Free To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series) by Tamra Rose Page B

reaction from Caleb as she replied, "I'll do my best."
    After a prolonged handshake and a back-slapping embrace at
the doorway, Joel disappeared as Caleb closed the door behind him. 
Minutes passed in awkward silence as he and Anna took turns alternatingly
staring at the floor and then the ceiling. 
    "He'll be okay," Anna finally mustered up the
strength to say.  But the doubt of her own declaration was noted in her
shaky voice.
    Caleb's eyes met hers with an unexpected and angry
steeliness that caused her to catch her breath. "I have work to do,"
he finally said, slamming the door behind him as he headed outside.
    Anna stumbled back a step, wondering what had just
transpired.  Did she sound so foolish in trying to offer an optimistic
assessment that it infuriated rather than reassured him?  She closed her
eyes for several moments, conflicting thoughts vying to be heard.  Maybe
he was just angry at the circumstances, she reasoned, at the very real
possibility of never seeing a good friend again.  Or maybe he saw her as
nothing more than a clueless and naïve individual, someone who couldn't
possibly fathom the grave and unrelenting dangers of war when her biggest
physical threat to date had been a sore wrist from sliding a computer
mouse. 
    She cautiously approached the kitchen window that looked
out onto the backyard, immediately spotting Caleb as he rifled through a
toolbox next to a stack of plywood.  Suddenly, he grabbed a wrench and
hurled it full force through the air.  Anna winced as it landed in one of
her carefully manicured rosebushes, grateful that there were no birds or
rummaging squirrels nearby.  Caleb looked up at the sky, as though waiting
for an explanation that would make sense of everything to suddenly fall out of
the heavens.  It never came.  As he hung his head low, his shoulders
slumped in defeat, Anna turned away.  There was only so much of Caleb's
pain that she could witness firsthand, and now that she had officially reached
the saturation point, its ache would forever be a part of her.

 
    SEVEN
     
    "I have great news!" Representative Lawton
declared enthusiastically. "Haley is on a flight back from Afghanistan as
we speak."  
    It had been several weeks since Anna's meeting with the
lawmaker, and she clenched the phone with unbridled joy.  "Oh my god −
this is the best news I've heard in a long time!  I can't thank you
enough!"  
    "Well, I guess that's one of the benefits of being a
lawmaker.  All that schmoozing and back-slapping does pay off sometimes
when it means making connections that get the impossible done."
    "When do you think I'll be able to get her?" Anna
eagerly asked.
    "She's on an overnight flight that's scheduled to
arrive later this morning, and a local vet has volunteered to give her a
look-over to make sure everything is up to par.  So I'm thinking she'll be
good to go later this afternoon.  I'll call you beforehand and you can
swing by my office and pick her up."
    "Thank you so much, Representative Lawton.  I owe
you big-time."
    "Not at
all.  But I do think once Haley gets settled in and reacquainted with
Caleb, it might be nice to have the local paper do a story on their
situation.  It can't hurt to call attention to what these dogs have been
doing for our soldiers – and how they can still help out in other ways once
these soldiers are back home."
    "I agree
totally.  I'll definitely get that moving along once the dust settles
here.  The excited dust, I should add."
    The congresswoman
chuckled.  "Sounds like a plan – I'll see you later this
afternoon."
    Anna ended the
call and looked wistfully out the window at the rays of sun that poked through
a large oak tree.  She thought of all the odds that were initially against
reuniting Haley and Caleb, and could only surmise one thing:  Dreams
sometimes really do come true.
    Five hours later,
Anna was once again looking out a window, but this time it was from the kitchen
as she watched Caleb cut a slab