To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series) Read online

  "You, too." As she turned to leave, he added, "You look very nice, by the way."

  She froze, glad her back was to him so that he couldn't see the Cheshire smile on her face.

  "Thank you," she said, suddenly feeling more like a schoolgirl than a mature woman.

  As she glanced back at Caleb one last time to share her appreciation with a smile, she could only wish that she was meeting him at a restaurant instead.

  Steve waved to Anna from an outside table at the Bistro Romano as she strolled up the walkway. He rose from his seat and pulled out a chair for her.

  "Thank you," she said, genuinely appreciating his polite gesture.

  "You look very nice," he noted. She thanked him again, though she couldn't help realizing how those same words had a much greater effect when they had come from Caleb.

  Steve sat back in his chair, exuding an air of confidence that Anna had surmised could easily cross over into arrogance when the opportunity presented itself. But as the CEO of a lucrative investment firm, she knew a strong alpha personality was a prerequisite to success. She took a sip of water, discreetly studying him as her eyes peered over the glass. He appeared to have come straight from work, his tall, lean-ish body clad in a dark gray suit, short blonde hair parted on the side and frozen from an apparent overdose of hair gel. He was easy enough on the eyes, and Anna had no doubt that many women would consider him a prime catch. But attraction in her book went far beyond a man's bank account, and all the money in the world couldn't buy her interest if someone was lacking in the way of character or values.

  As they enjoyed a leisurely paced meal along with a premium bottle of wine, Anna felt herself finally begin to relax despite the fact that Steve seemed stuck on one conversation subject: himself. It wasn't until dessert arrived that he finally switched gears.

  "So, how's the remodeling situation going?" he asked, his eyes looking up briefly from a mouth-watering slice of caramel cheesecake. "The last time I saw you, you had been interviewing people without much luck."

  Anna nodded as she helped herself to a spoonful of grapenut pudding. "I know – I never thought it would be so hard to find someone both capable and reliable enough to do the job. But I finally did."

  "Good for you. A contractor?"

  "No. He actually spent the last five years in Afghanistan, but did some remodeling work before that."

  Steve arched an eyebrow. "Afghanistan … really."

  Anna shifted uncomfortably in her chair, slightly taken aback by Steve's dismissive tone of voice. "I have a feeling he's been through a lot, but he's a really good worker and I'm happy with the job he's doing."

  "I suppose it beats getting your ass shot off for a stupid war."

  Anna studied Steve for several bewildering moments before finding her voice again. "I don't think we've ever talked politics before, but I would have expected you leaned more to the right than the left."

  "Politics has nothing to do with it. These wars are bankrupting our country – I'm talking as a financial advisor."

  "I don't disagree with what you're saying about the financial burden of these wars. And I'm not going to pretend that I was a proponent of either the Afghanistan or Iraq Wars from the get-go – I wasn't, and the longer they drag on and the more people who are killed, the more I question why we ever went there in the first place. But that doesn't change the fact that these guys – and gals – are not having an easy time over there, especially with repeated tours."

  Steve shrugged. "They got what they signed up for. If they come back in a body bag or without a pair of legs, they only have themselves to thank."

  Several moments passed before Anna realized she was staring at Steve with her mouth slightly agape. "Did you really just say that?"

  Steve couldn't appear more nonchalant if he were merely commenting on the weather. "Just telling you what I think. You can't hold that against me."

  Anna pushed her chair back and stood up, her hands nearly shaking as she rustled in her purse for some cash.

  "What in the world are you doing?" Steve asked, arrogance replaced with bafflement.

  Anna threw two twenty-dollar bills on the table. "I think that about covers my portion of the check."

  Steve viewed her through narrowed eyes that revealed both anger and insult. "I don't want your money. This was a date−"

  "It may have started that way, but that's not how it's ending."

  "I don't understand – is this because of what I said about the wars? Are you really that thin-skinned?"

  Anna knew that normally the answer would be "no", but something about this subject matter had admittedly set her off. Deep down she realized that she wasn't defending the wars as much as she was defending Caleb – a man she barely knew, yet who had somehow already gotten under her skin.

  "Have a good night," she said in a weak attempt to end the evening on a somewhat civil note. And with that, she headed for her car, feeling as though she couldn't get home soon enough … especially knowing that Caleb would be in close proximity.

  Anna dropped her keys on the kitchen counter and looked out the back window, doing a double-take as she spotted Caleb sitting by the fire with a bottle of beer in hand. Though she had suggested he make use of the fire pit earlier, she never expected that he would actually take her up on the offer. Glancing over at a bottle of Merlot in the wine rack on the far end of the counter, she wondered whether it was too late to try to redeem a disappointing evening. In what was becoming a very recent tendency to act on impulse, she grabbed the bottle of wine along with a corkscrew and glass, and headed outside.

  Caleb was looking off to the side and seemed deep in thought as she approached – enough so that he didn't even notice her until she was almost at the fire pit. His slightly startled look was quickly replaced with the hint of a smile.

  Anna stopped just short of an empty chair several feet away from him, doing her best to push past the self-consciousness that had crept up on her as she suddenly wondered what the heck she was doing. "Hate to see this fire go to waste," she finally said. "Mind if I join you?"

  "Not at all." He motioned to her to hand the wine and corkscrew over, and by the time she settled into her chair, he was ready to fill up her glass.

  "Thanks – that was quick."

  "Something told me you were ready for that drink."

  "Cheers," she replied as she lifted her glass, wondering if her disappointing dinner was that obvious. "How long have you been out here?"

  "About a half hour. I felt like having a few beers myself so I figured I'd sit outside since it was starting to cool down."

  "I know – although it's definitely warm in front of this fire."

  "You're not kidding," Caleb acknowledged as stood up to remove his sweatshirt. "I just added another log a few minutes ago and it's really throwing some heat."

  As he pulled the sweatshirt up from the sides, the back of his black tee-shirt was caught as well, unintentionally exposing his back until he realized that both pieces of clothing were being pulled over his head. He immediately tugged the tee-shirt back down, but not before Anna caught an angled glance at the patchwork of deep scars across his back. She gasped, immediately thankful that the crackling fire muted her shocked reaction.

  As Caleb sat back down, staring silently at the ground with the realization that Anna may well have witnessed his scars, she knew better than to ask him about their origin.

  "It's a nice night," she finally said in her best attempt to break the silence.

  Caleb nodded before taking a good-sized sip of beer. Several moments passed before he asked, "So how was your date?"

  Anna nearly choked on her sip of wine. "My date?"

  "Unless you got all dressed up to go meet a friend. I just kind of figured …"

  "Well, you figured right – it was a date." She paused. "Kind of, sort of."

  A slight smile emerged on Caleb's lips before he pressed them back onto his beer bottle. Another jumbo sip, which Anna quickly mimicked with he
r wine.

  "I take that it wasn't so great, seeing as you're sitting here with some guy who's remodeling your house instead of with him."

  "Trust me – I much prefer your company." Anna winced her eyes shut as soon as the words left her mouth. Too much information, she chided herself. Still, if she didn't know any better, there was a subtle look of pleasing surprise on Caleb's face.

  "What about you?" she asked, about to delve back into the territory that she had just been trying to avoid. "Anyone special in your life?"

  "Nope. Being away at war for most of five years kind of put a damper on things."

  "I can imagine," she said quietly. "So … will you be going back?"

  "Going back?"

  Anna was almost afraid to say the words. "To Afghanistan."

  "Doesn't look that way, seeing as I resigned my commission."

  "Oh …" An uncomfortable pause was gratefully blotted out by the sound of kindling wood crackling. "Will you miss flying?"

  "I'll fly again. Might not be with the Marines, although joining the Reserves is always an option."

  "Were you disillusioned?"

  Caleb spluttered on his sip of beer. "What did you say?"

  Anna knew she typically wasn't one to mince words, although this might be one instance when treading softly would have its merits. But there was so much that she wanted to know about Caleb … so much to understand about what he had been through and where his psyche was at now. "What I meant to say was whether the war was not what you expected."

  Caleb stared hard at Anna, not seemingly from a place of anger, but more as though he was trying to get into her own head to determine what her motives were for such a direct line of questioning.

  "I don't think anyone can truly know what a war is like until they experience it firsthand. If it weren't for nine-eleven, I'd probably be in a very different place in my life right now."

  "So that's why you joined the Marines?"

  Caleb took another swig of beer, which no doubt was helping to ease the normally tightlipped reserve that surrounded his experiences in Afghanistan. "I was in my last year of college at the time, about to graduate with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. But this seemed so much bigger than anything I could have accomplished with a degree. Our country had been attacked, and there was a very real possibility of it happening again. As soon as I graduated, I headed off to Marine Officer Candidate School."

  "Did you even think at the time that the war would still be going on now – more than ten years later?"

  "Not sure that I gave it much thought at the time. Anyways, what about yourself? You said you recently started your own web design business. How's that going?"

  Caleb's sudden about-face left Anna feeling as though a rug had been pulled out from under her feet. "Um … it's going well."

  "That's good. I guess you can't go wrong getting in that kind of field nowadays."

  Anna forced a smile, feeling that Caleb's attempt at small talk was equally contrived. The fire's orange glow illuminated his face in the growing darkness, the scar near his eye now muted but still visible. But it was the scars that she couldn't see – the emotional and mental damage from the war – that she couldn't help wondering about.

  "Well, I guess I'd better call this my last beer," Caleb said as he rose from the chair with an empty bottle. "I'm sure you don't want me drilling holes through your walls with a hangover."

  Anna managed to laugh despite the gnawing feeling that he was trying to make a fast exit from her presence. She tried to tell herself not to take it personally – that Caleb was dealing with something that had nothing to do with her – yet it stung nonetheless.

  "Have a good sleep," Anna said as she picked up her glass of wine off the table.

  "Are you staying out here?" Caleb asked, surprise in his voice.

  "I'm just going to finish my glass of wine. It's hard to leave a fire when it's this relaxing."

  Caleb stared at her for several moments – long enough that she half expected him to sit back down. She was wrong.

  "Well, be careful," he finally said.

  Anna nodded, too bewildered to verbally acknowledge his concern, which she suspected was probably just a half-hearted attempt to say something before leaving her for the night.

  As the guesthouse door audibly shut behind her, she reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. From a disastrous date to an abrupt departure … even Merlot was coming up short in blunting the sharp disappointment of the evening.

  Caleb tossed onto his side for the umpteenth time, sighing before throwing the covers off in the hope that the cool night air would dissipate the sweat that shimmered across his body. Sleep – once something that had occurred easily and effortlessly on its own – now came in fits, if it even came at all. And it especially would not arrive tonight – not when his stomach was in knots and his thoughts were daggers against his skull. He had been equal parts surprised and pleased when Anna had unexpectedly joined him by the fire, but her insistence on veering the conversation into an off-limits area had quickly put a damper on any feel-good moments. He sighed again, shaking his head in frustration directed at himself even more so than Anna. If there had been another way to handle the situation other than stonewalling and abruptly changing the subject, then he would have done so. But even vaguely alluding to the "I-don't-want-to-go-there" nature of any talk about the war was allowing it to seep back into the present moment, and he simply couldn't let that happen. Walking over to the window, he peered outside at Anna's lone silhouette next to the fire, feeling like even more of an ass that he left her there without the genuine explanation she deserved. As individual flames flickered before dying back down, he could only hope that her memory of this night would be just as fleeting. Because though he admittedly barely knew her … he somehow still knew enough to realize she was one person who he did not want to hurt – ever.

  TWO

  Anna handed her friend Tina a tall glass of ice tea, then raised her own in a toast. "To our new businesses."

  Tina clinked her glass against Anna's, then sat it down on the counter and extracted nip bottles of vodka and gin from her purse. After plunking the contents into the drink, she declared, "There, now it's a Long Island Iced Tea."

  Anna watched in near disbelief, though she was familiar enough with Tina's antics that none of this should have come as a surprise. "Tina, I could have spiked the drink if I knew that's what you wanted."

  Tina grinned, her chin-length neon orange hair almost hurting Anna's eyes. "Like when I do I not want a nip or two in my beverage?"

  Anna shook her head and smiled. "You're too much. Anyways … I was about to say that I'm really excited for you! How many artists are successful enough to have their own gallery?"

  "Damn right! I can paint circles around all of them!"

  "And you're so humble on top of it all," Anna teased.

  "You know that overconfidence is just part of my artist extraordinaire persona. Deep down, I'm just a quivering insecure artist."

  "Nice try."

  Tina smirked. "I thought so, too." She glanced out of the window into the backyard, freezing in mid-sip of her drink. "Come to mama," she purred dramatically, following up with a low whistle.

  Anna moved closer to the window in order to see the object of Tina's hormonal declaration.

  Tina stretched her neck for an even closer view. "Who's that hunk of a man, and even more importantly, why is he in your backyard flexing his muscles?"

  Anna laughed. "That's Caleb – and he's not flexing his muscles, it looks like he's changing the bit on his power drill."

  "I have something he can drill –"

  Tina's observation was cut short by a sharp elbow to the ribs. "What's this – are we being possessive of our handyman?"

  Anna smiled, but it evaporated as she watched him through the window and felt something inside of her stir … a connection that she could only assume was not reciprocated. "Knock it off. This poor guy's been thr
ough a lot."

  "What do you mean?"

  Anna filled Tina in on what she knew about Caleb – which admittedly wasn't much, but still enough to know that his last five years had been anything but pleasant ones.

  "Wow," Tina said, uncharacteristically subdued. "I can't even imagine being sent over there three times. Does he seem like he's on the verge of losing it?"

  "Not at all. He's just kind of quiet, and I have a feeling he wasn't always that way."

  "Well, your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to put some joy back into that poor boy's life."

  As she handed Anna her drink, it was clear that the mischievous Tina was back in action. "Here – I only took a couple of sips. Go offer him the drink."

  "What are doing?" Anna exclaimed as Tina reached over and popped open three additional buttons on her peach cotton shirt.

  "It's called cleavage, girl. If you got it, flaunt it."

  "Did I mention the fact that he's staying in the guesthouse until the project's complete?"

  Tina gasped, then quickly reached over like a striking cobra to pop open a fourth button, yelping as Anna playfully slapped her hand before re-buttoning her shirt. On second thought, she undid one button, then poured a fresh glass of iced tea. "I'll be back," she declared, a teasing "take that" tone to her voice.

  "Do you need help carrying that glass?"

  Anna winked. "I think I'm all set."

  "Hi there," she said to Caleb less than a minute later. "I thought you could use something nice and cold to drink in this afternoon sun."

  Caleb seemed momentarily surprised, but his face quickly softened. "Thanks."

  Anna couldn't help but stare as he brought the drink to his lips, secretly wishing that she could trade places with the glass. A knock on the kitchen window cut into her thoughts. As they both turned to look, Tina waved vigorously back.

  "That's my friend Tina, who's been admiring you from afar."

  A slight grin crossed Caleb's lips. Another knock and he squinted to get a better view. "Is that some kind of day-go hair?"