Page 37 of Love Always
“They found a gun?”
She overheard the conversation. All color has left Laurel’s face and her dark hair is still damp, hanging in lanky twists.
“They know you didn’t do it. Don’t worry.”
She pulls on the ties of her robe, making them tighter around her waist. It’s another self-protective move. “But that means, that means he was right there, right in Chloe’s car—” It takes her four fast steps to the kitchen sink before she starts to dry heave.
I lay a hand on her back, feeling her convulse with each effort. After several bouts she runs water and I hand her a glass so she can rinse her mouth.
“I have to go brush my teeth,” she says robotically. When she arrives for a second time from the bathroom, she is still green around the temples and under her eyes.
“I need to go to bed. You can leave now.”
“You keep saying that, but I’m not going anywhere. You’ve had a shock, Laurel. If you can’t eat, you should at least try to get some sleep.”
“Okay,” she says and shuffles down the hall. “Where’s Devon?”
“At the station.”
“And Claire?”
“On a call, and Chloe’s doing dinner at The Inn.”
Her phone rings and I grab it, handing it to her and trying to not see the number.
“Hello?” Her shoulders sag a little and for the first time since I found her in Carlson’s car, she’s more relaxed.
“Hi Travis. No, I’m fine.” There are a lot of pauses and she refuses to sit. “Yeah I know. No. It was awful. I can’t really talk about it.” More pauses and she shuffles further down the hall. “Mateus is here. Yeah, the new guy. No. Don’t. Okay. If you can swing tomorrow night. That would be great. Yeah. Here he is.”
She passes the phone to me.
Travis’s voice is low and steady and what he has to say is equally sobering. “I don’t know if you know her history and there’s no reason why you should. But when Mom and Dad were killed she didn’t speak for almost a month and they all thought she didn’t cry. Claire said it’s like she went comatose. Devon just got mad at her. Chloe was away at school. But I could hear her at night through the wall and she just sobbed. In the day, nothing. I don’t want her to have to go through something like that again and I’m afraid this is going to trigger her. Please, please take care of her tonight until we can all get to her.”
΅
She slips off the bathrobe, letting it slide to the floor, revealing a large, over-sized short sleeved, gray T-shirt that must have been Travis’s at some point. She just swims in it and the picture of “Pangea” hits at about her stomach. It cuts midway down her thighs and I try hard not to watch her body curl into bed. She definitely has runner’s legs, well-defined ass, quads, and calves. With those curvy hips, the effect is breathtaking. I bend down and pick up the robe and find a hook in her closet. It’s not until she’s deep under the covers that I sit down next to her and pat her leg. “I’m going to be reading if you need anything, okay? Just give me a yell.” I wince. She’s not one of the guys. “What I mean is, I’ll be just on the other side of this door.”
“Mateus,” she says, nailing me to the spot, “thank you for everything.”
“No problem.”
She lies silently.
“Carlson has the name of a counselor if you need to go talk to her. He texted me her info.”
“Mateus?”
“What?”
“Am I going to be fucked up for the rest of my life now?”
That one sentence takes me back in a flash to the nurse who had just changed my dressing. She was older, probably near retirement, short cropped steely hair and matching eyes. I had asked her the same question. Actually, what I said was: How fucked up am I going to be?
She had glanced at me, patted my shoulder and said, “As fucked up as you want to be.”
The difference here is that when I signed on as a SEAL, I knew risk was always there—risk was part of the equation. Laurel was meeting a friend for lunch.
I take a deep breath and try to come up with an honest answer. In these moments, honesty is all we have. To offer less is to not respect the person in front of you.
