewhere out in the blackness, his back aching from Howard’s weight against him, he stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Kacey said behind him.
He didn’t want to admit it, but . . . “Just give me a second here to get my bearings.” He let Howard slide onto a boulder. Stretched.
“Nothing looks familiar,” Kacey said quietly.
“It’s been fifteen years.”
Overhead, clouds covered the stars. Kacey flicked her light around the forest.
He took off his hat, scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I thought this was a good idea.”
Kacey had gone strangely silent, wrapping her arms around herself. Now, she looked at him, something wan in her expression. “Um, maybe we should head back?”
From the side of the trail, Howard cleared his throat. “If you two are finished panicking, Mary Beth and I are praying over here. We’re not lost—we just can’t see the path. But God can.”
Ben glanced at Kacey, who stared at Howard with an enigmatic expression. But she stepped forward, took Mary Beth’s hand.
Huh. He didn’t want to argue, but he hadn’t sensed God’s presence in his life since the day he’d flattened Cash, ended up in jail, and walked out of Kacey’s life.
Frankly, he didn’t exactly deserve for God to show up.
Except, a strange longing burned inside him, and while he couldn’t place it, he felt a nudge.
Fine. Ben refused Howard’s proffered hand but took a step closer as he began to pray.
“The Lord is my shepherd . . .”
Oh, he knew this one. His father had made him recite it every night before bed.
“I shall not want.”
Ben didn’t speak the words, but they gathered in his head, his throat, as if wanting to push out.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
He wanted to laugh at that, given their circumstances.
“He restoreth my soul.”
Nope. He wasn’t playing this game.
Ben walked away to the edge of the light, stood in the darkness, away from them. But everything inside him suddenly ached.
“He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
For some reason, Kacey’s voice revived in his head. “You should write your own songs. The kind you want people to sing.”
Yeah, well, he’d forgotten how, lost the ability to hear the songs in his head, feel the lyrics.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”
He looked at Kacey, the way she now clung to Mary Beth’s hand.
Something had happened to her in Afghanistan, something the article hadn’t mentioned—he felt it in his gut, and seeing her lean into the words, as if thirsty . . .
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Something flickered on the edge of the forest. A light. He turned, searching, but it had winked out.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”
He walked down the path, searching for the light in the darkness . . . there. A dent of light deep in the pocket of woods, flickering.
“Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
He strode back to Kacey, took the light from her hand, and shined it against the folds of the trail. The trees parted, the dark brush shrank away.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
He spotted the path cutting away from the main trail and followed it.
“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Ben made out the clearing some fifty feet away, the small log cabin with the overhanging porch, and through the leaded window, the glow of lamplight.
Lulu Grace’s historic home.
He tromped back out to the trail. Kacey had let go of Mary Beth and stood in the darkness, waiting.
“I found it.”
Howard looked up at him. “I knew you would.”
He frowned but didn’t argue as he maneuvered Howard onto his back. “I think someone’s there. I saw a light on.”
Kacey held the flashlight as they headed toward the cabin. Constructed from stripped, pitched, and now almost black pine logs, the ancient, snug cabin sat in a clearing of towering black pine, the overhanging porch cluttered with hand-hewn chairs and pots. A pair of dry, gray moose antlers were affixed to the center of the porch, near the roof. Ben remembered the cabin being bigger, somehow, although from the outside it appeared no more than two rooms, a main cabin and a smaller addition off to the side.
He put Howard down on the porch, then knocked on the door.
No answer, and he took the handle, eased the door open.
The light in the window—the source a lantern in the center of a rough-hewn table—cast a glow over the small room. The aroma of brewed coffee was thick in the air, and Ben saw a propane cookstove topped with a coffeepot, and beside that, a counter with a sink, a drying rack, and a cupboard.
At the far end of the room, coals flickered in the hand-piled stone fireplace. Another door led to a back room—storage or another bedroom, he couldn’t remember.
He walked in further. “Lulu?”
A book lay upside down on the deeply grooved leather sofa that faced the fireplace.
He walked over to the addition, eased that door open.
A single bed with a hand-stitched quilt and a mirrored bureau. He caught a glimpse of his unshaven self, then closed the door.
Walked back outside. “No one is here.” He put Howard’s arm over his shoulder, helped him hobble inside, and settled him on the sofa.
Kacey closed the door behind Mary Beth, who sat next to her husband. Kacey set her pack on the table and pulled out a water bottle.
She handed it to Ben, who unscrewed the lid and was handing it to Howard when the door opened.
He saw Kacey freeze and followed her gaze.
An elderly woman, with her white hair pulled back in a handkerchief, stood in the open doorway. She wore a nubby brown sweater, a pair of canvas pants.
And in her grip, pointed in the general direction of Kacey and Ben, she held a double-barreled shotgun, circa 1950. “Who’s here?”
Kacey didn’t move. But her breath rose and fell.
Ben raised his hands. “Lulu? Is that you? It’s me, Ben King.”
The woman scrutinized him, as if clicking through her memories. Then she cast her gaze to Kacey, and a smile went over her face. She lowered the shotgun. “You’re back. And you brought your sweetie.”
Ben put his hands down, not sure what to say.
Yes, actually.
“And this is Howard and Mary Beth,” Kacey said, filling in the gap. “Howard fell. We were hoping . . .”
Lulu had set her gun aside and now came around the sofa and knelt before Howard, probing his ankle, testing the blood flow. “Can you move it?”
Howard shook his head but wiggled his toes.
Lulu stood up. “You can’t bring him out tonight. But tomorrow I can get the truck going.” She turned then, looking at Ben. Startled him when she reached up and took his face in her hands, scrutinizing him.
“Yep. Just like your old man.” Then she patted him and walked over to Kacey. Touched her arms. “And you’ve grown up.”
Kacey offered a smile.
“Okay, sit down. I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
Kacey glanced at Ben, and he lifted a shoulder. He glanced at the sofa, where Howard had leaned back against his wife and closed his eyes. Mary Beth held his hand, gave Ben a shake of her head.
Yeah, well, he understood losing your appetite when you saw someone you loved get hurt.
Lulu opened a bread box on the counter and retrieved a half loaf of wheat bread. Then she opened an ancient icebox and retrieved a jar of raspberry jam. “I’ll heat up some stew.”
She produced a cast-iron pot right from the fridge and put it on the stove, then lit the fire in the box with a match. It blazed to life.
She turned then and grabbed the bread and a knife. “So, tell me. Did you two get married and have a pack of kids?”
Ben looked at Kacey, who seemed to go a little white.
He had the crazy urge to reach out for her hand. “Um—”
“Oh, please.” Lulu dove into the bread, slicing. “You two were absolutely smitten with each other.”
Kacey glanced at Ben, then back to Lulu.
“No. We—” Ben started.
“We have a daughter,” Kacey said suddenly.
Ben stared at her.
“Oh, that’s glorious.” Lulu piled the bread onto a plate. “But you didn’t get married?”
Ben looked down, away. And there it was, his sins out in the open.
“It’s not too late.”
This from Mary Beth on the sofa. She had turned and now put her arm over the back of the sofa while Howard rested. “Howard and I are high school sweethearts. But we both married other people and only found each other again last year.” She looked down at him, something soft in her expression. “We’re on our honeymoon.”
Really?
“Congratulations.” This from Kacey.
“We figured we never stopped loving each other, so we’d grab whatever time we have left and live like we have forever.” She ran a finger under her eye. “I don’t think you ever get over your first real love. You give your heart to it, all in, without knowing the perils. That’s the person who knows your dreams, the person you want to be. If you’re lucky, they can look through the clutter of your life and still see that young and hopeful person inside.”
Kacey got up from the table. “Actually, Lulu, I’m not hungry. I think I’m going to try to get cell reception and call in our position.”
Lulu picked up a piece of bread, dipped a knife into the jam, and layered the bread with it. Then she held it out to Kacey. “Go to the far edge of the property, stand on the boulder, and face the west. My grandson says it works for him.”
Kacey paused, then took the bread and headed outside.
Ben watched her go, not sure why he felt a fist in his gut. But for a second, he heard his father’s voice, the words he’d spoken over a week ago.
“This is why you came home, Benny. Not for me. And not for you. For her.”
Somehow they’d ended up right back where they started.
Kacey just needed some fresh air, something to ease the knot around her heart that suddenly held it captive, strangling.
“I don’t think you ever get over your first real love.”
Yes, yes you did. If you left town, dove into a different life, put the past behind you with the admission that it was just a mistake of youth.
If you never mentioned his name, refused to let the memories gather in the dark, secret places, and didn’t take them out when you were afraid and alone.
Or facing death.
Kacey stalked out to the boulder Lulu had mentioned, her heart thundering, and stared at her cell phone for reception.
Of course, she’d done none of those things. Yes, she’d left town, but she’d hardly put her past behind her. Every time she looked at her beautiful daughter, memory swept her back to Ben down on one knee, giving her his heart.
Or her, weeping when she held their daughter, alone in the hospital room, making vows to herself to never forgive him.
Vows she seemed to be breaking with record speed. What was wrong with her that the minute Benjamin King walked back into her life she turned into a seventeen-year-old girl, hoping he would look her direction?
No, in truth, she wanted more than that. She wanted to see her reflection in his eyes, wanted his arms around her, his breath on her neck, his hands in her hair. Wanted to believe him when he said everything would be all right.
Oh, she needed to get off this mountain, and soon.
Kacey climbed up on the rock, held her phone up, and yep, one bar flickered. But when she tried to place a call, it refused to connect.
She should have brought the satellite phone from the chopper, but she hadn’t been thinking they’d have to spend the night.
In fact, it was the last thing she’d expected. She thumbed in a text, pressed send, and held up the phone for the signal to connect.
Sent.
She turned back toward the cabin, saw the friendly glow of light, and couldn’t go back. Not yet. So she sat on the boulder.
“You give your heart to it, all in, without knowing the perils.” She pulled her knees up, rested her forehead on them, closed her eyes. Fatigue threatened to turn her body to slush, but she shook it away.
Still, the darkness washed over her, her mind relaxing, images flooding back.
Ben, coming out of the locker room, his hair still wet, curly behind his ears, his gaze landing on her.
He swung an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We can go to the Pony later. I want to show you something.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, walked with him to the truck, slid over beside him as he pulled out of the school lot, the lights of the field bright, the scoreboard still lit up.
He smelled of flannel and blue jeans and the clean scent of a shower, and she just hoped the Judge wasn’t waiting up.
“Watch out, honey. That boy doesn’t know what he wants, and he’ll drag you away from your dreams.”
But he didn’t know Ben like she did. And she knew perfectly well what he wanted.
Besides, all her dreams included Ben.
He drove her over the bridge, then toward West Glacier, the sky sprinkling stardust along their path. The mountains loomed up around them as he cut off onto a dirt road, came out to an old river bridge.
“I found it this summer when I went river rafting with the youth group,” he said. “We jumped off it.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said, laughing.
The bridge spanned the middle fork of the Mercy River. He got out, retrieved his guitar.
She walked out onto the bridge, staring at the silvery moonlight tracing the black river.
He threw down a blanket, and she spread it out. Then she sprawled out on her back, watching the stars.
He sat beside her, facing her. “I have more of that song for you.”
She rolled over onto her side, propped herself up on her elbow.
I need you, I need you, I need you
Don’t say good-bye
I need you, I need you, I need you
Can’t live without you
I need you, I need you, I need you
He began, and his voice had a way of tunneling under her skin, consuming her.
Just look over here, see me standing closer
Nobody will love you the way I do
He started to hum, then, playing the song out.
“Where’s the rest?”
“That’s all I’ve got.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s just the bridge and part of the chorus, but what do you think?”
She sat up, wove a hand around his neck. “I think I love you.”
Then she kissed him.
Ben made her feel wanted, whole. And with Ben, her future turned to the stardust above, sweet and right and breathtaking.
He put the guitar down, wove his hands into her hair. He tasted freshly showered, of toothpaste, and his touch was gentle, but she could feel him start to tremble.
He broke away, found her eyes. “I love you too.”
His eyes glistened.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
But she heard the tremor in his voice.
Around them the wind stirred up the loam of fall, the scent of pine. The river sounded like applause, rushing below them, and a mist rose, settled on her skin, raising gooseflesh.
He leaned her back on the blanket, stretched out beside her, wrapping his arms around her.
“Ben, are you okay?” She leaned up to look at him, one hand on his chest.
He nodded, a sweet smile tracing his lips. “You’re so beautiful, it takes my breath away. I just can’t believe I’m this lucky. That you’re my girl.”
Oh.
He kissed her again, pulling her down to him, then rolled over, cradling her in his arms.
She felt the strength of him, and felt safe in his arms. He kissed her like he needed her. Couldn’t get enough of her. And she lost herself a little in his touch.
Him, too, because when he leaned up, he was breathing hard. He searched her eyes and said nothing for a long time.
Then, “We should probably go.”
His fingers traced her face, caressing her cheek.
“Not yet,” she whispered and twined her hand around his neck to pull him close.
Nobody will love you the way I do.
“Kacey, you okay?”
She looked up, knew that her eyes had widened at the sight of Ben standing just outside the glow of light. She couldn’t see his face, just his outline, but she didn’t need to.
She knew the texture of his blue eyes, the shape of his shoulders, the feel of his hand in hers. “I don’t think you ever get over your first real love.”
She put a hand to her cheek, found it hot, probably flushed, a little wet.
“Yeah. I . . . uh, sent a text.” Her voice crackled as if she’d been crying. She blinked hard, fast.
Yes, she needed sleep. Except not here, not tonight where she could wander off, find herself in the river.
“Howard is asleep in Lulu’s room with Mary Beth. Lulu took the cot in the storage room. She left you the sofa.” He stopped closer. “She makes a mean venison stew. She saved you a bowl.”
Kacey nodded, slid off the boulder. “I’ll just keep watch.”
He frowned at her. “Listen, if you’re worried about Howard, I can keep an eye on him. You need some sleep.”
She walked past him toward the house. Pocketed her phone.
“Kacey?”
She rounded on him. “I don’t need sleep. I’m fine.”
“Of course you do.”
She turned around, but he caught her arm. “What’s going on?”
She looked at his hand on her arm, back to him. “Nothing.”
But he wouldn’t let go, and the heat of his grip wheedled through her, turned her weak. “Okay, fine. I sometimes have a hard time sleeping.” She worked her arm free, folded her arms across her waist. “It’s just a little residue left from my tours.”
“A little residue . . . Wait, are you talking about your crash, the attack in Afghanistan?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She pinched her mouth tight.
“Enough with that. Kacey, it’s me. And I don’t care how long it’s been—I still care. I’m still your friend.”
“That goes two ways, Ben. Why don’t you tell me why you’re not writing your own songs? Why you’re recording songs you don’t want our daughter to sing. And why you decided to go duo—I thought you were a solo act.”
He recoiled, and in the dim light, his face turned dark. “I was never a solo act, Kacey. And that’s the problem. I thought you, better than anyone, knew that.” He strode past her then.
But halfway through the yard, he stopped. Turned. He wore such a stripped look on his face, it shucked the breath from her.
“I don’t write songs anymore because everything good I ever wrote came from . . . from you, from us.”
She stood there, nonplussed, frozen. And in that moment, he took a step back toward her.
“Now, how about you telling me why you can’t sleep?”
Oh. She licked her lips, rooted around for an answer that wouldn’t tear her open, expose her.
“I sleepwalk.”
He frowned. “You sleepwalk?”
“Yeah. It started happening after the . . . after my chopper was shot down. Not right away, but later. I couldn’t sleep right afterward—too many nightmares. And then I got dependent on sleeping pills. But if I didn’t take them, I’d get up and wander. Find myself standing in my skivvies in the middle of the room, or worse, wandering down the hall. I always woke up with this sense that I was supposed to be going someplace. But I never knew where.”
He’d taken another step closer to her. She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled.
“What happened on that mountain, Kacey? What doesn’t the article say?”
She took a breath, shook her head, walked past him to the cabin.
She felt him behind her, though, and when she reached the porch, she sighed. “Okay. But you can’t tell anyone, Ben. Not a soul.”
She turned, looked up at him.
The glow of the light swept away the years, and suddenly she was looking at the boy she’d run to when she’d discovered the truth about her biological mother. The teenager who’d held her in his arms, made her believe, at least for a season, in happily ever after.
The man she’d trusted.
He nodded, and she sat down on the porch, her hands between her knees.
He sat beside her, his leg touching hers.
“I never dreamed of being in the military—wouldn’t have joined, but back then I was desperate. Everything we’d planned was . . . well, I hadn’t thought beyond marrying you, building a life with you.”
He drew in a breath, his jaw tight. And thankfully offered no words of self-defense.
“I knew nothing about being a parent, and I thought if I could just get a job, provide for Audrey, I could fix it. My parents were thrilled to take care of her, and they’re good grandparents, Ben. They love her.” She glanced over at him, and he allowed her a tight nod.
“I enlisted and immediately enrolled in the flight school trajectory.”
“I should have never taken you flying with my dad,” he said, nudging her leg.
She nudged him back, a sweet memory rising.
“I scored nearly perfect on my Flight Aptitude Selection Test. I got accepted, went through basic, then warrant officer candidate school. By the time I started flight school at Fort Rucker, I was feeling like maybe I had a chance at really being someone. Audrey was thriving with my parents, and then . . . I went up in my first Black Hawk. It was nothing like the simulators. Once I swallowed my stomach back down, it was . . . powerful. I could leave behind this girl who was running from her past and be this person who saved lives. Within a year, they deployed me to Iraq and I was flying SAR and medevacs, pulling soldiers out of danger.”
She looked out into the darkness. “I talked to Audrey every week on my computer, and yeah, I missed her, but she was fine. And I was . . . better.”
Better. Not whole, but enough.
“The military is a great place to forget yourself, even rebuild. You focus on one thing—your job—and I figured out how to put my heart in this safe little box.” Or mostly safe—except when she started hearing Benjamin King songs on the radio.
“I’ll never forget the first time I heard ‘Mountain Song.’ I was in country, and a bunch of guys were playing basketball with an iPod playing. And there you were, in Iraq, singing about stars and dreams and . . .” She cast him a sheepish smile. “I nearly threw the iPod into Kuwait.”
He swallowed, his smile wry.
“Anyway, in a way it helped. I realized that you’d moved on, and I should too. I went home, extended my service, and headed to Afghanistan, did a fifteen-month tour, then another, and finally, the last one.” She took a breath.
“The one where you crashed.”
“We were in the Shajau district of the Zabul Province. It’s an area thick with forest and mountains. A chopper of rangers had gone down, and we thought it was due to mechanical failure. But . . . when my team—three of us—got there, we came under fire, and I had to do a hard landing. We found the troops pinned down, four dead—the pilot and three others—the rest fighting a group of Taliban.”
She stared up at the sky. “We fought them off for thirty-six hours. Two more men died, including my crew, and by the time the reinforcements came in, myself and two others had killed a dozen Taliban.”
He said nothing.
“It was the longest night of my life,” she said quietly. “They had the high ground and kept coming at us from everywhere. We kept calling in for air support and didn’t get through until early morning. But they couldn’t get to us—and we were trapped on all sides.” She shook her head to shake free the memories. “I shot one in close combat.”
“Oh, Kace.”
“The worst part is that when we went down, my navigator was wounded. I got to the bunker and kept wanting to go back for him, but . . .” She could sometimes still hear the moaning, a low drill in the back of her mind. “He died in the rubble of the crash, alone.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, actually, it was. I was his pilot. I should have rescued him.” She wiped her hand across her cheek. “I was just so scared. I kept thinking of Audrey, and how I wasn’t going to die on a mountain in Afghanistan.”
“How did you get out?”
“The PJs dropped in behind the insurgents and we coordinated an attack.” She could see the rosy gold of the morning as the sun crested, hear the staccato of gunfire, smell the sulfur, dirt, blood. Taste her own fear piling up in her throat, bile and heat, acrid.
Ben reached out for her hand.
“At first, I was just grateful. So painfully grateful that I’d lived.”
He wove his fingers between hers.
“And just like they said, eventually the daymares started to fade. I stopped jumping at the sound of a shot. But . . .”
“They come back at night.”
She looked at her hand in his. “I feel like the tiny box I kept my heart in exploded into a thousand pieces, and suddenly I don’t have anywhere safe to hide. I cry at stupid things—a box of animal crackers Audrey sent me in a care package. And a replay of the Seahawks losing the Super Bowl.”
“We all cried at that.”
She glanced up, and he wore such a sweet smile that she thought she might just cry again.
“I still haven’t figured out how to rebuild the box. Maybe that’s why I keep finding myself up in the middle of the night, wandering around.”
He tugged her toward him, and although she knew better, she let herself lean in, let him wrap his arms around her.
Let herself close her eyes, breathe in the smell of him.
“I wish I’d been there—not in Afghanistan, but with you. I hate that you were so afraid.”
“You were there, Ben.” She looked up. “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but in the middle of the dark, on top of that mountain, I heard you singing, in my head.” She began to hum, sing the words. “‘After the big game, the bonfire’s on. I got my pretty gal, not doin’ nothing wrong. Wishing on stars, hoping in the night. Someday everything’s gonna work out right.’”
He was staring at her, so much emotion in his eyes, that she stopped singing, looked away. “Sorry, I just—”
“I wrote that song the night we made Audrey,” he said quietly.
She looked back at him, her throat full. “I thought so. Maybe that’s why I sang it. Because I was thinking of her too.”
His hand touched her cheek now, his thumb running over her skin, gentle. “I was such a fool to leave you.” His gaze stopped at her mouth.
And he wasn’t the only fool, because she leaned close and brushed her lips against his. Softly, like a whisper.
It elicited something of a groan inside him, as if he’d been holding his breath.
“Oh, Kace,” he whispered. He wound his hand behind her neck.
Then he was kissing her, sweetly, a delicious familiarity, yet something new, more powerful in his touch.
The man he’d become, now returning to her.
She heard voices in the back of her head but ignored them, just for a second, letting herself go. She touched his chest and folded into him. Lingering.
He finally moved back, his breathing just a little ragged.
Silence fell between them.
A smile slid up his face.
And then it sank in . . . What was she doing? She moved away. “Oh. Wow.”
“Kacey?”
She held up her hand. “I think, maybe . . . I’m just so tired, Ben. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Shh.” He kissed her forehead, caught her eyes in his. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. Listen, just lie down.” He scooted over to make room, and she hesitated.
“You’re safe here,” he said again.
And yeah, that did it. She curled up on the porch, her head against his leg, his arm on her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “Just close your eyes.”
When you need a friend, a shoulder you can cry on, someone who understands what you’re going through . . .
She sighed, let herself sink into the song, the blessed comfort of the warmth of his presence, the smell of the woods, the aura of the past.
Okay, just for tonight.