Heart of a Hero

Five

Phoebe was already at the table in her small dining room when he came down the stairs after unpacking his duffel, removing papers from her satchel and making neat piles carefully spaced on the table. She glanced up and sent him an impersonal smile. “Time to grade math tests.”

He walked through the living room to her side, looking down at the work she was spreading out before her. “You do this often?”

“Just about every night.” She smiled wryly. “The kids complain when I give them assignments, but I really should be the one whining. Every assignment they hand in multiplies my work by twenty-four students.” She shrugged her shoulders as she pulled out her chair and took a seat. “It’s going to get even more interesting when I start my next class. I’m taking a children’s lit class that begins in January.”

“I thought you already had a degree.”

“Yes.” She pulled out an ink pad and a stamp with a smiley face on it. “But in order to keep my teaching certificate I have to do continuing education every so often or work toward my master’s degree. The specifics vary from state to state, but the general concept is the same. You probably have to do the same thing—keep your skills current, I mean.”

“Yeah. Except now, if I were to stay in the Army, I’d be stuck behind a desk. My ability to hit a target dead center fifty times in a row isn’t quite so critical anymore.”

She bit her lip and he could see the moment when she realized that she’d reminded him of his forced change of career. Still, she continued to stare up at him, concern in her face. “Will you tell me what happened to you?”

He felt the muscles of his face tightening with the effort to keep a casual expression in place. “I have a piece of shrapnel in my leg. It’s too risky to remove.” He tried to smile. “Plays hell with airport security.”

She didn’t return the smile. “I meant how it happened.”

He turned away, heading for the living room where he’d laid his book and reading glasses down. “One of my buddies stepped on a mine.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her flinch. “Did you see it?”

He nodded. A lump rose into his throat and refused to ease.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He managed a nod. “Yeah, me, too.”

“You always wanted to be a soldier, didn’t you?” A fleeting smile crossed her face. “I remember when Mel and I were about eight, you and the Paylen boys from down the street recruited us to be the enemy.”

The lump in his throat dissolved as memory came flooding back, and with it came an irresistible urge to laugh. “Only that didn’t last very long once my dad found out we were launching rocks at you out of that homemade catapult.” He shook his head ruefully. “He always did have eyes in the back of his head.”

Phoebe snorted. “He did not. Melanie ran and told on you.”

“That twerp.” His tone was fond. “I should have known. She ran and left you there alone. You were picking up the rocks and throwing them back. I never knew a girl could throw that hard, especially one your size.”

She smiled smugly. “That’s what the other softball players used to say when I was in high school.”

Memories of Phoebe as a child, of himself during those same carefree years before the world had demanded its pound of flesh, came flooding back and he returned her grin. “We’re lucky, aren’t we, to have such good memories? I’d love to go back and be that age again.”

To his surprise, her smile vanished. “I don’t. You could not offer me anything to live my childhood over again.” There was a grim, flat note that he’d never heard before in her voice that told him he’d struck some nerve.

His interest sharpened immediately. “That surprises me,” he said.

“Growing up without a father in the picture wasn’t always easy.”

Now that he thought about it, he could recall occasional unkind comments about the twins’ illegitimate birth. But…”You and Mel seemed pretty happy to me.”

Her face softened, the line of her mouth relaxing as her lips curved up the tiniest bit. “We were,” she said softly.

He chuckled, determined to get her to relax her guard again. “Happiest when you were tormenting the poor boys in the neighborhood who were all fighting over you.”

“You’re confusing me with my sister now. I never tormented anybody. All the boys I knew had the hots for Melanie.”

“Not all.” He said it quietly, but the instant he spoke, the atmosphere changed. Electric awareness sparked and crackled as her gaze flew to his.

But she looked away again immediately. “You, too,” she said, and in her face he saw her determination to keep things light between them. “When she and I were seniors, she chased you until you caught her, remember?”

He smiled wryly. “I remember. Are you going to hold it against me forever? I was a teenage boy. And God knows boys that age are helpless against an attractive female who’s as determined as Melanie was.”

To his surprise, she chuckled. “She was determined, too. All she talked about that summer was you. What to wear so that you noticed her, where to stand so that she just happened to be where you were headed. You told her once that she looked good in pink so we shopped for pink for the next three months. Have you ever tried to find a good shade of pink for a redhead to wear?” She shook her head, still smiling. “You didn’t stand a chance.”

He didn’t stand a chance now, either. Did she know how desirable she looked? Her eyes were soft and faraway, her body relaxed where she’d angled herself toward him. Her lips looked so soft and inviting as they curved with happy memories….

They were soft and inviting. His entire body revved for action as the memory of the afternoon’s kiss leaped into the forefront of his mind again. All he’d wanted to do was sink into her sweetness, live the dream he’d kept in his head during terrifying moments of hiding when he’d been sure he would be discovered any minute. Make love to her for real, not just in his imagination while he lay in an American military hospital in Germany. He’d wanted her so badly he’d nearly forgotten the child playing on the floor mere feet away.

And when he’d remembered, it had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed to look away and focus his attention on his daughter.

“Is it really that bad an idea?”

Her unusually timid tone dragged him out of his introspection. “What?”

She was regarding him with thinly veiled curiosity. “A penny for those thoughts. I said you’re welcome to invite your father to visit for a few weeks if you like. He might enjoy the chance to get to know Bridget.”

“What?” he asked again.

“I said—”

“I know what you said! I guess I’m just…surprised at the offer. Are you sure you want my father underfoot?”

She smiled. “I always liked your father. Unless he becomes a werewolf at the full moon, or has some really weird habits I don’t know about, it would be fine with me.”

“Or we could take Bridget to California to visit him. He’s not a young man anymore, and he’s never been on a plane in his life.”

A fleeting expression crossed her face so quickly he wasn’t even sure if he’d seen it or imagined it. Had it been panic? Dismay? “You could fly home and then come back with him,” she said. “You know, so he wouldn’t have to fly alone.”

“I could.” He spoke slowly, watching as she twisted her slender fingers together in a sure sign of nerves. But what the hell was it that was making her so uptight? “Don’t you want to come home? See the old neighborhood? You could manage one long weekend, couldn’t you?”

Her fingers were practically tied in knots. “I…I guess so.” Although, she sounded so reluctant he nearly let it drop. But his curiosity was aroused. She didn’t seem to care if she ever went back. Why not? She’d grown up there; her family was buried there. “We can visit Melanie’s and your mom’s graves, and I can show you where my mother’s buried.”

“All right.” Her voice was quiet. “Let me check the calendar and see when we could go.”

Had she really agreed to go back to California with Wade? Phoebe wanted to slap herself silly. He’d been in her life again for just two days and already he was turning her world upside down. She should boot him out.

But she knew she never would. Keeping Bridget’s existence a secret had been more than a mistake, it had practically been criminal. And she deserved his anger. She’d really been like that overused cliché—an ostrich with its head in the sand. But at the time, it had been so much easier simply to cut her ties with her old life.

If only she had told his parents about Bridget when she first realized she was pregnant. Or…even after she’d thought he was dead.

But other people would have found out eventually. She could hear them now.

Just like her mother.

At least she knows who the father is. She and her poor sister didn’t even have that.

Oh, yes. She knew how small towns could be. At least, the small town where she had grown up. Vicious gossips. Not everyone, of course. She’d known many sweet, wonderful people in her hometown. But she’d known more than she liked of the kind who didn’t want to let their daughters come over to play with Phoebe and Melanie.

As if illegitimacy was catching.

If she was thankful for anything, it was for the fact that the world had changed since her own childhood. There were families of every kind out there today, and a child without a father wasn’t treated any different than a child with two mothers, or a child who shuttled back and forth between her mother’s and father’s homes in the middle of the week.

She sighed as she looked at her calendar. She had two days off in October, and if she took off another day, they could go to California for a long weekend and make it back without being so pressed for time that it wasn’t even worth the flight. She wasn’t sure her courage was up to the task of introducing Wade’s father to a grandchild he didn’t even know existed, but she could tell that Wade wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? Angie is just one street over if you need her,” Phoebe told him for at least the tenth time on Monday morning.

“We’ll be fine,” Wade said. Again. “I’ll call Angie if I need anything. And if anything happens, I’ll call you immediately.”

“All right. I guess I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Bye.” He held the door open for her. “Don’t worry.”

She stopped on the verge of descending the porch steps and looked back at him, a wry expression on her face. “I’m a mother. It’s in the job description.” Then she heaved a sigh and headed for the car as he closed the front door.

It had taken some fast talking on his part, but yesterday she’d agreed to let him keep Bridget this week without anyone stopping by to check on him. And even better, she’d informed him that she’d worked out her schedule so that they could go to see his dad in just a few weeks. She had to clear it with the principal of her building, but she hadn’t anticipated any trouble. So he’d make the plane reservations as soon as she came home and gave him a green light tonight.

His dad. How in hell was he going to explain this to his father? From the time he’d entered adolescence and his dad had sat him down for their first big “talk,” the watchwords of the day had been responsible behavior and protection. Not to mention morality.

He’d never mentioned his feelings for Phoebe to his parents, never really had the chance, given what had happened with Melanie’s death. And then, after the funeral, after things had gotten so wildly out of control, he hadn’t had the chance. He’d had to leave the next morning. And Phoebe hadn’t answered her phone, although he’d tried half the night to contact her.

He could have simply walked down the street and banged on her door. Should have, he amended. But he’d known she was grieving, and he’d felt he had to respect that. And he’d felt guilty, taking advantage of her trust when she’d been so vulnerable. He should have stopped her.

In the end, he’d given up, promising himself that he’d get in touch with her in a day or two. But he’d been deployed to Afghanistan earlier than expected, with barely twenty-four hours to prepare and he hadn’t had time or opportunity to do anything more than think about her.

A month or two later, he’d learned from his mother that she’d left town, that no one seemed to know where she’d gone. The East Coast, someone thought, so he’d made up his mind to visit her the next time he came home. He’d e-mailed her at the same address he’d used for years now—and to his shock, it was returned as undeliverable. And then his mother had had the stroke and all Wade’s phone calls and e-mails with his dad had been filled with medical concerns. He’d only been home twice during that hectic time, once not long after his mom’s first stroke, the second after her funeral.

He’d come home for that on a three-day leave and gone right back again afterward. He wouldn’t have had time to look up Phoebe if she’d just moved to the next town, much less across the continent. Just days after that, he’d watched one of his buddies die when he’d stepped on an unexpected land mine. Others had been dragged away by insurgents operating out of the Afghanistan mountains. He’d barely been able to conceal himself, but he’d managed it. And then unexpected help in the form of an Afghan villager had saved his life and gotten him back to his own troops. On a stretcher, but alive.

He’d had plenty of time to think about her then, while he’d been recuperating. He’d needed her, had finally admitted to himself that he wanted to see if there was any chance that they might have a future together. He’d considered trying to find her, but he didn’t really want to call her and tell her he was lying in a hospital bed. So he’d waited until he was well enough to look for her in person.

But he’d never stopped thinking about her, about any of the all-too-brief time they’d spent together. The revelation of his feelings—and hers, he was pretty sure—at the dance. Which had promptly been put on indefinite hold when Melanie had been killed.

And then Melanie’s funeral. Or more specifically, what had occurred right afterward. God, if he’d relived that once he’d been through it a thousand times. And that was probably a conservative estimate. He would never forget making love to Phoebe for the first time, no matter the circumstances….

“Are you okay?”

Phoebe looked up, clearly surprised. She’d been sitting on the swing under the rose trellis at one side of her uncle’s home. Just sitting and staring.

Her eyes were red and puffy as she looked at him, and Wade realized what an inane question it was.

“I mean, I know you’re not okay, but I didn’t want to…I couldn’t leave without talking to you.”

Her nod seemed to take enormous effort. Slowly, she said, “I just needed a break from it.” Her voice trembled. “I can’t go back in there and talk about her anymore.”

The graveside service was complete; Melanie’s family and friends had gathered at her mother’s stepbrother’s home to console each other, to share memories and simply to visit. It was a terrible thing that it took a funeral to bring everyone in a family together again. Phoebe’s father had never been in the family picture, as far as Wade knew. And her mother had passed away the second year the girls were in college. Mrs. Merriman’s two stepbrothers lived in the same area, although Wade had never heard either Phoebe or Melanie talk much about their extended family; he’d gotten the distinct impression at the funeral that the family hadn’t really approved of Phoebe’s mother.

He looked down at Phoebe and a fierce wave of protectiveness swamped him. God, what he wouldn’t give to go back to the night of the reunion. He’d almost said no to Mel when she’d asked him to go. If he had, they might not be sitting here today.

But if he hadn’t, he might never have realized or appreciated his feelings for Phoebe.

Wade cautiously sat beside her, waiting for her to tell him to get away from her. When he’d first gotten the news about the accident, he’d waited for his doorbell to ring. Waited for Phoebe to come scream at him for sending her twin sister off in such a rage that she’d wrapped her car and herself around a tree as she’d sped away from the reunion.

But Phoebe hadn’t come. She hadn’t called. And he hadn’t dared to contact her. He could hardly move beneath the weight of the guilt he felt; if Phoebe piled more on him, he might just sink right into the ground.

His mother had heard about the funeral arrangements before he had. And it never occurred to her that he might not be welcome. Wade didn’t have the heart to explain it all, so he’d gone with his family to the service and tried to stay as far away from Phoebe as he could. God, she must hate him now.

Still, when he’d seen her alone, he’d known he had to talk to her, no matter how she felt about him.

But she didn’t seem to hate him. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I wish it was last week again.” Her tone was forlorn.

“Me, too.” She felt as fragile as she sounded. He put an arm around her.

Phoebe sighed and he felt her warm breath through the thin fabric of his dress shirt and t-shirt. “Could we take a walk?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

He rose and held out a hand. When she curled her small fingers around his much larger ones, he felt like bursting into song. Entirely inappropriate—and insensitive—under the circumstances.

He led her through the apple orchard and into the forest above the house, following a well-worn path that both wildlife and human had helped to create. They simply walked for a long time. When the path narrowed, he helped her over roots, up steep rises and around boulders, and across a small creek.

They came to a small cabin, a tiny rustic structure. “What’s this?” he asked.

“My uncles occasionally use it when they hunt up here.”

Along one side was a large pile of wood that looked to him like a grand place for snakes to be hanging out. When Phoebe started forward, he stepped ahead of her, scanning the ground. Most Californians went their entire lives without seeing a rattlesnake; he’d just as soon be one of them.

He pushed open the door of the cabin and stepped inside. When Phoebe followed him, there was barely room for two people to stand in the small space. It held a woodstove, an ax in surprisingly good shape, two wooden chairs and a tabletop that folded flat against the wall, a bunk bed with a mattress nibbled to shreds by squirrels or mice, and two shelves above the table. One shelf was crammed with an assortment of canned goods and a couple packs of matches. The other held a kettle, a large pot and a scant, mismatched pile of dishes with a few spoons and forks thrown in. There was no electricity, no light. An oil lantern and a bucket hung from pegs on the bunks.

“Wow,” he said. “I guess this is just for emergencies. But it’s got everything you’d need.” Indeed, he’d seen much worse in some of the homes in the Afghan villages he’d been through.

“They come up here and clean it out before hunting season each year. They stock it and add a couple of towels and blankets.” She rubbed an absent circle in the dust on the table. “We used to play up here. Thought it was the best playhouse in the world.”

We, he knew, meant she and Melanie. He imagined to two little girls it had seemed pretty grand. But he didn’t know what to say now that she was talking about her twin again, so he didn’t say anything.

“One time Mel got her finger pinched pretty badly by a big crawfish we found in the stream,” she said, pointing through the open door down the hill to where the pretty little brook wound its way through the dappled shade and rushed over the rough rocks. “And I saw a snake on that rock another day.” She smiled a little. “I don’t know who scared who more. I screamed. He couldn’t move out fast enough.”

She stepped back a pace, forcing Wade to move back against the bunks. Even so, her body brushed lightly against his and he was annoyed with his instant reaction. Relax, he told himself. This is not the time to be thinking of sex.

Phoebe didn’t seem to notice that he was getting hard just being close to her. She was looking at the back of the door. When she went still, he put his hands on her hips and moved her a shade to one side so he could see what she’d been looking at.

There, cut into the scarred wood on the old door, were initials. PEM. MAM. Phoebe Elizabeth and Melanie Adeline. He almost smiled thinking about how much Mel had hated that middle name. She’d always complained that Phoebe got the pretty one.

“We did that,” she said softly, “when we were about ten. I remember how daring we felt. It was Melanie’s idea, of course.” She reached out and traced a finger over the rough-hewn initials. “I never told anybody, and I don’t think she did, either. It was our big secret.” Her voice wavered. “We said we would bring our daughters up here someday and show them.”

Her breath began to hitch, and his desire died instantly, submerged beneath concern. He turned her around, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him like a little animal burrowing into a safe place as she started to sob.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Phoebe. Honey.” Finally he gave up and just stroked her hair as she cried. His own eyes were a little damp. He’d known and loved Melanie, too. Even though she’d been a brat occasionally, she’d been a part of his life since he was just a kid. She’d been more important than anything else in his life for a short while, until he’d realized that they had very little in common, that he’d never be happy with her. So he’d cut the strings.

He never should have agreed to go to the reunion, but he’d thought it might be fun. Instead, it had been…a revelation. He hadn’t anticipated what had happened with Phoebe that night.

How the hell could he have missed it? For so many years, she’d been right next door…and he hadn’t seen that the woman of his dreams was right under his nose. No, he’d even dated her sister and still he hadn’t realized that Phoebe was the right one for him.

He’d figured it out that night at the dance. Unfortunately, so had Melanie.

Mel hadn’t been unkind, he reflected. Just self-absorbed most of the time. She would never have reacted so badly to the sight of Phoebe and him if she hadn’t been drunk. He should have realized how out of control she was. But he’d been too wrapped up in Phoebe to care.

And her death was his fault.

Phoebe stirred then, lifting her head. She pressed her mouth to the base of his throat and he felt the moist heat of her breath sear him.

“Hey,” he said. A guy could only take so much and he had just reached his limit. He doubted if she even realized how erotic the action had been. He took her arms in a light grasp and tried to step back. “Maybe we should head back.”

“I’m in no rush.” She spoke against his skin and, this time, she pressed a very deliberate openmouthed kiss in the same spot. And holy sweet hell, her arms were still around his waist, holding him tight against every soft inch of her.