“We’ve created a monster. No, I’m tired and I want nothing more than to crawl under the covers and cuddle with the woman I love.”
Josie felt her heart clench.
“Love?”
“Haven’t you been catching on? I’ve said it before but let me be really clear. I’ll love you past forever. When you came back into my life, it changed in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined. You’ve painted my world with joy. I would be lost without you, and I believe with my whole heart that you, Sam, and I were destined to be together.”
Josie couldn’t stop the tears that trickled down her cheeks.
“I wish I was as good with words as you are, Chance. I’m not. I just know. I know. I’ve found a home in your arms.”
Chapter 22
Sam slept in the bed of his truck the night before. He always kept a duffel of camping gear in his truck. Too many years being a Marine, he figured. He liked being prepared. He’d gotten home an hour ago. When he’d gone through the house, he noted that the door to the master suite was closed, so he grabbed a six-pack and headed out to the lake. He sat out at the end of the dock.
He figured Chance would come down there to come kick his ass. He hadn’t expected the pleasant surprise of Josie’s soft hands in his hair.
“Can I have one?” she asked, indicating one of the four beers left from his six-pack.
“It’s not anything fancy,” Sam warned.
“Perfect, I’m not a fancy type of gal.” She flipped the top, took a long swallow, and sighed in satisfaction. Sam watched out of the corner of his eye as she leaned back on her elbows and looked out over the water. When she didn’t say anything, he relaxed and took a sip of his own beer. When he finished his beer, he offered her another one, and she took it, finally turning to face him.
“How’s your arm?”
“Careful, cowboy. If you get to ask caring questions about me, then I get to return the favor. Do you really want to go there?” Josie arched a black eyebrow at him.
Sam took a moment to think about that question. Looking into this woman’s dark-honey eyes made him think that he’d finally found someone who would understand what he still couldn’t make sense of himself.
“It’s going to be all right. If not now, it will eventually,” she said in her soft, sultry voice.
“Do you promise?” he asked in the desperate, questioning voice of a child.
Shit, had that really come out of his mouth?
“I promise. Eventually it will.” She put down her beer and wrapped her arms around him, her scent comforting him.
“But it isn’t all right for you. I hurt you and you’re still wearing a brace. You’re still in pain, Josie.”
“You know that’s not the real pain,” she said gently.
He moved her away from him so he could search her face. “Will you tell me your story? Will you tell me how it got to be all right for you?”
“Only if you hold me.”
He would give his life for the right to hold her forever, but he wasn’t worthy of that right. Yesterday morning had proved that. But he’d always hold her, if she needed it.
“Always, Baby. Come here.” He picked her up, settled her on his lap, and cuddled her in his arms so they could watch the sun’s slow descent. She started her story.
“I was eight when the courts decided that my mom had turned her life around and could regain custody of me. That’s when I left the Hutchins. It was good until I was ten. Then she married Barry and started using again. It was little stuff to begin with, but by the time, I was twelve she was into meth.”
“Barry?” he asked.
Josie understood the deeper meaning of his question. “He didn’t mess with me or anything. He wasn’t that way, he was just a junkie. He and Mom had problems keeping jobs, so we moved around a lot. Sometimes we lived in motels and shelters.” Josie’s voice was steady and distant, as if she were talking about someone else. Sam held her closer, because he knew the next part was only going to get worse.
“When I was thirteen, Mom got pregnant. So, she stayed clean, pretty much. Problem was, she was sick all the time. I think it was withdrawals, so only Barry was working. He got the bright idea to start selling meth. I didn’t understand why suddenly we were living in a rented house and getting more to eat. I was just happy that Mom was acting better and life seemed to improve, and I got to go to school on a more regular basis. I should have been more aware.”
“You were just a baby yourself,” Sam said sadly.
“After Mom had the twins, Barry got in trouble with his bosses. They came to the house and beat him bad. That’s when I found out what Barry had been doing. I thought they were going to kill us all, including the babies.”
“Oh, God, Josie,” he breathed.
“I told my teachers, and the cops came and talked to Barry. Somehow, they got him to turn on his bosses. But the cops ended up taking him into custody for a few days, so Mom thought he was going to prison.” Josie stopped talking.
Sam didn’t say anything, he just waited. Finally, she took a deep breath. “On the second night, he was gone. Mom got really high. She started screaming at me, saying how I’d ruined everything, how I’d gotten Barry sent to jail.” Josie shuddered in Sam’s arms.
“She hit me with her fists, I hit her back, but she was still bigger than me, and she was high as a kite and so strong.” Josie gripped the front of his shirt and he stroked down her back, holding her as close as he could.
“Mom had this wild look in her eye when she shoved me down the stairs. She knew what she was doing. She wanted me dead. But she wasn’t my mom. Not really. It was my ‘junkie mom,’ you know?” She stared up at him, willing him to understand. Sam didn’t care who the hell it was, it was the woman who was supposed to love and protect her.
“What happened next, Baby?” He stroked that beautiful, unruly black hair, looking into her stark dry eyes.
“The neighbors called the cops. I said I fell. Two of my vertebrae were ruptured, no spinal cord damage, thank God.”
“Why did you say you fell?” he demanded, uncomprehending.
“They would have put Becca and Sarah in foster care and I would have lost them. They wouldn’t have kept us together. I was the one who took care of them. From the very first day, I’d been the one to hold them. I’d been the one to feed them. To diaper them. They were mine.”
“So, that’s where the surgical scars came from?”
“Yeah, I needed three surgeries then. Thank God they let Barry out. Between him and Mom, they kept it together enough to take care of Becca and Sarah while I was in the hospital.”
“What about you? Who took care of you?” At her confused expression, Sam realized that nobody had taken care of her. “How long were you in the hospital?”
“It was about four months. After the first surgery, they let me go home, but I got an infection that they caught on my first checkup. They assessed my home environment and decided that it wasn’t a good place for me to recover, so they kept me at the hospital after that. I was lucky that they did.”
Sam damned the woman who had done so much harm to her child and blessed the people who had cared for her.
“Is that where the PTSD came from?”
“Yeah. While I was in the hospital, I had a great counselor who got me through that.”
“How did you get to forgiveness?”
“This was the woman who gave me Becca and Sarah. Also, she wasn’t in her right mind. I always separated her into two women. There was Mom and Junkie Mom.”
“Didn’t Barry help with raising Becca and Sarah, or was he too high as well?”
“After I got out of the hospital, they cleaned up their act. I think that the whole thing with my fall and Barry’s beating and the cops really shook them both. That lasted for five years. Then they both fell off the wagon. The girls were seven, and I was nineteen. I contacted child protective services and petitioned for guardianship. By then, I had a full-time job working as a w
aitress. With food stamps and other government services, I could care for them, so I was granted guardianship.
“That’s the real pain.” Josie whispered.
“Because of all the sacrifice? Because you had to put your own life on hold?” he asked.
Josie laughed joyously. “No, having Becca and Sarah come live with me is the best thing I ever did. It was betraying Mom like I did that still tears me up inside.”
“Baby, she betrayed you!” He lifted her chin and wiped the tears from her face with the edge of his shirt.
Josie’s chin trembled, and a sob broke out. “When the girls were nine, she came to visit me at the restaurant where I worked. She begged me to send the girls back to her. She said that they were the only hope she had of getting and staying clean. She was clean, Sam, but I couldn’t trust her.”
Josie choked on another sob. Sam had to fight his own tears, knowing that Josie had been too young to be forced to make such harsh decisions. “She said she would fail and die if I didn’t give the girls back to her. I told her that I couldn’t, that their welfare came first, and if she really loved them, she would see that, but she kept begging me. The owner of the restaurant finally had to escort her out.”
Josie was sobbing. Even after she finally quieted, she didn’t continue.
“Finish it, love.”
“I got a call two months later. I had to go and identify her body. She’d been found in an alley. She had OD’d. I killed her, Sam.” She wasn’t sobbing like she had been before. She acted like she had something to atone for. Sam watched as tear after tear dripped down her face. He couldn’t stand it.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I promise.” There was that phrase again.
“You don’t understand, Sam. I did what I had to do. I did kill her. And I would do it again. It took me a lot of years to learn to live with this and make my peace with it. I did the right thing. All I have to do is look at Sarah and Becca to know I did the right thing. Sam, I did the only thing I could in a really bad situation. That’s how I can promise you it’s going to be all right.”
Then this magnificent, strong, and beautiful woman cupped his cheek and leaned up to kiss him with tear-slicked lips, and he drank her in.
Chapter 23
“It was different for me.” Sam started his story. He could see it clearly in his head. “I was in charge. It was my job to make sure we all came home alive.”
Josie rested her head against his heart, not saying a word, just snuggling closer, so that she could listen. “We were on a road we had driven countless times, but we were cautious. Just because we had done it before, didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. We were behind another Humvee, and we watched as it hit an IED that had been planted overnight. It was a big one. The truck flew up almost a foot, and we knew the troops inside were going to be in bad shape, if they weren’t dead.” Sam could see it clearly in his mind’s eye. The three men and one woman in that vehicle had been under his command. He’d been driving the second vehicle. He slammed on the brakes and told the others to stay put. Then he went to see if there were any survivors.
Sam had told them to stay in the vehicle for a reason. It was obviously an ambush. If there was an IED, there were going to be snipers. The others stayed back to cover him, as he ran a zigzag pattern to get to the injured rig.
It always amazed Sam just how much blood could come out of the human body. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. Mac and Rhonda were past saving, but Leroy and Nathan were still alive. Nathan was conscious.
“I’m trapped, Sam!” Nathan was yelling, deafened from the explosion. Sam checked out his friend and saw that the front seat had him pinned against the interior of the Humvee. When he tried to pull the top seat away from the wall, the bottom pressed into Nathan’s injured legs, causing him to groan in pain.
“Stop!” Nathan yelled. “Go see about Leroy.”
Sam moved back, and when he started to pull Leroy out, the man screamed. He had a bad head wound. It was a wonder that he was even conscious. No wonder he was screaming. If they didn’t get him to a MASH unit quick, he wasn’t going to make it.
“You have to take him, man. Getting me out is a two-man job,” Nathan gasped.
Sam gave a sharp nod. “Don’t go anywhere.” Sam said to his best friend in the Marines.
“You think you’re real funny, don’t you, asshole?” Nathan gasped out a laugh, just as Sam had hoped.
Then Sam dragged Leroy out of the destroyed Humvee. The first sniper bullet rang out as he hefted Leroy over his shoulders. He pushed the radio mic on his shoulder. “Phil, cover me, I’m coming back. Dan, find a crowbar. We’re going to need it to pull out Nathan.” With that, Sam started the zigzag pattern back to his Humvee, praying that Leroy would make it, and that they would be able to get Nathan out of the damaged vehicle.
Almost to the rig, Dan darted out in front of him, crowbar in his hand. Sam sped up. He ran around the back side of the Humvee and dumped Leroy into the backseat, ignoring his screams of pain.
“Phil, do you have a bead on them?” Sam yelled, wanting to know about the snipers’ positions.
“Lieutenant, they keep moving position. I think there are three of them, on the roof across the plaza.” Sam looked up, and then ducked as a bullet whizzed by his head.
“Ah, fuck!” Phil yelled.
Sam turned to see what had so upset Phil. Looking over, Sam saw Dan lying in the dirt. Half of his head was missing.
Another bullet pinged the windshield of Sam’s Humvee.
“I got him!” Bret called out, referring to one of the snipers. Now they were down to just two snipers shooting. Sam decided that he’d try to get back to Nathan. When he turned to tell Arnold, the man grabbed his arm.
“Look!” Arnold pointed to the wreck, and Sam saw men dragging Nathan out of the ruined Humvee, while surrounded by four more insurgents.
“Ah, Jesus, he’s still alive,” Phil groaned. It was every soldier’s worst nightmare. Sam couldn’t believe how badly this day had turned out. The last two soldiers who’d been caught in this village had been held and tortured for days, before being filmed giving a confession that they were American spies intent on killing Afghan women and children. They were then beheaded on camera, for the soldier’s families to see back home in the States.
“Bret, keep trying to take out those goddamn snipers. Arnold and Phil, the three of us will try for the men holding Nathan,” Sam ordered.
As Bret kept shooting, the two insurgents who weren’t holding Nathan knelt, pulled out automatic rifles, and fired at them. Sam watched in horror as Arnold was hit in the shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Arnold yelled. But Sam knew he wasn’t. Phil read Sam’s intention to retreat, and he begged him to keep trying.
“We’ve got to save Nathan. Lieutenant, Arnold is fine.”
Maybe, but Leroy wasn’t. Sam had to get them out of there! He took one more look at Nathan as the insurgents dragged him away, trying to think of another solution.
“We can’t leave him!” Phil protested.
“I’m in command, Marine,” Sam clipped out. “Get your ass into the backseat, Bret, you’re driving.” Sam looked out across the plaza one last time, Nathan and the insurgents were gone, leaving only the snipers behind.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sam roared. Bret dove into the driver’s seat, hauling Arnold with him. As Sam was getting into the backseat with Phil, he heard another bullet whine by his head. He remembered thinking that it was another close call, right before he passed out.
“Josie, they found his body a week later. He’d been tortured. At least he hadn’t been forced to make one of those videotapes.”
“Sam, you did the only thing you could do.”
“Baby, you don’t get it. Unlike you, I didn’t do the only thing in a bad situation. I could have made different decisions. Leroy didn’t live.”
“You’re right, you could have made a different decision, but you don’t know how it would have turne
d out. It could have turned out better. Nathan, Dan, or maybe Leroy could be sitting with us today, or I could be sitting here alone. My situation was black and white, yours was gray, and you can’t beat yourself up for making a decision that could have gone ten different ways. It was war.” She paused, and he could tell she was thinking of the right way to say something.
“You don’t think you deserve anything good, because you don’t think you deserve to be here, right?” He couldn’t meet her eyes. She eased off his lap.
“I love you, Sam. But I can’t love you enough for both of us. Let alone for something as complicated as what the three of us are considering. But I do have a question for you. If it were Nathan here, and you were the one who was dead, would you want him giving up on this chance?” She let her hand drift through his hair as she walked away. He continued to sit on the pier and finished drinking his beer, watching the sunset, giving thought to what she’d said.
A couple of hours later, Sam wandered back into the house. He made himself a sandwich and found Chance in his office.
“Did you take Josie home?” Sam queried.
“Yep.”
“How was she?”
Chance looked up from his computer. “Worried about you. We both are.”
Sam pulled up the office chair. “She’s pretty remarkable. I know you probably had her background checked before she came out here.” Sam watched Chance, and saw that tiny little flutter of his eyelashes, which always told him when he had hit a nerve. “So, you know about her mom?”
“Yeah, I know some. I couldn’t get the sealed records, but the agency I hired did manage to uncover some things about how she grew up.” Chance admitted.
“I want to tell you what she shared with me.” Sam told Chance Josie’s story. He wasn’t surprised to see his friend’s sorrow and anger, and finally his pride.
“You know I love her,” Chance admitted softly.
“Fuck, dude, I knew that as soon as you started having the master suite built. That’s sure as hell not just lust.” Sam took the last bite of his sandwich.
Theirs To Treasure: Happily Ever After (Fate Harbor Book 1) Page 17