Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
SAGE
The digital numbers on the microwave blinked, marking the passing of another minute.
I knew he was going to be late. He’d told me as much when I’d gone to the control room five hours ago to see if he was ready to leave. But I hadn’t expected him to be this late.
“Got a lot of shit to do here, Shortcake,” he’d said, not bothering to pull his eyes from the computer long enough to look at me. “Gonna be late. If you’d rather just stay at your place tonight, I get it. If not, you’ll be waiting for a while.”
I swallowed down what felt like a wad of cotton drying my throat. “I don’t mind waiting,” I said, trying to look calm and collected as he gave me a shrug in response, but it hurt like hell.
Just push through, Sage. Just push through. He was just having a bad day, nothing I hadn’t seen before.
I left work and headed straight for his place, still planning to go through with everything to make this a good night for him.
I’d burned through a good chunk of my paycheck on Xander’s gifts.
Finding a Harley Davidson store in Richmond, I bought Xander a new pair of motorcycle boots since his were worn out.
I got him some new tees and a couple sweaters as well, but it was my main gift that I was proudest of.
A couple weeks back when the weather had been a little nicer, Xander had taken me out on his bike.
We went to that spot near the cliff he’d shown me on our first ride.
The sun had been setting, casting the sky above the valley in vibrant pinks, yellows, and oranges.
I wasn’t sure what had driven me to do it, but I’d been standing behind him at the time, and when I looked up from doing something on my phone, the sight in front of me had taken my breath away.
I’d quickly snapped a picture with my cell, and it turned out better than I could have dreamed.
The sky was stunning, the valley below peaceful, but my favorite thing about the picture was that just to the left near the bottom, Xander was standing right next to his motorcycle, staring out at the gorgeous view.
I’d paid an arm and a leg to get it blown up as big as possible without ruining the quality and printed on canvas, then I found a frame made of rough, raw wood that fit in with his cabin perfectly.
The picture was totally beautiful and totally biker all at once, and I couldn’t wait for him to unwrap it.
But the gifts weren’t all there was. I’d gone to the butcher and bought the finest steaks they had. I was preparing them with au gratin potatoes, green beans with slivered almonds, and homemade biscuits—a recipe I’d gotten from my granny on my dad’s side before she passed away when I was thirteen.
He’d mentioned once in passing that he liked peach cobbler but hadn’t eaten it in years, so I’d gone all out on dessert, making one from scratch, even going as far as to blanch and skin fresh peaches instead of using canned.
It had all been a pain in the ass—I wasn’t the best cook—but in the end, everything had turned out great.
Then it all went cold.
I waited as long as I could before my stomach’s protest finally won out. I made myself a plate and ate dinner by myself at Xander’s kitchen table.
At ten thirty, I’d given up the ghost, and with a sore, deflated heart, I’d packed everything up and put it in the fridge.
By eleven the pain was still there, but it had dulled as my anger came into play. I mean, would it have killed him to shoot me a text to at least give me an idea when he’d be home?
Moving from the kitchen to the living room, I looked to where Bear was lying on the couch and grumbled, “Your daddy can be a real asshole sometimes.”
Bear’s tail thumped against the cushion once in understanding. He’d been around Xander long enough, I was sure he already knew the guy could be an asshole when he wanted to.
I curled up next to the sweet pup and turned on the TV, flipping mindlessly through the channels until I found something that caught my attention.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, staring unseeing at the television before the chill in the house got to be too much.
The temps outside had dropped again, going from cold to downright frigid.
It had been years since I lived in Tennessee, but the senses I’d developed there had never gone away.
It felt like snow was coming, and if I hadn’t been consumed with worry over Xander’s behavior today, I would have been giddy with anticipation.
Getting off the sofa, I headed for the closet near the front door in search of a blanket I could snuggle under while I waited for Xander to get home.
It was a hodgepodge of stuff, random items thrown inside the closet like it was a catch-all for the items Xander didn’t feel like putting up. Everything from jackets to boots to miscellaneous boxes were crammed inside.
He wasn’t exactly a neat freak, but from what I’d been able to tell, he at least kept the cabin tidy, so this closet was a bit of a surprise.
I shuffled stuff around, managing to locate a fuzzy-looking quilt on the top shelf. Standing on my tiptoes thanks to my limited height, I strained to reach the blanket. I finally caught it with the tips of my fingers and latched on, giving it a yank to get it down.
“Shit,” I yelped, jumping out of the way as the quilt unfolded and a small metal box came crashing to the ground with a loud clatter.
The box looked old, dented and rusted with serious age. The latch had popped up and the hinged lid swung open, spilling the contents all over the floor.
I dropped to my knees to gather everything, flipping the box right side up, and froze solid.
Lying face up was a picture of a younger-looking Xander holding a beautiful blonde woman in his arms. She was wearing a puffy, princess-type wedding dress and he was in a classic tux.
He still had a beard in the photo, but it was nothing compared to now.
It looked to be only about a week or two’s worth of growth.
His hair was much shorter, brushed back from his face in a casual, yet sexy way.
My heart throbbed at the sight of him in that photo.
Not just because he looked breathtaking in a tuxedo, which he did, or because this was a picture of the man I’d fallen in love with on his wedding day, but because the expression on his face was so open and blissfully happy, it stole my breath.
The woman was standing with her front against his side, her hand resting casually on his chest while his arm was looped around her back.
She was gazing up at him with a dreamy, adoring expression, but it was his face that captured my attention and refused to let it go.
While his new bride was looking at him, Xander was facing the camera with the biggest, brightest smile on his face.
The smiles he’d given me that I’d been mentally tallying for weeks were nothing compared to the smile in this picture.
It was a smile that said he was holding his life in his arms and he couldn’t have possibly been happier. There were no shadows, no darkness, no demons.
Just pure, unadulterated happiness.
The differences between him then and now were so extreme it hurt to look at the picture any longer, so I moved it aside.
The next photo showed the same Xander as the one before, but in this one he was standing with five other men, all of them in desert camo and combat boots, with shades covering their faces.
A picture from his time in the service.
There was a Humvee behind them and desert sand at their feet. All of them were grinning huge, even the few who were flipping off the camera, and all of them were holding big ass guns.
The shot showed so many things, it showed brotherhood, loyalty, comradery. It showed these men were tight, they were important to each other, so I couldn’t understand why it was tucked away in a beat-up box, along with a photo of his wife.
Then I dug around some more.
I found five sets of dog tags, each with names of men I hadn’t heard before.
A sick feeling hit my stomach, burning like acid as I flipped the picture around.
There on the back in Xander’s handwriting were six surnames, including Caine.
The other five matched the tags. I could only think of one reason Xander would have these.
The last item that had been in the box was a small clipping from a newspaper roughly six inches long and two and a half inches wide.
The woman in the grainy black and white photo that took up the top half of the clipping was the same woman from the wedding photo. Xander’s wife.
I looked below and began to read the text.
Rebecca Lindsey Caine, loving wife and friend went to be with her Lord on . . .
That was as far as I got before I had to stop. I couldn’t take it anymore.
An obituary.
This wasn’t a box of fond memories. It was a box of his past. The past he refused to talk about. The memories in this box were the source of his shadows.
It was full of love and pain and loss; knowing Xander had experienced so much heartache ripped me to shreds.
I felt the tears hit my eyes just before they started sliding down my cheeks, and I stared at the items on the floor until my vision went blurry.
Then I tucked the dog tags and clipping back into the box.
I closed the lid, flipped the latch down and set it on the coffee table.
I went back for the photos and the blanket and returned to the couch, wrapped myself up, and stared at the Xander of the past, the Xander who hadn’t experience unbelievable loss.
I stared at those two photos as the tears continued to fall, until my eyelids grew so heavy I couldn’t keep them up any longer.
I fell asleep with wet on my cheeks and those pictures clutched in my hands, grieving the loss of six people I didn’t know and one I did, because the Xander from the past was most definitely gone.
And I didn’t know if I’d ever be enough to bring him back.
“What the fuck is this?”