A Soldier's Honour

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A scream lodged in her throat, she raced toward the front door. She heard Matt shout, prodding Caleb into a run as the rapid popping sounds of gunfire chased them. The door opened and Caleb tumbled inside, onto the slate foyer, with Matt practically on top of him. The stained-glass window at the top of her oak front door dissolved in a shower of colorful, glittering splinters.

“Get down!” Matt shouted. He slammed what remained of the door closed with his foot. “Move, move.” He urged them back, deeper into the house, closer to the protection of the dining room.

“Caleb!” Bethany dropped to the floor, checking him for injuries. “Are you hit?” What on earth was going on? This wasn’t a drive-by shooting sort of neighborhood. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine,” he promised.

The coppery tang of blood stung her nose and her hand came away sticky and smeared with blood. “You’ve been shot,” she insisted. “Where?” She reached for his clothing, searching for the wound.

Vaguely, as if she’d been packed in cotton, she heard Matt calling 911, relaying her address and the incident, including details of the car.

“Not me, Mom,” he insisted. “It’s Matt.” Caleb squirmed out of her reach, heedless of the glass scattered across the floor. “Gotta be.”

No. The world couldn’t be so cruel as to give her son his father and take him away again in the same day. She ignored the slivers of glass biting into her hands and knees as she followed. Matt had pulled himself to a seated position against the wall across from the door.

“How bad?” she asked, lifting away the jacket he’d pressed to his side.

“Grazed.” He sucked in a breath as she looked for herself. “Burns a little, that’s all.”

He wasn’t simply being stoic. High on his left side, his shirt was torn, the fabric scorched by the bullet and stained with his blood. “Not too bad,” she agreed. “Caleb, go get the first-aid kit.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stay away from windows,” Matt called after him.

“You think they’ll come back around?”

He shrugged, winced. “Better to be safe...” His voice trailed off as his gaze locked with hers.

She didn’t need him to finish the familiar idiom. Silently, she vowed that whoever had fired a gun at their son would be the only party feeling sorry about this particular incident.

Caleb returned and knelt beside them, the first-aid kit in hand, along with clean dish towels. “Need a bowl of water?”

“That would help,” she said.

He nodded and scrambled off again.

“He’s great,” Matt said as she unbuttoned his shirt so she could get to the wound. “Amazing.” He reached out and stilled her hands. “You’re an incredible mom. It shows in him.” His golden-brown eyes glowed with gratitude and something more she didn’t want to consider just now.

“Thank you,” she murmured. It was hard to look at him when he stared at her that way, with something that went deeper than simple affection, compassion or pride. How could fifteen years have passed and yet that look still held such sway over her heart and her emotions?

She should say something more, but the apologies she owed him got tangled between her mind and her mouth and once more went unspoken.

“You look great,” he said.

She couldn’t handle more compliments right now. “You must have hit your head.” Flustered, she returned her attention to the wound.

Caleb rushed back, water sloshing over the sides of the bowl he carried. She didn’t care. Floors dried and she was far too grateful for the distraction. Carefully, she cut away his undershirt and he leaned back, bracing on his opposite arm to give her better access.

Her first impression of him outside held true. He was still in prime shape, his muscles heavier and his build a bit wider now than he’d been at twenty. An overall maturity, she reminded herself.

She washed the wound and Caleb handed her folded gauze pads that she pressed close to stem the bleeding. “Not sure stitches will help,” she said.

“They won’t,” he agreed, straining for a look. “Just tape it up.”

“Police are here.” Caleb tipped his head toward the dining room, where red and blue lights gave the room a strange strobe-light effect.

As he spoke, someone knocked on the busted front door. “Police department,” a man’s voice declared.

Caleb jumped up to answer, but Matt grabbed his arm, held him back. “Let me.”

With one hand holding the in-progress bandage to his ribs, he muttered a low curse as Bethany helped him stand up.

Another hard knock rattled the door in its frame. “Police!”

“Yeah, just a second,” Matt replied. “Go on back to the—”

“It’s my house,” Bethany interrupted. There was chivalry and then there was stupidity. He was hurt, not badly, but enough that it mattered. She angled in front of him.

“Beth,” he warned.

He’d been the only person in her life to call her that. And he hadn’t spoken the nickname that way since she refused his first proposal of marriage. Oh, how she missed this man.

“My house,” she repeated and opened the door to a uniformed officer, who was ready to pound on the barrier once more.

“Ma’am,” he said at once. “Officer Baker, Cherry Hill Police Department. Are you safe?”

“Yes, we are now. A car drove past and someone fired a gun at my son and his father.”

The officer was looking at the damaged door, the scattered bits of colored glass behind them. “Are you injured?” He dipped his chin toward her, the bloodstains on her hands and clothing. “An ambulance is on the way.”

“My son and I are fine. Nothing more than a few scrapes and splinters. This is from Caleb’s father. He was grazed by a bullet.”

“May I come in?”

She opened the door enough for him to see the full extent of the damage. He motioned for his partner to join him. Convinced he wasn’t a threat, she made a note of the names and badge numbers anyway, inviting him and his partner into the dining room. It was the closest seating option and, on some wobbly emotional level, it helped her to keep this chaos from spilling into the parts of the house she and Caleb enjoyed most.

She pulled the curtains closed over the window, her only capitulation to the fear rattling through her. The shooter was gone and the danger had passed, but the chills were just starting. As the three of them gave their statements, she didn’t hold out much hope that the driver and the gun-wielding passenger would be found.

All of them remembered the car as a dark, four-door sedan. Matt gave them the probable make, though none of them had caught even a glimpse of the license plate.

No, her security system didn’t have a camera facing the street. No, Caleb didn’t have friends with guns or friends in gangs. No, she hadn’t seen the car before. No one new had moved in recently. No, no, no. The questions only underscored the pervasive sense of helplessness in the air.

At the buzzing of the oven timer, she seized the opportunity and dashed away to take the Greek chicken out of the oven. Matt’s voice drifted after her as he answered more questions.

His voice had changed as well, deep and mellow. That solid, sturdy sound had always made her want to lean in close and accept the support he offered. One more reason she’d kept her distance since Caleb’s birth. Better to avoid temptation than risk her willpower snapping like a weak thread.

She’d always been weak where Matt was concerned.

“Mom?” Caleb wandered into the kitchen. “You okay?”

“Sure.” She smiled at him. “Just debating how best to keep this hot.” She covered the baking dish with two layers of aluminum foil and set it at the back of the stove top.

“Matt gave me the get-lost look,” Caleb whispered. “He wants us to stay in here.”

She bristled, as she’d done when he wanted to answer her door. Yet, he was the one injured and he’d had the best look at the car. He was also a major in the US Army. What he said would carry more weight with the authorities.