Battle for the Soldier's Heart (13 page)

“You don’t get it. I don’t have that stuff. Swim trunks. A
beach towel.” This was said with a certain defiant pride.

He saw Grace absorb that. Felt himself absorb it.

“That’s easy to fix,” Rory said. “Ask Grace.”

She actually blushed. Rory found himself hoping that if they
went to the beach, she would wear her new bikini again.

A little more of that control felt as if it was slipping away
from him.

“I don’t know how to swim,” Tucker said.

“It’s not rocket science,” Rory said. Unlike Grace, he could
feel the pressure of a time line. Within days they would know the truth. Was
that enough time to give this kid a taste of a childhood? Something he could
hold inside himself when it all went to hell in a handbasket?

Rory wondered if he was kidding himself.

Was this about Tucker, or was this about him?

Since he was Tucker’s age he had yearned for normal things. For
a normal family. For a normal Christmas.
For a normal dinner around the
family table. To go to bed at night and not hear raised voices and things
breaking, his mother crying. Not to feel that sense of helplessness as he
watched his mother unravel; not to feel that sense that he was failing her every
single day. Failing to protect her from his father’s temper, from her own
impulses, from the life that she seemed so disillusioned with.

All his life, he had fought that yearning just to be
normal.

Especially when he had met the Day family. He’d liked hanging
with Graham, but he had steadfastly refused the invitations to the cottage, for
Christmas dinner, the invitation to experience this thing called home too
deeply.

At some level he feared that if he ever got what he wanted
most, it would destroy him. It would make him weak instead of strong. It would
make him squander his moments chasing after something he couldn’t have.

And so he had scorned it instead. Held himself aloof from it.
Told himself other men
needed
home, family, but he
did not.

Every marital breakup among friends, every Dear John letter,
Rory had taken as evidence that he lived in reality.

He had congratulated himself on seeing through the illusion, on
walking away from it.

And so Rory Adams was startled to find he had no strength left
to fight this thing. Ever since he had told Grace the truth—that he had failed
her brother—and she had refused to see it that way, he had felt this weakness
growing in him.

And wasn’t that his greatest fear, that love made a man weak
instead of strong?

Love.
Where had that word come
from? The word he had avoided his entire life? That he had rarely spoken, and
when he did, only in the most casual of contexts, as in
I
love pizza with feta cheese on top of it.

But the truth was what he was feeling for Grace was a whole lot
different than what he felt for a pizza, even with feta cheese on top.

Stand down, soldier,
he ordered
himself.

But his heart wouldn’t listen. His heart was prepared to
mutiny.

* * *

“You’re going too fast,” Grace called, gasping. “You
have to slow down.”

She was breathless with laughter and the effort of pedaling her
bike up a huge hill. Now Rory and Tucker were swooshing down the other side,
speed demons, both of them.

“Tucker, stop it! You just learned!”

But he was already too far away to hear her, and maybe that was
a good thing. The last thing he needed was to have the enjoyment of the moment
overshadowed by her sense of caution.

She stopped to catch her breath and to watch them.

She acknowledged it had been the best week of her entire life.
She loved being with Tucker. She loved being an auntie. It was as though she had
lived for this.

But, of course, it was more than being an auntie to Tucker.

Far more. It was the magic of all of them being together. She
had let Beth take over the whole office for the past days. Rory must have done
the same. Because they were like a family on holiday.

She had lived in the Okanagan Valley her whole life and she
felt as though she had never seen it before. She felt as if the scales had
dropped from her eyes.

She lived in a state of discovery as they explored and went on
picnics and discovered new beaches.

She must have seen sunsets before, but had she ever felt their
warmth shimmering along her skin like a living thing?

In the evenings, after the days jam-packed with sightseeing and
the headlong pursuit of fun, Tucker’s favorite thing was playing video games at
Rory’s apartment on a state-of-the-art gaming system.

Even she had to admit it was way more fun than board games. She
particularly liked the one where you could virtually go bowling, or golfing or
play baseball. The laughter they shared at her ineptitude at each of those
sports would live with her forever.

They were managing, two or three times a day, to get to the
hospital. After that first butterscotch-dipped cone, they always brought
Serenity something, made her part of the circle. They gave Tucker a camera and
he took a zillion pictures, would climb onto the bed with his mom and share them
all. Once they sneaked the gaming system in, and laughed so hard that a nurse
came and banished them for the evening and the machine for good.

But, despite a softening in Serenity, at a deeper level, Grace
could feel something haunted her? What was it?

Somehow, they were becoming a family. Not a family that met any
kind of definition of family, but a family all the same. Grace and Tucker were
still staying at Rory’s apartment, living in separate rooms, but still, how
could you not feel like a family when you were sharing the same space, eating
off the same dishes, arguing about what television show to watch, what game to
play, thinking about what surprise to cook up for
Serenity that day? They
were becoming wonderfully good at dreaming up ways to make her smile.

Even Rory seemed to be overcoming his suspicion of her. It was
his idea to bring one of the ponies to the front lawn of the hospital where
Serenity could see it from her window. Slim delivered it in a trailer. Tucker
stood outside waving and grinning. The pony wore a banner that said, Get Well
Soon.

But, as exquisite as each day was, and as much as Grace enjoyed
every moment of laughter and discovery and togetherness, there was a moment in
each day that she looked forward to like no other.

That was when Tucker fell into bed, exhausted. He would call
his mom on the cell phone Rory had lent him, and then fall into a deep, deep
sleep.

And then Grace and Rory were alone.

There was always one suspended moment when it was suddenly
silent. When they would look at each other as if they were thirsty people
drinking cool water.

That moment would pass, but the awareness would continue to
sizzle softly between them.

It was there as they decided what music to listen to, or what
drink to share as they sat out on his deck watching night claim the lake.

It was there as they talked, the comfort level between them
constantly growing, evolving, becoming. They remembered Graham, now, not with
pain, but with affection, and those memories brought them comfort and drew them
yet closer together.

Without either of them saying a word, somehow Grace and Rory
had become a couple. It had started with his hand resting casually on her
shoulder or around her waist on some of their excursions.

Encouraged by his easy familiarity she had started taking his
hand in hers.

In the evenings now, they shared the couch, closer and closer,
together, legs brushing, shoulders touching.

Finally, they had kissed.

It was an intentional kiss, the sun setting, bathing them both
in golden light, her shoulder touching his.

And then he had turned and looked at her.

And moaned low in his throat, a sound of surrender, of almost
animal wanting.

He had dropped his head over hers, sought her lips and then her
throat and then her eyelids, and then she had drawn him to her lips again,
hungry for his taste.

And he had tasted of everything he was: strength and power,
masculine self-certainty, confidence.

But underlying that, she had been amazed by the pure sweetness
of him. That was the taste that lingered after all the others were gone.

In his kiss, he had revealed finally, holding back nothing, who
he really was.

And that was a man so genuinely good it brought tears to her
eyes.

It was a kiss that there was no mistaking the intention of. It
was not
Thank you for
a lovely day.
It was not a casual brush of lips
where either of them could go
oops,
how did that happen?

No, it was a kiss that said,
I see
you.

It was a kiss that said,
I know
you
.

It was a kiss that said,
My heart and
yours have begun to beat together.

It was a kiss that said,
I loved today. I
cannot wait for tomorrow.

In other words it was a kiss that embraced the future.

But then, as if to deny everything that kiss had just said, he
had broken away from her, vaguely troubled.

“Good night, Gracie.”

And she had been left on the deck, standing in the dying light,
so aware that things were not defined between them. It was as if they had become
a couple by default, without a conscious decision.

She was afraid if she asked for a conscious decision, if she
did anything to disturb the balance, it would end as quickly and casually as it
had started.

Now, watching Rory ride his bike down the hill, his hair
tangling in the wind behind him, she felt breathless again. Not from riding her
bike but from knowing her own heart.

She loved Rory’s easy strength, his laughter, his camaraderie
with that little boy. She knew she had to find the courage to tell him the
truth. She would tell him soon, waiting for the perfect moment.

She would tell Rory Adams she loved him.

It wasn’t the cautious thing to do.

But in the past few days, she had become the girl she always
wanted to be. A girl who had carried a picture of a red sports car in her wallet
without knowing why.

Now she knew.

The car represented the contradiction that was her: she loved
home. She loved family. She loved playing games and canning peaches.

But with Rory, she was becoming more whole, more herself,
embracing another side, the side that she had always repressed.

The side that was willing to take the lead. The side that was
bold. The side that loved adventure.

The side that made her his equal.

The side of her that made her brave enough to say yes to the
greatest risk and the greatest adventure of all.

Falling in love with another person. Deeply and truly. Wanting,
always, what was best for them.

Even if that meant consequences to herself.

Even if there was the potential there for pain.

Telling Rory Adams she loved him was going to take more courage
than anything she had ever done.

And she felt ready.

And somehow it was love that had made her this courageous and
this ready.

And wasn’t that exactly what love did? Made you better than
what you had been before? Made you better than you had ever imagined you could
be.

Was he feeling the same way? The very thought made her insides
quake, made her tremble with anxiety.

No, she would not let fear into it. She wouldn’t. She would be
the girl who had dreamed Ferrari dreams.

She kicked off from the top of the hill, took her hand off the
brake and kicked free of the bicycle pedals. She had not a single thought of
falling.

CHAPTER NINE

R
ORY
stared down at the envelope in his hands. Grace and Tucker were both fast asleep in his guest bedrooms. It was the last night they would be here together like this, the little makeshift family that he had taken such unexpected and fierce pleasure in.

Once they were gone—Serenity was being released from the hospital in the morning—and things got back to normal, how was he going to be able to stand this apartment? It would be as if the light had gone out of it. Even now, glancing around, he realized the place had become a home.

There was a beach towel tossed over the couch, and a remote-control car wedged underneath the coffee table. There were two pairs of tiny sneakers at the front door, Grace’s and Tucker’s. There was a bowl of potato chips left out on the counter and a tin of hot chocolate and three mugs in the sink.

There was a clumsily wrapped gift on the table, a new blouse that Tucker had picked out for his mother’s homecoming.

It felt as if a family lived here.

And over the past week, isn’t that what they’d become? A family.

It was what Rory had longed for his entire life. And avoided at the very same time. Now, it had been thrust upon him.

Rory was aware he should not have let his guard down. He should not have been sucked in so completely.

But that’s what love did. It impaired a man’s judgment as surely as wine. As he thought back over the last week, it occurred to him, maybe even more than wine.

He thought of everything they had done: driving minicars and having picnics, riding bikes, teaching Tucker to swim. He thought of overcoming his deep suspicion of Serenity to honor Tucker’s love and devotion for her.

He thought of the evenings in the apartment playing video games, eating chips, sipping hot chocolate.

And he thought of the best moments of all: when Tucker had gone to bed and he and Grace sat out on the deck, sipping hot chocolate and watching the sun set over the lake.

He thought of last night when he had kissed her so thoroughly it felt as if they had exchanged souls.

He let the shock of that ripple along his spine.

He loved her. He loved Grace Day as much as he had ever loved anyone in his whole life.

And love filled a hole in him that he had tried to outrun his whole life.

The envelope had been delivered earlier, and he had put it aside, not wanting to know what was in there, stealing as many moments of this sense of family as he could. He had wanted to have this last night. Of what?

Being a family.

But he had not gone out on the balcony tonight, and had not kissed her. He had steeled himself against the longing he saw in her face, and his own.

Taking a deep breath, Rory slid the papers from the envelope.

A few minutes later, he set them down, leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, covered his eyes with his hands.

That’s what hope did. Left you open to being broken like this, like a shattered piece of glass.

He hadn’t been part of a family. He’d been part of an elaborate pretense, and he of all people should have known better.

He heard her before he saw her, opened his eyes and gazed at Grace. She was in one of his shirts, her hair tousled, her long legs naked.

He had never seen a woman look so sexy.

So beautiful.

“Rory, what’s wrong?” she said. “What time is it?”

“It’s late.”

“You couldn’t sleep? Are you having the dreams again?”

He had not had the dreams all week. He had slept soundly. Now, he realized he had failed all the way around.

He had failed to protect his mother.

He had failed to protect Graham.

And he had failed to protect Gracie, too.

When it should have been him being pragmatic, what had he been doing? Throwing himself into the fantasy she had been creating.

“Grace, he’s not Graham’s.”

“What?”

“Tucker isn’t Graham’s.”

She stood there, sleepy and vulnerable, and looked stunned. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

“He’s actually not seven. He’s nine.” Rory thought of that first meeting with Tucker, asking how old he was, Tucker’s hesitation, Serenity’s voice coming from under the truck.

Tell the man how old you are.

Tucker was small for his age. They’d accepted without question he was seven.

“Given his age,” Rory said, “it goes without saying that the DNA was not a match.”

“What DNA?” she asked.

“I collected a sample,” he said, and then found he could not fudge the truth. Hadn’t he been doing that all week? Pretending? Pretending it could all be true. It was enough now. “I collected a sample from each of you.”

“Without telling me?” she whispered.

“Grace, you never wanted to know the truth. That’s why you didn’t want a DNA test from the very beginning. Part of you knew it could end like this and you wanted it all to match your little fantasy.”

“I wanted Graham to go on,” she said, shrilly.

“Well, he doesn’t,” Rory said harshly. “Life doesn’t always go the way you dream. In fact, it rarely does.”

She began to cry.

He got up. He wanted to close his arms around her. He wanted to protect her from the world and from any kind of pain.

But when he began to move toward her, she stepped back from him.

“How could you do this to me? Eventually, I would have been ready to do a DNA test. How could you collect a sample without telling me? It’s a betrayal!”

“I tried to warn you I could put out your light, Grace. I tried to warn you.”

She stared at him, then turned on her heel, ran into her room and shut the door firmly.

He stared at the closed door for a moment, and then went to bed. The dreams came back with a vengeance.

At dawn he admitted there would be no more sleep. He got up, a man who had been assigned an unpleasant mission, a man with a job to do.

He went to the hospital.

Serenity was sitting on the edge of her bed, already dressed, ready to go. It would be hours before they released her, but she already was ready. He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her. He waited for the anger to come at the deceit she had visited on them, on how she had deliberately hurt Grace.

But what he saw in her face in the early morning light was not deceit. It was weariness and fear.

She glanced up and saw him, scanned his face, seemed to sag.

“You know,” she said tiredly.

He came and sat beside her. “I took a DNA sample. I put a private detective on it.”

“Ah.”

“Why would you do this?” he asked. “Why would you cause such a good woman so much pain?”

“In case you haven’t figured it out, Sherlock, I’m really sick,” she said. She tried for defiance and somehow failed. “I knew before I came in here. I’ve got Hepatitis C. I’m going to die from it.”

He searched her face for the con, and found none.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. He was sorry for her, heartbroken for Tucker. But he had to know. “But why visit your troubles on Grace?”

The tears came then.

“In my whole life, one man was decent to me. One. What does that tell you about a life?”

“Graham,” he guessed.

“Those few days we were all together. It was a crazy party. He could have done anything, but he never even tried. He never treated me like a whore. He never showed me anything but kindness and respect I didn’t deserve.”

Rory felt a pang for his friend.

He’d always been like that. Even over there. Keeping his pockets full of candy for the kids. Everyone treated with love and respect. Everyone.

Suddenly, the missing words, the missing part of his dream when he always woke up slipped into his consciousness, but it was gone before he could capture it.

“I saw his picture in the newspaper,” Serenity said. “I hadn’t seen him for what, eight years? But there was a whole bunch of pictures of Canadian soldiers who had been killed over there. I’m a tough girl,” she said, “but when I saw that picture I cried like a baby.

“I guess I started thinking about it right then. What’s going to happen to Tucker when I die? I’ve been in foster care. I didn’t want that for Tucker. I thought what if that decent, decent man had a family?”

“What about Tucker’s real father?” Rory asked.

“He wasn’t a good person. I was never with him, except for a night or two. He died. He never even knew about Tucker. I don’t think he would have even cared.”

“So, you were looking for a home for Tucker?”

“He doesn’t know how sick I am. I mean, I guess he does, ’cause he’s seen me not feeling well lots and lots, but he doesn’t know I’m going to die.

“Though he must have suspected something was up, because he didn’t take to Grace. Almost like he sensed I was choosing who to leave him with and hated her for it. Instead of me.

“But then that first day you guys had him, and he drove the race car, he came in here and he was shining.

“I’ve never given him that. I want him to have a shot at life. I want him to have what I never had.”

Rory felt his own
want
for those very things claw up his throat. Wasn’t this what it was to be human? Wanting a family, a place to belong, a place where you felt safe and loved, as basic a need as eating or having a roof over your head? He felt something in him softening toward Serenity.

“There’s no hope on the diagnosis?”

“There’s an experimental treatment for it. It’s the same way they treat cancer. If the treatment doesn’t kill you, it can actually get rid of the Hep C permanently.”

“And you aren’t a candidate?”

She snorted. “I don’t even have health insurance.”

“If you had health insurance?”

“It wouldn’t matter. I still wouldn’t have a place to live. Who would look after Tucker on those days I couldn’t move away from the toilet I was so sick?”

“What if those weren’t issues, either?”

Something flickered in her face—a moment of hope—and then she tried to kill it. “You won’t get this, ’cause you got pure courage coming out your pores. But, Rory, I ain’t got no kind of courage. I can’t suffer like that.”

“Here’s the thing, Serenity. It’s not really about you. It’s about that little boy. And you can’t give up without a fight. You can’t. Love won’t let you. Love is going to ask you to be stronger than you have ever been, and braver than you have ever been. Not for yourself. If it was for yourself, you couldn’t do it. But for him, you can. For Tucker you can.”

Serenity eyed him, and then the hope flickered back to life in her eyes. And there was something else there too, a startling kind of knowing.

“Well, look at you,” she said. “An expert on love. Who would have ever thunk that?”

“Yeah,” he said, “Who would have?”

He left the hospital.

Who would have thought he’d be an expert on love? He remembered the look on Grace’s face.

How could you?

He’d known all along he had to protect her. He’d known all along what she would need protecting from most was his cynicism, his darkness, his ability to snuff out her light.

He left the hospital. He felt as if cinder blocks were attached to all his limbs. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Bridey? I need you to find out everything you can about Hepatitis C treatment programs. I need you to find a place for a woman, a nine-year-old boy and eight ponies to live.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“No, then I need you to book me a flight to Australia.”

Grace was furious at Rory for three days. She could not think of him without feeling that surge of anger. How dare he go behind her back? How dare he take control like that?

And underneath that: How dare he expose the truth? That she was so vulnerable to her dreams?

In a way, those three days of fury helped her cope with the fact that Tucker was gone, too. And that he was not Graham’s.

When Serenity had confessed to her how she had been looking for a home for her son because she was ill, Grace had realized she did not need Tucker to be Graham’s to love him.

Serenity had gone to live in one of the little guest houses at Slim McKenzie’s ranch. Grace had helped them get settled, and between that and getting caught up at work, especially on planning for Warrior Down, she had been grateful to be so busy.

Still, through all the busyness of her days, a part of her waited. She had thought Rory would call. They had been so close. Their lives had become so interlinked.

She missed him so dreadfully. It felt like a physical ache.

How could he not be missing her in the same way?

When she saw his office number on her caller ID, her heart went into triple-time. But it was not Rory.

It was a woman named Bridey. She needed to start putting together The Perfect Day package for the silent auction at Warrior Down. Mr. Adams had suggested a helicopter ride to the top of Silver Lining Mountain, a table set for two, white linen, a chef.

Grace had had perfect days. Seven of them in a row! That was so far from what she’d had!

But she heard herself saying, “Yes, that’s fine.”

And then, “Is Rory there? Could I talk to him?”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I thought you must know. Mr. Adams is in Australia supervising a job.”

She could ask for a number to reach him at. She could leave a message for him. But somehow, she didn’t.

He was pulling away from her.

And if she listened closely, she was pretty sure she could hear the sound of her own heart breaking.

But then, she remembered that night long, long ago, when she had seen Rory standing over his mother, fiercely protective.

And in a flash of light she got it.

He saw himself as a protector. The go-to guy. The one who called the shots. The one who maintained control.

He had told her he carried the burden of feeling he had failed to protect her brother.

And he was probably also feeling as if he had failed to protect her, Grace, from Serenity’s lie.

All along, he had tried to warn her that he was dark to her light.

Was he trying to protect her from himself?

And who protected him? Where did he rest? Who was his equal?