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Will knew she was right. But the dull headache he had now could become agonizing at any moment. And he felt more comfortable alone and in the dark. “I am death warmed over,” he joked.
Elly’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t say that. You have no idea what we’ve gone through, wondering if we were going to get the visit, never knowing where you were or if you were safe.”
Will cursed himself beneath his breath. Navigating the civilian world was impossible for him. A marine had to be emotionless, and he’d lived in that bubble for so long that now he had no idea how to relate to people anymore, not even his sister. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Jesus, how many times had he muttered those words since he’d been back? It was so much easier to isolate himself and avoid these kinds of missteps. Bombs were easier to defuse than human emotions.
“I just need a little more time,” he said. “It’s hard to adjust to being home. Hell, I’m not sure it’s even worth trying to adjust. As soon as I’m clear, I’ll head back to my unit.”
“Why can’t you be done? Just stop. Now.”
“It’s what I do,” he said. “I’m good at it.”
“You could be good at other things,” she said.
Will knew that wasn’t true. This past month had been enough to prove that civilian life wasn’t for him. And though his future in the military was still in doubt, he had every intention of finishing his tour and signing up for another.
He’d always wanted to be a marine. His father had been a marine, and his grandfather had been a submariner in the US Navy. Will had grown up with the stories about WWII and Vietnam, about honor and glory and serving with courage. Will had felt compelled to honor the family tradition.
His mother and sister had wanted him to wait to get his college degree. And Olivia had never accepted his plans, assuming he’d change his mind at some point or she’d change it for him. She’d never understood how deeply the military was etched into his DNA and he’d never been able to explain it to her.
“I’m going to pick up the boys at school and take them to hockey,” Elly said. “Jim is working late and we’re going to meet him for pizza after practice. You could come with us.”
In truth, all Will wanted to do was crawl back into bed and close his eyes. But Elly was right. He should at least make an attempt to socialize. After all, there was a possibility the doctors wouldn’t clear him to return to his unit and somehow he’d have to figure out how to belong in the land of the living again. “Give me a minute to get dressed,” he said, raking his hands through his hair.
Elly handed him the shirt and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
She waited for him in the rusty SUV while Will pulled himself together. It took him a while. Since the explosion, his brain had been scrambled and it took longer to sort out the steps in any task. The doctors had said it would become easier once the effects of the head trauma faded.
He spent five minutes searching for his sunglasses, then found them on the kitchen table, in plain view. He slipped them on as he stepped outside into the low afternoon light. Drawing a deep breath of crisp, clean air, Will paused to let his head clear before starting toward Elly’s truck.
As they drove into town, a country song started blaring from the radio. Wincing, Will reached out to turn it off and Elly glanced over at him. “Are you all right?”
“It’s just a little difficult to process noise,” he said. “It makes my head hurt.”
“I’m calling tomorrow to make another appointment for you at the VA. You were supposed to go when you arrived home and that was three weeks ago. You should—”
“They said it would take time,” Will interrupted. “It’s hardly been four months since the...accident. The doctors expect it to take at least twice that before I start to feel normal again.”
“What if it doesn’t get better?” Elly asked.
“Then I get a different MOS,” he said. “There are a lot of things I can do in the corps.”
“But not in Afghanistan?”
“I don’t know,” Will snapped, his irritation rising. He wasn’t sure he could survive a life outside of active duty. In the past three weeks, he’d felt as if he was moving through mud, all his senses slowing until he could hardly breathe. He craved the adrenaline rush of his job, the chaos that surrounded him every day, the pulse-pounding excitement of his work.
His dad had always said he’d never felt more alive than when he’d faced death as a soldier. He’d told Will that every man needed to experience these deeply held fears before he could gain perspective on the rest of his life. Strange how it was the exact opposite for Will. He’d learned to feed on his fear, to use it like a drug to numb his body and his mind. He didn’t feel alive. He was dead inside.
“You’ve got to find a new line of work,” Elly said, an edge of sarcasm coloring her words.
They drove into Calumet and headed toward the school. But Elly pulled over in front of the post office, then grabbed a package from the rear seat of the SUV. “Could you run that in for me?” she asked, reaching for her purse. She held out a ten-dollar bill.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A swimsuit. It was supposed to be for our vacation to Mexico in March, but I look like the great white whale in it. I hate winter. I get so...plump.”
“You’ve got to find a new place to live,” he said.
Elly laughed. “I’m going to run and grab a couple bottles of Gatorade for the boys. I’ll be back for you in five minutes.”
Will got out of the truck and walked up the front steps of the post office. When he got inside there were two people in line in front of him and he waited patiently, hoping no one would recognize him. But his hopes were shattered when the first person in line turned to leave and looked straight at him.
The world seemed to grind to a halt around him as he met her gaze. He held his breath, hoping she’d walk right by, but she stopped.
A tiny gasp slipped from her lips. “Will?”
She didn’t look anything like he’d thought she would. His memories of Olivia Eklund had been of a girl frozen at age twenty, young and fresh faced with copper hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. She still had copper-colored hair, but it was now streaked with blond and fell in soft waves around her face.
“Liv,” he murmured. The room felt as if it was tilted and he couldn’t keep his balance. God, she was stunning. She was, and always would be, the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.
“I—I heard you were home,” she said.
“Not for long,” Will replied. “I’m headed back. Soon. Real soon.”
“Oh,” she said, forcing a smile. “Well...”
“Yes,” he said, his gaze drifting down to her lips. He remembered what it felt like to kiss those lips, to taste the sweet warmth of her mouth. He remembered the first time he’d kissed her, on her fifteenth birthday. Will fought the temptation to pull her into his arms and discover whether his memories were accurate. Instead, he balled his hands into tight fists. “You look...good.”
Hell, she looked beautiful. Radiant. Gorgeous.
She smiled and shrugged. “You look...great.” Liv drew a deep breath. “I—I should go. It was great seeing you again. Take care, all right?” She hurried to the door and he watched as she stepped out into the cold.
When he turned back around, he found the postal clerk and the other patron watching him. He recognized them both. The clerk was a girl who’d graduated the year before him in high school and the patron was his old English teacher, Mrs. Paulis.
“Awkward,” Will said, forcing a smile. He spun and walked out of the lobby, Elly’s package still tucked beneath his arm. He waited outside in the cold, pacing a short stretch of sidewalk until Elly pulled up.
When he got inside, he tossed the package onto her lap angrily. “Did you set that up? Did you know she’d be there?”
“Who? Why didn’t you mail this?”
“Are you saying you had no idea she’d be there?”
“Kristina Olson?”
“No, Liv. Olivia was in the post office.”
Her eyes went wide. “Of course I had no idea she’d be in there. Jeez, Will, it’s a small town. You’re going to run into people you know. Get over it.”
“I’ve been over it for nearly ten years. And I don’t need you messing with my life. Just leave it alone.”
“Maybe you should stay holed up in that cabin. At least then you wouldn’t subject the rest of us to your paranoid delusions.” She grabbed the package and got out of the truck.
Will closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat, covering his eyes with his hand and cursing softly. All right, maybe this hadn’t been some grand plan of Elly’s to throw them back together. And maybe he’d acted like a first-class ass.
There was one thing he did know for sure: his heart was beating faster and his mind was suddenly sharp. He felt alive and aware for the first time since the explosion. And he suspected that it had everything to do with seeing Olivia again.
* * *
“SEE. IT’S AS good as new.”
Olivia took Benny Johansson’s right arm and examined it. “Yup, you’re ready to play hockey again,” she said, tapping on the plastic guard with her knuckles. “How does it feel?”
“Great,” Benny said.
“Then get to it,” she said. She waited until the seven-year-old skated out across the ice before finding herself a seat. She’d set Benny’s broken bone three months before, after Benny had gotten slashed with a hockey stick. After removing the cast a few days ago, Benny had invited her to his game and promised he’d dedicate his performance to Dr. Olivia.
“Liv?”
She glanced over to see Elly Winthrop making her way to a nearby seat. First Will and now Elly. Considering her personal life had been impossibly dull this winter, she wondered if it was about to take a turn. “Elly. Hey there. How are you?”
Elly made her away along Olivia’s row, then plopped down beside her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to see a patient. Benny Johansson. I set his broken arm.” Olivia laughed softly. “This is my social life—peewee hockey.” She paused. “I ran into Will earlier at the post office. It was kind of...odd.”
“Well, it’s about to get even more odd,” Elly said. “He’s here.”
“Here? Where?”
“Right back there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder.
Olivia twisted around and found Will standing near the doorway, staring at them both. Olivia drew a deep breath and stood. “He doesn’t look happy to see me. I’d better leave.”
“Why? He’ll just have to get over himself. Talk to him. He could use a friend. He’s been hiding out in our grandfather’s cabin for the past three weeks.”
“I’m not sure I could—”
“Try,” Elly said. “Please?”
Olivia waited as Will slowly made his way down to their seats. The moment he sat down, Elly jumped up and crawled over Will to the aisle. “I’m going to go check on the boys,” she said.
A long silence grew between them, and Olivia waited for Will to say something—anything. She finally decided to break the ice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were stalking me,” she teased.
She thought she saw the tiniest hint of a smile twitch at the corners of his lips. “If I wanted to stalk you, you’d never see me coming,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here on a date,” she said. He seemed taken aback and glanced around. “Benny Johannson. Age seven.” Olivia pointed to the boy. “Number seventeen for the Hawks.”
“You like them younger now?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ve run through all the six-year-olds in town and moved on to the seven-year-olds.”
Will laughed softly. “I should probably go find Elly.”
Olivia reached out and placed her hand on his arm. He glanced down, his gaze fixed on her fingers, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath he took. She knew he’d probably refuse the invitation, but she couldn’t help herself. He was wounded, and not just physically. “Would you like to get some dinner with me?” Olivia asked. “Maybe we could...talk?”
As he considered her offer, she silently prayed that he would refuse. She wasn’t ready to dredge up the past. And yet there were so many things that had to be said, so many injuries that had never healed. She felt compelled to set things right before he left again, which could be any day.
“No,” he finally said. “That would probably be a mistake. I—I’m pretty bad company these days.”
“Fine,” she said in a bright tone, standing up. “Of course. I understand.” She nodded, then reached into her pocket and grabbed her gloves. “It was lovely seeing you. Say goodbye to Elly for me?”
“I’ll do that,” he said.
For a long moment, she stared into his eyes, trying to read the emotion behind them. But she couldn’t find even a tiny crack in his icy blue gaze. “Take care,” she finally said.
As she turned to leave, she felt her knees go weak. He wasn’t the boy she remembered. Back then, they’d been playing at passion, pretending to understand the desire that moved them. But now she understood the dangers, and there was no doubt—Will MacIntyre was a dangerous man. Though he resembled her teenage sweetheart, there was a hard edge to him, as if all the warmth and affection were now hidden behind an impenetrable facade.
There’d been many times over the past nine years when Olivia had wished she’d ripped up that Dear John letter and changed the course of their history. He would have come home after one tour. They would have been together and made a life and a family. Instead, he’d put a half a world between them and she’d had to find other dreams.
She pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold. Snow had begun to fall, dusting the cars in the parking lot in a soft blanket of white. She found her SUV and circled it, brushing the snow off the windows with her hand.
When she came back around to the driver’s side, Olivia stopped short. Will stood next to her car, blocking her way. He had such a pained look on his face, she was afraid to say anything. And then, without speaking, he crossed the distance between them, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
This kiss was filled with every emotion she could imagine—anger, desire, regret, affection. Olivia couldn’t tell what it was supposed to mean, but when he pressed her back against the driver’s-side door, she stopped wondering and simply surrendered.
No, he definitely wasn’t a boy anymore. This was a man, sure of what he wanted and determined to take it. A man who was testing the limits of her passion with the heat of his mouth on hers.
He ravaged her with his lips and his tongue, as if searching for a deeper connection. He held her face between his gloved hands and molded her mouth against his until the last shred of Olivia’s resistance melted.
How could it still be this way? So much time had passed. But this wasn’t the same passion they’d shared so many years before. This was new and frightening in its power and intensity. He was a stranger and yet she knew him intimately.
As suddenly as the kiss had begun, it ended. He stumbled away and shoved his hands in his pockets, his breath clouding in front of his face. Olivia waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he spun on his heel and strode back toward the front doors of the ice arena.
She collapsed against the car and pressed her hand to her chest.
Mild tachycardia and disequilibrium. Early symptoms of hyperventilation.
It had been over a year since a man had kissed her and even longer since she’d had sex. Her strong physical reaction shouldn’t have come as a surprise. And yet it had.
For years, she’d looked back on her breakup with Will and felt nothing but regret. It had plagued her in those moments when she’d tried to imagine the life he lived, the dangers that surrounded him daily. And she’d sworn to herself that if she ever had the chance to set things right between the two of them, she would. She’d apologize and find a way to make him understand what had driven her to write the Dear John letter. And then she’d be able to finally let him go.
Before she could start after him, she heard a shout.
“Dr. Eklund!” Marcy Mackie was running toward her. “Thank God I caught you. Can you come back inside? One of the boys has been hurt.”
“Let me grab my bag,” Olivia said, wiping an errant tear from her cheek. She unlocked the car and pulled her bag from its spot behind the driver’s seat, then hurried inside.
The hockey game had come to a halt and both teams were gathered near the bench. When she reached the rink, she found Benny sitting on the ice, tears streaming down his cheeks. He was holding his arm, and his left hand dangled at an awkward angle.
