Free Secondary Targets by Sandra Edwards

him was getting out, his true feelings were sure to follow.
    Eric couldn’t let that happen. He’d just about cornered his resolve to thwart the inevitable when her stature began to droop like an unwatered houseplant.
    “Why would somebody do that, Eric?” Grace’s frail tone shredded the inquiry. Her face displayed all the confusion that had bombarded her over the last couple of days. “Why would they just wipe him out? Like he never existed.” She blinked out the tears that had begun to well around her troubled bronze eyes.
    “I don’t know, Gracie.” An overwhelming need to comfort her pounced on him like a wildcat attacking its prey. Eric stirred uneasily, turned and rested his elbows on the deck’s railing. “But I promise you, we’re going to find out what’s going on.”
    He looked out over the lake. The water, calm and eerily still, gave the appearance of a thin sheet of glass or ice. Remembering it was breakable was a prudent move. It could easily be destroyed, just like Eric’s world was in danger of being crushed, depending on the outcome of the General’s plight. If there was some weird conspiracy going on, that would forever change reality for Eric.
    “I’m sorry.” Regret ushered in her simple statement. She looked as sad and remorseful as she sounded. But why?
    “For what?” Maybe by asking he could get to the bottom of her apology.
    After a long, exhausted sigh she crossed her arms over her torso, in effect closing herself off. “For dragging you into this mess.” She avoided eye contact with him, but that didn’t surprise Eric. She was hiding something, but he wasn’t sure he wanted or needed to know what it was. Her presence had already disrupted his life enough without tossing additional complications into the mix.
    He hesitated, for measure, before turning around and leaning against the railing. Eric was tempted to ask her one of the millions of questions that had crossed his mind over the last eleven years. The one he wanted an answer to more than all the others was the one that stuck out most predominately in his thoughts, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready for her response.
    He didn’t want to hear her say he’d meant nothing to her. That leaving him behind had been easy to do. The most natural thing in the world. Eric wasn’t ready for this reality. He’d forgo the answers to avoid the heartache.
    Keeping his thoughts locked inside seemed like the way to go. At least he felt safer that way. If he didn’t let Grace back in, she couldn’t hurt him. Again. This was his philosophy now. He hoped it’d work. If it didn’t, he was in trouble because he didn’t have a ‘Plan B’.
    “It’s not like you had a choice,” he said, sticking to the subject at hand.
    A choice? Hell no, Grace didn’t have a choice. Who else but Eric could she have turned to after losing her father? Literally. That was hard to comprehend, much less acknowledge or say out loud. 
    Eric’s embrace would come in handy right now. She’d always felt at home there. God, she missed that. But he’d made it clear, there would be no physical contact. Not anymore.
    Tears stung the corners of her eyes. She tightened her folded arms, trying to mimic an embrace. One that’d be a far cry from the real thing. Especially Eric’s. But she’d forfeited the right to feel the comfort, never mind the passion, of his arms when she’d elected to taste a different kind of comfort. Too bad she hadn’t seen the demon hiding inside—until it was too late.
    She looked out at the eerily-still lake. It offered no reprieve. “It’s really beautiful here, isn’t it?” she asked, if only as a pretense of covering the storm of emotions raging behind her gaze.
    “Yes. It is.”
    Grace felt Eric looking at her, examining her. Did he see her tears? Did they bother him? Or had he grown immune during their eleven year separation?
    There was a time when he would’ve drawn her to him, soothingly. He made no move toward her