Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(89)

Lois looked around the restaurant. She figured they’d grab dinner at the post’s mess hall, she’d gather her twenty minutes of sympathy, and he’d be done with her safe in the knowledge he’d performed a kindness. Instead, he’d taken her on a real splurge up to Stanley and Seafort’s, perched on the hillside above the city of Tacoma.

First, it was off post.

Second, it had an amazing view of the harbor with its big container ships plying the shining waterways of southern Puget Sound. The Olympic Mountains to the west had just gobbled the sun and earned a stunning blood-orange aura for their trouble.

Third, it wasn’t the sort of place you had a twenty-minute dinner. It was the sort of place you had a two-hour dinner in nice clothes. She hadn’t worn her dress blues or her ACU—Army Combat Uniform—fatigues. Both reminded her too much of the end of her military career, but now she wished she had for the “armor” it would have given her, the explanation of her amputation. Instead, she’d opted for a nice blouse and the same knee-length skirt she’d worn this morning.

Damn Clark for not telling her where they were going. Of course if he had told her, she probably would have balked, and the man wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t thought to ask, merely hanked her shoulder-length hair back in a ponytail and called it good. Her dog tags were her only ornament, she’d worn those for strength, but with civilian clothes they now felt ridiculous. She slipped them inside her blouse.

Lois wouldn’t have minded being dressed this way on post. Looking like a civilian except for the damned peg leg. But here in public, she really hadn’t been ready for the exposure. If only she’d worn slacks, at least the cane alone would be unremarkable. She looked longingly at the exit but didn’t want to let Clark down.

She could feel every eye in the place follow her still uneven walk to the window table. Not the kind of looks she was used to having follow her across a room. Once seated, the tablecloth was long enough that she felt a little less self-conscious. A little.

“Hello. Lois. Someone hit your hearing with a dose of Kryptonite?”

She tried for a dutiful laugh but had trouble dredging one up.

“I haven’t really been off post since…well. It’s been a while.”

“That’s kind of what I figured, thought I’d give you a pleasant night out.”

“Well, this is certainly pleasant.” White tablecloths, candlelight at each table, immaculate waitress, and a one-page menu that looked so good an additional page would have been overwhelming. Then she glanced at the prices. This was definitely outside a soldier’s budget except for something really special. She eyed Kendall suspiciously.

“What?” He closed his menu and set it aside. She could never decide what to get, and he was already done.

“What’s going on, Clark? Why are we here?”

He laughed, “You always speak the same way you fly, straight shooter.”

“It’s what we women of steel do”—she pointed down toward her foot to make her point—“even if we’re only partly made of steel. Now, answer the question.”

“Actually, I read up on your foot, and it’s all aluminum and titanium, so I’m not sure it counts.”

“Modern materials, modern woman of steel. Besides, ‘woman of aluminum and titanium’ doesn’t have quite the ring I was looking for when I did this.”

He propped his chin on a hand and aimed those dark eyes at her. They caught the candlelight and were warm and friendly.

She resisted the urge to reach out and brush the hair out of his eyes where it had slipped down. What the hell was he doing to her?

“Maybe I just like looking at a beautiful woman while I eat.”

“Asked the wrong girl then.”

“Says you.”

“I’m—” then she stopped herself. The WTU psychologist had given her a list of trigger words to avoid. Words that would be “negative reinforcers for her emotional frame of mind.” Damaged was way high on the list. She toyed with her water glass to buy some time. The waitress arrived with a long list of memorized specials, which bought her some more time but not enough. She went with a Dungeness crab-stuffed salmon, Kendall ordered jumbo shrimp and steak.

Damaged. She had a few other scars besides her leg but nothing hideous. Her foot was far and away the worst of it. Kendall had seen that, inspected it, and still somehow saw her as she’d been before the accident. He made her feel ridiculous for attaching her self-image to something as small as a foot. Well, if he wasn’t going to see her that way, maybe she should stop doing so herself. Or at least try.

“Well.” She sipped her first glass of wine in a very long time and let the deep red Merlot warm her insides. She circled back to his earlier question as that now seemed to be a much safer topic. “The MEB was about what you’d expect. A lot of paperwork and a lot of sympathy—neither of which I wanted—but because I’m injured past possible recovery to full status, I’m not their problem. Tomorrow, I tackle the Physical Eval Board. That’s going to take a while. I really don’t want to leave the service, but they’re gonna shuffle me out anyway.”

“Aren’t there plenty of things for you to do?”

“Yeah, great. Army Wounded Warrior program. Talked to the AW2 advocate, but stay in and do what? Fly a desk? The only thing I love to do is fly choppers. Well, I sure lost my superpowers on that one.”