A Love to Call Her Own (31 page)

Therese stood in the hallway, greeting her students, ushering the stragglers into the room. Pretty, dark haired, she looked serene. Competent. So much more in control of herself than Carly. For a moment, Carly hesitated, unsure about her plan. What could she possibly have to offer Therese?

Then she squared her shoulders, fixed a smile on her face, and approached her. “Hi, Therese, I'm Carly Lowry. Third grade?” One hand raised, thumb pointing back the way she'd come. “I, uh…My husband was…”

Sympathy softened Therese's features even more. “I know. Mine, too.”

A pigtailed girl darted between them, pausing long enough to beam up, revealing a missing tooth. “Hi, Miss Trace.”

“Good morning, Courtney.” Therese touched her lightly on the shoulder before the girl rushed inside.

Kindergartners were unbearably cute, but Carly couldn't have taught them. That young and sweet and cuddly, they would have been a constant reminder of the kids she and Jeff had planned to have. Would never have.

“I was, uh, wondering…well, if you would mind getting together for dinner one night to—to talk. About…our husbands and, uh, things. If…well, if you're interested.”

Therese considered it, raising one hand to brush her hair back. Like Carly, she still wore her wedding ring. “I'd like that. Does tonight work for you?”

Carly hadn't expected such a quick response, but it wasn't as if she had any other demands on her time. And if she had too much time to think about this idea, she very well might back out. “Sure. Is Mexican all right?”

Therese smiled. “I haven't had a margarita in months. The Three Amigos?”

It was Tallgrass's best Mexican restaurant, one of Jeff's favorites. Because of that, the only Mexican food Carly had since he died had been takeout from Bueno. “That would be great. Does six work for you?”

Therese's smile widened. “I'll be there.”

The bell rang, the last few kids in the hall scurrying toward their classes. Carly summoned her own smile. “Good. Great. Uh, I'll see you tonight.”

An unfamiliar emotion settled over her as she walked back to her own classroom. Hope, she realized. For the first time in thirteen months, two weeks, and three days, she felt hopeful. Maybe she could learn how to live without Jeff, after all.

 

I
t had taken only three months of living in Oklahoma for Carly to learn that March could be the most wonderful place on earth or the worst. This particular weekend was definitely in the wonderful category. The temperature was in the midseventies, warm enough for short sleeves and shorts, though occasionally a breeze off the water brought just enough coolness to chill her skin. The sun was bright, shining hard on the stone and concrete surfaces that surrounded them, sharply delineating the new green buds on the trees and the shoots peeking out from the rocky ground.

It was a beautiful clear day, the kind that Jeff had loved, the kind they would have spent on a long walk or maybe just lounging in the backyard with ribs smoking on the grill. There was definitely a game on TV—wasn't it about time for March Madness?—but he'd preferred to spend his time off with her. He could always read about the games in the paper.

Voices competed with the splash of the waterfall as she touched her hand to her hip pocket, feeling the crackle of paper there. The photograph went everywhere with her, especially on each new adventure she took with her friends. And this trip to Turner Falls, just outside Davis, Oklahoma, while tame enough, was an adventure for her. Every time she left their house in Tallgrass, two hours away, was an adventure of sorts. Every night she went to sleep without crying, every morning she found the strength to get up.

“There's the cave.” Jessy, petite and red haired, gestured to the opening above and to the right of the waterfall. “Who wants to be first?”

The women looked around at each other, but before anyone else could speak up, Carly did. “I'll go.” These adventures were about a lot of things: companionship, support, grieving, crying, laughing, and facing fears.

There was only one fear Carly needed to face today: her fear of heights. She estimated the cave at about eighty feet above the ground, based on the fact that it was above the falls, which were seventy-two feet high, according to the T-shirts they'd all picked up at the gift shop. Not a huge height, so not a huge fear, right? And it wasn't as if they'd be actually climbing. The trail was steep in places, but anyone could do it. She could do it.

“I'll wait here,” Ilena said. Being twenty-eight weeks pregnant with a child who would never know his father limited her participation in cave climbing. “Anything you don't want to carry, leave with me. And be sure you secure your cameras. I don't want anything crashing down on me from above.”

“Yeah, everyone try not to crash down on Ilena,” Jessy said drily as the women began unloading jackets and water bottles on their friend.

“Though if you do fall, aim for me,” Ilena added. “I'm pretty cushiony these days.” Smiling, she patted the roundness of her belly with jacket-draped arms. With pale skin and white-blond hair, she resembled a rather anemic snowman whose builders had emptied an entire coat closet on it.

Carly faced the beginning of the trail, her gaze rising to the shadow of the cave mouth. Every journey started with one step—the mantra Jeff had used during his try-jogging-you'll-love-it phase. She hadn't loved it at all, but she'd loved him so she'd given it a shot and spent a week recovering from shocks such as her joints had never known.

One step, then another. The voices faded into the rush of the falls again as she pulled herself up a steep incline. She focused on not noticing that the land around her was more vertical than not. She paid close attention to spindly trees and an occasional bit of fresh green working its way up through piles of last fall's leaves. She listened to the water and thought a fountain would be a nice addition to her backyard this summer, one in the corner where she could hear it from her bedroom with the window open.

And before she realized it, she was squeezing past a boulder and the cave entrance was only a few feet away. A triumphant shout rose inside her and she turned to give it voice, only to catch sight of the water thundering over the cliff, the pool below that collected it, and Ilena, divested of her burden now and calling encouragement.

“Oh, holy crap,” she whispered, instinctively backing against the rough rock that formed the floor of the cave entrance.

Heart pounding, she turned away from the view below, grabbed a handful of rock, and hauled herself into the cave. She collapsed on the floor, unmindful of the dirt or any crawly things she might find inside, scooted on her butt until the nearest wall was at her back, then let out the breath squeezing her chest.

Her relieved sigh ended in a squeak as her gaze connected with another no more than six feet away. “Oh, my God!” Jeff's encouragement the first time she'd come eye to eye with a mouse echoed in her head:
“He's probably as scared of you as you are of him.”

The thought almost loosed a giggle, but she was afraid it would have turned hysterical. The man sitting across the cave didn't look as if he was scared of anything, though that might well change when her friends arrived. His eyes were dark, his gaze narrowed, as if he didn't like his solitude interrupted. It was impossible to see what color his hair was, thanks to a very short cut and the baseball cap he wore with the insignia of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. He hadn't shaved in a day or two, and he was lean, long, solid, dressed in a T-shirt and faded jeans with brand-new running shoes.

He shifted awkwardly, sliding a few feet farther into the cave, onto the next level of rock, then ran his hands down his legs, smoothing his jeans.

Carly forced a smile. “I apologize for my graceless entrance. Logically, I knew how high I was, but as long as I didn't look, I didn't have to
really
know. I have this thing about heights, but nobody knows”—she tilted her head toward the entrance, where the others' voices were coming closer—“so I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything.”

Stopping for breath, she grimaced. Apparently, she'd learned to babble again, as if she hadn't spoken to a stranger—a male stranger, at least—in far too long. She'd babbled with every man she'd met until Jeff. Though he'd been exactly the type to intimidate her into idiocy, he never had. Talking to him had been easy from the first moment.

“I'm Carly, and I hope you don't mind company because I think the trail is pretty crowded with my friends right now.” She gestured toward the ball cap. “Are you with the Hundred Seventy-Third?”

There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes that she'd recognized the embroidered insignia. “I was. It's been a while.” His voice was exactly what she expected: dark, raspy, as if he hadn't talked much in a long time.

“Are you at Fort Sill now?” The artillery post at Lawton was about an hour and a half from the falls. It was Oklahoma's only other Army post besides Fort Murphy, two hours northeast at Tallgrass.

“No.” His gaze shifted to the entrance when Jessy appeared, and he moved up another level of the ragged stone that led to the back of the shallow cave.

“Whoo!” Jessy's shout echoed off the walls, then her attention locked on the man. The tilt of her green eyes gave her smile a decided feline look. “Hey, guys, we turn our back on her for one minute, and Carly's off making new friends.” She heaved herself into the cave and, though there was plenty of room, nudged Carly toward the man before dropping to the stone beside her. She leaned past, offering her hand. “Hi, I'm Jessy. Who are you?”

Carly hadn't thought of offering her hand or even asking his name, but direct was Jessy's style, and it usually brought results. This time was no different, though he hesitated before extending his hand. “I'm Dane.”

“Dane,” Therese echoed as she climbed up. “Nice name. I'm Therese. And what are you doing up here in Wagon Wheel Cave?”

“Wishing he'd escaped before we got here,” Carly murmured, and she wasn't sure but thought she heard an agreeing grunt from him.

The others crowded in, offering their names—Fia, Lucy, and Marti—and he acknowledged each of them with a nod. Somewhere along the way, he'd slipped off the ball cap and pushed it out of sight, as though he didn't want to advertise the fact that he'd been Airborne. As if they wouldn't recognize a high-and-tight haircut, but then, he didn't know he'd been cornered by a squad of Army wives.

Widows,
Carly corrected herself. They might consider the loose-knit group of fifteen to twenty women back in Tallgrass just friends. They might jokingly refer to themselves as the Tuesday Night Margarita Club, but everyone around Tallgrass knew who they really were, even if people rarely said the words to them.

The Fort Murphy Widows' Club.

Marti, closest to the entrance, leaned over the edge far enough to make Carly's heart catch in her chest. “Hey, Ilena, say hi to Dane!”

“Hello, Dane!” came a distant shout.

“We left her down below. She's preggers.” At Dane's somewhat puzzled gesture, Marti yelled out again, “Dane says hi!”

“Bet you've never been alone in a small cave with six women,” someone commented.

“Hope you're not claustrophobic,” someone else added.

He did look a bit green, Carly thought, but not from claustrophobia. He'd found the isolation he was seeking, only to have a horde of chatty females descend on him. But who went looking for isolation in a public park on a beautiful warm Saturday?

Probably lots of people, she admitted, given how many millions of acres of public wilderness there were. But Turner Falls wasn't isolated wilderness. Anyone could drive in. And the cave certainly wasn't isolated. Even she could reach it.

Deep inside, elation surged, a quiet celebration. Who knew? Maybe this fall she would strap into the bungee ride at the Tulsa State Fair and let it launch her into the stratosphere. But first she had to get down from here.

Her stomach shuddered at the thought.

After a few minutes' conversation and picture taking, her friends began leaving again in the order in which they'd come. With each departure, Carly put a few inches' space between her and Dane until finally it was her turn. She took a deep breath…and stayed exactly where she was. She could see the ground from here if she leaned forward except no way was she leaning forward with her eyes open. With her luck, she'd get dizzy and pitch out headfirst.

“It's not so bad if you back out.” Despite his brief conversation with the others, Dane's voice still sounded rusty. “Keep your attention on your hands and feet, and don't forget to breathe.”

“Easy for you to say.” Her own voice sounded reedy, unsteady. “You used to jump out of airplanes for a living.”

“Yeah, well, it's not the jumping that's hard. It's the landing that can get you in a world of trouble.”

On hands and knees, she flashed him a smile as she scooted in reverse until there was nothing but air beneath her feet. Ready to lunge back inside any instant, she felt for the ledge with her toes and found it, solid and wide and really not very different from a sidewalk, if she discounted the fact that it was eighty feet above the ground. “You never did say where you're stationed,” she commented.

“Fort Murphy. It's a couple hours away—”

“At Tallgrass.” Her smile broadened. “That's where we're all from. Maybe we'll see you around.” She eased away from the entrance, silently chanting to keep her gaze from straying.
Hands, feet, breathe. Hands, feet, breathe.

Dane Clark stiffly moved to the front of the cave. A nicer guy would've offered to make the descent with Carly, but these days he found that being civil was sometimes the best he could offer. Besides, he wasn't always steady on his feet himself. If she'd slipped and he'd tried to catch her, she likely would have had to catch him instead. Not an experience his ego wanted.

His therapists wouldn't like it if they knew he was sitting in this cave. He'd been in Tallgrass only a few days. The first day, he'd bought a truck. The second, he'd come here. The drive had been too long, the climb too much. But he'd wanted this to be the first thing he'd done here because it was the last thing he'd done with his dad before he died. It was a tribute to him.

The women's voices were still audible, though all he could really make out was laughter. What were the odds he would drive two hours for a little privacy and wind up sharing the cave with six women—seven if he counted the pregnant one, now handing out jackets—from the town where he was stationed?

It really was a small world. He'd traveled a hell of a lot of it. He should know.

Sliding forward a few inches, he let his feet dangle over the edge. God, how many times had doctors and nurses and therapists told him to do that? Too many to think about, so instead he watched Carly's progress, her orange shirt easy to pick out against the drab shades of rock and dirt. Why had she volunteered to lead the climb if she was afraid of heights? To prove she could?

Finally, she jumped the last few feet to the ground and spun in a little circle that he doubted any of her friends noticed. She joined them, and what appeared to be a spontaneous group hug broke out, congratulating each other on their success.

He'd had buddies like that—well, maybe not so touchy-feely. Still did, even if they were scattered all over the world. But after years filled with one tour after another in Iraq or Afghanistan, a lot of them were gone. Sometimes he thought he couldn't possibly remember all their faces and names. Other times, he knew he would never forget.

After posing for more pictures, the women headed away from the falls. With the trail empty as far as he could see, he stood up, both hands touching the rock just in case. Time to see if his right leg and the miracle of modern medicine that served as his left could get him to the bottom without falling on his ass.

He succeeded. Uneven ground made for uncomfortable walking, the prosthetic rubbing the stump of his leg despite its protective sleeve. It was odd, standing, moving, climbing, without more than half of his leg. He could feel it, and yet he couldn't, sensed it was there but knew it wasn't. It was the damnedest thing—sometimes the hardest of all to accept.