Deep Woods

Cal slipped his arm around me and drew me close. The top of his shoulder made the perfect pillow and I sighed in satisfaction. But I could feel him brooding and when I turned to look, he was staring off into the trees. “What is it?”

“There’s some stuff you need to know,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “What I was going to tell you back at the cabin. Why I’m out here.”

I smoothed my hand over his back. “There’s no rush,” I told him. “I know it’s hard. We could wait till we’re in Canada, when things aren’t crazy.”

He finally looked across at me. “You’re the finest woman I ever met,” he told me. “And I need to know if—” He broke off and glared at the ground.

Need to know what?

He looked at me. “I need to know.”

In that second, he was more open, more vulnerable, than I’d ever seen him. I saw the pain I’d glimpsed before but something else, too. Guilt. Aching, soul-deep guilt that had been eating at him this whole time. My stomach knotted. He’d done something, and he needed to tell me so that he could find out if I still loved him. What if it was something I couldn’t get past?

What if this was the end?

Part of me didn’t want to know. Can’t we just carry on like this? But I’d sworn that I’d help him. I could see how hard it was for him to tell me. I had to do my part and listen.

I reached out, took his hand, and nodded.

And he told me.

56

Bethany

“It started in Afghanistan,” he said. He shuffled around so that he was sitting facing me. The only light was from the circle of moonlit sky high above and deep shadows covered most of his face. Only those beautiful blue eyes gleamed in the darkness. He’d turned, I realized, because he wanted to look me in the eye when he told me.

“The Marine Raiders had done a whole slew of missions with these...well, they called them intelligence personnel, or specialists. But we all knew they were CIA. Sometimes, we’d have to escort them somewhere dangerous or keep watch while they met a contact. Sometimes, we’d have to help them capture a suspect, and it would get messy. Anyway, one time, I’m with a couple of these spooks and a couple of guys from my unit, and the CIA guys are meant to be meeting with some contact, up in the mountains, to get information. Only it turns into an ambush, and our vehicle gets shot up. We have to run on foot into the mountains and hide. No radio coverage, satellite phone is still in the car, so we got no backup. We have to get to the nearest friendly village on foot, while the bad guys try to find us.”

“So I take charge. It takes us three days but I get everyone home safe, just—” He looked around at the dark woods and shrugged. “Y’know.”

I did know. Just doing what he did. Navigating so easily in the wilderness. Knowing how to move silently and hunt for food. Avoiding and outwitting the people hunting them, just as he’d done tonight. Those people couldn’t have asked for a better guide.

“Anyway, we get home, they give me a damn medal and I figure that’s the end of it. But a few weeks later, a new CIA guy turns up at the base and asks for me. Asks me if I want to serve my country. And….” He stopped for a second and sat there brooding, searching for the right words.

I still had hold of his hand. I squeezed to let him know I understood. This big, gentle giant had always wanted to serve, just like his dad. I felt Cal relax a little.

“I ask the guy why me, and what they want me to do. And he says they need someone who can operate on their own, who can be dropped off a long way from the mission area and make their own way there on foot, undetected, and who’s a marksman. And...well, I’m kinda unsure, because I feel like…”—he sighed—“The guys in my unit...they’re like family, y’know?” He looked at the ground, embarrassed. “Not sure I want to be on my own.”

I nodded. Cal was used to surviving on his own, going on long hunting trips on his own. He could be on his own for hours or days, when that would make more social animals like me go crazy. People who didn’t know him—like this CIA guy—assumed that meant he didn’t need people at all, but they were dead wrong. We all need people around us, sometimes. The difference between someone like me and someone like Cal is that I’d seek out company before I got too lonely. But a stoic, fiercely loyal soldier like Cal...put him on his own and tell him it’s necessary and he’d accept it stoically...and slip slowly into isolation. What was heartbreaking was that after losing his dad and being on his own in the city, Cal had finally found exactly what he needed in the Raiders: a close-knit group of guys he really cared about. And this CIA guy had ripped him away from all that.