A Soldier Saved--A Clean Romance

by Cheryl Harper

  Dissatisfied with his answer, Angela took one of the pastries, the ooze of filling landing on her thumb before she managed to get it to her mouth. To avoid a mess, she put the bite-size pastry in her mouth and then licked off the filling. An explosion of tart guava caught her off guard.

  As she chewed, she closed her eyes because the whole experience was sweet. This place. This perfect bite. And when she opened her eyes, her companion on the bench was watching her closely.

  “Delicious.” Angela pointed at the bag. “Dangerous.”

  He nodded. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.” His tone. His eyes locked to hers.

  As little as she knew about flirting with men who weren’t Rodney Simmons, Angela was certain Jason wanted to kiss her. Right there, in that perfect moment, did a kiss make any sense? It was the only way to make something so perfect any better.

  Before she could scoot closer to him, one thought flitted through her brain.

  He’s a student. For two more weeks, you have no business kissing him.

  Ignoring her ethics or the voice of her conscience or whatever it was that kept her from making bad, but exciting decisions, would have been easy.

  The loud blare of horns and drums from the stage was her first speed bump.

  The second bump brought her to a stop.

  “You kids are missing everything over here,” Mae Ward said from her spot behind the bench. “The whole world’s having a party and you’re gathered by the appetizers.” She motioned at their empty sacks. “You ate all the appetizers, more like.”

  They had to wait to answer while the emcee of the afternoon’s concert rolled off the names of the acts who would be appearing on the small stage.

  “Time to get up.” His mother made a herding motion with her hands. “There’s dancing going on, children.”

  Ready to give it a shot, if only to spend more time in this daydream, Angela turned to Jason.

  The scowl was back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HAD IT BEEN an hour already? Jason stared over his shoulder at his mother, biting back the question. It hadn’t been. She’d spotted them and made up her mind that they needed to make a change.

  And, in the process, had robbed him of the perfect chance to kiss Angela.

  No one could have blamed them.

  Could he get the moment back?

  “We’re fine here. Thank you.” He would have tried to make a subtle “beat it” motion with his head, but she would have asked what was wrong with his neck.

  As he watched his mother brace her hands on her hips, a sinking sensation settled in his gut. She wasn’t going to drop this. She’d decided something should be done for his “own good.” When she got that notion, nothing changed it.

  One small hope remained. Angela might want to stay right here with him.

  That would save him the awkward duty of wiggling out of dancing.

  Since he was barely managing walking on the prosthesis—the occasional swelling that still struck when he tried to do too much combined with the day’s heat had given him fits just that morning—he was certain dancing would be a bad adventure.

  Humiliation was to be avoided at all cost.

  Before he could frame the question in a way that would convince her that she didn’t really want to go out there and move around in the heat with half of Miami, Angela said, “Salsa. They’re teaching beginners. It could be fun.” Her eyes were bright. Excited.

  Her answer hung in the air while he occupied himself with carefully folding his bag of leftover pastries. He could humiliate himself by rudely extracting himself from this spot, or by dancing. Small group versus large group.

  While his mother watched with a worried frown and Angela waited, he had to make a decision. He could refuse and walk away, leaving behind the smell of weird and antisocial as he escaped.

  Or he could give this a shot.

  “Don’t lose this bag.” He shoved the pastries at his mother and held his hand out to Angela. “One dance. I’m in this for one.”

  They both beamed at him like he was a hero.

  Angela waved her phone at his mother. “Can you take a picture? Only if we’re good enough. When I trip over my feet and drag Jason down with me, make sure the camera is off.”

  “No falling.” Jason had to put that out in the universe.

  “Since my middle name is not grace, I can’t make you any promises.” Angela tugged him over to the small group of kids and seniors rocking forward and back while a beautiful woman in a short dress and heels counted to eight and clapped in time.

  “Back together. Rest on four and eight,” she yelled.

  The upside to realizing he’d forgotten how to count to eight on his own was that Angela had her head down, frowning with concentration as she watched each step. All of his stutter steps and landing behind the beat meant nothing to her. She was fighting her own battle.

  “Now we try with partners,” the dancer leading the how-to yelled. “Find a partner.”

  Angela’s grin was huge and he couldn’t help but answer it as she slipped into his arms. They mimicked the stance required and slowly practiced the back-and-forth, the lead and the follow.

  “This is fun,” she said in his ear. The music and chatter of conversation meant she had to step close. The buzz of her voice tingled down his spine and he broke the hold to pull her closer. They managed to keep on the beat but totally ignored the teacher’s demonstration of the next progression. Right here was enough for him, and Angela didn’t object.

  “Oh, your mother is taking a picture.” Angela shook her head. “Greer is never going to believe I did this without one.”

  The music changed. The horns grew louder, so Jason decided to move them away from the stage. He wanted time with Angela, not hearing loss.

  And this was when it always happened. He got too comfortable, stopped being so careful. He was falling before he knew it and landed on the scrubby grass with an undignified curse.

  “That rock. It jumped out and got you.” Angela offered him her hand. “I saw it. I can pick it out of a lineup if you want to press charges.”

  As if she had any hope of getting him off the ground.

  He would have smiled, but the music was too loud, the heat was unbearable, and his heart was pounding in his chest.

  Before he could work through the slow process he’d taught himself for when he fell, he was surrounded on all sides by men. In half a second, they’d hoisted him to standing, patted his back and brushed off the grass, and returned to their partners.

  The disorientation was still with him. The weird heaviness in his muscles that came with the shock of every fall.

  Anger that this was his life now and forever welled up. Staying here would double his chance of losing control.

  More than anything, he wanted to sit somewhere cool and quiet. He needed space.

  His mother was frozen in the background. Angela held her hand out, ready to go back to their elementary salsa dance.

  “Actually, the heat is getting to me.” He rubbed his stomach. “Too much cream cheese, I guess.” He didn’t meet Angela’s stare. The pinch of settling in on the prosthesis had gotten familiar, but he couldn’t point to it and tell himself it was right. That little twinge would go away. “And I have some homework to catch up on. Wouldn’t want to fail my class.”

  He didn’t want to see her disappointment, so Jason turned away from Angela and did his best not to limp as he walked toward his mother. “Meet me where I dropped you off, in ten minutes. Can you tell time, Mom?”

  She pursed her lips and nodded once, annoyance clear in the high color on her cheeks.

  Jason turned back to try some halfway normal goodbye, but Angela followed him. “Are you okay? Did you twist something when you fell?”

  “I’ll walk it off.” Determined to get out of there withou
t more embarrassment, Jason steadily, slowly, carefully walked off.

  All the way to his truck, a loud conversation in his head tumbled his “should have” and “why didn’t I” thoughts. Back in the truck, with the air-conditioning full blast, Jason took stock. His knee ached. There would be a bruise, smaller than the dent to his ego.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHAT HAD HAPPENED? They’d been having a great time.

  Or she had.

  Angela chewed her lip and considered chasing Jason down to demand an explanation.

  But he didn’t owe her that.

  “Sunny to thundershowers like the weather around here,” Mae murmured. “Sorry about that. You young people were doing fine on your bench. I shouldn’t have interfered.” She offered Angela her phone. “I did get a real cute shot of the two of you, you with a grin to light up the dark, for sure.”

  Angela slipped her phone in her pocket and studied Mae Ward’s face. If she didn’t know better, Angela would assume everything was fine. “If you and I synchronized our calendars, it would be less of a surprise the next time we run into each other.” Clever. She was hoping for clever.

  Because the fact that her feelings were hurt by Jason’s cold shoulder would be an awkward conversation to have with the man’s mother.

  “Children are a challenge, Angela. The challenge changes when they’re grown, but it does not disappear.” Mae tipped her chin up. “I taught him manners, but I can’t enforce them the way I used to.”

  Angela shaded her eyes to check on Jason’s progress, but he’d turned a corner. “I understand. My daughter thinks she’s the mother now. I get how we lose control once they learn to drive.”

  Then she noticed Mae’s face. She was worried about her son. Angela was confused and a little annoyed. A grown man could recover from tripping in public without running away. “Should we go after him?”

  Mae snorted. “No. The answer to that is a certain no. That boy is a carbon copy of his daddy. Better give him some space to realize how silly he’s being, and so stubborn.” The jut of her chin suggested some of Jason’s stubborn nature had come from her.

  “It’s nice to be able to blame all my daughter’s problems on her father. I mean, they do belong squarely on his shoulders, even if I’m the one who moved hours away from her.” The lump in her stomach hurt. She didn’t understand Jason’s anger. Her mouth was dry.

  Mae sighed. “Well, now, if we’re going to go for true confession time, I might bear a pinch of the blame for the fact that Jason is determined to never be seen as weak. I must have told him a thousand different times when he was growing up that Wards don’t cry over spilled milk.”

  Angela tangled her fingers together as she watched Mae shift back and forth on her feet.

  Then she realized that the responsibility for a lot of Greer’s concern for her landed squarely on her own shoulders, too. She’d taught her daughter to always have a plan. It made perfect sense she’d build a to-do list to fix Angela.

  “But I’ll undo some of that if it’s the last thing I do.” Mae’s eyes met Angela’s. “You still have time, too.”

  It was hard to pretend they didn’t understand each other after that. They were both mothers. They’d both done the best they could for their kids and still had to face the realization that they’d failed, left some weak spots.

  “When he was a boy, he was the one in his group with his head on straight. Some of the wildest kids you ever met came out of Rosette High School and I had a front-row seat to watch all that. But Jason, he could calm down situations or encourage kids who needed it. He was the captain of every team he ever played on, not because he campaigned, but because other people trusted him to lead. All I ever wanted for him was everything. Not the army. Not...” She waved a hand as if she couldn’t continue.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t dream of him becoming an accountant, not really.” Angela squeezed her hands tightly together. She was out of her depth. If someone wanted to tell her that Greer couldn’t make her dreams come true, Angela would make them regret it. They would fail and regret attempting that conversation forever.

  But she’d never imagine she could tell Greer what to dream for her life, either.

  “Jason is not meant for accounting,” Mae said and took her hat off to use it as a fan. Dark curls were flattened to her head. “I do know he’s stubborn. If I tell him one thing, he’ll do another.” Her shoulders slumped. “And right now, if I’m not pushing, he’s going to stop moving altogether.” Mae bit her lip and Angela fought the urge to jump into the silence. Whatever it was the woman wanted to say, she wasn’t sure she should.

  Angela knew this had to be it, the thing that caused Jason’s personality to change in a heartbeat when threatened with nothing more than college registration or dancing at a Cuban festival. This was his secret hurt and his mother was dying to say something about it.

  But Mae knew it wasn’t her place to tell.

  “I...” Angela rubbed her forehead as she planned her words. “I don’t know what it is that’s causing him this setback, but I’m going through life changes myself. It can knock you off your stride easily.” Angela waved her phone. “Thus, the posting of pictures on social media when I could not care any less about it.” She sniffed. “I could also be lying to myself, because this is such a pride thing for me.”

  Mae leaned forward quickly. “Go on. Pride?”

  Unnerved to have Mae’s close attention, Angela fiddled with the edge of her phone. “Yes. It’s one thing to be dissatisfied with my life. I don’t know if I am. I love my job and I’m doing what I’m meant to do. My poetry has been absent for a bit, but everything else is smooth. No bumps. My daughter and I talk every day, and she’s thriving. Everything that she wants is coming to her. Good job. Nice place to live. She’s a happy kid. There is nothing else to worry about.” She met Mae’s stare. “Then my ex-husband announced his engagement to his pregnant girlfriend in a social media post with the Eiffel Tower as backdrop. All of a sudden, I’m just...”

  Angela shook her head. She couldn’t admit her obsession with daily updates or fears that Greer would be unhappy, or worse, so happy that she’d never want to visit Miami again. Selfish. These worries in her head were so selfish.

  Mae patted her shoulder. “That is a lot to absorb, honey. I don’t blame you for losing your footing.”

  Relieved, Angela said, “You don’t? I mean, it’s all good.” For them. It was all good for them. “And it shouldn’t have an effect on me.” It shouldn’t, but somehow it did? And if she could figure that part out, she could solve her own stupid problem.

  “That’s bound to have some ripples.” Mae nodded. “And this world is determined to tell every woman over... I don’t know, sixteen, that a good man could end all her troubles. Your daughter wants you to be in love, am I right?”

  Angela closed her eyes. “Yes, and that’s the last thing I want to reinforce in my daughter’s head.”

  “Yeah, sons never mention that, and the suggestion you might go on a singles’ cruise gives them indigestion.” Mae’s long sigh provoked a smile. It was the world-weary tone of a woman who’d been down that road too many times. “Try standing in the funeral home and forcing yourself not to murder a Sunday school teacher for listing all the single men your age in the church. At my husband’s service. It was a good thing I was so shocked. Otherwise, I’d have a mug shot and a wild story to tell about beating someone with a guest book. Rosette, Georgia, would still be whispering about me in scandalized tones.” Her eyes met Angela’s. It was a horrifying story but the perfect illustration to her point. Mae’s chuckle made it okay to laugh out loud.

  “I’m glad you didn’t have to do jail time, Mae.” Angela wiped the tears under her lashes away. “It’s so ridiculous.”

  Mae agreed. “It is. Doesn’t mean they don’t have a point, though.”

  Angela rolled her eyes. �
��Not you, too!”

  “I do still have a son that admires you. A lot. And since he’s the most handsome man in these United States and a military hero to boot, it’s my duty as your friend to make sure you don’t miss your shot.” Mae waved her hand nonchalantly. “It’s a favor from me to you. Also, I’ve done life both ways. Lots to be said about finding the man who makes all that good stuff so much better.”

  Angela rubbed her forehead. The heat was overwhelming. Jason was the only one of them with any sense. “He’s great, but his mood changes are...” What? What did they mean? “I wish I understood them.”

  “Military. Post-traumatic stress disorder. This loss veterans have when they leave the service, like the world drops away and everything they’ve relied on is gone. You don’t have to know Jason at all to understand how that can change a person’s mood, right?” Mae said. Her lips were firm. This was a fight that mattered to her.

  Angela studied her face. Mae was trying to tell her something important without telling her. “Right. I’ve seen news stories where people struggle with all those things. When Concord Court opened, there was an article that listed all the programs that would be offered to help veterans. Education. Employment. The owners work with the veterans’ hospital to help with care and recovery and even substance abuse. Correct?”

  Mae was watching, waiting. Did Jason need help with alcohol or drugs? Was that it? In Angela’s mind, that was the only reason he might not tell the world about whatever it was. Even if that was the case, he should have nothing to feel ashamed of if he was getting help.

  He’d hate being under the control of an addiction.

  “I guess I still don’t get it,” Angela said, frustrated because there was something that needed to be said and no one would say it. “And this reading between the lines to figure out the truth? I don’t want to do that now. I did it for almost twenty years with another guy and I am telling you, even if I’m alone every day until I disintegrate into dust, I don’t want to twist myself into knots anymore.”