The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(68)

“No harm done,” the lieutenant said.

“Not this time.”

“Next time, we’ll wait for you to finish your palavers.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Fletcher said, but the way he said it sounded more like a warning. Don’t make this mistake again, asshole. The lieutenant looked away, fiddled with his headset, said we should be ready to mount up soon. Fletcher came over to where I sat on the dirt with Doc Jones. “How’s that knee, Gorecki?”

“It’s inflamed,” Doc Jones answered. “I’ll give him some Motrin, but he’ll have to stay off it for a day or two.”

“Looks like you earned yourself a little break,” Fletcher said with a smile.

I nodded, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I owed my life to chance. An empty barrel. Nor could I forget that the lieutenant had put me in that hole. Everything I’d once liked about him irritated me now. His jokes. His games. How he made sure everyone in the platoon knew he’d graduated from Duke. There was no subtlety to his bragging, either. Another thing: the lieutenant loved to have the whole platoon stand in their gear in the sun while he pontificated about the day’s briefs, no matter how straightforward they were. I found myself wishing that Sergeant Fletcher had been in charge. Fletcher was smart, cautious, took care of his men like they were his own children. Sometimes, I still caught myself thinking about him that way.

As a father.

Which made what happened later all the more painful.

We were finally called to lane 8. In my hands, the gun was cold and hard and familiar. More than once I hit the bull’s-eye. I was a good shot, had always been. Back in boot camp, my score on marksmanship had given me the confidence that the grueling physical training had all but taken away. Nothing compared to the rush of adrenaline before the shot, the cool calm in the aftermath, the reliability of the exercise in a world that was so plainly unreliable.

In the car, Fierro said he liked his new Glock so much that maybe he’d get one for his younger brother for Christmas. We were quiet as we listened to the radio. He coughed into his hands a few times, said, Dude, I think I’m coming down with something. Then we were in the driveway, saying goodbye with a handshake and a shoulder bump, telling each other we’d talk again in a few days. When I walked back inside my house, the scent of peonies and chocolate greeted me in the hallway. I put my gun in the safe and went out again.



* * *



—

At the cabin, the porch light was off. But I tried the knob; the door was unlocked. I found Nora asleep on the couch, one of her hands folded under her face. She looked peaceful and fragile all at once, and I had a little argument with myself whether I should wake her. Then I ran my thumb along the arch of her foot. She stirred, looked at me confusedly as I knelt beside her. “You shouldn’t leave the door open like that. It’s not safe.”

“I must’ve fallen asleep,” she said, sitting up in surprise. The strap of her dress slid down, revealing the swell of a breast. I leaned in to kiss her. Pages from her composition, which had been resting on her stomach, fell to the floor. Black pen marks snaked between the lines and along the margins of every page. She picked them up, stacked them on her lap, holding them as lovingly as she might a child. “So,” she said, and by the way she inflected the word I knew what she was going to ask next. “You go shooting guns often?”

“I’m a cop, Nora.”

“I know, but even if you weren’t, you’d have a gun?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

“For protection.”

“From what?”

“People who come into your house without knocking,” I teased. She waited for me to say more, but I had a feeling that talk of guns might lead to talk of war, which I was trying to avoid, so I handed her the pages of sheet music that had fallen to the floor and changed the subject. “Can I hear this sometime?” I asked.

“You want to?”

I’d found two pieces of hers online, one a classical composition and the other one more jazzy and I’d liked them both, but they were from three years before, and I was curious about what she was working on now. “Yes, of course.”

She hesitated. “It’s not done yet.”

“I don’t mind.”

She stretched and yawned, then went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. I stood in the doorway for a minute, then came to stand beside her. Around the sink the caulking I’d redone the day before was bright against the scuffed pink tiles. She hadn’t wanted me to bother with it, but when I pointed out that bad caulking could damage the wall, she relented. I ran my finger along the lines of grout; they had dried and the sink looked better now. “So can we finish our conversation?” I asked.

“What conversation?”

“What we were talking about before Fierro showed up.”

She looked at me through the mirror and the appraising gaze I’d noticed in her eyes earlier that evening returned. She rinsed her mouth, put her toothbrush in the plastic cup next to the tap, and stood still. Unmoving. Unyielding. I slid a finger under the strap of her dress and moved it off her shoulder. As I pressed my lips against her skin, a wave of sadness hit me; all I would ever get from her was this, nothing more. Already I could see how it would end. I should enjoy this while it lasts, I told myself.