Alex (In the Company of Snipers) (18 page)

“I didn’t expect you to still be up.” He dropped his briefcase next to the door and loosened his tie.

She looked up from the book in her hand with a worried glance. “It’s kind of late. Would you like something to eat?”

“Sure. What’s on the menu?”

“Lasagna?” She phrased her answer in a question. Was she afraid he wouldn’t approve of her menu choice?

“Sounds good to me.” The instant he replied, she visibly relaxed, but that single reaction told him volumes about her past life, back in the days when she probably couldn’t do anything right.

He pulled the holster off his shoulder and stowed his weapon in the gun safe. By then, she had returned from the kitchen with a plate of lasagna, two slices of Parmesan toast, and several kalamata olives on the side.

“Don’t wait on me,” he protested, but she had already set the tray on the coffee table and turned back to the kitchen. “I mean it, Kelsey. I’m perfectly capable—”

He heard the refrigerator door close and the clink of a glass against a bottle.

“And I can get my own beer, too.”

She returned with a frosty glass over a bottle of beer, and a napkin with eating utensils rolled inside. He scowled. “You don’t have to do all this.”

“I know.” She sat back on the couch with her book. “I didn’t know what kind of beer you like so I looked in your garbage can. I also bought some coffee and creamer for tomorrow. I left the receipt on your table.”

He looked at the food spread on the coffee table as he opened the first two buttons of his dress shirt and sank into the easy chair. The kindness of her actions warmed him. “No one’s waited on me in years.”

“I’m just repaying you for everything you’ve done for me.” She paged through her book as if she had lost her place.

“How about I take you to dinner tomorrow night?”

Kelsey looked up, a shadow darkening her face. “I don’t think so. I mean, there’ll be leftovers, and you work late, and ….”

She seemed to be looking for excuses, so he dropped it. “Okay. Well, this is good. Thanks,” he said between mouthfuls. “I mean it. This is really good.”

“Food tastes better when someone else fixes it.” Her voice was quiet, not shy so much as uncertain, and maybe a little afraid.

He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Did you already eat?”

She nodded, offering a tiny smile.

In that instant, he knew exactly why he had made such an outrageous decision to move a bereaved woman all the way across country. Even her half smile lit up his dingy little house.

“What did you do today?”

“Well, I slept most of the day, kinda like I did at your cabin,” she answered softly.

“Ha. Guess I have that affect on women.”

She ignored his teasing comment. “And then me and the dogs went for a walk. I stopped at the grocery store so I could fix dinner. You’re right. Mr. Shablonski is really nice. Do you want more?”

“Yes, but I’ll get—”

“No. You stay there. It’s easier for me to get up.”

Before he knew it, she was back with another serving of lasagna and toast, only this time she also brought a plate with two chocolate chip cookies. “I didn’t know if you like cookies, but I made some.”

“You shouldn’t have done this just for me,” he insisted.

“I didn’t. I made them for the people at your office. They’d like homemade cookies, wouldn’t they?”

Her question caught him by surprise. “Heck, I don’t know. I don’t take treats to the office.”

“Really?” She looked around like she didn’t know what to say next. “My kindergarten class always liked them.”

“I do feel like I work with kindergarteners some days.”

“I didn’t mean that.” She blushed at his inference. “It’s just that I needed something to do so I baked, and then I cooked. What did you do today?”

“Signed contracts. De-briefed agents. You know. The usual.” He finished the last mouthful of lasagna and leaned back into his chair with a satisfied sigh. “Thanks. That was real good.”

“Your work sounds important.” She watched attentively from the couch, her book long forgotten.

“I talked with your sister today.” He gathered his dishes as he studied her response.

She turned a beautiful shade of pink. “I need to call her.”

“It’s okay. I told her you were visiting a friend on the east coast. I think she was good with that explanation.” Alex deposited his dishes in the kitchen sink and stood with his hands braced against the front room doorway. “Now she knows where you are and that you’re okay.”

“Louise is a good sister.” Kelsey’s eyes dropped.

“And she’s worried about you. Anyway, I want you to consider this your home for as long as you decide to stay. Use the phone, drink the beer, eat the food, do whatever you want.” He sat at the edge of his easy chair again, his hands on his knees. “So what are you reading?”

She patted the book beside her. “Just something I found on your bookshelf. It looked interesting, but I can’t seem to focus enough to read it right now.”

Kelsey had a quiet sadness to her voice. She had done a lot more today than he did when he was dealing with his depression. That she wasn’t curled up in bed and crying her eyes out was surprise enough. The dinner and cookies told him this woman was tougher than he expected. There was still a side to her that he didn’t know.

“The books are leftover from my college days. I need to spring house clean one of these days and send them to the dump.”

“Don’t do that.” Kelsey’s eyes lit up when he said that. “I’d never throw a book out.”

“Salvation Army then?” He pushed the idea of discarding the books as far as he could, just to see another spark of enthusiasm on her face.

“How about if I just dust them?”

Her words made him smile. “You’re a bookworm.”

“By the looks of it, you used to be, too. You’ve got a lot of stuff on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson, too.”

“It’s been awhile.” He changed the subject again. “So how are you really doing? Are you going to be okay here?”

She blinked, her voice tight and sad. “I’m going to bed.”

He stood the minute she did. “Do you need any more blankets? Anything?”

“No.” She headed down the hall. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t leave.” The words came out before he knew what he had said. “I just got home. It’s nice talking with someone besides the people at the office.”

But she was already at her door by then, her eyes full of tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She nodded and closed her door behind her. Alex listened to the silence in the house. He wondered if he had pushed her too hard. She seemed just as lost here as she was in Washington. The only difference was she was safe now.

He hoped that mattered to her as much as it did to him.

Kelsey's Flashback

“But I don’t wanna.” Jackie took a stubborn, four-year old stance with two hands on his hips, his lip stuck out like a small ledge on his determined face. “‘I kin still see the sun. Look it.”

Kelsey took the same stance out of sheer enjoyment at his temper tantrum. He and two-year old Tommy had played all day in the warm May sunshine, but as tired as he was, Jackie was not ready to give up one second sooner than he had to. They needed to be in bed before Nick returned, so she cocked an ear for the rattle of the diesel at the curb. Satisfied he was still gone, she turned back to her son.

“Okay, little man. How about if we compromise?”

“I don’t wanna
comp-a-mize
.” He stomped his foot earnestly, his hands on his hips and as stern a stare as he could muster. “I wanna play.”

She loved it when he thought he was being tough. Her laugh lit up the dingy apartment. “Ha. You come here, mister. If you promise to go right to sleep when I say it’s bedtime, I’ll let you stay up a little longer. That’s what they call a compromise.”

“Oh. I get it.” His chocolate-colored eyes sparkled. “Wanna play camping? We kin build a tent. Tommy kin help.”

Tommy watched the high stakes bargaining from his corner of the broken down sofa. He was as calm as Jackie was energetic, and clearly ready for bed. He could’ve passed for Jackie’s twin if he had been two years older. She smiled at her second baby boy who sucked his pacifier with a dreamy stare. She had tried to wean him off the pacifier, but he had doggedly resisted.
Well, good. You can keep that plug as long as you need. Tomorrow everything changes.

“Mama.” Jackie’s stern face jolted her back to the moment. “I is talking to you.”

She laughed again. He looked so serious. “I hear you. What if we build a tent in the middle of your bed? We could use my sheet and make it extra big for your truck.”

“That’s a really good idea.”

Kelsey listened for the heavy sound of the diesel one more time. So far, so good. There should be enough time to play a little longer. “Okay then, let me change Tommy and get him into his pajamas—”

“Do we hafta go to sleep?” he asked with sudden suspicion.

“No, you don’t, but this way if Tommy goes to sleep, he’ll already be in bed. Does that sound like a good plan?”

“It’s a good comp-a … comp-a-mize.” His face filled with total satisfaction as he pronounced that terrifically big word.

She smoothed the cloth diaper on the couch as she changed Tommy. Even the silly diaper in her hand made her thoughtful tonight. Nick always used to complain about the expense of disposable diapers, so, to please him she had resorted to cloth. Only then, he had complained about the cost of detergent and utility bills. Well, tomorrow that would end.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. She felt like singing. Almost.

The truth was there was no pleasing Nick. Period. When they had first married, she thought she could change him. Lately, he spent more time at his mother’s apartment than at home. He said it was because she had a television. That was Kelsey’s fault, too. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, none of this would’ve happened. They wouldn’t have to live in a rundown apartment, they could afford a TV, and he would be happier.

Yeah, right. The truth was that Nick had never held a steady job in their four years of marriage, and he had never been a happy man. That was the real problem. Everything was her fault or someone else’s. Lately, his moods had grown darker and meaner, but the day he came home drunk and raised his hand against Jackie, she saw Nick for what he really was—a bully. There was no hope. He would never change. The blinders fell off her eyes.

When Nick left for his mother’s instead of looking for work, Kelsey set the ball in motion. She shivered. All that tremendous decision-making had happened just this morning. A shiver of fear tap-danced across her shoulders. This was the most dangerous thing she had ever done, but the mother bear in her had surfaced with a power she hadn’t known she possessed. No one was going to hurt her boys. No one. Still, she was scared when she sneaked to the phone by the hardware store, called her sister, and planned her little family’s escape. But she did it. Louise bought the bus tickets on-line. Kelsey and her sons just had to show up at the bus station tomorrow morning, climb aboard, and change their lives forever.

Tomorrow. The word had never terrified and thrilled her so much.
What if—

She banished the thought.
No. It would work out. Somehow. It had to. Think positive. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. It’s only what? Twelve hours away?

She hugged Tommy to soothe her nervous anxiety. With a lip-smacking, pacifier-sucking slurp, he pushed his face into her blouse while she carried him to bed. She wished she still nursed. There was nothing she loved more than the warmth of her baby boy in her arms, his blankie fisted against his plump baby cheeks while he nursed to his heart’s content. His droopy eyes closed in slumber before she made it into the boys’ room.

“Aw-w. How we gonna make a tent now?” Jackie’s lip protruded again as he jumped up and down on his bed. “Tommy’s a sleeping.”

“I’ll have to work one of my mommy miracles. Just you wait and see. Now stop jumping.” Kelsey laid the sleeping baby at the foot of the single bunk bed. She listened again for the diesel. Still nothing. Still good.

“Now let’s raise our tent, okay? Here it goes.” Kelsey stretched the double-sized sheet from her bed across the boys’ bed and tucked it loosely around the edges. Then she used the free yardstick she had gotten from the hardware store for the tent’s center pole. She actually smiled. The next homemade tent they made together would be a couple hundred miles away, and no one would be angry when he saw it.

Jackie’s eyes lit up with wonder. “Wow. You did it.”

“Okay now, where are you going to park your truck?”

He scrambled under his bed until he pulled his plastic red and green truck out with a big grin. “In the middle. It’s safe in the middle.”

She cocked her head at his answer. “Safe?”

“In case the tent falls down.”

“Hey, you little rascal.” She tickled his ribs as he wriggled away from her. “My tents don’t fall down.”

“Daddy might make it fall down. He might hurt my truck.” The simple joy of a homemade sheet tent disappeared. “I don’t want him to hit you no more. Not never.”