Nicco regarded Scout with a mix of admiration and concern. She didn’t back down—he ought to know—and she’d go after the truth no matter the danger. While he applauded her resolve, he worried that she didn’t seem to understand just how close they’d come to dying tonight.
If the shooter’s bullet had come even a hair closer, Scout would be lying on a slab in the morgue right about now.
Her steadfastness was one of the things he respected about her, but on the battlefield, arrogance could prove fatal.
He’d seen buddies who believed they were invincible mowed down by a spray of bullets that did not discriminate between courage and foolhardiness.
He sat in the room’s one chair and pulled her onto his lap. She was so tiny that it was no hardship to hold her. Beneath the smell of smoke, the scent of some flowery shampoo drifted from her hair.
“It’s all right. We’ll get through this.” He tightened his arms around her. “You need some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “Not after this.” She drew back a few inches so that her face was tilted to his. “Before…everything…you were going to tell me something.”
Nicco didn’t spend a lot of time in the past. Remembering took him down a rabbit hole that had no escape, but maybe sharing those memories with Scout would help both of them.
“An order came down to pick up a reporter at the local command post. I fought against it, saying it jeopardized the operation, but nobody paid any attention.
“Turns out the reporter was okay. Smart and savvy and pretty, a lot like you.” He thought of Ruth, her intelligence, her integrity. Against his better judgment, he’d been drawn to her, and the attraction was returned. Pretty soon, the two of them were sharing smiles and small jokes. “We started talking about a future.
“And then it happened.”
“What?” So immersed was he in the pain-filled memories, Scout’s voice reached him as though from a great distance.
“Things hadn’t gone the way they were planned…” And when had they ever? “…and the asset was still with us, rather than being exfiltrated. There were rumors that our camp would be raided by an insurgent group wanting to take him out. I knew I had to get Ruth out of there and sent her, along with two of my unit for protection, back to headquarters. We didn’t know until it was too late that the road they’d taken was riddled with IEDs.”
He told the story without any inflection, repeating it by rote. That was the only way he could get through it.
The steady hum of the room’s AC unit provided background noise for the recitation of facts.
“An IED went off, killing Ruth and my men.” Grief had consumed him, scraping at his heart with razor-sharp teeth.
He’d witnessed death before. Few soldiers in a combat zone remained untouched by the useless waste of life that was war. But Ruth’s had reached down deep and squeezed the life from him.
“You loved her, but she’s not gone. Not really. She’s in your thoughts…” Scout gestured to his heart “…and in here.”
“Sometimes I can’t remember things about her. Her voice. Why don’t I have a recording of her voice? I’d give anything to hear it again.”
“You’ll remember when the time is right. When you need to hear it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s the way it is with my parents. Just when I think the memories of my mother’s voice or how my father smelled of peppermint are gone forever, I remember. I tuck it away. Later, I can take it out and hold it to my heart. Then I remember how much they loved each other. How much they loved me. It’s one of the Lord’s tender mercies.” Her voice cracked on the last.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you don’t get it. You weren’t responsible for your parents’ deaths. If not for me, Ruth would still be alive.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“She was in my care.” Bitterness clung to every syllable. “I was responsible for her and for the men assigned to me. Two good men died because of me, because of a decision I made.”
He couldn’t forgive himself. Neither could he forget. After he’d returned to the States, he’d gone to see the families of the two men who died. In a swirl of barbed-edged memories, he recalled the awkward meetings with the grief-stricken families. They hadn’t blamed him, but neither had they wanted to stay in touch.
Why would they? He was a reminder of all they had lost.
“I started acting stupid. Taking risks.” The stew of grief and guilt deepened as he recalled the risks he’d taken that endangered not only himself but the men under him. When he finally accepted the inevitable, he knew it was time—past time—that he resigned his commission.
Nicco stopped abruptly, wishing he could snatch back the last minutes. What had he been doing, confiding in Scout that way? He’d never shared the whole story with anyone, not even his family.
Saying the words aloud put a name to the pain he still carried. It had been better to keep it locked away. Exposing it to the light of day didn’t help.
He thought of Scout’s declaration of faith and his own lack of it. For him, it wasn’t so much a loss of faith as it was a break of faith. Or maybe it was him who was broken. He’d felt broken inside ever since he’d returned from the Stand.
Ironically, he’d received a commendation for successfully completing the mission of securing the asset and his eventual exfiltration. With 4-stars, members of Congress and other dignitaries on a stage to honor him, Nicco had never felt less worthy in his life.
It was that event, along with the acknowledgment that he was risking his men’s lives with his self-destructive behavior, that had finally prompted him to leave the Rangers. It had ripped the heart from him, but he hadn’t had a choice.
What he’d believed, in the job, and, more important, in the Lord, had gotten all twisted up in his mind and soul.
The worst part was disappointing his mother. Rosa Santonni had brought her children up to believe in God and to worship Him at church whenever possible.
Nicco’s refusal to set foot inside a church since his return to the States had caused her infinite heartache. He’d rather cut off an arm than cause his mother a second’s distress, but he couldn’t be a hypocrite and that was what attending church felt like.
Sometimes he struggled to bring up Ruth’s face in his memory. How could he have forgotten? He had a photo, tattered and bent from being tucked inside his wallet for over three years, but shouldn’t he be able to remember what she, the love of his life, looked like without a reminder?
If he did succeed in having romantic feelings for another woman, he would welcome them gladly, but the pain of losing Ruth and his guilt were obstacles he doubted he’d ever be able to overcome.
“There’s more,” Scout said, bringing him back to the here and now.
He took a moment to collect his thoughts before he began speaking. “Ever since it happened, I’ve been thinking a lot about good and evil. It should be white and black, yet too often we live in a world of gray. How do we know which is which?”
“The Lord tells us. When we’re on the right path, He lets us know. Just as He lets us know when we’re on the wrong one.”
“How?” He realized he really wanted to hear her take on it.
She placed her hand on her heart. “We feel it here. If our heart is full of positive energy, we know we’re on the right path. If we feel darkness, we know we’re headed in the wrong direction.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I am. It’s the only thing in this world I am sure about.”
The certainty in her voice reached deep inside him and touched his heart. He understood Scout well enough to know that she didn’t take such matters lightly.
“I wish I had your faith.”
“All you have to do is to ask Him.”
The simplicity of it caused him to wonder if he had the courage to do as she said. Could he ask the Lord for faith when his own had been MIA for so long? The ramifications of doing as she said settled in his gut like spoiled milk. If he did, then he had to live up to his part of the bargain.
He had lost an essential part of himself. Before he knew what he was doing, he was voicing his thoughts aloud.
“You don’t have to stay lost,” Scout said softly. “The Lord welcomes all His sheep. Especially the lost ones.”
It was too much. He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready for her. “Enough.” He quieted his voice. “Just…enough.”
* * *
Scout understood all too well the hold the past could have. She had tried to break its grip too many times to remember, but it had proved stronger than she was.
The only way out of the pain was to hand it over to the Lord and to beg for His mercy. He was the one with power. Once she’d realized that, much of her burden had been lifted.
She wanted to share more of her faith in His power and mercy with Nicco, but she knew he wasn’t ready to listen. Not yet. Instead, she could only pray that someday he’d be ready to hear the truth. To accept it.
When this was all over, Nicco would return to his life and she to hers. Whatever happened between them, she wished with all her heart that she could help ease the burden he carried and restore his faith.
And then she realized that it wasn’t up to her. That was the Lord’s privilege. She dipped her head in humility at the gentle chastisement. What had she been thinking, believing that she could fix the burdens that Nicco carried? What arrogance on her part to believe that she could do what only the Lord could accomplish.
She raised her head to meet his gaze and felt instantly foolish. Everything about him shouted independence, strength and courage. She doubted anyone looked less like they needed someone to worry over him.
He had rolled up the sleeves of his T-shirt, revealing arms ropey with muscle and sinew. He looked tough and able to handle whatever life threw his way, reminding her of the zing of attraction she’d experienced upon first meeting him.
Okay. Scratch the worry and focus on finding out who killed her parents.
Tentatively, she touched his arm. “You’re a good man, Nicco Santonni. You aren’t responsible for Ruth’s death or those of your men any more than I am for my parents’.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You didn’t give the order for your parents to take that road the night they were killed. I gave the order and the woman I loved and two of my men died because of it.”
He shook off her hand. His voice roughened. “Still think I’m a hero?” What might have been shame crossed his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”
Not so long. And it mattered very much. For all the bits and pieces of information that she had processed in the last few days about Nicco Santonni, this was by far the most important.
Because Nicco had become important. The admission gave her pause. When had that happened? More important, what did she do about it?
Bradley had dumped her with no more thought than if he’d been tossing away a used tissue. It had broken her heart; more, it had shattered her trust and her belief in herself.
“Because you didn’t know that a bomb was buried in the road. You weren’t to blame.”
“Then who is?”
“What about the people who put the explosive there? They’re the ones to blame.”
She willed him to believe her. “The Lord has given you some pretty extraordinary gifts. He’s given you some burdens, too. It’s up to you to decide which will win out.”
“What do you know about what the Lord’s given me?” Resentment slashed through the words. “You don’t know me. Don’t know what I’ve seen, what I’ve done.”
“I see the goodness in your eyes. I hear it when you talk about your family.”
“The Lord turned His back on me a long time ago.” He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t that long. Only three years. But it seems like an eternity.”
She supposed it was an eternity when she considered that he’d been without the Lord in his life during that time.
“Are you sure?” She waited a beat. “Or did you turn your back on the Lord? He knows the truth. He knows what you’re going through. He watches you go through it alone, and He weeps because you don’t have to. He is the restorer of faith, the protector of the innocent. You are not alone. Not now. Not ever.
“Sometimes…sometimes it’s too much to take in, the enormity of His love for us. How can it be that the Savior sacrificed everything for us and that He took our pain onto Himself?”
“You say you want to help. If that’s true, leave it be. You can’t change anything.”
“You’re right. I can’t change anything. But there’s Someone who can.”
“Leave. It. Be.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“That’s how I want it.”
The roughness of his voice had Scout drawing back. Stiffly, she got to her feet. “I think I can sleep now,” she said. “Thank you for staying with me.”
“No problem.” Nicco stood as well. “Like I said, yell if you need anything.”
“Okay.” But she knew she wouldn’t.
After showering away the soot and smoke, Scout dressed in the sweats she’d brought with her.
Exhaustion pulled at her. Despite her assurance to Nicco that she could sleep, she doubted she’d be able to find any peace in closing her eyes. Too many emotions swept through her. Shock when Nicco had grabbed her hand and pulled her from the house. Fear as she’d crouched behind the bushes. Uncertainty of her feelings for the man who had become so important.
It was the last that kept her awake far into the night.