Soldier's Rescue Page 14

  “Nick has every right to be upset,” Kate said, bracing her hands on the tabletop. “He doesn’t want Ben seeing things that will give him nightmares, and I—I think he has the right to make those decisions. I respect his desire to protect his son.”

  “Just because he has no great love for animals, doesn’t mean—”

  “It’s not that he doesn’t love animals. In fact, it’s the opposite. He had experiences with dogs in the military—pretty harsh experiences, from the sound of it. He’s a single parent, and he doesn’t want Ben exposed to things he’s too young to understand. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  “You were exposed to things and you turned out okay,” Nance said testily. “Kids shouldn’t be sheltered from reality. You went on a mill raid when you weren’t any older than him.”

  “Just because I survived it, doesn’t mean—”

  “Survived it? I couldn’t have kept you away with chains and padlocks. You were rarin’ to go—you were furious about those dogs.”

  Kate paused a moment, trying to put her thoughts together. “I was a different kid. Ben’s been through a lot in his short years.”

  “Like what? Like losing a mother and a father? Like being separated from your brother and being sent to live with a grandmother you hardly knew? Like crying yourself to sleep at night for weeks?”

  Kate leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling memories rising, things she had long since forgotten and would rather it stayed that way. She took a deep breath, fighting the pull of the past, and realized Gran thought Kate was criticizing the way she had been raised.

  “Gran, I don’t regret one minute or one experience I’ve had with you. I love you with all my heart—you helped make me who I am.” She could see hurt lurking behind the defensiveness in Nance’s face. “All I’m saying is that Nick has a right to raise Ben as he sees fit. And if I’m—If we’re going to be a part of his life, we have to respect that.”

  “Even if he’s dead wrong?” Nance asked.

  “Who’s to say he’s wrong? You?” She paused a second to rein in her irritation. “You may not realize it, but there were people who thought the way you raised me was pretty extreme. Some of my friends’ parents had trouble letting them come to our house for overnights. Remember how Zoe was always too busy and Rachel always wanted me to come to her house instead? Their parents thought taking in all those animals was a little weird and that the shelter stuff was too intense for their kids.”

  “Pansies,” Nance muttered.

  “No!” Kate realized she’d have to get tough to get through to Gran. “They were just parents who had different ideas about what was good for kids and what wasn’t.” Her voice rose. “Your way isn’t the only way to be in the world. Other people have a right to their own values and ideas.”

  Nance studied her, sensing there was more to this than letting a kid sneak along for a bit of reconnoitering.

  “This is about Jared, isn’t it? You’re still angry that I wouldn’t accept him—that I said he wasn’t right for you.”

  Kate’s shoulders sagged under the weight of her frustration.

  “No, it’s not about Jared. What you said was true, and I knew it. If I married him, I’d never have been able to practice as I had always wanted to. I was willing to do that—to make my career secondary and find part-time vet work wherever he was stationed—until I realized he wasn’t the man I thought he was. I could never have trusted him the way I needed to. That’s why I broke it off with him. That was why I came back here and opened a practice with Jess. I wanted a life based on love and honesty and genuine caring.”

  “And you think Nick Stanton can give you that?”

  The skepticism in Gran’s voice was hard to take.

  “I think he can,” she said, stepping out onto a ledge she had been avoiding in her own mind, “given time.”

  Nance closed her eyes for a long moment. “What makes you think he wants the same things? Kate, he’s got issues. What if he can’t get through them to meet you halfway?”

  “Now that does surprise me,” Kate said irritably. “Haven’t you always said, ‘There is no problem, however big, that love can’t solve’?”

  Nance opened her mouth and then closed it and looked down.

  After a moment, Kate slid around the table to put her arm around her gran’s shoulders.

  “You’re always telling me I need to get a life. Well, I intend to. And I think Nick Stanton may be the one I want to share it with. We just need a little time.” She bent down to meet Nance’s lowered gaze and found moisture in her grandmother’s eyes. “And we’ll need your love and support.”

  * * *

  NICK WASN’T SURE where to start, so he came right out with it as they drove home. “What possessed you to climb into Kate’s vehicle after she told you to stay there and wait for me?” He adjusted the rearview mirror to see Ben in the back seat.

  “I...I wanted to go and help. That other boy, Miguel, he got to go.” He looked up to see his dad’s eyes in the mirror.

  Was it a simple matter of wanting to be included? The pull of belonging could be a lot stronger than orders you didn’t like or understand.

  “He knew the way, and I wanted to help, too.”

  “And what did you think you could do to help?”

  “I don’t know. But I thought Dr. Kate might need me.” He sounded younger by the minute. “I wanted to help her like you did.”

  He knew Ben adored Kate Everly and her scientific knowledge and earthy wisdom and devotion to healing. He couldn’t blame the kid; he adored her, too. So a part of this was Ben wanting to earn Kate’s approval, even admiration, by being helpful.

  It hit him: Ben’s adult-like interests and intelligence were accepted and encouraged by the adults around him, and that led him to think that he could do things adults could do. He didn’t yet understand the difference age and experience made in the freedom to make his own decisions. Add to that his innate curiosity and lack of experience with the world.

  “She said Miguel was brave to go take the pictures of the dogs and puppies.” Ben interrupted his thoughts with yet another question. “Do you think he was brave, Dad?”

  This was headed off track. Shouldn’t he be sentencing Ben to a grounding or something?

  “How old is this Miguel?” he asked instead.

  “I don’t know. Hines said he was maybe thirteen. But he’s not much bigger than me, so he could be twelve—or even ten.”

  “Well, for a twelve-or thirteen-year-old boy to volunteer to sneak into a place he knows is dangerous—where someone has a gun—I’d say that’s pretty brave.”

  “But he didn’t have to fight anybody or anything like that.”

  “Do you think he was scared?” Nick asked, wondering if he should stop the car and have this discussion face-to-face.

  “Maybe.” Ben frowned. “Probably. So maybe he wasn’t so brave.”

  Jealousy, then, Nick thought. Ben wanted to be the brave one.

  “What do you think bravery is, Ben?”

  “Standing your ground when somebody tries to hit you.” Nick saw his son watching him in the mirror. “Like soldiers. They’re not afraid when they go to fight—they know what to do. Right?”

  “So you think soldiers aren’t afraid? That being afraid is not brave?”

  “I—I guess.”

  “Well, I have to disagree. Most soldiers I have known were afraid at one time or another—sometimes they were afraid a lot. They were in foreign countries with people who spoke different languages, had very different customs and didn’t trust them. They didn’t know who was a ‘friendly’ and who was an enemy, and they could be shot or attacked at almost any time. Do you think they had reason to be afraid?”

  “I guess.” Ben frowned and chewed his lip. “But
aren’t soldiers trained to not be afraid? Because how can they fight and protect people and stuff if they’re afraid?”

  “That’s the point, Ben. They may be afraid or sad or angry or lonely—but they do their jobs anyway and face down guns and rockets and ambushes. Brave is about what you do, not what you feel. It’s okay to be afraid sometimes. Fear can keep you from doing dumb things and getting yourself hurt or in trouble.”

  He turned into their subdivision and slowed the SUV to a crawl so they could finish this talk. This was the hard part...

  “So what do you think would have happened if you had gone to take those pictures instead of Miguel?”

  “Me?” Ben seemed surprised. “Well, I would have been quiet in the woods and ducked from tree to tree, like on TV. And I’d go to the first place and open the door and take pictures.” He held his hand out in front of him and made clicking noises while depressing an imaginary button. “And then the second barn and then whatever other places they keep dogs and puppies.”

  Nick was struck forcefully by the naïveté in Ben’s thinking. “Like on TV.” He could imagine himself doing all of that, but didn’t know yet the difference between thinking something and being able to do it.

  “What if that old lady spotted you and came out with her shotgun? What if the dogs saw you and started barking? What if you fell and got hurt or broke the camera? What if the doors were locked and you couldn’t get inside the barn? What if there were big dogs running lose to attack intruders?”

  Ben sat with his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes flitting back and forth over the images Nick had just seeded in his fertile mind. His shoulders rounded, and Nick felt a pang of guilt. He didn’t like having to poke holes in Ben’s illusions of adulthood. Was he being too hard on the boy?

  After a while Ben looked up, having made a decision.

  “I guess it was best that Miguel went to take the pictures.” He had gotten the message, and Nick felt a weight lift from his chest. It might be only one of many such steps toward maturity, but at least he had hope now that he could help Ben negotiate them.

  “You guess right. Miguel knew the layout and the possible hazards. A successful mission requires that you think of all the angles and have as much information as possible.” He nodded in genuine appreciation of Ben’s honesty. “You’ll make a good mission commander someday.”

  As he pulled into their driveway, he glimpsed Ben staring thoughtfully out the window. They walked up the sidewalk together, and he couldn’t keep from ruffling Ben’s hair.

  “But don’t think you’re getting off easy, kiddo. You disobeyed a direct order, and that means you’ve got KP duty for the next two weeks.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KATE TRIED NOT to watch the clock, but by 8:30 p.m. she was mentally bracing for disappointment or worse. When the phone rang at nine o’clock, she made herself take time answering.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d call,” she said in spite of herself. “I thought you probably were furious with me.”

  “I was,” he responded, “for about ten minutes. Fortunately, you took another hour and a half to get back. I had time to think.”

  “Uh-oh.” She tried for a lighter tone. “What about?”

  “About Ben and me, and you and Ben, and you and me.”

  “That’s a lot of thinking.” She made herself breathe. “Want to tell me how it went?”

  He told her all of it: Ben acting so adult but also acting like a kid, wanting her approval, and wanting to be like his dad. Every statement sounded like true insight and, taken together, like a solid foundation for a father who understood and had dealt compassionately with his son.

  “So, being a kid is complicated, huh?” she said, hoping the smile in her voice survived being bounced from cell tower to cell tower.

  “I guess. I don’t remember it being this tough when I was a kid.”

  “It probably was, but you didn’t see it. Ask your mom.” When he rumbled with what sounded like a laugh, she continued. “Does that mean he’s not on restriction until he’s eighteen?”

  “I forgot you know military lingo.” She could hear a smile in his voice and imagined a glint in his eye. “KP for two weeks. Garbage runs, compost runs and he has to scrub down the cans and recycle bins.”

  “That’s not so bad.”

  “He’s suffering, believe me. We’ve postponed all talk of getting a dog for a while.”

  “Ouch.” They both paused, though it didn’t seem strained. “Now, what about the you-and-me part of the thinking?”

  “That I’d rather say in person. You up for some company?”

  “I am.” She tried not to sound too eager. “But you have to give me a few minutes to get all the snakes and tarantulas back in their cages.”

  He either coughed or laughed; she couldn’t tell which. “I’ll be there in fifteen—make that twenty-five. I have to shower.”

  She stood looking at the phone after they’d hung up. Shower? Did guys shower right before they ditched someone? Not likely.

  He arrived promptly after twenty-five minutes, elapsed time. She opened the door and felt a tingle of excitement at the sight of him in jeans and a polo shirt that made his hazel eyes look almost green. Hints of soap and shaving lotion teased her nose as he stepped inside. The minute the door closed she stepped back and clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. She offered him something to drink but he declined, so she led him over to the sofa, where he perched on the edge.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?” She struggled for composure.

  “Us. You and me. I’ve done some thinking. And no, I didn’t strain anything.” He cracked a brief smile, looking like he was preparing for something momentous.

  “I like you, Kate.” He ran his hands up and down his thighs. “A lot. And I want you to know it. You’re up front about things. No games. At least none I can detect.”

  “Smart guy. I like to keep things simple. The curves life throws at us makes the geometry complicated enough. Why add to it?”

  He relaxed noticeably and slid back on the sofa.

  “You know, I was pretty good at geometry. It was one of my favorite subjects. If they’d had it in college, I’d have been a four-pointer.”

  She laughed and felt some of the tension drain away.

  “That’s another thing I like about you—your laugh.”

  “Oooh, you’ve made a list. And some of it’s personal.”

  “It’s all personal—about as personal as it gets. I find myself thinking about you on the road, after a traffic stop, in the station house, in the damned shower...”

  Her eyes widened at that, and whatever was wrapped around her stomach suddenly released it.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She edged closer so that their knees touched. “Fair warning, I have my own list.”

  “You do?” His whole countenance brightened.

  “Your eyes. Did you know they change color with everything you wear? And I’m starting to be able to read what’s happening in them.”

  “That’s a good thing?” He looked down at her fidgeting hands.

  “Maybe not in law enforcement, when you’re grilling a suspect, but when you’re beside someone you’re involved with—”

  Every muscle in his body had just gone on alert. She read the importance of that reaction in every line and sinew of his frame.

  “Is that what we are? Involved?” he asked.

  She fought a potent urge to grab him and kiss him witless. The man was so controlled, so measured, so damned rational...it was making her crazy.

  “Let’s see what the evidence shows,” she said, making a point of her patience as she counted it up on her fingers. “You think about me a lot, I think about you a lot. You like kissing me, I like kissing you back. You like being
with me, I like having you around. You find me attractive—I hope—and I think you’re downright yummy. I could have you for dessert. The way your shoulders move in that uniform shirt practically drops me to my knees.” He looked a little stunned—either that or amazed.

  Her face blanked. “Did I just say that out loud?”

  It was hard to tell which when he didn’t say anything for what seemed forever. When he did speak, his voice had dropped an octave.

  “I’m gonna wear that shirt every day for the rest of my life.”

  It took her a minute to translate that.

  “So you don’t mind being the subject of my fevered daydreams?”

  “Uh, that would be no.” His grin was adorably lopsided, and in that moment, she glimpsed the boy he had been. His expression was the embodiment of wonder, the joy of unexpected discovery.

  It amazed her. He acted as if he were surprised that she might want him. Did he honestly not know how utterly male and devastatingly sexy he was?

  When he reached for her hands, there was such hope in his face that she felt her heart skip. It was only then that she realized how important what was happening between them was to him.

  “I’m head over heels for you, Nick Stanton. You don’t have to say anything back—you just have to know that I’m here and I care very much for you.”

  He looked down at her hands, cradled in his, and stroked her skin with his thumbs.

  “I’ve never met anybody like you, Kate. You amaze me. You’re good and kindhearted, you’re smart and educated and funny. I’ve smiled and laughed more since I met you than I have in years.” He paused, glanced at her and then back at their joined hands. She shifted one of her hands to stroke his. He watched for a moment.

  “I’ve had a lot to deal with in these last few years. Cashing out. Iraq and Afghanistan. Combat. Trying to be a dad after Ben’s mother left. I still have some stuff to figure out and other stuff to put behind me. I’m no prize, but I’m making progress.”

  “So I’ve seen. Even with dogs. Enough that you might reconsider getting Ben a dog?” She knew she was pushing, but couldn’t help teasing him. “Or a puppy?” Something dark flitted through his expression and she realized she had said the wrong thing. Dang it!