She was having trouble meeting his eyes. Was she
scared of him?
Clear the air. “I hope I didn’t give you bruises.”
She let out an unconvincing laugh. “I deserve some,
after throwing myself off the porch.”
“I knocked you down hard. I’m sorry.”
To his eyes, she was so beautiful right now he ached
with it. Her cheeks were rosy, perhaps from the bath.
Her hair was caught up on top of her head, but wisps
curled around her face. She’d changed into a flannel
shirt—his—the sleeves rolled half a dozen times,
several buttons undone to expose her long, pale throat
and delicate collarbone. Her eyes were uncertain,
shying from his, the color seemingly having darkened.
“You didn’t hurt me. I was just…startled.”
“I’m glad,” he said, and meant it.
She bit her lip, nodded and took a step back, as if to
leave the kitchen. Then she stopped, and he braced
himself.
“Does it happen often? I mean, flashbacks?”
“No. Not like that. I duck when a garbage truck
clangs, but so do most vets at first.”
Her eyes, perplexed, met his at last. “Then why…?”
“There was an incident…” He cleared his throat. He
didn’t like talking about the war at all, but he owed
her an explanation. “Three soldiers. Something about
the way the boys arranged themselves today, their
voices…” He stopped, found himself hunching his
shoulders. “When Hopper turned back and then fell
just as that branch snapped… It was so familiar. I wasn’t
in Iraq. I knew there was snow on the ground, and that
it was you I was throwing down.”
“Protecting,” she said softly.
“But for a minute I saw blood. I thought two of the
boys had gone down.” Feeling incredibly awkward, he
studied the grain of wood in the plank floor. “It was
brief, but vivid.”
“You’ve had things like this happen before, haven’t
you? That’s why you moved up here.”
He lifted his head and glared at her. “You think I
walk around hallucinating? You’re wrong. This was an
isolated incident. War messes with your head. It takes
time to clear it.”
Puckers between her eyebrows showed that she was
still troubled as she studied him, but after a minute she
nodded. “My father was in Vietnam. To this day he
hates the Fourth of July.”
“Yeah, that would be even worse for Vietnam vets.
We didn’t have to deal with constant shelling.”
“What was the worst part?” she asked.
Being asked to talk about it made him feel as if his
ribs were being compressed. He shifted, told himself he
was getting enough air.
What was a short answer she’d accept? One that
didn’t say, watching kids you’ve befriended get blown
up?
“The fact that you’re not fighting soldiers. There’s
no theater of operations. There’s no behind the lines
where you can kick back and not worry about dying. It’s
like Vietnam in that sense. Every car driving up to a
checkpoint can be full of guys toting AK rifles. Or it
might have a family in it, little kids in the back. Road
blocks are a nightmare. Everyone over there drives at
breakneck speed. Is a car barreling toward you because
that’s the way this guy drives all the time, or because
he’s a suicide bomber? That house with kids playing in
front of it might be the meeting place for a bunch of insurgents. You can’t assume it’s safe because of the kids.”
He tried to figure out how to make her understand.
“Violence can happen anywhere. Anytime. So you
never relax.”
She nodded. “So after a while you look at all Iraqis
as enemies and none as a friend.”
Not him. Foolishly optimistic, he had tried to make
friends with the people, to build a bridge between the
Americans and the locals. He wasn’t going to tell her
about how that bridge was detonated, any more than he
had told a single other soul since he was shipped home
on crutches.
“The six-month deployments are smart. Knowing
you’re getting to go home…” Hands miraculously
steady, he took out a cutting board and knife. “Trouble