The Way Home (18 page)

“So let’s get something clear. Your brother and I fought the same fight. I’m not here to disrespect him. I would never do that. And he would never disrespect Jess. Neither will you. Now, if you can’t man up and apologize to her, then walk out the door, and don’t come back until you figure out how to do the right thing.”

For several long moments, the men faced off. Hands clenched in fists. Legs spring-loaded and ready to pounce.

Jess watched with her heart in her throat.

Finally, Brad turned away. His face burned red with anger as he shouldered past her and stomped out the door.

She hadn’t even realized her heartbeat had accelerated until the speed of it made her lightheaded.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, horrified and mortified by Brad’s behavior. “I should have talked to him a week ago. Explained.”

“You’ve got nothing to explain. It’s your life, Jess. And you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. He, however, does. And he knows it. That’s why he’s so pissed.”

“That could have gotten so much uglier.”

He shook his head. “No. That wasn’t going to happen. We’d have taken it outside long before it ever came to blows.”

She hugged her arms around herself and shivered. “He loved his brother.”

“And seeing you move on with your life . . . it’s a grim reminder that J.R. is gone and he’s not coming back. I’m sorry, Jess,” he added softly. “I’m sorry he’s gone. But I’m so glad that I’m here.”

T
HAT NIGHT, AFTER
they’d made love, Jess sat in a chair in the corner of her bedroom, her knees tucked under her chin, and watched Ty sleep.

The worst possible thing had happened. What they had . . . it had become so much more than a fling. But then, she suspected she’d been fooling herself on that count from the beginning. Fooling herself into believing that she wasn’t going to fall in love with him.

But how could she not? How could she not love a man who shared her grief over losing her husband, who empathized and understood his brother’s anger, and who defended her honor without humiliating her attacker?

How could she not love a man who made her laugh and shingled her roof and made love to her as though she was
the end and the beginning of everything he wanted in his life?

She could no longer cling to her argument that he was just like J.R. That had been a weak prop from the get-go. J.R. had eaten, breathed, and drunk Army from the moment he’d put on the uniform. If he’d lived, he’d have been career. And he’d have been putting himself in harm’s way for as long as his CO would let him. Ty, while every bit as heroic, had clearly left that part of his life behind. She wasn’t going to lose him to combat—although the memory of the night she’d first met him, with his warrior face on, ready to lay it all on the line, was not something she’d soon forget.

So here she was. Falling in love. Trying not to regret it. Wondering where it would lead. Stunned to find herself in this position.

Quietly, so she wouldn’t wake him, she eased off the chair and back into bed. He stirred and turned and pulled her snugly against him, whispering her name in his sleep.

He’d lost as much as she had. Yet he had so much to give. So much life. So much joy. And although he hadn’t said the word, it was clear that if she gave him the right signal, he’d give her all the love she could possibly need.

A
WEEK LATER,
Jess watched Ty drive off to the airport to return to Florida long enough to take care of some pressing business. She missed him already.

“You know, that’s what I got you for, Bear.” She dropped down onto one knee and cuddled the dog close as Ty’s truck faded from sight. “To keep me company and make me laugh and keep my bed warm in the middle of winter. Look how well that worked out.”

But as she’d often realized during the past two months, a puppy wasn’t a man. And there weren’t many men like Tyler Brown.

Later that night, she slowly removed her wedding ring and tucked it inside her jewelry box.

Afghanistan, September

T
    
he cooking room stayed relatively
cool, the thick exterior walls blunting the effect of the afternoon sun. Rabia stood back in the shadows near the window, watching the walled courtyard and worrying that the
askar
pushed himself beyond what was wise.

He was still so thin and not yet well, but there was no getting him to stop the grueling exercises he called a workout. Such a stubborn man. A determined man. A man she could not help but admire for the stoic way he endured his injuries and the way he had willed himself off the poppy. She did not know many men who, once mired in the drug, had the strength to fight their way free. And she knew of no man who had suffered as he had during withdrawal and not begged for the relief a dose would bring.

He was also a kind man. Like her husband had been kind. But something had changed inside him the night on the roof when they had talked of his leg.

“I suspect your leg was once broken and did not heal well,” she said as he leaned on her for support.

“Bastards wouldn’t set it. They dumped me in that hole and . . .”

He had not said anything more. But she knew he had remembered something. When she had asked, he had insisted it was nothing. That the thought had made no sense.

He had not been truthful. Whatever memory had come to him had caused him much anguish, and he did not wish to share.

For many days after that, he had been sullen and silent. Now he was restless and driven to fight his way home.

She did not know how this would be possible, no matter how much of his strength he regained. The village was cut off from Internet and telephone lines, so they all relied on foot messengers passing from village to village. The latest report had arrived yesterday. Taliban patrols had doubled in the two months since the
askar
had escaped.

Find his way home? How? How did he plan to do that? She had no idea if there were any American forces left in the country. Before she had left Kabul, she had heard of the American draw-down and knew it was about to take place. The Americans had decided the ground had been washed with enough American blood.

She watched her
askar
as he sweated and strained. This ground had been washed with
his
blood. She did not want any more of it spilled.

“What American forces?” she had demanded when he had said he would find a way to reconnect with them. “There was once an American military post at the halfway point between here and Kabul. Even if it is still there, you could not get to it.
Messengers report that all roads in the province have Taliban checkpoints stationed every half-mile or so or over the next hill or bend in the road.”

She had told him all of this, and still he was determined to find a way.

The thought frightened her. Only because she had much time and care invested in him, she told herself. And because if he were captured, he would be tortured, and if he broke, the Taliban would then come after her and her father.

But this was only part of the truth. She had come to care too much. He reminded her with his presence what it was like to share a life, share a bed, and sometimes, foolishly, she wished he could be content to stay here.

Foolish. Impossible. But the thought came, unbidden, especially when she let herself look at him.

He was still so very thin. The meager meals she made for him and her father had added little weight to his bones. His eyes, however, no longer looked empty. He no longer seemed only a victim of the brutality and torture his scars suggested.

Today his chest was bare and slick with perspiration. His head and feet were also bare. He wore only the trousers she had given him. And looking at him like this, in secret, where neither he nor her father could watch her, she felt an ache low in her core that neither guilt nor prayer could deny.

His skin was burned brown from the many days he had spent in the courtyard, testing his strength until his limbs trembled and he could hardly hold his head up.

“What is that you do?” she asked one day as he had lain on a mat on the ground.

“Leg lifts. I’m up to ten sets of five. Slow, tedious.” He grunted and pushed himself to do yet one more. “Baby steps.”

“And what does this do for you except cause you to grunt and swear and make horrible faces?”

Her grumpiness had made him smile. “You don’t like my horrible faces?”

She had crossed her arms at her waist. And said nothing.

“It builds core muscle strength,” he’d explained. “I can’t do sit-ups, so this will have to do.”

She had watched him try to do his sit-ups. The dizziness had hit hard and fast. He had vomited violently, then lain very still for a very long time until the dizziness left him.

“Can’t do squats, either.” Because of his leg, she knew. “So I have to modify.”

He had asked for heavy rocks from the street, which he lifted over and over again above his head. At his request, she had found him a heavy iron bar that he had propped between the forks of two apple trees in the courtyard. Every day, he painfully and slowly chinned himself over and over again.

Ten nights ago, she had awakened to a noise outside and found him climbing the ladder to the roof.

“Why are you not sleeping?” she had whispered from the ground.

“Got to build my lung capacity. Can’t do this in daylight. And it’s the closest I can come to running stairs.”

Then he had proceeded to climb up and down and up and down, his leg clearly giving him pain. Finally, she could not stand watching anymore and had gone back to her bed.

Now here he was again. Pushing himself beyond his limits. She could not bear it any longer and stepped out into the courtyard. “I will not drag your carcass inside if you burn like meat on a spit out there in the heat.”

He stopped chinning and looked at her. Sweat ran down his
temples, slid down his neck, then trickled down his chest. “I promise it won’t come to that.”

“You are right. Because you must stop now. Evening meal will soon be ready. You must bathe. You cannot sit at my table covered in dust and sweat and smelling like a goat.”

He laughed out loud—a sound that, judging by the look on his face, surprised him. It surprised her, too. She had never heard him laugh. That she had been the cause for such a rich, deep expression of joy made her own heart swell with happiness.

“Yes, ma’am.” He touched his fingers to his forehead in salute. “I learned long ago, never piss off the cook.”

“Piss off  ? What does this mean?”

He laughed again, and she could tell it felt good to him, too. “It means I’m going to go clean up so you don’t hit me over the head with one of your cooking pots.”

This time, she smiled. “You are stubborn but wise. My pots are very big and very hard and very heavy.”

He was still smiling when she spun around and headed back inside.

And later, when he appeared again in the courtyard, smelling of soap and dressed in clean clothes like a proper Pashtun man, she could not help but wish it were so.

She had become accustomed to seeing him at her table, which was a cloth laid outside on the ground surrounded by cushions. Because of his bad leg, he could not sit cross-legged. Instead, he’d gotten as comfortable as he could, and as she had taught him, he had left his shoes at the front door and made certain he did not sit with his legs outstretched or his feet facing either her or her father—to do so would be an insult.