All right, she thought—it was not supposed to go like this. In every fantasy she’d had about finding him, there had been many possibilities. He could be glad to see her, embracing her in welcome. Or he could be withdrawn. He could even be a raving lunatic, on another planet, totally out of touch with this world. But never had she imagined he would take one look at her, cringe in obvious despair at the news of Bobby’s death and cruelly, heartlessly, meanly, scream at her to go away.
Her mouth was a little dry for eating and she tried some of the water out of her thermos—bottled water had become too expensive. She kept an eye on the front door of the cabin. She could feel the heat on her cheeks, furious that he’d do that to her after she’d looked so hard for him. All she wanted in the world was to make sure he was all right. The asshole. And then she felt her eyes cloud with tears for the very same reasons. His reaction really hurt her. What had she ever done to him? It made her absolutely enraged and broke her heart at the same time. How could he do that? Roar at her and slam the door like that? Without even hearing her? All he had to do was invite her in, tell her he was just fine, explain he wanted to be alone, accept the baseball cards and …
She just let the tears roll soundlessly down her cheeks for a moment. It had been a while since she’d cried. She realized then that her hopes for how this would turn out had been too idealized—exactly the reason Erin had wanted to hire a professional to handle this. Ian Buchanan had gone away, because he didn’t want anything to do with anyone from his former life, not because he needed help. Especially her help.
With a hiccup of emotion, Marcie admitted to herself—she might need his help. This business of moving on, it might have to do with Ian helping her understand his relationship with Bobby and with her, and how everything had changed. Ian’s growling and slamming the door in her face wasn’t going to get her where she needed to go. She was going to have to sit it out until he understood—she wasn’t done with him yet. And this whole business was going to get complicated, since there were good odds he was actually nuts.
She tried to gnaw at her sandwich, even though she now had no appetite. The sun sank slowly, and she ended up wrapping it up and putting it back in the grocery sack, unfinished. The thing was—if you didn’t eat that much, you didn’t feel like eating that much.
The sun dipped below the horizon, the lights in the cabin shone, and a thin curl of smoke rose from the little chimney. She leaned back against the sleeping bag, physically comfortable even if she was an emotional wreck. But the decision had been made—she was sitting right here until she figured out what to do.
On a more practical matter, she really hoped she wouldn’t have to pee in the night. She’d been choosing her sleeping spots carefully, so that if nature called in the dark of night, she wouldn’t have to venture far from the little bug.
She’d never been any kind of camper, never had been good at relieving a full bladder on a whim. Never had quite figured out that squat; it seemed like she’d always wet her right foot. But after a little over a month of searching the hills and sleeping in her car in various parking lots, quiet residential streets, rest stops and country roads, she had it figured out. She could squat, whizz, get the job done, jump back in the car and lock the doors in just over a minute. There were showers available at the YWCA and at workout rooms in community colleges where they didn’t check ID’s too closely. She’d indulged in motels the first week out and then quickly realized her money would go further if she slept in her car. And with no hints of Ian’s whereabouts, she needed to make her money last.
Then she remembered—that was an outhouse out there, wasn’t it? Wow, how hilarious to think she’d be glad to see an outhouse! Life had gotten real interesting.
Drew and especially Erin would absolutely die if they found out she’d been sleeping in the bug. She shook her head. I’m as nuts as he is, for sure. And then she noticed snow flurries against the window of the bug. Very pretty, light, fluffy snowflakes in the waning light with a narrow streak of sunlight in the west through the clouds—the flakes glittered as they fell. The view over the ridge was amazing—there was a rainbow shining through the snow drifting down onto the tall pines—it was magnificent. She just couldn’t be upset in this place. Not with Ian, in any case. Maybe he had forgotten they were friends.
He probably wanted her to think he was crazy, roaring like that, but she wanted to believe that, underneath the bluster, he would still be all the things Bobby said he was, all the things he’d been in their early letters, before Ian got out of the Marines—strong, compassionate, gentle, loyal. Brave. He’d been so courageous to do what he had done.
With the snow lightly falling, and the sun causing the rainbow to fade into dusk, she relaxed and closed her eyes for just a second. To think.
Three
Ian tried to keep himself from looking out the window; he’d be damned if he’d open the door. The silence in the mountains was such that if she’d turned the ignition to start the car, he could have heard the click. So he refreshed the fire in the woodstove, fired up the propane cookstove and heated large pans of water for a bath.
He’d made it a year in this cabin without a tub, shower or electricity, but he had made a few adjustments; he bought a generator and wired up a couple of lights inside. He found an old clawfoot tub in a salvage yard that he’d repaired and patched, enabling him to wash out of something larger than the kitchen sink.
It was always a shallow bath—a couple of pans of cold water hand pumped into a pot in the sink from the spring-fed well under the house, and a couple of large pans of boiling water didn’t make for a nice long soak. In the winter, he got in, got clean and got out real quick. He would probably never have plumbing other than the pump; he worried about money and he wasn’t skilled enough to do the plumbing himself. He hadn’t had a real honest-to-God shower in years. But he was a guy—he didn’t exactly primp. This was all he really needed. It got him good and clean.
After a quick scrub and some clean clothes, he warmed some stew on the stove, leaving it right in the can with the paper ripped off the outside. He wanted to see where she was, what she was doing, but he wouldn’t let himself. He’d ignore her, refuse to talk to her, and she’d go away. Soon, he hoped.
After all this time, Ian had managed not to dwell on everything that came before the mountains, but one look at that fiery red mane and her flashing green eyes brought everything rushing back. The first time he’d seen that beautiful little face had been in a photo that Bobby carried with him.
That kid was something else. Ian had been twenty-eight and Bobby twenty with a couple of years in the Marines when they first met. Bobby already had himself some stripes. Ian was just getting a new command and he took to the kid immediately—he was funny and fearless. Big, like Ian—about six feet of hard body—and no attitude. At first, Ian just worked him to death, but found himself responding right away to Bobby’s incredible endurance and commitment. It didn’t take long before Ian was mentoring him; teaching him and building him into one of the best of the best. Also, he was having a beer with him now and then and talking about home, about things that were not military—sports, music, cars and hunting. And then they went to Iraq together.
They got out pictures of their girls and read the letters they got to each other, sometimes leaving out the more personal parts, sometimes not. Bobby had married his girl, but Ian had been engaged less than a year when they went to Iraq in the same unit.
Ian had Shelly back then. While he was gone, she was planning a wedding that would take place when he got back. Bobby and Marcie were hoping to start a family. Their women were beautiful—Marcie was small and fragile-looking with that great mass of curly red hair and a completely impish smile. Shelly was a tall, thin, sophisticated-looking blonde with long straight hair. Ian remembered that Marcie had sent Bobby a pair of her panties that he proudly showed to the guys, but no one was allowed to touch. Shelly sent Ian a lock of hair, but he’d have rather had panties. Marcie sent Bobby a picture of herself in her underwear on Bobby’s