Tacker (Arizona Vengeance #5)(52)

CHAPTER 22




Tacker


We’re ending the team practice with battle drills. From the end zone face-off spot to either the left or right of the goalie, we pair up and battle for a goal. One on offense, the other on defense, we shoulder, bump, and juke our way across the short distance to the net. It’s a four-to-five second drill that will make us sweat, then it’s over. We skate to the end of the line, where we wait to do it again. I got my cast off this morning, so my battle partner, Aaron, has been taking it a bit easy on me.

“Want to grab some dinner tonight?” Aaron asks, then taps his stick against my leg. “You know… since you stood me up last night.”

It’s true. I was supposed to grab dinner with him last night, my new efforts to try to repair my friendship with him. But then things changed, and it was just more important for me to go back to Nora’s ranch to talk things out with her. I knew damn well she wasn’t going to go out on a date with me until we had a chance for her to get her worries off her chest.

So last night, after Nora listened to my reasoning and admitted she wanted to give it a try with me—friends, dating, whatever—we went out to a local taco truck and ate at a sun-blistered picnic table. Nora drank a beer, and I splurged on a Topo Sabores orange soda. It led into a discussion about our favorite childhood sweets—hot tamales for me. For Nora, it was discovering Snickers when she came to America.

I’d learned that sweets were not a part of Nora’s younger childhood when she lived in Albania or later in Kosovo. They simply couldn’t afford the treats, which is why Besjana baking a cake for Nora’s birthday was such a big deal.

Nora asked more about my family, and the tone of the conversation was different. She wasn’t in counselor mode. She was in “I’m interested in you, Tacker, and I want to get to know you better” mode.

I asked more about hers, and I wasn’t hesitant in doing so.

“What happened to everyone after the massacre?” I’d queried.

“Helen told me they were all thrown in a mass grave,” Nora said. There was an underlying tone of sadness, but she was also matter of fact about it. “Later, NATO went in and exhumed them. Identified those with DNA. Helen sent mine in, and everyone was found. They’re all buried in a cemetery in Drenica.”

“Have you ever been back?” I asked.

She shook her head, grimacing slightly. “I don’t know if I want to go back there. It’s probably bad, not to wanting to, but I left that life behind. I’m an American now. Even after all these years, the memories of what happened there are painful. I don’t know if I really want to subject myself to it.”

It hit me hard when she’d said that. It was a potent reminder that although I’ve sort of awakened from the daze of depression I’d been operating in, that no matter how much time passes, the crash and MJ’s death will always stick with me.

“But you don’t want to hear about all that,” Nora said with a nervous laugh. “It’s depressing and—”

Impulsively, I reached out and took her hand. “I want to talk to you about what happened to your family. I want you to be able to confide in me if you want. One day… maybe not now… I want to talk about your sister and how helpless you felt, because I felt the same way watching MJ die. It’s something we share, Nora, so I don’t want to ignore it. I want you to know that you have someone who truly understands.”

“I don’t want to burden you,” she told me, running her thumb over the back of my hand.

I can’t ever recall a woman’s touch affecting me so deeply. It’s like all the nerve endings in my entire body were congregated right there in my hand. It was the most peaceful, calm experience I’ve ever had.

“Does it burden you if I tell you that on the day MJ and I were supposed to be married, I hiked to the plane wreckage?”

Nora’s eyes widened with shock, then filled up with sympathy.

I nodded, a sad smile playing at the corners of my mouth. “I don’t know if it was to punish myself or to have some connection to the last place MJ and I talked, but I sat out at the crash site for hours and just mulled over how it all happened and what I could have done to have prevented it. The plane was still there. The area was too remote for them to bother with removing it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nora whispered.

“Don’t be,” I told her, my eyes locking onto hers. “I’m glad I can tell you these things. No one else knows I did that.”

“Then I’m glad I can offer you that.” Her voice had been so sweet and sincere. “And no matter what happens with us… whether this progresses or we stay just friends… you can always talk to me about these things.”

It was a promise I knew she’d keep, and it gave me a level of security I had not felt in an exceedingly long time.

Nora and I sat on that picnic table for almost three hours as we simply talked. Some of it was heavy.

Some of it was not.

What struck me the most as I was driving her to her house was there wasn’t one single lull in the conversation, no matter if we were talking about death and grief or laughing over our shared love of The Office.

It was a great first date.

“Dude,” Aaron says, smacking me a bit harder with his stick. “Dinner tonight?”