Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ You have to see it, live it. Yet the wonderful thing, the truly wonderful thing, is how few of them feel they’re living in hardship, except in terms of the war.” He paused, then shook his head.

      “They must consider you a striking figure,” she remarked.

      At that his mouth twisted wryly. “I’ve been mistaken for bin Laden a few times. Despite my uniform.”

      “Oh, that must be something.”

      “Oh, yeah. Never for more than a few seconds. We favor different headwear, of course, and we really don’t look alike. In all honesty, I don’t know why it happened.”

      “I don’t see a resemblance. Maybe some people have never seen his photo, just heard how tall he is.”

      “That’s the only thing that would explain it.”

      He savored another mouthful of pie. “Damn, this is good.”

      She pulled the pie pan closer and sliced another piece, sliding it onto his plate.

      “Whoa,” he said.

      She shook her head. “My guess is you’re beneath your fighting weight, and anyway, Julia will be thrilled you like it. The best compliment to the cook is eating.”

      She turned her head, a mistake, because all of a sudden she became uneasily aware of the lurking night, held at bay only by the thin glass of the windows. Ordinarily she loved the night, but not now. Not when a threat was hovering over her daughter.

      “Excuse me,” she said. “I need to check on Sophie.”

      He nodded, his gaze following her as she went to the phone and dialed.

      “Hi, Enid, it’s Connie.”

      “Hi, kiddo. Well, we’re into Cinderella, the girls ate all the brownies, if you can believe it, and now there are rumblings about popcorn. It’s all good, Connie. Honestly.”

      “Thanks, Enid. Is it okay if I check again later?”

      “Any time, Connie. Like I said, this is going to be an all-nighter. The later it gets, the more awake they seem.”

      Connie replaced the receiver and found Ethan watching her. “Everything’s all right.”

      He nodded, saying nothing, returning his attention to his plate as if wishing to give her a moment of privacy, one she seemed to need.

      Looking at her hands, she realized she was shaking. Not good. She stuffed them in the pockets of her robe and returned to the table, trying to act as if everything hadn’t all just come crashing back.

      “I’m sorry,” she said.

      “Nothing to be sorry for.”

      She bit her lip. “I just realized something.”

      “What’s that?”

      “Leo made me feel as if I needed to apologize for everything. I’m still doing it.”

      He nodded, pushing his plate to one side. Hardly a crumb remained. “That’s a damn shame, because I can’t see anything you need to apologize for. Not one thing.”

      “I’ve been working on that,” she admitted. “My mother hates it when I keep on apologizing.”

      “I don’t hate it,” he replied, “but I think it’s sad you feel that way.”

      “Maybe it’s more habit than anything.”

      “Maybe.”

      She watched as he rose and took care of the dishes, washing them and putting them in the rack. Then he put the pie away and wiped the table down. She supposed it was his military training, but she liked it. Leo had never done anything like that in the whole time she’d lived with him.

      Together they climbed the stairs and returned to her bedroom, where they lay in the dark, embracing. The sexual fever had passed for now, replaced by an equally urgent need for comfort and closeness.

      “I’ve been alone for too long,” he said quietly. She could feel his voice rumble deep in his chest.

      “Even with your buddies?”

      “That’s different. That’s an intense community. We depend on each other for our very lives. But it’s different.”

      She gave him a little squeeze and waited for him to continue.

      “There’s a special bond,” he continued slowly, then cleared his throat, as if he were finding it difficult to speak. “You know your buddies always have your back. You know you always have theirs. I don’t know if I can really explain it. But it’s like many have said, when you’re in the foxhole, you’re not fighting for principles, country or any such abstract thing, you’re fighting for the guy next to you.”

      “I can understand that,” she murmured.

      “But there’s something more. We were dedicated to something, Connie. Something bigger than us. Something we were willing to die for. And it wasn’t just the guy beside us who depended on us. It was—this is going to sound nuts, given all that’s happened—we were dedicated to helping those people in every way we could. We didn’t want to abandon them to the darkness again. We wanted to save lives, improve lives, make sure little girls could go to school, and that babies didn’t die needlessly of treatable diseases. We wanted to get rid of all the threats.”

      “Yes.”

      “The horrible thing about it is, no matter how much good you try to do, you create more ugliness at the same time.”

      “That must be awful.”

      “It is. It was better in Afghanistan, actually. In Iraq, everything was all blurred. But when I got to Afghanistan, it was clearer, believe it or not.”

      “I can believe it. Iraq turned into such a mess.”

      “Yeah. It’s horrifying. There wasn’t anybody in uniform who didn’t want to make life better for those people. Not a one of us. But it turned out to be like opening Pandora’s box.

      “In Afghanistan, though, it’s clearer. A lot of people just want us to go away. But a lot want us to put an end to the Taliban. I don’t think they care much one way or another about al Qaeda, but the Taliban...there’s still a lot of anger against them. And every time they raid a village and destroy a girls’ school, it’s amazing to watch the village elders get together to rebuild it.”

      “Do they ask you for help?”

      “Sometimes. We’re still occupiers.”

      “It’s sad.”

      “What?”

      She tried to see his face in the dark but couldn’t. “It’s sad that trying to help has hurt so many.”

      “I know. And I don’t blame the locals for having mixed feelings about СКАЧАТЬ