“No,” she said, “but hopefully it’s better.”
Startled, he looked over at her and then gave her a slow dawning smile of appreciation. “Maybe,” he said, “yeah, maybe.”
He looked at her once more and saw her. Like, really saw her. The intelligence in her dark brown eyes, the softness to her expression, the gentle turn of her lips, the hair brushed off her forehead in an unconscious gesture that had nothing to do with fashion and all to do with comfort. Something was so natural and honest about her. Life had been such a rush since he’d gotten here that he hadn’t even had a chance to stop and see who she was. He had blindly accepted her role in this as just Bernie’s sister, and yet he had somehow agreed to let her come with him and the War Dog.
He looked at her again, shook his head, and said, “You’re really cute. You know that?”
“What?” she asked, startled. “Where did that come from?”
He laughed. “Yeah, not my normal style either, but I was just thinking to myself that I’ve been so busy, so focused on saving this dog, that I hadn’t seen you for who you are, outside of your family.”
“I’m not sure anybody ever does. I’ve always been in my sister’s shadow.” At his snort, she said, “You met my sister.”
“That I did. Not too interested in seeing her ever again,” he said. “I know who she is on the inside. That’s enough for me. Pretty is only skin deep. Ugly goes all the way through.”
“Doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of people,” she said, studying him.
He glanced at her, caught her gaze, and smiled when he saw the flush on her cheeks. “I don’t care about other people,” he said. “I will go by a dog’s barometer before I’ll go by a human’s. Dogs know instinctively who’s good and who’s bad, and they have a tendency to stay away from those who aren’t any good. And your sister is evil.”
“I know, but she’s my sister. I don’t know that she’s that bad. I think she’s just spoiled, entitled, lazy. But evil? I don’t know.”
Tucker shook his head. “Nope. No way I’m wrong about her. That’s just you projecting your goodness on that hellhole who is your sister.”
She stared at him. Not shocked but assimilating. “I hope not, but I haven’t seen her in a good light in a long time,” she said with a shrug.
“Well, your parents have created a monster, and that monster’s their problem. They don’t get to foist it off on the world because they don’t want to deal with it.”
“I think a lot of parents out there are in the same boat,” she said quietly. “And I get that, for you, my sister has no redeeming factors, but she does. Everybody does.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it’ll take a long cold winter in hell before I’ll see it.”
“Because everything to you is black-and-white?”
“Absolutely not. It used to be, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s all about how you look after the animals of the world, the innocent victims, children as well,” he amended. “You can’t just choose to look after only yourself. The world isn’t like that.”
“Or the world is exactly that,” she argued.
“But it shouldn’t be,” he said. He looked at her to see her nodding.
“No, it shouldn’t be,” she said, “but too often it is.”
“And you’ve seen some of the ugliness of human nature in your job too, haven’t you?”
“Too, too much,” she said. “I used to be an ER nurse, and I just … I couldn’t handle a lot of it, so I switched into a general practice, and now I work at a doctor’s office.”
“Nothing wrong with that either,” he said.
“Nothing wrong with it, just a very different pace to what I was used to,” she said with a half smile. “And now, of course, it’s a lot calmer and a lot less trauma.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I used to do missions where governments were being taken over and kidnappings were happening, and then, you know, boats were being boarded and passengers shot for the little bit of jewelry they had.” He shook his head, then continued. “In some parts of the world, life is tough, and it’s hard to make a living, but, more than that, it’s all about themselves. It’s all about doing what they want to do instead of what’s right for everyone. Makes living a little bit harder for all of us.”
“Is that the kind of work you used to do?”
“Yes,” he said, “and I would be in that job for the rest of my life if I’d had a choice. Of course, most SEALs retire after eight to ten years. It’s too hard on our physical bodies. However, I’m proud of the years of service I gave my country,” he said, “and I don’t begrudge the injuries I have from that. It’s just frustrating that it was ‘friendly fire.’”
“I’m not even sure how one explains that,” she said. “I’ve heard the term several times, but I can’t imagine the sense of betrayal.”
“Still,” he said, “it is what I have yet to deal with, so it doesn’t matter how I feel about it. I’ve got to deal with it eventually.”
“And, of course, dealing with it isn’t just a case of saying, I’ve dealt with it. It’s so much more,” she murmured.
“Yep.”
“Did you ever see a therapist for help?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “a lot of people. Sometimes you have to go through a couple to find ones who work with you and work for you,” he said.
“I can see that,” she said. “I saw somebody when I was a teenager because I couldn’t handle my sister.”
He gave a snort at that. “I am not surprised,” he said. “She is more than a handful.”
“Back at the time I was dealing with all those insecurity issues too. Nothing like puberty to make a mess of your life,” she said with a grin.
“Well, I hope you sorted that out.”
“I did,” she said. “It was a matter of deciding who was responsible for the mess that she was, and it wasn’t me, so that made it a lot easier for me to walk away.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
She looked around and asked, “How much longer is the drive to the apartment complex?”
“It’s a long way off. At least an hour more still. I guess I should have told you that first.”
Chapter 5
“It doesn’t matter,” Addie said, settling in. “I’m just happy to not be sitting at home, hating my sister and my life.”
“Nope,” he said, “you’re on a pathway with a dog that’s just been freed from certain death, and we’re off to do good works.” They both checked out Bernie, smiling to find her peacefully dozing.
“I like the sound of that. It’s one of the reasons I went into nursing,” she said. “I wanted to help people. I wanted to do something to help others. I didn’t want to get stuck in that rut of being only caught up in the ‘poor me’ cycle.”