In My Dreams
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Muriel Jensen
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Chapter One
THE AIR INSIDE the Humvee was thick with dust and heat. Under his camo jacket, Jack’s skin prickled with the threat of danger as he scanned the road ahead. The escort of Special Forces to a chicken farm in Southeastern Iraq where the farmer was dealing in rockets and missiles had been uneventful, but it was insurgent strategy to let them pass, plant IEDs when they were out of sight, then wait for the patrol to return and watch the jihad happen.
Sweat broke out along his spine. He had leave in a week and a half. He was just imagining trouble. He was going to be fine. The day was quiet. He was a cavalry scout, the best of the best, the baddest of the bad, able to take on the world—or so the scouts told each other. Ego could keep you alive.
“You feel that?” Bolton asked. He was a teacher from New Jersey and claimed to be “in tune with the universe.” He sat beside Jack.
“Yeah,” Jack said. It wasn’t anything audible, just hung in the air like a weight. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. But something.”
Everything inside Jack sharpened—his senses, his instincts and his primal sense of survival. This close to the end of his tour, fear no longer had meaning. He couldn’t function with it. Simple, steady common sense and remembering his training became the focus of every moment on the road.
The flash of light burst all around him like some personal supernova. Later, the other joes would talk about the deafening explosion, but he never heard it. There was only the light and the diffusion of everything beyond its circle.
When Jack came to, Bolton was slumped in his seat and the whole right side of the vehicle, which included the computer and a rifle, was gone. Above Jack’s head, Curry, the gunner, was praying urgently. “Help me. Please, God, help me.”
Jack forced himself to assess. He ran his hands up and down his arms, felt his thighs, his knees. He was okay. He pushed at Bolton’s shoulder. “You okay? Bolton?”
Bolton didn’t answer. There wasn’t a sound from the three other vehicles in the convoy. Jack’s heart beat fast enough to choke him.
He checked Bolton for injuries and found a lot of blood on his right side. But he had a pulse.
“Help me,” Curry continued to pray. “Please help me.”
Jack leaped out on his side and climbed into the turret. Curry’s face was white and his blood was everywhere. The explosion had blown away most of his right forearm, still held on by something stringy—a tendon, maybe. Swallowing the need to hurl, Jack pulled a tourniquet from pieces of the first-aid kit in his pocket. He tied it just above Curry’s elbow.
That’s when he saw the figure approaching from the west and drew his sidearm. It was a column of white walking out of the dry desert grass on the side of the road.
The caftan billowed in a whisper of breeze as the figure took a step forward. Jack aimed his weapon, widened his stance and shouted, “Stop!” The figure kept coming. Jack shouted again and held up his hand in the universal signal to halt. Still, the figure kept coming as though simply on a stroll. Jack fired above his head, but the figure didn’t stop.
Jack aimed for the chest, his finger on the trigger, but confusion made him hold back. Why wasn’t the attacker returning fire? He could see both his hands, scanned his body for a weapon and saw none—unless a bomb was strapped to his chest. Jack’s heartbeat accelerated and sweat ran into his eyes as the guy closed the distance between them.
Then he realized it was not a man. The walk was fluid and graceful. A woman. She could be as lethal as any man. He took aim again and then the pistol went slack in his hands as the woman raised her head to reveal a beautiful, wholesome face. The last time he’d seen that face, he’d been eight years old and the world as he knew it had ended.
“Mom?” He heard his astonished whisper.
The face’s soft beauty suggested the complete opposite of the drug-hungry woman who’d had three children she’d ignored while going through man after man in her attempt to stay high. Blue eyes met his and honey-blond hair ruffled as she pulled off the hijab.
“I’m going, Jack,” she said in the slightly slurred voice he remembered. She came to a stop near the vehicle. “You’ll be fine.”
Now two little girls who hadn’t been there a moment ago held her hands. One of them was dark featured and about four. The other was just a toddler with blond hair. Both pulled away from their mother and reached for him, crying his name. “Jack! Jackie!”
He felt a burning in his gut, as though she’d shot him.
He was Section 8. He’d been afraid this would happen. The guys who survived emotionally in this bubble of hell managed to somehow exist outside it. After living through an ugly childhood, he’d thought he was strong enough to get through anything, but apparently he wasn’t. After all he’d seen and done and survived, he was now hallucinating. His mother had been in jail for over twenty years, and he hadn’t seen his sisters in about as long.
His mother called his name, but it couldn’t be her; it was his brain playing tricks. He screamed for the image to go away or he’d shoot again. Now the girls were gone and his mother climbed the turret and took hold of his forearms.
“No!” he shouted and used every ounce of strength he had left to push her away. She screamed as she fell backward.
* * *
“JACK!” SARAH SHOUTED into his face, pushing at his chest with both hands. It was like trying to move a refrigerator. She wanted to think he wouldn’t harm her, but he was caught in one of his nightmares and in this one, she seemed to be a threat. Since he was a well-honed fighting machine, she had to wake him. “Jack! Stop! It’s me!”
Whatever was going on in his mind had twisted his handsome face into a mask of pain.
“Jack!” she said again. “Wake up!”
His eyes opened and he blinked, confusion, disorientation in his face. She took advantage of the moment to push harder against him and roll him over so that she knelt astride him and pinned him to the mattress. “Wake up!”
“Geez!” A strong male arm suddenly circled her waist and pulled her off Jack. “What happened?” Ben demanded, setting her on her feet and holding Jack down with his other hand.
Ben, a Beggar’s Bay, Oregon, police officer, was Jack’s brother and her boyfriend. She smiled feebly and indicated Jack, who was now clearly awake and trying to sit up but for the hand to his chest. “He was crying out. I was starting breakfast and came in to see if he was okay.”
Jack pushed Ben’s hand away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wore boxer shorts and a T-shirt, revealing bulging arm and thigh muscles. He smiled apologetically. “I was dreaming that she was going to make me eat oatmeal again today,” he said, his brown-eyed, bloodshot glance teasing. “I want bacon and eggs.”
“Funny man.” Sarah took a steadying breath and turned to give Ben a quick kiss. He looked stressed out. “Hi. My hero.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned good-naturedly at Jack. “You know, I’d like you better if you didn’t try to kill me when I come over to make your breakfast.”
She’d promised Jack and Ben’s parents that while they were at their winter place in Arizona, she’d prepare meals and keep an eye on Jack. She worked for Coast Care, a home health-care provider.
Neither brother had kitchen skills and the Palmers had been concerned about Jack’s nightmares. He’d been cleared of mental health issues upon discharge two weeks ago. He insisted he would be fine as soon as he put the past six years away and reclaimed his civilian life.
To ease his parents’ minds, Ben had assured them that he and Sarah would look out for his brother. To that end, he’d temporarily vacated his condo and moved into their childhood home. Sarah had been coming daily as promised. This was the second time Jack had mistaken her for an Iraqi insurgent.
“I’m fine,” Jack insisted. “Sarah doesn’t have to come anymore. I can make our breakfast.”
“Toaster waffles are not breakfast,” Sarah stated.
“Says who? They’re whole grain.”
She sighed. “You should start the day with fruit, protein and whole grain that aren’t processed into pastry.” She made a beckoning gesture. “Come on. I brought vegetarian sausage, cheese and veggies for an omelet, and grainy bread for toast.”
Jack shook his bed-head at Ben, wearing a weary grin. “She’s such a tyrant. I don’t know what you see in her, apart from beauty and brains.”
“She’s already paid off her student loans, so if I marry her, she can start on mine. I’ve got a sunny future sewed up.”
Sarah shook her head and looked from one brother to the other, then gave Ben a quick hug, loving the easy relationship between them. She’d met Ben when he’d stopped her doing fifty through town on her way to work five months ago. She’d been late and he’d been charming, even though he’d still given her a ticket! He had a degree in Business Administration, but loved police work. And she loved him because he cared about his family and his community.
“Come on, Jack,” she encouraged. “If you’re starting work today like you said, you need nutrition. I know you can’t recover overnight from all you’ve seen and been through, but a healthy breakfast would be a good start.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got an hour before Vinny.”
“Vinny?”
“Vinny Caruso, my first client of the day. He’s eighty-four, about five foot six and maybe a hundred and forty pounds. He was an insurance salesman and a musician on the side. He’s about as skilled in the kitchen as you two. But he lives across town, so let’s get moving.”
“All right, all right. I’m right behind you.”
Sarah was now very familiar with the Palmers’ large, comfortable kitchen. Twenty years ago, Gary Palmer, Ben and Jack’s father, had renovated the inside of the spacious Victorian home on the edge of town to suit his family’s purposes. The more recently updated kitchen looked out onto a wide lawn that sloped to the bay on the central Oregon coast. Four fat blue hydrangea bushes now turning green and purple in the September weather crowded a simple wooden gate at the edge of the slope. The gate served no purpose, but Gary had put it there, thinking it provided a pretty sight from the kitchen window.
The room was painted an herbal green and the cupboards and details were rustic with hinges and pulls Gary had salvaged from an old bakery. Sarah loved working in this room; it made her feel connected to past generations. As someone disconnected from her former life, she appreciated that.
Ben placed bread in the toaster while Sarah dropped the sausage into the frying pan. She pulled a bowl of fruit out of the refrigerator and spooned some into three bowls. She topped them with strawberry yogurt, then turned the sausage.
“You all right?” Ben asked, pushing the toaster lever down and moving closer to study her. He frowned at a bruise on her upper arm.
“I’m fine.”
“I warned you not to try to wake him.”
“Ben, he was screaming. I can’t hear someone cry out and not investigate. And, if you recall, when you came to my rescue, I had the upper hand.”
“Upper hand,” he repeated skeptically. “I hate to disillusion you, but the self-defense class you took at the college wouldn’t hold up against military combat training. Had he been a little deeper into that dream, you’d have been in three pieces.”
She rolled her eyes. “Next time he screams, I’ll ask what’s wrong from the doorway.”
She turned the sausage patties again and pointed to the toaster where browned bread had popped up. “I put a jar of strawberry jam in the fridge.”
“Do you have a night job tonight?” he asked, retrieving the jam.
“No. Just Vinny and Margaret. No Jasper today. He’s gone to Portland with a friend. But I do have a meeting with my boss after lunch.” They’d all been her daytime regulars for the past few months. Vinny loved her cooking, Margaret was a lady of the old school and loved Sarah because she was willing to iron her sheets, and Jasper Fletcher, a blind man in his late fifties, counted on Sarah to listen as he told her about what he’d learned from books on tape. Her goal was to make their diets nutritious, as well as to keep them active and social. “I’m done in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Good. I’m off to Eugene in the morning for a weekend cop conference. Want to have dinner tonight?”
“Sure. I’ll fix something for Jack.”
“He’s planning a Blue Bloods marathon.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay with him? You’d probably love a Blue Bloods marathon. We can have dinner another time.”
He leaned over to kiss her gently. “We haven’t had an evening alone together in two weeks. Prime rib special at the Farmhouse tonight.”
“Okay, I’m in.”
“Seven o’clock.”
“It’s a date.”
“It is,” he said, a different note in his voice. “We have things to talk about. I’ll pick you up.”
“No, I’ll stop by to deliver something for Jack’s dinner. What do we have to talk about?”
He narrowed his gaze on her, as though looking for something in her eyes he wasn’t finding. “A lot,” he finally replied.
His tone put her on alert. So far, theirs had been just an easy, romantic friendship. Today, though, he looked very serious. She hoped he wasn’t thinking what she suspected he was thinking. He’d make a wonderful husband and father, but while she’d like to have the one, she didn’t intend to ever have the other.
* * *
JACK WALKED INTO the kitchen, doing his best to look well-adjusted despite his earlier freak-out. That was just a small indicator of his serious problem. Behaving in a normal way in the kitchen he’d grown up in since age eight, in the small-town life that had been all about fishing and building and girls, when just two weeks ago he’d carried an M4 carbine and jumped out of helicopters, was harder than it sounded. Bullets had whistled by his ear, people around him had died or suffered unspeakable injuries; he’d exchanged gunfire and felt a time or two as though he might die. And somehow he had to dial down the adrenaline that pulsed into his blood and figure out how to live again in this kitchen, in this life.
“A step at a time, Jack,” his shrink at Fort Polk used to say. “A step at a time.”
Sure. Easily said. But even if he managed to cope with old memories, what did he do about new ones? Like waking up with his brother’s girl straddling him? He could still feel her knees pressed against his hips, smell the floral-vanilla fragrance of her clinging to his T-shirt.
He shook off the sensory image and took the plate of buttered toast from Ben, put it in the middle of the table, then went to get utensils. He smiled reassuringly at his brother and Sarah as he passed them. He took the opportunity to keep thinking.
Why in God’s name had he seen his mother’s face in his dream? Images of his little sisters had haunted him for years, ever since they’d all been separated when their mother had gone to jail for manslaughter after murdering her boyfriend. He’d had nightmares since then of himself running away through a dark, blurry night, the girls screaming and footsteps right behind him, gaining on him. But he’d always been very much alone. What was his mother doing in his dreams? And in Iraq? He scowled fiercely.
“Jack?”
He looked up at the sound of his name and saw Sarah holding up an egg. “You okay?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Good. Two or three eggs in your omelet?”
He smiled. “Two, please.”
Ben put the jam down in front of him. “You’re starting to scare me, bro. You sure you’re okay?”
Jack kept smiling. “Thanks, I’m good. You know how real dreams can be. I’m just having trouble putting it out of my head.”
“Afghanistan?”
“No, Iraq. For whatever reason, it was the Humvee explosion in the middle of my first tour that keeps coming back to me.”
“You can talk about any of that, you know. I’d be glad to listen. I know I wasn’t there, but I kind of understand war.”
“Thanks.” Jack knew cops saw ugly things all the time. But terrible memories of war entangled with ugly childhood memories made for an awful hybrid.
It would be hard to explain to Ben what was going on in his head. He and Ben had been friends as children, then brothers when the Department of Human Services had allowed Ben’s parents, Gary and Helen Palmer, to adopt Jack. At the same time, his younger half sisters had been sent to live with their respective fathers.
“I’m going to be fine,” Jack insisted. “I just have to get my head together.”
Ben looked him in the eye, clearly trying to read what Jack wasn’t saying. “You know it’s more than that. No one can survive such things without venting it to somebody.”
He’d been doing that to his shrink at the fort, and although being home again was gradually pulling him away from the past six years, the sharply revived memories of his childhood and the big-time return of his dreams were driving him toward the only solution he could think of to get his life on track again.
“Actually,” he said, “I have an idea about how to help myself.”
Ben put down his fork. “What’s that?”
Jack met his waiting gaze and said, as though it was going to be easy, “I’m going to find my sisters.”
