Читать книгу Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover - Catherine Mann, Merline Lovelace - Страница 21

Chapter 11

Although it was still early evening, Connie got ready for bed. She went through the motions automatically, trying to fight down feelings of hurt and despair that really had nothing to do with Ethan. All he had done was remind her of Leo. That wasn’t his fault.

In fact, she told herself as she brushed her teeth, he had been kind enough to protect her from herself.

So why did she feel so bad?

A quick shower washed off the day’s grit but not the day’s worries. Nothing could wash those away, and she seemed to nurture them sometimes. Oh, not her concern about Sophie. That was as real as a worry could be. But other stuff. Her past. Her constant tension, as if she feared being beaten again. As she knew only too well, not even packing a gun could protect her from that, not when she loved someone. Or thought she did.

Some old country song floated into her mind as she climbed into a cotton nightshirt. Something about it not really being love if it tore you apart.

Great line. But as someone who had been there, she knew the other side of that one. Leo had never loved her in the true sense of the word, but she had sure as hell loved him. At least until fear pushed out the love.

She flopped onto the bed and reached for the TV remote on her night table, then hunted for something that would occupy her mind enough to keep her from thinking. She’d been thinking for too many years as it was, but tonight she doubted she would be able to even manage to read a book. Everything about her felt scattered to the four winds.

No crime shows, too close to her job. No romances, too painful. Ghosts? Didn’t she already have enough of her own? Comedy didn’t seem very funny tonight. News? No, there might be something there to remind her of the very things she was trying to forget.

Finally she settled on a lightweight British police procedural. Amusing, devoid of ugliness, very different from the real thing.

She switched off the light and settled in, hoping the eccentric British characters would suffice to distract her.

Unfortunately, her body wasn’t quite ready to quiet down. She wondered if Leo had ever aroused her the way Ethan just had. If he ever had, she couldn’t remember now.

Somehow she doubted it. Something about Ethan was magical, tormented soul though he was. A pang seized her heart as she remembered what he’d shared with her. Awful. Absolutely awful. He needed a magic wand, but the universe didn’t hand those out to anyone.

Somehow you just had to keep muddling through, trying to mend yourself or put the bad stuff behind you. All a therapist could do, she had learned through experience, was give you the tools to do one or the other. Maybe that was the hardest thing of all: learning you had to be your own healer.

She rolled over on the bed, her body restless with hunger she couldn’t erase, hunger so strong it almost hurt. Her loins ached with it. Her breasts had become exquisitely sensitive to every movement of her nightgown across her nipples.

She didn’t want this. She had a child to think of, and her mother, in addition to herself, and the agenda didn’t include playing with fire.

But she burned anyway, television forgotten.

Could just one night be that dangerous? Why couldn’t she scratch the itch and move on? Other people did.

Why, she wondered almost angrily, couldn’t she enjoy the most basic human contact? Did she feel she had to punish herself for one major mistake? What made her so different from anyone else? Who said she could never trust herself again?

She did.

She had devised all the rules for her current life, maybe in reaction to her complete lack of control in her relationship with Leo. Maybe now she felt she had to control everything.

Talk about an impossibility! Apparently she couldn’t even protect her own daughter.

The phone beside her bed rang, and she reached for it, expecting to hear Sophie’s voice bubbling over with giggles about how much fun they were having.

Instead, she heard a chilling voice.

“She’s a beautiful child, Connie.”

Her veins turned to ice as she slammed the phone down on the cradle. No! No!

Then she screamed.

“Ethan!”

* * *

Ethan bounded up the stairs three at a time and burst into Connie’s room. In the flickering light from her television, she was pulling frantically at the phone cord, trying to yank it out of the wall.

“Connie?”

“It was him,” she sobbed. “It was him!”

“Who?”

“The man who wants Sophie. He said she’s a beautiful child. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God...”

Ethan crossed the room and took her into his arms, at once confining her gently and supporting her. “Shh... Shh...”

“He called. Oh, God, he called! Sophie...” She began shoving against Ethan, trying to escape. “I have to call and see if she’s all right. Sophie... Oh, my God...”

“Shh,” he said more sharply. “I’m here, and I’ll help. Is the phone still plugged in?”

“I don’t know. Oh, God...”

He lifted the receiver and heard the dial tone. “What’s the number?”

She managed to gasp it out, then grabbed the receiver as he dialed for her.

“Hi,” said the cheerful voice of Jody’s mom, Enid.

“Enid, this is Connie. A man just called. Is Sophie okay?”

“She’s okay, Connie. My God, she’s okay. She’s right here with the other girls, eating popcorn and watching The Little Mermaid. Are you sure it was the guy?”

At that, Connie collapsed onto the edge of her bed and began sobbing. “He talked about Sophie. He said she was beautiful.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Enid said, her voice taut with concern and an echo of Connie’s fear. “I won’t let her out of my sight. John’s here, too, and he’s keeping an eye on them. And between you and me, he’s loaded for bear. But...would you feel better if you took her home?”

“No!” Somehow the idea of bringing Sophie here right after that man had called was even more terrifying. “No. She’s probably safer there. I’ll call Gage and let him know what happened. Don’t be surprised if you see a deputy out front.”

“Good. That was my next suggestion. Now, you’re sure you’re okay if she stays here?”

Connie forced herself to breathe. “I’m okay with it. He called here. Maybe he doesn’t know she’s there.”

“No reason he should, unless he has a better intelligence network than the CIA. Which probably isn’t saying much. We’re not letting the girls out of the house, and John has already said he’s staying up all night to keep an eye on them. Not that I expect either of us will sleep, anyway. The girls are having too much fun.”

“Okay,” Connie said shakily. “Okay. I just had to be sure.”

“Of course you did,” Enid said comfortingly. “My God, I’ve been scared to death ever since the guy talked to the girls. I just sound like I’m calm. Look, I’ll call you again in an hour or so if you want. I can keep you posted all night.”

“Oh, Enid, that’s too much!”

“No, it isn’t,” Enid said firmly. “I know how I’d be feeling in your shoes. I’ll give you updates. But don’t get worried if I’m a little late, because these girls are keeping me busy. Now they want brownies. Good thing I like to bake.”

Connie managed a choked little laugh. “You’re a good woman, Enid. An angel.”

“Nah. I’m just a mom. You hang in there. John and I are on guard.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’d do the same for me. Now relax and try not to climb the walls.”

Connie’s hand shook as she replaced the receiver. Ethan stood not a foot away, waiting. “Everything’s okay,” she said.

“Good.” He squatted to her eye level, an exotic, mysterious-looking man with eyes nearly as dark as midnight, yet strangely comforting. “Tell me everything he said.”

“That was all. He said Sophie was a beautiful child.”

“Okay, then let’s think about why he would call.”

She realized he was trying to get her to think like a police officer, instead of a mother. And he was right. She needed all her wits about her. “To scare me. To let me know the threat is still there.”

“That would be my guess. So what does that mean? It sure won’t make it any easier for him to get to Sophie, will it?”

Her eyes felt full of glue, hot and burning, as she met his gaze. “No,” she whispered. “It’ll make it harder.”

“So maybe we need to think about what that means.”

She nodded slowly. “I’ve got to call Gage.”

He waited while she did, and Gage promised to dispatch some officers to Enid and John’s house to keep an eye out. He also wanted to place one at Connie’s, but she told him no. “Just watch the kids, Gage. I’m a deputy, too, remember. I’ll take care of myself.”

When she hung up, Ethan still stood there. Then he asked, “Want to come downstairs for coffee or something? Or are you better here?”

“I need to move.”

“Let’s go, then.”

He led the way downstairs. She carried a robe with her, but it was too warm to put on. Nor did she care in the least that she was in a nightshirt. Trivialities no longer existed for her.

Surprisingly, the homey scent of coffee brewing helped pull her back from the precipice of a breakdown. Rationality began to reassert itself. Gradually her breathing slowed and her heart calmed. Ethan sat beside her, close enough to reach for her if she needed comforting, but far enough not to crowd her. No reason that should surprise her. He’d probably dealt with more terror and horror in a few years than most people did in a lifetime.

“He’s after me,” she said presently.

“In what way?” The question, however, seemed to suggest that he had an idea.

“He wants me scared. He’s trying to get to me.”

“I agree. Right now it seems that way. Can you handle it?”

“Him scaring me? Only if Sophie isn’t at risk.”

Ethan nodded “You’re a strong woman. If we could be certain he intends Sophie no harm, that would be the end of it.”

“But there’s no way to know!”

“That’s the devil of it. I won’t kid you, Connie. This is the worst-possible kind of threat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in Afghanistan, we might meet a group of village chieftains who claimed to be all gung-ho for getting rid of al Qaeda and the Taliban, then the next day we’d drive into their village to provide medical care or help rebuild a school, and get attacked. When you don’t know where the threat is coming from, or exactly what it’s going to be, your options are a mess.”

“Yeah.” She stared down at the oilcloth-covered table, her hands knotting together until they hurt. “I don’t know how to handle this.”

“That’s what I meant. Is Sophie the target? Are you the target? Are you both the target? What do we most need to guard against?”

“I wish I knew.”

“What did this guy sound like?”

“Distant, almost. But there was something else in his tone. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Anything familiar? Any recognition?”

“Maybe. Maybe so.” But every ounce of her being recoiled at the thought that she might know this creep. She didn’t want to believe it possible that someone like that could have crawled into the most distant periphery of her life.

“Okay.” He rose and went to get them both coffee.

Connie cradled her mug, but made no attempt to drink. She felt cold, so very cold. The kind of cold no amount of heat could dissipate.

As if he sensed it, Ethan reached for the robe she’d thrown over the back of a chair and draped it over her shoulders. It actually helped a little.

“Connie, who might want to get at you both?”

Everything inside her turned glacial: cold, hard and ready to crack. She whispered, “Leo.”

He remained silent, waiting.

Slowly she turned her head to look at him. “Ethan, he got out of jail several months back. But I’ve changed my name. There’s no reason he should have found me.”

“Did he know about your uncle living here?”

“God...” She tipped her head back, closing her eyes, loosing a long, despairing sigh. “I didn’t think so. I mean, Uncle Nate and I were never that close until I moved here. Leo knew I had family in Wyoming, but I’m pretty sure I never mentioned Nate or Conard County. Leo wasn’t the kind of guy to be interested in that stuff, and my maiden name was different. It never occurred to me that he could make a link.” She shook her head almost violently. “Damn, I’m stupid. I guess I need to pack up and leave again.”

“Not so hasty, there. First of all, you’re surrounded by people who want to protect you here. Second, you’ve got to face the bastard and deal with him.”

“I dealt with him once before! Do you know how hard it was to go into a courtroom and describe what he did to me? What I let him do to me?”

“You know better than that. You weren’t responsible for what he did for you. I don’t need to be a shrink to understand how domestic violence works, to understand how helpless and vulnerable it leaves a woman. He tried to blame you for it, but you know better than that, Connie. Or you should. It wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s what everyone says. But I still have to live with the fact that I didn’t leave sooner. That I let it go on so long.”

“If it were easy to get out of those situations, they wouldn’t exist. You get undermined before you know it. And those bastards are really good at making you feel responsible for what they do.”

She looked at him. “How do you know so much?”

“Because I’ve seen it happen. Because I’ve talked about it with other guys. The military has a lot of domestic-abuse counselors. One of them was a friend of mine. He explained it all to me.”

“Okay, so you know the mechanics. But then there are the feelings.”

“Trust me, I know about those, too. Maybe you aren’t ready to make peace with the fact that you were skillfully manipulated and brainwashed. I can understand that. I’m having problems of my own. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was responsible, not you.” He leaned toward her, his eyes burning. “And you are not responsible for what is happening now.”

“I feel responsible!”

“So? That doesn’t make it true. You didn’t ask for this. You did everything you could to avoid it. Now it’s here, and we’re going to deal with it so you can have the life you deserve.”

Something in his expression made her shiver. “You wouldn’t...”

“Yeah, I’m a trained killer,” he said bitterly. “But generally I don’t kill unless I have to. I don’t just get up on Saturday morning and decide it would be a good day for a murder.”

“I didn’t mean that!”

“Maybe not.”

“You know damn well I didn’t. And frankly, if it’s Leo terrorizing me and my daughter, I might kill him before you get a chance!”

They glared at each other across twelve inches of space, nerves and wounds so raw in both of them that it didn’t matter if they were reacting rationally.

Right then and there everything hurt too much to make sense of it.

Then, without warning, something inside Connie shifted. All of a sudden she felt the hysterical urge to giggle. The laugh started bubbling out of her, totally random, totally without reason, and then, only God knew why, she said, “Make love not war.”

His jaw dropped a half inch and his eyes widened; then, just as helplessly, he started laughing, too.

“Where did that come from?” he asked, breathless.

“I don’t know!” She couldn’t stop laughing. “Where did any of this come from?”

Laughter existed only a millimeter from tears, just as hate was the flip side of love. The strongest emotions occupied the same realms, basic and primal, entangled beyond extrication.

Tears began to stream down Connie’s cheeks, and she felt the crash coming. A pit yawned before her, and she didn’t know how to step back from it.

But Ethan knew his way around these emotional pitfalls, maybe because he’d survived so many, presenting a stony facade to the world when everything inside him began to crack.

He reached for her, pulling her onto his lap, wrapping her in his strength, pressing her face to his shoulder. She fit as if the space had been created for her.

Staring over her head at the ordinary sights of a kitchen, he saw, instead, distant landscapes, horrible anguish and suffering.

Life could be such a bitch.

But he knew one thing for certain: if he never did another thing with his life, he was going to make this woman and her child safe from this creep.

It was as solemn a vow as any he’d ever taken, filling his heart, touching his soul, giving back purpose and meaning where they had been stripped away.

No matter what it took.