Taming His Montana Heart(65)

“Maybe.”

He couldn’t let things remain the way they were, half said. Instead, despite her distracting presence, he mentally reached out to the predator. In his mind, the wolf was waiting for him to continue. Demanding honesty.

“There’s no way anyone, even a cop or someone in the military, can prepare for ending someone’s life,” he told her. “It isn’t the way it looks on TV.”

“I know.”

Of course she did. In many respects she’d stood where he had, experienced the same emotions, smelled the same smells, seen the same things only for her it had been personal.

“Haley, there were more than those three idiots around.” The words became a rope tightening around his neck but he fought on. “There were also two little children.”

She pressed her hands to her stomach. “No. Oh no.”

“I didn’t hit—I don’t think I could have survived if I had, but…” There was no sign of the wolf, but it didn’t matter.

He owed Haley and the predator the rest of what had happened on the worst day of his life. Besides, now that he’d started, it was getting easier.

“The woman was babysitting. They were her grandchildren, a boy and a girl.” As many times as he’d mentally replayed the scene, it still made him sick to his stomach. “The girl was in diapers, the boy about a year older. Two of my bullets missed my target.” He again closed his eyes then opened them. “They entered the house and struck the wall behind the couch where the little ones were sitting. A foot or two lower and…”

She rubbed his arm, his less than steady arm. “The grandmother didn’t say anything about the children being there?”

“No. She told detectives she’d warned me, but I wouldn’t have fired if I’d known.”

“You could have been killed. If you hadn’t taken that man down, he would have kept firing.”

“Maybe. I didn’t enter the house until backup arrived. That’s when I saw the children.” His mind’s eye slipped into the past. “They were holding onto each other and crying. They looked so alone.”

“Grandma wasn’t comforting them?”

“No.”

“And the children saw everything.”

It wasn’t a question but he shouldn’t be surprised. After all she had her own experience for comparison.

She brought his hands to her shoulders. “Did it hit you all at once or did reality slowly envelope you?”

“Both I think. I threw up when I saw where the bullets had landed. I couldn’t sleep for weeks.”

“Because you were having nightmares.”

“Nightmares in which I shot the children.” No one was ever supposed to know that, but the confession eased his mind a little. Who better equipped than her to understand?

“In mine,” she said, “I kept trying to resuscitate my mother. There was so much blood.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Shaw, now is about you. I had my turn.”

Yes, she had.

He needed to keep going, wanted to. “My fellow officers told me I’d eventually put things in perspective. I’d simply been doing my job. The children were all right.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Yes. For several months I forced myself to go to work, but I couldn’t stop the tapes from playing. Knowing how close I’d come to killing two children. They sent me to see a shrink, but I could only tell him so much.”

“That’s what happened to me. I couldn’t even tell Mick everything. Only you know. And the wolf.”

The wolf.

“I don’t care if what I said doesn’t make sense.” She sighed. “What I know is that I feel free. Opened up. I hope you feel the same way.”

Now that he thought about it, tension was seeping out of him, sliding off into the winter air. “I’m getting there.”

She gifted him with a small smile. “That’s what life is, one step at a time.”

“You’re right.”

Her smile grew. “Of course I am.”

He kissed her forehead. “Knowing I had no choice but to take a first but different step is what drove me to accept my uncle’s offer. I couldn’t do… nothing. I needed to be productive.” He paused as a new thought took hold. “To make Lake Serene into a place people want to come to.”

“Lake Serene is magical.”

Although he agreed, he chuckled. “Not everyone feels that way.”

She gave a dismissive wave. “Because they don’t take the time to let the wilderness speak to them.”

“Speak. I love how you put it.”

“Thank you—for the compliment and for confiding in me.”

He’d done more than confide. He had no doubt he’d turned a vital corner in his emotional health. “It was easier than I thought it would be, liberating.”

“I felt the same way when everything was coming out of me.”

“That’s good. In fact it’s perfect.”

“Now there’s a vote of confidence,” she said. “I’d give anything to be able to stay here all day and maybe tomorrow. Make love. Go for walks and search for paw prints and maybe see him.”