WAS ALMOST GLAD to see rain the following morning. It was cold and damp and they went through a lot of wood, giving him something to do that afternoon.
He chopped enough wood to replace the power of Bonneville Dam. He was frustrated on so many levels he was about to implode. But he had to bide his time.
In his other life, the government had directed him to a point, but he’d been the best security officer they had and they’d let him do things his way.
When he’d hooked up with Dave and Trev, they’d worked together like a well-maintained machine, each moving in harmony with the other, each mind reading the others’ so that there was seldom a bad move.
Until Afghanistan and Farah’s death.
Bram remembered explaining to them why they shouldn’t use her, that while she was valuable as a translator, she was outside the unit and therefore a potential danger.
But they’d needed her, and he’d fallen under the spell of her intelligence and her sweetness just like Dave had—though neither of them had fallen as hard or as far as Trevyn.
When they’d closed in on Raisu to stop his terrorism of American installations all over the world, Trev had told her to stay behind. But she’d had some scheme about distracting the camp so that the three of them could approach unnoticed, and she’d ignored Trevyn, determined to do what she thought would help.
He remembered hearing her scream when her traitorous brother had mistaken her for them and shot her. Then he remembered seeing her lying there, arms flung out and motionless.
Bram cleaved a wide log of cedar in half with a clean stroke of the ax as he remembered Trevyn’s primal scream.
The mission gone bad, they had no choice but to retreat. Trevyn wouldn’t leave without Farah’s body, and Bram covered their escape while Dave helped Trev carry her down the mountain.
They’d decided to quit after that, each weary of the business for his own reasons. Staying together in civilian life, at least until they’d all found another road, seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Then David had inherited the house in Dancer’s Beach from their CIA radio contact, code-named “Auntie.” He’d saved her life during an African uprising, and in gratitude, she’d left him her home.
That was where Bram had first met Gusty at a costume party. He and his friends had been dressed as the Three Musketeers, and Gusty had worn a velvet bonnet and a dress with petticoats and she’d caught his eye right away.
He’d excused himself from the group he’d been talking with and taken her aside so they could talk.
She hadn’t wanted to talk about herself, had tried instead to make him talk about the house, about how they’d come by it and which one of them owned it.
He’d told her about his sister, his nieces, his years looking for something to validate his existence. With a father who was a felon, and an alcoholic mother, he’d grown up wondering how he could be of any value.
Only his younger sister’s dependence upon him had forced him to try, and her gratitude and her reliance on him finally taught him that they were both better than the genes that made them up.
He’d joined the police force when she’d gotten married at sixteen and developed into just the kind of young man who could fit into the military. He had what it took, he could rise above, learn that adversity could strengthen and not destroy if a man was determined to be a winner.
And that was when Gusty had opened up a little about herself, though he’d learned later that it hadn’t all been the truth.
She’d told him she was a teacher, and that she lived in northern California in a small town called Pansy Junction, but she hadn’t mentioned her sisters. She’d told him she was visiting friends in Dancer’s Beach.
She was always trying to find her place, too, she’d said. That she had a tendency to be cowardly, to avoid risk and danger and heartbreak.
He’d pointed out that dealing with children every day seemed very brave to him.
Then she’d smiled and he’d seen something final in her eyes.
He’d pulled her toward him and kissed her, then he’d lifted her mask and looked into the sweetest face he’d ever seen.
She’d looked back at him with undisguised longing, then run off when Mayor Beasley had come in search of him to introduce him to a guest.
He’d run after her as soon as he’d been able to get free, but there had been a storm outside and there’d been no sign of her.
He’d had a surveillance job the following day, and during the long, tedious hours of waiting and watching, he’d called Information for Pansy Junction, California, and gotten the telephone number for the school.
With that, it had been a simple thing to check the roster of teachers at the Pansy Junction Elementary School, then to call Information again with her name. He’d gotten her telephone number and her address but knew he’d get nowhere calling her. So he’d hopped a plane the following weekend.
She’d been working on flower boxes and, when she’d turned to watch him climb out of his rental car, he’d seen both delight and surprise in her eyes.
And then she’d run into his arms.
As his closed around her, he’d known that she was what his life was supposed to be about, that his search was over.
And somehow, over the intervening eight months, that delicious discovery had turned into this desperate hiding out from the man who wanted to take it all away from him.
GUSTY LISTENED to the rhythmic strikes of Bram’s ax and felt as though she would cheerfully give up a year of her life if she could remember just a minute of her life with Bram before she’d surfaced in the river. It was becoming as important to her to know who he was as to know herself.
He was her husband, and the baby tied them to each other inextricably, but was he the caring, gentle person he seemed to be? Or had she glimpsed something else last night when he’d caught her going through his backpack?
He hadn’t shouted or accused, but she was sure she’d detected anger. Because she’d been snooping, she wondered, or because she’d caught him in a lie?
The uncertainty put her on edge.
Her back aching from a morning spent baking cinnamon bread, she went into the bedroom, intent on lying down for a few minutes. Then she saw herself in the three-way mirror on the old-fashioned vanity near her bed.
She groaned as she approached the mirror and sat down on the small stool. She looked like an obese bag lady, complete with big, loose dress topped with the flannel shirt. She’d braided her hair to keep it out of her face while she was cooking, but she’d done it quickly because she’d overslept, and now she looked disheveled and pathetic, like Pippi Longstocking on a bender.
Pippi Longstocking. Was that knowledge or memory? She was tired of asking herself that question.
Quickly she unbraided her hair and ran a brush through it, determined to pile it up into a tidy knot. This afternoon she wanted to clean kitchen
