Chapter Nine
Claire woke to the sound of Nate moving around the bach. “Turn on a light if you want to,” she called. “I’m awake.”
Rolling to the window beside the bed, she drew the curtain, startling a rabbit nibbling the dew-tipped kikuyu grass. It bolted across the shared driveway and disappeared among the sand dunes with a blur of cottontail. Though the animals were a pest here, she smiled.
Above the three Norfolk pines that bordered the communal yard, dawn streaked rain clouds pink. She undid the window latch and pushed it open to breathe in the salty sharp air, leavened with pine needles. The scent always made her think “summer holidays,” even when a glimpse of sea through the dunes was a choppy, stormy gray.
Nate tapped on the doorjamb. “Coffee?”
“Wonderful.” As he pulled open the doorway curtain and appeared with a steaming mug, she sat up. “What time is it?”
“Just gone six.” Yet he was already showered, clean shaven, dressed in designer jeans and a formfitting sweater. “I want to get as much done is possible while I’m here, so I figured I’d make a start on stripping the old canopy today, keep you company while you’re sanding handrails.”
Claire accepted the mug. Assess her, he meant. “What about reading reports?”
“I’ll do that at night. There’s plenty to do on Heaven Sent without spending money and my help will stop you falling behind.”
“And you can tell me more stories about Steve.”
He didn’t look at her. He’d withdrawn again, ‘new” Nate evident in his shuttered expression. Well, she’d expected that. “I’m not sure I’m doing Steve any favors and—” his gaze met hers “—I upset you last night.”
“I think they’ll really help,” she stated.
He shifted, uncomfortable. Claire sipped her coffee.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll think about it.”
After he’d left, she settled against the pillows, thinking hard. Witnessing Nate’s distress last night had shaken her; somehow she had to get him past this self-destructive grief. And there was only one chink in the armor he used to keep her at arm’s length.
Steve.
It felt as if Nate was trying to convince her that Steve was a great guy…as if he wanted to help her forgive him. But Claire already knew her husband was a great guy. That wasn’t the problem.
Steve being dead was the problem.
Steve dragging his heels on their agreement and getting himself killed was the problem.
Steve breaking their son’s heart was the problem.
And it wasn’t going to be solved by heroic stories or a mysterious incident involving her husband nearly getting his troopmates killed.
Claire took another hit of caffeine. But she wouldn’t tell Nate that. However misguided, his attempt to find the magic words last night was deeply touching. And endearing. And, she suspected, therapeutic for him. His stories wouldn’t help her forgive Steve, but they might help Nate accept his buddies’ deaths.
And through his anecdotes she might learn, not what he wanted to tell her, but what he didn’t.
Though it was a short walk, they drove to the boat shed after breakfast. Rain pelted down and Claire had a trunkload of gear—sanding boards, an orbital sander, extra gloves and an old vacuum cleaner. “Another couple of days and I can start cleaning up, ready for painting,” she said as she unlocked the shed and they hurriedly unloaded the gear.
The interior was cold, rain beat down on the tin roof and she switched on the lights to lift the gloom. Reaching for the coveralls she left on a hook beside the door, she cast a doubtful look at Nate’s good clothes.
“They’ll wash clean,” he said. “And if they don’t, I’ll buy replacements.” He turned to assess the canopy.
“I have a better idea. Follow me.” Claire climbed to the deck and went into the cabin, where she opened a drawer. “You left these here.” She handed him a folded pair of paint-splattered jeans and a plaid shirt, soft with wear. “I washed and stowed them for when you came back.”
It was a couple of seconds before he took them. “Thanks.”
He stripped off his sweater, and as the T-shirt under it lifted, Claire glimpsed the taut and tanned muscles of his abdomen. “I’ll get started,” she said, and left before he unbuttoned his jeans. Idiot for getting flustered, she told herself as she pulled on her coveralls and tied her hair up with a scrunchie. Nothing’s changed.
When Nate emerged from the cabin, she was using the orbital sander on the last length of kauri handrail. The plaid shirt was tighter across the shoulders and he’d slashed the jeans across the thighs for a better fit. She’d already noticed he’d bulked up over the past year and a half.
“Did you turn into the Incredible Hulk in L.A.?” she teased over the buzz of the machine because it was easier making fun than gawking.
Nate shrugged. “Zander’s into weights, we do a lot of workouts together.”
He climbed the small stepladder that gave him access to the weatherworn canvas canopy and she averted her gaze from his perfect butt and distracted herself from this uncomfortable awareness with thoughts of her son. It was 7:15 a.m. Was Lewis up mustering lambs or still in bed?
She was trying not to be a helicopter mom by phoning every day. At thirteen, he needed male role models and Dan fit the bill perfectly. But Nate was her son’s favorite. Methodically, she moved the motorized sander over the handrail, careful not to gouge the wood. She hadn’t given up on Nate seeing Lewis; she was simply biding her time.
Ninety minutes later she called a coffee break. Her hands still tingled from the vibration of the machine and her fingers were sweaty in the rough chamois gloves as she peeled them off, removed her dust mask and admired Nate’s handiwork as he removed the last of the rotting canopy.
“The boat feels so much bigger without it.”
“What are you replacing it with?”
“Aluminum and some kind of wonder fabric… There’s a quote and spec brochure at the bach. All they need is the go-ahead, but they want cash in advance.” She told him the figure. “It’ll have to wait until the house sale’s confirmed.”
He was silent as she poured coffee from the thermos and brought out the chocolate-banana muffins she’d taken from the freezer that morning. “Are you withholding comment in case I read it as encouragement?” she challenged.
Amusement sparked in his eyes—russet brown flecked with gold. “Being stroppy work for you very often? Just curious.”
Claire bit her lip to keep from smiling. “These muffins are cold but defrosted, I hope.” She passed one over. “Dip it in your coffee.”
Dusting the central slatted bench that doubled as seating and a storage bin with the tail of his flannel shirt, Nate sat. He’d rolled up the sleeves and with his strong tanned forearms looked like any other tradesman, except for those manicured Hollywood hands.
He caught her looking at them and grimaced. “That’s why I’m not wearing gloves…. I need a few calluses or the locals will drive me out of Stingray Bay.” Adding sugar to his coffee he said too casually, “The place is deserted this time of year. Aren’t you going to find it lonely outside the summer influx?”
Claire bit into her chilly muffin. “I know a few locals. You’ll see more people when the weather fines up. And any peep of sun and you’re in paradise again.” Settling beside him, she looked up to the roof. “Sounds like the rain has stopped now.”
It was isolated here without the summer crowds, but settling Lewis close to his new school was paramount. They could always move again if it didn’t work out. But she wasn’t expressing any doubt to Nate. He didn’t need more grounds for questioning her decision. “About Steve,” she said, changing the agenda to hers.
He stiffened, then casually added more sugar. “Yeah?”
“What was his view on that rough patch in our marriage?” Nate said nothing. She stopped chewing. “You will talk about him, won’t you?” Just a trace of plaintive in her tone, like a berley trail used to draw a big fish closer to the bait. Speaking of bait… “He and I worked through those problems, remember?”
Nate’s frown cleared and Claire knew what he was thinking. If they’d got through tough times once…
He took the hook. “How much paternity leave did Steve have when Lewis was born?”
“Ten days before you were deployed to Timor. The next time he came home, Lewis was four months old.” How desperate she’d been to see him, how quickly things had started going wrong.
Nate bit into the muffin. “He said you and the baby had become your own little unit,” he said between chews. “You had a routine, a support group of new mums and he felt like he wasn’t needed.”
Her tongue touched a frozen spot on the muffin, and Claire paused to dig out the muffin core and threw it onto the dry dirt floor for the resident swallow, wishing she’d chosen another lead-in.
“I think we both had such high expectations of how that leave would play out, and reality just didn’t live up to it,” she admitted. “I was exhausted and Steve’s tentativeness around the baby made me so nervous I’d take over. He’d get defensive and leave me to it.”
The bird flew down from the rafters, keeping a wary eye on them as it darted forward for the frozen crumbs then flew back to its aerie. “Having a baby made me more sensitive to the dangers of deployment, but Steve dismissed my concerns.”
Talk about back to the future. Appetite gone, Claire tossed aside the rest of her muffin. “We fought the whole month he was home,” she recalled. “The only reprieve we had was when you and Brianna came to stay for that weekend.” She pulled a face, striving to make this light again. “And the two of you were so attentive to each other and so loving, while Steve and I snapped each other’s heads off.”
“We were clinging together as a survival mechanism,” Nate retorted. He threw his own frozen muffin next to Claire’s. “I was never so glad to leave in my life. I still remember Steve’s puppy-dog eyes as we drove away.”
His tone invited her to see the funny side. Claire managed a smile. “And then we had another fight when I shrilly demanded to know why he couldn’t be as nice to me as he was to Bree and he said, ‘because Bree isn’t being a bitch.’” Actually, in hindsight, it was humorous. Smiling, she shook her head. “And off we went on another round.”
“When he returned to base, we all took one look at him and steered clear,” Nate commented. “He was one mean bastard, acing every training exercise. When we drilled unarmed combat, there wasn’t one of us who wanted to step in that circle with him. He gave Dan a black eye.”
“You should have seen what I did to Lewis’s teddy bear,” Claire deadpanned.
Nate laughed. “Our first night on leave, Steve drank himself shit-faced, then started crying into his beer and saying, ‘I can unload and identify twenty-four different makes of gun, I can kick you guys into next week, but I can’t get the temperature right in a baby’s bottle or puree the frickin’ lumps out of an organic carrot, according to my ever-loving wife.’ We didn’t have the first clue what to say. In the end, Lee suggested Steve write you a letter since you couldn’t talk without arguing and we jotted notes on a cocktail napkin. But Steve was still way too fixated on the carrot thing, so the exercise never came to anything.”
“Oh, my poor Steve.” She chuckled, but there were tears in her eyes. Nate extended a comforting arm and it seemed natural to lay her head on his shoulder. “We were all so reckless with love,” she said, watching the swallow break up the lump of muffin. “You guys played the field and Steve and I treated marriage like a soap opera. Like it was a renewable resource that didn’t need nurturing and tending. And yet I miss those days of being young and heedless of consequences.”
I miss the courage to love without regretting the cost. Wait, how had she ended up on the therapist’s couch when this was about helping Nate?
“You and Steve grew smarter,” Nate said. “I’m not so sure about the rest of us.”
Claire straightened. “You haven’t seen Dan with Jo, or Ross with Viv. Those two were such players, but they’re changed men. Nate, are you sure—”
“Positive.” He stood and stretched. “How about I start dismantling the electrics?” Frustrated, she watched him pack up the basket, incurably neat, like all army guys. “Why won’t you see them?”
“I can’t be who they want right now…. It’ll only end in more hurt.”
“You’re okay with me.”
He was silent, replacing the lid on the muffin tin.
“I know the ambush was bad,” she said. “You wouldn’t have stayed away from us, from Dan and Ross, if it wasn’t. But there must be a vanilla version you can give Lewis.”
He went into the wheelhouse and started inspecting the circuit board.
“Or you could tell him some of the things you’re telling me. The day-to-day stuff.”
“Any chance you can pass me that toolbox?” he said.
After dumping it beside him, she settled to hand sanding the grooves in the handrail. So much for coaxing him into opening up. Mentally Claire regrouped. “The worst thing about deployment is that it puts your relationship on the back burner for months at a time,” she commented as though Nate hadn’t just shut her down. “Whatever you’ve got in the pot when you leave keeps on simmering. For both of us, it was resentment.”
The sandpaper abraded her fingers and she paused to pull on gloves, not daring to look at him. “Steve thought I was unreasonable wanting him to quit when I’d married a career soldier, and so he stopped telling me anything that might fuel my argument. That just made me more paranoid we were drifting apart and that Lewis and I sat low on his list of priorities.” She concentrated on sanding. A couple of minutes passed.
“Steve could be a stubborn bastard,” Nate said and she breathed a sigh of relief. “It was one of his best and worst qualities. I think he hated deployment through that period as much as you did.”
“Really?” Claire glanced up. He was busy tracing the jumble of red, black and yellow wiring back to the control panel. At the time, her husband hadn’t given an inch.
“He hated missing all Lewis’s milestones. Crawling, his first steps, his first words… We watched Lewis’s first birthday party on DVD a month late and Steve grew very quiet. He said, ‘My baby doesn’t remember me when I go home.’”
Her throat tightened, as it always did when she thought of father and son together. “When Lewis was little, we’d talk to Steve’s picture every day. I spent ages teaching him to say dada, except he said it to Dan instead…so funny. You should have seen Steve’s face.”
Nate looked over his shoulder. “So that’s why Steve taught Lewis to call Dan, Dumdum.” When he smiled like this, she realized how much she’d missed him.
Claire nodded. “And then he taught Lewie to call Ross, Rose.”
“Ross said if he was going to be called a damn rose he’d at least be an iceberg rose.” Nate’s grin broadened. “Over the years it was shortened to Ice.”
Claire laughed. “I never connected those two nicknames. So much for the hard-man reputation. I’ll have to tease Ice about that…. Did you know he’s got this big campaign going to get Viv to marry him?”
“Yeah, I heard. And that he’s finally given up on reaching operational fitness.” Returning to Afghanistan had been Ross’s driving ambition since the ambush, but his leg injury had proved beyond rehabilitation. He’d returned to the SAS in a noncombat role. Grin gone, Nate returned to examining the wiring. “How’s he handling that?”
Claire looked at the new tension across his shoulders. “Phone him,” she suggested gently. “Find out.”
But he didn’t respond, and she got no conversation from Nate for the rest of the morning.