One Day in Apple Grove(63)

Starting to pull the borrowed T-shirt over her head, she remembered Jack taking her clothes off in the kitchen. “Crap.” She let it fall back into place all but covering up the boxers she’d borrowed from him. Try as she might, she didn’t remember tripping over her clothes in the middle of the night when she’d first gone downstairs to think.

Resolved that she’d have to go back downstairs and face Jack and his questions while she was feeling vulnerable, she was about to open the door when he knocked. “Hey, Cait?”

She waited a moment before answering, “Yeah?”

“I just pulled your clothes out of the drier. Do you want them?”

“Oh.” She put a hand to her heart. “If you leave them right outside the door, I’ll get them. Thanks.”

“I could hand them to you now.”

His deeply rumbled offer slid over her skin like a caress. “I, uh…need to go pick up my dad.”

His sigh was loud and low. “I’m leaving them on the floor.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

She waited until she heard his footsteps hit the stairs before opening the door a crack and reaching for her clothes. A short, hot shower had her ready to face the day and the myriad of questions her father was sure to have.

As she toweled off and got dressed, she wondered who she could go to for help with Jack’s trauma. Maybe she should look up his symptoms online…less chance of gossip that way. What the heck did they call it anyway? She’d never known anyone who’d suffered from battle fatigue—that’s what Mr. Weatherbee called it, but he served in the army after World War II and before the Korean Conflict. She tried to focus, but her sleep-deprived brain wasn’t cooperating.

She could ask her dad, but then he’d ask all kinds of questions that she wasn’t ready to answer yet. If she was going to help Jack, she was going to have to respect his privacy and need to keep his demons to himself while she searched for a way to help him conquer them.

“My turn?” a deep voice called out as she was opening the door.

Standing there looking delightfully rumpled, she wished she remembered if his hair was wavy or straight. It was hard to tell cut in the military fashion, high and tight. She would have liked to run her hands over it again, digging into his scalp to massage it…it always did wonders for her whenever she went to Honey B.’s for a trim. The shampooing was her favorite part.

“Are you all right?”

“What? Oh, yes,” she told him. “Just thinking about something.”

“Hell of a something,” he mumbled, slipping past her into the bathroom. He paused and asked, “Do I need to say good-bye now?”

“Yes.” She turned around to face him. “I hate to be late.”

“If ever anyone tempted me to be late, Caitlin, it’s you.” He pressed a chaste kiss to the end of her nose and shoved her out the door and closed it.

“Call my cell if you can’t come by later.”

“OK.” Why did it feel so intimate talking to him through the bathroom door? Maybe it was a culmination of the last few hours, but whatever the reason, right now, she’d better get her head on straight. Her dad was waiting.

By the time she’d said good-bye to Jamie and shut the door behind her, her phone had buzzed. She read the text message from her father and laughed as she typed: On my way home.





Chapter 12




“Hell of a storm last night,” her dad said, getting into the passenger side of the F1.

His words hit her with the force of a blow. He had no idea how hellacious it had been.

“You’re awfully quiet today.”

She could feel his gaze on her but didn’t take her hands off the wheel or turn toward him. “I was thinking about the slab we poured. Do you think we rushed it and it didn’t cure?”

“I wouldn’t have let you start the framing if the slab wasn’t ready. Can’t build anything on a soft foundation.”

“I know,” she said. “You and mom taught us well.”

“Your mom wasn’t handy with concrete.” When she shrugged, he asked, “Is there anything on your mind you want to talk about?”

“Not yet.”

“I know I don’t have to ask, because I know you would trust me enough to tell me, but did Jack hurt you?”

How to answer that question without having her dad hightailing it on over to Jack’s office in town and dragging him outside to pound some sense into him? Wouldn’t that just be a wonderful story gracing the front page of the Apple Grove Gazette?

“Not really.”

His eyes narrowed as he turned and frowned at her. “Hell of an answer, Cait. Now how about trying the truth?”