Written on Her Heart (15 page)

“The book guy.” She fished her keys from her pocket and checked her phone. “Hey, I’m going to go. I’m tired and I want to come back early tomorrow in case Emma feels like breakfast.” She pulled open the driver’s side door. The interior light came on, illuminating two dozen boxes inside.

“Are you moving?”

She sighed dramatically and leaned against the doorframe. “Those are boxes of books, toiletries and candy we packed up tonight. Emma wants to send them to soldiers overseas.” A fake and cheesy smile appeared before she folded in behind the steering wheel of her old 4x4.

Nicholas jogged around the jeep and leaned on the open window casing. “She likes soldiers?”

“Maybe. You want to tell me where you got those stripes?” She nodded at his torso.

Instinctively his shoulders rolled back. Pride swelled in his shame-tinged heart at the reminder. He made it home without his men. He lost some, but saved many. War was complicated.

He was a soldier. What would Emma think of that? Was it cheating to mention it? Heather waited patiently for his answer.

“I don’t talk about it.”

Heather looked like she wanted to say something, but of course she didn’t. After half a beat, she said, “Good night, Nicholas,” and backed out of the drive. She pressed the horn one quick time before her taillights disappeared into the night.

Nicholas rubbed his forehead. What he wouldn’t give for a peek at that book. He wished he’d asked her the title again, or the year it was printed. Something. There had to be countless books on soldiers. A memoir. Suspicion formed. The hair on the back of his neck tingled. Nicholas climbed into the cab of his truck, rolling the idea over in his mind.

Emma fell for a soldier in a memoir.

He pushed the door open and jumped out of his truck. A memoir.

Her porch light shut off in response.

“Ugh!” He growled to himself. Stripped of his momentary courage, he leaned into the side of his truck. Somewhere in the dark house, Emma waited for him to leave. Fine.

But, what were the odds Emma might be the one who found his journal? Slim. The odds she found it, read it and became moved enough by his words to want to date again, to want to send a Jeep full of care packages to other soldiers? Worse than slim. Those odds were in the no-way-Jose region of possibility. But still
possible
. Honey Creek was only so big, and someone had his journal.

Nicholas climbed into his truck again. This time he smiled all the way home, unable to suppress a building hope. Maybe she had his mother’s tomato recipe for a different reason than he imagined before. If he was the soldier Heather mentioned, then he already earned Emma’s heart. Embarrassment rose and fell as he drove. He’d written many things he shouldn’t on those pages. Desperation did that to a man. Especially when he believed no one was reading his words. Emma shouldn’t want that guy. He shook his head as hope trumped doubt. Despite his worst entries Emma cared for the soldier. So, how could he tell her the soldier was him?

****

“I’m not going to tell her.” Nicholas leaned forward in the plain brown chair, resting his elbows against furiously bouncing knees. “If I tell her, and I don’t have the first clue how I could even start that conversation, it wouldn’t be the same. I want her to fall for me. The real me in real life, not the me in the journal. If she even has my journal.”

“Weren’t you honest about yourself in your journal?” Dr. Kennedy examined his features. Her expression careful and smooth.

“Yeah, but those entries are only one small part of me. They represent how I felt at those specific moments in my life. They aren’t all of me. I want her to fall for the me who lives in Honey Creek and eats my weight in strawberries every summer and has a dog who hates night fishing.”

“So you’re not going to tell her she has your journal?”

“I’m not positive she does. So, no. But, I don’t believe in coincidences, so I’m running on the assumption from here on out. Worst-case scenario, she’s reading a mass produced memoir, and I woo her anyway. Best case scenario, she figures it out, and there’s a happily ever after in our future.”

“Happily ever after?” Dr. Kennedy dropped her pen. She brushed her polished desk with the side of her hand, feigning nonchalance. The roundness of her eyes told how untrue that was. The expression made Nicholas chuckle.

“I like her. I want to see this unfold. I think we’ve got this connection I can’t explain.”

“Try.”

He frowned. Words weren’t his thing. Confessions also not on the list. He leaned back in the chair, tugging on the legs of his jeans as he adjusted to the new position.

“She loves my town, understands why it’s the only place to live, and she grew up there. I think you have to experience some things to understand them.” He locked his fingers behind his head and stretched against the back of his seat. “She loves to be outdoors. She likes to fish. She can do a mean Shania imitation.” He laughed at himself, caught up in the moment, and rambled on. “Mavis loves her. She ambushed her in the dark, soaking wet with lake water, and this girl just took it in stride. Most girls would’ve been spitting fire mad. Not her.”

His mind wandered further, deeper into his reasons for craving Emma’s attention. She saw the beauty in things. Her photographs were like one scene storybooks. She showed it all with one click of her shutter. And when they’re together, the silence was comfortable. He needed that. Anxiety plagued him for years following the war, following his dad’s death, his ambush.

“When we’re together, it’s easy. I’m at ease around her, and when we touch…” Images of their kiss slammed into his mind, making him uncomfortable, as if Dr. Kennedy might somehow see what he saw there.

“You touch?” Her voice hitched. She cleared her throat. The blank doctor face returned.

“Uh. Yeah, I mean, you know. People touch.” For the first time in his years with her, he tried lying to her face. He wasn’t that guy. He didn’t kiss women and tell about it later. What could he say anyway and still look like a grown man? Was he supposed to look her in the eye and say, “When we touch electricity stands every hair on my body at attention? My heart pounds, my palms sweat. I go from confidence to lunacy in an instant.” He shook his head and rubbed his forearms with both hands. The prickles of her touch ghosted over him, and he pitched forward again, resting elbows on knees. Just thinking about her wild red hair and those penetrating green eyes got him going.

“I never know what she’ll say next. And don’t let her size fool you. She’s feisty. Hell, she was so mad at me the last time I saw her, she kicked me out.”

“Really? What’d you do?”

“When she kicked me out? I took my shirt off.”

“I see, and she kicked you out for it. Why did you do that?”

“No. She kicked me out first. Then I took my shirt off.”

Dr. Kennedy’s mouth fell open.

“I don’t want to get into the details here. They’re…personal.”

“It seems that way.”

“Now, I have to apologize and then win her over in person.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” The smile on her face seemed to egg him on. By the looks of it, Dr. Kennedy thought he could. Her confidence fueled his resolve.

“Sure,” he shrugged. “She already likes me, I think. I’ll try to help her put two and two together until she realizes I’m her soldier.”

“Her what?”

“That’s what her friend called the book guy, me, ‘her soldier.’”

“How much does this woman know about your time overseas?” Her voice softened. Dr. Kennedy always called his years of living hell his “time overseas.” It was a nice twist, too nice. His jaw clenched. He didn’t go backpacking across Europe. His “time overseas” had left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, a near death experience and over twenty friends lighter. He’d been to more funerals in his twenties than most people attended in their lives. “Time overseas” didn’t begin to describe those years.

“I wrote when I could while I was there, but even if she has my journal, there’s plenty left unsaid.”

“How do you feel about her knowing some of the things we’ve discussed here? I advise all my patients to enter relationships expecting the other party will want to know these things. It can become a source of contention if you’re unwilling to let them in. Partners in relationships tend to feel as if they aren’t trusted, and it can be a downfall leading to more loss for both of you.”

Nicholas watched her. What did she know about Emma’s loss? Did Emma have any loss? It occurred to him then that she had a great resource for insight into his life while he knew nothing of hers. The idea hurt him. He wanted to know her. More than that, he wanted her to want him to know her. The scar under her collarbone seemed a good place to start. Something huge happened to her. Was she rebellious in high school because of the scar and whatever put it there?

He had a lifetime of things to learn about Emma. He needed to get out of Dr. Kennedy’s office and get started.

Chapter Thirteen

Emma’s cell phone buzzed and circled on its back. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and rolled away from the sound. Heather had called a dozen times. In keeping with tradition, she’d arrive any minute complaining. They’d pretend the only thing wrong was the fact Emma didn’t answer her phone, and move on with the day. After the night she had, the only person in the world she wanted to talk to existed in her imagination. Wherever he lived in Honey Creek didn’t matter. She wanted to hold on to her version of him. Strong and protective, kind and loving. Someone who didn’t know her and would never look at her scars and wonder how defective she was underneath them.

Emma closed her eyes, and tears rolled freely from beneath her lids. It took more strength than she thought she had to stand there and wait while Nicholas examined her body, found her disfigured flesh. Her mind still hazed up from his steamy kiss left her out of balance and thinking maybe he wouldn’t care. Maybe he’d pull her close and ignore them. Instead she opened her eyes to find his horror-stricken face staring down at her. His lips parted and twisted in disgust. Her breaths sped and quivered in her chest at the memory. Never had she been so bold, and look where it got her.

The phone buzzed again, and Emma yanked the covers over her head. Safe inside her blanket fort, she propped a pillow between her head and the headboard. She used her knees to hold the sheet above her, and she opened the book on her stomach. Sun shone through the thin material, casting a yellow glow over the pages. Her fingers touched the ink and trailed over the paper edges. The familiarity of the tome made her cry harder. She couldn’t be friends with a book, and she couldn’t hide forever. The book knew nothing about her. She needed to get on with life. Song lyrics rushed back to meet her. Her soldier promised to live his life if he made it home, treat each day like a gift. He wanted to live. Her eyes roamed over the highly symbolic blanket fort she created for herself, spawning another deluge of tears and with it a small measure of bravery.

When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, she whipped the sheets away, feeling renewed. Resolved to man-up, she took the stairs down two at a time and prepared to scare the coffee out of Heather. She crouched below the window of the door, pulled it wide and jumped out, “Boo! Ah!” Eyes wide, she sat down on the spot and buried her face in her hands.

Nicholas dropped to her side and grabbed her cheeks with his fingers. “Are you all right?” He tugged at her wrist and held it. A half second later she snapped it back to her face.

“Don’t check my pulse! Good grief, I had a heart attack, I’m not an invalid!” She leaned forward until her head hit the floor and covered her neck with her hands like she did in grade school tornado drills.

“You are scary flexible.” He shifted and sat beside her. The sole of one boot looking her way.

“Yoga.”

“Nice.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack. I’ve been calling, and you won’t answer. I wanted to say I’m sorry for the other night.”