The Homecoming Queen Gets Her Man

by Shirley Jump

  His jaw hardened. His eyes narrowed. His shoulders tensed. For a second, she thought he was going to march off and leave her there.

  “Quit pushing me, Meri. Just leave me alone.”

  “Is that what you really want, Jack Barlow? Because I can sure as hell walk away and leave you alone forever. Yes, you went through hell in the war, but that doesn’t give you a pass to treat everyone around you like crap.” She turned on her heel.

  Jack reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go, please.”

  She bit her lower lip, debating. “Why?”

  “Because you’re right—I’ve been an ass. In fact, most days I perfect the art of being a jerk.” He toed at the grass. “But you don’t understand, I just...I don’t see the world the same way I used to.”

  “Then tell me, Jack. Don’t shut me out. We used to be friends, remember? Before everything else.”

  “You don’t want to hear my stories. Hell, I don’t even think I want to talk about them.”

  She thought about Grandpa’s words. Of how Grandma had waited and cared and how that mix of patience and love had finally healed her grandfather’s wounds. Jack deserved the same, and maybe she could help him get there.

  Not because she loved him, of course, but because he was an old, dear friend. Because they had both lost someone they loved, and they both had scars the world didn’t see. Nothing more.

  “Talk to me, Jack. Please.”

  He stood there a long time, silent for so long she almost gave up. Then finally the words began to drip out of him, slow, quiet, edged with pain. “Do you know what I see when I look out there?” He pointed toward the forest.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Trees? Squirrels?”

  “I see hiding places for snipers. I see dark, ominous mounds that are concealing an IED. I see bodies under the fallen logs, danger around the corner and men waiting to kill the troops I’m supposed to protect. I see death, Meri. Death and danger and hell.”

  “Jack, it’s just trees. There’s—”

  “Don’t you understand? Nothing is just anything to me, not anymore. Every car backfiring is an explosion in my head. Every man who glances at me is a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest. I hear a plane fly overhead and I have to fight the urge to dive for cover because I’m waiting to hear the whistle of a bomb just before it hits the ground.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, then shook his head. “I’m not the same anymore, and I never will be. So stop trying to re-create something that is gone. Dead.”

  The harsh tone sent her back a few steps. She glanced again at the woods, trying to see what he saw, trying to imagine what had happened on the other side of the world. Trying to put herself in his shoes, in the eyes and life of a man who had witnessed unspeakable tragedies in a hot desert on the other side of the world.

  Then her hand fluttered to her scar, fingers sliding along that indented crescent shape, and she understood. “I can’t pretend that I know what you went through over there. How many nightmares haunt your dreams, but I want to tell you that I...understand.”

  He scoffed. “How can you understand? How can anyone understand? I went through hell, Meri. Talking about it doesn’t make it go away. All it does is bring it all back up again, like bile waiting in my gut. So quit trying to make it easier.”

  The harsh words were a wall, designed to push her away. But she stayed, recognizing in Jack some of the same pain that had haunted her in the months since the attack. “Okay, maybe you don’t want to talk about what happened to you, and I get that. But let me talk to you about me. About what I see when I look in the woods.”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply, she just kept going, the words escaping her in a small, tight whisper. “I see a man with a knife waiting for me to round the corner. I hear the sound of his breathing, heavy, fat, while he’s waiting. But I’m too focused on getting the shot, on my job, to see him, to process what is about to happen. I see his shoes first, and they’re so white against the dark night, the buildings I’m trying to frame against a waning light. I stay where I am, though, thinking he’s going to keep going. But he doesn’t, and then I see a flash of silver, and by the time I process it, realize it’s a blade, it’s too late, and I can’t move, I can’t scream, I can’t...”

  She sucked in a breath, steadied herself. “I can’t do anything to stop it.”

  “Oh, Meri...” Jack reached for her, but she stepped back.

  “I didn’t tell you because I need someone to hold my hand or tell me it’s all going to be okay. I know all that. I know, with time, it’ll get easier and I’ll be okay. That’s why I’m here, to take care of my grandfather, and to take care of me.” She reached for Jack’s hand and held it tight with her own. “I told you because you need to know you aren’t the only one afraid to look at the woods.”

  “I’m not afraid.” He shook his head. “That’s not my problem.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re terrified that if you let whatever is in the woods, those deep, dark woods in your head—” she cupped his cheek “—if you let all that come back into your life, you won’t be able to deal with it.”

  Jack stayed silent.

  “Do you remember what Eli used to say?”

  Jack’s face pinched. “Why are you bringing him up?”

  “Because we both loved him, and we both miss him.”

  “I’m done talking about this. I’m going to get some dessert.”

  Jack started to turn away, but she stopped him. “Eli used to say that the only way to beat the monsters in the closet was to talk about them. He was right. Whatever demons you are holding in here—” she placed a hand on his chest, where the steady thump-thump of his heart beat against her palm “—are going to keep on haunting you until you talk about them.”

  He scowled and jerked away. “What are you, my psychiatrist? The army already gave me one of those. Didn’t do me a damned bit of good. In fact, they’ve given me a whole truckful of psychologists since I got back. I don’t need another one.”

  She’d been wrong. She wasn’t the right one to bring Jack out of this hole. She wasn’t her grandmother and he wasn’t Grandpa Ray. She should just let it go and quit trying to save a cause that didn’t want to be saved.

  “No, Jack. I’m just your friend. Last I checked, those didn’t come by the truckful, so maybe you should stop trying to drive away the few you do have.”

  * * *

  The worms, squirming in their dirt display and wriggling against the glass case, almost made Meri turn back. After the crickets she’d seen earlier, she wasn’t so sure this was the best idea she’d ever had.

  No, she was doing this. She’d told Jack to face what scared him most. It was time she did the same—even if her fears were only a few inches long and squirming in some dirt.

  “I’ll take a dozen,” she said to Big Joe, a hearty beer-barreled man who fit his name. He’d owned Big Joe’s Tackle and Bait for as long as anyone in Stone Gap could remember.

  He thumbed at his suspenders and considered the squirmers in the refrigerated case. “You planning on doing some serious fishing, you might want to get two dozen.”

  Serious fishing? She hadn’t done any fishing. Ever. But serious sounded like a good plan, so she nodded and said, “Two dozen it is.”

  He scooped the worms into a white paper container, then poked some holes into a lid and slapped it on top before handing it to Meri. She swore she could feel the worms squirming against the sides, trying to get out. Ew.

  “You Anna Lee Prescott’s daughter?” Big Joe asked. “The one that used to do all those beauty pageants?”

  “Yes.” The scar arcing across her face seemed to burn, like a scarlet letter announcing that she was no longer a beauty queen. “But I don’t do pageants anymore.”

  “I can’t blame you. Ain’t
nothing I hate more than getting gussied up. My wife’s lucky I change my shirt for Sunday church.” He chuckled. “I gotta say, I never took you for the fishing type.”

  “I’m not. Or, I haven’t been. But I plan on being the fishing type now.” She held up the container of worms and tried not to be grossed out by the soft sound of them wriggling along the inside of the paper walls.

  When she’d been a young girl, she’d tried to be like everyone else—tried to be a tomboy who climbed trees and played in mud. She’d skinned a few knees, scraped a few elbows, but as she got older, she’d realized she had to make a choice: either take the pageants seriously or defy her mother outright and go off on her own path. Meri had caved to the pageant world, and her momentary brush with adventures had stopped. She’d focused on keeping every inch of her body perfect, show ready.

  Now she was hungry, as if she’d walked into an all-you-can-eat restaurant. She wanted every one of those things she had denied herself for so long, all those activities she had watched her friends do years ago. She might be a little late to the party, but that wasn’t going to stop her now.

  “Yup, I’m definitely going to be the fishing type now.”

  “Then you’re gonna need a few supplies,” Big Joe said.

  By the time Meri left, she had a new fishing reel, a small tackle box with a few tools, a khaki-colored vest to hold what, she wasn’t quite sure, and a thick book that was akin to Fishing for Dummies. She set the container of worms on the passenger seat and kept glancing at it on the short ride back to Grandpa Ray’s, sure that the worms were going to crawl out at any moment. But nothing earthly escaped. Thank God.

  “Grandpa, I’ve got the bait,” she called as she entered the dim cottage. “Are you ready to go?”

  Grandpa waved to her from his recliner in the living room. An old black-and-white war movie played on the television in front of him. “Oh, Merry Girl, I’m sorry to say I’m not feeling so well, after all. I’m fixing to take a nap.”

  She crossed to him and put a hand on his forehead. His skin was cool, his color a little pale. “Are you okay?”

  “Just worn out from a busy few days. Nothing a little sleep won’t cure.”

  “We can go fishing another day. No problem.”

  “What, and let some perfectly good worms go to waste? No, no, you go fishing.”

  “By myself?” She laughed. “I have no idea how to bait a hook or cast a line or anything else. With my luck, I’ll probably end up hooking my own thumb.”

  “Then ask Jack to go along. He’s been working too hard as it is. He’s been out in the heat all day, working on that cranky lawn mower of mine. He needs a break.”

  Ask Jack? After the way things had ended on Sunday night at his mother’s house, she didn’t think that was a good idea. She’d left immediately after their argument in the yard, skipping out on the apple crumble, after all.

  Then she thought of that kiss the other day—that OMG-amazing kiss—that had seemed to say Jack was interested in her, wasn’t trying to push her away. For heaven’s sake, she was getting so many mixed messages from the man, maybe she should just avoid him altogether.

  She’d tried going out with her camera this morning and never even took the Nikon out of the bag. Hence the fishing, which at least got her out into the nature she loved but didn’t force her to move past that wall that hit her every time she looked at the camera bag.

  “Jack won’t go fishing with me,” Meri said. “We...haven’t exactly been getting along lately.”

  Grandpa Ray considered that. “Then I guess you’re going to have to bring out the big guns. Tell him I’ll let him take my brand-new ultralight spinning rig. He’s been eyeing that thing ever since I bought it, and ever since I caught a nice twenty-pound largemouth bass with it. Fisherman envy will get Jack out on the boat, guaranteed. That, and I bet he’d be willing to bait those hooks for you, too, unless you’re fixin’ to put those squirming suckers on the hook yourself.”

  She didn’t think any kind of fishing pole was going to change Jack’s mind, but the thought of going alone on her very first fishing trip didn’t sound like fun. Nor did the thought of baiting the hooks. She’d apparently forgotten that very important step when she’d bought live bait. Should have gone with the fake worms instead.

  She considered forgetting the fishing altogether, then decided she only had so much time in Stone Gap, and she wanted to make use of every moment she could—doing all the things she had avoided for too long, because they weren’t ladylike or would risk her getting a cut or sunburn or something else horrifying to her mother.

  “I know he’s a bear,” Grandpa said, “but if you give Jack a chance...”

  “I’ve already given him thirty chances.”

  “Well, maybe he needs thirty-one. He’s a man, after all, and sometimes our kind is too stubborn for our own good.”

  “You have a point.” She pressed a kiss to her grandfather’s cheek. “Thanks, Grandpa.”

  She gathered up the pile of supplies she’d bought at Big Joe’s, slid on the vest, then headed outside and toward the lake. Jack was just coming out of the shed, wiping his hands on a rag. He saw her—and started to laugh.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Going fishing.”

  He cast a glance over her attire, then at the pole in her hands and the container of bait dangling from two fingers. “Let me guess. Big Joe told you that you should have all this crap?”

  “Well...yeah.”

  “You know what you need to go fishing?” Jack stuffed the rag into his back pocket, then took two steps closer to her. “A line, some bait and a hell of a lot of patience. You’ve got two out of three.”

  She glanced down at the gear in her hands. “I thought I bought everything I needed at Joe’s.”

  “You did.” He took another step closer and her pulse accelerated. “You’re just missing the patience part.”

  She waved him off. “I’m patient.”

  At that, Jack laughed. Heartily. “You? You’re the one Merriam-Webster uses as the poster child for impatient.”

  “Maybe I was that way when I was younger, but not anymore.” This time, she was the one who moved into his space, raising her chin to his. “And I can prove it to you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Prove it? How?”

  The way he said the words, dark and low, sent a tremor through Meri. Who was she kidding? She’d never gotten over him. Every time she was around him, she was a teenager again, with her heart flippity-flopping in her chest and her breath getting caught in her throat. She was kidding herself if she thought this was just about baiting a hook or getting Jack out of a bad mood. This was about Jack Barlow and her, and unfinished business. “Go fishing with me,” she said. “And I’ll show you how patient I can be.”

  “Go fishing. With you. Today.”

  She nodded. “Put down those tools. Put away that to-do list, and just float around the lake with me for the rest of the afternoon. Whoever catches the most fish wins.”

  A smile curved up one side of his face. “Wins what?”

  She thought about it for a second. “How about lunch?”

  “I already ate. And besides, a grilled cheese sandwich or a turkey club isn’t exactly high stakes, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Is that what this is going to be? High-stakes fishing?”

  His gaze swept over her, those blue eyes filled with a tease and a temptation. “If you’re going to challenge me with something, Meri Prescott, be prepared to take it all the way.”

  Heat coiled in her belly, flushed on her chest. “And, uh, how far do you want to take this?”

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “Loser dives into the lake—”

  “I can handle that.”

  “Naked.”

  A heartbeat passed between
them. She swallowed hard. “Naked?”

  His grin widened. “Hasn’t Miss America ever gone skinny-dipping?”

  “Don’t call me that. I was never Miss America. And no, I’ve never gone skinny-dipping. Either way, I don’t plan on doing that.” At least not with him. Because getting naked in front of Jack Barlow would be far too tempting.

  He took the rod from her and leaned in to whisper in her ear, sending a shiver of temptation all the way to her toes. “Then I suggest you catch one hell of a big fish.”

  Chapter Nine

  He really needed to start thinking before he opened his mouth. In the military, Jack had never made a move without calculating the odds and weighing the risks and rewards. On tour, his mind was a constant whir of assessment of the buildings, people and routes around him. The mantle of leadership had sat heavy on his shoulders, coloring every thought, every choice.

  But when Meri stood in front of him, with that lilt in her smile and that sparkle in her eyes, all coherent thought went out the window. His wants and needs became very simple. Make her smile more. Hear her laugh. And most of all, find a way to make her stay.

  He was clearly a masochist. Because every time he saw Meri, he thought of Eli, and when he thought of Eli—

  Jack wanted to crawl into a dark, cold cave. The guilt, the regret, piled on his chest until he felt as if he was swimming through a thick soup, trying to find his way to the surface before the weight of the water dragged him down again.

  Then Meri would smile at him and it was like the sun parting the clouds. The darkness would ebb, the panther would step into the shadows and he had a peek again at the life he could have. If only.

  “Okay, how do we do this again?” Meri stood on the dock, looking unsure and nervous, still wearing that ridiculous vest. It was kinda cute, he thought, and only accented the cleavage beneath her tank top and the long peachy length of her legs under her denim shorts.

  “You just step off and into the boat. I’ll keep it steady.” From his seat at the stern of the skiff, he gripped the edge of the dock, then nodded toward her. “Trust me, Meri.”