Page 31 of Echoes in the Storm
“Yeah, she came over. She’s real nice,” he calls back from the living room. I walk in to find him kicked back on the sofa.
“She’s nosey,” I correct. Even more so than I bargained for when I sent her over. I asked her to check onhim,not meddle withme.
Duke shrugs at my statement, lips twisted. “Not a bad thing. Means she cares, is all.”
“Yeah …” The word trails off as I reminisce about all the times her sticky beakwasn’thelpful. “Did you complain to her about sleeping on the sofa?”
He snorts a laugh. “No. That was all your mum. She’s concerned for my well-being.” The smartarse winks at me.
I leave him with a huff, figuring I’ll go see what he’s murdering in the kitchen. “I told her not to worry about it since you sleep on the floor anyway.”
Stone-cold silence surrounds me. I chance a look around the corner and find him staring at me, impassive. “You saw that, huh?”
“You weren’t exactly trying to hide it.” The aroma of beef fills my nostrils, pulling my focus back to the kitchen. He’s found a small rolled roast I didn’t even know I had, and has it in the oven surrounded by vegetables that look positively mouth-watering.
“I didn’t know I had all this in the freezer,” I call out, choosing to ignore his discomfort.
“You didn’t.” Duke slips into what’s fast becoming his usual spot: the barstool. “Your mum brought some ‘real food’ after she panicked that what you had in your cupboards couldn’t ‘sustain’ a man like me.” He bops his fingers in quotations as he recites my mother’s words.
“Busy body.”
“Like I said, she cares.” His eyes follow my every move as I pull a wine glass from the cabinet and promptly fill it two-thirds with the half-drunk bottle that was in the fridge.
“I don’t have any beer to offer you, sorry.”
He lifts a hand, flashing me the palm. “All good. I don’t drink alcohol anyway.”
Unusual.
“So, Duke.” I set my glass down, sliding it carefully to the side so as not to knock it over. “Whydoyou sleep on the floor?”
“Why is your second bedroom closed off?”
He doesn’t miss a beat, this one. “Trade. You tell me, and then I’ll tell you.” My heart thunders at the offer, but hell, he’ll be gone in a week, and then it’ll just be me and my ghosts again.
His brow sets in a hard line as he leans forward, clasping his hands with his elbows rested on the counter. A heavy breath exits his nose as he seemingly weighs the proposition up. “You ready for this, Cammie?”
I pinch my bottom lip between my teeth and smirk. “I can take whatever you’ve got to throw at me.”
“I wasn’t talking about whatI’vegot to say,” he counters. “Are you ready to pull back the covers and reveal what you’ve kept stored away?”
Fuck him. Fuck him and his unwavering sensibility. He’s not afraid of recounting what it is that keeps him on edge; he’s worried aboutme. And rightly so. My pulse doesn’t throb painfully in my neck for no reason; my body temperature isn’t elevated because I’m cool, calm, and collected. I’m freaking out, and I haven’t voiced a goddamn thing yet.
“Just start before I change my mind,” I snap, reaching for the wine.
He leans back with a long and laboured sigh as I down half the glass. “The short and sweet version is I was near crushed to death. A mortar took out the building I was in, and I came this close to losing my leg.” He holds his fingers a hair’s breadth apart. “The explosion killed two of my best friends, and the damage done to my lungs from the dust I inhaled in the aftermath means even the slightest chest infection has the potential to put me in hospital.”
I was wrong: I was totally unprepared for that. Unprepared for how coldly and clinically he states the facts. Howdetachedhe is as he recounts the things that nearly killed him.
“Do you feel guilty?” Every story I’ve read that involved a returned serviceman always ends in the guilt they feel at being the one who’s home, the one who made it back.
He nods. “A little, yeah. But mostly, frustrated.”
“Why?”
“I never got a chance to fight back.” His fingertips beat an urgent rhythm against the counter. “Our camp was attacked between patrols. After the unharmed dragged those of us still breathing out, we were immediately transferred to a safe medical facility. Some fuckhead blew half a dozen of us up, and I never even lifted a gun to retaliate.”
So much concealed rage … No wonder he fired up when I asked about his life in the army. He resents the fact he’s not still there.