by Shauna Allen
I tossed my wadded up pajama bottoms at him then slid back inside with a giggle. He had a point, but more than that, I’d never felt like this. I paused and examined the sweet emotions floating in my chest.
Love.
Contentment.
Happiness.
Could it be so simple? I was truly happy for the first time in my life?
Yes. And I had that cocky man to thank for it.
I changed into clean shorts and a tank top then brushed my hair into a ponytail before joining him at our little eating area, which was really just the cooktop, coolers, and a blanket to sit and eat on. I kissed his cheek. “Good morning.”
His smile was pure peace. “Good morning.”
He handed me a plate and we sat next to each other to eat, our faces toward the rising sun.
“So, what do you wanna do today?” he asked between bites.
“I don’t know. Is a repeat performance of last night in the cards?”
He glanced over with a grin. “It’s definitely in the cards, but later tonight. I have plans for you.”
“Plans, huh?”
“Yup.”
“As long as they involve you, naked, in that tent again, I’m game.”
He laughed then took a swig of water before he choked on a bite of egg.
“Did you bring your fishing gear?” I asked.
“Sorry. I would have if I’d known what you had planned. Next time.”
“That’s okay.” I licked bacon grease from my fingers. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just hang out. Talk. Read. Whatever.”
He leaned over and kissed me. “Sounds perfect.”
After breakfast, I washed up our dishes while he tinkered around in the tent. He came out later with a car magazine and his phone. “Sorry,” he said, glancing down at his cell. “Blake’s texting. Work stuff.”
“Don’t worry about it. You have a job, I get it. Take care of whatever you need to.”
He smiled his thanks while I slipped into the tent to change into my swimsuit. I slathered on sunscreen and grabbed my book before joining him to sun myself.
He was texting with rapid-fire finger jabs, his face a study in concentration.
I settled onto a towel in the grass, letting the sunlight filter through the trees and bathe me in relaxation. I closed my eyes and simply listened, my book forgotten.
In the silence, I could hear my blood rushing quietly and rhythmically through my ears.
Birds chirped and rustled in the treetops.
The breeze whispered through the brush.
The lake lapped in the distance like a mournful lover.
I nearly drifted off, my body melting into the ground like candlewax, but something in the air changed. Subtle, but as bold as a spark of electricity.
I rolled over and found Micah standing a few feet away, his eyes on his phone. His face was hard as stone, his eyes devoid of all emotion. This was not the Micah I knew and butterflies began to beat anxiously through my stomach.
“Micah?”
He ignored me, his eyes still scanning whatever was on that tiny screen.
“Micah?” I said louder this time.
He lifted his gaze and met mine, but it was vacant. I wasn’t sure he even saw me.
I stood. “What is it?”
Silently, he handed me his phone, then spun and jogged away, his footfalls pounding fast and furious on the pathway like a death march.
I glanced down at the phone. It was open to an email dated yesterday.
Micah,
Thank you for writing and reaching out. We’re glad you are doing well, but we can never forget our Juan and how he died. You took our baby from us, and that is impossible to forgive or forget. Maybe someday in the future, but for now, his memory haunts us too much and our hearts are broken beyond repair.
Please don’t contact us again.
Luis and Maria Martinez
I studied the trail Micah had disappeared down, my heart breaking for him. The poor man had been torturing himself all this time over a wartime accident and now, just as he was trying to move on with his life, he was being told his past was unforgiveable.
He must be crushed.
I could only hope and pray he wouldn’t fall back into his misery and be lost to me forever.
That would shatter us both.
Micah
I ran like a madman, letting the wind race over my skin, hoping it would cleanse some of this ugliness from me. But I couldn’t get away. The filth was in my flesh.
The wind whistled past my ears and became the drone of an RPG.
Every stick that cracked under my feet, machine gun fire.
Cawing birds were men screaming.
Eyes. There were eyes everywhere, watching me. Waiting to ambush.
My heart pounded so hard it threatened to burst from my chest, but I kept going. Good Marines don’t quit. Sweat coated my body. Nausea roiled in my gut.
Subconsciously, I knew Jewel was waiting for me back at camp, but I just couldn’t face her. Not like this. Maybe not ever.
I found myself at the top of the vista, but the wide open space was suddenly claustrophobic. I was an open target. I dropped and took cover behind a large boulder. I sucked air in, but it didn’t seem to reach my lungs. Fear coated my intestines. Bile rose and choked me, along with a lump of fear.
I rolled to the side and lost my breakfast.
I was weak.
I was a murderer.
Who did I think I was, asking the Martinezes to forgive me? I’d taken their son from them. Me. I did that.
Me.
Me.
Me.
I would have to wear that branded on my soul until the day I died.
I dropped my head into my hands and forced breath in and out of my lungs. I tried to remember my training. I struggled to get my shit together.
I heard the footfalls, my ears attuned in the silence, but I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t take the pity I knew would be in her eyes.
“Micah? Baby? Are you all right?”
I said nothing.
She crouched in front of me and cupped my face, forcing me to look at her. Tears shimmered in her eyes. Pain. Not pity. “Don’t do this. You can’t torture yourself forever. It was an accident. A stupid, horrible, wartime accident. It’s not who you are, Micah. It’s not the man I know and love.”
I shook my head and tried to look away. “Don’t you get it? It is me.”
Her thumbs caressed my cheeks, wiping the tears that fell of their own accord. Guess I wasn’t too numb to cry.
“No. It’s not.”
I bowed my head, overcome. I hated my weakness. I hated this whole fucking situation. I stood and dusted my hands on my shorts. “I can’t . . . I just can’t, okay?” I spun and strode down the path toward camp.
Jewel Jackson was relentless if nothing else. She was behind me in seconds, her stride matching my own. She tried to reach for my hand, but I shoved it in my pocket. Back at camp, I moved straight for the tent and grabbed my backpack.
The flap slid open as she followed me again. “What are you doing?”
I glanced up from stuffing my clothes in the bag. “Packing.”
“Why?”
“I can’t stay here. I’m sorry.” I grabbed my deodorant and some socks. “If you want to stay, I can send one of the guys to pick you up when you’re ready.”
Dangerous silence filled the air for several minutes. I finished packing and zipped the bag before meeting her stony gaze.
“Do you still want to marry me?” she demanded. “Do you still love me?”
I opened my mouth to speak.
“I mean really love me?” she interrupted, her hands fisted on her hips.
“I shouldn’t.”
Her brow thundered down. “You shouldn’t? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is this what I have to look forward to once we’re married? You shutting me out every time something bad happens? Every time you’re reminded of the
war?”
I pressed past her and out into the sunlight. She was absolutely, one hundred percent right, but I was a coward. A fucking coward.
“Micah.”
The raw pain in her voice stopped me cold.
“Do you love me?” she asked again.
Fury and frustration burst in my chest. I spun around and tossed my backpack to the ground. “Yes! Of course I fucking love you, even though I shouldn’t. Even though I can never be the man you need me to be.”
“And what man is that?” Her green eyes glittered with challenge.
“A whole man.”
Her face fell. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know.”
She pivoted away in a huff and stormed into the tent. She reappeared minutes later with her own bag in hand and tossed it in the backseat of the Jeep.
I frowned. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? Packing.” She moved on to our food supplies. “I’m not staying here without you. This was supposed to be our time.”
She ignored me while I helped her finish packing the site and loaded it all up in the Jeep. I stopped her before she slid into the passenger seat. “I’m sorry.”
She glanced down at my hand on her arm, lifted her brow, then slid into the seat without a word.
We drove in silence and I got her to her apartment right as the sun was kissing the horizon goodnight. It seemed surreal to me how much had changed in a mere twenty-four hours. This time last night, I was about to make love to her for the first time.
She grabbed her bag and hopped out, shutting the door quietly. She turned and faced me through the open window, her face pained and angry and so damn beautiful. “I love you, Micah. You’re everything to me. Everything. I want to help you. I want us to help each other. But I refuse to take second place to your self-imposed punishment for the rest of my life.”
I watched her walk away and close herself into her apartment, my heart in tatters. How the hell could I fix this?
I couldn’t.
That was the problem, wasn’t it?
I slowly pulled out and headed home to my empty apartment. I locked myself inside and pulled the blinds. After a shower, I forced down a protein shake. It was exactly like when I came home from the war. I was going through the motions, dead inside. A heartless robot.
Jewel must’ve told the girls what happened because my phone started blowing up with calls from the guys. I ignored them all.
She never called.
I didn’t sleep at all. I tossed and turned, startling at every noise, every shadow.
Early the next morning, I forced down another shake then went to the gym to work out some of this aggression that filled me. I knew I’d be alone except for JD, and he must’ve sensed my mood because he stayed away.
I beat the bag into submission then ran on the treadmill until I was ready to drop.
Back home, I plopped onto the couch and ran a hand through my damp hair. I was doing a Grade A shitty job of outrunning my demons, but I didn’t know what else to do.
My phone rang and I almost let it go to voicemail again, but I checked the Caller ID. Dempsey.
“Hey, Sarg.”
“Corporal. You doing all right?”
“I’m alive.”
“That’s reassuring.” He waited a beat to see if I’d explain. I didn’t. “Listen, I wanted to touch base. I heard back from them.”
He didn’t need to expound. “Yeah. Me, too. They pretty much told me where I could shove my forgiveness.”
“They’re hurting, Micah.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and let my head thump on the back of the couch. “I know.”
“They’ll come around. It was an accident.” He echoed Jewel’s words, but they did nothing to calm me.
“I didn’t say I blamed them. They have every right to hate me.”
He was silent a long moment. “They have every right to hate me, Corporal. I was the commander of that tank, or did you forget that? I gave you an order. You followed. That’s how things work, especially in war. You’ll kill yourself if you can’t let this go, man.”
“I didn’t have to follow the order.” I voiced the one thing that haunted me above all else. Even in the chaos that night, I knew in my gut it was the wrong call, but I hadn’t questioned my orders. I did what I was told like a good little grunt, and killed two good men because of my weakness.
“Maybe not, but you were trained to follow orders. I was trained to give them. I made the best decision I could under the circumstances, and even though I hate what happened, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing again. We were under heavy fire and we reacted to save ourselves and our fellow Marines. If you would’ve balked, you could’ve been disciplined for insubordination, or worse, gotten us killed. It’s the way of war. You know that.”
“I know that. I do. I still hate myself for it.”
“So do I.”
We were quiet a moment.
“What about Franks’ grandma?” he finally asked.
“What about her?”
“I talked to her.”
I sat up, my body rigid, waiting for the next blow. “You did?”
“Yeah. A couple days ago. She doesn’t blame us, man. She told me how proud Franks was to be a Marine. How he hated the war, but loved fighting alongside us . . .” I blinked against the burning behind my lids. “She’s a good Christian woman and she told me she forgave me the day they buried him.” Emotion choked him up. “She asked me to tell you the same. She’d like to talk to you, too.”
“I . . . she would?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” I raked a hand down my face and realized I hadn’t shaved. “Guess one out of two ain’t bad.”
“It’s not, but you can’t live your life waiting for their forgiveness. You said your peace, the ball’s in their court. It’s up to you to forgive yourself now. Nobody can do that for you.”
“Have you? Forgiven yourself?”
“I’m working on it.”
That made two of us.
Jewel
I didn’t have the energy to cry. I had to believe Micah would come around. Surely, all the love we shared would carry us through. Surely, it wasn’t all a lie.
I didn’t bother sitting and stewing in my misery. Screw that. I called the girls and we got together at Delilah’s place a couple days after the camping fiasco.
Rachel lifted her glass of wine. “To that asshole being behind bars.”
Tori clinked her grape juice to my rim. “No shit.”
I laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”
Delilah nudged me with her shoulder. “You okay?” she asked quietly.
I nodded and glanced at the kids playing on the living room floor. “I’m okay.”
“Micah’s a good guy. He’s just a little lost. He’ll figure things out eventually.”
I grabbed my cousin’s hand. “I hope so.”
“You really love him, don’t you?” Tori asked, her expression one of sad understanding.
“I really do.”
“I . . . oh, ouch . . .” Tori placed a hand to her belly. “Fucking Braxton-Hicks. What a dick.”
We laughed.
“Anyway,” Tori said once the pain passed. “As I was saying, I totally understand. Trace and I had to sort through some serious stuff, too.”
“I think we all did,” Rachel agreed, her gaze locked on Tori as she clutched her belly again. “You sure you’re not in labor?”
Tori’s gray eyes flew up. “What? No. I’ve still got a couple of weeks until I’m due.”
“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not an exact science,” Delilah added. “Declan was born almost three weeks early.”
Tori glanced down at her stomach like an alien was going to pop out of it. “Holy shit.”
I watched in fascination as the other two women got Tori up out of her chair and began walking her around the house. “Walking’s good for labor,” Rachel
explained. “Got Avery right out.”
Tori froze. “I’m not sure I’m ready to get this baby out.”
“Sure you are. The nursery’s ready. Trace and Ryder are biting at the bit. You’re just scared.” Delilah urged her to keep going.
Tori’s gaze met mine. “I am scared.”
I rose and walked over. “Don’t be scared. At the end of it all, you’re getting something special.”
She smiled sweetly at me just before her face crumpled in pain. “This shit sucks.”
I bit my lip against a smile. “Want me to call Trace?”
She shook her head then paused to reconsider. “Yes.”
I snuck to the kitchen and grabbed my cell while Delilah and Rachel prodded her to keep walking. I didn’t have Trace’s number programmed, so I just dialed the shop.
“Jack ‘Em Up.”
I paused at Micah’s deep voice, a tight fist clenched around my heart.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi,” I squeaked out.
“Jewel?”
“Yeah.”
“Is everything okay?” He sounded concerned. I must’ve sounded like hell.
My kneejerk reaction was to rail at him and tell him I was most definitely not okay, but today wasn’t about that. “Yeah, it’s fine. I actually need to speak with Trace. Is he around?”
Pause. “Yeah. Sure. Just a sec.”
There was clanking and raised voices in the background as Micah summoned Trace to the office. Laughter. A door slamming.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Trace, it’s Jewel.”
“What’s up, Jewel?”
I glanced back at my friends as they lapped the living room for the third time, all the kids watching them with interest. “Tori asked me to call. She might be in labor.”
“Labor?”
“Yeah. She’s been having contractions all day and they seem to be getting worse.”
“Are you guys at our house?”
“No. We’re at Delilah’s.”
“Right. I forgot. Girl time.” He paused and I heard something shuffle, a car start. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. Just in pain.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Sure.” I rounded the couch and handed Tori the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”