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  He takes it, sips slowly. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah.”

  Another long silence. Derek sighs, runs his palm over his scalp, and looks at me. “Go ahead and ask.”

  “Ask…what?”

  He shakes his head and shrugs. “Whatever. I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer, but I’ll try.”

  What do I most want to know? I stare down into the thin scrim of suds in my bottle. “The letter. He carried it with him for almost a year, without reading it?”

  Derek nods. “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…he said he was saving it. For when he needed it the most.”

  I watch Derek closely. He’s struggling with something; his jaw is grinding, his fingers are tensed around the bottle. The ring finger of his left hand is visibly crooked. Where the other four fingers curl naturally around the glass, the ring finger sticks out as if it doesn’t work properly. His hands are shaking, the golden lager in the bottle rippling.

  “A year.” I don’t even know how to phrase my next question. “If he didn’t read the letter, then he never…he never knew. Until the end. About Tommy, I mean.”

  “I—he…” Derek seems to be having trouble breathing. He’s blinking quickly, and his shoulders are hunched as if expecting a blow. “He loved you. He loved you a lot.”

  That doesn’t answer the question. I know avoidance when I see it, but Derek clearly isn’t capable of this conversation right now.

  He swallows a long swig of beer, then lurches to his feet, sets the half-finished bottle on the workbench, swaying on his feet. “Shit. Shit, I’m dizzy. Used to be able to put away a twenty-four pack on my own. Now I’m fucked up on two beers? Jesus.”

  He stumbles, puts a hand on the workbench to steady himself. His legs seem about to give out. I stand up, set my beer down, and move toward him. His eyes are closed, squeezed tight, his mouth moving as he’s whispering something I can’t hear. He sways, tilting off-balance. He’s going to fall.

  I reach out slowly, tentatively. Touch his shoulder. “Derek?”

  His skin is hot to the touch. Hot and hard and soft at all once. I’d forgotten what male skin feels like.

  He jumps at my touch, his eyes flying open wide, nostrils flaring, every muscle tensing. He stumbles a step backward, away from me, blinking as if seeing double.

  “It’s okay, Derek,” I murmur in the low, soothing voice I used on a spooked horse. “It’s okay. Just breathe. Relax. You’re okay.”

  “Not okay. Not okay.” He’s staring at me, at my outstretched hand.

  Me touching him isn’t okay, or he’s not okay? Both, maybe. I don’t know. All I know is he’s tilting away from me as if spooked by my proximity, as if the sight and smell and reality of me are too much to handle. I know he’s acting hammered on two beers. Not even two, one and half, really. He’s about to fall backward, so I have no choice but to put my shoulder under his armpit and wrap my arm around his waist. Even shrunk to a third of his former bulk, Derek is a big man. Six foot three if not more, broad shoulders, long legs, thick, heavy arms. I’m a strong girl, buff from a lifetime of farm work, but it takes all my strength to keep Derek on his feet.

  “Come on, Derek. Let’s get you lying down, huh?” I say.

  I’ve got his mouth near my ear, and I can definitely hear him whispering something, but I can’t make it out. I half-carry him out of the workshop, down the hallway between the stalls. The smell of hay is pungent, layered over the more faint odor of cow manure from Ilsa the milk cow, who is out to pasture right now. The single bare, dangling incandescent light bulb in the workshop sheds just enough illumination that I can see which stall he’s claimed as his own. The hay is flattened on the floor and piled up in one corner. Several old blankets are spread across the hay in the corner, with the pillow I’ve given him on top. The camping lantern sits against the wall near the pillow. There is nothing else. The cot is folded up and leaning against the wall. This man, this brave combat veteran, this PTSD-plagued ex-POW, is sleeping on the hay in my barn like a vagrant. There’s something very wrong with that.

  Derek grabs the upright of the stall door, pulls away from me, collapses to his knees, and falls onto the hay, crawling toward his pillow. He fumbles at the lantern, finds the knob, and turns it on, shedding a white glow.

  “You shouldn’t be sleeping out here on the hay, Derek. It’s not right.”

  He rolls to his back, and his gaze fixes blearily on me. “It’s fine. I’m fine here.”

  “You deserve a real room. A real bed.”

  He wobbles his head back and forth. “No. I don’t. I had a bed at the hospital. I hated it.” He blinks rapidly, lays a hand over his eyes. “Spent three fucking years sleeping in the dirt. There was the one place they had me in, an old school, I think it was. Put me in a closet. Bare concrete. Got damned cold at night. Gave me sores on my hip and shoulder. After that, I was thankful for the dirt floor. Kept me in a cave, too. That sucked. Cold and dark. Every sound I made echoed. My breathing echoed. Drove me fucking nuts. I’d stop breathing until I passed out, just to make the echoes go away. Swore I could hear my heartbeat sometimes. Total silence is fucking unnerving.” He lifts his hand, stares at his palm, squeezes his fingers into a fist, and releases it and stares at it some more. “The hospital was its own kind of hell. I was basically a prisoner there, too. Here, I can breathe. I can see the sky. I can get up and move around when I want. I can walk out the door and keep walking. Nobody will stop me, give me orders, or yell at me. I might’ve been among my own countrymen in the hospital, but I didn’t feel free. Felt trapped just as much as when the Taliban had me.”

  He levels a look at me.

  “And, trust me, Reagan, you do not want me in your house. I don’t want to be there, and you wouldn’t want me there.” He goes quiet for a moment. “Maybe that came out wrong. It’s not that I don’t want to be in your house, or around you. It’s not that, it’s just….”

  “I get it. As much as anyone can, I get what you’re saying. It’s okay.”

  He widens his eyes, blinks, and shakes his head. “Can’t believe how fucked up that little bit of beer made me. Guess it was a bad idea.”

  He stretches, shifts, and the jeans ride low on his waist, bare a hint of the “V” of muscle, curls of body hair. I can’t look away. I should, but I can’t. Guilt assails me. I shouldn’t be looking at Derek like that. At anyone, but especially him, especially when he’s so fragile, emotionally and psychologically. Not fragile — that’s not the right word. Unstable, maybe. Raw, healing. Wounds to the body heal faster than those within.

  I rip my gaze away, stare at the floor between my feet. “Do you need anything? Can I get you anything?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just need some sleep.”

  The moon is a high bright sliver, shedding silver light on the grass. There’s a lamp suspended from the power line stretching between the house and the barn, casting a broad circle of orange light on the gravel drive. I stop beneath it, stare back at the open barn door, at the faint glow of the lantern. My work boots crunch in the gravel, and the only sound is crickets, a few frogs somewhere far away. An owl hoots. The streetlight buzzes.

  I don’t want to go in. I don’t want to talk to Ida. I don’t want to crawl into my empty bed.

  I do, though. Ida can tell I’m not in the mood for conversation, so she bids me a brief farewell and waits for Hank on the front porch. I strip off my sweat-stiff clothes, pull on a long T-shirt over my bare skin. As soon as my eyes close, I’m seized by a visual memory of Derek stretching, the hint of places on his body I have no business thinking about.

  Yet, I do. I wonder. And when I finally fall asleep, I dream.

  CHAPTER 8

  DEREK

  The world spins. Eyes closed, eyes open, it makes no difference. I plant one foot on the floor, and the spinning lessens a little. Eyes open is better, though. Not because it helps the spinning, but because every time I close my eyes, I see her. The black T-shirt lifte
d up to wipe the sweat off her face¸ revealing a tight red sports bra, the tan, muscular stomach. Hipbones above low-rise jeans.

  She’s a tiny thing. Barely five-five, maybe a buck-twenty soaking wet. Packs a hell of a lot of curve on her tiny frame, though, and I shouldn’t be thinking about her like this. Shouldn’t. Can’t. It’s so wrong, on so many levels.

  She’s Tom’s widow.

  But no matter how forcefully I remind myself, I still can’t get that vision of her out of my head. Red Reebok sports bra, plump and stretched. Taut stomach flexing as she moves.

  When she touched my shoulder, I nearly lost it.

  No one has touched me since I’ve been back Stateside. I can’t handle it. The last time a physical therapist tried to grab my leg to test my flexibility, he ended up with a broken nose. They learned after that to leave me the fuck alone. Tell me what they want me to do, but keep their damned hands off me. Hands bring pain. Touch means ache and agony. Touch flashes me back to being chained to a metal chair, a fist wrapped around my ring finger, bending it slowly and inexorably backward until it snaps. Touch flashes me back to hands shoving my face against the wall, a dull razor being dragged across my dry scalp, stuttering and slicing.

  When Reagan touched me, I don’t think she had any clue how close I came to lashing out with my elbow. Her touch was lightning. Sudden, and striking me with instant heat. Her fingertips only, on the round part of my shoulder, a gentle, hesitant touch. And then she pressed her body up against mine, held me up somehow, and carried me to the stall. It shouldn’t have been possible, but that woman is strong. And all I could smell was citrus shampoo in her hair, the sweat on her body.

  Fuck.

  Eventually sleep comes, but I have a dream. A different one this time. Not the cave or the splinters or the beatings or Tom dying, but a dream about Reagan. The image of her lifting her shirt. Only in the dream, she peels it off and steps toward me, her hair loose.

  And then I wake up.

  I fall back asleep and have the same dream.

  I manage to sleep till just past dawn, and then the dream drives me out of the barn. I don’t bother with a shirt, since the day is already warm. Plus, it’s the only shirt I’ve got with me. I uncap the paint can, gather the rollers and brushes, hike up the ladder. Roll, dip, roll, dip. Gray turns to pink, then orange, and I finish one side of the barn with the first coat. The old wood is porous and thirsty, so it’ll take several coats. I start on the other side, get a third of the way done, and run out of paint. Descending the ladder, I find Reagan waiting for me, holding out a plate full of food. French toast, fried eggs, sausage. The woman can cook.

  When I finish eating, I glance at her. “I ran out of red paint. I’ll need several more gallons to finish the barn. Some white for the house. Unless you want the house a different color. It’s so faded and peeled away that at this point it can be any color you want.”

  Reagan tilts her head. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she says. “Maybe a dark green?”

  I shrug. “Sure. Green it is.” I hand back her stoneware plate, the fork rattling across the surface. “I’ll wash up and head into town.”

  I angle toward the back of the barn, where the old red well pump is located. This is where I’ve been washing myself.

  “Oh, my god,” Reagan says, surprise and consternation in her voice. “I’m a horrible person.”

  I stop and turn back. “The hell you talking about?”

  “You’ve been using the pump all this time, haven’t you? You’ve been here a week, and you haven’t had a proper shower.” She glances at my jeans. “And you don’t have any extra clothes, do you? God, I can’t believe myself.”

  I shift from foot to foot. “Wasn’t sure where I was going except here, so I didn’t bring anything. Don’t have anything to bring anyway. I’m cool.”

  “It’s not cool,” she says. “Come inside and take a shower.” I hesitate, and she moves behind me, shoves at me. “Get.”

  I get, if only to get away from the fire and uncomfortable intensity of her presence. She follows me up onto the porch, moves past me, and opens the screen door, which slams behind me. I have trouble moving past the foyer. There’s a formal sitting room to the right, a stairway directly opposite the front door, a small den with hardwood floors overlaid by a thick rug, a couch under a window on one wall, a TV on the opposite wall. A doorway leads to the kitchen, and I can see it’s painted yellow with white tile on the floor. White cabinets. Twenty-year-old appliances. There’s a round four-person brown wood table, set with clear glass salt and pepper shakers, Tabasco sauce, and A-1 sauce.

  My nerves come back. The cause of my problem is sitting on the couch, drowsy, staring at the TV. Towheaded, with eyes exactly like Tom’s, wide and brown and deep. He’s damned adorable. Gotta be around three by now. Clutching a plastic cup with cartoon characters of some kind on the side, a bright red sippy lid. The TV blares, and I can see little mermaid creatures with huge heads singing a song about going outside.

  He’s the lie I told…or didn’t tell, more like.

  When Reagan asked me about the letter and if Tom had known about his kid, I freaked. I couldn’t answer. Reagan deserves the truth, and I’m not sure I’m man enough to give it to her.

  “Derek?” Her voice is quiet, right beside me. “He’s just a little boy. He’s not gonna—I don’t know. You act like you’re—” Clearly, she’s hedging around the issue. Doesn’t want to say right out that a three-year-old won’t hurt me, that I’m acting scared of a kid. She kneels down. “Tommy? Can you come say hi?”

  The little boy slides forward off the couch in a weird, slinky maneuver. He toddles over, clutching the cup under his arm, then stares up at me. “Hi.” He points at the TV. “Guppies.”

  I look at the TV. “Guppies?”

  He puts the cup to his mouth, takes a long drink, making a whining, gurgling noise from the lid. “Bubb’ Guppies.”

  I turn to Reagan for translation. The corner of her mouth is curled up in a smirk. “The show he’s watching. It’s called Bubble Guppies.”

  “They don’t look like guppies. They look like big-headed mermaids.”

  She snickers. “I know. It doesn’t always make any sense, but he loves it.” She points at the TV. “Take a look.”

  Now the little mer-kids are singing about going camping. There’s a fire, made of bubbles. All underwater. They’re swimming around, sort of, but clearly the show has set the laws of physics aside.

  “Weird,” I say.

  The kid is just staring at me. He puts his cup down on the floor, raises his arms over his head. “Up.”

  I take him by the hands, my big mitts engulfing his tiny little fingers. I lift him up, set him down. Reagan laughs again. “No, you big dolt. He means pick him up. Like, hold him.”

  I don’t want to. This kid is the reminder of my guilt. But he’s leaning against my legs, arms extended upward, chanting, “Uppy, uppy, uppy.”

  “I don’t know how to hold a kid. Do I have to hold his head up or whatever?”

  Reagan snorts. “Oh, my god. He’s three. He’s not a baby. Just pick him up by the armpits. He’ll do the rest.”

  “Why?”

  This has her at a loss. “He wants to be picked up. I don’t know. It makes him feel better, I guess.”

  I lift Tommy up by the armpits, holding him at arm’s length. He somehow manages to crawl across the empty space and cling to my torso, hugging my waist with his legs. His head lies against my shoulder. This is the most bizarre sensation I’ve ever felt. He’s clinging to me like a monkey, his breathing going steady and deep. Some strange instinct has me tucking my arm under his butt to support him, and he goes limp within seconds. I just stand there, holding the kid, as he falls asleep. His arm flops loose, dangling at my chest.

  I turn in place and look at Reagan. “Now what?”

  She smiles, a strange, almost dreamy smile that I’m not sure how to interpret. “Just lay him on the couch.”

  I
hold the back of his head with one hand, my other arm beneath his knees. I lay him down on the couch on his back. He sprawls out, mouth open, snoring.

  The old woman — Ida, I think her name is — stands in the kitchen, flour on her hands, watching. Her surprised expression probably matches my own.

  Reagan heads up the stairs. “Come on — I’ll get you a towel.”

  I follow her, staring at the stair treads rather than her ass, which is where my gaze wants to go. She leads me into the master bedroom. There’s an antique queen bed with a metal wrought-iron frame, a five-drawer bureau on one wall, and a three-drawer bureau with a mirror on the other. I steadfastly refuse to think about the fact that I’m in her bedroom.

  Reagan darts ahead of me into the bathroom, yanking a white bra off the floor. “Shit. Sorry. No one’s ever in here but me.”

  She opens the lid of a wicker hamper, tosses the undergarment in. I catch a glimpse of panties, jeans with one leg inside out, and another bra — the red one from last night — twisted and inside out, along with T-shirts and balled-up white ankle socks. It’s a strangely intimate thing, a woman’s laundry. I look away, at the sink. That’s not much better. Makeup, trays of powder and tubes of lipstick, a bunch of other stuff I can’t identify. None of it looks as if it’s been used in a long time. There’s a curling iron, a blue brush with black bristles. Several hair ties in a pile at the corner of the sink, strands of long blonde hair still attached. There’s a package of tampons on the floor by the toilet. Can’t look there. Two damp towels hang over the railing of the shower curtain.

  This is, without a doubt, the most feminine space I’ve ever entered. I’m intensely uncomfortable, hyper-aware of Reagan beside me, smelling fresh and clean, and my thoughts jolt to the red sports bra, to the fact that she stripped it off and tossed it into the hamper. The bathroom still smells faintly of a recent shower, that vague damp smell that is equal parts steam and shampoo and something else indefinable, the smell of a bathroom after a shower.

  After an awkward moment, Reagan bends over at the sink, opens the cabinet beneath. There’s that ass again, round and taut and facing me, a reminder that this is a beautiful woman and I’m in her bathroom, in her private space, and she’s off limits. She straightens, hands me a thick rust-colored towel.