“I like a man who plans ahead,” Avi said, smiling at Joe while watching Ben from the corner of her eye. While a little show of jealousy might have been flattering, it was even nicer that he was confident enough to not mind.
“Remember, Coach, he’s going to play baseball, too, and maybe soccer,” Ilena said.
“No basketball?” Ben asked.
Ilena’s grin spread wide. “Don’t be silly. As short as I am, how could I ever coach basketball?”
“Ilena thinks she’s an eight-hundred-pound gorilla,” Lucy said to Avi in a whisper meant for everybody.
“Hey, I’m Army strong.” To prove it, Ilena raised both arms and flexed in a bodybuilder’s pose.
As they laughed, Avi felt another twinge. Damn, she missed her girlfriends. It had been years since they’d all actually lived in the same place, and it was a given that they never would again. With Rosemary in Germany and Kerry in Korea, even getting together for a girls’ getaway would take some money and effort.
She envied Ilena and Lucy having their best friends right there in Tallgrass, where everyone could watch John grow up. Avi had never even met Jolie’s kids. The margarita girls could meet for dinner every Tuesday night and for football on Fridays and at any other time for no special reason. Avi really wanted that kind of companionship in her life again.
Her parents and Patricia arrived a few minutes later, and right behind them were two couples about their age whom Avi hadn’t met yet. They were joined by Carly and Dane Clark and Therese Matheson and her two older kids, who immediately disappeared to hang out with friends.
The food was good, the company great. Joe didn’t stay long; after grabbing some dinner, he left to join the team in the dressing room, to do whatever coaches did before games. Avi wished him luck before he left, and everyone else echoed it.
Grinning, she leaned against Ben where they sat on the tailgate of her dad’s pickup. “You’re going to have to make friends with him someday.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“When he and Lucy start dating—”
He looked at her with horror. “No way. Cadore? And Lucy? Huh-uh. Never happen.”
“Are you blind? Have you not noticed the way he looks at her?”
He shook his head, clueless. “They’re neighbors. Buddies. That’s all.”
“You might think they’re just buddies. Even Lucy might think that right now, but believe me, that’s not how Joe sees her.” She glanced at the woman now cuddling John while his mom ate one of Patricia’s outstanding pastries. “He’s awfully sweet on her, and one of these days she’ll notice it or he’ll tell her, and they’ll be together like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Then, because you and Lucy are such good friends, you’re going to have to accept Joe. You’ll have no choice.”
He shook his head again. “Lucy’s too smart. Too classy. Her taste is way better than that.”
“Because, after all, she dated you,” Avi teased.
“She did, which is pretty much proof that she’s too good for Cadore.”
Avi laughed at his scowl. “If he makes her happy, you’ll have to put up with him.”
After a moment, he feigned a put-upon sigh. “If he makes her happy.” None too subtly, he changed the subject. “I bet you never missed a football game when you were in high school.”
“I was a cheerleader. I had to attend.”
He gave her a sly look. “You still have your pompoms?”
She knew the pompoms were long gone, but her uniforms—every tiny skirt, matching panty, and form-fitting top—were stored somewhere in her mom’s attic. “Maybe,” she said slyly. “Wanna get out of here and find out?”
She jumped to the ground, and he followed. When they said their good-byes, their parents hardly blinked. Lucy and Ilena made the same smooch sounds Joe had amused John with. Avi didn’t mind. She was driving off in a beautiful car to spend the rest of the evening with a gorgeous man. Life was good.
* * *
“All the time I’ve spent in this house the past three weeks, I haven’t seen much of it.” Avi drew her fingers across the well-worn finish of the heavily carved dresser. “I remember this piece. Patricia and George brought it back from Germany with them. When we visited them that summer at Fort Bragg, I thought it was so cool. I decided I’d collect antiques from exotic places, too, while I was in the Army. So far, I have a small bookcase from Italy and a couple of rugs from Iraq.”
Ben lay on his back in the bed, pillows stuffed under his head, and watched her. When she’d left the bed a few minutes ago, she’d gotten her underwear on before the furniture distracted her. It was a lovely view, all soft curves and hollows and muscles.
“Then you need a few more overseas assignments.” Great suggestion. Tell her to go even farther away than she’s already planning. “Or you could just collect American antiques.”
She smiled at him in the wavy glass of the mirror before picking up a picture frame. “Aw, how cute. How old were you?”
Ben raised onto one elbow as she brought the photo to the bed. “I hadn’t noticed that. Jeez, I must have been about seven.” He remembered the setting—a rodeo arena, a clown leaning against the fence behind him and the girls—and the clothes, if not the particular night.
He was wearing a red shirt with pearl snaps, jeans, and a pair of brown cowboy boots. On one side of him, Brianne’s clothes were a match, except her shirt was pink, and on the other side, one-year-old Sara wore a white slip and bare feet. “We were at a rodeo in Pryor. Our cousin, Charlie, was a bull-rider, and I was going to grow up to be just like him. Mom always had trouble—” Realizing he’d called Patricia Mom, he lost his train of thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Sara loved to take off her clothes every chance she got. No matter what she was wearing, Patricia always made sure her underwear was pretty because at some point, that was going to be all she was wearing.”
It felt strange calling her Mom. And a little bit good. He’d missed having a mom.
“Does she still take them off every chance? Because if she does, I know dozens of guys who would like to meet her.”
“Nah. We can take her out in public and everything. Besides that, she’s married, remember.”
Avi returned the picture to its spot, then finished dressing before tossing his own clothes at him. “Come on, get up and show me around the house.”
He didn’t argue. The game would be over soon, the parents headed home. He didn’t want to get caught with his girlfriend in his room by either his mother or hers.
Avi led the way downstairs, trailing her fingers along the banister. At the bottom, she turned in a slow circle as he pointed. “Living room, dining room through that doorway, you’ve seen the kitchen, the pantry and laundry room are off it, and George’s study is here.”
Of course, she chose to wander into the study. The only other time Ben had been in the room had been a day or two after George’s death. Ben and Patricia had talked in there for a few minutes, one of the more awkward of their early conversations. He’d wound up leaving the house for a walk to put an end to things he didn’t want to discuss.
It was a nice room, one that Ben would feel comfortable in himself if he had the sort of business that he routinely took home. The dark, solid furniture gave it a more masculine feel than the rest of the house. Military prints hung on the walls along with framed citations and commendations. George’s degree from the United States Military Academy held place of honor.
As she’d done upstairs, Avi walked around the room, touching things, studying them. Upstairs, though, her mood had been light. Now sadness settled over her, heavy and sorrowful, like a deep fog floating down from the ceiling. Facing a wall that held framed citations, she sighed. “When our battalion commander in Afghanistan got orders that brought him back to the United States, it was no big deal. He was an okay guy, not particularly special but not the kind of guy that you wanted to hide an IED in his bunk. When I found out George was taking his place, I was
ecstatic. I was thrilled that finally I was going to be stationed with him. Up to that point, we’d never even been in the same part of the world at the same time.”
She picked up something leaning against a picture frame, rubbed her finger over it, then held it up to show him. It was metal, silver in color, about an inch and a half end to end. “Jump wings,” she said. “He was Airborne infantry. That was the one piece of advice he gave me—to go to Airborne school—that I didn’t take. I didn’t want to jump out of airplanes.” Her fingers closed over the wings, her knuckles whitening as she squeezed, then she gently set them down again.
“A couple days after he arrived, we Skyped with my parents and Patricia. My dad asked him to take care of me, and I said no, no, I would take care of him. It was the first promise I ever made that I didn’t keep.”
Ben went to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her as tightly and as tenderly as she’d held the wings. “You can’t blame yourself for that, Avi,” he whispered. “I make that same promise to every patient and their families, but we all know that all it really means is I’ll do my best. Crap happens. Things go wrong. You do your best, you pray for the best, but sometimes you get the worst, through no fault of your own. If you’d been able to save George, you would have, but it wasn’t your call. You aren’t in charge of life and death. That’s a power beyond you.”
“My head knows that.” Her voice quavered, nearly breaking his heart. “My heart just hurts.”
“It probably always will.” Like his. He would give a lot to ease the pain thick in her voice and stark on her face. He exhaled deeply, resting his cheek against her hair. “That’s the downside of loving someone. It always hurts when they’re gone—and sooner or later, one way or another, they have to leave.” Just as she had to leave. Not with the finality of death, thank God, but her absence was already tearing a hole in his gut that hurt like hell. “The only way it wouldn’t hurt was if you hadn’t loved him. Would you be willing to give that up—all the affection, all the memories—in exchange for getting rid of the pain?”
She swiped one hand across her eyes before whispering “No, not at all.”
“One of the margarita girls told me that time doesn’t heal your heart—”
Both Ben and Avi turned to see Patricia standing in the doorway, clutching her keys, her purse, and a pennant in the Tallgrass High School colors to her chest. She let them slide to the floor and came farther into the room, going on in a voice clogged with tears. “But it does grow a scar over it so you can bear the sorrow. And she’s right. I figure my own scar has a long way to go, but it’s getting there. Think how sad life would be if you never cared enough about anyone to mourn when they passed. You love a lot of people, Avi, and you’ve lost a lot of them. Sometimes it seems like too much, but I know you. You wouldn’t give up a single moment of wonderful to escape a lifetime of sad.”
“No.” Avi cleared her throat as she wiped once again at her eyes. “I wouldn’t.”
“You made a huge difference in George’s last months, honey. He finally got the chance to be stationed with his favorite soldier in the whole world. You should have seen his excitement when he found out. And he couldn’t have been any prouder of you—as a person, a woman, a soldier.”
Loving Avi was something Ben and George would have had in common, besides Patricia. From all Ben had heard, George would have been a good stepfather, a great step-grandfather to Sara’s kids. He sounded like a person Ben could have liked, if he’d ever given it a chance. If he’d ever grown up enough, forgiven enough, to take the chance.
Patricia studied Avi a moment, then smiled broadly through her own tears. “Come into the kitchen with me. We’ll have something to eat and drink, and you can tell me all your favorite dishes for tomorrow’s dinner with the girls.”
* * *
“What’s on your agenda for today?”
Lucy glanced at Joe as she kicked her shoes off, then sat back and propped her feet on the chair opposite her. They’d just finished their walk, so now it was time for breakfast on her patio: coffee with zero-calorie sweetener and nonfat powdered cream, Greek yogurt, and a handful of grapes. She let herself dream for a moment of the Krispy Kreme doughnuts he used to bring for breakfast, then thought about the four pounds she’d lost since her doctor’s appointment, and the dream faded. “Cleaning,” she said as she stirred the yogurt.
“Your house is clean.”
“Actually, Fia’s house. Even on her good days, she doesn’t have the energy after work, and on bad days, it’s just impossible. So Jessy’s taking her out to the ranch for a bit of pampering, and I’m cleaning her apartment while she’s gone.”
“Doesn’t she have family who can help her out?”
“Her mother was disinterested, and her father only came around when he needed money. She pretty much raised herself. But she’s got all the family she needs in us.” She looked at his breakfast, the same as hers but with much bigger portions, and suppressed a sigh. If she was a football coach, a trainer, and taught nutrition, would she be as lean and muscled as he was?
Maybe. But the idea of that much physical activity made her shudder.
“I’ll help you,” he announced.
“Help me what?” she asked absently.
“Clean Fia’s place.”
That brought her attention all the way back to the conversation. “You don’t clean your own place.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how.” Then he scowled at her. “How do you think my house gets clean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I assumed your mom cleans it when she visits, or maybe one of your girlfriends, or you made it an extra-credit project for class.”
He looked insulted. “My mom comes to visit once a year, and I would never take advantage of my students like that.”
She spooned out another bite of yogurt. “You left out the girlfriends.”
“When was the last time you saw a girlfriend over there?”
A long time ago, she admitted. The woman had been tall and willowy and lean, tanned, blue-eyed, and blond-haired, had dressed in adorable clothes designed for skinny bodies, and had been indecently fond of jogging and lifting weights and hitting the gym. Lucy had thought she was a perfect match for Joe, but he’d lost interest in her less than a month after they’d started dating.
“You’re sure you like women,” she half said, half asked.
“I’m sure.” He frowned hard. “But I don’t need any fix-ups. You worry about your social life, Luce, and I’ll take care of mine. Now, do you want my help or not?”
“Absolutely. I will zip my lip.” She went through the motions. “This is me, not saying anything else on the subject.”
They ate awhile in silence. She finished the yogurt, set the spoon aside, and crumpled the cup, then picked up one fat red grape. “Brianne Noble is going to be at dinner this evening. I hear her hockey player boyfriend’s transferring to another team.”
Joe’s brows drew down low over his eyes, and he bared his teeth at her. Lucy thought it was in her best interest to drop the subject.
When they finally began talking again, it was about the football team, the game they’d won the night before, and the preparations for their next game. Lucy didn’t love football the way some women did, but she knew plenty about it. Mike had played in high school, and so had her brother; it had been on the TV in their house way too many hours for her to not learn anything. She was happy to talk about it with Joe, who gave her credit for understanding the nuances of the game. He was good that way. Even though he knew a lot about things she was totally ignorant of, he never assumed that, and he never treated her as if she was dumb, just undereducated on some subjects.
She wouldn’t have heard the doorbell if Norton, snoozing under the table, hadn’t suddenly alerted. Expecting Jessy, she slid to her feet and padded across the concrete to the rear door. When she got to the front door, no one was there but Fia, waiting in the passenger seat of Jessy’s
car. She waved, leaned across to the open driver’s window, and called, “She headed around back.”
“Great. Joe’s back there. Prepare to wait while she drools.” Lucy waved good-bye before going back out.
Sure enough, Jessy was standing near Joe’s chair, her green gaze making an appreciative sweep over him. Seeing Lucy, she rested her hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Hot damn, doll, how do you live with this guy next door and not melt at his feet every day?”
As Joe smiled smugly, Lucy replied, “Oh, please, don’t feed his ego. It’s already monster sized.”
“But he’s so cute, aren’t you, Joe?”
“A hundred percent adorable.”
Lucy feigned a scowl. “Hey, remember Dalton.”
The expression that came over Jessy was a pleasure to watch. She’d always been the toughest margarita girl, strong and brash and blunt, with her sentimentality kept carefully hidden. Since falling in love with Dalton Smith, though, she was just a gooey mess at times, and Lucy loved her even more for it.
“Dalton’s got my heart…but that doesn’t mean I can’t look.” Jessy pulled the key from her shorts pocket and tossed it over. “You’re a sweetheart for doing this, Lucy.”
“Hey, I’m helping,” Joe said.
Jessy gave him a smile and a wink. “You’re always a sweetheart, Joe. This just makes you world class. Give me a call when you’re done. Oh, and Fia said to tell you thank you thank you thank you.” A small frown appeared. “She also told me to give you a hug and a kiss, Lucy. Joe, take care of that for me, will you?”
The look that came into Joe’s eyes was enough to distract Lucy from Jessy’s leaving. It was sly and scheming and—and…she didn’t know what else. He wouldn’t take Jessy seriously. Heavens, the last time he’d hugged Lucy, she was pretty sure it would have been more accurately described as a headlock, and he might even have rubbed his knuckles across her scalp while doing it.
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