Black Hills

protecting the populace. I found out, fast, I’d be standing around a lot, sitting around, knocking on doors and doing paperwork. There’s so much tedium in proportion to moments of absolute terror. I learned to be patient. I learned how to wait, and what it means to protect and serve. Then on 9/11, everything shifted.”
    She reached out, laid a hand over his, lightly, briefly. But it was all there in the touch. Comfort, sympathy, understanding. “We were all terrified until we knew you were safe.”
    “I wasn’t on the roll that day. By the time I got down there, the second tower was gone. You just did what you had to, what you could.”
    “I was in class when we heard a plane had hit one of the towers. Nobody knew, not at first, what was happening. And then . . . everything stopped. There was nothing else but that.”
    He shook his head, because if he let them, the pictures would form in his mind again, of what he’d seen and done, and hadn’t been able to do.
    “I knew some of the cops who went in, some of the firefighters. People I’d worked with, or hung out with, played ball with. Gone. After that, I never thought I’d leave the job. It was like a mission then. My people, my city. But when Dory was killed, it switched off for me. Just like somebody cut the wire. I couldn’t do it anymore. Losing that was the worst thing in my life next to losing you.”
    “You could’ve transferred to another place.”
    “That’s what I did, in my own way. I needed to build something back, I guess. To make something out of the death and the grief. I don’t know, Lil. I did what came next. It worked for me.”
    “You’d still be there if Sam hadn’t had the accident.”
    “I don’t know. The city came back, and so did I. I was done there, and I’d already put plans in place to come back before the accident.”
    “Before?”
    “Yeah. I wanted the quiet.”
    “Considering what’s happened, you haven’t gotten what you wanted.”
    He looked over at her. “Not yet.”
    It was nearing dark by the time he turned onto her road. Long shadows at the end of a long day.
    “I’m going to help with the feeding,” she said. “Then I have some work to finish up.”
    “I’ve got some of my own.” He reached over before she could open the door, and cupped the back of her neck in his hand. “I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not, because here you are. I could tell you I’ll never hurt you again, but I will. What I can tell you is I’m going to love you for the rest of my life. Maybe that’s not enough, but right now it’s what I’ve got.”
    “And I’ll tell you I need time to think, time to settle, and time to figure out what it is I want this time.”
    “I’ve got time. I have to run into town. Do you need any supplies?”
    “No, we’re good.”
    “I’ll be back in an hour.” He tugged her over, pressed his mouth to hers.

    MAYBE WORK WAS a crutch, Lil admitted. Something to lean on, to help her limp along after a hard knock. It still had to be done. So she hauled food while the animals chorused. She watched Boris pounce on his dinner, rip at it. And thought, If things go well, he’ll have company within the week.
    Another notch in the refuge’s belt, true enough, she mused. But more important, to her, another abused animal given sanctuary, freedom—as far as she could manage—and care.
    “So how was your adventure?”
    From the smile on Tansy’s face, Lil concluded her friend had wit nessed her humiliating exit earlier. And those who hadn’t actually seen it had certainly heard of it.
    She owed Coop for that one.
    “Men are idiots.”
    “Often true, but we love them for it.”
    “He decided to do the caveman routine so he could tell me why he stabbed me in the heart back in the day. Manly pride and for my own good, and other bullshit reasons, which—natch—I was too young and starry-eyed to consider or understand at the time. Better to rip me to bloody pieces than to actually talk to me, right? Stupid bastard man.”
    “Wow.”
    “Did he ever consider what it did to me? How much it hurt? That I thought I wasn’t enough for him, that he’d found someone else? That I’ve spent damn near half of my life trying to get the hell over him. And now he’s back and, gee, Lil, it was all for you. I’m supposed to just jump and cheer, and be what, grateful ?”
    “I couldn’t say. And probably shouldn’t if I could.”
    “He’s always loved me. Always will love me, and tra-la-la.