Chapter Four
Travis turned, sensing Kass coming across the living room. She had tried to clean up, her black hair, once mussed, now in soft waves around her pale face and shoulders. Each step she took was slow and measured. He could see she still didn’t have her balance back. Kass would reach out and trail her fingers across the back of a chair or the couch, keeping them available should she start to fall.
Why hadn’t she asked him for help? That hurt, but Travis thought he knew why: He’d made it clear that she wasn’t wanted in his world at all. Was it possible for a heart to hurt so much as it did right now in his chest? Sorrow ate at him. He quickly dried off his hands, dropped the towel on the counter, and walked toward the rectangular hickory dining room table and four chairs that surrounded it.
“I’ll get there,” Kass promised, grit in her tone, forcing a tight, wan smile.
“Let me help.” He came to her side, slipping his hand beneath her right elbow. “You should have asked me for help, Kass.”
She gave him a slanted look. “Hey, after being dumped on the step of the fire department shortly after birth, I got it, Travis.”
“You’re very independent,” he agreed gently, cutting his steps to half his stride. She leaned into his hand and he felt gratified that even now, Kass trusted him. She should. But he didn’t deserve her trust because he’d broken it too many times already. “And that’s not a bad way for a woman to be today,” he added.
“You’re right.”
Reaching the table, he pulled out the chair for her. “Have a seat. I’ll get the coffee in a minute. Do you like cream or sugar?”
“No, just black, thanks.” She slowly sat down in the chair. “I guess I’m not as spunky feeling as I thought I should be.”
He helped her slide the chair closer to the table and forced himself to remove his hand from it. “A good night’s sleep will make you feel a lot better tomorrow morning,” he promised, going to the kitchen.
Kass’s face was pale. Her eyes were still filled with darkness. Her steps had been hesitant and unsure. How much he wanted to hold her, cradle her gently in his arms and allow her to lean on him. Travis knew he could make her feel better. But to what end? To do it after he’d informed her she wasn’t needed in his life any longer would be cruel. And uncaring. No, he had to keep his hands to himself and be the model gentleman to her. That was all.
As he poured the coffee into two turquoise-colored ceramic mugs, he wanted to spoil her. Care for her. Make her smile. Needing, once again, to hear her laughter. She had a musical laugh and her eyes sparkled at such times. Travis wanted all of that to be shared with him. But he’d seen the shadows in her eyes and sensed that she was trying to be a good guest in this terribly awkward circumstance they found themselves in. Neither of them were comfortable at the moment.
Coming over to the table, he slid the mug toward her. “Are you hungry? I’m pretty good at making eggs and bacon.”
She gave him a slight smile and slipped her hands around the large mug. “No . . . thank you.”
Sitting down opposite her, Travis fought the need to sit closer to Kass. His heart yearned mightily for her nearness. His head warned of the dangers of such a choice. “I knew this blue norther was coming, so I went over to a rancher’s place nearby and bought beef. Are you up to a New York steak tonight? I could throw some Idaho potatoes into the oven to bake. I’ve even got some sour cream in the fridge.”
“That all sounds good, Travis, but my stomach is on the fritz.”
His brows fell. “Nausea?”
“Um, yes. Sometimes. It comes and goes.”
“You probably have a mild concussion, Kass. You’d like something lighter to eat, maybe?”
“Yes, I think so, but I’m not hungry right now, anyway.” She picked up the mug and cautiously sipped the steaming black coffee.
Travis watched her lips and slid his gaze away from her for a moment. Kass had the most beautiful mouth he’d ever seen on a woman. Her lips were shapely, full, the corners dimpled. What would it be like to kiss her now, not as a young teen girl, but as a woman? He remembered in high school how sloppy and untrained his kisses must have been.
Setting the mug down, Kass said, “Do you have any canned soup? Maybe chicken soup?”
He brightened. “Yes, I do. Does that sound good to you now? Or for lunch?”
“It does. And some saltine crackers? Do you have those?”
Nodding, he said, “I do.”
She looked at the clock. It was nearly eleven a.m. “Maybe in an hour or so? I’m not hungry right now, Travis.”
“Understandable. What were you doing out on 89 with this weather coming in?”
With a grimace, she said, “I was attending a funeral for a dear friend of mine, Val Thomas. She died in Salt Lake City. I went down two days ago. I knew Val’s whole family, and I wanted to spend some time with them afterward. When I heard a blue norther was coming in, I said goodbye and hoped that I could drive home before it hit.”
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Val was one of my parent’s waitresses. She quit about three years ago to go back to Salt Lake and take care of her ninety-year-old mother, Tess. They were so very close. When Tess passed six months ago, I went down for her funeral. Val didn’t look good. She’d just buried her mother and afterward, she’d gone to the doctor. She had a brain tumor and he told her she wouldn’t live more than two months. It was an aggressive form of cancer. So she stayed with her family. She had two grown children who were married and with kids there in Salt Lake City. They cared for her while she was in hospice. She managed to live six months. Val had that kind of toughness of spirit, a real fighter. One of her daughters was pregnant at the time, and Val fought to stay alive until the baby was born in the fourth month of her illness. She got to hold her grandbaby, and pictures were taken, which will be priceless to all the family. As it was to Val.”
“Tough break,” Travis agreed quietly, seeing the grief in Kass’s eyes even now. “I’m really sorry.”
Her mouth moved into a sad line and she whispered, “Thanks.”
“So having an accident on the way home was the cherry on the cake?”
“You could say that. Perfect end to a very bad time.”
And now Kass was with him, unwanted, released and told never to come back into his life. The self-reproach he felt deepened and widened within him. It was an awful time for Kass. Far worse than he’d imagined. How must she really be feeling about being here with him, of all people?
Pushing the mug slowly between his hands, he said, “And then you landed here, with me.” Travis forced himself to look up and hold her sad gaze. “Helluva fix, Kass. This can’t be comfortable for you under the circumstances, but I’m going to make every effort to make you feel welcome here. All right?”
“It’s a hell of a fix, Travis. I feel like a shuttlecock in a badminton game getting whapped back and forth. Only it’s intense and emotional.”
“And I know how hard that can be.”
She gave him a sharpened look. “Are you saying that because of your deployments to Afghanistan or about us?”
Twinging inwardly, Travis knew she had an unerring ability to hit a target dead on. Kass had always been super intuitive, even as a child and teenager. He was not surprised by her bold, accurate question. Kass wasn’t PC about much at all, but that was one of the many things he loved about her. “Yes, about Afghanistan.” He didn’t dare try to start adding an explanation. Travis didn’t know what to expect from Kass in reaction, but he saw her eyes grow sympathetic.
“Did you hear from town gossip that when I took over the café, I started hiring women military vets as waitresses? There were so many of them who had PTSD, and I wanted to try and help them if I could.” She opened her hands. “They needed support, a friendly ear, and they are the hardest workers, completely reliable, and the most trustworthy group I’ve ever seen. I’m so glad that I did that for them. They’ve made the café a star here in the valley.”
“No . . . I didn’t know that, Kass. I knew that Steve and Maud Whitcomb at the Wind River Ranch made it a point to hire military vets. That’s why I went to them first when my enlistment was up and I was coming back to the valley. I’d been over at Charlie Becker’s Hay and Feed, and he told me they were hiring military men and women coming back from the wars.”
“Yes, there’s a huge effort in our valley to hire men and women vets. I thought maybe you knew all about it since you’ve been here for a year.”
Shrugging, he said, “I don’t go to town unless I have to. I pretty much stay here, create furniture for orders I’ve received, and I live a quiet life. I’m not privy to much gossip. The way I live now is what I need.”
“Carly, my manager, saw combat in Afghanistan, too. On some nights, when it was slow, we’d sit in the back booth near the kitchen and I’d just let her talk. It seemed to help her, to take a load off her shoulders she was silently carrying. I could always tell when she was wrestling with an anxiety attack or flashback. The ladies who work for me, being vets and all having PTSD in some form or another, look out for one another. They have clued me in on flashbacks, how a smell, a sound, a shadow, or a face could suddenly throw them back into a moment where they were in a life-and-death situation or it was terribly threatening for them.”
Surprised, Travis sat there digesting her softly spoken admission. He saw the concern in her expression, but even more, that husky voice of hers was like balm to his smarting conscience and guilt. “I didn’t know this . . . I wish I had . . .”
“My lady vets have taught me a lot over the years,” she confided wryly, sipping her coffee. “They had to get me accustomed to PTSD and what it really meant, and what it was doing to each of them. They all had different symptoms from it. We’d sit down after the café closed, drink coffee, and they’d share. That’s what I like about women: They talk, they open up, and they aren’t afraid to be emotional. It got so that at least every couple of weeks, we’d close the café at quitting time and then we’d gather in the back booths and just talk. I listened a lot, Travis. I had no idea what was going on inside them. They all handled so many awful symptoms with such silence and grace. They seemed so outwardly confident. And they didn’t mess up food orders, they were fast to serve customers, efficient, and my regulars, even the tourists, loved each of them. I just had no idea of the minute-by-minute anxiety or other feelings they carried within them. Or being in crowded circumstances, or the noise getting too loud for them to handle.”
“All of that will send us into even more anxiety,” he admitted darkly, frowning.
“They taught me, Travis. I used to have the music playing loudly but they finally fessed up and told me that it put them on edge. That it made them anxious. We discussed it and I decided to do two things. First, I would play classical and semi-classical instrumental music. Secondly, I would keep it only as a soft background. They were grateful. And to my surprise? My customers loved the new type of music. They told me it made them feel relaxed. It was a win-win for everyone.” She sighed. “They’re in so much pain all the time. I sometimes wonder if you got shot with a bullet that it would be kinder, faster, quicker to heal up from than the emotional and mental cruelty that PTSD evokes in all of them. There’s no end to their suffering. It galls me, and I wish I could take the horrible feelings they carry out of them forever.”
Trying not to stare at her or have his mouth drop open, Travis choked up. How badly he’d miscalculated Kass’s ability to comprehend and understand what he lived with daily. It shocked him. “It’s a 24/7/365 ordeal,” he agreed heavily. “And it never goes away.”
“Well,” Kass said, “Carly told me that there would be what she called ‘windows’ where the anxiety seemed to lessen or sometimes just disappear within her for a little while. She called them ‘rest periods.’ She lived for those hours and sometimes days. They came and went. There was no rhyme or reason for it to come or go, either.”
Something broke within him. Travis couldn’t say what it was exactly, only that it felt like a dam holding back millions of gallons of water had suddenly burst, and just the pressure relief from it doing so was astounding to him. His whole chest and shoulders felt lighter now, and he was afraid to name the emotion that he now felt: happiness. How long had it been since he’d been happy? He couldn’t name a time when he’d felt like that for the last seven years of his life. Kass had been the only one who had made him happy. He saw her staring at him, puzzlement in her expression. Casting around for something to say, he muttered, “Yeah, it comes and goes.”
“Does my talking about this make you uncomfortable, Travis?”
Shaking his head, he took a hot drink of coffee. “No, it’s okay.” He’d always felt safe talking to Kass about anything and everything.
“Then what’s that look on your face? You’re really hard to read when you don’t want people to know how you’re really feeling.”
Giving her a sour smile, he said, “I’m surprised that you know as much as you do about PTSD. I didn’t realize you were hiring women vets. I’ve never been to your café, so I didn’t know. I think Charlie Becker mentioned it once, but I was so busy because I was caught up in a flashback that it went in one ear and out the other.”
“Do you get flashbacks, too, Travis?”
“Yeah, which is why I don’t go into town too often. It makes me feel claustrophobic, Kass. It’s nothing I can control. If I have to go to town, I do, but I’m tense and edgy for days afterward. I have to wind down those feelings that there’s a Taliban sniper hiding around the corner of a building or on a roof, waiting to blow me away.”
“Oh.” She studied him. “Carly has a problem with tight places. She was in a special black ops unit, a top-secret one that was testing out women in combat. She volunteered for it while she was in the Marine Corps. There’s one place she won’t go in our café, and that’s a very small, darkly lit room. She’ll ask another waitress who doesn’t have that kind of reaction to go in there to get the supplies we need for the cook. They work with one another’s issues, and that kind of teamwork has helped all of them.”
“I’m sure that helps her a lot. I wish more people were sensitive to our issues.”
“Is that why I never see you in town, Travis? You can’t handle a town environment?”
As always, Kass was intelligent and very quick to put puzzle pieces together to see a larger pattern. “Yeah.” He moved uncomfortably. “I lost my best friend in an Afghan village while we were searching for a specific enemy. A Taliban sniper was on another rooftop and killed him. Ever since then I can’t handle a town too well.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out, briefly touching his hand wrapped around the mug. “That makes sense to me now.” And then she rolled her eyes. “I thought the reason you never came into town was because I was working and living there. We’d have run into one another, for sure.”
More grief plunged through him. “No . . . no, that was never the reason I didn’t go into town often, Kass. My wounds have nothing to do with you.” He saw relief come to her face.
“I guess, even though we’re not in a relationship with one another,” she said, “I always wanted to always remain friends with you, Travis. I know I didn’t say it at the time you told me that things were finished between us a year ago. I was too upset to think to say to you that if I could, I’d still remain your friend, if you wanted. But I never told you until now.”
There was fear, anxiety, and need clearly written in her features. Kass would never be able to hide how she felt from him.
Feeling his throat tighten, it took everything Travis had not to tell her the truth. Instead, he rasped, “We’ll always be friends, Kass. I haven’t been avoiding you. Since coming home I guess I’ve been avoiding life in particular and people in general.” He gestured around the cabin. “This place is like a shell that protects me. Well, that and my furniture studio next door. I feel safe in both places. There’s no noise, just natural sounds, which I need and it calms me. I have two horses to care for, and when there isn’t six feet of snow on the ground, I go riding. And I have my furniture business, which feeds me tranquility and it focuses me.”
“Wood is natural. It should be soothing. Anything that is from nature is always helpful, Travis.” She gazed around the small, cozy cabin. “I hadn’t thought of this beautiful cabin as a clamshell, but you know, you’re right. There’s a warm feeling in here, not too large or small, and the fire popping and crackling in the stove always makes me happy and relaxed. It must for you, too?”
Stirring, Travis stood up, his cup empty. “Yes, it does. Do you feel like coming out to see my wood studio?” He was desperate to have her see who he was now, to understand where he was at. Travis didn’t know why, only that he felt driven to show her where he spent most of his time every day. Something deep within him told him that she would understand.
“I’d love to do that,” Kass said, pushing the chair away. “Thanks for the coffee. It tasted really good. I should find out what kind of beans you use.”
“It’s local. Charlie Becker sells them.”
She smiled a little, her fingertips on the table as she rose. “Charlie is always selling lots of little things to folks around here. He’s so necessary to all of us.”
“Yeah,” he said, coming around the table, sliding his hand beneath her elbow, “Charlie is a permanent fixture around here, plus, he’s just an all-around good person, and so is his wife, Pixie. She makes the best baked goods in the county.”
Straightening, she stood for a moment. “Oh, Pixie is famous for them! I think the whole town knows when she bakes a fresh batch of cookies or some of her wonderful brownies or cupcakes. Everyone comes over to get some of them over at the feed store.” She gave him a glance. “I’m still a little dizzy, Travis.”
“Do you want to delay going to the studio? Would you rather lie down for a while or something?”
“No . . . no . . . just let it pass.” Kass sighed and gave him a wry look. “Tell me how long it will take my poor pea brain to heal and I won’t have this whirling sensation?”
“Probably be gone by tomorrow morning after a good night’s sleep, Kass.”
“Good to hear.” She moved with him toward the door. “I can hardly wait to see what you make, Travis. I remember in high school you took every woodworking class available. Your dad taught you carpentry from about nine years old, onward, as I recall.” She smiled up at him. “That hasn’t changed about you at all. Charlie was raving about the furniture you make. And of course, Maud Whitcomb thinks you walk on water. She proudly calls you a master carpenter.”
Travis opened the door. Outside, the snow was falling heavily now, being whirled around by gusts of wind now and then. There was an enclosed screen porch that protected the area from the elements. He led her down to the end of it, opening a screen door that led to a sheltered passageway. There was a roof over it and the bottom half of it was made of wood slats. The top half was screened in, as well.
He guided Kass into the studio at the end of the passageway. Opening the wooden door that he’d carved with a mountain scene and a grizzly bear by a stream, he flipped on the lights. Kass had stopped and was running her fingers across his carving, making a sound of pleasure. It made him feel so damned good. He eased her inside the large, rectangular room.
“Oh,” she said, standing to one side as he came in and shut the door. “You’re busy, Travis!” She smiled, gesturing around the room filled with furniture at different points of construction. “And it smells so good in here!”
“It’s the different scents from the wood I use,” he said. “Where would you like to start?”
“Tell me what happens from the beginning. I know Maud said that you get orders from all around the world.”
“Let’s go to the right, then,” he urged, cupping her elbow, guiding her along the wall where sawhorses sat with different kinds of wood spanning across them. “When the phone rings and I’m at the other end of my studio, it’s a run to pick it up in time to answer it.”
“It’s a huge place, Travis, but looking at the couches, the stools and chairs you’re making, you need this kind of room.”
He brought her to a halt at his rolltop desk. “Here, have a seat,” he said, pulling out the oak chair on rollers. “Sit down, and if you’d like I can kind of talk about what’s going on in here?”
“Sitting is good,” she agreed.
Travis waited for her to get comfortable, standing to one side. “I get phone orders here.” He gestured to the desk where the black landline phone was placed.
“Who knows about you?” she asked, staring up at him.
“Steve, who is a globally known and an important architect, had one of their major magazines do an article on me. Since that article came out, I have more orders than I can fill.”
“He helped you build your business, getting the word out, and so you became known sooner than usual.”
Nodding, Travis rested his fingers lightly on her shoulder for a moment. “Yes, he did and I’m grateful.” He wanted to continue physical contact with Kass, but he forced himself to remove his hand.
The urge to touch her was a fierce need and drive within him, something that made him feel damn near euphoric when it happened. He saw the subtle change in her expression when he made contact with her shoulder. She liked it, too. But Kass had never been coy about the fact she’d loved him, even when he was gone for so many years. He’d found out from Charlie Becker that she still carried him in her heart. That was the depth of her commitment to him. And it wasn’t something he wanted to root out or destroy. But how could he change their present circumstances? Her understanding of PTSD through her waitresses blew him away, and it planted a seed of hope in his heart, too. Travis was unsure if it could grow or not. He only had five days with Kass to find out more about her and whether that seed could take root or not. A slice of him was serious about trying to reestablish a serious relationship with her. It wasn’t a logical need, it was his heart crying out for her. Could it honestly happen? Travis didn’t think so, and he was afraid to hope because everything else had been torn from him during his combat deployments. He thought hope had been destroyed, but now, he discovered, it had once more, taken up residence in his badly injured heart. War and combat remade everyone who went through it. How could hope really grow and survive in the brutal desert of his PTSD?
Fighting his internal thoughts, Travis gestured around the room. “I have mostly hardwoods that I work with in here. Some, as you can see, are stacked in the first third of my studio. It’s where I go to choose the wood for the project.”
“Do people have a favorite wood they want for their furniture?”
“Yes. My local clients, here in the valley, prefer oak. My East Coast clients like cherry and mahogany, darker, reddish-colored furniture.”
“It’s an eight-month winter here in Wyoming, and the skies are always dark,” Kass murmured. “Blond oak is light, and Wyoming folks sure don’t have a lot of sunlight in those months. It makes lots of sense people here would want lighter-colored wood.”
“That’s true,” he said, giving her a look of praise for her insight. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. Also, the folks around here like a softer wood like white pine. Over there I’m doing a set of six chairs for someone in Jackson Hole. All are made of it.”
“Interesting,” Kass murmured, smiling a little. “Do you get orders from the Midwest?”
“I do. They like elm, hickory, and some oak.”
“Do you get overseas orders?”
“Yes, and they prefer bamboo. It’s a tough wood to work with, and I had to teach myself how to deal with it. Bamboo is one of the most resilient, longest lasting of all woods in the world. Except maybe for ironwood, from the American Southwest, which I find nearly impossible to work with. It’s just too dense and hard to carve.”
She gave him a soft smile. “You know, when you talk about your woodworking, you relax. I can actually see your shoulders drop, Travis.”
He felt heat flooding his face. “You never did miss much, Kass. It’s true. I love working with any kind of wood. Just running my hands over a smoothed piece, sanding it, makes me relax.”
“Do you play music out here on your iPod?”
He pointed to a radio sitting on top of the desk. “That’s a 1930s wood radio made with a blond oak casing. I bought it at a Goodwill store in Salt Lake City right after I got home.”
“I heard you playing bluegrass music in your cabin.”
“Yes, my favorite. I play it out here, too.”
“So not all noise bothers you?”
He gazed down at her upturned face. The overhead track lighting brought out the blue highlights within her black hair. She was so beautiful. Clamping down on his desire, he said, “That’s right. I do well with one or two people around, too. If I get in a crowd, I seize up and I have to get out of there. And music, unless it’s too loud, is usually soothing to me. I guess you might say I’m reordering my world around the fact I need quiet and calm.”
“Carly’s a lot the same way. Now people can actually hold a conversation in my café at normal voice levels.” She grinned. “Everyone likes it that way, I discovered.”
“Sounds like they’ve been good teachers. Did you mind making those compensations for them, Kass?”
“Gosh, no! When I turned down the music and bought classical music from Pandora radio from the Internet, they loved it. And my ladies were able to relax, too. Sounds just tensed them up and there was no reason for me not to change the environment for them.”
How wrong he’d been about Kass and himself. For a moment, Travis let himself long for what he really wanted: to marry Kass, have a life with her. Could it really happen? What about children? There were so many unknowns about being a parent with PTSD, and that scared him to death. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Kass again. Feeling trapped between what his heart wanted and what his head was screaming at him, he decided to wait some more. “You’ve always been a relaxing person to me, Kass,” he admitted, holding her gaze. “I guess I just never realized how much you knew about PTSD and how it affects all of us.”
She stared up at him, the silence stretching between them. “And because of that? Does that change anything between us, Travis?”