Wounded Heroes Boxed Set Page 5

  The fact was, Shane could very well be angry with Paul for choosing to socialize with his mother. But if Bonnie told Paul that, he might feel bad. "Shane gets into moods sometimes," she explained vaguely. "He’s a teenager. You never know when something’s going to rub him the wrong way."

  "We worked well together today," Paul said, locating the dish towel and positioning himself next to Bonnie. She handed him a clean plate and he dried it. "He seemed awfully eager to please."

  She didn’t doubt that he was eager to please Paul. "Maybe you’re right, maybe this job at your nursery will be good for him," she said, handing Paul another plate to dry. "I just hope he’s old enough to handle the responsibility."

  "I’m sure he is." Paul placed the dry plate on the stack. "I think the experience will do him good."

  She cast Paul a swift, probing look, wondering how much she should open to him. He’d been unexpectedly easy to talk to over dinner, but they hadn’t discussed anything of significance. Still, if Paul wanted to take Shane under his wing, he ought to do so with his eyes open. "Shane’s father is dead," she said.

  "I know. He told me."

  Sorting her thoughts, Bonnie scrubbed another plate, rinsed it under the tap, and handed it to Paul. Her gaze lingered for a moment on his strong hands. His fingers were blunt, toughened from physical labor, yet they moved with a certain economical grace, wiping the plate and stacking it without any wasted effort. His nails were short and clean; his left pinkie had a scar on it.

  They were sensuous hands, and for a fleeting instant Bonnie tried to imagine what it would feel like if he brushed a knuckle against her cheek, if he slid his fingertips along the hollow of her throat. Disconcerted by the direction in which her imagination had wandered, she turned away and groped in the sudsy water for the silverware.

  "I mention Shane’s father only because..." She swallowed the faint catch in her voice. "Sometimes I worry that Shane might need a man to share things with. He’s at a tricky age, and I’m sure he’s got things on his mind that he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about with me."

  "Sex, you mean?" Paul asked.

  Bonnie felt her cheeks turn crimson. She yanked out the drain plug and rinsed the sponge. "I was thinking more along the lines of baseball," she said tautly.

  Paul put down the towel and laughed. "Do you want me to discuss box scores with him? No problem."

  "Thank you." She did her best to ignore his teasing undertone. "Would you like some coffee?"

  "I’d love some."

  She busied herself with the percolator, keeping her back to Paul until she was sure her complexion had returned to its normal golden-pink shade. She considered herself open-minded; indeed, she’d gotten through more than a few awkward birds-and-bees dialogues with Shane without becoming unduly rattled. Some basic sex education was a part of the fourth-grade curriculum, and Bonnie usually had less trouble than any of the other teachers in covering the topic with her students. She had always viewed sex as a natural part of love. She wasn’t a prude.

  But discussing sex, however obliquely, with Paul was... different.

  "I haven’t really got any dessert," she said, "but..." Abruptly aware of the room’s unusual silence, she glanced behind her and discovered that she was alone.

  Paul must have gone into the den to watch the game with Shane. Sighing—with relief, she tried to convince herself—she stacked cups and saucers and the percolator on a tray and carried it to the doorway. Shane was seated on the floor of the den, leaning back against the couch and wolfing down cookies, his gaze riveted to the television screen. Paul wasn’t with him.

  Frowning, Bonnie continued through the dining room to the living room. She found Paul by one of the front-facing windows, staring out at the new birch tree, his hands in his pockets and his posture relaxed. "Is it still standing?" she asked, setting the tray down on the table in front of the sofa and joining him at the window.

  "It better be," Paul replied. "If I couldn’t plant a tree that would stand for more than an hour, I’d be out of business."

  "It’s beautiful," Bonnie murmured. "I know I’m repeating myself, but thank you."

  Paul dismissed her gratitude with a shrug. Turning from the window, he eyed the tray for a moment, then lifted his gaze to the mantel. "Is that your husband?" he asked.

  The shrine. "That’s Gary," she said, for the first time feeling self-conscious about the abundance of photographs lining the shelf.

  Paul crossed the room to study the photos more closely, and Bonnie turned on one of the lamps so he’d be able to see better. "The blond guy, huh," he guessed, observing that one particular individual figured prominently in all the photos. She wondered what Paul thought of Gary’s shaggy hair, his black arm band, his peace-sign necklace, his raised fist. She wondered what he thought of the photo in which Gary’s arm was wrapped possessively around her shoulders while she cradled an infant Shane in her arms, whether Paul could see the love shimmering in Gary’s eyes and in hers.

  "What was he, a hippie?" Paul asked, a faint tinge of sarcasm coloring his voice.

  "A lot of people were hippies back then," Bonnie pointed out, unconsciously sweeping a hand through her unfashionable flower-child hair. "But you shouldn’t judge him by his appearance. He was a very principled man, not some pot-smoking freak." She was aware of the self-righteousness creeping into her tone, and she pressed her lips together to silence herself.

  Paul continued to study the photographs as she poured the coffee. "Who are all these other people?" he asked.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was holding one of the group photos. "Friends and colleagues. It was a group Gary organized to figure out strategies to end the Vietnam War. They wrote a famous position paper called the Cambridge Manifesto which was widely published. After a while, the group itself took that as its name."

  Paul examined the photograph for a minute longer, then put it back in its place and crossed to the sofa. "The Cambridge Manifesto," he repeated, not bothering to hide his distaste. "It couldn’t have been that famous. I never heard of it."

  Bonnie didn’t want to lecture him, but she couldn’t smother the pride she took in Gary’s achievements. "It was famous enough that someone is writing a book about it."

  "A book?" Paul looked less than overwhelmed.

  "A lot of books have been published lately about the big political movements of the late sixties and early seventies," she said. "A reporter from the Boston Globe has been interviewing me and some of the other Cambridge Manifesto participants for a book he’s writing about Gary’s group and what they accomplished."

  Paul took the coffee she offered him with a nod of thanks, then sat on the couch. His gaze traveled back to the mantel, then to her. "Why do you say ‘they,’ Bonnie? Weren’t you a part of it?"

  "I played only a small role," she said modestly. "I was pretty young at the time, just a freshman in college when I met Gary. He was a graduate student, and most of the other people involved in the Cambridge Manifesto were all in their twenties, too. I contributed ideas every now and then, but Gary was the real genius behind it."

  "Genius?" Paul appeared skeptical.

  Bonnie bristled. Hearing anyone mock her husband, however mildly, set her nerves on edge. Hearing Paul do it vexed her even more. "He was a genius," she insisted. "He was totally committed to the cause of peace. He wasn’t a show-off; he didn’t go out of his way to get arrested or have his picture featured on the cover of Life. He worked quietly but effectively, and people responded to him. He was an amazing man." Her voice broke slightly and she took a sip of coffee.

  Paul twisted on the sofa to face her. "I’m sorry," he said, evidently sensing the depth of her loyalty to Gary. He eyed the mantel one last time, then noted, "You haven’t got any recent pictures of him."

  She understood what he was asking. "He passed away ten years ago."

  Paul frowned. "That must have been tough, with Shane so young."

  "Actually, I think I was lucky to
have a young child at the time," she said. "Taking care of him kept me busy and focused. It didn’t matter how depressed I was—Shane still had to be fed. I don’t know how I would have survived without him."

  "How did your husband die?" Paul asked.

  "He was murdered."

  "Murdered." Wincing, Paul cursed under his breath. "That’s terrible."

  Bonnie nodded. It was terrible.

  "Did they catch the sonofabitch who did it?"

  "Well..." She sighed. "He was struck and killed by a car, and the police recorded his death as accidental. But two of his colleagues witnessed the accident, and they said it was a deliberate act."

  Paul digested what she’d said. "That’s a heavy charge, Bonnie. There’s a big difference between being killed accidentally and being murdered."

  "I know. I also know that the driver fled from the scene, and he didn’t come to his senses later and turn himself in. He knew exactly what he was doing. He went after my husband and ran him down. Gary’s friends saw it happen. They had no reason to lie to me about it."

  "Of course not," Paul said gently.

  Bonnie felt her defensiveness ebbing. Paul’s concern appeared to be sincere. "It happened in Fresno," she told him. The words came easily; simply speaking them seemed to have a calming effect on her. "Gary and Tom and Marcie were touring California, giving lectures at some of the state universities. I used to travel with Gary a lot before I had Shane, but after he was born I usually stayed at home with him while Gary and the others toured." She sighed and glanced up at the array of photographs above the fireplace, feeling a fresh stab of pain at the sight of Gary smiling so confidently, looking so sturdy and whole. "While he’d been speaking on campus, there had been a counter-demonstration at the auditorium, some reactionary group that thought Gary was a communist or something. According to Tom, the protestors had been scary, really menacing. And then, later that evening, when they were leaving the campus, the car ran Gary down." She drifted off for a moment, staring at the white swirls of vapor rising from her coffee. "The irony is, Gary would have been the first to support a person’s right conduct a counter-protest against him. He believed that all voices should be heard. And they cut him down for it," she concluded bitterly.

  "You don’t know for an absolute fact that one of them did it," Paul noted.

  "I do know it," she retorted. "Some things you just know."

  Paul remained silent, absorbing her words and nodding. "Yeah," he said, half to himself. "Well, you’ve done a fantastic job with Shane, considering."

  She gave him a grateful smile.

  "We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to."

  "No, I don’t mind." She honestly didn’t. In spite of the pain generated by her memories of Gary, she wanted to tell Paul about herself and her past. She wanted him to understand why men like Gary had opposed the war, why they’d rebelled against it, why they died for what they believed in. She wanted Paul to comprehend why she considered it obscene to build public monuments to commemorate the waste of life Vietnam represented.

  "So, how did your husband stay out of ‘Nam?" Paul asked, failing to keep his voice neutral. "Did he burn his draft card?"

  Bonnie chuckled. "Didn’t everybody?"

  "No," Paul said grimly. "Some of us didn’t."

  She hadn’t meant her comment literally. But Paul’s reaction made her feel guilty for having joked about it. "I understand you were quite a hero during the war," she said, hoping she didn’t sound critical.

  "Who told you that?"

  "Laura Holt, after the town meeting the other day."

  He took a long sip of coffee. "She was wrong," he said flatly.

  "Were the people you want to build your memorial for heroes?" she asked. A warning alarm inside her head blared that she ought to change the subject, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  "No. They weren’t heroes. It wasn’t a very heroic war." He scowled. "At least they weren’t cowards," he added, sending a quick glance toward the mantel.

  "My husband wasn’t a coward," Bonnie asserted. "He loved his country as much as you did. And he had the courage to stand up and tell his country it was doing the wrong thing."

  "Yeah. My buddies and I were risking our lives overseas so your husband would have the freedom to stand up and tell the country."

  "If more men had done what my husband did," she argued, "there wouldn’t have been a war at all. Remember the old saying, `What if they had a war and nobody came?’ If all the soldiers had had the courage to refuse to fight, there wouldn’t have been a war."

  "Sure," Paul said sarcastically, setting his cup on the tray. He rose to his feet. "I’d better be going."

  "No." Bonnie stood too, and reached out to hold him back. He looked down at the place where her slim fingers arched around his forearm. His skin was warm, the hair growing over it unexpectedly soft. When he lifted his gaze she offered a contrite smile. "I don’t want to fight with you, Paul. But you asked about my husband, and I told you."

  His smile was also apologetic. He slid his arm through her fingers until his hand met hers. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and then released it. "We all did what we felt we had to do back then. Let’s just hope Shane never has to face the kinds of choices your husband and I did."

  Bonnie felt her eyes growing misty as Paul’s words resonated inside her. It was all so long ago, both the war in Southeast Asia and the war at home. She found it paradoxical that the soldier had survived and the pacifist had died—but that didn’t matter. What mattered most was creating a peaceful future for Shane’s generation.

  That Paul should share her sentiments regarding Shane was no reason to start crying, but she couldn’t will her tears away. Embarrassed, she turned from him and pressed her hand to her eyes.

  Paul hovered behind her, as if not sure what to do. "Hey," he said softly, patting her shoulder. "I’m sorry if I made you cry."

  "Don’t apologize," she mumbled.

  "You still miss your husband, don’t you."

  Wiping her eyes, she nodded. "He was an incredible man."

  "I’m sure he was." Paul let his arm drop. "I really should be going, Bonnie," he said, gently this time. "I appreciate the dinner."

  "I appreciate the tree." Sniffling away the last of her tears, she smiled. "What should I do for it? Does it require any special care?"

  "No, just the usual. I’d do something about watering your lawn a bit more, though, if I were you."

  "Do me a favor and tell Shane," she said, her smile widening. "If I mention watering the lawn one more time to him, he’ll nominate me for nag-of-the-year honors."

  Paul smiled, as well. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and started toward the den. "I’ll go say good-by to him," he said.

  Bonnie watched him stroll into the den. She heard the low rumble of his voice and Shane’s mingling with the animated patter of the sports announcer from the television. She was grateful to Paul, not only for forging a friendship with Shane but for treading so carefully around her tender emotions, for retreating from their argument about the war before it could escalate out of control.

  She didn’t want to be grateful to him. She’d been independent for too long, strong and confident and steadfast in her convictions. She hardly ever cried, and that was the way she liked it.

  Her feelings for Paul frightened her. Not that he could undermine those convictions, not that he could sap her of her strength and independence, but she honestly didn’t want to like him so much.

  ***

  "I DON’T CARE," said Paul. "Do whatever the hell you want, Macon. Bring me up on charges if you want. I don’t care."

  Rain had started to fall more heavily, now, the drops warm and fat. He focused on the raindrops, the vines, the rumble of what his brain told him was thunder and his soul told him was gunfire somewhere to the north of where they were standing. Crickets shrieked and the clouds hung low and ominous.

  "Do you know what kind of trouble yo
u’re getting yourself into?" Macon asked. His voice was knife-sharp, cutting through the oppressive humidity.

  "We’ll all be in trouble if we go over that hill," Paul countered. "I just know it, Macon. Some things you just know."

  "Come on," Rigucci called. He was already heading back to the trail. "Come on, let’s get this gig over with."

  "No!" Paul thought he was whispering, but his voice emerged in an anguished scream. "No! Don’t! Damn it, don’t go!"

  ***

  HIS EYES FLEW OPEN in panic and he bolted upright, struggling for breath.

  The dreams hardly ever came to him in his own bed. When he’d first returned from Vietnam, he’d had them every night, no matter where he was. But now, he was bothered by them only when he was sleeping in an unfamiliar place. It put a crimp in his social life, but that was the way it was. If a woman wasn’t willing to spend the night at his house, he simply wouldn’t spend the night with her.

  Tonight, however, as he’d climbed into his bed after a quick shower, he’d felt uneasy, besieged by memories. He recognized the softness of his sheets, the smell of his pillows, the exact arrangement of the toiletry items on his dresser. The position of the window, the closet door, the easy chair. The shadowy texture of the carpet and the silver stripes of moonlight that seeped through the slats of the vertical blinds to strike the opposite wall.

  Some things you just know...

  His pulse slowed and he started to breathe more regularly. He raked his fingers through his sweat-damp hair, shoving it back from his face, and fought off a shiver. It was over now. He was going to be all right.

  Flashback dreams were a common affliction. His mother had told him that to this day his father still occasionally fought the Battle of the Bulge in his sleep. John Slinger once confessed, after a few beers, that his nightmares about ‘Nam had gotten so out of hand his wife had made him see a therapist for a while. "It wasn’t for my sake," he’d explained, "but for hers. She said I was keeping her up all night, screaming and throwing punches."