Looking at her watch, she saw that she was running out of time to get ready for her dinner with Taylor. She couldn’t deny that the snub of his not calling after they’d made love still stung. Several times this afternoon she’d thought of calling him back and canceling. Let him wait a few days to see how it felt. But if she was being honest with herself, she missed him. She wanted to see him. Hopefully her cold response on the phone earlier had been enough to let him know she wasn’t pleased with his lack of manners.
She went in the bathroom to wash her face, apply moisturizer, and run a brush through her hair. Tucking it behind her ears, she stared at her face. It was her usual, familiar face . . . but different. She’d gained a few pounds since she’d arrived at Sea Breeze, mostly muscle from running and gardening. Her face had lost its gauntness. Leaning closer to the mirror, she could see the faint smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose and cheekbones. Despite her maniacal application of sunscreen and wearing of hats, her fair skin freckled. Yet she preferred the healthy-looking, soft glow of color to her normally alabaster skin. Her red hair had blond streaks from the sun and had grown from its chin-length, sharply contoured blunt cut to fall loosely to her shoulders. Harper applied lip gloss and turned away from the mirror. This was her, she thought—au naturel. And that was enough.
Taylor rang the doorbell at Sea Breeze precisely at seven o’clock. They decided to stay local and eat sushi at Bushido restaurant on the Isle of Palms. The thick tension floating between them had each behaving in an exceedingly polite manner. More so than on their first date. The mood was decidedly uncomfortable. Before climbing into the truck, Taylor took her hand to stop her.
“Can we talk now?” Taylor asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“If you wish.” Harper was being curt but she couldn’t help herself. She was hurt and angry and, yes, pissed off.
“Let’s take a walk on the beach,” Taylor suggested.
September was just around the corner, and Harper noticed small changes on the beach. The sun was setting earlier. Already the sky had shifted from blue to the mystical blend of periwinkle and lavender that preceded a sunset. The white-tipped ocean was iridescent as it reflected the silvery violet.
A sprinkling of color was returning to the dunes as the wildflowers opened up to the cooling temperatures. She spied the first spires of goldenrod, sea oxeye, and her favorite, yellow primrose. She spied a large cluster of shorebirds in the distance, early birds in the migration south along the Atlantic Flyway. Soon the monarch butterflies would be passing through. Harper had always left the lowcountry for home in the North by this late in the season. She was pleased that this year, for the first time, she’d see the subtle changes of autumn at the beach.
They walked side by side, not holding hands, close to the shoreline. Harper usually ran on the beach in the morning, when the sand was wiped smooth by the outgoing tide. Now the beach was covered with footprints and the occasional litter from thoughtless visitors.
Taylor removed his sunglasses and stuck them into his shirt pocket. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Go ahead. But I really do hope you’ll quit someday. Those things will kill you.”
His lips curved slightly as he put a cigarette into his mouth. “Glad you care.”
She stopped and waited while his large hands cupped the cigarette and he lit it, then took a long drag.
Walking again, he turned his head, his gaze steady. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
She looked away, thinking, Too little, too late. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Will you give me a chance to explain?”
He’d heard her tone and knew she was putting up walls. She looked at him, walking erect, but his eyes spoke of the turmoil he was in.
She swept a lock of hair from her face, already damp from the humidity. “All right.”
“I didn’t call because after you left I went into my shell. It’s what I do when I need to decompress. It’s a survival pattern. I call it turtling. I tuck in and get quiet. It’s different from relaxing. It’s kind of zoning out.” He took another drag on the cigarette. “See, when I didn’t call, it’s not because you didn’t matter to me. It’s because you matter so much.”
Harper didn’t understand just yet, but felt a quickening of hope.
“There are a lot of symptoms with PTSD. You know about the anxiety, hypervigilance, depression. For me, the worst was sleeping.” He laughed shortly. “That’s a gross understatement. We all have problems with falling asleep, or waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep. But I had nightmares.” He rubbed his jaw, collecting his thoughts. “Bad. Worse, they were so damn real. When I was dreaming, I was there, reliving the experience. When that happens, your whole body reacts, your heart starts pumping and your blood races. I was trained to fight, and if someone woke me up while I was in one of those dreams, I’d go right into fight mode. I’d grab my gun and search the room.” Taylor raked his hair, visibly shaken. “Hell, I wasn’t even awake. I could have killed someone.”
Harper remained silent, listening.
“When I first got home from war, I didn’t leave the house. I kept away from crowds, shopping centers, anywhere people gathered. I was always on high alert. I had a girlfriend back then. We’d dated in college. Real nice girl. She wrote to me while I was away. But when I came back, she couldn’t deal with me. She said I’d changed. She tried, but . . .” He shrugged. “We broke up.”
Harper conjured up this pretty woman holding his hand, her photograph in his wallet. Someone he’d wanted to marry, perhaps. Harper couldn’t help the flare of jealousy. “Did you see her when you returned home this time?”
Taylor shook his head. “She’s married now. Wouldn’t be right. And I’ve moved on.”
As quickly as Harper had conjured up the woman, she disappeared into the ether. “What turned things around for you?”
“Thor.” He smiled.
“Thor . . .”
“He’s more than a dog. He was my salvation. We were together twenty-four/seven. Thor sleeps beside my bed, and if I go into REM and start having a nightmare, he wakes me up. When I open my eyes and see him, I know I’m okay.”
“Do you still have nightmares?”