were very critical about them. Some were too rounded. Others didn’t look like the mountains you can see from here.”
She smiled at the memory. “I drove him crazy with my mountains. He had a toy grader and was making roads fast, to run the little cars and trucks on, but I was wandering around trying to make mountains. Then my folks got me a couple of plastic horses and they were too big. I hate to tell you how many times they turned into monsters that messed with the tiny cars.”
Gil’s face relaxed into a smile. “I can imagine it.”
Her thoughts drifted backward in time, and she found herself remembering the happiness almost wistfully. “We tried to build a tree fort but we really didn’t have the skills, so we’d climb up into the trees and pretend to be hiding from unspecified bad guys. One time we happened to find a stray steer. Well, that ended our imaginary game. We had to take it home. For which we got a piece of cake, so after that instead of hiding from imaginary bad guys, we became trackers hunting for rustled cattle.”
His smile widened. “He didn’t tell me you two had hunted rustlers.”
“Only in our minds. Kids have wonderful imaginations. So what did you do?”
“I lived in town, so most of our games were pretty tame. Except when we got into trouble, of course. And being kids, we did from time to time. Mrs. Green was pretty angry when we trampled her rhubarb bed.”
“I can imagine.”
“Oh, it came back. We weren’t trying to do any damage, though. Just carelessness. I haven’t been home a lot during my career, but it seems like kids don’t run around the neighborhood as much as they used to. Yards have become more private.”
“And with two parents working, a lot of kids are probably in after-school programs and day care.”
“True.” He sipped some more coffee.
“When did you start thinking about joining the army?” she asked. “Or did you imagine a series of different possibilities?”
“I don’t remember if I thought about anything else seriously. I probably toyed with a lot of ideas, the way kids do. Then September 11 happened. That was it.”
“Pretty much the same thing happened with Al. That set his course.”
“Yup.” Gil nodded slowly. “It set a lot of courses. I trained with a whole bunch of people who’d made the same decision for the same reason. The changing of a nation.”
She turned that around in her mind. “Watershed?” she asked tentatively.
“In a lot of ways.” But he clearly intended to say no more about it. “And you? Music teacher?”
“Always. Put any musical instrument in my hand and I wanted to play it. I was lucky, because Mom and Dad encouraged me even though it was expensive. Rented instruments and band fees. Then I got a scholarship to the music program at university.”
“You must be very talented.”
“Talented enough to teach. Nothing wrong with that. I never did dream of orchestras or bands.” She smiled. “Small dreams.”
“Big dreams,” he corrected. “Teaching is a big dream.”
As she watched, she could see fatigue pulling him down. His eyelids were growing heavy and caffeine wasn’t doing a bit to help. “Why don’t you take a nap,” she suggested. “I’ll wake you for dinner, but you looked wiped.”
He didn’t argue, merely gave her a wan smile and let her show him the bedroom in back. His limp, she noticed, had grown even more pronounced than when he came into the house. Tired and hurting. She hoped he’d sleep.
* * *
Gil didn’t sleep. He pulled off his boots, then stretched out carefully on the colorful quilt that covered the twin bed on one side of the room. As Miri had advised him, her home office occupied one corner. An older computer occupied most of the desk, but there was a side table stacked high with papers, and leaning against it was a backpack that looked to be full. Several instrument cases lined the wall on the far side.
He still wasn’t sure exactly what had drawn him here, unless it was memories of Al. He had needed to get away from his family, all of whom were pushing him to take medical retirement. He didn’t feel right about that. He might be confined to a desk after this—hell, probably would—but he still had buddies in the unit, and even from a desk he could look out for them. He owed them something, just as he owed something to all the friends he’d lost over the years.
His family had trouble understanding that. Even his dad, who was a Vietnam vet. Of course, he had taken only one tour in that war before his enlistment finished, so maybe he couldn’t understand, either. A deep bond grew between men in special forces, no matter the branch they served in. They were used more often on dangerous and covert missions, often so far removed from command that they might as well have been totally alone. They depended on each other for everything.
And they wound up owing each other everything. Didn’t mean they all liked each other, but they were brothers, the bond deeper than most families.
How could he possibly explain that?
So...he’d finally gotten tired of the pressure. His mind was made up. He’d made his choice the day he entered training for special ops, and a wounding, even his second one, couldn’t change that commitment.
But the real problem was that he and his family were no longer on the same page. They couldn’t be. His folks had no real understanding of where he’d been and what he’d done, and he wasn’t going to try to illuminate them. They had no need to know, and the telling wasn’t the same as the doing, anyway. He was part of a different world, and sometimes he felt as if they were speaking different languages.
It was a kind of isolation that only being with others who’d been in special ops could break. They had become his family, his only real family now. How the hell could he explain that to his parents?
He couldn’t. So he’d put up with their fussing and pressure as long as he could. They wanted to take care of him, they worried about him and they couldn’t just accept who he was. Not their fault, but in the end he didn’t feel the comfort they wanted him to feel.
Al had been a good reason to move on. Gil told his folks he wanted to come see Al’s family, to see how they were doing, to share stories about Al they’d probably like to hear. That was one decision that hadn’t received an argument. Maybe because his parents were as tired of trying to break down his walls as he was at having them battered.
He wasn’t accustomed to the kind of weariness that had become part of his life since he got caught in a bomb blast in the mountains of Afghanistan. Yeah, he’d gotten tired from lack of sleep in the past, but this was different. Fatigue had become a constant companion, so he let his eyes close.
And behind his eyelids all he could see was Miriam Baker and her honeyed hair in its cute braid. If she meant to look businesslike, she wasn’t succeeding.
A thought slipped past his guard: sexy woman. Al probably wouldn’t want him to notice. Then Gil could no longer hold sleep at bay.
* * *
Miri
