Page 29 of Echoes in the Storm
“What did you do before, then?” She reaches out and snags a tiny biscuit, popping it delicately into her mouth.
“Labourer. But it didn’t work out.” I take two biscuits at a time to at least pretend I’m eating something a bit more satisfying.
“Oh.” Clara’s eyebrows lift as she takes a casual sip of her coffee. “Cam said you were in the army.”
“A little”, my arse.
“That’s right.”
“Medically discharged?” Her eyes narrow in on me, the light and airy nature of her voice sinking to something more take-no-shit like.
I nod.
“Well”—she straightens—“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Not as sorry as I was to do it.
Her gaze drifts to the living room, and to the spare blanket folded on the arm of the sofa. “Don’t tell me she has you sleeping on the couch.”
“It’s fine, honestly. I’m thankful for the help.” For some reason, I feel as though I need to defend the situation. I guess it’s the tone Clara took when she made the statement, much like one my own mother used when she was mad at some ridiculous idea Cody and I had decided to execute without proper consideration for the consequences.
“No.” She shakes her head, coffee poised halfway to her lips. “You tell that daughter of mine that a couch is no place for a fully-grown man like you to be sleeping.”
“She did offer to swap, to let me have her bed and she’d take the sofa,” I explain. “But I said no. Honestly, it’s fine.”
“It’s not.” She snorts. “She has a spare bed; she can use it.”
“Does she?”The closed door.I was right.
“Yes, she does.” Clara takes a sip, her eyes hard as they stay connected to mine. “She simplychoosesnot to use it.”
I stare down at the mug between my hands, wondering what exactly I’ve stumbled into here. More so, why I care. I could heed the warning and stay out of it, sleep on the sofa and not say a damn thing to Cammie about what her mum has to say. I could fly below the radar and bide my time until the HQ is fixed and I’m on my way.
But I can’t get the trail of clues out of my head: the plastic dinner set, the food, the closed off room, the pictures she avoids at all costs … the ex.
This girl’s dealing with something greater than what she can control, and I want to know if I’m right in thinking what. I want to know if anything I can say, I can do, can help ease the burden she carries.
Clara sighs, setting her empty mug in the sink. “I take it by the look on your face she hasn’t explained much about her situation to you.”
“Not really.” I push my drink aside. “But then, is it my business?”
She shrugs. “I guess not. But at the same time, somebody neutral might be the ear she needs.” Her gaze drifts out the window, her brow furrowed. “She doesn’t talk to us about it: her father, me, her friends …” Her head drops as she sighs. “She needs to talk to someone.”
There’s no way out of this. I accepted Cammie’s offer to help thinking her life out here was peaceful, uncomplicated. But I see it now. This house is her oasis, a clearing in the middle of a raging forest fire.
“What happened, Clara?”
She swings her head my way, her hands braced on the edge of the sink. “I can see you’re a smart man, Duke.” A sad smile graces her lips. “I’m sure you can work it out.”
Cammie
“Everything’s fine, love.” My mother’s voice echoes around the confines of my car. “When I left this morning, he was thinking of taking a walk. He seems trustworthy.”
“He didn’t get abrupt or anything?”
I sent Mum around to case Duke out for me while I was at work. Not that I don’t trust him, exactly. Simply that I wasn’tsureof my ability to judge a person after the way he flipped out at the park and then acted as sweet as pie last night.
“He was perfectly lovely,” Mum says with a little too much enthusiasm. “Not a bad-looking man, if I do say so myself.”