Captured(24)

He scratches at his scalp, at a scar on his head. He notices me watching, drops his hand. “An old scar,” he says. “It itches sometimes.”

“How did you—” I start to ask, then cut myself off. “Sorry. Never mind.”

He swallows some beer, sets the empty bottle down. “It’s fine. They kept my head shaved when I was a prisoner. Except, they weren’t exactly gentle, and they didn’t always use very sharp razors.”

“God, that’s horrible.”

He shrugs. “Nah. It was probably better than getting lice or something.”

There’s an element in his words hinting at much, much worse. I’m torn between offering him another beer and the worry that I might be introducing a potential problem. I know I want another one. I open one, glance at him in question.

He takes it, sips slowly. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Another long silence. Derek sighs, runs his palm over his scalp, and looks at me. “Go ahead and ask.”

“Ask…what?”

He shakes his head and shrugs. “Whatever. I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer, but I’ll try.”

What do I most want to know? I stare down into the thin scrim of suds in my bottle. “The letter. He carried it with him for almost a year, without reading it?”

Derek nods. “Yep.”

“Why?”

“Well…he said he was saving it. For when he needed it the most.”

I watch Derek closely. He’s struggling with something; his jaw is grinding, his fingers are tensed around the bottle. The ring finger of his left hand is visibly crooked. Where the other four fingers curl naturally around the glass, the ring finger sticks out as if it doesn’t work properly. His hands are shaking, the golden lager in the bottle rippling.

“A year.” I don’t even know how to phrase my next question. “If he didn’t read the letter, then he never…he never knew. Until the end. About Tommy, I mean.”

“I—he…” Derek seems to be having trouble breathing. He’s blinking quickly, and his shoulders are hunched as if expecting a blow. “He loved you. He loved you a lot.”

That doesn’t answer the question. I know avoidance when I see it, but Derek clearly isn’t capable of this conversation right now.

He swallows a long swig of beer, then lurches to his feet, sets the half-finished bottle on the workbench, swaying on his feet. “Shit. Shit, I’m dizzy. Used to be able to put away a twenty-four pack on my own. Now I’m f*cked up on two beers? Jesus.”

He stumbles, puts a hand on the workbench to steady himself. His legs seem about to give out. I stand up, set my beer down, and move toward him. His eyes are closed, squeezed tight, his mouth moving as he’s whispering something I can’t hear. He sways, tilting off-balance. He’s going to fall.

I reach out slowly, tentatively. Touch his shoulder. “Derek?”

His skin is hot to the touch. Hot and hard and soft at all once. I’d forgotten what male skin feels like.

He jumps at my touch, his eyes flying open wide, nostrils flaring, every muscle tensing. He stumbles a step backward, away from me, blinking as if seeing double.

“It’s okay, Derek,” I murmur in the low, soothing voice I used on a spooked horse. “It’s okay. Just breathe. Relax. You’re okay.”

“Not okay. Not okay.” He’s staring at me, at my outstretched hand.

Me touching him isn’t okay, or he’s not okay? Both, maybe. I don’t know. All I know is he’s tilting away from me as if spooked by my proximity, as if the sight and smell and reality of me are too much to handle. I know he’s acting hammered on two beers. Not even two, one and half, really. He’s about to fall backward, so I have no choice but to put my shoulder under his armpit and wrap my arm around his waist. Even shrunk to a third of his former bulk, Derek is a big man. Six foot three if not more, broad shoulders, long legs, thick, heavy arms. I’m a strong girl, buff from a lifetime of farm work, but it takes all my strength to keep Derek on his feet.

“Come on, Derek. Let’s get you lying down, huh?” I say.

I’ve got his mouth near my ear, and I can definitely hear him whispering something, but I can’t make it out. I half-carry him out of the workshop, down the hallway between the stalls. The smell of hay is pungent, layered over the more faint odor of cow manure from Ilsa the milk cow, who is out to pasture right now. The single bare, dangling incandescent light bulb in the workshop sheds just enough illumination that I can see which stall he’s claimed as his own. The hay is flattened on the floor and piled up in one corner. Several old blankets are spread across the hay in the corner, with the pillow I’ve given him on top. The camping lantern sits against the wall near the pillow. There is nothing else. The cot is folded up and leaning against the wall. This man, this brave combat veteran, this PTSD-plagued ex-POW, is sleeping on the hay in my barn like a vagrant. There’s something very wrong with that.

Derek grabs the upright of the stall door, pulls away from me, collapses to his knees, and falls onto the hay, crawling toward his pillow. He fumbles at the lantern, finds the knob, and turns it on, shedding a white glow.

“You shouldn’t be sleeping out here on the hay, Derek. It’s not right.”

He rolls to his back, and his gaze fixes blearily on me. “It’s fine. I’m fine here.”