9
Gunnar trudged to his room at the bed-and-breakfast later that evening. His backpack, slung over his shoulder, grew heavier with each step. He’d stayed, gotten the rope untangled, helped pack boxes, and double-checked the medical supplies. He did everything Julie asked him to do after she came back into the hangar, though the letters screamed at him to rip them open and finally read them.
She’d been pale, her shoulders slumped. Neither of them spoke beyond a sentence here and there. Her reaction and Saylor’s words left him nauseated, like at any moment he’d have to dash out the door and toss his cookies in the snowbank.
Not that he had any cookies to toss.
With the churn in his gut and the dread of reading the letters, he hadn’t been able to eat since breakfast. After Saylor’s blow up, he couldn’t not read them.
Not anymore.
His legs felt like two thousand-pound musk oxen had settled in them as he made his way to his room. He couldn’t remember feeling this amount of exhaustion and pain that weighed on him, even on the worst day of training and when he’d been captured by terrorists and tortured. The Air Force had always told them that mental assaults could take more out of you than physical. His training, and later his capture, had taught him that firsthand.
Yet, none of that prepared him for having to slide his finger between two pieces of paper and read why Saylor said he can’t be trusted. That he had abandoned Julie.
He ran a hand over his heart, trying to ease the ache there. Yeah, those words had hit their mark. He doubted the pain would get any better.
Easing the key into the handle, he pushed the door open with a leaden arm. Shutting it behind him, he snapped the lock with a click, then let the backpack slide from his shoulder. He looked down at it where it dangled from his fingers.
He didn’t want to open it. Didn’t want to pull the letters from the interior pocket they’d been in for the last seven years. How many times had he taken them out and just stared at them? How many times had Julie’s curly handwriting gotten him through rough days? Had he fallen asleep with them pressed to his chest?
He never deserved to take the comfort they provided him, not when he hadn’t had the decency to even open them. He’d allowed himself to think she’d written because she’d missed him. That she had hoped their unexpected rendezvous meant they could have a relationship again.
That she was proud of him.
Closing his eyes, his teeth clenched and spiked pain to his temple. He was selfish, just like Saylor said. He wished he could travel back in time and knock some sense into his young, cocky self. Since time travel wasn’t possible, he could only move forward. Moving forward meant reading why Julie had really written to him when they’d promised not to.
He lurched toward the bed like he was going to his execution. His backpack dragged across the worn carpet. The bed squeaked when he sat on it, but he barely registered it. Just like he could hardly hear the boisterous talking in the main room above the ringing in his ears.
He took a deep breath and pulled the pack to his lap. Cutting his prayer for strength off, he unzipped the bag. He didn’t deserve comfort or help right now, not after he’d waited so long.
The paper was soft and familiar against his fingertips as he eased them out of their hiding place. He set the pack to the side and flipped the envelopes over in his hands. Laying the second letter on his lap, he smoothed his fingers across the writing. Anyone else wouldn’t be able to differentiate the two, but he could. He had stared at the lettering long enough to notice the slight wobble of the pen in the second letter that the first hadn’t had.
Carefully lifting the flap, he eased the envelope open. He couldn’t put it off any longer. Cowardice wasn’t a part of who he was.
Dear Gunnar,
I know we promised we wouldn’t contact each other, that we shouldn’t have let what happened in the cabin happen and we need to go back to how it’s been since you left for basic. While I had every intention of fulfilling that promise, though it’s agony,—
Gunnar closed his eyes as a wave of pain crashed over him. It shouldn’t hurt anymore, being one he’d lived with since he told Julie goodbye. In all the years, it hadn’t dulled.
—what I have to tell you needs to be said.
You know those warnings that it only takes one time? Yeah, well, I’m pregnant.
A whoosh of air rushed out of Gunnar at the news. He had a kid? Why hadn’t she said something last night or all day as they worked alongside each other? Guilt forced the indignation out in a cold slap of reality. Of course, she wouldn’t say anything. His silence had screamed he didn’t care that they had a kid or that she’d needed his help.
I’m so sorry, Gunnar. I promise I’ll do whatever you want regarding our baby. If you still believe we’ll be too much of a distraction, your involvement in this baby’s life can be as much or as little as you want.
Vomit pushed up his throat, and he swallowed it down. Had he really been so adamant, so selfish, that she thought he wouldn’t want anything to do with their kid?
But, if you think we might be able to make it work, that you could do your duty to your country and fellow soldiers and have a family, I’ll go anywhere you go. I miss you, miss you so much, but I want what’s best for you.
Love always,
Jules
Questions bottled up within, fighting for answer. Did he have a daughter or a son? What did they look like? They’d be six now. Were they as hardheaded as he had been or the peacekeeper like Julie? Were they here in Fairbanks? Gunnar stood and took a step toward the door. Is that why Julie had acted so skittish the night before and disappeared this morning?