once again it was time to make her departure, she rose. “I hope you enjoy the pie. It was a pleasure to see you again, Zane. Sorry I intruded for so long.”
She zipped her jacket, knowing it would be even colder outside now. “I’ll see myself out. And, by the way, if you should need anything, I’m next door.” She pointed. “I’m home most afternoons and evenings, because a teacher’s day doesn’t end when school lets out and I always have paperwork. Good night.”
Then she marched out of that house with enough to think about that she’d probably be up late into the night.
She had no idea what she’d expected when she knocked on his door, but now she was deeply disturbed. Whoever Zane had become, he didn’t at all resemble the young athlete she remembered.
He probably remembered that kid, though, and it couldn’t make his life one bit easier now.
* * *
Zane sat in his kitchen, not moving, for a long time. The smell of the apple pie filled the room, and he clung to it as he kneaded Nell’s neck.
Simple things. Good things. The schoolteacher had reminded him. Neighbors and apple pies. Running next door for a cup of sugar. Friendly faces on the streets. A world he hadn’t known for a long time.
She was cute, that one. Beautiful, even, but there was no room in his hell for a woman. He’d only drag her down. Adapting to a wheelchair hadn’t been as difficult as dealing with himself and the wars.
Would he like to have the use of his legs back? Sure. Would he like to erase his memory? Absolutely. He’d trade his legs for a clean slate.
But he wasn’t going to get either, so he had to find a way to make peace with himself. That was proving difficult indeed.
He’d tried group counseling with other vets. It had helped to know he wasn’t alone in his reactions, feelings and nightmares, but that didn’t get rid of any of them. He’d tried medications that were supposed to improve his PTSD, but he’d tossed them all because of Nell. She did more good for him than any pill. Anyway, until they invented a pill for selective memory loss, he was bound to live with himself.
It wasn’t that he hated himself. But he’d been a sailor and done a SEAL’s job, and inevitably horror had been etched on his memory.
Sighing, he rolled out of the kitchen, away from the enticing aroma of the pie and to his bedroom where one carved wooden box, a gift from a friend, waited on his aged dresser, set there by Carol when she unpacked the boxes he’d sent ahead. Opening it, he took out the medal presentation cases within and looked at the wages of his war.
A Purple Heart with a cluster pinned to the ribbon, the cluster for his second wounding, the injury that had paralyzed him. A Bronze Star with multiple clusters. A Silver Star with clusters. A Navy Cross. Campaign and other ribbons, but they didn’t hold his attention. Those stars and the Navy Cross in particular said he was a hero.
Why didn’t he feel like one? He snapped the cases closed and put them back in the box. Once he’d mentioned that he was thinking of ditching them, but an aging Vietnam vet had told him not to. “Someday,” he’d said, “you’ll want them. Or someone else who loves you will. Put them away and save them. They’re the only reward you’ll get.”
The only reward. Yup.
He closed his eyes, remembering the kid who had signed up nearly twenty years ago, wanting the GI Bill, liking the promises the navy gave him of an education. Not much later he’d found himself getting an education of a very different kind. To this day he couldn’t begin to explain to himself why he’d volunteered for the SEALs. Maybe because he was eighteen and full of hubris or too much testosterone. He honestly didn’t know.
But he’d done it, had passed all the arduous training, and had become a very different man in the process. He had been molded into a weapon.
Funny thing was, he didn’t regret that choice. Never once felt he’d made the wrong one. But now he paid the price in memories that never left him.
One hell of an education, indeed.
Shaking his head a little, he wheeled back to the kitchen, deciding to have a piece of the apple pie Ashley had left. The aroma was making his mouth water.
Nell sat hopefully beside him as he cut into the pie. Treat. She had very speaking eyes, he often thought. Hard not to read that she wanted her biscuit or a rawhide bone.
The pantry was still open, so he said, “Nell, get a bone.”
Her tail wagging, Nell trotted into the pantry, found the plastic bag of bones and brought them out, dropping them onto his lap. He ripped off the paper label across the top and pulled the bag open. In the process, he loosened the staples holding it shut, and he made sure to gather them into a pile on the table. He’d hate for Nell to get into trouble with one while picking up the bag.
She accepted her rawhide bone with a woof and a wag then settled on the floor to gnaw happily.
And now he could taste the pie. It was every bit as scrumptious as it smelled. Closing his eyes, he savored the first mouthful, tasting its every nuance with pleasure before he swallowed. It had been a long time since he’d had a good pie, but this one was spectacular. Whether he wanted further contact or not, he was going to have to compliment the chef on this one.
Which meant making a connection he really didn’t want to make. Ashley Granger was a beautiful young woman, and he didn’t want to put any shadows on her face or in her heart.
While he didn’t wallow in self-pity, he always tried to be straight with himself. His ultimate conclusion was that he was poison. Until he found a stable place inside himself, a way to reenter normal life, he didn’t want to poison anyone else.
He looked down at Nell, his companion and aide, and once again saw his life with stark clarity. All these years, with one mission coming after another, with the time he wasn’t in the field mostly used for training and planning, he’d never felt like a fish out of water. The member of a tightly knit fellowship, surrounded by comrades with the same job, the same worldview—he’d belonged.
Now he was a man who couldn’t walk and who depended on a dog to keep him from sliding into a past that he no longer lived.
Yeah, he had no business bringing anyone else into this mess, even peripherally, until he got his head sorted out.
But Ashley sure had tempted him.
Ashley went to school in the morning with nearly a bushel basket full of apples for her students. She’d swiped some for the pie yesterday, but the basket was still brimming. A great time of year for apples, and she’d made a tradition of ordering a bushel each fall for her students.
They all loved apples, and while she limited them to one a day, they still disappeared fast. With a class size of nineteen, four to five days would nearly empty the basket. When they got down to the last few, a spelling bee would determine who got the last of them.
Her students usually loved the treat, and she felt good about being able to give it to them. Special orders were no problem at the
