CHAPTER 5
“I’m a complete buffoon around him, Cora!”
Cora laughed so loud, Lainey had to pull the phone away from her ear. “You like him. You really like him. Your body knows what your brain won’t admit.” She giggled. “So, Lainey Lane, how was the kiss?”
Lainey moaned from her throat. “So good, I’m probably pregnant,” she replied sarcastically.
Cora burst out laughing again. “I’m so happy for you, Sis.”
“He’s probably leaving at the end of the year anyway. I’m not being rational about this,” she said, sliding hangers in her closet, picking something to wear to work.
“Lain, you need to live a little. No great tryst ever started with someone being rational. Calm down. It’s not like you’re really going to marry this man. He’s only a guy you get your feet wet with, so you can jump in and get back out there.”
“You’re right, I just feel like I’m cheating on Geoff.” She looked at their wedding photo on her dresser.
“You’re not! You know that. Geoff died far too soon, yet you won’t be forty for a few more years! You’re still young, and no one expects you to live the rest of your life alone.”
“I know. It’s just hard. This wasn’t the plan.”
Cora’s voice softened. “I know, Sis. Sometimes life happens to you, and other times life happens for you. Maybe Robert’s a little gift from the universe just for you, just for now.”
“You’re right. I need to look at it like that. I need to go with the flow.”
“I gotta run and make sure the boys brush their teeth before school.”
Lainey could hear dishes clanging. “Yes, me too. Love you.”
“Love you too, Lain. And let me know how Thursday’s date and that second earth shattering kiss goes,” she giggled.
Lainey sighed, “I don’t think I should kiss him again.”
“Oh please! You should, and you will. Later Sis.”
* * *
In the darkness of fifteen past oh-two-hundred hours, they watched the boy doze off.
“Go time,” came across Robert’s earpiece from the spotter.
Wearing a dish dash concealing his M-16, he rushed up with another ISA Unit member and yanked the AK out of the boy’s grasp.
Holding his hand over the boy’s mouth. Robert said in Dari: “Do what we say and we won’t hurt you.
” The boy was maybe fifteen. His eyes were wide, black saucers for pupils looking up over his covered mouth.
Robert repeated in Dari what he’d just said. The boy nodded this time.
The house his ISA Unit had approached was on the outskirts of Kabul. The kid was posted as a guard at the main door, but had fallen asleep on the front stoop. They’d surveilled the house for the past five days, and intel finally confirmed the senator’s daughter was among the hostages inside.
His counterpart held up a picture of the nineteen-year-old girl, and Robert demanded in Dari, “Take us to her.” The boy nodded. He pressed the barrel tip of his M-16 into the back of the boy’s neck, pushing him to lead the way into the primitive structure.
The fifteen-year-old led them down a corridor.
The floor was dirt, and the walls like stucco.
Only the moonlight seeping through windows illuminated the way.
Three other Unit members followed and cleared paths when the boy pointed in the direction to go.
They made barely any noise as they swiftly maneuvered.
He led them down dirt stairs, and with a tactical flashlight they chose their steps carefully as they went into a cellar. On the other side of a bolted door, they found them. The beam of his light lit up three women and a man, all hog-tied, naked, bruised, and beaten.
While the other Unit members covered the entrance, Robert shined his light on each of the hostage’s faces. They all shuffled about.
The man didn’t move. He had been beaten so badly his eyes were swollen shut and his nose broken. Robert knelt and checked for a pulse, but the man’s skin was cold. There was no heartbeat.
He moved on to the next. A woman with dirt caked, matted hair. Her bruised, naked body flinched when he came close. She was bloody from every crevice and had obviously been beaten and raped. He had to take an extra moment to study her swollen face, but it was her, the senator’s daughter.
He whispered. “Lyla?” She nodded some, but her eyes remained shut. “We’re Americans. We’re here to take you home.” When he said that, her eyes snapped open.
Robert sat up in bed, out of breath, his shirt soaked with sweat. Another bad dream, reliving the operation that made him drop out of the Activity Unit he’d worked so hard to join.
It’d been two and a half years since that mission, but it still haunted him. He got up and poured a glass of water. It was two-am. His alarm would go off in an hour anyway, so he went ahead and changed into his PTs.
He tied his laces and hit the street in front of his apartment building. He was going for a short run this morning, only two miles.
He thought of Lainey Wickham to clear his mind. Her soft lips, those long legs. She was way out of his league and far from army life, which he loved. She was pure and beautiful. And the reason men went to war.
She wasn’t part of his plan for being in Kansas, but she was a welcome distraction.
Robert drove to Chapman, located between Fort Riley and Abilene, as the sun rose. His dad greeted him at the back porch door, and Robert figured he’d heard his truck pull in the driveway. “Morning, Son.”
He walked up the back steps and held up a paper sack. “I stopped at the convenience store and picked you up a sausage egg sandwich.”
“I just started the coffee.” His father smiled. “Your mother should be up soon.”
Robert followed him into the kitchen. His father took the sack, and Robert helped himself to a mug in the cabinet.
The coffee maker beeped, and he poured two cups of coffee and joined his father at the kitchen table.
“The weather’s supposed to be nice today, so I thought I’d clean the gutters for you. ”
His dad flipped the channels between the local news and an old western on the little television in the kitchen. “Rebecca’s husband was going to do it this coming weekend, so that’ll take it off his list.”
“Good.” Robert took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “He can work through whatever honey-do list Rebecca has for him at their place. I’ll fix the wood rot on the backside of the porch today too.”
“I think I have a can of the house color in the garage somewhere. I’ll help,” his dad said.
“Good morning, Robert,” his mother said, coming around the corner in her pajamas and slippers.
“Morning, Ma.”
“What’s that?” she motioned to her husband taking a bite out of the paper-wrapped breakfast sandwich.
“What?” he replied with a full mouth.
“Those things are high in sodium, Dan,” she shook her head and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Mom, one little indulgence here and there will not kill him,” Robert protested.
She joined them at the table and patted Robert’s hand. She smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. Have you spoken to Macy? How’s this first semester going for her?”
“I talked to her yesterday for only a minute. I caught her between classes, and she said Calculus is already kicking her butt.”
“She’s a smart kid, like you were,” his mother said.
“Yeah, but she seems to be a little less...”
“Wild?” his dad asked sarcastically.
His mother giggled, “You had a lot of energy and running to get out of your system.”
Robert finished up the gutters and was retrieving a piece of siding from his truck for the wood rot job when his sister’s SUV pulled in. “Whatcha doing, Robert?” Rebecca said, getting out of the car.
“Tell your hubby to take the gutters off his list. I just finished cleaning them out.”
She nodded, “Thanks.” She was wearing scrubs. He figured she was on her way to work. She was a nurse practitioner at the doctor’s office in town. “I’m dropping off Mom’s Dutch oven I borrowed. Have you talked to Macy? How’s this first semester going?”
“She’s good. Having a little trouble with Calculus.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re making the effort.”
He dropped the board on the grass. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His older sister never minced words. “You’ve seen the girl a handful of times in her twenty-two years of existence. It must be nice to have a father who’s in the same state now. That’s all,” she shrugged.
He shook his head. “What’s your problem?”
“You said you’d be here for two years, and that’s about to end. I’m wondering where in the world you’re running off to next? You might be here physically every ten weeks and a Sunday here and there, but you’re not fully here, are you?”
“Rebecca,” he sighed. “What do you want from me? I took a pay cut to come here. Will this guilt trip ever end?”
She raised her hand defensively. “It’s fine. I’ll leave a message next time Dad or Mom has a health scare. When you make it stateside, you can call me and see if they’re still alive or if you’ve missed the funeral yet.”
He placed his hands on his hips. “Seriously?”
She squared off to him. He towered over her, but she was still his older sister no matter how much bigger he was. “Listen,” she softened her tone, “I love ya, but it’s YOUR life you’re running to or from. You need to figure out which.” She turned and went inside.
* * *
“How was the date last night?” Emma asked nervously.
“It was good,” Lainey smiled. They had just finished counting their teller drawers.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I learned more about him. Did you know he speaks three different languages?”
Emma chuckled, “No. I wonder if Jake knows that?” She shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t surprise me though, Jake said he was the salutatorian of their class. If it weren’t for him knocking up the girlfriend, he’d probably have been the valedictorian.”
“I forgot to ask him about his daughter. But after you brought her up in that uncomfortable conversation at the steakhouse, I kind of felt she was off limits.”
“Was he a dick and weird again?”
“No, not at all. We’re actually going out again tomorrow night.”
“Really?”
Lainey shrugged. “He said he’d pretty much be unavailable for the next ten weeks with the new cycle of recruits coming, so,” she shrugged again as she shuffled deposit slips, “yeah, we’re going out again.”
“Yep, he gets Sundays off here and there during BCT and will come over to our place if there’s a game to watch.”
Lainey shook her head. “Okay, these acronyms? I’m totally lost. I went home last night and searched the internet for the ones I could remember he’d said.”
Emma laughed. “It’s a thing for sure in the military.
Being a cop’s wife, I had to learn what a few acronyms were too.
I couldn’t follow what Jake was telling me when I’d ask him how his day went,” she rolled her eyes.
“I do know that BCT is Basic Combat Training though.” A moment passed.
“Did Robert mention ISA or The Activity?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Lainey furrowed her brow. “Why?”
“It was something Jake mentioned. I think it was the division or unit in Army Intelligence Robert was in. But I don’t think he can really talk about what he did, because he’s pretty tight-lipped about his time in combat.”
“Now you’re freaking me out. Was he a spy or something?”
“No, Jake explained it to me as special assignments and taking orders directly from the Oval Office.”
“Really? That seems pretty important to give up and take a job as a drill sergeant?”
“I think it was a sacrifice to be closer to family.”
“From what I can tell, he could probably do anything he wanted. He’s very fit too.”
Emma shook her head. “He’s massive! I always make extra food when I know he’s coming over. I get it, though. Muscle takes fuel, especially all six feet four of his.”
* * *
Thursday was a hot early fall day. The Kansas summer came back for one more turn around the dance floor before bidding adieu. The leaves were turning shades of gold and amber, but the grass hung on to every bit of green it could.
Lainey acquired Sarah’s babysitting services once again, but told her she was checking out a book club and probably visiting with friends after. Sarah didn’t care one way or the other, but her mother, Monica, was a gossip. And Lainey didn’t want people at church knowing she was dating.
She suddenly thought of Robert with his full-sleeve Viking tattoo sitting next to her during Sunday service. Oh boy, necks would break and heads would roll if that ever happened.
Because of the warm weather, she found a short denim skirt to wear tonight with a bohemian red top and brown cowboy boots.
Robert had texted and wanted to take her to Salina.
They had more restaurants, and he found a bistro with live music on Thursday nights.
Lainey was all for it. Salina, which was only forty minutes away, would allow her to let her hair down.
Escaping Abilene and avoiding recognition as Geoff’s widow by people she may know, was most appealing.
They’d planned to meet at the library where she’d leave her car and jump in Robert’s truck with him.