All I Am. Nicole Helm

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      He had been isolated for too long. Talking to the dogs was one thing. Talking to himself this much? He still remembered his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Purdue, telling him that talking to himself was a sign of insanity.

      She might not be that far off.

      He gathered his ingredients, flipping on the radio to drown out some of his inner monologue. All he wanted to think about was the correct ratio of sweet potatoes to whole wheat flour.

      He lost himself in the routine, even managing to forget Cara was in the next room most of the time. He had the batter made and the molds filled before she interrupted the peace he’d found by entering the kitchen.

      “Hey, um...” Her nervous energy filled the room. Obviously she’d run across something she had a question about, something that made her uncomfortable. His shoulders that had finally relaxed tensed.

      “Um, someone from Dr. Pedelmann’s office called to see if they could reschedule your appointment tomorrow.”

      Well. Yeah, he could see why that’d make her uncomfortable. And damn him for not having a personal phone line so he could handle these things without the chance of her...getting wind of it. Too late now. “Super.”

      “They asked if the sixth at two-thirty would work.”

      “Okay.”

      She didn’t move. He didn’t bother to look at her, but he could still hear her breathing, didn’t hear any footsteps retreating.

      “You’re not, like, dying, are you?”

      The question shocked an almost laugh out of him. “No, not dying.” Any lingering desire to laugh died. “Just malfunctioning.”

      She stood there, hovering. Not asking any more questions but not leaving, either.

      “Look.” He glared at the molds filled with batter. As much as he loved what he did, it so often struck him as ridiculous. Making dog treats so idiot people like Pipsqueak’s owner could pretend their dogs were children. All because he was too damaged to do what he really wanted to do.

      But there were good customers, too. Non-ridiculous people who wanted to feed their dogs decent food. Which was the whole reason he’d even thought of this business when all other options had been destroyed.

      Cara was still watching him. He could feel her gaze. Like a weight. Like a noose. “I have nerve damage in my arm. A pin in my hip. The nerve damage isn’t progressing the way it should, hence the doctor’s appointment. I’m not dying, and I’m not certifiable.” Not totally, anyway.

      “Okay. Can I help somehow?”

      “No. Just reschedule the appointment for whenever.”

      “Okay.” Another pause. “Okay,” she said once more, and then, finally, her footsteps retreated.

      He took a deep breath, looked out the window at the trees that surrounded his cabin. Help. A foreign concept. One he didn’t know what to do with except push away.

      But the offer lingered there, accompanied by a sharp pang of something he’d tried to eradicate from his life. Longing. Loneliness. He wasn’t such an idiot that he thought he’d ever be right in the head enough to have a romantic relationship, but maybe they could have a friendly working one.

      That wasn’t...totally out of the realm of possibility, was it? He’d been friends, so to speak, with some of the guys in his regiment. The guys in the dog squad especially.

      Cara might be a woman, but she was an off-limits woman, which meant he didn’t have to get all nervous and uncomfortable at the prospect of anything more. There wasn’t the chance for anything more. She was like a fellow soldier, working toward the same goal.

      And if she had breasts, a brain-cell-killing smile and always smelled like flowers of some kind, well, he’d find a way to ignore that.

      * * *

      CARA LOOKED DOWN at the desk and sighed. The enormity of stuff Wes surrounded himself with, half of it junk mail and old receipts that couldn’t possibly be needed, made it feel as if she’d gotten nowhere despite working for almost three hours straight. Well, aside from the little break to tell Wes about his doctor’s appointment and shove her foot in her mouth.

      There was progress to be found on the desk; she just couldn’t see it. And that made her feel stupid. Which wasn’t exactly new these days. She needed something to gel.

      Asking Wes if he was dying wasn’t gelling. Nor was getting one hundred percent turned down on her offer to help. But, hey, at least she got to keep Sweetness.

      Cara’s stomach rumbled, and she chewed her lip. She’d been hungry for an hour. Couldn’t stop thinking about the pie she’d placed back in her bag. She’d need a knife, fork and plate to indulge, and she had brought it for Wes, so she probably shouldn’t eat it.

      Though him eating the whole pie didn’t seem totally necessary.

      When Wes stepped back into the office, he gave her a quizzical look. Probably because she was standing there staring at nothing. Doing nothing.

      “I—I was trying to, um, I was going to take my lunch break. If that’s okay. I—”

      He grunted, cutting her off. I suck, suck, suck.

      “You have three choices,” he said. “You can eat whatever in here and take off at four. You can go get lunch somewhere in town, which seems like a total waste of time, and you’d have to work till five. Or you can come with me.”

      “What happens if I come with you?” Why, oh, why had her brain suddenly made everything dirty? So not okay to think about that right now.

      “We take the dogs for a walk. We eat sandwiches out by the creek. We don’t chitchat. And you can take off at four thirty, because it usually only takes me about a half hour.”

      “What exactly is your definition of chitchat?” A girl with any ounce of self-preservation would take the first option. She was not that girl.

      “Pick a door, Cara.”

      He so rarely said her name or addressed her in any way. It was strangely nice when he did. “Door three, please.”

      Again, he grunted, offering nothing else as he walked back to the kitchen. For the first time she noticed it. Not quite a limp, but a stiffness. That right leg didn’t move quite as easily as the rest of him.

      Or had she noticed because she now knew he had a pin in his hip? Ouch, that sounded bad. Plus nerve damage that wasn’t getting better. Poor guy.

      When she stepped into the kitchen, he was standing in front of the small slice of counter that seemed reserved for people food. “Peanut butter or turkey?”

      “Um.” It took her brain a few seconds to work out he was asking about sandwiches. “I brought my own lunch.” A sad little packet of tuna and some crackers. “But if you’re offering, I’ll take a turkey sandwich instead.”

      Another grunted nonanswer, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t think СКАЧАТЬ