Chapter Nine

Amelia cooked for him and kept the house clean. Her grandfather came and sat by Cal's bedside sometimes. He and the younger man spoke with the door closed, shutting Amelia out. It was a conversation she wasn't allowed to participate in.

"You guys shut me out," she complained to her grandfather the week Cal came home, while she was fixing supper. She carried plates across to Cal for each meal, even breakfast.

"You're not ready to hear these kinds of stories, sugar," he said gently.

"I'm no wimp," she teased.

"No. But this isn't polite conversation, either," he said solemnly. "Cal needs to talk to somebody who's been where he is right now. Amelia," he added quietly, "this is going to be a long haul. He isn't ever going to be the man you knew again."

She finished frying chicken, took it up and moved the pan off the burner as she clicked it off.

"You're scaring me," she said.

"Cal was a policeman," he said. "You see terrible things when you do police work. But this kind of war that he's seen, it's not something he can share with you."

She sighed. "I want to help."

"Be his friend," he said simply. "You never push, which is just what he needs. I can listen to him and advise. But what you can do to help is just keep him fed and quiet, while he tries to get past it."

She grimaced. "Was it really bad?"

He nodded. "I did spec ops," he said. "But even I didn't see the kind of combat he was exposed to."

"Did they accomplish what they meant to do, at least?"

"Yes. They put the legitimate government back in power," he replied. "And it was a noble thing. They saved thousands of lives." He smiled. "There were people from all over Africa, all over the world, helping. Combatants and support people, all of whom volunteered and risked their lives to support the cause."

"It must be nice, to make a difference like that," she said.

"It is. But there's a terrible cost. Cal is paying it right now."

She grimaced. "He'll get over it, though, right?"

He hesitated. "He'll learn to live with it," he said. Which wasn't the same thing. Not at all.

She became Cal's unofficial home health unit. He didn't want her to see what was under the big bandage on his thigh, but he was running a fever by the fourth day, and she insisted.

His leg was in bad shape. There was a small hole in the front of his thigh, and a much bigger one in the back of it. The flesh around it was red and hot.

"I'm calling Eb," she said.

"It's just healing," he argued.

"It's just rotting off," she replied, and kept dialing.

Eb came over with a tall, husky blond man who looked more like a wrestler than a doctor. He probed and cleaned the wound and dressed it again.

"I'm changing the antibiotic," he told Cal. "And you need probiotics, as well." He looked up at a worried Amelia. "Do you...?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I have to cook for my grandfather and keep him healthy. I don't feed him or Cal anything fried except an occasional chicken, and I cook mostly veggies and fish dishes. With probiotics."

He smiled. "Good."

"How's Colby?" Cal asked, because during that two-day firefight, Micah Steele had been forced to amputate a fellow combatant's arm in the field.

"Not adjusting well at all," Micah replied. "I'm sending him to a psychologist I know in Houston. Good doctor. Keeps snakes." He shuddered.

"Nothing wrong with boa constrictors," Cal said. "I used to have one."

"I like big lizards," Amelia said.

They both stared at her.

She shrugged and grinned.

"Okay," Micah said as he got up. "Here." He handed Amelia a prescription. "Lucky for you I didn't quit medicine until after I got my license. I keep it. Comes in handy."

"He'll be okay?" Amelia asked as he stood up.

"If he does what he's told," the big blond man replied.

"I'll make sure he does," Amelia said. "Thanks."

He smiled. "If it doesn't improve in three or four days, have Eb call me. I live in Nassau, but I'm up this way pretty often on business."

"Okay."

"He's nice," Amelia told Cal.

He drew in a long breath. "The whole unit's like that. I think..." He picked up his cell phone from the bedside table. "Hello?"

There was a pause. He glanced at Amelia and away. "No, I've got all I need. Yes, I know how you feel about sick people. No problem. Sure. Bye."

He hung up. It was a woman, Amelia was certain of it. But she just smiled. "I'll go get your prescription filled."

"They've got my credit card on file," he said. "I'll call and have the medicine charged."

"Okay."

Amelia went out and he watched her with concern. She was too involved with him. He was going to have to work through this bad time, and he didn't know how he was going to cope with the trauma. Edie had phoned to tell him she was glad he was alive but, of course, she wasn't coming near him. She couldn't bear sickness. It was just a failing she couldn't help.

He thought about how nurturing Amelia was, and he felt guilty. He wanted her. It was a growing problem. He wasn't certain how to cope. He didn't want to get tangled up with a girl her age, and especially with an innocent. She was getting to him.

Combined with the problems he already had, Amelia was one he didn't want to have to tackle. He was going to have to step very carefully. He didn't want to hurt her.

Meanwhile, he was dealing with a trauma he'd never experienced. It had sounded like such a great line of work. Loads of money, excitement, adventure. Eb had tried to warn him. He hadn't listened. Now he was going to pay the price.

Of course he'd seen bad things while he was doing police work. Life on patrol was never boring, you worked wrecks, you worked domestic disturbances, gang warfare, escaping criminals, all sorts of things. But you didn't generally see people blown apart.

Like the rest of the unit, he'd become fond of Juba, the orphan they looked after when they were on the ground. He was just a kid, but already he could field strip the old AK-47 he'd been given by a comrade, and he knew how to clean it. It was his most prized possession.

Cy Parks had taken the loss harder than any of the rest. He had a young son back home in the States, and he had naturally gravitated toward the young boy. They became close. Cy was always bringing him presents, things he'd probably never seen, like Game Boys and drones.

Then, in a space of seconds, Juba had disobeyed a yelled order to stop. He'd gone into a building and hadn't seen the explosive that Cy had spotted. Body parts rained down along with part of the building the bomb had been set in. Not too far away, a cheer was heard and then unrelenting taunts and catcalling. The men in the machine-gun nest who'd given the cheer would pay a hard price for it.

But that was to come later. In the meantime, Cy had cradled the boy in his arms—what was left of him. Amazing, that Juba was still conscious. They'd doped him as much as they dared, hoping the pain would recede just enough. Because he'd lost too much blood to live. Micah Steele had just shaken his head when the men watching asked about Juba's chances. The injuries were too great, the blood loss too much.

So Cy rocked him in his arms until he died. It was a memory that haunted all of them. But it wasn't the only one.

When Juba died, Cy went looking for the men who'd cheered when the building went up, the group that had bragged about setting the bomb.

Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Cy walked right into the bullets, firing as he went. The nest was in a pivotal area, and it had been stonewalling the foreign troops, making it impossible for them to relieve the company up ahead.

Cy changed all that. He took out three men in the space of a heartbeat. There was a fourth man who'd been sitting among the parts of an IED he was constructing. Cy dropped the automatic rifle and started throwing knives. There wasn't a lot left of the bomb maker when he was through.

Micah patched Cy up while he sat and smoldered, furious that the men who'd killed Juba had been granted such an easy death. He looked like death warmed up himself, but, God he was game! He got to his feet, patched wounds and all, refusing any pain meds, grabbed an automatic rifle and fell in with the company. Together, they marched into the thick of the battle.

The bomb that killed Juba wasn't the only one they encountered. There were others. Too many others. They were concealed in hidden spots, in cunning ways, the way you'd set a trap to catch a wild animal. Except that these devices didn't catch anything. They blew men to component parts.

They say you can get used to anything, Cal thought blandly, but it was a lie. You never got used to seeing things that he'd seen in combat. He would never forget it. Maybe it would dim, as a memory, as years went by. But despite the lure of big money and adventure, nothing would get him back into the field. Even police work would seem tame by comparison. He had every intention of going back to work for San Antonio PD when he was healed enough.

One of his comrades, Eduardo Perez, was the morale booster of the bunch. He had a bloodthirsty past, but something about the tone of this campaign had changed him. He became religious. He wasn't aggressive about it, but he did pray with any of the men who needed it, and because of his own ferocious past, the men respected him, even those who weren't religious. After the worst of the combat, when all the men were bandaging wounds and looking for extraction and trying to cope with even more horrible memories, Eduardo announced that he was going to study for the priesthood. In fact, another of their group, Jake Blair, was also questioning his own lifestyle. And Jake spooked even some of the worst men in the group. They called him "snake," because he could get into places most of them couldn't. The men with the best hearing couldn't detect even a footfall when he went out to scout for them. All he carried was a Bowie knife and a .45 auto. And he was never wounded. Not even once.

They'd started out with many sympathetic comrades. But they came back with only a handful. And most of them, oddly, ended up in Jacobsville. Because of Eb Scott's new anti-terrorism training camp, the town was becoming a name that people remembered. And the sting of battle memories was easier when shared.

Cal had wanted to talk over his experiences with the other members of the group, but they were all coping in their own ways. It had been a godsend that Amelia's grandfather had been in special ops during the Mideast wars. He hadn't seen quite the things that Cal had. But his own experiences were not much less bloody, and they wore on his conscience. Cal looked to him more and more for guidance as he worked his way through the horror to some semblance of a normal life.

The fever was burning him alive. He felt sick to his stomach, as well. Amelia was taking such good care of him. She was so unlike Edie, who liked his company but wouldn't go near him while he was sick. He wondered why he even took the woman on dates. He felt no desire for her, none at all. That part of him that was sensual had gone into eclipse since Amelia came into his life. He thought about how innocent she was, how careful of her reputation here, in this very small rural community. She'd laughed when he mentioned it once. She said she didn't want to be that woman that everybody pointed out in stores. It sounded odd to him, who'd lived mostly in impersonal places, in cities. But as he spent more time in Jacobsville, he began to understand.

It wasn't really that people were judgmental. It was that they had certain standards that went back two centuries. They didn't apologize for them, or try to explain them. They were just part of the community. If you stepped outside the bounds of what was considered decent and right, you were looked at. No pressure. No censure. Just eyes, staring. Nonverbal restraint.

Before social media, that silent restraint had been responsible for keeping morality in check, for holding families together, for discouraging things that used divisions and tears. Here in Jacobsville, some people still felt that way, felt that tradition had a place at the table. People in very small towns were clannish. They were many generations of people who knew each other well, who thought and acted alike, who didn't easily accept radical viewpoints of any sort. And because Jacobsville hadn't really moved with the times, some transplanted city dwellers who'd tried to live here had moved right back into their former homes in cities. Not everybody could fit in. Not everybody wanted to.

Cal wanted to. He hoped he could. He loved Jacobsville. He loved the people, the customs, the feeling of belonging to a family. And it was. A family. A small community where most people shared relatives, who had a long history in this part of Texas. To Cal, who'd lived impersonally and anonymously for so long, it was a revelation.

And especially now, it felt very comfortable, while he tried to get back on his feet. Without Amelia and her grandfather, his recovery might not be as easy, and certainly not as nurturing. He'd never known any of his neighbors in apartments where he'd lived in the past. In Jacobsville, he quickly learned his surroundings, and the people who lived in them.

He moved restlessly in the bed. He didn't want to sleep. The nightmares came again and again. He hoped they might stop one day. He'd asked Amelia's grandfather about them. The older man had just said that they diminished. He didn't know if that meant in frequency or in vivid detail. He hoped it was both.

The front door opened. It had a familiar squeak, like in a haunted house movie. He loved the old place.

"I'm back," Amelia said, as she dropped her purse and jacket off on his sofa and made her way to the bedroom. "Two things," she said, holding up the bag. "A new antibiotic, and pain meds."

"I hate pain meds," he began.

She just sighed. "The pharmacist said that if you have to fight the pain along with the infection, you won't heal as fast," she said, and stared him down.

He made a face.

"That's what he said," she repeated. She cocked her head and smiled faintly. "Then he mentioned how you pill a cat, by rolling it up in a towel."

He sighed. "Okay. Pest," he added.

She grinned and went to get him something to drink with the pills.

He was too sick to eat supper. The medicine would work, she was sure, she was hopefully sure, but his fever was pretty high. Micah had said to give him Tylenol for the fever, which she did.

She took his temperature again. It was still high. "You need to be sponged down," she began.

"No." He said it very firmly for a sick man. He glowered at her. "I'm not having you bathe me in bed!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Cal," she began, throwing up her hands.

"When you've been married for a year, come back and we'll talk," he replied.

She made a face. "All right. But if the fever doesn't come down soon, I'm calling Eb Scott, and he can sponge you until the fever's down!"

He shifted. "Okay," he said after a minute.

"You are a prude," she accused as she started to leave.

"And you're bluffing," he said, with a knowing look that made her flush. "You know as much about men as I know about theoretical physics."

"Well, that may be, but I'm never going to learn it here."

He chuckled in spite of himself and groaned because any movement hurt his leg.

"The pain meds should kick in soon," she said encouragingly. "I wish you felt like eating. I made potato soup."

"My favorite," he sighed. His eyes closed. "Maybe later."

"Maybe later."

She pulled the covers over him. "I'll be in the living room reading if you need me..."

"You'll be at home taking care of your grandfather if I need you." He picked up his cell phone from the bedside table and showed it to her. "My phone has your number on speed dial. If I get into trouble, all I have to do is push one button."

She was reluctant, but he was in one of his stubborn moods, so she knew it would do no good to argue. "Okay," she said on a sigh. "I'll leave. But I'll be back at suppertime."

"Bring soup," he said, and forced a smile. "Hopefully, my stomach will settle by then."

She beamed. "Optimism! I approve wholeheartedly!"

He smiled back. "And thank you, for all the kind care," he added.

She shrugged. "It's no more than you'd do for us, Cal," she replied with a smile. "See you later."

He reflected on that when she'd gone. Yes, he thought. If their situations were reversed, he'd be a fixture in their home. It was a revelation. He'd never been overly generous with his time in the past. But he was getting lessons in sacrifice both from Amelia and her grandfather. He hoped there would come a time when he could repay their kindness.

Amelia was back at suppertime, along with her grandfather. She carried in a bowl of potato soup, which Cal was now able to eat.

First, she checked his fever, and found that it was much reduced. "Thank goodness!" she said heartily.

"The meds are working," he replied. "I feel just a bit better."

"Bullet wounds take time to heal," Amelia's grandfather said as he dropped down into the easy chair they'd placed at Cal's bedside.

"You'd know," Amelia said. "Granny said you had more than one."

He chuckled. "I did, none of them drastic, thank God. And you got off lucky," he added to Cal. "An in-and-out wound without hitting bone. I won't go into how rare that is."

"Steele told me already," he chuckled as he ate. "Amelia, this is the best potato soup I've ever had, and I'm not exaggerating."

"I'm glad you like it."

"Now go home and let us talk," her grandfather said, but with a grin. "And yes, the soup was delicious. As usual. How about dessert, in about an hour?"

"Dessert?" Cal's eyebrows lifted.

"Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting," she said.

"My favorite," Cal sighed.

"Mine, too," the older man chuckled.

"I'll bring slices when I come back," she said. "Don't forget to take the antibiotic," she added to Cal. "It's three times a day, not two. And Tylenol for the fever in," she checked her watch, "two more hours."

Cal rolled his eyes. "Shades of Nurse Jane," he mused.

She laughed. "I'm better at blowing things up, but I can do nursing when needed," she said, and then wondered why he seemed paler. "You okay?" she asked quickly.

"I'm fine," he lied, and forced a smile.

"All right. Back in an hour," she said, and breezed out.

The older man waited until he heard the front door close before he spoke. "She doesn't know about IEDs, except how to make them," he pointed out. "And she'd never have said a word if she knew what you'd been through."

"I know that." He finished his soup and put the bowl down with a sigh. "I thought I was tough enough for any sort of military action," he said. "I was an MP when I was in the service, though, and I never got into any of the real fighting. When I came out, it was San Antonio PD. I thought I'd seen everything." His eyes closed. "Dear God, what human beings can do to one another!"

"Yes, I do understand," he replied. "It will take time for you to get past this, I won't lie to you. But eventually it will fade to just a bad memory."

"What about the nightmares?" Cal asked, tight-lipped.

The older man sighed and gave him a sad smile. "Well, that's the other thing. They don't stop. They just come less frequently."

"That's something, I guess," Cal replied.

"Take time to heal. Don't rush back into anything. You'll be laid up for a while. You'll be able to get around better, but you have to be careful about that wound and watch for any sign of infection. Like the one you've got right now."

"Amelia insisted on calling Eb because I had a fever," he said curtly, and didn't mention that she'd looked at the wound, because it was in a rather intimate place.

"She was right," he replied. "You don't want to wait until red lines appear and it starts to turn green," he added with pursed lips and twinkling eyes.

Cal managed a laugh. "No, I don't want that. It may be mangled but it's still a leg."

"It's not the only wound, I imagine?" the older man said slyly.

Cal drew in a breath. "No. I took two bullets in the chest. Fortunately, they were fired from a distance and barely penetrated the muscle. Micah patched me up while we were regrouping. I'd just gotten back to a comfortable level when we went back into offensive missions, and I was wounded again." He shook his head. "I didn't know I was so careless."

"Has nothing to do with it," the elderly man said. "I took three bullets in the chest when I was just walking from one tent to another. Laid me up for almost two months." He smiled. "I never told my wife, but she found out for herself when I came home." He burst out laughing. "I'll never forget what she said."

Cal's eyebrows lifted.

"She said she hoped all the meanness in me leaked out those bullet holes before they got plugged up!"

Cal laughed and grimaced when it hurt.

"She was a tiger, my wife," he said warmly. "I miss her every day. Amelia's so much like her. She's got guts. I haven't found anything yet that she's afraid of."

"I thought I hadn't, too. Life teaches hard lessons."

"Life is all about lessons," was the reply. "We don't know why we're put here, or what purpose we serve. But we all have our own ideas about that," he added. "The problem is that some people aren't satisfied until they force you to believe the way they do. And that's how wars start."

"I'm learning about that."

"Tell me about Juba," the older man began.

Cal's eyes were terrible to look into.

"I know. It's an open wound and I'm rubbing salt into it. But until you talk about it, it's just going to fester until it causes real damage. You have to get it out."

Cal closed his eyes. Then he sighed. He looked at the old man. "I've been hiding my head in the sand."

"Won't help. And I should know."

Cal smiled. "Okay."

So he told Amelia's grandfather what had happened. His voice broke a couple of times, because he'd been fond of the boy. But he got through it.

"I didn't have to see such things," the old man told him, "but I know men who did. Some of them turned to alcohol and drugs to forget. Two committed suicide. Those were the ones who couldn't, or wouldn't, face it and come to terms with it." He leaned forward intently. "I don't mean you to be one of those. That's why I was insistent."

Cal looked at him with new respect. "I see."

"Not just yet. But one day, you will. We're all terrified when we go into combat in the first place. One of the things we learn quickly is how to lean into the fear, instead of avoiding it, and use it to help us do desperate things when we have to. Any man who tells you he's never felt fear is either a liar or a serial killer," he added ruefully.

"That's a hard thing to admit," Cal replied.

"Of course. We're men. We're strong. We can face down armies with a knife between our teeth and an auto rifle. That works fine in video games, by the way, but it's a killer in real life. I was shaking all over when I went into my first incursion. One of the older men in the group took me to one side and taught me how to deal with it. It worked. After that, I owned the fear, and I used it. I think it's one of the reasons why I came home, and many of my comrades didn't."

"I guess a lot of myths go up in smoke when we see combat for the first time."

"All of them do," he said.

Cal stared at him. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for this," he said. "I haven't been dealing with it well. In fact, I haven't been dealing with it at all."

"It's not easy. It helps to talk to other people who've been in your situation. Eb Scott would listen anytime you needed him to. He's a good man. I know several of his students. He's teaching them the right way, using experts in every field as instructors. He's going to put Jacobsville on the map."

"I'm glad he's doing well. I wish I'd asked more questions, done more research, before I threw my hat into the merc ring, however."

"Universal feeling. Me, too."

"To his credit, Eb did try to talk me out of it. I wanted in more for the feeling of purpose than quick cash, to know that I was doing a noble thing by helping the right people back into power." He sighed. "Nobility has a lot of definitions these days. Not all of them laudable ones."

"War is hell," came the reply. "Sherman said so and made it so. People in some states back east still use his name as a curse."

"So do some of the Plains tribes that he fought."

"Still, he was effective, in a burned-earth way."

"When you're hit, hit back hard."

"It usually works, too."

The front door opened. "I have cake!"

"Come right in," Cal called back, and both men laughed.

Cal was fed cake and given meds. Then a reluctant Amelia followed her grandfather out the front door.

"I feel mean, leaving him. He's a long way from well," she told her companion.

"Yes, but it's a very small town," he pointed out with a grin. "And do you want to be that woman who's always pointed to?"

"Now you sound like your sister," she chided, laughing.

"I do. She'd have a fit at what you've already done, if she knew." He paused when they were back in their own house. "What about that woman who came to see him?" he asked suddenly.

"Edie?" She shrugged. "She called him while I was there. Apparently, she can't abide being around anybody sick or wounded. Lovely woman." She rolled her eyes.

"I don't imagine it's her nursing skills that interested him in the first place, sugar," he said gently. "Just...don't let yourself get too involved. You know what I mean?"

She smiled. "Of course. He's my friend," she added, hiding the fact that her heart was already in jeopardy and that the thought of his leaving Jacobsville terrorized her at night. She knew he wasn't likely to continue with merc work, and that was a blessing. But he was surely going back to the city. There were rumors that he wanted to sign back on with San Antonio PD. She hadn't asked him yet. She didn't have the nerve. Plus, she didn't want it to be true.

Life without Cal would be no life at all. And she'd only just realized it since he'd been wounded.

She didn't know what to do. He wasn't a man who'd settle down to life in a small town, marriage and kids. He was too freedom-loving, too adventurous. Any woman who tried to trap him would regret it for the rest of her life.

Maybe Edie would do that and get kicked to the curb. That was the nicest thought Amelia had all night.