A Love to Call Her Own

by Marilyn Pappano

  She’d never felt as free as the day she moved out of the family home. She would never be welcomed back, and the family bank had dispensed its last dollar, but she hadn’t cared. She’d walked out anyway, with the sense that finally she could breathe.

  The rest of the trip passed in silence, and she was okay with that. Sometimes she talked just to hear the sound of a voice, but being quiet with someone else was a whole different thing than being quiet alone. With Dalton—at least, right now—it was mostly comfortable.

  When he pulled to the curb in front of her apartment, she wondered if he would walk her to the door or expect to be invited inside for coffee, a drink, sex. The thought made her stomach cramp. She didn’t do sex in her apartment, didn’t do it without booze, was trying to avoid—

  He shifted into park and shut off the engine, and she swallowed hard. But he made no move to undo his seat belt, made no move at all except to turn his head in her direction. “Isn’t it noisy living downtown?”

  The question pulled her from the mini-panic tumbling in her gut and allowed her to draw a full breath. “Not as much as you’d think. These old buildings are solid. You hear the trains, the church bells on Sunday, big trucks, but regular traffic, people, business, not much.”

  “Still a lot compared to where I live. Lots of light, too. But at least you have a good warm overlook for the Christmas parade.”

  Normal conversation. She could do that. She could appreciate that. “Oh, no, no, no. Christmas parades are meant to be enjoyed up close and personal, in the cold—preferably snow—and near enough to snag an occasional piece of candy thrown to the little ones. After I’ve ogled the firefighters, waved at Santa Claus, and admired the horses, then I go inside and warm up with a mug of hot chocolate.” With a splash of dark rum, Kahlua, or Bailey’s.

  Again she swallowed hard, for a totally different reason. She wished she could blink and it would be morning. She would feel stronger in the morning, with bright sunlight and the promise of a hot day.

  “You spend too much time in heated places if you like the cold.”

  Jessy shrugged carelessly. “Hey, you can always put on more clothes, but once you’ve stripped down naked, that’s all the cooling you’re gonna get.”

  The image of bare skin and lots of it hung in the air between them, turning the air thick, damn near making it sizzle. Between the two of them, they didn’t have a complete recollection of being together, but she’d seen enough of his muscles, his long legs, his broad shoulders, and his solid chest, and she had a smokin’ hot imagination.

  No, no, no. No naked thoughts, she counseled herself frantically, but damn, once they were there, they were hard to push back into their corner.

  Dalton cleared his throat, his voice sounding as if he had a decent imagination himself. “Yeah, tell me that when your prize mare has decided to foal in a subzero wind chill and you’re wearing so many clothes you look like the Michelin tire man.”

  And had a smokin’ hot cowboy to help her out of them. Peeling off layers was good. They made reaching the last layer that much more rewarding, stirring steam and heat and hunger…

  She would have fanned herself if he wasn’t watching. Instead, she focused on the first part of the image he’d conjured—her all bundled up in coveralls and thermals and whatever the hell else ranchers wore to brave the winter temperatures—but it refused to form. That was enough to steer her thoughts in the right direction. After all, for one, she didn’t do ugly clothes. Two—she didn’t do birthing of any sort. Three—well, one and two were enough.

  “Sorry, cowboy, that’s not happening.” She opened the door, gathered her purse and sweater, then looked back at him. “Thanks for dinner. I enjoyed the company.”

  Though he’d commented earlier about downtown’s excess of lights, she couldn’t make out the expression on his face before he slowly responded with a bit of a smile. “Yeah. I did, too.”

  She leaned closer to him, voice lowered, breathing shallowly to avoid the intoxicating scent of him. “Good night, Dalton.”

  As she slid to the ground, he murmured to her back, “See you later.”

  Vague words, as much a brush-off as a promise, but they sent a tiny spark of pleasure through her as she closed the door, flashed him a smile through the open window, then sashayed to her apartment door.

  She didn’t hear the truck pull away until she was locked safely inside. But how safe was it, really? she wondered as thirst tugged at her.

  She’d made it through two nights. Would she manage a third, or was she going to be one sorry mess in the morning?

  * * *

  The only funeral services Lucy had ever thought she would help plan were for her parents, when they were in their eighth or ninth decades, but on Thursday afternoon she found herself at one of the local funeral homes. One of the grimmest places on earth, though she’d been in others even grimmer.

  To her left sat Patricia and LoLo Baxter. Declining the offer of a seat, Ben stood behind them, clearly uncomfortable in the setting. While Patricia answered the director’s questions about George’s background for the obituary, he wandered away. After a moment, Lucy followed him into the room next door, filled with caskets and discreet signs listing their features.

  “At least Patricia doesn’t have to deal with this,” she said quietly when she stopped beside him. “The Army provides it.”

  He nodded, though his look was distant as if he hadn’t really heard her words. He touched the gunmetal finish of one sample casket, then laid his fingertips against the pale gray satin lining. “I was twenty-five when I did my father’s funeral arrangements.”

  “I was twenty-eight when I did Mike’s. Thank God, his mother and mine were with me.” As soon as she said the words, she grimaced. Ben’s mother hadn’t been with him, having long since married George. Hopefully, he’d had an aunt, an uncle, a friend, to help him get through it.

  “How did you stand it? Losing your husband so young?”

  She stared at the rich grain of the only wood casket in the room. It was mahogany, elegant and expensive and far too beautiful to lower into the ground and cover with dirt. The body it was meant to hold was no longer anyone’s loved one. It was just a symbol for a spirit that had already moved on.

  After a time, she sighed softly. “I got through the first year the way most of us do—sheer will. I went to work at a job I didn’t like, came home every night to a house that was no longer home, wondered every other day why I didn’t move back to California, where I’d have family to get me through the days, and I did a lot of crying on Marti’s shoulder. Then on the anniversary of Mike’s death, I realized I had two choices: I could give up and disappoint Mike, or I could start living again. I cleaned out his closet, got a new job, stopped avoiding everyone, and started over.”

  It sounded so simple put that way, but it hadn’t been. Every choice had been difficult, every action unbearably tough. Even getting groceries had been traumatic—seeing couples and families in the aisles, automatically reaching for Mike’s favorites, scaling down to feed only one. How many times had she gone to the commissary and left without a single purchase because she didn’t have a clue how to be one instead of part of a couple?

  “Everyone recovers on their own schedule,” she went on, moving slowly to look at the other caskets, grateful she would never have a need for one. After seeing Mike’s body, all decked out in his dress uniform, the left chest decorated with ribbons and medals, after watching his casket lowered into the ground at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, and getting on a plane to leave California and him behind, she’d decided cremation was for her.

  “My friend Marti—we were friends before the margarita club. Mike and Joshua were in the same unit and died in the same battle.” Her voice choked. The only thing worse than getting a notification call was your best friend getting one at the same time. “Anyway, Marti finds comfort in physical things. She’s still got everything Joshua ever owned. Our friend Ilena gave away Juan’
s stuff within a month or so. She carries him in her heart. She doesn’t need external reminders. Your mom—”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, and she quickly corrected herself. “Patricia’s in a different place. Where Ilena and Marti and Carly and the rest of us didn’t have enough time with our husbands, Patricia had twenty years with George. He would have retired in a year or so, and they had a lot of plans that didn’t include traveling. They’d seen the world already. They had projects around the house, volunteer work they were going to do, charities they were going to work with.” She hesitated, then delicately went on. “They were going to be together—go to bed every night and wake up every morning in the same bed, share meals, share activities, share their blessings.”

  Again, that muscle in Ben’s jaw twitched. He looked at her, his gaze intense. This place stirred bleak memories for him, too, of the father who’d died too young, of the man Ben had been forced to become too soon. “Funny,” he murmured. “Those were pretty much the same plans my dad had.”

  She stopped in front of a heartbreakingly small casket, pale pink metal with white satin lining. Like most of the margarita club, she and Mike had thought they had plenty of time to start a family. Of them all, only Ilena had had the good luck to get pregnant, and that had been due to a birth control failure. Time had taken the edge off Lucy’s longing for kids, but sometimes it swelled up with a raw ache, especially since her last birthday.

  Deliberately she turned her back on the casket. “I take it the divorce wasn’t his choice.”

  Ben shoved his hands into his hip pockets and rocked back on his heels. “No one had a choice but Patricia. We sat down to dinner one night without Dad—she’d already surprised the hell out of him—and she announced that she was leaving. She’d already talked to a lawyer, and as soon as the divorce went through, she was marrying George. In the meantime, she was leaving to be with him. Within two hours, she destroyed our family and was on a plane to Germany. I was fifteen, the girls eleven and nine. We didn’t see her again for three years.”

  Sympathy welled through Lucy. Having your family fall apart around you would always be hard, but for the news to come out of nowhere, to find out that your mother had fallen in love with another man and chosen him over her own husband and children…No wonder he was still bitter.

  The part of her that wanted to understand both sides spoke up: Did the fact that Patricia had loved George mitigate her guilt? Clearly, they’d been meant for each other, or their marriage wouldn’t have lasted and flourished. Absolutely, it was wrong for her to get involved with him while still married to Ben’s father, but shouldn’t that mistake be forgiven if she truly regretted it?

  Hesitantly, Lucy touched Ben’s arm, sending heat sizzling through her palm. How wrong was it to be sensually aware of someone in the casket showroom of a funeral home? But it had been six long years since she’d felt this kind of attraction to a man, six years without cuddling or kissing or making love, without feeling a strong pair of arms around her in the night, and the lonely woman inside her missed all that, Lord, more than she could say.

  Mentally shaking off the thoughts, she said, “I’m sorry, Ben. That must have been a really tough thing for you and your sisters and especially your father. I don’t blame you for feeling wronged.” At fifteen, he’d had a good grasp of concepts like fidelity, honor, trustworthiness. Finding out his mother lacked them all, at least with regards to their family, had hurt deeply, no doubt.

  “Everyone’s sorry, Lucy,” he said. The softness of his voice was at odds with the emotion starkly written on his features. “But ‘sorry’ doesn’t make anything okay.”

  When he left the room, she remained where she was, wishing she had the superpower to make everything okay. So much sorrow, so much anger and hurt and betrayal…But how would we appreciate the good times, child, if we didn’t go through the bad? her grandmother’s voice whispered in her head.

  Nana was probably right—she always was—but Lucy would still like to give nothing-but-good a shot.

  “You okay?”

  She blinked and saw LoLo standing a few feet in front of her. The woman could have posed for a recruiting poster, her body well toned, her posture erect, her face unlined, minimally made up, and not beautiful exactly, but stunning. Everything about her whispered competent, controlled, dignified, compassionate. Lucy envied and adored her.

  “Yeah.” It was true. She’d be much happier if George hadn’t been killed, if she’d spent the past three days going to work and worrying about nothing more than keeping Norton from peeing where he shouldn’t. But given that she couldn’t control life or death or heartache, she was doing okay.

  “The colonel’s remains will arrive in Tulsa on Tuesday morning. There will be a visitation at the funeral home that evening, and the service will be Wednesday morning at the post chapel.”

  Lucy contained the shudder that rippled through her. Such a simple statement: The colonel’s remains will arrive Tuesday morning. But it meant so much more. Having Mike home had made the whole nightmare even realer. It had put Lucy that much closer to the final end of their life together. All her love, all her prayers, all her dreams, all for nothing. Once he’d arrived home, the only thing left for her to do was say good-bye.

  The hardest word she’d ever known.

  LoLo touched her arm. “I’m going to the airport with Patricia. You and I both know how difficult the transfer is. You do not have to go through it again.”

  A shiver ripped through Lucy. “Is Ben going to be there?”

  “He has to reschedule a couple surgeries, but he plans to.”

  Lucy examined her fingernails, thinking she needed a manicure—a pedicure, too, while she was at it—soon. Definitely before Tuesday. Finally, having avoided LoLo long enough, she met her gaze. “I’m a strong woman.”

  “I know. But this isn’t about strength, Lucy. It’s about protecting your heart from breaking again. The chaplain and I will be with her. Her pastor and his wife will join us. Ben will likely be there. We will take care of her.”

  Lucy’s exhalation was soft but sounded cowardly in her own ears. “I was just thinking yesterday that I couldn’t go through another dignified transfer. Everything else, anything else, but…”

  LoLo hugged her. “You’re a good friend, Lucy. You’ve been a lifesaver for Patricia these past few days, and we both know you’ll be there for her in the months to come. Leave this one thing to us.”

  Chapter 7

  It appeared Patricia’s business with the funeral director was almost finished as they stood near the desk, her hand clasped in his. Ben glanced at Lucy and Major Baxter in the display room, then toward the glass double doors that led into the warm sun. He doubted he could really smell anything inside besides the overly strong air freshener, that any other odors were the product of his imagination. Still, he had spent enough time there.

  He crossed the lobby in a few paces, pushed the door open, and stepped into the sun. The heat seemed doubly hot against his cool skin, and it took longer for it to soak in than he’d expected. Maybe because some of the chill inside him had nothing to do with temperature. Automatically he pulled his phone out to switch the ring audio from vibrate to loud and found a text message from Brianne. Do you have a date and time yet?

  He hadn’t discussed the funeral with either of his sisters, but he’d known if one of them decided to attend, it would be Brianne. The older sister was a businesswoman, compassionate, a Nice Woman. While he and Sara understood the idea of forgiveness, Brianne got the reality of it. No bad karma for her.

  Rather than texting the information, he dialed her cell, then walked thirty feet from the doors, turning to face them so no one could surprise him.

  “This is Brianne.” Her voice was pleasant, but he recognized the distracted tone.

  “George’s remains will arrive in Tulsa on Tuesday, funeral will be Wednesday.”

  “Hello to you, too. I’m fine. How are you?” It was easy to imagine her shakin
g her head in dismay. “Will there be a big deal like you see on the local news—people at the airport, escorts, and everything?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Will you be there?”

  He bent his head side to side until his neck creaked, releasing the tension there. “Apparently so.” Major Baxter had taken a private moment to ask him that, to give her opinion that it might be too much for Lucy. She’d already done so much for Patricia, and the last thing he wanted was for her to go through another wrenching reminder of her husband’s death.

  “Give me the details,” Brianne requested, and he told her everything.

  “Are you coming to the funeral?” Though he’d known she would be the one most likely to come, he was a little surprised, too.

  She didn’t sidestep the question. “Yes. Whatever’s wrong between us, she is our mother, and he is—was her husband and a decorated United States Army soldier. That in itself deserves respect.”

  After a moment, in a less certain tone, she added, “Showing respect doesn’t mean forgetting the past, Ben. But if Mom and I get to the point where we can put it behind us, I don’t want the fact that I skipped her husband’s funeral to get in the way.”

  Mom. They hadn’t called her that in years. Ben always used her first name, and Sara’s go-to was she or her. Mom felt foreign, too affectionate, a name she hadn’t earned.

  Quietly he asked, “Do you want her back in your life?”

  The silence went on so long that he might have thought the phone had dropped the call if not for the slow, steady breathing coming over the line. Finally came a sigh. “She was a huge part of our lives, Ben. She’s our mother. If not for her, we wouldn’t be here. She made mistakes, no doubt about that. But we never knew why she left, why she fell in love with George or…why she fell out of love with Daddy.”

  How could she have fallen out of love with their dad? That was the one thing Ben had never been able to understand.