Haunted Souls, page 24
Emily nodded at the phone on the table. “It’s definitely worth a shot. And Tyler got Josiah to come here, to our house, with him. I’m sure he can convince Josiah to take another trip if he might find his mother.”
“Okay, good. I’ll e-mail you the links to the articles. Just keep me posted, all right?”
“Definitely. Thanks again, Claire. And tell Max thank you as well.” As they all said their goodbyes, Brett came back around to sit beside her at the table.
Her heart raced as she leaned toward him. “Once we pick up Tyler, we can grab a quick lunch, then—”
“No.” His voice was edged with steel.
What? “But, Brett, we have to find it.”
“Not today, we don’t. I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it. I could feel how tight your muscles are. Yesterday, you were thrown to the ground, knocked around, punched in the face, and nearly strangled.” His hands curled into fists on the tabletop, exposing taut ropes of tendons along his forearms. “You spent the entire day in the hospital. Then you were awakened in the middle of the night, driven to a police station, and questioned extensively. You are not going for a hike in the woods today.”
“But, he helped save my life. We have to help him.”
“I know that. But he’s been lost for hundreds of years. One more day won’t kill him.” Brett paused, dragging his palm over the short bristles of his hair. “Sorry, poor choice of words. You know what I mean.”
“I do,” she said, frowning at him. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” But exhaustion was creeping back into her bones as the pain pills worked their magic. Just climbing the stairs back to her bedroom suddenly seemed like too arduous a journey.
“But you get it, right? Your body needs to heal. Do you want some more breakfast?”
She sighed. This last hour had really been too much, physically and emotionally. “No. I think I’d better get back in bed, actually, before I collapse.”
He stood, pulling her chair back with one hand as he hooked his other arm around her waist. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go. I’ll pick up Tyler and get him lunch.”
“Maybe we can go tomorrow, then?” she asked hopefully as they shuffled through the living room.
He shook his head in exasperation, towing her up the stairs. “I’ll have to look at my schedule. Maybe I can get away early and we can go before it gets dark. But more importantly, we’ll have to see how you’re feeling.”
“I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“Sure you will,” he agreed, his tone suggesting no real belief in her prediction. He gave her a stern look as he helped her into the bed. “Em, don’t even think about going without me. Understand?”
She nodded, pulling the hair tie from her knot of curls. A yawn escaped as she dropped the tie onto her bedside table.
“Promise me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, where is the trust?” she murmured, feigning annoyance. “I promise.” She clutched at the covers, pulling the comforter up to her chin.
“Okay. Get some rest.” He bent forward, pressing a kiss above the lump on her forehead. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
Chapter 34
Water clanked through the old pipes around two in the afternoon, pulling his focus from the manual he was reading online. Saving him, really. The revised version of “Multiservice Procedures for Explosive Ordnance Disposal in a Joint Environment” was fairly dry reading. He forced himself to finish the chapter, then leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face.
Emily padded into the office a few minutes later, freshly showered and smelling of something citrusy. Her hair was combed back from her flushed face, and a red polka dotted robe was knotted around her waist. “Well, that felt good.”
“I bet.” He couldn’t stop his gaze from traveling down to her bare legs. Christ. She walked around in less on a daily basis…it was just something about the complete nakedness of her body beneath the robe. One tug of the sash, and—
“Did I miss anything?”
He snapped his attention back to reality. “Oh, ah, not really. I picked up Ty at noon. The cabinets behaved suspiciously while I was gone, but I didn’t open fire. I questioned them, closed them gently, and then made Ty a peanut butter and jelly for lunch and a few slices of pear. He seemed a little tired, so I put him down for a nap. I assume he’s still asleep, unless you heard him.”
The corners of her mouth lifted as she shook her head. “His door’s shut.”
“And how was your nap?”
“Okay, I guess,” she said, the small smile vanishing. “I had a nightmare.”
He flinched, his muscles tightening. God, no. He did not want to imagine her caught in the same hellish cycle that tortured him nightly. And yet, what could he do to stop it? Pushing himself to standing, he gestured toward the chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”
She glanced at the chair. “I’m fine. I need to go get dressed. I just wanted to check in, and see if you needed to go home, or to work, or whatever. You probably have things to do.”
Something twisted inside him. “You want me to leave?”
“No…I just wanted you to know that you can leave, if you need to. I mean, did you even sleep at all last night?”
“A little,” he lied. Even after they’d returned home from the station, he’d been too full of adrenaline to even consider sleeping. As the predawn light had filtered through the windows, he’d grown drowsy, but the fear of waking in a screaming rage had kept him from succumbing.
So, yeah…he could use some sleep. And a workout. But the idea of leaving her still didn’t feel right, even if the threat was gone.
“Maybe I’ll go take care of a few things, and grab a nap. I’ll come back after.”
Her expression hardened, her mouth pressing into a thin line.
He’d overstepped—he had no claim to this house. A thread of despair coiled in his chest. Would she shut him out again? “That way, I’d be here to put Ty to bed in case you’re too tired,” he added. “I could stay the night, too, if it would make you feel better.”
Her green eyes sparked with challenge. She crossed her arms. “If you sleep here tonight, will it be upstairs, with me?”
He cut his gaze past her, over her shoulder and into the hallway. “No.”
“Then no thanks. We’re fine.”
He tensed. “Em, it’s not what you think—”
“Then why don’t you tell me what I should think? Because if you’re deliberately trying to mess with my head, you’re doing a great job!”
What could he say? He knew he’d been giving her mixed signals for weeks now. This was his fault. He’d known he shouldn’t get too close to her. And yet he’d been unable to stop himself. It was not only selfish, it was cruel.
He clenched his jaw, searching for the right words. He could never have a normal life, or be a normal husband or father. But to have to tell her that now, after everything she’d been through this weekend…it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t the right time.
“I see,” she snapped, planting her hands on her hips. “I’m good enough to have sex with, but not to sleep next to afterward, is that it? I suppose that’s crossing a line, right? I might start to get ideas.” She stared at him, waiting.
“I just can’t, Emily.”
“Really? That’s your excuse? Give me a break. Joe’s dead. Tyler knows you’re his father. I don’t think you’re worried about giving him false expectations, since you were here when he woke up this morning. So I’d love to know more about why you can’t. You’re playing games with me, and I don’t like it!” Her voice trembled, rising in pitch with each accusation.
Anger rolled off of her in thick, blistering waves. It was all coming to the surface—the primal terror and devastating vulnerability she’d been made to feel yesterday. She had every right to be furious, and he was hardly an innocent target.
He had to fix this. Cupping the back of his neck, he blew out a breath. “I’m not playing games with you, Em. I wouldn’t do that. It’s just…I don’t sleep well.”
She looked away for a beat, dragging her fingers through her damp curls. “You don’t sleep well?” she repeated, her eyes narrowing. “I’m going to need more than that.”
Hell. Panic pulsed through his veins as he weighed his options. It wasn’t only about pride; it was about protecting the fragile wall that held the memories back. He didn’t want to give those images even the slightest edge in the eternal battle he waged with the past—but he would, for her.
He would risk the precarious hold he had on his sanity to tell her the truth—but with the truth would come the revelation that he could never give her the kind of relationship she deserved. Maybe he was fooling himself to think she’d even want that with him. Maybe the news wouldn’t upset her at all.
Either way, she could handle it. She was strong. The deeper truth was that he didn’t want to give her up. He was now faced with an agonizing choice—he could stop her pain and doubt right now, but only at the expense of this brief interlude of happiness he’d found. Once she knew how damaged he was, how dangerous he might be, she’d move on. He’d still be able to see Tyler on his visitation days, but he’d lose her forever, and he didn’t know if he could handle that. He loved her. The realization shook him to his core.
“I have nightmares,” he said finally. “Very vivid nightmares about things that happened when I was in country.”
Her arm dropped to her side, her fingers curling into the bright terry cloth of her robe. “And you think I’d be disturbed by these nightmares?”
“I know you would be. And Tyler.” He sighed. “I wake up screaming, Em.”
She frowned. “What about sleeping pills?”
“God, no. They rarely help, and it only makes it harder for me to come to my senses. I would never risk it around you two.”
“I don’t understand.”
He grabbed the back of the chair, digging his fingers into the vinyl as though it were a life raft. “I get…violent. At least I have, in the past. When I was in the Naval Hospital, I attacked a nurse. I messed him up pretty badly before I came to. And that was a man. God knows what I could do to you if I couldn’t wake up.”
“That was months ago, Brett. Right after the blast that sent you home, right? Of course you’d be confused and agitated. From what I read in the paper, you had a pretty serious head injury. A concussion, it said.”
“That’s basically a less terrifying word for a mild traumatic brain injury. But it doesn’t matter what you call it. What matters is how I behave now—and the answer is…dangerously.”
“One time, Brett.”
“I’m not interested in trying for a second.”
The monotonous ticks of the desk clock filled the room as she blinked, trying to fight off tears. She pressed her knuckle to her mouth. “So the nightmares…they’re about the blast?”
“Most of the time. Not always. There’s no limit to the number of horrible memories stuck in my brain.”
She paced a small section of the floor, rubbing her temple. “Tell me about the dreams,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “I need to know.”
“No. I don’t want to put those images into your head.”
A crimson flush rose on her cheeks. “You don’t get to say that to me. You have pried every single thing I wanted to keep buried out of me. And you know what? You were right to do it. Even if it was painful to discuss, I felt better once it was out. We both seem programmed to use avoidance and denial as coping mechanisms, but so far it hasn’t worked all that great for us. So tell me.”
He ground his teeth together as he stared out the window into the side of her yard. She had a point. Exhaling, he turned back to her. “Sometimes, they’re about the right hands.”
Her forehead creased. “The right hands?”
“At some of the blast scenes we’d investigate, it was difficult to tell how many victims there were. Too many…body parts. So we were forced to count the number of right hands.” He squeezed his eyes shut as the smell of burning flesh and fresh blood filled his nostrils. “You get used to that kind of thing,” he continued, his voice growing distant. “Which is both good and bad. Human organs—just lying in the street. Shoes with feet still inside them. People wailing. And the whole time, you’re wondering when the next IED might detonate, or when the waiting enemy sniper might take his shot. That’s the daily horror you come to expect. But none of that compared to seeing…” His throat tightened, and he left the words hanging in the still air.
“What? Whatever happened in the blast? Someone died, right?”
“Our Team Leader, Mac. My friend. My mentor. I watched him explode, or maybe my mind has manufactured the details. Either way, he was blown to bits right before our tour was almost up. In my dreams, I see something in the dirt, right before it happens, and I think I can prevent it. But I never get the warning out.”
“Oh, God.” Her eyes were enormous green pools of anguish. “But could you really have prevented it?”
“I don’t think so. It was a pressure-plate IED. Pretty much an indiscriminate killer. It could have killed me, or Brady, our other team member, or an Afghani kid playing. But it killed Mac.
“It was just waiting for us…a trap. The more ways we find to detect their devices, the more ways they find to get around our methods. There were no signs, at least that any of us could see. Brady agreed. But it doesn’t change the guilt.”
“I’m so sorry. I should have asked you more about what happened over there.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to talk about it. Especially with you. Being around you and Ty makes me feel normal. I can avoid the memories. But at night…” He leaned forward, bracing his weight on the back of the chair as he focused on pulling air into his lungs.
She crossed the room, coming to his side and slipping her arms around his waist. “It’s okay,” she murmured repeatedly, laying her head on his shoulder.
It would be over soon, once she put all the pieces together and examined the messy result in relation to her future. But for now, he would take comfort where he could get it.
He pushed the chair away, rotating his body to face hers. Inhaling her scent, he wrapped his arms around her as she moved into the embrace. “I couldn’t save him,” he whispered, burying his face in her damp curls. “I almost didn’t save you.”
“But you did. I’m right here.” She slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt and kneaded the taut muscles of his lower back.
“Em, I’m messed up. I may never be right in the head.” His voice broke as the admission came out.
“Yes, you will. We’ll make it right. Together. We’ll make it right, okay?”
He nodded into her shoulder, a sob rattling in his chest. “Okay,” he repeated, crushing her to him.
Her heart thudded in time with his as they clung to each other. The bark of a dog outside pierced the silence briefly, and then it was quiet again, with just the sounds of their breathing and the ticking of the clock filling the room. She slowly moved her hands lower, beneath the waistband of his loose shorts. Her mouth sought his neck, her tongue leaving a trail of flames as she nipped at his skin.
He groaned. The heat shot through him, and his arousal was instant and demanding. But she was still healing. “Emily, we can’t. Your body isn’t ready.”
“I think you’d be surprised what my body’s ready for.” Her fingers worked at the button of his shorts. “We’re alive. We’re all safe. And right now I just need to feel you inside me. Nothing but us.” She pulled down the zipper.
He tilted her face up, kissing her tenderly to avoid the swelling on her jaw. “This is probably not a good idea,” he insisted, even as her hands encircled his rigid flesh. He closed his eyes, drawing in a hitched breath.
“I disagree. I think it’s an excellent idea.” She glanced meaningfully toward the thick rug between the desk and the front windows. “Just be gentle,” she added as she lifted her mouth back to his.
He couldn’t fight this. Didn’t want to. But first things first—their son was still upstairs. He walked her backward slowly as they kissed, kicking the door to the office shut with his foot. Then he tugged at the sash of her robe.
Chapter 35
The sun slipped in and out of the heavy clouds, making shadows dance through the trees like the ghosts they were seeking. It wasn’t a great day for a hike through the woods, but it was time. Brett had convinced her to wait a few more days before attempting their excursion to the smallpox cemetery, so by the time Thursday afternoon had finally rolled around, she’d been adamant. They were going, rain or shine. Luckily, the rain seemed to be holding off, for now.
A light breeze rattled through the pitch pines and scrub oaks along their path. While miles of marked trails wound through the 180 acres of The Old Jail Lane Conservation Area, eventually they were going to have to forge their own route, guided by the GPS coordinates plugged into Brett’s phone. According to the article Claire had sent her, the ten small unmarked graves in the desolate burial plot were hidden in the dense foliage and difficult to find. It was going to turn into an arduous trek for a three-year-old, but Brett had borrowed a sturdy framed backpack carrier that could hold Tyler’s weight.
At the moment, the carrier rode empty on Brett’s back as Ty trotted ahead of them on the trail. He paused to pick up a stick, turning and speaking to an invisible companion. Emily shivered at the exchange, pushing her hands into the pockets of her gray cotton jacket.
Initially she’d almost felt guilty, making preparations to send the lonely child ghost on his way. After all, he’d helped save her life. But then another sleepwalking incident had her searching for Tyler in the middle of the night—this time he’d been tugging on the handle of the back door. Her resolve had hardened as she carried him back to bed. Hopefully the abandoned cemetery would be the solution that ended this haunting.
