A Heart's War (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 5)

by Carey Decevito

  “Savi,” Kayla warned, coming into my line of sight.

  “How come you came back but Daddy didn’t?” Savannah questioned.

  I shut my eyes and wished that I were anywhere else but right where I was. My answers weren’t befitting of a child’s ears.

  “Savannah, that’s enough!” Kayla said.

  “You must have been the toughest of the bunch, right?” the little one persisted with a hint of awe to her voice. “That’s what Auntie Morgan said.”

  I grunted as a response. Tough…right.

  The little pipsqueak that refused to let go of me began to feel like a comfort and I found myself wrapping an arm around her and giving her a gentle squeeze.

  Because I had yet to say anything, Savannah took it as a cue to keep rambling. “Why are you sad?”

  Kayla gasped. “Savannah Morgan Smyth!”

  But like always, Savannah ignored her mother’s scolding. “You shouldn’t be so sad,” the child said, and I knew she was far from done, and sure enough, she didn’t disappoint. “Did you know that Auntie Morgan has the bestest cure for when I’m sad?”

  I snorted.

  “It’s true!” Savannah argued as if my reaction conveyed disbelief. “She gives the best hugs and she knows just where to tickle to make me laugh.” Her giggle made my lips quirk. “She doesn’t tickle Mommy, but she does make her smile when she’s feeling down. I don’t like it when she’s sad, so I help Auntie make Mommy feel better.”

  “I bet you’re pretty good at it too,” I mumbled. And she was good. Hell, I was beginning to feel the anger subside when nothing else I’d been doing had worked.

  Savannah pulled back and gave me a look filled with conviction and a wide grin. “I’m the next bestest!” she announced.

  I guffawed.

  “See? It’s working!” She turned to her mother. “Mommy, I told you I could do it!”

  I snuck a quick look at Kayla. Her lips were in a firm line but her eyes shone with pride, clouded with reservation. When her eyes met mine, she mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  I gave her a quick nod to let her know that it was fine.

  “Savi, don’t you think we should leave Mr. Lowell be?” she asked.

  “Please, call me Theo,” I said, as Savannah uttered a petulant “No!”

  Morgan appeared around the house’s corner. “I’m sorry, Kayla, our little shorty here snuck out on me while I was in the washroom. What’s going on?” Her gaze travelled between Kayla and widened when she saw Savannah sitting across my lap and my arm around the little spitfire that took a lot after her aunt.

  “We’re making Theo happy again.” Savannah grinned wide. “Well, I’m making him happy, but Mommy wants me to leave him alone.”

  Morgan’s eyes met mine with hesitation. “Is it working?”

  Savannah answered for me. “I think so. He laughed.”

  Morgan’s lips quirked up and she arched a brow.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “She’s pretty good at it.”

  “Baby, we should get going,” Kayla started.

  “But you said you wanted to talk to him?” The little girl pouted.

  That got my attention. “You did?” The woman nodded.

  I looked over at Morgan, who’s eyes softened. “It’s time, Theo.”

  As anxious as I became, and as much as I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, something told me that she was right. It was time. Time for me to come clean with the wife of one of my best friends. Time for me to find forgiveness…to maybe purge the guilt that’s been plaguing me since the mission that forever altered my life, that left me feeling undeserving…worthless.

  Lifting Savannah off of me and setting her onto her feet, I got up, dusting myself off, and said, “Actually, Kayla, can I speak to you for a minute?”

  Chapter 24

  Morgan took Savannah back to her house as I escorted Kayla into my unfinished kitchen. I pulled a bottle of beer out for myself and said, “I know you’re driving, so would you prefer some water or soda, I have lemonade too?”

  Kayla paused from her perusal of my practically non-existent kitchen and mumbled, “Lemonade would be good.”

  Now that it was just she and I, my nerves were getting the better of me. I stalled the inevitable conversation I had instigated by topping a tall glass with ice and grabbing the pitcher of the tart juice from the fridge.

  Pouring slowly, Kayla picked up on my delaying tactic and said, “I need to know what happened.”

  My shoulders slouched, my resolve deflated a little, but this was it. This was the time to find out if she would see me as the killer I imagine myself to be, or the broken man that Morgan saw.

  I gestured to one of the two chairs that currently served as my kitchen set and Kayla took a seat while I put her glass of lemonade in front of her. I took the other seat and gulped down a hefty sip of my beer before setting it down and studying the woman that sat across from me.

  She was young, beautiful, strong, whether she was willing to admit it or not, and a good woman, from what I remembered Damon saying.

  Before Kayla could commence with her questions, I spoke. And I didn’t stop, even going as far as to recount what I’d gone through with my capture, and how I got back.

  “I always knew that I’d end up a widow,” Kayla whispered when I finished telling her the tale that had killed more than just my teammates. It had killed long-wished-for dreams as well. Theirs, hers, Savannah’s, Morgan’s…mine too, if I were being entirely honest.

  “Kayla-”

  She cut me off. “Steve loved the marines. Aside from being a father and spending his life with me, being a marine was his life, it was who he was. I know you believed that at one point too.” I nodded. I had. Kayla’s hand crossed the table and cool fingers landed over my forearm. “God, the things you’ve been through.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s pity,” I mumbled, retracting my arm from her touch. “I told you the story so you would know the truth, not the romanticized version they most likely told you. Smyth was under my command. He was following orders and he died doing that. It’s my fault and I take the blame.”

  I got a less than enthused, “Wow,” from the woman, which made my head snap up and my eyes move to hers. “You really are the self-sacrificing son of a bitch Steve talked about.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Theo, we’ve never met until today, but I know you. Aside from Morgan coming to me and telling me she’d met you on the weekend after my husband’s birthday, you need to know that Steve wrote and talked to me about you. He said that you’re a good man, one who would do anything for the ones you care about.” My response came in the way of a curt nod. “You’d give it all away, wouldn’t you…your happiness, your family, your friends, your life? You would have given it all up if it meant that they’d lived.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong?” She shot up to her feet, agitated beyond what I expected. “You have the gall to ask me what’s wrong?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s wrong is that my man didn’t die so you’d be miserable. He didn’t die because he was under you. He didn’t die because you told him to drive over that fucking roadside bomb. And he sure as hell didn’t die to have you get captured, tortured and used against and by our government, Sergeant Lowell! He was ready to die to give us all a better life just like you were, so you telling me that you’d die just so he could come back, though honorable as some would say it is, only tarnishes my husband’s sacrifice.”

  Just like Morgan calling me by my nickname, Kayla calling me by my title made me sit up straighter. No one had called me that since the day I’d received my discharge papers. I don’t even recall the last time someone had spoken to me that way except for my superiors. And the woman was on a roll, but this time, her voice grew softer.

  “Can’t you see? You’ve already died before even leaving this life. That’s not what he – no – what you fought for. You’re no hero, Lowell, but
you sure as hell did what so many of us couldn’t. Some don’t understand, but having a father in the Marines, and his fathers before him being part of the same brotherhood, helps me understand. There’s no fucking glory in what you do. The pats on the back don’t mean shit. I know that! What means something is that you stood up when others couldn’t…when they wouldn’t. You fought for your friends and family. You came back! You-”

  “Kayla, listen-”

  “No, you listen!” She stomped her foot. “You’ve got something special right here. Morgan told me about you before today, but it wasn’t all about how you knew Steve.”

  She did?

  “Yes, she did,” she said as if reading my mind. “She cares a lot more than you think. She’s moving on from the loss of her brother, just like I am, just like Savannah is. But you haven’t at all, have you, Theo? You walk around, carrying the weight of the dead, fearing that letting them go means that you once again failed them.”

  “I suppose that maybe you’re right,” I mumbled.

  “You know I am.” Her face bore a look of confidence in her deduction. “So what you have to ask yourself is, are you ready to come back to the land of the living?”

  Hmm. Was I ready to do that?

  “Are you ready, Sergeant Lowell?” she asked again. “Instead of living like the dead because they can’t, can you try and live a life that’s worth something to be proud of, something that Steve Damon Smyth could be proud of? Can you live a life that rivals any that the men and women you lost would be happy seeing you living?”

  I cleared my throat and met her eyes with mine, but my voice came out with a croak and filled with emotion, “You’re not the first to tell me this, Kayla.”

  “And I’m not going to be the last.” The woman crossed her arms over her chest, sat down, and gave me the stubborn look that was all too familiar.

  Oh yeah, Savannah didn’t just have her father’s looks and her aunt’s attitude. It seemed that the stubbornness ran on both sides of the family, because her mother had more than enough of it in her pinky finger.

  I nodded in assent. “Seems that everyone around me has been telling me the same thing since I’ve come back.”

  “That’s because we’re right.”

  “Maybe you are,” I said for the first time, leaving myself open to the fact that I wasn’t to blame for what happened over there.

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  I scrunched up my nose at her. “What are you, a shrink?”

  “Among other things.” She shrugged her shoulders. “After what I say next, I think you’ll have to ask yourself a very important question. If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, then I’d have to say you’re off to a very good start.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Theo, I know there is one thing that you haven’t heard from me yet that you need to, but you’ll never admit it.”

  “There is?”

  “Stop playing dumb, it’s unbecoming.” She smirked and her face straightened to complete seriousness. “I forgive you.”

  Damn, were all women this confusing? “But you said I didn’t do anything.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t. You believe you did, so I forgive you,” she paused. “The question is can you forgive yourself?”

  “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “Now I think we’re getting somewhere.” Her eyes twinkled, but her lips remained in a firm line. “So you forgive yourself?”

  Leaning forward, staring down at the table with my hands in my hair, I thought about that for a moment. Logically, I knew everything that happened had been out of my hands. Psychologically, I felt I had failed, as if there was more I could have done. Could I really forgive myself for that? What’s more, could I move on and give myself the life I knew my men would have had, honoring them as I did?

  “The short answer should be ‘yes’,” I said. “The long answer is that it’s a hell of a lot more complicated, but I think I can learn to.”

  “Good. That’s all I want to hear.” With that, Kayla got to her feet again and proceeded to walk toward the back door, while I watched on. As she reached the exit to the kitchen, she looked at me over her shoulder. “Take care of her. She’s my sister in every sense but blood, and I’ll cut your dick off with a dull, rusty Ka-bar if you ever hurt her, you hear?” And then she was gone.

  Chapter 25

  Kayla’s words played over and over in my head.

  Could I forgive myself?

  Well wasn’t that the crux of it all!

  Sitting at the table as I pondered this, I realized I was no longer alone when soft hands ran over my back to pause onto my shoulders with a light squeeze. Morgan didn’t need to speak for me to know it was her.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Not after the way I spoke to you.”

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Theo.”

  “So it seems. You should be running in the other direction. You’ve had more than enough to deal with for a lifetime.”

  “I’m a big girl.”

  “I think I get it.” I grabbed her hand and held it, pushing my chair back and pulling her so she sat on my lap. She studied my face, grasping each side with her hands in a tender manner before leaning in and pressing her forehead against mine. “I just don’t know if I can do it,” I whispered against her lips.

  “We’ll take it one day at a time. Now that you know that there’s no forgiveness to be given but your own, we can work on that. Just don’t push those who care about you away when you’re more deserving than any of us to be happy again.”

  “I want to be happy.” My lips grazed hers.

  “Then I promise I’ll try to make that happen, baby.” And she sealed her vow with a light press of her mouth to mine.

  “You make it easier.” I pulled her in tight against me, causing her to wrap her arms around my shoulders as I clamped my mouth to hers, a hand of mine finding the back of her head, holding her in place as I set to devouring her mouth in an intense kiss that showed her how much she affected me.

  The place was quiet, the rain pinged at the windowpanes, loaning to the feel that we were the only ones in the world. I had Morgan cradled against me, her head on my shoulder with the knit throw covering our nakedness on the couch. It was a little piece of heaven.

  Morgan’s hand ran up my chest, her fingers playing over the tattoo that lay between my pecks, climbing over my collarbones. She sighed.

  “That sounded loaded,” I remarked.

  “Not at all.” She lifted her head and kissed my chin. “I was just thinking about how it’s been one hell of a day. I know I should go home, but-”

  “Don’t go.” It sounded like a plea even to my ears. “I mean, you can stay, I want you here.”

  “With the way you left, Kayla going after you, and then Savi leaving so I ended up chasing her here, I never had time to lock the house up. I have to go and-”

  I kissed her before she could finish. “It’s okay.”

  “Come with me.” Her eyes displayed guarded hope that I would and my mouth ran dry, unsure of what my next move should be. “I promise I won’t hit you with another two-by-four. I’m really sorry about that, by the way.”

  I laughed easily as I pressed my lips to her forehead. “Are you sure?” My eyes studied her face for any note of doubt to her invitation. “I might never leave.”

  She kissed the left side of my chest. “Would that be so bad?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t looking for forever?” I said, bemused.

  “It’s not.” Her eyes sparkled and she smirked. “It’s right now.” She climbed over me, straddling my hips, her hands on either side of my head and leaned forward. “No one knows where we’ll be tomorrow, a year, or twenty from now, Theo.”

  My hands roamed over her thighs, up to her sides, my thumbs rubbing just below her ample breasts. “Yeah, but we’ve got a small problem, Morg.” She recoiled at that, sat up and stared down at me. When she m
ade to get off of me, I grabbed her hips and pulled her back down, grinding my pelvis into hers. Her eyes glazed over. I lifted my hand up and tucked a few loose strands of her hair behind her ear. “Oh yes, a little problem.”

  “And what’s that?” Morgan’s hands were braced on my stomach.

  I grabbed her wrists, pulled her down towards me and with a swift twist of my hips, I managed to flip us so she lay on her back under me, and I nuzzled at her ear before whispering the next. “What if I end up wanting forever?”

  Chapter 26

  Finding a soft warm body pressed against mine the next morning, and every morning for a week afterward, was new for me. Morgan’s tight ass pressed into my crotch certainly did things for my libido, and as each day passed, I became increasingly aware of how happy a simple thing as having someone to wake up to made me.

  Much to my regret, I left Morgan’s sleep-warmed form, headed for the bathroom to take care of business, then made my way to the kitchen, hitting the percolator’s on button on my way to the fridge.

  Once fed, I headed out to check on things and greet the crew of guys that would be showing up to finish the outside component of Morgan’s upstairs addition today. It wasn’t until I’d entered the old barn I’d been storing some tools and equipment in that I knew something was up.

  What the fuck?

  My temper was still at its edge as I neared Morgan’s drive with more provisions from the hardware store, to replace the damaged items I’d found in her barn this morning. I’d spoken with my workers only to get nowhere. No one knew anything, and no one tipped my radar as guilty either.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I checked my rear view mirror. Something didn’t feel right when I spotted an older red Ford pickup truck, which had been behind me since my hitting the outskirts of town.

  As I turned to pull up Morgan’s driveway, the tanker in question – which had slowed down – sped up and drove past the turnoff and kept going before I could get a license plate number or attempt at recognizing the driver.