Chapter 11
NICK
We’d driven for a couple of hours in near silence.
I didn’t need constant noise or chatter.
In fact, I preferred to have occasional quiet so parts of my brain could wander while I focused on the task at hand, which right now was putting distance between us and the ex.
I’d decided to allow Cara to take the lead on when and whether we talked.
But after nothing more than a few polite responses about whether she wanted to turn on some music or make a pit stop, my concern was vetoing my rationality.
When I saw signs for a scenic overlook, I took it.
Half a mile later, I pulled the car to a stop on a deserted, packed-earth parking strip.
“Walk with me?” I asked.
She nodded, but waited for me to get out and come around the passenger side before opening the door.
She took my hand when I offered it and stood beside me, then leaned against me.
I slid my arms around her, offering her support, both physical and emotional.
She turned toward me and burst into tears against my shoulder.
I held her as she clung to me. Her crying was nearly as quiet as our ride had been, punctuated with occasional raspy, shaky breaths. I waited for the worst of it to pass. When I felt her relax, I finally spoke. “Did he scare you?”
“No.” She stayed in place, her head resting on my shoulder.
I fought the urge to pull her tighter, to press every inch of my body against hers. My heart raced as I asked the obvious follow-up question because the possibility made me equal parts pissed off at myself and worried, which didn’t even make sense. “Did I scare you?” I whispered.
“Absolutely not.” She pulled back far enough to look up at me. “I’ve never had a guy zip-tie someone for me before. It was fucking awesome. Frigging awesome. Sorry.”
I threw my head back and laughed. She smiled, but didn’t get the joke.
“You can say “fuck” around me,” I explained. “I was cleaning up my language in case you found the word offensive.”
Now she grinned wider. “It is offensive. That’s the point.” She took a step back as she laughed and wiped her eyes.
I’d dropped my arms the second she’d put distance between us, and I already missed holding her. Shit. That was not a good sign.
“Now that I know I don’t have to use grandma-speak around you,” she continued,” let me just say what we’re both thinking: my ex is a world-class fucker.
” She shook her head. “That didn’t sound quite right because actually he wasn’t very good.
..” She shook her head again and this time blushed the tiniest bit.
Damn, that looked adorable.
“What I’m trying to say is thank you for standing up for me,” she said.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.” I motioned to one of the picnic tables set up to enjoy the view and we walked over and sat down.
The panorama was a stark desert landscape with scattered islands of massive red rocks jutting up through the barren ground.
Beautiful in its own way. And peaceful. And somehow haunted, but maybe that was just me.
Cara’s gaze was riveted to the desert in front of us.
“I wasn’t crying over him, by the way. I was just so frustrated, and.
.. furious, I guess.” She turned to look at me.
“I mean, how dare he, right? First, he dumped me, then he spent months...” She pressed her lips together like she didn’t want to say the words.
“Stringing you along. Taking advantage of your vulnerability. Being a real piss-ant.”
That made her laugh again. God, I could get used to that sound.
“I would have said asshole,” she said, “but I appreciate your grandma-friendly version as well. Honestly, I’m angrier at myself than him.
Seeing him today made it so obvious to me that there’s nothing between us.
I don’t miss him. I haven’t missed him for the forty days since I blocked him. Why didn’t I see that sooner?”
I let out a long sigh. I wasn’t sure I was ready to share anything about my past mistakes with her, but when did I ever care to share those?
Since it was for a good cause, which was helping out a good woman, I bit the bullet.
“By the time I was your age, I’d been married, divorced, and sleeping with my ex for a year. ”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. “I did not see that coming. I have so many questions. What...? How...”?
“We met when I was 22 and she was 23. I was in a bad place, and she made me feel better. Simple as that. She had her own shit, her own reasons for getting married six months after meeting.” I stared out over the vast desert.
My marriage had been a bit like the view.
Long stretches of heartbreak with scattered islands of joy.
“The first six months were okay, sometimes great. Then I shipped out for a new assignment. Neither of us was cut out for long-distance, at least not at that age. So, six months later, when I got home on leave, she served me with papers.”
“And then at some point, you started... I mean, how did you decide to keep seeing each other?”
I let out a small laugh. “There was no decision. We started down that path before the ink was dry on the divorce decree, and every time I was back in the area, we hooked up. Sure, we were using each other for sex, but it was more than that. It was familiar. Comfortable. It let us be divorced without really grieving the loss of our marriage.”
She nodded. “I can see that. It took blocking Riley forty days ago to really start letting go. That’s how I was able to feel nothing today.”
“Forty days?”
She’d mentioned the number twice.
She frowned. “Yes, I’m counting. When I made that decision, I hadn’t heard from him for twenty-three days and I realized I was anxiously awaiting his call, which always came three or four weeks after the last time I’d seen him.
I woke up one morning feeling like I’d had a nightmare, and realized this was our new normal.
When the hell had I agreed to that? I’d gone from live-in girlfriend to once-a-month booty call, and I’d never agreed to that!
” She blew out a quick breath. “Yeah, I haven’t let go of the anger yet. ”
“Anger is a much-maligned emotion. Handled correctly, it can be a really good thing. I think you should be angry at that frigger for as long as you want.”
“Frigger?” She laughed like I’d hoped she would, with her blue eyes crinkling and her pink lips parting to show her straight white teeth.
Damn, I wanted to kiss her. Which was my cue to go. “We should probably get back on the road.”
She nodded, but didn’t stand. “Can I ask you something first? Totally unrelated to the Riley situation.”
“Okay.” I prepared myself for questions about my marriage or divorce or ex-wife.
“Why do you hate Christmas?”
That blindsided me and I sat there in shock for a few beats, which was not my usual response to anything.
“I know a little about your job,” she said quickly, “that you sometimes join emergency response teams in the field, and Mason told me you work a lot of holidays so I’m sure you see awful things.”
I understood the leap her mind had made, but she had it backwards.
“I volunteer for a lot of Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays so the people with families can have off.” It wasn’t the only reason, but it was enough for now.
“That’s not why my relationship to Christmas is complicated, but that’s a story for another day.
I can tell you that some of my proudest moments on the job have come from successes on those fraught days.
Like this past Thanksgiving. We saved a mother and three kids under the age of ten. ”
I didn’t mention the wannabe family annihilator who’d held them at gunpoint for six hours.
He’d lived, too, although he was still in the ICU from the winging he took from one of our sharpshooters.
I didn’t give a fuck about him, other than wanting him to receive the harshest punishment our justice system would allow.
Cara smiled. “So, you’re a real-life hero. And not just mine.”
Her last words made my heart trip over itself. “Not a hero,” I said quickly. “Just doing my job as part of a team. I’m not even one of the front-line guys. I’m there to advise the bomb squad in case we run into potential booby-traps.”
“Wow. Sounds heroic to me. Sorry, you’re going to have to live with my assessment of you.
” She reached across the table and laid her hand on top of mine.
Her gentle touch sent a shock of electricity through me.
Based on the way her eyes went wide, I guessed she’d felt it too.
“About that conversation for another day, I’m a good listener, too. ”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that at some point.”
For the first time in my life, I thought it might actually be true.
I might actually be able to trust her with a part of me that I’d encased in stone decades ago to keep it from destroying me.
I was smart enough to realize what that meant.
And the thought of being in so deep with a woman—a young woman—who was so off-limits was fucking terrifying.
“You’re sure about this?” Cara asked from the passenger’s seat. “You’re not too tired?”
“Positive,” I said as I sped past another Arizona highway mile marker.
“I’ll feel better making up some of our time and putting us farther away from your asshole ex.
And I wasn’t kidding when I said the Army taught me to sleep under any conditions.
Those three hours earlier while you drove made me feel like a new man. ”
“Yeah, when this seat is reclined, it’s pretty comfortable.”
She was a taller-than-average woman, I’d estimated about 5’7”, but when she snuggled down into the pillow and blanket nest we’d set up on the passenger seat, she looked small.
Defenseless. Vulnerable. Some Cro-Magnon part of part of me stirred in response to it and a surge of protectiveness rushed through me.
I stared ahead at the swath of road revealed by the bright headlights while my frontal cortex gave my lizard brain a good talking-to about modern humans and toxic masculinity.
“You can turn on music,” she offered. “Anything you like.”
“Maybe later, but I’m good for now. Sometimes, I like the quiet.”
“Okay, but don’t worry about waking me. Once I’m asleep, I’m out.”
“Noted,” I said. “I’ll be sure to crank the death metal to cover your snoring.”
“Hey, I don’t snore! At least, I don’t think so.”
“If you do, I’m sure it’s adorable.” I immediately wished I could snatch back the words, but they hung in the air between us.
“Do you really listen to death metal?” she finally asked, breaking the awkward silence.
“No,” I said. “I like some pop music from lots of eras. We’d probably find some common ground there. And singer-songwriters. The aughts were a great time for that. Cat Power, Norah Jones, Elliot Smith.”
She lifted her head. “You like Cat Power? You’re full of surprises, Nick Roman.”
I didn’t tell her about the music I loved most, the music my mother had taught me. That would really shock her.
A few minutes later, after I thought she’d gone to sleep, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Like I’ve already said, no need to apologize for the asshole ex. Not your fault.”
“You can call him Riley.”
“Nope, not going to show him the respect of using his name. He’ll always be the asshole to me.”
“Thanks for that,” she said. “I wasn’t talking about him, though. I’m sorry for playing all those Christmas songs. I wish I would have realized sooner that they’re triggering for you.”
Being called triggered was a new one for me.
It didn’t fit, but I appreciated the sentiment.
“Thanks for saying that, but it wasn’t all bad.
I’d actually missed a few of the songs.” It was true, but I hadn’t realized it until that moment, talking quietly with Cara in that dark car, feeling like there was no one else in the world.
“Just a few, like George Michael’s Last Christmas. ”
“Love that one,” she said.
“Of course you do. It’s from the eighties.”
“One thing about avoiding Christmas songs for years is you’ve probably missed the hundreds of bad covers of Last Christmas. Consider yourself lucky.”
“Noted,” I said. “And I like the Mariah Carey one.”
“All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
I knew she was quoting the song title, but her words gave me a cheap thrill. Christ, I was hard up. Or maybe it was worse than that.
“Any other songs?” she asked.
“There was one on your playlist this morning. A newer group, kids. I can’t remember the name but I think they’re brothers.”
“The Jonas Brothers?”
“That’s it.” I glanced over to see her peering at me with half-open eyes.
“Those kids are in their thirties and they’ve been around like twenty years.” She closed her eyes. “Geez, are you forty-one or ninety-one?”
I grinned. “Some days, could go either way.”
She’d been quiet for a few minutes and I thought she’d drifted off to sleep when she spoke again. “Hey, old man, I like you.”
I glanced at her. “I like you, too, kid.”
Her eyes were closed as she said, “I mean like like you. Inappropriately like you.”
I blew out a long breath as I stared out at the dark road ahead of us. “Same,” I whispered, but I was pretty sure she was out cold and didn’t hear it.
I had to be honest with myself and admit my feelings were at least half the reason I would rather drive all night than check into a hotel with Cara.
Getting us safely to Maryland as quickly as possible was now the mission.
Because the more time we spent together with all this inappropriate liking going on, the greater the possibility that one or both of us would act on it.