Chapter Nine
COLE BROUGHT ANNIE back to Hope Hill after they’d bottle-fed the baby skunks their lunch. He went for his session with Dr. Ambrose, then for a full hour of therapeutic massage. Back in his room, he tried to get into the thriller on his nightstand, but he gave up after a few minutes. The restlessness that filled him wouldn’t let him sit still, let alone read.
Ten minutes later he was running around the track at the rehab center, appreciating the even ground. Now that one of his arms couldn’t move as it should, balance was an issue. People constantly pumped their arms as they walked and ran, balancing their bodies. But with his right arm hanging uselessly at his side, Cole was slightly less sure on his feet. Especially when he was running.
In the gym, he held on to the treadmill’s handlebar with his left. Out here, he had slightly more difficulty. Which was why he was out here. He needed to retrain himself, rewire his brain, and regain mastery over his body.
Annie was right. He wasn’t a machine. But he still abhorred weakness.
Trevor was the only other person on the track, working hard to catch up with Cole. Cole cut back on his speed.
The kid nodded a greeting with an expression that was half gratitude and half relief, as if he wasn’t sure whether Cole would want to talk to him again.
“Gonna rain any minute.” Trevor was gasping for air, so his lips were more difficult to read than usual.
Cole caught enough to respond. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”
Trevor flashed the kind of grin a kid would give an older brother he idolized. “I guess Navy SEALs aren’t much bothered by water.”
The comment didn’t require a response, so Cole didn’t give any.
“Ever done any high-profile missions?” Trev asked. “Like the Bin Laden thing?”
“Just average stuff.” He couldn’t talk about his missions. And Trev should know better than to bring any of that up.
“People are saying you were a sniper. Any high-value hits?”
“I don’t think about that life anymore. We have to leave the past in the past.”
They ran in silence for a minute or two before Trevor broke it again. “Big family back home?”
“Mother.”
“Two mothers. Two fathers. Well, some are steps. Seven siblings. I’m the youngest.” Instead of smiling, as most people did when talking about family, misery filled Trevor’s face. “I guess I let them all down.”
“You can’t let your family down by serving your country,” Cole said, because the kid looked like he might start crying.
Cole wished they could just run in silence. Movement made lipreading more difficult. He caught what he could and guessed the rest, filled in the blanks.
“Yeah.” Trevor didn’t look convinced. “But going nuts.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “They have to be embarrassed. Small town, you know? Like this place. Everyone knows everyone’s business.”
“That just means everyone’s pulling for you. In Chicago, even my neighbors don’t know me. You’re lucky.”
“Yeah?” The kid’s face cleared. “You think they’re pulling?”
“I bet you’re on the prayer list at church.”
“That’d be nice.” Trev’s gaze turned heartbreakingly wistful. “I mean, I like the thought of that.”
The rain that had been threatening all morning finally began with a drizzle, quickly wetting the track.
“I’m gonna peel off,” Trevor said. “Neck injury. Not supposed to push it. See you around.” He sprinted for the buildings.
Cole stayed on the track. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of his feet while he let his brain work on other things. He’d been here for five days—the first two days, before meeting Annie, spent with various assessments, a general orientation, a full physical, and his schedule being put together—but he still didn’t have a suspect for the texts.
No obvious clues. Nobody was of Middle Eastern origin or had any connection to Yemen, as far as he could tell. He’d managed to search about half of the staff offices the other night with Annie’s ID, but he hadn’t found anything incriminating. He’d identified five more patients he could rule out, but what he wanted to find was the traitor.
He kept running. When he reached the beginning of the track again, he veered off toward the facilities, then ran past the buildings. He circled the front parking lot in a lazy loop.
He spent time on the front porch every day, watching cars come and go until he knew what belonged to whom. Now he scanned them again. Nothing jumped out at him, nothing too extravagant. If his target made good money selling intel, he or she hadn’t spent it on a fancy car.
The vehicles ranged from rust heap to average, with an Audi and two Mercedes-Benzes representing the high end. He checked out each car he ran by up close—front seat, back seat. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but maybe something outwardly innocent would give him a hint that the car’s owner wasn’t what he, or she, seemed.
He saw clothes and junk mail, an empty box, lots of crumbs. The occasional bumper sticker wasn’t any more helpful either, mostly clever quips with some political snark thrown in. Libby, the reflexologist, drove a Corolla loaded with two car seats and sippy cups. The woman had twins. Their pictures were all over her office.
As Cole circled back to the modest compound of buildings, he cut through the yard. He thought about quitting, but then looked toward the woods and headed that way instead.
Restlessness and frustration pushed him. What was he missing? Was he slipping? Had his injuries affected his brain? Was he slower mentally as well as physically? Would he know it if he was, or was that something noticeable only by others?
He took the path he had walked with Annie on Monday. On the uneven ground, he immediately felt more off balance, but he didn’t slow. He needed to get used to this, needed to learn to compensate for the rocks and dips, the small branches under his feet. He needed to learn his new body.
He ran, ignoring the drizzle that turned into rain, thinking about Annie’s assertions that people were not to be treated like machines. Truth was, he missed being a well-oiled machine.
He noted the pain in his shoulder muscles. The PT guy had told him the pain came from holding his upper body too stiffly. So Cole stopped, rolled his shoulders, and stretched as best he could before going back to running.
The rain turned into a downpour. He kept going. Until he slipped. He flung out his right arm to catch himself, but, of course, his right arm didn’t work, so he sprawled face-first into a puddle. The impact jarred the already injured arm, sending pain shooting up his shoulder.
Still, the pain he could handle. What he hated was the humiliation of being facedown in the mud, dammit.
He pushed himself up with his left arm, spit muddy water, wiped the dreck from his face with the palm of his left hand. Then he started running again.
He couldn’t turn back now, not after falling. He had to push harder; he’d been made like that, trained like that.
He fell again, his pants and shirt completely covered in mud. His cheek stung. When he wiped the stinging spot with the back of his hand, his knuckles came away with blood. He’d cut his skin on a rock. A freaking run in the woods could draw blood from him now. Shit.
He pushed to his feet and ran faster. He was done with taking it slow. He was done with making allowances for his new limitations. Done.
He slipped in a puddle, fell, his entire weight coming down on his bad shoulder. Pain flashed hard enough to make his stomach roll with nausea. For a second there, he couldn’t breathe. He rolled on his back to catch his breath. He closed his eyes against the rain and let it wash his face.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Annie peering down at him.
He hadn’t heard her coming at all. If she’d been an enemy combatant, he’d be dead right now. He gave a vicious curse.
She simply held out her hand.
He held her amber gaze. He didn’t want the help. Everything he was pushed him to stand on his own. But then there was this other impulse, this sudden need to take her hand, to touch her.
He reached for her before he could think about it. She smiled. And then he was standing.
He didn’t want to let her go, but she pulled away, walking off the path and into the woods. He followed her.
Why? He wasn’t a follower. He’d always been a leader. Yet he didn’t question where she was going or why he should go with her.
She walked only fifty feet or so, to a giant tree, the trunk close to four feet wide. Pine boards were nailed to the trunk at foot-high intervals leading up. Cole looked at the tree house above them.
Annie went first, climbing easily.
He climbed after her, left hand up, then when his feet were steady on the next board, his right hand worked well enough to keep him from falling back as he reached over his head with his left again. He came out in a six-foot-by-six-foot little room that had only a floor, a roof, and half walls around it.
She sat in the far corner, cross-legged. “It’s a deer blind. People used to hunt in these woods, but the area was posted after the rehab center went up. The buildings are too close. Nobody uses the blind anymore. I come here sometimes when it rains.”
He sat in the opposite corner and crossed his own legs on the roughly hewn floorboards, mirroring her. Because the space was small, there was only about a foot or two of distance between their knees.
She glanced at his right cheek, then glanced away quickly.
Was he still bleeding? He wiped at the spot with his sleeve. Nothing but a few dark spots—just a shallow cut.
The rain drew a curtain around them, making their hiding spot intimate. He took another look around before returning his gaze to her. “What do you do here?”
“Meditate.” She drew a slow breath that made her chest rise. “I listen to nature. It—”
She caught herself and flinched, then shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry. You’re not here for a session.”
“What does the rain sound like?” He remembered, but he wanted to know how she experienced it, because it was obvious that rain didn’t mean the same thing to them.
While he didn’t mind being wet, to him, rain had always been a nuisance. The sound of need to wait for a better shot. Diminished visibility. Diminished hearing, which meant someone might sneak up on them.
Annie’s blissful expression said she enjoyed the rain. Her shoulders relaxed. She rested her head on the post behind her and closed her eyes. Cole’s gaze skimmed her earth-mother figure, then settled on her generous lips.
“The rain on the roof is soft, steady, almost like music. Then there is a background chorus, fainter, the sound of the rain on the leaves. It’s almost the same feeling as when you’re listening to someone’s heartbeat. Like you’re listening to life itself.”
Yeah. Cole was pretty sure he’d never had those thoughts about rain.
Her words made him want to lean over and press his ear against her chest, listen to her heartbeat, which of course he couldn’t, even if she let him.
But even if he couldn’t listen to her heart, couldn’t listen to the rain, a peace descended on him from watching the quiet pleasure on her face. She wasn’t a striking beauty, but her serenity enthralled him. He couldn’t look away. She had reservoirs of inner peace and kindness that reflected on the outside, and both qualities drew him.
He felt the peace she brought almost like a physical presence. He’d felt it during their first session, at the clearing when he’d actually fallen asleep, then when he’d watched her snuggled up with her baby skunks, and now here in the rain. He hadn’t felt peace for so long, and these moments of tranquility were a precious gift. The fresh scent of rain and forest filled him and made him light-headed for a moment.
Not ten minutes ago, in that puddle, he’d been drowning in bitterness and rage. And now . . .
The contrast was pretty stunning.
He understood that he was looking at another world, a world to which Annie was the doorway. Did he dare enter?
He wanted to tell her that he was glad they’d met . . . without sounding like a sap. He cleared his throat.
She opened her eyes and immediately smiled, as if smiling like that was nothing, as if it was as natural as breathing. “Are you feeling better?”
He was, but something inside him wouldn’t let him concede that easily. “I’m not feeling worse.”
Her smile widened, as if she could see right through him. “Did you hurt your shoulder?”
“Can’t get much worse, can it?”
She didn’t tell him not to run in the woods when the path was slippery with rain. Good. Because he didn’t regret it. If he hadn’t gone for the run, he wouldn’t have found her.
Her glaze slid down to his muddy clothes. “Are you cold?”
She was semiwet. He was soaked through.
“Navy SEALs don’t get cold.”
She resisted rolling her eyes, but just.
“It’s all in the training,” he said.
Her clear amber eyes turned probing. “Must be difficult when someone with superhuman abilities is met with limitations.”
There went his almost-good mood. “You said we weren’t here for therapy.”
He was willing to give nature therapy a chance, but right now he needed a break.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t talk. You could talk to me as a friend.”
“My friends are either dead or scattered around the country at various VA hospitals and rehab centers. I’m not sure if I want new friends. Look what happened with the last batch.”
“What did happen with the last batch?” Her large eyes were solemn and serious. “I’d like to know, but you don’t have to tell me. Not even when we are in session. Since you already have talk therapy with someone else, we can make nature therapy a place for you to come for comfort. I’d like it to be your safe place where you relax and heal.”
The sea of bitterness he’d been carrying inside nearly made him laugh. There were no safe places. God, the things he’d seen. The things he’d done. The things that had been done to him.
He hadn’t even talked about that yet with Dr. Ambrose, his shrink. And he didn’t want to talk about it at all with Annie. But the way she was looking at him, with warmth, as if she honestly cared, with understanding, and with that promise of peace in her eyes . . . If anyone could resist her, he was a stronger man than Cole.
“My spotter, Ryan, and I were sent in to take out the leader of the insurgents we were fighting,” he said. “They somehow figured out we were there. Still don’t know how. They had RPGs. We were both badly injured. Ryan called in for reinforcements. A chopper came. Picked us up. Ryan died five minutes into the flight.”
Cole rubbed his palm over his face, dropped his hand, and looked back at her. “As we flew over the top of the hills, we came under RPG attack again. I think the first batch of insurgents radioed ahead to alert the second batch. They were ready for us.”
His chest tightened and filled with something heavy, as if someone had poured liquid metal down his throat, and it cooled and solidified inside him.
“They shot you down,” she guessed.
They had. “Three guys died on impact. The rest of us were pretty badly injured. We had nowhere to hide. Darkness had fallen, but the chopper was on fire, a freaking beacon. The insurgents found us within the hour. We were captured.”
He couldn’t talk about the six months of torture that had followed. He couldn’t even think about it. Rage and grief filled him, dark images crammed into his brain. He could feel the sharp blades, the fire, the starvation, the bite of the whips. And when those things weren’t being done to him, they were being done to the others, while he was forced to watch.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
The floorboards moved as Annie came over to sit next to him. She took his hand between both of hers. He wasn’t aware that he’d been shaking until the shaking suddenly stopped at her touch. He opened his eyes again.
She was right there, looking at him, inches away.
He wasn’t sure what was happening. He knew what he was hoping for, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to do that. He kept still instead of reaching for her and pulling her onto his lap, where he suddenly wanted her.
“You are the leaves on the top of this tree,” she began. “Just feel the rain and the wind. If right now, you’re twisting and tearing, it’s OK to feel that. Even if you feel like the storm is going to tear you right off and carry you away. Whatever you feel is valid. It’s completely OK to feel it. Instead of fighting it, give it room. Say, There you are, I see you. For this moment, let yourself be that twisting, tearing leaf.”
“You just said no therapy.”
“Just two friends meditating together. If you want.”
They had classes in meditation at Hope Hill. Cole sucked at it. Yet, for some reason, this time, he felt himself slip into the picture Annie painted with her words. Maybe because he did feel like he was twisting and tearing on the inside.
He’d never thought of himself as someone vulnerable. His current situation challenged his entire self-concept, his identity, everything that gave him self-confidence. He hated being reduced to a twisting and tearing thing, made to feel small and inadequate by his own body.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m a leaf,” he grumbled. “But if next you tell me I’m a little teapot, I’m out of here.”
God, her smile lit up her whole face. And she was already the person with the most light inside her that he’d ever seen.
“We’ll stick to nature images,” she promised. “Now pull your essence from that leaf, pull into the branch. You are the branch. The rain and the wind are blowing, but you are solidly attached to the tree. You will bend, but you won’t break.”
He did as she said, picturing a sturdy branch, and felt calmer. He wouldn’t break. The worst had already happened. He had lost his physical abilities, and his friends were dead. Somehow, he was still here.
“Pull in a little deeper,” she told him then. “You are the trunk, and this is a mighty strong tree. You can easily stand against the wind without giving. The rain washes you. Not even the storm can move you. You are stronger than the storm.”
Was he?
Yes, he was. He had strength beyond his arm, beyond the possession of all his senses. He was more. For the first time, he caught a glimpse of a different Cole Makani Hunter. One not described in medical terms, but a core, an essence not defined by his physical prowess or lack thereof.
“Let’s slip deeper again,” Annie said. “You are the roots. The storm is far above. You are safe, you are strong, you are connected so securely to life, nothing could tear you up. The rain feeds you. Every storm that brings the rains just makes you stronger. All that noise, all that clamor, all the drama, all the bad thoughts, that’s happening somewhere far above. Down here is what matters, deep down, deep inside. This is where you live, where you grow. It’s good and safe here. And it’s effortless. You don’t have to hold on with all your might. The earth is holding you safe. You can relax.”
She let his hand go and reached up with both hands to touch his face, gently brushing the pads of her thumbs over his eyelids until he closed his eyes.
When she moved to leave him, he wrapped his left arm around her and pulled her closer until her head was on his shoulder. He held her there, without force, willing to let go if she was uncomfortable.
He hoped she’d stay. The position wasn’t sexual. He simply needed the contact. Without his hearing, with his eyes closed, he needed an anchor.
Maybe, when he didn’t go for more, she understood what he needed, because she leaned against him. And he relaxed. He was as relaxed as he ever remembered being.
He still wasn’t 100 percent sold on meditation, but this—her warm body pressed against his—this he liked.
He didn’t know how much time passed before he opened his eyes.
When he stirred, she pulled back with a soft smile. “Hey, sleepyhead.”
Had he slept?
He must have. He felt rested.
The rain had stopped outside their shelter.
Before he could think of what to stay, she stood, shaking out legs that were probably half-numb from sitting. “We’d better get back.”
And then she disappeared down the ladder.
But before she did . . . Cole’s gaze fastened onto her muddy clothes. Mud that had transferred from him to her. An instant, visceral reaction stung him, as merciless as a whip. A voice in his head said, That can’t happen.
The mud he was mired in, the darkness still inside, he would not allow that to touch Annie.