A Love Like Ours (19 page)

Protectiveness gusted within her. The powers of this dark world could not have Jake. “What about the IED? Will you talk to me about that?”

“I just . . .” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “I can’t.”

“Can you tell me what physical injuries you sustained in the IED explosion?”

A gap of quiet. “A punctured lung. Broken ribs. Lacerations.”

“Lacerations where?”

“My face, my leg, my side.”

He was talking to her, trusting her with some of the details. “Did you consider returning to service once your injuries healed?”

He shook his head. “I received an honorable discharge.”

“Do your old injuries still bother you?”

“The physical ones? No.”

That the old mental injuries still bothered him greatly went unsaid. “What have you found that helps you sleep?” she asked.

He looked at her pointedly, a vertical line grooving the skin between his eyebrows. “There’s nothing that helps, Lyndie.”

“There
is
one thing that can help, Jake.”

“You going to preach God to me again?”

“God again. Would you consider coming to church with me?”

“No.” He made his way to the far side of the table to gather his clipboard and the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. He was closing the conversation and dismissing her.

“Well, if you change your mind . . . let me know. I meant what I said earlier. If there’s anything I can do for you, I want to. If you ever decide you want to talk about stuff, I’m here.”

He stood with his arms down, the clipboard and Reese’s held against the outside of his thigh. Heat and tumult lit his eyes.

The table separated them as surely as a continent. It almost seemed that he’d put it there on purpose. A buffer between them, certainly. But also, perhaps, a protection. Could he be protecting himself from her? Her from him? “Will you consider going back to see my mom and Mollie? Please?”

For a few extended seconds, he studied her. “Fine.”

“Really?” Her spirits brightened. “When?”

“Right now.”

“I’ll come with you—”

“I’d prefer to go alone.”

His words hurt even as she told herself not to let them hurt. They’d made progress today. It was, for now, enough. Jake’s healing process would happen God’s way, not her way.

“Go and enjoy your Saturday,” he said. Then he shouldered through the door and was gone.

Lyndie remained alone in the middle of the small, endlessly empty room.

She touched my face
, Jake thought over and over as he drove across town.
She touched my face
.

Why had she done that? She’d put her hands on him. She must not have any idea of the kind of chaos that set off inside him or how little control he had over himself.

Since the Marines, he’d lived a simple life. He’d ruthlessly avoided alcohol and drugs and sex, knowing that he wasn’t strong enough to deal with any of them. It had been another lifetime when he’d last been touched by a woman he was attracted to.

But just now Lyndie—heaven help him,
Lyndie
—had touched his face. She’d stood so close he could feel her body heat and smell her soap, a scent so clean and clear it reminded him of a waterfall. Need had overwhelmed him.

Why couldn’t she let him be? Why did she have to ask questions and say things he wished he could rewind and delete?

“I won’t be able to go and enjoy
my Saturday. I’ll be too worried about you. I
want to help you if you’ll let me. You’
re the best friend I ever had. I’m sorry
that my family moved away all those years ago. I’
m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

His hands were shaking. He gripped the steering wheel harder and drove to Lyndie’s parents’ house. He hadn’t agreed to this visit because Lyndie suggested it. He’d agreed because he needed to talk to Karen.

Still, it was probably a bad idea, he thought as he knocked on their front door, to show up here out of the blue. Not good manners.

Lyndie’s dad answered the door. The older man’s face immediately broke into a smile. “Jake Porter! It’s Mike James.” He shook Jake’s hand with a strong grip and used his free hand to clap Jake’s shoulder.

Mike looked exactly like Lyndie’s Grandpa Harold, only thirty years younger. He stood a head shorter than Jake and was built like a bull. His thick brown hair had grayed at the sides.

In the living room, Jake could see Harold’s feet resting on the
extended part of his recliner. Mollie sat nearby in a specialized wheelchair. Horse racing filled the TV screen.

“We’re watching the racing down at Gulfstream,” Mike said. “Did you see that Ladd’s Lady won the stakes race there yesterday?”

“I did.”

“Good horse. Real good horse.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please, come join us. Make yourself comfortable.”

He hadn’t come to watch horse racing with Mike, Harold, and Mollie. “I came by to speak with your wife. Is she at home?”

“She sure is. Right over here.” Mike led him to the first room off the hallway. Instead of a regular door, it had two French doors full of glass. Mike pushed one open and leaned in. “Here’s my girlfriend right here.”

Karen rose to greet him. “Jake! Come in.” She spoke like she’d been expecting him.

“Time’s played a dirty trick on me,” Mike said. “I’m getting older, but Karen looks prettier than the first day we met.” He winked at his wife.

Karen smiled at Mike before turning her attention to Jake. “He’s lying. Come over here and let me show you what I’m working on.” She drew him to the big table that took up most of the room’s space. A laptop rested on one corner of the surface. Pictures and papers and stacks of albums covered the rest. Late afternoon sunlight fell over everything, catching a few pieces of dust that hovered in the air. “Scrapbooking’s my hobby.”

“Karen’s been scrapbooking for what,” Mike asked, “ten years?”

“Maybe more now. Here we are.” She turned an album so that Jake could see a picture of Lyndie wearing a dress and socks that came up to her knees and carrying a lunch box. “I’ve finally made it to Lyndie’s first day of kindergarten.”

Jake glanced at Mike, who sent him a look full of laughter. “She’s making slow and steady progress. I’ll be in the living room watching TV, babe, just so you’ll know where to find me.”

“I always know where to find you and your father, honey. You two never budge.”

Mike chuckled and closed the glass doors behind him.

“Is it very bad of them to watch so much TV?” Karen asked Jake.

Did she actually expect an answer? “You’re the therapist.”

“True. I’m the therapist, and for your information, I think it’s very bad of them to watch so much TV.” She pushed her pink glasses up her nose. “But I allow it because it’s one of their greatest joys in life. And, if you must know, it gives me a few hours to myself to work on my books.” She flipped through the nearest album. “There was a picture of you, Jake, just a few pages back. . . .” She pointed to a photo. “Here. Isn’t that darling?”

He looked to be about seven. He was holding a lead rope attached to Rusty, one of the Porter family’s old horses. Lyndie stood next to him, a scrawny girl with a tangled halo of pale hair. One of her knees was scraped. She had a dirt streak on her cheek and the strap of her sundress had come off a shoulder. She’d placed her tiny hands on her hips and was smiling a mischievous smile. The reliable-looking, brown-haired boy he’d been was looking down at her, with a half smile on his mouth and softness in his eyes.

The love he’d had for her then couldn’t have been more obvious.
“You’re the best friend I
ever had.”
Memories circled inside and around him. “She’s why I came,” he finally said.

“Lyndie?”

He nodded.

“Have a seat.” Karen offered him her leather desk chair, then settled herself onto a stool positioned near the laptop.

“Has Lyndie told you that she wants to be Silver Leaf’s jockey in his race on Thursday?” he asked.

“No. But I’m not the least surprised to hear that.”

“You can’t want her to ride Silver Leaf in a race, can you?” Lyndie wouldn’t see sense, but he hoped Karen would. Jake wanted her to give him a reason to tell Lyndie she couldn’t ride.

Karen took her time studying him. “It sounds to me like
you
don’t want her to ride.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

He frowned.

“Are you scared for her?” Karen asked.

“It’s not safe.”

“Lyndie has never had a soul that was bent toward safety.”

He could hear the muted sounds of a commentator calling a race on TV. The picture of Lyndie with the scrape on her knee stared at him from the open page of the album.

“Do you remember what she was like when she was young?” Karen asked. “Always exploring. Or playing imaginary games or running off on rescue missions?”

“Yes.”

“I’m ashamed to say that I probably didn’t watch her as closely as I should have in those days. I trusted you, for one thing. For another, I was just so tired. Thanks to God’s protection, she came through her childhood unscathed.” She sighed and straightened the wrinkled blue polo shirt she had on over sweatpants. “When Lyndie was nineteen she fell off a horse and fractured her wrist. Did you know that she’d fractured her wrist?”

“No.”

“It scared me, Jake. She’d broken her wrist, but I was very, very aware that it could have easily been her spine. In my heart of hearts, I didn’t want her to work with horses anymore.”

“Exactly.”

“However, if I’d told her she couldn’t go to the track, I knew she’d have rebelled. She’s kind, but she’s also strong-willed. If I’d said no, she’d have wanted to work with horses twice as much.” She smiled a mother’s smile, full of affection for her child. “I thought about it, and I prayed over it. I probably prayed over it for two weeks straight. What I finally realized was that I’d have to let her make her own choices.” She looked at him with sympathy.

This was not what he’d come to hear.

“Mike and I haven’t done it perfectly, but we’ve tried to teach Lyndie not to let fear govern her life. Does the idea of her as
Silver Leaf’s jockey worry me? A little. But her safety in a race is something I have no control over. I’ll give it to God, and then I’ll try to let it go.”

“I do have control over it,” Jake said.

“What’s that?”

“Whether Lyndie can race.”

“Do you think that Lyndie will give your horse the best chance of winning?”

“Yes.”

“Then I recommend that you let Lyndie ride.”

Could Karen really be that brave?

“After all we’ve been through with Mollie, we’ve learned that it’s best to live in love and not fear. Mike and I trust God with our family’s future, Jake.”

Despair sank through him.

“It’s not always easy. My greatest fear is dying before Mollie dies. If that happened, who would take care of her? She needs me.” Tears gathered in her eyes.

He remembered that she’d gotten teary-eyed the last time he’d visited, too. For pity’s sake. Were therapists supposed to cry this much? “If something happened to you,” Jake said, “Lyndie would take care of Mollie.”

“But I want to take care of her. I’m her mother. So it’s sort of a daily thing I have to work through, handing the situation over to God, trusting Him with it again and again.”

He wasn’t going to get what he’d come here for. Slowly, Jake pushed to his feet. “Thank you for talking with me. I’m sorry to have interrupted you—”

She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t even try to leave yet.”

“I have to go.”

“Take a seat, if you please.” She extended her hand palm up toward the chair he’d left.

They stood that way in heavy silence for a few moments before he lowered back into the chair.

“I told you my greatest fear. Now I want to know yours. . . .
And you look as happy as a person about to face a firing squad. Am I really so intimidating?” She waited for him to answer.

“Yes.”

Oddly, his answer made her laugh. She was a strange counselor, with her bare feet and her tearfulness and her messy scrapbooking desk. He did not feel comfortable here, with her. Yet he hadn’t forgotten the bald, overworked counselor he’d seen at the VA. He felt ten times more comfortable with Karen than he had with that guy.

“Your greatest fear?” she prodded.

Something happening to Lyndie
. “I’d rather not say.”

She looked at him as if able to read the answer on his face. “Remember how I mentioned to you that I see a few clients with PTSD?”

“I remember.”

“Each case is individual. A treatment plan that includes yoga and meditation might help one person.”

If she thought he was going to try yoga, she was crazier than he was.

“Another might benefit from EMDR therapy. Another, prescription medications. Some do well within a support group of other vets. Some need a recovery program like AA. You catch my drift?”

“I do.”

“There are just two things I’ve found that seem to help all my PTSD guys, across the board. Now, I’m just speaking about my personal experience, you understand. I don’t have a huge number of patients with PTSD, so this observation isn’t scientific.”