One Day in Apple Grove(58)

“Damn it, Caitlin. Don’t play semantics with me. Either I hurt you when I was…dreaming, or I didn’t. It’s a simple question and deserves a simple answer.”

“Fair enough,” she said, rubbing her arms to ward off the sudden chill. “I tried to help when I realized what you were experiencing and you tossed me off like I weighed nothing.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face and walked slowly toward her. “Show me where you hurt,” he rasped. “Let me make it better.”

Her back was sore, but where she truly hurt couldn’t be fixed with a Band-Aid—she ached for the terror and nightmarish demons Jack Gannon carried inside of him. She’d just only discovered the man beneath the white lab coat he wore, but there was so much more that she wanted to know, and if this was part of it, so be it. She needed to show him that she was strong and wouldn’t walk away from him.

When he asked a second time, she placed her hand to her heart and tapped it lightly.

Tears filled his eyes, but he didn’t blink them away. He acknowledged her words and ignored the fact that he stood there with a tear trickling over his cheek and his hands clenched at his sides. “If I’m sleeping deeply and the thunder starts, it happens…”

“What happens?” She really wanted to know, had to know so she could help him.

“I’m there again,” he whispered.

“Iraq?”

“Yes,” he said, taking a hold of her hand, staring down at it. “I’ve been handling it—until tonight.”

“Have you talked to anyone about it?”

He dropped her hand as if it burned him. Wrong question.

His eyes changed in a heartbeat. Cold hard blue stared down at her.

Desperate to erase that look, she held out her hand. “Don’t be angry. I want to understand and to help.”

He closed his eyes, drew in one deep breath and then another. When he opened his eyes, it was the Jack she knew and loved. Needing to get him to think about something else, anything, she blurted out, “I love the smell of rain.” He nodded and she continued, “And the smell of fresh-turned dirt.” She knew she had his attention. “I used to beg Mr. McCormack to let me have a turn riding up on the tractor with him when Peggy and I were little.”

His body language told her he was listening. Relieved that the hard, angry edge was gone, she kept talking, “If you plant flowers in the yard it doesn’t have the same smell. Why is that?”

“I’m not sure, but maybe it’s because of what’s been planted in Mr. McCormack’s fields over the years.” He paused to think about it and added, “Whenever my mom roped me in to helping her in her flower gardens, it didn’t smell the same either.”

“Maybe you’re right about what’s been planted in his fields,” she said, considering. “It smells different in the spring than it does in the fall. If I had to describe how spring smells to me, I’d say fresh, clean—hopeful—even the dirt.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I used to spend all winter waiting for it to be over so I could see that first green bud, that first tiny sign that no matter how hard the winter was, spring would surely follow.”

Hope welled up inside of her, like a spring of cool, clear water. “And in the fall, everything smells of decay, as if the ground has used up all of its resources and needs to go to sleep through the winter, so it can begin all over again come spring.”

Going with her gut, she reached for his hand. He stared at it for a moment, as if he weren’t sure he should touch her, but then finally linked fingers with her and let her draw him toward her. When he was close enough to touch, she hooked their joined hands behind her back and laid her head against his chest. The steady beat of his heart reassured her—now it was her turn to reassure him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He wrapped his other arm around her and buried his face in her hair. Standing in the semidarkness of his kitchen, she knew that she would move heaven and earth if she had to. Either way, she was going to help Jack conquer the demons inside of him.





Chapter 11




He eased out of her arms and asked, “Is there any coffee left?”

She shook her head, glad that he seemed steadier by the moment. “I didn’t want to waste it, so I only made one cup. I can make more.”

He walked to the back door and stared out the window at the break in the clouds in the predawn sky. The eerie feeling that he wasn’t seeing what lay beyond the door into the woods bothered her, but she wouldn’t bring up the subject again…tonight. She’d have to do some research first. Jack’s peace of mind was far too precious to her to have her fumble and push him over the edge.