The Homecoming (29 page)

Kara knew the feeling. All too well.

“I’m fine,” she assured her mother.

“You’re far better than fine, darling. And I love and admire you more than you could ever imagine.”

Kara had always known that both her parents loved her, but just hearing the words out loud caused a lump to rise in her throat.

Her voice wanted to crack. She refused to let it. “I love you, too, Mom.”

After the call ended, as Kara continued to stare up at the ceiling, it dawned on her that just as she couldn’t remember her mother ever saying those words to her, neither could she recall her ever saying them to her mother.

Which meant that, in at least one way, the attack that had landed her in the hospital just might actually prove an unexpected benefit.

Sax’s mom and dad’s home was nothing like his grandmother’s. As soon as Trey walked into the house, Mrs. Douchett gathered him into her arms for a huge hug. Then she asked him if he was hungry.

Which, although he’d had a cheeseburger and fries at the VFW, Trey realized he was.

“I don’t want to be any bother,” he said politely, as he’d been taught.

“Don’t you go talking foolishness.” Mrs. Douchett ruffled his hair.

Although she must be really old if she was Sax and Cole’s mother, she was, except for his mom, the prettiest woman Trey had ever seen. Pretty enough to be on TV. Or in the movies. Thinking about it, he realized she reminded him a lot of Snow White, who he’d had his picture taken with when his mom and dad had taken him up to Disneyland. Even though he’d only been a little pre-K kid, he’d understood the lady dressed up in the costume wasn’t the
real
Snow White. But he’d still felt really, really special when she’d bent down and kissed his cheek. Mrs. Douchett made him sorta feel the same way.

“Nothing I love more than feeding a man,” Sax’s mother said. “Good thing, too, since I’ve been living with a bunch of them since I married my Lucien.” She turned toward the tall man standing across the room and threw him a kiss.

For some reason, watching them like that caused tears to well up in Trey’s eyes.

“Poor
cher
.” Mrs. Douchett looked about to hug him again. Which he wouldn’t have minded, even though he was embarrassed to be caught almost crying, but instead she put a bowl in front of him. “You’ve had a rough couple days, what with that accident happening to Danny Sullivan, and now your mama having to take care of an emergency. Fortunately, God never threw us a problem that a good spicy crawfish gumbo couldn’t make better.”

Trey had never had gumbo. And it sure looked different from anything he’d ever eaten before, but his dad had taught him all about discipline and his mom had taught him manners, so no way was he going hurt this beautiful woman’s feelings.

The gumbo, which was sorta soup with rice, hit his tongue with a burst of fire. He reached for the glass of water Mrs. Douchett held out to him. “It’s a little hot,” she said. “But you look like a boy capable of handling some real Cajun Tabasco.”

Wanting to be the kind of boy she’d approve of, gathering up his nerve, he took another spoonful. This time, with Trey being more prepared, it didn’t burn quite as much. He took a third taste, and all the flavors came together in a way that made him think this might just be the best bowl of soup he’d ever eaten.

“This is really good,” he said between slurps. Definitely better than the canned soup he was used to.

“A young man of discerning culinary tastes,” Mrs. Douchett told her husband as she put a big hunk of bread on a plate next to the white bowl. “You’ll be wanting this to scoop up the last bits with. Then how would you like some bread pudding?”

“That sounds great.” Trey had never had bread pudding either, but right now he was willing to trust Sax’s mom with anything she wanted to feed him.

“Nobody makes bread pudding like my wife,” Mr. Douchett said. “It’ll make an entire chorus of angels sing.”

Mr. Douchett was right. By the time Trey finished the dessert, he decided that angels would be lucky to get even a bite of Mrs. Douchett’s bread pudding.

After being given a tour of the Douchetts’ bait shop, which smelled like, well, bait, he was getting beaten in a game of checkers with a really old bearded man who turned out to be Sax’s grandfather, when the old-fashioned phone on the wall rang. Mrs. Douchett exchanged a look with Cole and her husband as she picked it up.

She turned away. The conversation was short. And for the first time since he’d walked into the house, Trey sensed tension.

He’d gotten pretty good at picking up on grown-ups’ moods after his dad had come back from his last deployment. His mom had assured him that his dad was just still stressed out from being away for so long, and they had to be patient and give him time to adjust to not fighting a war anymore. But he’d overheard a lot of yelling, which had left him feeling scared. A lot of his friends’ parents had gotten divorced after their moms or dads had returned home from war. Even though his mom kept telling him everything would be okay, and that his dad loved them both very much, he’d worried that his parents would break up, too.

Then his dad had gotten killed, and as terrible as he’d felt about that, and as sad as he’d felt when he heard his mom crying at night when she thought he was sleeping, there were times when Trey felt guilty for feeling a little relieved that he didn’t have to always worry about doing something that would set his dad off.

So for a long time he’d just pretended that his dad wasn’t really dead at all. That he’d just gone away on deployment again.

“That was Sax,” Mrs. Douchett told him after she’d hung up the phone that was as red as the crawfish she’d put in the gumbo. The same color he and Sax had picked out for the walls of Bon Temps this morning. She was smiling, but her voice sounded a lot like his mom’s had sounded after one of those fights. Sorta tight and sad.

“He says he’s going to be tied up a little bit longer. And your mom’s still busy on her case. So he’s hoping you won’t mind staying here for a while more.”

“Sure,” Trey said, trying to read the look she’d just shot Cole.

“Hey, sport,” Cole said with what even Trey realized was fake enthusiasm. He was sounding exactly like Trey’s dad used to sound when he’d try to pretend everything was okay. Even when it wasn’t. “I was thinking about taking the
Kelli
out for a while to check some fishing sites. How’d you like to come with me?”

Sax had told him that Cole was a fisherman. So Trey guessed that the
Kelli
must be his boat. Still trying to figure out what was going on, he didn’t answer right away.

“I’ll come with you two,” Sax’s dad said. “Nothing like passin’ a good time with a sunset boat ride.”

“Might as well come along,” the old man said, pushing himself out of the rocking chair. “Been a coon’s age since I’ve been out on the water.”

Okay. Now everyone was starting to act weird.

Trey looked over at Mrs. Douchett, who seemed to be able to read his mind, because she gave him another of those hugs and whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry,
cher
. Everything’s going to be just fine. I promise.”

She might not be
his
mom. But she was a mom. And not just any mom, but Sax’s mom.

Which was why, since the idea of going out on one of those boats he was always looking at in the harbor sounded like fun, Trey decided to trust her.

“Will we see any whales?” he asked.

Cole grinned, looking a lot like Sax. “I guarantee it,” he promised.

Which was good enough for Trey.

The air in the emergency room waiting area was rife with the aromas of disinfectant, pain, fear, and despair.

“Where’s Kara Conway?” Sax demanded of the clerk on duty, raising his voice to be heard over the robotic announcement over the loudspeakers announcing the ETA of yet another incoming ambulance.

An elderly woman—whose badge pinned to the blue-and-white smock pronounced her to be a volunteer—looked up at him over the half lenses of her reading glasses.

“Are you referring to Sheriff Conway?”

“Have they brought in any other Conways today?” Sarcasm sharpened his already frustrated tone. “She also happens to be the daughter of Dr. Blanchard, the administrator of this place.” There were times to pull rank. This was definitely one of them.

“You needn’t get huffy, young man.” She began leafing through a stack of pink, white, and yellow forms, nodding when she apparently found the one she was looking for. “And you would be?”

“Sax Douchett,” he ground out between gritted teeth.

“Really.”

She took off the glasses and studied him for what seemed forever, taking in his raggedy jeans coated with sawdust, sweat-soaked T-shirt, and face he figured was probably smudged with dirt. What did she think? That he went around in full dress uniform with medals pinned to his chest like he’d worn in that damn parade?

He was about to reach across the counter and snatch those papers out of her hand, when she said, “That would make you the war hero.”

“Yeah. That’s me.” It was the first time he’d claimed the title. But he’d do whatever it took to get to Kara.

“Well, then.” She nodded, apparently satisfied. “Thank you for your service. My late husband fought in Korea. At the battle of Heartbreak Ridge.”

“Tough place.”

What it had been was a monthlong fiasco with several hundred of America’s best dying on the ridgeline. He felt for her husband, but wished she’d just cut to the damn chase and tell him where the hell they were hiding Kara.

“So I’ve heard. Though he always refused to talk about it.” She waved toward a set of swinging doors. “The sheriff is doing as fine as can be expected,” she said. “Girl comes from tough stock. You’ll find her in there. Second cubicle to the left.”

Sax found Kara sitting on a gurney in the curtained-off cubicle, dressed in a pair of blue scrubs that replaced her bloody uniform. Although he’d already seen her at the house, one glance at her bruised and swollen face caused a white-hot rage to flare inside him.

Sax had killed before. But only in the line of duty. And, although watching a target for a very long time through a sniper scope gave him an up-close-and-personal view of a guy he was about to blow to kingdom come, it had never actually
been
personal except when blasting away at those terrorists who’d killed his teammates up there in the Kush.

These feelings were even more intense than those had been. For the first time in his life Sax understood how a reasonably sane person could commit cold- blooded murder. His hands ached. Sax glanced down and saw that they’d tightened into painful fists.

“So, what’s the verdict?” he asked with a great deal more calm than he was feeling as he flexed his fingers.

She was holding a new cold pack to her right cheek, which appeared to have suffered the most damage. A white butterfly bandage marred her left check; another had been placed at her right temple.

“I have a minor concussion, which isn’t even worth their keeping me overnight for. Some bruised, luckily not broken ribs. And, as you can see from my face, I’m not going to be a candidate for Miss Shelter Bay anytime soon.”

“You could be. Maybe not now,” he amended when she opened her mouth to argue. “But once those dings heal. I’d always thought my mom was the prettiest female in Shelter Bay. Until you showed up on my porch.”

Color bloomed beneath her bruised cheeks. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Absolutely.” His voice was as raw and rough as his still-ragged emotions. Sax struggled for calm. He wanted to curse. To rant. To rave. He wanted to go down to the VFW, get a gun from one of the guys, and go hunting whoever had done this to her.

As a hot rage simmered inside him again, Sax struggled, for Kara’s sake, to tamp it down. She’d already been through too much today. She wouldn’t want—or need—him to go off like some crazed, half- cocked he-man. Especially after what she’d told him about Jared’s problems with PTSD. What Kara needed now was tenderness. And care.

“Is it working?”

“Surprisingly, I think it might be. Because I’m not even pissed off at you for conspiring with my mother. Which, by the way, was nearly as shocking as having that bastard jump me.”

“She surprised me for a minute, too. Then I think we both realized we have something in common.”

“Which would be?”

Her hair, caked with dried blood as it was, was sticking out in spikes. He gently smoothed it down. “You.”

Tears suddenly shimmered in her eyes. “I’m not going to cry.”

“Might be a good thing if you did,” he suggested. “And I’ve got a pretty wide shoulder if you feel inclined.”

“Maybe later. After the guy’s behind bars,” she said. “Right now I can’t risk falling apart, because I’m the sheriff, dammit. With an assault charge I have a personal reason for needing to solve. If I was this guy’s target, I want to get him. If I was a random victim—and I
hate
thinking of myself that way—and there’s a predator roaming the streets of Shelter Bay, I need to stop him before he preys on another woman. Besides, equally important, I need to stay strong for Trey’s sake.”

Sax figured she’d probably been doing exactly that for her son’s entire life. “I’d tell you that you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” he said, which was true. “But since compliments seem to be making you feel even worse, I’ll save that for later, too.”

“They cut off my ring.” She unfolded her hand, showing him the familiar gold band. “My knuckles are all swollen from punching the guy, so they sawed it in half.”

Her voice trembled, another sign of her struggle to fight off the tears she was entitled to.

“I imagine a jeweler could repair it.” He wondered, despite what she’d said about having gotten past all the official phases of grief, if she planned to wear it the rest of her life.