Heartbreak Warfare
Page 23
“You’re better.”
Instant tears spring to my eyes. “You think so?”
“The medicine is working, Mommy. What is it?”
I look down at my son and tell him the truth. “You.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Katy
The last four days without Noah have been some of the loneliest I’ve ever had to endure. My craving for isolation has ceased, replaced by longing to fill the home I dwell in without my family. Gavin is tearing me apart with this silence, and it’s more apparent than ever, the damage I’ve caused through my own inability to communicate. He needs to know. He deserves to know and maybe by coming clean, I can help to eradicate some of the wreckage. If I want things to work, I need to open up the lines of communication. I know my husband, and I’m almost positive that’s what Gavin is waiting for. I’m just not sure he can handle what I have to say.
I’m greeted at base by one of the guards who knows me well. While he rattles on with pleasantries, I glance in the rearview. I’ve gone all-out today, fixing my hair and putting on a little bronzer and lip gloss. After being ushered inside, I slowly roll through base in an attempt to capture the pride I once felt in being a part of it.
I wasn’t able to officially resign from the army until a month after I returned home—following my psych eval, and some needed time and thought.
Yeah, no thanks. Remorse for my stand buds inside of me, because I’ve always been so incredibly proud of Gavin.
I park at the building that houses his office and step out, making a note to hit the commissary for groceries. The fact that I’m not contributing is starting to grate at me, and I need to pinch pennies where I can. There are still perks of being an army wife, and sooner or later I’m going to have to suck it up and realize even though I’m done, I married in.
That’s life.
And it’s the one I chose. Gavin’s uniform used to be one of my biggest turn-ons, and he knew it.
And you told him to never wear it in front of you again.
But where the hell is he? Absent, avoiding, doing all the things I did to him.
We need a come-to-Jesus, and we need one fast. Which is why I’m sitting outside his building trying to muster up the courage to ask him personally for a dinner date.
A part of me wants to lash out, but I call that part unreasonable. The reasonable part of me wants him to see that I’m trying. But both of those women are getting pretty pissed off. I can’t fight this war alone, and maybe this absence is a way of letting me know it’s over for him.
Either way, I’m about to find out.
Marching into the building, I find myself greeted by one of his lieutenants.
“Serg—Katy, good to see you,” she says with a smile. Lt. Lowe has always been kind of a mentor to me. She, much like the other women in my life, is no bullshit. Not only that, she’s got that personality spark I’m drawn to. As I study her brown eyes, I realize quickly who she reminds me of. “How are you?”
“Good,” I find myself saying with a nod, to try and seem more convincing.
“I’m so glad,” she says taking a step toward me. “He’s out now. Full schedule today, but I can see if I can get him.”
“Nah, I’ll just leave a note on his desk.”
“Okay,” she says, as I search her face for any indication that she may know what’s going on. She doesn’t. That’s Gavin.
On base, or out in the field at any given time, he’s liable for around a hundred and fifty soldiers. It’s a huge responsibility, one he’s mastered.
Walking back toward his office, I sink into the familiar feel of it. It’s been so long since I’ve been here. A lump forms when I stare at the picture of us on his desk. It was taken shortly after our honeymoon. We’re both bronzed from the Caribbean sun and smiling like lunatics. Sitting in his chair, I pick it up and study it.
How can he stare at this every day and not talk to me?
For the first time since he left, I feel like I’m in over my head. Picking up a pen from the side of his keyboard, I snatch a piece of scratch paper from a pad close by. It’s not a love letter, just another dinner invitation, a plea for the chance to prove it.
After tracing the happy couple in the frame with my finger, I stand and say my goodbyes to Lt. Lowe with a hopeful beat sounding in my chest.
Here goes nothing.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Transfixed on the neon box, my throat fills with sand, and I can’t help the way my lips rub together. Wetting them with my tongue, the sound of the checkout grows distant as my mind wanders back to a time I would have moved heaven and earth just to reach for something this soothing and be rewarded so easily. Pulling the entire box of Carmex off the rack, I hold it up to the lady checking me out.
“The whole thing?” she asks with a grin.
“Yes,” I say without matching it. She studies the box to catch the count and rings them up before I dump them in my purse. My total doubles.
So much for pinching pennies.
Ignoring her crazy bitch stare, I’m almost out the door when I hear my name called.
“Scott!”
Looking back, I see Anderson, one of the medics I worked with closely at the clinic, before.
“Hey, Anderson, you’re back stateside.” Suddenly anxious, my eyes dart toward the door hoping this conversation will be brief. Today’s been a good day, and lately, I’ve been testing myself, but I don’t want to push too far.
“Yes. Damn, if I never see or feel sand again, it will be too soon.”
“Understandable,” I say as she scrutinizes me.
Time to go.
“I’m glad to see you’ve made it back safely, and I’d love to catch up, but I’ve got stuff that’s going to melt.”
“Sure,” she says, eyeing my scarcely-filled cart. “I’ll be honest, I’m shit for words right now anyway.”
“It’s okay, really.”
She looks sincerely apologetic. “I visited Mullins.”
“Me too.”
“I wish I could have been there, for the funeral.”
I nod. “That makes two of us.”
She winces. “Sorry, I just…but can you believe Briggs is going back?”
“Can’t you?” I say, trying to ignore the searing pain that comes with hearing his name.
She shakes her head. “I mean stateside is understandable, but volunteering to finish his tour, especially after what happened?”
The floor shakes beneath me. I should be ready to hear this—prepared. He’s a soldier, and it’s what he does. She takes a step forward. “I mean I get the adrenaline, I guess, but does that idiot have a death—”
Before she can get the rest of the sentence out, I’m gone.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Briggs
Gliding over the grass, I spot Houdini in the distance, trying to break out of his pen.
“Stupid bastard,” I mutter to no one. The cool spring morning has given way to a blazing afternoon as the sun beats on my back. I’m covered in filth, but I love the days where the work seems effortless. Days like today, when the temperature is bearable, and nothing breaks. Earbuds turned up, I cover the grounds as I sing along to an old Zeppelin tune. The past few days have been peaceful, and I couldn’t have asked for better. I’ve been concentrating on work and doing a fuckload of it. Every night when I hit the pillow, I’m too worn out to think of much. And when that pesky bastard beating in my chest decides to remind me, I drown its ass in cardio so it starts thinking different.
I figure we’ll catch up with each other, eventually.
Spending hours cultivating the land that is my future seems like a much better idea than fucking and fighting. I’m done with it. The need for peace is much more present at this point. In the wake of what’s happened, perspective has come into play, and I have to remind myself that how things played out is the way they were meant to be.
And maybe, in a year or two, when I’m ready to think about more than this land, and I don’t
have to wear myself to the ground to dull the ache, I’ll have more peace.
Still, as I look over the pastures that make up my family’s legacy, I know I’m a part of something bigger than me.
I pray I’m doing the man who raised me proud. “Miss you, old man.” What I wouldn’t give for one more day with him.
On the last leg of the expansive yard, I sit back and take a swig of water, just as a black Jeep comes racing up our long gravel drive. Before I have a chance to question what the hell is going on, the Jeep comes to a skidding halt about fifteen yards away. A fireball of arms, legs, and wild blonde hair comes barreling toward me with clenched fists, her mouth parted with words I can’t make out because I’m paralyzed where I sit.
She stops right in front of my bush hog, arms flailing and mouth going ninety miles an hour, as I sit there stupefied, unable to hear a word. She’s fucking gorgeous.
She’s still got faint circles under her eyes, but other than that, she looks far different from the woman who left that dressing room a month ago. Her chest is heaving over a thick halter. An overshirt is tied around the waist of her shorts, and she’s wearing ankle boots that accentuate her calves.
Fuck me.
The only thing wrong with this picture is the slew of words coming out of her mouth that I’m sure at this point I don’t want to hear.
Our eyes connect, and instantly I’m choking on this ever-present ache. A month of progress goes up in smoke and fear laces my veins at the mere sight of her. She’s madder than I’ve ever seen, and it would be comical if I could get past the need that surges to the surface and ruins my ability to keep my shit together.
She can’t do this to me again.
As I watch her rant, I can’t help the smirk that curls my lips. She looks like a baby bird trying to take flight.
After a few seconds of her kicking up dirt in front of me, I take my earbuds out and kill the engine, managing to catch the tail end of her rant.
“You. Stupid. Son. Of. A. Bitch!”
My grin may have gotten a little wider.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Katy
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing!”
He shakes his head, pointing to his ears, as I stomp around at his feet, angrier than I’ve ever been in my life.
I can’t stop the words coming out of me as I do everything but lunge at him.
“You. Stupid. Son. Of. A. Bitch!”
His smirk turns into a broad smile, and my anger goes inferno.
“Good to see you too, Scottie.”
“What in the hell are you thinking, volunteering to go back there?”
He pulls his gloves off, wiping his brow, and it’s then that I notice he’s shirtless, wearing just his dark jeans and well-worn gray leather boots. He’s grown his hair out longer, so it rests in waves on his head. Bronzed muscle shimmers in the sun as rivulets of sweat trickle down, coating his skin. My mouth waters at the sight of it. In mere seconds, I’m brought back to the side of that boxing ring. Nostalgia, for what seems like ages ago, tugs at my heart.
I can’t lose him.
His words cut through my gawking. “I’m thinking I’m a soldier, and it’s my job.”
“You’re so full of shit!” I counter.
Golden eyes drink me in, and I realize my chest is heaving, my boobs spilling out of the tank I’m wearing.
His eyes flit away before I feel the warmth of them.
He takes a step toward me and blows out an exaggerated breath. “I know what happened back there was hard on you.”
“Hard on me?!” I screech.
He grips his water bottle and takes a sip as if we’re having a casual conversation. “On both of us. It was torture. I won’t deny that,” he says, capping it before setting it on one of the tires.
“By feeding me that line, you’re denying everything!”
“And what exactly is it you want me to admit to now?”
My silence seems to piss him off.
“What? No quick reply? Tell you what, I’ll talk real talk when you’re ready for it. For now, let’s get to work.”
“What?”
“You’re pissed, I understand why, but it changes nothing. My guys need me. I’m going. And seeing as how the last time I saw you, well,” he says, pulling a tattered ball cap from his back pocket and pulling it over his eyes, “well, it seems you have different demands. Frankly, I’m finding it hard to keep up. So, I figure since you have all this damned aggression to work through, and I have a month’s worth of work to catch up on, why not help me? I mean, we are buddies, right?”
I’m shaking my head adamantly as I speak. “Tell them you’re having second thoughts, after a psych eval—”
“Passed it,” he says easily.
Ripping at my hair, I stomp the ground between us. “Well then go seek counseling, raise a red flag. Tell them you’re having dark thoughts…or something!” I’m yelling at the top of my lungs, and he’s basking in the sun, staring at me like the crazy lady I am.
“You’re not going back there,” I shriek.
“It’s done, Katy. Let it go.”
“I will not let it go!” I step up to him as his eyes drop. “Not so soon, not now. God, not ever!”
“Katy.” He speaks low, his voice a painful whisper in comparison to the emotion I need him to feel. I want fear, where there is none. “You think this argument isn’t in the head of everyone who has a soldier to lose?”
Opening my mouth to speak, I’m cut off by his indifference.
“But I’m not your soldier.” It’s not a question, but it spirals me into further panic.
“Aren’t you the one who said you don’t have to be attached or have a family to matter?”
He rubs his hands together and separates them through the air dismissively as he speaks. “You can stand here yelling at me all day, but it’s not going to change the facts. I’m going.”
“You are so fucking immature.”
“So you’ve told me numerous times.”
“This is serious,” I snap. “This is so serious.”
“Is it? What’s changed? I’m a soldier. I’m infantry, and there’re still bad guys to catch. It’s what I’m good at, but I must admit,” he leans in, “I’ve got shrapnel in places one should never have shrapnel.” He presses his lips together to gauge my reaction.
He’s cracking a joke. A fucking joke.
I can’t lose him. I can’t.
My heart is lurching toward my chest as tears fill my eyes.
A cloud covers the sun, and we’re temporarily encased in shade. He’s refusing to look directly at me.
“Look at me.” His eyes dart to mine, and I see it there, the hesitation. He’s hiding from me.
“You matter. You matter.” I take a step forward. “You matter. You matter,” I stress, my voice cracking. “You matter so much.”
I feel him with me for endless seconds before he shakes his head, breaking our spell. “I’m sorry you came all this way to be disappointed, Scottie.”
“It’s not too late,” I argue. “There are things—”
“Good to see you, Katy.”
“We’re not done talking.”
“Oh, we’re done,” he assures me with a sarcastic drawl, as I fight to keep where I stand.
He starts the tractor, and as I stand there calling his name, he rolls away from me.
Pissed and feeling dejected, I stomp back to my car, fuming, as the sun beats down. Texas never has acknowledged spring. Inside the car, the tears flood as I pull up my GPS and catch a glimpse of him through the windshield.
I‘ve already lost him in life. I can’t lose him to death.
But it feels like he’s already thrown himself on the grenade.
Slamming my hands against the wheel, I let some of my anger go and then bury my head on it.
For the last three hours, I’ve been out of my mind, searching for him. I spent two of them breaking speed limits. Once I had gotten to Chappell
Hill, I stopped, asked around, and got the name of the road along with some bum-fucked directions. The last half hour was spent frantically turning onto every damn driveway on Carper Road. The process of getting to him was mostly a blur as the never-ending adrenaline surged through me. That same adrenaline still fuels me as panic consumes me. My anger only seems to amuse him, which has the fire in my belly burning brighter.
I have to get through. I have to.
By the time I look back up, he’s making good time on his tractor, drifting further and further away. He’s hiding from me—from us, the way I’ve been. Either way, I’ve spent too much time running from what hurts me, what scares me, and when it comes to Christopher Briggs…the way I feel.
I’m not your soldier.
Liar. That’s what I wanted to say. But I’m on thin ice as it is, with my tantrum. I have to figure out a way for him to take me seriously. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter what I say, what I want, or how I feel. It’s done. And he doesn’t seem to want to have a damn thing to do with me.
He’s still gliding around the property, acting oblivious, as I watch him from where I sit in my Jeep.
I loved him inside that bunker because there were no consequences. I allowed myself to feel for him because I wasn’t in danger of losing my family there. In that place. How did I feel about him outside of it? Before. I was dangerously attracted to him before we were captured, but my love and loyalty to Gavin broke that spell, enough for me to be able to look at him with objective eyes. Even then I was fighting.
Pushing down my self-loathing, I allow my heart to admit here and now that I came too close to falling before that ambush.
His kiss still burns my lips; it’s embedded deep. I still long to talk to him. I miss him. And he’s batting me away like I’m some fly.
“Fine,” I say, throwing my shoulders back. “Fine,” I say again, as tears roll down my cheeks. “Go be a soldier.”
Not meaning a word of it, I buckle my belt and start pulling away when something in the barn to my left catches my eye.