Betrayal

Iraq -Nolan held out a reassuring hand and said, 'Evan's fine. Completely fine. I'm sorry if I startled you. You must be Tara.'

Still knocked out of her equilibrium, she nodded. 'Yes. But…this is about Evan?'

Down below, one of her male friends called up to her. ' Tara? Everything okay?'

It gave her an instant to collect herself. Turning, she waved. 'I'm fine. It's okay.' Coming back to Nolan, her voice had firmed up. 'Who are you, then? What are you doing here? You had me thinking Evan had been killed.'

'I'm sorry. My name's Ron Nolan. I'm a friend of Evan's over there. I should have realized what I'd look like waiting here for you to show up. I'm sorry.'

'Okay, you're sorry.' She pointed at the envelope he held. 'What's that, then?'

'It's a letter that Evan asked me to hand-deliver to you. He was worried about you.'

'Why would he worry about me? He's the one in the war zone.'

'Well, he hasn't received any letters back from you.'

'That's right. That's because I haven't written any. We broke up. Maybe he didn't tell you that. What does he want me to say?'

'I don't know.' Nolan held the envelope out to her. 'I'm just the messenger here. My job is to give you this last letter and then to tell Evan that you're all right.'

'I'm fine.'

'Yes, I can see that. You want to take this?'

She didn't move.

He waited, the envelope in his outstretched hand, looking at her, taken by her remarkable face. Her hair was pulled back; it revealed a clear, wide forehead. She'd just come from swimming, so there was no makeup to cover the landscape of pale freckles under her widely spaced glacier-blue eyes that spilled over onto well-defined cheekbones. Even without lipstick, her mouth looked slightly bruised.

Nolan forced himself to look away. It took a serious effort.

Tara looked down at the envelope. 'Does he think I haven't gotten his other letters?' she asked. Her shoulders settled as something seemed to give in her. 'I don't want to start again with him. Doesn't he see that? It's never going to work.'

'Because you disagree about the war?'

'It's not just that.'

'No?'

'No. Why do you ask that?'

'Because he seems to think it is. Just about the war, I mean. Although I told him, and I'll tell you the same thing, people who love each other don't break up over that.'

'Over agreeing about whether or not killing people is the way to solve the world's problems? Oh yes, they do, I think.'

Neither of them moved.

'And I didn't say that I loved him,' she said.

Cocking his head, he said, 'When you thought I was here to tell you he was dead, it seemed like you cared about him more than a little bit.'

'You can care about someone without either loving them or wanting them to die. Don't you think that's possible?'

'Sure.' The woman was beautiful, but Nolan thought that a little attitude check wouldn't hurt her. 'Anything's possible,' he said. 'For example, it's possible that you might even change your mind someday about the people who are risking their lives to guarantee your freedom.'

He'd clearly hit a nerve. Her whole face went dark. 'That's not fair,' she said. 'I have nothing but respect for the military.'

His mouth smiled, but his eyes didn't follow. 'Sure you do,' he said. 'You just wouldn't want to marry one.'

'Besides,' she went on, 'this war isn't about guaranteeing anyone's freedom. It's just about oil.'

Nolan shook his head. As though fighting for oil or anything you needed was wrong. He looked down at his hand and held it out. 'Are you going to take this letter or not?'

Her mouth set in a hard line, she stared at the thing as though it were alive and could bite her. And perhaps in some sense it could. At last, she shook her head. 'I don't think so. I haven't even opened any of the others. I'm not going to start reading them now.'

He nodded again as though she'd verified something for him.

'What does that look mean?'

'Nothing. There was no look.'

'Yes, there was. And it meant something.'

'Okay. You said you weren't going to start reading Evan's letters now. I guess the look meant, 'Spoken like someone who's afraid that if she gets some facts about what she's already decided on, she might change her mind.''

Perhaps suddenly aware that she was standing arguing with a man while she was wearing less than her everyday underwear, she pulled the towel up over her shoulders and held both ends of it closed over her breasts. Her voice went soft and low in anger. 'I'm not afraid of getting facts, Mister…what is it again?'

'Nolan. Ron Nolan.'

'All right, Mr. Nolan…'

'Ron, okay?' Again, he grinned, taunting her.

'Okay, Ron.' He'd gotten her heated up, which was his intention. 'For your information, as a matter of fact I do have all the facts I need about Evan and about this stupid war in Iraq. And I don't need his letters to make me feel sorry for him. He made the decision to go over there. He decided to leave me and do that. Now I've moved on and he can't just think he's going to explain his way out of it and if I'd just understand how hard it was for him, then somehow we'd get back together. I'm not going to do that.'

'No. I can see that.' Nolan held out the letter again. 'Last chance.' When she didn't move to take it, Nolan slipped it into the pocket of his shirt and said, 'I'll tell Evan you're in fine health. Excuse me. Nice to have met you.' Moving past her, he started down the steps.

When he got to the bottom, she spoke. 'Mr. Nolan. Ron.'

Turning, he looked up at her. 'I'm not against the military,' she said. 'I'm against Evan being in this war. There's a difference.'

Nolan raised his hand in a salute. 'Yes, ma'am,' he said. 'If you say so.'

At seven-thirty, he rang her doorbell again.

She answered the door in tennis shoes, a pair of running shorts, and a black Nike tank top. Her hair back in a ponytail. She still hadn't put on any makeup and it looked as though she'd been crying.

'I'm not going to read that letter,' she said first thing. 'I already told you.'

'Yes, you did. I'm not here for that.'

'Well…what?'

'Well, pretty clearly you're not with Evan anymore. I thought maybe you'd like to go get a drink somewhere.'

She crossed her arms. 'You're asking me on a date?'

'I'm asking if you'd like to go get a drink or something. Not that big a commitment.'

'I thought I made it clear how I feel about getting involved with military people.'

'You did, which would break my heart if I were a military person. Which, fortunately, I'm not.'

'But you said you were with Evan over there?'

'I am. But I'm a civilian. I work for Allstrong Security. Evan's based with our headquarters group. I'm back home on assignment here for a couple of weeks and tonight I'm looking at dinner all by myself, which isn't my favorite.'

'So, as a last resort…'

'Not exactly that, but we had a couple of issues we could have fun talking about if we left Evan out of it.' He