by Vicki Tharp
She leaned into the impending kiss, the one she’d waited for a long time, the one she’d thought would never come. The one she didn’t deserve.
But that didn’t stop her from wanting his mouth on hers.
Closing her eyes, she waited for the contact—but it never came. She bit the inside of her lip to squash the sting behind her eyes. When she dared to look up at him, he threaded the fingers of one hand behind her neck, his thumb tracing the outline of her jaw.
He lowered his forehead to hers. “Took me a long time to get over you.”
“Are you?” She hated the weakness in her voice, the pitiful bud of hope waiting for the tiniest bit of reason to bloom.
Planting a long, chaste kiss on her forehead, he released her. “Yeah. I am.” What his words lacked in veracity, the shuttered expression on his face made up for. He was telling the truth.
“Great,” she said—with the same enthusiasm she’d used when the dentist had told her she had a cavity—and forced a smile.
She turned to head back to her office to finish up the calls.
“But, Jenn…” His words stopped her. She glanced at him over her shoulder. His hands rested on his hips, his broad chest expanding with a deep, ragged breath. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wish it had turned out different.”
“That’s rich.” She laughed, dark and angry, and faced him again. “Different how? Different in that you wished I had left my dreams behind for you, or different in that you wished you’d left your dreams behind for me? Or different in that you wished you’d never asked me to marry you in the first place?”
He stilled as he contemplated his answer. “I don’t know. I was naïve enough to think that what we had was something special, something rare. Something we would do whatever it took to fight for.”
“Is running away the way you fight for me, for us?”
“I didn’t run away. I changed duty stations to Okinawa. To a shit assignment that I didn’t want but gladly took because it would have allowed me to take you with me. A chance for us to be together.”
“Why didn’t you discuss your plans with me beforehand?” she asked.
“Probably for the same reason you didn’t discuss your plans with me.”
She shook her head, toeing a clod of dirt with the tip of her boot. Dink must have sensed her distress, because he slinked over to her side, resting his head against her leg. Reaching down, she scratched him under the chin. “Helping the veterans…it was a calling, something I had to do, here, with Mac and Boomer.”
“I get that, Jenn. I didn’t join the Marines to scratch an itch. I joined because, like you, it was something I had to do.”
“Another time, then. In another life. It might have worked out.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”
CHAPTER FIVE
At the big house, Quinn forked a bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth. He couldn’t remember a time while he’d worked at the S that dinner had been so quiet.
“Where has everyone run off to?” Quinn asked.
Lottie passed the salad to Boomer, on her left. “Dale, Hank, Alby, and Santos are spending the next few nights on the range, riding fence and checking on the cattle. And Mac is home at the foreman’s cabin running numbers before her meeting with the S’s accountant tomorrow.”
Boomer washed down his mouthful with two swallows of water. “And Sidney and Pepita are busy with a last-minute science project.”
Jenna helped herself to another biscuit. “You’re not helping?”
“When it comes to school projects, Sidney gets her ‘engineer on’,” he said with air quotes.
Jenna stopped mid-buttering. “Goal-oriented with impressive attention to detail?”
“Bossy and anal-retentive.” Boomer waved his fork-speared asparagus around for emphasis. “Being a well-trained Marine, I know when to duck and cover, and when to run. Tonight, I ran.”
Quinn laughed. “Pass the biscuits, would you?”
“Catch.” Boomer lobbed one of Lottie’s famous biscuits across the table at him.
Instinctively, Quinn reached up with his right hand to catch. The sore muscles in his forearm complained after going ten rounds with the ax, but he caught the bread without dropping or mangling it, so he called it a win.
From her seat at the near end of the table, Lottie sent Boomer an exasperated look. Boomer winked back at her.
Jenna elbowed Boomer in the side. “You’re not setting an excellent example for Pepita.”
“Da-arn good thing she’s not here.”
“How’s that cuss jar working out for you?” Quinn needed to get his pokes in while he could.
“Jesus Christ!” Boomer said. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“And there goes another dollar,” Jenna said.
“Shit. Arg. Dammit.” Boomer dropped his fork on his plate. “That saddle is going to be gold plated at this rate.”
“Have another bite of steak,” Lottie said, “and quit talking while you still have money in the bank.”
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble to cook for the three of us.” Boomer sliced off another piece of meat. “We could have managed something on our own.”
“Nonsense.” To Quinn, Lottie said, “You’re looking rather smart tonight. Have a hot date?”
“Grandma.”
“What? Look at him. Blue jeans pressed with a crease so sharp he could cut his meat with it. Starched western shirt.” Lottie looked beneath the table. “Polished boots.”
Jenna stopped chewing and looked Quinn up and down, her eyes narrowed as her brain kicked in. So much for sneaking out under the radar.
“If I didn’t learn anything else in the military, I learned how to pilot an iron. But the answer is no. No date. An errand I have to run.”
Boomer tucked a bite of steak into the pouch of his cheek. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with checking out Kurt’s AA meeting in Murdock, would it?”
“How—”
Boomer aimed his knife toward the desktop computer in the corner of the den. “You didn’t clear your history.”
Jenna scooted her chair back and tossed her napkin onto her plate. “Hang on. I’m going with you.”
Exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.
She didn’t wait for a reply before bounding up the stairs two at a time.
“You know,” Boomer said, “the sheriff would tell you two to leave the investigation to him and his deputies.”
“And he’d be right,” Lottie added, disapproval stamped into the subtle creases bracketing her mouth.
Quinn crumpled his napkin, kind of amazed when his hand formed a fist. Then he returned his attention to Boomer. “And what would you tell me?” If his voice had gone any lower, it would have been a growl.
“To give me and Mac a call if you run into any trouble.”
Sitting back, Quinn dropped his napkin, and the tension eased across his shoulders. He offered Boomer a nod of appreciation. “Count on it.”
Jenna bounded down the stairs, her dressy brown cowboy boots with the two-inch heels clomping on the wood stairs, and a turquoise dress that skimmed her knees and hugged her breasts.
She’d left her hair out of its usual ponytail, and it bounced around her shoulders. A few stray hairs got caught on the gloss on her lips.
With a finger, she pulled the hair free. “Ready?”
“Uh…” The blood had vacated his brain and sped south. Quinn went to stand, quickly realizing what a bad idea that was. “Yeah, meet you outside.”
Jenna leaned over and kissed her grandmother on the cheek. “Don’t worry, and don’t wait up.” She turned and socked Boomer in the shoulder as her way of saying good-bye.
Lottie started gathering plates. Quinn gulped the ice water in his glass as the finest ass on either side of the Rockies sashayed o
ut the door.
Boomer leaned across the table, with a smug Marine-who’d-outshot-the-range-master smile on his face. “That water would do you more good in your lap than down your gullet.”
* * * *
If Jenna ever rode in Kurt’s car again, she was bringing a pair of fencing pliers so she could cut the dang spring out of the middle of the seat. She squirmed next to Quinn, unable to find a position where the piece of metal didn’t poke or prod.
A single vapor light cast a yellow haze over the VFW’s dark parking lot. In ones and twos, cars and trucks dribbled in to the late AA meeting, their headlights glancing off the crooked W above the nondescript brick building.
“You sure this is the one he usually went to?” Quinn asked.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.” Her knee bounced, and her voice lacked more luster than the Mustang’s paint job.
Quinn placed a hand on her bare leg, below the hemline of her dress, stilling her knee in an instant, then the other one started jackhammering.
He gave her leg a gentle squeeze, his fingers warm on her skin. When she looked up at him, he said, “You don’t have to go in. I can do this alone.”
“No, I want to go. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.” Her leg stilled. “How do you want to play this? Go in asking questions?”
“As outsiders, we probably wouldn’t get too many answers.”
“We could pretend we’re alcoholics and you’re my brother.”
Quinn chuckled like it was the most insane idea he’d ever heard. “That’s not going to happen.”
Perspiration formed on her upper lip as the anger crept in. “What’s wrong with my idea?”
“First, we might know some of the people in that meeting, so they’ll know we aren’t related. And second, despite what our relationship has been through, I could never look at you as a sister.” He ran a finger along the thin spaghetti strap laying across her shoulder. “Especially with you in that dress. It would be easier for them to believe you’re my girlfriend.”
Even though the night air wasn’t hot, the heat level inside the Mustang climbed. Jenna lifted her hair to try to cool the back of her neck.
Sitting so close to Quinn, she smelled his cologne. Kurt’s cologne, actually. A clean, earthy scent that reminded her of star-studded skies and frosty Friday nights in front of a campfire.
Smelling Kurt’s cologne on Quinn should have seemed wrong, yet it didn’t. Beneath the familiar smell lay a subtle tang that Jenna could only describe as the JP-8 jet fuel that ran through Quinn’s veins as thick as blood, making the combination all the more intoxicating.
This little venture was going to come back and bite her on the butt. Unfortunately, Quinn was right. She gritted her teeth. Girlfriend it was. “Okay.”
“All right, let’s go.” He popped the latch on his door. “The meeting is about to start.”
They slipped through the entrance just as an older gentleman took the podium and welcomed everyone. Some people looked up when Jenna and Quinn came in, but most were too busy talking among themselves or filling Styrofoam cups with coffee and cream to notice.
Quinn entwined his fingers with hers, and her heart drummed a couple of love-drunk beats as if it needed the twelve-step program.
This isn’t real. Quinn was only playing the part.
Toward the back of the room, they chose a couple of seats as the conversations died down. She tried to pull her hand free, but Quinn held on tighter, the back of her hand resting across his thigh. She didn’t know what to think about that, so she tried to ignore it.
The VFW was nothing more than a large open room with a couple of bathrooms and another door, for an office or storage room, she assumed. Ahead of them sat twenty-five to thirty men and women. Some young, some old, some she didn’t know, some she was surprised that she did. Then again, she figured that was the whole “anonymous” part of Alcoholics Anonymous.
They sat through the meeting, hearing stories that broke her heart and lifted her spirits. Stories of despair and restitution, of soul-eating guilt and life-changing forgiveness. The microphone was passed, and they declined to talk. It was one thing to pretend they were alcoholics to sit in on the meeting. It would be an entirely different thing to spout lies when everyone else had bared their hearts with their truth.
When the meeting concluded, they introduced themselves around, asking if anyone had seen Kurt, explaining how he’d been the one who’d recommended the meeting to them. But no one seemed to know who they were talking about.
“Start stacking those chairs,” Quinn said to Jenna. “Let’s kill some time until that guy—Russ—was it? who led the meeting is free. Maybe he’ll remember Kurt.”
They’d run out of chairs to stack and almost had them all put away before Quinn tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Come on, he’s free.”
They introduced themselves to Russ using their real names, since there had been people who knew them there. A couple of stragglers remained in the building, but for the most part, they were the last ones there.
“Glad you two made the meeting,” Russ said.
Jenna guesstimated his age somewhere between her dad and grandfather, with more pudge than the former and less gray than the latter. His dress pants were too tight, and his button-down dress shirt had come untucked in the front.
“Thank you,” Jenna said. “This meeting came highly recommended by our friend Kurt. But we didn’t see him here.”
“Kurt, Kurt…” Russ thought back, trying to put a face with the name, she supposed. “I don’t remember—”
“He was new,” Quinn said. “Within the last month or so. Average height. Dark hair. Muscular.” When that didn’t seem to ring any mental bells, Quinn added, “Marine trident tattoo on his right forearm.”
Russ’s eyes unglazed, and he snapped his fingers. “Yes, I remember him. Came for a couple of weeks, then stopped coming.”
Quinn glanced at Jenna with a did-you-know-about-this? look on his face. Like she was Kurt’s keeper. Her program participants were adults, not juveniles who needed constant supervision. And they certainly weren’t prisoners.
“He might have started going to a different meeting.” Quinn lied as smooth as creamy peanut butter.
“Could be. Shame. People seemed to like him, real personable and charismatic at first, then…” Russ looked around as if concerned he’d said too much.
“Then what?” Jenna asked.
Russ shrugged. “He got quieter. Started keeping to himself more. Declining to share his story. He wasn’t here long, and nobody knew him well, except maybe Crystal, but he didn’t seem like himself.”
“Do you think he was drinking again?” Quinn came right out and asked.
Jenna cut Quinn a look. Her pretend boyfriend wouldn’t know subtle if the words were stamped across his helo’s instrument panel in flashing neon lights.
“Ah…” Russ took a step back. Then another. Catching a look from a guy in the back near the storage room. “You know, I’m not comfortable talking about this further, but I have a list of the locations and times of other meetings. You could always try to find him at one of them.”
“Look, Russ—” Quinn shifted, and Jenna knew his fierce grip on her hand was the only thing keeping Quinn from grabbing Russ by the shoulders and giving him a shake.
“We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us, right, honey?” Jenna said to Quinn, giving his hand a shut-the-hell-up squeeze. “I’m sure we’ll find him at one of the other meetings.”
The man by the storage room lingered and messed with the chairs, but he didn’t really do anything with them. Goose bumps ran up her arms, and she stepped into Quinn, urging him toward the doors.
On the way out, Russ handed them a flyer with locations and times of meetings in what looked like about a fifty-mile radius of Murdock.
With
a hand on the door handle, Quinn said, “This Crystal you were telling us about. Was she here tonight?”
“No. Haven’t seen her in about a week.”
“That unusual?”
“Look, people change meetings all the time, or…have other reasons for not coming.”
“Like falling off the wagon?”
“Honey.” Jenna squeezed Quinn’s hand again, not having to fake being appalled.
Russ’s polite smile fell, and his expression landed on resignation. “Sometimes. The road to recovery is many times convoluted, as I’m sure you two have come to learn.”
“Of course.” Having watched Boomer’s recovery from the sidelines had told Jenna as much.
“No, it’s not easy.” Quinn shook Russ’s hand. “Lots of steps and all that. Thanks again for your time.”
Jenna shoved Quinn out the door. She glanced behind them, and when the door closed, she socked him in the arm.
“Ow, what the hell?”
“‘Falling off the wagon’,” she mimicked in a quiet voice. “What was that all about?”
“I wanted to shake him up a bit. Maybe he’d say something he didn’t plan to.” He shrugged. “So, it didn’t work. At least we got a name to track down.”
“And company.” She bobbed her head toward the front of the building. Chair-stacking Guy emerged and headed straight for them.
“Why don’t you get in the car.” Quinn gave her a gentle push at the small of her back.
“Please.” Jenna scoffed under her breath so her voice wouldn’t carry. “What is he, like one-fifty, one-sixty? I can take him.”
Quinn turned toward the man and stepped in front of her, consciously or subconsciously, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to hide behind him like a thumb-sucking toddler afraid of the boogeyman. She took a step forward. Quinn planted a steadying hand on her forearm.
“Something I can help you with?” Quinn asked in a frigid, don’t-fuck-with-me voice.
A shiver slithered up her spine.
The guy glanced around as if afraid someone would overhear. The only vehicles left in the parking lot were Kurt’s Mustang, a beater pickup, and a generic four-door sedan. This guy, with his wash-faded jeans—the kind months and months of wear and washing made, not the two-hundred-dollar designer kind—with a feed store work shirt, probably had the pickup keys in his pocket.