Chapter 2
Kymbria James gazed down at the tiny seven-month-old child sleeping amidst pink blankets and sheets, little hands curled beside her silky black hair. Only the dim glow of two night lights lit the room, but outside, a full moon silvered snow and reflected through the curtain-covered windows, adding a measure of illumination to the crib.
Kymbria couldn't do this.
She had to do it.
Stoically, Kymbria clenched her fists and fought the urge to lean down and brush her lips over the satiny forehead. Most of the time, Risa slept soundly, her tummy full, her need for loving and touching satisfied by either Kymbria or her mother, Niona. Other nights, the slightest sound would bring the baby wide awake - and Risa was a cranky waker. In a piercing cry, she demanded attention, then immediately settled into babbling and waving her arms at whoever answered the call. Many nights Kymbria and Niona met over the crib, each stifling a yawn and reaching for the baby. Tonight, Kymbria fervently hoped to leave without notice.
She glanced at the connecting doors. Past the one across the hallway, her mother slept; Kymbria claimed her old room beside Risa's. They both left the doors ajar so they could hear the smallest peep of discontent from the baby. For the next couple weeks - oh, lord, let it only be a couple weeks - Niona alone would answer that call, should it come.
Despite her valiant efforts, a tear slipped down Kymbria's cheek. Her arms ached with the suppressed yearning to gather the warm bundle up and nestle her nose in the downy hair. No matter how many times she had heard that no words on earth could describe a mother's love for her child, the actual experience was awe-inspiring.
Who would have thought she could love this child so deeply? Risa was adopted through an extensive measure of blood, sweat and tears of hope, fear and doubt. Since her teens, Kymbria had lived with the knowledge she would never bear her own child. Then hope sprang free that she could open the barrier over the hole where she had buried all the love she longed to cascade on a daughter or son. Along with it, though, also came fear all her pleas to the powers holding Risa's future in their hands would fall on bureaucratic deafened ears. Later, different doubt quickly followed, doubt of her ability to be the type of mother who would help Risa carve out a wonderful life for herself.
But all paled before the deep burn of love Kymbria felt at only a slight passing thought of her new daughter, let alone what the actual sight of this infant did to her emotions.
None of the previous problems and insecurities mattered now. She was well on her way to being Risa's mother, both legally and in her heart - if she could only emerge victorious in what had to be her final mission. The most important mission she'd undertaken in her entire life, including twenty-two years as an Army RN counseling post traumatic stress soldiers horridly damaged from their encounters in hostile situations.
She gave in at least to the urge to gently pull the blanket up a bit higher on Risa.
"Sleep well, angel," Kymbria barely whispered. "Mommy loves you."
~~~
Three-and-a-half hours later, Kymbria was a hundred-and-fifty miles north of Duluth, Minnesota, where her mother and daughter slept. Her only companion in the four-wheel-drive SUV was Scarlet, curled on the passenger seat. The Irish Setter had been with them since shortly after Risa arrived, adopted into their family while Lieutenant Colonel Kymbria James, R.N., Combat Nurse, battled her emotional demons with an Army-assigned psychiatrist. She'd debated about bringing the dog, since Risa would miss it, but her need for at least something from the pleasurable side of her life won out.
By now, Kymbria had planned on being at the cabin where the family had spent pleasant summers getting in touch with their Native American roots after nine months in the white world. But - perhaps a subconscious blunder - she had fallen asleep and forgotten to set the alarm. The bright star pinpricks were fading as the sky grayed, and soon the first signs of color would blush on the eastern horizon to her right. Already she could make out the piles of snowdrifts on the side of the road, huge pines and leafless hardwoods towering into the sky.
Her fingers tightened on the SUV's steering wheel and she glanced at the console as her satellite phone rang. Caller ID indicated her mother had woken and found her note. Scarlet jumped into the backseat. The setter hated the phone ring vibrating against her sensitive ears.
Kymbria drove on down the two-lane highway without answering. Niona would continue to call, and Kymbria couldn't - wouldn't - continue to not answer. But she refused to be distracted by talking on the phone or texting while driving. Her mother understood that...not that it would appease her for long if Kymbria didn't return the call. Still, for a while, Niona would be busy with Risa, since the baby was surely awake, also, by now. Risa was their alarm most mornings.
Risa. Oh, God, I love you. How am I going to stay away? But I have to.
The call went to voice mail. She could have pulled to the side of the road, but refused the urge.
"Coward," she murmured. "You're more afraid of Mom than the terrorists in Afghanistan." She chuckled half-wryly through the lingering pain of not allowing herself to hear her mother's voice and ask about Risa. Her mother could stir up a firestorm almost as horrific as a horde of enemies.
Coward she had been, though, when she slipped out of the house at three a.m. where Scarlet waited in the car with the engine running for warmth. The garage was on the far side of the large house, where there was little chance of Kymbria's furtive leave-taking waking Niona. She'd left a note, of course, saying where she was going and who she would meet, although Niona had probably guessed the moment she spied the piece of paper propped on Kymbria's neatly-made bed.
They had talked about her going, but Niona insisted she wait until spring, the season of renewal, when the spirits would guide her quest with the most strength. Then two weeks ago, during the trip the Army psychiatrist Smith had assigned her for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy -
She and Niona had flown home from Bethesda to Duluth for a break from their routine and to check on the house. Kymbria's brother, Pete, was caretaking, but a man never saw the dust and dirt or noticed the smell of a neglected home. Both still believing Dr. Smith had Kymbria's best interests at heart, two days into that visit, she and Niona left Risa with Pete and his wife while they drove to the gun club. Cognitive behavioral therapy, mental health professionals called it. Put a person in a similar but toned-down situation to begin teaching them to handle the fear and stress. According to the doctor, the meds were sufficiently built up in her system to keep her calm during the retraining of her psyche.
The car wreck they'd passed on the roadway near the club entrance....
The helicopter called to transport an accident victim to the trauma center....
The helicopter, zooming low over the club....
Flashback: Kandahar, Afghanistan. The attack while she and her nurses tried to transport wounded - physically injured and two soldiers babbling with PTSD - out of the fire zone.
Kymbria prone beneath a table on the gun club firing range, her pistol searching for a target.
Niona with sense enough to hide in the clubhouse until Kymbria came out of the flashback.
Their decision to tell no one else in the family of the danger she'd placed her own mother in....
Scarlet leaped back into the front passenger seat, and Kymbria jolted to reality in time to realize her vehicle had slowed to a near crawl. Thank god there was no other traffic and this hadn't been a true flashback, only the memory of that horrible incident.
Thank God Risa wasn't with them at the gun club...not that either Mom or I would have taken her there.
But what would happen if a flashback occurred again? What if she was driving with her mother and Risa in the car? What if she flashed back in the house, where Mom still kept a few handguns and rifles? What if - ?
She strengthened her mental barriers. At least her mother didn't know she had bought a sat-phone the other day. For a while, she could blame no-service for not calling back.
A lie by omission or insinuation is still a lie, her mother's voice mentally chastised her.
"Darn it, Mom! I'll call as soon as I can. Promise."
Only the setter answered her, with a grunt of satisfaction as she circled once and plopped down on the passenger seat.
Kymbria sighed and started watching for the break in the pine trees along the snow-banked road that would indicate the turnoff to Neris Lake, a small town with a winter population of barely 2,000 souls and the closest town to her family's isolated vacation lake cabin. She needed to be at that cabin now. Needed to soak in the peace and, hopefully, start salvaging her life...her future. She had come back to the far Northwood partly in respect for the Old Ways and what the Elders could teach her, but also for the help they could give her.
And one not-so-Elder.
She wasn't starting out well by making up false excuses for dodging her mother, the one person who had never let her down in her entire life. The one person who had loved her without reservation, always and forever. The one person who put her own life on hold and moved in to help her with Risa after Rick died.
Hot anger shot through her at the thought of her dead husband. That still happened frequently, even after seven months. She tamped the vehemence down before it, too, sent her into one of those achingly miserable scenes from the past.
At the next intersection, she turned and continued toward Neris Lake. Minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of the town's lone grocery store and glanced at the dashboard clock. Seven a.m. Early, but the store's small deli served breakfast to the few pre-dawn town risers. Although there would be plenty of frozen food in the freezer at the cabin, she would need a few other supplies, and she could call Niona before she got back on the road.
Always eager for a distraction on a drive that cooped her up inside a vehicle, the Irish Setter scrambled across the console and swiped her wet tongue across Kymbria's face. Laughing, Kymbria ruffled Scarlet's silky ears.
"O.K., sweetie," she said. "I'll take you for a walk first."
She grabbed the leash from inside the console, snapped it on Scarlet's collar, and opened the driver's door. Outside, fresh snow trickled from a lighter but heavily overcast gray sky, the bulging bellies of the clouds now visible and forewarning of more snow waiting. Juggling the leash, Kymbria shrugged into her down jacket, slammed the car door and headed toward the far side of the parking lot, the gamboling setter beside her. There was a vacant lot beside the store, and since the dog normally obeyed well, she unsnapped the leash. With a sharp yipe of gratitude for her freedom, Scarlet took off.
Behind Kymbria, in the parking lot with only a few scattered vehicles, an old clunker's engine ground as the driver tried to fire up the vehicle. A second later, the engine in the troublesome vehicle backfired into the still air.
With no time to prepare her defenses, Kymbria froze, all her senses on high alert yet pulling against each other. One side struggled to dive prone to the ground, the other fought to stay rational, reminding her that she was Stateside, not in a war zone. One side flushed in a cold sweat brought on by the thunder of her heartbeat, the sound so very similar to the thwap-thwap-thwap of rotor blades on the big birds that could carry either death or rescue. The other side wrestled with the trap door that kept memories too terrible to face without preliminary groundwork contained.
Both sides won - partially. She dropped to the ground in a sitting position. An instant later, she caught her dog in her arms as the setter, also startled by the sharp noise, raced back to its mistress.
Scarlet's whine lingered in the air as Kymbria told both herself and the dog, "It's o.k. It's just an old car that's not running properly."
"You all right?" a male voice asked.
Scarlet pulled back from Kymbria, a soft warning growl in her throat. Reminding herself again that she wasn't in enemy territory - that the man standing close to her was undoubtedly not on his way to meet his virgins - Kymbria drew in a steadying breath and rose on somewhat stable legs to face him.
The sheriff hadn't changed much, maybe a bit more jowling on his face. When he met her glance and nodded, the subdued light in the overcast early morning did nothing to mute the sharpness in his blue eyes.
"Sheriff Hjak," she greeted. "Nice to see you."
"Kymbria James," Hjak replied. "Glad you think I'm nice. But maybe you better explain to your dog that I'm not one of the bad guys."
Kymbria laid a hand on the setter's head and said, "It's all right, Scarlet. Friend."
The dog didn't back down until Kymbria took Hjak's hand and carried it to Scarlet to sniff. Even then Scarlet sat on her haunches, her ears on alert as though making sure the word friend wasn't a lie.
"It's a dog thing," Hjak said, nodding at the setter. "She's showing me how tough she is, in case I mean you harm. You up here alone or is somebody else gonna show up? Seem to recall you got married."
Kymbria cleared her throat. "I'm...widowed. And yes, I'm going to be here alone for a while."
Hjak's eyes softened and he said, "Sorry about your loss."
"Thank you," Kymbria murmured for the thousandth time since Rick's death.
Hjak frowned at whatever new thought came into his mind, opened his mouth as though to continue talking, then shoved his hands in his coat pockets and gazed over Kymbria's head. He focused northward, in the direction of her family's cabin, for a long moment.
When he remained silent, Kymbria cleared her throat in preparation of saying goodbye. Hjak quickly gazed back at her, his look wavering between warning and...something she couldn't quite interpret. Perhaps a bit of awkwardness at what he was about to say? Even with her training at reading faces, she couldn't decide. His words didn't fit his expression, either.
"Your family's been here in winter before," he said. "You know that when we get a blizzard, phone service is spotty. Hard for someone alone to get help if they need it."
"Sat-phone," Kymbria explained. "It should work fine here, most of the time, anyway. Except during especially heavy cloud cover."
"Like during a blizzard," he repeated.
"Well, I'm sure Mom will have the cabin phone turned back on for me."
"I'm sure, too, knowing Niona." Still, he didn't move aside and this time Kymbria actually turned and stared northward with him.
"The roads are clear, aren't they?" she finally asked. "I shouldn't have any trouble getting to the cabin?"
"Huh? Oh. No, the roads are fine."
"Good. Uh...so how are things around here? Are you still keeping teenagers safe from themselves?"
Kymbria stifled a grin at her own audacity. Her only up-close and personal contact with Hjak had been one night when she was sixteen. Way too tipsy to be behind the wheel, she'd been driving home from a clandestine visit to a bar not known to be vigilant about ID'ing summer kids. She nearly made it, too. Then she'd slid off the road into a ditch and wiped out the mailbox at a neighboring lake cabin. The neighbor had been home and called Hjak.
That she'd had a reason for her overindulgence - one Hjak understood - probably saved her license, although it didn't protect her from a scathing lecture from the sheriff and both her parents. That had honestly been the last time she'd driven drunk. All she had to do was remember the ride back into town in the backseat of Hjak's patrol car, the wait inside the locked cell with a cup of strong, black coffee for company. The silent ride home with her parents. The lonely rest of the summer - all four weeks of it - grounded.
"Still clean?" the sheriff asked instead of answering her question.
"You betcha," Kymbria said. "Behind the wheel, anyway."
"Good job. Drink don't hurt no one now and then, long as they know when and where." He shifted his stance as though finally ready to move aside as he said, "How long you planning to stay at the cabin?"
"A week or two."
"You'll be gone before Jan - uh...Christmas, then?"
"Oh, yes," she agreed, thinking of all that time away from Risa. Still, the thought crossed her mind to wonder why Hjak cared about that certain date. "I don't dare break my promise to Mom about spending Christmas with her and my daughter in Duluth."
"It's only right to be with family on holidays," Hjak said. "How old's your daughter?"
"Seven months," Kymbria replied, her gaze unerringly traveling toward the south, where Risa waited. When she looked back at Hjak, she caught the doubt on his face, and went on determinedly, "She's with my mother. And if you're wondering why I left her at such a young age...well, I have my reasons, Sheriff. Valid ones."
He nodded without questioning her. She supposed he'd heard that old saw about having valid reasons thousands of times from various lawbreakers. But she wasn't here to break the law.
He said, "Bet you might drop in at the casino your tribe opened up a couple years ago while you're here, too, huh?"
"That I might, Sheriff," she admitted. "I have to confess, I enjoy sliding a few bucks now and then into those new video slot machines."
"Well, for my end of things, I'm glad the tribe had sense enough to build a hotel with some of their earnings. Most strangers spend the night, rather than head back home and run into a moose on the road."
Kymbria laughed. "Don't you warn people that the moose come out onto the road to lick the salt? And they're big enough that if they don't feel like moving until they get their bellies full, a car's not going to threaten them."
"We warn them." His tone dropped and he shot another quick glance northward. "But some warnings even those who live around here don't take heed of."
"Are you having some other trouble?" Kymbria asked, drawing Hjak's attention back to her in a startled jerk, as though he'd forgotten for a second they were conversing. "Seems like drugs are everywhere these days."
Hjak hesitated for a moment, then acknowledged, "We've got our share of drug problems around here, like everyone else." Then he changed his focus to Scarlet. "She appears to have had some training."
"Not really. She's protective, not aggressive. She was about six months old when I got her...after I came home. She's only a little over a year now. She's a good watchdog and I trust her."
"It's good that you'll have her with you." Hjak stared at her, eyes half-mast. "I probably shouldn't embarrass you with this. Still, it's my job to know the people around here. And I saw how you reacted to that backfire. Post traumatic stress syndrome? PTSD?"
Kymbria's mood tumbled, as it usually did whenever she was forced to face her new inadequacies. She sighed and nodded a yes at Hjak without further elaboration.
"You've spent enough time up here over the years to know there's more than just silent woods and picture perfect snow in the winter," he said next. "Before he died of that heart attack, your daddy spent summers teaching you kids to respect the land and be cautious of the dangers it can hold. 'Spect you'll be all right. Just remember, you can call me in a whipstitch if you think you need to. And don't forget to take gas for the snowmobiles when you head out to the cabin."
"I'll remember," Kymbria promised, glad Hjak had evidently decided not to pursue the question of her mental problems other than with that caution. "I'm sure Len Skinaway will be by to fill the snow machines up and start them. Make sure they're ready for me to use."
With a nod, Hjak started to turn away, then said, "There's healing up here if you need it. Keoman know you're coming?"
"I called him even before I let Mom know," she assured him. "He's part of the reason I'm here."
"Good. Good."
After the sheriff left, Kymbria put Scarlet back in the car, then quickly entered the grocery store and grabbed a few things. Just before she pulled out of the parking lot again, a sporty red Mustang drew up beside her. The horn honked until Kymbria rolled down her window.
"Kym! I thought that was you," her childhood friend, Amber Tallbear, said. Amber's deep brown eyes, the same shade as Kymbria's, glowed with joy at their unexpected meeting. "I'm glad now that I had to run out and get milk for breakfast in the cold. How are you? And how long will you be here? When can we get together and catch up on the last couple years?"
Kymbria smiled back. She and Amber shared a history of more mutual memories than even those from her marriage. Deeper and more meaningful in some ways, and so vital to the women they had become. And they had maintained their friendship over the years with visits when Kymbria managed to come home and via email.
Amber doesn't know all the story behind Rick's death. Yes, she can be someone I can talk to. Better than that crappy psychiatrist!
"I'm doing well, and I'll call you tomorrow," Kymbria promised. Then repeated, "Promise," and stretched her arm out the window, pinkie finger poised. Amber reached out to link with her, as they had dozens of times over the years, then winked and drove on into the parking lot.
Fifteen minutes later, a filled five-gallon gas can in the cargo compartment of her SUV, Kymbria headed out of town again before she remembered the return call to her mother. She glanced at the sat-phone and saw the voice mail waiting message, sighed, and picked up the phone. Slowing, she broke her rule and returned the call.
"Kymbria?" Niona James answered in a breathless voice. "I ought to be as mad as a wet hen at you, but I understand. Are you almost there?"
Despite her trepidation, Kymbria smiled at the greeting. Her mother loved Caller ID. "I just left the grocery store in Neris Lake," she admitted. "The key's still the same place, isn't it?"
"Yes. But I'd have given you your own key, if you'd told me you were leaving so soon," Niona said grumpily. Kymbria loved her mother dearly, but she knew Niona would not completely hold back a guilt trip thrust. "And I'll call the phone company as soon as they're open." She paused. "I suppose you found out that I was planning a small surprise party to introduce Risa to everyone this evening. You probably noticed that I was getting ready to make all your favorites for dinner. You could have at least spent one more night before you left, so all my preparations weren't in vain."
"I really didn't want to deal with company, Mom. And I hated to face your disappointment. But that's not why I left right now."
"There wouldn't have been com...well, only your brother Pete and his wife. And...well...."
"And Pete's three kids, a couple neighbors I knew growing up, maybe an old teacher?"
"I would have cancelled all of them, if you'd said so."
"Try to understand, Mom," Kymbria explained in a soft voice. "You can come see me all you want at the cabin. And do bring Risa. But that's where I want...need to be right now. At least, for a while. Especially after what happened at the gun club."
After a pause during which Kymbria visualized her mother's face creased in concern, biting her lips in that endearing way, Niona said with a rare burst of cursing, "That effin' damn quack doctor. How dare he send you out for cognitive behavior therapy! Or say your problems were from PMS instead of PTSD!"
Kymbria nodded silently in concurrence, although she reminded Niona, "He didn't know you were listening on the open phone."
"Doesn't matter. He ought to be court marshaled by a bench of naked women generals!"
"I agree, Mom," Kymbria said with a suppressed chuckle. Leave it to her mother to conjure up the perfect scenario to elevate her mood. She changed the subject.
"How's Risa?"
"Would you turn around if I told you that she was crying her little heart out for you?"
"I would if it were true," Kymbria said staunchly.
Niona sighed. "Well, truthfully, she took her morning bottle and fell back to sleep, not noticing, I guess, that you weren't here. She's used to one or the other of us sleeping in."
"I miss her terribly," Kymbria admitted. "I'm doing this for her more than me."
"I know you are, sweetheart. And on one hand, I don't blame you. I wish I could have come with you, though. I don't like the thought of you up there alone."
"I couldn't focus with Risa here, Mom," Kymbria said in a low, ravaged voice. "She's taken over my life so completely. I have to be worthy of that, even if it means being separated from her for a while."
"As I say, I understand. But you call me when you actually get to the cabin," Niona ordered sternly. "Let me know how things are so I can be sure you'll be comfortable there."
"I will."
"And let me tell Keoman you'll be at the cabin," Niona continued. "He can help."
"I'm counting on that. I've already contacted him. That's another reason I left so soon. He said he was going to be tied up fairly soon with something he couldn't put off."
Silence stretched across the airwaves for so long, Kymbria started to hold the phone away and see if the call had dropped. Then her mother sighed, the breath tinged with a measure of frustration. "Then I'll trust this is the right path."
"So will I." It's all I have left. "Give Risa a hug and kiss for me. I love you, Mom."
"Love you, too, darling," Niona whispered. "So much. I...I want my old Kymbria back."
"Bye, Mom."
Scarlet nudged her as she laid the phone down. Kymbria fondled the setter's ears and said, "Maybe that's what Mom wants, sweetie. Me, I'm not so sure I want to go back to that Kymbria. Too much water under the bridge, huh? Too many memories, too many unwalked paths. Maybe...." She clenched the steering wheel. "Maybe too many walked paths. Wrong paths."
And she'd meant what she told Niona. She was taking this action as much for Risa as for herself. Kymbria couldn't raise her daughter in the throes of not knowing when she would black out and become a danger to those she loved.
Not knowing when her fury at her dead husband would erupt during a PTSD episode and override the love she had for the daughter he left her.
She continued on the lonely road for another two miles, driving through pristine snow except for that shoved aside in waist-high grimy banks by the snowplows. Dark-emerald pines reached skyward on both sides of the two-lane, and at one point she slowed to watch a fifteen-hundred-pound moose amble leisurely out of the woods and lift its antlered head to gaze at her car as she passed. She didn't dawdle for a more in-depth look. According to what her father had taught her, the rut could extend into December. More than once a surly, ungratified moose, which had perhaps been beaten out by a larger bull, had attacked trespassers in his domain - along with the vehicle that brought them there.
Finally, Kymbria turned into the cabin drive, where she immediately braked and debated calling Niona back. Ahead of her lay unplowed snow at least a foot deep. Len obviously hadn't been here for ages, and she would have bet a month's pay Niona had contacted him a few days back when they first discussed coming up here, albeit together. Len should have at least made initial preparations for their arrival sometime in the past few days.
Instead of reaching for the phone, she sighed in annoyance, shifted into four-wheel drive, and navigated the hundred yards on to the four bedroom cabin her parents had lovingly restored years ago.
The same here. No walkways shoveled, no stack of cut wood moved from the pile near the garage to beside the back door for easy access. She parked in the drive, since the garage was full of equipment, including their ski boat and several snowmobiles. Scarlet perched on the passenger seat, ears perked as she looked out through the windshield.
"Our new home, sweetie. For a while, anyway. Lots of quiet, beautiful scenery, plenty of long, soothing walks waiting for us." She glanced at the garage, then muttered, "Oh, crap. If Len hasn't cleared the snow, I'll bet the snowmobiles haven't been touched, either." She recalled that there was something to do - or un-do - each winter before the family could use the vehicles during their infrequent cold-weather trips.
Nothing for it right now. Instead, she opened the car door and stepped out, then let the setter scramble after her. Scarlet raced off as Kymbria breathed in the peace and solitude.
Unspoiled. Beautiful. The log cabin sat off by itself on a shore of the lake that hadn't succumbed to development, and her parents' land included four acres of woods. She couldn't even see the next cabin down the shore, since her mother had insisted they leave their acreage in its natural state, except for the quarter acre around the cabin. That they had landscaped with native plants and flagstone walkways, now hidden under the unshoveled snow. In all seasons, they could watch a variety of wildlife from the windows: deer, skunks, numerous birds, even a doe and twin fawns had visited several times one summer.
The very isolation could be dangerous, however, when only one person used the cabin...and also a lot of work since there were no close neighbors to help each other, especially in the winter months. That's exactly why Len was so important. And he had a spotless reputation. She'd never heard anyone complain the maintenance man from the Turtle Clan had let them down or done a bad job.
Len's phone number was probably in the small book her detail-minded mother kept in the stand under the phone, though. In case some sort of miscommunication had occurred, she would call him directly before she let her mother or anyone else know that yes, Len was fallible.