Page 39 of Natalie's Nighthawk

She took a deep breath. “Last night, when you were looking at my Hollow phase canvasses, you mentioned something about light. I’ve been wondering about it ever since. It seemed like … like you’d had an experience like mine. Depression … living in a dark place, like I had.”

She watched his body stiffen as if her question took him somewhere he didn’t want to go. A shutter slammed over his expression. “I’m sorry. You don’t?”

“There was a time when I thought I’d never see the light in anything again,” he said softly. He turned his back to her lost in thought, his posture slumped; her heart broke for him.

She stood beside him at the island. Placing her hand over his where it rested on the counter, she willed him to share with her.

“It was after the tsunami,” he began. “It … that place … it changed me.”

When he didn’t say more, Natalie asked gently, “How so?”

Graham sighed heavily. “Seven years ago, I was confident, arrogant even, in my abilities to help.” His chin fell to his chest as he bowed his head. “I was an idiot.”

Natalie took his hand and led him to the table, encouraging him to sit and continue. “I was deployed to Sumatra in Indonesia. An area called Banda Aceh. We didn’t know it at the time, but that area had been hit the hardest. Fifty-foot waves struck with the force of a two-megawatt bomb. Everything was gone. Remember the tornado, when it seemed like my house had just disappeared. Imagine that times thousands. Every house, every building, everything that wasn’t made of concrete was wiped away.”

Natalie placed her hand on his, and he linked their fingers. She squeezed in sympathy. “In all, there were over two hundred thousand who perished. But in the area I was working, one hundred twenty thousand souls lost their lives. Men, women, old and young. Those waves didn’t discriminate.

“They had no warning,” he continued. “At least they didn’t understand the warning at the time. It was exciting to them when the water started to recede as the wave built. Kids flocked to the beach to look for shells, fish, whatever they could find in an area that was usually covered in water. They didn’t realize they were in danger. All those children,” he broke off on a shuddering breath.

“Oh god, Graham! I had no idea. She struggled to contain her tears, needing to hold it together till he was done.

“My group … we were tasked with finding and burying the bodies. They were worried about disease so there was a sense of urgency. No time for funerals, We did our best to identify the dead, but most often, we were burying people in a mass grave. As the days went on, the hope of finding people still alive in the wreckage dwindled. The occasional cheer could be heard as someone was found, but those became fewer and fewer. The damage to the bodies was one of the things I remember most. That and the smell. Fuck. That smell. Some days, it’s still with me, still tainting everything.” He scrunched up his nose as if the memory were assaulting his senses.

“The images of all the bodies still hit me.” Graham continued squeezing his eyes closed, trying unsuccessfully to block out the images. “Some bloated beyond recognition in places where the water never receded. Others crushed under mounds of debris. I had been to many disaster scenes before, but nothing that prepared me for what we saw there. We blocked it out as best as we could, just to get the job done.

“The ones who were still alive wandered around the area like the walking dead, in shock. Searching for their loved ones. The stories they told …

“One man told me he was searching for his wife. They had been sitting on a bench, sharing in the beauty of the day. She had been in his arms, and then she was gone, ripped away from him. We did our best to help him find her, but it was an impossible task. He had cuts all over from the debris in the water, so we treated his wounds as best we could and sent him to where the command center was being set up. Told him he needed to add his wife’s name to the list of those lost, trying to give him as much hope as we could even though we knew hope was futile.” He stopped for a moment as the image of that man wandering off played through his mind, still searching for his love, still hopeful deep inside that he would find her. But outwardly, he was dejected, his shoulders slumped, and his head bowed as he shuffled down the path through the debris to the command tent.

“The children,” he continued quietly as he stared blankly at their clasped hands. “The children were the worst. Both alive and dead. The ones that were still alive … most of them were alone. Their entire families had been wiped out. They hung onto us, desperate for comfort. We tried … but we were there to do a job. And we had to do it quickly before those little ones caught diseases from all the rotting corpses.” His ice-blue eyes met hers, radiating anguish.

“I’m sure you did all you could for them, and for a brief time, youdidgive them exactly what they needed,” Natalie assured him.

“The little bodies, though,” he choked out. “All the dead children, their bodies were so broken, like the bird you painted. I had to shut down. Shut it out. Do the job. Don’t think. Don’t look too hard at the faces. But it was impossible. The faces seeped in and settled deep inside me. Somedays, they are still there,” he ended on a whisper.

Natalie let him be for a bit as he struggled with his emotions. A few tears ran silently down her cheeks, but she stayed quiet, just squeezing his hand. Anchoring him to the here and now with her touch.

Graham took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before continuing. “When I returned home, it stayed with me. The smell, the faces, the sense of hopelessness. The darkness swallowed me, and I let it. My family … they tried. But I felt … wrong. Tainted somehow. I didn’t want it to spread to them, so I went to our cabin in the UP. I just stopped living. I barely ate, drank heavily, and hardly slept. I couldn’t get away from that place. All those faces.” The memories of those faces still inundated him. He went there full of passion, confident in his skills. Skills that it soon became glaringly obvious were useless. He’d felt impotent. There was no saving the hundreds of thousands of people who’d perished. The most he could do was try to offer closure to the surviving family members, most days, even that had been impossible.

Even as he sat in Natalie’s dining room, the anxiety of the hopelessness he’d felt swamped him. His shoulders tightened, and he gritted his teeth, struggling to stem the flood of despair. The bleakness he’d felt during those days was a dichotomy to the beauty of the area. When the waters had receded, the ocean had returned to its quiet splendor. The magnificent shades of blue and green that the ocean manifested once calm, juxtaposed against the grays and browns that had brought destruction with them. The hope on the faces of the families still missing loved ones contrasted with the futility of the situation.

“My family let me be for over two weeks,” he continued, his voice gritty. “Then one day, my father was at the door. He’d decided I’d had enough of facing the darkness alone, dumped the remaining alcohol and sat with me, giving me time to sober up. For days he sat next to me, not saying a word. Somehow it worked, and I opened up to him. We exorcised the darkness. That’s when he gave me that compass.” Graham still struggled when the memories were triggered, but his family and his teammates kept him grounded. Soon afterward, he’d started Nighthawk, knowing in his heart that he would never be able to participate in a large-scale search and rescue again.

Natalie went to him. Lowering herself onto his lap, she wrapped her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply, the hint of lavender a solace to his shattered soul. They sat like that, drawing comfort from each other. A strange peace surrounding him.

“The darkness is still there. It always will be.”

“I know. Believe me, I know,” she whispered against his throat.

“The thing is, though,” he continued, “when I’m here, with you - there’s light.” He leaned back slightly so he could look into her eyes. “So much light that it chases away the darkness. I’ve only ever felt that with my family. But with you it’s so much more … intense. Your light warms me from the inside out. That sounds so cheesy, but it’s true.”

“It’s not cheesy.” He shot her a doubtful look. “Okay,” she chuckled. “It may be a little cheesy, but I happen to like cheese. Almost as much as I like you. And for the record, I feel the same way. You chase away my darkness too.”

He cupped her face with both hands and kissed her deeply. Passionately. Natalie kissed him back with everything she had, communicating the depths of her feelings. He moved his hands to her hips and stood, lifting her to sit at the edge of the table. His irises turned stormy as he stared down at her, the pupils dilating, overtaking the icy hue.

She leaned back on her elbows as he loomed over her, trembling at the intensity in his eyes. “Did you say something earlier about sex on the table?” he whispered, his hushed voice sending delicious sensations curling through her stomach. He was wreaking havoc with her senses, firing up her imagination.

“I seem to recall a conversation like that … I think.” The breathlessness surprised her. When did she become this sensual being? He made her feel … everything. His hands made her feel beautiful, his eyes made her feel extraordinary, his mouth made her feel sexy.

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