Читать книгу Military Grade Mistletoe - Julie Miller - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Harry sat in the darkness of his truck watching Daisy’s light blue Colonial with the dark blue shutters and dozens of Christmas lights, wondering if she was going to give the balding guy at her front door the same kind of hug she’d given him when he’d left a half hour earlier. He already wasn’t a fan of the older gentleman who’d insisted she leave the barking dogs on the other side of the glass storm door and finish their conversation on the brick porch where Daisy was shivering without her coat. If she hugged the guy, then Baldy was definitely going on Harry’s do-not-like list.

Not that he’d handled either her enthusiastic greeting or grateful goodbye terribly well. But something simmered low inside him at the idea that Daisy’s stuffing-squishing hugs were available to anyone who came to her front door.

Finally. The would-be renter handed Daisy a business card and shuffled down the steps. Harry exhaled a deep breath that fogged his window, relieved to see the thoughtless twit depart without a hug. He approved when Daisy crumpled the card in her fist, clearly dismissing the inconsiderate anti-dog man. She huddled against one of the big white pillars at either corner of her porch to watch the rejected tenant drive away.

“Go back inside,” Harry whispered, urging the woman to show a little common sense and get out of the cold night air. But she was scanning up and down the street, searching for something or someone. Was she still worried about those snowy footprints in her backyard?

Harry hunkered down behind the wheel as her gaze swept past his truck. The brief glimpse of fear stamped in the big blue eyes behind those purple glasses when she’d asked for his help had been imprinted on his brain. And since the gray matter upstairs was already a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, he wasn’t quite ready to have any worries about her safety lingering on his conscience. So he’d decided to hang out at least until Baldy left. But Daisy already had one pervert who thought looking through her bedroom window was a fun idea. She probably wouldn’t be assured to know that he was still out here in the darkness, spying on her, too.

After one more scan, she went back into the house, petting the dogs and talking to them before closing the door. The colored Christmas lights winding around the pillars went out, followed by the bright light of the foyer. She must be moving toward the back of the house because a few seconds later, the lights decorating the garage went out, too. From this vantage point, Harry wouldn’t know if she was fixing dinner or changing her clothes or making a path through the mess of projects in her dining room.

Not that it was any of his business how she spent her evenings. Baldy had left her house and it was time for him to go.

Harry started his truck and cranked up the heat, obliquely wondering why he’d felt compelled to sit there in silence, putting up with the cold in lieu of drawing any attention to his presence there. Probably a throwback to night patrols overseas, where stealth often meant the difference between avoiding detection and engaging in a fire fight with the enemy.

But he shouldn’t be thinking like that. Not here in Kansas City. He watched Daisy’s neighbor to the north open his garage and stroll out with a broom to sweep away the snow that had blown onto his front sidewalk. That was a little obsessive, considering the wind would probably blow the dusting of snow back across the walkways by morning. The neighbor waited for a moment at the end of his driveway, turning toward the same revving engine noise that drew Harry’s attention. They both watched from their different vantage points as a car pulled away from the curb and made a skidding U-turn before zipping down the street. Probably a teenager with driving like that. The neighbor shook his head and started back to the garage, but paused as a couple walking in front of his house waved and they all stopped to chat. Yeah, Christmastime in suburbia was a real hotbed for terrorists.

Muttering a curse at his inability to acclimatize to civilian life, Harry pulled out, following the probable teen driver to the stop sign at the corner before they turned in opposite directions. Although this was an older neighborhood, the homes had been well maintained. The sidewalks and driveways had been cleared. Traffic and pedestrians were the norm, not suspicious activity he needed to guard against.

Bouncing over the compacted ruts of snow in the side streets, Harry made his way toward his sister’s loft apartment in downtown Kansas City, avoiding the dregs of rush hour traffic as much as possible. This evening’s visit to Daisy’s house needed to go on his list of dumb ideas he should have reconsidered before taking action. What had he thought was going to happen when he showed up on her doorstep? That the woman who’d sent him all those letters while he’d been overseas and in the hospital, would recognize him? They’d never exchanged pictures. He’d thought that trading news and revealing souls and making him laugh meant that they knew each other. That the same feeling he got when he saw her name at mail call would happen to him again when they met in person. If he was brutally honest, he’d half expected a golden halo to be glowing around her head.

Golden-halo Daisy was supposed to be his link to reality. Seeing her was supposed to ground him. The plan had been to let go of the nightmares he held in check, and suddenly all the scars inside him would heal. He could report back to Lt. Col. Biro and never look back after a dose of Daisy.

So much for foolish miracles.

Daisy Gunderson wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t golden-haired. And she certainly hadn’t been glowing. She was a brunette—a curvy one, if his body’s humming reaction to those impromptu bear hugs were any indication. A brunette with purple streaks in her hair and matching glasses on her nose and a need to chatter that just wouldn’t quit.

And the dogs. He hadn’t expected the dogs. Or the mess. Everything was loud and chaotic, not at all the peaceful sort of mecca he’d envisioned.

The fact that some pervert had been peeking in her bedroom window bothered him, too. He’d foolishly gone to a woman he only knew on paper—a stranger, despite the letters they’d shared—for help. Instead, it looked as if she was the hot mess who needed help.

Harry needed the woman in the letters to help him clear his head and lose the darkness that haunted him.

He didn’t need Daisy Gunderson and her troubles.

He’d done his good deed for her. He’d assuaged his conscience. It was time to move on.

To what? What was a jarhead like him supposed to do for six weeks away from the Corps?

If he was overseas, he’d be doing a perimeter walk of the camp at this time of the evening, making sure his buddies were secure. Even if he was back at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, he’d be doing PT or reading up on the latest equipment regs or putting together a training exercise for the enlisted men he intended to work with again. He was used to having a routine. A sense of purpose. What was he supposed to do here in Kansas City besides twiddle his thumbs, visit a shrink and reassure his sister that she didn’t need to walk on eggshells around him?

He supposed he could find the nearest mall and do some Christmas shopping for Hope, his brother-in-law, Pike, and nephew, Gideon. But even in the late evening there’d be crowds there. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many corners where the imagined enemy inside his head could hide.

Pausing at a stop light, Harry opened the glove compartment where he’d put the list of local therapists Lt. Col. Biro had recommended and read the names and phone numbers. Even before he’d finished reading, he was folding the paper back up and stuffing it inside beside the M9 Beretta service weapon he stored there. He closed the glove compartment with a resolute click and moved on with the flow of traffic.

He’d already made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. He wasn’t ready for an emergency call to one of them yet. Maybe he should ask his brother-in-law where he could find a local gym that wouldn’t require a long-term commitment. He could lift some weights, run a few miles on a treadmill. That was all he needed, a physical outlet of some kind. A way to burn himself out until he was too tired to have any more thoughts inside his head.

It was almost eight o’clock when Harry pulled into the driveway beside Fairy Tale Bridal, the wedding planner business his sister owned. He pressed the buzzer and announced himself over the intercom before Hope released the lock and he jogged up the stairs to the apartment over the shop where she and Pike lived. He heard her warning Pike’s K-9 partner, Hans, to stay before opening the condominium door. His sister had a quiet beauty that seemed to have blossomed with the confidence she’d found in marriage and motherhood. He was happy to see her soft smile when she welcomed him home.

But that smile disappeared beneath a frown of concern before she shooed the German shepherd into the living area of the open layout and locked the door behind her. “That coat is too small for you. You need to get a new one that fits.”

“Guess I’ve filled out a bit since the last time I needed my winter coat. There’s not much call for them in Southern California or the Middle East.”

Although he’d fully intended to put his own things away, Hope took his coat from him as soon as he’d unzipped it. “You’re later than I thought. Did you get any dinner? I can heat up some meatloaf and potatoes in the microwave.” Seven months pregnant and wearing fuzzy house slippers with the dress she’d worn to work, she shuffled into the kitchen, hanging his coat over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Would you rather have a sandwich?”

Harry followed her, feeling guilty that, even after all these years, she felt so compelled to take care of him. “I’m good.”

“Did you eat?” she stopped in front of the open refrigerator and turned to face him.

Hope was only a year older than Harry, and he topped her in height, and had outweighed and outmuscled her for years. But she could still peer up at him over the rims of her glasses with those dove-gray eyes and see right into the heart of him, as though the tragic childhood they’d shared had linked them in some all-knowing, twin-like bond. Lying to Hope wasn’t an option.

“No.”

“I wish you’d take better care of yourself. It wasn’t that long ago you were in a hospital fighting for your life. Besides getting winter clothes that fit, you need sleep and good food inside you.” She nudged him into a chair, kissed his cheek and went to work putting together a meatloaf sandwich for him. “You found Daisy’s house okay? What did you think of her?”

Harry pictured a set of deep blue eyes staring up at him above purple glasses, in an expression similar to the pointed look Hope had just given him. Only, he’d had a very different reaction to Daisy’s silent request. Yes, he’d reacted to the fear he’d seen there and taken action like the Marine he was trained to be, but there was something else, equally disconcerting, about the way Daisy had studied him in her near-sighted squint that he couldn’t quite shake.

“She’s a hugger.” Surprised that those were the first words that came out of his mouth, Harry scrubbed his palm across the stubble itching the undamaged skin of his jaw.

But the faint air of dismay in his tone didn’t faze Hope. In fact, something about his comment seemed to amuse her. “I told you she was friendly and outgoing. She approached me that first morning in our adult Sunday School class. I’d still be sitting in the corner, just listening to the discussion if she hadn’t sat down beside me and started a conversation.”

Yep. The woman certainly had a talent for talking.

“There’s Uncle Harry.” Pike Taylor strolled into the living area, carrying their squirmy, wheaten-haired son, Gideon, who was decked out in a fuzzy blue outfit for bedtime. Even out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, Pike carried himself with the wary alertness of the Kansas City cop he was. But the tall, lanky man who’d been there to protect his sister from both their abusive father and a serial rapist while Harry had been stationed over in the Heat Locker reminded Harry of an overgrown kid when he set his son down and chased him over to his play area in the living room. Even the dog got into the game, joining in with a loud bark and circling around the toddler, which only made the little boy chortle with glee. That muscle ticked in Harry’s cheek as the urge to smile warred with the images of something darker trying to surface. Gideon lost his balance and plopped onto the extra padding of his diaper before using the German shepherd’s fur to pull himself back onto his pudgy little feet and change directions. “Look out,” Pike warned from his wrestling position on the floor. “He’s been asking for his roommate all evening.”

Gideon toddled over to Harry’s knee, joyfully repeating a phrase that sounded a lot like “Yucky Hair,” which was apparently going to be his nickname for the duration of this visit. Gideon’s little fingers tugged at Harry’s jeans and reached for him, demanding to be picked up. Although Harry was half afraid to hold the stout little tyke, he could feel the expectation radiating off Hope not to deny her son the innocent request. Unwilling to refuse his sister anything that would put a smile on her face, Harry picked up his nephew and set him on his lap. He pushed aside the salt and pepper shakers that Gideon immediately reached for, and let him tug at the buttons of his Henley sweater, instead. Hans lay down close by Harry’s feet, keeping an eye on the little boy as if he didn’t trust Harry with the toddler, either. Harry shifted in his seat, uncomfortable being the center of all this attention. Gideon batted at Harry’s face and he lifted his chin, pulling away from the discomfiting contact. Hell, the dog was better with the child than he was. He needed to distract himself fast, or he was going to end up in a dark place that no one in this room wanted him to visit.

Turning his chair away from the watchful German shepherd, Harry latched onto the first thought that came to mind. “Daisy’s a little scattered, isn’t she?”

Pike tossed a couple of toys into Gideon’s playpen before rising to his feet and crossing to the table. “Scattered? You mean her house? She’s been working on it for three years. I can’t imagine what it’s costing her to redo it from top to bottom like that. Plus, she’s doing a lot of the cosmetic work herself.”

“I meant she rambled from one topic to the next. I had a hard time keeping up.”

“She does live alone,” Pike suggested. “Maybe she was lonesome and wanted to talk to somebody.”

Hope snickered at her husband’s idea. “She’s been at school all day, with hundreds of students. She’s had plenty of people to talk to.”

“Teenagers,” Pike countered. “It’s not the same as talking to an adult.”

Dismissing the explanation with a shake of her head, Hope opened a cabinet to pull out a bag of potato chips. “It’s not exactly like you’re Mr. Conversation, Harry. You’re quiet like I am with new people. Maybe you made her nervous and she was chatting to fill the silence. I do that when my shy genes kick in.”

Not in any universe would he describe Daisy Mega-Hugger as a shy woman. But maybe something about him had made her nervous. The scars that turned his ugly mug into an acquired taste? Not announcing his visit before showing up on her doorstep? Was there something more to those footprints in the snow than she’d let on? The idea of a Peeping Tom had upset her, yes, but now that he considered her reaction, she hadn’t seemed surprised to discover signs of an intruder.

Hope ripped open the bag of chips and crunched one in her mouth before dumping some onto the plate beside his sandwich. “She is one of those women who seems to have a lot of irons in the fire. She’s always volunteering for one thing or another. Daisy has the biggest heart in the world.”

Harry pulled a toddler fist away from the tip of his nose. Was that big heart why she’d even considered giving Mr. Rude a place to live as her tenant? “I actually waited there a little while after I left. She had a guy coming in to talk about renting her upstairs.”

Pike came up behind Hope and reached around her to snatch a chip and pop it into his mouth. “Mr. Friesen is the uncle of one of our receptionists at the precinct. I ran a background check on him for her.”

“He showed up before I got out of there. I waited outside for half an hour to make sure he left without incident.”

Hope’s eyes were wide as she set the plate in front of Harry. “Without incident? That sounds ominous.”

Harry ate a bite before breaking off a morsel of the soft bread for Gideon to chew on, in an effort to distract the toddler from grabbing the whole sandwich. “While I was there, she had me check out some suspicious tracks in her backyard. Looked to me like someone had been casing her house.”

Pike pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat. “Did you report it to KCPD?”

So, he thought the situation seemed troublesome, too. “I advised her to.”

Hope moved a subtly protective hand to her swollen belly. “You checked out the house for her, didn’t you? Her locks and everything are secure?

“She’s got new windows on the ground floor. Dead bolts on the doors.” But he hadn’t checked any of them to see if they were locked. Surely, the woman had sense enough to... The second bite of his sandwich went stale in his mouth. He should have done that for her, at least.

Pike pulled Hope onto his lap, soothing her concern for their friend. “We’ve had a rash of burglaries across the city. Pretty standard for this time of year. Thieves looking for money or credit cards, or even wrapped presents they can pawn.”

Either coveting his meal or sensing Harry’s increasingly testy mood, Gideon squealed and stabbed at the plate, scattering the pile of chips across the table top. Harry shoved the plate aside and pulled the boy back, scooting the chair across the tile floor. His boot knocked against Hans, sending the dog to his feet with a startled woof.

All at once, the dark place inside his mind erupted with a fiery explosion. He felt the pain tearing through his flesh. He heard the shouts for help, the whimpers of pain.

Harry staggered to his feet. “Platz, Tango,” he ordered, mixing the past and the present inside his head. “Hans, I mean. Platz.” Pike’s well-trained dog instantly obeyed the German command to lie down. Slamming the door on the flashback, Harry thrust Gideon into his frightened sister’s arms and grabbed his coat. “I’m sorry. I need to walk around the block a couple of times. Clear my head.”

“Harry?”

“Let him go, honey.”

An hour later, Harry had come in from the cold, apologized to his sister, finished off the meal she’d saved for him and shut himself inside the bedroom he shared with Gideon.

The flashback had receded to the wasteland of buried images inside his head, although he was still having a hard time settling his thoughts enough to sleep. With Gideon snoring softly from his crib across the darkened room, Harry lay back on the double bed, using the flashlight from his duffel bag to read through the stack of cards and letters that normally soothed him on nights like this.

He grinned through Daisy’s account of catching one of her students licking a potted plant in her classroom because the girl had been curious to find out what the sap oozing from the stalk tasted like. The girl had been perfectly fine, but the spate of dumb jokes that had followed would have given a stand-up comic plenty of material. The story had made his unit laugh to the extent that when any one of them made a boneheaded move, they’d teased the Marine by calling him or her a plant-licker.

Gideon gurgled in his sleep, reminding Harry that he was the interloper here. In another couple of months, Hope and Pike would need this space for Gideon’s new little brother or sister. Although he had every intention of returning to his duties with the Corps by that time, Harry acknowledged another stab of guilt. Maybe Hope wanted to redecorate this room. She had talked about expanding their loft into the shop’s second-floor storage area, but a renovation of that scale wouldn’t happen until after the baby’s birth. Maybe he was in the way here, and Hope was too kind-hearted to say anything. Maybe he could camp out in their condo for just a few days longer, then find himself a quiet place to rent until his penance was over and he could report back to Lt. Col. Biro.