“Right,” Dakota says softly, and between the single word and her tone, I’m reminded of our agreement. Somehow, I haven’t thought of it once since I showed up at her hotel earlier. I’ve been too busy enjoying my time with her.
I glance at her profile. Her perfect, straight nose, her plump lips, her thick eyelashes. The way her chin tips up just slightly, perpetually defiant. She looks at me, smiles, but it’s a little sad.
“What?” I ask.
She finishes her wine and places the empty glass on the small table between us. “You let down your guard with me. You brought me here and let me see that photo.” She breathes deeply and angles her body so she’s addressing me directly. “Every month I donate to two different charities. The Aneurysm Foundation, and a battered women’s shelter. That’s why I’m in so much debt. For a long time I donated more than I could afford, and used my credit cards to pay for everything else. It was a way for me to atone.”
I recognize the openness on her face, the vulnerability, but I’m not able to give it the attention it deserves just yet. The word she used, atone, has captured me.
“I understand your connection to aneurysm, but battered women? Were you hurt, Dakota?” My blood begins to warm.
“No,” she says quickly. “I was in a long relationship with a man who was married, though I didn’t know it. I felt so guilty when I found out, and I kept going over and over our time together, wondering if there were signs and I just ignored them. The women’s shelter was the best place I could think of aside from sending restitution directly to his wife.” She huffs out a mirthless laugh. “And before you ask, I know I could ask my dad for help. I was a difficult teenager and a rebellious young adult and I can’t tell him about the debt. He believes in me, thinks I’ve climbed back up from my fall from grace. The prodigal daughter. That has more value than my debt.” She rubs her palms on her shorts. “I canceled the payments recently. Getting on the right track. I just thought I’d share that with you, since you told me about Shepherd.” She sends a weak smile across the eighteen inches separating our chairs. “You don’t own the rights to letting guilt fuck you up.”
I swallow. Her words run back through my mind. There’s so much she has just said, and I don’t know where to start. So instead of saying anything that won’t be good enough for the vulnerability she has just shown, I thank her for trusting me.
“Same to you,” she says. “Thank you for trusting me enough to invite me over and let me see your place.”
I nod at her. How had it escaped my attention that offering my home to do her laundry was a show of vulnerability? And it’s not like it was done with reluctance, either. I wanted her here. Wanted to share this part of me with her.
The washer dings. Dakota gets up and walks inside.
The oven timer goes off. I follow her in.
Dakota switches clothes and starts a new load. I throw together a quick salad and serve dinner at the kitchen table. Dakota sits while I grab another beer and refill her wine.
Dakota moans when she takes her first bite of meatloaf. I chuckle, and she places a palm over her heart. “Please don’t ever stop making this for me.”
“Never,” I promise, then freeze. “Or at least, I’ll make it for a year.”
We meet eyes briefly, then look away.
We don’t talk much after that. I think we’re talked out.
After dinner, we play spades. Dakota has way more laundry than she realized, and the clock creeps later and later. It’s midnight by the time her laundry is finished. For the same reason she asked me to stay with her last night, I’m asking her to stay with me tonight.
“The second bedroom has a bed. My mom made it up like a guest room. We’ll put fresh sheets on, because I have no idea when those were last washed since nobody has ever slept on them.”
Dakota rifles through her clean clothes and pulls out a T-shirt and soft-looking shorts. “Lead the way,” she says, yawning and pointing down the hall.
We change the linens together. I brush my teeth and give Dakota the unused toothbrush from my last visit to the dentist. She stands beside me at the sink, and we sneak looks at each other in the mirror, except we’re not really sneaking because we’re being obvious about it. We brush, spit, rinse. Dakota puts her hand on my forearm and pushes me out into the hallway. “Sorry, but I have to pee, and that isn’t something I’m doing with you in the room.”
I step into my bedroom and remove my shirt, then exchange my jeans for pajama pants. She calls my name when she comes out of the bathroom. I step into the hall. She has this soft look on her face, and I see the same girl from five years ago, the one who split my world in two. “Yeah?” I swallow back the memories.
“Thank you. For being a listener, and a chef, and a laundromat. And also, for giving up so much of your life to protect our country. You’re a hero, Wes. Really.” She comes to where I stand in my open bedroom door, rises up on her toes, and brushes a kiss on my cheek. She turns and walks back to the guest room, closing the door gently behind her.
And I stand there, glued to the spot, the feel of her lips still on my cheek.
26
Wes
Sweat burns my eyes. The child whimpers. The woman is silent, but her terrified eyes scream louder than if she were to open her mouth. I’m on one knee in the middle of the street. The town is free from civilians, except for the unlucky ones the insurgents kept to use as martyrs. My guys stand around me, taking fire, while I work on disarming the bomb strapped to this woman and child.
“Not much time, Hayden,” Milicevic yells.
I don’t answer. All my energy is going toward the explosive. Thirty seconds and counting.
A whizzing crack fills the air, someone beside me slumps to the ground. My eyes stay trained on the woman and child, but the sorrow fills me anyway. I don’t need to see who it was. They are all my brothers.
“Hayden, fall back,” Milicevic commands.
I grunt my answer. No. My fingers work faster, seeking out wires, trying to understand a bomb that is homemade and also high tech, something that was carefully crafted to confuse the opposition—me.
“Now, Hayden. This is an order,” he barks in my face.
He doesn’t wait for me to obey. Arms wrap around my chest from behind and he drags me back.
The child’s tears create paths in the dust caking his cheeks, like a river with muddy banks.
The woman never opens her mouth.
So I scream for her.
“Wes? Wes, wake up.”
My eyes blink open. The muscles in my legs and arms are coiled tight, as if they’ve been in motion. My heart races, blood and adrenaline tearing through me.
My vision adjusts to the darkness and I see the outline of a woman. “Dakota.” My voice is hoarse, with a pleading, almost desperate, edge.
“You were having a nightmare,” she whispers, leaning over my bed. Tentatively she reaches for me, her hand splaying out on my chest. Her fingers curl and uncurl, and I see what she’s doing. She’s not just soothing me. She’s soothing my heart.
I wait for the embarrassment to warm my neck and face, but it never comes. Instead I feel… relief? How can that be? I shouldn’t be turning toward her like this, shouldn’t be closing my eyes and allowing her sweetness to melt into my damaged parts.