A Time for Home: A Snowberry Creek Novel (23 page)

Nick slumped against the wall and held her gaze for the first time, finally really back in the kitchen with her. He rubbed his arm as if remembering the pain. “I’d promised him, you see.”

Callie risked standing up, wanting and needing to help him, but there was no way to protect Nick from his own past. As jagged and awful as those memories were to hear, he’d actually lived through them. If sharing them with her eased his burden and his pain at all, she would listen.

The agony in Nick’s expression warned her the worst part was coming. She could already guess what had happened next, but she’d come this far. For Nick’s sake, and Spence’s as well, she would go the rest of the way.

“We almost made it back. Hell, he was only a couple of blocks away. But before we reached him, there was another explosion.”

By now, Nick’s voice was flat and cold, as if he were speaking from the depths of a deep well. He stared at his hand. “We found his dog tags, bent up and bloody. That’s all. Just his fucking dog tags. Spence died all because I left him behind.”

The horror of it all left her chilled straight through to the bone. She wanted to reach out to Nick, but her body refused to cooperate. Before she regained enough control to actually move, he was gone. Out the door with Mooch loping along beside him.

She made it to the back porch just as he reached the edge of the trees. “Nick! Wait for me!”

He either didn’t hear her or didn’t want to. She watched as he plunged into the trees with Mooch loping along at his side. A few seconds later, the dog reappeared. Her heart leapt, hoping that Nick had changed his mind about running off. But no, Mooch was alone and clearly unhappy about his master’s disappearance. Every few steps, he’d stop and look back toward the trees.

Was Nick watching to make sure Mooch didn’t try to follow him again? If he didn’t even want the dog with him, she had to think he wouldn’t be any happier if she were to try to trail along behind him. Damn the man, did he like making her worry like this?

No, of course not. He couldn’t think straight right now. Her questions had inadvertently ripped open a wound that had obviously been festering for weeks. She wanted to drag him back home and do her best to reassure him that she didn’t blame him for Spence’s death. Obviously, he wasn’t ready to hear that, not yet, so she settled for staying right where she was. Maybe when Leif returned he’d have some idea of what she should do next.

A
few minutes after Nick left the woods behind, an approaching car slowed and pulled up across from him. Normally, he wouldn’t have minded running into Gage Logan, but right now he was too twisted up inside to be fit company for anyone.

The driver’s window rolled down. “Need a ride, Nick?”

Maybe the police chief happening by was a coincidence, but there was also the possibility that Callie had gotten worried and made a call. Yeah, he’d get why she might do that, but he was a big boy and capable of taking care of himself.

“Don’t tell me Callie called you.”

“Is there some reason to think she would have?”

Gage frowned big-time, pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, and turned off the engine. Okay, maybe that had come out more harshly than Nick had intended. Since it was obvious the cop in Gage wouldn’t leave now without some kind of explanation, Nick crossed the street.

“Sorry, Gage. Callie and I had, well, not exactly an argument, but something I said definitely upset her. I needed to get away from her long enough to clear my head.”

There was a hard edge to Gage that Nick hadn’t seen before. It was definitely the lawman, and not the friend, who was speaking now. “Did this almost argument get physical?”

Nick stepped back from the car and shook his head. “Hell no! I’d never lay a hand on a woman, and especially not Callie.”

Gage looked a little more relaxed and maybe willing to give Nick the benefit of the doubt, at least for the moment. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t check back with Callie at some point to make sure he was telling the truth. Nick shouldn’t begrudge the man for doing his job.

Even so, Nick slammed his hand down on the roof of the car. “Damn it, Gage, I screwed up big-time and told her about the day Spence died. I didn’t mean to, but it all came pouring out. I even told her that all we found were his dog tags.”

His chest hurt from trying to get past the pain of what he’d done. “Son of a bitch, I never meant to hurt her like that.”

Gage took off his sunglasses to look Nick straight in the eye. “Callie is stronger than you’re giving her credit for, Nick. And you have to know she’s been wondering about what happened and didn’t know who to ask or even if she should. One way or another, she’ll figure out how to deal with it.”

Gage turned to stare out the windshield. The harsh expression on his face made it clear he was seeing something other than that country road stretching out in front of him. Dollars to doughnuts, Gage had a few memories of his own that were hell to live with. He didn’t offer to share and Nick didn’t ask.

“I’m guessing you haven’t had lunch, and neither have I. Get in. I know a little joint near here where we can get some burgers to go.”

Nick looked up and down the empty road. Right now his only other option was walking himself into exhaustion. Maybe it would help to spend time with another man who’d seen more than his fair share of what life threw at both soldiers and lawmen.

He walked around the front of the car and climbed in. “Lunch sounds good, but I’m buying.”

As Gage started the car, he asked, “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“Yeah.” Why would he care?

“Call Callie and tell her you’re all right. No matter what happened back there, she’s going to worry until she knows you’re not lying in a ditch somewhere.”

Nick couldn’t argue with Gage’s logic and reached for his phone. But instead of calling her, he took the coward’s way out and texted her instead: “Sorry. I’m with Gage. Back later.”

If he expected the other man to give him grief, he was wrong. Gage glanced at the cell phone. “I used to hate texting, but there are times it comes in real handy.”

“I need some time to get my head back on straight before I talk to her again, but I will.”

“That’s good, Nick. If I had to guess, I’d say Callie can handle about anything except a lie. In my experience, that’s the one thing that will piss off a woman big-time.”

He glanced over at Nick. “She reminds me a little of my late wife. I was twice her size, but she was the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“What happened to her?”

Not that it was any of Nick’s business, but something about the moment told him Gage wouldn’t mind him asking.

“Cancer. She went fast.”

The lawman lapsed into silence for a few seconds while he waited for a break in traffic to pull out onto a busier stretch of highway. “Too fast. I hardly got to say good-bye to her. In a lot of ways that was the worst part. Even now, a year and a half later, I keep thinking of things I should have said to her, should have told her.”

Nick knew exactly what he meant. Well, not exactly. He hadn’t had to sit and watch someone he loved lose a battle with cancer, but he had the same kind of regrets. The two of them rode in silence, both lost in memory for the moment.

Luckily, a few minutes later they pulled into the drive-in restaurant Gage had mentioned. After calling in to tell his office he was off the radio for lunch, Gage asked, “What sounds good to you?”

The menu had been painted on the side of the building. It wasn’t very long, mostly burgers and fries. “I’ll have a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a fresh strawberry shake.”

Gage pulled up to the window to order. “Hi, Gary. Nick here will have a number six, I’ll have my usual five, and we’ll each have a strawberry shake.”

Nick pulled out his wallet and passed the money over. Once Gary handed off their burgers and shakes, Gage turned down a narrow road that ran alongside the drive-in and back into the woods. A short distance later, it ended at the edge of a small clearing next to a stretch of Snowberry Creek. There were two old beat-up picnic tables. Nick was glad to see he and Gage had the place to themselves.

They both sat on top of the closest table and dug in to their food. Nick hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he opened the sack and caught that first whiff of fresh French fries.

He took one bite of the burger and moaned. “Gage, this was a damn fine idea.”

His companion laughed. “I don’t come here nearly as often as I’d like to; my daughter has it in her head that I need to watch my cholesterol. I swear sometimes she’s the adult and I’m the child. That’s how she treats me, anyway.”

Having met the girl on two occasions, Nick believed him. “Well, if she finds out about this time, blame it on me.”

“Don’t think I won’t.”

Listening to the water rippling over the rocks soothed Nick’s spirit. For the moment, he was content to enjoy the sunshine and Gage’s undemanding company, even though the man would have to go back on duty soon. Nick couldn’t expect him to spend the afternoon babysitting him.

Gage broke the silence. “What set off the discussion about Spence today?”

“Callie wanted to know why I was still hanging around. She knows the original reason I came to Snowberry Creek was to see if she’d be able to give Spence’s dog a permanent home. That was pretty much a yes-or-no answer. Even if she’d needed a couple of days to get to know him before she made a decision, I could have been long gone by now.”

“Why aren’t you? There has to be another reason you stuck around this long, and then there’s the fact you sent for Leif, too. It sure as hell doesn’t take two highly trained soldiers to feed one dog. Not to mention you could have either e-mailed Callie or even called her about Mooch in the first place.”

Gage softened his words with a bit of a smile, but he was still asking the hard questions. The same ones Callie had wanted Nick to answer. Maybe he’d do a better job explaining himself to Gage.

“You’re right. I could have called. Before coming here, I’d been staying at my folks’ place. And while they were glad I was back, it wasn’t easy for them or me.”

He stood up, needing to move around. “I hadn’t decided yet whether I wanted to reenlist or not, and they were making their joint opinion on the subject all too clear. They want their son back, the one they used to know. I’m not that man right now, and I’m not sure I ever will be again. So I used the excuse that I needed to find a home for Mooch to get the hell out of Dodge. Long story short, I ended up on Callie’s doorstep.”

He sat back down. “Much to my surprise, I really like it here. The people are friendly, and they don’t keep looking at me as if I’m a stranger wearing their son’s face.”

Gage nodded. “I’m guessing the problem with your folks will improve over time. At least it did for me. Mine had to deal with me first being an army ranger and then a cop. Mom still worries, but she says that’s just part of her job description. I moved here so they could help me with Syd. She needed more attention than I could give her and still work. This job isn’t nearly as stressful as working in the big city was, but the hours vary a lot. I’m not sure what I would have done without their help.”

Nick had to ask. “Do the nightmares go away?”

The lines bracketing Gage’s mouth deepened. “Yeah. At least most of them. Even the bad ones get better if you find someone to talk to about them. As a matter of fact, there’s a veterans’ support group that meets at the church a couple times a month. If you were to decide to stay here long term, I’d suggest dropping in and getting to know some of the members. The wars we fought in might vary, but the problems we all face don’t.”

“I might just do that.”

Nick cracked his knuckles and stared down at his hands. “I feel like my skin is too small about half the time. There’s too much quiet, not enough action. Funny, whenever I was deployed, I was always counting the days until I could get out of whatever hellhole I was serving in. Now that I’m back in the States, I don’t have any sense of purpose, like I’m drifting in the water.”

Gage started collecting their trash. “How did it feel to build that gazebo thing for Callie?”

“Good. Real good. She knows I want to stay and fix up the house for her. I also told her to get bids from some local contractors, too.”

“So I heard.” Gage paused as if carefully weighing his next words. “I liked being in the military, but it was hard on my wife and family. She finally drew a line in the sand and forced me to choose between her and the army. Harsh, I know, but she had the right to have a say in how our lives played out together. Bottom line, after years of being a good army wife, she was ready for her husband to come home every night.”

He smiled. “At first, it really pissed me off, but I finally realized she was right. I had to decide for myself what I really wanted. In the end, the answer was easy. I wanted her. My only regret was that I didn’t make the decision sooner.”

He started back toward the car but stopped to lean against the fender. “So, bottom line, Nick, ask yourself this. What is driving you to fix up that house? Is it only because you don’t have anything else to do with your time, or is it a way to avoid facing your parents again? Are you developing some strong feelings for Callie and want to stick around to see where that leads? Or maybe you figure you got Spence killed and in some twisted-up way are trying to atone for it by stepping into his life?”

Without waiting for an answer, Gage got in the car and patiently waited for Nick to join him. It took him several minutes to sort through Gage’s words, to make sense of them and the situation he’d gotten himself into.

When he finally got in the car, Gage called in to let the dispatcher know that he was still off the grid for a few more minutes unless there was an emergency. “So do I drop you out on the highway or take you back to the house?”

“I’ve worried her enough.”

“Smart decision.”

Ten minutes later, Gage pulled up in front of the porch. “When you figure out your answers, let me know if I can do anything to help.”

“Will do.” Nick started to get out but stopped. “And thanks, Gage. I appreciate it.”

“Not a problem. I was going to come looking for you this afternoon anyway. I finally tracked down Spence’s cousin last night and had a heart-to-heart talk with him. Told him he and his old man were at the top of my list of suspects for the other night. Not sure how well Austin listened, but the warning was delivered.”

Nick stared out at the woods. “Let’s hope he took it to heart.”

Because if he didn’t, Nick would make sure he got the message the next time. Right now, he needed to get cleaned up and then go next door and try to make peace with Callie. Because in the end, he suspected there was only one final answer to the questions Gage asked.

He’d originally come to town because of what had happened to Spence, and he’d stayed on because being useful felt good. But now he wanted to make a place for himself here in Snowberry Creek, but only if he could convince Callie to be part of that life.

•   •   •

After taking a long shower, Nick stretched out on the couch, intending to rest his eyes for a few minutes. He woke up three hours later, but feeling better than he had in days. The house was quiet. Leif must still be gone. He checked his phone and found a voice mail saying that Leif had to stay overnight on the base and wouldn’t bring the truck back until sometime late tomorrow morning. He hoped that wasn’t a problem.

It wasn’t as if Nick had any burning need to be anywhere. He only hoped that things were going smoothly for Leif. His friend’s voice sounded tired, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. Just to cover all bases, he dialed Leif’s number.