Merline Lovelace - Military Heroes Bundle - A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

When at last she regained her strength, she backed away. He let her go immediately, which she was sure was a message. No involvement, beyond protecting Sophie. Last night had been an aberration, a fulfillment of a need they both felt as solitary souls. But it had made no promises and offered no answers.

Their wounds couldn’t be so easily healed, she thought, as she returned to the table. They would always be there. Healing had to come from within, and it couldn’t happen if the scars kept reopening.

Julia was still sitting at the table, staring at the cards as if they could tell her the future, carefully not watching Connie and Ethan.

Then there was a knock on the side door. Connie jumped, turned and saw Micah through the glass panes. At once she leaped up to invite him in.

He was smiling, and he greeted her with a hug, Julia with a peck on the cheek and his son with a bear hug. “I thought I’d get a progress report,” he said. Connie got him a cup of coffee and waved him to a chair as she resumed her seat.

“Do you have ESP?” she asked.

His face darkened. For an instant, except for Ethan’s beard, father and son looked like clones of the same Cherokee ancestor.

“What happened?”

Ethan answered. “When Sophie wandered off yesterday after school? It was because she had seen the man again.”

“Well, hell. I guess we need to tighten the guard.”

“I’m going to be with her every minute she’s out of the house and not in school.”

Micah nodded. Then he looked at Connie. “How do you feel about that?”

“Better.” Because if it was Leo, she didn’t know how or even if she would be able to handle it.

Ethan must have noticed her glaring omission of the phone call in her recounting of events to her mother earlier, Connie thought, because he didn’t mention it to Micah.

“I can’t handle this,” Julia said. She couldn’t have been paler if every drop of blood had been sucked from her. “I’m going to my room. You’ll plan better without me here gnashing my teeth and second-guessing everything because I’m a scared old woman.”

Feeling a sharp pang, Connie started to rise. “Do you need help?”

“Just to get into my own bed? I think not.”

The three of them listened as Julia’s chair squeaked across the linoleum, then onto the wooden floor of the hall. A few moments later, her bedroom door closed.

“Okay,” Micah said, leaning forward to rest his arms on the table, “what did you leave out?”

Connie looked at Ethan, wondering if he had told Micah, or if Micah just had some kind of ESP. Shaman, she thought. They both were shaman, crazy idea or not. Then she realized she would have to tell this part herself, if for no other reason than that she had been the one who answered the phone.

“I got a call last night,” she said. “A man said, ‘You have a beautiful daughter, Connie,’ and then I hung up.”

“That must have freaked you out.”

“Pretty much.”

The two men’s faces had grown as dark and heavy as thunderclouds before a tornado.

“Your ex,” Micah said.

Ethan nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking.”

“But we can’t be sure,” Connie said.

“I agree it would help if we knew something certain,” Micah said slowly, “but we don’t. We should definitely be keeping an eye out for Leo. I’ll see about getting his picture out to the deputies. But at this point, I’m not sure it would be wise to put it out to the public.”

Ethan shook his head. “If it is Leo, we don’t want to push him too hard. If he flees, it won’t help us settle this matter. Besides, he’s already proved violent.”

“My thinking exactly.” Micah looked at Connie, silently requesting her input.

“I don’t think I’m a reliable judge of anything right now,” she answered. “This is way too close to home. Ethan can tell you, I’m barely holding it together.”

“Under the circumstances,” Ethan said, “you’re holding it together damn well. You won’t hear any criticism from me.”

“Me, neither,” Micah said.

Connie smiled wanly. “I think I’ll go lie down. You two can arrange everything with Gage. I’m worn out. In fact, I’m useless with worry.”

“Don’t stay up there if all you’re doing is worrying yourself sick,” Ethan said.

But that wasn’t it at all. She needed to check on Sophie. She needed to be closer to her daughter. She needed some space to find at least a piece of her center to rely on. The worst way to fail Sophie right now would be by falling apart even more than she already had.

Calm. She had to find calm. Real calm. The kind of calm that would allow her to think.

Before it was too late.

Chapter 16

After the call to Gage had been made, Ethan and Micah continued to sit at the table, father and son separated by years if no longer by distance. Yet Ethan felt a recognition somewhere deep inside him, as if part of him had always known Micah. Perhaps it was just that part of him was Micah.

“Are you willing to stay around?” Micah asked.

“Stay around?”

“Here. In this county. You have a permanent job if you want it. Gage said so. And I’d like the time with you. Right or wrong, we’ve both been cheated out of something.”

Ethan nodded slowly, turning inward, testing instincts and long-denied feelings. “I’d like the opportunity.”

“Good. When this mess with Sophie and Connie is taken care of, Faith wants you to come stay with us for a while. She wants to get to know you, too, and she wants you to know your sisters.”

Ethan nodded, feeling a small lightening in his heart. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” Micah drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “I know where you’ve been, son. I spent twenty years doing what you did. So what happened? You’re on disability?”

“IED,” Ethan said succinctly. “I’ve got shrapnel lodged near my spine.”

“Well, hell.” Micah’s frown deepened. “I figured it had to be bad. They aren’t letting many out right now.”

“No.”

“So you’re in danger?”

“Could be. Mostly it’s just pain. But yeah, they’re worried a wrong move could paralyze me.”

“How are you handling that?”

Ethan shrugged. “I’m luckier than a lot of guys.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling, too. Problem comes in the dead of night, when you start to think some of them were luckier.”

A look of complete understanding passed between them.

“It gets better,” Micah said. “It does. I won’t say it ever completely goes away, but eventually you can look forward more than you look back.”

“I hope so. Sometimes I just wish the enemy still wore uniforms.”

Micah nodded. “I carry some of that with me, too.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Micah sighed and sipped his coffee. “I don’t regret serving my country. I hope you don’t.”

“No. Never.”

Micah nodded. “Good. You shouldn’t. Some of us have to.”

“I know. I’m proud that I went.”

Micah reached out and clasped his son’s forearm. “I’m proud of you. War creates atrocities by its very nature. But until we all learn to live in peace, some of us are going to bear that burden. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, so I’ll just tell you, once again, what I’ve learned. It’s time to look to today. Today is the seed of tomorrow. And from what I can see, you’re planting some mighty good seeds right now.”

Ethan arched a brow.

Micah smiled faintly. “Sophie.”

“Oh.”

“And Connie. A man could do a lot worse than Connie.”

“I don’t think...”

“Not yet, maybe. But she’s a good woman, through and through. Almost as good as my Faith. You’ll see.” He drained his mug and rose to carry it to the sink. “I’m going to get to the office, make sure that picture of Leo gets out to the force. I think we got us a snake in the corn, son, and it ain’t no stranger.”