Return to Glory (Hqn)

by Sara Arden

  She studied him for a minute before speaking, as if measuring her words. “So, you and me? We’re two of a kind. Things happened and they were bad. They were really bad, but you know what? They’re not bad here. You’re home. This is your family.”

  “That’s why I had to make her go, India. I hurt her.”

  “That’s what happens in families. We hurt each other because no one can see our pain as starkly as someone who loves us. And it’s ugly to have that thrown back in our faces. I know.” She nodded. “You only grabbed her wrist a little too hard during a nightmare. When we were thirteen and went on that camping trip to Yosemite, I knocked out Caleb’s last milk tooth because of a nightmare about bears.”

  “You weren’t in danger of killing him.”

  “And neither are you, Jack. If you think you are, why aren’t you getting some help?”

  “Because I’m sick of help. I’m sick of being told how wonderful it is to be here. It’s not. I want it to be over.”

  “Then stop dragging it out.”

  His eyes widened.

  “I love you. You’re one of my closest friends, but rather than rot from the inside out, if you’re really done, be done. And don’t be messy about it, because leaving that for us to clean up is selfish.”

  Leave it to India to put all the cards on the table.

  “But you should think about what it would do to Betsy. I’m not saying you should live for her, because that’s a tough thing to put on any one person. She loves you, so don’t you think there’s got to be something worth loving in you? If it’s worth loving, it’s worth living.”

  “Betsy—”

  India held up her hand to cut him off. “No, not this again. If you value her, if you love her at all, then you have to trust her. Which means trusting the choices you don’t like, too. She’s not a child. Think about it, Jack. Think about that really hard. Then make your choice and follow through, whatever it is. Commit yourself to it wholly.”

  Betsy had said the same thing to him about committing himself wholly.

  “Now, I’m going to go in there and deal with man-baby number two. Give me five minutes and then come in and kiss and make up. Or I’m really going to lose my temper.”

  Jack had a hard time processing what she’d said. He hadn’t really given much thought to how his slow rot would affect the people around him. How it would taint them, too. Maybe he shouldn’t have come home even for a short time.

  He thought about all the men who desperately wished they were in his place, who wished they could come home. Those who’d only touched the soil of their country again when they were lowered six feet down into it.

  Jack thought about the men he’d met at the Center for the Intrepid in Texas where he’d done his rehab. He’d powered through that because there was nothing else to do. He’d still been in the navy, still following orders.

  They ordered him to get the implant, to rehab, to walk again, to get well enough to go home, so he’d done it all without thinking what it meant or what it would mean for him. He’d done it all thinking he still had a home in the navy. A desk job, or teaching at the Naval Academy. But he couldn’t teach, he didn’t want to be behind a desk. He wanted to be in theater, that was what he’d trained for, what he’d been told all he was good for. Now, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

  A rush of noise and memory swirled in his head. So many sounds clanged in his ears and he couldn’t tell what was memory and what was real. He wanted—no, he needed—to block it out. To find some quiet, some peace. No matter what senses he dulled, always there was something blaring in his head. Something he couldn’t forget, couldn’t process, that bubbled up and boiled over.

  Jack tried to focus on the things in the room, something to anchor him to the real. The small sugar bowl that sat in the window above the sink, with the enamel strawberry on the lid. Except it reminded him of Betsy. She’d loved that bright red strawberry against the creamy porcelain, always rubbing her fingers over it. As a little girl, when she’d follow Caleb all over, his mother had given it to her to play with. He always thought someday she’d break it, but she never did.

  He focused on the clock on the wall. Jack remembered when his parents brought it back from their anniversary trip to Germany. His father had grudgingly hung it on the wall, complaining about the sound of the cuckoo, but his mother had loved it. She sighed every time she heard it, and just the song would calm her tears, cool her anger and make her forgive whatever it was his father had done. Even when he’d taken out its guts and hidden a bottle of vodka behind the panels. The clock was still and silent, even now. Though its presence spoke of more than its voice ever could.

  Which brought him to his friends sitting in his front room. People who loved him. People it hurt to see him like this. Caleb, who’d bloodied his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he entered the room.

  “You can still fight.” Caleb nodded.

  “And...” India prompted, overexaggerating her pronunciation.

  “And your work here is done. This is between us now.”

  “No, I’m supposed to take you back to the station. You’re in deep, buddy.”

  “After I talk to Jack. Alone.”

  “If you think I’m leaving you two alone after you basically assaulted and battered him—”

  “He won’t be pressing charges, will you?” Caleb gave him a lopsided, swollen grin.

  “No, man.”

  “Caleb, you owe me dinner for this. Something nice. Steak.” India sniffed. She looked over her shoulder on the way out the door. “You guys really okay?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb nodded.

  When she was gone, Jack spoke. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have... I really thought that you’d...” He couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. “I can’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you and Bets. I told her to stay away, okay?”

  “She’ll do that as soon as mud pies taste like peanut butter.”

  “I think she will this time. She was afraid of me.” Jack remembered the look on her face. It was just as well she hadn’t come back, especially while he was at war with himself. She made him forget how things had to be and made him believe in something else. If only belief in a thing could make it real.

  “No, she was afraid for you.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “No, it’s what I know. Betsy has absolute faith in you. She always has, she always will.”

  “I don’t deserve it.” He didn’t mention that he didn’t want it. Once upon a time, he would’ve done anything to keep it. Now it just needed to die a quiet death so all of these memories could, too.

  “No one does. I don’t know where she learned to have that kind of belief, but the world hasn’t ripped it out of her yet. I know it has to happen, but I didn’t want it to be you that did it.”

  “Do you think I want to be?”

  “No, but you will be. I wanted to keep her safe just a little while longer.”

  Jack thought about the things she’d said when they were in bed. When she’d tried to hide her beautiful body from him. “Someone else already broke her heart. I’m not—”

  “Whatever Marcel did, he’s not you. She didn’t believe in him the way she believes in you. Even if she told herself she was in love with him, he was not the great and sainted Jack McConnell.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Honestly?” Caleb cocked his head to the side. “I want you to fix your shit. You don’t have to be the kid who left. None of us are. But be a man worthy of the faith and trust that we put in you.”

  Caleb’s words, though quiet, burrowed deep like armor
-piercing bullets. Jack wanted nothing more than to be that man. But he finally said, “I don’t think I know how.”

  “That’s a step above not wanting to and not caring.”

  “I’ve never not cared, Caleb. It would be easier if I didn’t.”

  Jack’s gaze met Caleb’s, and the rage that was in his eyes was gone. It was just Caleb. His best friend.

  He realized that maybe he was so caught up telling people he wasn’t the same person not because he thought they didn’t know, but because he wished he was the same guy who’d left.

  If he had been, his life would be almost picture-perfect.

  Maybe that was why he didn’t want to come home. This home belonged to that guy. If he’d still been him, it would’ve been a perfect fit. The sweet small town that thought he was the returning hero, a beautiful woman who loved him...

  He didn’t need Betsy to tell him that she loved him. He knew that she did.

  That she always had.

  The old Jack would want to be worthy of that love.

  The new Jack knew he never could be.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BY FRIDAY NIGHT, Betsy had had enough of waiting.

  Mother Nature seemed to be aware of her plan, if the sky was any indication. She was not pleased, to say the least. Dark clouds rolled in from the west. They were like an ocean of burned marshmallows, black and buoyant. She knew they were called mammatus clouds, and their formation meant that the storm was going to be a door-slammer.

  Conditions could possibly be favorable for a tornado, which was unusual for October, but not completely unexpected. She’d grown up hearing all of her neighbors and friends say that if you don’t like the weather in Kansas, wait five minutes.

  Betsy loved the volatility, the energy, of the storm. That was something she’d missed about home when she was in New York. There was nowhere else in the world that had storms like Kansas. Sure, other places could get violent or powerful storms, other places had tornados, monsoons, nor’easters—but there was nothing like watching a clear blue sky change into an electric green, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention and the clouds rolling in from across the plain like a stampeding army from hell in the span of minutes. She’d seen hail on the clear day, known what it was like to have it rain sideways and she even loved the winter wonderland landscape after an ice storm.

  Thunder echoed like a clash of swords and she smiled happily.

  Until she remembered Jack’s reaction to Johnny Hart’s classic T-Bird backfiring. The thunder must be torture for him.

  Whether he wanted to see her or not, she wouldn’t leave him to face this alone.

  Decision made, Betsy grabbed her tote and stuffed some supplies inside. She still hadn’t unpacked it from the weekend, but she added clean clothes and her ereader as well as the emergency power source—just in case the weather got really bad.

  She didn’t know what he had at his house, so she packed a picnic. He probably hadn’t eaten. Betsy could always be counted on to feed a situation. She chose some pumpkin cookies, the ones with the anise seed eyes and Red Hots mouths, as well as some bottles of water and homemade white dill loaf for sandwiches. Various and sundry items for said sandwiches and fresh fruit.

  Romantic images played out in her mind of spending the storm in front of the roaring fireplace in the front room, of making love on the red-and-white-checkered blanket while the thunder rattled the walls. Then they’d stream movies on her ereader, holding on to each other—all fanciful garbage, she knew.

  That was okay, because this wasn’t about her. It was about him and being there for him because he needed her.

  She kept repeating that mantra over and over in her head on the drive over. Betsy felt sick, thinking about facing him after he’d told her not to come back.

  What she heard in his voice wasn’t I don’t want your help; it was I don’t want you.

  When she arrived, the door was open and the window down on the screen. Betsy knocked, rattling the old metal. “Jack?”

  “I thought I told you not to come back,” he drawled from the couch.

  “Since when do I ever listen?”

  “You should start.”

  She couldn’t see him, but something about his tone told her she wouldn’t like what she saw when he came into view. He was too relaxed, too flip. She knew it was a facade.

  “I brought you something to eat,” she offered.

  “Then by all means, intrude. What is it with small towns and the people who live there who think that bringing over a casserole entitles you to entry to someone’s home? Like it’s buying a ticket for a peek at a freak show.”

  “I didn’t stop to think about that.” She rather imagined that was what he felt like. It didn’t occur to her that the neighborhood would have stocked his freezer for the next year with green bean casserole, broccoli cheese rice casserole, homemade mac ’n’ cheese, potato salad, all the things you took to a pig roast or a funeral.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Jack, I’m not here for a ticket.”

  “Aren’t you?” He sat up and turned to look at her.

  “What happened to your face?” she gasped. He looked as if he’d been in a prizefight and lost. His nose was swollen and crooked; one whole side of his face was purple and looked like a split grape.

  “The wrath of Caleb.”

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “India Tased me and I’m not feeling any pain.” He brought a bottle of that rotgut swill to his lips.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Most definitely.”

  She sighed, at a loss for what to do. She didn’t know what had happened, but she couldn’t judge him.

  Her nose tingled as if she were the one who’d been punched in the face. Tears welled behind her eyes, but if he wasn’t crying, she wouldn’t do so, either.

  Resolve hardened, she sat down next to him and took the bottle out of his hand. Their fingers brushed, electric current shooting straight to her core at the contact. Her first instinct was to put the bottle aside and lace her fingers through his, but she knew he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to feel a connection. He didn’t want to hurt.

  So instead she brought the bottle to her lips and swallowed. It burned all the way down and it was a struggle not to splutter and cough at the caustic sensation.

  “Feeling strong tonight, Betsy? I know you don’t drink this stuff.”

  “I’m here as your friend, Jack.”

  “Yeah, so was Caleb.” He took the bottle back from her and took another long swallow.

  She absolutely would not think about his mouth on the bottle. What it was like to kiss it, taste it, to have him move his lips over her flesh and how much she wanted that again.

  “So, if you’re not here to condemn me or blow sunshine up my ass, what do you want?” He eyed her. “If you’re looking to get railed, I can’t help you,” he said conversationally. “Been drinking all day.”

  He’d effectively distanced himself from her and everything that had happened between them with that one sentence. He was so casual, so dismissive.

  Another bout of thunder rattled the house and she watched his knuckles blanch as they tightened around the bottle.

  “You can say whatever nasty thing you want to me, Jack. That doesn’t change why I’m here. If you want me to go, I will, but I’ll come back.”

  “Then I suppose you should stay.” He guzzled the last of the bottle. “Make yourself useful, then. There’s another of these under the sink.”

  Betsy had a choice to make. She could get up and get him the one thing he needed to get him through the night, or she could refuse because it didn’t match up with her beliefs.

  Because it killed her hope.

  She supposed it wasn’t he
r hope that she had to worry about, but his. “Okay.” Betsy rose carefully and put one foot in front of the other until she was in the kitchen. With wooden motions and regret, she brought him the bottle.

  “I didn’t think you’d do it.”

  “We all have our coping mechanisms. This happens to be yours. I told you, I’m here as your friend, not as your lover.”

  “That’s an interesting development.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “I am. So I’m going to have a cookie. Pumpkin.” She rummaged through her bag and pulled out the package of cookies.

  Betsy bit into one carefully, as if she was afraid it was going to bite her back. Jack’s eyes focused on her mouth and when he bent in to kiss her, she didn’t turn away, but instead of the pumpkin, cinnamon and anise on her tongue from the sweet, all he could taste was ash.

  He pulled back, an unfamiliar look on his face. “Can’t taste it. I tasted things with you. Sweetness.” Jack shook his head. “Now, nothing.”

  “I know. I can’t taste it, either. Like damp paper.”

  “Good to know.” He thrust the bottle against his mouth again and guzzled. The loud report of thunder and a blinding flash of lighting lit up the sky like a strobe light.

  She tried to sit by and stoically watch him drown his pain and himself in the whiskey, but she couldn’t. No matter what she told herself, she just wasn’t wired that way. So she took the bottle again and snagged another drink for fortification before setting it on the far table.

  “Thought you weren’t going to judge.”

  He knew her too well. Betsy didn’t speak. Instead she pulled on his shoulders and he followed her lead. He reclined down into her lap, the rest of him draped over the couch. She smoothed her fingers through his hair, across his forehead, down his cheek—was careful not to touch him anywhere that hurt.

  “You’re killing me, Bets.” He sighed and even though he tried to put on a good show, this was what he needed. Touch. Comfort. Something more than what could be found in a bottle.

  “You’re killing yourself,” she countered softly. “But we’re not going to think about that right now. You’re going to lie here quiet and still and know that you’re safe. You’re home. I’m not going to let anyone or anything touch you.”