Here And Now (American Valor 2)

by Cheryl Etchison

  “I didn’t come all this way to talk about my shit.”

  “Why the fuck not? Personally, I’d love to hear about your shit. Hell, I’d love to hear about anybody else’s shit if only to not have to talk about mine for a while.” Having finished with whatever he was working on, Bull powered off his iPad and tossed it to the foot of his bed. “So what happened? Girl problems? I should probably tell you Gibby showed everyone your girl, by the way. Very pretty.”

  “How the hell did he do that?”

  “He recorded your Skype conversation.”

  Lucky felt his blood pressure spike. “He better not be using that video chat as inspiration, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “You’re afraid Gib is jacking off to her face?” Bull laughed. “Sounds like something he’d threaten to do, not that he’d ever really do it.”

  “Better not. I’ll castrate that fucker myself.”

  Bull adjusted his pillows and reclined his bed a bit. “So is the redhead your problem?”

  “Rachel? No.” Lucky kicked his feet up on the side of Bull’s bed. “She’s perfect. It’s everything else that’s fucked up right now. I quit my job at the hospital.” Bull shrugged. “About two seconds before they were going to fire me. Or reprimand me. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Fire you? Mr. Rules and Regs? What the fuck for?”

  Lucky spent the next ten minutes giving Bull the rundown on his new life as a college student and an ER tech. Or, to be more precise, former ER tech.

  “Well, that’s bullshit. But if it was a bullshit job, why does it matter? That won’t keep you from getting into med school, right?”

  “Probably not. But not doing more than cleaning up piss and vomit for five years? I don’t think I can handle it.”

  Bull folded his arms over his chest and stared at Lucky with a single-focus intensity. “You want back in.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Civilian life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Lucky dropped his feet from the bed rail and started to pace back and forth. “I’ve planned on being a doctor for as long as I can remember.”

  “That’s a little kid dream, man. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I thought if I made a lot of money it would bring happiness. And it did for a while. But in the end, it wasn’t fulfilling. So . . . what do you think will make you happy? What color is your parachute?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Lucky stopped in his tracks and laughed. “I can’t believe your giving me the ‘what do you want out of life’ speech.”

  “You think I’m not going through the same thing right now?” Bull waved a hand in the direction of what was left of his legs. “My military career is over. And as much as I hate that I didn’t get to choose when it ended, I’m sure as fuck thankful my mom is putting flowers on my bedside table instead of my grave.”

  What a self-centered prick he was. Whining about his classes. Whining about quitting a fucking job he didn’t need in the first place. Whining to a guy who had one hell of a mountain to climb. He wasn’t any better than those snot-nosed college kids after all.

  “You were one of the happiest guys I knew in regiment.”

  “I swear to God, Bull, if you call me ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ I’ll fucking shove you out of that bed and leave you there.”

  “Fair enough,” Bull said with a laugh before his expression turned serious. “But my point is, you didn’t leave the army because you hated it or couldn’t physically do it anymore. You left to try something new and you didn’t like it. So now the question is whether you continue down a path that you hope leads to happiness or turn around and go back to the path that guarantees it? The answer seems obvious to me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  AS MUCH AS she hated to admit it, Rachel wasn’t in the best of moods when she stopped by her parents’ house on Friday morning. But she wanted—no, needed—someone to talk to with about her current situation. For better or for worse, Lucky had become her most cherished confidant. And since he was the problem, that left her with only her mother to talk to.

  Thankfully, with the weather nice and unseasonably warm for being December, her father was working outside on one of his many cars, leaving her to talk to her mother in peace.

  Rachel shouldered through the front door and into the kitchen, where her mother stood at the sink washing a pan so old nearly all the nonstick had worn off of it. As she set the bags on the kitchen counter, she made a mental note to buy her mother some new pots and pans for Christmas. And maybe some new utensils to go along with. Despite how many hours her mother worked, nearly everything she owned was completely worn out.

  Rachel took off her coat and hung it on the back of the wooden chair, part of a small set she’d bought for them a few years before. “Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee while I put all of this away.”

  Her mother lifted one brow in suspicion, then reluctantly took a seat at the kitchen table. “You’re usually in a hurry to get out of here. Why the sudden need for chitchat?”

  Rachel shook her head as she poured her mother a cup of coffee and placed it on the table in front of her. “Maybe I wanted to spend some time with my mother. Especially since I don’t have anywhere I need to be just now, and I don’t have to put up with the cold shoulder from Dad.”

  She went about putting the groceries away as her mother drank her coffee. Although the room was quiet, her mind was whirring away as she second-guessed herself, wondering if she should just leave instead of talking about her love life. After all, her mother was right; she spent as little time as possible with her parents, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

  “Is he married?”

  Rachel spun around to her mother, who was nonchalantly blowing across the top of her coffee in order to cool it. “Why would you ask that?”

  “You’ve got that look on your face, so I know it’s about a man. And since I can practically see the nervous energy coming off of you, it must be something bad.”

  Having put away the last of the groceries, Rachel poured herself some coffee into a worn, chipped mug and took a seat across from her mother. “He’s not married. He’s very much single. He spent almost twelve years in the military and just got out this past summer. He’s working on his degree right now and plans on attending medical school next.”

  “I don’t see the problem, then. Lord knows men with grand ambitions are pretty rare around these parts.”

  “Well . . .” Rachel spun the mug around between her hands, unable to look her mom in the eyes. “He just quit his job at the hospital and he’s been gone a week. And I’m trying to give him time to think things through, but I’m worried . . .”

  Her mother shook her head. “And he’s not coming back.”

  “He just went to visit a friend in Washington, D.C. He’s coming back. He’s not like all the others.”

  As the words flowed out of her mouth, she wondered who she was trying to convince more—her mother or herself.

  “You best just accept that for women like us, men don’t feel the need to keep their promises, if they even bother making them in the first place. I’ve known men who promised to stop drinking, stop smoking, stop cheating. But all men do is lie. Whatever this guy is telling you . . . there is no happily-ever-after. It doesn’t get any better than this. Just be thankful this guy didn’t knock you up before he left town like your father did to me.”

  Rachel’s thoughts came to a sudden halt as she tried to replay what her mother just said. “What? What did you say?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Her mother took another sip of coffee.

  Rachel shot up from her chair. “The hell it doesn’t! You just said that my father got you pregnant and left town for good. My father is outside working on one of his stupid cars,” she said, pointing out the window over the sink.

  “No. Your father was a he
artless bastard who told me he loved me and your brothers. That he was going to take us away from this place. But he left without us instead.”

  “You had an affair?”

  Her mother simply shrugged her shoulders.

  “Does Dad know?”

  “He suspects it, although I’ve never admitted to anything.” Her mother pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lit a fresh cigarette, sucking hard before blowing a stream of smoke across the room. “Hardly makes a difference, does it?”

  A wave of nausea washed over Rachel, forcing her to grab hold of the chair back to keep from falling down. Thankfully, the dizziness didn’t last long and she grabbed her jacket and headed for the front door, practically running across the front yard to where she was parked. As she climbed into her truck and sped away, her thoughts shuffled through years of rumors and snide comments. Redheaded stepchild. The milkman’s daughter.

  A middle school science teacher once told her red hair was a quirky recessive trait that sometimes showed up out of nowhere when the gene was passed down from both parents. All of her brothers had blue eyes, just not the same vibrant color as hers. And there were baby pictures of her where she looked almost identical to her mom.

  For years that had been her defense whenever someone would ask why she didn’t look a thing like her brothers. Or especially her father.

  Upset and distracted, her subconscious brain took her to the same place she’d run to for the past several months. Only once she pulled into the drive and threw the truck into park did she realize Lucky wasn’t there.

  Rachel grabbed her phone from her purse and dialed his number. It was the first time she’d called him all week because she was trying to give him space. But she desperately needed just to hear his voice. To have him tell her everything would be okay.

  After dialing his number, she leaned her head on the steering wheel, silently praying he would answer. When her call was sent to voice mail, she couldn’t recall a time when she’d ever felt more alone.

  SINCE BULL’S APPOINTMENT with the prosthetist would last almost the entire morning, followed by X-rays in the afternoon, Lucky found himself at loose ends for most of the day. He returned to his hotel and considered ordering room service for lunch, but had no desire to stay cooped up in his room. He could go for his second run of the day in the hotel’s workout facility but chose instead to take Sylvie’s recommendation and do a little shopping at the outdoor mall across the street.

  With Christmas just weeks away, Lucky figured now was as good of a time as any to buy something for Brenda, as well as a gift for Rachel so she’d have something from him to open on Christmas Day. As far as his dad went, he was a small-town guy with small-town tastes. It was highly unlikely Lucky would find anything that would suit his old man here.

  As to be expected on a Friday during the holiday season, the stores and sidewalks were crowded with people carrying armloads of shopping bags. Colorful lights were strung from building to building, crisscrossing the open spaces high above the sidewalks. A high school choir sang carols on one of the terraces. A bell ringer dressed as Santa collected donations in a bright red kettle. Lastly, a thirty-foot spruce took center stage, decorated with hundreds of lights and topped with a yellow star.

  For a moment he considered taking a picture and sending it to Rachel since she’d sent him a picture of her tree earlier in the week. But he feared sending her a photo of it might be like rubbing salt in the wound.

  Sticking with his plan, the first place he stopped was a chocolatier where he loaded up on boxes of truffles. Some were to take back to Walter Reed, others to take back to Oklahoma, and the remainder were for the road trip home. From there he bought a few fancy dessert cookbooks for Brenda and a hand-knitted scarf and gloves for Rachel.

  He was on his way into a sandwich place when a familiar logo caught the corner of his eye. Lucky turned to take a second look only to realize he was standing in front of a recruitment office. He stood in the cold for what felt like a lifetime, staring through the plate-glass windows at the uniformed men working inside.

  His mind kept circling back to his conversation with Bull earlier in the day. When it came to his career, there was little doubt he was happier all those years he was in the 75th than he was now. He also knew he could make an immediate impact. His skills were far more needed in the military than in the civilian world. But if he did re-enlist, was he just postponing the inevitable? At some point he’d have to leave. He would reach a point that he wouldn’t be physically capable of meeting the minimum standards. And then what? He could be forty-five years old and retiring from the military and would find himself in the exact same position as he was now.

  The great unknown was whether or not Future Lucky would regret not finishing college and going on to become a doctor or be glad that he didn’t.

  The door in front of him swung open. “Would you like to come inside?” asked the marine recruiter. “Are you former military?”

  Lucky wondered what it was about him that made him ask. As far as he knew, he looked like any other Christmas shopper. And Lord knew he was definitely older than their target enlistment age. And yet . . .

  “Army.”

  “Hey, Sanders. This guy is former army,” the marine recruiter called out to his army counterpart. He was likely sensing they had one on the hook, or at the very least circling the bait. What they wanted to do next was reel him in.

  The sergeant dressed in the familiar gray-green ACUs came to the door and extended his hand. “Devon Sanders.”

  “Lucky James.”

  “Army, huh? How long were you in?”

  “Eleven years, five months. Been out about a hundred sixty days.”

  The sergeant smiled. “Oof. Not liking civilian life, I take it?”

  “Let’s just say it’s lacking in some ways.”

  The two men laughed and Lucky couldn’t help but wonder how many guys like him came around their office considering reenlistment.

  “Well, unfortunately, as you probably know, the army is downsizing in several areas. Depending upon your MOS there might not be anything we can do for you.”

  Lucky laughed to himself. “I don’t think that will be a problem. As a matter of fact, I can pretty much guarantee it won’t.”

  “Well, then, Lucky James. I have to admit I’m intrigued.” Sanders folded his arms over his chest. “Just what exactly did you do those eleven years and five months while serving your country?”

  He waited a moment, let the suspense build before he dropped it on them. “Sixty-eight whiskey in the 1st/75th.”

  The sergeant’s eyes widened. “Ranger Battalion.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lucky answered.

  “I believe you’re absolutely right about that. As a matter of fact, there’s a pretty good signing bonus for guys like you.” Sanders gestured toward the open door. “Want to come inside and see what your options look like?”

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and when he pulled it out to look at the screen, he saw Rachel’s face. For a moment he wondered if she had a sixth sense and knew what he was contemplating at this very moment. Lucky looked up at the major, still holding the door open, at the sergeant still waiting for an answer, and then back to his phone as he declined the call.

  He’d just get a little information, see what his options were, then call her back later. No big deal.

  WHEN SHE COULDN’T get Lucky on the phone, she hopped on the highway and started driving. Two hours later she was staring at the front door of her brother David’s home in a suburb south of Tulsa.

  She should have called ahead. Should have asked if it was okay for her to show up. Her brother was a lawyer, an extremely busy man, and he likely didn’t have time or want to make time for her drama.

  The garage door lifted and her niece and nephew came out and climbed into the Suburban parked in the driveway. Her siste
r-in-law followed them out, car keys in hand, but stopped when she saw the truck parked there along the curb.

  “Rachel?” Stacie knocked on the driver’s side window. “What’s wrong?”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said as she lowered the glass. “I just realized David’s probably at work and you’re busy and I just . . .”

  Stacie reached in the window and placed her hand on Rachel’s arm. “Come inside,” she said. They made their way through the garage and into the family room where she gestured for Rachel to take a seat. Her sister-in-law disappeared into the kitchen, but Rachel could still hear her speaking in hushed whispers on the phone. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think you need to come home quick,” she said.

  Stacie returned and pressed a glass of water into Rachel’s hand. “I have to take Zach to practice, but David’s on his way. Just wait here for him, okay?” When Rachel nodded in agreement, Stacie leaned over and hugged her neck. “Everything will be okay, I promise. I’m really sorry, but—”

  Rachel waved off her apology. “Don’t. The kids are waiting. I’ll be fine.”

  Having cried most of the way here, she was all wrung out and so very tired. And now the numbness had set in. She sat there in the quiet of her brother’s home, in their large leather sectional, and stared at the family photos on the bookshelves, the stockings that hung from the mantel. At the stacks of colorful presents beneath the Christmas tree. This was what she’d wanted her entire life.

  A hand touched her shoulder and Rachel jumped. She turned to see her brother standing there, a look of worry on his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” David said. “In my defense, I did say your name, like, three times.”

  David slipped off his suit jacket and removed his tie, draping both across the back of the reclining chair. The entire time she was watching him, she wondered if he knew. He would’ve been almost six at the time, Adam nearly eight. They were old enough to remember. But if he didn’t know, would he treat her differently afterward? “Want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked while sitting down next to her.