Ian felt his throat tighten. He tried to imagine that uppity broad who came to take Marcie away getting down and dirty like that. He couldn’t even get a picture in his mind of her taking a hike out to the “loo,” as they were fond of calling it.
“That’s the three Erins?”
“No—that’s the first two. The bitchy big sister, the dominant mother figure. Then there’s the one you met—she’s a very successful attorney. Very well-put-together, makes a good living, makes her clients happy and the senior partners proud. Her main concern is still me and Drew, making sure we have whatever support we need. But she’s thirty-four and alone. There have been a few very short-term boyfriends, but we’ve all lived in the same house together since Dad died, except that little while I lived with just Bobby. Erin has no life but us. She’s given us everything. She comes off looking domineering and maybe cold and calculating, but really she’s sacrificed everything, even her personal life. She should be married or at least in love, but she spent every free second making sure we were taken care of—me with Bobby, Drew with college and then medical school—you have no idea how much energy and expense is involved in just getting into medical school. Drew couldn’t have done it without Erin, just as I wouldn’t have known what to do about Bobby without her. Really, I owe her so much. I fight her when she bosses me, but I owe her big-time.”
He lowered his lips and kissed her head. “It sounds like you do.”
“That’s why I promised to be home by Christmas,” she said. She turned her head and looked up at him. “I could stay here forever, but I promised. And it’s not just for Erin—Bobby’s family thinks of me as a daughter, a sister, after all we did together…”
“I know. You held up pretty good in this place—it’s hard living here.”
“It’s not too hard for me. It’s cold on the butt when nature calls. And now I carry that skillet with me everywhere I go. But I’d take my frostbitten butt to see you feed that deer out of your hand any day.”
“That deer-feeding trick would get old after a while.” He twirled a red curl around his finger. “When you decided to come up here, what did you think was going to happen?”
“Not this.” She laughed. “In fact, I’d have bet against it.”
“But what did you want?”
“Peace of mind,” she said. “For both of us. I wanted to tell you what had happened in your old world, and I wanted to know that you were all right so we could both move on with peace of mind.” She sat up and turned around, kneeling between his long legs and sitting back on her heels, facing him. “Ian, why did you do it? Why did you stay here so long without getting in touch with anyone?”
“I told you, I was camping and—”
She shook her head. “There was more to it. I understand about how you stumbled on this place and ended up staying, but did something traumatic drive you away?”
He frowned slightly. “Do you think it had to be like that? Jack told me he came up here to get some space so he could think…”
“But he went into business. He has a lot of people in his life who depend on him. It doesn’t seem like the same kind of thing. Was it Shelly? Did that whole thing about the wedding—”
“Marcie,” he said, touching her cheek. “It was everything. Too much at once. It was Fallujah and Bobby. Then it was Shelly and my father…”
“Tell me about letting Shelly go,” she said.
He glanced away, then back. “Let me ask you something—did Shelly ever call you? Visit you and Bobby? Or were you the one to make contact with her?”
“I was looking for you…” she said.
Enough of an answer. “I had suggested to Shelly in letters, before the bomb in Fallujah, that she call you. You lived in the same town. Bobby was my friend,” he said.
“But, Ian—”
“I know. But what happened to me and Bobby was one of the biggest reasons I had to take a time-out to recover. Shelly knew what had happened. She knew Bobby was an invalid and you were taking care of him. She knew you’d been to Germany and D.C. and finally home—yet she never even wrote you a letter, never called you. A girl from your town, her fiancé’s best friend, my life in the balance getting him out…” He made a face. “Marcie, I didn’t know she was that kind of person. I thought she was more the kind of person who would—”