Keeping Guard

by Sandra Owens

  Heather leaned toward her husband. “Put a drop on my tongue so I can taste it.”

  “I have a better idea.” Deke took another swallow, then kissed her.

  “That is good,” she said with a dreamy smile on her face that Peyton assumed was more from the kiss than the taste of beer. “As soon as this baby pops out and I can drink again, you’ll have another customer.”

  Peyton smiled. “Also awesome.” It never ceased to thrill her when someone loved one of her beers.

  “I told her the first time I had one that I’d marry her if I wasn’t already a fool in love.” Jack grinned at Nichole who blew him a kiss.

  Noah made a growly sound. “But you are.”

  All the men’s gazes zeroed in on Noah, as if some kind of understanding passed between them.

  Noah frowned. “What?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Jack said, smirking.

  Clint chuckled, which got a glare from his brother.

  What was all that about? Whatever it was, Peyton sensed Noah didn’t like the attention on him. “If any of you ever want a tour of the brewery, all you have to do is ask,” she said to get everyone’s attention away from Noah. “It’s pretty interesting.”

  “We’ll definitely take you up on that,” Deke said.

  Mark, who’d been quiet through most of dinner, raised his hand. “Me, too. Do we get free samples?”

  “Absolutely.” As the attention was off Noah now, his body seemed to relax.

  “Deke needs to get my fat pregnant butt home, but before we go, you promised to show me your pottery studio, Nichole,” Heather said.

  “Your pregnant butt is a beautiful thing.” Deke turned heated eyes on his wife.

  Peyton leaned around Noah so she could see Heather. “How can you say your butt is fat? I wouldn’t have known you were pregnant if you hadn’t said something.”

  “I’m practicing getting used to a fat butt in my near future. So far, I’m okay with it. Ask me again when I look like a whale and I’ll probably have a different answer.”

  “I think whales are beautiful creatures.” Nichole stood. “Ladies, let’s go for a tour of my studio while the guys do clean-up duty.”

  As Peyton dutifully followed the girls, Rachel stepped next to her. “All that bottled-up guilt isn’t good for Noah,” she quietly said.

  Huh? “Has Noah said something to you?” It was true, but how else could Rachel know?

  Rachel put her hand on Peyton’s arm, stopping her. “I’m an empath. Do you know what that means?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s not any kind of woo-woo, nothing magic about it. I just feel people’s emotions, like if they’re happy, sad, or in Noah’s case, drowning in guilt. I don’t know the reasons for their feelings. I can’t read their minds or anything like that.”

  “How does that work?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s just something I’ve been able to do as far back as I can remember. My grandmother could, too, so I guess I got it from her. I’m only telling you this because you’re good for him. I felt that, too. You calm him. I just thought you should know.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I wanted to believe I was.” Rachel had just given her a precious gift.

  * * *

  Jack stood. “I guess these dishes aren’t going to march their selves to the dishwasher.”

  After the kitchen was clean and the leftover food put away, they returned to the deck to wait for the girls to return.

  “Peyton’s ex giving her any more trouble?” Jack asked.

  “Other than hanging around, no. I don’t trust the dude. For whatever reason, I think he wants control of the brewery, and apparently, he believes he’ll get that if she marries him. That might have been true if she’d gone through with the wedding, but not anymore. Her father fired him as soon as he saw the bruise on her arm that Dalton put there. I worry that he’ll pull a stupid stunt.”

  Deke frowned. “Are you thinking he might make a grab for her if he gets a chance?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about him. I think he’s desperate now. He told her he was going to take her to Vegas where she would marry him. If he thinks he can get away with grabbing her, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “She should report him to the police if he’s hassling her, especially if he’s already hurt her.”

  Noah took out his phone, found the picture of her arm, and showed it to Deke. “I wanted her to report this, but she just wants him to leave her alone.”

  “That might have gotten him a night in jail.” Deke handed his phone back. “But not much more than that, if that. The problem is, until he actually does something, there’s not much the police can do. If you really think there’s a chance he could do something stupid like kidnap her, put a tracker on her. Better safe than sorry.”

  That was a great idea. They could pick one up on the way home.

  Deke took out his wallet and pulled out a card. “This has my cell number on it. Call me if her ex does try something.”

  “Thanks. I will.” When the girls returned, he said, “You ready to head out, princess?” They had a tracker to buy.

  “I am.” She gave Jack a hug, then Nichole a longer one. “I really enjoyed today.”

  “I’m glad. Let’s get together for lunch or something.”

  “I’d love that.”

  Peyton’s smile was pure happiness, almost knocking Noah on his ass. Had he ever made her smile like that? He didn’t think so, but suddenly, he wanted to be the one to put that kind of joy on her face.

  He and Jack did the man hug thing, and surprising him, Nichole hugged him. Not a hugger, he felt awkward, but...it was nice.

  “See you in the morning,” Jack said.

  “I have an appointment with the head doc first thing, so I’ll see you right after that.” Which reminded him he still had his homework assignment to write. Or not. The last thing he wanted to do was write about that day. He wasn’t even sure he could.

  “Let’s go, boy.” Lucky jumped up and followed them out. Maybe he could claim the dog ate his homework.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “There’s something I have to tell you before we go inside.”

  Peyton paused in unbuckling her seatbelt. “What’s that?”

  Although they were parked in front of the doctor’s office with the car engine off, her father hadn’t moved to get out. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles were white.

  “Oh, God. It’s worse than you told me.”

  His gaze jerked toward her. “No, that’s not it. You’re not going to be happy with me, though.” He expelled a breath. “Your last year of college I had a lobectomy.”

  “I don’t know what that is.” It didn’t sound good, though.

  “It’s surgery to remove a lobe in the lungs.”

  “Wait. What? You were sick—” she couldn’t even say the word cancer “—had an operation, and didn’t think that was something I should know? That’s how little you thought of me?” Did he even have a clue how much that hurt?

  “It wasn’t like that. You were halfway through your last year of school, and I knew you’d quit and come home.”

  “Of course I would have. I would have wanted to be with you when you needed me.”

  “It was only the early stage of lung cancer. I had the surgery, then chemo. It worked. I went into remission, so I figured, no harm, no foul. You were able to graduate without disrupting your last year.”

  “No harm, no foul?” The words tasted bitter in her mouth. Hell, she was furious. Bitter and furious. “Did Dalton know?”

  He stared at his hands as he nodded. “Yes.”

  “Who took care of you after the surgery? Who drove you home afterward?” She knew the answer, but she
was so angry that she wanted to make him say it to her face.

  “Dalton.”

  She’d had to strain to hear him say Dalton’s name. “I see.” Betrayed. That was how she felt. “Tell me this. How did the idea of me marrying him come about?” She had her suspicion on that, too.

  “Does it matter anymore? You’re not married to him. He’s out of your life now.”

  “Yes, it matters.”

  He sighed, but she didn’t care if this was hard for him. “Dalton moved into the guestroom while I was recovering. He started talking about you, how much he respected you, how smart he thought you were. I didn’t see it then, but looking back now, I can see that he was playing me. He would ask about your future if something happened to me, like the cancer coming back. Over the two weeks he stayed, he made me promises.”

  “Let me guess. That he would take care of me, that he would keep the brewery going?”

  “Yes, things like that. He also said that he cared deeply for you, and that he hoped the day would come when you’d feel the same about him. He told me he was in love with you, and I believed him. He subtly, and I admit shrewdly, planted the idea that if I died, you’d be alone. I started worrying about you having someone to take care of you if I wasn’t around. He promised he wouldn’t push you into a relationship if that wasn’t what you wanted, but he asked permission to court you.”

  “Dalton’s devious. He knew I’d do anything to get your approval.”

  “I hate that you felt that way.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You almost made a terrible mistake because of me. I’m sorry, Peyton. I’m sorry for a lot of things where you’re concerned. I know you can’t forgive me right now, but maybe someday you will.”

  Her pride took a blow that he hadn’t thought she could take over the brewery, but in his defense, this had happened when she was still in college. She could hold on to her hurt, but what would that get her? After a lifetime of not having a close relationship, they were finally finding their way to each other. That was more important than her wounded pride. Even more important was saving his life.

  “I forgive you.” And she meant it. She poked his arm. “Just don’t do anything like that again, okay?”

  Her father smiled at her. “I promise.” He glanced at his watch. “I guess we better go in.”

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later, Peyton stared out the car window as her father drove back to the brewery. Words she’d never used before bounced around in her head. Recurrence was the term for the cancer coming back. It was such a benign word. There should be a stronger word for it...an uglier one. The doctor had said her father had non-small-cell lung cancer. Treatments were discussed: chemotherapy, radiation therapy, a combination of treatments. How was one supposed to know what was right? The oncologist said they’d caught the recurrence early, and he’d given her father’s odds of surviving at around seventy percent. That was a number she was going to embrace. She wouldn’t allow him to be in the thirty percent group.

  “It’s going to be okay, Peyton,” her father said, breaking the silence. “I’m going to fight this with everything I have.”

  “We’re going to fight it. We’re a team now, Dad.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “A kickass team.”

  “You got that right.”

  “I want you to promise me something. Stay positive. Keep smiling. You’re too young to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  “I’ll keep smiling and stay positive if you will.” The doctor had stressed how important it was for her father to keep a positive attitude, and she meant to see that he did.

  “Deal.” He held up his hand, and she high-fived him.

  * * *

  Dr. Meadows peered at Noah over the top of her glasses. She waved the two pages he’d written. “The facts are here, and that’s it. Where’s the emotion? What you felt in here—” she tapped her chest “—as you saw the building explode knowing Asim and Snoop were in there? How did you sleep that night? Did you even sleep? When did you have the first nightmare?”

  Noah pressed his lips together to keep his rage from pouring out. How did he feel? Was she kidding? The pages she held in her hand had been torture to write, even though they were only the facts of the event. As for his emotions, they were locked down tight. If he let them out, he’d destroy everything in sight. He’d slipped out of Peyton’s bed at four in the morning to do his assignment, and what he had managed to put on paper had slayed him.

  He must have zoned out when he’d finished, lost in a waking nightmare. Lucky had brought him back to the present by whining and licking the tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t even know he’d been crying.

  “I can’t do this,” he rasped. The damn ants were biting.

  “You can.” She put down the papers, then removed her glasses, and set them on the desk. “You can’t slay your demons until you face them. You’re not a coward. If you were, you’d never have made it as a SEAL. Let’s see some of those SEAL balls you guys have in abundance.”

  “It really pisses me off that I like you, Doc.”

  She laughed. “It’s my bedside manner you can’t resist.”

  He snorted. “If you say so.” He rubbed the back of his neck, massaging against the developing headache. She wasn’t at all what he’d imagined his head doc would be. Not even close. He’d envisioned a soft-spoken, bookish-appearing doctor who would silently study him until Noah blabbed all.

  What he got was a mouthy, no-holds-barred doc who wasn’t going to put up with any bullshit from him. She’d challenged him with her coward comment, and he might be a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them.

  “Your assignment this week is to write this again, but with your feelings included, both the day it happened and in the following days. Get those demons out of your head and on paper so we’ll know what weapons we need to destroy them.”

  “What I said about liking you... I changed my mind.”

  The woman had a full-bellied gusty laugh, which strangely calmed the biting ants. “You’ll like me again by the time we’re done,” she said after she stopped laughing.

  He wasn’t so sure about that if she kept making him write about feelings.

  * * *

  Noah returned to Peyton’s kitchen table after making a second pot of coffee. He’d had to walk away from his assignment three times already, but he was determined to finish without stepping away again. He was almost finished, but he’d reached the part most difficult to write...his damn feelings.

  You want feelings, Doc? Here’s mine... Asim’s dead because I didn’t do my job. That’s a fact. In my nightmares, even though this part never happened, I see Asim’s eyes right before the bomb goes off. He’s looking straight at me with blame in them.

  You asked me three questions. Did I sleep that night? That’s a joke, right? Do I even sleep? Not so much. When did I have my first nightmare? Two nights later...the first time I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  One other thing for you, being a head doc and loving this kind of shit to analyze. My guitar has always been my escape when the ants start biting. It has been since my mother...nope, not going there. I’m not giving you more parts of me to dissect. All I want to say is that the last person to play my guitar was Asim. I can’t bring myself to touch it now, but I miss my escape when the ants bite.

  I’m done! If you tell me I haven’t put enough emotion and bullshit feelings in this one and tell me I have to write it again, we’re done, you and me.

  Noah put his pen down. He didn’t read it over. He couldn’t. If the doctor didn’t like this one, that was too damn bad. It was three in the morning, but he was too wired from coffee and feelings to sleep. He’d sent Peyton to bed hours ago, telling her he’d join her as soon as he finished the assignment from his doctor. But he couldn’t go to bed. Couldn’t bear to see Asim’s eyes. Not toni
ght. He was too raw.

  Lucky put his chin on Noah’s knee and whined. Noah had noticed that the damn dog sensed when the ants started biting and would get that worried look he wore now. So, instead of crawling into bed with Peyton, he clipped Lucky’s leash to his collar. The two of them walked the streets of downtown Asheville until the gray light of dawn.

  In a few hours, he’d show up for his Thursday morning appointment, where he’d have to watch Dr. Meadows read what he’d written and then talk about it. He’d rather pull his fingernails out with pliers.

  He and Peyton were a sad pair. He’d been moody since his Monday appointment, and although she was putting up a brave front, she was worried about her father. They’d slept together in her bed Monday night...well, she’d slept while he—too afraid to close his eyes and see Asim’s accusing ones—had spent the night watching her.

  Although he’d wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her sweet body and forget for a while, she’d come to bed wearing leggings and the T-shirt she’d stolen from him. Clothes that said sex wasn’t on her mind.

  She’d told him about the doctor visit with her father, cried while he held her, and had fallen asleep in his arms. He’d felt almost content just holding her snuggled against him. Almost wasn’t quite there, though, but it was there enough that he knew it was one feeling he could get used to. Damn doctor and her feelings.

  He was going on two nights without sleep now, and he was tired. So fucking tired.

  As the sun rose over the buildings, he returned to the loft, showered, dressed, and then made another pot of coffee. Like he needed more caffeine after all he’d already consumed.

  It would be another hour before Peyton stumbled out searching for coffee, and he didn’t know what to do with himself until then. The ants had stopped biting, but they were still crawling under his skin, regrouping for another attack.