Chapter Eight

  Kell had plenty to think about while he walked to Maude’s. It felt odd not to have Bradley beside him. Strange. Lonely.

  He wondered if Jenna would understand that the K-9 was his comfort. His own therapy dog. When Bradley was there, he focused on little but the dog.

  And lately on Jenna. Her reactions were disturbing him more and more. Did she think she was the only one who had survived with trauma? Or that no one else would understand her? There were few things in life that no one else could understand. You just had to find the right person to listen.

  Any number of vets in this county could understand the blood, the gore, the shellings, the bombs. The terror and the fear. The ugliness of the black humor, the dehumanization of the enemy that kept them going through atrocities.

  Hell, he knew of one guy hereabouts who couldn’t drive down an open road without going on high alert because of the possibility of a roadside bomb. Even after all this time. The guy dealt with it by gritting his teeth and forcing himself to keep going. Immersion didn’t seem to be working too well for him.

  But maybe the guy had immersed himself too fast, unlike the careful stages Kell was following with Bradley.

  And now that Bradley was getting better about gunfire, perhaps it was time to introduce him to other sharp sounds. Like a nail gun. A hammer. Other things. But so far they were getting nowhere with thunder.

  What if it wasn’t the sound at all that bothered Bradley. What if it was the concussion? The sudden change in air pressure that accompanied a shockwave. That might explain why Bradley didn’t react to those CDs of thunder he’d bought.

  Hearing the distant rumble of thunder might sound like artillery, but did lightning cause a shockwave? And what about the thunder itself?

  He’d have to look into that.

  Meanwhile, he had two puzzles on his plate, and thinking and talking about dogs wasn’t going to solve one of them. Jenna kept deflecting one way or the other, but she was deflecting. He didn’t see how he could put an end to that. Not without arousing her ire. And he sensed she had plenty of ire to go around.

  “Hell,” he muttered to himself as he stepped into Maude’s. Evidently, the dinner crowd had started to drift out. He nodded to some, smiled and offered a greeting to others he knew better.

  Soon this town was going to start whispering about Jenna, because where there was a vacuum, unpleasantness could fill it up. He didn’t want that to happen.

  He stepped up to the counter to place his order, wondering why he couldn’t escape the feeling that something was beginning to coalesce. Something dark.

  * * *

  BRADLEY GREETED HIM with glee and Misty wasn’t far behind. Kell was amused by Misty. Apparently he won her favor by being the guy who brought all things good, namely Bradley.

  Jenna greeted him with a smile, too, an unusual expression for her. Maybe she was taking a step forward, at least with him.

  “Bradley is pathetically well behaved,” she told him as they carried the bags into the kitchen.

  “Pathetic?”

  “If he knows how to make any kind of mischief, I sure didn’t see it.”

  Together, they got out plates and utensils. It seemed Jenna didn’t want to eat out of a box tonight, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d also brought some lattes, which really pleased her.

  Tonight, they ate breaded pork chops, some fried chicken wings, salad, mashed potatoes and even dessert in the form of Maude’s famous peach pie.

  “I thought peaches were out of season,” Jenna remarked.

  “Ah, Maude has a secret and she shared it when I asked.”

  “Which is?”

  “She buys peaches by the bushel, removes the pits, cuts them up and freezes them. No peeling involved, but when she thaws them, the skins slide right off.”

  “I never would have imagined that! Maude’s a genius.”

  “When it comes to food, she sure is.”

  Another silence fell, but Kell didn’t want to say anything that might ruin dinner. Let her enjoy eating, then he was going to risk getting thrown out. He’d have to trust Bradley and Misty to change that. In the meantime...

  “Any idea what you might want from the grocery store tomorrow?”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to fly by the seat of my pants.”

  “I’m getting a hankering for strawberry shortcake.”

  She raised her head. “Wrong time of year. I’m sure of that. Or does Maude have another secret? Anyway, I have no idea how to make it.”

  “I do. I’d gladly be the chef. But here, please, Jenna. My rental is a wreck, in the midst of renovations.”

  “Here is fine,” she answered. She sounded as if she meant it.

  A relief. But he had to find another little step to take with her. God knew what. Any possible way to get her talking apart from the dogs and the cult. Two subjects weren’t going to carry them along forever.

  As they sat eating peach pie, he asked casually, “What made you decide to join the Army? You may have told me, but I don’t recall.” He made a face. “My recall isn’t always good anymore.”

  “The war?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe just advancing years.”

  She shook her head. “Yeah, right.”

  “Anyway, the Army?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Maybe I wanted to help more when life was truly on the line. The average emergency room doesn’t always provide that.”

  He nodded, ate another mouthful of pie, then asked as casually as he could manage, “Field hospital?”

  “Sometimes. Maybe most of the time.”

  “God, that had to be stressful. I visited one a few times and was a patient once. I don’t know how any of the medical personal stuck it out.”

  Her eyes closed, and he wondered if he pressed too far. At last she spoke.

  “Sometimes the floor was covered with gore. After a really bad incident. We couldn’t keep up with it. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the terror, the groans and cries. The times we couldn’t help except with morphine and had to move on to a patient we had a better chance of saving. Triaging. Life and death decisions. I never want to make another one.”

  “But more troops survived than ever before, thanks to you.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Is that good? Really? We send them home with severe brain trauma, with missing limbs, paralysis. With all kinds of disabilities. I began to wonder if we were doing a good thing at all.”

  His chest tightened with sorrow for her. “You guys saved me and I’m glad of it.”

  “Maybe some are. I spent some time at Walter Reed. A lot of those vets were very angry and depressed. Looking forward to limited futures. Or not wanting to look forward at all. There were always some who took it in stride. Stiff upper lip and all that. But there were too many others...” She shook her head. “I saw a lot of marriages blow up, too. Wives and husbands who couldn’t handle the idea of taking care of an invalid for many years to come. Who simply couldn’t stand the changes in someone they’d loved.”

  “I hate to say it, but I can understand.”

  “I understand, too, but you wanna talk about a body blow to people who’d already had one? Not helpful.”

  He shook his head, having nothing at all to say to that. He cleared his throat after a few minutes. “I guess you took a lot of shelling at the field hospitals.”

  “Of course. God bless the RPG. Not.” She sighed and pushed away her barely touched pie. “We had to be near the front lines, such as they were, to be of any real help. Hey, did you guys ever find those front lines?”

  He spoke flatly. “They don’t exist in guerilla warfare.”

  “Hence the need for Bradley.” She looked to one side and saw both dogs sitting patiently, practically drooling as they waited for something to fall from the plates. Or to lick them.

  “Can Bradley eat any of this?”

  “He’ll eat anything. He used to share my rations. Dog has an iron stomach, I swear. Even I couldn’t eat some of that stuff.”

  She smiled faintly. “Bet he didn’t get any instant coffee.”

  “Well, not that for sure. Peaches might be a bit acidic for him, though. Orange juice is a total waste on him.”

  Back to the dogs, he thought. Well, at least he’d gotten a little more out of her. A horror story. He’d seen it from a different perspective, but he knew it.

  She cut up bits of her leftover chop and handed them one-by-one to each dog. “So what exactly did Bradley do?”

  “Like I said, he was a scout, or a patrol dog if you prefer. Except that patrols tended to take several dogs with them. Bradley’s job was a bit different. He went out alone. Surreptitiously. Creeping along until he found something. Might be explosives. Might be a sniper. Might be an ambush. I’d wait for him to come back. He’d alert, his entire body pointing. Or he’d come back prancing along, wagging his tail. No threat. At least not within his range.”

  “Could he tell you what kind of threat?”

  “Yeah, as we moved forward. He’d nose at the ground pointing out a bomb. Or look at both cliff faces, signaling an ambush. Or in just one direction signaling a sniper or two. Point is, we never went in totally blind.”

  “That’s important.”

  “Very.” And back to the dogs again. He’d given her an opening wide enough to drive a truck through, but he felt he hadn’t reached the core of what had caused her to become so detached.

  He suppressed a sigh and wondered if he ever would. Regardless, he had to admit he’d been allowed further into her life than anyone else he could see. Maybe she’d eventually come to trust him enough to tell him the story that had locked her inside herself. Because it was more than the shocks of combat nursing. Of that he was convinced.

  After cleaning up dinner, he suggested the dogs get their last walk of the night. “I’ll take them both if you want. If you’re still having some vertigo.”

  “I’m fine now,” she insisted. “I need the walk, too, as much as Misty does.”

  “You gonna mark every shrub, too?”

  At least that dragged a reluctant laugh from her.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said.

  * * *

  THE EVENING HAD cooled enough that Jenna grabbed a sweater. Kell seemed impervious.

  Seeking some kind of safe conversation as they walked, she asked, “How did you get the name Kell? It’s unusual.”

  “Ah. I was lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “My mom wanted to give me her family name of Kelstrom. Dad put his foot down, said I’d be teased mercilessly. Hence Kell.”

  “She didn’t get anything to say about it?”

  “Do I hear a feminist? Well, of course you are. No, she got some say or I wouldn’t be Kell. I could be Harvey Jackson McLaren, Junior. Being a junior would have been a curse. Do I look like a junior to you?”

  Another small laugh escaped her. “Nope. Not at all.”

  “Well, that’s all that I would have heard while I was growing up. Junior this and Junior that. I’m pretty sure I’d have come to hate it.”

  “And the other kids would have used it against you somehow?”

  “Bet on it. That’s kids. But some of them teased me about my strange name.”

  She saw him shrug, as if it didn’t matter. But maybe it had. How would she know? Or did she even want to know?

  He spoke. “We all grow up eventually. If we’re lucky, we don’t carry many scars from childhood teasing.”

  “True.” No, the real scars came later. “I was teased after my mother left town. Some of my classmates told me it was my fault she’d run away. At least Bernice was squarely on my side. She always insisted that I couldn’t possibly be to blame for the irresponsibility of my parents. As she liked to say, they were the adults making the decisions.”

  “She was right, obviously. But it still had to hurt.”

  “Lots of things hurt. We have to move past them somehow.”

  Another hint. God, she had to stop dropping them, or Kell would open her like a can of sardines. He was beginning to ask too many questions as is. She ought to keep him away.

  But then she looked at the dogs and cussed inwardly. She couldn’t hurt Misty that way. The pooch didn’t deserve it.

  She was relieved, though, when the walk ended and she was at last alone in the house with Misty.

  Her sanctuary. Bernice had always made this her sanctuary. Had even dissed her own sister for skipping town and roundly blamed her son-in-law for abandoning his daughter.

  When Jenna had become older, Bernice had once said, “I wonder how many other kids that bum has left scattered around the rodeo circuit? He ought to be up to his eyeballs in paternity suits. Hah! He wouldn’t be able to ride enough bulls or bust enough broncos to survive financially.”

  The image seemed to please Bernice. Jenna merely wondered how many siblings she had that she’d never meet. Pointless question.

  Whatever had brought her here, good decisions or bad, she was here now. In her safe home, one Bernice had created for her with constant love.

  God bless Bernice.

  Chapter Nine

  Jenna joined Kell and the dogs for the trip to Mike Windwalker’s agility course. It was for Misty’s sake, she told herself. She didn’t want to admit she was there for Kell’s company, which she had begun to crave. Maybe she was coming out of her shell a bit? Or maybe she was freaking nuts to keep exposing herself to a man.

  Regardless, Kell had brought along a bag of small treats. “Low cal,” he assured Jenna. “The way Bradley loves to eat, he’d become a blimp in no time. So here’s how you do the weaving around the pylons.”

  While he told Bradley to stay, he led Misty around the pylons, getting her to zigzag with treats on the ground. Misty’s tail kept wagging fast enough to lift her from the ground.

  “She’s a smart dog,” Kell said as he straightened up. “Do this with her a few more times, then slow down on the treats. One every other pylon, and only if she does it right. If not, no treat, then take her back to the beginning of the course. She’ll get it. Eventually, you’ll only have to give her a treat at the end of the run.”

  Misty looked longingly at Bradley, but only until the first treat caught her attention. Then she became laser-focused.

  Jenna enjoyed watching Misty cock her head as if she were trying to figure it all out. Once, she even tried to outsmart the trick by dashing past all the pylons to the end. Which didn’t get her a single treat, of course.

  But then Misty got the picture, and by the time the exercise ended at Kell’s suggestion, she was down to a treat at every other pylon.

  “She’s doing good,” he said. “But time to give her a break. That kind of focus is tiring.”

  “And Bradley?”

  “He’s got more endurance for this kind of attention. Maybe because he realized it wasn’t a game during training, at least eventually. Or maybe that’s just the way he is. Anyway, you don’t want Misty getting bored or tired, because she might not be as cooperative next time.”

  That made sense to Jenna. “I’ve got my limits, too.”

  “Always let them rest,” Kell said with a smile.

  * * *

  AFTERWARD, JENNA WENT home with Misty, feeling the emptiness of the house stronger than ever. She longed for her Aunt Bernice’s company. Worse, she yearned for Kell’s.

  “God,” she said aloud as she gave Misty a fresh bowl of water. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

  Misty gave her a quizzical look.

  “Not you, girl. Never you. You’re a good girl.”

  No, just herself. Feeling her barriers starting to crack. Risking herself, even if it was with only one man. A man who seemed nice in every way.

  But appearances could be deceiving as she’d learned the hard way. Thank you, Army.

  Telling herself that they weren’t all that way didn’t help. She’d run up hard against the brick wall of authority and male privilege. Hard enough to shatter everything inside her.

  Trust was gone now, for one thing. Shame and guilt and anger had become her constant companions. Her anger was justified, but the rest? She kept trying to talk herself out of the shame and guilt. What had happened to her had not been her fault. But shame and guilt plagued her anyway.

  Sighing, she considered what to do with the rest of her day. Nothing occurred to her. Nothing ever did. She’d promised herself time to heal, but she didn’t seem to be healing at all.

  Pacing was all that seemed to ease any of her anxiety. The only thing. Climbing the stairs again and again until she was sure she’d wear out the carpeting Bernice had covered them with. Movement. She had to keep moving, even without direction.

  Memories tried to rise and she squashed them ruthlessly. They’d do no good except to increase the boiling in her blood, a boil that never dropped below a simmer.

  Worst of all, she had become useless. Pointless. Achieving nothing and going nowhere. She had to find a way out of this mire.

  Early in the evening, when she was standing in the pantry trying to decide which can to open, her phone rang. It was Kell.

  “Grocery store tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Hey, a little more enthusiasm than that, please. Think of all the delicious frozen food you can buy to tempt yourself with. How happy Misty will be to have something good to lick off your plate.”

  Once again he managed to pull a faint smile from her. “I wasn’t thinking of Misty when you said ‘grocery store.’”

  “I figured you weren’t.” He paused. “I heard from the sheriff.”

  Her heart quickened, her hand tightening on her phone. “So fast?”