She was down on her hands and knees wearing cut-off jeans and a robin's egg blue blouse in the bright mid-May sun tending her garden when a deep voice behind her said, "Hello Kira."
She froze and sat bolt upright. "How does this man know my name?" she thought with some distress. She turned around to see a large, well-dressed man lounging with his arm atop a fencepost. His fedora was set at a jaunty that threw the view of the right side of his face into shadow. She did notice something familiar in the part of his face that she could see, but couldn't quite remember who it belonged to. "Hello?" she asked guardedly while standing and turning to face him. "Have we met?"
"We certainly have, Kira. I lived here many years ago," he responded with a half twisted grin.
She looked at him up and down for a moment, almost remembering who he was from that simple grin. He was six foot four inches tall, weighed about two hundred and thirty pounds with weathered complexion. He wore a grey jacket with the collar turned up, further shading his face. The one fact she had was that he had lived in this house decades ago. "Elliot Havoc?" she queried.
"You remember me!" he grinned. How could she forget him. He was two years her senior but had always seemed to be the boy next door riding in to her rescue. He had always come to her aid and helped her survive the spiders and other denizens of the garden and always managed to stick up for her at school. He had always had a beautiful heart and genuinely cared for those around him. The last time she had seen him, she was a young girl in tears as she watched while he was thrown into the back of a black car and driven out of her life.
"I was so sorry to hear about your parents," she said in a sombre tone. "Then, you were gone too. We didn't know whether we'd ever see you again!" she said as she thought, "I didn't know whether I'd ever see you again!" "Now, here you are!" she finished.
"Oh, it was a wild ride" he returned, still doing his best to grin.
"Well, come on over and come on in." she invited. "I'll put on a pot of coffee. Seems we have some catching up to do!"
I'd like that very much!" he said now smiling widely as he walked around the fence that separated the two properties and followed her into her house. Once inside, he kicked off his shoes and followed her into the kitchen.
"Sit down at the table," she said. "Take your coat and hat off, stay a while!" she grinned.
With a little hesitation, he took off his hat and hung it on the back of the chair. He swept his coat off, placed it on the other post and sat down, apprehensive about the next few minutes.
She swept around from the counter to the kitchen table with a tray of coffee, cups and a plate of cookies. She placed the tray on the table before looking up and seeing him for the first time without his disguise.
It now became apparent to her as to why his clothing had been adjusted they way it was. It was obvious to anyone looking that he had been burned quite badly. She smiled and tried not to stare.
"That must have hurt," she remarked nonchalantly.
"It's okay," he said quietly. "I'm just not one of the beautiful people anymore."
She took his head in her hands, turned it to face her and looked him dead in the eyes. She took a breath and told him in a solemn voice, "The body is just a shell that houses the soul and heart. They're what are really important." She then smiled, "Now, how do you like your coffee?"
"Black please," replied Elliot both relieved and elated to hear that she felt that way.
She sat down on the opposite side of the table and got comfortable on one of the padded kitchen chairs. "So tell me, what have you been doing all these years?" she asked in earnest interest as she settled in to listen to what she was sure would be a fantastic story.
"Well, after they took me way from here, I was placed with my grandparents as guardians. As you can imagine, I was an atypical very angry young man; so, I was definitely too much for them to handle. They enrolled me in a military school upstate to get my attitude under control. From there, I entered R.O.T.C, and was on my way to becoming an officer and a gentleman in the army. I graduated just in time to go to the war in Iraq. I did two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. The tour in Afghanistan put paid to my military career.
"What happened?" she asked with natural concern in her voice. She was now picturing this angry young man in black leather, and the heat at her loins grew incrementally as the image resolved.
He sighed before beginning to recite the tale that he had told a thousand times. "Our group was escorting a shipment of food to a remote village when we were ambushed. The lead Humvee was hit by a rocket propelled grenade. It stopped dead where it was and a fire started. We all piled out of the vehicles in the column and assumed a defensive perimeter, firing in every direction when I heard screams coming from the lead vehicle. There were still some of my people trapped in that thing! I sprinted over and wrenched open the door to find six soldiers inside. I helped out everyone who was able to walk, but one was terribly wounded man was left, and he was unable to get out under his own power. I lifted him out to safety, and was backing away from the vehicle when the fuel tank exploded. The man in my arms was instantly roasted to death but his body protected me from a similar fate. That's where I got this," he said as he indicated the burns on the right side of his face.
"Oh my God," she said in a stunned voice. In mind, she thought, "Just like Elliot to do something like that. He really hasn't changed a bit!"
"That was just our little piece of a very big and very nasty war," he said quietly. "So, what have you been up to in the interval?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
