Broken Soldier: A Novel (7 page)

“Sure.” The guy gave Rafa one last look, then went back to whatever hole he’d come from.

“What just happened?” Emily asked. “I’ve never seen that look.”

“Nothing.”

“You just turned into a stone or something. It was a little scary.”

“I’m surprised you noticed anything. Call it a professional instinct. Kids like him, they get people like me killed. On accident.”

“Ah. Well, how about we just focus on getting some skis?” She guided him toward a rack.

It took the better part of an hour to try different skis and different bindings, but they ended up with a combination that Emily pronounced decent.

“I thought we were renting these,” Rafa said as they carted them to the front of the store.

“We were. Now we’re not. Tell you what, consider them my treat.” She lowered her voice. “And if you hate them, we’ll return them Sunday.”

“I’ll pay.” His mother had taught him better than that. Emily was a lovely woman, but he had more honor than to let her buy him gifts while he was actually there.

“Nonsense. It was my idea. I’ll take care of it.” She tried to pull the skis away from him.

He tightened his grip. “They are for me. I cannot let you purchase them.”

Emily pouted, but let go of the skis. “If you don’t like them, really, we can bring them back. As long they don’t get scratched up or anything.”

He slid the cashier his card, then caught Emily with another kiss, stopping any further protest in the best way possible.

The cashier gave him a receipt, but Emily frowned. “We didn’t get a helmet.”

They had to go back for it, and he let Emily pay, though it pained him. She seemed terribly pleased with herself, though, so he did his best to let it go. The kiss she gave him in front of the building helped soothe his pride.

As they walked up to her car, Emily said, “Oh, crap.”

“What?”

“I don’t have a ski rack.”

Rafa looked at the little Lexus, then at the skis. “I can hold them if you don’t mind leaving the window down.” It was going to be cold, but nothing his coat and glove couldn’t handle.

Emily popped the trunk. It wasn’t much larger than his duffel bag.

“I don’t think they’ll fit,” Rafa said.

“Watch.” She leaned in, giving him a wonderful view of her backside.

A shiver went through him. She looked so good. Like a woman should. A rump a man could wrap his hands around and really enjoy. All those kisses were getting his motor running, and the sight of her was making him painfully hard.

Emily folded down the back seat. “Slide the skis in here.”

He stepped up beside her, so close he could feel the heat radiating from her tight yoga pants. The skis slid through the opening and over the backseat, the tips poking between the two front seats. Even so, they still poked three feet out the back of the trunk.

“They’re going to slide around,” he said. “And the trunk won’t stay closed.

“I know. Let’s go back in and get some rope.”

“And just leave them here?”

She chewed her lip. “Okay, stay here and keep an eye on them.”

“You stay. I suspect I know a thing or two more about rope.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but he was already moving, not giving her a chance. He wasn’t sure how many mountains she’d scaled or how many helicopters she’d rappelled, but he had a feeling he’d win if they compared numbers.

He went back into the store and headed straight for Pete’s department. It felt good to have a mission he could complete on his own. Pete was standing by the helmets, talking to another of the staff, another punk fratboy. They both turned around when they heard the click of Rafa’s prosthetic foot on the store’s tile floor.

“Your girl leave you, dude?” Pete asked.

Rafa took a deep breath, held it for a count of four. Combat calming techniques worked on blockhead fratboys, too. He hoped. “She’s outside.” He tried to slide around the two guys, but they didn’t move, leaving the aisle blocked.

“Excuse me,” Rafa said.

“She just feels sorry for you, you know that, right?” Pete practically sneered.

“Look, I just need some rope, not any trouble.”

“You gotta tie your girl down to get what you want? That’s sad.” The other employee looked embarrassed, but Pete kept going. “It’s too bad the Taliban didn’t get your dick, too. Or did they?”

Rafa’s eyes narrowed. He knew exactly how this sort of conversation normally went, but it was the first time he’d been involved in one since the IED. The fratboy would jaw a little, then he’d get close, jab a finger into Rafa’s chest. He’d offer to take things outside, and then he’d swing a big, dumb overhand punch. It happened the same way in every bar fight in the world.

“I killed fourteen hardened Taliban fighters the day I lost my leg. I’d tell you how many I killed before that, but you can’t count that high.” He spoke carefully, quietly so there could be no mistake about his earnestness. The way the kid’s eyes went wide told him that his message was getting through just fine. “Now are you going to let me get my rope, or am I going to put you in the hospital?”

Pete scooted out of the way. “If you’re still here when I get back with my manager, I’m calling the cops, dude. I don’t care who you are.”

Rafa nodded once, turned to the rope. Stupid monkey dance. Only way to handle it was to jump ahead, throw ‘em off guard. It was just lucky things didn’t have to get physical. Pete would never be able to live down getting his ass kicked by a one legged man.

The store had good rope. Tactical rope. Rafa found a hundred foot piece of 550 cord in a muted midnight blue and headed for the registers.

Pete and the manager never showed.

#

The cabin was in better shape than Emily remembered, even without Paul and Christa prepping it. It lay in a snow-covered meadow, its private ski lift stretching up the mountain behind it. The lights were already shining, enabled remotely by Christa. Slate gray clouds scudded overhead, promising fresh snowfall in the evening.

All in all, it looked just about perfect for a weekend getaway.

“I thought you said it was a cabin,” Rafa said. “That’s practically an estate.”

“It belongs to Christa’s parents. They rent it out sometimes, I think.” She parked the car and led Rafa to the front door.

It was even more gorgeous inside than out. A chandelier hung over the living room. Bearskin rugs lay on the floors. Wooden chairs and leather sofas were arranged around a massive fireplace.

“Wow,” Rafa said. “Sure beats Kabul.”

“They’ve upgraded since the last time I was here. I think the bedrooms are back this way.”

They moved deeper into the house. The first bedroom had a king-sized sleigh bed covered in a big, fuzzy blanket.

“
Muy bueno
,” Rafa said under his breath.

Emily smiled. “That’s the guest room.” She continued on, pausing at a heavy oaken door. “We’re in there,” she said, pushing it open.

The room on the other side dwarfed the guest room. A bed the size of a small country dominated the center. A thick, furry comforter lay atop it, and pale, wooden nightstands sat on either side. The whole room was pure rustic, practically a showroom for a vacation magazine.

“
Madre de dios
,” Rafa said, looking at the bed.

“It’s bigger than I remember.” Emily set her bag on the dresser. “Do you want to break-in your skis before Paul and Christa get here?”

Rafa looked from her to the bed. “How long do we have?”

Emily’s heart rate accelerated as a sly smile crept across his face. She licked her lips. “A few hours. Christa said Paul had to meet a client at 3:00.” She wasn’t sure if he was implying that they should break in the bed before hitting the slopes, but the tingling warmth she felt between her legs made her think it was a fine idea, indeed. She glanced at his leg, wondering how it would hold up out on the mountain.

As soon as she look downward, his smile collapsed into worry. “Perhaps we should check the bindings,” he said.

Emily tried not to let her disappointment show. There was no sense in getting ahead of herself. They had the whole weekend, and they couldn’t spend all of it in bed. She wasn’t even sure if that’s what he’d had in mind. It was a romantic cabin, but maybe he just wanted to do some skiing before he broke her heart.

“Okay.” She made herself smile, refusing to be a downer.

Rafa pulled his ski clothes from his bag and tossed them on the bed. He started stripping down to change without even looking her direction. Emily let herself watch for a few seconds, admiring the fine way his shoulders tapered to his waist. Scars covered his right side, a patchwork of pink and white. A bigger, uglier scar ran down the left side of his back, a jagged white ribbon on his olive skin.

“Can you talk about how you got the big scar?” she asked.

“On the left side?” Rafa slid on his shirt and turned, buttoning his pants. “Training accident on the bomb range.”

“Oh.” She’d been expecting something more glamorous. Or maybe something more classified.

He shrugged. “We trained hard. Accidents happened. I was lucky that my pack took most of the impact.”

“Sounds like you’ve had bad luck with bombs.”

He pursed his lips. “You could say that.”

Emily felt silly as soon as the words left her mouth, but his reaction only heightened her embarrassment. It was supposed to be a relaxing, fun getaway, and she was starting it off by jamming her foot into her mouth and reminding her boyfriend of the attack that had nearly taken his life.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Not your fault. Come, you need to teach me how to ski.”

Emily grabbed her jacket and followed Rafa out to the front of the house. “Christa said the lift was checked out a few weeks ago, so we should be good. It runs most of the way up the peak, but we can stop somewhere closer for you.”

“That might be wise.”

In the front yard, Emily helped him get his bindings attached. The actual ski boot on his left foot was easy enough, but the blade was a little trickier. The toe of the blade fit snugly into the boot, but the curve had to be secured back onto the ski. In the store it had seemed easy, but with cold fingers and slick equipment, it took more work.

“If you fall and have trouble getting back on your feet, try unhooking the left boot first,” she said. She handed him his one lonely ski pole. “And don’t hesitate to tell me if you have trouble or there’s too much pressure on your knee. This is supposed to be fun, not painful.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He waited for her to snap into her skis, then pushed himself out into the yard.

Rafael on skis looked an awful lot like a duck on ice. He couldn’t quite steer with his one pole, and his right ski kept flapping out, dragging him off the line he wanted to follow.

“See if you can just angle the right ski inward,” Emily suggested. She stopped beside him, giving him a chance to adjust. “I think if you just snowplow with it at first, you can learn how to control the left ski more easily.”

They took their time working over to the ski lift. He made it with a few wobbles, but no falls. The real test would be up on the slope, though. He wasn’t the sort to be happy snowplowing down time and again, and she just hoped that the first time he truly had to plant and turn, the ski wouldn’t go flying. Or that his whole prosthesis wouldn’t go flying.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

The lift wasn’t much. A set of half a dozen simple chairs with a footrest for keeping the skis off the snow. The chairs looked to be evenly spaced on the lift, though she couldn’t see the top to be sure. The chairs only raised them a couple feet above the slope, but that worked out fine for her purposes. She didn’t want to go all the way to the top, anyway.

“When we stop, just jump off,” she said. “We can catch another chair at the bottom.”

The lift groaned into motion, carrying them along, up the mountainside. A cold wind blew down over them, nipping at their exposed skin. Emily let them get a few hundred yards up the slope before she hit the button to stop them. She waited for Rafa to hop off, then followed. The snow wasn’t a great powder, but so early in the season it wasn’t surprising. She glanced up at the clouds still building overhead. If they didn’t get fresh snowfall by morning, she was going to be surprised.

Rafa made it about twenty feet before getting the skis turned the wrong way. She wasn’t sure exactly what he said, but it was Spanish and he didn’t sound happy. He ended up sliding a dozen feet on his left ski, then slamming down awkwardly, the prosthetic blade tangling and his right ski sliding on down the hill

“Are you okay?” Emily asked, retrieving his errant ski and cutting back upslope to help him up.

Rafa closed his eyes and nodded. “I’m making it.” He jabbed his ski pole into the snow and levered himself to his feet. Emily gave him his ski and stooped, helping him get it into place.

“That feel okay?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

He set his feet and snow plowed all the way down the hill. Emily cut back and forth behind him, all her normal enjoyment sucked out by Rafa’s obvious discomfort. She wasn’t entirely sure he was telling the truth about the pain, but he definitely didn’t look like he was having any fun.

She slid to a stop, taking care not to be flashy about it or to spray him with snow. “Do you just want to go back inside? We can try again tomorrow.”

Rafa stood up straighter, smiling grimly. “I’m fine.” He pushed off toward the lift.

As they rode up the lift the second time, Emily spotted Christa’s car coming down the lane toward the cabin. “There’s Christa and Paul,” she said.

Rafa breathed a sigh of relief.

“We can get off here,” Emily offered, stopping the lift.

Rafa hopped down without a word. He angled for the house, his sky blue and cream ski jacket slumping at the shoulders. “I could really go for a hot drink.”

Emily cruised along beside him. “Me, too.”

A few drinks, a little music and who knew, maybe she could get him into bed early.

R
AFA 
wrapped his left hand around his coffee mug, savoring the heat. Emily tipped in an ounce or so of brandy and waited for him to sip it. It burned wonderfully on the way down, the heat and the alcohol both.