Gifts of Honor: Starting from ScratchHero's Homecoming

by Gail, Stacy

  “Everything but the broccoli.”

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” The waitress passed by to hand out bills to her and Coe, and she stifled a sigh of relief as freedom came within reach. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  As discreetly as possible she handed some money and her check to Coe, who was heading for the line at the cash register. “I need air.”

  Coe didn’t ask why, merely nodded his head. “I’ll catch up.”

  Maybe it was time to give moving out of Bitterthorn some thought. Lucy frowned at the possibility as she paced outside The Dirty Duck, while her heart pounded and her chili began to fight back. She couldn’t pull off the act that everything was okay. She’d thought she could do it, but it was impossible. Sully might have said the divorce would make it like their marriage had never happened, but it wasn’t that way for her. God, she almost wished she was the one who had no memory of it. Then she wouldn’t look at him and suffer a flood of memories of what it was like to be held by him, kissed by him. Have him buried deep inside her as he whispered the sweetest, dirtiest things until her toes curled and she felt free to do anything she wanted...

  A hand shot out and caught her elbow. “You don’t have to run away every time I show up.”

  She almost jumped out of her skin before glaring at a stone-faced Sully. “I’m not running from anyone. I’m just trying to give you some space. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “I’m not going to thank you for that.”

  “You should. You should be on your damn knees thanking me for all the ways I’ve tried to make your life easier.” Then she clamped her lips shut to keep the rest of the bitterness from bubbling out. Great, now she knew what it was like to kick a man when he was down. “Even if you don’t want the personal space, you’ve got it, okay? So you might as well enjoy it.”

  “My problem is too much space—in between memories that don’t make sense in a life I feel like I’m failing at.” Frustration darkened his eyes while the fingers that gripped her elbow tightened. He seemed completely unaware this move pulled her closer. “You were an army wife for almost five years, right? Aren’t you supposed to be tougher than this?”

  Oh, he did not just go there, did he? “If you had even one memory of me, you’d never say that to my face without at least some running distance between us, pal.”

  “There we go.” A delighted smile suddenly flashed, and its heated edge shocked her. “There’s that fire that stopped me in my tracks earlier. I’d been wondering what I saw in the goody-two-shoes you’re always trying to be when you’re around me.”

  The unfairness of it all nearly choked her. “I’ve been doing exactly what the doctors told me to do to help you heal—treat you carefully, keep my voice down and not make any sudden moves for fear of upsetting you, apply no pressure and give you whatever room you needed.”

  “You don’t have to hide who you are from me. I’m not in the hospital anymore.”

  “And I’m not your wife anymore.” When the words hit the air, spoken out loud by her for the first time despite the fact that it had been a reality for months, it was like a punch in the gut. But she needed it, and by God it was time she started facing it. “From your standpoint you never even had a wife. You remember Lowell, you remember some random promise to mail presents to the family of an army buddy and countless other things. But you don’t remember me, so I can’t figure out why you’re even bothering to cross my path now.”

  “Lucy, I didn’t do this on purpose. You have no idea what it’s like to have missing pieces of your life staring you right in the face and there’s...nothing. No memory, no connection, no feeling. I have nothing but this frustrating sense of failure.”

  His words hit her like fists. She was the one staring him right in the face. She was the one for whom he felt nothing. She had to give him credit; he couldn’t have said it any plainer than that. “You’re right about one thing. I no longer run out of a room for fear of upsetting you. I’m now the one who needs her space. You think you’ve got it bad because you can’t remember me? Try turning it around. Imagine what it’s like knowing the person you promised you’d spend your life with can remember just about everyone else, except you.” Then she waved an impatient hand, angry at her near-slip into the pity pool. That was one place she’d never willingly go. “Look, forget it, all right? Like you said, you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and God knows I sure didn’t. You have no frigging clue how much I didn’t want this.”

  Confusion mingled with concern in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.” Again she waved him away. No way in hell was she about to tell him his decision to re-up—a decision that hadn’t included her—had cut them both to the quick. “Let’s just forget we had this little chat.”

  “Telling an amnesiac to forget something is a bad idea.” He pulled her closer still, until his body heat radiated through her clothes to sizzle against her skin. “I don’t want to do any more forgetting, Lucy. Not when it comes to you. You’re at the center of every goddamn blank spot in my head, and it’s driving me crazy. You’re driving me crazy, and when you run from me like you just did, I feel like—”

  “Yo, Luce.” As large and intimidating as a rabid Kodiak bear, Coe loomed up behind them. “This guy bothering you?”

  “Stay out of this.” In a heartbeat Sully looked every inch the deadly weapon his Special Forces training had molded him into. “This is a private party, between me and the woman who was once my wife.”

  “You can’t have it both ways.” With her internal emergency brake slipping into the off position, she jerked her arm free with a strength fueled by rage and soul-deep pain. “I don’t belong to you anymore. You gave me up. Long before this past summer, you gave me up. Find a way to cope.”

  With that, she stalked as fast as she could in the general direction of Coe, so blinded by furious tears she could barely see where she was going.

  * * *

  “It looks like the parade route circles around the town square, then heads down Ferdinand Boulevard and straight on to the mayor’s house.” Chugging along in Lowell’s dependable king-cab pickup, Sully traced the route outlined in the Bitterthorn Herald while his father sat behind the wheel. For the past couple of days since he’d had his disastrous meeting with Lucy, the weather had been overcast and oppressive—a perfect match for his mood. It was like he was waiting for something to break, only he didn’t know what. All he knew was that the anticipation made sleep impossible and his bizarre craving for cookies had become a thousand times worse.

  And then there was that jolt of panic that hit every time he remembered Lucy all but running from him.

  “It should be a good parade this year.” Lowell slowed to wave at someone strolling along the sidewalk fronting the burned-out and once-magnificent Thorne Mansion. “Its theme is welcoming home our troops. Kind of has an extra special meaning for me, you know? I’m so lucky to have you back home.”

  “I’m glad to be back where I belong.” Again the image of Lucy leaving him in front of The Dirty Duck shot through his mind, and any sense of belonging vanished. “This Christmas Ball thing. How long does it usually last?”

  “Three or four hours.” Lowell looked both ways at a four-way stop before heading past an antiques store and the bucolic town square. “But everyone would understand if you wanted to bug out early. Just because you’re the guest of honor doesn’t mean you have to stay the entire time.”

  “Have I ever attended this thing before?”

  “Once or twice. Whenever you were in town long enough to attend, Lucy stuffed you into your uniform and dragged you to it, just to make a proper appearance. You were never a very good sport about it, but she kept you on the straight and narrow.”

  “Lucy.” Always, it came back to Lucy. The woman with sky-blue eyes that lit with a fire she could no longer
keep hidden. As sorry as he was that he’d pushed her into showing him the real Lucy Crabtree, there was definitely something alluring in all that heat. “Dad, stop the car.”

  Lowell pulled over. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m hungry.” And they were outside Pauline’s Praline Sweet Shoppe.

  Lowell lifted a brow. “Hungry, huh?”

  “There’s no law saying I can’t have sweets for lunch.”

  “Uh-huh.” Not at all fooled, Lowell glanced at his watch. “I’m headed over to the hardware store and then Mabel’s, so feel free to go at your own pace. And tell Lucy that if she has the time, I would sure enjoy another box of Pfeffernüsse, since you ate them all.”

  “I don’t even know that I’ll see Lucy.” Or that she’d want to see him.

  “Just tell her, all right?”

  “Got it.” Though whether or not she’d be willing to listen was anyone’s guess. Of all the times he could recall seeing Lucy—when he’d awakened to find her cuddling his hand, the glimpses he saw of her through therapy, the meetings they’d endured to dissolve the legal ties binding them together—never once had he seen her cry. There had been signs of stress and strain, sure. But she’d always held her head high, her chin at an almost defiant tilt that hid whatever was going on inside.

  She’d kept everything hidden from him, he realized now while bitter regret burned a hole through his chest. The expression he’d glimpsed before she’d turned away was one of pure misery. It was a moment that had etched itself into his brain without mercy, because at the heart of that misery was him. His doctors and therapists had encouraged him to focus on getting better, so that was what he’d done. But while he’d been doing that, he’d turned a blind eye to just how much his injury had wounded everyone around him, including Lucy.

  What a selfish son of a bitch he had to be, to make a strong woman cry.

  Had she been shielding him all this time from that tidal wave of pain he’d witnessed, the pain of being forgotten? Of course she had, came the immediate answer that flayed him alive. She’d admitted as much. No wonder that asshole she hung out with called him fragile.

  Sully’s mood darkened even more at the thought of Coe. A not-completely-healthy need to hit something made Sully’s hands bunch into fists. Obviously Lucy thought he was fragile as well, since she’d worked so hard at shielding him from her pain. But fragile? What a laugh. Fragile was the one thing he wasn’t. What he needed were answers, and the feeling that his life was back under his control. But most of all he needed...needed...

  Cookies.

  Mouthwatering scents of sugar, vanilla and rich, creamy butter wrapped around him like a welcoming embrace when he pushed through the door. A bell chimed overhead and he looked around the front room with interest. Whitewashed wrought iron tables and chairs he associated with ice cream shops dotted the area, along with well-lit food cases that housed his idea of heaven. Fist-sized muffins, cupcakes, slices of cheesecake, brownies and every cookie under the sun took up two-thirds of the front room, while the other third displayed a dozen different flavors of homemade ice cream. Glass jars of pralines, divinity, peanut brittle and fudge were prominently displayed by the cash register, and behind the counter was an antique soda station, complete with wooden handle pulls that, back in the day, gave rise to the term “soda jerk.” A jar of stemmed maraschino cherries sat by the soda fountain, and without warning he recalled holding a stemmed cherry over the mouth of...someone...

  “Sully! Good to see you, young man.”

  His head snapped up to find a round man with a close-cropped white beard and a halo of white hair fast approaching. It took a second to get over the possibility that Santa Claus had found his way to Bitterthorn before a name surfaced.

  “Willard. Is that right?” With a grim smile, Sully shook the older man’s hand while hating his useless brain. It made no sense that he could remember ordinary people, but nothing of the woman he’d married. What sort of husband did that?

  The other man’s face lit up. “That’s it exactly! Are your memories coming back?”

  “Here and there.” Just nowhere near Lucy. “For instance, I think I’ve been in here before, haven’t I? It’s very familiar.”

  “It should be. When you were a senior in high school, you spent almost every afternoon at that corner table doing your homework and trying to flirt with Lucy.”

  Wistful yearning to remember even one of those moments joined the regret already eating away at him. “That sounds nice.”

  “You both seemed to enjoy it.”

  “Is Lucy working today?” The words were out before he could stop them, but when they hit his ears the ache inside eased. Even if he couldn’t remember her, the least he could do was apologize for making her cry.

  Is it that you don’t love me...

  If possible, Willard’s smile beamed brighter. “Of course she is. Go on back and surprise the girl. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to know you dropped in to see her.”

  Or murderous, but Sully kept that to himself as he made his way to the kitchen. Overhead through a speaker, Bing Crosby insisted it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Lucy, however, clearly wasn’t a fan of seasonal music, if the earbuds she had plugged in were any indication. She sat alone at a huge center workstation, bent over a rack of cutouts waiting to be decorated. Her apron was smeared with streaks of red, green, blue and yellow, and in her hand she expertly wielded a pastry bag of shiny white icing.

  The scent of vanilla hit him hard, and he closed his eyes as his world rocked. But this wasn’t the hated vertigo. This was something...important. This was what he’d been craving. This scent. This warmth.

  This woman.

  He didn’t remember crossing the room. Not that it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the maddening need to touch her. Taste her. Breathe her in and let her sink into every empty space he had, and pray to anyone listening that he could do the same for her.

  So focused on the cookie she was decorating, she didn’t look up until he pulled the earbuds free. Then her eyes went wide and she rocketed off the work stool.

  “Sullivan, what—”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to...” The half-formed apology vanished under the weight of need, and with a shudder of helplessness he brought his mouth down to hers.

  Chapter Five

  She had to be dreaming. Or maybe the stoves were malfunctioning, spewing fumes she hadn’t noticed, and she was actually lying on the floor unconscious. That made more sense than Sully appearing out of her confused thoughts to kiss her as if starved for the taste of her. For months she’d fantasized about this; Sully sweeping in to announce his memories had returned and would do anything to make amends for daring to forget her. That she was loved, and cherished, and she would never be alone again because he’d finally remembered that he adored her.

  Man, she loved that fantasy.

  Blindly she set aside the pastry bag, not caring where it landed. It wasn’t important. What was important was that she could once again sift her fingers through Sully’s hair, as soft as velvet and irresistibly thick. She had despaired she’d never again experience that sensation, or revel in the way he slanted his mouth against hers so that the seal was perfect. A shuddering breath escaped her, a dry sob she couldn’t help as happiness and relief pierced through her with such purity it bordered on painful. At long last, she could welcome him home the way she’d yearned to.

  One of his hands slid up the line of her spine to cradle the back of her head, supporting her under the onslaught of his devouring kiss. Wallowing in the sensation, she wrapped her arms around his powerful frame and prayed he felt how much she’d missed him in the strength of her embrace alone. More than anything she wanted him to focus on the here and now, and not her dreadful silence when he’d shipped out. The past didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d been
lucky enough to have him returned to her, perhaps not in one piece, but by God he was still breathing. Nothing was more important as that.

  His kiss was an open and unapologetic seduction. The crushed silk texture of his lips softened their granite-hard press, a press that conveyed without words a depthless hunger only she could satisfy. She could easily become drunk on his taste—clean and dark all at the same time, and the sensual flick of his tongue against hers had her breath catching somewhere between her heart and throat. She arched up, chasing a deeper sensation, and her mind faded under a blanket of bliss when her breasts flattened against the solid wall of his chest. The thunder of his pulse rocked her universe, matching the wild thrum of her own. The twin weights of grief and worry vanished as if they had never been, so much so she thought she might actually float off the ground if he hadn’t been holding on to her so tightly.

  He was home. At last, her man was home.

  A shudder rippled through him when she twined her tongue around his, a languorous move designed to both please and seek pleasure. When his lips curled against hers, her pulse skipped several beats. She’d almost forgotten what a rush it was to feel his delight as if it were her own, and she never wanted it to end.

  “Wow.” His fingers tightened on the restrictive bun she’d coiled her hair into, as if he were fighting the urge to tug it free. “If I’d known how mind-blowing it is to kiss you, I would have done it one hell of a lot sooner.”

  The reflexive burst of happiness that he’d found her kiss mind-blowing was eclipsed by the deeper meaning behind his words.

  If I had known...

  The giddy soaring of her soul slammed back down to earth like a meteor. It jolted her from the inside out, and with her brain insisting she was somehow stuck in a nightmare, she backed out of his arms and didn’t stop until she hit her work stool.