need it.
John’s fingers hovered over the keys. Damn. He
couldn’t remember ever struggling over a few simple
words the way he was now. But something told him it
was important that he strike the right balance, sounding
friendly but not desperate. Please come back would
scare her off. He finally settled on,
If you have time, e-mail me.
Place isn’t the same without you.
No. He backed the cursor up, changing the sentence to,
Place isn’t the same without all of you.
“Send” and it was gone, before he could have
second thoughts.
He read his other e-mails and responded briefly. He
never knew what to say anymore to his parents or
sisters. But they’d worry if he didn’t answer at all.
Supplies loaded, he headed back up the mountain,
arriving barely an hour before the obviously wealthy
couple in a Lexus SUV, who tipped him when he
carried their bags up to their room, then wondered
how far it was to the nearest restaurant and whether
he had a hot tub. His Web site emphasized the isolation of the lodge, the family-style meals and the rustic rooms and cabins. It didn’t hide the fact that bathrooms were basic and shared. Maybe these two had just looked at the pretty pictures and skipped the fine
print. Yeah, and maybe, he thought hopefully, they’d
decide to leave tomorrow.
It had been weeks since he’d had a really ugly nightmare. He had one that night. John woke to find himself rearing up in bed, his throat raw from his shouted
warning that came too late. Even in his nightmares, he
couldn’t let himself see the worst parts. The last thing he
remembered was knowing he’d been hurt bad, lying with
his leg not right, and staring with bewilderment at the
mud-brick wall that had provided meager shade while
he gathered the boys for a pickup game. Now…God.
Before his dazed, uncomprehending eyes, it was
splashed with bucketfuls of blood. So shockingly bright
as it dripped.
His stomach heaved, just as it had that day. Then,
after staring dazed at the blood dripping from a soccer
ball, he had pushed himself to his knees to puke and
seen… He lifted a shaking hand and rubbed his face. No.
He wasn’t going to remember. Not that. Thank God he
always awakened before he saw anything worse than the
blood.
He didn’t know why his life had been spared. Maybe
the sight wasn’t the point of the nightmares. Sometimes
he thought it was his shouted warning that came simultaneously with the blast, as if his subconscious wanted to remind him over and over again that he’d been ineffectual.
As if he didn’t know? he raged at himself. He was
just goddamned lucky that his subconscious didn’t seem
to realize that ineffectual was the least of it. In his
bumbling naïveté and with his good intentions, he had
invited the horror.
Sitting there in the dark, still shaking and battling the
nausea, he thought, I am the angel of death.
Fiona wouldn’t have been so grateful if she’d known.
She wouldn’t have trusted him. She wouldn’t so easily
have brushed off the incident when he’d seen the boys
fall and blood color the snow.
What if he’d told her? he wondered, but was shaking
his head before he could pursue the speculation. His life
goal was to repress all memory of those few minutes.
Only once had he described what had happened, when,
from a stretcher, he’d had to identify the suicide bomber’s
body—the scattered bits of his body. John never intended
to tell another soul. Words had power. Stories once told
lived on, refusing to be corked inside a bottle.
He got up and went to his bathroom. After splashing
water that was just this side of freezing on his face, he
looked at himself in the mirror. The angry scar stood out
like a brand. How had Fiona looked at his face and seen
anything but the scar?
The fact that she had was a miracle. Miracles were
rare and precious. He’d be a fool to turn his back on
this one.
Go see her.
When was he supposed to do that? He didn’t have a
weekend until March without reservations. Suppose he
drove down on a Monday. She’d be working. At best
she’d save an evening for him. He didn’t want just an