“And it was quiet?”
She stumbled over the truth. “I got off my shift on time.”
“But was it quiet?”
All those boys with their hands out to her. Claire squeezedher eyes shut. “It was my job.”
For a second, there was no answer. Just the breeze winnowing her hair. Just the owl in the tree by her bedroom window. Just the past.
“Maybe you don’t think you had as bad an experience assome other people did,” Tony offered quietly. “Maybe it wasn’t the worst experience in the history of man. But Ithink it was the worst experience you ever had. And that’s what makes it traumatic.”
Claire stiffened, frightened of this man’s logic. “Don’t be silly. I went over to do the job I was trained to do. It wasn’tlike the boys. They were isolated, attacked, forced to watch their friends die one after another. There’s the difference.”
“You were prepared to take care of that kind of trauma?”
Her answer was instinctive, more vehement than she realized. “No one was prepared to take care of that kind oftrauma.” No one had ever seen men with that kind oftrauma survive before. But she didn’t want to think about that. Ever. “I wasn’t any different than any other nurse or doctor or medic who was there.”
But Tony shook his head. “You were trained to operateunder mortar attack?”
“After the first few weeks, I hardly noticed ’em anymore.”
“You still can’t stand sudden loud noises, though, canyou? What doyoudo on the Fourth?”
She hid. Like a little girl, her fingers in her ears so shecouldn’t be startled. Couldn’t be frightened and go searching for her helmet and her jacket.
“I watch the fireworks.”
Tony’s response was succinct and obscene. And he neverraised his voice.
“I spent most ofmytime over there waiting, Claire. You dealt with the carnage twelve hours a day, six days a week.When you got to go off duty on time.” He considered her,his eyes shadowed and sad. “You need to do somethingabout this, Claire.”
“No, I don’t,” she retorted. “I need to get my inn in goodshape so I can support my children, because I’m all theyhave. They’re all I have.”
Even in the dark, Claire could sense his frustration. Itdidn’t matter. She simply couldn’t afford this kind of luxury anymore. She couldn’t.
It would be easier to convince herself if she could onlysleep.
“I have been there,” he reminded her gently. “I knowwhat you’re going through.”
Claire tried to shut her eyes, but she just saw those facesagain. “You still have nightmares, though.”
“I still have nightmares.”
“Do you remember them?”
She tried to sound so unconcerned. She knew she didn’t.
“Sometimes,” he admitted, and his voice was dark withthe memories.
Claire nodded, opening her eyes again to focus on hercigarette, the ash swimming and shifting before her as shesought to concentrate on it past the tears that swelled againto choke her. It wasn’t going to help after all. She ended upflipping it into the wet grass, where it hissed and blinked out.
“How ’bout you?” Tony asked quietly. “Do you remember yours?”
And Claire thought of those faces, those too-young, terrified faces reaching out to her through twenty years, andshe began to shudder. “Sometimes.”
She didn’t know how it happened. She realized as sheclosed her eyes, she didn’t care. Suddenly she was wrappedin Tony’s arms. She was pulled tight against his chest whereshe could hear the steady thrum of his heart. She was cushioned by his quiet strength and his quiet humor and his quietcourage. The tears that had followed her from her sleep sliddown her cheeks unheeded. The pain gurgled up from thatdeep, terrible place where she hid it, and she opened hermouth, desperate to set it loose. More terrified of it thananything she’d faced in her life.
“Shh,” he soothed, his hand in her hair, his chest as solidas a foundation. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
