that. The neighbor shook his head and started back to the garage, but paused as a couple walking in front of his house waved and they all stopped to chat. Yeah, Christmastime in suburbia was a real hotbed for terrorists.
Muttering a curse at his inability to acclimatize to civilian life, Harry pulled out, following the probable teen driver to the stop sign at the corner before they turned in opposite directions. Although this was an older neighborhood, the homes had been well maintained. The sidewalks and driveways had been cleared. Traffic and pedestrians were the norm, not suspicious activity he needed to guard against.
Bouncing over the compacted ruts of snow in the side streets, Harry made his way toward his sister’s loft apartment in downtown Kansas City, avoiding the dregs of rush hour traffic as much as possible. This evening’s visit to Daisy’s house needed to go on his list of dumb ideas he should have reconsidered before taking action. What had he thought was going to happen when he showed up on her doorstep? That the woman who’d sent him all those letters while he’d been overseas and in the hospital, would recognize him? They’d never exchanged pictures. He’d thought that trading news and revealing souls and making him laugh meant that they knew each other. That the same feeling he got when he saw her name at mail call would happen to him again when they met in person. If he was brutally honest, he’d half expected a golden halo to be glowing around her head.
Golden-halo Daisy was supposed to be his link to reality. Seeing her was supposed to ground him. The plan had been to let go of the nightmares he held in check, and suddenly all the scars inside him would heal. He could report back to Lt. Col. Biro and never look back after a dose of Daisy.
So much for foolish miracles.
Daisy Gunderson wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t golden-haired. And she certainly hadn’t been glowing. She was a brunette—a curvy one, if his body’s humming reaction to those impromptu bear hugs were any indication. A brunette with purple streaks in her hair and matching glasses on her nose and a need to chatter that just wouldn’t quit.
And the dogs. He hadn’t expected the dogs. Or the mess. Everything was loud and chaotic, not at all the peaceful sort of mecca he’d envisioned.
The fact that some pervert had been peeking in her bedroom window bothered him, too. He’d foolishly gone to a woman he only knew on paper—a stranger, despite the letters they’d shared—for help. Instead, it looked as if she was the hot mess who needed help.
Harry needed the woman in the letters to help him clear his head and lose the darkness that haunted him.
He didn’t need Daisy Gunderson and her troubles.
He’d done his good deed for her. He’d assuaged his conscience. It was time to move on.
To what? What was a jarhead like him supposed to do for six weeks away from the Corps?
If he was overseas, he’d be doing a perimeter walk of the camp at this time of the evening, making sure his buddies were secure. Even if he was back at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, he’d be doing PT or reading up on the latest equipment regs or putting together a training exercise for the enlisted men he intended to work with again. He was used to having a routine. A sense of purpose. What was he supposed to do here in Kansas City besides twiddle his thumbs, visit a shrink and reassure his sister that she didn’t need to walk on eggshells around him?
He supposed he could find the nearest mall and do some Christmas shopping for Hope, his brother-in-law, Pike, and nephew, Gideon. But even in the late evening there’d be crowds there. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many corners where the imagined enemy inside his head could hide.
Pausing at a stop light, Harry opened the glove compartment where he’d put the list of local therapists Lt. Col. Biro had recommended and read the names and phone numbers. Even before he’d finished reading, he was folding the paper back up and stuffing it inside beside the M9 Beretta service weapon he stored there. He closed the glove compartment with a resolute click and moved on with the flow of traffic.
He’d already made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. He wasn’t ready for an emergency call to one of them yet. Maybe he should ask his brother-in-law where he could find a local gym that wouldn’t require a long-term commitment. He could lift some weights, run a few miles on a treadmill. That was all he needed, a physical outlet of some kind. A way to burn himself out until he was too tired to have any more thoughts inside his head.
It was almost eight o’clock when Harry pulled into the driveway beside Fairy Tale Bridal, the wedding planner business his sister owned. He pressed the buzzer and announced himself over the intercom before Hope released the lock and he jogged up the stairs to the apartment over the shop where she and Pike lived. He heard her warning Pike’s K-9 partner, Hans, to stay before opening the condominium door. His sister had a quiet beauty that seemed to have blossomed with the confidence she’d found in marriage and motherhood. He was happy to see her soft smile when she welcomed him home.
But that smile disappeared beneath a frown of concern before she shooed the German shepherd into the living area of the open layout and locked the door behind her. “That coat is too small for you. You need to get a new one that fits.”
“Guess I’ve filled out a bit since the last time I needed my winter coat. There’s not much call for them in Southern California or the Middle East.”
Although he’d fully intended to put his own things away, Hope took his coat from him as soon as he’d unzipped it. “You’re later than I thought. Did you get any dinner? I can heat up some meatloaf and potatoes in the microwave.” Seven months pregnant and wearing fuzzy house slippers with the dress she’d worn to work, she shuffled into the kitchen, hanging his coat over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Would you rather have a sandwich?”
Harry followed her, feeling guilty that, even after all these years, she felt so compelled to take care of him. “I’m good.”
“Did you eat?” she stopped in front of the open refrigerator and turned to face him.
Hope was only a year older than Harry, and he topped her in height, and had outweighed and outmuscled her for years. But she could still peer up at him over the rims of her glasses with those dove-gray eyes and see right into the heart of him, as though the tragic childhood they’d shared had linked them in some all-knowing, twin-like bond. Lying to Hope wasn’t an option.
“No.”
“I wish you’d take better care of yourself. It wasn’t that long ago you were in a hospital fighting for your life. Besides getting winter clothes that fit, you need sleep and good food inside you.” She nudged him into a chair, kissed his cheek and went to work putting together a meatloaf sandwich for him. “You found Daisy’s house okay? What did you think of her?”
Harry pictured a set of deep blue eyes staring up at him above purple glasses, in an expression similar to the pointed look Hope had just given him. Only, he’d had a very different reaction to Daisy’s silent request. Yes, he’d reacted to the fear he’d seen there and taken action like the Marine he was trained to be, but there was something else, equally disconcerting, about the way Daisy had studied him in her near-sighted squint that he couldn’t quite shake.
“She’s a hugger.” Surprised that those were the first words that came out of his mouth, Harry scrubbed his palm across the stubble itching the undamaged skin of his jaw.
But the faint air of dismay in his tone didn’t faze Hope. In fact, something about his comment seemed to amuse her. “I told you she was friendly and outgoing. She approached me that first morning
