A Hero to Come Home To

by Marilyn Pappano

  He’d gone so far as to trailer up the prime of his herd to haul them off to market, but the truck had never made it through the gate. He’d loved ranching. It was all he’d ever wanted to do, not just because he liked the hours and the work, but also because it was a part of who he was. Smiths had been running livestock on this land for more than a hundred years. Being a part of the land, earning a living from it—that was their legacy.

  The legacy was what had kept him going the last four years. Not even Noah, who’d lived with him even then after their parents had retired to south Texas, had been enough reason to stick around, but the cows and the horses had. Noah would have been all right on his own, but the animals had needed Dalton. Almost as much as he’d needed them.

  So this was what his sorry life had come to. No wife. No kids. No word of Dillon in thirteen years. No friends. No one in his life on a regular basis, unless he counted weekends with Noah. Nothing but a whole world of hurt.

  God, he wished he’d learned to like liquor back when Dillon did.

  He heard the footsteps approaching long before Noah came into sight. His brother walked up to him, hand extended.

  “Here. You left your cell phone.”

  Dalton took the phone. When a man worked alone as much as he did, the lack of a phone could turn an accident from bad to disaster. He never went out without his. “Thanks.”

  “I got the groceries put away and cleaned the upstairs bathroom.”

  “I already did that.”

  “Huh. Sure could’ve fooled me. Anyway, I’m going into town to get a burger. Want to go?”

  “For what?” He avoided Tallgrass as much as he could.

  “I don’t know. A haircut? Maybe buy a pair of Wranglers that don’t look older than me?” Noah shrugged. “Hell, maybe just for a change of scenery.”

  Dalton fingered a worn place at the hem of his right leg where the denim was frayed into tiny white threads. He didn’t blame Noah for not wanting their mother worried during their visit. When Ramona got worked up, no one got any peace until whatever troubled her was resolved. If a haircut and a new pair of jeans could keep her from getting worked up in the first place…

  “Okay. But I drive.”

  Noah punched him on the arm. “Aw, man, you drive like an old woman.”

  “You drive like a NASCAR wannabe. You get one more ticket, and Dad’s going to take the keys to the truck back to Texas with him.”

  Noah grinned. “Yeah, but only the keys, since Mom won’t let him park it at the condo. And I know how to hot-wire it.”

  “Dad can park it here. You come around trying to hot-wire anything, I’ll kick your butt.”

  And that was it. Things were back to normal. No apologies, no talking it out. Everything forgotten.

  Except that Dalton never could seem to really forget.

  Tallgrass remained a small town despite the increase to its population of fifty-five thousand residents brought by Fort Murphy. People on the sidewalks downtown spoke to everyone they passed. The clerks in the stores were chatty and friendly. Other shoppers didn’t hesitate to offer advice or information, solicited or not. It reminded Dane of the town where his grandparents had lived.

  Since neither Dane nor Carly had had any particular activity in mind, they had driven downtown, parked the truck in front of the old stone building that housed the county courts and the police department and made their way through the shops, up one side of the street and down the other. He wasn’t much of a shopper, but the stores were mostly antique or, more honestly, junk stores, and a lot of the items inside brought back good memories.

  As they walked out of the final store on the block, the wind blew a few old dead leaves in a swirl of dust. Carly shivered, pulling her denim jacket tighter. “I’ve never gotten used to how quickly the weather changes here. At noon it was seventy-something. Now it’s thirty-eight.”

  He glanced at the flashing sign above the bank entrance on the northwest corner. It was a quarter of six, and he could feel the passage of time in his leg. He’d been on his feet for nearly four hours, and he’d already learned that the stump didn’t like rapid weather changes. He was thinking about someplace warm, a comfortable sofa, propping up his foot and popping a pain pill when she gestured down the block.

  “Serena’s Sweets has really good coffee. Can I interest you in a cup and a piece of pie or cake or even dinner?”

  He glanced at the shop a few doors down. Condensation on its big plate-glass windows showed it was warm inside, and a padded bench could be as comfortable as a sofa, especially if he could put his foot on the opposite bench. As for a pain pill, who needed that when good pie was available, along with Carly?

  “Sounds good,” he said, and she tucked her arm through his, pushed her hands into her pockets and began strolling in that direction.

  His muscles were taut where their arms made contact. There had been a time when casual touch was so normal a part of his day that he’d never thought twice about it. Brushing fingers with a waitress, bumping shoulders in a crowd, laying his hand on a woman’s arm or putting his arm around her shoulders. Simple, everyday stuff. Now it seemed momentous. It made him crave so much, to lean in closer, to run away faster, that it took all his control to do nothing. To act as if it were natural.

  “You remember Jessy, the redhead? She lives up there.” Carly gestured toward the upper floors of the building they passed. “It’s the coolest apartment in town. The ceilings are twelve feet high, and the floors are wood that has this wonderful old glow. The walls are plaster and lath, and the moldings are really elaborate. If Jeff and I hadn’t been planning to start a family—”

  As she broke off, Dane felt the tension in her own muscles. The only response that came to mind was Good thing it didn’t happen so you’re not a single mother and your baby doesn’t have to grow up without a father. But he couldn’t say that out loud. She loved Jeff a lot, probably enough to regret that there wasn’t a little Jeff running around and giving her purpose.

  A bell jingled over the door of the restaurant as she pulled it open. “Some things just weren’t meant to be,” she finished softly, then smiled at him, her eyes brightening. “Doesn’t that smell good?”

  “It does,” he agreed. Coffee, cinnamon, apples, and something savory. Meat loaf, he thought, and his stomach reminded him that lunch had been a peanut butter sandwich more than six hours ago.

  She slid her arm free to make her way through the narrow spaces between tables and booths. When she reached an empty booth against the easternmost wall, she glanced at him, brows raised, then, at his nod, took off her jacket and shivered violently. “Nothing like warmth to remind you how cold it is.”

  “You went to college in Colorado. This should be a lovely spring evening to you.” He sat down and stretched his left leg, rubbing it gingerly, hopefully not too noticeably.

  “I’m a warm-weather girl. My idea of heaven is lots of sunshine, sand, blue-green ocean, a book and something cold to drink.”

  “A margarita?”

  “No margaritas here,” the waitress said as she set two menus and napkin-wrapped silverware on the table. “You have to go down the street to Buddy Watson’s place for that. But we do have the best coffee in town, no matter what that little froufrou place outside the post gates claims.”

  “I’d like coffee,” Carly said, picking up her menu.

  “Make it two.” Dane didn’t bother with his own menu. A chalkboard on the wall above them listed the evening’s specials: meat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and pot roast with all the trimmings.

  “Dessert or dinner?”

  “I’m having meat loaf. I haven’t had that in a long time.”

  “Sheesh, no meat loaf, no pizza…where have you been all this time?”

  “Um, in the desert?” Heat rose inside him at the deliberate lie, but he didn’t feel guilty enough to stop it. “In Afghanistan?”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I think I’ll have the pot roast.” She put the menu down,
then settled more comfortably. “Truth is, I don’t like margaritas very much. It just seems the right drink to order in a Mexican restaurant. After we became regulars at Three Amigos, they expected us to get them, and then we began calling ourselves the Tuesday Night Margarita Club, and the bartender started making special recipes for us, and…” She shrugged, her auburn hair swinging in its ponytail. “That’s why I buy a margarita every week, take a few drinks and leave the rest on the table.”

  “What a waste of good tequila.”

  “I know. Jeff had a two-drink limit when we went out together. Mind you, that was ordering two drinks. I’d usually get one and take a few sips, then he would finish it. But because he didn’t order it, it didn’t count toward his limit.”

  “My ex-wife had a two-drink minimum. She liked to party. She’s remarried now, has three kids and is pregnant with the fourth, so I’m guessing the drinking days are in the past.”

  Carly smiled, a full, lush action that made her practically glow. “Ah, you keep up with her.”

  His own grimace was heavy as her smile seemed light. “Talking to my mother is like watching the national news. You don’t want to know what’s going on in Congress, but they tell you anyway. You’d think Sheryl was her daughter instead of her ex-daughter-in-law.”

  “Does that bother you?” She tilted her head to one side, her gaze level on his face, focused on him, giving him the sense that she’d shut out everyone else in the place.

  It was a feeling he could grow used to.

  He cleared his throat and his mind at the same time before answering her question. “Less every day.” It was true, too. Despite Anna Mae’s insistence on talking about her, Sheryl was in the past. He would probably never see her again, and if he did, it wouldn’t mean anything. They’d had their time together; it was over.

  “And what about you? Do you have your alcohol limit?”

  He watched as the waitress returned with two cups, a pot of coffee and a dish of individual creamers. “I like a cold beer now and then.” In combat zones, liquor had been hard to get, and in the hospitals, he’d had a lot more to worry about than alcohol, to say nothing of all the medications he’d been taking that could interact badly with it.

  “Everything in moderation,” she remarked.

  The words brought memories rushing back, of his father, always easygoing, never settling for less but never asking too much, either. “My dad used to say that.”

  “Oh, not my parents. They believe in giving everything you do one hundred ten percent—though every one of them would argue that that statement is illogical because a person’s maximum capacity is one hundred percent, period. You can’t give more than exists.” She fingered her napkin a moment before meeting his gaze again, her expression sheepish. “They see things from a totally different logical, pragmatic point of view.”

  “Geniuses are a different species.”

  She grinned. “Absolutely.”

  The conversation broke off for a moment while the waitress took their orders. The restaurant was filling up, the dining room getting noisier. Dane glanced around, noting no familiar faces, not expecting any, either. He’d never had trouble making buddies—an excellent thing since the Army had kept him moving every few years—but since Landstuhl, the hospital in Germany he’d been medevaced to from Kunar Province, he’d had little interest in friends, new or old. Justin, at rehab, was an exception. He was like an overgrown puppy, eager and friendly and impossible to push away without feeling like you’d kicked that puppy.

  But Dane wasn’t in a place yet where he could be much of a buddy. Wasn’t sure he cared enough to want friends. Wasn’t sure his future would be worth sharing with anyone.

  And yet here he was with Carly. Wasn’t she a friend?

  Yeah, sure, that was what he’d call it. Though he’d had enough female friends over the years to know that friendship was the least he wanted from this one. But he didn’t have a clue whether she was interested in anything more. Her husband hadn’t been dead that long. She clearly was still in love with him. She hadn’t given any hint she was ready to move on, other than having pizza with him Thursday night. And going out with him today. Suggesting dinner tonight.

  All as applicable to friendship as dating.

  She knew more about him than anyone else in the state of Oklahoma, but she didn’t know he was lying to her with his silence every time they were together. She didn’t know that when he should be thanking God every day that he’d come home at all, he was bitter and ashamed that he’d literally left part of himself behind. She didn’t know how angry he was, how cheated he felt, how hopeless his future seemed if he didn’t learn to deal with his past.

  And with nothing more than that to offer, friendship of a sort was the best he could hope for with Carly.

  He smiled thinly before easing his gaze back to her. For a long time, he hadn’t been able to muster the least bit of hope. Now he’d found some, buried somewhere deep inside him.

  It was a start.

  Chapter Six

  Dogs or cats?”

  Carly pushed a chunk of carrot around her nearly empty bowl, pretending to consider the question, before saying, “Dogs. You?”

  “When I was a kid, Mom had a giant orange cat, this big constantly shedding fur ball with beady eyes and a wicked swipe. He always behaved when she was in the room, but when she wasn’t…” Dane shook his head. “I’ve got more scars than I can count from that monster, and I could never do anything about it, or she would have freaked out, so definitely dogs.”

  She laughed. They’d spent the whole meal trading forced-choice questions. He preferred Coke over Pepsi, hot over cold, and adventure vacations over beach-lazing. He liked his books in paper, his music with an edge, coleslaw on his hot dogs, and mustard-based barbecue sauce over slow-roasted beef.

  As if everybody in the universe didn’t know “barbecue” meant tomato-based sauce on pork.

  “Potato salad,” he said. “Chunky or creamy?”

  Before Carly could open her mouth, the answer came from above. “Oh, definitely creamy,” Jessy drawled, appearing at the end of their table. She wore sweatpants in grungy gray and a tank top fitted so snugly that the only thing left to the imagination was the exact shade of her skin beneath the fabric.

  As they turned their gazes her way, she zipped her sweat jacket halfway up before sliding onto the bench beside Carly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Carly squirmed inside at her friend’s probing gaze, but pulled off a pretty good shrug, she thought. “We were downtown anyway, so we decided to stop for dinner.” When she continued to stare, Carly gestured across the table. “Dane, you remember Jessy?”

  Jessy turned that way, too, leaning across to offer her hand. “Of course he does, doll. No one forgets Jessy Lawrence. And Jessy never forgets a handsome caveman.”

  His smile seemed forced to Carly, though she doubted Jessy noticed. He shook hands with her, didn’t pull away when she held on a tad longer than necessary, and said a quiet hello. Carly would have assured him that Jessy didn’t bite, but she didn’t know for sure it was true. The girl was bold.

  But she was also a solid friend. She flirted with everyone and carried through with no one.

  And it wasn’t as if this was a date she was interrupting. Hanging out was just hanging out. It didn’t imply any interest beyond the general, fun kind. He hadn’t suggested dinner; she had. When he took her home, he might walk to the door with her. He might even go inside for a cup of coffee or something. But he wouldn’t kiss her good night because this wasn’t a date.

  But if he did…She hadn’t been kissed by a man in so very long.

  “—live upstairs and one building over,” Jessy was saying when Carly tuned back in. “Between Serena’s and all the other restaurants around here, I don’t have to ever cook if I don’t want to.” She elbowed Carly. “And I generally don’t want to, do I?”

  “She lives on fast food and takeout,” Carly agreed.

>   “So do you, darlin’.” To Dane, Jessy said, “It’s so nice seeing her outside of The Three Amigos. Before you came along, the margarita club was her only social life. We’re fun, trust me, but we are not her type.”

  Carly’s cheeks flushed, and she pinched Jessy under the table, but her friend’s grin didn’t waver. Bumping her foot didn’t bring a response, either. Then she looked under the table. “You’re wearing flip-flops!”

  Jessy shrugged. “I just finished treating myself to a pedicure. You can’t expect me to screw that up by putting shoes on. Besides, I was only outside for five seconds.”

  A voice called from across the room, and Jessy flowed to her feet in one fluid motion. “That’s my food. An Angus burger, extra-crispy fries, a piece of pecan pie with vanilla ice cream, and a slice of carrot cake. Yum.”

  “I hope your heart doesn’t explode,” Carly said drily.

  Jessy’s only response was a wave over her head as she walked off.

  “Where does she put it all?”

  Carly watched her a moment before shifting her gaze to Dane. His smile was gone, but so was the tension that had made him look so stiff. “She eats, and I put on weight. It’s one of the mysteries of the universe.”

  His smile slowly reappeared. “You know, most guys like curves.”

  Sweet, innocent pleasure flooded through her. It wasn’t just the smile or just the words, but the combination made her feel…She didn’t even know what to call it. Appreciated? Reassured? Flattered?

  Rather than find the right word, she feigned a forlorn look. “Not fashion-designing guys. Or Hollywood guys. Or modeling guys.”