Deadline (Sandra Brown)

revealing silences were.
    “I feel terrible about saying this now.” She spoke softly as though to underscore her reluctance. “But it was almost a relief when he left for his second tour. He took the tension in the house with him. Hunter became a happier, more contented baby. Which was good, since I discovered a few weeks after Jeremy left that I was pregnant again.”
    He shifted his stance against the porch railing and turned his head to one side, giving her his profile. She noted that he was chewing the inside of his cheek, but whether in consternation or simply deep thought, she didn’t know.
    Finally he looked back at her. “Did he ever tell you about conditions over there?”
    “Only in the most basic of terms. ‘It’s hot.’ ‘It’s turned cold.’ ‘Today I had my first shower in a month.’ Like that.”
    “Nothing specific?”
    She shook her head. “He commanded snipers. That’s all I know. Most of the time, he couldn’t even tell me where he was. He probably wouldn’t have told me even if it hadn’t been classified. He didn’t want me to worry.”
    “You had a baby and another on the way.”
    “And with Grant I suffered terrible morning sickness.”
    He grinned, revealing that crooked tooth. “Yeah?”
    “With Hunter, not a day of it. With Grant, I threw up several times a day for six months.”
    “Told you he’d cause mischief.”
    She laughed. “Very perceptive.”
    Gradually, their smiles receded and he brought them back to their conversation about Jeremy, which she was finding therapeutic. When had she actually talked to someone about this? Not to her father, whom she hadn’t wanted to burden with her unhappiness. Not to a friend. Not to anyone.
    Perhaps it was easier to unload on a stranger whom one would never see again. Or maybe it was easy to talk to Dawson because he could relate to Jeremy’s condition. That was a reasonable assumption, but it was also a disturbing one. It bothered her to think that he could be as unstable as Jeremy had become.
    She said, “I wish Jeremy had talked to me about what he was going through. If he had, things might have turned out differently.”
    “You mean when he returned from the second tour?”
    “Things went quickly from bad to worse. At first I thought he missed the corps, the camaraderie, that he was having trouble adjusting to civilian life. He claimed to like his new job, but he didn’t make friends with any coworkers. He became more withdrawn and antisocial.
    “Tension at home mounted. There were two babies now. Jeremy was intolerant of Grant’s crying, Hunter’s chatter. He would pick fights with me over the slightest things.” She hesitated before adding, “He drank excessively. Sometimes to the point of passing out.”
    Dawson gave her a wry look. “I’ve never passed out.”
    “You shouldn’t let it get to that point.”
    “I have no intention to.”
    After a moment, she continued. “Jeremy would leave without telling me where he was going or how long he’d be gone, and he’d become enraged if I asked. He had trouble sleeping, and when he did, he had nightmares. He refused to talk about them.
    “I begged him to get professional counseling. The suggestion always sparked an argument. His refusal to get help created more conflict. He got progressively short-tempered with me and the children. Hunter grew to be afraid of him, especially when Jeremy…”
    He waited for a count of ten before he prodded her. “When Jeremy what?”
    She looked down into her unfinished wine. “Became aggressive.”
    “You mean violent.”
    She raised her head and looked at him. “Please, Dawson,” she said, using his name for the first time. “I wouldn’t want anybody to know this. For my sons’ sake.”
    He searched her eyes. “The motherfucker hit you. Didn’t he?”
    She lowered her gaze again. “Things had escalated to a crisis point. One night, he came home in the wee hours. When he got into bed, he smelled like perfume and sex. I told him to get away from me. He refused, so I left the bed. He came after me, grabbed me by the arm, and backhanded me across the face.”
    The handsome, dashing, romantic Marine who’d won her heart had morphed into a man she didn’t know and couldn’t relate to, even remotely. He was a mean stranger, whose temperament she mistrusted. All the new and terrible traits he’d acquired had manifested themselves that night. To this day, she could see the rage in his eyes, feel the hateful