“How long have you been whittling toys?” She perched on the arm of the chair and drew her knee up to rest alongside my arm.
Pocketing my glasses before she noticed them on the chair’s other arm, I shrugged. “Years. The kids are always excited to get presents, and it keeps my hands busy.”
A comfortable silence settled between us as she continued to examine the train. “You must really love making things. I noticed you’re very conscientious. Maybe even a perfectionist.”
My neck prickled with heat. “Something like that. I wasn’t always that way.” I took the train from her and continued shaving off tiny curls of wood. “How’s the soup?”
“Should be ready soon. It just needs to simmer for a while.”
She clasped her shin and stared into the fire. “The more I learn about all of you, the more certain I am that I’ll never know everything.”
“What do you want to know?”
Another shaving fell from the block.
It drifted toward the ground and settled on the toe of my boot.
“I don’t know. Everything?” She shrugged helplessly when I stared up at her. “Why did you start hand-carving toys?”
“They help when I get stuck.” I turned the train around and dropped my eyes to my work. “When I was in the military, we spent a lot of time waiting. Nothing to do. I hated it. One of my commanders noticed and showed me how to whittle. When I came back, I couldn’t stop. When Rafe started the annual toy drive, I donated everything I’d carved. Once I saw the kids’ reactions, I couldn’t stop.”
“How do you get stuck?” The back of her fingers brushed my burned arm when she shifted her hands for a better hold on her leg.
She could have brought a chair over, but she’d chosen to sit on the arm of mine.
The muscles in my forearm flexed when I shifted position, setting my arms on my thighs and leaning forward. “My past is not pretty, Noelle. I’ve fought to keep my PTSD at bay since I came home. When my thoughts spiral, carving helps keep me in tune with my present.”
“It doesn’t remind you of your time there?” The soft way she asked it was the only reason I found the ability to answer.
“I carved when it was safe. When it was quiet. That’s the feeling I’m searching for now.” I rubbed my burned arm.
The pucker of scorched flesh had healed without any major damage.
Noelle followed my movement and placed her hand over my forearm, right at the beginning of my scars. “Did this happen over there?”
I nodded.
Why did I want to tell her about it?
I rarely mentioned my time as a soldier.
It usually ended with a thread of panic rising to smother me.
But with Noelle, I found strength in her questions. “We were on our way back to base.” My voice rasped with the sudden dryness in my throat. I cleared it and caught a surprised look from Rafe when I turned my head toward the windows.
Noelle waited for me to continue, not pressing for details or asking demanding questions.
I turned the train around and around in my hand, my mind drifting back to that place.
A phantom explosion rebounded in my mind.
I felt myself flying, soaring through the air as our jeep went airborne. “The explosion threw me from the vehicle. But not my friends. My brothers-in-arms were trapped inside. Fire everywhere.”
The heat of it wrapped around me, the acrid burn of gasoline and scorched flesh forcing bile into the back of my throat.
Noelle rubbed her knuckles up and down my arm, the touch both a surprise and a comfort.
“The entire car was engulfed in flames. I couldn’t open the door, so I tried to drag them out through one of the windows. Thankfully, the jeep was upside down, but I didn’t have any leverage.”
