Retribution (Secrets & Lies #3)(17)
The bit of humor breaks the tension, and I look around. “I know it is going to take a bit of adjustment. But we have a safe, secure place here, and we can fine tune tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest we all relax, and try and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we have work to do.”
“Like what?” Katrina asks, and I give her a smile.
“Oh, I can think of a couple people who are going to love chopping down a couple of dead trees I spotted on the walk, and then splitting them into logs for the fireplace since we don't have a furnace any longer.”
I'm sitting up, making sure the fire is good to go through to morning, when I hear rustling from Melissa's bedroom. Carson and Andrea, in a nod to everyone's unspoken privacy concerns about the vigor and style of their nighttime activities, decided to sleep in the farthest room from the main hall, while everyone else is closer to the main area.
I get up from the couch and toss one more log on the fire, which should be enough to keep the main room warm through the night. I go to Melissa's door and look in, where she's sitting up, her t-shirt sticking to her skin as she gasps, her eyes wide open as she wakes from her nightmare.
“'Lissa, it's okay,” I reassure her, coming in and sitting down next to her on the bed, taking her hands. I've hugged her in the past, and I want to now, but I'm not really sure if I deserve to. When it was just to comfort a panicked young woman, that was one thing. But now, I take as much from the hugs as she does, and I don't want to take advantage of her like that. “It's okay.”
“N... Nathan?” she replies, blinking, her eyes coming back into focus. “How bad was I?”
“You’re never bad,” I tell her, giving her a heartfelt smile. “If you mean how noisy were you, you never cried out. I probably wouldn’t have heard anything if the door had been closed, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t get to that point.”
Melissa nods, then blinks. In the dim light that's filtering in from the main room I see tears form in her eyes and fall down her elegant cheeks, and she wipes at them angrily, pissed off and ashamed about her outburst. “I'm useless, Nathan. Totally useless. All my tough talk back at the farm, and my first night in your beautiful home I'm breaking down already.”
I shake my head, putting my arm around her shoulders. “You are far from useless, and you held yourself together for three days on the road. Tell me, have you even been outside the state of Louisiana before?”
She shakes her head, and wipes at her cheeks again with the heels of her hands. “I've never been outside of Orleans and Jefferson Parish before that I can remember.”
“Well, there you go. Can I tell you a little secret, if you promise not to tell the others?” I ask, smiling.
“O... okay,” she stutters, trying to pull herself together. I can feel her heartbeat in her chest through the hug, it's going faster than mine on a hard run with Andrea. She's trying to be brave, and she's tearing herself apart pretending she's better than she is. She doesn't need to, but she can't let go of her shame, which just adds to the anxiety. “What?”
“I'm originally from the Midwest, a city boy in fact,” I tell her, knowing I've never told any of the family much about my past, by my own choice. “And I had never seen anything at all like Fort Leonard Wood, where I did my initial basic training. Our drill sergeant was a holy terror. I'll be honest, quite a few of us, even me, cried themselves to sleep more than once during those first few weeks. There is nothing wrong with being anxious or crying.”
“There is when it cripples you,” Melissa insists softly. “When you worry that you're going to push away the people that are special to you because you think they're going to get exhausted about it all.”
I nod, and give her shoulders a squeeze. “I know. But you said it back on the farm, we are a family. And that means that we stick together, no matter what.”
“No matter what?” Melissa says, giving me a hopeful look.
“No matter what. Another thing they taught me in the Army. When I applied for and got accepted to the Green Berets, they sent me to Fort Bragg. But one of the big things they taught me is the truth, even if they taught me other stuff that turned out to be lies. You wanna know what that truth is?”
“Please,” Melissa says, calmer.
“People are more important than hardware. And that means you are more important, too. Now, can I ask you, before we left the farm, you seemed calm and relaxed. On the drive, too. Was there anything different about what you did then to tonight?”
She nods, and I think I can see a blush come to her cheeks. “I guess. Andrea taught me some acupressure to help relieve my anxiety, but I don’t know how much that helps.”
“Then go ahead. It can’t hurt.”
She nods, and takes a deep breath. She reaches down and takes her one hand in the other, and I see her thumb moving in one spot again and again. In any case, she sounds calmer as she answers. “Okay. Thank you, Nathan.”
“You are welcome. Goodnight, Melissa. See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
Chapter Seven
Melissa
I wake up the next morning feeling better than I was last night, and I get out of bed, stretching. It feels good, and the chill in the air isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I practiced the acupressure moves Andrea taught me last night until I was calm enough to try going back to sleep.